On the evening of June 9, 1995, Colleen Nick and her six-year-old daughter Morgan traveled the twenty-five miles from their Ozark, Arkansas, home to the Wofford Ball Field in Alma, to watch the children of friends play in a Little League baseball game.

As darkness fell, Morgan and two friends lost interest in the game. Instead of watching young boys catch fly balls, the children wanted to catch fireflies. They asked their parents if they could go play in a nearby field, within eyesight of the ball field, near where the cars were parked. With reluctance following Morgan’s persistent begging, Colleen let her go with her friends. A grateful Morgan thanked her mom, hugged her, and gave her a big kiss before setting off on her quest to nab the glowing critters.

As the game wound down, Colleen kept a watchful eye on her daughter, periodically glancing to the field and seeing Morgan gleefully playing in the sand.  While mom was briefly not looking, however, something happened. In the blink of an eye, the young girl chasing fireflies was gone. Morgan Nick’s picture was soon on fliers not only in Alma, but across all of Arkansas, and soon, much of America.

At the ballgame that evening, far more than bases were stolen. In an instant, someone stole a child, and the ripple effect would be stolen innocence, stolen memories, and a stolen life.

Twenty-nine-years later, Morgan Nick remains missing.

 

Morgan Nick

When the ball game ended at approximately 10:45 p.m., Morgan and her friends, Tye and Jessica, began walking from the playing field to the ball field. Morgan stopped at her mom’s car to clean the sand from her shoes. She told her fiends she would meet them at the ball field, but she never arrived.

By the time Colleen reached her car, Morgan was gone. The police were summoned and conducted a search of the area but found no trace of her.

Game Done

Morgan Gone

Tye and Jessica remembered seeing a man they described as “creepy” talking to Morgan in the play field. Several adults also recalled seeing a man matching the description watching the children play on the field earlier in the evening.

While Morgan was playing with a different group of children, the man approached them and asked a question, the nature of which has not been divulged by the police.

The man was driving a red pickup. By the time police arrived to search for Morgan, the truck was gone.

Composite Of Morgan’s Possible Abductor

Earlier that day in Alma, the same man is believed to have attempted to entice a four-year-old girl into his vehicle; her mother began screaming as she saw her daughter entering the red pickup.  The man heard her, saw her running toward him, threw the girl out of the pickup, and sped away.

The following day in Fort Smith, fifteen miles southwest of Alma, the same man is believed to have tried to entice a nine-year-old girl into a men’s restroom at a convenience store but stopped when the girl resisted. This girl also said he was driving a red truck.

Composite Of The Predator

Although the thickness of the men’s beards are different, the composites of Morgan Nick’s likely abductor and the man who tried to lure the two other girls bear a resemblance and the witnesses described similar physical features. In addition to its color, the trucks involved in all incidents were described in similar detail.

Police believe the man who kidnapped Morgan Nick is the same man who tried to kidnap the two other girls.

Similar Facial Features

On June 24, fifteen days after Morgan’s kidnapping, police were contacted by Al Harvey, a thirty-year-old gardener from Stuttgart, two-hundred miles southeast of Alma. While working at home, he claimed a man who was accompanied by a young girl resembling Morgan tied to steal his truck.

After failing two polygraph tests, Harvey admitted fabricating the most important part of his story. A would-be thief had attempted to pilfer his pickup, but the man was not accompanied by a child.

Harvey was charged with filing a false police report and interfering with government operations, both felonies. He apologized but offered no explanation for adding the Morgan Nick angle to his claim. I could not find a picture of him or what punishment he received.

No significant leads surfaced in the disappearance of Morgan Nick for seven years.

A Bogus Lead

In 2002, police received a tip that Morgan may be buried on a private piece of land in Booneville, Arkansas, fifty miles southeast of Alma. After several days of digging on the property and using a cadaver dog, authorities found no trace of Morgan or any evidence she had ever been there.

