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Hawaiian woman Hannah Kobayashi has been missing for nearly three weeks straight, leading her family on a frantic search across Los Angeles.
Hannah, a 31-year-old aspiring photographer, was due to be in New York on Nov. 8, traveling to the city from her native Hawaii to see her family.
Instead, missing her connecting flight in Los Angeles, she spent several days in the California city and was last seen with an unidentified man at a subway station near LAX on November 11.
While there have been plenty of disparate clues, including mysterious and out-of-the-ordinary text messages sent from his phone to loved ones, fleeting appearances on CCTV across Los Angeles, and a plane ticket from Los Angeles to New York used by her ex-boyfriend. , no one has yet discovered what happened to Hannah or where she is now.
And in a tragic twist that has compounded the Kobayashi family’s anguish, Hannah’s father, Ryan Kobayashi, 58, took his own life and was found dead at the back of an LAX parking lot early Sunday morning, after arriving in the city. to search for it.
Her family said they had been searching for her for 13 days before she committed suicide.
Relatives told DailyMail.com that the search for their daughter, from whom they had been separated for several years, was “too difficult to bear.”
Since then, Hannah’s disappearance and Ryan’s suicide have been marred by wild conspiracy theories, which have grown in the information vacuum surrounding the case.
Here, DailyMail.com looks at the key questions hanging over the Kobayashi case that have yet to be answered.
Why did Hannah leave LAX instead of catching her connecting plane?
Hawaiian Hannah Kobayashi (pictured, left) has been missing for almost three weeks straight.
She was seen leaving LAX airport on November 8, wearing a black hoodie and tie-dyed sweatpants.
Hannah was seen on CCTV leaving her Maui-LAX plane which landed in California at 9:53 pm on November 8.
His family said he missed his connecting flight to New York due to a tight 42-minute layover.
But her family also said that her ex-boyfriend, who was traveling at the same time as her on the same route to New York, using tickets he bought with her when they were still together, was able to take the connecting flight.
It is also unknown why Hannah left the LAX area so late at night.
Dozens of hotels are located right next to LAX, many of which you could have stayed in after missing your flight.
Why didn’t Hannah return to LAX on November 9 and 10 after leaving?
In a YouTube video outside an event in Los Angeles on November 10, Hannah can be seen wearing the same outfit she wore at LAX.
Hannah visited The Grove, the luxury shopping center in downtown Los Angeles, twice, first on November 9 and then again on the 10th.
His aunt Larie Pidgeon said of his first appearance: “He went to the bookstore and asked the employees to charge his phone.” So he charged his phone there for an hour and a half while he got food.
“He even filled out a mailing list with his Hawaiian address, and it’s handwritten.”
At 2.43pm he took a photograph and sent it to his aunt, before returning to the airport where he is believed to have spent the night.
His appearance at a luxury mall the day after missing a flight seems pretty normal.
But questions have been raised about why he reappeared the next day, wearing the same clothes he had worn two days earlier.
In a YouTube video outside an event in Los Angeles on November 10, Hannah can be seen wearing the same outfit.
She was spotted at a Nike event with LeBron James in Los Angeles, where she was wearing the same dark hoodie and headphones she wore to the airport, around 3:30 p.m.
Kobayashi also shared a post on her Instagram from the event with an eye emoji as the caption.
Why were the Kobayashi family receiving strange text messages from Hannah?
Hannah sent text messages to friends and family that they said were out of line.
He apologized for his ‘madness’ in a text message to a loved one
One of Hannah’s friends received strange text messages from Kobayashi’s phone, indicating that she may be in trouble.
In the days following her stay in New York, Hannah sent a series of increasingly strange, disconnected, and out-of-character text messages to her loved ones.
Her strange text messages came on Monday after she missed her flight to New York.
One text read: “Deep Hackers deleted my identity, stole all my funds and have had me screwed since Friday.”
Kobayashi’s mother, Brandi Yee, also texted her asking if she made it to New York.
She responded simply, “Not yet.” Another early morning text message mentioned that she was in the midst of a “spiritual awakening.”
A third sent to a friend said in part: “I was tricked into giving away all my funds.” A second message read: “To someone I thought I loved.”
All the text messages came with little to no context and his family became immediately concerned.
Her aunt Larie said: “We started getting text messages saying she didn’t feel safe, that someone was trying to steal her funds, that someone was trying to take her identity.”
“Weird things, calling us baby, things that weren’t at all the normal way she talks.”
Her family added that her last text messages did not contain emojis, which was very unusual for Hannah.
Kobayashi’s sister, Sydni Kobayashi, said the text messages were “really strange.”
“It’s weird to me because it doesn’t sound like her, like there’s something weird about it,” she said. —So I wasn’t very sure. I don’t know if it’s her or if someone else was texting me.
The family became so concerned that they filed a police report on November 11.
Why was her boyfriend on the same flight as her, despite their breakup?
Hannah Kobayashi (pictured) went missing after missing her connecting flight to New York from LAX on November 8.
‘Please help her, if you can. If you know where she is or have the opportunity to help her, please. We just want to bring her home,” Hannah’s mother said.
Hannah was traveling to New York from Hawaii to see her family.
But her ex-boyfriend was also traveling with her. His appearance on the plane has not yet been explained.
Before his death, Ryan Kobayashi revealed that the ex-boyfriend, who has not yet been identified, was traveling on a ticket he bought with Hannah before their breakup.
The duo reportedly did not speak or sit together.
Ryan said her ex-boyfriend has been extremely responsive and cooperative with the investigation.
‘A lot of worry, a lot of confusion. It seems like everything is a blur because I haven’t slept well since I heard the news, and I really don’t know… it’s really worrying.
“We’re just trying to get as much information as possible,” he said.
At the moment it is unknown why the ex-boyfriend was traveling to New York.
Who is the unidentified person she was last seen with on November 11?
At 10pm on November 11, Hannah was seen on CCTV footage leaving the Pico subway station with an as-yet-unidentified man, the family said.
While the video has not yet been made public, the family said in a statement: “It is evident that Hannah does not appear to be in good condition and is not alone.”
The man’s identity, what Hannah was doing, how he knew her and what role, if any, he played in her disappearance are still unknown.
Why did it take so long for the LAPD to launch an investigation?
Hannah had flown to meet another aunt in New York when she missed her connecting flight in Los Angeles.
LAPD detectives waited ten days since they last heard from her to interview the family of missing Hannah Kobayashi, her concerned family revealed.
“As of today, police have been in contact with relatives who last spoke to Hannah,” her aunt Larie Pidgeon told DailyMail.com on Thursday.
‘We want them to take it a little more seriously.
‘We think they realize that we are not going to disappear and that we are going to make a lot of noise. We’re going to do something until they do something.
‘I think they are now starting the process of what we started six days ago.
‘The whole world is looking for you (Hannah) because that’s how special you are.
‘We’re not going to stop until we find you. We love you.’
Hannah’s father, Ryan Kobayashi, told DailyMail.com before her death: “We will do everything we can until we find her.” We just need to spread the word about it.
“He is a wonderful person who brings joy to many people.”