July 1, 2025 • 37 mins
On this episode of Navigating Advocacy, we speak with Marty, mother of 39-year-old Amber Arnette, who vanished in Lansing, Michigan, in June 2023. Amber was a loyal, nurturing caregiver known for her generosity and devotion to family—especially her niece. Despite her spontaneous nature, her sudden disappearance sparked deep concern.
Marty’s relentless efforts to find her daughter have been met with delays, jurisdictional confusion, and an alarming lack of urgency from law enforcement. From the last confirmed sighting at a local Dollar Tree to troubling rumors and ignored leads, Marty and her family have done more than authorities to push the search forward.
This is a story about more than a missing person. It’s about a mother’s love, a family left with unanswered questions, and a system that’s fallen short.
🚨 Have information? Contact the Lansing Police Department at (517) 483-4600.
📢 Follow and share: [Help Us Find Amber Facebook Page]
❤️ Support our work: Leave a 5-star review and subscribe.
Marty’s relentless efforts to find her daughter have been met with delays, jurisdictional confusion, and an alarming lack of urgency from law enforcement. From the last confirmed sighting at a local Dollar Tree to troubling rumors and ignored leads, Marty and her family have done more than authorities to push the search forward.
This is a story about more than a missing person. It’s about a mother’s love, a family left with unanswered questions, and a system that’s fallen short.
🚨 Have information? Contact the Lansing Police Department at (517) 483-4600.
📢 Follow and share: [Help Us Find Amber Facebook Page]
❤️ Support our work: Leave a 5-star review and subscribe.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
You're listening to Navigating Advocacy, a podcast that gives voice
to the silence, hope to the heartbroken, and pressure to
the systems that fail far too many.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'm Melissa and I'm Whitney. One of my favorite parts
of this journey is the opportunities we have to get
to meet so many people and hear stories of their
loved ones. We know about the story we're sharing today
because of Advocacy. Con Marty was a recipient of a
scholarship through our nonprofit Impact Advocacy Foundation, and while we
(01:00):
didn't have the opportunity to chat in person at the conference,
we are honored to now be able to learn about
her daughter Amber and Navigate Advocacy alongside her.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Today's episode takes us to Lansine, Michigan, where community, family,
and resilience intersects with a painful mystery. It's the story
of a daughter, a niece, a friend, Amber Arnette, a
woman who vanished with literally out a trace in June
of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
This isn't just a story about a disappearance.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
It's about the people left behind, the unanswered questions, and
the undying love of a mother who won't stop until
she her daughter home. Amber Arnett was born to Marty Arnette,
her rock, her champion, her mother, and now her loudest advocate.
(02:12):
Amber was just a five foot four inch, one hundred
and fifty pound woman with a big heart, a quiet strength,
and a loyalty that ran deep. Her mother, Marty described
her as one of the most giving people you'd ever
want to meet.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Loyal to a fault.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Marty told me a story from when Amber was very young.
She loved the Billie Idol song Rebel Yell. If you
haven't heard of it, go listen. It's a loud, upbeat
rock song. Marty says she should have known then that
Amber would be her wild child. She had a fierce
personality and would go to bat for her people. She
(02:52):
would do anything for you if you were one of
her people. Marty said. There were many occasions when she
would come home from school saying that she needed a
new backpack, a new coat, or a new calculator, because
she was always giving away her items to whoever needed them.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I just love that.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I've never heard that song before, and well maybe I haven't.
I just don't know what it is, but I'm gonna
go listen to it. After we record this. Amber wasn't
just a daughter. She also was a sister and a
sister in law to a woman named Courtney, and she
was an adoring aunt. In fact, Amber's niece was her
whole world. She was literally the person who would she
would get a call from her niece, and that's the
(03:32):
person she would call back the quickest. If she had
three miss calls, one for her mom or boyfriend, and
her niece, she'd be calling her niece back first. That
is such like a close bond that her and her niece.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Had that doesn't surprise me at all. Marty said that
outside of her niece, there were some other kids within
their extended family and it was extremely tight knit. There
was a lot of cousins and the niece and all
these other people and they all called Amber aunt goofy.
She was the fun aunt who was calm, instantly interacting
with the kids, playing games, doing crafts, or just spending
(04:04):
time with them. Amber was an extremely crafty person, which
we learned later that her career path kind of takes
her into a caregiving role. And that's what she liked
to do, is those kind of interactive things, the crafts projects,
the doing things interacting with people. That's what she loved.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
She definitely seems like a nurturer, Like I feel like
crafts and nurturing go along. I don't know if it's
that Grandma or anti self, but those to me go
along together, and that seems like who she was. So
Amber was known for her warmth, Her presence filled rooms.
She loved helping others, and it wasn't surprising that she
(04:45):
eventually pursued this career as a live in caregiver for
adults in need of support. Believe me, she wasn't perfect,
but none of us are. But she was present. She
was doing her daily activity, going to work, you know,
talking to family, hanging out with friends like.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
We all do.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
She gave all that she had to give, and that
really makes her absence all that more devastating because she
was one of those people that like just really kind
of put a light in everyone when they would hang
out with her.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
She really enjoyed that role as a caretaker. She worked
at a few different nursing homes off and on. She
initially had gone to school to become a dental assistant,
but that wasn't really a fulfilling role for her. She
didn't like it. So she left that dental industry and
worked a few different waitressing jobs around Landing, but ultimately
(05:40):
returned to the caregiver industry. She returned to an adult
foster home where she had worked previously. I think total
she worked at this facility between three to four years
over her career, so she knew this the home well.
She took on that living role and had a ton
(06:00):
of responsibilities. I asked Marty to give me a better
idea of what she would do there, because some people
are like the business side of things. Some people are
doing the activity. They're in charge of activities for the
people that live there. Some people do the cleaning, some
people do the cooking, and Amber was really all of
those things. If something needed to be done, she did it.
(06:22):
She was on call twenty four hours a day because
she lived there, and we're talking everything from managing residence schedules.
So if they had doctor's appointments, she was arranging rides,
she was helping feed them, she was taking them to
the appointments. Literally, anything that needed to be done, Amber
was one to jump in to do it. Also, this
facility had difficulty keeping employees on staff. There was a
(06:44):
lot of turnover, so the burden on Amber's shoulders was
pretty hefty.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, if one person's college out or one person quit
and their short staff, that means the other workers have
to help out and worked extra. And I can imagine
their first call was to Amber, considering she was already
living there and she was so reliable that I could
I was gonna say that that type of environment might
(07:11):
have a lot of turnover.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
The pressure is immense because those places don't just shut down.
Those people still need to be cared for, So someone
has to pick up the slack when someone else is
not available, because they can't just send those people home.
This is their home. It's not like a fast food
restaurant where if you don't have your workers come in,
you're just closed for the evening because you have no workers.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
You can't do that here, there's no closing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
While she was working at the facility, the state got
involved and eventually this home was shut down. Marty isn't
exactly sure what happened, but she was told that there
was a rumor at one point that the house was
involved in drug trafficking, which I feel like these kind
of things happen on occasion with those types of facilities
(07:58):
when you have high turnover and access to medications. I
can see where it could easily become an issue. Not
that Amber was involved in it, just that these types
of facilities have those situations occur.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Also, while working at this facility, Amber had a boyfriend,
we'll call him James. At one point he was staying
with her at this house. He was actually arrested and
would be incarcerated. He was arrested from this house before
the state shut down the home, and their relationship was
not a good one. It was not an okay one.
