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 the game progressed, Morgan and two friends lost interest. Instead of watching young boys catch fly balls, they wanted to catch fireflies. With reluctance following Morgan’s persistent begging, Colleen let her go with her friends to play in a nearby field, within eyesight of the ball field, near where several cars were parked. An excited 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, periodically glancing to the field and seeing her daughter playing in the sand near where their car was parked.  While mom was briefly not looking, however, something happened.

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

Morgan Nick

The small ball field had bleachers along the first and third base lines, but no bathrooms or concession stands.

Morgan and her friends, ten-year-old Tye and eight-year-old Jessica, played on a hill overlooking the field that was normally used as a parking lot for employees of the nearby street department and residents of an adjacent apartment building.

Crime Scene Photos

As the children began walking from the hill to the ball field shortly after the game ended at approximately 10:45 p.m., Morgan stopped at her mom’s car to clean the sand from her shoes. She told her friends she would meet them at the bleachers, but she never arrived.

Colleen did not recall any vehicle leaving the area as she walked to the hill where Morgan and her friends had played. When she reached her car, her daughter was not there.

The police were summoned but found no trace of Morgan or any footprints or tire tracks in the sand. No one had heard a car speeding out of the area after the ball game ended nor had anyone heard a child’s screams.

Game Done

Morgan Gone

Tye and Jessica remembered seeing a scruffy-bearded man they described as “creepy” talking to Morgan in the play field. He was wearing shorts and an open shirt, and the children said he had a little hair on his chest and belly.

Jessica also recalled that he had been in a red truck.

Initial Identikit Composites Of The Possible Abductor

Earlier that evening, a similarly described man had been observed watching the children playing as he was sitting and smoking in a red truck with the driver’s side door open.  He had also approached a different group of children and asked a question, the nature of which has not been divulged by the police.

Second Composite

At a Speed Wash laundromat earlier that day in Alma, a man had lured a four-year-old girl into his vehicle before throwing her out and speeding away as the girl’s mother hollered and ran toward him. The following day in Fort Smith, fifteen miles southwest of Alma, a man tried to entice a nine-year-old girl into a men’s restroom at a convenience store but stopped when she resisted.

In both instances, the would-be abductor had also been driving a red truck that was described in similar detail as the one seen at the ball game.

Composite Of The Predator

The man at the ball field and the man who had attempted to abduct the two other girls were believed to be one in the same. He was estimated to be between twenty-three and thirty-eight-years-old.

Although the thickness of the beards are different, the composites bear a resemblance, and each man was similarly described as a roughly six-foot tall one-hundred-eighty pound Caucasian with a scruffy beard and salt-and-pepper hair who spoke with a “hillbilly” accent.

The depictions and descriptions are based primarily on the recollections of the children involved in each incident.

Similar Facial Features

A similarly-described driver of a similarly-described red truck had engaged in several other suspicious activities earlier that day in Alma.

That afternoon, a man had pulled alongside a teenage girl walking along the outskirts of town and offered her a ride to downtown, near where Morgan was abducted that evening. After the girl declined and continued walking, the vehicle remained parked behind her and the man stared at her for several moments before driving off.

Also that afternoon, on the north end of Alma, a man tried to attract two girls, a five-year-old and a six-year-old, and chastised two teenage boys for walking their bicycles on the street at the older baseball field near the one from which Morgan was taken. The boys saw the truck turn onto Walnut Street which runs along the side of the ballpark and goes into the upper parking lot from which she was last seen.  A similar incident occurred that evening, after darkness had descended, as a man scolded two ten-year-old boys for riding bikes in the street.

Within ten minutes after Morgan had disappeared, a vehicle containing several teenagers passed a red truck parked on the side of the road. One of the occupants believes he saw the driver, a white man, appearing to try to hold a child down in the front seat. Police have not disclosed the exact location of this sighting.

A Red Truck Similar To This One 

Several people attending an earlier 5:30-7:00 p.m. game at the ball field had recalled seeing a red truck, and one of them had inadvertently filmed it on home video.

Under hypnosis, twenty people recalled details of the vehicle. Most believed it had Arkansas license plates. Its windows were covered by curtains and it appeared to have had a white camper shell that was several inches too short for the bed, a low wheelbase with dulled paint, and a wrap-around taillight. The right rear passenger side appeared damaged. Photo enhancements could not produce a decent image of the truck’s driver.

Investigators dispute a 1995 news video report that aired shortly after the abduction, stating the vehicle was determined to be a Mazda owned by a parent at the ball field. Initial newspaper articles reported the truck was believed to be a Ford; more recent articles state it is thought to be a Chevy S10 or Silverado.

                       

                      John And Colleen Nick                Morgan, Taryn, And Logan

On June 24, fifteen days after Morgan Nick’s disappearance, Al Harvey, a thirty-year-old gardener from Stuttgart, two-hundred miles southeast of Alma, claimed a man who was accompanied by a young girl resembling Morgan tried to steal his truck from his home. After failing two polygraph tests, he 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 Al Harvey or learn what punishment he received.

