Crime Weekly - S3 Ep256: Crime Weekly News: Update in the Hannah Kobayashi Case!

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

30-year-old Hannah Kobayashi left her home in Hawaii on November 8 with an ex-boyfriend. Her plan was to visit New York, but while on a layover in Los Angeles, she missed her connecting flight, and her ex-boyfriend continued without her. In the days since, she has sent strange texts and traveled unpredictably, eventually being seen crossing the U.S. border to Mexico. Now, her family grapples with grief, still not knowing where Hannah is or if she will come home. Information on our next Criminal Coffee funded case: https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Harris_County_Jane_Doe_(1992) https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/2655?nav Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod 

History's masterpieces wouldn't be the same without their most notable accents. Neither would the Kia Sportage without its multiple drive modes. The Kia Sorento without its expansive 12.3-inch panoramic display. Or the Kia Telluride without its three rows of spacious seating. The 2025 Kia SUVs. Kia. Movement that inspires. Call 800-333-4KIA for details. Always drive safely. Limited inventory available. Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur.

And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And we're going to talk about the Hannah Kobayashi case today, as you can see from the title of this thumbnail, I guess, of this episode, video, audio, whatever you're doing over there. But before we do, we have some exciting news. I had teased this announcement a couple episodes ago, and it's long overdue, but I can promise you it wasn't for lack of effort. So Criminal Coffee has officially funded another case with Moxie Forensics. Now, I could talk an entire Crime Weekly News about the trials and tribulations of finding a case to fund, and maybe someday I will. But I'll tell you this, it's not as easy as you think. Unless you're willing to just give your money up

without any accountability. If you just want to donate it and basically just not know where it's going or what the timetable is, then there's plenty you can donate to. With Criminal Coffee, you guys are buying our coffee, you're supporting the cause.

We want to make sure that we can follow the story because one, it incentivizes people to continue to buy our coffee, you're supporting the cause, we want to make sure that we can follow the story because one, it incentivizes people to continue to buy the coffee, but also we want to hold people accountable and we want to make sure that this doesn't just go into some void and we never hear about it again. So let me tell you about the case that we are working on, that we have funded. There's not as much out there as like there was with Preble Penny, but we feel this is a fascinating case and it definitely deserves the attention and the financial resources, which we have now provided. We ended up spending $5,850 to fund this case. And it's going to be a combination of agencies involved, Moxie Forensics, shout out to them first and foremost, because they were one of

those agencies that said, Hey, we don't mind working with you, giving you the information where we are in the process, letting you know where your money is going so that you can hold us accountable and we can make sure that we're keeping our end of the bargain. They don't guarantee they're going to solve it, but they're going to keep us in the loop and also Break Investigative Group, my company. I have two genealogists that work for me, Jeremy and Ryan. They are going to be working with Moxie Forensics on it, free of cost, to do the genetic genealogy after the DNA sequencing is done. Also involved, Familiar Face Intermountain Forensics. They're going to be doing the DNA. And then also a shout out to Dr. Julie Feichman from Harris County Institute of Forensic Science.

She's the one where we got this case from. And it's all hands on deck. It's already being worked. The DNA is already being processed and sequenced. And we're hoping that we have results relatively soon. They're already working on it. So when we do, y'all know about it. But here's a little backstory on the case.

Again, there's not much. I will include links in the description box below where you can go see the specific information from the Doe Network, NamUs, and Unidentified Awareness fandom on Wikipedia as well, the remains of a 20 to 30 year old woman identified as a white Caucasian were found decomposing in the woods by a passerby. The woman was estimated to be 5'1 and suffered from scoliosis of the lower spine. She had brown hair, eight inches long and an artificial upper front teeth kind of like denture thing going on there. We're not exactly sure. It was held in place by a temporary bridge. That's really all we know. And when we talked to Dr. Feischman about this, she basically said there's not much out there, which was her concern because there's not a lot of meat on the bone. These are the types of cases that never get funded because there's really not a lot of people asking for it to be funded.

