North Carolina stepmother arrested in Sara Graham presumed murder case
Connie Graham was arrested after a judge declared Sara Graham legally dead, shifting a 2015 disappearance into a homicide case.
Connie Graham was arrested in North Carolina on Thursday. A Superior Court judge declared her stepdaughter, Sara Graham, legally dead and cleared the way for homicide charges in a case that began as a missing-person investigation in 2015.
Sara Graham vanished on February 4, 2015, after leaving home around 6:30 a.m. for a Walmart shift in Pembroke, North Carolina, and never arriving at work. The FBI lists her as a missing person: Native American, 5-foot-4, about 160 pounds, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. It offers a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to her location. Her van was found abandoned in a field off East McDonald Road the same day she disappeared.
The case stayed active for years. In June 2023, Robeson County investigators and FBI agents searched a home after receiving new leads, and a NC Troopers Association K-9 unit was involved in the search effort. In 2025, sheriff’s officials marked the 10-year anniversary of Sara Graham’s disappearance and said they would not give up on the case.
The legal break came on June 1, 2026, when a Superior Court judge applied North Carolina’s seven-year missing-person presumption rule and declared Sara Graham dead. Sheriff Burnis Wilkins said that ruling gave investigators the legal step they needed to pursue homicide charges. On the same day, authorities arrested Connie Graham, who was charged with first-degree murder, felony conspiracy and stealing, altering or destroying evidence. Police also charged her sons, Bobby Matthew McClellan and Luke Locklear, with conspiracy and altering or destroying evidence, and McClellan was separately charged as an accessory after the fact.
Connie Graham had worked as a deputy with the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office when Sara disappeared, while Sara’s father, Hubert Graham, now serves as chief of the Rowland Police Department. Connie Graham was arrested at Hubert Graham’s home, and Hubert Graham had complained the FBI had barely contacted him over the years.
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