No Morgan

Acting on another tip, on November 15, 2010, investigators searched a vacant house in Spiro, Oklahoma, thirty-five miles southwest of Alma, Arkansas, for DNA evidence that Morgan had once been in the house. A former occupant who once rented a mobile home on the property had recently been convicted of the sexual molestation of a child and was considered a person of interest in Morgan’s disappearance. The search, however, produced nothing relating to her.

Granted permission by the new owner, on December 18, 2017, investigators returned to the home to conduct another search after receiving another tip. This search proved deja vu as no evidence was found suggesting Morgan had ever been there.

The previous occupant, now jailed in Oklahoma for the molestation, remains a person of interest in Morgan’s abduction.

Property Searches Prove Fruitless

In August 2012, seventeen years since the last trace of Morgan Nick, James Monhart and Tonya Smith were arrested for computer fraud after attempting to assume the missing child’s identity. They were each sentenced to six years’ probation and fined $2,500. Both were convicted felons, but police do not believe either was involved in or has any knowledge of Morgan’s disappearance.

I could not find a picture of James Monhart.

Tonya Smith

Morgan’s parents, John and Colleen Nick, were divorced at the time of Morgan’s abduction. In July 1987, just under two years before the incident, John Nick was charged with third degree battery and second degree criminal mischief. I could not find if he was convicted.

In January 2006, John Nick faced another litany of charges, including possession of controlled counterfeit substances, drugs and firearms, as well as the possession, use, and advertisement of drug paraphernalia. An additional charge of endangering the welfare of a minor was dismissed as part of a plea agreement. I could not find punishment he received.

During an investigation into his drug involvement, John Nick revealed to a confidential informant that his drug dealer was Alma resident Clifford Pullan, a veteran of both the Korea and Vietnam Wars and a two-time Purple Heart winner.

Pullan had previously been arrested for drug trafficking and rumors abounded that he frequently traded drugs for sex with underage girls. He was convicted in March 1996 of sexual indecency with a minor, following an incident occurring in July 1995, only a month after Morgan’s abduction. Over the following thirteen years, he was convicted of possession of and intent to deliver marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, and a felon in possession of a firearm.

Despite the nefarious actions of both John Nick and Clifford Pullan, police cleared both men of involvement in Morgan’s abduction.

Pullan died in 2015 at age eighty-six. The only pictures I could find of him were from his war service. I could not find a picture of John Nick.

Clifford Pullan

The man investigators believe to be Morgan Nick’s abductor is the man who was seen talking to her at the ballgame. He is Caucasian, and in 1995 appeared to be between twenty-three and thirty-eight-years-old with a scruffy beard and salt-and-pepper hair. He spoke with a “hillbilly” accent, weighed approximately one-hundred-eighty pounds and stood roughly six feet tall. He is believed to be a loner with few friends.

The presumed abductor would probably be in his early fifties to mid-sixties today. His hair is likely now gray.

An AI (Artificial Intelligence) Image Of Morgan’s Presumed Abductor

As He May Have Appeared in 1995

Based On The Composite Sketches

In 2021, police released this photo taken at the ballfield on the evening of Morgan’s abduction. The arrow points to the red pickup believed to be involved in her kidnapping.

The pickup had a low wheelbase with dulled paint and a white camper shell with curtains covering the windows. It also had an extended gap between the cab and camper and a wrap-around taillight. Witnesses noted the shell was too short for the bed and the rear passenger side was damaged.

The Pickup Possibly Involved In Morgan’s Abduction

The pickup is believed to be similar to this one.

The Abductor’s Vehicle Is Believed

To Resemble This Pickup

Billy Jack Links was sixty-nine-years-old at the time of Morgan Nick’s abduction.  Even though he was far older than the man seen at the ballfield who is believed to have taken Morgan, he was named a person of interest in her abduction in November 2021.

