Original subtitles

- ....get back to that breaking news.

- We start with breaking news, - An Amber Alert.

- There is an Amber Alert.

- An Amber Alert. - Two 15 year old boys.

- An Amber Alert has been issued...

- Look mama, I made this for you.

- Dear Mom, this is for you.

I love you a lot. Love Amber.

- Well, my daughter worries a lot,

but I told her everything will be okay.

- This was every parent's nightmare.

- At that particular time, everybody is a suspect.

- We're both innocent.

I mean, there's no reason for us to harm our child.

- This individual may have committed this crime before.

- Who is in our circle?

Who's around Amber all the time?

- I immediately thought, oh, my gosh,

she was targeted.

- We interrupt this program to bring you

the following News 8 Special Report.

- We feel that this tentatively is going to be

the body of Amber Hagerman.

- The suspect was familiar with not only the abduction site

but the disposal site as well.

- We followed thousands of leads.

- What's your name again?

- Not just hundreds, but thousands.

- I believe there are people out there

who know what happened.

- It would mean a lot to be able to give

Donna and Ricky the answer to who killed Amber.

- This is an activation of the Amber Alert system.

- Every time I hear a Amber Alert,

I say to myself, it's time to go to work, Sis.

Do your thing.

- Everybody knows the Amber Alert.

I want the world to know who Amber was.

**

**

- I believe this will be my last interview.

I'm tired of being sad.

I'm broken because my daughter's not here.

Normally I don't have a lot of this out.

I normally keep it in plastic totes,

just to keep it safe

and not to get torn up or anything.

Everybody knows the Amber Alert and what it's used for.

I want the world to know who Amber was.

She was my dream. She was my everything.

This dress here is, uh, Amber's dress

that she wore on her ninth birthday.

And I just couldn't seem to give it away.

Special memories, and happy memories for Amber.

* Happy birthday to you *

- No, no, never, ever.

I just assumed that he would get caught real quick

and it would be done and over with

but it didn't happen that way, so...

- We started shooting video with

Donna, Amber, and Ricky in August of 1995.

There are probably between 200 and 300 tapes

and hundreds of hours of video.

I don't know that I have a good answer as to why

I've held on to 'em for 25 years.

I think that when you look back on your life

there are a few life-changing moments.

I already knew that this was one of them.

The fact that we had her alive

and people could see her,

usually that doesn't happen in a tragedy like this.

Then we become an important aspect of that story

in deciding whether we were going to release

some of the footage that we had

which was exclusive footage.

- Come on.

Richard, please don't.

- At the time I was a single mom with two children,

and I was on welfare.

They asked me if I wanted to be in the documentary

and the documentary is about how women get off welfare.

- Let mommy see, Amber.

Oh, you're going to have to color that.

That's pretty. Look.

Happy Halloween. When is Halloween?

Do y'all know when Halloween is?

- What's that? - Um, October 31st...

- Well, they found me at a women's shelter.

- A lot of us who were working moms

felt like that we weren't doing enough stories

about what families were facing

and how to make things better.

We wanted to have someone who fit the national profile,

which was a single mom with two children.

And it was really hard to find somebody

who was willing to do that,

and willing to share their lives.

And I was just about to give up

when I got a call from one-one of my contacts

who said, I think I have somebody for you.

- I had to think about it for a little bit.

But maybe I could help other moms

in the same situation I was in

and get them on their feet like I was getting--

trying to get on my feet.

When I was 18, I found out I was pregnant.

I was terrified and scared.

I waited 'til she was born, and then I seen

her pretty little face, and that's Amber.

I thought Amber was a really pretty name,

and it just fit her pretty little face.

- I just did a lot of walking in the neighborhood,

with my friends, my girlfriends,

and he was out in the yard,

and we just started talking,

and next thing I knew, we were together.

'Course he was a lot older than me.

He was like 34.

I basically grew up with him.

Then four years later, I got pregnant with Ricky.

It was wonderful. It was awesome.

Amber said, this is my baby, Mommy.

I said, okay, it could be your baby.

So she just kind of put her baby brother under her wing,

and that's where he stayed.

I was living with her father

until Amber was about seven.

Ricky was about two, three.

That's when he really started drinking a lot.

Her father was physically abusive to me.

He never abused my children.

He was just really mean when he was drinking.

He used to go out and hang out

with his friend, Mike Thompson,

and they would party and drink together.

And then he'll come home or--

And then he'll drink more, and get drunk more.

So the neighbors would always call the police

because of the noise.

And the police would always come.

And the police-- the last time the police said,

if we come back here again,

we will take your children from you.

And that's all I had to hear.

- You want some fruit, Richard?

You want some fruit?

- I knew my kids need to be safe.

I just took personal things and just left

and never went back.

And we stayed in my car for like two days

in the parking lot.

I couldn't go to my parents because he would find us there,

and so we just kind of hid out in my car for two days.

And then we went to the women's shelter

and stayed there for about six weeks.

And they helped me get an a-apartment

and get on welfare

and help me get back on my feet.

We were still scared.

And every little sound or every little door knock

we would jump to the ceiling

because we didn't know if he found out

where we stayed at or whatever.

And it took almost a good year before

we could actually live life again

and be happy again.

- They're having a skating party for school

and that's gonna be $3 apiece.

I can't do that.

So they're a little upset about that, you know,

but I tell them we'll save money

and next time you can go.

- You always have such a positive attitude

no matter how much money you've got in your pocket.

You always tell me you're not worried,

it'll be okay. - Yeah.

- How do you do that?

- It's depressing sometimes but I try not to show it,

especially in front of my kids.

I don't want them to worry.

- I was going to school.

I was volunteering at the food stamp office,

and-and my kids were going to school

and they were happy.

- That's actually asking a lot for somebody

to be that open with us

and to share all the hurdles,

the ups and downs and frustrations

and the trials and tribulations that they go to

for people to have a better understanding

of what being in that situation is like.

And so it was a journey that I couldn't have predicted.

I couldn't have known what would happen.

- My daughter worries a lot.

She thinks we are going to run out of money,

don't have no money for this or that.

But I told her everything will be okay.

We'll never starve.

We'll always eat.

- Richard tried so many times for me

to come back and move back in with him.

And I said, no, I cannot.

Because I know what's going to happen.

If I do that, you'll just go right back

to the way you were.

Slowly I let Richard come back into the kids' lives.

Because that-that is their father

and like it or not, that's--

I had to for my kids.

Amber was still a little leery of him.

She was still a little scared that maybe

he will get drunk again.

But eventually that kind of faded away as well.

And they were okay together.

* Happy birthday to you *

* Happy birthday to you *

* Happy birthday *

- On her ninth birthday, she had all her friends,

and had birthday cake and ice cream.

Make a wish and blow it out, baby.

- All right, whoo!

- Oh, boy!

- She was just bright-eyed and wide-eyed,

and mouth open like, yay.