(08:34):
It wasn't even really a fair one. Marty said that
you could see how terrified of him she was. Amber
was physically scared of him. Marty heard of instances where
he was extremely abusive, both physically and mentally. Amber didn't
tell Marty this specifically, but since her disappearance, Marty has
had several people confirm this abuse. So it was known.
(09:00):
After the state shut down the home, Amber chose to
stay in the house with a few other people. Hits
rumored that Amber invited them in. It's people Amber may
have known, but they none of them should have been there.
The state had closed the home, but they were kind
of just still staying there because they had nowhere else
to go. Eventually, the owner caught wind and told Amber
(09:22):
she was not allowed to stay there. Marty says she
believes there was a legal eviction, but it hasn't. I
didn't check for documentation on that, So it could have
been a legal eviction. It could have just been the
owner saying, hey, you got to vacate the property. Guys,
you can't be here. Either way, the eviction made Amber homeless,
and she couch surfed here and there. From this point.
(09:44):
Marty said that she knew she could come home, but
Marty had certain boundaries in place to protect herself. And
it leans back to the personality trait of Amber that
she will fight for her people, and those people that
she was staying with and couch surfing with, those were
her people at the time, so she was trying to
look out for them as well. And Marty had to
(10:05):
protect herself and she said, look, Amber, you have a
place here, but I can't house everyone. I can't. She
can't afford that. She couldn't do anything, and that's okay,
you gotta do what you got to do.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Exactly, she wanted to be there for her daughter, but
she wasn't going to be there for all her daughter
and her daughter's friends. Type of situation no completely understandable.
So Amber had been staying in the small town of Leslie, Michigan.
It's really not too far from land Sne. She was
dealing with some legal troubles after losing that job, and
(10:38):
she had a court date scheduled for July thirteenth of
twenty twenty three. So she's got a lot going on.
She's kind of going through it, but really, despite all
of this, Amber had told her mom that on June
twenty third, that she had planned.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
To return home for a few days. In late June.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
She told her mom that she really didn't feel safe
where she was staying. She really never explained why. She
had told her mom also that she was ready to
accept responsibility, go to this court date, get everything in order,
and move forward. Marty was out of town until June
twenty fourth, but was ready to welcome Amber literally as
(11:16):
soon as she got home. She's like, I get home
the twenty fourth, anything after that, I'll be home. So,
like all loving moms, Marty prepared. She's stocked up on
all Amber's favorite foods, bought her all of the toilet
trees and.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Then just waited.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I mean Amber, Amber was thirty nine at this point,
so like she knew she was coming. But Amber was
also on her own doing what she wanted. So was
it crazy concerning to Marty at this point that she
didn't show up on the twenty fourth or the twenty
fifth because she just said, Hey, I'm gonna come late June.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I'll be there when you get back.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
It wasn't hey, set in stone, I'll be there at
five o'clock on the twenty fifth kind of thing. So
Marty waits for Amber to arrive, but she never showed.
This just goes to show what kind of mom Marty is,
the fact that she's going to pick up her favorite foods,
her favorite snack food all to just have ready for
(12:10):
Amber to arrive. I can imagine I do this for
my kids all the time and they're still living in
the house. I can't imagine in my mind right now,
I think that I would still have their favorite snacks
even when they're close to forty.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
But we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Like you said, it wasn't set in stone for Amber
to be there on the twenty fifth and the fact
that she didn't show up on twenty fifth wasn't immediately alarming.
It wasn't an uncommon occurrence with Amber. She didn't make
ironclad plans. Before Marty had left town. She had gotten
Amber a new phone. She had lost her previous one
or something along those lines. She did that on time.
(12:49):
I've lost cell phones, so it is what it is.
It happens. Marty got her a new one, but it
was one of those phones that you prepay the minutes for.
Marty had loaded it up with some minutes and even
given her money to keep that phone active. Marty just
assumed that she used the money for something else and
her phone ran out of minute. That's why she hasn't
(13:09):
called her saying she's not coming on the twenty fifth
and that she would talk to her soon. It happened
all the time, exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Like she's thirty nine. I'm thirty nine.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Oh dear lord, let's not talk about that. Amber had
been known to be very spontaneous. She's a free spirit.
Like that's all I can think about, like just going.
She has nothing tying her down. Honestly, she doesn't. She
could do what she wants, go where she wants it.
Actually sounds ideal as I'm sitting in my closet recording lists.
(13:40):
But literally, as the days ticked by with no word,
Marty knew something was wrong. Amber was regularly active on
social media, but we're we're talking like every day, multiple
times day she's posting on social media, and she had
not and so that was very concerning. She had not
(14:02):
made a single post since June twenty fifth, very unusual
for Amber. So Marty called the county sheriffs because last
she knew, Amber was staying just outside the city. This
whole thing of like where to call the police, this
freaks me out because it's like I would just want
(14:22):
to call my local like sheriff's office or my local
town's police, but they make it like you have to
jump through hoops to figure out who you should be
reporting it to and win.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
And that freaks me.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Out if anything ever happened to my family, because I'm like,
how would I know? So she had thirty nine year
old like she was in this city, but do you
report it to Lanecyne? Do you report it to this
tiny town who.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Knows absolutely The jurisdictional lines of responsibility are so blurred
to the public there needs to be way more education
on that.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Agreed, So she calls this county sheriff's office, okay to
file this missing person's report, but they kept giving her
the run round.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Of course typical responses, Oh.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
She's an adult. She'll turn up six phone calls to
the police station and two weeks before these people would
actually send someone out to make a report.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
I don't know if this is a record.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
But it's pretty darn close to the longest amount of
time a mother has had to wait to file a
missing person's report.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
It's horrific.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
I asked Marty, what does she think was the final
straw that they were finally accepting of what she's saying
to be true and that something could be going on
with Amber, And she said, honestly, she finally got ahold
of the right person. Someone finally cared enough to listen
and to fill out their paperwork. Someone was finally like, okay,
(15:57):
let's do this. At this point, Amber's mister court date
and the officer that took the report basically told Marty, hey,
she has a warrant out for her rest. If we
find her, we're arresting her. And Marty's like, perfect, excellent, great,
let's do it. We'll know where Amber is. Go, let's
go grab her. Let's do it. Because this she would
at least know where she wants.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
This is sickening on so many fronts because there are
people we'll even talk about some people who have warrants
out for the rest in this case that could be
possible persons of interest and they're never picked up. And
the fact that this officer said this to her mother
after she's Amber had been missing for weeks at this
(16:40):
point is heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
But I think it was a glimmer of hope for
Marty because if the police are realizing that she has
a warrant now they're a little bit more motivated. It
seems to at least like, Okay, they're on their warrant list.