Convicted of sexual indecency with a child, the imprisoned Lincks died in 2000, five years after Morgan’s disappearance. At the time of the incident, he owned a 1986 red Chevrolet pickup. In February 2023, authorities announced that DNA tests showed that shirt fibers found in Lincks’ truck are similar to those on the Girl Scout shirt Morgan was wearing on the evening she vanished

Lincks was convicted of the attempted abduction of an eleven-year-old girl from a Sonic Drive-In Restaurant in Van Buren, Arkansas, eight miles from the Wofford Ball Field in Alma. The incident occurred in August 1995, two months after Morgan’s kidnapping.  Lincks had also been charged with sexual abuse in 1992, three years before Morgan’s abduction; he pleaded no contest and was given a suspended sentence.

Billy Jack Lincks was born in Crawford County, Arkansas, to Charles and Jessie Lincks on October 22, 1924. He served in the Army during World War II w and worked as an upholsterer for Braniff Airlines in Dallas, Texas, from 1962-74. He returned to Van Buren, the county seat of Crawford County, sometime afterward and attended a Pentecostal church. He may also have lived in or have had ties to Oklahoma and Tennessee.

Lincks married three times and had four children, one daughter and three sons. His third wife, Patricia, survived him at the time of his death in 2000.

Investigators are asking for the public’s assistance in learning more about Billy Jack Lincks to determine if a link can be established between him and Morgan’s kidnapping. They are seeking additional details about his entire life, whether it be related to school, work, church, relationships, or even social activities or hobbies. They emphasize no detail is too small or insignificant.

If you believe you have any information about Billy Jack Lincks, no matter how trivial it may seem, please contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

Billy Jack Lincks

Morgan Chauntel Nick was kidnapped on the evening of June 9, 1995. She was six-years-old at the time, four feet tall, and weighed fifty pounds. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. When last seen, she was wearing a green Girl Scouts t-shirt, blue denim shorts, and white leather sneakers.

Morgan Is Still Missing

At the time of her disappearance, Morgan’s teeth were crowded and she had five visible silver caps on her molars. She would have needed orthodontic braces in adolescence. If she had been kidnapped to be raised as another person’s child, the best hope of finding her may be a worker in the dental field having recalled doing the procedure.

Teeth Trouble 

Police have received hundreds of reported sightings of Morgan Nick from across the country over the years, but none can be confirmed.

Computer-Aged Images Of Morgan Nick

Top: Left to Right Ages Eight, Twelve, And Fourteen

Bottom: Left To Right Ages Seventeen, Twenty-Six, And Thirty-One

Morgan Nick would today be thirty-five-years-old. A $60,000 reward is offered for information leading to her recovery and the arrest and conviction of those responsible for her disappearance.

If you believe you have information relevant to the disappearance of Morgan Nick, please contact either of these agencies;

Alma, Arkansas, Police Department 501-632-3930
Arkansas State Police 501-783-5195
Federal Bureau of Investigation 202-324-3000
Morgan Nick Foundation (479) 632-6382

The Latest Computer-Aged Image Of Morgan Nick

One year after Morgan’s abduction, her mother, Colleen, established the Morgan Nick Foundation, a non-profit organization aiming to prevent child abductions and providing a support system to families enduring the emotional and financial hardships of a missing child. The Foundation, headquartered in Alma, Arkansas, not far from where Morgan was taken, has helped bring several children home safely, but its namesake child remains missing.

The state of Arkansas renamed its Amber Alert system after Morgan Nick.

Foundation Established

Beginning with her establishment of the Morgan Nick foundation, Colleen Nick has become a crusader in searching for missing children. She relentlessly searches for her daughter, confident her efforts will not be in vain.

Colleen Nick

Morgan’s Mom

It is rare, but not unprecedented, that a kidnapped child in a non-family abduction is found alive, as an adult, many years later.

Among others, the notable rescues of Jaycee Dugard, and the “Cleveland three” children, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight give hope, however faint, that Morgan Nick could still be alive and will one day return home.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                            Jaycee                               Amanda      Gina    Michelle

      Dugard                                Berry     DeJesus    Knight

SOURCES:

• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
• Arkansas Times
• Charley Project
• CNN
• Doe Network
• FOX News
• KFSM TV Fort-Smith Fayetteville Arkansas
• Log Cabin Democrat
• Morgan Nick Foundation