Sara Nicole Graham’s stepmother Connie Graham and her two sons have been arrested in the 2015 homicide investigation.
Eleven years after 18-year-old Sara Nicole Graham left her home in Fairmont, North Carolina one February morning and never returned, Robeson County authorities have made an arrest in the homicide investigation into her disappearance.
On Thursday, deputies took Connie Graham — Sara’s stepmother — into custody at a residence in Fairmont around 9:30 a.m. The Robeson County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the arrest but stated that more details, including specific charges, would be released later.
According to court records reviewed by The North Carolina Beat, Connie has been charged with Felony Conspiracy, First-Degree Murder, and Felony Alter/Steal/Destroy Criminal Evidence.
A Routine Morning That Ended in Mystery
On February 4, 2015, Sara Nicole Graham, a Lumbee woman who had recently moved to Robeson County from Texas, left home around 6:30 a.m. to work her shift at the Walmart in Pembroke. She never made it there.
Around 12:15 p.m., the same day, deputies responded to a call about a suspicious white Chevrolet van (registered to Sara’s father, Hubert Graham) parked in a wheat field off East McDonald Road near the tree line in Fairmont, close to I-95.
Witnesses reportedly saw the van parked in the area as early as 6:45 a.m. that morning.
The doors were manually locked, and there were no immediate signs of a struggle. Despite widespread searches and appeals for information, Sara was never located. No remains have been publicly linked to the investigation.
For more than a decade, the case stayed open. The FBI and Robeson County Sheriff’s Office pursued hundreds of leads. In 2025, on the 10-year mark, the reward for useful information was raised to $10,000.
Earlier this month, a Robeson County Superior Court judge declared Sara Nicole Graham legally dead under North Carolina law, which allows a missing person to be presumed dead if they have been absent from their last known residence and unheard from for a continuous period of seven or more years.
The ruling, issued, enabled investigators to treat the matter more fully as a homicide.
Sheriff Burnis Wilkins addressed the significance at the time:
“Let me be clear, the judge’s ruling does not alter our search for Sara. It does expand the scope of our joint case from a missing person to a homicide. We continue to use every available investigative method, technology, and resource to search for Sara.”
Thursday’s arrests became the first major breakthrough since Sara was declared dead by the courts.
Connie Graham had previously worked as a detective with the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office and was terminated not long after Sara’s disappearance. Sara’s father, Hubert Graham, was a deputy with the agency at the time and has publicly stated that he cooperated with the investigation from the start.
He currently serves as Chief of the Rowland Police Department.
According to Connie Graham’s felony conspiracy warrant, she conspired with Luke Locklear “to commit the felony of altering, stealing, or destroying criminal evidence against Sara Graham.”
According to local reports, Locklear is Connie’s son. Another one of Connie’s sons, Bobby McLellan, was also arrested and charged. He is accused of conspiring with Connie “to commit the felony of altering, stealing, or destroying criminal evidence against Sara Graham.”
This remains an active investigation and a developing story.
