Couple Who Vanished After Thanksgiving Dinner Were Found Dead Near Open Trunk, Son Says, Revealing More About Their Final Hours

Greg Lightfoot expected his parents, Linda and Gary, to be back home in Lubbock, Texas, by the evening of Nov. 27.

Earlier that day, the couple had driven to Panhandle to spend Thanksgiving with relatives — a trip Greg said usually takes about three hours. But as night fell and they still hadn’t returned, he started calling family members to figure out what happened.

“I called and asked how the day went,” Greg says, adding that relatives told him nothing seemed unusual and his parents appeared fine when they left.

Because Linda and Gary didn’t have phones with them — Greg says his father, who was hard of hearing, struggled with his phone, and he believes his mother may have forgotten hers — he asked relatives to report them missing.

Five days later, their bodies were discovered in a rural area of Quay County, New Mexico, hours from their home.

The Quay County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were sent to a ranch west of Tucumcari on Dec. 2 after receiving a report of a possible sighting of the couple’s vehicle. At the scene, they found an inoperable car parked along a tree line at the end of a pasture, later confirmed as belonging to Linda, 81, and Gary, 82.

“Tragically, both individuals were found deceased at the scene,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement at the time, noting the investigation remained ongoing.

“It was certainly a shock and unexpected,” Greg says. “We’re handling it one day at a time, basically. We’re just trying to get through it as best we can.”

Greg, 53 and an only child, did not travel with his parents because he had been sick the day before. He says his parents had made the same trip to and from Panhandle many times without issues.

He has not yet received a preliminary report, but he believes their route after leaving the gathering around 3 p.m. local time may have been affected by construction, missed turns, or a medical episode.

Authorities, he says, told him a license-plate reader first detected their vehicle in Groom, Texas — about 20 miles east of Panhandle — around 7 p.m., roughly an hour after they should have arrived in Lubbock.

“My theory now is that they went to Amarillo after leaving Panhandle to get to I-27 to come back home,” Greg says.

He says his mother didn’t have major health issues that he knew of, but he suspects “something must have happened” while she was driving. His father no longer drove, he added.

“I don’t know if she was having mini-strokes or something on the way west toward Amarillo,” he says.

At some point, Greg believes his parents either became lost or overwhelmed and turned back toward Panhandle — but missed a turn and ended up in Groom instead. After realizing they had gone too far east, he thinks they turned around again, but ultimately continued off course.

The next time their license plate was detected, their car had crossed into New Mexico.

Greg says a New Mexico officer pulled them over that night after Linda drifted out of her lane.

“They had told the officer that they were lost and they were trying to get back to Lubbock,” Greg says. “The officer was a little mystified, I guess, as to why they had ended up where they were. But he gave them directions.”

The officer, Greg says, later told him that at some point the couple stopped following those directions. Greg says the officer did not pull them over a second time.

“He didn’t pull them over a second time,” Greg adds. “I don’t know if he got a call or had something else going on.”

A license-plate reader detected their vehicle again around 2 a.m. the next morning, Greg says. Later, around noon, they were last seen at a Love’s Travel Stop in Tucumcari, N.M.

Although they were still far from home, Greg says they were “generally headed in the right direction back.”

“If they had kept on going east, they would’ve at least made it back to Texas, either to Amarillo or to Panhandle,” he says.

Despite a Silver Alert and searches across New Mexico and Texas, the couple wasn’t found over the weekend.

Then, on Tuesday, Dec. 2, Greg says he was on the phone with the Quay County sheriff when a rancher called to report a vehicle matching the description of his parents’ car.

“The sheriff went out to check it out,” Greg says, “and sure enough it was their vehicle and they were found with the car.”

Greg says his parents appeared to have driven through a gate and a cattle deterrent before coming to rest in a cluster of trees. He believes the rancher didn’t find the vehicle sooner because of the holidays, and he suspects search efforts may have missed it due to heavy tree cover.

Greg says his parents were found together near an open trunk. He says one theory is that his mother died first, because she was found with a jacket placed over her face and torso.

“We assumed my dad did that,” he says.

An autopsy report has not yet been released, but Greg says it is believed his parents died from exposure to the cold.

The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator confirmed that it has the Lightfoots’ remains and said an autopsy report typically takes two to three months to complete.

The Panhandle Police Department and the Quay County Sheriff’s Office did not provide additional updates, though investigators have said it is believed the couple became lost after leaving Panhandle.

Gary, a military veteran who later worked in law enforcement, and Linda, who worked in banking, had been married for 62 years.

“My parents were always interesting, fun people, very personable,” Greg says. “They liked to travel. They liked to help people out when they could, whether it was coworkers or friends or people they just met.”

Greg said the Thanksgiving visit carried a bittersweet weight after the fact.

“It was nice that they got to see everyone,” he says, “and have a good experience to sort of say goodbye, even though they didn’t realize that that was what was happening.”

Greg has established a GoFundMe to help cover funeral arrangements and final expenses. A memorial for the couple is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 19, at Southside Church of Christ in Lubbock.