The last point here is interesting to me... you are correct that the laundromat attempted abduction was NOT related to Morgan's abduction. It was quickly determined (within weeks) that it was a domestic dispute where a non-custodial parent tried to abduct his own daughter.
So tell me then, why did they use the sketch of THAT man as Morgan's possible abductor for almost five years? Odd, don't you think? Makes no sense. So I question the entire story at this point. It doesn't add up.
I share your consternation about the police issuing two different composite sketches of the suspect five years apart. However, I think it can be explained:
Contributing Factor #1:
There were three witnesses (one adult and the two young children, ages 10 and 8) who saw the suspect at the ballpark. Unfortunately, the two young children, who spoke to the suspect along with Morgan and arguably got the best look at him, gave varying descriptions of the man they saw per a newspaper article. Therefore, I believe that the police chose to rely most heavily on the description provided by the adult who only saw the suspect at a distance across a dark parking lot late at night. In fact, the police even took the adult to Little Rock to be hypnotized in the hope that she could provide them with more information.
Basically, the adult was not a high-quality witness and the traumatized young children were inconsistent.
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Contributing Factor #2:
Following Morgans abduction on Friday night, the police learned about an incident that had taken place on Friday morning where a man matching the description of Morgans abductor had tried to snatch a young girl from a laundromat and a subsequent incident that took place on Saturday where a man matching the description of Morgans abductor tried to pull a young girl into a gas station convenience store bathroom.
All of the early newspaper articles state that the police believed that the three incidents MUST be related, which I believe was the biggest mistake in the entire investigation.
Due to the fact that the ballpark witnesses were not able to provide a high-quality, consistent description needed to create a composite sketch, the police based their original composite sketch on a witness description from the laundromat incident.
That laundromat sketch was shown to the ballpark witnesses who graded it 8 on a scale of 1-to-10 with 10 being an exact likeness, so it was released to the public as a sketch of Morgans abductor when it was really just a sketch of the suspect from the laundromat incident.
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Contributing Factor #3:
The laundromat incident was not reported to police until after Morgans abduction. While the witness in the laundromat incident immediately came forward to work with law enforcement on the composite sketch, the purported victims, a mother and her young daughter, did not come forward, and their identities remained unknown.
The police and the Nick family publicly pleaded for woman to come forward. The police are even quoted in newspaper articles as saying that they would be willing to forgive any open warrants or questionable immigration status, if the woman was unwilling to come forward for those reasons.
Around that time, there were two anonymous phone calls; one call made to Colleen Nick, Morgans mom, and one call to the Fort Smith 9-1-1 call center. A newspaper article where the police and the Nick family beg the anonymous caller to call back states that the anonymous caller who called Colleen Nick was a woman.
I believe, although its only my personal hunch, that the mother from the laundromat incident who was unwilling to come forward to law enforcement for whatever reason, reached out to the police and the Nick family by telephone in the hope of remaining anonymous.
I believe that the woman stated the laundromat incident was just a domestic situation between her and her ex-husband, but due to the fact that the woman refused to come forward, the police could not prove she wasnt a crank caller and therefore, they could not justify pulling the original composite sketch out of circulation when the ballpark witnesses had graded it as an 8 on a scale of 1-to-10.
I believe the original composite sketch stayed in circulation for the first five years of the investigation until, either (A) the woman finally came forward in person years later and they could prove her story or (B) the police, knowing about the female callers claim and the fact that five years had passed without an arrest, decided they should err on the side of caution and released a new composite based only on the ballpark witnesses descriptions.
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In conclusion,
The police were measured and vague when they released the new and current composite sketch, likely due to the fact they they did not want to be criticized for conflating the unrelated incidents and releasing a bad composite sketch.
No big conspiracy required, Im afraid. Its just unfortunate for Morgan that the police and the public were looking at the wrong composite sketch for the first five years of the investigation.
lease: