The disappearance of Megan P. Nichols, 15, of Fairfield, from her home this past July is still unsolved. Rumors that Nichols had been seen in Lawrenceville in the company of that town’s hispanic population were unconfirmed by Lawrence officials and unknown by Wayne County officials, who are still checking leads…and who recently dealt with an alleged abduction attempt of another teen by a hispanic man.
WAYNE CO.—An alleged abduction attempt in the city of Fairfield November 25 has people on edge and authorities largely stumped as they try to sort out what happened and more importantly, who and why.
Unfortunately, it’s also raised questions as to the situation with another missing Fairfield resident, with some citizens wondering if her disappearance occurred along similar lines.
The November incident
Fairfield authorities reported that on the 25th, what could be considered an abduction attempt occurred on North First Street near Sibley Street on the north side of town.
According to the official report as issued by Fairfield Police Chief Keith Colclasure, at 4:24 p.m. a 15-year-old girl was walking from her house on North First when a man in a black truck pulled up next to her and asked her if she needed a ride.
When the girl told him she did not, he then reportedly ordered her into the vehicle, “threatening violence against her” if she did not.
The girl ran from the scene and to a friend’s house, and the man then drove away.
Colclasure said that it took another hour for the young girl to tell her mother about the incident, but the mother subsequently notified police and a more detailed description of the man and of his vehicle emerged with questioning.
According to you young teen, the man had dark skin and dark hair, could have been approximately 30 to 40 years of age, sported facial hair in the form of a goatee, had a prominent scar from ear to jaw….and spoke with a hispanic accent.
The truck was described as a black quad-cab, and had a large dent on the driver’s side rear quarter panel near the taillight.
The girl told officials she believed the license plate to be an Indiana registration.
Colclasure said police searched the area and alerted other districts, but nothing came back, neither immediately nor within the few days following.
They were, however, as of Friday the 28th reviewing video surveillance from the Huck’s Convenience Store located several blocks up from the scene of the incident.
Migrant workers not checked
Disclosure asked Colclasure if his department had checked with the various farmers in the area who were known to employ “migrant workers” during planting and harvest; but Colclasure said they hadn’t.
Interestingly, this incident prompted many Fairfield and Wayne County residents to contact Disclosure regarding the disappearance of 15-year-old Megan P. Nichols, who was last seen on July 3 of this year.
In late summer, a rumor was rampant around Lawrenceville that the “migrant worker” population in that county had Nichols in their custody, and that she had been abducted by them out of her home town. The rumors stopped there, and there was no further elaboration.
Disclosure at that time checked with Lawrence officials to see if there was any veracity at all to the rumor, including whether they had at least heard the rumor and had checked it out as a possible lead. They had not.
However, others who had been following the Nichols case opined that it was their fear that some of the less-than-legal hispanics in the area might be involved in the recruiting and/or abduction of young women fitting a certain description as a process in the white sex slave trade, which is unfortunately rampant and ongoing throughout the Midwest since a couple of decades ago, when it became commonplace for “migrant workers” to be brought in for farm labor.
Baldwin County, Alabama case
The sex slave trade that began in earnest more than two decades ago swept through the nation in a number of major metropolitan areas, according to the FBI. Hotbeds of activity involving specifically the “white sex slave trade” (wherein very young pre-teens and teens fitting a certain description—usually blonde or redheaded, with green or blue eye color, petite frame but early development—are targeted) in the late 80s-early 90s included major cities in Texas; Minneapolis-St. Paul; and the Florida panhandle and areas around it.
Input as to what was going on in the Florida panhandle area was provided on a personal level by Disclosure’s Angela Howser, who lived in Baldwin County, Alabama, in 1988 and happened to attend church with a family whose 15-year-old daughter was almost a victim of such an abduction.
Howser said that the teen, who will be referred to by initials RS, was best friends with another 15-year-old girl of Asian descent, who will be referred to by initials MN. MN’s family owned an import business in the county and were prominent citizens, well-known and well-liked; however, they had the misfortune of dealing with people on a regular basis who had the connections that made for a perfect opportunity to put them in contact with those in the white sex slave trade.
