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My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice.
Today I'm discussing the case of Morgan Nick.
In 1995, the city of Alma, Arkansas was that city. That city you always hear about in true crime. Very small, only a couple thousand people. But you could find a few hundred of them packing the bleachers and filling the standing room at the local Little League game on any given night. On summer nights, packs of kids would run around together catching fireflies. This was a community who probably wasn't perfect. I mean, no community is. But they felt safe.
safe enough to allow their kids the freedom to play a few hundred yards away from their parents without fear. But like the story goes, that all changed in 1995, when 6-year-old Morgan Nick disappeared after being out of her mother's sight for just a few minutes. Her case would quickly become infamous. Arkansas would later adopt the Amber Alert system and name it after Morgan.
Although Morgan has helped set that precedent in Arkansas, she still needs our help. She still needs us to share. And so does her family. This is the case of Morgan Nick. In 1995, Morgan was going through a bit of a transition in her life. Her parents, Colleen and John, had recently divorced. By all accounts, it was a very amicable split.
I'm sure that still wasn't easy for Morgan, but by all accounts, she was thriving, and thriving with sass and style. You know, when I research these cases, it can be really hard to understand what these people were really like, to tell you about them in a meaningful way, in a way that I hope gets you to care enough to participate in our calls to action.
But that is not the case here. When Colleen talks about Morgan, she just gushes about her. And I can see why.
At just six years old, Morgan is a little spitfire. She thinks Bubblegum is a food group, and she quit the track team after just one practice. After filling out all the paperwork and making sure she had all the right clothes and shoes to participate, Morgan tells her mom that no one told her that track involved running outside, out in the heat where she would sweat. So she quits the track team and signs up for Girl Scouts, telling Colleen that this way she can just sit inside and glue stuff.
which is much more Morgan style. And it doesn't really seem like Colleen cares that much as long as Morgan is doing something she enjoys. Like I said, the divorce was pretty recent, within the last year, and I'm sure Colleen was still adjusting to everything herself.
So, when Colleen is invited by friends of hers to come watch their kids play in a Little League baseball game on Friday night, June 9th, 1995, she thought it would be a great way to get out of the house and get her mind off things. Colleen worked hard to keep her household functioning with three kids. She had 6-year-old Morgan, 4-year-old Logan, and 22-month-old Taryn.
In order to spend more time with her kids, and I have to imagine negate some of the costs of childcare for three children, Colleen started a licensed daycare out of her house in Ozark, Arkansas. This was and still is a really small town. Now, Ozark is about 30 minutes away from the game in Alma, and she'd never been there before, so she wanted to leave the house early to make sure she wouldn't be late to the game.
She gives her kids baths and makes their favorite meal for dinner, grilled cheese sandwiches. Now, there'd actually been a lot of rain lately, so this was a makeup game that started later than usual, 9pm. That night, Colleen leaves her two younger children with their grandmother and opts to just take Morgan to the game. Morgan asks for another grilled cheese sandwich before they go, but Colleen knows that Morgan isn't a big eater and likely won't even finish it, so she tells Morgan no, they gotta get to the game.
So Morgan throws on her new green Girl Scout shirt and they go to the game. When Colleen and Morgan make it to Alma, they park in this kind of makeshift parking area on a hill near the field. Then they find their way to their seats on the bleachers next to Colleen's friends. During the game, two kids keep asking Morgan if she wants to play. But Morgan is very shy and opts to stay with her mom instead.
Colleen says that Morgan spent most of the game just trying to untie Colleen's shoes, where Colleen would act surprised, like, oh my gosh, how did these get untied again? Much to Morgan's delight. But Morgan is six, and while this does entertain her for much of the game, just as it's wrapping up around 10.15pm, the two kids ask Morgan to play again. They specifically ask if she wants to go catch fireflies with them. And to Colleen's surprise, Morgan actually wants to go.
