Still Missing Morgan (2023–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Twisted Beyond Untwisting - full transcript
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BROWN: Uh, C block here
is our protective custody
for those that are
convicted of sex crimes,
uh, anything from,
you know, rape
or anything to sexual assault,
uh, an adult or child
victim, uh, are housed here.
These are convicted, uh,
that are waiting to go
to the Arkansas
Department of Corrections.
We keep them segregated
from general population.
Um, you know, there is...
Uh, even though this is
jail, there is still honor.
And these... these
type of... of inmates
aren´t welcomed in...
In general population.
[ man speaking
indistinctly in distance ]
I don´t understand
sex crimes, you know,
um, especially when it
becomes an adult and a child.
I don´t see how a... an adult
can be sexually
attracted to a child.
Um,
my belief is that they
can´t be rehabilitated.
You know, I know
the... the state,
like other states,
has programs for them.
But, uh, I believe
that, uh, if you´re sexually
attracted to a child,
you´re probably twisted
beyond un-twisting.
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JOHN: Whatcha got,
there, Morgan?
MORGAN: Bike.
- A bike?
- Yep, my new bike.
- Is that your first bike?
- Yep, my new bike from
Walmart. It´s a big bike.
- It is? Oh, it´s got
training wheels on it.
- Yep.
So, want me to
ride it right now?
- Hold on. I´m gonna take the
picture. Say cheese, though.
COLLEEN: We were
in the military.
And so we came to
Arkansas in 1993.
When we got out of the
military, we came here.
Our family was here. It
was, you know, his family,
my family, they were all here,
so we wanted to come back home.
We´d been gone for
almost 10 years,
and we just wanted to come back
home where our families were at.
You like your bike?
- Yeah.
- Alright.
We ended up moving to Ozark.
Our families were, um,
Alma, Dyer, Fort Smith.
And I wanted to be
a stay-at-home mom.
You know, I wanted to
be at home with my kids,
um, invest in their lives.
I didn´t want to have
to take them to daycare.
And so I actually started a
licensed daycare in my home
so, you know, that we could
supplement our income,
and I could still be
home with my children.
So I had a licensed daycare.
I had children who came
to my house every day.
[ children speak indistinctly ]
Turn all the way
around, Brandon.
You look like a farm
boy. Ooh, I like...
Had been then also doing daycare
on the weekends and in the
evenings, so just a lot.
And, um, in May of 1995,
I had stopped all of my
nighttime, overnight daycare
and my weekends, because
I just wanted to be able
to spend some more
time with my children.
You want to just
put it on her head?
- How much do you love me?
- I really do love you.
- How much?
- Very much, Morgan.
This is a little girl
who has a laugh that
comes from way down here.
Um, when she was
in the first grade,
she signed up...
She brought home papers
to sign up for track.
And we filled out all the papers
and sent them back to school.
And they had their first
track practice at school.
And, so, when she came home,
she was so mad, and she said,
"Do you know what they
make you do in track?
I had to go outside and run,
and I was sweating," you know,
two things that she didn´t
like to do, run and sweat.
And so, um, she quit, and she
signed up for Girl Scouts,
because she said that they could
stay inside and glue stuff.
- Mom?
- What?
- Hello. Um,
c-could we play with
the markers now?
- Watch.
- Rat girls.
You look like a rat.
[ children speaking
indistinctly ]
- [ speaking indistinctly ]
[ laughs ]
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Hi.
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[ bird chirping ]
- You know, hope is a...
A mind-set, so, well,
I´d like to believe
that we will recover
Morgan alive and safely.
Um,
but I´m also a realist, and
most people in my job are.
Uh, and so is Colleen,
that we know that the
chances of that are higher
that we won´t than we will.
Uh, those percentages change
a little bit periodically
and... but it´s quite a bit
to the favor that we won´t.
But it does happen.
It´s not impossible,
which keeps hope alive.
And then, the other part
of that is that, you know,
you got to consider
the... the consequences.
If we find her, and
she´s safe and alive,
um, you know, there´s...
There´s still...
There´s still consequences.
There´s probably
been other victims
because of our failure to
be able to solve this case,
and, um, there´ll be more.
And so that becomes
a high priority,
is to... to, uh, keep
from having other victims,
whether it´s in our
jurisdiction or not.
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[ men speaking indistinctly ]
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[ children yelling ]
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MAN: Catch it, Ryan! Catch
it! Come on, catch it!
[ men shouting indistinctly ]
WHITE: This all began
on a Friday night,
uh, at a baseball field
in what would I´d
call downtown Alma.
It was actually about a block,
maybe a block and a half
from the police department.
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COLLEEN: Literally just
like any... any other day.
It´s a Friday. Um,
we get up. Everybody
has breakfast.
You know, the daycare kids
are coming for the day.
So, you know, we have
activities planned
and, you know, the
little kids had crafts.
And what I specifically remember
is really making grilled
cheese sandwiches
for dinner that night, because
my kids loved grilled cheese.
And we were planning to
meet up with our friends.
They´d invited us to come
see one of their kids
play in this Little League
baseball game in Alma.
And, um, the kids ate dinner.
And I specifically
remember, uh...
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Um...
[ voice breaking ] I
remember Morgan asking
for a second sandwich.
And I didn´t really
have time to cook it.
And she wasn´t a real big eater,
so I didn´t really think
that she needed it,
and I didn´t make it for her.
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And so that... That
still bothers me.
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The kids went home
probably around 5:00.
And, you know, I gave
all my kids baths.
Morgan and I got ready
to go to the game,
and then the two little ones
were going to go to...
to Grandma´s house.
And I felt like it
would be impossible
to keep up with all
of them at the game,
so we were going to drop
them off with Grandma
and then, you know, go with our
friends to the baseball game.
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WHITE: It was a makeup game.
Uh, we´d had a lot of rain
the week before, and so the
games were being made up.
And so it was
running a little late
for a ballgame
for kids that age.
COLLEEN: It´s a little field.
It´s got a, um... a double fence
that goes all the way around it.
It´s got two little
sets of bleachers,
one on the first baseline,
one on the third baseline,
and, you know, it just opens
onto these two
little parking areas.
There´s no concession
stands. There´s no bathrooms.
And so we just stayed in
the upper parking area
waiting for the game to finish.
And when it finished,
then we walked down
and sat in the bleachers
on the first baseline.
WHITE: Colleen was there.
They were watching a
friend´s kid play ball.
Um, Morgan´s, uh,
I´m not going to say
super shy, but she´s not...
I mean, she´s not
in her element.
So she´s sitting with her mom.
Uh, there´s some
other children there,
and they´re wanting
her to go play.
COLLEEN: Morgan sat with me.
You know, she was 6 years old.
She was a little
bit on the shy side,
a little bit quiet.
And she didn´t want
to go play with them,
and she just wanted
to sit with me.
And I remember she
kept untying my shoes,
and I had to pretend
like, "Oh, my gosh.
How did that happen? How
did my shoe get untied?"
And she would just
laugh and laugh.
You know, it was just the
most hilarious thing to her.
- They go back and
forth quite a bit,
I think, those two kids,
and anyway, at some point,
Colleen lets her go,
plays with the kids.
COLLEEN: Right before
the game ended,
they, um, came back again
and asked her to go play,
and they asked her if she
wanted to catch fireflies.
And, um, she wanted to go.
It was the first time that
she had wanted to all night.
And I told her
that she couldn´t.
And I told her
that I just thought
it was too late and too dark.
And, you know, she
continued to, um, ask me.
I was thinking about the
times that I had been told
that I was too
overprotective as a parent,
that, you know, I
need to find space
to let my kids have a
little bit of freedom.
You know, I walked my kids
to the bus stop every day,
walked back and met
them, walked them home.
It was just down the
block. But to me,
it just seemed like those
were the right things to do.
So that was on my mind,
you know, that I´m
too overprotective.
And my friends said, you know,
"Kids have been playing here.
I mean, it´s perfectly safe."
And kids had been
playing all night.
They´re running back and forth.
I mean, it´s this double
fence. It´s this double fence.
There are no concessions.
There are no bathrooms,
just... just these
cars in the flat area
and this row of
cars up on the top.
And we can clearly see, uh...
We can clearly see all of it
to our left-hand side there.
You know, we´re
facing the field.
Um, the parking
lot is to our left.
And that´s when I had,
uh, that feeling like
something was wrong.
Something wasn´t right.
It, you know, it just kind of...
And I thought to myself,
"I´m... I´m being ridiculous.
I´m overprotective."
Uh, and I know it
doesn´t make sense,
but I just had the feeling
that something was really
not okay in that moment.
♫♫
You know, she, uh...
She really wanted to go
catch those fireflies, and...
I think the thing
I remember most
is, um...
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How happy she was when
I told her she could go.
And she just, you know,
flung her arms around my neck
in a big, old hug and, um...
kissed me on the cheek.
[ sniffles ]
♫♫
She, uh, climbed down out of
the stands with her two friends
and... and ran
together with them.
Um, and I remember them
running in front of her,
´cause she was a little
bit smaller than them.
Running out, uh,
between the gates
and playing in
front of the cars.
Um,
they were... they were
chasing each other
in, um... in single file,
and she was the very last one.
♫♫
And I just looked up as
they were running across.
You know, she had on her little,
um, green Girl Scout T-shirt,
because you know Girl Scouts
can stay inside and glue stuff.
[ sniffles ]
And, um,
she was just the
last one in the row.
And, um, and she
was focused on them.
She never... She
didn´t look down,
but I looked at her
running across with them
and turned back to the game.
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And that was the
last time I saw her.
MAN: Good job.
[ cheers and applause, men
speaking indistinctly ]
Good job.
- They´re in this
sort of a parking lot.
It´s not an official
parking lot,
but it is an area
where people park.
It´s to the east,
and it´s up on a hill
overlooking the ball field.
It´s actually where Colleen
had parked that night.
And they were playing
in a sand pile
back at the back side of
that area where they parked.
They were kind of all
around the parking lot.
They´re kids. They´re
just out there playing.
Right before the
ball game ended,
and they were... they
were all coming back down.
And apparently, she stopped
to get sand out of her shoes,
uh, and had sat down on
the ground to do that.
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By all accounts, that´s the last
time that we know of somebody...
Were able to identify somebody
that saw her past that point.
MAN: First of all, tell me what
we´re doing out here tonight.
WHITE: Okay. We
got a call about,
uh, I believe it
was at 11:07 p.m.
Uh, had a missing child at the
Alma Little League Ballpark
on Walnut Street here in Alma,
just about a block and a half
west of our location here.
Uh, got down there and
of course just started
to check the area, hoping
to find the... the child.
Our officer, uh, Sergeant Harris
was the first officer to arrive.
HARRIS: At that time, I
was only like a mile away.
It was right there
on 64 highway.
And soon as I pull up,
I see a group of people.
WHITE: We rallied at
the police department,
then went down to the ballpark.
Sergeant Harris was giving us
some preliminary information.
- I see Colleen there,
which I knew Colleen from
Ozark from years past.
- They noticed Morgan missing
somewhere around 10:40
but thought she just
walked off. And so the...
Colleen and the parents around
there were looking for her.
- You know, I thought it
was more of a missing child,
maybe a, you know, a
grandmother, grandfather,
you know, miscommunicating
with the parents
and picking up the child.
But once I arrived back,
and we started
actually, you know,
planning on... on
processing a crime scene,
I knew it was more,
you know, than that,
than just a lost child.
