♪
- Hope Mills is a community literally holding its breath.
♪
Police say they don't know if she's alive or dead.
- We don't know where she is, and we do not know
what happened to her.
♪
- In the 21st century, we leave behind the digital story
of our lives--
a chronicle of our greatest triumphs,
but also our darkest nightmares.
[tense music]
♪
- To get started, how about you tell us about Dannie?
[gentle guitar music]
- Well, Danielle, she was born to me, uh, July 10, 1998.
Sweet baby.
I would call her Meanie Cat,
because she was like a cat,
would always be jumping around, you know.
Very smart.
A sweet, loving child.
She was always willing to learn anything.
- The question is, why did you put it in a sweater?
- Because it's Christmas.
- [gasps]
- Ew!
- [yelps, laughs]
- Always the one making people laugh?
- Yeah, exactly.
She was fun to be around.
- As soon as you get it on, you got to do
a little model turn for us.
- People loved her.
Even small children loved her.
- Merry Christmas, Danielle. - [laughs]
- What are you doing?
- Cleaning the dishes.
It's your Christmas present.
- Oh, thank you.
We were living in Myrtle Beach.
I was going through a nasty divorce.
Danielle and my son, they always
went to my mom's for part of their summer vacation.
- Right.
[light guitar music]
♪
Hi, Chena.
Now, I understand that Danielle went
to live with you and your mom.
Was this something that you were looking forward to?
- So yes, I was excited for Danielle to come
stay with us for the summer.
It kind of was perfect timing, um,
for her to just get away and come
stay with her grandparents.
And I just so happened to be in town visiting
during the summer as well.
♪
Hope Mills, North Carolina, is a very,
very small town outside of a military base, Fort Bragg.
It's like a little melting pot.
Somewhat country, everybody knows everyone.
Hope Mills definitely is a safe community.
You don't really hear about crimes
taking place in Hope Mills.
♪
Danielle and I, we were very close.
I was somewhat like a big sister to her.
She was finding herself.
She was super bubbly, always smiling.
Danielle definitely was into social media.
She definitely was pretty active.
The moment that she got a phone in her hand,
those little thumbs were just going.
She was getting into doing YouTube videos.
- Idea!
Today we are going to talk about Justin Bieber.
- She was playing with makeup and hair.
She was blossoming beautifully as a young teenager.
We had our annual Christian youth camp
down in Autryville, North Carolina.
Danielle, while she was down volunteering,
she met Je'Michael Malloy.
And I see that they had interest in each other,
I'm like, OK, cool.
We got this watermelon truck out here,
so you're going to come over to come help us, right?
We don't have a lot of men in our family.
We are a family full of women.
- This was the first love.
This was the boyfriend.
- What was your overall opinion of him?
- Nice kid.
It was yes ma'am, no ma'am, very respectable.
- He had aspirations of going into the marines,
and he just seemed like he had a very good plan for his life
and became her little summertime boyfriend.
So when it came time for her to leave,
she didn't want to go.
- I was like, well, it's time to come back home.
We've got to get you in school.
She had a fit.
- So we spoke with Rowna.
What do you think about Danielle starting
school here in the fall?
- So I was like, well, this is an ugly situation
going on here at the beach.
And so I think it would be best, you know.
So we just enrolled her in school at my mom's.
[light music]
♪
- [laughs]
♪
- A lot of people loved to be around her
and wanted to be her friend.
- [laughs]
I can't dance.
- Let me see Danielle.
- --start hitting Je'Michael.
- That's the kid in her.
- Je'Michael hiding behind the corner.
But-- but you have the hand warmers.
- Oh my god.
That's so-- [laughs]
- Meow.
- Oh my god.
- Did you ever see the two of them argue at all?
- Around Christmastime, 2013, I just heard a little arguing.
I'm like, what in the world is going on?
And it sounded like adults.
I seen her downstairs, and I'm like, what is going on here?
And she's like, me and Je'Michael broke up.
I said, how do you feel about that?
And she says, oh, I'll live.
Next thing I know, they were back together.
[light guitar music]
♪
- I had a doctor's appointment in Atlanta, Georgia.
My mother and I were going to drive down there.
And the plan was just to stay the night,
and we were going to leave her with my dad.
[crickets chirping]
- Hey, guys.
How you doing?
Good, 'cause I wanted to know.
So what should we talk about today?
Hmm.
I can't think of anything.
[ominous music]
♪
- My dad calls, and he says, hey,
I just want to let you guys know that Danielle asked
to go to a friend's house last night
to go drop off a notebook, and she never came back.
♪
And I'm like, what?
That doesn't sound right.
That's not Danielle.
Wow.
So of course we start blowing up Danielle's phone.
