June 4, 2026
Urgent Search For Auburn University Student Missing In Japan
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RSS Feed 20-year-old Weston Higginbotham was on a family vacation celebrating his younger brother’s high school graduation. After an argument with his mom, Higginbotham went out on his own, last seen walking towards a hiking trail in Kyoto at 8pm last Friday. He’s an experienced solo hiker, but his location services were turned off just before he disappeared and now family is begging anyone with information to help in the search for their son.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks at his Thursday, June fourth, and concern this morning for an Auburn University student who's been missing since May twenty ninth, but not in Alabama, not near the campus, actually missing in Japan. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ World. It's been I mean, we're up a full week here now since this kid went missing. And the kid's missing on a trip with family.
00:00:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the real head scratcher. He was with his parents, he was with his brother, The whole family went to Japan to celebrate his younger brother, his eighteen year old brother's high school graduation. So we're talking about twenty one year old James Weston Higginbotham.
00:00:47
Speaker 3: He goes by Weston.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: He's studying biosystems engineering at Auburn University. And yeah, he was on a family trip. They had been in Japan for about a week when he went missing.
00:00:58
Speaker 1: And the family has has sense and this is starting to get a little more attention as the days go by. But his family's been making pleas to the public. They've been putting out videos. We'll get into some of what they have been saying, but they have also robes and you imagine there is a language barrier. Now they're in Japan, trying to get help from police there, trying to get assistance from the community, so you can imagine how difficult this is for them right now.
00:01:22
Speaker 4: But we'll get into that.
00:01:23
Speaker 1: But Robes again, he just vanished vanished Robes and there are some circumstances here, but that leads some to maybe believe something else might be going on with him. But Rose he turned off his location services. That we'll get into.
00:01:38
Speaker 4: But that is a signal, a sign of something.
00:01:42
Speaker 2: Yes, that is the most alarming part of it for his family.
00:01:46
Speaker 3: But here's what we do know.
00:01:48
Speaker 2: He disappeared in Kyoto, Japan, on May twenty ninth. Basically, he and his family from what they have told us, he got into an argument with his mom over her use of chat GPT for navigating, so he was annoyed, and the family went on to go tour a local temple while he decided to go hiking, and his dad said, this is a quote directly from Weston's dad, It's not unusual for Weston to blow off steam going to the woods and just exploring. That's his happy place. I'm thinking he's just off in the woods and he got lost. Now, this is a kid who has had a solo hiking trip of the Pyrenees Mountains in Europe. He goes exploring and hiking alone all the time. He just finished an iron Man triathlon, so he's an experienced hiker. He is a young, healthy, robust, athletic.
00:02:42
Speaker 4: Dude, in good shape. He's a good shit.
00:02:43
Speaker 2: Yes, So that is all what we know about him in terms of his ability he can survive.
00:02:48
Speaker 3: They said, he has survival skills.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: He's in good shape, and he knows what he's doing. That suggests not as much of a likelihood of just an accident. Anything can happen out there. Turning off the services, that seems pretty intentional, or it could suggest there was foul play.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: Yes, or some guy correct. Either someone else turned it off. His family said, even when he's gotten upset with them or kind of stormed off, he's never ever turned off his life three sixty. But because of what they knew up until he turned it off, and some surveillance footage, here's what we know.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: And I have those right roads on the surveillance before you get to that starrt here on the we described behind to a fight with his mom. This wasn't some big existential threat to their relationship. This was some petty little something over.
00:03:36
Speaker 2: No, he's he's like a naturalist, and he's really he's a vegan. He's really into just kind of learning off the land. So he was kind of giving his mom crap for using chat GPT to navigate, but he got really annoyed by it because it's very important to him, this naturalist mentality.
00:03:55
Speaker 4: Yeah again, knows again, sounds like.
00:03:57
Speaker 3: Something a twenty year old would get upset.
00:03:59
Speaker 1: Okay, there's no suggestion. I'm making sure how I was clear as well, and then do something of having any beef with his parents, the family falling out, It wasn't that kind.
