Page 7 - Danielle Locklear News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

I have a little girl myself. if something happened to her would -- would be devastating. >> reporter: all the not knowing was torture for danielle's mom. >> your mind is just -- you're going crazy. i mean, you're -- you're thinking of -- i mean, even some of the worst and the craziest stuff. >> reporter: by now, danielle's disappearance wasn't just a hope mills story. she was featured in dateline's "missing in america" series. her story was national news. >> the name of the missing 15-year-old is danielle locklear. >> her face is blown up all over the billboards. every time i'd hit a stop ligh...

Yeah. but it even made me feel more nervous that it was by 95 because i'm like she -- we're looking around here and she possibly could be somewhere else. >> reporter: 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. both could be anywhere. >> 95 is different than a county road. she could've been five states away at that point. >> 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. >> reporter: a bad, ba...

Miles away. that night, but at 10:40 pm it suddenly started pinging off a tower miles away. the phone, and presumably danielle, were on the move. >> we get a pin drop that pretty much puts it on i-95, but in that pin out is a certain amount of area that the phone could be in. >> so helpful as phones are, it doesn't give you x marks the spot. >> reporter: not in this case. 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. was danielle a runaway? had she been abducted? no one knew, but the records...

>> yeah. >> really he was just a really soft-hearted guy. he would always be there for anybody who needed him. >> reporter: in the end police couldn't find any electronic trail linking derek to danielle. detectives' latest lead had fizzled out, and with no explanation for that word, help that chena found scrawled at the creek, they were down to their two main clues. >> so you got the sock on the trail, and you got a phone out at 95, more questions than answers. >> danielle's last cell phone ping was miles away from her neighborhood. >> we can see that she's moving in a fairly quick fashion, fa...

>> reporter: word that danielle's body had been found was tearing through south view high school. >> somebody messaged me. i can't remember who it was. and they told me, "turn on the news." and i turned on the news, and they were -- it was, like, the video of them pulling the body out. and i called my mom's work and i was crying on the phone. i was just begging her to come home. >> reporter: 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. so was her grandma kelly. >> i feel like i failed. i failed m...