Higginbotham Family Seeks Citizen Hikers After 100 Officers Find No Trace of Missing 20-Year-Old in Japan
Updated
Updated · CNN · Jun 5
Higginbotham Family Seeks Citizen Hikers After 100 Officers Find No Trace of Missing 20-Year-Old in Japan
3 articles · Updated · CNN · Jun 5
Summary
Saturday’s search will bring citizen volunteers into the Kyoto-Shiga border area after James “Weston” Higginbotham’s family won police approval to organize a public search-and-rescue effort.
More than 100 officers, dogs and helicopters searched the heavily forested Higashiyama range over the past 72 hours but found no sign of the 20-year-old Auburn University student, whose phone location was turned off.
Weston disappeared May 29 after an argument with his mother and was last seen on CCTV walking alone toward a hiking trail near the prefectural border.
Typhoon-hit terrain has complicated the hunt, with officers returning waist-deep in mud, so the family is urging only experienced hikers to join and to search in pairs.
More than $40,000 has been raised for private search teams, while volunteers across Japan — including a Tokyo man closing his business for a week — have offered transport, translation and manpower.