And when I heard that, my ears perked up and I told Stephanie about it. And we're like, we're all in. Let's do it. Let's fund it. Let's try to solve it. Let's try to give this woman her name back. And then once we do that, as you can hear from these circumstances, they're a little suspicious. So once we figure out who she is, then we can figure out what happened to her and if anybody's involved. So a little figure out who she is, then we can figure out what happened to her and as if anybody's involved. So a little bit of reverse engineering here. Number one step, got to figure out who she is. We're extremely excited to see what the results bring. And we're hoping that at minimum, we can give her her name back because without you guys, we wouldn't be

able to do this. And this is what criminal coffee is all about. Absolutely. And, you know, we have been searching for a case for a while. This is not something we're just like letting go to the back burner. I didn't know it was going to be that difficult to give money to people to solve crimes, but. But now we understand why. Now we, yes, we do. This is what I will say. And I, and this might be something Stephanie and I actually do something on in the future because we've talked about it. But let's just say, and I'm not calling anybody out right now. I don't want to take this positive announcement and make it negative. But the reality is these nonprofit agencies and businesses aren't always nonprofit. They're for profit.

And just like with a lot of things, there's hidden costs in there that they don't want you to be aware of. Administrative fees, all these other things. And unfortunately for them, when we understand how much it costs for the lab work, because I've done it before, and I have genealogists on staff where I don't have to pay theirs to do it with these inflated prices, that becomes a problem for them. They don't want people poking around. That's all I'm going to say for now. Maybe one day we'll wake up and choose violence and start to investigate it and call people out. But it's not today.

We're going to keep it positive. We found a case. Moxie is great. Intermountain is great. And we're going to continue to build a relationship with them and solve as many cases as we can. Absolutely. And we're excited. We're excited for it.

Super pumped. Long overdue. Thank you for your patience. Yes. Thank're excited for it. Super pumped. Long overdue. Thank you for your patience. Yes. Thank you guys so much. Trust me. We're working hard behind the scenes. We are.

We really are. It's a struggle. It's easier to solve these cases than to fund them. So what do we... That's horrible. It's horrible. Isn't that sad? Yes.

You're laughing because it's true. I'm laughing because sometimes you can do nothing else but laugh. But we got it done. We got it done. Okay. So today we're talking about Hannah Kobayashi today. This is a 30-year-old woman who has been missing for a little bit more than three weeks. Yep.

Last heard from on November 11th. Yeah. Yep. She's from Hawaii. She traveled from Maui to Los Angeles on November 8th. There were plans to catch a connecting flight to New York City that same day, but she did not make her flight. She didn't board that plane.

Her family has gone public with all of this, and they talked about how in the days following her disappearance, there were some troubling signs, weird financial transactions, weird communications, sightings of her. And what happens is, is on November 8th, Hannah flew from Maui to Los Angeles. She was traveling on the same itinerary as her ex-boyfriend. They both initially planned to take a flight to JFK International Airport. The ex-boyfriend, he did board his connecting flight. So obviously, initially, when I heard about this, I'm like, did the ex-boyfriend do something to her?

Obviously. Of course. But we see that surveillance cameras showed Hannah leaving the plane that landed in LA wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and tie-dye leggings. On November 9th, after the ex-boyfriend flies onto New York, Hannah is seen at a bookstore in the Grove Shopping Center in LA. That same day, she made a Venmo transaction to two unidentified individuals.

So we've got weird financial transactions. A YouTube video surfaced showing Hannah on November 10th at the LeBron Trail event at the Nike store in the Grove. She shared a photo from this event on her Instagram account. Now, November 11th, this was the last day anyone was in contact with Hannah. She texted her mother telling her that she didn't get to New York. She also sent some alarming messages to a friend saying, quote, deep hackers wiped my identity, stole all my funds, and have had me on a mind fuck since Friday. I got tricked pretty much into giving away all my funds, end quote. Obviously, these are concerning messages,

weird financial transactions. She's not in New York where she's supposed to be. She had plans, I think, to see a DJ in New York. You know, she was excited about it. It was just really weird. Now, surveillance footage from November 11th shows Hannah at a downtown Los Angeles metro station near Crypto.com Arena accompanied by an unidentified person. Her family said that she didn't appear to be in good condition in this surveillance footage. Now, the person who was seen with Hannah at the metro station, apparently he was cooperative with LAPD. He was interviewed at their station with his attorney present, and he said that he and Hannah met at LAX. So police said that Hannah did check her luggage to go on to New York, but requested that her bags be sent back to LA.

