Search and rescue volunteers in Japan have found the body of a missing American college student, bringing a heartbreaking end to a days-long effort to locate him. The young man was identified as James Weston Higginbotham, who was 20 years old. His disappearance had drawn a wide search before the grim discovery confirmed the family's worst fears.
What was meant to be a celebration had turned into a tragedy. The Higginbotham family had traveled from Alabama to Japan for the youngest son's high school graduation, a milestone trip for the family. Instead, the journey took a devastating turn when the oldest son went missing during their time in the country.
Higginbotham disappeared on May 29. According to the account of his disappearance, he went missing after getting into an argument with his mother over the environmental impact of her use of artificial intelligence. He then turned off his phone's location, leaving his family and investigators without an easy way to trace his movements.
Investigators worked to reconstruct his path in the hours after he vanished. Police were able to track through closed-circuit television footage that he had stopped at Yamashina station. The effort to find him grew into a multi-day search that involved more than 100 police officers, along with canine units and helicopters scouring the area.
As the official search continued, his relatives took matters into their own hands. On Saturday, the family launched their own search effort with the help of local residents and a hired search and rescue team. They concentrated their attention on a mountainous area, because they said Weston loved nature and hiking and believed that was where he may have gone.
It was in that kind of terrain that he was found. The body of the 20-year-old was discovered on Saturday by a volunteer search and rescue group in a mountainous area outside Kyoto. In a message posted to Facebook, his family said they were heartbroken to share that Weston had been found deceased, adding that the grief they felt was impossible to put into words.
Higginbotham was a college student at Auburn University, remembered by those close to him as someone who simply loved to go outside, walk a trail or take a small hike at any time of day. His mother had spoken publicly in a television interview on Friday night, before his body was found, and the family later used their Facebook page to thank the volunteers who had helped them search, closing their message with gratitude for the thoughts and prayers they had received.