Missing Hawaiian woman crossed freely into Mexico, Los Angeles police say
Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES) — Hannah Kobayashi, a Hawaiian woman who has been missing for weeks, walked freely into Mexico just after noon on Nov. 12, the Los Angeles Police Department said on Monday.
The department said the case has been recategorized as a “voluntary missing persons” one and has been closed. Detectives said they believe she wanted to disappear.
The update comes after weeks of claims from family and friends that Kobayashi had been kidnapped and was in danger after she disappeared before boarding her connecting at Los Angeles International Airport in early November. She was heading from Hawaii to New York.
Kobayashi, 30, used her passport to buy a train ticket from L.A.’s Union Station to the San Ysidro point of entry, and from there walked into Mexico alone and with her luggage, police said.
Despite claims to the contrary from family, the LAPD said their evidence appeared to show that Kobayashi voluntarily did not board her flight to New York, that she had her airline give her bags to her in L.A. and that she roamed around L.A. before voluntarily heading to Mexico.
She also expressed a desire to disconnect from modern technology before she went off grid, police said on Monday. Detectives traveled to the border to look at surveillance video, which they said showed the woman crossing the border.
Kobayashi’s father, Ryan Kobayashi, died last month at a parking garage near LAX, after traveling to California from Hawaii to search for his daughter, according to the L.A. County Medical Examiner’s office.
LAPD authorities asked that Kobayashi contact her family from Mexico to let them she is OK. The department said it would try to contact Kobayashi if Customs and Border Protection alert the force that the Hawaiian native has reentered the United States.
Morton Plant North Bay Hospital/Google Maps Street View
(NEW YORK) — Dozens of health care facilities in Florida are suspending services and/or preparing to evacuate as Hurricane Milton approaches.
On Sunday, Pinellas County – located on the west central Florida coast and including Clearwater and St. Petersburg – issued mandatory evacuation orders for long-term care facilities, assisted living facilities and hospitals in three evacuation zones.
The order affects six hospitals, 25 nursing homes and 44 assisted living facilities, totaling about 6,600 patients, according to the order.
“Pinellas County is in the potential path of the storm and could experience life-threatening storm surge, localized flooding and hurricane force winds, [depending] on where the storm makes landfall on Wednesday,” the order read. “Many coastal areas have barely begun to recover from Hurricane Helene.”
Just north of Pinellas County, Morton Plant North Bay Hospital in New Port Richey initiated evacuation procedures Monday morning and is not accepting new patients, according to a statement from BayCare, the hospital’s parent network.
BayCare said that while all of its other hospitals are open as of Monday afternoon, elective procedures for non-urgent procedures have been canceled for Wednesday, Oct. 9, with a decision for procedures on Thursday, Oct. 11, to come shortly.
All BayCare ambulatory surgery centers, imaging centers, laboratories, urgent care facilities and behavioral health outpatient sites will also be closed Wednesday and Thursday, according to the BayCare statement.
Additionally, the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, located in Tampa and affiliated with the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, announced the hospital and its outpatient clinics would be closed for in-person appointments and elective surgeries from Tuesday, Oct. 9, to Thursday, Oct. 11, due to “predicted impacts from Hurricane Milton.”
University of Florida Health (UF Health) issued a tropical weather alert Monday afternoon, announcing that most UF Health hospitals, outpatient clinical facilities and physician practices remain open, with some exceptions. Facilities in Archer, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Leesburg, Naples, St. Augustine, St. Petersburg, and The Villages announced closures or modified hours ahead of Milton’s landfall.
HCA Florida Healthcare told ABC News on Monday it was working to transfer patients from hospitals most directly in the Milton’s expected path to sister facilities throughout the state. Hospitals that are transferring patients include HCA Florida Englewood Hospital in Englewood, HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital in Port Charlotte, HCA Florida Largo West Hospital in Largo, HCA Florida Pasadena Hospital in St. Petersburg, and HCA Florida West Tampa Hospital in Tampa.
However, not all health care facilities currently have plans to suspend service. A spokesperson for Tampa General Health (TGH) said no closures have been announced yet and directed ABC News to an update on the hospital’s website, which as of Monday afternoon stated that all of TGH’s “hospitals, medical offices and other facilities are continuing normal operations.”
TGH also said it activated its emergency response plan “and opened its incident command center to enable and support continued operations.”
Another network, Florida AdventHealth, issued a notice that its hospitals and emergency rooms remain open but warned that some of its operations may change “for the safety of our patients, their loved ones and our team members.”
The National Hurricane Center announced Monday that Milton had intensified to a Category 5 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph, and with flooding and storm surges posing a major risk for many communities on Florida’s west central coast.
(FORT BLISS, Texas) — Travis King, the U.S. Army private who ran across the border from South Korea to North Korea last year will plead guilty on Friday at a general court martial hearing being held at Fort Bliss, Texas.
