Speaker 1: Folks.
Speaker 2: It is Wednesday, April twenty second, and two college students
Speaker 2: in Florida haven't been seen in six days. They have
Speaker 2: essentially vanished off the face of the earth. And with that,
Speaker 2: welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Robes. This
Speaker 2: story now is causing more concern and there's more alarm,
Speaker 2: but I think that's that's a fair way to say it.
Speaker 2: These are doctoral students Robes, and once they went missing,
Speaker 2: there ain't been a trace of them.
Speaker 1: This is so bizarre because there's no reasonable explanation, and
Speaker 1: yet there is no evidence of foul play. But we
Speaker 1: have two twenty seven year olds, so these are grown folks, adults,
Speaker 1: and they are doctoral students. As you mentioned, Zamil Lemon
Speaker 1: and Nahata Bristy. They're both twenty seven. They are friends
Speaker 1: and there is some suggestion that they might be more
Speaker 1: than friends. But they vanished without a trace, within one
Speaker 1: hour of each other, different spots, right, different spots, And
Speaker 1: this happened. The last time each was seen was April sixteenth,
Speaker 1: so six days ago.
Speaker 2: Okay, USF this is where they're in school. University of
Speaker 2: South Florida, Tampa is where they are both in school.
Speaker 2: Doctoral students both from Bangladesh. Right, this is weird that
Speaker 2: we have to say this now, or even that police
Speaker 2: had to say it. They're not with ICE. That's where
Speaker 2: we are these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even their family who have been deeply concerned
Speaker 1: and have been talking to the press because of their concern.
Speaker 1: That was their initial reaction. Can we make sure that
Speaker 1: they haven't been detained by ICE? Ice has come out
Speaker 1: and officially said they are not with us. Are They
Speaker 1: don't have any issues with their immigration status, so it
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with us. And so because basically
Speaker 1: all the obvious things have been ruled out, police are
Speaker 1: now officially asking for the public's help because they don't
Speaker 1: know where to go from here.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we go with that. We know it's not Ice,
Speaker 2: all right. Two people are missing or go missing from
Speaker 2: two different places.
Speaker 1: ROA.
Speaker 2: If these aren't two individual abductions, we can possibly rule
Speaker 2: that out, can we not? Nobody? There was no suggestion
Speaker 2: of foul play or crime of any kind being committed,
Speaker 2: is what the police?
Speaker 3: Isn't that the word correct?
Speaker 1: But university officials have used the term very concerned. They
Speaker 1: say we are very concerned for these two.
Speaker 2: They say they're very concerned. They haven't told us necessarily
Speaker 2: why they're concerned, But why is it as well that
Speaker 2: they was important to note that they might be together.
Speaker 2: This is the part when I hear it, Rob, I said, well, oh,
Speaker 2: they ran off together. But that didn't necessarily make sense
Speaker 2: to the friends and family either.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you had said, well, what if they were
Speaker 1: forbidden from being together and they ran off? And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: but he hasn't been home in two years they've been studying.
Speaker 3: It brought say they did.
Speaker 1: Fall in love and want to get married, they could
Speaker 1: probably go ahead and get married and their parents wouldn't
Speaker 1: find doubt about it, and they could still be going
Speaker 1: to classes.
Speaker 3: These two were both described as.
Speaker 1: Dedicated students, and so this is highly unusual that they
Speaker 1: would just in the middle of the year and actually
Speaker 1: towards the end of the year, just skip out on
Speaker 1: all of their student duties, all of their classes. It
Speaker 1: doesn't fit either one of their personalities, And how would
Speaker 1: that make sense if it was that they wanted to
Speaker 1: be together.
Speaker 2: The thesis is due, it's coming up.
Speaker 1: Yah. As his brother said, he's been working tirelessly on
Speaker 1: his thesis which is coming up.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's go back then. All right, We've got
Speaker 2: two doctoral students at the University of South Florida Robes,
Speaker 2: both ones in engineering. Tell me what they're getting sores.
Speaker 3: Emil Lemon, he's twenty seven.
Speaker 1: He's pursuing his PhD in geography, Environmental science and Policy.
Speaker 1: He was last seen at nine am at his basically
Speaker 1: just off campus apartment, student apartments, basically right there on campus,
Speaker 1: nine am, right there on campus. He's working on his
Speaker 1: thesis and he was seen they know, at nine am
Speaker 1: on Thursday, April sixteenth. He had already booked his first
Speaker 1: trip back in July summer to go back home to Bangladesh.
Speaker 1: So it's like, here's somebody who had plans, who had
Speaker 1: a future, who was in the middle of his thesis
Speaker 1: and he's a doctoral student. He's been in the United
Speaker 1: States for two years.
