The Creek

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I'm Lester Holt. Tonight on Dateline. He says, Danielle didn't come home last night.

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And I'm like, what? He had a beautiful 15-year-old girl just vanish. Danielle was talking about his creak.

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Some kids were trying to get her to go hang out. Somebody said that they saw her get into a truck.

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There was another story that she was with her mom. Maybe she was abducted. Maybe she was kidnapped.

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The stories didn't stop, did they? No. We were getting information that they were cuddling.

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We got to figure out, does he have any motive to want to harm her? I see her sock right at the exit of the trail.

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The word help was scratched in the ground. We found two shovels that had what appeared to be blood on them.

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That just done it for me. I can't even think about how scared she was. My mother's worst nightmare.

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Here's Dennis Murphy with The Creek. There are no signs to get there. Just follow the rough, sandy trail down from the subdivisions above,

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turn a corner, and there it is. The Creek, a twisty, slow-moving body of water in North Carolina

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that's nothing less than a virtually undiscovered Garden of Eden for teenagers playing hooky from high school.

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It was like going to the beach for us. It was just a vacation. When Caroline Nozzo was a high school freshman and terrified of math class,

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if the weather was good, her decision was made. Go right to the creek and bypass school altogether.

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Tell me about an afternoon at the creek, Caroline. What would you do? just go swimming and then after we were done swimming we would sit by the fire and get dry

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and then we would hurry up and go back to school and take the bus home. So the creek was the place where the local kids could hide out from the grown-ups

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and play all day like frisky otters. It was innocent fun until one day when this secret teenage world collided with tragedy.

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It just knew in my heart that something was wrong. People were actually hiding their kids.

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You think I'm going to rest not knowing what actually happened? No, I was going to find out.

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So this story is about a teenage sweetie named Danielle. I do. Danielle Locklear.

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It seems everyone in her orbit, young and old, got a boost from her sunny take on life, including her mom, Rona.

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She was just a funny, witty girl. She stood out. She shined. You would notice her.

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She was always happy. Never seen her without a smile on her face. Danielle's aunt, Sheena Papa, was somewhere between an older sister and a surrogate mom for Danielle.

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Danielle was living with Aunt Sheena's family in Hope Mills, North Carolina, while her mother worked her way through a painful divorce in another state.

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My sister's like, hey, mind Danielle coming? I was like, not at all. So she dropped in very naturally.

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Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Danielle was the outsider, the new kid at school, for all of about ten minutes.

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Caroline and Danielle became best buds immediately. We were sitting in the auditorium, and I guess everybody was kind of, like, scared to talk to her because of how pretty she was.

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I just tapped on her shoulder, and we started complimenting her hair, and, like, she just started making jokes and hanging out with us all the time.

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A few weeks into her freshman year, Danielle was already known around the school by her nickname, Danny.

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Did Danny fit into any of the groups? Every group. Every person. It didn't matter who it was.

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She could sit down at any lunch table and she'd be welcome. Oh, yeah. She could talk to the quietest kid in the class and have a full-on conversation with him.

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And an obedient student as well. Sharp as a tack. Straight A's and ROTC class. At night, there she'd be at home indulging her inner girly girl, goofing on YouTube with makeup tricks, baking professional-looking and tasting cakes.

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And you'd think she would have had bruised thumbs with her nonstop messaging and social media posts.

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Boys, life. Are you wondering if a striking teen like Danielle had a boyfriend? Well, she did.

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She struck up a head-over-heels relationship with a boy in the summer of 2013. His name was Jamichael Malloy.

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Danielle's grandmother Kelly and great-aunt Cheena Simmons had known his family forever.

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They belonged to the same church. Kelly remembered the sparks flying when Jamichael and Danny met as teenagers.

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You could see something in their eyes. I'm looking at her, and I'm looking at him.

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It's like they were attracted to one another right away. Sheena, who played the role of nosy aunt, always kept a hawk's eye on her niece.

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Now she had reason to be extra vigilant. This is time for nosy aunt to get busy, huh?

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Oh, yeah. Because you've got something to work with. Yeah. I was just like, what's going on here?

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What was going on was that the pair had become what everyone called a cute couple.

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He was her first real boyfriend and an older one, too. Jermichael was a senior at another school and Danielle was a freshman.

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She invited him to her first high school dance. She's like, I'm gonna need some high heels.

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And I said, mm, high heels. You're going across that line. You're into the land of high heels

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and welcome to being a young adult, huh? Yeah and so she puts on these sparkling heels and I watching her walk and I like oh my God She pulling it off huh Yeah By spring 2014 Danielle had been living with Sheena and her grandparents for close to 10 months

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They saw little Danny maturing into a young woman. But she was still too young to spend the night alone.

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So on March 11th, when Sheena and her mom had to go over to Atlanta for a doctor's appointment,

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Danielle's grandfather was given the responsibility of keeping an eye on the team.

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So grandfather's in charge here. Yeah, grandfather's in charge. And this is something we would really never do.

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And on the way down there, we get a text. Danielle, she's like, oh, it's just you guys just left me, huh?

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It's just me and Papa. Like that. And we would always joke like. Like you'd do that to me, huh?

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Yeah, like you guys just left me. It was a Tuesday, a school night. After supper, just before bed, Danielle asked her grandfather if she could drop off a school notebook at a classmate's house a few doors away.

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He said yes, and off Danielle went into the night. In Atlanta, Sheena sensed something was off.

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You had that feeling? I could not even sleep. I had this overwhelming feeling of something bad happening.

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And the next morning, Sheena got a call from Danielle's grandfather. And it was bad.

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He says, uh, Danielle didn't come home last night. Hmm. And I'm like, what? What is he saying?

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Danielle didn't come home? What do you mean? Danielle had gone, about to be officially a missing person.

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As simple to state as it was terrifying in all its ramifications. When we come back, where was Danielle?

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Her family was about to get its first unnerving clue. The word help was scratched in the ground.

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Not far from the creek, one ominous sight leads to another. I look down and I see her sock right at the exit of the trail.

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Danielle Locklear walked out the door of her home on the night of March 11, 2014

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and hadn't been seen in the hours since. Their bright, bright girl gone. Danielle's mother, Rona, was in a South Carolina restaurant

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when she got a call from her sister, Chena. Your mind goes like this. I get in the car and, well, I get to my house and grab as many clothes as I can and just drive through the night.

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Sheena and Danielle's grandmother, Kelly, also raced back home. They arrived first.

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So what do you see when you pull up at the house? So there's a police car there.

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My dad went and called the police. Detective Josh Hamilton became the lead investigator for Hope Mills Police Department.

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The family's telling all your officers, she's a good girl. She's a straight-A student.

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This is not like her to go do a runner, go to the beach with a boyfriend. Totally out of character.

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But police thought it was possible Danielle left voluntarily and would return on her own.

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Give it 24 hours or you're going to have a different resolution here. We were hopeful that she had stayed at a friend's house.

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But that scenario didn't sound right to Rona. When she arrived, she said as much to police.

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They were asking all these questions like, well, do you think she would have ran away?

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Do you think she could be at a friend's house? You know, just anything, you know.

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And I was like, well, there's no reason for Danielle to run away. The family called around to everyone they could think of, hoping someone had heard from Danielle.

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Of course, her boyfriend was at the top of the list. I said, hey, Jamichael, it's Gina.

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Have you heard from Danielle? She's been missing since last night. He said no, he hadn't seen Danielle in days.

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And what's more, he said they'd broken up. The split was news to Danielle's aunt, but she wasn't entirely surprised.

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These two had broken up before, the last time just a few months earlier. She mentioned something about him talking to another girl.

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Ah. Yeah, and he wasn't giving her as much attention anymore. She didn't like that.

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So after she's moping around the couch, she's with him at the big dance. Yeah. And I said, oh, y'all about to go?

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She's like, oh, yeah, we're fine. Sheena also called Danielle's school. They reported that Danielle had skipped school the day she went missing.

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Totally out of character. What was up with that? Then, a light bulb moment for Sheena.

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So the day before everything kind of happened, I'm pulling into the driveway. And the sun's almost down.

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And she is running across the driveway. And she's kind of out of breath and laughing.

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And I'm like, where are you coming from? Where are you coming from? And she's like, oh, there's this creek.

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There's this creek back in the back of the neighborhood. Some kids have been trying to get me to hang out.

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But don't worry, I won't be going back there. It's a mess back there. And I was like, yeah, I know you will not be going back there, right?

