January 17, 2025 • 55 mins
Welcome to another new episode! This week, we discuss a case that could easily define the term “legacy”. When 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted and murdered, no one could have imagined just how the world would be changed because of the crime.
Amber is remembered by friends and family as a bright, kind and energetic young girl. But for the United States and in some way, many other countries across the globe, her legacy lives on in the AMBER Alert system. Over one thousand children have been saved from abduction and returned to their families because of this system.
Join us as we discuss this precious little girl and how she lives on through the emergency alert system that bares her name.
Sadly, Amber’s case has never been solved and the man responsible has not been brought to justice. It’s been 29 years and there is still hope that it can be solved.
If anyone has information on Amber’s abduction or murder, there is a number to call. 817-575-8823 will connect you to the Arlington Police Department.
This week, we featured a sneak peek into another podcast. Please give Simone with 90s Crime Time a listen. It is available anywhere you listen to podcasts. Tell her Jess & Brice sent you!
Information from this episode:
WFAA Documentary on Amber Hagerman
https://youtu.be/jKaqwlht1Xg?si=g4j8gxRiNVXNfByC
In-depth Reddit post on the case
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/iii674/extensive_write_up_the_murder_of_amber_hagerman/
Wikipedia on Sex Offender Registry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_offender_registries_in_the_United_States
Wikipedia on Amber Alerthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_alert
How AMBER Alerts came to be
https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/bud-kennedy/article54808010.html
20-year anniversary of Amber’s death
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/cold-case-spotlight/amber-behind-amber-alert-still-waiting-justice-20-years-later-n497696
Still waiting 25 years laterhttps://www.missingkids.org/blog/2021/still-searching-for-ambers-killer
https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/police-release-new-photos-seek-new-info-unsolved-1996-murder-amber-hagerman/DYCH62JDMVCOZFBRS265GCKCJU/
First child saved by Amber Alert
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/radio-alert-rescues-child/
Amber is remembered by friends and family as a bright, kind and energetic young girl. But for the United States and in some way, many other countries across the globe, her legacy lives on in the AMBER Alert system. Over one thousand children have been saved from abduction and returned to their families because of this system.
Join us as we discuss this precious little girl and how she lives on through the emergency alert system that bares her name.
Sadly, Amber’s case has never been solved and the man responsible has not been brought to justice. It’s been 29 years and there is still hope that it can be solved.
If anyone has information on Amber’s abduction or murder, there is a number to call. 817-575-8823 will connect you to the Arlington Police Department.
This week, we featured a sneak peek into another podcast. Please give Simone with 90s Crime Time a listen. It is available anywhere you listen to podcasts. Tell her Jess & Brice sent you!
Information from this episode:
WFAA Documentary on Amber Hagerman
https://youtu.be/jKaqwlht1Xg?si=g4j8gxRiNVXNfByC
In-depth Reddit post on the case
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/iii674/extensive_write_up_the_murder_of_amber_hagerman/
Wikipedia on Sex Offender Registry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_offender_registries_in_the_United_States
Wikipedia on Amber Alerthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_alert
How AMBER Alerts came to be
https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/bud-kennedy/article54808010.html
20-year anniversary of Amber’s death
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/cold-case-spotlight/amber-behind-amber-alert-still-waiting-justice-20-years-later-n497696
Still waiting 25 years laterhttps://www.missingkids.org/blog/2021/still-searching-for-ambers-killer
https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/police-release-new-photos-seek-new-info-unsolved-1996-murder-amber-hagerman/DYCH62JDMVCOZFBRS265GCKCJU/
First child saved by Amber Alert
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/radio-alert-rescues-child/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
What Happens in the Woods is a true crime podcast.