But Colleen isn't so sure. Even in the 90s, in these cities that felt so safe, Colleen was very protective of her kids. She walked them to and from the bus stop each day, while other parents consider her to be a helicopter mom. So, as Colleen resists letting Morgan go, this criticism kind of plays in her head, and her friends also encourage her to let Morgan go play. Remember?
reminding her of how safe the area is. Plus, this area was not huge. It was a baseball field with a double gate and two small parking areas you can see from the bleachers. There were no bathrooms, no concession stand. The kids wouldn't be playing far. And the game was almost over. Morgan would be away from her but still within her sight for maybe 15 minutes. So Colleen says yes.
and she says Morgan was so excited. She threw her arms around her mom and gave her a big kiss on the cheek. Then, Colleen watches as Morgan walks down the bleachers and runs to the parking area with the two other kids. Colleen has her eyes on Morgan for a few minutes, and then starts watching the game again until it ends just a few minutes later around 10.30pm. But in just those few minutes that Colleen took her eyes off Morgan, she was gone.
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It's just after 10.30 p.m. on Friday, June 9th, 1995. After attending a Little League game with friends, Colleen Nick can't find her six-year-old daughter Morgan anywhere.
After going to catch fireflies with two other kids, they come back without Morgan when the game ends. The kids, 10-year-old Ty and 8-year-old Jessica, tell Colleen that Morgan sat down next to Colleen's car on the hill to dump sand out of her shoes. Now, Ty actually stayed behind for a second to see if Morgan was going to come back with them, but he figures she was just going to stay at her mom's car instead of going back to her on the bleachers.
So of course, Colleen and her friends stay behind to help search for Morgan, as they see dozens of cars and hundreds of people leave the scene.
At 11.07pm, Morgan is officially reported missing to the Alma Police Department, which is conveniently actually really close to the field. Police are there in minutes. Now, at first, police assume that Morgan was probably just hiding somewhere, or maybe a parent or grandparent picked her up by mistake. We know that these things happen. So, officers go to the ball field, assess the situation, and realize pretty quickly that it's probably more serious than they anticipated.
The Elmipedi admits that the search for Morgan that night was pretty disorganized. It was basically just a bunch of officers and everyone left at the baseball field, walking around the area looking for Morgan. Now, the police department does bring in extra lights to help search the nearby fields, but it was really just a lot of people screaming Morgan's name looking in any direction they could think of.
But to the Alma PD's credit, they do secure the scene that night. They also pick up anything they think they might be able to recover DNA from. Cigarette butts, cans, anything. And they get to work talking to people still at the scene. Of course, they really want to talk to the two kids that were playing with Morgan. The kids tell the police what I've already told you. They last saw Morgan dumping the sand from her shoes near her mom's car.
But then, they tell the police something that will be the cornerstone of this investigation for decades. The kids saw a man near Colleen's car where they were playing.
They describe him as white, tall, with a scruffy beard. He was also wearing shorts and had a hairy stomach and chest. So it seems that at some point he may have had his shirt off or like lifted it up or something. They also tell the police that the man was sitting in a red truck smoking a cigarette. And it wasn't just a normal red truck. It had a really distinct white camper on the back that they noticed right away. Because it didn't really fit. It just wasn't the right size.
Again, the Almapedi wastes no time, and they get this to the public immediately. They actually released two different composite sketches based off what these kids told them, and of course, the description of the red truck. While massive searches for Morgan were being conducted, investigative teams got to work interviewing as many people as they could, and sifting through the leads that were beginning to pour in. And this is a case with a lot of leads, so stick with me.
Investigators are made aware of an attempted abduction at a laundromat around the same time as Morgan went missing. A man matching the description of Morgan's possible abductor pulled a four-year-old girl into his truck with a white camper at the Alma laundromat. Now, thank God this girl's mom ended up seeing her and getting her back. But after speaking with the girl's mom, they create a new sketch, a third sketch if you're keeping count.
This is released to the public on June 13th, just three days after the first two came out. The next day, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children begin running TV commercials featuring Morgan.
