FREDERICK, MD (WUSA) ---Robyn Gardner's friends and family met in a Frederick art gallery Wednesday night to mark the one-year anniversary of her mysterious disappearance while on vacation in Aruba.
Her traveling companion was held for months by Aruban authorities but was released without being charged, and has filed a claim with an insurance company for the $3.5 million life insurance policy he took out on her life.
Gardner disappeared after swimming with that companion- Gary Giordano- on August 2, 2011.
Among those who gathered at the Frederick vigil Wednesday was her nephew Alex Unglesbee, a college student for who his aunt often did duty as a baby-sitter.
"I remember she would always take me to McDonalds and Burger King and we always used to have fun together. She would always look after me. She was a good aunt," he said.
Participants argued expressly that Wednesday's service was not a memorial.
"The idea is to have a vigil for someone who is missing with the hopes that she's possibly still alive," said organizer and friend Christina Jones.
"She would have done anything for anyone and therefore we're doing something for her," she told 9News Now.