We discuss events that are often violent in nature.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listeners discretion is advised.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello, Welcome to What Happens in the Woods podcast. If
you are new here, we're so happy to have you
with us at the campfire, and if you've come before,
welcome back. Close up and get ready for this episode. Hi, Bryce, Hello,
how's it going. It's going, it's going. We are well
into the new year. It's just moving right along and
(00:53):
we hope that everybody as well. Life is good. Just
that time of reflection and new new resolutions for the year.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
We're supposed to do that.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Ooops, yeah, that's I don't you know, same ship, new year,
same ship. Do you have any any news, any updates
for us?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Any updates?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
H no, no, okay do you no, no updates?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I don't have any updates. O mm hmm. Now you're
the update man.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Not me. It's still the same okay, all right, just
the same old, same old.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
All right. Well, let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Then, let's get into it, all right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So before I do, there's some trigger warnings here in
this case does involve a murdered child, and there's some
some graphic nature to that not a whole lot. And
of course, if any of this is a possible trigger
for you, skip this one. Catch up with us next time.
(02:10):
No hard feelings, we get it. Yeah, all right, let's
dive in. So today, the day of this episode release,
so January seventeenth, mark's a very it's a very reflective
important day in true crime history. Do you possibly know why?
(02:34):
I don't think you will, but you might surprise me.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah. What it's my brother's birthday, okay.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
In true crime history.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, okay, Well, happy day my peace died.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, that's no lie. Now, happy birthday uncle for.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Uncle for uncle. Yeah, it's my brother's birthday. Happy birthday, Chris.
Although you don't listen.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
He's a hater.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
No, I don't think he listens to the podcast. It's fine,
it's fine.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I mean I don't know. That's okay.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
He'll never hear this.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
We could talk mad shit right now. He'll never know.
Your sister might tell him though, a little bit less
Uh this is true. Yeah, bitlessens all right. So that
is not the occasion that I'm offering too though. Yeah,
So today is the day that the body of a
young girl in Arlington Texas was found. Okay, this crime
(03:31):
and the effect it had on the community would lead
to laws that strengthened a national sex offender registry as
well as the alert system which bears this girl's name. Okay,
so today we will discuss the murder of Amber Renee
Hagerman and the creation of the Amber Alert. Oh yeah,
(03:54):
And it's not hart whatsoever to find information on the
history and evolution of the Amber Alert. It's what comes
up when you search under her name specifically, and the
lack of information on her actual story. And I can
(04:15):
say for myself, I was not very familiar with the
actual crime of you know, this little girl whose legacy
has has now reached into a national alert system that's
actually international.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Now, yes, oh, I was not aware of that.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Right, So there's a lot. Our story is centered in Arlington, Texas,
and Arlington is kind of part of the mid Cities
region of Dallas Sport Worths, So it's it's just kind
of a large metropolitan area in Texas. It was traditionally
considered a very safe area. And Amber Hagerman was born
(05:03):
to parents, Donna Whitson and Richard Hagerman. Donna was nineteen
and Richard was thirty six. She was born on November
twenty fifth, nineteen eighty six. Donna considered her sort of
like her an angel, a miracle baby, and felt lucky
to have had a child. As a child, as a
young lady. In adolescent, Donna suffered from an illness they
(05:26):
did not mention anywhere, doesn't matter, but she was paralyzed
from the waist down. Oh, and it was something that
she was able to overcome. And however, whatever this illness was,
however it came and went, she was able to walk
(05:49):
and move and go on to lead, you know, a
relatively normal life outside of this tragedy that we're speaking of.
The couple also had a son, Richard Junior, who they
called Ricky, just a few years later. Amber was a shy,
but very smart girl. She loved her family, She loved
(06:11):
to learn. Her mother, Donna, was not able to finish school,
but instilled a love of learning in her daughter, and
when Amber started school, she immediately wanted to do her
best and be the best. She was very proud of
her good grades, and her favorite thing in school was
creative writing. It is repeated several times that Amber was
(06:33):
remembered as a kind and good friend by her schoolmates
and her girl Scout troop. She was the type of
girl that kids wanted to be friends with and she
just kind of made them feel at ease. It's also
said that Amber loved to sing and that one of
her favorite songs to sing was America the Beautiful and
(06:53):
because it has the line in it that states for
Amber waves of grain. When Amber was about seven, her mom, Donna,
made the decision to leave Richard Richard possibly there was
some abuse going on. She and the kids went to
a local shelter in Arlington and they were just getting
(07:16):
their lives back on track. Around the time of Amber's
abduction and murder in late nineteen ninety five, Donna and
the kids were taking part of a documentary that a
local news channel was making as a part of his
series discussing welfare reform and success stories, and Donna was
a success story. Donna had moved into the shelter as
(07:38):
a single mother. She had not asked Richard for child support,
and she was utilizing the welfare system to help her
and the kids get back on track. Donna was able
to get her ged and she was entered into a
work program to learn job job skills in a school
that was training medical assistants. She volunteered her time while
(08:01):
waiting for that to begin at the welfare office and
she was recognized as the as a Local Like Volunteer
of the Year because of her efforts of that and
the kids and Donna were able to get their own apartment.
