A year after Luhk sisters disappeared

Tomorrow, Friday, marks the one-year anniversary of the mysterious disappearance of sisters Faloma and Maleina Luhk in As Teo, Saipan, with still no trace of the two and the family still appealing for help to find the girls.

The family will hold on Friday a simultaneous 6pm Special Mass at Santa Soledad Church and San Antonio Church. Jermain Quitugua, the mother of the Luhk sisters, is expected to arrive on Saipan today, Thursday, from Guam, according to Elbert Quitugua, father of Jermain.

“We’re begging to everybody to help us locate the children,” said Elbert Quitugua in an interview yesterday. “Anybody out there who has any information should step forward and report to the federal and local authorities.”

He said it has been a sad and very difficult time for the family, especially for Jermain who still doesn’t know the whereabouts of her daughters.

Elbert Quitugua said he is thankful that DPS and FBI are still working to solve the case or find his granddaughters.

In a statement yesterday, FBI special agent Tom Simon said the FBI and police will pursue any new leads that arise and investigate them to their logical conclusion.

“We encourage the public to contact us with any new information, which may be of value in this case,” said Simon in an email.

He said the FBI would like to recognize the continued cooperation of the Luhk girls’ family in the investigation. “We sincerely appreciate their willingness to work with us in hopes of bringing this troubling case to a resolution,” he said.

Simon said he can’t discuss details regarding leads or suspects.

As of press time, DPS had yet to reply to Saipan Tribune’s request for an update on the investigation.

Then 10-year-old Faloma and 9-year-old Maleina were last seen on May 25, 2011, near a bus stop pavilion in As Teo.

Their baffling disappearance and subsequent efforts to locate them triggered the most extensive searches in CNMI history, with FBI agents and DPS officers combing a landfill, caves, jungles, beaches, cliff lines, underwater, villages, abandoned buildings, and other areas for several months. Many civilian volunteers, including a tracking dog from Hawaii, joined some of those searches. The military joined the aerial searches.

Despite a $50,000 cash reward put up for information on the whereabouts of the Luhk sisters, authorities still failed to find them. No one has been arrested yet.

Alan Santos Aguon, a former DPS firefighter who reportedly refused to undergo a lie detector test in connection with the investigation into the Luhk sisters’ disappearance, was recently arrested in Burien, Washington state for domestic violence.

DPS investigators at the time refused to name the firefighter, who was only tagged as a “person of interest.”

Aguon resigned from DPS last year. Sources said he left Saipan on Aug. 6, 2011, to reunite with his wife and children in Washington state.