Since the day she vanished, there hasn’t been a sighting of her or any verified activity on her bank accounts.
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A young model went missing in Florida in 2002. Her son is still following her trail
Adrian Hoffman wants to know what happened to his mother.
More than twenty years ago, the young model vanished on South Beach, leaving behind a missing person’s report that was light on the details and a toddler son on the other side of the globe.
This week, that grieving son flew 20 hours from New Zealand to Miami with his mother on his mind. He’s on a mission to uncover what happened to Alysha “Krsangi” Hanin, who mysteriously vanished in Miami Beach on Jan. 6, 2002. Hoffmann was last in Miami just weeks before Hanin disappeared. He was 3 years old.
Hoffmann, now 27, returned to South Florida to retrace his mother’s last known steps and to connect with investigators, as well as people who may have come across Hanin, who was 24 years old when she apparently vanished into the night alongside Collins Avenue.
Hanin was staying at the Shore Club at the time of her disappearance. She apparently left the hotel to grab a bite to eat between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. but never returned. She left behind her luggage, identification and personal belongings.
Since the day she vanished, there hasn’t been a sighting of Hanin or any verified activity on her bank accounts.
In the days following her disappearance, Hanin was expected in several places: She was set to move in to a new apartment in South Beach with friends. She was subpoenaed to appear in court, court records show, in a domestic violence case in which she was the victim. And she intended to come back to New Zealand to reunite with her son.
But Hanin was not reported missing until a friend called police on Jan. 27, 2002, 21 days after she was last spotted, according to her missing person’s report.
Miami Beach detectives, who are leading the investigation, presume Hanin, a former model, is dead and suspect that she met with foul play, according to a letter they sent Hoffmann’s family in 2008. The Miami Beach Police Department did not reply to the Miami Herald’s requests for an interview about the case.
No one has been charged in connection to Hanin’s disappearance, and the cold case investigation remains active.
“The main instigator of all of this, really, is me reaching the age that she reached, 24, when she went missing and realizing that you don’t know everything and you are young,” Hoffman told the Herald on Monday, the day after he arrived in Miami. “And wow, she just vanished.”
A son’s hunt for answers
Hoffmann’s first memories of are his mother. He remembers being hoisted on her shoulders at Sea World as they watched whales jumping from the water. He remembers them going swimming together at an apartment swimming pool. He remembers his mother pushing him in a stroller and dropping him off at daycare.
Hoffmann reminisces on those memories, which are also the last he has of his mother.
“The pictures in my head that I do have are great, but mostly I have the lack of her as a result,” he said. “I’m sure a lot of people don’t remember interacting with their parents when they were three, but that’s all I had.”
Weeks before Hanin disappeared, she took her toddler back to New Zealand because she was supposed to undergo surgery for a medical issue. That surgery never happened, and Hanin never returned. Hoffmann was raised by his grandmother in the Pacific island nation. His father, Modesto Alex Hoffmann, died by suicide at age 29 in 1999.
As a young, inquisitive child, Hoffmann said he constantly brought up Hanin to his grandmother. His mind wandered with thoughts about where she could be, and if they would ever find out what happened to her. By age 5, Hoffmann said, he knew that his father killed himself and that his mother had disappeared.
“I’m sure for a grieving mother, my grandmother, I would have been quite triggering to have around because I was very pushy...” he said. “I would always talk about my mother.”
When he became a young adult, Hoffmann said he began to wonder more about his mother and where he came from.
“I could justify my father to myself. I could sit with that, and it hurt, but I could understand it,” Hoffmann said. “But my mother’s [disappearance]..., I just couldn’t understand, especially the contrasting image that is portrayed of her.”
That drove him to begin sleuthing. He browsed online forums that discussed the case and occasionally looked up his mother’s name to see if any new information surfaced online. Then, in January 2023, a Miami Herald article popped up focused on police asking for tips in Hanin’s disappearance, at that point a cold case. The article shocked Hoffmann because no local news outlets originally covered her disappearance.
“Before that, I kind of figured that no media outlet cared at all, or did anything,” Hoffmann said. “I just thought she was written off.”