Speaker 2: Okay, Now tell me about when Nihita.
Speaker 1: Nihita Nihaita Bristi is a doctoral student studying chemical engineering.
Speaker 1: She was last seen as well on Thursday, April sixteenth
Speaker 1: at ten am, and she was last seen at the
Speaker 1: Natural and Environmental Sciences building right there on campus.
Speaker 3: So she went to a class.
Speaker 1: She was in the Natural and Environmental Sciences Building, seen
Speaker 1: by multiple people. So verifiably she was there and in
Speaker 1: class at ten am.
Speaker 2: So given where he was at his apartment, given where
Speaker 2: she was on campus.
Speaker 3: It's about ten minutes apart, then.
Speaker 2: Not far apart, and this was about an hour's difference
Speaker 2: in the last time they were seen. Correct, all right, So, Robes,
Speaker 2: where did I read that their phones were off?
Speaker 3: Yes? Police have said so.
Speaker 1: Obviously here's what the latest is in the investigation.
Speaker 2: This is a problem.
Speaker 1: Their phones are both turned off.
Speaker 2: Okay, Robes, that's a scary proposition, isn't it. Everybody, certainly
Speaker 2: that age or a little older. Sure you are either
Speaker 2: Robes in trouble meanings they're in trouble with somebody and
Speaker 2: they fell into some criminal element and something came about them,
Speaker 2: or you really don't want to be found.
Speaker 1: And let's add to that, there is right now no
Speaker 1: digital footprint, meaning they have credit cards there. You can't
Speaker 1: basically exist in this world these days intentionally, I guess
Speaker 1: just out in every you have enough cash.
Speaker 3: I don't know how long that'll get you.
Speaker 1: But when you go to stay at a hotel room,
Speaker 1: if you go anywhere, you have to show your there's
Speaker 1: a credit card. There's something that you can be traced to.
Speaker 1: So if your phone's GPS is off because it's turned off,
Speaker 1: then typically to survive to exist outside of living in
Speaker 1: your apartment, which they're not at. Neither one of them
Speaker 1: are at their residences. How are they surviving without using
Speaker 1: any sort of credit card?
Speaker 2: Now, so that suggests one of two things, which one
Speaker 2: you tell me robe is more likely one that they
Speaker 2: did in These are smart people. They did an incredible
Speaker 2: amount of planning to make sure they wouldn't be tracked
Speaker 2: or trace or two there is foul play here.
Speaker 1: Foul play makes the most sense because why would you
Speaker 1: also time it out in the middle of your at
Speaker 1: the end of your spring semester. It just why would
Speaker 1: you just leave everything just completely in the middle of
Speaker 1: the process of things. When you talk about who these
Speaker 1: two students were, their family and their friends talk about
Speaker 1: them being it would be highly unusual for them to
Speaker 1: miss a class, let alone just skip out on a semester.
Speaker 1: He's in the middle of a thesis. They're both pursuing PhDs.
Speaker 1: These are smart, intelligent folks who went through a lot
Speaker 1: of pain and hard work to get to the United
Speaker 1: States to study at USF to pursue their PhDs.
Speaker 3: This makes no sense.
Speaker 2: So let me ask you the next part of that
Speaker 2: scenario that makes no damn sense? Or if we do
Speaker 2: want to go with foul play, how do two people
Speaker 2: abduct it or finding foul play from two different places?
Speaker 2: Why is it she's over here at a class at
Speaker 2: ten people see her? Nobody saw him after nine am
Speaker 2: in a place ten minutes away? How do we what
Speaker 2: scenario do you have there? Where? Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: It doesn't, It doesn't. That's why this story right now
Speaker 1: is so mysterious. Because I was telling you it reminded
Speaker 1: me a little bit of the nante guth Through case,
Speaker 1: where there's no obvious motive.
Speaker 3: Other than yes the most.
Speaker 1: If you were just looking at this without knowing any
Speaker 1: of the details, you thought, oh, these two kids' families
Speaker 1: didn't want them to be together. They felt the pressure
Speaker 1: of being the successes that their families wanted them to be.
Speaker 1: They ditched everything and ran off into the wilderness together.
Speaker 1: But to not have your phones, to not have any
Speaker 1: sort of credit cards, that makes no sense.
Speaker 2: Okay, I am with you there, But also Robes, these
Speaker 2: are two people who had a lot going for them
Speaker 2: and who had been working in this country who had
Speaker 2: been working at this school for years to get to
Speaker 2: a certain place that they were about to get to.
Speaker 2: At least it appears what could have come up in
Speaker 2: their lives that made them want to voluntarily do this.