HARRIS: I went up to Colleen
and started talking to her,
and she said, "We
can´t find Morgan.
We´ve looked and
looked and looked,
and we can´t find
her." So at that time,
I started looking and
getting some more officers.
And I called Russell and
told Russell, I said, "Hey,
we got a missing child down
here at the ball field."
- You know, my
assignment that night
was... was the crime scene.
And, uh, we roped it off
with crime scene tape.
- Uh, it was a loose,
unorganized search.
It was just parents and
people that were down there,
uh, you know, looking for her.
Immediately, the public
was not organized at all.
They´re... They´re on their own.
Course, we have no
communication with them.
They´re not standing there.
We don´t have a command post.
So they´re not coming to us
and asking us what to do.
They´re going out on their
own and... and looking.
WOMAN: Morgan!
- And... And at some point,
they´re... they´re reporting
back to us if they see something
or think something´s up.
Uh, the officers, uh, by radio,
uh, you know, we all have
communications together,
even with the other agencies.
So we´re somewhat
keeping up with that.
We´re putting out the...
All these descriptions
that we... you know,
and things like that.
BROWN: I made
contact with then
I believe he was the
rank of lieutenant
with state police,
Chuck Lambert.
And, uh, we roped it off
with crime scene tape,
uh, they´d brought in. They
were looking for some lights,
wanting to get some
lights and stuff,
even though we had
the ball field lights.
The house just behind the
field, I was facing it.
It had a screened-in
porch. And of course,
this was like 3:00 in
the morning by then.
And a guy lights up a cigarette.
And I just... I said, "Chuck,"
I said, "that guy´s
been watching us."
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Chuck hollered at him,
but he wouldn´t respond.
So that kind of sparked
a neighborhood canvass,
you know, to just, you
know, knock on doors,
see if anybody saw
anything, heard anything.
- So, Russell got there,
and we started calling
more people out then and
more people and more people.
We saturated the area.
And at that time, uh,
it rained. We had... It
was flooded and stuff,
and we had to be real
careful where we went
and all that stuff.
You couldn´t get out
into the fields hardly,
but we did, you know?
- It´s still pretty random.
We don´t have a direction
to look at that point.
We´re just looking.
We´re hoping to...
´Cause we´ve got
just a... You know,
we... we know our time
period was short there,
to, if she´s in a vehicle,
to try to... to locate her.
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BROWN: Where we believe
that she was last seen
was on a hilltop just
overlooking the ball field.
And there were things.
You know, there was, uh,
if I´m not mistaken,
a couple Coke cans,
you know, cigarette butts, you
know, things that we thought
that maybe we can get DNA off
of or fingerprints off of.
HARRIS: Any tire tracks or
any footprints in the sand
or right around the
sand there, like,
I don´t recall us seeing any
footprints or anything like that
and any, uh, tire tracks.
And we looked at so many
things right in that area.
And so there was nothing
that really stood out.
- You know, we picked up
everything that
was on the ground,
anything that was
on the ground there
that wasn´t a rock that
would have been there
or a blade of grass that
was growing, we collected.
If it was there, we took it,
´cause we didn´t know
if we´d need it or not.
- Where Morgan and the... the
other children was playing at
is kinda above the bleachers.
It´s on a little hill, right?
There´s like some sand and
stuff there. I remember that.
And that´s where
they was playing at.
And... But more...
Colleen was down on the
bleachers, and it´s kinda down.
It´s not too far away,
but it´s down, you know?
Back then, that was a parking
lot for the apartments
and also the street
department, it...
That parking lot joined
the street department.
So there were sand piles.
There were culverts
and things like that.
And they were playing with
Morgan, uh, in the sand piles.
- And I recall one of
the kids telling me,
can´t recall which one
it was, but telling me
that there was a
man had come up.
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- They describe the
guy as a white male.
Um, has got a, uh, kind
of a scruffy beard.
He´s got, uh, I believe
he´s wearing shorts.
And at some point... I
don´t know if he´s shirtless
or his shirt´s open.
I can´t remember.
But I think they describe him
as having some hair on his...
On his chest and stomach
but not a lot of it,
kind of maybe a strip.
And they had a description of
the vehicle he was driving.
- Was it credible? Was it not?
You know, really, that´s
all we had to go by.
And, you know, they were
playing with Morgan.
Tye and Jessica were
playing with Morgan.
The statement was made that
this suspect in the red truck
with a camper that didn´t fit.
Now, there´s
different definitions
of how it didn´t fit, but
it didn´t fit right on it,
was sitting there,
uh, in the truck
with the door open, smoking.
HARRIS: Two children,
the boy and girl,
they went, they told Morgan
they´re going back down
there where Colleen was.
- The kids took off,
all three of them.
Morgan stopped.
HARRIS: But they
said Morgan said
she´s gonna empty the
sand out of her shoes,
and then she´s gonna come on
back down there and stuff.
- Uh, I believe Tye
stayed back with her.
And as she had finished
tying her shoe,
he took off running
down the hill,
and she hasn´t been seen since.
- That was the last time.
WHITE: One of the...
One of the children, uh,
was the son of the... the guy
that Colleen was
sitting with there.
And, uh, so they came
back to the area.
And then Colleen obviously
noticed Morgan wasn´t there,
and she asked where she was at.
Um, they said she had stopped
to take sand out her shoes.
So Colleen looks
in that direction,
and she doesn´t see
her, which is not,
if you´re familiar
with the area,
would not be totally
unusual. With the cars there,
it just depends on where
she actually stopped.
Uh, Colleen didn´t panic
at that point or anything.
She just got up and
started going up that way.
And then of course, obviously,
she didn´t find Morgan.
She didn´t see any
vehicles leaving
as she´s walking up
that she remembers.
Um, so we think that that
short period of time there,
those two or three minutes
that might have occurred
from the time the kids came down
till she actually had the
conversation with Colleen
is when it occurred,
when Morgan disappeared.
WHITE: We really think we
kind of narrowed it down.
We think it´s a good
possibility it´s a red truck,
still no make, with
a white camper shell.
We don´t want to just
limit it to that.
But that´s what at this time
we believe it´s going to be,
a red pickup with
a white camper,
white male, dark hair,
short dark beard.
And of course the last time
he was seen, uh, no shirt.
- They took Jessica and Tye.
And the Identi-Kit is, uh...
It´s not actually
an artist´s drawing.
It´s just, you know, you
put eyes. You put hair.
You put face, you put
beard, things like that,
and you come up
with a composite.
And that´s the original
suspect composite
came from the Identi-Kit.
- You know, we have to
take into age account.
There´s a couple
things with kids.
They´re... You know, they
tell you what they saw.
And they´re...
Uh, when you´re
interviewing these kids,
you know, there´s no question
they see things just like
me and you see things,
and they can tell you that.
You know, no matter
really what their age
or if they´re...
If they´re verbal,
uh, they can...
They can tell you.
So the next day, I think, was
when the Identi-Kits were done,
uh, because the kids had seen
somebody in the parking lot,
um, and we needed to know
what that person looked like.
So we were trying to identify
everybody at the ball fields.
Uh, and we knew there
was this one person
that... that we didn´t
know who it was.
The kids had seen him.
And so the
Identi-Kits were done.
BETH: It´s been almost 24
hours since Morgan disappeared
from the Little
League field in Alma.
WHITE: You know, there´s a
difference between sitting down
with an interview that...
that is an interview
and asking the kids questions.
You know, we asked the
kids questions that night,
immediately. We
didn´t sit down
with a formal
interview with them
till several days later.
Uh, but the Identi-Kits
were done the next day.
And you also got to
remember, they were young,
and it was late at night.
They´d been up all day,
uh, you know, so, uh, you know,
3:00 in the morning for a
child that hadn´t been to bed
is not a good time to
be asking them anything.
Because of the short
time that went from
when Morgan was last
seen by the kids
to the time that Colleen
started looking for her
and the fact that she
didn´t see a vehicle leaving
and from what I´ve been
told of Morgan and...
I don´t think Morgan was
coerced into the truck.
I think that it was
more of a grab and go.
I think it happened
very quickly.
Uh, and he probably, on his
way out of the parking lot,
I think he stepped out of
the truck, grabbed her,
put her in, and took off.
[ child speaks indistinctly ]
COLLEEN: Good. [ laughs ]
[ children whooping,
speaking indistinctly ]
JOHN: I remember sitting
in the car that night,
and, uh, storms had moved in.
It was raining, lightning.
Wind was blowing hard.
I mean, it was a
bad thunderstorm,
raining real hard.
CHILD: Trying to
act like a hot shot.
COLLEEN: Morgan, did you
hear what Daddy said?
What did he say?
I just said out there
in the car by myself...
with horrible thoughts
going through my head.
I honestly really almost didn´t
make it through that night.
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I think it´s real nice
of everybody, you know,
really helps a lot to know
that everybody´s supporting us.
♫♫
You know, I guess we don´t
get a chance to say...
Appreciate everybody
enough, but, you know,
I want to thank
everybody who is helping.
I´d like to say, Morgan,
you know it´s Father´s Day.
I want to see you
before the day is over.
- You know, we´ve had
lots of leads on John.
"Why isn´t he involved? You
know, he don´t care," this...
You know, the thing with John,
and people got to understand
that we needed the news media.
We needed it to put out
information every day for us.
We were getting new
information every day.
The best way for us to get
it out was by the news media.
It was the fastest.
It was widespread.
And they were willing to do it.
They were willing to
help, but only to a point.
Uh, you know, myself
and, uh, Lieutenant Best
getting up in front of
the camera every day
was not something the
public was going to
want to watch every night.
We needed Colleen involved.
So we convinced
Colleen to be involved,
basically dragging and
kicking and screaming
into the press room to...
"You´ve got to do this."
And so she did, uh, reluctantly,
but, uh, she did well at it.
And she got better at
it. And she learned
that it was a tool, and
she learned how to use it.
COLLEEN: My daughter never
ran off. She´s very shy,
and she´s very quiet.
If you think you see something,
it doesn´t matter even
if you´re not sure.
Call the police immediately.
- John had no interest in it.
He did everything we ever
asked him in the case.
JOHN: One day, I was up there
at the... the police station.
We were all... all there
on the steps going up to the...
To the police station there.
And Colleen was, like,
standing up by the door.
And there were
several people there.
There was different
media and police,
and I don´t know
who all was there,
just a bunch of people.
Lady from a local
news channel here,
her and her camera guy pretty
much pushed me out of the way
to get to Colleen.
I turned around, and I
said, you know, "Excuse you.
You need to watch where
you´re... where you´re walking."
And she said, you
know, "I´m sorry.
It´s just, nobody wants to
hear what the dad has to say.
Everybody wants to hear
what the mom has...
The mother has to say."
And I took it to heart,
and I said, "You know what?
I don´t like talking to
you assholes, either,
and I´m not going to."
And 24 years later, I still
hadn´t spoken to the media.
WHITE: He never denied us access
to anything or any of that.
He was just basically as
cooperative as Colleen.
He just wasn´t out front with
them. People didn´t see him.
He wasn´t on the news, you know.
So people gathered from that
that the only person
they saw was Colleen,
and that... that
John didn´t care.
And that just wasn´t true.
- And that was one
of their big things
was, you know, I had
to do something with it
because nobody
knows where I´m at.
Nobody knows me.
JOHN: Hi, Morgan.
- Wait till I finish
drawing my picture.
- Okay.
You know, and there´s
people, you know,
people pointing their
fingers at me and blaming me.
I´ve went through a lot of
emotions about that stuff.
