Hannah Kobayashi, a 30-year-old woman from Hawaii who vanished after flying into Los Angeles last month, has been found safe, her family said.
"We are incredibly relieved and grateful that Hannah has been found safe," her family said in a statement to KABC.
"This past month has been an unimaginable ordeal for our family, and we kindly ask for privacy as we take the time to heal and process everything we have been through,” the statement added. “We want to express our heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported us during this difficult time. Your kindness and concern have meant the world to us."
The family did not provide further details in its announcement.
The Los Angeles Police Department told People magazine it was notified on Wednesday by the family that Kobayashi had been found. The department previously determined the woman’s disappearance as voluntary, a designation family members challenged.
“We have not seen her and at this point we have no reason to compel her to see us,” Lieutenant Doug Oldfield of the department’s missing persons unit told the magazine. “It’s a big news story so she may decide to come with a lawyer, but she is not obligated to speak to us.”
The Independent has contacted the family’s attorney for comment.
Kobayashi boarded a plane to Los Angeles on November 8, but didn’t board a planned connecting flight to New York, where she had a job taking photographs at a DJ performance.
She told her family she had missed her flight and planned to sleep at the Los Angeles airport.
Family members and friends said they then began receiving concerning messages sent from Kobayashi’s phone.
“Deep Hackers wiped my identity, stole all of my funds, & have had me on a mind f**k since Friday,” one message to a friend said, according to screenshots her sister sent CNN. “I got tricked pretty much into giving away all my funds,” said another, which was followed by: “For someone I thought I loved.”
They eventually began to fear she was a victim of kidnapping or human trafficking.
Days after her flight, however, she was photographed around Los Angeles, including at the upscale Grove shopping center.
Her last Instagram post on November 10 seemed to indicate she was still in Los Angeles. Her family lost contact with her the following day.
Family members rallied the public to try and find Kobayashi.
In late November, Kobayashi’s father, Ryan, was found dead in a Los Angeles parking lot in what was ruled a suicide.
At a press conference last week, the Los Angeles Police Department described Kobayashi’s disappearance as voluntary and said she had retrieved her baggage from LAX airport on November 11.
She then used her passport and cash to buy a ticket to the U.S.-Mexico border at Los Angeles’s Union Station, officials said.
Police said they had “reviewed video surveillance from US Customs and Border Protection, which clearly shows Kobayashi crossing the United States border on foot into Mexico” on November 12 at San Diego’s San Ysidro crossing.
“She was alone with her luggage and appeared unharmed at this time,” LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said at the press conference. “Investigators noted that, before departing Maui, Kobayashi expressed a desire to step away from modern connectivity.”
