Hannah Kobayashi never mentioned Mexico travel plans despite voluntary border crossing: family
Missing Hawaii woman Hannah Kobayashi’s family will continue searching for the 30-year-old despite police assertions that the woman, who has not been heard from by family or friends for 21 days, crossed the border into Mexico of her own accord.
On Monday, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell said surveillance footage and other evidence showed Kobayashi entering Mexico on foot, alone and carrying luggage, at the San Ysidro port of entry on Nov. 12.
Larie Pidgeon, Kobayashi’s aunt, who has acted as a family spokesperson during their three-week search, said her “worry for Hannah has not lessened.”
“Hannah never mentioned any plans to travel to Mexico, and no one in her life knew she intended to go there,” she wrote in a statement to Fox News Digital on Tuesday. “What alarms me even more is her complete disconnection from her phone, her social media and her world – this is not who she is.”
“I can’t shake the last messages she sent friends and family, which I’ve replayed in my mind a thousand times,” she continued. “I’ve tried to make sense of it but still cannot.”
There was no evidence that she was “being trafficked or [was] the victim of foul play,” McDonnell said.
“We urge Ms. Kobayashi to contact her family, law enforcement or personnel at the U.S. Embassy to let us know that you’re safe,” he said. “She has a right to her privacy and we respect her choices, but we also understand the concern her loved ones feel for her. A simple message could reassure those who care about her.”
Kobayashi was scheduled to take a connecting flight to New York on Nov. 8, with a 42-minute layover at 11 a.m., but did not board a flight despite a detailed itinerary and a booked hotel room in New York City. Her family is still unsure why.
Earlier this week, McDonnell said detectives determined that Kobayashi “intentionally” missed her flight, an assertion that her family disputed.
Footage from the L.A. Union Station obtained by Fox 11 shows Kobayashi pulling a pink suitcase and wearing a sweatsuit, purchasing a bus ticket to the southern border on Nov. 11.
Previously, Pidgeon told Fox News Digital that friends and family received a flurry of bizarre text messages from Kobayashi after her missed flight that didn’t match her usual cadence. She texted a friend that she “got tricked into pretty much giving away all my funds” and that she was tricked “for someone I thought I loved.”
“She [wrote she] was having a spiritual awakening, that she was concerned about the matrix. It was just the most bizarre text messages,” Pidgeon previously said. “And it went from, ‘Hi, I can’t wait to see you guys. Love you. Everything’s great.'”
Pidgeon said that, although the LAPD considers the case closed, her family’s search is “far from over,” telling Fox News Digital that they are trying to “formulate a plan that is safe and effective” to contact her in Mexico.
HAWAII WOMAN’S CRYPTIC TEXT MESSAGES PROMPT CONCERN AFTER DISAPPEARANCE
“I will not stop until I can confirm, face-to-face, that she is safe and making these decisions of her own accord, [and]… until I know my niece is safe… and in a good mental state,” she wrote, adding that the family has hired a private investigator to help.
Although she thanked the police for their “hard work and resources they have dedicated tirelessly to this search,” the missing woman’s aunt also said the family was not informed of the new developments until hours before the LAPD’s Monday press conference.
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“I want to be completely transparent: I was not made aware of this development until just hours before their press conference,” she said. “I have not seen the footage myself, but I trust the LAPD has done their due diligence to confirm it was her.”
Pidgeon and Kobayashi’s father, Ryan Kobayashi – who was found dead of an apparent suicide after jumping from a parking structure on Nov. 24, characterized by Pidgeon as “[dying] from a broken heart” – previously told Fox News Digital that LAPD detectives did not contact them until Nov. 22, 11 days after she was reported missing by her family.
The LAPD could not immediately be reached for comment.
Kobayashi’s family said anyone with information is asked to call the RAD Movement hotline at 619-904-0840.