The last couple of months contained some of the happiest moments in Christie Nguyen's life, a life that came to a tragic end on Interstate 75 on Sunday morning.
The 27-year-old lifelong Gainesville resident, whose name was released by the Florida Highway Patrol on Tuesday, was a UF alumna and a Santa Fe College student.
Nguyen was headed north in a Toyota Matrix on Sunday. Jason Raikes, her boyfriend and a source of recent joy, died beside her. He was driving.
"Speaking to his parents and to my parents, it's pretty clear they were meant to be with each other," her brother Nelson said. "[None of the parents] had seen them happier. They were very much in love. They were talking about settling down."
In addition to Nelson, Christie leaves behind her father, Andrew; her mother, Linh; and her 6-year-old son, a first-grader at Kimball Wiles Elementary School. The Alligator couldn't reach any of Raikes' relatives, who, according to WJXT in Jacksonville, live in Richmond, Va.
Christie was artistic and talented, Nelson said. Dancing was an outlet for her. She started when she was 4 or 5 and never really stopped. Ballet, tap, jazz — she did it all.
She performed with Dance Alive National Ballet, and she usually took part in the company's annual Nutcracker show at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
She played the piano in talent shows at Countryside Christian School, the school's former principal Bill Keith said. Her former teacher Gwen Keith said she loved to draw during class.
Christie and Nelson grew up in Gainesville and lived at 11113 W Newberry Road.
Mary D. Fletcher, a neighbor, said she sold the Nguyens their house in 1991. She remembered Christie being quiet but thoughtful.
"She was a brilliant, absolutely brilliant girl," Fletcher said.
She never missed a day at Countryside, where she attended from elementary school through high school. She was the class salutatorian in 2001. She was less than a point shy of graduating No. 1, Gwen said.
Christie graduated from UF in 2010 with a degree in Asian studies, and she earned a pair of business administration degrees from Santa Fe. She was taking an anatomy and physiology class at Santa Fe this semester and dancing at the college.
"The dance program is just devastated," fine arts department chair Alora Haynes said in a statement. "The dance program was like Christie's family. My phone is ringing off the hook with students asking, ‘Is it true?'"
Christie was planning to become a pharmacist, Nelson said. Andrew, her father, is a doctor with family practices in Newberry and Trenton.
"Our family is big into the medical field," Nelson said. "That was one thing that interested her. She really wanted to pursue it. My father had an influence in that."
Working at a pharmacy and living with Raikes — those were Christie's plans for the future, Nelson said. That was her happiness.
"When you find someone — and of course she had her son — the idea of settling and planning becomes exciting," Nelson said. "Being with Jason specifically: That's truly been the happiest I've seen her."
Nelson doesn't know where Christie and Raikes were driving home from Sunday morning.
Wherever it was, they left together.
