By MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS
RAFU STAFF WRITER
Some six months after her apparent disappearance sparked a nervous and unexpectedly tragic search across Los Angeles, Hannah Kobayashi has resurfaced to comment on the matter.
“I just want to come on here and take the time to say how grateful I am for everyone, every single person, who dedicated time and energy into looking for me,” the 30-year-old from Hawaii said in a video she posted to social media on Monday.
“It means the world to me,” she added.
Family, friends and scores of volunteers launched a frantic search in Southern California and across the nation last November after Kobayashi failed to make her connecting flight to New York after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport from Maui.
The efforts to find her took a heartbreaking turn on Nov. 24, when the woman’s father, Ryan Kobayashi, was found dead of an apparent suicide near LAX.
The LAPD received reports of a body in the 6100 block of Century Boulevard about 4 a.m. The L.A. County Medical Examiner’s Office later identified the person as the 58-year-old, who had traveled to L.A. to join the search for his daughter.
It was reported that Ryan Kobayashi jumped from a parking structure to his death.
The family confirmed his suicide in a statement, saying, “This loss has compounded the family’s suffering immeasurably.”
Hannah Kobayashi appeared to indirectly address the death of her father in her video message, delivering her comments in a halting, almost whispering voice.
“Every day is such a gift, after such loss and pain and suffering,” she said. “We should all learn to be kind to one another.”
According to her family, Kobayashi was traveling to New York to visit family when she landed at LAX last Nov. 8, but did not board her connecting flight, and she apparently spent the night at LAX.
She traveled the next day to The Grove shopping center and returned to LAX that night, according to the family. She was spotted back at The Grove on Nov. 10 and likely returned to LAX again.
She was seen around 5 p.m. on Nov. 11 speaking to a ticketing agent at LAX, but she did not board a flight, according to the family, instead boarding an eastbound Metro C Line train at the Century/Aviation Station the night of Nov. 11, then transferring to a northbound A Line train at the Rosa Parks Station, accompanied by an “unknown individual.”
The family says she was spotted early the next morning, Nov. 12, at the Union Station bus terminal in Downtown Los Angeles.
The family said earlier the last communications they received from Kobayashi were in strange text messages, including one in which she said she was feeling scared, and that someone might be trying to steal her money and identity.
On Dec. 2, the LAPD announced that Kobayashi was seen on video crossing the border into Mexico — apparently of her own volition — and there were no signs of foul play. She was classified as a “voluntary missing person.”
A flier asking for information about Hannah Kobayashi is seen at the Metro Pico station last November. Volunteers posted signs and handed out leaflets across Los Angeles after the Hawaii resident failed to catch a connecting flight to New York and could not be contacted.
About a week later, Kobayashi’s family said she had contacted them and gave assurances that she was safe. Her attorney said she returned to the U.S. from Mexico on Dec. 15, and the LAPD closed their investigation into the matter.
Kobayashi had since made few if any comments on the matter, posting little on social media until two weeks ago, when she added a monochrome photo of herself dwarfed by giant sequoia trees.
“For all that I have yet to say, the love in my heart remains the same, for every being that exists and those to come…” she wrote.
Comments on the posts ran the gamut, from well wishes like “Welcome back!” to harsh quips, including questioning why she did not attend her father’s funeral.