A mysterious stranger who was spotted on surveillance video with a Hawaii woman who went missing shortly after arriving in Los Angeles has been cleared as a suspect in her disappearance by police, who, after twice questioning the unidentified man, say he did nothing wrong.
“For the amount of time they spent together, he pretty much was an ear to listen,” Detective Omar Franco of the LAPD’s Missing Persons Unit told People magazine. “She just spoke and talked about her life in Maui, her personal life, her love life and so forth. And he just listened to her.”
On November 11, Hannah Kobayashi, 30, flew from Hawaii to LA, where she was scheduled to catch a connecting flight to New York. But she never made it onto the plane, and her distraught family has not seen or heard from her since. As police mounted a search, Kobayashi was seen with an unknown man around the city, who was flagged as a person of interest by police. She was last seen on November 12 walking into Tijuana via a pedestrian crossing after taking a bus from LA to the border, authorities said. But while Kobayashi’s sister and mother continue looking for her, seemingly convinced she is the victim of foul play, investigators insist she vanished voluntarily.
The man last seen with Kobayashi has not been named publicly.
In interviews with police, the man said he met Kobayashi near the LAX train stop at around 9 p.m., and agreed to help her find Union Station, a transport hub downtown, LAPD Lt. Doug Oldfield told People.
“We have this gentleman, we have them walking [on video],” Oldfield told the magazine. “We’re looking — Hey, does this person seem like she’s in distress, what does she look like? We see a lot of smiling. We see smiling from the guy.”
Another video showed Kobayashi and the man walk past a pair of police officers, which ostensibly would have given her “a chance maybe to say, ‘Help, help,’ if there’s anything wrong,” said Oldfield. “So, from here, we’re able to then get a better idea of who this guy was and we identified him.”
The man said he found Kobayashi to be a “free spirit,” and that she appeared coherent and calm. She told him that she wanted to “see the redwoods,” and mentioned her plan to be in New York, he told police. When they got to Union Station, the man and Kobayashi had dinner, chatted for a few hours, and fell asleep in a waiting area, according to cops. In the morning, Kobayashi woke up and walked off by herself, buying a bus ticket at 6:10 a.m. to the border. The ride to the border took about four hours, and Kobayashi crossed into Mexico at around noon, Franco said, adding that Kobayashi left her phone behind at LAX for yet-to-be-determined reasons.
Investigators are eager to complete the puzzle, and find out what Kobayashi’s “end game or goal was,” according to Franco.
Because, as Oldfield told People, “We don’t have her side of the story.”