Hoffmann reached out to the Herald and commenced his pursuit for answers. In the last three years, he compiled a timeline, began contacting Hanin’s friends and dug into theories of what may have happened to her. He sifted through dozens of files belonging to a private investigator Hanin’s mother hired shortly after her disappearance. He launched
findingalysha.com, a website that includes a tip line and information about the case.
A handwritten, two-page missing person’s report is all that is publicly accessible in the missing person’s case. The report lists Mark Guariglia, an ex-boyfriend, as a suspect and notes that Hanin and Guariglia had a “violent domestic past.” Hanin, according to the report, had stayed with him on New Year’s Eve — five days before her disappearance.
It’s unclear if Guariglia remains a suspect in Hanin’s disappearance. When reached by the Herald on Thursday, he said he was interviewed by police and was not a suspect.
Before hanging up, Guariglia said he had “no knowledge of her disappearance and nothing to add.” He said Hanin was involved in sex work, and “it’s unfortunate what happened to her.”
Hanin and Guariglia — who was at the time an attorney but has since been disbarred — had several brushes with police during their relationship, records show.
On Jan. 1, 2002, Guariglia allegedly pushed Hanin to the floor and punched her in the mouth, according to an arrest report the Herald obtained in a public records request. Hanin bled from her gums and said her bottom teeth were slightly loose.
Hanin was supposed to appear in court for that case on Jan. 10, 2002, records show.
The year prior, in 2001, Guariglia dragged her out of the house as she carried her son, according to another arrest report. He allegedly slammed her against the wall and took her keys. Both the 2001 and 2002 misdemeanor battery cases were dropped. Also in 2001, Hanin was arrested for allegedly attacking her Guariglia with a knife, although charges were never filed. Hoffman said he has memories as a toddler of his mother being abused and of police coming to their home.
But while at the Shore Club, Hanin was staying with another man, a friend who told police she left the hotel to eat but never returned, according to the report. That friend later left her luggage and belongings in the hotel lobby. He did not report Hanin missing; another friend was the one who made the call to police 21 days later.
The cops never got very far with the investigation into Hanin’s disappearance. Hoffman suspects it might be because his mother’s party-focused lifestyle, which included dabbling in drugs. But in his armchair detective work, Hoffmann discovered aspects of his mother that stood in stark contrast to that portrayal.
“She was young. She wanted to clean up her life,” he said. “She wasn’t a lost cause at all.”
Hanin was born in India to New Zealanders who followed the Hare Krishna movement. She had a California accent because she was raised in Bakersfield. She went into modeling in Los Angeles, where she met Hoffmann’s father, who was also a model. Hanin also went by Krsangi, her Hare Krishna name, although she had several other names on her official documents, including Alysha Krsangi Devi and Yami Senk.
Her loved ones, Hoffmann said, remember her as a young mother who traveled the world and got caught up in the glamor of the Miami Beach party scene.
“I learned of her innocence, her sweet nature, perhaps some naivety,” Hoffmann said. “I have a personal diary from when she was a teenager as well. That was quite personal. I felt like I connected with her there...”
Retracing her last steps
Upon arriving in Miami on Sunday, Hoffmann headed to South Beach. He said it had a familiar aura, as if he were in a blurry dream. On Monday night, he retraced his mother’s final known whereabouts. He looked up at the shell of the hotel from which his mother vanished. Most of it, aside from its historic Art Deco buildings, were torn down in 2020 to be developed into a luxury resort.
Hoffmann then walked from the hotel site to the 11th Street Diner, the restaurant where Hanin was supposedly headed that night.
Near the intersection of 11th Street and Washington Avenue, Hoffmann stopped and stared at the illuminated building across the street — the Miami Beach Police Department.
“This freaks me out, that it’s so close,” Hoffmann said.
Throughout his life, Hoffmann said he has felt a heavy weight related to his mother’s disappearance. His grieving process, he said, has been like repeatedly watching half of a movie and never knowing the ending.
Hoffmann believes his mother was killed. But he wanted to be able to say that he brought his own investigation to Miami Beach to, one day, have answers for his future kids when they ask him about their grandmother.
“In the final photos that I have of her, she’s going to be 24 forever, and I’m 27 now,” Hoffmann said. “I’ve lived longer than she ever got to live, and she’s my mother... It’s not how it’s supposed to happen.”
