Family Of Missing NJ College Student Who Disappeared Near MetLife Shares Heartfelt Update

NORTH JERSEY — North Jersey college student Emilio Acosta, 20, has been missing for three months as of Wednesday — and his mother wants to share a heartfelt message to him.

"We miss you so much and love you and just want to know you're okay," said Claudia Gutierrez of Weehawken on Tuesday. "Please reach out."

Emilio Acosta left his family's Weehawken home on Dec. 18 around midnight after spending six hours in a Bergen County emergency room for a mental health episode, his mother told Patch recently.

READ MORE: Their Son Disappeared Near MetLife Stadium In NJ. They're Offering A $20K Reward

He was last seen walking near MetLife Stadium in the wee hours, she said, but the family has gotten no clues since then, despite friends and law enforcement officials spreading the word.

"No clues or leads or anything," she told Patch on Monday. "We are heartbroken. And all we keep hearing from the authorities is that if he was dead we would have heard about it already."

She added, "We just don’t know what else to do."

The couple is offering a $20,000 reward for their son's return.

Acosta was a good student growing up in Weehawken, his mother told Patch last month.

He began attending Xavier, a private Jesuit school in New York City, just before the pandemic. His grades dropped during online learning and he finished high school at Weehawken High, she said. Then, he took classes at Hudson County Community College.

It was in 2024 — when he transferred to the University of Pittsburgh — that he began having serious mental health episodes and landed in a hospital, his mom said.

He came home with a mental health diagnosis and started treatment.

This past December, Emilio had a manic episode and was experiencing paranoid thoughts at home in Weehawken, his mother said.

The family spent hours with him in the emergency room at Englewood Hospital. He was put on a higher dose of medication and sent home, she said.

That night, the family heard a door slam around midnight, and Emilio was gone, taking only a jacket and a few items in a backpack.

The Search

Since then, train stations and supermarkets around New York and New Jersey have been plastered with Acosta's photo, and police have posted on social media as well.

A video in Weehawken showed Acosta outside just after midnight on Dec. 18, near one of the small jitney buses that roll through the area. He took a bus for about 10 blocks, his mother said.

Videos near MetLife Stadium showed him running past a Shell gas station on Route 3, she said.

He had taken just his phone and a backpack with ski pants, which he'd changed into. It was cold on that December night.

Emilio's phone pinged in the MetLife area, she said — but then the trail ran\ cold.

Gutierrez kept calling him, but eventually his phone turned off, she says.

Emilio has not been seen on any cameras at the nearby Secaucus Train Station, and Gutierrez is not sure he had money on him.

"We never thought in a million years that Emilio would go toward Secaucus," Gutierrez said. "He wasn't thinking straight. He didn't take his airpods, which he lived for. He didn't take his credit cards or charger."

'He's A Really Good Kid'

She shared one possible theory: "We think he hitched a ride with a trucker. Truck drivers are not supposed to give rides to anyone, but there is a thing about them giving rides because they don't want to ride alone."

She added, "We've checked around Pittsburgh, Philly. You can hop trains. We have people checking. I have friends who check all the time. They check the morgues, they check the missing persons database. Literally, he has vanished."

She said, holding back tears, "He's a really good kid. He wasn't planning on leaving. He knows he's supported here. I know he knows that. He may be staying with someone. I read his diaries. They're all about him trying to get better."

The federal National Institute of Justice NamUs missing persons file has not been updated in months.

The entry says, "Parents advised that they last observed their son wearing a beige hooded sweatshirt, bearing Yankee lettering in navy blue, grey sweatpants, black timberland boots and two backpacks. One of the backpacks has a black ski helmet attached to it."

Anyone with information should call the Weehawken police at 201-863-7800 or email Emilio's father at Acostasg72@gmail.com.

READ MORE: Their Son Disappeared Near MetLife Stadium In NJ. They're Offering A $20K Reward