Nyleen Kay Marshall

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Jefferson County Sheriffs Office (MT)

Missing From:

Clancy, MT

Summary:

Nyleen Kay Marshall disappeared on June 25, 1983, aged 4, in the Helena National Forest in Montana. She vanished while on a family picnic trip to the Elkhorn Mountains; while playing with other children at approximately 4pm near a creek, she was seen talking to an unidentified man in a purple jogging suit who tried to get her to play a game called "Follow the Shadow". Her disappearance remains unsolved after over 42 years.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

On June 25, 1983, four-year-old Nyleen Marshall vanished while on a trip to the Elkhorn Mountains with her mother, Nancy, and stepfather, Kim. That day, they and several other families traveled to a picnic area in the Helena National Forest. At around 4pm, Nyleen and several other children went playing along the banks of a shallow creek. Some of them noticed her talking to an unidentified man in a purple jogging suit. He tried to get her to play a game he called "Follow the Shadow". She was last seen sitting alone near the beaver dams on Maupin Creek. For ten days, searchers combed the area where Nyleen was last seen. However, there was no evidence found to determine what happened to her.

Additional Details:

Kim and Nancy were certain that she had been abducted, so they distributed thousands of missing persons fliers across the country. Nyleen's family was questioned about her disappearance and her stepfather was considered a person of interest in her case. Two years after her disappearance, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, other missing person non-profits, as well as Marshall's family, received phone calls and letters from an anonymous man claiming to have abducted Marshall. In the letters and phone calls, the man detailed sexual abuse but alleged that Marshall was safe and had traveled the world with him. In November 1985, an anonymous person called the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on several occasions. The police traced the calls to various phone booths in Edgerton, Wisconsin, but after the phone booths were identified, the calls stopped. In January 1986, an anonymous person sent Child Find, a New York-based missing children's organization, a typewritten letter saying he had picked up "a girl named Kay" on a road in Elkhorn Park between Helena and Boulder, Montana, and had decided to take her home with him. The letter was postmarked Madison, Wisconsin, thirty miles northwest of Edgerton, and included details about Nyleen's case that had not been released to the general public. Marshall's disappearance has received coverage from the NBC series Unsolved Mysteries, as well as television figure Nancy Grace. This case first aired on the November 21, 1990 episode. Upon following up on a lead, investigators were astounded to discover that the tipster's classmate was actually Monica Bonilla, another missing child who had been abducted by her biological father, Guillermo, almost eight years prior. Bonilla was from the Los Angeles area but was found alive and well in British Columbia. In August 1991, forty-two-year-old Richard James Wilson confessed to killing Nyleen and another woman. He had a 1984 conviction in Helena for sexually assaulting a minor. He also had a history of mental illness. He was held in jail for a week but was released after authorities stated they did not have enough evidence to charge him. By 1994, the Marshall family had relocated from Montana to Japan. The following year, in 1995, Marshall's mother Nancy was murdered in Mexico. Nancy stayed at the Radisson Paraiso hotel in the Tlalpan area of Mexico City, and while there, she met up with friends in the area. She went back to her hotel room that night and wouldn't wake up the next morning, on July 24th. She would wind up being found dangling by the neck from a man's belt attached to a shower rod in her room. The door to Nancy's room had been busted open, and her hands were bound behind her back. She got bruises from apparent beatings and appeared to have been sexually assaulted. In 1997, a nurse at a New Orleans hospital reported a potential sighting of Marshall and her abductor. The nurse stated that a 19-year-old woman calling herself "Helena" came into the hospital with an unidentified man in hope of being admitted to give birth. The woman stated she thought her mother may have been named Nyleen, and that she grew up in another country, despite having no trace of an accent. After providing the FBI with information about Helena, she was tracked down in Oklahoma City and agreed to have blood drawn and compared to Nyleen's father. Helena said she remembered very little about her childhood but thought that her mother may have been called Nyleen. Unfortunately she was ruled out as being Nyleen.

Case Last Updated:

Sep 02, 2026