Arkansas 6-Year-Old Morgan Nick Kidnapped While Catching Fireflies At A Ballfield

A 6-year-old girl was kidnapped in Arkansas nearly 30 years ago, and a man spotted at the scene as well as at other attempted abductions in the area is now considered a key person of interest in the case.

On the evening of June 9, 1995, Morgan Nick was at the Wofford baseball field in Alma with her mother and a family friend for a little league game.

Colleen Nick told Dateline in a 2018 interview that her daughter asked if she could go to the parking lot to catch fireflies with some older children.

“I originally told her no, but she really wanted to go,” Colleen recalled. “The other parents told me that it was a really safe area and the kids play in the parking lot all the time. I had been told I was always too overprotective, and that was one of the things that played in my decision-making that night.”

But when the game was ending, Colleen couldn’t find Morgan.

“[The other children] didn’t seem alarmed at all, and they said that Morgan was emptying sand out of her shoes at their car,” Colleen said. “Already, when I couldn’t see Morgan, my heart started to beat really fast. We were somewhere we hadn’t been before.”

According to the mother, Morgan wouldn’t just venture off on her own. Colleen explained to Dateline that “there wasn’t even anywhere to go” because “there was no concessions stand, no bathrooms.”

The mother said “major panic set in at that point” and a little league coach called 911.

Police never were able to identify or arrest a suspect in the case, but an investigation revealed some vital clues. Witnesses said they had seen a white man believed to be in his 20s or 30s. And, according to the Charley Project, a red pickup was spotted leaving the parking lot around the same time Morgan went missing.

The truck reportedly had curtain-covered windows, a dull paint job, a short wheel base, a white camper shell and possible damage to the camper’s right rear side.

The Charley Project reported that on June 9 and 10, 1995 — the day Morgan vanished and the following day — there were two attempted abductions.

The site details how in the first incident, a suspect resembling Morgan's suspected abductor “enticed a 4-year-old girl into his red truck” in Alma but “was interrupted and the girl saved when her mother saw them and screamed.”

The second incident, according to the Charley Project, occurred in Fort Smith, a town about 15 miles from Alma. In that case, a man attempted to get a 9-year-old girl into a convenience store men's restroom, but the child resisted.

Authorities reportedly believed the same man was involved in both incidents and could be connected with Morgan’s kidnapping.

In 2021, the FBI’s field office in Little Rock announced law enforcement now “may be closer than ever to identifying” who kidnapped Morgan Nick. The investigative agency identified Billy Jack Lincks as a person of interest in the case.

Lincks grew up in Crawford County, Arkansas, and he went on to serve with the U.S. Army in World War II. Between 1962 and 1974, he lived in Dallas, Texas, where he worked as an upholsterer at Braniff Airlines. After retiring, he returned to Van Buren, Arkansas.

When Morgan disappeared on June 9, 1995, Lincks drove a red 1986 Chevy pickup truck similar to the one seen at the baseball field parking lot as well as at the other attempted abduction the same day in the same town.

Additionally, the FBI said, approximately two months after Morgan disappeared, “Lincks attempted to abduct a young girl in Van Buren, at a location 8 miles from the Wofford baseball field where Morgan was last seen.”

Lincks was connected with the attempted kidnapping when an eyewitness was able to provide investigators with a license plate number on his red truck.

A search of the vehicle later turned up blood and blonde hair samples, but there wasn’t enough usable DNA to provide detectives with any matches at the time, KHBS reported.

The convicted pedophile was in prison serving time for sexual indecency with a child when he died in 2000 at age 75, but detectives continue to work the case.

Anyone with information about Lincks, including details about his social, professional or private activities during his lifetime, is requested to contact the FBI at (800) CALL-FBI or submit tips to fbi.gov/tips.