A Black Teen Couple Vanished in 1991 — 10 Years Later, Their Locket Was Found in a Well

PROM NIGHT, 1991 — THE NIGHT THE MUSIC ENDED

Cypress Bend, Mississippi, was a town where silence could swallow even a train’s whistle. On prom night, 1991, that silence lingered long after the music faded at Cypress Bend High. The gym still pulsed with the ghost of a slow Luther Vandross jam as the last students drifted out beneath silver balloons.

Darnell Washington—“D” to his friends—adjusted his bow tie and looked down at Mo’Nique “Mo” Baptiste, her head on his shoulder, heels dangling from one hand. “You sure you want to go out to the river?” he asked softly. “It’s our spot, isn’t it?” she replied, eyes shining.

They weren’t the flashiest couple, but everyone knew D and Mo. He captained the debate team; she led the choir. Both had college acceptance letters in D’s old Pontiac: Jackson State for him, Spelman for her. Around Mo’s neck hung a half-heart locket engraved “DW”—inside, a tiny photo of D. He wore the matching half with her face. One heart, split in two.

The drive to Lover’s Leap, a clearing by the Yazoo River, took ten minutes. Cypress trees leaned over the water, the radio played quietly, and Mo whispered, “I wish we could just freeze this. Stay like this forever.” D squeezed her hand. “We’ve got forever. You and me.”

But then, headlights pierced the trees. A truck rumbled up behind them. Three white teens, older, wearing Planters Ridge letterman jackets, approached. D recognized Brent Coington—son of a local councilman, a bully with a grudge. “Didn’t know they let folks from the backside of the tracks have limos now,” Brent sneered. D tried to keep calm, but the mood darkened.

One boy slammed a fist on the Pontiac’s roof. “You running your smart mouth with her in the car?” he jeered, eyes on Mo. “Back off,” Mo snapped. D started the engine. The truck followed, high beams glaring into their mirror, swerving close. “Don’t stop,” Mo whispered. “I won’t,” D promised.

They made it back toward the lights of town. The truck finally turned off. D and Mo never said anything to their parents. But by morning, they were gone.

THE TOWN THAT WOULDN’T LISTEN

Gloria Washington called the police at 2 a.m. She knew her son wasn’t the type to sneak off. Clarence Baptiste, Mo’s father, rallied family and friends. By dawn, they stood at the sheriff’s office, desperate. Desk Sergeant Ali barely looked up. “Runaways,” he muttered.

“No,” Gloria insisted. “They never came home after prom.”

Detective Henshaw, sharp-jawed and smirking, leaned in. “Bet they’re halfway to Memphis chasing stars.” Gloria described the boys from Planters Ridge, the truck, but Henshaw waved it off. “We’re not about to drag good families through the mud over prom night drama. Bring us a crime scene.”

No Amber Alert. No search. Just a file: “Possible runaways.” The silence of Cypress Bend closed in.

The Black community organized their own search parties—scouring roadsides, rivers, woods. Nothing. The Pontiac never turned up. The locket wasn’t found. The police never questioned the Planters Ridge boys. By summer, the story faded from the local paper. But in Black neighborhoods, the pain rooted itself deep.

By 1993, the families filed lawsuits against the sheriff’s department for failure to investigate. The case was dismissed. D’s little sister graduated in ’95, his photo pinned to her gown. By ’97, Clarence began drinking alone on the porch at night, calling out to the trees as if Mo might step out barefoot and grinning.

A decade passed like smoke through a keyhole.

THE LOCKET IN THE WELL — 2001

In 2001, 16-year-old Devon Miller wandered to an old, half-collapsed farmstead near town, looking for a quiet place to smoke. He noticed an old well, almost hidden by weeds. Something metallic glinted at the edge—a rusted chain, a heart-shaped locket, caked in mud. DW. MB.

Devon didn’t hesitate. He ran all the way back to town, clutching the locket. For the first time in ten years, Cypress Bend remembered how to listen.

Sheriff Tyrone Maxwell, just 22 when D and Mo vanished, now wore the badge. He stared at the locket for a long time. Devon explained where he found it—by the old Lancaster farm, long abandoned. The area was sealed off. Gloria Washington was called just past midnight. She arrived at the station, hands shaking. When she saw the locket, she whispered, “This is it. This is their locket.”

