Megan Nichols Illinois cold case: Indiana man arrested for murder
10/08/2020 1:24 pm PDT
EVANSVILLE, Ind. (TCD) --
Authorities arrested an Indiana man Wednesday in the 2014 cold-case murder of Megan Nichols.
An Illinois grand jury indicted Brodey Ian Murbarger on Sept. 25 in the Nichols case, prompting Indiana State Police, Evansville Police and Vanderburgh County sheriff's deputies to locate the suspect.
Murbarger was arrested on a murder warrant outside his workplace Wednesday, according to the sheriff's office. Investigators then served a search warrant at Murbarger's residence at the Lakewood West apartment complex in Evansville.
Murbarger was held at the Vanderburgh County Jail pending extradition to Illinois.
The Navigator & Journal-Register reports Murbarger lived in Fairfield and had allegedly been dating Nichols at the time of her disappearance.
The Wayne County, Illinois grand jury indicted Murbarger on six separate charges, including three counts of first-degree murder, one count of concealment of a homicidal death, and two counts of home invasion, the Navigator reports.
TRUE CRIME DAILY: Megan Nichols case coverage - TCD
The remains of Megan Nichols, a 15-year-old who went missing in 2014, were positively identified on January 26, 2018, according to the FBI. An FBI spokesman told NBC that Megan's body “was found in a rural location in Wayne County on December 26, 2017.”
The skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave south of Fairfield, and the manner of death was determined to be homicide, the Albion Navigator reports.
Nichols was last seen on July 3, 2014 in Fairfield, Ill. The high school sophomore was a good student and avid church member.
Her phone was found in her bed -- it been wiped cleaned, with all photos, messages, contacts deleted. In her room, Megan's mother and grandmother found a note from Megan.
"Basically it said, 'Mom, I love you but I'm never going to be happy here. Don't come looking for me 'cause why spend a lifetime looking for somebody that doesn't wanna be found,'" said Megan's mother Kathy Jo Hutchcraft. The writing appears to be Megan's, but the words are not, according to her mother.
"Money had been withdrawn on July the 3rd around 2 o'clock p.m.," said Hutchcraft. "That's the same time Megan went on a bike ride earlier in the day before she went home not feeling well. The last images of Megan were from this ATM surveillance video. It showed her riding her bike up to the bank, withdrawing money. That was right before she vanished."
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