Authorities have confirmed they have new information about the Morgan Nick kidnapping in Arkansas, a case linked to the 1994 disappearance of Melissa Witt.

On Monday, Alma City police said there were “significant developments” in the Nick case. Alma Police Department Chief Jeff Pointer said his department will hold a media briefing at 10:30 a.m. Oct. 1 to provide the update.

Nick’s case bears several similarities to the disappearance and murder of Witt, who went missing from a nearby town several months before Nick. Witt’s body was later found 50 miles from where she disappeared.

Investigation

Because of the similarity of the cases and the locations where they were reported, authorities investigating enforced disappearances often collaborated in their work.

According to the ABC documentary, the FBI and local police worked together in the early stages of the Witt investigation At Witt’s End: The Hunt for a MurdererA lead in the Witt case led to a breakthrough in the Nick case.

The exchange of intelligence information on these cases was due to the short distance and time frame between the two disappearances. Nick was first reported missing on June 9, 1995, when she was last seen in a parking lot with two of her friends at a Little League baseball game.

Less than a year earlier, in 1994, Witt disappeared in the same condition while going bowling with her mother.

Newsweek contacted the Alma City Police Department for comment and further information about the cases.

Location

Both Witt and Nick went missing in the state of Arkansas, and the investigators on each case worked closely together.

The disappearance of six-year-old Nick from Alma in June 1995 sparked a nationwide search. She was last seen leaving her mother to look for fireflies with her friends. When her friends returned, Nick was no longer with them and they told police they saw a man in a red RV talking to her.

Witt, 19, was last seen alive in Fort Smith, less than 20 minutes’ drive from Alma, and her body was later recovered in the Ozark National Forest, a two-hour drive away. Witt was on her way to see her mother when she went missing. Authorities found traces of blood in her empty car and in her belongings scattered nearby.

Suspects

There were multiple suspects in the Melissa Witt case, with authorities considering Charles Ray Vines, also known as the “River Valley Killer,” because of two murders on his criminal record in the 1990s in the area near where Witt was killed was, were recorded. Vines died in 2019 without speaking to authorities about the murder.

Travis Crouch, who remains in prison for a 1997 assault conviction, was living near Melissa at the time of the murder and was briefly considered a suspect, but authorities never linked him to the evidence.

In November 2021, Billy Jack Lincks was named as a person of interest in the Morgan Nick investigation as he reportedly owned a truck similar to the one seen with the man Morgan had spoken to before her disappearance. Lincks died in 2000.

Nick’s mother founded the Morgan Nick Foundation a year after her disappearance. The organization is a support network for parents and families of missing children and advocates for laws that protect children’s rights.

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