“He faces 14 charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice but will plead guilty to five, including desertion, while the remaining charges will be withdrawn and dismissed by the Army,” his attorney Franklin Rosenblatt said in a statement issued Thursday.
“Travis will provide an account of his actions, respond to the military judge’s questions about his decision to plead guilty, and receive his sentence,” Rosenblatt added.
The plea deal was first disclosed by Rosenblatt on August 26 after initial discussions with prosecutors began in mid-July .
At the time a spokesperson for the Office of Special Trial Counsel confirmed to ABC News that if King’s guilty plea is accepted by the presiding judge he would be sentenced King pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement. It is unclear how much prison time King could face as part of the plea deal that will be presented to the judge on Friday.
If the judge does not accept the guilty plea, the judge can rule that the case be litigated in a contested court-martial.
In July 2023, King crossed into North Korea, triggering an international incident when he was held by North Korean authorities for more than two months after he dashed into North Korea at the Joint Security Area at the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea.
Prior to joining the tour group that brought him to the DMZ King had escaped from his Army escort at the airport where he was to have boarded a flight to the United States after having just been released by South Korean authorities following his detention on assault charges.
Upon his release in September King returned to the United States where he was immediately placed in a military reintegration program at the Brooke Army Medical Center that is offered to American civilians and military personnel who have been detained overseas as hostages or involuntarily.
During his stay the Army declined to comment on whether King might face disciplinary action, saying their priority was his physical and mental well-being.
But in October military prosecutors filed eight criminal charges against King.
(LOS ANGELES) — As calls grow for the Menendez brothers to be released from prison, the incoming Los Angeles County district attorney says he has a lot of evidence to review before showing his support.
Hochman questioned the motivation behind Gascón’s decision to support resentencing so close to the election.
“Part of the problem with the Gascón timing of his decision is there’s a cloud over that credibility. Is it a just decision, or was it just a political ploy?” Hochman said.
“There will be no cloud over whatever decision I do,” he added.
Gascón denied his decision was politically motivated, telling ABC News, “I believe that they should be released and they should be released cleanly within the law.”
“I base my decision in the review of 30 years of … information about their behavior, as well as a very thorough understanding of what they were convicted of and the elements of the crime,” Gascón said. “So my decision was appropriately based.”
The infamous case dates back to 1989, when Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, shot and killed their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in the family’s Beverly Hills home. The defense claimed the brothers acted in self-defense after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father, but prosecutors alleged they killed for money.
The first trial, which had separate juries for each brother, ended in mistrials. In 1996, after the second trial — during which the judge barred much of the sex abuse evidence — the brothers were convicted and both sentenced to two consecutive terms of life without parole.
As Gascón’s appeal for the brothers’ resentencing makes its way through the courts, Hochman — who is set to take office on Dec. 2 — said he plans to read through the new alleged evidence, trial transcripts, confidential prison files and interviews with family, lawyers and law enforcement.
“What these files say is too important an issue to delegate to somebody else. I need to actually do the work myself,” he told ABC News.
The next hearing in the resentencing case is Dec. 11. Hochman, a former federal prosecutor, said he’ll “work as expeditiously as possible,” adding, “If we need some additional time to formulate our position, I’ll ask the court for it.”
“I’m not going to ask for delay, just for delay’s sake,” he added. “We’ll ask for the minimal amount of time necessary to do this work, because we owe it to the Menendez brothers, we owe it to the victim family members, we owe it to the public to get this decision right.”
The brothers’ case was propelled back into the spotlight this fall with Netflix’s release of a scripted series and a documentary — and now a new generation is calling for their release.
“If you decide this case based on just reviewing a Netflix documentary, you’re doing a disservice to the Menendez brothers, to the victims’ family members, to the public,” Hochman said.
One path is through resentencing. Gascón announced last month that he was recommending the brothers’ sentence of life without the possibility of parole be removed, and they should instead be sentenced for murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life. Because both brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, with the new sentence, they would be eligible for parole immediately, Gascón said.
The DA’s office said its resentencing recommendations take into account factors including the defendants’ ages, psychological trauma or physical abuse that contributed to carrying out the crime and their rehabilitation in prison. Gascón praised the work Lyle and Erik Menendez did behind bars to rehabilitate themselves and help other inmates.
The second path is the brothers’ request for clemency, which they’ve submitted to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The third path is their habeas corpus petition, which was filed last year for a review of new evidence not presented at trial.
One piece of evidence is allegations from a former boy band member who revealed last year that he was raped by Jose Menendez.
The second piece of evidence is a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin eight months before the murders detailing his alleged abuse. The cousin testified about the alleged abuse at trial, but the letter — which would have corroborated the cousin’s testimony — wasn’t found until several years ago, according to the brothers’ attorney.
The next hearing on the habeas corpus petition is set for Nov. 25.
ABC News’ Alex Stone, Jenna Harrison and Ashley Riegle contributed to this report.
