Missing Woman Hannah Kobayashi’s Father Has Been Found Dead
As the search for Hannah Kobayashi — the 30-year-old Hawaiian woman who went missing earlier this month after failing to board a connecting flight from LAX to New York — continues, her father has been found dead in a parking lot near LAX. According to NBC Los Angeles, the LAPD indicated the death was an apparent suicide. “After tirelessly searching throughout Los Angeles for 13 days, Hannah’s father, Ryan Kobayashi, tragically took his own life,” a missing-persons nonprofit believed to be supporting the Kobayashi family said in a statement. “This loss has compounded the family’s suffering immeasurably.”
Ryan Kobayashi, who was 58, had recently traveled to Los Angeles to join the search efforts for his daughter, who was supposed to arrive in New York to meet with family on November 8. Three days later, friends and family said they received alarming text messages from Hannah’s line suggesting someone may have been trying to steal her identity. Surveillance footage from that day shows Hannah and an unknown individual at a Los Angeles train station; she has not been heard from since. At a vigil for Hannah last Thursday, her aunt, Laire Pidgeon, said the family was trying to make the LAPD “take us seriously because it’s been 11 days.” “Just because she doesn’t have a mental illness and just because she is not elderly doesn’t mean something didn’t happen to her.”
According to NBC Los Angeles, police say Ryan Kobayashi died after jumping off a parking structure near LAX in the early hours of Sunday morning. Days before his death, he spoke with KTLA about his daughter’s disappearance and expressed hopes that she might reach out to him. “I miss her,” Ryan said. “Just want her to know that, and just want her to reach out — anything.”
“He just died of a broken heart,” Pidgeon told USA Today of her brother-in-law’s death. “Being on the streets and seeing what the possibilities of where his daughter could be. No sleep. The speculating rumors that are going around. It just took a toll on him.”
This post has been updated.
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