Nikki Forrest: The Roots of Nikki
The Blended Family, the Broken System, and the Girl Who Fell Through Both
This is Case 1 of Unsolved Ohio. Understanding what happened to Nikki Lyn Forrest on September 25, 2010, requires starting long before that date — before the pregnancy, before the years of couch surfing, before every institution that should have protected her had looked the other way. It requires starting at the beginning.
Our story starts with an obituary.
Lynn L. Forrest (DOB August 12, 1959), age 43, of Piqua, Ohio, died Saturday, May 31, 2003.
She was born of the late Ivan and Donna Manson in Troy, Ohio.
Survivors include her children, Matthew Dawson and Nikki Forrest; Companion, David Purkhiser; Sister, Michelle Heilman; Grandmother, Marjorie Manson; and several aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Lynn was a former manager with Hardees Restaurant and former owner and operator of an area construction company.
Memorial contributions may be made to an educational fund for her daughter, Nikki.
There is a cold, mathematical cruelty to the history of the American marriage. For those of the “Baby Boomer” vintage, born into the quietude between 1945 and 1964, the institution of marriage possessed a sturdy, if often suffocating, permanence. In 1958, the divorce rate sat at a modest 8.3 per 1,000 married women — a historical valley of domestic resolve. But then came the “Feral Generation” — Generation X — born into the chaotic transition of 1965 to 1980. The year 1969 saw Governor Ronald Reagan sign the Family Law Act in California, a stroke of a pen that birthed the “no-fault” divorce and shattered the legal requirement of proven cruelty or adultery. By 1980, the divorce rate had ascended its absolute historical ceiling, reaching a feverish 22.6.
Nikki Forrest was a child of this aftershock.
One enters the world with no agency over the blood that claims them. We are dropped, like stones into a well, into ready-made dramas of blended families, half-siblings, and the complicated geometry of step-relations. Nikki was born into such a thicket — a tangle of connections that served less as a safety net and more as a snare. While divorce rates began their slow descent toward the 14.6 per 1,000 recorded in 2022, the damage in the Forrest household had already been ritualized.
She was surrounded by a cast of characters that read like a grim registry — men and women whose own growth had been stunted by the same dysfunction they now visited upon her. To look at the people who populated Nikki’s perimeter is to see a collection of mirrors reflecting only shadow. We cannot know with surgical precision the exact weight of the impact these souls had on her personal growth, but in the silence that follows her disappearance, one can easily infer the shape of the blow. It was not a hand held out to guide, but a thumb pressed down to vanish.
To trace the life of Nikki, we start long before she was born. We start with her grandparents — Ivan Dennis Manson and Donna Louise Manson. It wasn’t long after their marriage that Donna gave birth to two girls: Lynn Manson and Michelle Manson. Michelle would later marry and become Michelle Heilman.
After Lynn Manson finished high school, she met a man named Dale E. Dawson. They married on February 4, 1984. Seven months later, on August 10, 1984, they had a son named Matthew Dawson. Within three years, Dale and Lynn were divorced. In 1990, Lynn filed a motion for a change of custody — it was dismissed within two weeks. In 1992, Dale was served with another custody motion. Those proceedings dragged on for a full year until 1993, with custody remaining the same. Child support hearings continued until 1995.
Around this same time, another couple — Ronnie L. Forrest and Susan K. Noland — had also married. Susan gave birth to a boy, Rickey Carl Forrest, on March 2, 1962.
Moving forward twenty years into the 1980s, Rickey met a woman named Sarah Neff. The court records are silent on the date of their marriage. They had a daughter, Diana Forrest, born July 28, 1982. Sadly, within four years of Diana’s birth, Sarah and Rickey were divorced on June 25, 1986.
Rickey’s second attempt was with Cheryl Perkins. They married on May 15, 1987. That marriage did not last two years. The divorce was finalized on March 8, 1989 — no children.
Only five months after that divorce, Rickey met Lynn “Dawson” Manson. They dated, moved in together, and married on October 14, 1989. It was also a quick turnaround for Lynn — only two years had passed since her own divorce was finalized. Within one year of their marriage, Lynn and Rickey brought into this world a baby daughter, born on November 29, 1990. They named her Nikki Lyn Forrest.
Roberta “Bobbie” Schlater, a close friend of Lynn Forrest, became Nikki’s Godmother. She promised to act as a spiritual mentor to the newly baptized child — to help raise her in the faith, to represent the Church, and to be a positive role model in Nikki’s life.
Between 1991 and 1997, the court records are silent. A divorce between Lynn and Rickey was finalized during this period, with Lynn granted custody of Nikki.
In Babe Ruth’s Major League Baseball career, he hit 714 home runs — but he also struck out 1,330 times. Rickey Forrest was playing a different game, one with no limit on at-bats.
Wife number four was Tammy Sue Weddington, beginning Nikki’s step-mother years. When Rickey was 35 and Tammy 30, that marriage ended too — finalized September 29, 1997.
Next up: wife number five, Nina Brock. They married December 22, 1997, before the ink had even dried on the Weddington divorce decree. The first filing for that divorce was served September 25, 2001 — fourteen days after the Twin Towers fell. Whatever caused the delay, it didn’t save the marriage. The divorce was finalized April 19, 2002.
Wife number six: Stephanie Michelle Collins, age 33. Rickey and Stephanie married June 8, 2002 — less than two months after the last divorce. This one, somehow, went the distance. Rickey, now 40, and Stephanie had two children: Angel Forrest and Rickey Forrest Jr. As of 2025, no court records indicate a divorce.
In 2000, Lynn began a new relationship. She did not marry the man — he is referred to in her obituary only as her “Companion.” His name was David M. Purkhiser.
On May 31, 2003, Nikki’s loving biological mother, Lynn “Manson” Forrest, died.
From Nikki’s perspective, the family she now belonged to looked like this:
1 Biological Mother — Lynn Manson (deceased)
1 Biological Father — Rickey Forrest
3 Step-Mothers — Tammy Sue Weddington, Nina Brock, Stephanie Collins
1 Step-Brother — Chris Collins
2 Half-Brothers — Matthew Dawson (from Lynn), Rickey Forrest Jr. (from Rickey)
2 Half-Sisters — Angel Forrest, Diana Forrest
1 Maternal Aunt — Michelle “Manson” Heilman
1 Paternal Aunt — Mickey Forrest Langston
2 Paternal Cousins — Kate Langston, Jake Langston
2 Maternal Cousins — Sara Heilman, Benjamin Heilman
1 Godmother — Roberta “Bobbie” Schlater
She was thirteen years old. Her mother was gone. Her father had declined to take her in. The man her mother had known for less than three years — David Purkhiser — stepped forward.
What happened next is Case File 1.2.
