Mom of missing Morgan Nick accepts her daughter is dead 30 years after she disappeared from Little League game as cops name dead sex offender as her abductor
The mother of missing Morgan Nick – who vanished from a Little League game in 1995 – has accepted her daughter is almost certainly dead.
Colleen Nick’s admission came on Tuesday after a suspect in the case was finally named nearly 30 years after the six-year-old went missing.
Cops in Alma, Arkansas, declared Billy Jack Lincks, the father of a convicted rapist, who died in prison in 2000, lead suspect in Morgan’s disappearance.
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Colleen Nick said: ‘Now I just want to know where Morgan is.
‘There’s probably a one per cent chance she’s still alive – but really I don’t think she is.’
Morgan Nick, 6, was kidnapped from a Little League game in Alma, Arkansas, on June 9, 1995, and has never been found
Billy Jack Lincks, who died in prison in 2000, was identified as a formal suspect on Tuesday after investigators found one of Morgan’s hairs in his truck
Morgan’s mom Colleen Nick said Lincks had stolen her daughter but that her love for Morgan outlived him
Morgan was last seen chasing fireflies with a friend in the parking lot at the former Wofford baseball field about 10.45pm on June 9, 1995.
Her mother was at the game, and as it was drawing to a close she couldn’t find her daughter.
Alma Police Chief Jeff Pointer revealed this week that DNA testing on a strand of blond hair found in Lincks’s 1986 red Chevrolet Scottsdale pick-up truck matched that of Colleen or someone directly related to her.
Lincks died in prison of cancer in 2000 aged 75 after being given six years for trying to abduct an 11-year-old girl in the neighboring city of Van Buren just three months after Morgan vanished.
He was charged with raping a 14-year-old girl in 1992 but the charge was reduced to sexual abuse in the first degree, meaning he escaped jail time with a probation order.
And that case is the reason Morgan is likely dead, her mother believes.
‘He had already been convicted of this. He was instructed that if it happened again he’d be in prison. So I don’t think he wanted to leave a witness this time,’ she said.
Colleen, now 59, is coming to terms with the fact that the man who likely abducted her daughter will never face justice.
‘I would have liked him to look at our family and admit what he did,’ she told DailyMail.com.
But, she added, because Lincks is dead, ‘I don’t think we have justice, yet we have the answers to who took Morgan.’
Nick moved out of Alma to an isolated property four years ago. In a poignant act of remembrance, she named her new home Firefly Meadows.
Inside the home hangs a picture painted by one of her close friends. It shows a back view of Morgan upside down on a wooden swing in the setting where Nick now lives which Morgan never knew.
A different girl who Lincks attempted to abduct gave police a description of his car which matched the one spotted in Alma
Morgan, 6, was abducted from a Little League game in Alma on June, 9, 1995 while she was chasing fireflies with friends. A composite sketch shows what she may look like today if she is still alive
Inside Nick’s home hangs a painting showing a back view of Morgan upside down on a wooden swing in the setting where Nick now lives and Morgan never knew
Her bare feet are wrapped around the ropes, her long blonde hair is hanging down. It is an image of carefree endless summer days. An image of innocence and happiness.
Nick gazes at it with love.
She admitted the latest finding felt like a gut punch, despite it being one step further in helping to solve the puzzle of her beloved daughter’s disappearance.
It has also dampened her hope. Her emotions, she said, ‘are very raw right now’.
‘My fight for Morgan all these years has been to find her and bring her home to our family to be part of our family again,’ she said.
His carries the words ‘Forever in our Hearts’. They were married in September 1943 in Van Buren, according to a marriage certificate copy
‘I’ve fought for that chance that somehow she’s survived this. And in my heart and in my head, that’s where she is. That’s where she’s been all these years. That somehow she’s survived.’
Colleen believed Lincks, a World War II veteran, was probably a serious multiple sex offender with many victims still living with the mental scars of his sadistic abuse.
‘He didn’t only offend against Morgan and the cases we know about, I’m sure about that,’ she said. ‘I don’t know that he ever took anyone’s life, because he wasn’t caught for that.
‘But I believe there are probably little girls out there who grew up with what he did to them and have to live with that. And also not having any justice or any answers.
‘For Morgan, what’s left is to find her, because we know who took her. We know probably 95 per cent of what he did. Now our job is to bring her home to our family.’
Nick said no member of her family knew Lincks and had certainly never been in his truck – apart from, almost certainly, Morgan.
At this week’s press conference to announce the breakthrough, she said of Lincks: ‘He stole Morgan from us. But he didn’t win. Our love for Morgan, her memory, her voice, outlasted his life. That love continues to shine. Morgan’s heart shines on.’
A massive task force of local police, Arkansas State Police and the FBI set up headquarters in Alma after Morgan’s abduction, sifting through thousands of tips and leads.
Witnesses said a man was staring at Morgan during the baseball game and described a distinctive red truck with a white camper top parked near the scene.
At the time of Morgan’s abduction and his arrest for snatching the 11-year-old, he was living in this three-bedroom, 1,000 sq ft rental home down a dusty track outside Van Buren
When Lincks attempted to snatch the 11-year-old three months later, the victim’s description of his vehicle matched the truck in the Morgan investigation.
‘Investigators on Morgan’s case did a lot on Lincks at the time,’ Nick, who has an adult son and daughter both born after Morgan, said.
‘But they couldn’t find that definite connection to her. They also had hundreds of other leads that they continued to run with.
‘They really dug in. They didn’t miss this because of lack of hard work.’
The path to finally nailing Lincks came when detectives found the new owner of his truck and took more samples for analysis, including hair. These were sent to an FBI lab four years ago but no results were forthcoming.
Alma detective Shawn Taylor learned in June 2023 of advanced analysis processes at Othram Labs in Texas. He got the evidence back from the FBI and sent it to the Lone Star State.
The sensational results came back on September 27 this year, confirming Lincks should be in the frame.
He was living in three bedroom, 1,000 sq ft rental home down a dusty truck outside Van Buren at the time of Morgan’s abduction and his arrest for snatching the 11-year-old.
One of Lincks’s three sons is also a convicted sex offender, DailyMail.com has discovered.
Andrew Lincks, now 55, was living in Bozeman, Montana, when he broke into a woman’s home in February, 2011 and demanded money from her, according to court records.
Billy Jack’s son Andrew Lincks was sentenced to 10 years’ prison after breaking into a woman’s home in the early hours of the morning and raping her
Quickly, the situation escalated to rape, district court in Gallatin County, Montana, was told. The victim’s screams of ‘get off me’ were heard by her roommate, who called police and the younger Lincks was arrested at the house.
‘My life has been changed. I pity him for the fact that he takes no responsibility for his actions,’ his victim told the court.
Lincks had no previous criminal record and said he was intoxicated when he carried out the rape.
Ashley Whipple, Gallatin County deputy attorney at the time, told the court: ‘He doesn’t understand why he did what he did. And that makes him a loose cannon.’
Andrew Lincks was sentenced to 10 years’ in prison and was released on December 31, 2019, according to records.
But DailyMail.com can also reveal he is back under strict judicial supervision after breaking the 20-year parole term also imposed.
When DailyMail.com visited the Van Buren home of Andrew’s brother William, 73, to ask for comment on his father being named a suspect in Morgan’s disappearance a woman in her late 30s shouted: ‘We deserve some peace.’