Excavation began. The well was drained. At the bottom: a faded red cloth, a tooth, two sets of skeletal remains, D’s class ring, Mo’s choir bracelet, and a rusted license plate from D’s Pontiac. The car itself was never found. But the well had held the truth.

Word spread. Over a hundred people gathered for a candlelight vigil. It wasn’t just about D and Mo anymore—it was about every time someone’s pain had been ignored.

THE CASE REOPENED — AND THE SYSTEM EXPOSED

Sheriff Maxwell dug into the old files: barely more than a few notes and a photocopied flyer. No real witness interviews, no follow-up on the Planters Ridge names. But Brent Coington’s name kept surfacing. In 1991, he was 19, son of Councilman Walter Coington, protected.

Maxwell tracked down old classmates. Most were afraid to talk, but Cassandra Miles remembered: “They were talking about teaching some punk a lesson. Brent hated how smart D was, how confident. Said D didn’t know his place.”

The well had given them bones. Now Maxwell needed names. Forensics confirmed the remains belonged to adolescents, consistent with D and Mo. The locket, waterlogged and rusted, was opened with surgical tweezers. Inside, the tiny photographs were warped, but recognizable.

Gloria and Clarence were brought to see it. Gloria held the box to her chest and whispered something Maxwell couldn’t hear. That evening, for the first time in years, the church bell rang for D and Mo.

JUSTICE DENIED, THE TRUTH UNCOVERED

The district attorney refused to press charges. “It’s circumstantial,” he said. “No murder weapon, no DNA, no fingerprints. The case is too contaminated. Any defense lawyer will destroy this.”

“So Brent Coington walks?” Maxwell asked.
“We’d lose. And if we lose, you’ll never touch him again.”

Maxwell told Gloria and Clarence everything. “Will he ever be charged?” Gloria asked.
“I don’t know. But I promise you—the story won’t die again.”

A week later, two caskets were laid side by side in Cypress Bend Memorial Cemetery. The community came—old classmates, elders, even a new generation who only knew them as legends. The locket sat in a glass case on the altar. Maxwell didn’t speak at the service. He didn’t need to. For once, Cypress Bend felt the weight of what it had lost.

The well was filled in. The town called it “closure.” The papers called it a tragedy long overdue for justice. But Maxwell knew better. What had been uncovered was not closure, but the unearthing of a wound—a system that had never meant to protect them.

THE AFTERMATH — AND THE PROMISE

Maxwell kept the locket in his drawer—not as evidence, but as memory. One evening, he received an unsigned letter with a photo: three boys in formal suits near the gym on prom night, 1991. Brent was unmistakable. In the background, D’s Pontiac. On the back, in shaky handwriting: “They followed them from here.”

It was a whisper, too late for a conviction, but proof all the same. Gloria and Clarence saw it. “It’s always been the truth,” Clarence said. “Now it’s just written down.”

The school board approved a memorial: a granite bench beneath the old oak tree at Cypress Bend High. Carved into the backrest:
“In loving memory of Darnell Washington and Mon’Nique Baptiste, Class of ’91. A love the world tried to silence.”

At the unveiling, Gloria wore white, Clarence held her hand, and a student sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow”—Mo’s old solo. Afterward, Gloria approached Maxwell. “Thank you,” she said. “You did what you could when others wouldn’t. I think they would have liked you.” Clarence handed Maxwell a handkerchief found in Darnell’s choir robe. “We thought it belonged with someone who still carries him.”

The bench became a place where students left flowers on prom week, a place to sit when the world felt too loud. The janitors started calling it the Promise Bench.

Brent Coington eventually moved away in silence. No apology, no confession. Just the quiet rust of a man retreating from his own reflection.

Years later, when the story of D and Mo was picked up by a national podcast, Maxwell gave a single interview. “There are stories that never got told right the first time. This one was never told at all.”

The episode went viral. Suddenly, people started asking harder questions about Boulevard County’s history. One more anonymous letter arrived in 2003.
It contained only three words:
“We were there.”