Death of an Angel: The Murder of Brittany Locklear
By: Jenn Baxter
Tags: Nonfiction, North Carolina, True Crime, Murder, Unsolved Mysteries

Death of an Angel: The Murder of Brittany Locklear

A tiny child was abducted from her bus stop and killed, and police are still searching for the killer more than 20 years later. Jenn Baxter Dec 21, 2020·8 min read

Brittany Locklear, age 5 (Photo provided by Hoke County Sheriff’s Office)

It was still dark outside when 5-year-old Brittany Locklear was woken up by her mother, Connie, on the morning of January 7, 1998. It was a school day for Brittany, who was in kindergarten at West Hoke Elementary School in the small town of Raeford, North Carolina.

After she got dressed and ate breakfast, Brittany was ready for the 150-yard walk down the driveway to her bus stop. As she did every morning, Connie kept an eye on her daughter through a window. She watched as Brittany, wearing green overalls with pink and white sneakers, skipped down the driveway swinging her purple backpack.

When she reached the end of the driveway, she looked expectantly up the street, knowing her bus would be there at any minute. Connie stepped away from the window for a moment, and when she looked back Brittany was gone. She assumed Brittany had gotten on the bus, just as she had every other morning. It wasn’t until she heard screaming coming from a neighbor that she realized something was wrong. It was 7:02 am, and her world as she knew it was over.

Rose Johnson, who lived next door, was the woman Connie heard yelling. She had been watching her own children as they stood at the end of their driveway waiting for the bus when she noticed a pickup truck speeding down the road. The truck came to a stop right in front of Brittany. A man jumped down from the truck, appeared to pick something up, then got back in the truck and sped away.

To her horror, Rose realized that the man had taken Brittany. Seconds later, the school bus pulled into view. Not seeing Brittany, it passed by her house and went directly to the next stop. Rose barely paid attention as her kids got on the bus. She ran over to Brittany’s house and pounded on the door. When she told Connie what she had seen, Connie was incredulous. In disbelief, she and Brittany’s stepfather raced to the school, arriving right before the bus. Surely Brittany would come bouncing off the bus as usual. When the bus driver confirmed that she hadn’t seen Brittany that morning, panic set in.

The police were called immediately, and they were initially hopeful that Brittany would be found quickly. She had been taken just minutes earlier and the truck was likely still nearby. Deputies fanned out across the area, looking for any signs of the truck or the little girl.

At 9:00 am, Brittany’s backpack, clothing, and shoes were found discarded on a dirt road about two miles from where she had been taken. The grim discovery drained away the officers’ optimism that she would be found unharmed. Police continued searching until after the sun went down, but no other evidence was found and the search was halted until the following morning.

At daybreak, another massive search was launched. In addition to local law enforcement, more than 100 Department of Corrections employees as well as ten different fire companies and hundreds of volunteers showed up to help. Everyone was hoping for a miracle, but at 2:00 pm Brittany’s body was found in a drainage ditch three miles away from her home. An autopsy would reveal that she had been sexually assaulted and then drowned, most likely in the same place her body was found. The search effort immediately transitioned into a homicide investigation.

The community was stunned by the murder. The day after Brittany’s body was found, the flag at her elementary school was lowered to half-mast. Crisis counselors did what they could to console sobbing children, some too young to fully comprehend the situation. Brittany had been the youngest of the 425 students at the school, and also the shortest. Her diminutive size made her stand out, and it seemed like everyone there had known and loved her. Classmates shared memories of the little girl who loved Pocahontas, was always smiling, and gave the best hugs.

Brittany, age 5 (Photo provided by Hoke County Sheriff’s Office)

A wake was held for Brittany on the evening of January 11th. More than 4,000 people showed up to offer their support to her grieving family. Her funeral mass was held the following morning at a school auditorium. It was one of the few places large enough to accommodate the 750 people who came to say goodbye to the little girl who had dreamed of one day “driving airplanes” and becoming a doctor. Brittany was laid to rest in a tiny white casket with gold trim, and she was surrounded with stuffed teddy bears.

