Woman awaits It has been almost 11 months since Jessie Kubo's 80-year-old husband slipped out of their Kakaako condominium and disappeared from her life.
word of missing spouse
Masayuki Kubo, an Alzheimer's
patient, has been missing since June 23By Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.comMasayuki Kubo, an Alzheimer's patient, has been missing since June 23.
"Every day I think about it, and I get so upset that there isn't anything that I can do," Jessie Kubo said, her voice thick with tears.
"He hasn't been seen or heard from," she said. "It's been so long already, I don't know what happened."
All she can do is wait, she said. She refuses to take her friends' suggestions that she take a trip. "I cannot go anywhere without knowing what happened to him," she said.
"I keep waiting and wondering what's happening. I don't know how much longer it will be until he's discovered or found or seen."
For months, friends and volunteers kept the search going every weekend, as well as many days and evenings, but by November they had nowhere else to look, Jessie Kubo said.
"They looked all over and they can't think of a place to go, and they just kind of gave up, I guess."
She added that they would renew the search if any new information were available.
Detective Joe Self of the police Missing Persons Detail said yesterday that while the case remains open, the police have no leads.
The last real clues came from the day following Masayuki Kubo's early-morning disappearance June 23.
Jessie Kubo was still in bed when she heard her husband getting his socks. When she got up for breakfast, he had not returned.
The next day, Masayuki Kubo was seen in a hotel lobby. He gave a security guard his name and a phone number that was disconnected, his wife said.
The security guard put him in a taxi to the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort, then noticed his picture on a flier a week later.
Jessie Kubo wishes she could speak to the security guard, who was questioned by a police officer.
"Maybe she could tell me something that she might have forgot to tell him," she said.
A security guard at Kukui Plaza downtown reported that a dirty and tired-looking man fitting her husband's description had been seen later that day, Jessie Kubo said. He also may have stopped to look at the food at a Korean restaurant on Bishop Street.
However, the only confirmed sighting was when he got into the taxi, and Jessie Kubo worries that something bad may have happened when it came time to pay the cab driver.
Her husband had a bus pass, a state ID card and $10 in cash when he left home.
By the time he got into the taxi a day later, he had probably spent all his money on food, she speculates.
The police questioned 10 cab drivers and turned up nothing, she said.
Now she is just waiting for the police to come up with new information.
"I don't know what to make of this case," she said helplessly.
"I'm just living here, waiting for him to come home or something."
Masayuki Kubo had been lost -- and found -- twice before.
He is 5 feet 7 inches tall, 165 pounds, with gray hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing bluejeans, a white shirt and white tennis shoes.
Anyone with information about him is urged to call the police Missing Persons Detail at 529-3394.