RS spent many hours on a weekly basis with MN’s family in their shop, and came into contact with the same people. She also spent overnights with MN on a frequent basis. The two teens likely talked about their plans and schedules in front of those outside contacts who were in the store doing business with MN’s family.
During one week when school was gearing up after the summer break, RS had made plans to stay with MN over the course of a couple of nights. However, RS’ family had a developing emergency on the first night of the overnight stays, and RS was unable to go to MN’s house as a result.
On that night, someone broke into MN’s house and abducted her. She has never been heard from or seen since. Intelligence submitted during the investigation indicated that the abduction was carried out by white sex slave traders.
The speculation was that MN was abducted by mistake, and that sex slave captors may have believed that RS—a buxom, beautiful redhead with light green eyes—was going to be there that night; it was believed that RS was actually the target.
The hispanic population in southern Illinois
That the local specialty farmers in downstate Illinois are actually funded by both federal and state programs to bring in “migrant workers” to work in pumpkin, tobacco and vegetable fields (as opposed to the farms hiring locals, a practice which drives up unemployment) don’t want a lot of scrutiny on their practice is one of the major drawbacks in investigating when it’s reported that a person with a “hispanic accent” appears to be a perpetrator.
Disclosure was covering the matter in 2006 and 2007 when one after another, “migrant workers” were getting into brawls, altercations, driving drunk, shoplifting, damaging property and in a couple of cases, being caught up in drug and sex crimes. Most of these were in Gallatin, White, Wayne and Wabash counties, although there were a limited number of them coming out of Clay and Richland as well. In the first three counties, the significant portion of “migrant workers” (so labeled because while they were called migrant workers, without the attendant quotations around them, it was repeatedly discovered that they were actually illegals, and their work VISAs had either expired or had never been in proper order) were on farms; in Wabash, they were there to work on power plants in Indiana (doing jobs that people who were legal workers would not do because of liability/health danger issues) or in restaurants; in Clay and Richland, the draw was factory hog operations. Also in recent years, a significant population has come up in Lawrence County, as highlighted in August 2013 in a series of articles about the disease being brought into the county and causing problems for the health department.
‘Untrackable’
And, one after another, the “migrant workers” would, after being charged, disappear. The presumption was that they went back to their “home country” (likely not a realistic proposition; however, out-of-state might have been a possibility). Regardless of where they went, there were crimes on the dockets in each county that merely languished, as the person charged failed to appear and all attempts to reach them to notify them of the FTAs went by the wayside. On file in many of these cases are letter after letter, submitted to the defendant at a last known residence, usually a rundown, old farmhouse in an extremely rural area, or a converted, abandoned former school, also in a rural area. The defendants were untrackable…just like the person who attempted to abduct the 15-year-old girl in Fairfield November 25.
Farmers employing these “migrant workers” get very defensive when their programs are questioned. So it’s not surprising that authorities might not think to go to the areas of the counties where there’s a large contingent of “migrant workers” and check to see if there’s anyone sporting a goatee and a conspicuous scar from jaw to ear.
And a license plate from Indiana, in Illinois, would be something also easy to track down…considering that many of southern Illinois’ farms where “migrant workers” are employed also have fields in Indiana where produce is grown.
Whether any of this will ultimately transpire in the November 2014 case remains to be seen…as does any connection whatsoever to the missing Nichols girl.
Colclasure did note that his department was following up on a lead they received from a location in Iowa, where an employee in a convenience store may have spotted her. Colclasure said the report included a description that fitted Nichols; the employee said that this particular young girl was wearing a hoodie and had it pulled up close to her face, adding that she avoided contact with anyone in the store.
Nichols was last seen on July 3 at about 10:30 p.m. by her mother; a note was left behind that appeared to be in Nichols’ handwriting, directing her parents to not look for her, that she was running away.
Nichols had never had any perceivable problems beyond the typical young teen angst, so friends and family were perplexed by the prospect of her becoming a runaway.
The investigation into Nichols’ disappearance continues. Anyone with information on her whereabouts is urged to call the Fairfield Police Department at 618-842-2151 or your local authorities.