- Oh! - Look, sheets for your bed.

- Donna's motivation was that she wanted

to make things better for her kids.

She was very open with us,

and we were part of their family for months.

And you felt like they were just part of mine, too.

- The party's over! - The party's over?

[chuckling]

- She's a funny little girl.

She's takes after her grandpa with that.

Um, she always wants to be silly.

Very smart, fun-loving little girl.

- Saturday is our family day,

so we decided we wanted to go to Castle Park

and we played there for a couple hours

and then they wanted to come back here

to granny and pawpaw's house.

It was really nice, warm winter days

that were gorgeous days.

Sun shining and everybody was out and about.

They decided they wanted to ride their bicycles

and I told them it'd be fine

and so once we got here, they run up to the driveway

and said hi to their pawpaw.

And they got on their bicycles

and went towards Claudia Street.

- Me being the little brother, I'm gonna follow her

wherever she goes.

We would always ride our bikes around the neighborhood,

and we did it very often,

so I memorized the neighborhood.

- And I hollered at them and said,

well, y'all stay together and y'all come right back.

And Amber turns around and she looks at me,

okay Mommy, we will.

And that was my last time seeing her

**

- That day we went to visit our grandparents

and, uh, every time we go over there

we-we ride our bikes.

We would always ride around the block

and come back around to Highland,

but that day we took a left

where we weren't supposed to go.

We went to a, uh, abandoned parking lot

that had a little, uh, ramp that we can ride down.

We were not allowed to go to that parking lot

without someone with us.

But you know, kids, we don't always listen, so...

Something came over me.

I got afraid to get in trouble.

So, uh, I was telling my sister, Amber,

let's-let's go back home. Let's go back home.

She was like, "I'll be right behind you,

"just go ahead."

So, I took off.

And by the time I got home,

I noticed she wasn't behind me.

And my grandfather was outside in the garage working.

He asked me where my sister was

and so I told him, "Oh, she's over there at the ramps."

He, uh, grabbed me and put me in the truck

and we went to go look for her.

We just found her bike laying there.

And, uh...

that's where it kinda gets a little hazy.

- There was a witness to this,

his name was Jimmie Kevil. He was 78 years old.

He lived there on Ruth Street.

He described the suspect as a non-African American male,

less than six feet tall

with medium build

and clearly of sufficient strength

that he was able to pick Amber up off of the bicycle.

Amber's feet never hit the ground.

Kevil also said that he just drove

at what appeared to be

a normal speed across the parking lot.

The patrol officer pulled into the parking lot

because that's where Jimmie Kevil said

that the offense took place.

But as it turns out Jimmy Whitson was there.

He's come up there to get his granddaughter, Amber.

And there's nothing there but Amber's bicycle.

So, you've got what Jimmie Kevil told 911

and you've got what Jimmy Whitson

told the patrol officer.

The patrol officer realizes that we've got a problem here.

- I'll never forget it, telling my mom.

Mom...

My mom coming out the door

expecting all of us to-to be together

and my grandpa telling my mom that...

that her baby girl is gone,

and...

and then she lost it.

- So I immediately started running

and screaming her name,

going towards where she was last seen at.

I was just screaming and crying

and screaming and crying her name, "Amber! Amber!

"Where are you?" You know?

And a few minutes later,

the neighbors were coming outside,

wanting to know what was going on.

I immediately called Amber's father

at his best friend, Mike Thompson's home.

- I'm at home on a Saturday.

It was my day off and the telephone rang

and it was dispatch.

There was a possible child abduction

on East Abram Street in Arlington.

My mind just goes into overdrive.

Is there a family member

that's come and picked up the child?

Is there a custody issue?

Is it someone that's known to the child,

that has come and-and taken them?

That used to be a grocery store,

and the trucks would pull in and back in.

They'd deliver into the grocery store,

and then of course the ramp was for the workers

to go up and down.

Mr. Kevil lived in this residence right here.

He was in the backyard doing some yard work

and then he heard a young girl scream.

He noticed the pickup truck stopped

right there in that area,

the driver get out of the truck

and grab the girl off her bicycle.

He exited out the north side of the parking lot

and then turned to the west.

The interesting thing about going back to the west

is it's back toward town and it's more congested.

The speculation was that there was a specific place

back to the west.

If he was from out of town,

I think he would have gone to the east

and accessed off of 360 to I-30 or I-20.

- I got a call from my husband,

and he said, "Donna's looking for you.

"She says she needs your help."

So I called her at Jimmy and Glenda's house,

the grandparents' house.

And I said, Donna, what's going on?

She goes, Amber's been taken.

And my heart just sunk.

I said, Okay, I will be right there.

- My main focus was to find my baby.

I wanted to go look for her. I wanted to go.

But my parents are saying, "No, you have to stay here.

"You need to be here if she comes home."

Not too long after that,

Richard showed up at my mother's house.

- There's a lot of things moving

in the first 15 minutes of the investigation.

At the abduction site, one of the things you do

is you take stock and look around

to see what all is there,

and also specifically what isn't there.

Where that truck was sitting,

if there was any dirt that would hold a tire impression,

if the guy had smoked a cigarette,

or anything. There was none of that.

- We looked around the area,

and we noticed that there was a laundromat there

and that there were people coming and going

from the laundromat.

- On the west side of the laundromat,

which is where she was abducted from,

there are no windows,

so no one in the laundromat could see anything

that was going on.

Jimmie Kevil by far, where he was standing,

had the best vantage point.

There's no sense in everybody sitting around

that parking lot because she's not there.

- Once the call went out over the radio

that we had a child that had been abducted,

I started going all over the area,

looking for the suspect vehicle,

which was a black single cab pickup truck.

I did pull over a few black pickup trucks

in hopes that I would be able to find the suspect

and find Amber.

- In Texas, pickup trucks are everywhere.

Black pickup trucks,

you don't really realize how many of them there are

until you start looking for them.

They're everywhere.

It helps narrow things down but not much.

When you look at that area of town,

as he goes west on Abram Street,

there's a number of places where he can

get off either into a residential neighborhood

on the south side,

or one of these light industrial areas

on the north side.

- The Browning-Abram area of Arlington, Texas,

it's an area of town where people have owned their homes

sometimes for 30, 40, 50 years,

and so you have a very established group of people

that are living there.

I would not describe it as a high crime area

or a high-risk area necessarily.

- This type of abduction in Arlington

is almost unheard of.

The problem it creates for law enforcement

is you've got to be able to get it off the ground

in a rapid but deliberate manner.

There's not much room for error here.

- So I got there,

and I started going under the tape,

and of course the police were like,

"What are you doing?" They had to go ask Donna.

She goes, "No, I want her to come in."

And they were all looking at each other,

"Why is this reporter just walking into the house

"like she knows these people?"

But I did. Uh, I knew them.

I'd been living their lives with them.

