Morgan Nick Disappearance: Unsolved Cold Case of 6-Year-Old Girl

Image Courtesty of nbcnews.com

Disclaimer: This blog post is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and it is not meant to cause harm to anyone connected with the case. Please do not contact, threaten, harm, malign, or otherwise intimidate those mentioned in the post. Please do not release any personal information of the people mentioned in this post, and do not join in attacks conducted by others. Per U.S. law, every person directly or indirectly connected with this case is innocent until proven guilty.

***Please share this post! Your shares could bring Morgan home.***

About Morgan

Morgan Chauntel Nick was born on September 12, 1988. Information about her life before her disappearance is somewhat scarce. However, by 1995, she was six years old and the oldest of three children. According to her mother, Colleen, Morgan adored cats and even adopted a kitten from a local animal shelter. Like many girls her age, she was in Girl Scouts and loved bubble gum. She also preferred activities that didn’t involve running and playing outside because she didn’t like to get sweaty. She wanted to become a circus performer and a doctor.

Disappearance

On June 9, 1995, a family friend invited Morgan and her family to a Little League game in Alma, Arkansas, a town located approximately 30 minutes away from her hometown in Ozark. Although the game began late (around 9 PM local time), the evening started normally. Colleen noted that her daughter stayed by her side in the bleachers for the entirety of the game until towards the end when two kids asked Morgan to play with them and catch fireflies. Even though she wanted to go, Colleen refused at first. I was unable to verify what time this happened. However, given that the kids asked to go play toward the end of the game, it’s safe to assume that it was dark and getting late.

Even though Colleen refused, Morgan begged, and the other parents reportedly assured her that the area was safe. Because of this, she relented and allowed the young girl to go play. The area they ran to, a parking lot, was behind the bleachers, but within eyesight as long as one turned around. Her mother checked on the group three to four times, and all seemed well.

After the game, Colleen turned her back towards the children to watch the team walk off the field. By the time she turned around, she noted two of the children in Morgan’s group, but Morgan herself was no longer there. Reportedly, when asked where Morgan was, they noted that she was emptying sand from her shoes next to her mother’s Nissan Stanza. This was the last confirmed sighting, and it took place around 10:45 PM that night.

According to Colleen, Morgan was unlikely to disappear by herself. She didn’t like going places by herself, and there wasn’t anywhere for her to run off to, such as restrooms or concession stands. As a result, a bystander called the authorities to report her disappearance within minutes.

The police quickly became concerned after the children in Morgan’s group reported that they saw an unidentified Caucasian male. According to the Charley Project, his description was noted as the following:

• approximately 23-38 years old
• 6 feet tall and 180 pounds
• black or salt-and-pepper hair, combed back, possibly curly
• had a mustache with 3-4 days of beard growth
• hairy chest
• wore cutoff blue jean shorts, no shirt or shoes
• spoke with a “hillbilly” dialect/accent

Suspecting a possible abduction, the authorities immediately launched a full-scale investigation into her disappearance. Local agencies, the Arkansas state police, and the FBI all stepped in to assist. The local community assisted the Nick family by providing temporary housing, as well as helping with grid searches.

Meanwhile, the police scoured the playing field for evidence. They talked to attendees and received copies of home movies that people took, thinking that this might give them something to work with. Fortunately, this decision paid off. In one of the videos, police saw a red Ford pickup with a white camper shell drive away from the parking lot around the time Morgan disappeared. As of this writing, the driver of this truck has not been identified.

There were two attempted abductions nearby on June 9 and 10, one of which took place in Alma. An unidentified man who resembled the suspect in Morgan’s abduction tried to coax a four-year-old girl into a red truck. However, his attempt failed after the girl’s mother saw what was happening and screamed. In nearby Fort Smith (15 miles from Alma), an unidentified man tried to coax a nine-year-old girl into the men’s restroom at a convenience store. The girl resisted, though, and he stopped. The authorities have since confirmed that the incidents were both perpetrated by the same man.