Utilizing the media was a major strategy for these investigators. They wanted to get information about Morgan, these sketches, and especially information about this red truck out to the public as much as they could. They wanted everyone to be on the lookout for what they believed was an older red Ford pickup, specifically noting the white camper shell didn't quite fit, creating a gap between the cab and the camper. Which is why I will keep repeating it to you in this episode.
Now, at this point, while investigators are utilizing the media to the best of their ability, they know they can't do it on their own.
I mean, they could, but they know it'll be much more effective if someone from Morgan's family participates too. But this just wasn't Colleen or Morgan's father John's focus. Before we even go there, by all accounts, both of Morgan's parents are 100% cooperative. And as far as I could find, investigators have never suspected that either of them was involved in any way.
They just don't want to do media, and I don't blame them. Dealing with a situation like this is impossible enough to go through privately, but doing it in front of the world makes it just that much harder. But Colleen and John do it for Morgan, and they soon discover how powerful the media can be, along with the downsides they initially feared.
While the media focuses on Morgan's mom, Colleen, John is kind of pushed to the side. In one press conference, John began speaking, and was quickly told by a reporter that they were there to hear from the mother, not from him. And John responds in a very human way, and honestly more patient than I may have been. He basically says, fine, I didn't want to talk to you either.
So Colleen really takes over most of the media at this point, which again makes sense and is so normal today. In so many of the cases I cover, I speak with families that have one person that does media. Either this person is kind of chosen by elimination, like in my case, no one else wants to do it, or that person is chosen because they are either perceived best by the media or just the most well-spoken. Of course, I have to put my big disclaimer in here that all cases are different.
But this is 1995, and there weren't really conversations about ethical true crime coverage. So they go after John. And the public eats it up. While he's still there at many press conferences and events for Morgan, and is actively participating in her investigation, he's slammed as being cold or less caring. This is something I found in even recent discussions about John.
Which I just want to remind everyone out there that doing things behind the scenes and in front of the world are two very different things. And honestly, different skills. It's really hard to equate these experiences to things that people might relate to. But the only way I can really think about it is like this. I'm sure a lot of you experienced the confidence that came with like creating a really great school project.
But then when you're asked to present that project, you're terrified. So imagine that like times a million. That's the expectation the media had of both John and Colleen Nick. Basically to be the perfect grieving parents for the camera. Against all odds and reason.
Now, like I said, the public really did seem to feel for Colleen. But in my opinion, they were pretty judgmental of John. So much so that the police decided to make a statement that John cared about Morgan very much and was fully cooperative.
Now, the reason I'm bringing it up isn't to be on my soapbox. It's because this was a distraction. Investigators were already looking into and keeping a close eye on Morgan's parents. They didn't need the public's help there. They needed them to be on the lookout for the tall man in the red truck.
Luckily, after some time, Morgan's case got enough attention that the message came through. And really, the entire town, state, and neighboring states became obsessed with spotting the old red Ford pickup truck with the white camper.
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Just go to the App Store or Google Play Store and download the free Ibotta app to start earning cash back and use code CRIME. That's I-B-O-T-T-A in the Google Play Store or App Store. And use code CRIME. In the days after Morgan went missing, the media really picks up around her case. Leads are pouring in, massive searches are being conducted, and it feels like the whole world is on the lookout for the red truck believed to be involved in her disappearance.
One man in a red truck is pulled over and arrested on suspicion of being involved, only to be released. Another man in a red truck gets pulled over so many times that he writes on the back of it in shoe polish that he wasn't involved. They also have troopers at every campground in Arkansas on the lookout for this truck. Investigators also collect information from everyone they can who attended the game that night.
They ask everyone for information about the vehicle they drove, as well as the information about any other vehicles any guests may have been driving. And pretty soon, they find an image of a red truck on home video. Now, we are talking 1995 home video quality, so it's rough. But it's definitely a red truck with something white in the back. Some say it looks like a camper. Others say it could be like a white door with windows or maybe just a window in the bed of the truck.