We just kept documenting what was happening

and being with the family

and really showing their side of the story.

- On that day, once all the police were involved,

everyone asking me, "Did you see anything?

"Did you see anybody?

"It's very important that, you know,

"if you did see anybody, anything just tell me,

"so we can do something about it."

And I didn't have an answer.

I didn't see anybody.

- If we had only been able to get that word out immediately

then maybe somebody on that street

where he turned would have seen him immediately.

- Amber was abducted at about 3:20 in the afternoon.

Somewhere around 4:30, the police department

contacted the various media outlets

and was trying to get them there.

But what I truly wish

is that there would have been a method

that we could have got more information out faster.

- I remember I was in shorts and a T-shirt.

On January 13, even for Texas, that's not common.

It was unseasonably warm.

And I remember being at home and got a call.

They said we had a witness saw a girl get abducted.

I said, "I'm on my way."

- I drove down the streets

of this little residential neighborhood

and I could already see all these TV vans

just lined up and I remember thinking,

"Oh, my God, this is what they mean

"when they say 'media circus.'"

- Statistics show that in 74% of the cases

where an abducted child is murdered,

they're killed within the first three hours.

So time is of the essence

and getting that information out

to the public is just critical.

This was the '90s.

The fastest way that you were going to get out information

would be the 6 o'clock news.

And so, of course, there was a lag time.

- It doesn't sound like

someone that the little girl knew,

or someone that she was going with voluntarily.

- We set up a command post out by the residence

at her grandparents' house.

The media was responding, huge response.

I mean, every station as far as they could get

had Live trucks there.

One of the things we were doing

is we're trying to keep track

of who was coming to the house,

who was coming to the door,

who knew Donna, Richard and their family,

and what their relationship was.

- The police were asking me, you know,

who is in my-- in our circle,

you know, who's around us,

who's around Amber all the time?

Who's around Ricky all the time?

And so, that's when we thought about Pam,

and I was telling them about Pam Curry

and the documentary.

- This is my 1st grade group picture

and these are my friends and Ms. Riley.

- Look, what's that thing that goes on it?

- We had footage of this little girl alive

not some grainy picture that we were gonna slap up.

And back then, that's what you did

in a tragic news story like this.

That's all the family had to rely on

is to throw up a still picture.

We put together a clip reel

of some of the best identifiable footage

that I had from shooting the documentary.

- It was heart-wrenching, the video was.

I mean it was her blowing out the candles

of her birthday cake.

It was her mom putting her to bed.

It was her playing Ring Around the Rosie

out in the yard with her friends

at her birthday party.

It was her going to school.

I mean, it made her such a person.

- I read, um, 89 books.

- 89?

- I immediately thought, "Oh, my gosh, this is it.

"Someone saw that on TV and that she was targeted.

"You know, they'd seen her on TV."

And they said, "None of it's aired.

"Not one bit of it has aired."

- On the day that Amber was kidnapped,

we had finished the welfare documentary,

and it was gonna be airing the next week.

- Fairy stories. - Fairy tales.

- Fairy tales.

- I mean this just touched everyone's heart

and I thought this is the absolute best break

we could possibly get.

Because everyone's going to remember this now.

- I won't say it threw us,

but it was something that was highly unusual.

We had never been on a case where somebody had already had

a television crew following them around

taking footage of it.

And we used that footage not only to try

and give people an idea of what Amber looked like,

but also the idea of who Amber was.

- Having the footage of Amber

really showed the community

the person they needed to track down

if they see the black pickup truck

and here's what she looks like

and her mannerisms.

- That made a tremendous impact

on the community.

- Eventually there were just cameras everywhere.

Everywhere I turned there was a camera in my face.

Don't hurt my baby. Please.

She's just an innocent child.

Please. Please bring her home safe.

Please.

- If anybody out there's seen anything,

call the police, tell them, let them know.

- I was on every camera I could find

begging, "Please, let my little girl go."

You know, she's smart.

She could find her way home, just let her go.

I didn't eat, I couldn't sleep,

I couldn't do anything but watch the TV,

beg for him to let her come back home.

- Just waiting for her to come in the door

any minute now, which is hard.

- It was just a lot of sitting and waiting

and just gut-wrenching.

It was a helplessness, a hopeful still.

But she couldn't do anything but just be there.

What started out as a welfare documentary

that was really focused on Donna and Amber and Ricky,

turned into a real true-crime documentary.

- We started getting tips and leads on Amber's abduction

almost immediately.

As soon as it hit the news,

people started calling in with leads.

- What's your name again?

- We never anticipated the number of leads

and calls from the general public

that we were going to get.

- And then they were also talking to anybody

who they considered to be, you know,

involved with the family,

which included me and my photographers.

- The people from the television affiliate,

they had quite a bit of footage of her, and of course,

one of the things you've got to do

in any investigation is find out who they are

because at that particular time everybody is a suspect.

- It was still a little intimidating

that you had to go through that.

But you wanted to do what you could to help.

- We identified who they were

and interviewed several of them.

There was no question in our mind

that whoever took her had nothing to do

with that television crew.

- I am hopeful.

I pray all the time that the little girl won't be hurt.

That's all we got to live on right now is prayer.

- I have a five-year-old and a 20-month-old

and I just-- I can't imagine it.

- I think she's probably really, really scared.

- I'm just sitting tight.

I don't know what to do.

You know, I want to help and I want to go get her

but I can't get her.

You know, I don't know where she's at.

- It was like, I think, you know,

two or three weeks prior to

but we didn't get along at that time

so we did mostly just phone conversations.

- I met Richard that night when Amber was kidnapped.

It was a little bit of a tense situation

because he didn't know what I was doing.

He was a little leery of that, as I'm sure anybody would be

but we just kept doing what we'd been doing

for so many months.

- No, no. It-it wasn't abusive.

You know, I may have yelled.

I may have yelled in the past,

but my dad yelled at me and he yelled a-at my mom.

That's two people trying to work something out.

- One of the things that is critical

in the opening phases of the investigation

is to try and establish the family dynamics.

Amber's gone but we don't know who took her.

- Richard and I, at the time, we were battling

and we were not getting along.

And he was angry with me for leaving him.

- Nowadays standards, an argument is-is violence.

And that's not-- to me, that's not true.

An argument's an argument.

- All of these investigative things

come into play.

It's not a very kind world to live in.

The dad's out of the picture, where was he?

Who does he know?

You have to just suspect anything

**

- We're both innocent.

I mean, there's no reason for us to harm our child.

We want our child back. We want our child found.

- Friends and family continue to post notices

and seek clues in the search for Amber.

- We're more upset because there's nothing we can do.

Nobody knows anything. That's the thing.

We can't do anything. You don't know where to look.

- Day three, we did not have an individual identified.

Of course, in any investigation like this

you start at the core and work out.

- Less than one percent of child abduction cases

in the United States, are stranger abductions,

children who are taken by someone that they do not know.