A Bogus Lead

In 2002, seven years after Morgan’s disappearance, police received a tip that she may be buried on private land in Booneville, Arkansas, fifty miles southeast of Alma. After several days of digging on the property and using a cadaver dog, nothing was found suggesting she had ever been there.

No Morgan

Acting on another tip, investigators searched a vacant house in Spiro, Oklahoma, thirty-five miles southwest of Alma, Arkansas, on November 15, 2010. A man 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 kidnapping, but nothing was found indicating she had ever been in the home.

Granted permission by the new owner, investigators returned to the home on December 18, 2017, to conduct a second search after receiving another tip. This forage ended in déjà vu as no evidence was found relating to Morgan, though the former occupant, now jailed in Oklahoma, remains a person of interest in her 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 Monhart and Smith were convicted felons, but police do not believe either was involved in Morgan’s disappearance or has any knowledge of her whereabouts. I could not find a picture of James Monhart.

Tonya Smith

A June 2021 blog post on the Today in Fort Smith website states John Nick was suspected of being a drug dealer and that he was charged with third degree battery and second degree criminal mischief in 1987, eight years before his daughter’s abduction. The site also says he faced another litany of charges in 2006, eleven years afterwards, including the possession, use, and advertisement of drug paraphernalia, possession of controlled counterfeit substances. A charge of endangering the welfare of a minor was dismissed in a plea agreement.

None of John Nick’s legal matters are believed related to Morgan’s kidnapping.

John Had Unrelated Legal Issues

A Find Law summary of Pullan v. State (2008) identifies John Nick as a “low-level drug dealer” who revealed to a confidential informant that his supplier was Alma resident Clifford Pullan, a decorated Korea and Vietnam War veteran who had previously been arrested for drug trafficking, and who was rumored to have frequently swapped drugs for sex with underage girls.

The Today in Fort Smith site says Pullan was convicted in March 1996 of sexual indecency with a minor in a July 1995 incident, occurring only a month after Morgan’s abduction, and that, over the following thirteen years, he was convicted of possession of and intent to deliver marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

I found nothing stating that Clifford Pullan was ever named a suspect or a person of interest in Morgan Nick’s abduction. He died in 2015.

Clifford Pullan

Charlie Vines lived in Crawford County, where Alma is located, at the time of Morgan’s disappearance. He is known at one time to have had a red truck with a white camper, but police have not been able to determine if the vehicle was registered to him in June 1995.

In March 2000, Vines was caught in the act of raping and stabbing a sixteen-year-old girl who lived next door to him in Dripping Springs, fifteen miles northwest of Alma. He was subsequently linked to the beating and raping of a legally blind Fort Smith woman in April 1993, and to the murders of two women, one occurring in Fort Smith two months later, the other in Van Buren in August 1995, two months after Morgan’s disappearance.

Named for the west-central section of Arkansas where his crimes occurred, the “River Valley Killer” was given three life sentences behind bars in 2001. While imprisoned, he allegedly confessed to abducting and murdering Morgan Nick and to have hinted at burying her body under concrete.

Two searches involving three different cadaver dogs were conducted of Vines’ former property shortly after his 2019 death from cancer. No trace of Morgan was found.

Many investigators doubt Vines’ confession because his preferred prey were mature and elderly women, or at least women as opposed to girls. His murder victims were fifty-eight and seventy-four-years-old, and his Fort Smith rape victim was eighty-nine-years-old (some sources say she was ninety-three-years-old.)

Vines stated he had gone to his neighbor’s house intending to rape the girl’s mother, believing she was the only person in the home. Finding her daughter instead, was, in essence, a consolation prize.

Another Alma area pervert of a different persuasion appears more likely to have been Morgan Nick’s abductor.

Charlie Vines

Billy Jack Lincks was an early person of interest because he had a red truck and a previous conviction for a child-related crime, having been fined $500 and given a ten-year suspended sentence and probation after pleading no contest to the sexual assault of one of his granddaughters in 1992. In August 1995, two months after Morgan’s disappearance, he was charged with the sexual solicitation of a child in his home town of Van Buren, less than ten miles southwest of Alma.

After encountering an eleven-year-old girl, her brother, and a friend at a Sonic Drive-In, a man in a red truck coaxed the children to two blocks away, and gave $1 to each boy to return to the restaurant to buy treats. As the boys were leaving, the man tried to get the girl to pick up a cigarette he had dropped outside the truck. The girl refused and became frightened as he began speaking to her in a sexual nature and offering her more money to go home with him. As she yelled at her brother and friend to go to the Sonic and call the police, the man crashed his truck into a pole in the course of fleeing the scene.

Prior to the indecent remarks, a man at a bank across the street had seen an older man in a red truck talking with the children. He had written down the vehicle’s license plate and contacted police after seeing a report of the incident on the news.

The truck was registered to Billy Jack Lincks and a warrant was granted to search it and his house. A hat found in his home matched the children’s description of the one worn by the man, the truck had damages consistent with having hit a pole, and paint and wood fibers on the pole were matched to the vehicle.