The detectives working on Brittany’s case couldn’t allow themselves any time to mourn; they had a murderer to catch. They started by interviewing everyone who had any kind of connection to Brittany, including her family. Connie and her husband, Charles, volunteered to be polygraphed at the beginning of the investigation. They knew they didn’t have anything to hide and wanted police to clear them and move on to finding the killer as soon as possible. Detectives were also confident Brittany’s birth father, who had never been a part of the child’s life, wasn’t involved in the crime.

Brittany’s family lived in a very rural area of Hoke County, the kind of place where any strangers would stand out. Her home was situated on a narrow, two-lane road with no sidewalks or shoulders and very little traffic. Detectives went door-to-door, asking all residents if they recalled seeing anything unusual around the time Brittany was kidnapped. Rose Johnson gave them a description of the man she saw take the child, as well as his truck, but she had been watching from a distance so had few details. All she could tell them was that it was a pickup truck, probably brown, driven by an adult male, possibly white. Several other residents also remembered seeing a brown truck on the road that day, but no one could identify its driver. It wasn’t much for investigators to go on.

In the pre-dawn darkness that Friday, police set up a checkpoint on Gainey Road near where Brittany was abducted. Every car that drove on the road was stopped; each driver was interviewed. Detectives hoped that someone who regularly commuted on the road may have noticed something different the day Brittany was murdered. Unfortunately, no one they spoke with was able to provide any leads.

FBI agents, State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) agents, and the Hoke County deputies were working together on the case, and they had already received more than 1,500 tips. Going through them all was time-consuming but necessary. In addition, they had compiled a list of all known sex offenders in the area and were working on interviewing all of them.

The chance of a quick arrest seemed non-existent, and the entire community was on edge. Parents wouldn’t let their children go anywhere without adult supervision. Some parents began driving their children to school. Others allowed their kids to ride the school bus but waited at their bus stop with them to make sure they got on the bus safely. None would feel safe until they could be sure the killer was in custody.

Brittany, age 5 (Photo provided by North Carolina SBI)

On Sunday, deputies attempted to conduct a traffic stop on a brown pickup truck that was driving on Gainey Road near where Brittany had been abducted. At first, the driver refused to pull over, and a brief chase ensued. Eventually the man pulled over and told police he was in a hurry because he was late for work. Once he learned the reason for the stop he cooperated, allowing deputies to search his truck. The man was taken in for further questioning, and investigators interviewed him for six hours before he was cleared as a suspect and released.

Two weeks after the murder, the FBI completed a behavioral profile of the killer. They believed the murderer would seek to change his appearance and possibly his vehicle, and would likely exhibit an extreme interest in news coverage of the case. They noted the killer might suddenly show a marked change in the amount of drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes he consumed, and would be nervous and irritable if confronted. People were encouraged to call a special tip hotline if they knew anyone who fit the profile, and calls came in by the dozen. Each lead was thoroughly investigated, but the killer remained elusive.

As days went by with seemingly little progress on the case, the small-town rumor mill began to churn. People started whispering that the principal at West Hoke Elementary School was the killer; even the local newspaper insinuated he was guilty. It was said that the principal would sometimes stop and pick up Brittany from her bus stop and bring her to school, a fact both the principal and Brittany’s mother vehemently denied. Police were eventually forced to hold a press conference to announce that the principal was most definitely not a suspect.

Months went by, and still there were no arrests in the case. People in Hoke County were still frightened about the possibility of a killer on the loose and they struggled to understand why police were unable to solve the case. For some, fear turned to frustration. Brittany and her family were Native American, and some people claimed police were slacking off on the case because the victim was a minority. The investigators insisted race had nothing to do with it; they were working as hard as they could to identify the killer. They had followed up on nearly 2,000 tips, had interviewed every child molester and sex offender in a 50-mile radius, and searched countless brown pickup trucks. There simply wasn’t enough information to zero in on any one suspect.

Months turned to years. There were several times when police thought they had finally caught the killer, but eventually all of their suspects were ruled out using DNA evidence. They are still hopeful that the case will be solved, but they need help from the public. Investigators believe there are people out there with the information they need to finally make an arrest.

There is a reward being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for this crime. If you have any information, please call the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation at 1–800–334–3000.