♪
- How did that make you feel?
- Feeling really, really anxious at this time.
I felt like something was not right.
♪
- We realized that Danielle hadn't come home.
We hopped on the road, and we tried
to get back to Hope Mills, North Carolina,
as quickly as possible.
I contacted Je'Michael, because he was, you know,
her boyfriend.
- Does he seem upset that Danielle is missing?
- It raised a little alarm at the time.
Because I'm like, you guys just broke up.
You seem to be kind of angry at her,
even though she's missing.
We arrived in Hope Mills, and an investigator
is speaking with my dad.
- So to my understanding, there was a creek,
a hangout spot that all the kids in the neighborhood
would go and hang out at.
- This little kid on a dirt bike
takes me to what is the creek.
[camera shutter clicking]
The kid's like, yeah, it's-- it's kind of
further back there in the woods,
but-- oh man, look at that.
And I see "help" scratched in the ground.
[tense music]
- What did you think about that?
- I immediately received chills all over my body.
I did not know if it was a joke.
I didn't know if it was a real cry for help at the time.
I didn't know if this was a message that Danielle
was trying to send to me.
So I took it very seriously.
♪
Continue on, which was a little hike into the woods.
I did notice some things that belong at our house,
like a towel.
And so I'm like, well, she was here.
As we're exiting the creek, I look down,
and I see Danielle's sock.
♪
It was balled up, and it had, like, straw in it.
I'm like, hey, this is her sock.
[birds chirping]
I started going through her phone.
And I seen some photos of Danielle
from the afternoon of March 11th.
I speak to her friend--
you need to tell me everyone that's been around Danielle,
who else knows about this creek area,
who these people are.
Why are you guys going back there?
What do you do back there?
- 15-year-old,
social media, friends who have cars,
cell phones, electronic devices.
Um, they have a very wide circle
of friends, acquaintances, um, and people they contact with.
Where the investigation leads us is where we will go.
[birds chirping]
- Now, when you got to your mother's house,
walk me through--
what did that all look like?
- It was just chaos.
Everyone's home at my mom's house, everyone.
♪
I'm going through her things in her room,
just seeing what could be missing.
I kept thinking, like, would she run away?
All of her stuff is here.
This is not her MO. - Right.
- Police were out canvassing the neighborhood today
where the 15-year-old teen
lived with her grandparents.
Investigators say Danielle left home last Tuesday night
saying she was headed up the street to a friend's house,
but she never made it there.
- I want my baby to come home.
That's my baby girl.
If you please know where my daughter is,
any information, please.
Tell her to come home.
Or, Danielle, if you see this, come home, baby.
I love you.
[tense music]
♪
- Now, there was a surveillance video
of Danielle walking home from school that was discovered.
- We knew there were some houses
around that had cameras.
She actually was caught on camera.
And just seeing Danielle walking--
I mean, it was just heart-wrenching,
what was going through her mind,
what she actually was thinking at the time.
When I think about that video.
That's all I think about.
♪
- Please help me-- help us.
This is a living nightmare.
Anyone that could come and help, please.
Please. I'm begging, I'm pleading.
It's a cry for help now.
- How was Rowna holding up through all of this?
- It definitely caused an emotional roller coaster
for the entire family, because you don't know what to expect.
You're anxious.
You're sitting on edge.
No one's eating.
You're depressed.
- We don't know where she is, and we do
not know what happened to her.
That's why the public's help is very important in this.
As information comes in and leads come in,
we're beating the bushes on it.
[tense music]
♪
- It was a huge turnout comprised of family, friends,
and even total strangers.
One thing uniting these volunteers--
a desire to find answers in the disappearance
of 15-year-old Danielle Locklear.
- I'm restless, most of all.
We can't sleep.
Um, just not knowing-- but we're still holding onto hope.
We know that she's out there somewhere,
and hopefully we find a clue today.
- The FBI and local police spearheaded this weekend's
search efforts with officers even
cluing volunteers in on specific items
to watch out for.
- We're looking for possibly a Pandora bracelet.
Do we know what a Pandora bracelet is?
It's got the charms on it and that kind of stuff.
Um, we're looking for that.
A Samsung cell phone.
♪
- You know, just to hear that, you know,
your little sister's missing, you know, as a big brother,
you know-- you know, a lot of things
just went in my head, you know.
I keep trying to run scenarios of maybe what happened.
[dramatic music]
- Billboards like this one are now up
throughout the Fayetteville and Spring Lake area
as the search for Danielle Locklear intensifies.
The FBI just launched this advertised effort to find
the missing 15-year-old.
And then Saturday, on the ground,
there will be another search.
- When Danielle was missing, the detectives didn't share
a lot of information with us.
