Mindset

New DNA testing linked a man named Billy Jack Lincks to the 1995 disappearance of Morgan Nick, the Alma Police Department announced Tuesday morning.Morgan Nick disappeared while playing near a Little League game in June 1995. Her case is the subject of a documentary series released last year that focuses on the investigation.Years ago, lab technicians found blonde hair inside a pickup truck that had belonged to Billy Jack Lincks and resembled a truck seen near the scene of her disappearance. Technology did not allow the hair to be tested until recently.A lab in Texas tested the hair and compared it to DNA submitted by Colleen Nick, Morgan’s mother. They found that the hair belonged to either Colleen, one of her siblings, or one of her children.”We’ve reached a point where we can concentrate on one suspect,” Alma Police Chief Jeff Pointer said.Pointer asked people who may have information about Lincks or anything else surrounding the case to call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).”We are hoping someone has the missing puzzle we need,” he said.The red pickup truckLaw enforcement has periodically released and re-released a photo of a red pickup truck with a camper. It was parked near the Alma ballfield at about the same time Morgan disappeared.Alma police chief Jeff Pointer told 40/29 News that after Nick went missing, officers received reports of suspicious activity involving the driver of that truck and children in an Alma neighborhood.”Children, and when I say children, it could be teenagers, it could be younger children who were approached by a man in a red truck with a white camper. We believe someone knows who was at the ballpark that night and who was driving a red truck with a white camper,” Pointer said.Police have also circulated a description of a person of interest in the case. He is described as a man who was between the ages of 23 and 38 at the time of Morgan’s disappearance. He was about 6 feet tall with a medium to solid build. He may have had a mustache and a beard. Investigators from multiple law enforcement agencies searched a red 1986 Chevrolet Scottsdale pickup truck and collected evidence from inside it. According to crime lab reports, blood was identified on part of a seat inside the truck. Investigators also recovered hair samples from various items that were found.At the time, lab technicians found the blood and the blonde hair did not have enough DNA information for a conclusive match. That hair was retested and found to be either Morgan Nick’s or a close relative’s.Video above: Colleen Nick reacts to development in missing daughter’s caseA new documentary revealed that law enforcement also found blue-green cotton fiber in the mat under the seats and in metal pieces of the truck.FBI technicians were able to match the fiber on a microscopic level to a Girl Scout shirt of the type Morgan wore when she disappeared.Court records from the Van Buren incident reveal that a neighbor who lived next to Lincks in 1995 told investigators back then that he thought there was a camper shell on Lincks’ truck “a few months ago.”Investigating Billy Jack LincksIn Nov. 2021, FBI agents publicly named a man named Billy Jack Lincks as a person of interest in the case and asked for the public’s help gathering information about him.Lincks was convicted of sexual indecency after attempting to abduct a child two months after Morgan Nick’s disappearance.According to initial police reports obtained by 40/29 News, on August 29, 1995, an 11-year-old girl told police she was walking with her younger brothers near the Sonic restaurant in downtown Van Buren when a man pulled up to them in a red pickup truck.Van Buren is about 10 minutes down the interstate from Alma, where Morgan Nick was taken.The girl told officers the man offered her money, made sexual comments to her and offered to pay her to get inside his truck and go with him to his house. The girl ran away and police were notified.A witness reported an Arkansas license tag to police that was traced to Lincks and an arrest warrant was issued the next day.Who was Billy Jack Lincks?Agents are trying to learn as much as they can about the life of Billy Jack Lincks.Lincks was born and raised in Crawford County, Arkansas. He served in the Army during World War II and then worked at Braniff Airlines in Dallas from 1962 to 1974.Lincks returned to Van Buren sometime in the late 1970s. He died in prison in 2000.”Whether it was through school, work, church, or any social activity, we need information about Lincks and details about his entire life,” the release states.”Remember, every piece of information about Lincks’ life is important – no detail is too small or insignificant,” it says.Morgan Nick FoundationColleen Nick started the Morgan Nick Foundation. The foundation’s mission is to educate children and teenagers about personal and online safety and to try and prevent child abductions.The foundation assists the attorney general, local law enforcement agencies, and families in cases of missing persons involving children and adults.