If they pick her up, they can two birds one stone,
you know. Situation, Maybe they'd be more motive.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
But it's depressing that that's what it.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Has to be.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yes, that's what I'm saying, Like I agree, Like I
would feel some relief as Marty being like, Okay, now
they're going to get to it. But also it's their
job to find missing people. So that's why I'm like.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
This is not okay.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
That's exactly what I told her, that they're not even
doing their job. They're not even doing their job. Throughout
these couple of weeks that Marty was trying to get
law enforcement involved, she had put some feelers out to
her friends, also thinking maybe Amber lost her phone or
ran out a minute, and if her friend saw her
and could get a message to her, maybe Amber would
(17:37):
reach out. She really thought Amber was gonna walk around
the corner and be like, Mom, why are you doing this.
You're embarrassing me, Why are you reaching out to my friends?
Kind of a thing, which I would feel the same way. Mom,
get out of my life back up, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, Like I'll call you when I want to call you.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
You're filling my vibe.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I know. It's such a fine line. Oh, I just
can't imagine being in Marty's situation right here, because Marty
is a go getter, and she's like, I'm not gonna
let the police stop me. She actually gained access to
Amber's Facebook account, which this is good because she can
actually see what's happening or if she had posted, or
(18:18):
if she's messaging people behind the scenes, even if she's
not posting anything, and she was able to see into
her messages that Amber was staying at a house just
blocks from Marty's house. That message suggested that Amber obviously
did go somewhere after the Dollar Tree visit. So one
message in particular really haunted her. Amber had messaged a
(18:41):
friend saying she had arrived at his house and asked
him to open the gate. Now, there was no message
after that, but if you think about it, you say, like, hey,
I'm here. The person usually just goes and opens the door,
opens the gate or whatever like that, and then that's
the end of it.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
No message needs to be bad.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
So that it's the last message that Amber had ever
sent anyone, which I'm like, oh my god, this seems insane.
There should be more information on this, like who was
this person? Did police check him out, did they bring
them down the station, did they ask any questions? Because
she was alive and well enough to send that message,
(19:22):
then what happened after she walked into that house is
what I want to know.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
So we talked a bit about this message, Marty and
I did law enforcement do not deem it credible because
there was no response that confirmed she was actually at
this house. Now you kind of already touched on this.
If someone text me and said that they were at
the gate let me in, the chances of me texting
them back saying okay on my way is not very high.
I would just get up and go do it because
(19:49):
that makes the most sense to me. But since law
enforcement isn't calling this a credible source, they cannot deem
that as her last known location. It was an priority.
Marty has been consistently sharing information with law enforcement, any news, tips, breadcrumbs,
if she comes across something, she's given it to law enforcement.
(20:10):
She's literally doing their job. When she learned about this house,
she asked if they were going to go search, and
they said they'd check it out. The officer knocked on
the door, but no one answered, and it took weeks
for law enforcement to actually speak to the person living there.
Officers did learn that the last confirmed signing of Amber
(20:30):
was on June twenty fifth at Dollar Tree in Logan Square.
They found this footage because while Amber did not have
a bank account, she did have a Bridge card. This
is a food card that's provided by the state, so
they saw this transaction. They contacted the Dollar Tree and
they provided the video that is confirmed to be Amber.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
This is around two pm, so this video would be
the last official glimpse anyone.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Had of her.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Law enforcement waited until November to look further into this house.
This is four months after Amber disappears. Marty had put
out signs and flyers all over this neighborhood. She would
drive by regularly and would see them carrying out things
like huge garbage bags, boxes, people hauling stuff away. This
whole time, Marty's taking photos, documenting, sharing you with the police,
(21:23):
saying something's going on, please look into this. There's a
lot of movement here. How come no one will go look?
How come no one will do a search? How come?
Like someone do something? Someone do something? And it took
them four months and they and she doesn't know what
finally encouraged them to do so. But law enforcement would
eventually take cadaver dogs to this location and do a search,
(21:44):
but they did not find anything there.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
It's like, what the crap?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Why are they not doing anything?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
This bogles.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
This might be one of the worst police involvement of
any of the ones. And we've had some rough ones
with police, but this one is like, what the heck?
Now I found a bit more information about this person
that she supposedly was going to see that day.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Okay, we're gonna call him Patrick.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Apparently Patrick was squatting in the backyard of this house,
and that's why, like the gate needed we open.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Versus the front door, because he was in the back.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
By the time of the search, Patrick was obviously long gone.
The owner of this house was an older man, and
he had a son who had told people he knew
what had happened to Amber. He said that she was
buried in the woods nearby. He also stated he tried
to help her by giving her CPR, but this so
(22:41):
called friend of Ambers wouldn't let him. Now, I'm sure
you're all asking the same thing I was asking myself
as I was reading all of this, like, Okay, here's
a witness. This is the last known location that Amber
was at. Now we have a witness saying this information. Great,
use this for a search, warrant, or arrest a person
(23:02):
or something. They can move forward with something. Well, no,
police now say this person is not credible. Don't ask
me why. I honestly can't tell you why they say
this person's not credible. I guess because he just told
random people. But that's usually how they get these these
bad guys because they're talking and telling other people about
the crime and that's how they capture them. But like,
(23:26):
for some reason they say, this dude is not credible.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I agree. And they told Marty that the message because
it wasn't responded to, that wasn't credible because they could
not corroborate that she was there when that message was sent,
that that was the exact location. And to me, the
corroboration that she was there is now this man saying
she was here and I did see. I wanted to
(23:53):
give her CPR exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
So now you have two things.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah, that's it. If it's not one hundred percent credible,
it's a enough to ask more questions. In my mind,
it is enough a lead to ask more questions. And
I don't know why they deemed him not credible. It
was never said. Even Marty is like, I don't.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Know, Yeah, who knows.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So I also want to mention that they never found
Amber's phone. Police said that they couldn't get records from
Verizon to see where it was last at, or who
she last called or anything like that. It is really
unknown if they ever tried dipping it or do that
triangulation thing to see where it was last no clue.
We don't know if they ever did it or not.
(24:38):
There is no confirmation from law enforcement that she ever
made it inside of that house. And like we were saying,
that's the reason why they were like, oh, we don't know,
so we really can't do anything about it. And that
message was the last trace of her. There has not
been another phone call, another text, another confirmed sighting. Just
(25:01):
from the moment Marty realized something was wrong, she began
a campaign, a campaign that continues to this day. With
the help of her daughter in law, Courtney, the family
printed hundreds of flyers, They put up yard signs, They
turned their own personal cars into mobile billboards. When they traveled,
(25:22):
they bought flyers with them, putting up them up in
truck stops, rest areas, anywhere someone might glance and remember something.
They have held multiple search parties. They've knocked on doors
and still nothing. And I want to compare the work
that they have done as two civilian women just trying
(25:42):
to find their loved one versus what the trained police
in this area have done.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It's miles different. Marty herself had gotten a team of
friends and family members. I think it was about a
ten people search party together to go search these woods
them and they're nearby this home, and they're actually on
the property of a school district, a nearby school district,
so they're not fenced in, but it's not exactly public property,
(26:13):
I guess you could say. But they took shovels out there,
they dug around a bit, they were looking around. Marty
gave no shit, so she was looking for her daughter.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
That's crazy And I love that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
I mean, I'm not I'm not condoning that for anyone.