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The creek. Sheena's gut told her now with her niece missing, she had to go find it.

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But how? We go to the back of the neighborhood and I see this little kid on the dirt bike.

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I said, is there a creek around here? He's, oh yeah, so hang out, I'll show you.

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You follow this neighborhood kid down to the creek, huh? The creek. The neighborhood kid led Sheena into a wooded area.

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We're walking here and he's on his, you know, he's walking his dirt bike down and he's leading me to where the stream is.

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Yeah. Then the kid pointed to the ground He saw something There carved in the dirt with some care a single word The word help was scratched in the ground

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Is there somebody picked up a stick? Like someone had scraped help in the ground with a stick.

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The creak. Help. Frightening. Just made my hair stand up. And I started getting really nervous.

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Sheena didn't know what was going on, but it couldn't be good that SOS in the sand.

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Does that mean anything to you? It's alarming. It was extremely alarming. I didn't know if it was a call for help.

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I didn't know if this was something Danielle left for me. Sheena kept walking down the long path, and then she came upon it.

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The creek down a steep bluff. Subdivision is just back up here. Right. And yet this is like from, I don't know, a hundred years ago or something.

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Yeah. It's like this secret undiscovered place? I had no idea it even existed. And there were fire pits and just clothes from where the kids had went swimming.

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There were old homework notes and all of that stuff. Including a towel she recognized from her house.

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Danielle had definitely been there at some point. Chena returned home and told police what she'd found.

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They were interested and went back to the creek with her. And they're kind of walking ahead and I look down and I see her night sock just right at the exit of the trail.

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And I know it's her sock because I bought them and it's this fuzzy sock and it was like rolled into a ball and it kind of had straw in it.

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Would she go out with her socks on like that? Absolutely not. Gina could not make sense of why a sock Danielle wore only at bedtime would be there.

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I can't imagine being barefoot through here where we just walked or in your stocking feet.

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Right. You'd be all ripped up. Absolutely. Sheena knew the sock could be an important clue.

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She picked it up and turned it over to police. By then, something else was coming to light.

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Police realized that Danielle's almost constant social media chit-chat had gone dark.

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The high school girl missing in life was now suddenly gone on Facebook and Instagram, too.

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and cops learn something else from their own kids. They're like, you know, well, they said she's been hanging out with some bad kids lately.

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I'm like, oh, great. Bad kids, a sock covered in straw, the word help carved in the sand.

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Danielle's hours before her disappearance were becoming more and more enigmatic and infinitely more terrifying.

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Maybe we don't really know her the way we thought. Coming up, pictures surface of Danielle by the creek the day she disappeared.

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I zoomed in and I could see there were four kids in the background. Stories surface too about Danielle and a boy from school.

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We were getting information that they were cuddling. When Dateline continues. Chena Papa was known as the nosy aunt in her big family.

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So when her niece, Danielle Locklear, went missing, Chena wasn't waiting on police for answers.

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So you become your own detective here. Oh, yeah. I mean, my concern was to find her.

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Chena's search had turned up troubling things about Danielle. There was boyfriend turbulence, playing hooky from school,

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and hanging out at a creek. How do you reconcile this behavior with this little girl?

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known for a long time. It didn't seem right. But she also is turning and she's a teenager as well,

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you know, and she's got boyfriend problems and maybe she's a little emotional. I don't know.

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Before police could get there, Chena found that neighborhood friend Danielle was supposed to see

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the night she disappeared. This is the one that she meant to deliver the book to? Yeah. And I'm

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like, oh, hey girl. Oh my gosh. So did you see Danielle last night? And she's like, no.

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Sheena was disappointed, but the friend said something else. She's like, I mean, we were texting last night,

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and she actually had some pictures of her from earlier on in the day of March 11th.

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And those images showed Danielle hanging out at the creek. I can see what shirt she had on.

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I can see her jeans were like at the bottom of the picture, and she kind of just had on some shorts, like she didn't want to get her pants wet.

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Were there pictures of the kid she was hanging with? Nope, there were no pictures of any other kids that were around, but it was strange.

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And one of the pictures she had on a pair of glasses that didn't belong to her. So I zoomed in to the lenses and I could see there were like four kids, like a reflection of four kids in the background.

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I asked her friend, I said, wait a minute, so there were other people there? And she's like, ah, a little hesitant.

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Sheena pried the names of the other kids out of this friend. More names and faces for police to track down.

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And so now, I'm like, I gotta find out who these kids are. Sheena didn't know it then, but one of those kids was Caroline.

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Caroline first introduced Danielle to the creek days before her disappearance. It didn't seem like Danielle's kind of place.

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Dani never really skipped class. And one day she was like, I don't want to go present my project, so can I go with you?

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Then the next day, the day Danielle went missing, she was at the creek before the school day was over.

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She was already at the creek before me. How did she seem to you, Caroline? She just kept texting me and was like hurry up and get down here Everybody having fun When I got down there she was just hanging out with everybody having a blast laughing Kids were celebrating what seemed like the first day of spring

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We were doing like chicken fights in the water. We were just making jokes and stuff. It was a good day.

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After a day of laughs, Danielle headed home. She has dinner with her grandfather. She's accounted for.

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Her grandfather said he had seen her with that evening. So now, why is this sock over here at the entrance to this creek?

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Police theorized that after dinner, Danielle had gone from her home back to the creek.

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Why else would they have recovered that sock that she only wore at night? They wondered if she had met up with someone there.

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And other information was rolling in. The high school grapevine was abuzz with rumors about the boys Danielle spent the day with at the creek.

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You identify a boy named Angel from the school. So how do you hook Danielle, who's missing, with this boy Angel?

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We were getting information from other kids that were down there that they were making out and that they were cuddling.

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And remember, Danielle and her serious boyfriend had just split up. She's available. She's very cute.

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That's right. Billy West is the Cumberland County District Attorney. He was brought in early on the case as Angel emerged as a person of interest.

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He had a girlfriend, but we knew Danielle was single. Her relationship had recently ended with Jermichael Malloy,

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and some of the kids were telling us in interviews that Angel was trying to put the moves on Danielle, so to speak.

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At this point, we got to figure out, is she in a romantic relationship with this boy,

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and if so, does he have any motive to want to harm her? Most kids described Angel as a popular student,

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But a few others were called a fight starter. Angel was certainly someone police wanted to talk to, so they stopped by his house.

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He was saying, I don't know who you're talking about. I don't know what you were talking about.

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Angel denied being at the creek, something police knew wasn't true. Investigators don't like to be lied to even if it's a kid.

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That's right. That's right. He wanted them to shoot straight. That's right. And you weren't getting it.

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We did not get the truth initially from him. So Angel was lying, but did he have something to hide?

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Coming up, investigators are also about to look at those closer to home. The family doesn't get a pass, does it, detected?

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Absolutely not. Which family member prompted this reaction? It's the first and only time in my career that I contacted my supervisor and said, you know, there's something wrong here.

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Danielle Locklear was missing for a day, then two. As the week went by, missing girl posters were tacked up.

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By then, local news, including NBC affiliate WRAL-TV, was picking up on the missing teen story.

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This does not make any sense. During that first week, Danielle's mom, Rona, spent her days at the police station and nights at her mother's house.

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I would just sit there and everybody would go to bed and I'd just stare at the front door, just waiting, just like hoping, hoping, praying.

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And she'll run through that door so I can yell at her. Investigators hoped for the same, but Danielle had gone silent.

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No posts, no tweets, no texts. For a teenager like that to be so active and then flatline on social media, it's very concerning.

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A command post was set up headed by Hope Mills Deputy Chief David Servi. How many different agencies were seated around your table there?

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The FBI had the biggest presence. They were represented from the sheriff's office.

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If they wore a badge in Cumberland County, they were in that command post. Police deployed those new resources to investigate their most promising lead, Angel.

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He was the classmate Rumorville Stories had supposedly canoodling with Danielle on March 11th.

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But Angel initially told police he didn't even know Danielle and hadn't been at the creek.

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After police briefed Angel about the consequences of lying to the authorities, he started to spill.

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He finally came forward and said, yes, I was there. I was with Danielle. I talked with her some.

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Caroline was there, too. Was Angel hitting on her? No. He was actually dating one of my other friends at the time,

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and then another one of my friends who was at the creek, Cammy, he was talking to Cammy the whole time.

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According to Caroline, the stories about Angel hitting on Danielle were just rumors.

