Disappearance of Hope Mills teen remains a mystery

Hope Mills investigators are working with Fayetteville police, Cumberland County sheriff's deputies and the FBI – a task force of about 50 law enforcement officers – to determine what happened to the 15-year-old and where she is.

Meanwhile, her mother, Rowna Fowler, is waiting for her daughter to return home. It’s been a week since she got a phone call saying "Dannie" was missing.

“There were just so many things that we were excited about, that we had plans for, that we were both excited about, and this does not make any sense,” she said Tuesday. "No one knows what a mother goes through. I feel as though my heart has been ripped out."

Friends and investigators say Locklear, a freshman at South View High School, is a good, popular student. The teenager left her grandparents’ home on Trencholm Lane in Hope Mills' Fox Meadow/Brook Ridge subdivisions on March 11 to visit a friend.

She never arrived. Her grandfather contacted police the next day.

Investigators heard she may have been by a creek that runs near the neighborhood, a local hangout for teenagers.

Some of her clothes were found there two days later. Investigators searched the area but found nothing.

"We do not know, at this particular time, what has happened to Danielle, or where she is," Hope Mills Police Chief Joel Acciardo said.

Locklear is bi-racial, has black hair, green eyes. She stands 5 feet 1 inch tall and weighs 150 to 160 pounds.

Anyone with information about Locklear's disappearance should contact the Hope Mills Police Department at 910-425-4103 or the FBI in Charlotte at 704-672-6100.

For now, her mother continues to wait.

"Danielle, if you see this, come home baby,” Fowler said. "I love you. I won't be mad at you, just come home."