But not long after this discovery, the media announces that the truck is red, but it's a Mazda, and belongs to a parent of one of the kids at the game who's been cleared. But it wasn't long before a major tip came in. Just a few weeks after Morgan goes missing, at the end of June, a man named Albert Harvey says he thinks he may have seen the man and Morgan.
This is what he says happened. It was just a normal Saturday afternoon at his job as a gardener when he saw a man matching the description of Morgan's possible abductor try to break into his truck. And he notices that the man had a small blonde girl with him. When the man saw Harvey notice him, he grabs the girl by the wrist and runs to a nearby thicket.
From here, Harvey calls the police, and this sparks a huge 16-hour search for Morgan. There were people on foot, dogs, people on horses, four-wheelers. They brought in a helicopter, and they came up with nothing. They don't see a man matching the description or a blonde girl or Morgan anywhere.
But of course, just because the search didn't produce the results they were looking for, the police don't want to dig into this. If that was Morgan, this could be huge. So they ask Harvey to come down to the station for a polygraph test. And he fails. Then the truth comes out. Harvey admits that while he did see someone trying to get into his truck, he didn't see a little blonde girl with him.
Harvey says that after a co-worker told him about Morgan's disappearance, he may have gotten a little carried away. In fact, that's exactly what he told the police. Quote, I had got a little bit too carried away. I'm sorry, y'all, to cause all this confusion. End quote.
Okay, so normally I really try not to take you guys down these paths that I know don't lead anywhere. But I really do think it's important to discuss things like this. Because these things do happen, and more often than you might think. Now, sometimes it's malicious, sometimes it's innocent, sometimes people just want to be a part of a true crime case, and sometimes they just lie for whatever reason.
Now, they did threaten to charge Harvey with filing a false police report and interfering with government operations, but I couldn't find if they followed through on that.
Honestly, selfishly, maybe this is coming from a place of spite from where I'm at in my life. I hope they did. There's just no excuse for this behavior. Because not only is it a huge waste of time, money, and resources that could have been used effectively for Morgan, or maybe another case, but this was of course devastating to Morgan's family. For days they sat thinking that this could be it.
Colleen described how she felt. Quote, "...he took her away from us all over again." End quote. I honestly can think of few things more cruel to do to a family with a missing loved one than something like this. At this point, Morgan's mother Colleen refused to leave Alma. From what I could find, it seems like she slept at the fire station near the ball field where Morgan went missing.
Remember, she was only 30 minutes from her home. But for her, that was too far. Her life was looking for Morgan at this point. I just can't even imagine how devastating this was for her and the whole family. But before long, there was another major lead. A real one.
On August 30th, an 11-year-old girl is eating at a Sonic fast food restaurant in Alma with her two younger brothers when a man pulls up in a red pickup truck, no camper shell. He eventually lures all three kids into an alley and then offers the 11-year-old girl money to get in his truck and come home with him, and she runs to a Sonic employee and asks them to call the police.
Luckily, they are able to identify the truck and the driver as 70-year-old Billy Jack Links. He was born and raised in Crawford County, Arkansas. He was a veteran and worked for an airline in Dallas for about 10 years before coming back to Arkansas permanently.
When investigators run a background check on him, they discover this wasn't the first time Lynx had done something like this. He was actually placed on a suspended sentence for sexual abuse of a young girl just three years prior in 1992. So at this point, it's his second known incident. They
They arrest Links and impound his truck. But investigators do not confirm whether this was the same truck that may have been involved with Morgan's disappearance, and they don't charge him for any crime related to Morgan. But this is all really helpful. By now, a few months after Morgan's disappearance...
After speaking to hundreds of witnesses, investigators have been able to put together a timeline for the red truck and suspected perpetrator on the day Morgan went missing. Or at least they believe it's the same red truck and man. If not, I have to say it would be one hell of a coincidence. So here's what they gathered. Starting in the morning, Morgan went missing.
