EXCLUSIVE: North Carolina Mother Says Not Enough Is Being Done To Find Her Missing 17-Year-Old Son At North Topsail Beach

Family Demands Answers After Joshua Gabriel Disappears During Beach Trip With Friends

A Jacksonville, North Carolina mother is searching for answers after her 17-year-old son vanished at North Topsail Beach—and she believes race is playing a major role in the lack of urgency to bring him home.

Ola Rogers exclusively spoke with The North Carolina Beat, recounting the nightmare she has lived since October 8, 2025, when her son, Joshua Gabriel, went to the beach on Topsail Island with a friend and never returned.

Rogers said she received a call around 4:45 p.m. from her son’s friend, Evan, who used Joshua’s phone to tell her that Joshua “went down in the water and did not come up.”According to a press release, authorities received a 911 call around 4:20 p.m. about the incident.

“As his mother, I want to know what happened between the time I got that phone call and the time you boys claimed y’all saw my baby go down and never come back up,” Rogers told us. “And how come it took a child to call me to let me know that my son was not coming back home possibly.”

Authorities have not named any suspects or persons of interest in Joshua’s disappearance.

According to Rogers, nothing about that moment felt right—not the call, not the explanation, and not the scene she pulled up on.

Rogers said she immediately sped from Jacksonville to North Topsail Beach.

“I flew like a bat from hell,” she said. “When I got there, there was only one little piece of dingy a*s boat in the f*****g water.”

She said she saw one officer, spectators, and the parents of the other boys Joshua had been with. But what she didn’t see, she said, was urgency.

“Nobody was calling my son’s name, nobody was looking for my son,” she said. “And they had some BS drones out there but I call BS right away because Joshua was an avid swimmer.”

Rogers said all her children know how to swim — except her youngest, who has autism — and that her family is “very well verse in the art of water.”

“My father did not play no games, he always wanted us to enjoy water but also fear it at the same time because water is unexpected.”

Joshua, she said, knew exactly what to do in a rip current.

“He knew to swim parallel to a rip current,” she said through tears. “And if he couldn’t do that, Josh knew to just be calm and let it take you. He was taught.”

Rogers believes Joshua was a stronger swimmer than the other boys with him that day.

“SEVEN WENT IN AND ONLY SIX CAME OUT”

Rogers does not believe the idea that only Joshua did not make it out of the water, while all the other boys did.

“You can’t tell me as a mom that seven went in and only six came out,” she said. “I call bull shit.”

Joshua had just started working at Dairy Queen on North Marine Boulevard to help his mother with bills.

“My baby could’ve made it out that water,” Roders said. “And the cops want to tell me ‘you should prepare yourself and your family for a recovery instead of a rescue’? As a mother, who the f**k are you to tell me that? That means you’re giving up on my baby and he doesn’t deserve that.”

Rogers said Evan had been extremely close to the family before the incident — calling her “mom,” visiting daily, and bonding with her youngest son — but she has not seen him since Joshua disappeared.

“You’re my son’s friend and my son left here with you,” Roders said. “My son walked out of this house with Evan and never came back.”

Law enforcement has not made any allegations of wrongdoing against Evan or any other boy who was present.

Still, the family says a message from Evan’s Instagram account (@mxliti), sent to Joshua’s sister, raised questions:

“Bri even if you know all who was there at the beach don’t tell Joseph i’m scared he’s gonna do something.”

Bri told The North Carolina Beat:

“It was just a little fishy to me because why would you be scared… if it was the current that did it then why are you scared? You have no reason to be scared unless you’re guilty.”

Rogers’ daughter acknowledged these were her personal feelings, and authorities have not suggested that Evan is a threat or suspect in this case.

Rogers said that when she tried to go into the water to search for her son herself, she was tackled by at least three officers.

“They weren’t doing their jobs,” she said. “As his mom, it was my right to do my job and try to find my baby because they weren’t doing it, because no one out there looked like me.”

