18-year-old didn’t show up for work in 2015. NC cops now are taking another look

An 18-year-old woman didn’t show up to work in 2015 — and now, deputies in North Carolina are taking another look into her disappearance.

Sara Nicole Graham was known as a “dependable” Walmart worker. But when she left her home to go to the store’s Pembroke location Feb. 4, 2015, she never got there, according to the FBI.

“Everything we’ve learned about Sara tells us that she did not take off on her own,” the federal agency said in a YouTube video posted in 2022.

Now, more than eight years after Graham was last seen, the case is getting another look. On June 8, the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office said its homicide division joined the FBI and a K-9 team to conduct a search related to her disappearance.

The sheriff’s office didn’t immediately share additional information about the search with McClatchy News on June 9.

Graham disappeared in 2015 from her home in Fairmont, roughly 110 miles southwest of Raleigh. At the time, “Sara was making friends and was happy with her new life in North Carolina,” according to federal officials.

Graham — who had “short dark brown hair, wore glasses and had braces” — was last known to be wearing a Walmart vest, officials said. She is one of several Native American women to mysteriously go missing from the same area in recent years.

And in 2017, police said three women — including two from the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina — were found dead within blocks of each other in the Robeson County town of Lumberton. The deaths, which remain unsolved as of June 2, sparked fears of a serial killer, The News & Observer reported.

The sheriff’s office didn’t mention foul play in its post about Graham’s disappearance, but officials said her van was seen abandoned in a field about 15 minutes after she left for her job. Now, years after the search for clues started, there’s a $5,000 reward for tips that lead investigators to her.

Deputies urge people with information about the case to call them at 910-671-3100 or the FBI Charlotte Field Office at 704-672-6100. Information also can be shared online at tips.fbi.gov.

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