00:04:07
Speaker 2: Of It didn't seem super serious. He literally his dad said he just needed to blow off some steam. Okay, so we know that he left Kyoto for the train station at six pm.
00:04:19
Speaker 3: He was last seen on CCTV.
00:04:22
Speaker 2: Walking alone on a path leading to a hiking trail in nearby woods. And apparently I've never been to Kyoto, but apparently it is known for its stunning hiking, its gorgeous, rugged, mountainous area, and this was perfect for someone like him to just go explore. Seems like pretty late in the evening though, to be heading towards a hiking trail at eight pm. Look, I'm a pretty experienced hiker. That's not the time of day you set off on a hiking trail.
00:04:50
Speaker 1: I'm an inexperienced hiker. And no, you don't go set off funny you can't see anything out.
00:04:56
Speaker 3: There, yes, you know.
00:04:58
Speaker 2: And look they said he had equipment with him, so he probably had a headlamp. Maybe he was planning to overnight because he just wanted some space from his family everyone's been on a family vacation and maybe even little minor annoyances can kind of build up. And he'd already been on this trip for a week with them, so maybe he planned to give scare them a little who knows, and go hiking overnight. So he turned off or someone turned off his location, and they did say he has never done that before, and that's significant.
00:05:28
Speaker 1: Don't have right, they don't have any phone activity either, not just the services or off.
00:05:34
Speaker 4: They don't used.
00:05:36
Speaker 2: His mother put out his last known life three sixty And you can see you could explain this better than me, because I've never used this particular app.
00:05:44
Speaker 3: But that is the app that the family used.
00:05:46
Speaker 2: She took a screenshot he only had thirty four percent of his battery life left, and that was deeply concerning to them as well.
00:05:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously, you know, I keep up with Savine all day long on that thing. You hear alerts during the day when she's on the move the phone since didn't it lets you know, And every morning when she's not staying here with us, I will look at my phone, look at life three sixth Then I say, oh, she's not up yet, because I can see her phone is still charging. If it's not charging. So this parents out there, get this thing. Most of the all, probably I already know about it. With man, it is a hell of a tool for these reasons. Role exactly thirty four percent, that's a little lower than most people I know her age like their phone to be.
00:06:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and going into the woods alone at eight pm with thirty four percent battery power is not ideal at all. And the other big asterisk here is that his mother said it is urgent again it's been a week, because they believe he could be emotionally distressed. They did not elaborate on that, but that is what the family said.
00:06:52
Speaker 1: Is there a suggestion there, though I guess they would have explained that further roles. But is that emotionless stress connect to the little?
00:07:00
Speaker 2: The family seems like that was what it was, because that's why they described this little you know, they described it as just like this annoyance or this disagreement that he had with his mother enough where he didn't want to go with them to the Buddhist temple.
00:07:15
Speaker 4: But how did you describe the what distress?
00:07:17
Speaker 3: How was it language the emotionally distressed?
00:07:20
Speaker 1: See that's specific language there, And you don't necessarily say that if your son just got annoyed with you for using the GPS.
00:07:28
Speaker 2: I mean, it's maybe they're saying that to create a bigger sense of urgency to find him. Unclear, Absolutely certainly does, and so the search right now. You've got Japanese police, FBI agents are overseeing this now, US diplomats are involved, Alabama officials, everyone's involved. Obviously you mentioned the language barrier, so that's got to be playing a role in this. But the family themselves actually were going out on this hiking trail where they think but there's it's like a vast system of hiking trails in this very rugged mountainous area.
00:07:58
Speaker 4: So is that.
00:07:58
Speaker 1: Possible if you don't have your GPS, Yeah, to get lost out there and can't find you.
00:08:02
Speaker 3: Oh the irony.
00:08:03
Speaker 2: So this is where I was trying to piece things together, like, Oh, the irony of him getting into a fight with his mom about using chat, GPT navigational systems. Maybe to prove a point, he decided to turn off his location services, put his phone in his pocket, saying I'm a man of the mountains and I'm gonna find my way through. He did a solo hiking trip in the European Pyrenees Mountains. That's scary and dangerous as hell. But this is a kid who might rely on his own spidery senses and saying, I know because he's twenty and he thinks he's invincible.