They believe this person was involved in the incident involving an attempted abduction of a four-year-old girl at the laundromat I already told you about. Later that day, a teenage girl says a man in a red truck pulled up beside her while she was walking down the street. He offers her a ride to the downtown area, where Morgan went missing from. But this girl says absolutely not. She is not about to get in this man's truck. But he doesn't leave after this, he kind of just lingers.
long enough for her to get scared. So she walks away from him, and he does eventually drive off. Next, and this one has less details, but investigators believe the same man and truck was involved in an incident where a mom basically sees her 5 and 6 year old girls running, screaming and crying while a red truck with a white camper drives away. The truck and the man were then spotted in the downtown area, basically yelling at some kids playing in the street.
As he leaves, he's seen turning down Walnut Street, and Walnut Street goes right to the parking lot where Morgan was last seen.
Not only that, investigators say that that truck, or again, one hell of a coincidence if it's a different red truck with a white camper, parked on the street downtown from 5.30pm to 7pm that night. Basically, they track this same man and same truck from that first incident at the laundromat all the way to downtown Alma to the Little League game. And that's where it ends until after the game.
The man and the truck are seen at another location. Now, investigators don't want to release the exact location, but we do have some details. That night, after Morgan was reported missing, a group of teenagers were down by a river when they saw a man in a red truck with a white camper. But not only that, they believe they saw the man holding a small child down in the truck.
Of course, at the time, they didn't know what to think, but once news about Morgan spread across town, they believed that it could have been Morgan, and they went to the police. Officers went back to this location the very next day, but it was flooded, and as far as I could find, they weren't able to collect any evidence. And you guys, it does not end there. The last connection was the very next day.
On Saturday morning, a man in a red truck with a white camper grabbed a nine-year-old girl from a convenience store about 20 minutes away in Fort Smith, Arkansas. And luckily, she broke free of him and ran. They have so much. I mean, to me, this timeline is very telling.
But nothing really happens after this. Morgan's case just sits for years. 26 years, to be exact, until 2021. That's when the FBI publicly names Billy Jack Links as the first and only person of interest in Morgan Nick's disappearance after they make a stunning discovery in his truck.
In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.
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26 years after Morgan Nick goes missing, the FBI publicly names Billy Jack Links as a person of interest in her case after testing evidence found in his truck.
In the Hulu documentary series Still Missing Morgan, investigators explain that they kept Billy Jack Link's truck impounded from his 1995 arrest for decades. Now, it was actually sold at auction at some point, but investigators track it down and get it back to run some tests with updated technology. This is what they find in the truck. Blood under the dashboard. Blonde hair under the floor cover.
and a blue-green cotton fiber in the mat under the seats, and in some metal pieces of the truck. Now, unfortunately, as of this recording, they haven't been able to find enough DNA in the blood or hair to make a match. But they do find something.
At the beginning of this episode, I told you about how Morgan quit the track team and joined Girl Scouts instead so she could stay inside and glue stuff. And I also told you that she was wearing her green Girl Scout shirt the night of the game. Well, that blue-green fiber found in the truck was a match to the same shirt Morgan would have been wearing that night. A definitive match. I have to assume that after all these years, this is why they're finally naming Lynx as a person of interest.
So what happens next? Well, Lynx died in prison in the year 2000, serving his sentence for sexual indecency with a child. If he was involved with Morgan's disappearance, he's not here to give her family answers now. I know, it's a huge letdown.
But Lynx is actually far from the only person theorized to be involved in Morgan's case after all these years. When Colleen hears about Lynx being named as a person of interest, she responds with, quote, it's not something that alarms our family. Just because for us, this is just another person in a long line of persons of interest, end quote. Like I said, publicly, Lynx has been the only person named, but I'm sure Morgan's family knows more.
Over the years, they've heard countless theories. People have accused Morgan's father John of being involved, saying that he was associated with people who engage in criminal activity that may have put Morgan at risk. It's been theorized that Morgan's case may have been linked to a serial killer, Charles Ray Vines. And investigators did want to go interview him about Morgan, but he died before they got the chance.
