The mother of missing Morgan Nick, who disappeared from a little league game in 1995, has accepted that her daughter is almost certainly dead.
Colleen Nick’s admission came Tuesday after a suspect was finally named in the case, nearly 30 years after the six-year-old girl disappeared.
Police in Alma, Arkansas, named Billy Jack Lincks, the father of a convicted rapist who died in prison in 2000, as the prime 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 percent chance she’s still alive, but I actually don’t think she is.”
Morgan Nick, 6, was kidnapped at 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 formally identified as a suspect Tuesday after investigators found one of Morgan’s hairs in his truck.
Morgan’s mother, Colleen Nick, said Lincks had stolen her daughter from her but that her love for Morgan survived him.
Morgan was last seen chasing fireflies with a friend in the parking lot of the old Wofford baseball field around 10:45 p.m. on June 9, 1995.
Her mother was at the game and when it came to an end she could not find her daughter.
Alma Police Chief Jeff Pointer revealed this week that DNA testing on a lock of blonde hair found in Lincks’ red 1986 Chevrolet Scottsdale pickup truck matched that of Colleen or someone directly related to her.
Lincks died in prison of cancer in 2000, at the age of 75, after being sentenced to six years in prison for attempting to kidnap an 11-year-old girl in the neighboring town of Van Buren, just three months after she disappeared. of Morgan.
He was accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in 1992, but the charge was reduced to first-degree sexual abuse, meaning he escaped jail on a probation order.
And that case is why Morgan is probably dead, her mother believes.
‘He had already been convicted for this. They told him that if it happened again he would be in prison. So I don’t think he wanted to leave a witness this time,” he said.
Colleen, now 59, is coming to terms with the fact that the man who likely kidnapped her daughter will never face justice.
“I wish he would have looked at our family and admitted what he did,” she told DailyMail.com.
But, he added, since Lincks is dead, “I don’t think we have justice, but we do have the answers about who took Morgan.”
Nick moved from Alma to a secluded property four years ago. In a touching act of remembrance, he named his new home Firefly Meadows.
Inside the house hangs a painting painted by one of her close friends. It shows a rear view of Morgan face down on a wooden swing in the environment where Nick now lives, whom Morgan has never met.
A different girl Lincks tried to kidnap gave police a description of her car that matched the one seen in Alma.
Morgan, 6, was kidnapped at a little league game in Alma on June 9, 1995 while chasing fireflies with friends. A composite sketch shows what she would look like today if she were still alive.
Inside Nick’s house hangs a painting showing a rear view of Morgan face down on a wooden swing in the environment where Nick now lives and Morgan never knew about.
Her bare feet are wrapped around the ropes, her long blonde hair hanging down. It is a picture of endless carefree summer days. An image of innocence and happiness.
Nick looks at him lovingly.
He admitted that the latest discovery seemed like a punch in the gut, despite being one more step toward helping solve the enigma of his beloved daughter’s disappearance.
His hope has also diminished. His emotions, he 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 so she can be a part of our family again,” he said.
His bears the words “Forever in our hearts.” They were married in September 1943 in Van Buren, according to a copy of the marriage certificate.
‘I have fought for that chance that somehow she has survived this. And in my heart and in my head, that’s where she is. That’s where he’s been all these years. That somehow has survived.
Colleen believed that Lincks, a World War II veteran, was likely a serious multiple sex offender and many victims still lived with the mental scars of his sadistic abuse.
“It didn’t just offend Morgan and the cases we know about, that’s for sure,” she said. “I don’t know if he ever took anyone’s life, because they didn’t catch him for that.
“But I think there are probably little girls who grew up with what he did to them and have to live with it. And also not have justice or answers.
‘What remains for Morgan is to find her, because we know who took her. We know probably 95 percent of what he did. Now our job is to bring her home to our family.’
Nick said that no one in his family knew Lincks and that he had certainly never been in his truck, other than, almost certainly, Morgan.
At this week’s press conference to announce the trailer, he said of Lincks: “He stole Morgan from us. But he didn’t win. Our love for Morgan, his memory, his voice, outlived his life. That love continues to shine. Morgan’s heart continues to shine.
A massive task force made up of local police, Arkansas State Police, and the FBI set up headquarters in Alma after Morgan’s kidnapping, sifting through thousands of tips and leads.
Witnesses said a man was watching Morgan during the baseball game and described a distinctive red pickup truck with a white top parked near the scene.
At the time of Morgan’s kidnapping and arrest for kidnapping the 11-year-old boy, he was living in this three-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot rental house on a dusty road outside of Van Buren.
When Lincks attempted to kidnap the 11-year-old boy three months later, the victim’s description of his vehicle matched the van in Morgan’s investigation.
“The Morgan case investigators did a lot with Lincks at that time,” said Nick, who has an adult son and daughter born after Morgan.
But they couldn’t find that definitive connection with her. They also had hundreds of other leads they were still working on.
“They really tried hard. They didn’t miss this for lack of hard work.”
The path to finally catching Lincks came when detectives found the new owner of his truck and took more samples for analysis, including his hair. These were sent to an FBI laboratory four years ago, but there were no results.
Alma Detective Shawn Taylor learned in June 2023 about the advanced analytics processes at Othram Labs in Texas. He recovered the evidence from the FBI and sent it to the Lone Star State.
The sensational results arrived on September 27 of this year, confirming that Lincks should be in the frame.
He was living in a three-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot rental house under a dusty truck outside Van Buren at the time of Morgan’s kidnapping and his arrest for kidnapping the 11-year-old boy.
One of Lincks’ three sons is also a convicted sex offender, DailyMail.com has learned.
Andrew Lincks, now 55, was living in Bozeman, Montana, when he broke into a woman’s home in February 2011 and demanded money, according to court records.
Billy Jack’s son Andrew Lincks was sentenced to 10 years in prison after breaking into a woman’s home in the early hours of the morning and raping her.
The situation quickly escalated into rape, as reported to the district court of Gallatin County, Montana. The victim’s screams of “let me go” were heard by her roommate, who called the police and the younger Lincks was arrested at the home.
‘My life has changed. “I pity him for the fact that he takes no responsibility for his actions,” his victim told the court.
Lincks had no criminal record and said he was intoxicated when he committed the rape.
Ashley Whipple, a Gallatin County deputy prosecutor at the time, told the court, “He doesn’t understand why he did what he did.” And that makes it a loose weapon.
Andrew Lincks was sentenced to 10 years in prison and was released on Dec. 31, 2019, records show.
But DailyMail.com can also reveal that he is back under strict judicial supervision after violating the 20-year probation sentence also imposed on him.
When DailyMail.com visited the Van Buren home of Andrew’s brother William, 73, to ask for comment on their father’s naming as a suspect in Morgan’s disappearance, a woman in her 30s shouted: “We deserve some of peace”.
