a loving mom is about to face her biggest nightmare she gave me a hug and told me she loved me and that's the last time I seen her after her daughter disappears I had 15 12 armed men show up and say where's your daughter you are under arrest all the Heartbreak will be just too much to bear it's 4th of July weekend in Fairfield Illinois fireworks barbecue and for 15-year-old Megan Nichols a bicycle ride she said do you care if I go on a bicycle ride and I said I don't care just don't be doing
anything you're not supposed to be doing but Kathy Joe hutchcraft knew she never had to worry about her well-behaved only child the high school sophomore was a good student an avid member of their Church who loved to sing as seen in these Home Videos my relationship with Megan was very close we did everything together I was a single mom for a lot of her life and a young mom so we we were very close and on this holiday weekend the close-knit pair had plans to shop when Megan returns from her bike ride they head out
but the trip is cut short she told me she didn't feel good and she wanted to go home Kathy Joe drops the teen off at home and Megan says she's going to go to bed and she gave me a hug and told me she loved me Kathy Jo Jo heads back out to finish her shopping and when she returns all seems normal I didn't check on her right away cuz I assumed she was asleep and I just got the sick feeling that I needed to go check on Megan and I went upstairs and she was
gone I just knew I knew it was bad I immediately called my mom in a panic they head straight to the police station to report Megan's disappearance but they say the police respond wasn't what they hoped well she's not been gone no time there's nothing we can do basically go home and hopefully she'll show Kathy Joe and her mother head back to the house to look for Clues we went back upstairs and I pulled her blanket back and that's when I found her phone and when I picked it up oh my heart sank I'm like
oh my gosh you know this is real but then things get strange the phone has been wiped clean all photos messages contacts and any and every sign of Megan deleted I I just started crying I'm like I don't know what to do and my mom said well we're going to pray so we went into Megan's other room and we knelt down to pray and there was a note the writing appears to be megans but Kathy Joe says the words are not this does not sound like my daughter at all it it just it it to
me it was borderline cruel if knowing my daughter the way I know her if those were going to be her last words to me it wouldn't have been those words as her suspicion grows Kathy gets some good advice a friend had messaged me have you checked the bank accounts no I hadn't so I got online and I checked the bank accounts and sure enough money had been withdrawn on July the 3rd a 2:00 p.m. it's the same time Megan went on that bike ride and in an unexpected twist of fate Kathy is about to see
Megan once again on surveillance cameras we just went and explained to them what was going on and asked them if they had video and sure enough Megan was at the ATM the last images of her were from an ATM video at the bank as she rides her bike up to make a withdrawal of hundreds of dollars and that's the last time I se her now Megan's mom heads back to Police Headquarters this time with the phone the note and the bank information as police begin digging they don't go very deep to find a promising lead
and it's a shocker 15-year-old Megan Nichols is missing and for police the strange Clues she left behind in in the early stages pointed to someone very close Megan's own father Megan's father Jackson had some some warrants out against him he was of age and the young girl was not at the time Megan's dad had faced accusations of being a sex offender years before they arrested him they asked him if he knew her where Megan is I had 15 12 armed men show up and say where's your daughter you are under arrest Jackson Nichols openly recalls
the day US Marshals picked him up near Tulsa Oklahoma Nicholls was thrown Behind Bars held on a federal warrant listing him as an unregistered sex offender but it all turned out to be a strange mixup based on an accusation and dismissed charges that's bull that story sucks you are full of crap and then a clerical error that never cleared him literally within 5 minutes my case was dismissed and I was escorted out the door Jackson was eventually cleared as a suspect in Megan's disappearance I can't claim to be a real parent or a good parent
my ex-wife did all of that and she did an amazing job I didn't know that I could be this angry or the sad it's I'm in a loss for words and turns out Kathy Joe never considered her ex-husband a viable suspect herself she did have her own suspicions about what happened to her daughter that fateful night fairly soon before her disappearance Megan was seeing a young man and according to friends and family there was just one problem he was with another girl the boy was also in a relationship with another girl at the same time
was Megan the victim of a Teenage Love Triangle she had mentioned going to prom with him and she's like I didn't want to tell you this but he is taking and he's taking this other girl while Megan took the news and stride her mother not so much I'm tired of it I I'd had it at that point he's us her and you and you're done you know you're 15 he's 18 this is over so I called him from her phone and I said don't contact my daughter again this is over but she knew it wasn't
over Megan continued to converse with him and when Kathy Joe received cell phone records from the day her daughter disappeared the proof was there in black and white the last three calls Megan made were to her boyfriend the boy's name is Brody murbarger and his father is an Illinois State Police Officer Brody responds to rumors he was somehow involved in Megan's disappearance on his Facebook page writing in part okay this has gone on long enough I had nothing to do with this and that I have nothing to hide I shouldn't even have to defend myself
if I am not involved police agreed at the time saying he was not considered a suspect nearly 2 years would pass when a Fairfield resident who happens to know Megan's mom finds the stunning evidence that would turn the case upside down it made me sick like my St I just my stomach turned Jackie Beck and her boyfriend were out cutting firewood just a few miles south of Megan's home when they spotted something it was a human skull and bones Jackie says it appears the remains were placed in a shallow grave and wrapped in a blanket
the FBI later confirms it's Megan Nicholls it's hard enough to find something you know like that but turn around that you know the person it's just 10 times worse Brody mger is arrested after earlier denying on Facebook he had anything to do with Megan's disappearance when the case goes to trial jurors hear testimony from an FBI agent saying blood and DNA from Megan were found in Brody's car even though years had passed and the car car had been sold to a scrapyard a forensic team was able to uncover the key evidence Brody is found guilty
of first-degree murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison while Justice was delivered it's little Solace for Kathy Joe who lost her daughter and her best friend I still look for her you know she should still be there [Music]
