On Thursday just before the Easter break, a friend contacted Cockeram to say she had driven past and did not see the bus, so on Good Friday she visited the site to discover the bus was gone.
Cockeram was saddened and mystified at the disappearance and she believed someone had to have staked out the location beforehand.
The road entrance to her section was virtually invisible, with not even a mailbox, and from SH6 only the roof of Billy the Bus could be seen.
"Unless you knew where you were looking, most people didn't even see him."
It seemed the thieves came prepared, she said.
A bolt cutter was used to cut through a padlock, and Cockeram found empty cans of a degreasing spray that she thought was used to get the tyres moving.
She didn't think anyone would be able to even get the engine going after four years and it would have been difficult to even move the bus off the section.
"It wasn't lighthearted, it was considered."
Items including the deck made from pallets and anything the thieves didn't want were unceremoniously thrown off the bus.
To add further insult to injury, when she posted on social media about the missing bus, including writing a poem about it, she experienced online bullying, with messages that became increasingly nasty and taunting, she said.