A 25-year-old bar hand who is also a registered sex offender was one of the last people to see missing Fort Bragg soldier Kelli Bordeaux on Saturday morning, cops said.
Nicholas Holbert -- who was convicted at age 16 of an offense involving a 5-year-old child -- was questioned twice by police on Wednesday. Holbert told ABC 11 in an exclusive interview that he gave Bordeaux a ride home from the Froggy Bottoms bar in Fayetteville that night, but said he dropped her off at the entrance of her neighborhood.
"As soon as you drive into the entrance to Meadowbrook, she said stop right here," Holbert told the station. "So I stopped and she said, 'I'll walk home.' I said, 'Are you sure?' She said, 'Yeah.' I figured she didn't want me to know where she lived, or somebody was there and she didn't want to be seen together."
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Missing Soldier
In addition to questioning Holbert, authorities conducted an expansive search for the 23-year-old soldier on Wednesday, both near the Interstate 295 corridor where her last text message was sent and at a pond that an anonymous tipster identified as a place of interest, CNN reported.
Cops said that Bordeaux disappeared after leaving the bar at about 1:20 a.m. At some point that morning, two text messages were sent from her phone. One said, "got home safely," according to CNN. It's yet unclear to whom the text was sent or what the contents of the second text was.
So far, the search hasn't turned up any results. Police are still worried that Bordeaux is in danger.
"There is some information we've gathered that makes us concerned for her safety," Fayetteville police spokesman Gavin MacRoberts told ABC 11.
Holbert has not been charged with any crime.