Hannah Kobayashi is still missing: Here's a timeline of everything ...
The case of Hannah Kobayashi, a 30-year-old Hawaii woman who the Los Angeles Police Department believes “voluntarily” disappeared in early November, has generated much national attention as her family and supporters try to figure out exactly what happened to her.
Dec. 11 will mark exactly one month since Kobayashi’s family last heard from her.
Here’s a detailed timeline of events and updates that Kobayashi’s family and the LAPD have made public since then.
Nov. 8: Both Kobayashi and her ex-boyfriend take a flight from Maui to New York, with a layover in Los Angeles. Kobayashi’s ex-boyfriend boards the flight to New York while Kobayashi tells her family she missed the connection.
Nov. 9: Kobayashi texts her family to say that she’s going sightseeing in Los Angeles and visits the Grove shopping mall and downtown L.A.
Nov. 10: Kobayashi revisits the Grove for a Nike event. She is caught on video at the event and later uploads a photo from the event to her public Instagram account.
Kobayashi also sends money over Venmo to two people who are unknown to her family — transactions that Yahoo News was able to verify since Kobayashi’s Venmo account is public.
Nov. 11: Kobayashi tells her aunt, Larie Pidgeon, that she is returning to LAX for a new flight to New York. According to an interview Pidgeon gave to USA Today, Kobayashi spoke with an American Airlines agent sometime between 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. local time. But she never boarded the flight.
In other media interviews, multiple family members have described Kobayashi’s texts from that day as strange and out of character. She allegedly told relatives that she had been “hacked” and “tricked” into giving money to “someone I thought I loved.”
One of her last texts reportedly said, “I just finished a very intense spiritual awakening. I'm heading back to the airport to get to NYC. I might need some help getting there." This was the last day Kobayashi is known to have communicated with her family and friends.
Nov. 12: Kobayashi’s family files a missing persons report in California. According to Kobayashi’s family, this is also when her father, Ryan, flies to Los Angeles from Hawaii to help look for her.
A flyer with information on Hannah Kobayashi in Los Angeles. (Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo)
Nov. 15: The Los Angeles Police Department posts about Kobayashi’s disappearance on Facebook.
Nov. 17: Kobayashi’s sister, Sydni, issues a statement saying that the family had seen surveillance footage of Kobayashi walking around the downtown L.A. Metro train station the night of Nov. 11.
Nov. 21: A group of volunteers — including Kobayashi’s father, Ryan — search downtown L.A. and hang posters of Kobayashi just blocks away from where she was last believed to have been seen.
Ryan Kobayashi, right, holds a picture of his missing daughter outside Crypto.com Arena on Nov. 21 in Los Angeles. (Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo)
Nov. 23: In an interview with NewsNation, Pidgeon says that Kobayashi had sent her mom a detailed itinerary for her stay in New York, including places where she wanted to eat, museums she wanted to visit and a photography assignment “that had been on her bucket list forever.” Pidgeon also claimed that Kobayashi said she paid “a couple thousand dollars” for a hotel reservation as well.
Read more from Yahoo News: Hannah Kobayashi still missing: Here's what her family has pieced together so far
Nov. 24: Kobayashi’s father, Ryan, is found dead in a parking lot near Los Angeles International Airport at around 4 a.m. The county coroner's office later confirmed that he died by suicide.
Nov. 26: At a police commission meeting, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell says that Kobayashi “missed her connecting flight from LAX to New York, which the investigation determined was intentional.”
Nov. 30: Kobayashi’s sister Sydni and her mom post a statement on Facebook reacting to McDonnell’s statement in which they dispute the suggestion “that Hannah intentionally missed her flight.”
Dec. 2: At a news conference, McDonnell says that the LAPD “reviewed video surveillance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which clearly shows Kobayashi crossing the United States border on foot into Mexico. She was alone with her luggage and appeared unharmed.”
According to some news outlets, there was a post in the “Help Us Find Hannah” Facebook group — a private page that has over 25,000 members — that said the family would be shutting down the Facebook group and would not be responding to any messages about the case. It is not clear whether this post was shared before or after the LAPD’s latest news conference.
Read more from Yahoo News: Hannah Kobayashi still missing: LAPD says she voluntarily crossed into Mexico alone