The majority of the cases in this country

are family abductions.

- We're trying to identify Richard's movements

for January the 13th.

He told us that-- in the afternoon

that he went down to the mini warehouse,

going to one of the stalls.

- And we got him on surveillance video

not a care in the world,

no idea that anything amiss had happened

but we went down to the mini warehouse

and searched it anyway

and of course there was nothing there.

- So without a doubt, we were able to

eliminate Richard as a suspect,

because of him being on video at another location,

and he physically could not have been at the location

to abduct his daughter.

- For a split second, I did think

Richard might have had something to do with it.

Once Richard got there, when I seen him face-to-face

and how much shock he was in that Amber was taken

and how confused he was, how can this happen,

and I knew right then and there

that he had nothing to do with it.

- I will say this for him, that when he was interviewed

he bared his soul.

I mean he just, anything we asked he told us

because he didn't want us wasting time on that.

And the best way to get away from that

is to tell us anything and everything we need to know.

- Amber, baby, if you're seeing me,

if you hear Daddy, we love you,

Mommy loves you. Miss you,

we need you-- need you to come home.

- I remember thinking that that must have been

so hard for her.

Given that theirs had not been, from what she told me,

an amicable parting.

And so I think she just kept focused on

what needed to be done.

And she didn't really let any of that get in her way.

- I did love him at one point

and he is the father of my two children.

I think he knew in his mind that he--

he should be there

and he should help support me a-and Ricky.

- It's very typical for law enforcement

to immediately interview the family

after a child abduction case.

And then quickly eliminate them and then work on other people

that may have had some sort of interaction

with the child.

- Even though you have every indication,

at least initially that this was a stranger abduction,

it doesn't mean that you can just walk away

from other potential leads.

- One of the other things that we look at

is the friends of the family.

In this case there was a man named Mike Thompson.

- There were people that immediately

voiced suspicion about him

when they heard what had happened

that there might be some involvement there.

- We're going to take Mr. Thompson with us for a while

and we're going to talk to him some more.

- Mike Thompson was frequently part--

part of kind of the family outings

and things like that.

He kind of held himself out to be a family spokesperson

if needed.

- You're here and you're not hearing anything.

It's frustrating and for Donna it's more frustrating

than to the rest of us.

- Especially in high profile crime,

if we've got someone who is trying to

actively insert themselves into the investigation,

one of the first things I want to know is, why?

One of the things that we learned

in interviewing Mike Thompson

is that he also drove a black truck.

- I've got a black truck so, you know,

they automatically they have to look.

I welcome the-the opportunity to, uh, you know,

do whatever is necessary

to show 'em that they're looking

**

- We've got certainly a group of potential suspects

we've identified and people that we're checking on,

but whether one of those is an actual suspect

or not it's too early to say.

- When Amber was abducted, there were a lot of people

coming in and going

and I was just kind of looking at people.

You know, do you know where my baby is?

I wanted answers. I wanted my baby back home.

- Police are still talking with family and friends,

most recently Mike Thompson.

Amber's father stays with Thompson,

who also drives a black pickup truck.

- Now, how do you know Richard and Donna?

- I mean, we've just always been,

not just a working relationship, but you know,

our friendship develops and, uh, you're there for each other.

- When you heard the description was a black truck,

did-did you suddenly have the reaction of,

"Oh, why did it have to be a black truck?"

- I mean, everybody's focusing on it now,

but you know, I got people, oh, there's a black truck

and I'm going, the funny part about it,

when I first got here on the scene,

the first thing Saturday afternoon,

there's cops all over here.

And I'm never once questioned.

I'm never once asked about my black truck,

never, until sometime late Sunday.

- Mike Thompson drove a delivery truck

and delivered auto parts.

And every time he made a delivery,

there was a time stamp.

And on January the 13th,

he was 30 minutes, 45 minutes away.

- The other part about it was,

Mike Thompson was friends with Richard.

If he wanted to get Amber in the car with him,

all he had to do would've been just pull up and ask her.

- Had it been someone that she knew,

why do the blitz attack?

There was no attempt at all to engage Amber in conversation

according to Jimmie Kevil.

That's another reason why we believe that

it was a stranger,

someone that was unknown to Amber.

This type of abduction is rare.

And of course, on one hand that's good because, you know,

it means the community's a little safer.

On the other hand, the case incensed the community.

- This took over pretty much every aspect

of the city and community.

It was all about Amber.

It wasn't just her neighborhood.

It was the entire city just covered in pink bows.

You saw them all over trees and street signs.

It was all anyone could talk about.

- The community really cared about my little girl

and what happened to her.

The waiting's really killing me.

It's hard to wait.

But I know I have to keep strong for my little girl.

- I just hope she's okay and she can come back real soon.

We-we all miss her a lot.

- How could they not see something?

Look how busy this street is!

- You see the fear in their eyes and as a detective,

as an investigator, as a police officer,

it's very frustrating

because you want to be able to take that fear way.

You want to be able to solve that crime.

- We knew that a task force needed to be formed

that could control the leads and tips

as far as making sure that each one was looked at.

But again, not doubling the effort.

- We were a freestanding task force.

We had 15 detectives that they had dedicated to us.

I needed people who were very good

at interview and interrogation,

who had a very strong attention to detail.

They didn't let little things slip by them.

And I needed people that did not know

the meaning of the word quit.

- While we were still looking for Amber,

these teams of detectives and FBI agents

were going out contacting registered sex offenders.

- This unit that has come to town

has a tremendous amount of expertise

in child abduction cases and that is why they're here.

- We assume that because she was 9 years old

and it was a female

that there's a sexual component to this,

and it's what drove the investigation.

- We started looking at sex offenders

who had offended against girls in the age range of seven to 12

and then you expand out from there.

- We actually mapped this out on a grid to make sure that

we had contacted every resident, if possible.

When we interviewed people, we'd find out,

did they live there with a family?

Is it a single male that lives there alone

that could potentially be a suspect?

- We have every reason to believe that

this individual may have committed this crime before.

- You have a high risk grab right there

in the middle of that parking lot, you know,

in my mind I just kind of felt like

maybe he had done this before.

And, of course, it was also a concern

that he might do it again in the future.

- We're just trying not to give up hope

and trying to be strong for Amber.

- Arlington Police...

- Would she be willing to talk to me?

- You don't have the-the luxury of dismissing anything.

Every lead had to be looked at, no matter how far-fetched

or improbable that it was.

- I remember helicopters overhead,

and I remember officers with dogs

going through the park.

Every time they got one of those tips

and they went out, you were like,

"Okay, is this it?

Are they finally going to find her?"

- I think they're working as hard as they can

and I think they're doing all they can to get Amber home.

- Give them peace.

Give them hope that it will end in a happy reunion.

- I didn't know what to do.

All I knew I wanted to do is get my little girl home.