You know, I´ve been
through them all,
the whole range of
emotions, you know?
At first, it
really, really hurt.
You know, it´s really painful
for somebody to point
their finger and say,
"That´s who hurt
that little girl.
That´s who took
that little girl."
You know, it was real painful.
Come on. [ baby squeals ]
I moved from it being painful
to I laughed about it.
I took it as a joke.
You know, it just shows
these people don´t know me.
I could never hurt a
child. I love children.
I could definitely never
do anything to hurt one.
You know, so I laughed about it.
These people were
stupid, you know?
And I moved on from that, and
I got where it made me mad.
I get mad every time I hear it,
and I, you know, couple
times, you know, I...
[ laughs, sighs ]
You know, I wanted to jump
on people, you know, for it
and shut them up.
But, you know, that´s not
the right way to do stuff,
and I know it, and
so I refrained.
And I moved on from anger to,
you know, just pretty
much accept it.
You know, I don´t care
what they say about me.
As long as they´re
talking about me,
Morgan´s name is
still being out there.
And if they want to
talk shit about me
and point their finger
at me, so be it.
As long as she´s still
being talked about,
I don´t care what
they say about me.
You know, I didn´t do it. I
had nothing to do with it.
I just want to find out
what happened to my kid.
And I don´t care what
it takes. I don´t care.
♫♫
- A question. Can a
piece of home videotape
help police find Morgan Nick?
Well, a viewer may have caught
the alleged kidnapper´s
truck on tape,
but, uh, will this
help the investigation?
Beth Derayma sat down
with police today
as they watched the tape
to see if the truck is the
one they´re looking for.
- The pickup truck that we...
BETH: Lieutenant Dale Best
watched this tape
that a viewer gave us.
It was shot at the
Alma ball field
the day Morgan Nick disappeared.
It appears to be the red
truck with white camper
that police are looking for.
But Best isn´t so sure.
- Uh, it doesn´t really look
like a Ford pickup truck.
And we´re not real sure
about this camper shell.
BETH: Best says what looks to
be a camper shell in the video
might actually be a storm
door in the bed of the truck.
However, investigators
are being called in
to study the video to see if
they can pull out any clues.
In the meantime, the
search for Morgan Nick
is now in its fifth day.
But still no sign of
the 6-year-old girl
or the man who may
have taken her.
- We started collecting
video of, uh, parents,
grandparents that were
videoing their kids
at not only that ball game,
but also the high school ball
field and even the complex.
Just in case we caught somebody,
you know, that looked suspicious
or try to identify a
vehicle or a person.
- If you´re asking me if we
got videos of red trucks,
Absolutely. We got video of
red truck with camper shell,
Yes, we do. Could it be
the one that took Morgan?
Yes. Is it? I don´t
know at this point.
- It´s the same pickup truck
that we have pictures of.
We already have this tape.
And we have tried to examine,
uh, this pickup truck closely.
In fact, we´ve had
some enlargements made.
In fact, we´ve
gone to 400 times.
WHITE: So we´ve got a red
truck with a white camper shell
at the same ball
field, not that night
but at a different time frame,
but we don´t know whose it is.
If we can find that
truck and identify it,
it may be our suspect.
It may not be.
If it´s a guy that
lives down the street,
and he comes to a
ball game every week,
and, you know, we can clear him,
then we know that´s
not our truck.
So it wasn´t that we
were believing for sure
that this is this truck,
but we want to determine
whether it is or not.
So we need to identify
it and whose it is
to be able to figure out
if this is the red truck
we´re looking for or
not the red truck.
Not that I´m aware of.
- Oh, I know that we
were just inundated
with sightings of the truck.
BETH: One of the leads
police are working on
happened in Colleyville, Texas.
A teacher was almost abducted
by a man in a red pickup truck.
She got away but was run over.
BROWN: There was
actually a local guy
that lived in the county that
drove a ´60s model Ford pickup
or early ´70s model Ford pickup
that was red in color
with a white camper shell
that was about a foot too
long for the... for it.
And I do know that he had
been stopped so many times
by law enforcement that
he took shoe polish
and wrote on the back,
"I´m not the abductor"
or "I didn´t take her,"
or something like that.
BETH: Since Morgan´s
kidnapping on June 9th,
police have received
hundreds of calls
from people who have
spotted the truck.
Tim Reed of Alma was pulled
over twice in his pickup,
but he doesn´t seem to mind.
- You know, it was
a little hassle,
but it´s good to know
that they´re out...
Out to capture him.
BETH: However, there
are some people
who say they´re being
hassled by the public
just because they drive a truck
that looks like the one
police are trying to find.
- Their vehicle
has been tailgated,
pinned in parking lots, and
in fact, one person got out
and tried to search the truck.
We´d like to caution
the general public
from taking any type
of enforcement action.
BETH: If you think you see the
truck police are looking for,
jot down the license plate
number and call them.
And if you drive a
red Ford pickup truck,
police say be patient.
BROWN: But I
remember, you know,
as several of us
were viewing those,
"Oh, if they´d just panned
just a little bit more,
we might have saw something."
I remember us cheering,
going, "Go, go, go, go!"
Because where this truck was,
it was almost directly
behind home plate.
If they´d just panned a
little bit more to the left,
they could have got that area.
- So, the truck´s
still a viable lead,
but it´s only viable for the
time frame that it was in.
The truck may still exist, and
we would still like to find it.
There may be evidence
in that truck, uh,
or just knowing... tracking
the ownership of that truck.
So, absolutely, the
truck´s a great lead.
But, you know, it needs to
be relevant to the time.
REPORTER: The Alma
police department
making a huge
announcement today.
The city council and mayor have
appointed chief Jeff Pointer
as the permanent
police chief there.
Took over the chief
position after Russell White
retired from the
position after 25 years.
♫♫
POINTER: In 1998, uh, Russell
hired me as a dispatcher.
Not long after that, I
was hired as a patrolman.
You know, during that time,
Russell and I become friends.
You know, he told me he could
see me being his replacement.
And, of course, that´s
20 years, you know...
The case was, at that
time, 24 years old.
And... And what had been
happening in the case
was not working. So,
uh, I-I just came in
with... with open
eyes and open ears
and, uh, took suggestions from,
um... from other investigators.
Captain Hartley approached me
about going back to...
to June the 9th, 1995,
and not starting over in
the... in the investigation,
but looking back at some things
that was done early
and, you know,
and just reviewing what
happened on June the 9th.
What if someone
did miss something?
And by us going
back and reviewing
some of those first
things the first few days
and, I mean, it could
make a difference.
♫♫
♫♫
HARTLEY: Truly, I
think the easiest way
to probably describe
it for anybody who...
That was there that night,
even in law enforcement,
it´s a helpless feeling.
♫♫
And the longer time went on,
the more helpless that you felt.
♫♫
It´s our duty to protect.
And you´ve got a
6-year-old baby out there
that somebody abducted,
and we have not found her, and
we have not brought her home.
♫♫
[ indistinct conversations ]
You know, anytime you´ve
got a-a missing child,
I think, in law enforcement,
uh, it creates a little
bit of apprehension in you.
[ indistinct conversations ]
♫♫
In 25 years of law
enforcement here,
Morgan is the only
one we haven´t found.
Appreciate the... the time
to come in and talk to y´all
and bring you up to speed
a little bit on this.
We want you to have
the information,
because you will see it.
Um, you´re going to see it in
a couple of different ways.
And so this is very simply
to give you a heads-up
so you´re not blindsided
when you see that.
Emotionally, there´s
probably gon´ be some emotion
in this tonight,
and it´s understandable,
and it´s all good, okay?
If you get mad, you get
mad. If you cry, you cry.
Uh, I´ve had all those emotions,
and I´m not in your family.
♫♫
So, kind of going back and
painting a picture of her case,
what happened on the
law enforcement side
after she was abducted
is leads came in by the droves.
Suspect composites have been
a lot, uh, of those leads,
and known offenders have
been a lot of those leads.
Anytime anybody commits a
crime in the United States
that comes close to
this, they call it in
whether or not there´s
any connection.
We have over 8,300
leads in her case.
So, let´s talk about composites,
because there´s been a
lot out over the years,
and there´s been a lot of
questions over the years
about composites.
There were two children
playing with Morgan
the night of the abduction.
So, these are the
original two Identi-Kits
that came out in the case
from those two witnesses.
Four days after the abduction,
they have gotten information
that there was a lead
coming out of a laundromat,
an attempted abduction
at a laundromat.
So then they turn around
and release this composite.
On, uh, August 13th of
´97, they had this drawn.
And what this is is
what´s out today.
And essentially, this is
a hybrid of these two.
Where we are today with the case
is I´m not focused
on composites.
The direction that this
case has always went
has been running leads
based off a composite.
I mean, truthfully, that was
the last 24 years of this case.
I´m looking for
something different.
And you may say, "Well,
this has been the last
20, 24 years of her case."
And I would say yes,
absolutely, you´re right.
Uh, as far as the hybrid
and what´s out today,
we´re talking 25
years into a case.
We´re not going to do an
age progression on this.
This is going to the
background for us.
I´m looking for facts.
I´m looking for details.
I´m looking for specifics
that I can focus on
aside from composites.
The vehicle of interest and
the person of interest in this,
uh, or actually the vehicles
parked next to Colleen´s car
up at the top of the hill.
What is in the reports
is when they first
pull into the lot,
that they pass
three, four vehicles.
And then the gentleman that
Colleen was following there
parks his vehicle
on the far side,
which would be deepest
end of the lot,
uh, is where Colleen had parked.
The reports and everything
that I´m able to look at
indicates that this red truck
ended up being parked on
the other side of Colleen.
To this day, Colleen
will tell you
that she does not remember
that... that truck
being on that hill.
I think here´s
the easiest thing.
Um, if you went to
your local store today,
and you got out of your
car, and you went inside,
and you got back in
your car, and you left,
can you tell me what
color the vehicles were
and what the vehicles were that
were sitting around your vehicle
or the one, uh, you
know, that passed you
as you were getting ready
to go through a crosswalk?
The answer to that is no.
And so it is not
an uncommon thing.
Uh, I think that´s something
that really bothers her,
but that is not
an uncommon thing
for somebody to not recognize,
uh, and be able to place that.
You know, I think part
of the public perception
is that, you know,
she says, "Well, Morgan´s
with me the whole time,"
but she´s probably
out running around
with the other kids
that were out playing.
She´s not. She´s...
She´s with her mom
until right up toward
the end of the game.
And then there are
other children playing.
I mean, we´ve got that
documented in reports.
We have those kids identified.
There was another
parent actually
that was in an
apartment building
right there where that lot was
that was coming out and
checking on her children.
So, a lot of people
at the ball field.
I mean, it is not like anything
to where she sent her child off
to where her child cannot be
seen or anything else like that.
You´ve got to
consider, you know,
the innocence in 1995
in the city of Alma.
It was shattered with Morgan,
because you didn´t
think anything
about allowing your child
to go play like that.
The person stayed up there
and watched the ball game.
We know that, from
witness statements,
there were periods of time
when this person got out
and leaned on the
hood of the truck.
And we know of, outside of
Tye, Jessica, and Morgan,
of no other contact
or connection
between this individual
and any of the other kids
or anybody else up on the hill.
I´m interested in the truck.
I´m interested in finding out,
making this solid
to me personally,
looking at this
and saying, "Okay,
what... what do we have here?"
And I came up with a list of
20 people from June the 9th
that provided information
on a red truck.
