Abby Patterson, a 20-year-old woman from Jacksonville, Florida, was visiting her mother in the small city of Lumberton, North Carolina, on September 5 when she texted her mom that she had something to do and would be back in an hour, according to report in the Raleigh News and Observer newspaper. She then, witnesses said, was seen getting into a brown Buick automobile on East Ninth Street in the city of 21,000.
That was the last that anyone is known to have seen Patterson — with the possible exception of the other person in that car, who has been described only as “an acquaintance.”