The family of Hannah Kobayashi — the Hawaiian photographer who vanished while heading on a “bucket list” vacation to New York — say they did not hear from detectives for 10 days, and only after holding a rally demanding action.
Kobayashi missed a connecting flight to New York and was left stranded in Los Angeles after leaving the confines of LAX on Nov. 8, with her family last hearing from her three days later when she sent a series of alarming text messages.
The 30-year-old’s family filed a missing persons report the next day — but say they hadn’t heard anything from officials until they formed a rally in the streets of LA on Thursday.
“As of today the police have reached out to family members who last spoke with Hannah,” Kobayashi’s aunt Larie Pidgeon told the Daily Mail during the gathering. “We want them to take it a bit more seriously.
“We think they realize we’re not going away and we’re going to be really loud. We’re going to do something until they do something,” she added. “I think now they are beginning the process of what we began six days ago.”
The Thursday rally was held in Downtown LA, a block away from Kobayashi last known, the outlet reported.
Pidgeon said the family wasn’t giving up their search for Kobayashi.
Her father shared the same sentiment as his daughter went out on a trip that was a “bucket list dream that became reality.”
“We will do everything we can until we have found her,” Ryan Kobayashi told the outlet. “We just need to get the word out there about her.”
“She’s a wonderful person who brings joy to so many people,” he added
Kobayashi, of Haiku, flew from Maui to Los Angeles on Nov. 8, and was meant to make a connecting flight to New York where she would be staying with another aunt.
Surveillance footage shows her arriving in LA, but she missed her connecting flight 42 minutes later.
After missing her flight Kobyashi sent odd texts to her family and friends before she vanished, including messaging a friend that she “got tricked into pretty much giving away all my funds.”
In another message, she claimed she was supposedly fooled by “someone I thought I loved.”
“Deep Hackers wiped my identity, stole all of my funds, & have had me on a mind f–k since Friday,” another message read.
Family previously said the texts supposedly from Kobayashi are not like her.
Other footage showed Kobayashi at the Grove shopping center in the Fairfax District of LA on Nov. 9 and Nov. 10, as well as video of her returning to LAX, but not getting on a flight on Nov. 11 before she was seen near the metro station, USA Today reported.
Her phone has been off since Nov. 11, the family previously said.