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Angel told police he last saw Danielle in the afternoon. His story was that she had left around 3.30 that day, was headed towards home,

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headed towards where she lived with her grandfather. Now, what about his alibi during the critical hour, say, after 9 p.m.?

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His alibi was actually pretty solid. He said that he went to practice after school, that he and his family went to a movie that evening, came back, was spending time with his family.

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So we were able to confirm that during the hours we were pretty certain Daniel went missing.

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He was at home with his family. He doesn't seem to pan out, Detective, is it? He drops off your person's interest.

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He drops off the suspect pool pretty quick. But police hadn't run out of people to investigate.

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The family doesn't get a pass, does it, detected? Absolutely not. When you say everybody is a suspect, painfully,

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that includes the people under your roof. Well... They come to ask some sharp questions

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to the family members, huh? Yeah, they did. Investigators seized computers and cell phones.

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Any type of electronics, anything that anybody had in the house. And I remember trying to write down phone numbers

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out of it real quick because they was taking it real quick. Police interviewed everyone, but they were interested in one specific relative.

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They're asking questions of your father. Yeah, they're asking questions about my dad.

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You know, why was she staying there? And, you know, the family dynamic is strange.

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Danielle's grandmother expected that her husband would come under police scrutiny.

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Everybody had their eyes on him because he was the last one that saw her. Officer George Regan was the first policeman dispatched to Danielle's house

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after her grandfather reported her missing. When the grandfather described what happened the night before, things didn't seem right to Regan.

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One thing that struck him, 10 p.m. seemed awfully late to be letting your granddaughter out of the house.

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He told me he'd been playing video games. And when she came in to tell him, hey, I'm going down to a friend's house,

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because he's involved in his video games, he didn't realize how late it really was.

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Then there was the fact that he didn't report her missing until well into the next day.

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So why has he waited so long to call the police? He tells us that he thought he had to wait at least 24 hours,

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but when he called and talked to his wife and she was on her way back from Atlanta,

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that she said, you need to go ahead and call the police now. The responding officer says he got a bad vibe from Grandpa.

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It's the first and only time in my career of taking missing persons calls that I excused myself.

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And I contacted my supervisor and said, you know, there's something wrong here. The grandfather was asked to come to the police station for an interview.

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and he was later asked to take a polygraph. What are you trying to rule in her out?

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We're trying to initially rule out whether anything could have happened between him and her that might have led to her disappearance.

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The police suspicion about their own kin was excruciating for Danielle's family.

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It was heartbreaking. Was that pain upon pain? It was painful. It was painful because never in a million years would we have done anything.

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She was very precious to us. Danielle's grandmother certainly didn't think her husband had anything to do with her granddaughter's disappearance.

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But she was also searching her heart for forgiveness. Well, how do you let her leave?

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Or how do you let her get out of the house? Or how do you, why didn't you call for her?

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Why didn't you, TV was calling and everything. We say, what kind of grandfather would let the child out of the house this time of the night?

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It wasn't long before police cleared Danielle's grandfather. He passed his polygraph, and police couldn't find anything in his phone or family history to make him a suspect.

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Grandpa was off the hook. Police were continuing to go down their list of names.

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I'm Tim. How are you? Someone else on their list was Danielle's on-again, off-again boyfriend, Jemichael Malloy.

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So where does he stand on your persons of interest theories about what's going on here, the boyfriend?

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He's floating in the middle. So many people to talk to, but none of them was Danielle.

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No one had the slightest idea where she was, not even her ex. I still love her. Coming up, could Danielle have run away?

00:27:03

Jamichael shares what could be a critical revelation. She felt like she was a burden to her grandma, and that's why she really wanted to go back to South Carolina.

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When Dateline continues. Did she say anything about she was planning on going anywhere?

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Police were talking to Jamichael Malloy. He'd been Danielle's most recent boyfriend.

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The couple met at a church youth camp a year earlier when Danielle was only 14. Kids have little elementary school little boyfriends, you know, you hold hands.

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But this was like her real first boyfriend, you know, that she was in love with.

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Her first love came with a family seal of approval. Jermichael, like Danielle, was a good kid, never a problem.

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Varsity soccer, a dedicated runner with a laser-focused goal of becoming a Marine after graduation.

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He had his eye kind of set on what he was going to do with himself. Oh, yeah. Seemed like a very ambitious child.

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And I thought, hey, this might be something good for Danielle. I mean, I know they're young, but it seems like he has a plan for his life.

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Danielle was daydreaming herself into that master plan. Alexis McDowell was one of Danielle's best friends.

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She was talking about marriage. She was talking about having little Danielle's and Jamichael's running around.

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She was very serious about Jamichael. Jamichael's laid-back vibe was the yin to Danielle's bubbly yang.

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She was a pretty, popular girl. She was handsome, so it seemed like they just were a perfect match.

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They were in the same league. Even though Jamichael and Danielle had broken up, he was still one of the people closest to her.

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Why don't you sit up there with me? he came down to the station willingly. No, you've got to talk to my lawyer stuff going on.

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No, he's freely and volunteering. Came in on his own. Jermichael said that he and Danielle might have broken up,

00:29:01

but she was still dear to him. I still love her. I mean, she was a good girl. So you loved her?

00:29:07

I loved her. I still love her. He pitched in just how much Danielle's family cared for him, too.

00:29:14

Their grandparents liked me. Our whole family liked me. The former boyfriend wanted to find her just as much as anyone.

00:29:19

What can you do to help us find her? Whatever you want me to do. So law enforcement pumped him for information.

00:29:26

So she skipped school? Right. Did she do that a lot? She didn't go to fourth period a lot.

00:29:31

She didn't like fourth period because she got picked on because of her clothes and stuff, I believe.

00:29:35

Was she, like, dressed different or something? She dressed normal to me, but she didn't have the best of clothes.

00:29:41

Like, you know, I mean, yeah, you can afford what you can afford. Jemichael offered his own theories about what might have happened to her.

00:29:48

She felt like she was a burglar of her grandma, and that's why she was supposed to really

00:29:52

want to go back to South Carolina. If she run away now where do you think she went to Close friend The only thing I can think of would be like a friend Jemichael also said Danielle had been depressed in the past

00:30:05

and he'd even told Danielle's Aunt Sheena about that. I told Sheena that she told me she tried to kill herself twice.

00:30:12

I told her that... Why? Just because she didn't want to be here anymore. Jemichael was cooperative, but police weren't giving him a pass either.

00:30:20

You look me straight in the eye and tell me you didn't have anything to do with her disappearance.

00:30:23

I'll put you straight in line until you have nothing to do with her disappearance.

00:30:26

The boyfriend told police the same thing he'd told the family. He hadn't seen Danielle in days.

00:30:32

On the night she went missing, he was home studying. Was anybody off home with you that night?

00:30:38

My friend Dominic was there, my mom was there, my grandma was there. Jemichael's family confirmed his whereabouts.

00:30:45

Police talked to his friend Dominic Locke, too. Locke says, yeah, I was with him. We were studying for our SATs.

00:30:52

Police asked for Jermichael's cell, and his phone told the same thing. His phone says he was there.

00:30:56

So you got three, four sources saying the same thing that Jermichael's saying. He was at home that night.

00:31:05

There were also cell phone messages Jermichael sent to other friends around the time she went missing.

00:31:11

GPS data showed those texts were sent from Jermichael's house. And police couldn't find any evidence that he and Danielle had arranged to meet up the night she disappeared.

00:31:21

And there was one more thing. Jermichael lived almost a half-hour drive from Danielle.

00:31:26

Jermichael doesn't have a car? No. Jermichael had a good alibi, home with his folks, studying with a friend, firing off the occasional text from the house.

00:31:35

There was no way to tie him to Danielle's disappearance. Rather, Danielle's family and friends remember his worry and concern for Danny.

00:31:44

Have you heard anything? You know, have anybody said anything? Have anyone found her?

00:31:50

Jermichael seemed like he was very concerned. Like, he was asking me, you know, is there any place you can think of that she might have ran off to or any people that she could have, you know, ran off with?

00:32:04

Alexis couldn't think of anyone. But Danielle's classmates had an idea of what had happened to the teen.

00:32:11

The high school rumor mill was running wild and new leads were emerging out of all that chatter.

00:32:17

You still got a whole high school full of kids up there. to a high school and a bunch of her friends that were prepared to come forward with their own version of what transpired.

00:32:28

And the stories police were getting, some of them bloody and lurid, were leading right back to the creek.

