15 FBI agents, staff leaving

Four weeks later and with an overtime tab that’s already half-a-million dollars, the feverish search for sisters Faloma and Maleina Luhk is winding down, leaving experts without a clue as to what had happened to the two.

Tracking dog Pohaku failed yesterday in his last day to locate the sisters, even as 15 FBI agents and support staff prepare to leave Saipan to return to their jobs in Honolulu.

The Department of Public Safety also began deploying officers back to their normal shifts, while the Incident Command Post in Kagman was moved to the DPS main headquarters in Susupe.

FBI special agent Tom Simon stressed, however, that the FBI is not leaving the Luhk sisters’ case behind. “We have just reached a point where the investigation can be handled by our local offices working with your local police,” he said.

Pohaku, the 2-year-old male Labrador retriever, began his final search yesterday at 7am and completed it at 3pm. Pohaku began his search mission last Thursday, after arriving on the island Wednesday night with two handlers.

“His work here is done, and his services are needed back in Hawaii. Accordingly, we’d like to thank the State of Hawaii Search and Rescue team for their assistance in this case. They came a long way and worked a lot of hours, and for that we are eternally grateful,” Simon said.

Despite the enhanced reward money, now reaching $50,000, Simon said that leads in this case have slowed down to such an extent that the FBI will be consolidating its investigators in the case with the FBI staff stationed in Guam and on Saipan.

“Between now and June 30, the FBI staff from Honolulu will be returning to our jobs in Hawaii, leaving the field work in the good hands of the local FBI offices from Saipan and Guam, along with the Saipan DPS police,” said Simon, who is among those leaving. There are reportedly 15 FBI special agents assigned in the Marianas.

If at any point additional FBI resources are needed, Simon said they can flood the island with an army of FBI agents ready to help. “The FBI is not walking away from this case,” he stressed.

He said they conducted a very thorough investigation to date, but sadly the investigation has not resulted in the answers they were looking for.

[B]Surprise[/B]

Simon admitted to being surprised at their failure to solve the case, saying the police here are excellent.

“And if I can brag a little bit, the FBI has a history of success in these big investigations over the past 100 years. It is absolutely baffling to me why this case has not been solved yet. But I promise to you that it is not for lack of effort,” he said.

At this point, Simon said, they don’t have any information where the girls are and what their physical condition is.

“It’s a difficult case, it’s a difficult situation. We’ll continue to work this case. We will continue to work in the future. We don’t have that big break in the case that we were hoping for,” he said.

[B]Timeline[/B]

As to whether investigators were able to establish that the girls were indeed seen sitting on a concrete slab near the bus stop pavilion in As Teo at 6:10am on May 25—as claimed by some eyewitnesses—Simon said they were hearing different things from different people.

“So we don’t have a solid timeline for everything that happened to the girls between the time they went to bed on May 24 and the discovery of their disappearance at the end of the day on May 25. You hear different things from different people but that does not mean people are lying. Eyewitnesses are historically unreliable,” he said.

Simon said the enhancement of the reward did not result in an increase of tips. “If someone has information to provide, now is the time to provide it.”

[B]Biggest problem[/B]

The biggest problem the investigators faced, Simon said, was the lack of physical evidence or the lack of a crime scene to process. There were no bodies of anyone to investigate, no fingerprints to dust for, and no bloodstains on the wall to analyze.

“So all the science that the FBI can bring to these investigations have really been for nothing because we don’t have crime scene to process. All we have are two girls who vanished into thin air and different people saying different things about where they were at the moment in time,” he said.

[B]Birthmark man[/B]

Simon said they were able to speak to the neighbor who had talked with the “birthmarked man” on May 6. He said the neighbor didn’t recognize any of the photos shown him as the man he spoke to in the white car.

“Like a lot of things in this case, it remains a mystery,” he said.

The FBI doesn’t believe, though, that the ultimate success or failure of the investigation hinges on finding the man with the birthmark. “He’s just another person in this complex case that we’d like to interview,” Simon said.

[B]Search operations[/B]

DPS Commissioner Ramon Mafnas said they will continue the investigation process at their Susupe headquarters. “And the efforts will remain intense. However, the search operations will be targeted only upon request and for areas with tremendous potential,” he said.

He said they will keep the support system in place at the Incident Command Post in Kagman, but they will move the bulk of operations down to the Susupe headquarters.

He assured all personnel who put in overtime work for the search that they will be paid.

Mafnas said the government’s estimated cost for overtime would reach half a million dollars. “And this is not counting logistics, supplies,” he added.

With the assignment of officers now back to normal, Mafnas said they would just pull from the shift personnel to assign them to future search operations.

He disclosed that they are still interviewing several people, persons of interests, and potential witnesses and are also looking for items that they believe may be relevant to the case.

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