On this day, November 11th, Hannah was seen retrieving her luggage at a baggage carousel at Los Angeles before traveling to Union Station to buy a bus ticket to San Ysidro, which is an area of San Diego close to the U.S.-Mexico border. The San Ysidro border pass is historically and just known to be the busiest kind of border crossing between the U.S. and Mexico. So basically, for quite a while, for the bulk of this three weeks, everybody was obviously concerned that foul play had befallen Hannah, that she had met someone nefarious or more than someone nefarious. Maybe they'd taken her money.

There was human trafficking questions being raised. But now, very recently, within the last few days, the Los Angeles Police Department are saying that it appears Hannah entered Mexico on foot by herself. She was alone. She had her luggage. She appeared unharmed. Full video. Yeah. Full video from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection video was actually at 12.13 p.m. on November 12th. And it was through the San Diego's, I'm going to screw this up, San Ysidro neighborhood, as you just said it. San Ysidro, yes. So confirm footage of her. This is San Ysidro. The border crossing there is just – it's well known that this is the busiest, most packed border crossing from the U.S. to Mexico.

Now, here's a very sad thing because I want to talk about what the police believe is going on with Hannah now. But Hannah's family obviously has been just ridiculously, ridiculously worried about her. Now, we didn't hear from LAPD that Hannah crossed into Mexico on foot by herself and appeared unharmed. We didn't hear that until December 2nd. On November 24th, Hannah's father, Ryan Kobayashi, was found dead around 4 a.m. on West Century Boulevard near the airport. The L.A. County Medical Examiner's Office has ruled his death a suicide. And the Kobayashi family, in a statement, said, quote, after tirelessly searching Los Angeles for 13 days for Hannah, Ryan Kobayashi tragically took his own life.

Crazy, right? It's absolutely, it's just devastating. Do you see what they say? I don't want to get to too many specifics. We don't really know. But multiple blunt force trauma injuries. I don't even want to know what that entailed. But it's it's a very weird situation. Yeah. And now we have investigators from the LAPD's missing person unit traveling to the U.S. Mexico border. That's when they viewed the surveillance footage from U.S. Customs and Border Protection of Hannah crossing the border,

December 2nd, they announced that she was a voluntarily missing person, and they say the investigation is going to continue into Mexico. The LAPD said in a news release, quote, the classification of Kobayashi as a voluntary missing person reflects a careful balance between respecting her right to privacy and the absence of concrete evidence indicating foul play, end quote. Law enforcement will be notified if Hannah reenters the U.S. and they'll do anything they need to. The LAPD has added that there's currently no reason for authorities to detain or arrest her. Obviously, you're an adult. You can go missing if you want. However, and we still don't know. This is tough. We don't know. Somebody could have made her do

this. There could have been. Could be more to the story. I think at this point, it's going to be really hard for me emotionally to accept that she sort of just went missing all on her own. And there was Instagram posts she made and she had talked to friends. A lot of social media stuff that they looked into. And she made suggestions that she was looking to sort of like detach from the modern world, like kind of just escape. But it's going to be hard emotionally for me to accept that she just wanted to go missing, but did not communicate this to her family. And as a result, her father took his own life.

And I think that's going to be hard for her as well. But the fact that this was, this happened on November 24th and we're currently in December, what is this, December 3rd, and Hannah has not made herself known when I believe she would clearly know about her father's death. Is that a concern that she's actually a missing person and not voluntarily missing? It is a concern. And we don't know 100% what's going on here. We're going off the investigation from LAPD and also the FBI was assisting with this investigation. And as you mentioned, they did a very thorough search. First off, let me start by saying they did a good job with it. They tracked what they had. They followed her all the way to Mexico. And at that point,

LAPD loses jurisdiction. FBI would have to kind of get involved and it doesn't seem like they're willing to do that at this point. There's a lot of cases out there to cover and based on everything they have through multiple people looking at it, they all believe, all the investigators believe, especially on, as you mentioned, the social media stuff, that she voluntarily wanted to do this. This was a plan all along and there are some indications of it based on the fact that she had her luggage brought back to LAX and decided to stay there. There are

indications that before she would be under duress, she voluntarily made these decisions. Now, to your question, the fact that she hasn't came forward yet, because there have been multiple press conferences released. You guys can go look it up. Obviously, the family has done multiple press conferences and they've said things as far as we just want to know she's okay. Is it possible that everything up until the Mexico border is accurate? Let's just assume that she wasn't doing this under duress or she wasn't being forced to do this, right? Her sister has disputed the police statement that Hannah missed her connecting flight intentionally. So apparently the family doesn't necessarily believe everything that the LAPD is saying,