00:32:36

Coming up, the rumor mill churns out a new name, Derek, but he says he was at home online when Danielle disappeared.

00:32:45

I'm Derry telling you I was noodling around my computer, but you're not going to find record of that because I deleted the history.

00:32:51

Right. If you're not doing nothing wrong, well, why are you deleting your history?

00:33:09

Ever since Danielle Locklear went missing, her Aunt Gina had but one goal, to find her.

00:33:14

So almost every day, Sheena would head to the creek for more detective work. I had a cousin in Special Forces.

00:33:21

He got inside of the water, the creek, and he had a stick, and he was just going through the cold waters.

00:33:29

Sheena also kept running down leads. Like an investigative reporter working a story,

00:33:35

she was able to track down most of the kids who had been with Danielle the day she disappeared.

00:33:39

I remember one time this kid, he was like, my mom told me not to talk to you. I was like, wow, really?

00:33:46

So I guess it was going around that I was the crazy aunt. The kids had good reason not to talk to grown-ups about their days at the creek.

00:33:54

They were scared. They all skipped. They didn't want their parents to know. The kids weren't saying much to Chena, but they were talking amongst themselves.

00:34:03

Brianna Little was a junior at Danielle's High School. You go into one class, and it was, well, have you guys heard this? What do you know?

00:34:12

Some kids were convinced she'd run away. Alexis didn't buy it. She does not like to leave home.

00:34:19

And if she does, she definitely would have took some makeup or something. Like we talked, she don't even go check the mail without putting on makeup.

00:34:28

Sorting it out wasn't easy for law enforcement either. We're dealing with 15, 16, 17-year-old kids in high school,

00:34:36

something that's getting a lot of publicity. Everybody wants to be the person that knows something,

00:34:42

that saw Danielle that day or talked to Danielle that day. As the police questioned the school crowd,

00:34:48

one name came up over and over again. How does Derek know her? Derek. Derek, he hangs out with her.

00:34:54

In fact, kids said they were really tight. Derek told me that he was like Danielle's sister.

00:35:01

He said family comes first. Derek is a kid that was not even in school, was looking at getting back in school,

00:35:09

but he had run into some trouble and wasn't in school. When Derek was in school, he had a penchant for skipping.

00:35:15

He was a regular at the Creek and familiar with Danielle's crowd. Caroline was friends with him.

00:35:21

Derek's kind of like, at the time he was kind of big and bulky and everybody was kind of afraid of him.

00:35:28

Did you hear stories about him later? Yes, I did. And the story going around about Derek was more than a little scary.

00:35:35

We got information concerning him stating that he was also trying to get into a romantic relationship with Ms. Locklear and she refused him.

00:35:47

And as a result, he cut her neck and left her in the woods. Detective, this is like a whole grade B horror movie.

00:35:54

Yeah As horrible as the story was that sounds like a good lead Yeah it was a good lead Kids are telling it almost verbatim Right right they were I mean this was not coming from one kid

00:36:05

This was coming from two or three kids. And so we needed to follow up on this for sure.

00:36:10

Police brought Derek in for an interview. What do you see in demeanor? What do you hear him talking about?

00:36:15

Very, very relaxed. He doesn't seem concerned about being in trouble. He's cool having a smoke?

00:36:21

Cool. Detectives wanted to find out What did he know about Danielle? Suddenly the like a sister story was out the window.

00:36:29

He claimed he hardly knew her. The only thing I know about her, white female, black hair, blue eyes, witnessing March 11th.

00:36:40

When you did see her in school, where did you see her at? Walking around in hallways.

00:36:46

I basically said hey to her one time, and that was when I was talking to my friend Caroline.

00:36:51

He denied knowing Danielle, but admitted he noticed her. From what I've seen on Facebook, very beautiful face.

00:36:59

She was a very, very beautiful person. Was you infatuated with her? Did she kind of have like a secret crush?

00:37:05

No. She was a little, she seemed a little too preppy. Too preppy, kind of standoffish?

00:37:12

Yeah. Was she standoffish to you? She seemed like a goody-goody. And honestly, I don't hang out with goody-goodies.

00:37:20

good goodies have a bad habit of snitching. I ain't gonna lie. I do illegal things, and I know I do.

00:37:32

So Derek thought Danielle was a goody-goody and a snitch, and he did less than legal things.

00:37:38

Interesting. He also seemed to know a lot about the creek. That was my chill spot.

00:37:44

I was one of the founders of that area. The founders? Yes. I would skip so much, I found that area.

00:37:51

Nobody else would go back there. But he said he hadn't gone there the night Danielle disappeared.

00:37:57

Derek said he spent that night at home. Around 8.30, my dad left to go to a pool tournament.

00:38:07

Again, I stayed on the computer, job searching. Between Facebook, job searching, and TV, that's what I was doing all night.

00:38:14

I'm not really sure if there's any history on my computer. There might be. I'll have to take a look.

00:38:20

Are you in the habit of racing history? Yeah, I have a real bad habit of doing it.

00:38:25

I'm Derek telling you I was noodling around for jobs on my computer, but you're not going to find record of that.

00:38:30

Right. Because I deleted the history. Right. Derek explained he did it to protect his account from hackers.

00:38:36

He'd been burned in the past. I've had a bad habit of it ever since my last Facebook got hacked.

00:38:41

But what about his alibi? My dad left at 830. He'll look cool. Tell him what time he'll get back.

00:38:46

Between 12 and 1. He can't account for himself that night, convincingly. There's nobody there at the house that can truly put him there.

00:38:57

No solid alibi. And now new evidence was in. And it didn't look good for Derek. I'm asking you, was she alive when she left that area?

00:39:06

I'll tell you, around your house. Tuesday night. Coming up, a chilling discovery at Derek's house.

00:39:14

We found two shovels that had what appeared to be blood on them. But this case is far from closed.

00:39:21

Police are about to learn that the last ping from Danielle's cell phone came from near here, an RV park.

00:39:28

You have no idea who's coming and going there. No idea. Makes you wonder, right? Makes me wonder a lot.

00:39:34

When Dateline continues. For weeks, police searched for any sign of Danielle Locklear.

00:39:49

But a chatty girl had gone mute on social media. Her phone, dark. A search warrant had been filed for her cell provider's records.

00:39:57

A cell phone can be a detective's best friend these days. Would you agree with that?

00:40:01

The best. And the results were in. Her phone, it turned out, had been roughly in her neighborhood after she left home about 10 that night.

00:40:10

But at 10.40 p.m., it suddenly started pinging off a tower miles away. The phone and presumably Danielle were on the move.

00:40:19

We get a pin drop that pretty much puts it on I-95. But from that pin out is a certain amount of area that the phone could be in.

00:40:28

So helpful as phones are, it doesn't give you X marks at the spot. Not in this case.

00:40:33

The last ping came from that spot near the highway. A worry in itself, because I-95 is a big ribbon of opportunities from Miami to the state of Maine.

00:40:43

Was Danielle a runaway? Had she been abducted? No one knew. But the records did give investigators a direction to go in, because within that area was Derek's house.

00:40:54

Police interviewers brought this information to Derek's attention. Well, we know where Danielle's phone was. Okay, what area her phone was. It's out there around your house.

00:41:04

Was she alive when she left that area out there around your house Tuesday night?

00:41:09

I had no idea. I didn't see her. So you're saying she wasn't out there at all. She didn't come out there with some of your friends?

00:41:14

No, she didn't. She didn't know where I lived. I didn't know she was out there. Your buddies know where you live.

00:41:21

Did she come out there with some of your friends? No. Nobody showed up? Not a single soul.

00:41:27

Police weren't satisfied. They got a search warrant for Derek's house. and what they saw only deepened their suspicions.

00:41:34

Tell me what you found, Detective, because there's some interesting things that got your attention.

00:41:37

Yeah, when we went out there, we initially found a burn pit. We're in March, April time frame.

00:41:44

It's not really super cold here. A burn pit, curious, and there was more. We see a long knife and a tree,

00:41:52

and we also found shovels that had in fact what appeared to be blood on them A burn pit a serious knife and shovels with maybe bloodstains Police thought their case might have cracked wide open

00:42:06

Oh, antenna spiked right up. You thought this might have solved your case, huh? Might have solved it. We might be on something.

00:42:12

Looking good until investigators did some testing on the blood. We did a presumptive out there and it showed negative.

00:42:20

Back to square one. We're not dealing with blood. Well, what about Derek denying he knew Danielle, even though friends claimed he called her his sister?