I just want to say, make sure things are sanctioned,
because you can be arrested.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
But also I also love.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, but she said, this is how hard it's been
to work with the law enforcement because they went out
there on a couple of occasions and no one called
it in. No one's like these crazy people are out
here digging in the woods. Someone needs to go check
on them. So like no one cares, No one cares
about what people are doing.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
It's like the wild wild West.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Now. I have to say, like, I love that. If
they're not going to take care of the real bad guys,
they better not be messing around with the people that
are trying to find their loved one, because dang, that
would really tick me off. So I guess it's just
their mo to like stay out of it like that,
guess Marty said.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
The couple of kids that came up on them that
were skipping school and found them and they were like okay,
sorry and left and that was it. She laminated some
flyers and posted them in the woods, so hopefully if
anyone finds something, maybe maybe that will help.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
That's really good thinking because I wouldn't personally think to
put anything out there because I'm like, who comes out here?
But honestly, like teenagers or random people or hunters, I
don't know what else might.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Be out there, But that's a good obly not hunters
near a school, but because it's a very small patch
of woods.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Amber's boyfriend that we had talked about, that was her
boyfriend at the time of disappearance. He was a character,
to put it mildly, he was incarcerated at the time
of her disappearance, and I just want to say therefore,
he's not a person of interest at all in this.
He wasn't a great guy, but he's not the one
responsible for her disappearance.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
What's interesting about him, though, is that after Amber disappeared,
Marty got a phone call and learned that this boyfriend
was actually married. His wife reached out to Marty and
had told her that she had spoken with James and
that when she had mentioned Amber to him, he responded
by saying, don't ever put her name in your mouth,
because she's dead. Obviously, his alibi being in prison is
(28:32):
a pretty solid one. But what an interesting thing to say.
If you aren't sure where she is, that's it's a
pretty Those are big words to throw out there if
you don't know that.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, it's very precise, like she's dead. Oh like not
just like, oh, we don't know where she at. She
could be dead. No, it's she's dead. When you had
texted me about, oh, that this boyfriend had a wife,
I first thought you meant that they were married, like
Amber and the his boyfriend were married. And I was like,
oh shit, does that like put things difficult because now
(29:05):
he's the power of attorney. And but then I started
researching more and I found out that he was actually
married to a different woman. So obviously I think they
were all in the same friend group of whoever Amber
had met up with that night, and word got around
is what happened in my mind, and that's why he
knows what he thinks he knows about A year after
(29:27):
Amber disappeared, Marty received a letter in the mail. So
I'm going to read this letter. But Whitney, after, can
you explain how this letter came to be? Because you
had talked to Marty about this and this letter is
very weird if you don't have context around it about
what happened afterwards. So the letter is so close, Mom,
(29:51):
you were so close to me. I am there by
the trustle just a little further, so close. I told
them here not to go to your house. It will
put them in danger under some brush. At the time,
it was brush and leaves. Skinny girl that walks the
(30:12):
trails heard the shot.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
So, like Melissa said, it's an interesting letter. Marty told
me she received this letter through the mail and she
was a little nervous because she's like, who knows where
I live to send me something like this? And who
would send it? She posted a photo on the help
us Find Amber facebook page asking of does anyone know
who sent this? And it garnered quite a bit of attention.
(30:38):
I mean, I would argue that it went viral and
in relation to Amber's disappearance, which is always a good thing.
That's the attention you want. She knew it wasn't from
Amber because of the handwriting immediately, that's not ambers handwriting.
So it's interesting that it's kind of written in first
person from Amber, but it's not Amber's handwriting. The author
(31:01):
eventually reaches out and Marty met with them. This person
that wrote it has what she says is psychic abilities
and that this message came to her and she felt
that Marty needed to hear it. Marty fully believes that
it was done with good intention, and after she met
with them, they actually went out to this location described
(31:22):
they found it. It was not far from a zoo,
and they kind of walked out there, and Marty said
when she got there, she knew immediately that it wasn't
somewhere that Amber could be. It would have been really
difficult because it's like up a hill, you gotta go
down this area. It would have been very difficult. So
she felt Amber wasn't there, and it was just way
(31:43):
out of the way compared to where she was last
known to be. It was detailed enough, according to law enforcement,
for them to do a search there, So they kicked
dogs out and found nothing out there. But I find
it interesting that they felt this was good enough to
go look at, but the woods aren't good enough to
(32:07):
do an actual valid search in. And the only reason
is is that it was incredibly specific, so they had
to search a small area. But the small woods by
they're not that big of woods. It's not one hundred acres,
it's not that big. It's small woods. So I just
it's like, I don't understand why they are picking and
choosing what they're doing. They're just just just creating more
(32:30):
problems in this investigation. The search for Amber continues.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Courtney, who once again was the sister in law to Amber,
told Dateline, we refuse to get up, give up.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
We can't, we won't.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
The Lansing Police Department says the case remains active. A
spokesperson for the city told reporters due to this being
an active and ongoing investigation, we cannot calm but our
department has been working on this case for the last
year and is doing their due diligence end quote.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I'm interested to I'm interested to hear what their definition
of due diligence is.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
That's what I was about to say.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
We might have different ones, but that's okay, it's their own.
For Marty and her family, the diligence feels painfully slow.
They know something isn't right. They believe foul play was involved.
They believe someone knows something, and they're pleading for that
person to come forward. One of the most painful parts
(33:36):
of the story is that Amber's family just don't know anything.
There's no crime scene, there's no arrest, there's no body,
no clues to where she could be, only avoid and
for families like Marty's, that kind of uncertainty is its own.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Form of torture.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Marty just wants her daughter back, even if she's no
longer with us. She just wants her daughter her back
so she can bury her and visit her in a proper,
respectful place.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
It's also hard because there's not a lot of things
they can look for. They know she was last wearing,
but they've never found her purse, they've never found a phone.
She didn't have a lot of belongings with her. She
essentially traveled light because she was couch surfing. She didn't
have a car, so she relied on rides from other people.
Or walked everywhere. So there's not a lot of things
(34:27):
that can be these breadcrumb items or these leads to
follow of Hey, that was Ambers and it was left here. Hey,
there's no stuff, there's nothing. She literally vanished into thin air, exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
So every night Marty lives between hope and heartbreak. She
wonders if she missed something, if there was a clue
in Amber's voice, a change in her tone, something that
said she should have acted sooner. But hindsight doesn't always
help when your daughter's missing action. The family is offering
a reward for any information that leads to Amber's return,
(35:05):
and they're asking anyone with even the smallest detail to
come forward. If you know anything, please call the Lansing
Police Department at five point seven for eight three four
six zero zero, And I would hope if you send
in a tip that they're going.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
To do their jobs appropriately.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
The advocacy piece for Amber story is difficult. Marty and
I talked a little bit about it. You know, my
first offering is always a flying campaign. But really, Marty
and Amber's family has done an incredible job at flyiring
this area and keeping Amber story going. They are continuously
advocating and we're right here to help them. Someone knows something,
(35:47):
and it's time they come forward.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Amber Arnett is more than a missing person case. She's
a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend. She is
someone who gave everything she had even when she didn't
have much, and the people who love her are still here,
still fighting, still hoping, still searching. Marty once said, I'm
(36:16):
just going to keep knocking on doors. That's what love
looks like. It's time for the rest of us to knock.
