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

NORTH JERSEY — When Emilio Acosta, 20, was growing up in Weehawken, he was a good student, his mom says — until the pandemic hit during his freshman year of high school.

He'd just begun attending Xavier, a private Jesuit school in New York City, but found online learning frustrating, she said.

Eventually, he enrolled in Weehawken High School. He didn't maintain the same level of academic success as before the pandemic, his mother noted in an interview on Saturday. But he returned to his original work ethic in his first year at Hudson County Community College, hoping to transfer.

Sophomore year, he headed to the University of Pittsburgh to study economics and science, said his mother, Claudia Gutierrez.

That's when things began to fall apart.

For a year, he battled mental health symptoms. While home in Weehawken this past December, Emilio had a manic episode and walked outside around midnight.

As of this Wednesday, it'll be two months since he disappeared, Gutierrez said.

How The Situation Unraveled

Gutierrez said her son was first diagnosed with mental health issues after he started school in Pittsburgh as a transfer student in fall 2024.

"We drove him to Pittsburgh, and he was pretty excited because it's a city," recounted his mother "He loves New York City. Then, in October, we had to fly down. He started to act not normal. He was sending us things by email; it didn't make sense, what he was saying to us. We flew out to find him in a manic stage. He was hospitalized."

After leaving the hospital in Pennsylvania, he came home with his family to see doctors and try out various medications.

Eventually he wanted to be independent and finish the semester in Pittsburgh.

His parents drove him back to school in January 2025, but he didn't last long.

"He wasn't feeling great," his mother said. "He wasn't attending classes."

He came home again and re-enrolled last summer at HCCC, whose credits would be accepted at the University of Pittsburgh. He got an "A" in a course he took to fulfill a language requirement, she said.

"In August, he decided, 'I'm going to stay home. I have all this love and support here,' " his mom said. "But then he started feeling bad again."

In The ER

Over several days this past December, according to Gutierrez, her son was depressed, paranoid, imagining things, and not sleeping.

His psychiatrist said that if things got worse, they could bring him to the emergency room at Englewood Hospital. He agreed to go on a night in mid-December.

The family spent six and a half hours in the Emergency Room, his mother said, and Emilio was put on a higher dose of medication. He did not want to be hospitalized, as he still had post-traumatic stress from a previous hospitalization, his mom said.

"He was very well behaved at the hospital," Gutierrez said. "He told us while we were waiting, 'You guys are going to leave me and you're going to commit me.' That broke my heart." Ultimately, the hospital sent him home.

His parents had been letting him sleep on a mattress in their room, and they had already taken two days off work. That night, Gutierrez said, they came home from the hospital and went to sleep.

"We were literally exhausted," Guiterrez said. "We dosed off."

They heard a door slam, and Emilio was gone.

The Search For Emilio

Emilio's parents and their friends have knocked on doors and spread posters around, but the family has gotten only a few clues since Dec. 18, Gutierrez said.

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

A video in Weehawken showed Acosta outside around midnight, near one of the small jitney buses that roll through the area. He took the 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 only his phone and a backpack with ski pants, which he had changed into by the time he reached Secaucus. It was cold that night.

Emilio's phone pinged in the MetLife area, she said — but after that, the trail runs cold.

Gutierrez said her son has not been seen on any cameras at the nearby Secaucus Train Station, and she's not sure he had money on him.

"We never thought in a million years that Emilio would go toward Secaucus," Guitierrez 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."

She said they called him on his cell phone, but it turned off at some point.

Knocking On Doors

Since then, the couple and their friends have been searching for their son, knocking on doors, trying to find surveillance videos.

Gutierrez said she believes he's alive.

"We think he hitched a ride with a trucker," she said. "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. I have friends who check all the time. They check the morgues, they check the missing persons database. Literally, he has vanished."

Holding back tears, she said, "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. He was eating healthy, working out. Now he doesn't have any medicine on him. He wasn't thinking."

She said, "It's like he just disappeared, vanished."

Acosta's federal National Institute of Justice NamUs missing file notes, "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 2 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 his father at Acostasg72@gmail.com.

A social media post from the nearby Union City Police Department noted that they can also be called at 201-865-1111.