00:08:33
Speaker 3: Maybe he thought he could prove a.
00:08:35
Speaker 2: Point by doing this at night without GPS, without his phone.
00:08:39
Speaker 4: Okay, who knows.
00:08:41
Speaker 1: That's not brilliant, but not at all. You said again, thirty four percent is what is the last? She could tell chret phone had.
00:08:50
Speaker 2: The last right before he turned his life three point sixty off. Okay, that was what his phone charged was.
00:08:56
Speaker 1: Now that's intentional. If she saw that there was jews. The phone didn't just die off. She could see there was juice and he intentionally. I don't know what to make of.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: That, right, And so the family's been searching, as have search teams.
00:09:09
Speaker 3: But get this, this week.
00:09:12
Speaker 2: There was a Thai foon in the area where he is hiking and it was so bad, the rains, the MUDs, the entire search had to be called off and they're really concerned obviously about his ability to get through something like that. If that added to contributed to the fact that they can't find him, they don't know. But the credit cards that he had with him have not been used, so he's got to be somewhere in that rugged terrain.
00:09:42
Speaker 4: To me, when was a typhoon Tuesday?
00:09:45
Speaker 2: So we're on Thursday, So just two days ago there was a massive event, whether event, and they called it a typhoon that hit the Kyoto area.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: So he'd been missing three or so down correct, correct, So still that was whatever was going on. It's still been missing three, yes plus days before that mess came, so he can almost argue it probably wasn't the typhoon that caused whatever issue he ended up having.
00:10:07
Speaker 3: Correct.
00:10:08
Speaker 2: And here's this for all the moms out there, This one got me. His mom said one of the worst moments for her was this week bagging up her son's clothing and giving them to police for sniffer dogs to use.
00:10:21
Speaker 3: And she said the first.
00:10:22
Speaker 2: Thing she thought was all that rain will have washed away any scent of my son. And that's just got to be so frightening on a million different levels. But the weather adding to the concern about just being able to find out where he is, how he is, what the hell happened. When we come back, we're going to tell you what's going on back home in Alabama and what the parents have said about finding their son. Welcome back, everybody to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are talking about a missing Auburn University student. He is missing somewhere, they believe in the rugged terrain the mountainous area of Kyoto, Japan. He was on a family trip celebrating his younger brother's high school graduation. He's twenty years old. His name is Weston Higginbotham, and his parents are frantically trying to ask for help from anyone everyone. They say, the more his face gets out there, the more it's reposted, the more people share this story around the world. They're hoping that anyone there in the Kyoto region in Japan might recognize him, might remember seeing him.
00:11:39
Speaker 3: They have no idea where he is.
00:11:42
Speaker 2: The last time he was seen was walking towards a hiking trail getting off the train station outside of Kyoto.
00:11:50
Speaker 4: And that's it.
00:11:51
Speaker 1: Rhodes, I mean, this is a bizarre story. It makes no sense that he would be so upset that he would do this intentionally, So I mean, I get it, the experienced as he is, this is still a new area. Anything can happen. This could have just been an awful accident of some kind, but it's hard to think he's hunkered down or he's lost.
00:12:15
Speaker 3: For this long.
00:12:17
Speaker 2: Obviously, they're hopeful that he may have just left the hiking trail and gone somewhere else, But the problem is there's no footage that shows that possibility at all, and there were cct V cameras around that Kyoto area because again they saw him walking towards the hiking trail, and also his credit cards haven't been used, which is also deeply concerning, in the fact that he turned off or someone turned off his location services.
00:12:45
Speaker 1: He had equipment, some equipment do they say how much I mean talking about a backpack?
00:12:49
Speaker 3: Did he have a That's what they didn't get.
00:12:52
Speaker 2: I didn't see the specifics, but just because he is an avid hiker and does have quite a bit of athleticism about him, that they said he had a equipment with him that would allow him to stay in the woods for an extended period of time. Eight o'clock at night is when he was seen walking towards the woods. Now, his university, Auburn University, has already released a statement of support and asking for privacy, certainly for members of his family who are still there back in Alabama.