Morgan's case is one of those cases where I feel like you can theorize endlessly. But the truth is, we don't know what happened to Morgan, Nick. At this time, investigators and Morgan's family say there just isn't enough evidence. Maybe in the future they can retest the evidence. Find a way to link evidence back to Billy Jack Links or anyone.
But one thing is clear. Investigators and Morgan's family do not consider this case to be closed, and they still hold out hope that Morgan could come home someday. In February 2023, Colleen told ABC News, "...the possibility is that 2% of missing children do survive. That means until someone can prove that Morgan didn't survive, the possibility remains that she still survived until someone can prove it."
The investigators in Morgan's case hold out that same hope. They maintain that until they have evidence that Morgan isn't out there alive, they will continue to operate as if she is.
Now, I know that we can often be very skeptical in true crime. We hear stats like this and think, 2%, there's no hope. But here we are again at the intersection of hope and statistics. To Colleen's point, although the possibility is slim, it's still possible. Jaycee Lee Dugard, Elizabeth Smart, Kara Robinson Chamberlain, Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, Kamiya Mobley, Katie Beers, and there's more.
These kids do come home. If Colleen can work for Morgan for almost 30 years and still hold out this hope, I think we can too.
Now, after Morgan went missing, Colleen created the Morgan Nick Foundation in 1996. Initially, it was created to help bring Morgan home. Now, it helps so many other families in similar situations. They focus on intervention, education, and legislation. Three very important pillars to help keep kids safe. You can learn more at morgannickfoundation.com, and I really encourage you to do so.
In addition to the foundation, Morgan's disappearance sparked the state of Arkansas to adopt an Amber Alert system named after Morgan. I talked about this in my episode about Amber Hagerman, the person who the Amber Alert is named after. But it always feels like these kids who are the inspiration for these policies, foundations, and alerts get a little lost in their own stories.
There's kind of like this unspoken idea in true crime content creation that covering popular cases like Morgan's or Amber's or Adam Walsh, JonBenet Ramsey, whoever you want to pick, that they're played out. No one wants to hear them anymore. I mean, when my sister's story got quote, popular, I was told several times that it was just too big for some people to cover. That she didn't need more media exposure. That there was nothing to add.
Now, I will say, as a creator, I get it. Everyone has their own style, preferences, and ways of creating their content, and I understand. But as a family member, that hurts a lot. That your person, your daughter, sister, brother, mother, cousin, friend, whoever it might be, being told that people don't want to hear their story, that they don't want to help because they're bored with it, it's a kind of cruelty I have a hard time understanding.
I will also add that every time I cover a case that has gotten a lot of media attention, like Maura Murray, for example, I always get at least one comment or message or email that says I have never heard of this case. And the fact is, Morgan's family is still waiting for answers. Morgan is waiting for justice.
Which brings me right to our call to action. Morgan's family and these investigators are still working her case. As of the year I record this episode, 2023, almost 30 years later, they are still asking people to share, to correct the narrative. For example, they want people to know that that red truck in that home video, the one that the local news says was cleared and belonged to a parent at the ball field, was not.
There's nothing in their documents to say that the truck in that image is not the truck that took Morgan. They want to shift the public focus away from those early sketches and back to the red truck. So I will have the image of the red truck on our social media channels and website for easy sharing.
Just because Morgan's case is popular, maybe you've heard it before, maybe you are bored with it. That doesn't mean Morgan, a six-year-old little girl, doesn't deserve answers or justice or your shares. As a reminder, Morgan Nick was six years old when she went missing from Alma, Arkansas on June 9th, 1995. Morgan is white, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
When she went missing, she was approximately 4 feet tall and weighed 55 pounds. As of recording this episode, she would now be 34 years old. Anyone with information about the disappearance of Morgan Nick is asked to call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST or 1-800-843-5678. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.
Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show in your podcast player. It's an easy and totally free way for you to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice. Welcome to the Secret After Show.
uh, the door, I feel like I always say that's so weird. Um, the door is open. The dogs are coming in and out. They just stopped yelling at me for being away during recording. They get very angry, you guys. Um, I mean, the show does take away from my time with the dogs, let's be real. Um, but I mean, in all seriousness, I do, of course, have some things to talk about in this episode. I feel like I did get on a few soapboxes in this episode, but
I also feel like they were quite warranted. But I wasn't done talking about false tips because trust me, that was not my full soapbox. And I kind of wanted to talk about how it's like,
you know, a double-edged sword, right? I know that I and now like a ton of podcasts ask for you guys to participate in like these calls to action, right? To share these stories, to share the GoFundMes, the Facebook pages, to, you know, sign a petition, whatever it might be. And of course, always to like call in tips if you have them. But I think that this is what I was talking about with the double-edged sword. It can lead to false tips like this, you know? People get...
so worked up and riled up that they do things like this. And again, I just want to, and I know you guys are so good. You guys are like, I always say I have the best audience in true crime because I truly believe that. But just, you know, think before you report. Of course, if it's something that you think is absolutely genuine, like report it. Like if you're, they are really active today. If you are not sure, just report it. But of course, like don't report lies. Don't
get caught up in it, um, just realized that there are very real people on the other end of these stories. And I know I always say that, but like, without going into too much detail, really active today. Popcorn. Cornelius, sir. This is the secret after show. Um...
I was going to say that without going into too much detail, I can tell you, and this will come out someday, trust, trust that I am filing this all away so I can finally tell you what's been going on with this trial when the time is right and it will not hurt Alyssa's case. But I will tell you that false tips have hurt Alyssa's case. They've hurt me personally very, very much. And it's been a hell of a ride. So again, if you know something's false,
don't report it. These things are really serious. I always try to be really careful, you know, to not like incite a riot with you guys. You know, because the point is to get you caring and to get you passionate, but we always have to do that responsibly. So again, I know you guys are amazing, but I just wanted to put that out there.
I also really want to talk about the freaking... I had to censor myself. I don't know why. I shouldn't censor myself. I want to talk about the fucking victim blaming in this episode, right? Or in this case, I should say. Because I'm not about to victim shame Colleen. Um...
I think that's why I made it such a point to like over explain. And this comes from like her interviews, right? She talks about this, about how, you know, she had this gut feeling at the game that she just shouldn't let Morgan go. But at the same time, you know, she had this like internal conflict. You know, she thought maybe she was being a little too overbearing. You know, the comments about walking your kids to the bus stop and then her friends in good faith, good people, I'm sure, saying, you know, it's fine. It's safe. We can see them. The game's going to be over in like 15 minutes or whatever it was. And she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you know, she's like, you
Um, I just want to say that, like, this situation appeared to be safe. A way for Morgan to healthily and safely build up some confidence and independence. Like, I just, I don't think we should be chastising parents for allowing their kids to explore situations that should be safe. What we really should do is be finding and punishing the people who make this world unsafe for us.
And I got more, you guys. I want to go back to Morgan's dad not being a part of the media. And I want to say that that happens maybe more often than you think. And I don't want to really throw out any examples there because I don't want to put any like fire against families there.
But a lot of families walk away from the media because of how horrendous it is. Because these journalists can be downright nasty. Again, I'm not slamming journalists. There are amazing journalists out there. We just know Miss Brooke, great friend of the show, great advocate for Alyssa, is going to become a journalist now. I don't hate all journalists, but let's be real. Some of them are highly irresponsible, just like anybody in any position. So, like, when you see families step away from the media...
Please, just take a second to analyze that and critical thinking, right? Because I think we've all been kind of trained to... And I'm guilty of that too, you know what I mean? I have to stop myself all the time, but you see it and you're like, that's suspicious. Why aren't they doing media? And you really... We've been trained this way, you guys. We have been trained for these true crime tropes. And I think it does take away a little bit of critical thinking. So like I was saying in the episode... Oh, my voice is leaving me. Like I was saying in the episode...
I did find all these discussions about like how suspicious it was that Morgan's dad wasn't more a part of the media. And it's like because the media literally ran him off. Like you can't blame these families for walking away. You know, it's.
