Yet another eerie twist has emerged in the search for Hannah Kobayashi, the 31-year-old who disappeared after missing a connecting flight at LAX earlier this month.
The U.S. Sun revealed Tuesday night that cops are investigating a pair of strange Venmo payments she made on Nov. 9—the same day she was scheduled to arrive in New York for a “bucket list” trip and photography assignment.
Those payments—for unknown amounts—were sent to a Jonathan Taylor and a Veronica Almendarez within an hour of each other, her account shows. Her payment to Almendarez included a note with a bow and arrow emoji for her payment, while she labeled her payment to Taylor simply “reading.”
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The Sun reported that a source said the payments were for a tarot card reading, which is something the “spiritual” Kobayashi was supposedly into. Internet sleuths tracked down a TikTok account that‘s believed to belong to Taylor and flooded it with comments, but it’s since gone private.
Prior to the November payments, Kobayashi had only made public payments on the money-sending platform on four other occasions this year. She has no prior payment history with either Taylor or Almendarez.
No suspects have been named in her disappearance.
Kobayashi’s aunt, Larie Pidgeon, told the Sun that the family is aware of the mystery payments. The LAPD has not publicly addressed Kobayashi’s Venmo account and has remained largely mum about its search in general.
Pidgeon told the Daily Beast this week that family members are focusing their efforts on downtown Los Angeles after police told them there was reason to believe she was still somewhere within the metro area of 18 million.
The last sighting of Kobayashi came on Nov. 11, when security cameras captured her at a Metro station and back at the airport, though authorities insist she did not board a flight. Prior to that, cameras captured Kobayashi with others at a shopping center in downtown Los Angeles and near its Crypto.com Arena, where the Lakers play. Family says she now hasn’t been heard from for weeks, however, and her cellphone has either died or been shut off.
Adding to loved one’s confusion is how Kobayashi acted before she went off the grid. Namely, the up-and-coming photographer is said to have sent cryptic texts to loved ones that didn’t sound like how she’d usually talk.
“She mentioned feeling scared, and that someone might be trying to steal her money and identity,” Pidgeon said to KTLA. “Strange, cryptic messages—things about the matrix, it was so unlike her. And then all of a sudden, no more communication.”
Pidgeon immediately flocked to Los Angeles from her home in northern California to search for her niece once she stopped answering by phone. Other loved ones did the same, with her aunt flying in from New York and her dad from her native Maui.
More tragedy struck the family over the weekend after Kobayashi’s father, the 58-year-old Ryan Kobayashi, took his own life in a parking lot at LAX. His body was found around 4 a.m. Sunday—13 days after he first arrived in the city to search.
Pidgeon told the Daily Beast that the elder Kobayashi died of a “broken heart” after tirelessly looking day and night for Hannah.
“He couldn’t take it,” Pidgeon told the Beast. “He loved his daughter endlessly.”
The dual tragedies have not slowed the 45-year-old Pidgeon’s determination to find her niece. The grief-stricken aunt fears Kobayashi may have been abducted or trafficked out of Los Angeles, but, for now, she’s still focussing on searching every inch of the city in addition to passing out fliers and holding rallies. She said previously that Ryan Kobayashi had been going as far as searching the city’s seediest neighborhoods—including the infamous Skid Row—in hopes of any clues.
Pidgeon is far from alone in her efforts. People across the nation have chipped in to help in the search, with a GoFundMe raising nearly $40,000 by Wednesday afternoon.
“Hannah, we are tirelessly searching for you,” Pidgeon said in a plea shared with the Beast. “We are keeping hope alive. We are sharing your name. We are making people pay attention to you. We love you with everything that we are and I need you to not give up hope because we’re not giving up hope until we find you.”
