The father of missing Maui woman Hannah Kobayashi “died of a broken heart” during the desperate search for his 30-year-old daughter, according to their devastated family.
Ryan Kobayashi was found dead in a parking lot near Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday.
The LA County medical examiner has since ruled his death as a suicide.
Just a few days before he died, Ryan was handing out missing persons flyers to people on the streets of LA as he said he would do everything in his power to find his daughter.
Hannah’s aunt, Larie Pidgeon, told PEOPLE that the family believes Ryan was overwhelmed during the search and suffered a mental health emergency.
“He died of a broken heart,” she said.
“We’ve been searching tirelessly,” Pigeon told the outlet. “I think it just became so overwhelming for [Ryan] driving the streets, going to Skid Row and seeing where his daughter could possibly have ended up.”
A GoFundMe page set up to support Ryan’s fiancee, Li Jaena, said that he was “living his absolute worst nightmare.”
“Ryan was my uncle—a truly remarkable person who lit up every room with his positivity and kind heart,” the page, set up by a family member named Emi Ko, reads.
“He has been living his absolute worst nightmare, since Hannah’s disappearance, and now, with his passing, our family is grappling with unimaginable grief. Ryan’s love for his family was boundless, and he would do anything to protect and care for his daughters.”
Ryan, 58, had traveled to LA to help search for his daughter, who has been missing since November 8 when she stopped over at LAX on her way from Hawaii to New York City.
Hannah had planned to meet her aunt Geordan Montalvo and her aunt’s husband Bob in New York to go to a concert together on November 12. The vacation was described as a bucket list trip.
But she missed her connecting flight at LAX on November 8.
The following day, she was spotted at a bookstore at The Grove, a popular outdoor mall in LA. One day later, she was seen at a LeBron James event.
On November 11, surveillance video captured her at a downtown Los Angeles Metro stop with a person not known to her family.
Her family previously told the Daily Mail that police had waited 10 days after Hannah went missing to contact them as they condemned the slow-moving investigation.
Before she disappeared, Hannah had sent cryptic texts to a friend saying she had been “tricked pretty much into giving away all my funds” to “someone I thought I loved.”
Her sister, Sydni Kobayashi, described the texts as “really weird.” Hannah added that she was scared and couldn’t come back home.
Then the texts suddenly stopped.
Hannah is 5ft 10ins and weighs about 140 pounds. She has brown hair and eyes, and fair skin with freckles.
If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.