Three of the primary
people and witnesses
that were talked to, uh,
were actually given hypnosis,
and they provided some
vehicle license information.
They did their due diligence
when they received
this information
in August of ´95,
and they ran those tags.
And I start looking,
and I realize
that in this one
particular state,
every one of these tags
have returned no record.
So I run, 24 years later,
an NCIC offline search
on these tags, and
I get some hits.
So we´re looking at
two different avenues.
We´re looking at this truck.
We´re looking at these tags.
And as I continue to work on
the sheet with these trucks,
I get to right in
the 20th person.
I start digging through files,
looking for more witnesses,
more things, and I come
across a photograph.
I pull the photograph out,
and I´m looking at a red
truck with a white camper.
And having the 20 people´s
statements fresh in my mind
when I look at this
truck, I think,
"Oh, my God. I´m
looking at the truck."
♫♫
BETH: It doesn´t quite fit.
Is there something there
that, other than being red,
there something there that
really makes you think
that this could
be the truck or...
- It doesn´t really look
like a Ford pickup truck
and we´re not real sure
about this camper shell.
[ beeper beeping ] But, yes,
we have this film, and
we have looked at that,
and we continue to examine
it, and we´re utilizing it
in our investigation
at this time.
HARTLEY: The image that
they pull from the video,
I believe they had it, um,
with... roughly within
a week of the abduction
they had that. I´m wanting
to say they actually had that
close to the 13th, 14th,
somewhere in there.
BETH: The suspect who took
Morgan Nick is believed
to be driving an older
model red Ford pickup
with a white camper shell.
A parent at the ball field
where Morgan was last seen
caught this red
truck on home video.
But after further investigation,
police say this truck is a Mazda
and it´s owned by a parent
who was at the ball field
where Morgan disappeared.
- They are saying that,
that it has been cleared.
It doesn´t name any
agency in particular
that supposedly cleared that.
What I can tell you is,
based on the facts of what
I find and what I read,
I have not found a single
document at this point
that tells me that
truck´s cleared,
that an owner of that
truck has been identified.
As a matter of fact,
I have documents...
One of the things that they did,
uh, they... they
obtained information
from everybody that
attended the ball field.
Uh, part of that information
is what vehicles they drove
to the ball field, and who came?
Did you have a guest,
and what did they drive?
That truck doesn´t
exist in those records.
I spoke with Chief White.
I showed him the picture,
asked him about it,
and he said yes.
That truck, uh, was known
to be at the ball field
June the 9th of ´95.
And there is a potential
that that could be the person
we´re looking for in this case.
BETH: A parent at the ball
field where Morgan was last seen
caught this red
truck on home video.
But after further investigation,
police say this truck is a Mazda
and it´s owned by a parent
who was at the ball field
where Morgan disappeared.
PRODUCER: Had you
ever heard that?
- I´m... I mean, I don´t...
I don´t remember it, no.
And I´m sure a policeman
told them that.
And it may have been somebody
from a different agency.
I may have knew about it,
but I don´t remember ever
hearing that to be a Mazda,
and I haven´t ever read a report
that tells me who
owned that truck.
Uh, so I would think that
if we knew it was a parent
at the ball field, we´d
know what parent it was.
But I´ve never seen
that information, so...
♫♫
♫♫
HARTLEY: I started mapping
some different circumstances
that happened within the city
on June the 9th
relating to this truck.
You know, we had knowledge of
different pieces of this before.
When you sit down, and you
put that puzzle together,
it´s like a jigsaw puzzle.
And when you start putting
those pieces together,
you get a very clear picture.
And I have a very
clear picture today.
♫♫
Started pulling everything
from June the 9th of ´95.
I don´t believe that Morgan
was the only circumstance
that occurred with this person
in Alma on June the 9th.
I found statements
that I had seen before
at different times
over the years
and started pulling
information from them
and then actually
started mapping
and putting that
information together.
And it painted a very
interesting picture
of June the 9th of ´95.
And according to
witness statements,
Morgan Nick and
the kids with her
were not the only contact with
this individual that night.
The first location is
a teenage white female.
She has a truck drive past
her, pull over in front of her,
and back up to her.
And the passenger
window´s partially down.
And the first thing that this
individual says to her is,
"Would you like a ride
to downtown Alma?"
So, obviously, downtown Alma
is was where Morgan
was abducted from.
So this female tells him that
she doesn´t want to ride.
The subject doesn´t leave,
and she is forced...
Uh, she´s scared at this point,
and she is forced to
walk off from him.
And so she has to walk off,
and he continues to sit there
and then finally drives off.
The strongest witness. Hands
down, no questions asked,
that´s probably the strongest
witness in our case.
She provided a lot
of information,
filled in a lot of blanks.
Location number two,
the information on it is from a
call-in, and it´s kind of vague
because I haven´t found
a follow-up on it.
Two girls, 5 and 6 years old,
on the north end of our city,
they come running
from the front yard
out next to the street,
screaming and crying.
Mom looks out, and
Mom sees a red truck
with a white camper
shell drive off.
♫♫
Location number three is
going to be in downtown Alma,
and it´s a couple
of teenage boys.
They´re walking from
the older baseball field
on the south side
of West Main Street.
And a red pickup truck
with a white camper shell,
uh, a male subject in it, stops
and gets onto them
for being in the road.
One of those witnesses
watches the truck turn
onto Walnut Street.
And, so, Walnut runs down
the side of the ballpark,
and it actually is the street
that goes into the
upper parking lot
where Morgan was abducted from.
This is number four.
So right there,
I have a couple of
10-year-old boys
that were playing
and riding bikes,
and they´re in the street.
And I have a subject
in a red truck
with a white camper
that stops and yells at them to
get out of the road, as well.
Number five, I would call
definitely the parking lot
where the abduction occurred.
Location number six,
with the same thing,
we´re looking at a timeline.
There is, uh, the
red truck in question
with the white camper shell
that is photographed
sitting on the street.
And we know the time of that
ballgame, 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
that night, is when this
truck was photographed.
Every thing within
that timeframe
is a very short period of time,
and it all comes into play.
So basically what it did for me
on that day is it led a track
right to downtown,
right to the abduction.
♫♫
So location number
seven is actually, um...
We´re not going to divulge
that location at the time,
because we´re doing
some work there.
But within a 10-minute
period of her abduction,
we have other witnesses
that were teenagers.
At this specific location,
it was close to the river.
They were doing an activity
together that evening.
And while they were
doing that activity,
they observed this
vehicle come in.
And so they were
able to give details,
including time details,
uh, and vehicle details.
One of them went
as far as to say
that they felt
like they observed
the adult male driving the truck
potentially holding a child down
in the front seat of the truck.
And after they learn of
Morgan, they come forward
and pass the information on
to the Alma police department
that, "We were at this
particular location.
This is what we observed."
Uh, and then investigators
made contact with them,
got detailed witness
statements from them.
I know from one of the
witness statements, uh,
they said that the officers
took them out the next day.
There´s question on
exactly which day that was.
But the officer took
them out the next day.
They were unable to go
back to this location
because of the flooding.
♫♫
In this area, there´s
a lot of farmland
that runs along the river.
Those areas are very
much prone to flood.
So, take Van Buren,
for instance.
I believe one of
the things I read,
the river is like an
18 feet of Van Buren.
It flows 10,000 to 15,000
cubic feet per second.
And we were looking at
flood stages, I believe,
of 32 feet at the time
where a couple days
after her abduction,
they recorded that as about
226,000 cubic feet per second
that river is flowing.
So when that river comes
up, and the, you know,
there´s articles at the time
from the farmers, where fields
that are a ways away from the
river are 4 feet underwater.
So naturally, for us looking
at this 24 years later,
we have to look at this
in the direction of, okay,
if we believe in the
process that we´re going,
we believe where we are,
uh, we´re looking at
three different things.
There is a potential...
You look at the potential
that Morgan left that location,
and then you have to
look at the potential
that Morgan did not
leave that location.
I´m very comfortable that,
from location number one
all the way to
location number seven,
I´m looking at the same truck.
I´m also very confident I´m
looking at the same subject.
It is a new direction
for the case.
110% it is a new
direction for the case.
So why is it significant today?
It´s significant today because
the majority of the people
don´t realize that truck
was shown a couple of times
in the beginning of this
case. And while it was shown,
it was not shown
with an emphasis of,
"We need to find this truck, and
we need to find this person."
And that is the emphasis today.
And that is... that is something
that we greatly need
the public´s help with.
We´re not just asking for people
to send us every red truck
with a white camper
that they know about.
We´re looking specifically
for this truck.
And I want to say this so
y´all understand something.
The work that we´re doing today
is off the backs of all
those people 25 years ago
that were running this
to ground at that time.
If they didn´t do their
job, we couldn´t do
what we´re doing today.
They... They ran vehicles.
They put... The state police
put troopers in every campground
in the state of Arkansas for
days looking for that truck
and pulling every record
for the red truck.
So it´s not like there has not
been a tremendous amount of work
going to the red truck, because
the witnesses said red truck.
There´s not been a
focus on this red truck.
[ man speaks indistinctly ]
COLLEEN: We love
her, and we miss her.
Whoever´s got her, just
bring her back to us,
where she belongs.
BETH: That was two weeks ago.
Today, a more
hopeful Colleen Nick
still awaits the
return of her daughter.
She and Morgan´s father
say what sees them through
is the support of
friends and strangers.
- They don´t have to care. It
doesn´t affect their lives.
You know, we have a lot
of friends around here
who know us. And it
affects you personally.
But these are people who just,
they don´t know us at all.
JOHN: You know, some
periods during the day,
you´re more hopeful that
she´ll turn up any minute.
And, uh, some periods of the
day, it´s hard to stay hopeful.
But you just got to keep...
Keep staying hopeful.
That´s the only
way to keep going.
♫♫
COLLEEN: We were
stationed in Europe,
and Morgan was born there.
And the night that
we went into labor,
the military hospital
wouldn´t let us in.
They had too many
newborn babies,
and so they literally
sent us away at the door,
and they sent us to a Crockett
House, a city hospital.
And when we got there,
the entire four hours
that we were there,
our nurse only spoke
one word of English.
The only thing that
she could say was push.
And so for four hours,
that´s really all we heard.
Um, and because of
the language barrier,
there were just some
miscommunications.
And so finally,
the doctor arrived,
um, and within 10
minutes, Morgan was born.
And, you know, I remember
Morgan being born,
and the doctor, um, holding
her and saying, "It´s a girl."
And we just kind of gasped,
and her... her dad said,
"It´s a girl?" ´cause we
thought we were having a boy.
And so, um,
you know, they handed her to me.
And that was...
♫♫
That was, um,
when I knew that I would
always fight for her,
you know, that I would do
everything that I could.
Um, people sometimes
ask me now, you know,
how can I still do
this, fight for her,
but how can I not?
Um, I don´t get up every
day and make that decision.
I literally made that decision
the day that she was born,
the day that I held
her in my arms,
that I would always
fight for her.
♫♫
HARTLEY: I could not
have held it together
the way that Colleen
has held it together
if that was one of my kids.
And it gives you that drive,
and it gives you that personal
connection that, you know,
we need to bring this baby
home. It is way beyond time.
My level of confidence in
the case is high, very high.
And my level of confidence
of... of where we are,
what we´re looking at right now,
and the direction that we´re
headed is... is extremely high.
♫♫
Alright.
Alright.
