A heartbroken son has revealed details of the final hours of his parents’ lives after they were found dead near an open trunk having disappeared after a Thanksgiving dinner.
Linda and Gary Lightfoot, 81 and 82 respectively, traveled to Panhandle, Texas to spend Thanksgiving with other family members, according to PEOPLE. The trip usually takes around three hours, but when they failed to return to their home city of Lubbock after it got dark, their son Greg – who lives in Lubbock – grew concerned.
He phoned relatives in Pandhandle who told him that his mother and father had seemed fine when they departed.
Neither Linda nor Gary had a phone on them and Greg was sufficiently worried to tell his relatives to report his parents as missing to local police.
The search lasted for five days, after which the bodies of Linda and Gary were found in a rural area of Quay County, New Mexico.
Quay County Sheriff’s Office revealed that deputies were dispatched to a ranch west of Tucumcari after receiving a report of a possible sighting of the couple’s vehicle.
As per PEOPLE, they found an inoperable vehicle parked in a tree line at the end of a pasture – the vehicle was later confirmed to belong to Linda and Greg.
Quay County Sheriff’s Office wrote in their statement: “Tragically, both individuals were found deceased at the scene.”
Greg, 53, couldn’t travel with his parents to Thanksgiving in Panhandle because he was sick the day before. Speaking in an interview with PEOPLE, he said the confusing route they attempted to take back from Panhandle, having left at around 3 p.m. local time, might have been complicated by construction, missed turns and a medical episode.
“My theory now is that they went to Amarillo after leaving Panhandle to get to I-27 to come back home,” Greg told PEOPLE.
He added that his mother had no major health issues that he was aware of, but he believes “something must have happened” to her while she was driving.
“I don’t know if she was having mini-strokes or something on the way west toward Amarillo,” Greg said.
The son stated his belief that “they either got lost or they got overwhelmed” and attempted to return to Panhandle. He suspects they missed a turn and eventually ended up in the town of Groom instead.
After realizing their mistake, Greg thinks Linda and Gary turned around to try and go back to Panhandle or Amarillo, but they “either got lost or overwhelmed…and kind of blew through.”
They couple eventually ended up in New Mexico, where a police officer pulled them over after Linda veered out of her lane.
“They had told the officer that they were lost and they were trying to get back to Lubbock,” Greg said, as per PEOPLE. “The officer was a little mystified, I guess, as to why they had ended up where they were. But he gave them directions.”
Linda and Gary were last seen at a Love’s Travel Stop in Tecumcari, New Mexico.
“If they had kept on going east, they would’ve at least made it back to Texas, either to Amarillo or to Panhandle,” Greg explained.
On Tuesday, December 2, a rancher called after finding a car that matched the description of Linda and Gary’s vehicle put out via a Silver Alert issued throughout New Mexico and Texas.
“The sheriff went out to check it out,” Greg said, “and sure enough it was their vehicle and they were found with the car.”
Greg said his parents “blew through a gate and a cattle deterrent and then ended up in some trees.”
He added that his parents’ bodies had been found together beside an open trunk. Linda was discovered with a jacket placed over her face and torso, leading Greg to believe she may have passed away first.
“We assumed my dad did that,” he said.
Greg expressed a small measure of comfort that his parents were with family members prior to their passing.
“It was nice that they got to see everyone,” he said, “and have a good experience to sort of say goodbye, even though they didn’t realize that that was what was happening.”
Rest in peace, Linda and Gary.
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