MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com) - A Memphis family is still searching for answers after Ricarda Tillman Lockett mysteriously vanished. Sunday, February 19, 2012 marks five years since her disappearance. Lockett's family believes she's dead and they blame her husband for killing her. The family says police aren't doing enough and it's turning into a cold case with no body, no leads, and no one in custody.
"I want justice done. That wasn't fair. It's not fair for him to just kill my niece and then go live happily ever after with the baby and not even let me see the baby,” said Lockett’s aunt, Richenda Pritchard.
Pictures are the only things that help Richenda Pritchard keep her niece's memory alive. She blames Ricarda's estranged husband, Lou, for her death.
"He had been trying to get her back. She left him, you know, because she was staying in a woman’s shelter,” Pritchard told abc24.com. "He was beating her up and had a gun on her and everything. She was so full of fear. She just kept looking back at the door."
The couple separated a week before she disappeared. Witnesses saw her husband pick her up from work, making him the last person to see her alive. “To my knowledge they think that I murdered her. I didn't murder her,” Lou Lockett told abc24.com on February 27, 2007, one week after she had gone missing.
Police never named Lou Lockett as a suspect. Ricarda's aunt says he was abusive to her niece. He was even arrested for domestic violence in the past. Lou also wrote a manuscript that raised suspicion.
"It's filthy and full of things in there about how to kill and how to get rid of a body so no one can find it,” said Pritchard.
Pritchard fears Ricarda will never see her now 5-year-old son Donnel grow up.
“It hurts my whole family. I'll never forget her, she was my niece, I raised her here,” Pritchard said.
Lou Lockett has custody of the couple's son. We went to Lou's last known address and neighbors told us he hasn't lived there in years. We also tried calling him but the number is disconnected.
