Students Fatally Struck By A Car While Assisting With Friend’s Vehicle

I am the man who thinks about  your happiness before mine. I make sure that even though I can’t put a smile on my face, I will make sure to put one on yours. Our life Gabrielle Camps is not like a movie, it is more like a book. You are the writer and you put chapters in the story that you think should go at the time you wrote it but as you advance in the book you realize that chapter is pointless and you take it out – but just to remember, even though this is your book, I’m the one who writes the ending no matter what. With that being said, my final words are… I love you.

—Jonah Mosaphir professed his love to his girlfriend, Gabrielle Camps, in a letter on Aug. 18, 2014, just 11 months before the couple was killed in a roadside accident in Miramar. 

 

Gabrielle Camps and Jonah Mosaphir had dreams.

The vivacious 19-year-olds had lofty ambitions like walking the Great Wall of China and visiting the Gulf of Alaska. But they also had simpler aspirations like petting a panda, kissing under the rain and cuddling next to a campfire.

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Those dreams ended prematurely on July 27 when the two Miami Dade College students—Camps attended Wolfson Campus in pursuit of a career in social work and Mosaphir attended North and Hialeah campuses studying business—were struck by a car at about 1:11 a.m. as they attempted to push a friend’s stalled BMW at 15600 Pembroke Road in Miramar just west of 1-75.   

“Gabrielle was the absolute best person who was always ready to help people and go the extra mile,” said Camps’ best friend, Gabby Ruiz. “She always included everybody. She was just starting to get ready to get into her career and wanted to go into social work with children. Jonah was always ready to help somebody and it was not out of their character at all. “

The couple was pronounced dead at the scene, but their love—friends and family say— will live on forever. 

Camps and Mosaphir met on Instagram through mutual friends in September of 2013. One year later, they were an official couple. 

“Jonah coming into her life was for a great reason and they had something very special with their relationship,” said Camps’ mother, Bertha Roman. “He adored her and she adored him and I had felt like Jonah was a gift from God…Jonah was able to bring her so much happiness.”

They enjoyed babysitting Camps’ nephew and niece—Karter Tejera, 3, and Ava Tejera 1— barbecuing and having slumber parties at Mosaphir’s house with his mother, Maria Diaz.

But eating was their absolute favorite pastime. They were regulars at Los Verdes, a Colombian restaurant, in Kendall. However, it wasn’t just their taste buds that they quenched. Camps and Mosaphir were not shy about demonstrating their affection.

In March, they took a trip to Disney World. Their family has photos of the couple giggling during the vacation and Camps tiptoeing to kiss Mosaphir and caressing his face.      

One month before their death, the couple created a bucket list. They both signed it. Listed among their hopes: to sleep and stargaze in the back of a pickup truck, spend a night in a treehouse and  kiss underwater.

They constantly wrote letters to each other expressing their love. Camps’ family knew Gabrielle loved to write but they were in awe when they found countless notes and letters piled high in her closet.

Twenty days after their death, Camps’ mother, Bertha Roman, sat on the floor of her daughter’s closet reading the letters throughs sporadic sobs.

“She was in the writing program at Arts & Minds [in highschool] and she loved writing letters to everybody,” Roman said. “It’s as if she knew that she was going to leave all of this for us.”

Mosaphir also had a creative side. 

“Jonah started piano at 6-years-old and played beautifully, he won over 20 trophies,” said his mother, Maria Diaz. “[As a child] he got into keychains, costumes, and during Christmas he wanted things like a tray from McDonalds or a Publix hat.”

The couple left their families more than the letters, the bucket list and photographs. Their families are confident the love Camps and Mosaphir shared with one another continues even in death.  

“I married them before they were buried,” Roman said. “In the cemetery we let out [two] butterflies and when they got out of the basket the two butterflies stayed together which meant that [Gabrielle and Jonah] would always be together. I know that was what my daughter wanted.”