It has been almost 25 years since 6-year-old Morgan Nick disappeared from an Alma baseball park.
She would be 32 now.
Morgan was at a Little League game with her family on June 9, 1995, when she hugged and kissed her mom and climbed down from the bleachers to catch fireflies with friends. The last time she was seen, she was kicking sand out of her shoes.
Devon Parks is also 32. Growing up in Van Buren, he was familiar with Morgan’s story. He is now the director of the documentary Still Missing Morgan, which is being produced by Five Star Productions in Fort Smith.
“I remember when I was young, playing at the ballfield in Van Buren, and I remember [being told] to stay close and about what happened to the little girl in Alma,” Parks says.
He has known Morgan’s mother, Colleen Nick, for eight or nine years, and she is featured in the documentary, which is still in production.
“When the opportunity came up, I knew right off the bat that it was something I wanted to be involved in,” says Parks, whose most recent project was the 2018 feature film The Riot Act and who won an Emmy in 2015 for the short film Step Into: The King Opera House. “I felt it was a golden opportunity to come in and tell Morgan’s story in the most in-depth way.”
Production began about a year ago, and Parks plans to be through by summer with the hopes of the five-part miniseries being picked up by a streaming service.
Nick has been a fierce advocate for Morgan’s case and created the nonprofit Morgan Nick Foundation in 1996 to provide a support network for families with missing children and, as of this year, adults.
But when she was first approached about the documentary, she was unsure if she wanted to take part.
“I was certainly hesitant about it,” she says. “It really means being very transparent for our entire family. But this is about what is best for Morgan’s case. We have had great law enforcement teams and investigators all these years, and we still do, but [a documentary] is something we haven’t done — to be able to tell Morgan’s story at this level to millions of people.”
The documentary not only features in-depth interviews with Nick and re-creations of events but information from law enforcement that has never before been made public in the still-open investigation, according to Five Star Productions.
With the popularity of true-crime series like Making a Murderer on Netflix and podcasts like Serial, Parks believes the film could bring more interest to Morgan’s case.
“We have clips and photographs that have never been seen,” Parks says, and he hopes it can be seen by a new audience, or by someone who may know something about what happened on June 9, 1995.
The filmmakers are also asking the public for photographs or video taken at or around the park on the weekend or the day Morgan disappeared.
Information on submissions can be found at stillmissingmorgan.com , and compensation will be made for footage or photos that are used in the film, Parks says.
“We know sometimes people think what they have might not be important,” Nick says, “or maybe they don’t want to interact with law enforcement. But this is their chance to give what they have to the documentary producers to see if it can make a difference.”
Parks cites Ken Burns as an influence on his filmmaking style.
“I come from a cinematic background, so I try to bridge the gap between authentic documentary with high-end cinematic value,” Parks says. “My goal is to show the people whose lives have been influenced by this and what that’s like, and also to show people who don’t know what is going on.”
“My only dream for the documentary,” Nick says, “is what we’ve always been waiting for: to find her and bring her home.”
SundayMonday on 04/20/2020