I worried about her the whole time.

You know, is she going to get fed?

Is she being taken care of? Is she warm?

Is she cold?

- The days go on, the hours go on,

and you don't have to know much about child abduction statistics

to know that every second works against you.

Not just every minute or every hour,

but every second works against you.

The chances of finding a child alive

diminish dramatically as time goes on.

**

- Wednesday evening, this spring-like thunderstorm

came through and dropped the temperature.

I mean for as warm as it was, it turned off

just bitterly cold out of the north.

But as the front moved through, which it does

typically in Texas when cold air meets warm air,

we have bad, bad storms.

- I received a phone call at about 11:30 at night

at my residence.

Dispatch informed me that a body had been found

in Arlington.

I was the first investigative person

that was on the scene.

Patrol was there, and crime scene was there.

- We don't know that much at this point

and we want to be very, very cautious about

the information that we're putting out.

- I walked down to the creek bed and I noticed

a young white female's body that was floating,

but was caught up in the brush.

- The police are saying it's too hard to tell,

you know, who it is.

- My husband said it was a female.

She's buck-naked. She's face down.

He said it was a female.

- Why has the lead investigator on the Amber Hagerman case

been called here?

- Well, I mean, he's one of our lead homicide investigators

and, you know, we're certainly,

we're certainly sensitive to the fact that

we've located a body that needs to be identified.

I mean, I don't want to alarm anyone at this point,

but we're certainly sensitive to the fact that--

that it could be Amber

and we're just not in a position to say yet.

- Has the family been notified in any way?

- Uh, we have people en route over to the--

to the residence now to notify them

that we have located a-a body.

- My name is Derrelynn Perryman,

and I was the Victim Assistance Coordinator

for the Arlington Police Department

during the Amber case.

I go into the house and touch base with the family.

I had been given instructions that we weren't going to be able

to positively identify the child that was found

until they completed the crime scene investigation.

- I had been with the family all day

and I got in bed

and I had hardly touched the sheets

before the phone rang.

And I picked up the phone

and it was my assistant news director.

And he said, Pam, they found a body.

So I immediately headed back to the house,

and went straight in with my photographer.

- We were all really watching the news,

and they kept talking about this little body they found.

- So Edie Kocher and her husband

who found the body, Stuart Kocher,

are at least themselves convinced that

what he saw was the body of a young girl.

Police are not so convinced.

- So we sat in their living room and they had the news on

all night long.

- It was over and over and over,

a child's body has been found.

It's probably Amber. It's probably Amber.

And so, you can imagine how agonizing

that was to just sit there and listen to that.

[indistinct TV chatter]

- News 8 Now, the spirit of Texas.

- We interrupt this program to bring you

the following News 8 Special Report.

- Arlington Police Department came to the house this evening

to tell the family that a body had been found.

Amber's father also is here at the house with the family.

- I was watching this on the news

in my parents' home with my parents.

And that was hard.

- ...family friend who has been here

throughout the whole ordeal,

as well as Amber's mother, who is looking quite distraught.

- It was an excruciating night.

And no, I wasn't her family.

I felt like I understood,

and I was having some of those same emotions.

I didn't want it to be her. Nobody did.

- ...saw a little girl riding her bike

and then a black pickup pulled up next to her

and yanked her off that bike.

- I was in contact with Mike Simonds,

and he said it was probably Amber,

but we needed to be sure, and we didn't want to tell them

until we had confirmed that it was actually her.

So, I talked with the family. I explained that to them.

- At this point I'm told

you've got a couple hours to rest

if you can even just close your eyes

for a couple of minutes. It's gonna help a little bit.

- I was there for several hours and then my pager went off

and I went out to the car.

I did have a cell phone, and Mike Simonds said,

Yes, you know, we've identified it's her.

Um, they identified some birthmarks.

And then he said, "And you have five minutes

to tell the family before we announce it to the media.

[distant screaming]

- There was a-a scream and a cry

that I will never forget.

[sobbing softly]

- That was really, really hard.

You know, just my mom and my dad crying

and my dad never cries.

- From all visual that we can see,

from the description that we've got

and from the photographs that we've seen,

we feel that this tentatively is going to be

the body of Amber Hagerman.

- We are in the process of notifying the family as such.

We are stressing to them and I want to stress to all of you,

that a positive identification will be made

by the Medical Examiner's Office...

- Just the agony of knowing that yes, that was her

and she was gone.

You just can't even describe it.

[sobbing]

- You know, very little to go on

**

- We decided pretty early on that we're gonna have to

not air the welfare documentary,

which was due to air on Thursday.

And actually, that was the day we found out she was found.

- When they confirmed it was Amber's body,

and, you know, it's everybody's screaming

and crying and news media is everywhere.

The police had put the yellow tape

around my parents' front yard.

It was horrible that day.

And still I'm in denial. No, this is not my baby.

I want to see my baby from my own eyes.

I wanted to touch my baby. I wanted to talk to my baby.

And I did not-- no I did not believe it.

- Immediately, of course,

Donna wanted to go and be with Amber,

and as a mom,

I could certainly identify with that.

If I hadn't been able to put my hands on my child

for several days because they were missing,

that would be the first thing I would want to do too.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office

doesn't allow people to visit.

We contacted the medical examiner's office,

and of course,

they-they did the autopsy priority

because we knew that it was just urgent.

You know, she really, really needed to be with Amber.

- Now we have a homicide.

First order of business is you shift into high gear

thinking, "Okay, what have we got?"

It started off Saturday.

Now we're over here on Thursday.

We found Amber dead in this creek three miles away.

Why?

- So right now, we're pulling into

the apartment complex and we're going towards the creek

that runs north and south along the west side

of the apartment complex.

The first time that I came out here,

it made me realize that the suspect must have known

that this apartment complex and the creek were here.

It just doesn't seem likely that a suspect

would just randomly drive into this complex

and then just happen upon a creek

to leave her body in.

- The night that Amber's body was found,

there were thousands and thousands of gallons of water

that washed over her body.

Based on the condition of her body,

we think that she was put in very close to

if not exactly where her body was found.

There were not injuries or anything like that

that would be indicative of her traveling a long way

in the water, hitting rocks, hitting branches,

and all the things that you would expect to see

if she had been put in the water

a long ways from where she was found.

- It was a large apartment complex

and there was a main gate.

To the west of that main gate, there was another entrance.

It, too, had a gate.

At the time of Amber's abduction and her recovery,

that gate was broken.

So there was unfettered access into and out of

the apartment complex through that gate.

There was a video camera at the main entrance.

On the night that Amber's body was recovered,

the wind and the rain, it was shaking the camera

and it took visibility down to where we couldn't see very well.

- You can see vehicles coming and going,

and you do see a dark truck that enters the complex,

but the video just wasn't clear enough

to be able to determine whether or not

that was the suspect vehicle.