To share her photo, tell her story, ask the hard questions,
demand answers.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
We want to thank Marty for sharing amber story with us.
Please go and follow the help us find Amber facebook
page and share Amber story. This episode was researched, written
and produced by us. If you have a loved one
missing or is a victim of an unresolved murder, please
reach out to us at info at Navigatingadvocacy dot com.
(36:56):
If you'd like to support the podcast, please subscribe and
leave a five star rating and review on any podcast platform.
You're listening to Navigating Advocacy, a podcast that gives voice
to the silence, hope to the heartbroken, and pressure to
the systems that fail far too many.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'm Melissa and I'm Whitney. One of my favorite parts
of this journey is the opportunities we have to get
to meet so many people and hear stories of their
loved ones. We know about the story we're sharing today
because of Advocacy. Con Marty was a recipient of a
scholarship through our nonprofit Impact Advocacy Foundation, and while we
(01:00):
didn't have the opportunity to chat in person at the conference,
we are honored to now be able to learn about
her daughter Amber and Navigate Advocacy alongside her.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Today's episode takes us to Lansine, Michigan, where community, family,
and resilience intersects with a painful mystery. It's the story
of a daughter, a niece, a friend, Amber Arnette, a
woman who vanished with literally out a trace in June
of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
This isn't just a story about a disappearance.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
It's about the people left behind, the unanswered questions, and
the undying love of a mother who won't stop until
she her daughter home. Amber Arnett was born to Marty Arnette,
her rock, her champion, her mother, and now her loudest advocate.
(02:12):
Amber was just a five foot four inch, one hundred
and fifty pound woman with a big heart, a quiet strength,
and a loyalty that ran deep. Her mother, Marty described
her as one of the most giving people you'd ever
want to meet.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Loyal to a fault.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Marty told me a story from when Amber was very young.
She loved the Billie Idol song Rebel Yell. If you
haven't heard of it, go listen. It's a loud, upbeat
rock song. Marty says she should have known then that
Amber would be her wild child. She had a fierce
personality and would go to bat for her people. She
(02:52):
would do anything for you if you were one of
her people. Marty said. There were many occasions when she
would come home from school saying that she needed a
new backpack, a new coat, or a new calculator, because
she was always giving away her items to whoever needed them.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I just love that.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I've never heard that song before, and well maybe I haven't.
I just don't know what it is, but I'm gonna
go listen to it. After we record this. Amber wasn't
just a daughter. She also was a sister and a
sister in law to a woman named Courtney, and she
was an adoring aunt. In fact, Amber's niece was her
whole world. She was literally the person who would she
would get a call from her niece, and that's the
(03:32):
person she would call back the quickest. If she had
three miss calls, one for her mom or boyfriend, and
her niece, she'd be calling her niece back first. That
is such like a close bond that her and her niece.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Had that doesn't surprise me at all. Marty said that
outside of her niece, there were some other kids within
their extended family and it was extremely tight knit. There
was a lot of cousins and the niece and all
these other people and they all called Amber aunt goofy.
She was the fun aunt who was calm, instantly interacting
with the kids, playing games, doing crafts, or just spending
(04:04):
time with them. Amber was an extremely crafty person, which
we learned later that her career path kind of takes
her into a caregiving role. And that's what she liked
to do, is those kind of interactive things, the crafts projects,
the doing things interacting with people. That's what she loved.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
She definitely seems like a nurturer, Like I feel like
crafts and nurturing go along. I don't know if it's
that Grandma or anti self, but those to me go
along together, and that seems like who she was. So
Amber was known for her warmth, Her presence filled rooms.
She loved helping others, and it wasn't surprising that she
(04:45):
eventually pursued this career as a live in caregiver for
adults in need of support. Believe me, she wasn't perfect,
but none of us are. But she was present. She
was doing her daily activity, going to work, you know,
talking to family, hanging out with friends like.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
We all do.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
She gave all that she had to give, and that
really makes her absence all that more devastating because she
was one of those people that like just really kind
of put a light in everyone when they would hang
out with her.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
She really enjoyed that role as a caretaker. She worked
at a few different nursing homes off and on. She
initially had gone to school to become a dental assistant,
but that wasn't really a fulfilling role for her. She
didn't like it. So she left that dental industry and
worked a few different waitressing jobs around Landing, but ultimately
(05:40):
returned to the caregiver industry. She returned to an adult
foster home where she had worked previously. I think total
she worked at this facility between three to four years
over her career, so she knew this the home well.
She took on that living role and had a ton
(06:00):
of responsibilities. I asked Marty to give me a better
idea of what she would do there, because some people
are like the business side of things. Some people are
doing the activity. They're in charge of activities for the
people that live there. Some people do the cleaning, some
people do the cooking, and Amber was really all of
those things. If something needed to be done, she did it.
(06:22):
She was on call twenty four hours a day because
she lived there, and we're talking everything from managing residence schedules.
So if they had doctor's appointments, she was arranging rides,
she was helping feed them, she was taking them to
the appointments. Literally, anything that needed to be done, Amber
was one to jump in to do it. Also, this
facility had difficulty keeping employees on staff. There was a
(06:44):
lot of turnover, so the burden on Amber's shoulders was
pretty hefty.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, if one person's college out or one person quit
and their short staff, that means the other workers have
to help out and worked extra. And I can imagine
their first call was to Amber, considering she was already
living there and she was so reliable that I could
I was gonna say that that type of environment might
(07:11):
have a lot of turnover.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
The pressure is immense because those places don't just shut down.
Those people still need to be cared for, So someone
has to pick up the slack when someone else is
not available, because they can't just send those people home.
This is their home. It's not like a fast food
restaurant where if you don't have your workers come in,
you're just closed for the evening because you have no workers.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
You can't do that here, there's no closing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
While she was working at the facility, the state got
involved and eventually this home was shut down. Marty isn't
exactly sure what happened, but she was told that there
was a rumor at one point that the house was
involved in drug trafficking, which I feel like these kind
of things happen on occasion with those types of facilities
(07:58):
when you have high turnover and access to medications. I
can see where it could easily become an issue. Not
that Amber was involved in it, just that these types
of facilities have those situations occur.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Also, while working at this facility, Amber had a boyfriend,
we'll call him James. At one point he was staying
with her at this house. He was actually arrested and
would be incarcerated. He was arrested from this house before
the state shut down the home, and their relationship was
not a good one. It was not an okay one.
(08:34):
It wasn't even really a fair one. Marty said that
you could see how terrified of him she was. Amber
was physically scared of him. Marty heard of instances where
he was extremely abusive, both physically and mentally. Amber didn't
tell Marty this specifically, but since her disappearance, Marty has
had several people confirm this abuse. So it was known.
(09:00):
After the state shut down the home, Amber chose to
stay in the house with a few other people. Hits
rumored that Amber invited them in. It's people Amber may
have known, but they none of them should have been there.
