2 weeks Ago
A man who police say spent nine hours with missing Hawaii woman Hannah Kobayashi after she landed in Los Angeles last month has told police that she appeared coherent and normal and was trying to get to a train station, People reported . Kobayashi, 30, met the man at a Metro stop near Los Angeles International Airport at around 9 p.m.
on Nov. 11, police told the outlet. This was three days after authorities said that she flew into LA from Hawaii with plans to catch a connecting flight to New York.
For an unknown reason, she instead left the airport, baffling her family. Kobayashi and the unidentified man struck up a conversation, and he offered to help her get to Union Station, police told People. “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,” Los Angeles Police Department Detective Omar Franco told the outlet. Franco said the man offered Kobayashi “an ear to listen.” Video of the two walking around the city does not appear to show her in distress.
At one point, they passed two police officers without Kobayashi appearing to signal that she needed help, police said. “We see a lot of smiling,” LAPD Lt. Doug Oldfield told People.
“We see smiling from the guy.” Kobayashi and the man made it to Union Station, had dinner together and then both fell asleep inside the station, according to police. In the morning, Kobayashi got up and “walk[ed] off on her own,” Franco said.
She bought a bus ticket at 6:10 a.m. local time, and at 12:13 p.
m. she was seen walking through a tunnel to Mexico while carrying her luggage, police have said. “She appeared fine.
She was with nobody else,” Oldfield said at a press conference last week. The LAPD has since declared Kobayashi a “voluntary missing person,” meaning authorities now believe she left of her own free will. Authorities have said that there’s no evidence that Kobayashi is being trafficked or is the victim of foul play.
She’s also not a suspect in any criminal activity. The LAPD said that its investigation will not continue into Mexico, but that law enforcement will be notified if she returns to the U.S.
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