In addition, the police took dozens of DNA samples from bottles, cigarette butts, and other items, hoping that it would give them additional leads. Many have been ruled out, but one of these might be a match in the future.

Eventually, time began to pass more quickly. Case files, information, and tips continued to pile up, but thus far, nothing has been able to solve the case and bring Morgan home.

However, in 2021, the authorities named Billy Jack Lincks as a person of interest. He was convicted of sexual indecency after an attempted child abduction two months after Morgan’s disappearance. In 1992, he was charged with sexual abuse, and he died in 2000 while serving time for that case.

The authorities are still investigating Lincks as a suspect, and they took possession of his truck to search for evidence. Reportedly, blood was found on part of a seat, as well as hair samples, but neither contained enough DNA to test for a match.

However, they found a blue-green cotton fiber in the mat under the seats, as well as the metal pieces of the truck. It was later confirmed that this fiber matched the Girl Scout shirt that Morgan was wearing the night she disappeared.

Time will tell if authorities can connect Lincks to Morgan’s disappearance, but for now, the case remains unsolved.

My Thoughts

The Morgan Nick disappearance is incredibly tragic and heartbreaking. A young girl goes off to play with other kids at a Little League game and never returns. She was doing something that should’ve been safe, yet she was anything but. I can only imagine what her family has been through, especially her mother.

I greatly admire Colleen Nick for her strength and determination to find her daughter. She’s fought hard to keep Morgan’s story in the media all these years, even going so far as to create the Morgan Nick Foundation. This is an organization that helps to locate missing Arkansas children and adults, provide support and resources to their families, and educate local communities about abduction prevention. I highly recommend looking into this organization further, especially if you or a loved one lives in Arkansas.

This case is a bit different than many cold case disappearances. For the first time in over 20 years, authorities have officially named a person of interest, Billy Jack Lincks, and they’ve discovered evidence that links him to Morgan. However, there are still many questions that we can’t answer yet. For example, if you go to online forums, many have written posts asking “who killed Morgan Nick” and “what happened to Morgan Nick.”

The hope is that with the right tips, authorities will get the break they need to solve this case once and for all.

For me, it’s pretty clear that Lincks was somehow involved. It’s incredibly suspicious that fibers from her shirt were found in his vehicle. That’s either one hell of a coincidence, or he was involved in some way.

The only problem is that we still don’t know the extent of his involvement. We know he attempted to abduct at least one child around the time Morgan disappeared, and he was also convicted of sexual indecency, but I was unable to find any information about anything else he did to his victims. Without this information, it’s hard to determine his involvement. He could have handed her off to someone else, put her in a trafficking ring, or killed her and disposed her body elsewhere. Until we get more evidence, anything is possible.

Unfortunately, Lincks died in prison over 20 years ago, so authorities are unable to question him further. The trail hasn’t gone cold yet, though. I imagine the police are interviewing his known associates, interviewing family members, and searching his personal belongings to find any lingering evidence. Hopefully, they will be able to figure out what happened and bring Morgan Nick home.

In the meantime, I encourage anyone with information to please come forward. If you were at the Little League game that night, or if you knew Lincks in any capacity, please call the authorities and tell them everything you know. It might not seem that significant to you, but it could make all the difference.

***

If you’re looking for more information about the disappearance of Morgan Nick, there are plenty of articles, documentaries, and blog posts. Hulu released a docuseries about her case earlier this year, and the Killer Queens podcast released an episode and article about her disappearance. Both of these include lots of valuable information.

The following sources helped me as I wrote this post:

• NBC Dateline
• ABC News
• The Charley Project
• Morgan Nick Foundation

If you have any information about the disappearance of Morgan Nick, please contact

• the Alma Police Department at 1-479-632-3333,
• the Arkansas State Police at 1-479-783-5195,
• the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and 1-800-843-5678,
• or your local FBI.

What do you think happened? Let me know in the comments.