FBI says leads slowing down

Hawaii State Civil Defense’s tracking expert dog, Pohaku, will resume today his mission to search sisters Faloma and Maleina Luhk, whose mysterious disappearance is now entering its fourth week.

As this developed, the $33,500 cash reward for information leading to the whereabouts of the Luhk sisters may increase to $50,000 as a company has expressed interest to pump up the monetary reward.

Pohaku, a 2-year-old male black Labrador retriever, failed to find 10-year-old Faloma and 9-year-old Maleina in his full-day search on Saturday. He was given a day-off yesterday.

“Even dogs deserve a day of rest. There’s no new news coming out of Saturday, unfortunately,” FBI special agent Tom Simon told Saipan Tribune yesterday afternoon.

Simon said Pohaku is looking forward to a full-week of sniffing work this week.

On Friday, Saipan’s humidity was too much for the dog, prompting his handlers to cut his work to just half a day on his second day of search.

A source at the Department of Public Safety disclosed on weekend that a company has expressed a plan to increase the current $33,500 monetary reward to $50,000.

Simon said he heard from a DPS official about a company that wants to add more monetary reward, but that he has no details about it.

If it is true, Simon said then it would be great and hopefully it will help in the search for the missing girls.

“The leads are really slowing down,” said the special agent who is also the FBI Honolulu media relations coordinator.

On the information the FBI sought on a man with a distinctive facial birthmark, Simon said they interviewed about 10 people with birthmarks on their faces based on community tips.

“None of whom remember being in the As Teo neighborhood on May 6 nor did they have any information to provide about the missing girls,” he said.

However, Simon said, they photographed them all and that they are going to be showing all of their photographs to the witness who interacted with the “birthmark guy” to see if his memory is jagged.

On May 6, 2011 at approximately 10:30pm, a white four-door car with some body damage on the front passenger side was seen driving in the As Teo shrine area. The driver was described as about 30 years old and has a very distinctive birthmark on the right cheek.

The FBI and DPS said that man is neither a suspect in the disappearance of the girls nor a person of interest, but may help provide potential lead.