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
BROWN: Uh, C block here
is our protective custody
for those that are
convicted of sex crimes,
uh, anything from,
you know, rape
or anything to sexual assault,
uh, an adult or child
victim, uh, are housed here.
These are convicted, uh,
that are waiting to go
to the Arkansas
Department of Corrections.
We keep them segregated
from general population.
Um, you know, there is...
Uh, even though this is
jail, there is still honor.
And these... these
type of... of inmates
aren´t welcomed in...
In general population.
[ man speaking
indistinctly in distance ]
I don´t understand
sex crimes, you know,
um, especially when it
becomes an adult and a child.
I don´t see how a... an adult
can be sexually
attracted to a child.
Um,
my belief is that they
can´t be rehabilitated.
You know, I know
the... the state,
like other states,
has programs for them.
But, uh, I believe
that, uh, if you´re sexually
attracted to a child,
you´re probably twisted
beyond un-twisting.
♫♫
♫♫
JOHN: Whatcha got,
there, Morgan?
MORGAN: Bike.
- A bike?
- Yep, my new bike.
- Is that your first bike?
- Yep, my new bike from
Walmart. It´s a big bike.
- It is? Oh, it´s got
training wheels on it.
- Yep.
So, want me to
ride it right now?
- Hold on. I´m gonna take the
picture. Say cheese, though.
COLLEEN: We were
in the military.
And so we came to
Arkansas in 1993.
When we got out of the
military, we came here.
Our family was here. It
was, you know, his family,
my family, they were all here,
so we wanted to come back home.
We´d been gone for
almost 10 years,
and we just wanted to come back
home where our families were at.
You like your bike?
- Yeah.
- Alright.
We ended up moving to Ozark.
Our families were, um,
Alma, Dyer, Fort Smith.
And I wanted to be
a stay-at-home mom.
You know, I wanted to
be at home with my kids,
um, invest in their lives.
I didn´t want to have
to take them to daycare.
And so I actually started a
licensed daycare in my home
so, you know, that we could
supplement our income,
and I could still be
home with my children.
So I had a licensed daycare.
I had children who came
to my house every day.
[ children speak indistinctly ]
Turn all the way
around, Brandon.
You look like a farm
boy. Ooh, I like...
Had been then also doing daycare
on the weekends and in the
evenings, so just a lot.
And, um, in May of 1995,
I had stopped all of my
nighttime, overnight daycare
and my weekends, because
I just wanted to be able
to spend some more
time with my children.
You want to just
put it on her head?
- How much do you love me?
- I really do love you.
- How much?
- Very much, Morgan.
This is a little girl
who has a laugh that
comes from way down here.
Um, when she was
in the first grade,
she signed up...
She brought home papers
to sign up for track.
And we filled out all the papers
and sent them back to school.
And they had their first
track practice at school.
And, so, when she came home,
she was so mad, and she said,
"Do you know what they
make you do in track?
I had to go outside and run,
and I was sweating," you know,
two things that she didn´t
like to do, run and sweat.
And so, um, she quit, and she
signed up for Girl Scouts,
because she said that they could
stay inside and glue stuff.
- Mom?
- What?
- Hello. Um,
c-could we play with
the markers now?
- Watch.
- Rat girls.
You look like a rat.
[ children speaking
indistinctly ]
- [ speaking indistinctly ]
[ laughs ]
♫♫
Hi.
♫♫
[ bird chirping ]
- You know, hope is a...
A mind-set, so, well,
I´d like to believe
that we will recover
Morgan alive and safely.
Um,
but I´m also a realist, and
most people in my job are.
Uh, and so is Colleen,
that we know that the
chances of that are higher
that we won´t than we will.
Uh, those percentages change
a little bit periodically
and... but it´s quite a bit
to the favor that we won´t.
But it does happen.
It´s not impossible,
which keeps hope alive.
And then, the other part
of that is that, you know,
you got to consider
the... the consequences.
If we find her, and
she´s safe and alive,
um, you know, there´s...
There´s still...
There´s still consequences.
There´s probably
been other victims
because of our failure to
be able to solve this case,
and, um, there´ll be more.
And so that becomes
a high priority,
is to... to, uh, keep
from having other victims,
whether it´s in our
jurisdiction or not.
♫♫
[ men speaking indistinctly ]
♫♫
[ children yelling ]
♫♫
MAN: Catch it, Ryan! Catch
it! Come on, catch it!
[ men shouting indistinctly ]
WHITE: This all began
on a Friday night,
uh, at a baseball field
in what would I´d
call downtown Alma.
It was actually about a block,
maybe a block and a half
from the police department.
♫♫
COLLEEN: Literally just
like any... any other day.
It´s a Friday. Um,
we get up. Everybody
has breakfast.
You know, the daycare kids
are coming for the day.
So, you know, we have
activities planned
and, you know, the
little kids had crafts.
And what I specifically remember
is really making grilled
cheese sandwiches
for dinner that night, because
my kids loved grilled cheese.
And we were planning to
meet up with our friends.
They´d invited us to come
see one of their kids
play in this Little League
baseball game in Alma.
And, um, the kids ate dinner.
And I specifically
remember, uh...
♫♫
♫♫
Um...
[ voice breaking ] I
remember Morgan asking
for a second sandwich.
And I didn´t really
have time to cook it.
And she wasn´t a real big eater,
so I didn´t really think
that she needed it,
and I didn´t make it for her.
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
And so that... That
still bothers me.
♫♫
The kids went home
probably around 5:00.
And, you know, I gave
all my kids baths.
Morgan and I got ready
to go to the game,
and then the two little ones
were going to go to...
to Grandma´s house.
And I felt like it
would be impossible
to keep up with all
of them at the game,
so we were going to drop
them off with Grandma
and then, you know, go with our
friends to the baseball game.
♫♫
♫♫
WHITE: It was a makeup game.
Uh, we´d had a lot of rain
the week before, and so the
games were being made up.
And so it was
running a little late
for a ballgame
for kids that age.
COLLEEN: It´s a little field.
It´s got a, um... a double fence
that goes all the way around it.
It´s got two little
sets of bleachers,
one on the first baseline,
one on the third baseline,
and, you know, it just opens
onto these two
little parking areas.
There´s no concession
stands. There´s no bathrooms.
And so we just stayed in
the upper parking area
waiting for the game to finish.
And when it finished,
then we walked down
and sat in the bleachers
on the first baseline.
WHITE: Colleen was there.
They were watching a
friend´s kid play ball.
Um, Morgan´s, uh,
I´m not going to say
super shy, but she´s not...
I mean, she´s not
in her element.
So she´s sitting with her mom.
Uh, there´s some
other children there,
and they´re wanting
her to go play.
COLLEEN: Morgan sat with me.
You know, she was 6 years old.
She was a little
bit on the shy side,
a little bit quiet.
And she didn´t want
to go play with them,
and she just wanted
to sit with me.
And I remember she
kept untying my shoes,
and I had to pretend
like, "Oh, my gosh.
How did that happen? How
did my shoe get untied?"
And she would just
laugh and laugh.
You know, it was just the
most hilarious thing to her.
- They go back and
forth quite a bit,
I think, those two kids,
and anyway, at some point,
Colleen lets her go,
plays with the kids.
COLLEEN: Right before
the game ended,
they, um, came back again
and asked her to go play,
and they asked her if she
wanted to catch fireflies.
And, um, she wanted to go.
It was the first time that
she had wanted to all night.
And I told her
that she couldn´t.
And I told her
that I just thought
it was too late and too dark.
And, you know, she
continued to, um, ask me.
I was thinking about the
times that I had been told
that I was too
overprotective as a parent,
that, you know, I
need to find space
to let my kids have a
little bit of freedom.
You know, I walked my kids
to the bus stop every day,
walked back and met
them, walked them home.
It was just down the
block. But to me,
it just seemed like those
were the right things to do.
So that was on my mind,
you know, that I´m
too overprotective.
And my friends said, you know,
"Kids have been playing here.
I mean, it´s perfectly safe."
And kids had been
playing all night.
They´re running back and forth.
I mean, it´s this double
fence. It´s this double fence.
There are no concessions.
There are no bathrooms,
just... just these
cars in the flat area
and this row of
cars up on the top.
And we can clearly see, uh...
We can clearly see all of it
to our left-hand side there.
You know, we´re
facing the field.
Um, the parking
lot is to our left.
And that´s when I had,
uh, that feeling like
something was wrong.
Something wasn´t right.
It, you know, it just kind of...
And I thought to myself,
"I´m... I´m being ridiculous.
I´m overprotective."
Uh, and I know it
doesn´t make sense,
but I just had the feeling
that something was really
not okay in that moment.
♫♫
You know, she, uh...
She really wanted to go
catch those fireflies, and...
I think the thing
I remember most
is, um...
♫♫
How happy she was when
I told her she could go.
And she just, you know,
flung her arms around my neck
in a big, old hug and, um...
kissed me on the cheek.
[ sniffles ]
♫♫
She, uh, climbed down out of
the stands with her two friends
and... and ran
together with them.
Um, and I remember them
running in front of her,
´cause she was a little
bit smaller than them.
Running out, uh,
between the gates
and playing in
front of the cars.
Um,
they were... they were
chasing each other
in, um... in single file,
and she was the very last one.
♫♫
And I just looked up as
they were running across.
You know, she had on her little,
um, green Girl Scout T-shirt,
because you know Girl Scouts
can stay inside and glue stuff.
[ sniffles ]
And, um,
she was just the
last one in the row.
And, um, and she
was focused on them.
She never... She
didn´t look down,
but I looked at her
running across with them
and turned back to the game.
♫♫
And that was the
last time I saw her.
MAN: Good job.
[ cheers and applause, men
speaking indistinctly ]
Good job.
- They´re in this
sort of a parking lot.
It´s not an official
parking lot,
but it is an area
where people park.
It´s to the east,
and it´s up on a hill
overlooking the ball field.
It´s actually where Colleen
had parked that night.
And they were playing
in a sand pile
back at the back side of
that area where they parked.
They were kind of all
around the parking lot.
They´re kids. They´re
just out there playing.
Right before the
ball game ended,
and they were... they
were all coming back down.
And apparently, she stopped
to get sand out of her shoes,
uh, and had sat down on
the ground to do that.
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
♫♫
By all accounts, that´s the last
time that we know of somebody...
Were able to identify somebody
that saw her past that point.
MAN: First of all, tell me what
we´re doing out here tonight.
WHITE: Okay. We
got a call about,
uh, I believe it
was at 11:07 p.m.
Uh, had a missing child at the
Alma Little League Ballpark
on Walnut Street here in Alma,
just about a block and a half
west of our location here.
Uh, got down there and
of course just started
to check the area, hoping
to find the... the child.
Our officer, uh, Sergeant Harris
was the first officer to arrive.
HARRIS: At that time, I
was only like a mile away.
It was right there
on 64 highway.
And soon as I pull up,
I see a group of people.
WHITE: We rallied at
the police department,
then went down to the ballpark.
Sergeant Harris was giving us
some preliminary information.
- I see Colleen there,
which I knew Colleen from
Ozark from years past.
- They noticed Morgan missing
somewhere around 10:40
but thought she just
walked off. And so the...
Colleen and the parents around
there were looking for her.
- You know, I thought it
was more of a missing child,
maybe a, you know, a
grandmother, grandfather,
you know, miscommunicating
with the parents
and picking up the child.
But once I arrived back,
and we started
actually, you know,
planning on... on
processing a crime scene,
I knew it was more,
you know, than that,
than just a lost child.
