very, very relaxed. he doesn t even seem concerned about being in trouble. he s cool having a smoke? cool. detectives wanted to find out, what did he know about danielle? suddenly the like a sister story was out the window. he claimed he hardly knew her. only thing i knew about her, white female, black hair, blue ice, went missing march 11th. when you did see her in school, where did you see her senate. > at? walking around in the hallways. he denied knowing her but that he d met her. she was a very, very beautiful girl. she seemed a little too preppy.
I m dara brown. former trump advisor steve bannon was found guilty on two counts of contempt of congress. he failed to sit for a deposition when asked to produce documents for the january 6 kmit committee and faces two year in prison. meanwhile, former president trump and former vice president pence went head to head. trump is supporting kari lake. pence sbaking karen taylor robson. now back to dateline. g karen r robson no danielle locklear was missing for a day, then two. by then, local news, including wral tv was picking up on the missing teen story. this does not make any sense.
Had a pen chant for skipping. he was a regular at the creek and familiar with danielle s crowd. derrick was like, at the time he was big and bulky and everybody was kind of afraid of him. did you hear stories about him later? yes, i did. and the story going around about derrick was more than a little bit scary. we got information about him that he was also trying to get into a romantic relationship with ms. locklear. and she refused him. as a result, he cut her neck and left her in the woods. detective, this is like a whole grade b horror movie. yeah. as horrible as the story was. it sounds like a good lead. it was a good lead. kids were telling it almost verbatim. this wasn t coming from one kid but two or three kids. so we needed to follow up on this for sure. police brought derrick in for an interview. what do you see in his demeanor?
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? yeah. there s pressure for answers, pressures for resolution. and in this case, you know, you had a beautiful, young 15-year-old girl just basically vanish into thin air. reporter: north carolina s state bureau of investigation and the atf were consulted. federal agents traveled in from across the southeast. cadaver dogs were even brought in from england. they assisted as danielle s entire subdivision was searched. every house in her neighborhood and was probably 200-plus houses. and there was was searched with the consent of the homeowner. reporter: volunteers were drafted, too. over three hundred joined danielle s family for a top-to-bottom search of the creek area. that s my baby, she sweet and loving, and we re just trying to find her. reporter: friends from the neighborhood and the church pitched in. including danielle s ex-boyfriend je michael and his family. we were hopeful in them doing them grid searches. we might find more articles of clothes or her. we needed to find something to give us a more solid direction to go.
Something that s getting a lot of publicity, and everybody wants to be the person that knows something, that talked to danielle that day. what kind of theories were you hearing from the hool kids? there were theories that she had a problem with a young man down there and the young man had beat her and potentially let to her death. there were all kinds of story, somehow there as a problem between her and another young lady because they were talking to the same young man. so we were getting all kinds of different stories. as the police questioned the school crowd one name came up over and over again. derrick. in fact kids said they were really tight. derrick is a kid that was not even in school. was looking at getting back in school, but he run into trouble and wasn t in school. when derrick wasin school he
or that she could have taken off on her own? can t eliminate any of em yet. your mind is going crazy. you think of the craziest stuff. by now, danielle s disappearance wasn t just a hope mills story. she was featured on dateline s missing in america series. her face was always on the billboard. every time i d hit a stop light, i d see it. reporter: the media set up shop in the police station parking lot. deputy chief servie and his team started giving regular briefings. and we are leaving no stone unturned in order to find danielle and bring her home. people want information about what s going on. they re concerned about the case. we re a hungry beast.
Eastern, right here on msnbc. and on that note i, wish you a very good night from, all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thank you for staying up late. and have a great weekend. thank you for staying up late, and have a great weekend. he says, danielle didn t come home last night, and i m like, what? he had a beautiful 15-year-old girl just vanish. danielle was talking about this creek. he was trying to get her to go hang out somebody said they saw her get into the trunk. there was another story that she was with her mom. stories didn t stop, did they? no. we were getting information that they were cuddling. we have to figure out, does he have any motive to want to harm her? i see her sock right at the exit of the trail.
reporter: caroline knew derek too and thought he was a decent kid, misunderstood. i guess everyone thought that he was that type of person because he s he was the kid that skipped school and that didn t got in trouble with teachers, or spoke back, or something like that. school bad boy, huh? 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, faster than a person could walk. the story told by the phone is, i m in a car. yeah. reporter: had she been abducted, grabbed by a person or persons unknown? the stranger-danger abduction theory was gaining traction with both the police and danielle s peers. well a lot of girls at the high school were scared of like walking around you know in their neighborhoods and stuff at night now. reporter: and parents were
if the weather was good, her decision was made, go right to the creek and bypass school all together. tell me about an afternoon at the creek, caroline, what would you do? just go swimming. after we were done swimming we would sit by the fire and get dry, and hurry up and go back to the bus and take it home. they would play all day like frisky otters. innocent fun until one day when this secret teenaged world collided with tragedy. i just knew in my heart something was wrong. people were actually hiding their kids. you think i m going to risk not knowing what actually happen happened? no i was going to find out. so this story is about a teejed sweetie named danielle. danielle locklear. it seeps everyone in her orbit got a boost from her sunny take
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 light, i d see it. reporter: the media set up shop in the police station parking lot. deputy chief servie and his team started giving regular briefings. and we are leaving no stone unturned in order to find danielle and bring her home. people want information about what s going on. they re concerned about the case. 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? yeah. there s pressure for answers, pressures for resolution.