Hannah Kobayashi, the Hawaiian woman whose disappearance in Los Angeles sparked a desperate search by family and friends, has been found safe about a month after she was reported missing, her family’s attorney said Wednesday.
The 30-year-old Maui woman has been described as voluntarily missing by Los Angeles police. According to the police she was seen on surveillance video crossing the US border into Mexico and did not appear to be the victim of foul play. LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell made the announcement on December 2, about three weeks after family members said they last heard from her.
Her phone pinged for the last time at Los Angeles International Airport on November 11, when she missed a LAX flight to New York and was later seen boarding the LA subway, according to her family. Several family members flew in from states such as Hawaii and New York, handing out fliers and speaking to local news media in Los Angeles as they scoured the city for Kobayashi.
Larie Pidgeon
The weekend after Thanksgiving, just under three weeks after she was reported missing, her father, Ryan Kobayashi, was found dead near LAX in what police have described as an apparent suicide. He had flown to her to help search.
On Wednesday, her family released a statement through their lawyers announcing she had been found.
“We are incredibly relieved and grateful that Hannah has been found safe,” reads the statement released by Sara Azari’s LA-based law firm on behalf of her family. “The past month has been an unimaginable ordeal for our family, and we kindly ask for privacy as we take time to heal and process all we have been through.”
“We would like to thank everyone who has supported us during this difficult time. Your kindness and concern have meant the world to us,” the statement continued.
When family members were unable to reach her last month, they said Kobayashi reportedly indicated whether she planned to voluntarily disappear from the network. Her aunt, Larie Pidgeon, said she sent a series of cryptic text messages just before she stopped communicating with her family.
“Things started to get nefarious and scary on Monday when it went from ‘I can’t see you. I’m so excited,’ to texts about people stealing her identity,” Pidgeon said last month. “That she was scared. she felt unsafe. That people were going to steal her money – and that doesn’t make sense. She’s using pet names she’s never used before.”
Pidgeon said the family later learned that she had left LAX on Nov. 11 and was seen with someone on the LA Metro.
“She wasn’t alone. She was with an unidentified person. That concerns us greatly because that correlates with the timeline of her disappearance,” Pidgeon said.
