Kynande Kalehje Bennett was reported missing in the late afternoon of September 29, 2002, after her mother, Vartasha McCullough, said the four-year-old was last seen at a K-Mart in Whiteville, North Carolina, at about 5:00 p.m. Kynande was a young African American girl with brown hair and brown eyes, about three feet ten inches tall, weighing ninety pounds, with a seashell-shaped birthmark on her arm and pierced ears. On the day she disappeared she wore a gray FUBU t-shirt, blue jeans, white socks and black sneakers, and her hair was in small braids.

Investigators found inconsistencies in the parents’ accounts. Surveillance footage from the store showed no images of Kynande and no witnesses recalled seeing her there. Family members reported concerns about abuse before she vanished, and witnesses had seen bruises and cuts on her in the days before. Biological evidence recovered at the family apartment in Conway matched Kynande’s DNA, leading authorities to allege she had died in the residence rather than in Whiteville.

Both parents were arrested in February 2003 and charged with homicide by child abuse; charges against Kevin Bennett were later dropped in October 2005, while Vartasha McCullough was convicted in February 2006 of homicide by child abuse, unlawful neglect of a child, and inflicting great bodily harm and sentenced to twenty years. Kynande’s body has never been found. Does anyone have information about Kynande’s final movements or the family’s residence in Conway?