Speaker 2: That is a high high bar, but Rose, I am
Speaker 2: struggling to get over that hump of I guess they
Speaker 2: could as possible they could have met up later and
Speaker 2: something happened to both of them. It's possible they got
Speaker 2: into a car together, maybe they had an accident. Who knows.
Speaker 1: Well. I was curious if they can go back into
Speaker 1: their phones data and see what was the last text
Speaker 1: that was sent from each of their numbers. Did they
Speaker 1: meet up? Were they lured somewhere together? Was there some
Speaker 1: sort of love triangle going on with you've got another
Speaker 1: another woman in the picture who was angry, or another
Speaker 1: guy in the picture who was pissed.
Speaker 2: We've watched too much.
Speaker 1: That's what remind you because typically these if there was
Speaker 1: a crime committed, it's typically one from the heart or
Speaker 1: one from the wallet. So either there was some sort
Speaker 1: of financial gain or some sort of personal vendetta, and
Speaker 1: it's one of the two things. If foul play was involved,
Speaker 1: random act of violence. I guess that's possible, but that's
Speaker 1: the least possible or probable of any of these scenarios
Speaker 1: we just mentioned.
Speaker 2: Phones off.
Speaker 1: Why are there that would suggest foul play to me
Speaker 1: or like you said, an absolute deliberate planned escape from
Speaker 1: the world to completely go off the grid.
Speaker 3: But then give me a motivation for that.
Speaker 2: I mean, roobes, I don't know what the student visa situation.
Speaker 1: Was, but you would think that ICE or the government
Speaker 1: would have weighed in and said, hey, they were facing deportation,
Speaker 1: there was something happening.
Speaker 3: We can under there.
Speaker 1: Actually has been that that has been looked into and
Speaker 1: ruled out.
Speaker 2: Well, I have to apologize for this speculation, man, right,
Speaker 2: and then I'm gonna move ahead. My thought went to
Speaker 2: is there a plan or knowing that don't don't have
Speaker 2: a plan when that student visa expires? Like when that
Speaker 2: student visa expired, do you get to do you have
Speaker 2: a job? Is it harder to get a job, Is
Speaker 2: it harder to get someone to sponsor you to stick
Speaker 2: on and stay in this country? Are we're gonna have
Speaker 2: to leave this Country're gonna have to leave each other?
Speaker 1: But now you've got to leave your identities, your families.
Speaker 1: You can't have contact with anyone you once knew were
Speaker 1: loved a man.
Speaker 2: Love is a powerful thing, and the heart wants what
Speaker 2: the heart wants. Robes, I really hope you know, as
Speaker 2: much as this might be concerning to the campus and
Speaker 2: concerning to their families, I really do hope the scenario
Speaker 2: is that they've run off together.
Speaker 1: Oh, that would be the best case scenario, and I
Speaker 1: would imagine that's exactly what their families would say. But
Speaker 1: in terms of reaction from Nihita Bristi and Zamila Leimoon's family,
Speaker 1: we have heard from them. We will tell you what
Speaker 1: they had to say about their thoughts on what is
Speaker 1: going on when we come back.
Speaker 2: All right, we continue here on Amy and TJ. Where
Speaker 2: are these kids? Are they victims of a crime or
Speaker 2: are they love birds? We really do not know, but yeah,
Speaker 2: the University of South Florida students doctoral students twenty seven
Speaker 2: years old. Both have been missing for the past six days,
Speaker 2: when missing from two places ten minutes apart. But we're
Speaker 2: last seeing an hour apart. So Robes, they's the suggestion
Speaker 2: is from the family that these two were They didn't
Speaker 2: flat out say that they were dating, but they what
Speaker 2: was it. They were looking at the possibility of a
Speaker 2: marriage or something down the road, but they never seemed
Speaker 2: to say that, yeah, these two were in a relationship.
Speaker 1: Yes, so Xamille Lemowne's brother actually spoke to news outlets,
Speaker 1: that's who we've heard from from their family's point of view,
Speaker 1: and he did put their relationship into better contexts because
Speaker 1: everyone else has just said they were friends and they
Speaker 1: believe they're together. His own brother said, another important point
Speaker 1: is that they talked about having a future together, but
Speaker 1: they are not that serious about it. Both of them
Speaker 1: are thinking about whether we can married together and they
Speaker 1: are discussing that. So that to me actually made it
Speaker 1: even less likely that they were running off together, because
Speaker 1: if his brother knew that they were considering marriage, that
Speaker 1: means that the families were aware of a potential romance
Speaker 1: or a marriage.
Speaker 3: And it obviously wasn't.