The state had closed the home, but they were kind
of just still staying there because they had nowhere else
to go. Eventually, the owner caught wind and told Amber
(09:22):
she was not allowed to stay there. Marty says she
believes there was a legal eviction, but it hasn't. I
didn't check for documentation on that, So it could have
been a legal eviction. It could have just been the
owner saying, hey, you got to vacate the property. Guys,
you can't be here. Either way, the eviction made Amber homeless,
and she couch surfed here and there. From this point.
(09:44):
Marty said that she knew she could come home, but
Marty had certain boundaries in place to protect herself. And
it leans back to the personality trait of Amber that
she will fight for her people, and those people that
she was staying with and couch surfing with, those were
her people at the time, so she was trying to
look out for them as well. And Marty had to
(10:05):
protect herself and she said, look, Amber, you have a
place here, but I can't house everyone. I can't. She
can't afford that. She couldn't do anything, and that's okay,
you gotta do what you got to do.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Exactly, she wanted to be there for her daughter, but
she wasn't going to be there for all her daughter
and her daughter's friends. Type of situation no completely understandable.
So Amber had been staying in the small town of Leslie, Michigan.
It's really not too far from land Sne. She was
dealing with some legal troubles after losing that job, and
(10:38):
she had a court date scheduled for July thirteenth of
twenty twenty three. So she's got a lot going on.
She's kind of going through it, but really, despite all
of this, Amber had told her mom that on June
twenty third, that she had planned.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
To return home for a few days. In late June.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
She told her mom that she really didn't feel safe
where she was staying. She really never explained why. She
had told her mom also that she was ready to
accept responsibility, go to this court date, get everything in order,
and move forward. Marty was out of town until June
twenty fourth, but was ready to welcome Amber literally as
(11:16):
soon as she got home. She's like, I get home
the twenty fourth, anything after that, I'll be home. So,
like all loving moms, Marty prepared. She's stocked up on
all Amber's favorite foods, bought her all of the toilet
trees and.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Then just waited.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I mean Amber, Amber was thirty nine at this point,
so like she knew she was coming. But Amber was
also on her own doing what she wanted. So was
it crazy concerning to Marty at this point that she
didn't show up on the twenty fourth or the twenty
fifth because she just said, Hey, I'm gonna come late June.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I'll be there when you get back.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
It wasn't hey, set in stone, I'll be there at
five o'clock on the twenty fifth kind of thing. So
Marty waits for Amber to arrive, but she never showed.
This just goes to show what kind of mom Marty is,
the fact that she's going to pick up her favorite foods,
her favorite snack food all to just have ready for
(12:10):
Amber to arrive. I can imagine I do this for
my kids all the time and they're still living in
the house. I can't imagine in my mind right now,
I think that I would still have their favorite snacks
even when they're close to forty.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
But we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Like you said, it wasn't set in stone for Amber
to be there on the twenty fifth and the fact
that she didn't show up on twenty fifth wasn't immediately alarming.
It wasn't an uncommon occurrence with Amber. She didn't make
ironclad plans. Before Marty had left town. She had gotten
Amber a new phone. She had lost her previous one
or something along those lines. She did that on time.
(12:49):
I've lost cell phones, so it is what it is.
It happens. Marty got her a new one, but it
was one of those phones that you prepay the minutes for.
Marty had loaded it up with some minutes and even
given her money to keep that phone active. Marty just
assumed that she used the money for something else and
her phone ran out of minute. That's why she hasn't
(13:09):
called her saying she's not coming on the twenty fifth
and that she would talk to her soon. It happened
all the time, exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Like she's thirty nine. I'm thirty nine.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Oh dear lord, let's not talk about that. Amber had
been known to be very spontaneous. She's a free spirit.
Like that's all I can think about, like just going.
She has nothing tying her down. Honestly, she doesn't. She
could do what she wants, go where she wants it.
Actually sounds ideal as I'm sitting in my closet recording lists.
(13:40):
But literally, as the days ticked by with no word,
Marty knew something was wrong. Amber was regularly active on
social media, but we're we're talking like every day, multiple
times day she's posting on social media, and she had
not and so that was very concerning. She had not
(14:02):
made a single post since June twenty fifth, very unusual
for Amber. So Marty called the county sheriffs because last
she knew, Amber was staying just outside the city. This
whole thing of like where to call the police, this
freaks me out because it's like I would just want
(14:22):
to call my local like sheriff's office or my local
town's police, but they make it like you have to
jump through hoops to figure out who you should be
reporting it to and win.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
And that freaks me.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Out if anything ever happened to my family, because I'm like,
how would I know? So she had thirty nine year
old like she was in this city, but do you
report it to Lanecyne? Do you report it to this
tiny town who.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Knows absolutely The jurisdictional lines of responsibility are so blurred
to the public there needs to be way more education
on that.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Agreed, So she calls this county sheriff's office, okay to
file this missing person's report, but they kept giving her
the run round.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Of course typical responses, Oh.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
She's an adult. She'll turn up six phone calls to
the police station and two weeks before these people would
actually send someone out to make a report.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
I don't know if this is a record.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
But it's pretty darn close to the longest amount of
time a mother has had to wait to file a
missing person's report.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
It's horrific.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
I asked Marty, what does she think was the final
straw that they were finally accepting of what she's saying
to be true and that something could be going on
with Amber, And she said, honestly, she finally got ahold
of the right person. Someone finally cared enough to listen
and to fill out their paperwork. Someone was finally like, okay,
(15:57):
let's do this. At this point, Amber's mister court date
and the officer that took the report basically told Marty, hey,
she has a warrant out for her rest. If we
find her, we're arresting her. And Marty's like, perfect, excellent, great,
let's do it. We'll know where Amber is. Go, let's
go grab her. Let's do it. Because this she would
at least know where she wants.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
This is sickening on so many fronts because there are
people we'll even talk about some people who have warrants
out for the rest in this case that could be
possible persons of interest and they're never picked up. And
the fact that this officer said this to her mother
after she's Amber had been missing for weeks at this
(16:40):
point is heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
But I think it was a glimmer of hope for
Marty because if the police are realizing that she has
a warrant now they're a little bit more motivated. It
seems to at least like, Okay, they're on their warrant list.
If they pick her up, they can two birds one stone,
you know. Situation, Maybe they'd be more motive.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
But it's depressing that that's what it.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Has to be.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yes, that's what I'm saying, Like I agree, Like I
would feel some relief as Marty being like, Okay, now
they're going to get to it. But also it's their
job to find missing people. So that's why I'm like.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
This is not okay.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
That's exactly what I told her, that they're not even
doing their job. They're not even doing their job. Throughout
these couple of weeks that Marty was trying to get
law enforcement involved, she had put some feelers out to
her friends, also thinking maybe Amber lost her phone or
ran out a minute, and if her friend saw her
and could get a message to her, maybe Amber would
(17:37):
reach out. She really thought Amber was gonna walk around
the corner and be like, Mom, why are you doing this.
You're embarrassing me, Why are you reaching out to my friends?
