For 30 years, the disappearance of a six-year-old girl in Arkansas who went missing while chasing fireflies at a Little League ballpark has been a mystery.
Then a key clue discovered in a red truck provided investigators with a break in the case.
Earlier this week, the Alma Police Department announced a suspect in Morgan Nick’s disappearance for the first time in three decades.
Billy Jack Lincks, an Arkansas man who owned the red truck, was identified as the man who allegedly abducted Morgan in 1995, Alma Police Chief Jeff Pointer said at a press conference.
Pointer said lab testing determined that hair found in a truck owned by Lincks was that of Colleen Nick, Morgan’s mother, one of Colleen Nick’s siblings, or one of her children.
Follow-up interviews of members of the Nick family revealed that none of them knew Lincks and that none of them had ever been in his truck, Pointer said.
In 2021, the FBI identified Lincks as a person of interest in Morgan’s disappearance. It took another three years to name him as a suspect.
So what led investigators to hone in on Lincks? It all started with a look into his past.
Who was Billy Jack Lincks?
Billy Jack Lincks was born and raised in Crawford County, Arkansas, according to the FBI’s website.
He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and worked at Braniff Airlines in Dallas from 1962 to 1974.
In the late 1970s, he made his way back to the River Valley.
According to court documents obtained by 5NEWS, Lincks was arrested in 1992 for sexually abusing a young girl.
In August 1995, only two months after Morgan Nick was reported missing, he was arrested for attempting to abduct an 11-year-old girl at a Sonic in Van Buren — just eight miles from the Alma ballpark where Morgan vanished from.
While Lincks was being investigated, he was also questioned in Morgan’s disappearance, according to Chief of Alma Police Department, Jeff Horner, but said he denied any knowledge of it, so “investigators moved on.”
In 1996, Lincks was later found guilty of sexual solicitation of a child in regards to the first attempted abduction of the 11-year-old and sentenced to prison.
Lincks drove a red 1986 Chevrolet pickup truck which slightly matched the truck seen in a home video taken the night Morgan was reported missing.
For years, investigators linked a red truck to Morgan’s disappearance but Lincks’ truck did not have a camper shell when he was arrested in August 1995.
But according to court documents, detectives found an interview of his neighbor during the attempted abduction investigation in which the neighbor said they “think Lincks had a camper shell on his red pickup”. The neighbor also “believed it was two months ago when he saw the camper.”
Lincks died in 2000 while still in prison, aged 72. But it wasn’t until after his death that investigators named him as a person of interest in Morgan’s disappearance.
Morgan’s disappearance
Morgan was last seen on June 9, 1995 at a little league game in Alma, Arkansas.
She went off to catch fireflies with friends and was never seen again.
Investigators have said they believe Morgan was abducted from the parking lot around 10:45 p.m. that evening.
Witnesses gave police a suspect description as well as the description of a red truck with a white camper shell that was allegedly involved in the crime.
But the case went cold and remained that way for years.
When investigators decided to reopen the case in 2020, they searched Lincks’ truck after tracking down the current owner, who said he did not know Lincks.
The truck had been sold several times in the years that followed, according to a release by Arkansas State Police.
Inside the truck, investigators found multiple hairs, KATV reported. A crime lab determined that the hairs likely belonged to a member of Morgan’s family.
After confirming that there was no evidence that any of the family had been in Lincks’ truck, officials said the evidence “strongly indicates that Morgan had been in his truck” and he was named as an official suspect.
In a press conference held on October 1, 2024, Alma Police Chief Jeff Pointer officially identified Billy Jack Lincks as the main suspect in Morgan’s disappearance.
The search for the little girl continues.
Pointer said police are still investigating Morgan’s disappearance and have questions they’re trying to answer, including how she was taken from the ballfield, what happened next and whether Lincks had any help abducting Morgan or concealing her kidnapping.
“And where is Morgan now? I can tell you today that this investigation is not over,” Pointer said. “It is ongoing and active.”
‘Our love for Morgan outlasted his life’
Morgan’s mother Colleen Nick, who started a foundation to help the families of other missing children, said Lincks “stole” her daughter from her and the rest of the Nick family.
“But he didn’t see he could never win because our love for Morgan, her memory and her voice, outlasted his life,” Nick said on Tuesday, standing near a photo of her daughter.
“And that love continues to shine. Her heart, Morgan’s heart, shines on.”
