SISSETON, S.D. (KELO) — 85-year-old Carl Lufkins of the Sisseton, S.D. area has had a special connection with his grandson Andrew “AJ” Lufkins.
“AJ, he meant the world to me,” Carl said Thursday.
AJ is his granddaughter Ida Jack’s only sibling.
“He always wanted to laugh, make people smile,” Jack said. “He always put his elders first.”
Her brother was last seen in Sisseton on April 7, 2010.
“It’s the longest 15 years of my life,” the 39-year-old Jack said.
She says her brother had been involved in a fight the night he disappeared. He was 23 years old at the time.
“It’s really hard,” Jack said. “I always had my brother my whole life. And it’s just, it’s hard to be here without him. My kids don’t have a uncle.”
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And since April 2010, his absence has torn at her.
“I have had many dreams of him begging me to come look for him, bring him home … I have night terrors because of it,” Jack said.
But it’s never too late for closure or peace.
“It’s still my hope that someday before I leave this world that they will find my grandson,” Carl said.
“We just want him to come home,” Jack said.
If his grandson is ever found, Carl knows where he’d like him to eventually be: a cemetery located a short distance from Sisseton.
“Lay him to rest peacefully,” Carl said. “That’s my hope.”
“Just put him to rest,” Jack said. “That’s all we want.”
AJ Lufkins was a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe. He is listed on South Dakota’s Missing Persons Clearinghouse; his case is among the oldest.