00:42:29

Didn't that make him a liar? One of Derek's friends cautioned, don't read too much into that.

00:42:34

He tries to seem cool and tell everybody he's his sister. Everybody's his sister. Everybody's his brother.

00:42:40

That's just the kind of guy he is. Detectives also spoke to one of Derek's biggest defenders, his girlfriend.

00:42:46

Her information suggested Derek could not possibly have been involved in Danielle's disappearance.

00:42:52

He had no way of getting to her house that night. Does he have a car or anything?

00:42:56

He doesn't even have a license. Caroline knew Derek, too, and thought he was a decent kid. Misunderstood.

00:43:03

I guess everyone thought that he was that type of person because he was the kid that skipped school

00:43:09

and that didn't got in trouble with teachers or spoke back or something like that.

00:43:15

A school bad boy, huh? Yeah, and really he was just a really soft-hearted guy. He would always be there for anybody who needed him.

00:43:22

In the end, police couldn't find any electronic trail linking Derek to Danielle.

00:43:27

Detectives' latest lead had fizzled out. And with no explanation for that word help that Chena found scrawled at the creek,

00:43:35

they were down to their two main clues. You got the sock on the trail and you got a phone out at 95.

00:43:41

More questions than answers. Danielle's last cell phone ping was miles away from her neighborhood.

00:43:47

We can see that she's moving in a fairly quick fashion, faster than a person can walk.

00:43:52

So the story told by the phone is, I'm in a car. Yeah. Had she been abducted, grabbed by a person or persons unknown,

00:44:00

the stranger danger abduction theory was gaining traction with both the police and Danielle's peers.

00:44:06

A lot of girls at the high school were scared of, like, walking around, you know, in their neighborhoods and stuff at night now.

00:44:12

And parents were scared, too. People were actually hiding their kids because, you know, we're thinking there's some crazy person come through and kidnap her.

00:44:20

And there was something more about the rough location of that last cell phone ping.

00:44:25

Not only was the cone near Derek's place, it also included an RV park. You have no idea who's coming and going there.

00:44:32

No idea. Makes you wonder, right? Makes me wonder a lot. Did this person stay at this RV park, come into Hope Mills, grab this girl, go back to the RV park, and that's why her phone's there?

00:44:42

There was a lot of questions. Did you have to go through the RV park? A lot. We drained the ponds, dove them, brought dogs in.

00:44:51

We began to search that entire property from the wooded areas to the water. By now, Danielle had been missing for almost two weeks.

00:45:03

I went over that area and I would drive by and it was just like open field. And I'm like, oh my God, there's so many places she could have been.

00:45:11

So it's not a mobile home community. This is RVs coming and going and transients.

00:45:15

Yeah, but it even made me feel more nervous that was by 95 because I'm like, we're looking around here and she possibly could be somewhere else.

00:45:25

After several days of searching the RV park, there was no sign of Danielle and no sign of her cell phone that last pinged by the highway.

00:45:34

Both could be anywhere. And 95 is different than a county road. She could have been five states away at that.

00:45:38

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, on I-95, an hour either way, and you're in a different state, and a few hours, and you're in a different region of the country.

00:45:48

A bad, bad feeling in the pit of her stomach gnawed away at Sheena. And we're kind of like, well, something bad. I felt something bad has happened.

00:45:59

The news may not be good, but Danielle's mother still held out hope that she would one day see her alive again.

00:46:05

I said, I'm not leaving until I find my child. And that day might come sooner than anyone thought.

00:46:13

Just when all seemed lost, who would believe it? Danielle was seen on camera walking around.

00:46:19

Oh, wow. She might be visiting someone at the hospital. Coming up, Danielle seen alive on surveillance tape.

00:46:30

And then a report of her at a restaurant. It was like, okay, this is it. We're done. We found her.

00:46:35

Nearly two weeks had passed since 15-year-old Daniel Locklear vanished into the night.

00:46:54

Detectives were getting frustrated. Almost all theories of her disappearance were still in play.

00:46:59

Have you eliminated, say, the abduction theory at that point? Have you eliminated Jamichael or another boyfriend unknown?

00:47:07

Nope. Or that she could have taken off on her own. Can't eliminate any of them yet.

00:47:11

Detective Hamilton kept Daniel's picture by his desk, thought about the case around the clock.

00:47:17

Many nights I cried myself, honestly. I have a little girl myself. Something happened to her would be devastating.

00:47:27

All the not knowing was torture for Daniel's mom. Your mind is just, you're going

00:47:32

crazy. I mean, you're thinking of, I mean, even some of the worst and the craziest stuff.

00:47:39

By now, Danielle's disappearance wasn't just a Hope Mills story. She was featured in Dateline's Missing in America

00:47:46

series. Her story was national news. The missing 15-year-old Danielle Locklear. Her face is blowing up all over the billboards.

00:47:55

Every time I hit a stoplight, I see it. The media said Shop in the police station parking lot.

00:48:02

Deputy Chief Servi and his team started giving regular briefings. And we're leaving no stone unturned in order to find Danielle and bring her home.

00:48:09

If people want information about what's going on, they're concerned about the case.

00:48:12

We're a hungry beast. What do you got for us today? Feed the beast. Did that put extra pressure on the investigators because it had jumped the fence and really become a national story?

00:48:21

Yeah, there's pressure for answers, pressures for resolution. And in this case, you had a beautiful young 15-year-old girl just basically vanish into thin air.

00:48:30

North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation and the ATF were consulted. Federal agents traveled in from across the southeast.

00:48:38

Cadaver dogs were even brought in from England. They assisted as Danielle's entire subdivision was searched.

00:48:44

Every house in her neighborhood, there was probably 200-plus houses in there, was searched with the consent of the homeowner.

00:48:51

Volunteers were drafted too. Over 300 joined Danielle's family for a top-to-bottom search of the creek area.

00:48:59

That's my baby. She's sweet and loving. We're just trying to find her. Friends from the neighborhood and the church pitched in,

00:49:08

including Danielle's ex-boyfriend, Jamichael, and his family. We were hopeful in them doing the grid searches.

00:49:14

We might find more articles of clothes or her. We needed to find something to give us a more solid direction to go.

00:49:23

The coverage also brought a deluge of tips, some totally far-fetched. There's a lady that was calling saying that she had her and was taking care of her and that she was sick.

00:49:35

And it was just crazy. How many leads do you think you chased down? Over a thousand leads. I'm positive of it.

00:49:43

One of those leads had the authorities convince Danielle was alive. Some tipsters said she was at a restaurant near the North Carolina-Virginia border, 150 miles away.

00:49:54

And she's there right now. These people were adamant, look, we've seen her. She's with a guy.

00:50:00

FBI agents were dispatched to check it out. They were sending pictures back. They were sitting in the parking lot watching and taking pictures and stuff.

00:50:07

And we were like, man, that looks like her. Spitting image, huh? Oh, God, yeah. And it was like, okay, this is it.

00:50:11

We're done. We found her. But when the agents made contact with the girl, it wasn't her.

00:50:18

All those leads had Gina second-guessing her own instincts. Maybe Danielle had run away.

00:50:24

I actually started seeing things in the house that were missing. I was like, well, you know, I haven't seen those jeans in a while.

00:50:30

I haven't seen that shirt. Maybe she did pack a bag and leave. Maybe she's out there somewhere.

00:50:36

Maybe she is. Then the family received a call that made them think their prayers had been answered.

00:50:42

An investigator said Danielle had been seen at a nearby hospital. What's more, she'd been captured on surveillance video.

00:50:49

Oh, wow. She might be at the hospital. And what in the world is she doing? Is she on drugs?

00:50:55

Or somebody gave her something? We have no idea. Danielle's grandmother grabbed the hands of those around her and started to pray.

00:51:02

But when police called back... What they was looking at was Danielle on the... It was so devastating to her grandma that she can barely describe it.

00:51:18

There was video of Danielle, but Danielle seen on an old tape six months before.

00:51:24

Her dear granddaughter had been at the hospital visiting her. We thought they had found her.

00:51:31

And that just done it for me. On March 29th, almost three weeks after Danielle disappeared,

00:51:42

her family and friends gathered for a balloon release. Her friend Alexis was there, so was Jemichael.

00:51:49

She remembers he was holding out hope that Danielle was alive. He's like, hey, and gave me a hug, and he said,

00:51:55

I just hope we find her and she's okay. Up until then, Danielle's Aunt Sheena had managed to stay strong for the family.

