Cops, family seek help finding missing Syosset woman Jasmine Joseph

The parents of a missing 22-year-old Syosset woman said Saturday that they had paid for their daughter to enroll at New York Institute of Technology for the fall 2013 semester and believed she had been in the library studying when they last spoke to her on Monday.

But university officials said Jasmine Joseph, who would have been a junior, hadn't been a student at school in Old Westbury since last May.

The parents don't know for sure whether she had been attending class, and they haven't seen any of her grades. They never, however, suspected anything suspicious about their daughter's behavior.

The family has set up a Facebook page and put up fliers in the neighborhood with the hopes of gaining any clues into their daughter's disappearance. College officials said they, too, have been cooperating with investigators and have spread the word and shared photos throughout campus.

"I couldn't find anything unusual from her," said the mother, Lovely Joseph, a registered nurse with the North Shore-LIJ Health System. "She's a normal child. She goes with the family."

"She was always happy . . . We are very upset," said the woman's father, Sony Joseph, an electronics technician with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The Josephs told police their daughter, a commuter student in NYIT's nursing program, left Monday morning in her silver 2012 Nissan Altima.

When they spoke to her about 5:15 p.m. that day, she told them she was studying in the library and would be home in an hour, the parents said. Jasmine Joseph is one of two children and lives at home with her parents. Her older brother is in medical school in the Caribbean, the parents said.

College spokeswoman Elaine Iandoli said Saturday that the school could not provide any more information, citing student privacy regulations.

"Many students and staff members are actively helping to spread the word and share photos, in the hopes that the public will recognize this young woman and contact her family or the authorities," NYIT said in a statement. "The young woman has not been a student enrolled at NYIT since May 2013; as such, we are unable to provide any current information. Our thoughts are with her loved ones. Due to FERPA regulations, we cannot provide additional information on the former student."

Nassau County police's Missing Persons Squad issued a release Friday requesting the public's help in locating Joseph.

Joseph is 5-foot-4 and 120 pounds with brown eyes and black hair. She was last seen wearing white and black sneakers, black jeans and a green sweater. Anyone with information can call the Nassau police's Missing Persons Squad at 516-573-7347 or 911.