Nine years ago Friday, 20-year-old Abby Lynn Patterson climbed into an older-model brown Buick sedan on East Ninth Street in Lumberton, North Carolina, and was never seen again. She had told her mother she was running errands and would be back within the hour. She never returned, and the case remains unsolved.
The FBI Charlotte Field Office marked the anniversary of Patterson's disappearance this week with a renewed public appeal. “We will not stopping searching for Abby Patterson. Abby was last seen today in 2017,” the bureau wrote in a post shared by FBI Charlotte on X, adding that agents and the Lumberton Police Department are still seeking information to help “Find Abby.” Patterson had been visiting her mother in Lumberton over Labor Day weekend in 2017 when she vanished, according to the FBI.
Investigators later identified and interviewed the driver of the brown Buick, described as an acquaintance of Patterson's, who told detectives he had dropped her off at another location before losing contact with her, per CBS News. Law enforcement conducted a court-authorized analysis of Patterson's electronic footprint in an effort to identify who she had been with that morning. No arrests have ever been made in her case, and her whereabouts remain unknown.
A Reward That's Grown Over Nine Years
Authorities initially offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to Patterson's whereabouts in late 2017, a figure that grew to $10,000 after a private donation from a local business, the outlet's report notes. That $10,000 reward remains active today alongside the FBI Charlotte Field Office's tip line for anyone with information.
In July 2018, police and FBI agents searched and drained a 40-foot-wide pond near an abandoned home off Alamac Road in Lumberton as part of the ongoing search for Patterson. Investigators spent several days combing the area with cadaver dogs and heavy equipment, according to an account published on Medium. No body was found.
A Life in Progress Before She Vanished
Before traveling to see her mother in September 2017, Patterson had completed an opioid rehabilitation program in Charlotte and was living in a sober living facility in Jacksonville, Florida. She had also been accepted into college to study counseling, and her mother had described her as maintaining a positive environment and supporting herself independently, according to a Reddit account of the case.
Fear of a Serial Killer That Police Say Isn't Connected
Patterson's disappearance rattled a town already on edge. Between April and June 2017, the bodies of three women—Christina Bennett, Rhonda Jones, and Megan Oxendine—were discovered dumped within a four-block radius of Lumberton, with Bennett and Jones found on April 18 and Oxendine found on June 3 in abandoned properties and trash containers, per 13NewsNow.
Community members questioned whether a serial killer was operating in the small town, but Lumberton Police Department officials publicly stated in late 2017 that they were 99 percent sure Patterson's disappearance was not linked to the unsolved deaths of the three women, citing distinct differences in victim backgrounds and circumstances. The three homicides remain unsolved as well. The FBI Charlotte Field Office raised its reward for information leading to the identification and apprehension of whoever is responsible for those deaths to $75,000 in April 2024, up from earlier offers of $30,000 and $40,000, marking the cases' seventh anniversary.
A Small Town Still Waiting for Answers
Lumberton, the county seat of Robeson County, has a population of roughly 19,000 and sits along the Interstate 95 corridor, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — a detail that underscores how a town of that size absorbed four unresolved disappearances and deaths within a matter of months in 2017. Robeson County is North Carolina's largest county by land area and functions as a major East Coast transit hub.
Patterson's case is one of thousands that North Carolina authorities handle each year. The North Carolina Center for Missing Persons receives more than 10,000 missing persons reports annually statewide, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, though the vast majority of those who go missing return safely. Long-running cold cases like Patterson's depend on public tips to move forward, which is why the FBI Charlotte Field Office and Lumberton Police Department continue to issue joint anniversary appeals nine years on, still hoping someone with information about the brown Buick, or about Abby Patterson herself, will finally come forward.