- There was nothing on that video

that we could use to identify a suspect.

One of our beliefs was that the suspect was familiar with

not only the abduction site but the disposal site as well.

And that's another one of the reasons

why we believed that he was probably a local resident.

- Only portion that was submerged

was from her shoulders up. And maybe-maybe an arm.

And so I ran back to the house,

and, uh, went through the front door,

a-and yelled at my wife Edie, I found her.

I found Amber.

- Stuart Kocher was the witness

that found Amber's body that night.

His statement was that after the storm

had passed through the area

that he took his dog out for a walk.

His dog went down to the creek bed area

and began barking.

Then he saw Amber's body.

- And because there'd been so much coverage

of Amber being missing and everybody trying to find her,

his immediate thought was, That's probably her.

- You ask all sorts of questions like

"Did you talk to anybody while you were going out

to go on this walk? What'd you do before that?"

If he was involved in it, then obviously,

you're worried about what happened

from the abduction time to the discovery of the body.

There wasn't anything in his story

that was inconsistent.

He was finally eliminated by a polygraph.

- We're just going to question people

to see what they saw and what they observed.

- We began a canvas, multiple FBI agents,

and we had multiple Arlington PD detectives there.

- We want to know who the maintenance people are.

Who is doing the landscaping at the apartments?

What independent contractors they have.

- We went door to door.

Before it was over with we were at

every single apartment in that complex.

- We didn't find any additional witnesses.

No one admitted to seeing anyone parking

and carrying anything down through the playground

into the culvert area either that night

or any of the days leading up to that.

- I didn't believe that that was Amber.

I said that's not my baby. My baby's not dead.

You know, I want to go see my daughter.

Take me to my little girl. I want to hold my little girl.

I want to see for myself, with my own eyes,

that this is my little girl.

And they kept telling me, no I can't

'cause they had to do the autopsy

and that she was so disfigured so they had to

cover her wounds up so I wouldn't see that.

And they said I didn't want to see her the way she was.

And I told them, you know, I don't care.

I want to see my little girl.

I want to hold my little girl.

So I didn't get to see her or hold her,

until the next day.

And they took me to the funeral home

and I got to kiss her and hold her hand

and told her that everything's okay,

you know, Mommy's here.

So they told me I could hold her hands

and touch her little face and that was it.

But I so wanted to, you know,

pick her up and hold her and...

[crying]

Yeah.

- Amber had a very severe laceration

to her throat from one side to the other.

Um, it was a-- a very severe cut,

very violent cut.

- You've got all this damage

to her throat and neck area

but not necessarily a tremendous amount of damage

elsewhere on the body.

- One of the things that we saw right away

was that there was no indication

of a sexual assault to Amber's body.

Just because there's not evidence of a sexual assault

doesn't mean that there was not a sexual component to it.

- You can't escape at least the theory

that the act of killing Amber was what provided

a sexual release for the suspect.

- There were some very, very early signs

of decomposition that were identified

that would be more consistent with the idea

of her being killed Tuesday going into Wednesday.

- There was no signs of torture.

There was no signs of restraint.

No defensive wounds that we could see.

The question now becomes, all right,

where was she being kept alive,

who did this, how did he hang on to her?

[church bells ringing]

- We wonder what kind of monster

could commit such a horrible deed.

- Well over 2,000 people showed up to her funeral.

- It was standing room only.

There were so many people there.

Because this had just touched a community

like you can only imagine.

- And it's just so overwhelming.

And, and as a mom you're trying to grieve

for your little girl.

**

- Really the last thing I remember

is just the funeral.

Not really when they found her body.

Just-- I just remember the funeral.

At 5 years old I didn't know what death was.

I was telling her, Wake up, Sissy, wake up.

It's time to get up.

- To me, I just wanted to take my baby and just run.

You know, I got my kids.

You know, it-- that little part of me

wanted to do that.

- I attended the funeral.

It was to go to observe the participants

and see if anything looked unusual,

if anyone acted inappropriately,

if someone just looked out of place.

- Sometimes a suspect will want to go to the funeral

just to see what's going on.

Of course the issue with Amber's funeral

is there were lots of people there.

This wasn't a family affair.

- We put surveillance inside

and at the graveside during the services,

and then we also had people surveilling

the outer perimeter around the area

to see if someone was on the outskirts,

possibly observing from a distance.

- We felt like we had to do anything and everything

that could possibly provide new information

and lead to the suspect that killed Amber.

**

- My parents were, with every newscast,

asking for help, putting out information

to bring justice to their daughter.

- It makes me mad because I don't know.

I want to know. I want to know now.

- Donna had been on camera with us for a while

but there was a change in her demeanor

as the days wore on.

- I'm just slowly, surely losing all my hope

that they're gonna find him.

- We were hopeful early on of course

that there were more witnesses

and that people would come forward.

And we've just been tremendously frustrated

by that fact that this, this abduction

occurred in broad daylight on a very busy street

on a Saturday afternoon and no one saw anything.

- We would hold two briefings daily for the press

to keep the information flowing.

And there were many times

I didn't haven't anything new to say

but I went in there and did it anyway.

- Okay, describe the truck to me.

- We certainly felt like we had to keep this,

this case, of all cases, in the public eye.

We followed thousands of leads.

Not just hundreds but thousands.

- We've got a couple of tips that, uh,

on vehicular traffic and some people

that were seen in the area.

- There were calls coming in on a regular basis

of people that thought they'd seen her,

thought they'd seen the suspect.

- Now those leads ranged from everything

from I saw a black pickup

to specific suspects that were named right away.

- There was a woman that came forward

and said that she had seen the entire abduction.

- The witness went so far as to describe the Ford Splash

as well as a partial license plate number

that she thought she remembered.

And she saw Amber

in the passenger seat of this truck,

and Amber was banging on the back window

**

- We really hadn't had any good leads

and a woman came forward though at that point

and said she had a partial license tag.

- Because she gave a much more specific description

of the pickup truck,

we developed a whole investigative strategy

that was kind of based around what she said.

- Everybody on the task force is excited.

We finally got the detail that will lead us to the suspect.

- At that point in time, we had been working

with the Ford Motor Company,

and they came up with a list of potential trucks

with a partial plate that had been sold

in this geographic area that matched

that general description of that truck.

- Detectives end up finding a potential suspect,

and he actually lives in Arlington

within the range

of where the suspect would have gone.

- My hopes were really up high

and finally we're going to get justice for Amber

and we can close this chapter

and it's all going to be done with.

- Now we think we've finally got the break that we need.

The man cooperated

and let detectives search his house

and there was nothing whatsoever to indicate

that he was a suspect in it.

After this happened, the detectives went back

to contact the witness

and basically go over the whole story

again with her.

And they started putting two and two together,

and it just wasn't adding up.

The information that she was providing us

really wasn't matching

what we had been able to corroborate.