00:13:20
Speaker 3: But there was a big vigil this week at a local.
00:13:23
Speaker 2: Church, makeshift memorial already taking place, people trying to lend their support. His grandfather spoke out and just and his parents have to just they have been incredibly outspoken about this, the gratitude they have for how many people are paying attention to this, how much support they say they've gotten from US officials and from Japanese officials. But obviously it's just a mystery that is breaking the hearts of his family. His parents say, and we've heard this before, they will not leave Japan until they know what happened to their son. But the weather is certainly not helping the efforts to locate him. And right now, wow, there's truly nothing to go by.
00:14:05
Speaker 1: This is crazy. I looked off with asking you about it. Sunset is right after seven o'clock in Kyoto.
00:14:11
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that. So it was dark when he was walking. It's dark to the woods.
00:14:16
Speaker 1: Wait and do I have right? And going back to this, how did they separate? Where were they all when he decides to go his own way?
00:14:23
Speaker 3: Yes, they were all in Kyoto.
00:14:25
Speaker 2: That was part of their their trip, their itinerary and the family. The younger brother who was eighteen, and the parents wanted to go visit a monastery, like a Buddhist monastery. He didn't. He was annoyed. They clearly talked about the little argument he had with his mom and that he just took off in a separate situation.
00:14:45
Speaker 3: They didn't know where he was going.
00:14:46
Speaker 1: They didn't know he was going for now, because that was my next thing when they stop him and say.
00:14:50
Speaker 3: What the hell don't he took off?
00:14:52
Speaker 2: Not sure how he did, but they actually were tracking him on Life three sixty. Yeah, so they were tracking him. They're like Okay, he's going to the Okay, he's gonna go to the mountains. That's his happy place. That's where he goes when he's upset.
00:15:04
Speaker 4: So he wasn't responding to them.
00:15:06
Speaker 3: No, man, he wasn't responding to them. So they knew he was annoyed. They knew he was mad.
00:15:10
Speaker 2: They figured he was His father literally said blowing off steam. And where he goes when he blows off steam is the woods.
00:15:16
Speaker 3: So all of.
00:15:17
Speaker 2: That wasn't alarming to them. All of that wasn't concerning to them until yes, the Life three sixty got turned off, and then by two am, when he hadn't returned, that's when they called police. They waited until two am because they just thought, look, this is what he does sometimes. That reaction from him was not out of the ordinary. Turning off his location services and then not coming back at all.
00:15:39
Speaker 3: That was not normal, and that is when they alerted police.
00:15:43
Speaker 1: What a lesson, right, What a lesson to all of us about travel, about staying together, about some of these devices and these apps that allow you to stay in touch and to track each other. As much as we complain sometimes and oh no we don't play. We found it bizarre sometimes that our kids are being tracked by twenty other kids on snapshot.
00:16:01
Speaker 4: I appreciate it, and that is the response.
00:16:04
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
00:16:05
Speaker 1: I know.
00:16:05
Speaker 2: My daughter just actually told me she was having an emotional moment. She said she wanted to go down by the water and just have a beat to herself, so she turned off her location services just so nobody would be bugging her or coming to try and find her.
00:16:18
Speaker 3: She said.
00:16:19
Speaker 2: She's like, I didn't realize this, but apparently all of my friends got alerted, and she's like, I.
00:16:24
Speaker 3: Started getting ten fifteen phone calls, are you okay? Where are you? Are you? They were about to call police.
00:16:30
Speaker 2: That actually made me so happy as a mom to know that that's how quickly people were alerted that she could be in danger when she just wanted a moment to herself.
00:16:40
Speaker 4: No, not, I appreciate it. I don't mind that at all.
00:16:43
Speaker 1: And I think it is important robe that you have folks out there looking out for.
00:16:48
Speaker 4: You in that way, So I don't mind it at all.
00:16:50
Speaker 3: I don't know.
