WAYNE COUNTY, Ill. (WJPF) – An Indiana man has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for the 2014 murder of a Fairfield teenager.

Brody Murbarger, 27, was convicted in October 2022 of first degree murder.

The case was prosecuted by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office. They say in 2014, Murbarger, who was 18 at the time, ran away with his then girlfriend, 15-year-old Megan Nichols. Murbarger returned home the next day, Nichols was never seen alive again.

She was considered a missing person until 2017. That’s when investigators found traces of blood in Murbarger’s car. Later that year, the body of Megan Nichols was found buried in a shallow grave in Wayne County.