When Bien Nguyen arrived at Jamaica Hospital in Queens on Friday afternoon, she was carrying a bag of clothes for her oldest son, Jossiah. The picture she had seen of her 25-year-old son on July 5 showed him on a subway bench with tattered jeans. Jossiah appeared homeless, and the photo devastated her.
She said it was pretty hard not to start crying. The photo started a movement to find Jossiah, building up to a television story shown by PIX11 News on Tuesday. The emotional mother told Mary Murphy in an interview that if that is what it will take to make others look for him, and help him out, then she is thankful for that.
After getting a direct flight from Savannah, Georgia, Nguyen arrived at Newark Airport Friday morning. She tearfully recalled getting the call on Thursday evening, informing her that Jossiah had been found by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) police at the Long Island Railroad station in Jamaica, Queens.
The couple created a Facebook page to help in the search
The worried mom said she dropped everything to find a flight to New York to reunite with her son, but the quickest direct flight took her to Newark Airport in New Jersey. She then traveled from Newark to Jamaica Hospital, where her son was undergoing a medical evaluation.
Nguyen said her son asked her during Thursday's phone call to help him get some airplane tickets to return home. The conversation transpired after her son was taken to the MTA police station.
Bien Nguyen and her husband, Yen, started a Facebook page called Missing Jossiah Nguyen this week. The couple received multiple tips on possible sightings of their son Jossiah, who suffered emotional problems after high school.
Bien and Yen said they had received one communication through Facebook Messenger from their son on May 13, five days after he disappeared. Jossiah said he was looking for a way to get home but had lost his wallet and phone. The parents' concerns grew when they did not hear from him again.
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Kim Crown saw Jossiah getting off the elevated subway in Brooklyn
They flew to New York City before Missing Persons Day and went to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. They talked to detectives that weekend, who told them their son had received a summons the same day outside a liquor store on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn.
When the couple made their way to Nostrand Avenue, their son was nowhere to be found. They got a huge break on July 5 when a cousin of Yen Nguyen, Kim Crown, noticed someone who looked like Jossiah when getting off the elevated subway at the Lorimer Street station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The young man said he did not want help, according to WGN 9. The cousin took his picture and sent it to his parents. Two days after media outlets reported his disappearance, Jossiah was found near the Long Island Railroad station at Sutphin Boulevard in Queens.
