Police found items at a Zachary, Louisiana home linking one man to two missing women — one gone since 2023, another since 2025 — and the national press can't be bothered to show up.
Madison Allen was 32 when she disappeared in 2023. Stephanie Hevia was 38 when she vanished this year. Both women's cases trace back to Thomas Morris, 43, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate — the only outlet covering this story at all. Morris lived at his Ash Street property in Zachary when Allen went missing. Hevia was last known to be at Morris's West Feliciana Parish property before she was reported missing, West Feliciana Parish Sheriff Brian Spillman said.
Police searched the Ash Street home starting September 14 after what they described as weeks of planning. They recovered "several items that are being investigated" in connection to both women, the Advocate reported.
Here is what should stop every American cold: Morris has been in custody since July. He was arrested after a woman called from a store bathroom, telling deputies she was hiding. Morris allegedly met that woman in Montana in early July and brought her against her will to West Feliciana, where she could not leave or use her phone. He faces second-degree kidnapping and false imprisonment charges — charges entirely unconnected to Allen and Hevia's disappearances.
That means law enforcement had this man in July. Hevia disappeared in 2025. Whether she vanished before or after his arrest — and whether investigators could have moved sooner on Allen's case — are questions no official has answered.
Meanwhile, four outlets assigned to cover this story — Fox News, the New York Post, KABC-TV, and the Mechanicsburg Patriot News — ran nothing on the missing women. They covered the deaths of two University of Mississippi students where packaged kratom was recovered at both scenes. A tragedy, to be sure. Lafayette County Metro Narcotics stressed there is "no confirmed evidence indicating that kratom or any other substance was a contributing factor in either death," and both investigations remain open.
But the Ole Miss story has answers in motion. The missing women story has a suspect already jailed on separate kidnapping charges, a property finally searched, and two families still waiting for word.
The press decides what matters by what it covers. The press decided these women don't.
