Hair found in truck helps police identify suspect in girl's 1995 disappearance
FILE-A police officer pulls police tape after a crime scene. (Photo by Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Hair found in a truck was a clue authorities needed to connect an Arkansas man to the disappearance of a 6-year-old girl who went missing in 1995.
Police identified Billy Jack Lincks as a suspect in the abduction of Morgan Nick, who was last seen chasing fireflies with friends at a Little League ballpark in Alma, Arkansas.
The Associated Press reported that Lincks died in prison in 2000 and was arrested after he tried to abduct a girl months after Nick went missing. Lincks was identified by the FBI in 2021 as a person of interest in Nick's disappearance.
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Alma Police Chief Jeff Pointer told the AP that 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.
Lincks was identified initially as a possible person of interest in the months after Morgan Nick’s disappearance, but he denied any knowledge of her abduction and investigators moved on. At the time of the girl’s disappearance, he drove a red truck.
Through the years, authorities have linked a red truck with a white camper to Nick’s disappearance.
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Alma Police Chief Jeff Pointer told the Associated Press that police are still investigating Nick’s disappearance and have questions they are trying to answer, including how she was taken from the ballfield, what happened next and whether Lincks had any help abducting Morgan Nick or concealing her kidnapping.
Investigators took another look at Lincks in 2019 as they reviewed the preliminary stages of the investigation into Morgan’s disappearance and located the truck he owned at the time.
According to the AP, Arkansas’ missing child alert system is named for Morgan and her disappearance was featured in a Hulu documentary series in 2023. Colleen Nick created a foundation to help the families of other missing children.