(WBIR) One year ago, a LaFollette mother and Sunday school teacher disappeared from her home without a trace.
And one year later, Rhonda Daugherty's family is still waiting to hold a funeral – to give her a proper goodbye.
Daugherty vanished Dec. 2, 2014, but her purse, cell phone and keys were still inside her house.
Roughly a month later, a grand jury indicted Lonnie Vann, a former Campbell County middle school teacher, on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery – all connected to her death.
Daugherty's body, however, has yet to be found, and investigators have since declined to say what evidence they have that links Vann to the crime.
"We've had a year to go over things and nothing makes any sense to us," said Charles Daugherty, her husband. "Sometimes it will keep you up at night thinking about the little details. We've not got any closure to it at all. Not what happened or why it happened. We know nothing."
The husband said "it's been a hard year," and one full of "ups and downs."
Early on, he said, the family thought they would find Rhonda, then 49, alive. But on Jan. 7, 2015, authorities told them that they she had been murdered.
"We switched to just wanting to recover her and have her a proper funeral and burial," he said. "But we've not been able to do that, either."
Rhonda and Charles had just celebrated their 30th anniversary. The couple also was eight days away from the seeing their first grandchild's birth.
"She was so excited about him," said Danelle Overton, Rhonda's daughter. "Everybody she met she would tell them she's having a grandbaby. She would take pictures of the ultra sound and show people – anybody that knew her and some people that didn't knew she was expecting her first grand baby. It meant everything in the world to her and the fact she didn't get to see him is so tragic. It breaks my heart."
Overton said she shows her son pictures of his grandmother. She wanted him to call her "gam gam" when they finally met.
"It makes me happy that he wants to go to her and then it makes me sad that she's never going to be able to pick him up," Overton said. "He's never going to see her."
Rhonda's mother, Nancy Kitts, said her daughter "was the rock of the family."
"She's the one we all went to for everything," Kitts said. "Now we cling to each other and that's what she would have wanted."
To honor Rhonda's memory, the family will hold a candlelight memorial Wednesday night at Coolidge Baptist Church.
"I want people to know what a loving wonderful person she was," Kitts said. "And she was happy with her life. She was where she wanted to be with her husband."
Vann's trial in Rhonda's death is set for May 2016. He also is accused of two armed robberies in South Carolina in December 2014.
Vann was fired from his Campbell County teaching job for attempting to kiss a 13-year-old student off campus.