00:52:04

But with the release of those balloons, she felt her resolve and confidence sailing away with them.

00:52:10

For the first time then, I felt like I was giving up hope. Starting to feel like that she may not ever come home

00:52:21

and how would we be able to live like this? I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I was... it was horrible.

00:52:31

Something, anything would be better than not knowing. Mercifully for the family, answers were just a phone call away.

00:52:39

Is there a deputy that's close by with a pair of binoculars? Coming up, the view from the bridge.

00:52:48

When I was looking, I could see what looked like dark hair. The most painful of discoveries and one peculiar detail.

00:52:56

That stood out to me. When Dateline continues. On the morning of April 2nd, 2014,

00:53:14

Chena Papa did what she'd done almost every day since her niece disappeared. She went to her family church to pray for Danielle's safe return.

00:53:23

But this time, her prayer was different. It was, please just allow us to bring her home and lay her to rest.

00:53:32

Somehow you'd cross that line. Yeah. I felt like I was being selfish wanting her to come back alive.

00:53:40

But I also had in me, I can't live with not knowing. I'd rather just know the truth.

00:53:49

The truth, at long last, would start to be revealed that afternoon. This is not your regular route to go home No sir it not Veteran homicide detective Adam Brinkley had been helping out on the Locklear case He interviewed some of the high school kids in Danielle circle

00:54:05

Now he was off duty, driving the back roads towards a river he knew very well. You're a fisherman.

00:54:11

I'm a fisherman, yeah. Is that one of your fishing holes? That's one of my fishing holes.

00:54:15

It was shad season, and as chance would have it, he was wearing a special pair of polarized fishing glasses.

00:54:22

These ones that are in your lanyard, huh? Yeah, these ones right here. and they helped me to, you know, kind of look and see into the water a little bit better.

00:54:29

He was traveling about 35 miles an hour when he reached this bridge. Something in the water below caught his eye.

00:54:36

I see something down there towards that debris that just didn't quite look right.

00:54:39

Boy, you've got good eyes. With all that junk out there, you saw something. Yeah, I just normally, I just know it's not normally there.

00:54:45

He stopped to take a closer look. I really couldn't tell what it was, and that's when I got on my cell phone and contacted dispatch.

00:54:52

Is there a deputy that's close by with a pair of binoculars so I can make sure there's not a body in the water?

00:54:59

It'd be a prank. There's no telling. Within minutes, a deputy pulled up. So I took and got the binoculars out.

00:55:06

When I was looking, I could see what looked like dark hair. Dark hair. With a jolt, he realized that the hair was human.

00:55:14

You must say something like, oh, my goodness. Well, definitely knew we had a body.

00:55:17

What if I walked into here? Yeah, definitely knew that. I got on the cell phone and I called my homicide supervisor and told him,

00:55:24

look, I got a body in the river down here. Police from two counties descended on the scene.

00:55:29

One of the first investigators to arrive was Detective Hamilton. One look at the clothes told him Daniel Locklear had been found.

00:55:38

He had a clothing match, right? Clothing match. You had a photo of what she was wearing that day at the creek?

00:55:42

Correct. And there was the same shirt on here? Same shirt. Body recovered? There was the same shirt.

00:55:47

Police would need positive ID from the medical examiner before they could officially notify the family.

00:55:53

But Danielle's relatives were already hearing about the discovery of a body from the local news.

00:55:58

A potential break in the case of a missing Cumberland County teenager. The moment that they put it on the news, everyone was already sending their condolences.

00:56:06

And I'm like, no, it doesn't mean that that's her. Great Aunt Sheena had to see it for herself.

00:56:12

She rushed to the river. I went running towards the emergency vehicles to go in, but they had a roadblock.

00:56:21

And I says, no, let me see, let me see. And they're not, ma'am, I'm sorry. We can't let you through.

00:56:27

Danielle's mom, Rona, had taken refuge in a hotel for the night. After midnight, a team of police showed up at her door.

00:56:34

A female sergeant broke the news. It's just like we found a body. I said, well, I looked at her and I said, I understand you have to do your job.

00:56:49

I said, just look me in my eyes. I said, it's her. She just looked me square in my eyes.

00:56:57

She didn't say nothing I knew. Sleep would be unthinkable. I think I could probably count every crack in the ceiling that night

00:57:05

because you're just sitting there, you're in a blank space. You're just like, did she just tell me what she just told me?

00:57:11

Do I have to actually plan a funeral? I'm getting ready to ban my child. Nah, nah, nah.

00:57:22

You know, it's a nightmare. You snap out of her, Ronald. It was real. A mother's worst nightmare.

00:57:33

As the family began to mourn, detectives got to work. They scoured the river for clues.

00:57:40

It was clear from the condition of Daniel's body, it had been underwater for almost a month.

00:57:46

Detectives could see why. There were some cinder blocks tied to the body. So the body's weighted down?

00:57:51

Yeah, you could see through the water with lights. The cinder blocks were tied to the body with bright yellow rope, and they were unique.

00:57:59

Old style is how I would categorize it. It was very old. Not like you get into modern-day building supply place?

00:58:05

No, this one had a lot of pebbles and actual rocks in it. So that stood out to me.

00:58:10

On the banks of the river, they found shotgun shells, perhaps a clue as to how she died.

00:58:16

But a shotgun had nothing to do with it. The next day, the medical examiner concluded Danielle's cause of death was asphyxiation.

00:58:25

It seemed Danielle had been strangled, and a particularly gruesome detail. Stuffed in Danielle's mouth, the medical examiner found a night sock.

00:58:34

Hamilton had seen one just like it before. It was a match to a sock that Aunt Chena had discovered on the trail.

00:58:40

Yeah, I was going to say Aunt Chena actually found that sock. So this was the pair?

00:58:44

It was definitely the match. Remember, the sock at the creek had been covered in debris.

00:58:50

Detectives theorized that whatever happened to Danielle started their creekside,

00:58:54

a possibly violent altercation. If that was the case, how had Danielle's body ended up here?

00:59:01

The river was about 30 minutes away from the creek in a remote part of the county.

00:59:05

and the river and the creek aren't even connected. The body was disposed of there.

00:59:10

The body was disposed of. The spot had been chosen to conceal Danielle's body, but by whom?

00:59:17

All detectives had to do was look around. Maybe the answer was very nearby. It was so close that, I mean, if you dropped a pin on where his house was,

00:59:28

the river is right there. Coming up, police are about to circle back to one of the young men they've looked at,

00:59:37

and they're prepared for anything. Did you have your vests on, firearms out? We did. We had everything with us.

00:59:43

word that danielle body had been found was tearing through southview high school somebody messaged me I can remember who it was and they told me to turn on the news

01:00:07

And I turned on the news, and it was like the video of them pulling the body out.

01:00:14

And I called my mom's work, and I was crying on the phone, and I was just begging her to come home.

01:00:19

Danielle's family, too, was trying to come to grips with her death. Her grandfather, who'd let Danielle leave that night, was plagued by guilt.

01:00:30

So was her grandma, Kelly. I felt like I failed. I failed my granddaughter by not being there for her when this happened.

01:00:41

The discovery of Danielle's body had started the mourning process for her family.

01:00:46

but it was also a turning point for detectives because Danielle knew someone who lived just down the road

01:00:51

from the river where her body had been found. Her ex-boyfriend, Jemichael. So he was on his home turf.

01:00:58

He's in his backyard. That's rural county out there. There's not even a light. There's traffic light in that town.

01:01:06

Investigators thought that couldn't be a coincidence. But Jemichael wasn't someone the family

01:01:11

had seriously considered as a suspect, at least not at first. He'd been supportively by their side ever since Danielle disappeared.

01:01:19

And they gave me a hug. Yep. He was at a balloon release. He was at the search parties.

01:01:26

All that stuff. But there had been moments with Jemichael that gave them pause. One happened for Chena during that big search.

01:01:33

It was the strangest thing because he was like in the middle of an open circle. And there he stood, not talking to anyone.

01:01:44

standing there just staring down at his arm. She even snapped a picture of it. And remember how Jermichael had seemed so helpful with information about his ex.

01:01:54

I told you that she told me she tried to kill herself twice. Now one story he told could be read in a very different way.

01:02:02

He goes, well, you know, did you know Danielle was depressed? I'm like, depressed? I mean, why would you say that?

01:02:14

Well, you know, when we broke up the last time, you know, she told me that she was going to drown herself in cold water.

