Gone missing: Kona man gave away his car before disappearance

A Kailua-Kona mother and the Hawaii Police Department are urging public assistance to help find a man who went missing in Honaunau almost one month ago.

Landon Fairbanks, 42, was last seen around noon Aug. 3 during an unusual incident near “Two Step” in Honaunau.

Fairbanks’ mother, Connie Fairbanks, said he left their shared home in Kailua-Kona at about 7:30 a.m., saying he was going to the gym. When he didn’t return after several hours, she attempted to call her son, to no avail.

“That was the last time I saw him,” she said, sobbing. “I didn’t even tell him I loved him.”

At some point in the day, her son drove to Two Step, where he reportedly parked his car at a nearby home. A woman staying at the home — a visitor from California who asked to remain anonymous — said Landon Fairbanks wanted to give his car to the home’s owner.

“He said he wanted us to have it because the cars in the yard looked taken care of,” the woman said. “He said he had to get going and meet his friends for something.”

The woman said the offer was unusual, but Fairbanks provided the necessary documents to transfer legal ownership of the car, including writing a note declaring that he willingly gave the car away. When the woman’s friend asked for the car’s missing backseat, Fairbanks told him to call his mother in order to pick up the seat from her house.

The woman said Fairbanks left after this transaction, although her friend saw him one last time during a test drive of the car, sitting on a rock wall near the beach.

After the transaction, the woman decided Fairbanks’ behavior was troubling and called his mother, telling her about the events. Police and emergency responders were called, but found no sign of Landon Fairbanks. The woman and her friend gave the car back to his family.

“I’m a retired nurse,” the woman said. “And in my experience, when people start giving things away, it means they’re planning to hurt themselves or they’re suicidal.”

Connie Fairbanks said her son’s behavior was obviously worrying. She said his claim that he was going to meet friends was probably untrue, saying he is “a loner” who doesn’t have many friends. In addition, Two Step was not a place he visited often.

“We went there sometimes when he was a kid, but he didn’t go there much as an adult,” she said.

She added that her son currently is using prescription medications that he did not take with him when he left, which she said might leave him disoriented and confused.

The Fairbanks’ home situation had been stressful lately. Connie Fairbanks said that their landlord had told them shortly before her son’s disappearance that they had 45 days to leave their home. She added that her son “doesn’t do well with stress,” and that drinking in response to stress “isn’t good for him,” particularly given the medications he is on.

She said he was not wearing slippers when he left. Instead, he was wearing shoes more suited for hiking, which she said was also unusual for him.

“That gives me some kind of hope,” she said, adding that park rangers at the nearby Pu‘uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park are searching for him

Since Fairbanks’ disappearance, there have been some reported sightings of him, but nothing confirmed, his mother said.

One such sighting took place in Kealakekua, but police determined that the person in question did not have his distinctive tattoos: a stylized wave on his right upper arm, and a half-sleeve of Japanese-style flowers on his left calf.

Fairbanks is Caucasian, 6 feet tall, 220 pounds, and has a salt-and-pepper mustache and goatee and brown eyes.

The police officer in charge of the case, Derek Okabayashi, did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Anyone with information about his whereabouts is asked to call the police department’s nonemergency line at (808) 935-3311 or anonymously call the islandwide Crime Stoppers number at (808) 961-8300, or Connie at (808) 987-9585.

Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.