00:16:50
Speaker 2: Well, we will certainly keep our eye on this developing story, but we always appreciate you listening to us.
00:16:56
Speaker 3: Everyone. I'm Amy Roboch alongside TJ. Holmes. We will talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks at his Thursday, June fourth, and concern this morning for an Auburn University student who's been missing since May twenty ninth, but not in Alabama, not near the campus, actually missing in Japan. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ World. It's been I mean, we're up a full week here now since this kid went missing. And the kid's missing on a trip with family.
00:00:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the real head scratcher. He was with his parents, he was with his brother, The whole family went to Japan to celebrate his younger brother, his eighteen year old brother's high school graduation. So we're talking about twenty one year old James Weston Higginbotham.
00:00:47
Speaker 3: He goes by Weston.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: He's studying biosystems engineering at Auburn University. And yeah, he was on a family trip. They had been in Japan for about a week when he went missing.
00:00:58
Speaker 1: And the family has has sense and this is starting to get a little more attention as the days go by. But his family's been making pleas to the public. They've been putting out videos. We'll get into some of what they have been saying, but they have also robes and you imagine there is a language barrier. Now they're in Japan, trying to get help from police there, trying to get assistance from the community, so you can imagine how difficult this is for them right now.
00:01:22
Speaker 4: But we'll get into that.
00:01:23
Speaker 1: But Robes again, he just vanished vanished Robes and there are some circumstances here, but that leads some to maybe believe something else might be going on with him. But Rose he turned off his location services. That we'll get into.
00:01:38
Speaker 4: But that is a signal, a sign of something.
00:01:42
Speaker 2: Yes, that is the most alarming part of it for his family.
00:01:46
Speaker 3: But here's what we do know.
00:01:48
Speaker 2: He disappeared in Kyoto, Japan, on May twenty ninth. Basically, he and his family from what they have told us, he got into an argument with his mom over her use of chat GPT for navigating, so he was annoyed, and the family went on to go tour a local temple while he decided to go hiking, and his dad said, this is a quote directly from Weston's dad, It's not unusual for Weston to blow off steam going to the woods and just exploring. That's his happy place. I'm thinking he's just off in the woods and he got lost. Now, this is a kid who has had a solo hiking trip of the Pyrenees Mountains in Europe. He goes exploring and hiking alone all the time. He just finished an iron Man triathlon, so he's an experienced hiker. He is a young, healthy, robust, athletic.
00:02:42
Speaker 4: Dude, in good shape. He's a good shit.
00:02:43
Speaker 2: Yes, So that is all what we know about him in terms of his ability he can survive.
00:02:48
Speaker 3: They said, he has survival skills.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: He's in good shape, and he knows what he's doing. That suggests not as much of a likelihood of just an accident. Anything can happen out there. Turning off the services, that seems pretty intentional, or it could suggest there was foul play.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: Yes, or some guy correct. Either someone else turned it off. His family said, even when he's gotten upset with them or kind of stormed off, he's never ever turned off his life three sixty. But because of what they knew up until he turned it off, and some surveillance footage, here's what we know.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: And I have those right roads on the surveillance before you get to that starrt here on the we described behind to a fight with his mom. This wasn't some big existential threat to their relationship. This was some petty little something over.
00:03:36
Speaker 2: No, he's he's like a naturalist, and he's really he's a vegan. He's really into just kind of learning off the land. So he was kind of giving his mom crap for using chat GPT to navigate, but he got really annoyed by it because it's very important to him, this naturalist mentality.
00:03:55
Speaker 4: Yeah again, knows again, sounds like.
00:03:57
Speaker 3: Something a twenty year old would get upset.
00:03:59
Speaker 1: Okay, there's no suggestion. I'm making sure how I was clear as well, and then do something of having any beef with his parents, the family falling out, It wasn't that kind.
00:04:07
Speaker 2: Of It didn't seem super serious. He literally his dad said he just needed to blow off some steam. Okay, so we know that he left Kyoto for the train station at six pm.
00:04:19
Speaker 3: He was last seen on CCTV.
