On 11 November, the family of Hannah Kobayashi, a 30-year-old Hawaiian photographer, received alarming texts from her cellphone informing them she had been “intercepted”. A friend got a message from the phone stating: “Deep Hackers wiped my identity, stole all of my funds, & have had me on a mind f**k since Friday.”
So far that was the last thing her family has heard from her. Kobayashi’s disappearance apparently caused panic among those close to her and sparked a frantic and massive investigation from law enforcement. It has captured both American and global headlines and likely played a significant role in the tragic suicide of her father.
Yet Kobayashi’s disappearance is far from a run-of-the-mill criminal case. Astonishingly, authorities last week provided a partial answer to the question of what happened to Kobayashi: she was not kidnapped or killed. She was, according to police, a “voluntary missing person” captured on video crossing the border by herself into Mexico.
That was not the end of the story, however, as some in her family have not accepted that official explanation. Meanwhile, some people who closely followed the story and were moved to help the family are questioning whether they should have supported the cause. Law enforcement is also now investigating whether Kobayashi had been part of a scam.
Family and law enforcement have still made the same plea to Kobayashi: please let us know you are safe.
“She has the right to privacy, and we respect her choices, but we also understand the concern her loved ones feel,” Jim McDonnell, the Los Angeles police department chief, stated in a news release on 2 December. “A simple message could reassure those who care about her.”
There was little to suggest that Kobayashi and her family would ever be at the center of such drama. Kobayashi loved travel, photography, art and music, her father, Ryan, told CNN after she went missing.
Kobayashi also in 2022 shared a selfie on Instagram of herself at a volcano in Hawaii, along with the words: “Attachment is the root of all suffering.”
On 14 November, news organizations in Hawaii reported that a local family was searching for a loved one who had apparently gone missing. She was supposed to travel from Maui to Los Angeles to New York to visit an aunt and take pictures at a DJ’s show in Brooklyn but never arrived.
“This is so unlike Hannah, she’s very responsible. I mean, she was looking forward to the event so much,” her aunt Larie Pidgeon told KITV 4 in Hawaii.
When asked if she had a message for her niece, Pidgeon choked up and said: “We will not stop until we find you, you have so many family, you have so many friends who love you.”
The family filed a missing person report and started a GoFundMe page to help locate her.
Photos and video emerged of her in Los Angeles before her disappearance. Upon learning his daughter was missing, Ryan Kobayashi traveled to California to help find her.
“I wasn’t too close with her … growing up,” he told CNN in an interview last week. “I’m just trying to make up. I’m trying to get her back.”
About two weeks after Ryan started his search, his body was found near the Los Angeles international airport. A medical examiner determined he died by suicide.
“After tirelessly searching throughout Los Angeles for 13 days, Hannah’s father, Ryan Kobayashi, tragically took his own life. This loss has compounded the family’s suffering immeasurably,” a statement from a non-profit helping with the search read.
About a week later, the LAPD announced that Kobayashi had voluntarily crossed the border from the United States into Mexico.
She had purchased a bus ticket in Los Angeles and traveled to San Ysidro, California. She crossed the border alone, with her luggage, video surveillance from US Customs and Border Protection showed.
“The investigation has not uncovered any evidence that Kobayashi is being trafficked or is the victim of foul play. She is also not a suspect in any criminal activity. Additionally, the investigators noted that before departing Maui, Kobayashi expressed a desire to step away from modern connectivity,” the release stated.
A sister, Sydni, did not accept the conclusion that Kobayashi intentionally disappeared.
She told NewsNation: “It feels like someone else is involved or controlling her or doing something.”
“If she had seen what happened with my father and his passing, she would have definitely reached out by now,” Sydni said. “There’s no way that she wouldn’t have reached out, knowing the person that she is.”
Some followers of the story, however, expressed skepticism that Kobayashi was still in danger – or had ever been.
People had donated more than $47,000 to the GoFundMe page to help find her and the family had also created a Facebook group, Help Us Find Hannah, which more than 25,000 people joined.
“Once something goes viral, people like to feel like they are part of that story,” said Danielle Slakoff, an assistant professor of criminal justice at California State University, Sacramento, who specializes in media portrayal of criminal cases. “People will go to Reddit and go to TikTok … and they will chat with people about the case.
“These stories become gathering spaces on social media,” she added.
Some people have now asked for refunds for their donations.
“Hope this will be a valuable lesson for some people out there to not rush into opening your wallets up for strangers and a sob story so early on,” one person wrote on a Reddit thread about her disappearance. “Look at how much has come to light in just 3 weeks.”
A user in the Facebook group announced that the family would be shutting down the page because of threats against their lives, and “the negativity and attacks…have become more than they can bear”.
The GoFundMe page remained active. Sydni, Kobayashi’s sister, posted on 3 December that the family was still concerned for her safety and had hired an attorney and private investigator and that she had urged the LAPD to release the footage of Kobayashi crossing into Mexico.
Sydni wrote on GoFundMe: “In addition to the expenses associated with our continued search efforts, we now also anticipate significant legal costs and expenses as we continue our search for Hannah.”
Then on 4 December, Los Angeles Magazine reported that law enforcement, including the FBI, was investigating a new possible reason for Kobayashi’s disappearance. She and her ex-boyfriend had possibly concocted an immigration scheme in which she participated in a marriage for money but was then scammed out of the proceeds.
The report came after Kobayashi’s mother discovered immigration documents in her daughter’s home in Hawaii. The alleged groom had also posted photos of the marriage on social media that have been removed, the magazine reported.
“The family has not publicly announced any information regarding an alleged marriage because we did not have the facts or the necessary documents to verify the legitimacy of this information,” read a statement from the family by an attorney representing them. “We kindly ask everyone to avoid jumping to conclusions or spreading unverified claims. It is especially important not to perpetuate speculation that anyone is involved in a scam, as this only hinders our efforts to find Hannah and bring clarity and closure to the nightmare we are living because of her disappearance.”
In the end. The mystery lingers and the only person who actually knows the truth has not yet spoken. Kobayashi herself remains silent and that may never change.
“If she is able to, let’s say, go to the US embassy and say, ‘I’m safe. Let my family know I’m safe,’ that could potentially make it so that her family is able to resume their normal lives,” Slakoff, the criminal justice professor, said. “But it is true that it’s very complicated when an adult walks away because they do have the full right to do that.”