01:02:24

So he's suggesting a narration here, huh? And I'm like, wait a minute. Detectives were also reviewing everything they knew about Jermichael.

01:02:35

Turns out his breakup with Danielle was anything but casual. In Jermichael's cell phone, detectives found over-the-top outrage texts from the girl.

01:02:43

He goes as far as to block her on his phone. That's it. You're really history here.

01:02:48

Yeah. I'm not going to take your calls, your texts. Goodbye. That's it. Blocked her.

01:02:52

What's more, Danielle had used a friend's cell phone to do an end run around Jermichael's block so she could keep texting him.

01:02:59

In his roundabout responses to her, Jermichael seemed to threaten Danielle's life.

01:03:05

He wrote, come to my house the way I'm feeling right now. I'll shoot you with no hesitation.

01:03:10

Jermichael's going to kill Danielle. That he would. If what? If she didn't leave him alone.

01:03:14

So get off my case. Yeah. Detectives had confronted Jermichael about that message early on.

01:03:20

I was heated at the moment. I was just angry. I said some things I didn't mean to say.

01:03:26

I love her. If I could take it back, I would. And remember, Jermichael had what appeared to be a solid alibi.

01:03:33

Three people put him at home studying the night Danielle disappeared. His phone was there, too.

01:03:38

And he had to have been with it because he'd sent text messages to female friends that night.

01:03:43

He had been having for taste conversations with several girls. On top of that, Jermichael had always been cooperative with police.

01:03:51

Well, what can you do to help us find her? Whatever you want me to do. In fact, he'd been interviewed aggressively by veteran investigators, and he never buckled.

01:04:00

If you killed this girl or you had anything to do with it, you're going to have every law enforcement agency around gunning for you.

01:04:07

Yes, sir. But that didn't stop investigators from giving Jermichael a polygraph.

01:04:12

And in his cool exterior, they thought they saw a crack. Absolutely bombed it. He flunked it.

01:04:19

Absolutely. They suspected he was lying, but Jermichael never changed his story.

01:04:25

Now that Danielle's body had been found, it was time to dial up the pressure. Investigators would pay Jermichael a visit at his house.

01:04:33

They set the stage in a church parking lot. We briefed everybody on what was going to transpire, who was on the perimeter, who was going in.

01:04:43

Did you have your vests on, firearms out? We did. We had everything with us. While several officers kept an eye on the perimeter, Detective Hamilton approached Joe Michael's front door.

01:04:53

Was he shook? He didn't seem shook to me. I was kind of surprised. I'm like, you know, they just found a body in the South River right down the road from my house.

01:05:01

He's cool as a pickle. They asked him to come down to the station. Sure, definitely. I'll go down to the office with you guys.

01:05:09

Jermichael's mother joined him in the interview room. She seemed to get just how bad the situation looked for her son.

01:05:16

That body, if it is hers, really how did it get down there? Somebody could have done it but trying to frame you.

01:05:29

Because me and Mama know in our heart you ain't did nothing. But Jermichael didn't seem concerned.

01:05:36

I love you. I love you too, my son. You'll be okay. This time, Adam Brinkley, the detective who found the body, would do the questioning.

01:05:45

Jermichael had a lawyer there, too. You're saying you didn't have anything to do with it.

01:05:49

Yes, sir. How do you think that's going to make you look? Unless y can prove it as something to do with it which y are not going to be able to because they don have anything to do with it I going to live perfectly fine Well then help me with this Why did you fail the bodyguard

01:06:05

I was nervous. I'm nervous sitting here now. Jemichael said he didn't kill Danielle.

01:06:10

But if he had, he said he wouldn't have been so stupid as to hide the body next to his own house.

01:06:16

You think I'm a smart kid? Yeah, I do think you're a smart kid. Why in the world would I put her down the street and around the corner?

01:06:24

You're a fisherman. You're looking for that moment when you've set the hook in the mouth, huh?

01:06:28

Did you see it with this kid? No. But Jermichael was in for a surprise. While he was sitting there, detectives armed with a warrant were searching his house.

01:06:38

And next to his driveway, oh, what a discovery they'd made. Coming up, Jermichael learns about that search in progress and...

01:06:50

You can see him thinking, you're just watching that mine go to work. and then fresh drama for Friends of Danielle.

01:06:56

I was just like, are you kidding me? When Dateline continues. Danielle's decomposed body had been found in a river,

01:07:16

but it didn't seem to face 17-year-old Jermichael Malloy. In the interview room, he was unflappable.

01:07:22

Y'all seen y'all pinged my phone, you seen I was at home, so. But there was something he didn't know when he agreed to sit down with Detective Brinkley.

01:07:30

It was his mom who told him that investigators at that very moment were turning his house upside down.

01:07:38

Yes, sir. Right now. You can see him thinking, you're just sitting there watching that mind, you know, go to work.

01:07:44

If Jermichael was rattled, he had good reason. Because investigators had made a big discovery.

01:07:51

Cinderblocks. The distinctive concrete blocks, did you find items like that at the house?

01:07:56

We did. Even an indent in the grass where one might have lain? Where two were removed.

01:08:02

And there was two on Danielle. They also found yellow rope. Detective Brinkley hit Jermichael with that news.

01:08:10

What if I tell you that we found the rope that she was tied up with? Coming out down the roof?

01:08:18

At your house? Shouldn't be alone. Why shouldn't it be? Because I have nothing to do with it.

01:08:23

Why the cinder blocks? Why the road? Why the polygraph? The evidence is not going to lie.

01:08:28

That's going to be the one thing that will get you in the end. The detective gave Jermichael one last chance to confess.

01:08:37

You're going to look like a monster. You're not going to win this battle. I have to do it.

01:08:44

No go. And still, detectives didn't have enough. So you didn't arrest him that night?

01:08:49

No. Did you think you were releasing back into the community a potentially violent character?

01:08:54

Yeah, I felt like I was letting the murderer go. Detectives were now certain that Jemichael was Danielle's killer,

01:09:00

and they knew where the investigation was going next. They had to deconstruct Jemichael's alibi, the one that put him home studying that night.

01:09:09

It turns out the family members who said they were with him weren't actually in the same room with him.

01:09:14

They couldn't say they'd seen him with their own eyes. We actually could not get confirmation from mother or grandmother that he was there.

01:09:22

Which meant the only person truly vouching for him was his study partner and best friend, Dominic.

01:09:28

We brought him to the sheriff's office, gave him the same opportunity, and he lured up.

01:09:34

Did you go through this scenario that your two guys in trouble and one of you might be able to do yourself some good?

01:09:40

We let them know very bluntly that the house of cars is falling. The first one on the train gets the ride.

01:09:47

Four days later, police got a phone call. It was Jemichael. I got a call from my supervisor saying that Jemichael's on his way to the sheriff's office to confess.

01:09:58

To confess? That was what I was told. But I had got a lot of rumors up to this point, so I was skeptical.

01:10:05

Not a rumor this time. Jemichael was there to confess. Why the f*** did I do that?

01:10:12

Now, he wasn't that self-assured kid police encountered days before. The person taking this confession would again be Detective Brinkley.

01:10:27

Came into the interview room, sat down, and I said, Jermichael, tell me in your own words what happened.

01:10:34

The night of the murder, Jermichael said, he and Dominic sneaked out of the house and headed for Danielle's.

01:10:40

He wanted to talk to his ex-girlfriend. I had to my wallet and I threw it against her window.

01:10:45

So, you know, she came out and everything, and she got in the car, and we went to the creek.

01:10:53

And we sat down and talked for a while. But this wasn't an evening of reconciliation.

01:11:00

There was another combustible in their breakup, something that raised the stakes way higher.

01:11:05

According to Jamichael, Danielle had been telling him on and off for months that she was pregnant.

01:11:11

And she was supposed to take pregnancy testing from me. If the test came back positive, Jermichael was adamant.

01:11:16

He said he would provide for his child, but he would not be with Danielle. And that's when she snapped on me and she punched me in my face.

01:11:24

And she slapped me and jumped on top of me and got all over me and stuff. In the middle of their alleged fight, Jermichael said he took her by the throat.

01:11:31

All I remember was I grabbed her. I was choking her. I'm wiped out. Jermichael said when he came to, Danielle wasn't breathing.

01:11:42

him. He said he called out to Dominic in a panic, and together they loaded Daniel's body

01:11:47

into the back seat of the car. As for that word help Gina found scrawled in the sand,

01:11:53

police had suspected for a while that it had nothing to do with the case. Somebody did

01:12:00

But that sock, of course, did. It likely fell off as they were dragging Danielle's body out of the creek area.

