Some 200 people attended a candlelight vigil on the UWM campus Thursday night in honor of Brittany Musumeci and her sister, Alexis, who died in a crash Sept. 26 in Florida.
Brittany Musumeci, 23, graduated from UWM in May 2015 with a BFA in violin performance. Alexis Musumeci, 24, was a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force.
The vigil was organized by Musumeci’s friends on campus, including Rebecca Ottman, of the Peck School of the Arts, who said of Musumeci, “Everybody loved her. She was very mature for a young age. She really identified as a classical musician, as an artist, as a Cuban-American.”
More than $17,000 has been raised online for funeral expenses and charitable gifts in the sisters’ memory, Ottman said.
According to Florida’s Sun-Sentinel, the sisters were returning from a trip to Disney World when another driver on I-95 struck their car head-on.
The driver, a 24-year-old Jupiter, Florida, resident, wasn’t supposed to be behind the wheel of a car until 2020 because he was a “habitual traffic offender,” according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles.
Records show that in March, his license had been revoked for five years. He was charged with a DUI in 2010 and twice accused of driving with a suspended license in 2014. He was critically injured and transported from the accident scene to an area hospital. The accident is under investigation by Florida police.