HARRIS: I went up to Colleen
and started talking to her,
and she said, "We
can´t find Morgan.
We´ve looked and
looked and looked,
and we can´t find
her." So at that time,
I started looking and
getting some more officers.
And I called Russell and
told Russell, I said, "Hey,
we got a missing child down
here at the ball field."
- You know, my
assignment that night
was... was the crime scene.
And, uh, we roped it off
with crime scene tape.
- Uh, it was a loose,
unorganized search.
It was just parents and
people that were down there,
uh, you know, looking for her.
Immediately, the public
was not organized at all.
They´re... They´re on their own.
Course, we have no
communication with them.
They´re not standing there.
We don´t have a command post.
So they´re not coming to us
and asking us what to do.
They´re going out on their
own and... and looking.
WOMAN: Morgan!
- And... And at some point,
they´re... they´re reporting
back to us if they see something
or think something´s up.
Uh, the officers, uh, by radio,
uh, you know, we all have
communications together,
even with the other agencies.
So we´re somewhat
keeping up with that.
We´re putting out the...
All these descriptions
that we... you know,
and things like that.
BROWN: I made
contact with then
I believe he was the
rank of lieutenant
with state police,
Chuck Lambert.
And, uh, we roped it off
with crime scene tape,
uh, they´d brought in. They
were looking for some lights,
wanting to get some
lights and stuff,
even though we had
the ball field lights.
The house just behind the
field, I was facing it.
It had a screened-in
porch. And of course,
this was like 3:00 in
the morning by then.
And a guy lights up a cigarette.
And I just... I said, "Chuck,"
I said, "that guy´s
been watching us."
♫♫
Chuck hollered at him,
but he wouldn´t respond.
So that kind of sparked
a neighborhood canvass,
you know, to just, you
know, knock on doors,
see if anybody saw
anything, heard anything.
- So, Russell got there,
and we started calling
more people out then and
more people and more people.
We saturated the area.
And at that time, uh,
it rained. We had... It
was flooded and stuff,
and we had to be real
careful where we went
and all that stuff.
You couldn´t get out
into the fields hardly,
but we did, you know?
- It´s still pretty random.
We don´t have a direction
to look at that point.
We´re just looking.
We´re hoping to...
´Cause we´ve got
just a... You know,
we... we know our time
period was short there,
to, if she´s in a vehicle,
to try to... to locate her.
♫♫
♫♫
BROWN: Where we believe
that she was last seen
was on a hilltop just
overlooking the ball field.
And there were things.
You know, there was, uh,
if I´m not mistaken,
a couple Coke cans,
you know, cigarette butts, you
know, things that we thought
that maybe we can get DNA off
of or fingerprints off of.
HARRIS: Any tire tracks or
any footprints in the sand
or right around the
sand there, like,
I don´t recall us seeing any
footprints or anything like that
and any, uh, tire tracks.
And we looked at so many
things right in that area.
And so there was nothing
that really stood out.
- You know, we picked up
everything that
was on the ground,
anything that was
on the ground there
that wasn´t a rock that
would have been there
or a blade of grass that
was growing, we collected.
If it was there, we took it,
´cause we didn´t know
if we´d need it or not.
- Where Morgan and the... the
other children was playing at
is kinda above the bleachers.
It´s on a little hill, right?
There´s like some sand and
stuff there. I remember that.
And that´s where
they was playing at.
And... But more...
Colleen was down on the
bleachers, and it´s kinda down.
It´s not too far away,
but it´s down, you know?
Back then, that was a parking
lot for the apartments
and also the street
department, it...
That parking lot joined
the street department.
So there were sand piles.
There were culverts
and things like that.
And they were playing with
Morgan, uh, in the sand piles.
- And I recall one of
the kids telling me,
can´t recall which one
it was, but telling me
that there was a
man had come up.
♫♫
- They describe the
guy as a white male.
Um, has got a, uh, kind
of a scruffy beard.
He´s got, uh, I believe
he´s wearing shorts.
And at some point... I
don´t know if he´s shirtless
or his shirt´s open.
I can´t remember.
But I think they describe him
as having some hair on his...
On his chest and stomach
but not a lot of it,
kind of maybe a strip.
And they had a description of
the vehicle he was driving.
- Was it credible? Was it not?
You know, really, that´s
all we had to go by.
And, you know, they were
playing with Morgan.
Tye and Jessica were
playing with Morgan.
The statement was made that
this suspect in the red truck
with a camper that didn´t fit.
Now, there´s
different definitions
of how it didn´t fit, but
it didn´t fit right on it,
was sitting there,
uh, in the truck
with the door open, smoking.
HARRIS: Two children,
the boy and girl,
they went, they told Morgan
they´re going back down
there where Colleen was.
- The kids took off,
all three of them.
Morgan stopped.
HARRIS: But they
said Morgan said
she´s gonna empty the
sand out of her shoes,
and then she´s gonna come on
back down there and stuff.
- Uh, I believe Tye
stayed back with her.
And as she had finished
tying her shoe,
he took off running
down the hill,
and she hasn´t been seen since.
- That was the last time.
WHITE: One of the...
One of the children, uh,
was the son of the... the guy
that Colleen was
sitting with there.
And, uh, so they came
back to the area.
And then Colleen obviously
noticed Morgan wasn´t there,
and she asked where she was at.
Um, they said she had stopped
to take sand out her shoes.
So Colleen looks
in that direction,
and she doesn´t see
her, which is not,
if you´re familiar
with the area,
would not be totally
unusual. With the cars there,
it just depends on where
she actually stopped.
Uh, Colleen didn´t panic
at that point or anything.
She just got up and
started going up that way.
And then of course, obviously,
she didn´t find Morgan.
She didn´t see any
vehicles leaving
as she´s walking up
that she remembers.
Um, so we think that that
short period of time there,
those two or three minutes
that might have occurred
from the time the kids came down
till she actually had the
conversation with Colleen
is when it occurred,
when Morgan disappeared.
WHITE: We really think we
kind of narrowed it down.
We think it´s a good
possibility it´s a red truck,
still no make, with
a white camper shell.
We don´t want to just
limit it to that.
But that´s what at this time
we believe it´s going to be,
a red pickup with
a white camper,
white male, dark hair,
short dark beard.
And of course the last time
he was seen, uh, no shirt.
- They took Jessica and Tye.
And the Identi-Kit is, uh...
It´s not actually
an artist´s drawing.
It´s just, you know, you
put eyes. You put hair.
You put face, you put
beard, things like that,
and you come up
with a composite.
And that´s the original
suspect composite
came from the Identi-Kit.
- You know, we have to
take into age account.
There´s a couple
things with kids.
They´re... You know, they
tell you what they saw.
And they´re...
Uh, when you´re
interviewing these kids,
you know, there´s no question
they see things just like
me and you see things,
and they can tell you that.
You know, no matter
really what their age
or if they´re...
If they´re verbal,
uh, they can...
They can tell you.
So the next day, I think, was
when the Identi-Kits were done,
uh, because the kids had seen
somebody in the parking lot,
um, and we needed to know
what that person looked like.
So we were trying to identify
everybody at the ball fields.
Uh, and we knew there
was this one person
that... that we didn´t
know who it was.
The kids had seen him.
And so the
Identi-Kits were done.
BETH: It´s been almost 24
hours since Morgan disappeared
from the Little
League field in Alma.
WHITE: You know, there´s a
difference between sitting down
with an interview that...
that is an interview
and asking the kids questions.
You know, we asked the
kids questions that night,
immediately. We
didn´t sit down
with a formal
interview with them
till several days later.
Uh, but the Identi-Kits
were done the next day.
And you also got to
remember, they were young,
and it was late at night.
They´d been up all day,
uh, you know, so, uh, you know,
3:00 in the morning for a
child that hadn´t been to bed
is not a good time to
be asking them anything.
Because of the short
time that went from
when Morgan was last
seen by the kids
to the time that Colleen
started looking for her
and the fact that she
didn´t see a vehicle leaving
and from what I´ve been
told of Morgan and...
I don´t think Morgan was
coerced into the truck.
I think that it was
more of a grab and go.
I think it happened
very quickly.
Uh, and he probably, on his
way out of the parking lot,
I think he stepped out of
the truck, grabbed her,
put her in, and took off.
[ child speaks indistinctly ]
COLLEEN: Good. [ laughs ]
[ children whooping,
speaking indistinctly ]
JOHN: I remember sitting
in the car that night,
and, uh, storms had moved in.
It was raining, lightning.
Wind was blowing hard.
I mean, it was a
bad thunderstorm,
raining real hard.
CHILD: Trying to
act like a hot shot.
COLLEEN: Morgan, did you
hear what Daddy said?
What did he say?
I just said out there
in the car by myself...
with horrible thoughts
going through my head.
I honestly really almost didn´t
make it through that night.
♫♫
I think it´s real nice
of everybody, you know,
really helps a lot to know
that everybody´s supporting us.
♫♫
You know, I guess we don´t
get a chance to say...
Appreciate everybody
enough, but, you know,
I want to thank
everybody who is helping.
I´d like to say, Morgan,
you know it´s Father´s Day.
I want to see you
before the day is over.
- You know, we´ve had
lots of leads on John.
"Why isn´t he involved? You
know, he don´t care," this...
You know, the thing with John,
and people got to understand
that we needed the news media.
We needed it to put out
information every day for us.
We were getting new
information every day.
The best way for us to get
it out was by the news media.
It was the fastest.
It was widespread.
And they were willing to do it.
They were willing to
help, but only to a point.
Uh, you know, myself
and, uh, Lieutenant Best
getting up in front of
the camera every day
was not something the
public was going to
want to watch every night.
We needed Colleen involved.
So we convinced
Colleen to be involved,
basically dragging and
kicking and screaming
into the press room to...
"You´ve got to do this."
And so she did, uh, reluctantly,
but, uh, she did well at it.
And she got better at
it. And she learned
that it was a tool, and
she learned how to use it.
COLLEEN: My daughter never
ran off. She´s very shy,
and she´s very quiet.
If you think you see something,
it doesn´t matter even
if you´re not sure.
Call the police immediately.
- John had no interest in it.
He did everything we ever
asked him in the case.
JOHN: One day, I was up there
at the... the police station.
We were all... all there
on the steps going up to the...
To the police station there.
And Colleen was, like,
standing up by the door.
And there were
several people there.
There was different
media and police,
and I don´t know
who all was there,
just a bunch of people.
Lady from a local
news channel here,
her and her camera guy pretty
much pushed me out of the way
to get to Colleen.
I turned around, and I
said, you know, "Excuse you.
You need to watch where
you´re... where you´re walking."
And she said, you
know, "I´m sorry.
It´s just, nobody wants to
hear what the dad has to say.
Everybody wants to hear
what the mom has...
The mother has to say."
And I took it to heart,
and I said, "You know what?
I don´t like talking to
you assholes, either,
and I´m not going to."
And 24 years later, I still
hadn´t spoken to the media.
WHITE: He never denied us access
to anything or any of that.
He was just basically as
cooperative as Colleen.
He just wasn´t out front with
them. People didn´t see him.
He wasn´t on the news, you know.
So people gathered from that
that the only person
they saw was Colleen,
and that... that
John didn´t care.
And that just wasn´t true.
- And that was one
of their big things
was, you know, I had
to do something with it
because nobody
knows where I´m at.
Nobody knows me.
JOHN: Hi, Morgan.
- Wait till I finish
drawing my picture.
- Okay.
You know, and there´s
people, you know,
people pointing their
fingers at me and blaming me.