01:12:07

According to Jamichael, Dominic is the one who shoved the other sock into Danielle's mouth.

01:12:13

Why would he do that? I guess she was making a noise. Put a sock in there so nobody would hear it.

01:12:26

As they drove back to his house, Jermichael said he threw Daniel's phone out of the window right on I-95, the last place it pinged.

01:12:35

Then Jermichael found the rope and cinder blocks. Tied her up, threw her in the car, threw her over the side, pinned to the river.

01:12:46

He said that night he and Dominic made a pact. I'm taking it to the grave and I'm telling nobody.

01:12:52

Once his confession was complete, Jamichael was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

01:13:01

Days later, Dominic was too. And now Danielle's circle was aware that Jamichael had confessed.

01:13:07

I had a panic attack. I was like, you know, how could he? He was texting me and telling me, you know, hope she's okay.

01:13:14

I love her. I miss her. I was just like, are you kidding me? I wanted to kill him.

01:13:20

I still want to kill him. Danielle's family was likewise enraged. What are you all saying to one another?

01:13:28

We feel betrayed. We feel like he's been around us. I mean, he was walking alongside of us during the search.

01:13:36

He watched us cry our eyes out. You know, it was devastating. Knowing full well that she was at the bottom of that creek.

01:13:44

Yeah, yeah. More troubling still, Sheena didn't feel that Jermichael had told the whole truth.

01:13:50

It just doesn't make any sense to me. I don't believe his story. Neither did investigators.

01:13:56

Did that story satisfy him? No. Coming up, a bold move to get the whole truth out of Jamichael reveals something remarkable.

01:14:09

And this when his attorney stopped it. And then, for Danielle's mom, one small measure of comfort.

01:14:16

I'm so thankful. A month after Danielle's body was found in the river, her family and friends gathered

01:14:34

to say their goodbyes The details of Danielle final minutes were especially haunting to her mom Rona They put her in a trunk of a car

01:14:47

They took her to that dirty river and tossed her in there. Your baby? Yeah. Threw it away like she was garbage.

01:15:00

For her Aunt Sheena, who'd always kept an eye on her niece, the pain was still so raw.

01:15:09

I know I was overprotective, and I know that I was always in her business and stuff,

01:15:14

but I just wish that I was a little more in her business. And I can't even think about how scared she was.

01:15:24

To make matters even worse, they felt the charge of second-degree murder didn't cut it.

01:15:29

That crime of passion story, a fight turned deadly, they believed that was a lie.

01:15:35

They pointed to Jermichael's cell phone left at home. What teenager does that? He knew exactly what he's doing. He left the phone at home on purpose.

01:15:43

Detective Hamilton felt the same way. Do you believe this was a premeditated crime?

01:15:48

Absolutely. He planned it? I do. I believe he planned it. For the detective, it wasn't just Jermichael's choice to leave his phone home that night.

01:15:56

Hamilton thought the location Jermichael chose for their rendezvous was also a giveaway, the creek.

01:16:03

Why wouldn't they iron it out right there in front of the house? Why do they have to go to a creek and walk down a dark trail?

01:16:09

As for Jermichael's story of what happened there, his account of blacking out when he killed Danielle,

01:16:14

detectives didn't buy that for one second. They brought Jermichael back down to the creek to walk through the crime scene.

01:16:20

Once there, Detective Brinkley asked Jermichael to close his eyes. I said, Jermichael, I want you to go back to the event.

01:16:28

I want to get an idea about how long you felt like you had choked Danielle. Jermichael played along.

01:16:33

And his eyes were twitching and closed. And I'm like, Jermichael, what's going on? What's happening?

01:16:40

And he says that he had grabbed her and he was starting to choke her. It was dead calm in the creek.

01:16:47

Ten seconds went by, then 20, then a minute. I said, are you still choking her? He said, yes.

01:16:53

and that's when his attorney stopped it. He never blacked out. As he had said, he had just sat right there

01:16:58

and walked me through the entire process. As for the motive, Detective Hamilton feels it all goes back

01:17:05

to that test Jermichael mentioned during his confession. She was supposed to take pregnancy tests in front of me.

01:17:11

Jermichael, he says, was dead set on becoming a U.S. Marine and a baby wasn part of his plans He thought she was pregnant and was going to mess up his life plan It was going to mess up his dream career of going in the Marines

01:17:27

The mind of a 17-year-old. I mean, she wasn't pregnant at all. And there was one more detail that convinced the detective

01:17:37

that this was a uniquely calculated crime. Something chilling. Remember those texts Jermichael's phone sent out from his house around the time of the killing?

01:17:46

The ones that bolstered his alibi. So what was that about? He couldn't have been there to do it, I can tell you that.

01:17:52

The texts were sent to girls he'd been flirting with. He wrote to one, I just woke up, so whatcha doing?

01:17:59

For a while, detectives were stumped. How could he be texting from home and also be out committing a murder?

01:18:05

It was a problem for us. I couldn't figure it out. It was a tech-savvy investigator who solved the mystery.

01:18:12

Jamichael had downloaded an app that allows you to schedule your texts. Let me see if I understand this.

01:18:18

You can pre-write your text and then telephone. I want you to send this two hours from now?

01:18:22

Yep. It was alibi building of the digital kind. Treacherous. My opinion is, you know, he's a sociopath.

01:18:30

He truly believed that he was getting away with murder. I want everybody to know she will get justice.

01:18:35

With a trial looming, prosecutor Billy West was planning to up the ante on Jermichael's second-degree murder charge.

01:18:43

We would have tried, if the judge allowed us to, to give first degree as an option.

01:18:49

We would have. We would have tried to give that as an option. We want him to pay the price.

01:18:54

But trial came with a risk. The prosecutor still thought a competent defense attorney could make a compelling argument for voluntary manslaughter, a crime of passion in the moment.

01:19:04

If so, this young man might be out in five years. Right. That's right. If the jury finds him guilty of manslaughter, he could be given five to seven years.

01:19:12

You could be seeing him on the streets in that short a period of time. Trial was a gamble.

01:19:17

The prosecutors consulted with family members who wrestled with their feelings. It was just a lot. We had been through a lot.

01:19:23

We just wanted to be done with everything. Jamichael agreed to a deal. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received 25 to 31 years in prison.

01:19:35

His friend Dominic pleaded guilty to accessory. He received six to eight years. In May 2016, Danielle's family showed up at the Cumberland County Courthouse for Jemichael's sentencing.

01:19:48

It was their first face-to-face since he accepted the plea. Same little kid with a little smirk on his face When it was his turn to speak Jamichael turned to the family and apologized I know sorry I wasn good at it but I do want to say I truly sorry

01:20:06

But they didn't buy it. He's sorry he didn't add more center blocks. That's what he was sorry for,

01:20:11

because he had every intention for her to stay down there. Jamichael's mother, who'd known Danielle's family forever,

01:20:19

spoke at the sentencing, too. I want you to know I'm not blocking out no pain. I pray for y'all.

01:20:28

I pray for healing. I pray for forgiveness. And most of all, I pray for mercy. But mercy wasn't something Danielle's mom was considering.

01:20:40

You want to talk about mercy? She didn't have no mercy that night. You ripped out my soul.

01:20:48

My sister is not the same. She's not the same. I mean, she was my niece, but that was my sister's daughter, her only daughter.

01:21:01

In 2017, Danielle's class graduated from high school. At the ceremony, Rona looked on as they honored the girl who will forever be 15.

01:21:11

She had an empty seat, and it was all decorated, ribbons and everything. and they gave me a shadow box with her tassel and cat and everything in it.

01:21:23

They graduated my child. I'm so thankful. There are so many things Danielle's family misses about her.

01:21:33

Her heart, her happy-go-lucky nature, her infectious joy. That's what Chena thinks about when the memories come rushing back.

01:21:41

She was always laughing. So I just picture her laughing, and I know that's the way she wants to be remembered.

01:21:50

Caroline, who was with Danielle at the creek that day, misses her friend too. That one-time teenage haven is now just a memory.

01:22:00

Was that the end of the creek for you? Yes, it was. Nobody really went after that, ever.

01:22:07

The creek, still lazing through its sandy banks. but those voices of innocence are stilled now.

01:22:14

Ever since one lazy happy day turned into a very bad night. One never to be forgotten or completely understood.

01:22:26

That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.

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