Missing Hawaii photographer Hannah Kobayashi spent the night in Los Angeles with a stranger before she eventually went missing, members of the LA Police Department’s missing persons unit told People. Hannah is believed to have met the unnamed man near the airport, before forming a quick bond and spending nine hours together, walking through downtown LA and making their way to Union Station, where the two fell asleep.
Thirty-year-old Hannah disappeared while heading to New York City after missing a connecting flight to New York and being stranded in Los Angeles. Later, she was caught on camera crossing into Mexico, following which police declared a voluntary missing person. Her father, 58-year-old Ryan Kobayashi, jumped to his death during the search for his daughter.
After spending the night with the unknown man, Hannah was gone in the morning. Police have now opened up about reports that Hannah had been with an unknown man.
“[It’s] already in the news that she's with this male who's scary, and she's in big trouble,” Lt. Doug Oldfield told the outlet.
“For a while, he was the last person to have seen her when we didn't know where she was,” he added. “So we did have to spend a few days on this to ensure that nothing bad happened.”
{{/usCountry}}“For a while, he was the last person to have seen her when we didn't know where she was,” he added. “So we did have to spend a few days on this to ensure that nothing bad happened.”
{{/usCountry}}According to Oldfield, investigators tracked down the man in question days after Hannah went missing. They were able to confirm his story about the time he spent with her through video footage, as well as his own statements.
"I would say, with this case, there were days and days where there's as many reasons that something could have gone totally wrong as there were reasons that everything was okay,” Oldfield said in the interview, alongside Detective Omar Franco. “So that's where we kind of live in that middle, and that's where we'd have to keep moving on what facts can we get, what video can we get, and just move on to what the next fact will lead us to.”
However, officials’ view of the man’s relationship with Hannah changed after they learned more about what happened. “We have this gentleman, we have them walking [on video]. We're looking — hey, does this person seem like she's in distress, what does she look like? We see a lot of smiling,” Oldfield said. “We see smiling from the guy.”
“There's another video where she passes by two police officers and has a chance maybe to say, ‘Help, help,’ if there's anything wrong,” he added. “So, from here, we're able to then get a better idea of who this guy was and we identified him.”
What did the man say?
The man claimed he and Hannah met at LAX’s train stop around 9 pm local time on November 11 as she was leaving the airport. The two then struck up a conversation. "We haven't spoken to her, but from what we gather is that she was looking to understand how to get to Union Station and that he was going to assisting getting her there," Oldfield said.
“For the amount of time they spent together, he pretty much was an ear to listen,” Franco said. “She just spoke and talked about her life in Maui, her personal life, her love life and so forth. And he just listened to her.”
The man said Hannah was a “free spirit,” describing her as coherent and normal. She did not appear to be frightened, and expressed her wish to go see the redwoods. She also said she had plans to be in New York.
Hannah and the man spent some more time at the Union Station, ate dinner, and then fell asleep in a waiting area, as travelers do at times. Franco said Hannah later got up by herself and “walk[ed] off on her own” with her luggage. “These things, we were able to corroborate,” Oldfield added.
Hannah bought a bus ticket at 6:10 am local time on November 12. She boarded the bus after a while, arrived at the border and walked into Tijuana around noon. However, her phone was left behind at LAX.
Authorities said the man in question has not committed any crime. Hannah, too, is not suspected to be the victim of foul play or "a suspect in any criminal activity.”
Police believe Hannah went to Mexico by choice, but her family disagrees. The family is investigating the possibility that she may have been involved in an immigration marriage scam.
Police said they would like to hear from Hannah. “We're all just — everyone else is very invested in this now, and just what her thought process through all this was and what her end game or goal was,” Franco said.
Oldfield added, “We don't have her side of the story.”