But they did share that her phone
was pinging near an RV site which was right off of 95.
- We're going to keep working until there's nothing to work.
This isn't going to stop until there's just nothing,
absolutely nothing left to go on.
♪
[camera shutter clicking]
- It was in Fayetteville, North Carolina,
very somber day,
lots of people from the community.
People traveled from different states
just to express their love and concern.
♪
Of course, Je'Michael was there
to release a balloon too.
He gave me a hug.
And I asked him, I said, um, did he-- have you
heard anything, or nothing?
He's like, no, ma'am.
I said, well, keep praying.
He was like, yes, ma'am.
♪
- Je'Michael walked over.
He was very, very quiet.
I just remember him, you know, holding his arms this way
and looking down at his arm.
And I stood back, and I snapped a picture,
because he was standing in the middle of my entire family.
It didn't seem right.
It seemed like he had a lot on his mind.
[tense music]
[line trilling]
- Tonight a body of a young woman
was found floating in the South River.
- At that time, police hadn't reached out to us.
It was just on the news.
And people are sending messages on social media,
like, hey, rest in peace.
And I'm like, wait, wait, wait a minute now.
Like, we haven't had any confirmation.
[ominous music]
♪
- The officer from Hope Mills, she came to see me.
I sat on the edge of the bed,
and she said that they found a body.
I just looked at her.
I said, well, is it her?
She just looked at me, and I knew it was her.
[somber piano music]
- As much as you want to say that you're prepared
to accept the fate of finding your 15-year-old niece, this--
this...
you can't prepare yourself for that.
for her to not be coming home.
♪
- Was anybody else home with you that night?
- Right.
- You know what a lot of people are going to think?
- What? - You killed her.
♪
- Tips and leads led officers to search this home
on Highway 210 South.
♪
Officers collected evidence
and interviewed several people,
but so far, no one has been arrested.
♪
- Nice to meet you.
- Mm-hmm.
[camera shutter clicking]
The argument.
- Yes, sir.
- 'Cause more often that not that's what people do.
You know, based on my experience,
they seem--they tend to...
♪
- She wanted to touch you with her infectious smile.
She wanted others to know beyond any doubt
that she had love in her heart.
- She has touched thousands with her death,
and it will not be in vain.
- Public outpouring of love for Danielle Locklear,
who on March 11th left her grandparents' Hope Mills home
and left this world.
♪
- Dominic and I, we rode--
we drove over there, you know.
She came out and everything, and she got in the car.
And we went to the creek, and...
- And you guys got on North, and you were traveling--
- Where was Danielle?
- On the floor in the back.
- --with Danielle, you said she's in the trunk now.
Dumped her. - Who helped you do that?
- You know, Dominic opened the trunk,
and I picked her up.
He helped a little bit.
- Okay.
Where'd you guys go from there?
- Straight back home.
[tense music]
♪
- It's been a month-long nightmare, and I feel like--
they've been around us.
They've been in our home.
He's walked with us in searches.
We're disgusted.
- Hope Mills police say Malloy confessed
to choking Danielle to death during an argument March 11th.
Cops say he enlisted his friend, 18-year-old Dominic
Lock, to help him dump the girl's body off of a bridge
into the South River.
- Best friend loans you $5.
A best friend will help you study for that test at night.
A best friend will not help you move a body.
- How does that make you feel?
- I'm not going to lie; I felt dirty.
- Mm-hmm.
- Because he touched me.
He hugged me and prayed with me, you know?
And he-- you know, was my daughter's boyfriend.
I mean, and, you know, just thinking that I
was speaking to someone--
you know, I call him a monster.
- Malloy pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree
murder and will spend a minimum of 25 years in prison
without the possibility of parole.
♪
- I can't watch my baby get her high school diploma.
I cannot watch her get married.
I can't-- that's the only one.
I can't even have anymore children, Je'Michael.
And you took that away from me.
You ripped out my soul.
- There's nothing true about what he said.
He's not sorry.
The only thing that he's sorry about is that he got caught
and that he's not able to live his life the way he wanted to.
- Yeah, we got some closure, you know.
It's been a long ride, you know.
But um, it'll never be over.
But you know, I'm just glad that, you know,
my baby's finally got some justice.
[gentle music]
You will never, um, be normal again.
Never.
That was my baby, my wildcat.
[laughs]
- Meow.
♪
- I have paintings of her all over my house.
- Idea!
- I think she would have took off with social media.
- Remix!
- Danielle definitely would have been an influencer.
A little piece of her still lies in all of us
in the family.
I'll always remember her just living life and loving life.
[upbeat music]
- [laughs]
- There was not anything that she did not want to do.
She was going to try it all.
She would have been something great.
♪