{"id":36151,"date":"2026-06-06T00:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T00:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/36151\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T00:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T00:49:07","slug":"best-friends-haunting-final-messages-sent-to-student-missing-in-japan-went-unanswered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/36151\/","title":{"rendered":"Best friend\u2019s haunting final messages sent to student missing in Japan went unanswered"},"content":{"rendered":"

The best friend of the missing Auburn University student who mysteriously vanished during a family trip to Japan revealed their haunting last text exchanges, shortly after the pair reunited in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

James \u201cWeston\u201d Higginbotham, 20, reconnected with Hiyu Shikari, 20, in Japan \u2014 they were close friends who attended the same middle school in the US before Shikari moved to the island around 2019.<\/p>\n

Their final encounter came at a dinner in Shinjuku, a popular tourist destination in Tokyo, after Shikari met up with Higginbotham and his family, the US Sun<\/a> reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AWeston Higginbotham. Facebook\/Nancy Higginbotham<\/p>\n

Shikari told the outlet that he didn\u2019t notice anything out of the ordinary with his friend, and added that Higginbotham seemed excited about the trip he was on with his family to celebrate his younger brother Grayton\u2019s high school graduation.<\/p>\n

He texted Higginbotham on May 26, \u201cThank you so much. \u2026 Enjoying your stay in Japan!!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFeel free to contact me whenever you face a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Higginbotham replied to the text with a heart emoji.<\/p>\n

The missing student\u2019s cell phone last pinged on Monday, when Shikari messaged him once more asking how his family vacation was going.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood evening! How\u2019s the stay going?\u201d he wrote to Higginbotham.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully yall are having a good time in Kyoto! Lmk if you need me to recommend any places,\u201d<\/p>\n

But the text message failed to deliver \u2014 and was never answered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had such a great time at a restaurant in Shinjuku, which is in Tokyo,\u201d Shikari told the Sun about his last encounter with his friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight after that, I tried to contact him on how he was doing in Kyoto, because I was in Kyoto a couple of weeks ago, and also the typhoon was coming as I was kind of worried, and I messaged him, \u2018How\u2019s the trip going?\u2019 And that was after he went missing,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so I didn\u2019t get any contact with him after I met him. I\u2019ve been doing what I can to spread awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UnansweredHiyu Shikari\u2019s last texts to Higginbotham.<\/p>\n

Higginbotham went for a hike on May 29 and was last seen in the Yamashina section of Kyoto, an area known for its dense forests and mountainous trails. <\/p>\n

He had been arguing with his mother, Nancy, who told CNN that he was irritated by her use of ChatGPT to plan their trip to Japan, citing his concerns about the environmental impact of artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n

Efforts to find Higginbotham have been complicated by Tropical Storm Jangmim which moved from Okinawa into the mainland \u2014 bringing whipping 75mph winds and torrential rainfall on May 30, according to reports<\/a>. Rescue crews in Yamashina were forced to wade through waist-high mud during their search for the missing American.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw him as a best friend, a brother,\u201d Shikari said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was such a nice friend and when I first met him, I felt like nothing has changed. \u201cWe talked about politics, we talked about AI, we talked about a lot of things that\u2019s going on in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The best friend of the missing Auburn University student who mysteriously vanished during a family trip to Japan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1127,8,26084,33,26220,8559],"class_list":["post-36151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-alabama","tag-japan","tag-missing-persons","tag-nihon","tag-student","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}