Amber Rene Hagerman (November 25, 1986 – January 15, 1996) was a nine-year-old girl abducted while riding her bike in Arlington, Texas. Her younger brother, Ricky, had gone home without her because Amber had wanted to stay in the parking lot of an abandoned grocery store for a while. When he returned with his grandfather, they only found her pink bicycle. A neighbor, retiree Jim Kevil, who had witnessed the abduction called 911. He later said: “I saw [Amber] riding up and down, she was by herself. I saw this black pickup. He pulled up, jumped out and grabbed her. When she screamed, I figured the police ought to know about it, so I called them.” Suspect was white or Hispanic, 20’ to 30’.
Amber’s parents called the news media and the FBI. They and their neighbors began searching for Amber. Four days after her abduction, near midnight, a man walking his dog discovered Amber’s naked body except for one sock in a creek behind an apartment complex with severe laceration wounds to her neck. She was brutally murdered. An autopsy determined Amber had been held alive for approximately two days, during which time she was sexually assaulted. The laceration to her neck was found to be the cause of death. The site of the discovery was less than five miles (8 km) from where she was abducted. Her murder remains unsolved. Investigators still have been trying to find out the killer.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, of the children abducted and murdered by strangers, 75% are killed within the first three hours of their abduction. Amber alerts are designed to inform the general public quickly when a child has been kidnapped and is in danger so “the public (would be) additional eyes and ears of law enforcement”. As of December 2023, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said 1,186 children were recovered because of the Amber alert program.
Amber Alert System is now used worldwide to send public signals about missing children in danger.
