A student’s sister filed a missing persons report in September after the student lost contact with friends and family during a research trip this summer. 

Elizabeth Guzman filed the report after her brother, Frank Guzman, a cultural anthropology doctorate student, and his wife, Caroline Katba, lost contact with friends and family on July 22. Guzman and Katba were on a cross-national road trip in Latin America for Frank’s work on the Palestinian diaspora in Chile, Elizabeth said. 

Elizabeth said she tried to file a missing persons report with the FBI on Sept. 13 but the Bureau said they would not open a case. She filed a missing persons report with Texas police in case Frank and Katba returned to the United States, and after three weeks Elizabeth said they were finally able to open a case through the prosecutor’s office in Mexico on Oct. 4. They are currently trying to find Frank and Katba’s car and phone data. 

“It’s hard to figure out how I want to feel,” Elizabeth said. “I want to grieve because I have to face reality, but I can’t, because I don’t know (that they’re gone) for sure. I want to feel hopeful, because that’s just my nature. At the same time, I have no concrete answers, so it’s like, what is there to be hopeful for?” 

The University had been meeting with one of Frank’s professors since September, and Elizabeth said the University closed their part of the investigation in their final meeting on Monday. The University cannot provide or confirm information on specific student cases due to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, but the University has an international Critical Incident Response Team for emergencies involving students abroad, University spokesperson Mike Rosen said in an email.

Elizabeth said her family was not informed of any concrete details of Frank’s travel plans, but Frank told them they were going to travel through Mexico and other parts of southern America. 

Katba sent a voice memo to her family on July 22 saying the couple was going to Guatemala the next day. After that, friends and family were not able to reach Frank or Katba through calls or text messages. Frank’s mom, Leticia Vasquez, in an interview the Texan translated from Spanish, said the couple was last seen in Veracruz, Mexico. 

By Sept. 9, Frank was supposed to start his school year remotely from Chile; however, a couple days later, one of his professors informed Frank’s dad that he had not come to class. 

“He was supposed to sign in to class, sign into emails, accept the fellowship that he got, pay fees, stuff like that, and he didn’t do any of that,” Elizabeth said. “It essentially seemed like he ghosted his school, which was completely out of character.” 

Leticia Vasquez, Frank’s mom, said in an interview the Texan translated from Spanish that she consistently tried to convince Frank for days not to travel through Latin America by car because it was dangerous.

“Everything is beautiful about them and I feel it and look at it and I don’t know why this is happening now,” Vasquez said. “They are very positive, and that is why I do not accept what is happening.”

Dani Capistran and Pili Saravia contributed to this report.