In the same way that I can't blame my brothers for not doing the media for my sister. Does it hurt? Does it, you know, not feel good? Sure. But I can't blame them. These situations are extremely difficult. And it's not fair to expect everyone to go through that in front of the camera or, you know, pod, whatever, microphone, whatever freaking medium you want to choose. TikTok, I don't care.
You can't blame them for not wanting to do it. It adds so much pressure and stress to everything else, and the hate comments really, really suck. So I understand families who don't want to make a crappy situation even worse, and especially in this case, right? You had Colleen, who the media seemed to love. So why would John go put himself out there?
I think these are conversations that aren't being had enough. I think we skip right to that's suspicious. And then we try to dig into their past. Like I was saying, you know, in my research, I found that, you know, John was connected to a gentleman who was convicted for some pretty scary stuff. But I like that wasn't enough for me to like present this theory to you guys.
Um, I imagine that there are plenty of people in a lot of cases who know people who maybe did things that weren't so great. I just, it's not enough for me. Um, but yeah. And the last thing I want to, yeah, it's a lot of media today, isn't it? But, uh, the last thing I want to talk about is the freaking Mazda. Not the Mazda, the red truck, right? And, oh, oh, how the media was like, oh no, like they just like ran with this story about like this truck being cleared. And I will say in the Hulu documentary, um,
So investigators kind of give the media, the journalist, whoever it was, the benefit of the doubt saying, you know, we're sure maybe an officer did say something like this, but we really want to make sure that people know that this red truck is still being looked for or not being looked for. You guys, I'm having the worst time today. That the focus needs to be on the red truck, that they want people to be able to remember hopefully seeing that red truck that day. So just...
The media needs to be really careful because I feel like, one, the misinformation is obviously like really harmful. And to their credit, if they, you know, if I interviewed a police officer and he said, oh, no, we've cleared that truck, I would have ran with it, too. But I have to imagine that at some point that information was possibly corrected by the police and hopefully on the news as well. But it's just it's one of those things. And that's why I take.
what I do so seriously and I try to do it so responsibly because one comment like that, one broadcast can get people's eyes off of what, you know, these investigators really need them to be looking for. So I don't know, there's a lot going on with the media in this case that I really didn't love that I wanted to address in this after show. The dogs are going insane. I
But, yeah, I did want to, I guess, I feel like I'm doing it every time now, but the trial's like a month out right now, Alyssa's trial. And although I do not anticipate any interruptions in your service here on Voices for Justice, I just wanted to say again, like, bear with me, you guys. I never know how these things are going to make me feel and...
I mean, I have a feeling, especially with the real trial coming up, not all these court proceedings, that it's gonna take it all out of me. I don't think I'm gonna have anything left after that. I have a feeling that I'm going to leave all these court dates and, like, flop on my bed or in my bathtub and probably just cry for a long time, to be totally honest with you, like Marley is right now. But yeah, I just... Just bear with me, you guys. Please still share these stories, um...
I will say that doing this is keeping me going more than most things. Uh, so many of you have been very, very kind. I love you guys. You guys are the best. Uh, you know, but you always take a break. Uh, it's okay. The show will be here. And like, I know that, I know that I'm not going to lose you guys if I'm off the air for a few weeks for the trial. Um, but this, this does help. It really does help me to hopefully make some sort of a small impact in these cases to help them. Um,
It's always been kind of my mantra. You guys, I'm so cheesy. I swear this is like my defense. It's like a survival instinct, I think, that I'm like this sunny in my mind. But it's like when I feel like the world sucks and it's a terrible place and I don't know what to do about it, trying to make it better in some small way is really what keeps me going because...
It's all you can do, right? Is look at terrible things in the world and you can either ignore them or you can try to do something to make it better. So thank you for allowing me to do that with this show and I will continue to do that for as long as I can. But as always, thank you for tolerating me unlike my dogs right now. I love you and I'll talk to you next time.