Skye Budnick’s Sister Still Searches For Answers 15 Years After She Went Missing In Japan

A Connecticut family still has no idea what happened to 21-year-old Skye Budnick after she left the United States on April 1, 2008.

Budnick, a student at Central Connecticut State University, was last seen in the United States on March 31, 2008. By April 4, her worried family members were able to get into her email account and see that she’d purchased a one-way ticket to Japan with an April 1 departure date. After landing in Tokyo, her final destination was Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands.

According to ABC News, Skye may have been suicidal when she left, and she didn’t have anything with her other than her laptop.

Skye’s sister, Megan Lebron, and their mother immediately flew to Japan to file a missing persons report and look for Skye, but there was little to be done because Skye was legally an adult. The only recorded sighting of Skye, after she reached Japan, was on April 7 when an innkeeper in Noboribetsu said Skye told her she was headed to Sapporo, a city on the opposite side of the island from Noboribetsu.

In the 15 years since Lebron returned from Japan without her sister, she has worked tirelessly to spread the word and eventually started a podcast detailing the search and what it’s like to live in the aftermath of a missing person’s case. Lebron also manages an active TikTok account where she posts updates on the case and discusses little-known issues — such as how expensive it is for a family to look for a missing person and how that process is exacerbated when someone goes missing in another country.

News coverage in Skye’s case is sparse, with just a few results in an online search. Any information about her case is communicated via social media or podcasts and through Lebron.

Skye, who was never seen again after April 7, 2008, would be 35 years old as of 2023.

If you have any information, please call the Southington, Connecticut, Police Department at (860) 378-1698.