00:04:22
Speaker 2: Walking alone on a path leading to a hiking trail in nearby woods. And apparently I've never been to Kyoto, but apparently it is known for its stunning hiking, its gorgeous, rugged, mountainous area, and this was perfect for someone like him to just go explore. Seems like pretty late in the evening though, to be heading towards a hiking trail at eight pm. Look, I'm a pretty experienced hiker. That's not the time of day you set off on a hiking trail.
00:04:50
Speaker 1: I'm an inexperienced hiker. And no, you don't go set off funny you can't see anything out.
00:04:56
Speaker 3: There, yes, you know.
00:04:58
Speaker 2: And look they said he had equipment with him, so he probably had a headlamp. Maybe he was planning to overnight because he just wanted some space from his family everyone's been on a family vacation and maybe even little minor annoyances can kind of build up. And he'd already been on this trip for a week with them, so maybe he planned to give scare them a little who knows, and go hiking overnight. So he turned off or someone turned off his location, and they did say he has never done that before, and that's significant.
00:05:28
Speaker 1: Don't have right, they don't have any phone activity either, not just the services or off.
00:05:34
Speaker 4: They don't used.
00:05:36
Speaker 2: His mother put out his last known life three sixty And you can see you could explain this better than me, because I've never used this particular app.
00:05:44
Speaker 3: But that is the app that the family used.
00:05:46
Speaker 2: She took a screenshot he only had thirty four percent of his battery life left, and that was deeply concerning to them as well.
00:05:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously, you know, I keep up with Savine all day long on that thing. You hear alerts during the day when she's on the move the phone since didn't it lets you know, And every morning when she's not staying here with us, I will look at my phone, look at life three sixth Then I say, oh, she's not up yet, because I can see her phone is still charging. If it's not charging. So this parents out there, get this thing. Most of the all, probably I already know about it. With man, it is a hell of a tool for these reasons. Role exactly thirty four percent, that's a little lower than most people I know her age like their phone to be.
00:06:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and going into the woods alone at eight pm with thirty four percent battery power is not ideal at all. And the other big asterisk here is that his mother said it is urgent again it's been a week, because they believe he could be emotionally distressed. They did not elaborate on that, but that is what the family said.
00:06:52
Speaker 1: Is there a suggestion there, though I guess they would have explained that further roles. But is that emotionless stress connect to the little?
00:07:00
Speaker 2: The family seems like that was what it was, because that's why they described this little you know, they described it as just like this annoyance or this disagreement that he had with his mother enough where he didn't want to go with them to the Buddhist temple.
00:07:15
Speaker 4: But how did you describe the what distress?
00:07:17
Speaker 3: How was it language the emotionally distressed?
00:07:20
Speaker 1: See that's specific language there, And you don't necessarily say that if your son just got annoyed with you for using the GPS.
00:07:28
Speaker 2: I mean, it's maybe they're saying that to create a bigger sense of urgency to find him. Unclear, Absolutely certainly does, and so the search right now. You've got Japanese police, FBI agents are overseeing this now, US diplomats are involved, Alabama officials, everyone's involved. Obviously you mentioned the language barrier, so that's got to be playing a role in this. But the family themselves actually were going out on this hiking trail where they think but there's it's like a vast system of hiking trails in this very rugged mountainous area.
00:07:58
Speaker 4: So is that.
00:07:58
Speaker 1: Possible if you don't have your GPS, Yeah, to get lost out there and can't find you.
00:08:02
Speaker 3: Oh the irony.
00:08:03
Speaker 2: So this is where I was trying to piece things together, like, Oh, the irony of him getting into a fight with his mom about using chat, GPT navigational systems. Maybe to prove a point, he decided to turn off his location services, put his phone in his pocket, saying I'm a man of the mountains and I'm gonna find my way through. He did a solo hiking trip in the European Pyrenees Mountains. That's scary and dangerous as hell. But this is a kid who might rely on his own spidery senses and saying, I know because he's twenty and he thinks he's invincible.
00:08:33
Speaker 3: Maybe he thought he could prove a.
