When she was growing up, Febyrika Benally had a tight relationship with her dad, Timothy Benally, who worked in construction, enjoyed carpentry, and loved to laugh and joke around with everyone.
He used to take Febyrika and her brother, Febyruss, four years younger, to a park in Mesa, where he’d let them run around on a playground and, ironically, climb on old trains.
Then one day around 1986, when Febyrika was about seven or eight, her father left home after her parents separated. He was supposed to come back and pick up some stuff but never returned. No one in the family ever saw him again…