Left: Tyrique Williams (Pulaski County Jail). Right: Annie Lock (Fayetteville Police Department).
A North Carolina soldier accused of murdering his pregnant girlfriend two months before marrying another woman will spend the next decade — at least — behind bars.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Private First Class Tyrique Zavier Leroy Williams, then 26, was accused in April 2025 of first-degree murder and concealment of death in the slaying of 24-year-old Annie Lock, who was last seen in August 2024. Lock was five weeks pregnant when she disappeared; Williams allegedly told her family that he would file a missing persons report, but never actually did.
Earlier this month, Williams pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and desecration of a body or remains concealing an unnatural death. According to court documents reviewed by Law&Crime, he was sentenced to serve 15 to 19 years in a state correctional facility.
Deputies found Lock's body on April 13, 2025, in a pond near the intersection of State Road 72 West and Buie Philadelphus Road in Red Springs, a town located about 115 miles southeast of Charlotte. Although she hadn't been seen alive since the previous August in Fayetteville, no one reported her missing until October 2024, the Fayetteville Police Department said in a press release at the time Lock's remains were found.
Local NBC affiliate WRAL spoke with Lock's family members, who said Williams told them in August 2024 that he would file a missing persons report. Her family also had cops stop by Williams and Lock's apartment, but he said she wasn't home.
But some two months later, not only had Williams allegedly failed to file that report — he had also married another woman, who had given birth to another child a month after the victim was last seen.
"I found out in October because I questioned him. I said 'have detectives reached back out to you in reference of anything?' He said 'I didn't file a report,'" her sister Tanya Lock told local ABC affiliate WTVD.
Her family reported her missing; months later, deputies from the Robeson County Sheriff's Office recovered Lock's body from the pond in Red Springs, roughly 30 miles from Lock's last known location.
Williams was completing his basic training with the 35th Engineer Battalion in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, when he was arrested, a spokesperson told Law&Crime in an email at the time. Authorities then transported him to the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office.
Tanya Lock also said she had received messages from her sister's phone weeks after she disappeared. The spelling was off, she told the Fayetteville Observer, but she responded as if she were talking to her sister.
"I was going along with it just in case it was her," Tanya Lock said.
Other messages from the victim's phone allegedly claimed she needed a "break from life" and that she would be "back in a couple of months."
"You don't have to call nobody or report nothing I'm fine I promise," said a message received in September 2024, according to Tanya Lock. "Tyrique said that you guys were reporting it. We're fine. I'm communicating with him. He has the baby."
The revelation about the messages came in a civil filing by Tanya Lock over custody of another child, then 2 years old, that Annie Lock shared with Williams.
Williams will receive credit for 468 days already spent behind bars, the judgment and sentencing order said.
David Harris contributed to this report.