She Waited for the School Bus and Never Came Home. What Happened to 5-Year-Old Brittany Locklear? By KC Baker

On the morning of January 7, 1998, Brittany Locklear, 5, waited for the school bus outside her house in rural Hoke County, N.C.

The kindergartner who loved Pocahontas and going to McDonald’s never made it to school. 

Authorities believe a man driving a brown pickup truck abducted her and then raped and killed her.

After an extensive search, her body was found the next day in a drainage ditch next to a farm road approximately three miles from where Brittany was last seen alive, according to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.

Physical evidence from the area where the abduction took place as well as from the site where her body was recovered was sent to the SBI lab for processing, the bureau said in the statement.

“One focus of the investigation was the description of the vehicle driven by the suspect,” it says.  

“After reviewing the information received and re-interviewing witnesses, investigators believe the offender was driving a full-size pickup truck of unknown color,” it says.

For years, police searched for Brittany’s killer and investigated hundreds of leads.

But her killer remains unknown and her murder unsolved.

“Police continue to seek the public’s help for any information, however seemingly unimportant or already reported, which may identify the person(s) responsible for the abduction and murder of Brittany Lynn Locklear,” the SBI said in the statement.

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Her family is still holding out hope that they will one day bring Brittany’s killer to justice.

“I just want it solved,” her sister, Brianna Chavis, who was 18 months old when her sister was kidnapped, told CBS 17. “Before I die, I want it solved.”

Anyone with any information about this cold case is asked to call Detective J. Tyner at (910) 875-5111 or email her at [email protected] or call an anonymous tipline at (910) 878-1100.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.