A Strange Note And Wiped Phone Were The Only Things This 15-Year-Old Left Behind After Fighting With Her Mom Over Secretly Seeing An Older Guy: Her Remains Were Found 3 Years Later In A Blanket
Fairfield, Illinois. Megan Nichols was 15-years-old when she vanished from her home under mysterious circumstances.
It took almost 4 years to find her, but when she was finally located, it wasn’t in the way her friends and family had hoped.
Megan lived in Fairfield, Illinois, with her mom, Kathy Jo Hutchcraft, and step-dad, Jerod Hutchcraft. Her friends and family members remember her as witty, silly, kind, and caring. Scrolling through her Facebook, she seems like your typical teenager.
But on July 3rd, 2014, she turned into anything but typical.
On what should have been the start of a fun-filled holiday weekend, Megan disappeared.
Facebook; Megan smiles in the above photo while sitting in front of a waterfall
Megan and her mom Kathy Jo had always been close with each other, but that all changed shortly before she disappeared.
Kathy Jo found out that Megan had been dating an 18-year-old guy without her knowing, and although a 3-year age difference isn’t a lot when you’re an adult, it is when your daughter is only 15.
15-year-olds and 18-year-olds are just on entirely different planets and every involved American mom would find a relationship like that concerning. I mean, when I was a freshman in high school I got asked to prom by a senior and my mom freaked out and forbid it.
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Kathy Jo had more cause for concern than just this guy’s age. Speaking to True Crime Daily, she said that she learned from friends and family members that this guy wasn’t only seeing Megan…he was seeing another girl at the same time in a typical love triangle style.
“I’d had it at that point. He’s using her and you, and you’re done, you’re 15, he’s 18, this is over,” Kathy explained.
Facebook; Megan is pictured above with a dog in a black and white photo
Megan didn’t listen to her mom, and she continued to at least have conversations with this guy, despite her mom wanting her to stop everything.
“She kept staying in contact with him so I took her phone from her. So one evening I wanted to check her phone to see if she missed anything important.”
“I see this text conversation between her and the boy, but I only see her side of the conversation and it was happening as I was looking at her phone.”
Kathy Jo realized Megan was still texting him from her iPod, even without her phone. So she went straight up to her daughter’s room and demanded she hand over the iPod. And then she read the messages she had sent on that, and it was heartbreaking for her.
“She made the comment that she couldn’t stand me, she just wanted to get out of this house, and his response was I just want to come get you right now,” she said about what those texts contained.
Kathy Jo called this guy up herself and demanded he stop talking to Megan. She figured that was the end of things, but she was wrong.
After Megan got her phone back, she saved his name in her phone under a female name so her mom wouldn’t get suspicious. Kathy Jo put it all together, called the friend, and surprise, surprise…the guy answered.
Between that time and when Megan went missing, it’s not quite clear how she continued the relationship that her mom had prohibited, but she clearly did.
Right before Megan disappeared, she had called that boy.
Around 11 p.m. on the night of July 3rd, 2014, Kathy Jo realized that Megan was not in her room as she should be. She had gone up to her daughter’s room to give her a kiss and say goodnight, but she wasn’t there.
She found a strange note and her cellphone had been left behind.
Facebook; Megan wears a black and white dress, above
The note that Megan left was addressed to Kathy Jo, and it said she loved her very much…she just could never be happy living at home with her and that she should not try to find her.
Her cellphone had been left behind too, and it was wiped of everything. All contacts, all information, everything.
Authorities figured Megan was a runaway after Kathy Jo reported her as missing. It certainly came across as her doing something like that, especially since they discovered that she had taken money out of an ATM right before she vanished. Her friends and family insisted that couldn’t be the case.
The boy Megan had been having her secret relationship with was investigated, and it was determined he had nothing to do with her disappearance.
So where was Megan?
It would end up taking almost 4 years to answer that question…leaving her loved ones with more questions with answers.
Facebook; Megan is pictured above
Kathy Jo, Megan’s mom, took to Facebook to share, “On July 3, 2014, my life fell apart. My daughter, who was 15 years old at the time, disappeared from our home. Since that evening, I feel as if I have been pulled in several different directions, all at the same time both physically and emotionally. This is my story.”
“I have tried everything that I think any mother would have tried. I have reached out to police, friends, family, media, and even public figures for help. My daughter’s photos are all over social media and posted on fliers across the states. I have called, text, emailed, posted, and shipped fliers, car magnets, bracelets and so on, until I can’t bear to do anymore.”
“During the past two years, I have told the same long, heart aching story over and over and over. I have answered questions until I am almost to the point of wanting to avoid everything. This is an open wound in my life that continues to be poked and jabbed at by every question, hug and memory of every day.”
“I don’t want to cry, because when I cry, I am immediately surrounded by loved ones who want so badly to help me, but they can’t. So I hold in the tears as much as I can, and tell everyone “I’m okay”. I receive so many messages that I literally can’t keep up with them. No matter how many times I post on social media that I will not discuss detailed information, still, I receive questions.”
“Day after day, I wake up to the painful reality that my only daughter is missing. Apparently nobody has seen or heard from her since her disappearance. I don’t know if she is alive or dead, sick or healthy, sad or happy. Nothing. I know nothing. I try to push away as many memories as possible because it hurts so much to live in a reality that my daughter has become only a memory. I don’t want to think of happier times, when I know that I may never have those happy times with her again.”
On December 26th, 2017, just one day after Christmas, Megan’s body was found in a rural field, just south of her home in Fairfield.
Facebook; Megan wears a blue dress, above
Speaking to 14News, the couple that discovered her, Carl Vaughan and Jacque Beck, explained that Carl was taking care of a tree that had fallen down.
Carl spotted something, and Jacque says, “He’s like I found something. I said, ‘what’d you find.’ He’s like, ‘I found a body.”
Megan had been bundled up in a blanket and placed in a grave that was not very deep.
“I have been informed by the FBI that they have positively identified Megan’s body,” Megan’s biological father, Jackson Nichols, posted on Facebook.
“While this is not news anyone wanted to hear, many of us feared from the beginning, this was the only way it would end.”
“Kathy and I have answered every imaginable question. Over and over. Whether there’s a camera rolling, or not.”
The details surrounding exactly how Megan died have not been released by authorities, as this is still an ongoing investigation.
On October 7th, 2020, 24-year-old Brodey Ian Murbarger was arrested and charged with Megan’s murder. Brodey allegedly had been dating Megan.
“Brodey Murbarger was arrested for murder on today’s date outside his place of employment without incident,” the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
“A search warrant was then executed at Murbarger’s home address at 5037 Lakeside Court, which is located in the Lakewood West apartment complex.”
“Murbarger was then transported to the Vanderburgh County Jail where he will await extradition back to Illinois.”
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