Rogers said everyone on the scene — from officers to bystanders to the boys — was white, and she felt completely alone.

“There was no Black or brown person out there having my back… I didn’t expect that sending my son to the beach would be the last day I ever saw my child. You know how much guilt I carry?”

She said she did not see a larger response from officers until after she was tackled.

“Where was that energy for my baby?” she asked. “If he was a little white Josh he would have been found.”

Two weeks after Joshua went missing, Rogers said two Jacksonville Police Department officers came to her home and took custody of Joshua’s phone. She said she does not know why.

Law enforcement has not publicly explained the reason for collecting the device.

Rogers believes something happened before Joshua ever entered the water.

“Either my son is dead on that beach and they buried my son, or they did something to my baby before he got in that water that prevented him from being able to get out,” she said. “It’s either A or B.”

These statements reflect Rogers’ personal beliefs. Investigators have not identified foul play, nor have they publicly confirmed any theories.

Rogers claims North Topsail Beach authorities did not consistently update the family. She said they often had to call for answers and were given “vague” responses. Their last public update was on October 10, 2025.

Officials told her Joshua had been entered into the missing and exploited children database in case a body surfaced.

She said the official search lasted “two or three days” before she was told to “prepare for a recovery instead of a rescue,” due to an approaching storm.

“You’re giving up on somebody you don’t even know,” Roders said. “Just tell me what happened to my son.”

The North Carolina Beat obtained group photos showing Joshua standing among six other boys at the beach. Rogers identified Joshua wearing the same red shirt he left home in.

Another photo shows Joshua and Evan together in the parking lot of Beach Access #4 at 484 New River Inlet Road — the same location where he vanished.

We are publishing these images solely because they establish the timeline of Joshua’s last known movements. Neither Evan nor the other boys have been named suspects or persons of interest by law enforcement.

On Thursday, The North Carolina Beat reached out to the North Topsail Beach Police Department for an update. As of publication, they have not responded.

Joshua Gabriel attended Jacksonville High School, where he was in the 11th grade. Rogers said her son was amazing — from the time he was born, he was a fighter. She said he was born at 23 weeks and 3 days because she and his father had gotten into a really bad domestic violence incident.

“Joshua didn’t have a name for a very long time and every time I flipped through the Bible, I kept landing on the name Joshua,” Rogers said. “So, I read about it and I found out that Joshua was Moses’ predecessor. He was the one that actually took our people to the Promised Land, and he also fought in the battle of Jericho — and he won.”

Rogers said Joshua has been Joshua ever since that day, and he’s been fighting even when people counted him out.

“When the doctors said he wouldn’t walk, he walked. When they said he would never crawl or hold a bottle because of the way his hands are positioned — but he did, through love, prayer, and physical therapy.” “My baby superseded everything that everybody said he couldn’t do,” she said through tears.

Joshua has two brothers and a big sister — an older brother, a younger brother, and a big sister — who all miss him and want the truth. Rogers said Joshua had recently become an uncle to his sister’s beautiful baby boy.

“He wanted to teach Caleb everything and be the best role model and best uncle for Caleb as he could possibly be,” Rogers said through tears. “He wanted to show Caleb that even if you didn’t have your dad around, you had your uncle.”

She said Joshua was a responsible kid. He would sometimes work 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., get home, take a shower, go to sleep, and be right up and on time for school.

“You couldn’t have a bad day around Joshua. He was witty and he always had a snappy comeback, and he was a clown. He could be a butthole, but he was my butthole,” she said.

Rogers said that a week before Joshua went missing, he had come to her wanting to start a petition with enough signatures to get the school to consider building a pool so they could have a swim team.

She said Joshua lived for the water.

The last time Rogers saw her son was when he left home with Evan around 2:30 p.m. 

Rogers says she will not stop fighting.

“My baby didn’t deserve whatever happened to him at that beach,” she said. “And nobody seems to care.”

The North Carolina Beat will continue to update this developing story.