Speaker 1: So terrible or awful that his brother felt like that
Speaker 1: was a negative thing. He just said, yeah, they're thinking
Speaker 1: about it in the future, but they're focused on school
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine again a scenario keep saying Nancy's Guthrie.
Speaker 2: We can't come up with a scenario that makes sense.
Speaker 2: I can't come up with one that makes sense on
Speaker 2: either ropes. None of this the scenario of them being lovebirds,
Speaker 2: a scenario of them being abducted, and none of it
Speaker 2: makes sense. A car crash doesn't make sense, it does
Speaker 2: nothing makes sense.
Speaker 1: No, and look to go on further. So Leon Lemone's
Speaker 1: brother described him, and we've been talking about this, but
Speaker 1: this is a direct quote from him talking about his
Speaker 1: brother's emial. He is a very responsible and punctual person.
Speaker 1: And that's why this situation is so unpredictable and unusual
Speaker 1: to us like and very suspicious. So his family and
Speaker 1: I can only imagine, of course, is concerned that there
Speaker 1: is foul play involved. And look this coming the official
Speaker 1: word from the University of South Florida, the PIO. Look,
Speaker 1: I thought this was interesting too. They said, everybody internally
Speaker 1: is obviously very concerned, as we are concerned. It's not
Speaker 1: typical of their behavior. They're graduate students. We don't have
Speaker 1: information that there is foul play or suspicious nature at
Speaker 1: this point, but the point being is you've got two
Speaker 1: young folks who it seems like everyone knew were in
Speaker 1: a relationship. Didn't seem like it was a controversial thing.
Speaker 1: They're both stellar students here on student visas, getting their
Speaker 1: PhDs in really intelligent, amazing scientific studies, and they seem
Speaker 1: to have support from their families, or at least lemone did.
Speaker 1: So how is it possible that they just vanished literally.
Speaker 3: Into thin air? That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: Like, what I'm hoping next happens is, look, where are
Speaker 1: all the cameras on campus? If they saw her and
Speaker 1: they know she was at a building at ten am,
Speaker 1: hopefully can they retrace her steps? Same with him if
Speaker 1: he was seen in and apart, can they see how
Speaker 1: he left the apartment and that it seems like digital
Speaker 1: technology and hopefully these tips they're now asking for people
Speaker 1: to call in with will be the answer to what
Speaker 1: Otherwise it is just an absolute mystery.
Speaker 2: That part's concerning robes that they had. They felt like
Speaker 2: they it almost sound like they didn't want to, but
Speaker 2: they had to come out and say we need your help.
Speaker 2: Because Rollup's given all that they track people down with
Speaker 2: those digital license plate readers, right, those cameras, they can
Speaker 2: track your every move on a college campus. You surely
Speaker 2: should be able to track a kid's movements.
Speaker 3: I'm surprised.
Speaker 1: I'm surpris why they haven't been able to release the
Speaker 1: last scene footage because yes, when I read that, they
Speaker 1: don't have any digital footprint of them using credit cards
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Okay, the fact that their phones
Speaker 1: are turned off very disturbing.
Speaker 3: But where was the last place their phones were?
Speaker 1: I mean, there are ways for police to get and
Speaker 1: to dig deeper on this from a technological standpoint, how.
Speaker 2: Much cash would you have to have on you to
Speaker 2: leave no digital footprint for six days?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of places aren't even like don't
Speaker 1: even accept.
Speaker 3: Cash these days. Like good point, it's it's not even
Speaker 3: like guaranteed off.
Speaker 2: How can you find anything or go anywhere these days
Speaker 2: with your phone off? You just can't.
Speaker 1: So no, no phone number, no email, no nothing like
Speaker 1: this is Look, if if you're members of their family,
Speaker 1: you're you're deeply concerned about foul play right now.
Speaker 2: But jeez, how do they both go missing from two
Speaker 2: different places across camps? All right, well, folk, we wanted
Speaker 2: to hop on and give you updated here. This story
Speaker 2: is starting to bubble quite a bit, So this is
Speaker 2: one you are going to be hearing a whole lot
Speaker 2: more about. But say the names again to me.
Speaker 1: Their names are twenty seven year old Zmili Moon and
Speaker 1: twenty seven year old Nahita Bristie, missing from the University
Speaker 1: of South Florida.
Speaker 2: We'll keep you updated, but you to be hearing a
Speaker 2: lot more and seeing their names and faces a lot
Speaker 2: more places. But folks would appreciate you as always spending
Speaker 2: some time with us on T. J. Holmes on behalf
Speaker 2: of my dear Amy Robot. We'll talk to you all soon.
Speaker 1: H