We interviewed her again,

and then she finally admits to us

that she didn't know anything

and she just made it up.

- She made the story up

because she felt so bad for Donna

and the lack of a break in the case

that she just wanted to do anything

that she could to help her.

And I know how that sounds, but for some reason,

this lady thought that this would be helpful to Donna

and make Donna more hopeful

that a suspect was gonna be found.

- She thought that giving us that type of information

might spur us on some sort of renewed energy

into the investigation.

But instead what she did was she cost us time

and she cost us man-hours.

And quite frankly, she pissed me off.

- We had a lot of people

that would come up with false information

just to bring Amber's case back up.

It was very frustrating, not just for me,

for the police as well.

- Prosecuting her for making a false statement

wasn't going to help us any.

I wanted to keep everybody focused on Amber.

- We felt very early on

that it was a stranger abduction.

You know, every sign pointed to that.

We'd beg for someone to come forward that knew anything.

Just another tool in the toolbox

trying to use it to get some help.

Everything that happened along the way

was just a step-by-step situation

where we were just frustrated at every turn.

And it-it was tough. It was very tough.

- A couple of weeks after I buried Amber,

I just assumed, you know, You're the police.

You're going to solve this.

You're going to be able to come and tell me

who murdered-- who butchered my little girl.

And there was just no evidence.

- How do you feel about the fact

that they haven't found somebody?

- I'm frustrated. Angry.

You know, why can't they find this man?

How hard can this be, you know?

'Course I was frustrated, angry,

'cause they couldn't find my little girl.

And, now I'm frustrated and angry

'cause they can't find him that did this to her.

- Donna became convinced that whoever took Amber

had done something like this or similar to this before.

And it just angered her that they were still out there

and that they could have done it again.

- From the moment that Amber was abducted

and the anguish Donna was going through,

over the course of time,

she turned that into a drive,

a sense to make a difference

and to give the police greater tools.

Not every family that has an abducted child

will then turn their energy into advocacy.

Donna was going to fight for Amber

and she was going to make sure

that this would not happen to any other child.

- City council meetings were all about Amber.

You would have hundreds of people

going up there wanting to talk.

School board meetings, the same thing.

- There are 77 million parents out there

who want their children to be safe.

All we have to do is organize.

All we have to do is work together.

All we have to do is send a message.

- Donna, her life is open to the public,

period, at this point, because of what happened.

- The important thing

as we followed this path

that really had been set out for us

was that we tell what it was really like

to live through something like this.

It's usually very personal

but Donna was willing to share that with everybody.

- This is Donna Whitson.

- When Amber was abducted,

I was still going to medical school

so I took a leave of absence.

-I had to finish for her.

And I did.

- You see her going from devastating grief

of losing that child and dealing with that reality

to the other end of the spectrum

and was able to continue on for Amber.

- Why is it taking so long?

It shouldn't take that long, you know?

Why can't you find this black truck?

Why can't you find this monster?

- The whole room was just packed full

of all this stuff about Amber's case.

And it was like, wow, this is overwhelming.

- When Amber was taken a lot of people said

if we could have just gotten the word out

there would probably be a better chance

that she could have been found.

- It is the desperate search for this little 9 year old

and time is of the essence.

And so, tell everybody in the community this has happened,

give them information, the photographs, the video,

here's the suspect vehicle

and then really engage to get everybody to help search.

- I think that was in a lot of peoples' minds

is, Can we do this? How can we do this,

and how can we put that into action?

Diana Simone was one of those people who could see that

that was a good possibility.

- I am Diana Simone,

and I am resident of Fort Worth, Texas.

I rarely, if ever, watched the news.

But the TV was on, and as I passed by it,

I noticed what appeared to be somebody's home video was on.

There's such a different emotional reaction

when you see a child opening presents

and riding a bike and waving and smiling

than you do just a flat picture.

This child becomes very real to you.

Then to hear this horrifying situation had taken place,

you just immediately think

what her mother must be feeling.

In Amber's case, she was taken around 4:00.

It was 6:00 or 6:30 when I saw it.

So two and half hours had already passed

before the public became aware of what was going on.

I called the radio station and I said,

"I'm calling about the Amber Hagerman case."

And she said, "Do you have any information?"

And I said, "No, I don't, but I do have an idea."

- So often when children were being taken

it was by a suspect in a vehicle,

put the child in a vehicle, they drive off.

So wouldn't it be great if there was a way

to let everybody know about it,

so that they could be your eyes and ears on the street

looking for that suspect vehicle.

Looking for that suspect. Looking for that child.

Arlington Police and this group of radio station managers

ended up getting together, and formulating this plan

for this emergency broadcast alert

that they would put out.

And it would have a loud, obnoxious sound.

It was gonna go out on the radio stations

and would alert people that there'd been a child abduction,

give them information like where did it happen,

what does the suspect look like,

what is the suspect driving.

- It's so simple, it's brilliant,

because the whole idea is to be able

to get out to the public information that they can use

to provide us with actionable intelligence.

A description of suspect.

Description of vehicle. License plate.

Something that they could work with.

- It's a real partnership. It's a partnership

between law enforcement and broadcasters

to work together when time is critical

on a serious child abduction case.

- Today we're unveiling the Amber Plan.

[applause]

- I encourage all radio stations to participate in this

because it is a great idea

and it will get information out that we need

to get a little girl or a little boy home.

- Some staggering percentage of people

had their radio on when they were in the car.

And so we thought if we could get it across

all the radio stations in Dallas-Fort Worth,

just think how many eyes we'd have out looking for the kids.

And so it just worked like a charm

as far as getting people to say, Yes.

And then Rae-Leigh Bradbury comes along.

- We got a call that there was a missing baby

by the name of Rae-Leigh.

- We were living in Arlington throughout my whole pregnancy.

I knew everybody.

I loved everybody.

And I had this little lady, she's as cute as could be.

Her name was Sandra Fallis.

I thought of her as a friend.

And I trusted her.

So that's why I felt like that it was a good choice

that I let her become my babysitter.

- I drop her off that morning in a little onesie nighty.

And then her diaper bag full.

And then just do a normal 8-hour workday.

- And then when evening came time

and the babysitter was supposed to show up with her,

she-- they didn't show up.

- I didn't think she was kidnapped.

That's not a word that I would even associate.

No local hospitals had heard of any wrecks

or anything like that.

And then finally I just decided to call 9-1-1.

I'm like, "My babysitter hasn't brought my baby home."

Basically a policeman came up

and he was like taking the report and stuff.

- And we started talking about,

"Well is this, is this the time we should do this?"

We felt like, Okay, you know, something's got to happen.

We've got to get this baby back.

I remember calling the police chief,

I'm getting ready to do this.

- They were like, "We're going to use this thing

called the Amber Alert."

- This is an activation of the Amber Alert system

at the request of the Arlington Police Department.

Arlington Police say a child,

a 2-month-old white female baby has been kidnapped.

