The Story Behind the AMBER Alert System
After Amber Hagerman was abducted on January 13th, 1996, one woman decided it was time for change.
Just weeks after Christmas in 1996, Amber Hagerman vanished. She was riding her new pink bike near her grandmother's house in an abandoned parking lot of a Winn-Dixie grocery store when a man in a black truck grabbed her.
Four days later, her body was found in a local creek.
Amber Hagerman's killer has never been found and her disappearance inspired the creation of the AMBER Alert, a system that has saved hundreds of children from suffering from a similar fate.
And detectives now believe that they will finally be able to catch the man who murdered the girl.
Amber Hagerman's Abduction
Amber Rene Hagerman and her five-year-old brother, Ricky, went out for a bike ride on January 13th, 1996. They left their grandmother's home in Arlington, Texas at around 3:10PM, their grandmother instructed them to stay close by, and Amber and Ricky never went further than two-tenths of a mile from the home.
Amber rode into the parking lot of a Winn-Dixie grocery store and Ricky decided to go home, so he wasn't there to see what had happened to his sister.
But Jimmie Kevil did. Jimmie was 78-years-old when he watched as the girl rode her bike around the parking lot before a black truck pulled up beside her and a dark-haired man in his 20s or 30s, who Kevil thought was white or Hispanic, got out.
"The kidnapper pulled up, jumped out, and grabbed her," Kevil, a former sheriff's deputy, said. "When she screamed, I figured the police ought to know about it, so I called them."
Dozens of police officers and federal agents were set out in Arlington to look for the girl. They only paused their search to take quick naps. However, in a tragic turn of events, Amber was found dead four days later in a nearby creek.
"Amber was totally nude except for a sock on her left foot," Former Arlington police detective Randy Lockhart said in 2021, "We rolled her over and I caught her head in my hands. Several lacerations to her throat. A knife or screwdriver had been used to rip her throat out."
A Texas mother named Diane Simone had an idea after she heard about the tragedy, she called up local radio station and wondered aloud about creating a national alert system for missing children.
"I said, 'I can't get over this child. There has to be something we can do."
Simone wondered if Americans already received alerts for weather and civil defense events, couldn't they do something for this?
The Meaning of the AMBER Alert
Diane Simone's idea stuck, broadcasters in the Dallas-Fort Worth area partnered with law enforcement to alert people about missing children. The system was renamed AMBER (America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) Alert.
According to the AMBER Alert website, the system has saved over 1,000 children since it was launched in 1996.
"AMBER alerts also serve as deterrents to those who would prey upon our children," The site adds, "AMBER Alert cases have shown that some perpetrators release the abducted child after hearing the AMBER alert."
This is how AMBER Alerts work. Once law enforcement determines if the case meets certain criteria, authorities will then notify broadcasters and state transportation agencies. These alerts will interrupt programming, appear on statewide transportation signs, digital billboards, and in the form of texts. In 2015, AMBER Alerts started to appear on Facebook as well.
Amber Hagerman's mother, Donna Williams, said that the system named in memory of her daughter is bittersweet. "There's another part of me that wonders what would ahve happened if we would have had the alert when Amber went missing. Could it have helped bring her back to me?" Donna said in a 2016 interview.
Detectives are still determined to find justice for the murdered girl. Arlington Police Sgt. Grant Gildon told PEOPLE that this case is still active.
"We continue to have leads," He said, "A lot of people will refer to Amber's case, what's commonly referred to as, a cold case. But for the Arlington Police Department, it has never been listed as a cold case because we've never gone 180 days without having some lead come in."
Police are convinced that someone out there knows something about Amber's kidnapping that hasn't been shared yet. They're insistent that it is not too late.
"Our hope is that someone in the community saw something. Maybe they didn't come forward 25 years ago out of fear or not wanting to get involved," Arlington Assistant Police Chief Kevin Kolbye said, "Whatever reason, we need folks to search their minds and bring forward anything that may be of value to our investigation."
In 2021 investigators disclosed that they have DNA evidence that may be linked to Amber's killer. Hopefully with this new evidence, or a new tip, police will be able to solve Amber's kidnapping and murder and bring justice to her.
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