LUMBERTON, N.C. (WNCN) — Authorities in Lumberton say they don’t believe the case 20-year-old Abby Patterson, who hasn’t been seen for a month, is related to the deaths of three women earlier this year. 
 
 UPDATE: FBI steps up efforts to find missing 20-year-old Lumberton woman 
 
 “While there is always a possibility, we are 99 percent sure the case is not related to the females this spring and early summer,” said Capt. Terry W. Parker of the Lumberton Police Department. 
 
 MOBILE USERS: Click here for photos of Abby 
 
 Patterson was last seen when she climbed into a brown Buick near East Ninth Street on Sept. 5, Lumberton police said. 
 
 Megan Ann Oxendine, 28, Christina Bennett, 32, and Rhonda Jones, 36, were all found dead in an area between East Fifth and East Eighth streets. Bennett’s and Jones’ bodies were found April 18. Oxendine was alive at the time, and was interviewed by CBS North Carolina about the death of her friend, Jones. Oxendine’s body was found June 3. 
 
 Bennett’s body was found in a house. Jones’ body was in a trash can. And Oxendine’s body was behind a house. 
 
 Investigators have not released how any of the women died, nor have they named any suspects in the deaths. 
 
 “We aren’t sure if (the three women’s deaths) are related, but we are considering it,” Parker said in June. 
 
 Authorities are offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads them to Patterson. 
 
 She’s described by police as standing 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing 140 pounds, with brown hair and eyes. She has light skin, with a birth mark on the back left thigh and a bird tattoo on her shoulder, police say. 
 
 RELATED: Lumberton police ID 3rd woman found dead in same neighborhood ||||| The FBI is assisting in the investigations of three women whose remains were found within the last year in the same North Carolina town where a fourth woman is now missing. 
 
 Abby Patterson, 20, told her mother she'd return in an hour when she left the family's Lumberton, N.C., home on the morning of Sept. 5 and stepped into an old brown Buick parked outside. 
 
 Authorities are searching for the young woman — who has not been seen or heard from since — as they also probe the deaths of three other women whose bodies were found weeks apart from each other in a three-block area of Lumberton. 
 
 "At this point we don't know if there's a connection," Lumberton Police Chief Michael McNeill said of the women. 
 
 "We’re soliciting help from the community," McNeill told Fox News. "Someone out there has information we need." 
 
 Investigators discovered the body of Christina Bennett, 32, on April 18 inside an abandoned home in Lumberton — a city of close to 22,000 people in Robeson County. That same day, the remains of Rhonda Jones were found in a nearby trash container. 
 
 Neighborhood resident 28-year-old Megan Oxendine was interviewed by a local news station at the time Jones' body was discovered. Weeks later, on June 3, Oxendine's remains were found about 500 feet away from the other women’s remains. 
 
 There were no obvious signs of trauma to the victims, and police are still waiting for official autopsy reports from the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Raleigh, McNeill said. 
 
 An FBI spokeswoman confirmed to Fox News on Thursday that the bureau is assisting local police with the investigations. 
 
 In the case of Patterson, police said they have identified the man last seen with the young woman, who was living in Florida and visiting her mother in Lumberton for two days when she disappeared. 
 
 "We’re still talking to him," Lumberton Police Department Captain Terry Parker said to Fox News. 
 
 "We think it’s someone she knew, but we're not sure," said Parker, who did not name the man or say whether he's considered a person of interest in the case. 
 
 "Abby is still listed as a missing person. We've had reported sightings of her, but none of them have been confirmed," he said. 
 
 The woman's mother, meanwhile, told Fox News it was unlike her daughter to voluntarily cut all contact with her family. 
 
 "We talk or text every day," said Samantha Lovette, Patterson's mother. "When she didn’t come home after an hour, I called her cell phone and it went straight to voicemail." 
 
 "We just want her home," said Lovette, who described her daughter, the youngest of her three children, as "bubbly and free-spirited." 
 
 "Everybody she meets, she just loves and they love her," said Lovette. 
 
 A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the location of Patterson. Anyone with information on her whereabouts or on the deaths of Bennett, Jones and Oxendine is urged to call the Lumberton Police Department at (910) 671-3845.
– Family members are pleading for the safe return of Abby Lynn Patterson, a 20-year-old woman last seen getting into a brown Buick outside the family home in Lumberton, NC, on Sept. 5. The disappearance is especially troubling because three other women were found dead in the town, population 22,000, earlier this year, Fox News reports. On April 18, Christina Bennett, 32, was found dead in an abandoned home and the body of 36-year-old Rhonda Jones was found in a nearby trash can. Then, on June 3, Megan Oxendine, 28, a woman who had been interviewed on TV about the disappearance of Jones, was found dead behind a house around 500 feet away from where the first two bodies were found. Police haven't disclosed how the three women died, and they say they don't know if there is a connection between them and Patterson, who told her family she would be back in an hour. "When she didn’t come home after an hour, I called her cell phone and it went straight to voicemail," says Patterson's mother, Samantha Lovette. "We just want her home," she says. Lumberton police spokesman Terry Carter tells WNCN that they are "99% sure" Patterson's disappearance is not related to the deaths, but there is "always a possibility." Police say they are "still talking" to the young man last seen with Patterson, who lived in Florida and was visiting her family when she disappeared.