I´ve went through a lot of
emotions about that stuff.
You know, I´ve been
through them all,
the whole range of
emotions, you know?
At first, it
really, really hurt.
You know, it´s really painful
for somebody to point
their finger and say,
"That´s who hurt
that little girl.
That´s who took
that little girl."
You know, it was real painful.
Come on. [ baby squeals ]
I moved from it being painful
to I laughed about it.
I took it as a joke.
You know, it just shows
these people don´t know me.
I could never hurt a
child. I love children.
I could definitely never
do anything to hurt one.
You know, so I laughed about it.
These people were
stupid, you know?
And I moved on from that, and
I got where it made me mad.
I get mad every time I hear it,
and I, you know, couple
times, you know, I...
[ laughs, sighs ]
You know, I wanted to jump
on people, you know, for it
and shut them up.
But, you know, that´s not
the right way to do stuff,
and I know it, and
so I refrained.
And I moved on from anger to,
you know, just pretty
much accept it.
You know, I don´t care
what they say about me.
As long as they´re
talking about me,
Morgan´s name is
still being out there.
And if they want to
talk shit about me
and point their finger
at me, so be it.
As long as she´s still
being talked about,
I don´t care what
they say about me.
You know, I didn´t do it. I
had nothing to do with it.
I just want to find out
what happened to my kid.
And I don´t care what
it takes. I don´t care.
♫♫
- A question. Can a
piece of home videotape
help police find Morgan Nick?
Well, a viewer may have caught
the alleged kidnapper´s
truck on tape,
but, uh, will this
help the investigation?
Beth Derayma sat down
with police today
as they watched the tape
to see if the truck is the
one they´re looking for.
- The pickup truck that we...
BETH: Lieutenant Dale Best
watched this tape
that a viewer gave us.
It was shot at the
Alma ball field
the day Morgan Nick disappeared.
It appears to be the red
truck with white camper
that police are looking for.
But Best isn´t so sure.
- Uh, it doesn´t really look
like a Ford pickup truck.
And we´re not real sure
about this camper shell.
BETH: Best says what looks to
be a camper shell in the video
might actually be a storm
door in the bed of the truck.
However, investigators
are being called in
to study the video to see if
they can pull out any clues.
In the meantime, the
search for Morgan Nick
is now in its fifth day.
But still no sign of
the 6-year-old girl
or the man who may
have taken her.
- We started collecting
video of, uh, parents,
grandparents that were
videoing their kids
at not only that ball game,
but also the high school ball
field and even the complex.
Just in case we caught somebody,
you know, that looked suspicious
or try to identify a
vehicle or a person.
- If you´re asking me if we
got videos of red trucks,
Absolutely. We got video of
red truck with camper shell,
Yes, we do. Could it be
the one that took Morgan?
Yes. Is it? I don´t
know at this point.
- It´s the same pickup truck
that we have pictures of.
We already have this tape.
And we have tried to examine,
uh, this pickup truck closely.
In fact, we´ve had
some enlargements made.
In fact, we´ve
gone to 400 times.
WHITE: So we´ve got a red
truck with a white camper shell
at the same ball
field, not that night
but at a different time frame,
but we don´t know whose it is.
If we can find that
truck and identify it,
it may be our suspect.
It may not be.
If it´s a guy that
lives down the street,
and he comes to a
ball game every week,
and, you know, we can clear him,
then we know that´s
not our truck.
So it wasn´t that we
were believing for sure
that this is this truck,
but we want to determine
whether it is or not.
So we need to identify
it and whose it is
to be able to figure out
if this is the red truck
we´re looking for or
not the red truck.
Not that I´m aware of.
- Oh, I know that we
were just inundated
with sightings of the truck.
BETH: One of the leads
police are working on
happened in Colleyville, Texas.
A teacher was almost abducted
by a man in a red pickup truck.
She got away but was run over.
BROWN: There was
actually a local guy
that lived in the county that
drove a ´60s model Ford pickup
or early ´70s model Ford pickup
that was red in color
with a white camper shell
that was about a foot too
long for the... for it.
And I do know that he had
been stopped so many times
by law enforcement that
he took shoe polish
and wrote on the back,
"I´m not the abductor"
or "I didn´t take her,"
or something like that.
BETH: Since Morgan´s
kidnapping on June 9th,
police have received
hundreds of calls
from people who have
spotted the truck.
Tim Reed of Alma was pulled
over twice in his pickup,
but he doesn´t seem to mind.
- You know, it was
a little hassle,
but it´s good to know
that they´re out...
Out to capture him.
BETH: However, there
are some people
who say they´re being
hassled by the public
just because they drive a truck
that looks like the one
police are trying to find.
- Their vehicle
has been tailgated,
pinned in parking lots, and
in fact, one person got out
and tried to search the truck.
We´d like to caution
the general public
from taking any type
of enforcement action.
BETH: If you think you see the
truck police are looking for,
jot down the license plate
number and call them.
And if you drive a
red Ford pickup truck,
police say be patient.
BROWN: But I
remember, you know,
as several of us
were viewing those,
"Oh, if they´d just panned
just a little bit more,
we might have saw something."
I remember us cheering,
going, "Go, go, go, go!"
Because where this truck was,
it was almost directly
behind home plate.
If they´d just panned a
little bit more to the left,
they could have got that area.
- So, the truck´s
still a viable lead,
but it´s only viable for the
time frame that it was in.
The truck may still exist, and
we would still like to find it.
There may be evidence
in that truck, uh,
or just knowing... tracking
the ownership of that truck.
So, absolutely, the
truck´s a great lead.
But, you know, it needs to
be relevant to the time.
REPORTER: The Alma
police department
making a huge
announcement today.
The city council and mayor have
appointed chief Jeff Pointer
as the permanent
police chief there.
Took over the chief
position after Russell White
retired from the
position after 25 years.
♫♫
POINTER: In 1998, uh, Russell
hired me as a dispatcher.
Not long after that, I
was hired as a patrolman.
You know, during that time,
Russell and I become friends.
You know, he told me he could
see me being his replacement.
And, of course, that´s
20 years, you know...
The case was, at that
time, 24 years old.
And... And what had been
happening in the case
was not working. So,
uh, I-I just came in
with... with open
eyes and open ears
and, uh, took suggestions from,
um... from other investigators.
Captain Hartley approached me
about going back to...
to June the 9th, 1995,
and not starting over in
the... in the investigation,
but looking back at some things
that was done early
and, you know,
and just reviewing what
happened on June the 9th.
What if someone
did miss something?
And by us going
back and reviewing
some of those first
things the first few days
and, I mean, it could
make a difference.
♫♫
♫♫
HARTLEY: Truly, I
think the easiest way
to probably describe
it for anybody who...
That was there that night,
even in law enforcement,
it´s a helpless feeling.
♫♫
And the longer time went on,
the more helpless that you felt.
♫♫
It´s our duty to protect.
And you´ve got a
6-year-old baby out there
that somebody abducted,
and we have not found her, and
we have not brought her home.
♫♫
[ indistinct conversations ]
You know, anytime you´ve
got a-a missing child,
I think, in law enforcement,
uh, it creates a little
bit of apprehension in you.
[ indistinct conversations ]
♫♫
In 25 years of law
enforcement here,
Morgan is the only
one we haven´t found.
Appreciate the... the time
to come in and talk to y´all
and bring you up to speed
a little bit on this.
We want you to have
the information,
because you will see it.
Um, you´re going to see it in
a couple of different ways.
And so this is very simply
to give you a heads-up
so you´re not blindsided
when you see that.
Emotionally, there´s
probably gon´ be some emotion
in this tonight,
and it´s understandable,
and it´s all good, okay?
If you get mad, you get
mad. If you cry, you cry.
Uh, I´ve had all those emotions,
and I´m not in your family.
♫♫
So, kind of going back and
painting a picture of her case,
what happened on the
law enforcement side
after she was abducted
is leads came in by the droves.
Suspect composites have been
a lot, uh, of those leads,
and known offenders have
been a lot of those leads.
Anytime anybody commits a
crime in the United States
that comes close to
this, they call it in
whether or not there´s
any connection.
We have over 8,300
leads in her case.
So, let´s talk about composites,
because there´s been a
lot out over the years,
and there´s been a lot of
questions over the years
about composites.
There were two children
playing with Morgan
the night of the abduction.
So, these are the
original two Identi-Kits
that came out in the case
from those two witnesses.
Four days after the abduction,
they have gotten information
that there was a lead
coming out of a laundromat,
an attempted abduction
at a laundromat.
So then they turn around
and release this composite.
On, uh, August 13th of
´97, they had this drawn.
And what this is is
what´s out today.
And essentially, this is
a hybrid of these two.
Where we are today with the case
is I´m not focused
on composites.
The direction that this
case has always went
has been running leads
based off a composite.
I mean, truthfully, that was
the last 24 years of this case.
I´m looking for
something different.
And you may say, "Well,
this has been the last
20, 24 years of her case."
And I would say yes,
absolutely, you´re right.
Uh, as far as the hybrid
and what´s out today,
we´re talking 25
years into a case.
We´re not going to do an
age progression on this.
This is going to the
background for us.
I´m looking for facts.
I´m looking for details.
I´m looking for specifics
that I can focus on
aside from composites.
The vehicle of interest and
the person of interest in this,
uh, or actually the vehicles
parked next to Colleen´s car
up at the top of the hill.
What is in the reports
is when they first
pull into the lot,
that they pass
three, four vehicles.
And then the gentleman that
Colleen was following there
parks his vehicle
on the far side,
which would be deepest
end of the lot,
uh, is where Colleen had parked.
The reports and everything
that I´m able to look at
indicates that this red truck
ended up being parked on
the other side of Colleen.
To this day, Colleen
will tell you
that she does not remember
that... that truck
being on that hill.
I think here´s
the easiest thing.
Um, if you went to
your local store today,
and you got out of your
car, and you went inside,
and you got back in
your car, and you left,
can you tell me what
color the vehicles were
and what the vehicles were that
were sitting around your vehicle
or the one, uh, you
know, that passed you
as you were getting ready
to go through a crosswalk?
The answer to that is no.
And so it is not
an uncommon thing.
Uh, I think that´s something
that really bothers her,
but that is not
an uncommon thing
for somebody to not recognize,
uh, and be able to place that.
You know, I think part
of the public perception
is that, you know,
she says, "Well, Morgan´s
with me the whole time,"
but she´s probably
out running around
with the other kids
that were out playing.
She´s not. She´s...
She´s with her mom
until right up toward
the end of the game.
And then there are
other children playing.
I mean, we´ve got that
documented in reports.
We have those kids identified.
There was another
parent actually
that was in an
apartment building
right there where that lot was
that was coming out and
checking on her children.
So, a lot of people
at the ball field.
I mean, it is not like anything
to where she sent her child off
to where her child cannot be
seen or anything else like that.
You´ve got to
consider, you know,
the innocence in 1995
in the city of Alma.
It was shattered with Morgan,
because you didn´t
think anything
about allowing your child
to go play like that.
The person stayed up there
and watched the ball game.
We know that, from
witness statements,
there were periods of time
when this person got out
and leaned on the
hood of the truck.
And we know of, outside of
Tye, Jessica, and Morgan,
of no other contact
or connection
between this individual
and any of the other kids
or anybody else up on the hill.
I´m interested in the truck.
I´m interested in finding out,
making this solid
to me personally,
looking at this
and saying, "Okay,
what... what do we have here?"