00:08:35
Speaker 2: Point by doing this at night without GPS, without his phone.
00:08:39
Speaker 4: Okay, who knows.
00:08:41
Speaker 1: That's not brilliant, but not at all. You said again, thirty four percent is what is the last? She could tell chret phone had.
00:08:50
Speaker 2: The last right before he turned his life three point sixty off. Okay, that was what his phone charged was.
00:08:56
Speaker 1: Now that's intentional. If she saw that there was jews. The phone didn't just die off. She could see there was juice and he intentionally. I don't know what to make of.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: That, right, And so the family's been searching, as have search teams.
00:09:09
Speaker 3: But get this, this week.
00:09:12
Speaker 2: There was a Thai foon in the area where he is hiking and it was so bad, the rains, the MUDs, the entire search had to be called off and they're really concerned obviously about his ability to get through something like that. If that added to contributed to the fact that they can't find him, they don't know. But the credit cards that he had with him have not been used, so he's got to be somewhere in that rugged terrain.
00:09:42
Speaker 4: To me, when was a typhoon Tuesday?
00:09:45
Speaker 2: So we're on Thursday, So just two days ago there was a massive event, whether event, and they called it a typhoon that hit the Kyoto area.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: So he'd been missing three or so down correct, correct, So still that was whatever was going on. It's still been missing three, yes plus days before that mess came, so he can almost argue it probably wasn't the typhoon that caused whatever issue he ended up having.
00:10:07
Speaker 3: Correct.
00:10:08
Speaker 2: And here's this for all the moms out there, This one got me. His mom said one of the worst moments for her was this week bagging up her son's clothing and giving them to police for sniffer dogs to use.
00:10:21
Speaker 3: And she said the first.
00:10:22
Speaker 2: Thing she thought was all that rain will have washed away any scent of my son. And that's just got to be so frightening on a million different levels. But the weather adding to the concern about just being able to find out where he is, how he is, what the hell happened. When we come back, we're going to tell you what's going on back home in Alabama and what the parents have said about finding their son. Welcome back, everybody to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are talking about a missing Auburn University student. He is missing somewhere, they believe in the rugged terrain the mountainous area of Kyoto, Japan. He was on a family trip celebrating his younger brother's high school graduation. He's twenty years old. His name is Weston Higginbotham, and his parents are frantically trying to ask for help from anyone everyone. They say, the more his face gets out there, the more it's reposted, the more people share this story around the world. They're hoping that anyone there in the Kyoto region in Japan might recognize him, might remember seeing him.
00:11:39
Speaker 3: They have no idea where he is.
00:11:42
Speaker 2: The last time he was seen was walking towards a hiking trail getting off the train station outside of Kyoto.
00:11:50
Speaker 4: And that's it.
00:11:51
Speaker 1: Rhodes, I mean, this is a bizarre story. It makes no sense that he would be so upset that he would do this intentionally, So I mean, I get it, the experienced as he is, this is still a new area. Anything can happen. This could have just been an awful accident of some kind, but it's hard to think he's hunkered down or he's lost.
00:12:15
Speaker 3: For this long.
00:12:17
Speaker 2: Obviously, they're hopeful that he may have just left the hiking trail and gone somewhere else, But the problem is there's no footage that shows that possibility at all, and there were cct V cameras around that Kyoto area because again they saw him walking towards the hiking trail, and also his credit cards haven't been used, which is also deeply concerning, in the fact that he turned off or someone turned off his location services.
00:12:45
Speaker 1: He had equipment, some equipment do they say how much I mean talking about a backpack?
00:12:49
Speaker 3: Did he have a That's what they didn't get.
00:12:52
Speaker 2: I didn't see the specifics, but just because he is an avid hiker and does have quite a bit of athleticism about him, that they said he had a equipment with him that would allow him to stay in the woods for an extended period of time. Eight o'clock at night is when he was seen walking towards the woods. Now, his university, Auburn University, has already released a statement of support and asking for privacy, certainly for members of his family who are still there back in Alabama.
00:13:20
Speaker 3: But there was a big vigil this week at a local.
