Missing Hawaii woman Hannah Kobayashi long pursued passion for art – even on the trip that led to her disappearance
By Taylor Galgano, CNN
(CNN) — On a warm day in 2022, Hawaii native Hannah Kobayashi jumped into the Subaru Baja of her friend Allisa Peterson for an hourlong journey on Maui – from her home community of Haiku to a friend’s farm in Nahiku.
The farm had an excess of flowers, and there the friends picked orchids and other colorful plants for their new floral design business, Forage Fairies. For a client, they planned to decorate a concert stage with flowers.
Peterson remembers looking at Hannah – dressed in a tan tank top and shorts – and noticing how happy she looked while picking orchids.
“Us co-creating flower arrangements was really the most beautiful thing,” Peterson told CNN. Hannah was good at it “just by, like, knowing flowers and creativity and knowing the right people and sourcing it properly.”
Arranging flowers was just one of the many creative and entrepreneurial projects Hannah pursued before the 30-year-old went missing this month in a mystery that has garnered national headlines.
On November 8, she took a flight from Maui to Los Angeles International Airport, where she was to take a connecting flight to New York the same day but did not board, her sister Sydni Kobayashi said.
What came next, Hannah’s family says, were three days of sometimes alarming hints of activity in Los Angeles before the trail ran cold: Sightings at a shopping center; Venmo payments to people her family doesn’t know; worrying texts to a friend about not feeling safe; and a video showing her with an unknown person at a city train station.
The search itself would merge with tragedy involving another family member: Her father, who traveled to Los Angeles to help look for her, was found dead Sunday near the airport, having taken his own life, the family and authorities say. The father, according to Hannah’s aunt Larie Pidgeon, “died of a broken heart.”
Hannah’s relatives, now grieving her father, say they fear she may have been abducted and continue pressing the public for information about her whereabouts. During the search, several who know her have talked publicly about who she is, and her near- and long-term aspirations.
Since she graduated high school, Hannah’s worked various gigs while pursuing creative passions, Pidgeon and Peterson say. Among other things, she also was an aspiring photographer, Pidgeon says – something that was somewhat tied to the trip she was taking.
Although Hannah was to visit another aunt in upstate New York, she also intended to take pictures at a DJ’s mid-November show in Brooklyn, according to her family.
She had sent a message to the DJ, offering to give him photos of the show in exchange for a pass to the event. The artist agreed and also offered free merchandise, one of the musician’s managers told CNN.
“She’s such a creative, artistic soul. I think it’s just embedded in her,” Peterson said.
But to the family’s knowledge and despair, Hannah did not arrive in New York.
Her disappearance
For her November 8 trip, Hannah had the same itinerary as an ex-boyfriend. The pair decided to keep their flights since they could not get a refund but would be going their separate ways once they landed in New York, Sydni Kobayashi previously told CNN. The ex-boyfriend, unlike Hannah, boarded a connecting flight from Los Angeles to New York.
CNN obtained a photo that appears to show Hannah getting off her flight at the Los Angeles airport. It is not clear why she did not take her connecting flight.
On November 9, Hannah was spotted at a bookstore at The Grove shopping center in Los Angeles, her sister said, and it is unclear why she was there. She then sent a Venmo payment to two people whose names the family does not recognize, her sister said.
On November 10, a video was posted on YouTube showing Hannah at a Nike store event – held at the same shopping center – at which the public could try out the new LeBron XXII shoes. A photo of the event was also posted on her Instagram account, her sister said.
On November 11 – the last day loved ones heard from her – her mother texted her, asking whether she made it to New York. Hannah responded no, her sister said. She also sent messages to a friend saying she did not feel safe, and someone was trying to steal her identity and money, according to screenshots her sister sent to CNN.
“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.
Another message said, “I got tricked pretty much into giving away all my funds,” followed by one saying, “For someone I thought I loved.”
Hannah was also seen in November 11 surveillance video with an unknown person around a downtown Los Angeles Metro train station, her family said.
On November 15, Los Angeles police distributed a poster about the disappearance, saying Hannah was last seen at the airport. It said she has freckles on her face and a tattoo on her forearm.
A life of creativity
While describing Hannah this week, Pidgeon told CNN her niece has loved all things art, starting from a young age.
“She used to just draw and she would draw and draw and draw. She would paint. She would make art out of rocks and like, little flowers,” Pidgeon said. “She always had that spark that you wish you had.”
Hannah, even when she was just beginning to talk, would try to ask for more crayons to color, Pidgeon recalled.
She’s still known for creativity. “One of the most beautiful things about Hannah is that she journals. … She always had this little magic book,” Pidgeon said.
Pidgeon remembers one of her journals vividly. Hannah had drawn a beautiful sketch of an owl. On another page were pressed flowers. On another, a concert ticket. On top of illustrations, she would write – stringing together reflections on her life.
She is “always searching on how she could be better and kinder,” Pidgeon said.
About three to four years ago, Hannah moved from the island where she was born, Oahu, to Haiku, Maui.
Her aunt described a giant vision board in her current Maui bedroom. Each month, Hannah would change the board with her updated thoughts on life, her favorite quotes and new goals.
“It was just this big, beautiful board she had in her room, and it was just always changing.”
Hannah met Peterson in Maui, where the two became fast friends and eventually roommates, connecting over music, flowers and art, Peterson said. Peterson moved from the island last year, and the floral arrangement business ended, she said.
Hannah enjoyed dancing at house music shows and hoped to be a DJ one day, with the DJ name “Lil Trees,” Peterson said. She had just bought her own turntables, according to her aunt.
She also is passionate about helping women overcome difficult situations, according to her aunt. She participated in local women’s circles, which provided a safe place for women to open up.
Hannah is a listener, Peterson said.
“I feel like I could just tell her everything, and she was very trusting. And she almost had, like, a mother energy to her,” Peterson said.
Hannah hopes to have a family one day with her own children, Pidgeon and Peterson said.
In an Instagram post from 2018, she wrote about wanting to bring her future children to a spot in Hawaii: “Can’t wait for the day i can take my children here so we can ruff it out in the middle of nowhere~ to reconnect with nature and ourselves.”
“She told me when she met the person that she had kids with, that was it. That was going to be the rest of her life,” Pidgeon said.
CNN’s Michelle Watson, Caroll Alvarado, Karina Tsui and Amanda Jackson contributed to this report.
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