The Strange Disappearance of Nyleen Marshall

Two years after 4-year-old Nyleen Kay Marshall disappeared from the Helena National Forest in Montana, missing children agencies received phone calls and letters from an anonymous man claiming to have abducted the girl. He claimed he sexually abused Marshall but that she was safe and traveling the world with him. Forty years later, the mysterious disappearance of Nyleen Kay Marshall remains unsolved.

On June 25, 1983, 4-year-old Nyleen Kay Marshall attended a picnic with her family at the Elkhorn Mountains in the Helena National Forest in Montana.

The children played along a creek bank and were catching frogs while the adults enjoyed the weather and conversation back at the campsite. The children returned without Nyleen a while later, telling her parents they saw her talking to a man in a purple jogging suit. They told Nyleen’s parents that the man asked her if she wanted to play a game of “Follow The Shadow.”

The children walked ahead of Nyleen as she continued talking to the strange man. When they finally looked behind them, she was gone.

Nyleen’s family briefly searched for her before calling the police. 

Despite police, family, and others conducting an intensive search of the campground, including in the mine shafts, there were no traces of the little girl.

On November 27, 1985, more than two years since Nyleen disappeared from the campsite, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received an unusual call. A male caller claimed to have taken Nyleen. Two months later, the Child Find of America organization received a typewritten letter about Nyleen, presumably from the same man. He again claimed that he abducted Nyleen and said he would not return her to her parents. He claimed that he had sexually abused her but that she was fine and traveling the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. with him.

The agencies also received numerous calls reporting sightings of Nyleen. The agency reported the calls and letters to the authorities.

Over the next six months, two more phone calls and two letters came into the organization. The FBI traced the calls to payphone booths in Madison and Edgerton, Wisconsin.  No more calls came in after police traced the location.

Excerpts from the letters/calls:

Excerpt 1

I didn't want their person to try to get information from her. All I could tell them was that she was OK. I hope Child Find can get the following back to her family.

I picked "Kay" up on the road in the Elkhorn Park area between Helena and Boulder.  She was crying and frightened and as I held her she was shaking and I decided that I would keep her and love her. I took her home with me.

I have a nice investment income and I can work at home so I care for her myself all the time. I teach her at home and she likes to go with me when I travel.

Her hair is short and curly now and she has really grown. She is about 45 inches and around 50 pounds. She has all four of her permanent upper and two of her lower incisors at this time. She takes a bath and brushes her teeth every day.

She eats well. Her favorite meal is pizza and Cherry

Excerpt 2

[S]he would gladly recount to you trips to San Francisco, New York, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Nashville, Chicago, Puerto Rico, and Canada. We were even in Britain for a month last year and she loved it. (Nobody questions passports.)

Excerpt 3

[I]t is or where it comes from, only that I get it from the bathroom every morning. It is actually a spoonful of my semen. It doesn't affect her physically. I have NEVER "molested" her in any other way. She is a sweet little girl and it is because of how much I have grown to love her that I realize how much her family must miss her. But she has adjusted and seems happy. She trusts me and isn't afraid. We play alot (sic) and she laughs when we clown around. She smiles and acts coy when I tease her. She giggles when we snuggle and hugs me sometimes for no apparent reason. I love her and I have her. I just can't let her go!

The Discovery of Monica Bonilla

After the letters came in, an unidentified man claimed he murdered Nyleen and buried her body in a mine shaft. Authorities searched the mine shaft but found no traces of the girl. The entrance has since been sealed off.

In 1990, the television show, Unsolved Mysteries, aired Nyleen’s story. A tip from a viewer reported that he believed Nyleen may have been one of his students in  Bellingham, Washington.

Authorities investigated the tip, and while they did not locate Nyleen, found Monica Bonilla, a girl who was kidnapped by her non-custodial father in 1982 from Burbank, California.

Nyleen’s family relocated from Montana to Japan in 1994.

In 1995, her mother was murdered in Mexico.

Nyleen’s disappearance remains an unsolved mystery 40 years later.