but of course, maybe they don't want to, especially considering the circumstances. I'm going to be as respectful as I can be. Everything is pointing to what we're seeing. There's video footage of her crossing the border by herself. Okay. It might be hard to believe, and I'm not going to sit here. You know, your sister, but sometimes our siblings, our relatives do things and make decisions that we can't understand. It happens every single day. I'm not as educated on the case enough to know the inner workings of how they came to these conclusions, but seeing her cross the border by herself after making

these statements on her social media and doing some of the things that she did leading up to it, where they were tracking her through LA for a couple of days where she was shopping, doing whatever. And there's probably a lot of footage down there in the Grove. And I know there is. Yes. I would be interested in the guy that she met at LAX that she was seen with in one of the last days before she completely dropped off the map, electronically at least. What did he say her state of mind was? Did she seem okay? Was she giving him indications of what her plans were? Maybe she was saying this already. Yes. I'm going there. I would also want to know his connections to Mexico, just to not take

everything he's saying at face value. You want to know what connections he has. Because as you mentioned, yeah, she's crossing the border by herself. But was there something going on that gave her no choice? But all that being the case, let's just say for this conversation that she voluntarily did exactly what LAPD believes she did, which is go down to Mexico on her own to quote unquote disconnect. I love Mexico, but we all know there's some dangerous shit that happens over there. Not the place you go to disconnect.

Not the place you would choose to go to disconnect as a young woman by yourself. Yeah. You probably want to be a little connected. Right. There's a lot of stuff going on over there. There's a lot of human trafficking taking place. Lots of US citizens and just citizens from around the world. I don't know if you've been watching the news. There's a lot of people going missing in Mexico these past few years. Stephanie, when I was working with the ATF and DEA, they were having cases coming back where a U.S. citizen would go over to Mexico for vacation and they'd find their bodies full of cocaine and heroin dead. They were transporting them back. Or they're being forced to come back full of narcotics because their family is going to be killed if they don't. Well, this has been

a thing obviously for a long time, especially with the drugs. But just in these past few years, I keep seeing article after article after article like tourist missing in U.S. couple, I mean, U.S. couple missing in Mexico, an entire family. I would not go down to Mexico by myself. No. To your point, she could have gone down there and been okay. The fact that she hasn't contacted anyone is extremely concerning. Means she might not be okay anymore. She might not be able to. That could be connected to this whole thing, or it could be a completely separate incident. She could have been fine up until the Mexican border. And then when she crossed, maybe some people that she encountered weren't of good character. So two things can still be true here. And I'm just hoping that for the

sake of everyone involved, she picks up the phone and just makes a call and lets people know she's okay. Because the other thing I wanted to bring up with this, and this might not be popular with some people, but I think it's important for us to mention it. We talk about so many missing persons cases. I do it a lot on Detective Perspective, and we talk rightfully so about the lack of enthusiasm of law enforcement to investigate these cases and, take the initiative to act before it's too late. And if, if Hannah really did drop off the radar voluntarily, and she kind of created some of this for whatever reason, we don't know. It's a problem because it hurts all cases. And I really hope this isn't the case. I hope that she's okay. I hope that she's, everything's fine and she's going to call tomorrow and we're going to update this and say she's good.

But if she's just doing this deliberately and she's hearing everything that's going on, which I don't know how someone would do that, which you've already said emotionally. Well, maybe if she's disconnected, maybe she got rid of her phone. Like,

I don't know. She may not know about it, but if that's the case, that is a wrong decision as well because she's leaving all her loved ones in just complete disarray to the point where her father potentially killed himself because of it. I mean, that's what, that's what the LA coroner rules. We don't know why he did it, but it's the timing is not good. The family says it's because he died of a broken heart. Well, there you go. Well, there you go. So, I mean, I just, I hope it's not the case.

And I would say, you know, everyone's entitled to their privacy and to, as an adult, to do what they want to do. But if you feel like you're going to do something like this, maybe let someone know, let them know where you're going to be and let them know you're okay, because it doesn't only cause a lot of stress to the family, but just for law enforcement in general, this is something where they devoted a lot of resources to tracking her down to figure out that more than likely she did this on her own. Do you remember, I don't know, maybe I can't keep track of time anymore, but maybe six months, eight months, a year, that one girl, I think her name was Carly Russell, she went missing. And then she said she got kidnapped by redheaded forest people.