00:13:23
Speaker 2: Church, makeshift memorial already taking place, people trying to lend their support. His grandfather spoke out and just and his parents have to just they have been incredibly outspoken about this, the gratitude they have for how many people are paying attention to this, how much support they say they've gotten from US officials and from Japanese officials. But obviously it's just a mystery that is breaking the hearts of his family. His parents say, and we've heard this before, they will not leave Japan until they know what happened to their son. But the weather is certainly not helping the efforts to locate him. And right now, wow, there's truly nothing to go by.
00:14:05
Speaker 1: This is crazy. I looked off with asking you about it. Sunset is right after seven o'clock in Kyoto.
00:14:11
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that. So it was dark when he was walking. It's dark to the woods.
00:14:16
Speaker 1: Wait and do I have right? And going back to this, how did they separate? Where were they all when he decides to go his own way?
00:14:23
Speaker 3: Yes, they were all in Kyoto.
00:14:25
Speaker 2: That was part of their their trip, their itinerary and the family. The younger brother who was eighteen, and the parents wanted to go visit a monastery, like a Buddhist monastery. He didn't. He was annoyed. They clearly talked about the little argument he had with his mom and that he just took off in a separate situation.
00:14:45
Speaker 3: They didn't know where he was going.
00:14:46
Speaker 1: They didn't know he was going for now, because that was my next thing when they stop him and say.
00:14:50
Speaker 3: What the hell don't he took off?
00:14:52
Speaker 2: Not sure how he did, but they actually were tracking him on Life three sixty. Yeah, so they were tracking him. They're like Okay, he's going to the Okay, he's gonna go to the mountains. That's his happy place. That's where he goes when he's upset.
00:15:04
Speaker 4: So he wasn't responding to them.
00:15:06
Speaker 3: No, man, he wasn't responding to them. So they knew he was annoyed. They knew he was mad.
00:15:10
Speaker 2: They figured he was His father literally said blowing off steam. And where he goes when he blows off steam is the woods.
00:15:16
Speaker 3: So all of.
00:15:17
Speaker 2: That wasn't alarming to them. All of that wasn't concerning to them until yes, the Life three sixty got turned off, and then by two am, when he hadn't returned, that's when they called police. They waited until two am because they just thought, look, this is what he does sometimes. That reaction from him was not out of the ordinary. Turning off his location services and then not coming back at all.
00:15:39
Speaker 3: That was not normal, and that is when they alerted police.
00:15:43
Speaker 1: What a lesson, right, What a lesson to all of us about travel, about staying together, about some of these devices and these apps that allow you to stay in touch and to track each other. As much as we complain sometimes and oh no we don't play. We found it bizarre sometimes that our kids are being tracked by twenty other kids on snapshot.
00:16:01
Speaker 4: I appreciate it, and that is the response.
00:16:04
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
00:16:05
Speaker 1: I know.
00:16:05
Speaker 2: My daughter just actually told me she was having an emotional moment. She said she wanted to go down by the water and just have a beat to herself, so she turned off her location services just so nobody would be bugging her or coming to try and find her.
00:16:18
Speaker 3: She said.
00:16:19
Speaker 2: She's like, I didn't realize this, but apparently all of my friends got alerted, and she's like, I.
00:16:24
Speaker 3: Started getting ten fifteen phone calls, are you okay? Where are you? Are you? They were about to call police.
00:16:30
Speaker 2: That actually made me so happy as a mom to know that that's how quickly people were alerted that she could be in danger when she just wanted a moment to herself.
00:16:40
Speaker 4: No, not, I appreciate it. I don't mind that at all.
00:16:43
Speaker 1: And I think it is important robe that you have folks out there looking out for.
00:16:48
Speaker 4: You in that way, So I don't mind it at all.
00:16:50
Speaker 3: I don't know.
00:16:50
Speaker 2: Well, we will certainly keep our eye on this developing story, but we always appreciate you listening to us.
00:16:56
Speaker 3: Everyone. I'm Amy Roboch alongside TJ. Holmes. We will talk to you soon.