First Posted: 1/15/2009

DNA tests planned in 1998 murder case
Staff and wire report
RAEFORD - Authorities investigating the 1998 slaying of a 5-year-old Hoke County girl plan to take a DNA sample from an inmate in Hyde County, Hoke County Sheriff Hubert Peterkin said.
Brittany Locklear disappeared Jan. 7, 1998, just yards from her family's mobile home in southern Hoke County. They found her naked body a day later, abandoned in a drainage ditch along another country road three miles away. More than 500 people volunteered to search for the girl. Her clothing and backpack were found the day before her body was found.
Authorities said she had been raped and drowned. No arrests have been made.
The inmate, Keith Douglas Londeree, 44, of Moore County, is serving 18 months in the Hyde Correctional Center for robbing a BB&T bank in Carthage. He was arrested July 29, 2003.
Peterkin would not say whether his office has identified other suspects or if his office has received the results of Londeree's DNA test.
“Londeree is a suspect, and we are following leads,” Peterkin said. “We are not going to assume anything until every thing is said and done.”
Londeree had been a firefighter for the Fort Bragg Fire Department since 1992, according to station records. Workers there found pictures of Brittany inside his locker after he was arrested.
Neither Peterkin nor State Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Jerry Weaver would comment on the contents of the locker or the pictures. They would not say how they became aware of the pictures.
Officials at the fire department would not comment.
Peterkin is the third Hoke County sheriff to work on the case. He said his office is developing a task force that will include several law enforcement agencies. Peterkin said he plans to re-interview people and re-examine files.
“I can't say everything has been done. This (murder) happened two sheriffs ago,” Peterkin said. “We are starting over with the case.”
Brittany's mother, Connie Chavis, could not be reached for comment. Chavis and the girl's estranged father, who lived in Pembroke at the time, were quickly ruled out as suspects when the murder happened.
A neighbor witnessed the kindergartner's abduction, which happened as Locklear was waiting for the school bus at the end of her driveway.
“I saw a truck come flying around the curve and down toward Brittany,” Rose Johnson said. “It slowed down quick, and someone hopped out of the truck real fast. He bent over like he was picking something up, hopped back in the truck and drove out of there real fast.”
Chavis had been waiting with her daughter for the bus, but went inside the house for a few minutes. When she came out, the child was gone.
Investigators received more than 1,600 tips in the weeks that followed Locklear's death. They interviewed every known child molester in a 50-mile radius. They searched in vain for their only real lead: The white man in a brown pickup truck mentioned by several witnesses.
The family in 2002 criticized former Sheriff Jim Davis, saying he used the killing to boost his re-election campaign.