And she was forced to eat Cheetos. And then they let her go. Do you remember that? But it turned out she was just hiding out at like a boyfriend's house or something. We covered this? Yeah, I thought we did. You got to remember Cheetos. I'm starving.

It was pretty ridiculous. But that was the same kind of thing, right? It's like, do what you want. You're an adult. Do your thing. You don't even have to tell anybody where the hell you're going. Just say, I'm leaving. I don't want anybody to mess with me. I just want to be alone and I'll contact you when I'm ready to, but I'm okay. Or send a text every once in a while. Hey, I'm alive. Hey, I'm alive.

You don't get to have people in your life that love you and support you and then just drop off the map and expect them to not continue loving you and being worried about you. That's it. Agreed. But I don't know what's going on with this case, Derek. I don't. And I, and I listen, if, if it turned, cause here's the thing, regardless of why she did it, law enforcement doesn't have the right to make that assumption. They did exactly what they're supposed to do. All hands on deck. They found, they tracked her, they found her, that's their job. So I'm not, I'm not patting them on the back for doing their job. I'm glad they were successful, but that's what they have to do. What I'm saying is if you're going to drop off the map, know that if the law enforcement agency involved with it does what they're supposed to do,

they're going to invest a lot of time, money, and resources finding you when they don't necessarily have to. They could have, if you just made a call or a text or an email, this all could have been resolved. So I'm going to keep an eye on this. And if, you know, nothing surfaces in the next few days, I'll probably end up doing a deep dive because there is a lot of theories going on online that we can go over. However, there's more to this case than meets the eye. And there might be a different side that says Hannah knows exactly what's happening, knows her father's gone, knows how much time, energy, and resources the police have put into this, including now the FBI, and knows that she'd be coming back

to a shit storm that does not look good for her. So she may choose to remain missing to avoid the accountability and the shame that that's going to come along with, you know, kind of facing the music. Yeah. Or she could be. Yeah. Or she could be like you said, she goes into Mexico and foul play could have befallen her there. But you don't just go to Mexico on foot by yourself without having a reason. Something's not something's not something doesn't add up. She's got to know somebody there. She has to have a place where she's headed. It's just very odd. So we'll keep track of this. It's been trending on Twitter. It's been a lot of people talking about it,

especially with the press conference yesterday. We're hoping for the best for everyone. There's already been a tragedy in the case. And we want to know what you guys think. Yeah, definitely want to know what you guys think. Law enforcement, as far as they're concerned, I think Stephanie already mentioned it. As far as what's going on in the U.S. side of it, LAPD is not doing anything else unless she comes back, and then they'll probably talk to her if she comes back. FBI, I'm sure, off record, they're probably making some phone calls because it doesn't look great for us. A U.S. citizen just drops off the map. And they'll keep in touch with the Mexican authorities and be communicating with them. And they'll figure out what happened. This camera's over there too.

They'll figure out what happened. It may not be the outcome we're looking for, but they'll figure it out. Now, whether they relay that information to us is a whole different story. They may already know. So we'll keep tabs on it. We appreciate everyone tuning in, listening to this.

And by the way, if anybody has information on Hannah's whereabouts, you can contact the lapd or the fbi anonymously let them know if you're if you're in mexico yeah we have people from mexico who listen to us and watch us exactly you can also contact the united states fbi or you can contact your law enforcement agency is it the united states fbi the united states well yes it's the fbi in the united. I don't know if they have an FBI in Mexico. The Federales. Yeah. No, the Federales are just police, I thought. No, the FBI

is the FBI no matter where it is, where it's in the United States. But we do have stations in other places. It is the United States Federal Law Enforcement Body. Is that what it is? Yes. Just keep going. You're going to keep digging that what it is? Yes. Just keep going. You're going to keep digging that hole, huh? John Douglas. John Douglas. Guys, we appreciate you being here. Everyone stay safe out there.

We'll see you later this week with Karen Reed, part three. Prayers to Hannah's family as well. I want to end it. I'm thinking like this is so tragic to lose her, to lose the father. Just horrible. Yes. Thank you guys so much. Thank you for being here.

Stephanie's Adderall kicked in. We're good to go. Oh, I wish. See you guys so much thank you for being here stephanie's adderall kicked in we're good to go oh i will see you guys later this week karen reed part three stay safe out there have a good night bye