Tonight the families of Chris Sosa, Kyle Latchman, and Akeem Augustine are still hoping for some form of closure after the disappearances of their loved ones in the last days of 2022.
Since then they've launched search parties, posted photos, and made multiple trips to the morgue but none of it has yielded any results.
And even after regular searches have ceased, these families remain in anxious agony, jumping at the news of unearthed remains or notice of shallow graves all in the hope that they may finally get the heartbreaking news that can finally help them start to grieve. This afternoon we caught up with Akeem Augustine's sister-in-law who told us that, contrary to her family's hopes, the clothing found in Port Loyola yesterday wasn't Akeem's.
Nirice Mejia, Sister-In-Law, Akeem Augustine
"Well before, like a week after the disappearance we were searching and to no avail, we have received updates from different police officers. The other day when they went to search they found a burnt pile and then they sent us the video but it wasn't him and we got an update day before yesterday concerning a body part that they found. We went to identify it but we aren't sure if it was him or not and you know people are keeping in contact with us concerning the situation."
Cherisse Halsall:
"And the clothing that they found along with those skeletal remains were those his clothing?"
Nirice Mejia, Sister-In-Law, Akeem Augustine
"No, ma'am, it wasn't his clothing."
Cherisse Halsall;
"How is it for your sister, having to deal with what she must believe is death but not being able to bury him?"
Nirice Mejia, Sister-In-Law, Akeem Augustine
"Well, it's very hard on her. She can't sleep she hardly eats you know and my nephew hardly sleeps because he is already used to sleeping with his father but we are here for her and she is trying to take it one step at a time."
"It's scary for everyone including his mom because the only thing that she wants is closure and she really wants to bury her son and whenever we get an update concerning him, you know it kind of put relief on her and also his family members but when we come to see that it's not him."
"From what we are hearing he's dead and there is a video circulating we haven't received the video as yet but we just you know It's like hearsay people who were actually with him that day and people who it seems he was with that day were at the crime scene I would say, at the house that the situation happened they would say that they have videos going around and this happened and that happened, you know but we don't know for sure if it's that."
"I hear is that two persons jumped him from behind and another punched him in his face and he was trying to fight back and while fighting back a person pulled out a firearm and shot him two times in the chest but no one heard the shots because at the same time, they had dynamite that they were bursting in the day and we heard that it was more than one person like 11 people were at the house that he went to for the party, that he went to with a friend."
"All we are asking is for them to give us at least some clue where exactly they put the body or what exactly happened to him. Tomorrow will make a month that he's missing and we just want to know exactly where he is."
Mejia says that Kyle Latchman was a friend of Akeem Augustine and had visited her sister's home shortly before both men disappeared.
