Gabby Petito's family is suffering an unimaginable heartbreak.
Two days after the missing 22-year-old was confirmed dead, her stepdad Jim Schmidt and his friend Gary Rider left flowers in the shape of a cross at Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming, where her body was found.
"The small cross with flowers was made by Jim and myself," Gary told U.K.'s newspaper The Independent, noting there was already a memorial there made out of stone. "That larger cross was not done by anyone connected with the search or recovery of Gabby. It was just a coincidence, we confirmed that."
Gary did not specify if Jim's wife and Gabby's mother Nicole Schmidt joined them at the site.
Nicole's husband, a former fire chief in Blue Point, NY, had flown to Wyoming to help search for her daughter.
"He's not leaving until he brings Gabby home," Gabby's mom told The New York Post in comments posted on Sept. 15, four days after the YouTuber was reported missing. "Now we have eyes, ears, feet on the ground … in both her home states and where she was last seen."
Since Gabby's remains were found on Sept. 19, her dad, Joseph Petito, and brother, TJ Schmidt, shared several touching tributes.
"Gonna miss you till the end gabbs #justiceforgabby," the latter recently wrote on Instagram, alongside a photo of her standing in front of a wolf mural.
Gabby's father shared a photo of his daughter posing in front of a mural of angel wings, writing, "#gabbypetito she touched the world."
The travel blogger lost contact with her family in late August while on a cross-country road trip with fiancé Brian Laundrie, who police have named a person of interest in her disappearance and is recently currently missing. However, Gabby's family thinks differently. In a statement previously released through their lawyer, they said, "Brian is not missing, he is hiding."
Last week, police said that Brian's parents reported they had not seen their son, who reportedly returned home to Florida Sept 1, since Sept. 14.
"In my experience, intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focuses their attention on in cases like this," his lawyer said in a Sept. 15 statement, "and the warning that 'any statement will be used against you' is true, regardless of whether my client had anything to do with Ms. Petito's disappearance.
Following Gabby's death, Brian's mother and father, Roberta and Christopher Laundrie, issued a statement through their lawyer that simply read, "May Gabby Rest In Peace."