Kind of a thing, which I would feel the same way. Mom,
get out of my life back up, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, Like I'll call you when I want to call you.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
You're filling my vibe.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I know. It's such a fine line. Oh, I just
can't imagine being in Marty's situation right here, because Marty
is a go getter, and she's like, I'm not gonna
let the police stop me. She actually gained access to
Amber's Facebook account, which this is good because she can
actually see what's happening or if she had posted, or
(18:18):
if she's messaging people behind the scenes, even if she's
not posting anything, and she was able to see into
her messages that Amber was staying at a house just
blocks from Marty's house. That message suggested that Amber obviously
did go somewhere after the Dollar Tree visit. So one
message in particular really haunted her. Amber had messaged a
(18:41):
friend saying she had arrived at his house and asked
him to open the gate. Now, there was no message
after that, but if you think about it, you say, like, hey,
I'm here. The person usually just goes and opens the door,
opens the gate or whatever like that, and then that's
the end of it.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
No message needs to be bad.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
So that it's the last message that Amber had ever
sent anyone, which I'm like, oh my god, this seems insane.
There should be more information on this, like who was
this person? Did police check him out, did they bring
them down the station, did they ask any questions? Because
she was alive and well enough to send that message,
(19:22):
then what happened after she walked into that house is
what I want to know.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
So we talked a bit about this message, Marty and
I did law enforcement do not deem it credible because
there was no response that confirmed she was actually at
this house. Now you kind of already touched on this.
If someone text me and said that they were at
the gate let me in, the chances of me texting
them back saying okay on my way is not very high.
I would just get up and go do it because
(19:49):
that makes the most sense to me. But since law
enforcement isn't calling this a credible source, they cannot deem
that as her last known location. It was an priority.
Marty has been consistently sharing information with law enforcement, any news, tips, breadcrumbs,
if she comes across something, she's given it to law enforcement.
(20:10):
She's literally doing their job. When she learned about this house,
she asked if they were going to go search, and
they said they'd check it out. The officer knocked on
the door, but no one answered, and it took weeks
for law enforcement to actually speak to the person living there.
Officers did learn that the last confirmed signing of Amber
(20:30):
was on June twenty fifth at Dollar Tree in Logan Square.
They found this footage because while Amber did not have
a bank account, she did have a Bridge card. This
is a food card that's provided by the state, so
they saw this transaction. They contacted the Dollar Tree and
they provided the video that is confirmed to be Amber.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
This is around two pm, so this video would be
the last official glimpse anyone.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Had of her.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Law enforcement waited until November to look further into this house.
This is four months after Amber disappears. Marty had put
out signs and flyers all over this neighborhood. She would
drive by regularly and would see them carrying out things
like huge garbage bags, boxes, people hauling stuff away. This
whole time, Marty's taking photos, documenting, sharing you with the police,
(21:23):
saying something's going on, please look into this. There's a
lot of movement here. How come no one will go look?
How come no one will do a search? How come?
Like someone do something? Someone do something? And it took
them four months and they and she doesn't know what
finally encouraged them to do so. But law enforcement would
eventually take cadaver dogs to this location and do a search,
(21:44):
but they did not find anything there.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
It's like, what the crap?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Why are they not doing anything?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
This bogles.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
This might be one of the worst police involvement of
any of the ones. And we've had some rough ones
with police, but this one is like, what the heck?
Now I found a bit more information about this person
that she supposedly was going to see that day.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Okay, we're gonna call him Patrick.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Apparently Patrick was squatting in the backyard of this house,
and that's why, like the gate needed we open.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Versus the front door, because he was in the back.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
By the time of the search, Patrick was obviously long gone.
The owner of this house was an older man, and
he had a son who had told people he knew
what had happened to Amber. He said that she was
buried in the woods nearby. He also stated he tried
to help her by giving her CPR, but this so
(22:41):
called friend of Ambers wouldn't let him. Now, I'm sure
you're all asking the same thing I was asking myself
as I was reading all of this, like, Okay, here's
a witness. This is the last known location that Amber
was at. Now we have a witness saying this information. Great,
use this for a search, warrant, or arrest a person
(23:02):
or something. They can move forward with something. Well, no,
police now say this person is not credible. Don't ask
me why. I honestly can't tell you why they say
this person's not credible. I guess because he just told
random people. But that's usually how they get these these
bad guys because they're talking and telling other people about
the crime and that's how they capture them. But like,
(23:26):
for some reason they say, this dude is not credible.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I agree. And they told Marty that the message because
it wasn't responded to, that wasn't credible because they could
not corroborate that she was there when that message was sent,
that that was the exact location. And to me, the
corroboration that she was there is now this man saying
she was here and I did see. I wanted to
(23:53):
give her CPR exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
So now you have two things.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah, that's it. If it's not one hundred percent credible,
it's a enough to ask more questions. In my mind,
it is enough a lead to ask more questions. And
I don't know why they deemed him not credible. It
was never said. Even Marty is like, I don't.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Know, Yeah, who knows.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So I also want to mention that they never found
Amber's phone. Police said that they couldn't get records from
Verizon to see where it was last at, or who
she last called or anything like that. It is really
unknown if they ever tried dipping it or do that
triangulation thing to see where it was last no clue.
We don't know if they ever did it or not.
(24:38):
There is no confirmation from law enforcement that she ever
made it inside of that house. And like we were saying,
that's the reason why they were like, oh, we don't know,
so we really can't do anything about it. And that
message was the last trace of her. There has not
been another phone call, another text, another confirmed sighting. Just
(25:01):
from the moment Marty realized something was wrong, she began
a campaign, a campaign that continues to this day. With
the help of her daughter in law, Courtney, the family
printed hundreds of flyers, They put up yard signs, They
turned their own personal cars into mobile billboards. When they traveled,
(25:22):
they bought flyers with them, putting up them up in
truck stops, rest areas, anywhere someone might glance and remember something.
They have held multiple search parties. They've knocked on doors
and still nothing. And I want to compare the work
that they have done as two civilian women just trying
(25:42):
to find their loved one versus what the trained police
in this area have done.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It's miles different. Marty herself had gotten a team of
friends and family members. I think it was about a
ten people search party together to go search these woods
them and they're nearby this home, and they're actually on
the property of a school district, a nearby school district,
so they're not fenced in, but it's not exactly public property,
(26:13):
I guess you could say. But they took shovels out there,
they dug around a bit, they were looking around. Marty
gave no shit, so she was looking for her daughter.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
That's crazy And I love that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
I mean, I'm not I'm not condoning that for anyone.
I just want to say, make sure things are sanctioned,
because you can be arrested.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
But also I also love.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, but she said, this is how hard it's been
to work with the law enforcement because they went out
there on a couple of occasions and no one called
it in. No one's like these crazy people are out
here digging in the woods. Someone needs to go check
on them. So like no one cares, No one cares
about what people are doing.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
It's like the wild wild West.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Now. I have to say, like, I love that. If
they're not going to take care of the real bad guys,
they better not be messing around with the people that
are trying to find their loved one, because dang, that
would really tick me off. So I guess it's just
their mo to like stay out of it like that,
guess Marty said.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
The couple of kids that came up on them that
were skipping school and found them and they were like okay,
sorry and left and that was it. She laminated some
flyers and posted them in the woods, so hopefully if
anyone finds something, maybe maybe that will help.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
That's really good thinking because I wouldn't personally think to
put anything out there because I'm like, who comes out here?