And I came up with a list of
20 people from June the 9th
that provided information
on a red truck.
Three of the primary
people and witnesses
that were talked to, uh,
were actually given hypnosis,
and they provided some
vehicle license information.
They did their due diligence
when they received
this information
in August of ´95,
and they ran those tags.
And I start looking,
and I realize
that in this one
particular state,
every one of these tags
have returned no record.
So I run, 24 years later,
an NCIC offline search
on these tags, and
I get some hits.
So we´re looking at
two different avenues.
We´re looking at this truck.
We´re looking at these tags.
And as I continue to work on
the sheet with these trucks,
I get to right in
the 20th person.
I start digging through files,
looking for more witnesses,
more things, and I come
across a photograph.
I pull the photograph out,
and I´m looking at a red
truck with a white camper.
And having the 20 people´s
statements fresh in my mind
when I look at this
truck, I think,
"Oh, my God. I´m
looking at the truck."
♫♫
BETH: It doesn´t quite fit.
Is there something there
that, other than being red,
there something there that
really makes you think
that this could
be the truck or...
- It doesn´t really look
like a Ford pickup truck
and we´re not real sure
about this camper shell.
[ beeper beeping ] But, yes,
we have this film, and
we have looked at that,
and we continue to examine
it, and we´re utilizing it
in our investigation
at this time.
HARTLEY: The image that
they pull from the video,
I believe they had it, um,
with... roughly within
a week of the abduction
they had that. I´m wanting
to say they actually had that
close to the 13th, 14th,
somewhere in there.
BETH: The suspect who took
Morgan Nick is believed
to be driving an older
model red Ford pickup
with a white camper shell.
A parent at the ball field
where Morgan was last seen
caught this red
truck on home video.
But after further investigation,
police say this truck is a Mazda
and it´s owned by a parent
who was at the ball field
where Morgan disappeared.
- They are saying that,
that it has been cleared.
It doesn´t name any
agency in particular
that supposedly cleared that.
What I can tell you is,
based on the facts of what
I find and what I read,
I have not found a single
document at this point
that tells me that
truck´s cleared,
that an owner of that
truck has been identified.
As a matter of fact,
I have documents...
One of the things that they did,
uh, they... they
obtained information
from everybody that
attended the ball field.
Uh, part of that information
is what vehicles they drove
to the ball field, and who came?
Did you have a guest,
and what did they drive?
That truck doesn´t
exist in those records.
I spoke with Chief White.
I showed him the picture,
asked him about it,
and he said yes.
That truck, uh, was known
to be at the ball field
June the 9th of ´95.
And there is a potential
that that could be the person
we´re looking for in this case.
BETH: A parent at the ball
field where Morgan was last seen
caught this red
truck on home video.
But after further investigation,
police say this truck is a Mazda
and it´s owned by a parent
who was at the ball field
where Morgan disappeared.
PRODUCER: Had you
ever heard that?
- I´m... I mean, I don´t...
I don´t remember it, no.
And I´m sure a policeman
told them that.
And it may have been somebody
from a different agency.
I may have knew about it,
but I don´t remember ever
hearing that to be a Mazda,
and I haven´t ever read a report
that tells me who
owned that truck.
Uh, so I would think that
if we knew it was a parent
at the ball field, we´d
know what parent it was.
But I´ve never seen
that information, so...
♫♫
♫♫
HARTLEY: I started mapping
some different circumstances
that happened within the city
on June the 9th
relating to this truck.
You know, we had knowledge of
different pieces of this before.
When you sit down, and you
put that puzzle together,
it´s like a jigsaw puzzle.
And when you start putting
those pieces together,
you get a very clear picture.
And I have a very
clear picture today.
♫♫
Started pulling everything
from June the 9th of ´95.
I don´t believe that Morgan
was the only circumstance
that occurred with this person
in Alma on June the 9th.
I found statements
that I had seen before
at different times
over the years
and started pulling
information from them
and then actually
started mapping
and putting that
information together.
And it painted a very
interesting picture
of June the 9th of ´95.
And according to
witness statements,
Morgan Nick and
the kids with her
were not the only contact with
this individual that night.
The first location is
a teenage white female.
She has a truck drive past
her, pull over in front of her,
and back up to her.
And the passenger
window´s partially down.
And the first thing that this
individual says to her is,
"Would you like a ride
to downtown Alma?"
So, obviously, downtown Alma
is was where Morgan
was abducted from.
So this female tells him that
she doesn´t want to ride.
The subject doesn´t leave,
and she is forced...
Uh, she´s scared at this point,
and she is forced to
walk off from him.
And so she has to walk off,
and he continues to sit there
and then finally drives off.
The strongest witness. Hands
down, no questions asked,
that´s probably the strongest
witness in our case.
She provided a lot
of information,
filled in a lot of blanks.
Location number two,
the information on it is from a
call-in, and it´s kind of vague
because I haven´t found
a follow-up on it.
Two girls, 5 and 6 years old,
on the north end of our city,
they come running
from the front yard
out next to the street,
screaming and crying.
Mom looks out, and
Mom sees a red truck
with a white camper
shell drive off.
♫♫
Location number three is
going to be in downtown Alma,
and it´s a couple
of teenage boys.
They´re walking from
the older baseball field
on the south side
of West Main Street.
And a red pickup truck
with a white camper shell,
uh, a male subject in it, stops
and gets onto them
for being in the road.
One of those witnesses
watches the truck turn
onto Walnut Street.
And, so, Walnut runs down
the side of the ballpark,
and it actually is the street
that goes into the
upper parking lot
where Morgan was abducted from.
This is number four.
So right there,
I have a couple of
10-year-old boys
that were playing
and riding bikes,
and they´re in the street.
And I have a subject
in a red truck
with a white camper
that stops and yells at them to
get out of the road, as well.
Number five, I would call
definitely the parking lot
where the abduction occurred.
Location number six,
with the same thing,
we´re looking at a timeline.
There is, uh, the
red truck in question
with the white camper shell
that is photographed
sitting on the street.
And we know the time of that
ballgame, 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
that night, is when this
truck was photographed.
Every thing within
that timeframe
is a very short period of time,
and it all comes into play.
So basically what it did for me
on that day is it led a track
right to downtown,
right to the abduction.
♫♫
So location number
seven is actually, um...
We´re not going to divulge
that location at the time,
because we´re doing
some work there.
But within a 10-minute
period of her abduction,
we have other witnesses
that were teenagers.
At this specific location,
it was close to the river.
They were doing an activity
together that evening.
And while they were
doing that activity,
they observed this
vehicle come in.
And so they were
able to give details,
including time details,
uh, and vehicle details.
One of them went
as far as to say
that they felt
like they observed
the adult male driving the truck
potentially holding a child down
in the front seat of the truck.
And after they learn of
Morgan, they come forward
and pass the information on
to the Alma police department
that, "We were at this
particular location.
This is what we observed."
Uh, and then investigators
made contact with them,
got detailed witness
statements from them.
I know from one of the
witness statements, uh,
they said that the officers
took them out the next day.
There´s question on
exactly which day that was.
But the officer took
them out the next day.
They were unable to go
back to this location
because of the flooding.
♫♫
In this area, there´s
a lot of farmland
that runs along the river.
Those areas are very
much prone to flood.
So, take Van Buren,
for instance.
I believe one of
the things I read,
the river is like an
18 feet of Van Buren.
It flows 10,000 to 15,000
cubic feet per second.
And we were looking at
flood stages, I believe,
of 32 feet at the time
where a couple days
after her abduction,
they recorded that as about
226,000 cubic feet per second
that river is flowing.
So when that river comes
up, and the, you know,
there´s articles at the time
from the farmers, where fields
that are a ways away from the
river are 4 feet underwater.
So naturally, for us looking
at this 24 years later,
we have to look at this
in the direction of, okay,
if we believe in the
process that we´re going,
we believe where we are,
uh, we´re looking at
three different things.
There is a potential...
You look at the potential
that Morgan left that location,
and then you have to
look at the potential
that Morgan did not
leave that location.
I´m very comfortable that,
from location number one
all the way to
location number seven,
I´m looking at the same truck.
I´m also very confident I´m
looking at the same subject.
It is a new direction
for the case.
110% it is a new
direction for the case.
So why is it significant today?
It´s significant today because
the majority of the people
don´t realize that truck
was shown a couple of times
in the beginning of this
case. And while it was shown,
it was not shown
with an emphasis of,
"We need to find this truck, and
we need to find this person."
And that is the emphasis today.
And that is... that is something
that we greatly need
the public´s help with.
We´re not just asking for people
to send us every red truck
with a white camper
that they know about.
We´re looking specifically
for this truck.
And I want to say this so
y´all understand something.
The work that we´re doing today
is off the backs of all
those people 25 years ago
that were running this
to ground at that time.
If they didn´t do their
job, we couldn´t do
what we´re doing today.
They... They ran vehicles.
They put... The state police
put troopers in every campground
in the state of Arkansas for
days looking for that truck
and pulling every record
for the red truck.
So it´s not like there has not
been a tremendous amount of work
going to the red truck, because
the witnesses said red truck.
There´s not been a
focus on this red truck.
[ man speaks indistinctly ]
COLLEEN: We love
her, and we miss her.
Whoever´s got her, just
bring her back to us,
where she belongs.
BETH: That was two weeks ago.
Today, a more
hopeful Colleen Nick
still awaits the
return of her daughter.
She and Morgan´s father
say what sees them through
is the support of
friends and strangers.
- They don´t have to care. It
doesn´t affect their lives.
You know, we have a lot
of friends around here
who know us. And it
affects you personally.
But these are people who just,
they don´t know us at all.
JOHN: You know, some
periods during the day,
you´re more hopeful that
she´ll turn up any minute.
And, uh, some periods of the
day, it´s hard to stay hopeful.
But you just got to keep...
Keep staying hopeful.
That´s the only
way to keep going.
♫♫
COLLEEN: We were
stationed in Europe,
and Morgan was born there.
And the night that
we went into labor,
the military hospital
wouldn´t let us in.
They had too many
newborn babies,
and so they literally
sent us away at the door,
and they sent us to a Crockett
House, a city hospital.
And when we got there,
the entire four hours
that we were there,
our nurse only spoke
one word of English.
The only thing that
she could say was push.
And so for four hours,
that´s really all we heard.
Um, and because of
the language barrier,
there were just some
miscommunications.
And so finally,
the doctor arrived,
um, and within 10
minutes, Morgan was born.
And, you know, I remember
Morgan being born,
and the doctor, um, holding
her and saying, "It´s a girl."
And we just kind of gasped,
and her... her dad said,
"It´s a girl?" ´cause we
thought we were having a boy.
And so, um,
you know, they handed her to me.
And that was...
♫♫
That was, um,
when I knew that I would
always fight for her,
you know, that I would do
everything that I could.
Um, people sometimes
ask me now, you know,
how can I still do
this, fight for her,
but how can I not?
Um, I don´t get up every
day and make that decision.
I literally made that decision
the day that she was born,
the day that I held
her in my arms,
that I would always
fight for her.
♫♫
HARTLEY: I could not
have held it together
the way that Colleen
has held it together
if that was one of my kids.
And it gives you that drive,
and it gives you that personal
connection that, you know,
we need to bring this baby
home. It is way beyond time.
My level of confidence in
the case is high, very high.
And my level of confidence
of... of where we are,
what we´re looking at right now,
and the direction that we´re
headed is... is extremely high.
♫♫
Alright.
Alright.
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