The baby's name is Rae-Leigh Ann Bradbury.

Police believe the victim was abducted by her babysitter,

Sandra Joyce Fallis, a white female,

42 years of age, 5'3", 135 pounds,

with black hair, brown eyes and driving a turquoise

1993 Ford Ranger Splash pickup truck.

- It literally was like 30 minutes.

**

- Guy driving down the highway next to her,

looking in the vehicle,

"I see the baby sitting on the front seat!

"In her car seat."

- So we got a patrol officer out there.

Pulled her over, got the baby.

- I was in the car driving home and I was elated.

I was absolutely elated.

I mean there were just, there are no words, you know.

Because you're just like, "Oh, my God, it's working.

"It's absolutely working."

- When I was finally able to hold her,

it was a relief.

It was just an overwhelming relief.

I didn't want to let her go.

I was not going to let her go.

- It couldn't have happened any better.

So yeah, a happy ending

to a thing rooted in a terrible tragedy.

- That was awesome. Me and my mom,

we just kinda looked up in heaven and said,

"You did it, girl."

- I've said how much

Amber Hagerman has meant to me.

And it's true to this day,

I wouldn't be here without her.

I used to call her my guardian angel.

I used to pray to her, just like little prayers

like, "Thank you for this day",

like, "Thanks for watching over me."

- Every time I hear a Amber Alert,

I say to myself, "It's time to go to work, Sis.

"Do your thing."

I just wish that

Amber had something in place at the time.

- It's bittersweet.

What if we had a Amber Alert when Amber was missing?

Could it have saved her life?

- Once other areas across the country

heard about the program, they said,

"We're going to set one up in our town."

- Within weeks of us activating Amber,

I was receiving calls

and other people were receiving calls from around Texas

and from around the United States on,

"Okay, how do you do this?"

I would walk them through the process

that we went through in developing

the relationships with their radio stations,

and actually putting it in place

and getting it up and running.

- We have a critical time

that we have to get this information out

to galvanize the community,

to get their ears and eyes looking everywhere

for the child, for the vehicle.

It was exciting to see the programs popping up

around the country,

and it was in 2000

that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

said, "You know what, we should take this national."

- And then to just see it just explode.

It just becomes this phenomenon and it works.

- Ladies and Gentlemen,

the President of the United States.

- President Bush signed on

and said, you know, "I support this."

And he designated a National Amber Alert Coordinator

at the Department of Justice.

- Amber Hagerman, whose mom is with us today,

a good Texan I might add...

[applause]

Was 9 years old

when she was taken away from her parents.

We are acting today in her memory

and in the memory of so many other girls and boys

who lost their lives and innocence

in acts of cruelty.

And now it is my honor

to sign the Protect Act of 2003.

- That was sort of the crowning moment,

and I get chills,

because everybody's work had paid off.

[applause]

- It was nerve-wracking, but I was still really proud

because the President is talking about my little girl.

And I was able to talk to him

about my little girl and what happened to her.

- Donna really evolved.

She turned her grief and anger

into advocacy.

She's been a champion of the Amber Alert program

the entire time

and she knows that,

you know, this is her daughter's legacy.

- Tragedy struck this community

January 13, 1996.

Our resolve to solve this case

has not wavered.

- Anytime there's an anniversary of her abduction and murder,

and there's a press conference or a memorial,

we have a bunch of community members

come out in support of the family.

- This case is personal to me

because I've been involved in some aspect

since the day that Amber was abducted.

In 2010, I became the lead detective.

And I had the case from then until 2018

when I promoted to Sergeant.

At that time Detective Grant Gildon

took over as the lead detective.

- Actually, I was a sophomore in high school

when, when this case happened.

And I remember hearing of the Amber Alert

and that it was named after a young girl

that was kidnapped and murdered.

It wasn't until I was applying

with the Arlington Police Department

that I became aware that

the case originated in Arlington, Texas.

I saw just how passionate they were

about trying to solve Amber's case.

Then it, it really struck me that

that was something I wanted to help contribute to.

The figure we gave of 5,500.

That's the number of leads the Amber Hagerman Task Force

investigated between February of '96

and June of '97.

Current to date, we've investigated over 7,000.

- The 25th year anniversary is just another year with,

with no answers, no justice, and we want that to change.

We want justice. That's our goal.

That's-that's what we need. Our family needs closure.

- One of the major, um, issues with a case

that is a long-term case like this

is that, you know, people forget about it.

But Amber's killer is out there somewhere.

**

**

- After 25 years, of course it gets frustrating at times

because we want to solve the case

and we want answers for Amber's family.

But as homicide detectives

we never let that frustration get to us

to the point of quitting.

- Recently, there was some new technology

that I became aware of

that we thought was relevant to some of the evidence

that we've maintained in this case.

We've started to discuss the possibility

of testing some of the evidence we have

that we hope can produce DNA in this case.

- With Amber,

there is just not much trace evidence at all.

- The main question when determining

what evidence to test

and what kind of testing to do

is thinking about the quantity of the evidence

and whether or not you're going to use up

or consume all of the potential DNA

while doing the testing.

- Is it worth the risk of destroying all the evidence

in the testing process?

Or is it something we should wait a few months to test

because of the advancements in the technology

that are taking place very rapidly?

- The motivating factor for me is thinking of Amber's mother

and also Amber's brother and- and how he has grown up

and just wanting answers from that day.

I believe that the person who kidnapped

and murdered Amber Hagerman is still alive.

If we continue to work this case,

we will be able to bring them to justice.

I also believe there are people out there

who know the details about what happened.

That's why continue to take every lead

and investigate it as thoroughly as possible

in hopes that one of these leads

will eventually lead us to the killer.

- Hold me up, Daddy.

Here we go.

- Aw, don't cry.

- Aw.

Hi baby, hello.

- This is my daughter little Gracie Rene Hagerman.

So we gave her Amber's middle name, Rene.

She was actually born on the same day as Amber,

November 25th, and in the same hour.

- My son is happy.

I want to cry every time I see my son

because he is so happy.

He is in a good place now.

Makes my heart good to see him happy.

So life is okay now.

- Oh, my gosh. How are you doing?

- It's so good to see you.

- It's good to see you, too.

There was a little bit of nervousness

about how she would feel and I would feel

after so long a time.

But when I saw her it was one of those situations

where you felt like no time had passed away at all.

It's such an honor to have been a part

of what happened and where we are today.

And I know that Donna wants to continue

to look at that every time a child is saved,

that that makes a difference to her.

And it makes a difference to me, too.

- The main reason why I'm doing this documentary today

is to kind of let people know

what kind of little girl Amber was.

She's always helping other little children

and, and taking care of children.

And she always took care of her little brother.

So this is just another way for her to do that.

She's still doing what she loved.

She was not just a victim. She was my daughter.

She was somebody. She is somebody still today.

**

**

**