But honestly, like teenagers or random people or hunters, I
don't know what else might.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Be out there, But that's a good obly not hunters
near a school, but because it's a very small patch
of woods.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Amber's boyfriend that we had talked about, that was her
boyfriend at the time of disappearance. He was a character,
to put it mildly, he was incarcerated at the time
of her disappearance, and I just want to say therefore,
he's not a person of interest at all in this.
He wasn't a great guy, but he's not the one
responsible for her disappearance.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
What's interesting about him, though, is that after Amber disappeared,
Marty got a phone call and learned that this boyfriend
was actually married. His wife reached out to Marty and
had told her that she had spoken with James and
that when she had mentioned Amber to him, he responded
by saying, don't ever put her name in your mouth,
because she's dead. Obviously, his alibi being in prison is
(28:32):
a pretty solid one. But what an interesting thing to say.
If you aren't sure where she is, that's it's a
pretty Those are big words to throw out there if
you don't know that.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, it's very precise, like she's dead. Oh like not
just like, oh, we don't know where she at. She
could be dead. No, it's she's dead. When you had
texted me about, oh, that this boyfriend had a wife,
I first thought you meant that they were married, like
Amber and the his boyfriend were married. And I was like,
oh shit, does that like put things difficult because now
(29:05):
he's the power of attorney. And but then I started
researching more and I found out that he was actually
married to a different woman. So obviously I think they
were all in the same friend group of whoever Amber
had met up with that night, and word got around
is what happened in my mind, and that's why he
knows what he thinks he knows about A year after
(29:27):
Amber disappeared, Marty received a letter in the mail. So
I'm going to read this letter. But Whitney, after, can
you explain how this letter came to be? Because you
had talked to Marty about this and this letter is
very weird if you don't have context around it about
what happened afterwards. So the letter is so close, Mom,
(29:51):
you were so close to me. I am there by
the trustle just a little further, so close. I told
them here not to go to your house. It will
put them in danger under some brush. At the time,
it was brush and leaves. Skinny girl that walks the
(30:12):
trails heard the shot.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
So, like Melissa said, it's an interesting letter. Marty told
me she received this letter through the mail and she
was a little nervous because she's like, who knows where
I live to send me something like this? And who
would send it? She posted a photo on the help
us Find Amber facebook page asking of does anyone know
who sent this? And it garnered quite a bit of attention.
(30:38):
I mean, I would argue that it went viral and
in relation to Amber's disappearance, which is always a good thing.
That's the attention you want. She knew it wasn't from
Amber because of the handwriting immediately, that's not ambers handwriting.
So it's interesting that it's kind of written in first
person from Amber, but it's not Amber's handwriting. The author
(31:01):
eventually reaches out and Marty met with them. This person
that wrote it has what she says is psychic abilities
and that this message came to her and she felt
that Marty needed to hear it. Marty fully believes that
it was done with good intention, and after she met
with them, they actually went out to this location described
(31:22):
they found it. It was not far from a zoo,
and they kind of walked out there, and Marty said
when she got there, she knew immediately that it wasn't
somewhere that Amber could be. It would have been really
difficult because it's like up a hill, you gotta go
down this area. It would have been very difficult. So
she felt Amber wasn't there, and it was just way
(31:43):
out of the way compared to where she was last
known to be. It was detailed enough, according to law enforcement,
for them to do a search there, So they kicked
dogs out and found nothing out there. But I find
it interesting that they felt this was good enough to
go look at, but the woods aren't good enough to
(32:07):
do an actual valid search in. And the only reason
is is that it was incredibly specific, so they had
to search a small area. But the small woods by
they're not that big of woods. It's not one hundred acres,
it's not that big. It's small woods. So I just
it's like, I don't understand why they are picking and
choosing what they're doing. They're just just just creating more
(32:30):
problems in this investigation. The search for Amber continues.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Courtney, who once again was the sister in law to Amber,
told Dateline, we refuse to get up, give up.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
We can't, we won't.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
The Lansing Police Department says the case remains active. A
spokesperson for the city told reporters due to this being
an active and ongoing investigation, we cannot calm but our
department has been working on this case for the last
year and is doing their due diligence end quote.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I'm interested to I'm interested to hear what their definition
of due diligence is.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
That's what I was about to say.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
We might have different ones, but that's okay, it's their own.
For Marty and her family, the diligence feels painfully slow.
They know something isn't right. They believe foul play was involved.
They believe someone knows something, and they're pleading for that
person to come forward. One of the most painful parts
(33:36):
of the story is that Amber's family just don't know anything.
There's no crime scene, there's no arrest, there's no body,
no clues to where she could be, only avoid and
for families like Marty's, that kind of uncertainty is its own.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Form of torture.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Marty just wants her daughter back, even if she's no
longer with us. She just wants her daughter her back
so she can bury her and visit her in a proper,
respectful place.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
It's also hard because there's not a lot of things
they can look for. They know she was last wearing,
but they've never found her purse, they've never found a phone.
She didn't have a lot of belongings with her. She
essentially traveled light because she was couch surfing. She didn't
have a car, so she relied on rides from other people.
Or walked everywhere. So there's not a lot of things
(34:27):
that can be these breadcrumb items or these leads to
follow of Hey, that was Ambers and it was left here. Hey,
there's no stuff, there's nothing. She literally vanished into thin air, exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
So every night Marty lives between hope and heartbreak. She
wonders if she missed something, if there was a clue
in Amber's voice, a change in her tone, something that
said she should have acted sooner. But hindsight doesn't always
help when your daughter's missing action. The family is offering
a reward for any information that leads to Amber's return,
(35:05):
and they're asking anyone with even the smallest detail to
come forward. If you know anything, please call the Lansing
Police Department at five point seven for eight three four
six zero zero, And I would hope if you send
in a tip that they're going.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
To do their jobs appropriately.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
The advocacy piece for Amber story is difficult. Marty and
I talked a little bit about it. You know, my
first offering is always a flying campaign. But really, Marty
and Amber's family has done an incredible job at flyiring
this area and keeping Amber story going. They are continuously
advocating and we're right here to help them. Someone knows something,
(35:47):
and it's time they come forward.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Amber Arnett is more than a missing person case. She's
a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend. She is
someone who gave everything she had even when she didn't
have much, and the people who love her are still here,
still fighting, still hoping, still searching. Marty once said, I'm
(36:16):
just going to keep knocking on doors. That's what love
looks like. It's time for the rest of us to knock.
To share her photo, tell her story, ask the hard questions,
demand answers.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
We want to thank Marty for sharing amber story with us.
Please go and follow the help us find Amber facebook
page and share Amber story. This episode was researched, written
and produced by us. If you have a loved one
missing or is a victim of an unresolved murder, please
reach out to us at info at Navigatingadvocacy dot com.
(36:56):
If you'd like to support the podcast, please subscribe and
leave a five star rating and review on any podcast platform.
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