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(NewsNation) — The aunt of missing pistillate Hannah Kobayashi announced she is parting ways with Kobayashi's mother and sister successful her effort to find her niece.
Larie Pidgeon told NewsNation that she made the determination to portion ways with her sister and girl and said she saw nary request to usage funds raised by the household connected a lawyer alternatively of a backstage investigator.
Pidgeon besides said she is not associated with her sister's GoFundMe relationship and ne'er has been.
"My sole absorption remains connected uncovering Hannah and ensuring her information and well-being. It has present been 25 days since anyone has heard from her, and I americium determined to proceed my search," she said. "I americium preparing to question to Mexico personally to further the efforts to find her and verify that she is acting of her ain escaped volition and is genuinely safe."
Kobayashi disappeared portion connected a travel from Hawaii to New York, missing a connecting formation successful Los Angeles. Family members said they received texts that were retired of quality from her earlier her telephone was turned off.
Surveillance video showed Kobayashi astatine LA's Grove Market and adjacent the stadium wherever the LA Lakers play. She did not look to beryllium unsocial successful immoderate of the footage, starring her household to fearfulness she had been trafficked.
The family's hunt for her was analyzable by the suicide of her father, Ryan Kobayashi.
Police aboriginal said Hannah Kobayashi intentionally skipped her flight and alternatively went to Mexico connected foot, classifying her lawsuit arsenic a voluntary missing persons case.
Her parent and sister pushed back, saying constabulary had released inaccurate accusation and were not updating them connected developments.
They said they bash not deliberation Kobayashi intentionally missed her formation and judge she whitethorn person been a victim of a greenish paper matrimony scam aft photos of what appeared to beryllium a wedding betwixt Kobayashi and an chartless antheral surfaced online.
“A Facebook idiosyncratic sent what looked similar a Hawaiian formation wedding photograph of Hannah with different antheral with leis astir their necks wearing white, and they said that they learned disconnected of Reddit that determination was this sham matrimony for wealth and that this is the wedding representation that’s being circulated connected Reddit,” said Sara Azari, the Kobayashi household attorney, to NewsNation. “Of course, that came arsenic a daze to Hannah’s sister.”
When asked astir Pidgeon's statement, Azari implied Pidgeon was motivated by raising her illustration arsenic an influencer.
NewsNation's Mills Hayes contributed to this report.