Lincks admitted speaking to and giving money to the kids, but said he could not remember anything else as he was in a drunken state. In March 1996, he was sentenced to six years in prison and fined $10,000 after being convicted of the sexual solicitation of a child. He died in 2000.

Billy Jack Lincks

Because Lincks’ truck was similar to the one seen at the Alma ball field on the evening of Morgan’s abduction, it was impounded and processed by the Van Buren Police and examined by the Arkansas State Crime Lab in September 1995. Nothing was found at the time suggesting Morgan had been inside, and Lincks passed a polygraph test in relation to her disappearance.

Lincks is believed to have had the truck for only a year or two prior to Morgan’s abduction and to have sold it shortly after it was returned to him. In 2021, authorities found it had recently been acquired through auction by a man living only thirty miles from Alma.  The new owner e allowed them to conduct another processing of the vehicle with more advanced technology. A blonde hair was found beneath what is believed to be the truck’s original floor cover.

In February 2023, DNA tests showed that greenish-blue fibers found in the truck were similar to those on the Girl Scout shirt Morgan was wearing on the evening she vanished and that it was highly unlikely they came from a different material.  In December, Houston-based Othram Labs extracted a DNA profile from the blonde hair and determined it showed a “first degree relationship” to a reference DNA sample submitted by Colleen Nick.

Lincks’ Truck Is Located And Reexamined

At an October 1, 2024, press conference, Alma Police Chief Jeff Pointer announced the DNA finding “strongly” suggests Morgan Nick had been in Billy Jack Lincks’ truck.

At the Van Buren Sonic, Lincks had tried to get the girl to pick up a cigarette he had thrown on the ground; the man at the Alma ball field was seen smoking, and cigarette butts were retrieved from the area where Morgan and her friends had played.

I have not found anything confirming that Billy Jack Lincks was a smoker, or if police have his DNA and if it has been tested against the cigarette butts.

Lincks Is Likely Linked To Morgan

Seventy-years-old at the time of Morgan’s abduction, Lincks was far older than the estimated age of the man in the composite image of the presumed abductor. Investigators now doubt the rendering’s accuracy, noting young children are often poor at judging an adult’s age.

An AI (Artificial Intelligence) Image Of The Suspect

Investigators are seeking the public’s assistance in learning more about Billy Jack Lincks, who is officially declared the prime suspect in Morgan Nick’s disappearance.

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

Lincks married three times and had one daughter, three sons, one stepson, and one stepdaughter. His third wife, Patricia, survived him at the time of his death in 2000. His first wife, Frieda, died in 1961, and he married his second wife, Deannie, the following year. She died in 2012.

Investigators are seeking additional details about Lincks’ entire life, whether it be related to school, work, church, relationships, social activities, or even 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.

The Western Arkansas River Valley was hit heavily with rain in the days preceding June 9, 1995, and the kids’ ball game was a makeup of a rained out game. Had Mother Nature allowed baseball to be played when scheduled, Morgan and her mother may not have attended.  The weather may also have hindered the investigation into her disappearance.

The area where the group of teenagers saw the red truck parked along the road within minutes after Morgan was last seen was near farmland along the Arkansas River where flood levels had reached thirty-two feet.  Within a couple of days, the river was recorded flowing at 226,000 cubic feet per second and nearby farm fields were four feet under water. If Morgan had been disposed of in that area, she would have likely been washed away.

Bad Weather Made For Bad Breaks

Shortly after her abduction, the state of Arkansas renamed its Amber Alert system for Morgan Nick, and her mother 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. Morgan’s sister Taryn serves as the Foundation’s Senior Case Manager.

Headquartered in Alma, Arkansas, not far from where Morgan was taken, the Foundation has helped locate several children, but its namesake child remains missing.

                     

Morgan Remembered . . .

Morgan Chauntel Nick was kidnapped on the evening of June 9, 1995, when she was six-years-old. She was four feet tall, weighed fifty pounds, and 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.

At the time of her disappearance, Morgan’s teeth were crowded and she probably would have needed braces in adolescence. If she had not been fitted with them, it could have led to additional problems which may have required more extensive dental or orthodontic work. If such a scenario occurred, the best hope of finding her may be someone in the dental field recalling having done the procedures.

Most of the children who are kidnapped and raised by their abductor and who have no recollections of their biological families, however, were taken at younger ages. A child nearly seven-years-old, as Morgan was, is likely to have retained memories of his or her family, though, most experts say, they may be become fragmented and reduced to only brief images over time.

. . . But Still Missing

Morgan Nick would today be thirty-seven-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 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 (FBI) Tip Line 202-225-5324
Morgan Nick Foundation (479) 632-6382

National Center For Missing & Exploited Children 1-800-843-5678

Computer-Aged Image Of Morgan Nick

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

Other 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

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 found alive.

                                                                                                 

  Jaycee Dugard      Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, And Michelle Knight

SOURCES:

• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
• Arkansas Times
• Charley Project
• CNN
• Doe Network
• FindLaw
• FOX News
• KFSM TV Fort-Smith Fayetteville Arkansas
• Log Cabin Democrat
• Morgan Nick Foundation
• Still Missing Morgan (Hulu (Documentary)
• Today in Fort Smith