The twists and turns in the ongoing story of Hanna Kobayashi, who disappeared in Los Angeles last month after failing to board a connecting flight to New York, have gripped the public for nearly a month.
But now, amid a family tragedy that includes the death of Kobayashi’s father by apparent suicide, police have determined Kobayashi may have voluntarily walked out of his life.
Los Angeles Police It was announced on Monday That they will review surveillance video showing a woman believed to be Kobayashi on Nov. 12, the day her family reported her missing. Kobayashi, who hails from Hawaii, failed to complete a flight from his home state to New York City. As seen in the footage A woman, who appears to be Kobayashi, buys a ticket for the border at a Los Angeles bus station. Police said he used his passport to make purchases, then crossed into Mexico from San Ysidro.
The investigation is the second high-profile missing persons case in recent weeks that took an unexpected turn after the person was apparently unharmed. On November 11, the day before Kobayashi’s family reported his disappearance, a Wisconsin man who had been missing for months reappeared after confessing Faked his own death In a dramatic kayaking incident to escape his life and start over in Eastern Europe. The Los Angeles investigators felt that Kobayashi had similarly drifted away from his own life, and until he decided to resurface, there was little they could do.
“To date, the investigation has found no evidence that Kobayashi was being trafficked or that he was a victim of foul play. He is not suspected of any criminal activity,” Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell stated During a press conference. “She has a right to privacy, and we respect her choice but we also understand the concern her loved ones feel for her.”
There are several troubling differences between the two fields, ranging from sharp and abrupt turns in Kobayashi’s trajectory. The 30-year-old was a resident of Maui a free spirit with a love of art, photography and the outdoors before boarding a flight to New York on November 8 to visit a relative. It was her first trip to the city – which was on her “bucket list” list of places. See — and had plans to see a Broadway show with a friend before traveling up.
Although they had to share the flight with an ex-boyfriend allegedly sat in different parts of the plane, and did not appear to have anything to do with her disappearance. Kobayashi did not join him on their connecting flight out of LAX. Instead, he left the airport. Security footage shows him boarding the subway toward downtown Los Angeles. After her family reported her missing, multiple people reported seeing her at The Grove shopping mall on November 9 and 10. Eagle-eyed web sleuths spotted him appearing on camera within 31 seconds a video Shot at a LeBron James Nike event held there. Hannah even uploaded a photo from the event On his own Instagram — the last post he made there to date.
During his days spent in the city, he sent a frightening text to family and friends. One text spoke of “deep hackers” who “deleted my identity, stole all my funds and upset me since Friday,” while another claimed she was “tricked into giving away all my funds. From someone I thought I was. love.”
He also told the family that he had missed his flight to New York but was reported language used That doesn’t sound like what family members think. One such questionable text, containing strange love that he does not usually use, said“I’m really afraid if love and the redwoods call me and I know I want to be there, I’m being led there, like you did before … I’ll risk my freedom if it goes wrong for me. ” Another said of him “having completed a very intense spiritual awakening”. In one writing, Kobayashi alleged claim That he was scared and afraid to go home.
“Even though she was in contact with us, she wasn’t in her right mind contacting us,” her aunt, Larry Pidgeon, said. to say USA Today.
“I just need to rest and I’ll think better,” a text to his mother, sent Nov. 11, said. alleged reading. “But it’s too complicated matrix underworld shit.” It was one of his final contacts with his family. Her final texts indicated she was returning to the airport and promised to post to her family. Although she returned to the airport, she ended up only picking up her luggage, which she requested to fly back to LA from New York. that evening, According to According to a Facebook post by his family, he was seen getting off the Metro near Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center). Her family claimed in the post that they had seen footage of the scene indicating that Hannah “doesn’t seem to be doing well” and that she is not alone.
After Nov. 11, his phone was turned off, and for the next week, Kobayashi fell off the grid — he stopped sending text updates, and family and friends drove across town to look for him. We now know that he has already crossed the border into Mexico, but his family claimed All they had was radio silence from the LAPD, if they learned anything, leaving them to search for answers alone. After the family held a public meeting on November 21, the police finally contacted them, although it would be another week before an answer came.
Amid family fears that she had been kidnapped or trafficked, and widespread and growing public speculation about what happened to her, her father, Ryan Kobayashi, searched for her.
On November 15, he KHNL says Hawaii News Now that he experienced “a lot of anxiety, a lot of confusion.” Everything seems blurry, because I haven’t slept well since hearing the news.” He asks Hannah to contact the police or her family.
“There are so many people out there who care and love you, Hannah. If you can get to somebody, all you can do is… just let us know you’re okay.”
Sometime around 4 a.m. on November 24, Ryan Kobayashi jumped to his death from an LAX parking garage.
“I’m going to stay strong for you,” said Hannah Kobayashi’s sister Sydney. wrote On social media. “We’re going to find Hannah.”
Despite indications that Kobayashi was suffering from a psychotic break or some other mental illness, Pigeon dismissed the possibility. “He has no record of it,” she said told NBC 15 November. “He is not on medication. Hannah is someone we can call and she will call us back in an hour.”
Pidgeon further criticized public speculation about Hannah’s disappearance for pushing her father to a breaking point. Conspiracy theories have run rampant online about what happened to her, with everything from a run-in with a new-age cult of Twin Flames to a bad drug trip gone awry. “If Ryan is looking at all this shit, imagine that weighing on him?” he to say The New York Post, which previously reported sensationalism like Kobayashi’s Paid for tarot readings When she was out and about in LA.
In their announcement that they would change Kobayashi’s status to “voluntarily missing person,” the LAPD claimed That Kobayashi expressed his desire to “get away from modern connections”. According to missing persons investigator Lt. Douglas Oldfield, these include old social media posts she made where she appeared to want to “disconnect from her phone.”
Still, the family continues to press for answers, vowing that the search for Hannah will continue. However, it will not continue to be open as before. The growing Facebook group “Help Us Find Hannah,” which has grown to more than 25,000 members, went private with family members after Monday’s announcement. alleged claim received “threats against their lives and the lives of their young children”. It’s unclear whether anything prompted the threat, but it’s clear that public speculation and scrutiny surrounding Kobayashi’s disappearance had been rife for weeks since he first left LAX. Tuesday, moderator of Reddit’s r/Hawaii subreddit Lock their posts About the disappearance because it’s “starting to see a lot of baseless conspiracy theories.”
As complicated as Kobayashi’s story is, it’s pretty clear that his family is right to fear for his safety. It is increasingly clear that while the age of social media and heightened public scrutiny over police investigations can be uniquely beneficial, it can also be overwhelming, ambiguous and frustrating for officers trying to locate family, friends and loved ones. Although the large number of eyes on Hannah as she embarked on her journey was undoubtedly helpful in identifying her, lying And far-fetched rumors may have strained the family. Hannah Kobayashi’s situation, although alarming, was and is potentially solvable. It’s impossible to know whether the tragedy of her father’s suicide could have been avoided had news of his disappearance not become headline-grabbing news, but it almost certainly didn’t help.
Still, while it’s tempting to blame Ryan Kobayashi’s death on the media and public frenzy, the real pressures may have been much closer to home. he had told CNN that he and Hannah were not close when they were growing up and that they “had not been in touch for some time.”
“I’m just trying to make up,” he said. “I’m trying to get him back. That’s my main focus.”
The grim but less complicated takeaway from this series of tragic events is just this: the powerful tools of true crime theory and crowdsourced web sleuthing can often turn family tragedies into labyrinthine mysteries when they’re not. Sometimes, the answers can be elusive and unsatisfying — but perhaps the simpler they are, the less they will lead us astray.
