An Indiana man was arrested Wednesday for the 2014 murder of an Illinois teen whose body was found nearly three years ago in a shallow grave.
Brodey Ian Murbarger, 24, of Evansville, Indiana, was taken into custody outside his place of employment and transported to the Vanderburgh County Jail, according to a press release issued by the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office this week. A search warrant was also executed at Murbarger’s home at the Lakewood West apartment complex in Evansville, Indiana.
Murbarger faces a murder charge after an Illinois grand jury indicted him on September 25, 2020, in connection with Megan Nichols' disappearance and murder, the press release stated.
Megan, who was featured in Dateline’s digital series “Missing in America” shortly after she vanished, was initially considered a missing person. As Dateline previously reported, the 15-year-old was last seen on July 3, 2014, at her home in Fairfield, Illinois, where she lived with her mother and stepfather.
Megan’s mother, Kathy Jo Hutchcraft, discovered her daughter missing from her room around 11 p.m. Dateline reported that she later found a note Megan reportedly left behind, telling her that she loved her, but she would never be happy at home.
According to authorities, prior to her disappearance, Megan withdrew money from a local bank while on her bicycle. She had left her cell phone behind at the house. It had been wiped clean.
While authorities first considered Megan a runaway, according to Dateline, her family didn’t agree.
Her whereabouts remained a mystery for three years until human remains were found on December 26, 2017. The remains were found in a rural location in Wayne County, Illinois, FBI Public Information Officer Brad Ware previously told Dateline. One month later, on January 26, 2018, authorities positively identified the remains as belonging to Megan.
Megan’s friend, Holden August, told NBC affiliate WFIE that her disappearance and death took a while to digest for him and his classmates.
“When you’re hanging up a poster with your friend’s picture on it, that’s when it’s like, ‘Oh, this is real,’” Holden said. He added that there’s a bit of relief now that an arrest has been made.
“It’s one of those things where you kind of always knew it was him," Hold told WFIE. According to the Navigator Journal, Megan and Brodey Murbarger had previously dated. But FBI Public Information Officer Brad Ware could not confirm these details to Dateline due to the case being an ongoing investigation.
According to court documents, Brodey Murbarger was indicted on three counts of first degree murder, one count of concealment of homicidal death and two counts of home invasion. The documents show he’s accused of strangling and suffocating Megan and burying her in a shallow grave.
The FBI, along with many law enforcement organizations, including the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office and the Evansville Police Department, continue to investigate Megan’s case. No further details were released.
If you have any information regarding the circumstances of Megan’s death, please contact the FBI at (217) 522-9675.