They were able to move out of the shelter, and
their journey and a lot of footage of the family
(08:23):
are chronicled in this documentary which I will link you
can't watch it on YouTube, the full documentary, and this
later turns into so much more. It turns into more
than what it was you know, initially intended to be.
In the video, you can see Amber share her scrapbook
of awards and certificates she received for her grades and
(08:46):
her perfect attendance, and she shared some of her creative
writing and photos of her friends things from her you
Know girl scout troop. The documentary was set to airs
just days after the murder took place and was delayed
as you would expect, but the family asked that the
(09:07):
filming crew still be involved, letting them into their lives
during one of the worst things a family could go through.
So it was Saturday, January thirteenth, nineteen ninety six, the
Amber would be abducted. The day had begun as any
other weekend might have, according to the account of the
day later given by Amber's grandma, Donna, and the kids
(09:30):
were at the park that morning, and then they had
lunch at Burger King. Then they came to see their grandparents,
Glinda and Jimmy Whitson, at their home, and this was
around three PM. The kids had just received bicycles for
Christmas that were kept at the Whitson's home, and at
three ten pm, after getting permission to ride the bikes,
(09:52):
the kids set off with strict instructions to only ride
around the block. Jimmy was outside working on a car,
and the family was in and out of the house,
so there wasn't much concern for the kids to be
riding around the neighborhood. And I have to say it
was just the time like I would be outside. I mean,
(10:13):
nineteen ninety six, I was outside constantly. Even earlier than that,
in the eighties and the nineties, you'd be outside running around.
There would be other kids running around. Parents were in
or out of their homes or just inside. Nobody nobody
had to worry about that. No, it's this is completely normal.
(10:34):
So if anybody's listening, they're like, what the fuck you're
not watching your kids. We didn't have to.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
We didn't have helicopter parents.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, you know you, I mean kind of like, hey,
go find something to do. Let the parents be like
we we didn't. I never at once felt like I
couldn't be outside and that it was unsafe as a kid,
Like never, I never felt that way. And now the
thought of, yeah, my kids being outside when they were
(11:02):
growing up without me watching them, it was terrifying because
of things like this. Yeah, and that's not to say
that there weren't people who were predators. There were. We
just we didn't hear about it as much, and we
didn't we weren't worried about it. So the pair rode
(11:24):
up the road about a tenth of a mile from
the grandparents' home to a parking lot that had at
one tint to a parking lot that it had at
one time been on the side of a wind Dixie
grocery store. So the wind Dixie had closed, it was
the parking lot in this area was vacant. The grocery
store was closed, but there was a laundromat. There was
(11:45):
a few other small businesses that were still operating. This
particular parking lot was a favorite for the neighborhood kids
to ride around as it had a ramp like where
the deliveries could be made by truck, so it kind
of went up and down that they just love to
ride down and ride on.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Plus there's no traffic, come on, vacant parking lot. Yeah, no,
is that worried about cars?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
You could just run around to your heart's content.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Almost immediately, Ricky wanted to turn back so they didn't
get in trouble. He was five years old. He was
worried about getting in trouble. And Amber's like, okay, go home.
Then I'm going to ride around and you know, I'll
be there soon. When Ricky gets back to the house,
Donna and her father noticed that he was alone and
(12:35):
they're like, hey, where's Amber. Where's your sister? And he
replied that she was still at the parking lot and
they were like, no, go right back, tell her to
get home. And so Ricky goes back to the store
parking lot. Amber was already gone. It was three eighteen pm.
It took eight minutes for her to be taken.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Oh, I mean, that's all it takes.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
That's all it take.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Blink of an eye.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Ricky came back as fast as he could to get
somebody when he saw her bike, but no Amber. Jimmy there,
her grandfather jumped in a car, drove up to the
parking lot, only to find police were already there.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Oh wow, right.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
One officer was holding a pink bike, which was the bike,
and Jimmy told them, I think that's my granddaughter's, and
the officers advised him that they were responding to a
nine to one to one call that had come in
in reporting a possible abduction of a young girl. They
were able to respond within three minutes to this call.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
That's still too long.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Unfortunately it is. It is because it literally takes five
seconds to grab a kid and walk off.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
You know. A witness who lived across the streets saw
the abduction as it was taking place. Sony eight year
old Jim Kivel was working in his backyard when he
witnessed a black or blue dark colored truck drive up.
A man got out, grabbed Ambert. He forcefully took her
(14:13):
off of her bike and made her get into his
truck this entire time. She was screaming and kicking, and
that's what caught the man's attention. And he was obviously
seventy eight years old. He's not running anywhere to get
to her. But he was in his backyard and there
was a chain link fence in between them, so he
could not have physically gotten to the area to do anything.
(14:37):
But he immediately went inside and called nine to one one.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Good for him.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah. He told them that he saw the truck go
east on Abram Street and that he believed that the
girl did not want to go with the man. He
was able to give the only description that authorities have
of the suspect to this day. Witches a young white
or Hispanic man twenty to thirty years old, with dark
(15:04):
brown or black hair. The man was less than six
feet tall and of medium built. The truck seemed to
be a single cab, so just the front seat, nineteen
eighties or nineties truck in very good condition, no chrome piping.
He was able to see that, so police questioned the family,
(15:26):
neighbors asked around to see if anyone else had seen
the incident. They had no other potential witnesses and no leads.
There were helicopters that circled the area, and a search
effort was quickly organized and included members of the local
police and FBI. The family sat waiting hoping for Amber
(15:48):
to be found. They quickly made flyers and they walked
around the neighborhood with volunteers to post them anywhere they could.
And this story quickly got picked up on national news
and as more and more reporters began camping out at
the Whitston's home, it made the family leaving difficult, so
(16:09):
they essentially were stuck in their home waiting for news,
couldn't do anything without reporters just counting them.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, a couple of things I think, you know, like
in the nineties, that's when news became sensationalized and like
everybody wanted to watch because I think that's when like,
not not to you know, romanticize it, but like that's
when they started airing like live chases on TV.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, OJ Simson chase. Yeah, I mean that were.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Just la in general, and there's a high speed chase. Yeah.
The nineties was like really when television was just like
at its peak, like it Yeah, I mean, like news
especially everyone wanted news. M So all this was sensationalized,
so them wanting to be first, and I think it's
(17:06):
it's horrible and to her ass people like that, you know,
I mean they've just gone through this tragedy and now
they're surrounded their house, like, talk to us, talk to us,
talk to us.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, and there's I mean, you can see the footage
of this because, like I said, the documentary crew was
still there. It was filming.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And they actually have video footage of her in the
neighborhood riding on this pink bike before she took off
and was abducted.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah. And that was the other thing that I wanted
to mention too, is like my brother and I always
took off together, but my dad always said never too.
I don't care if you're fighting, you two, don't ever separate.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I was like, I don't know how many times I
had to wait for my brother to catch up, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Like, but yeah, yeah, I mean, unfortunately that is. But
as a kid, you don't think that. You don't think
you're like, yeah, go home, you don't want to be here,
go home. I'll be there in a minute. Like you
don't think that that decision is going to mean so much.
(18:15):
And in my case, I didn't have a sibling out
there with me. I was alone. I would ride for
blocks and blocks and blocks by myself away from my house,
and you know, but yeah, that's that was.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
That was too. It is like we always had a
group of friends that ride with too.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, I didn't necessarily have anybody that lived in my
neighborhood that I would, you know, I I it was
a different time. It was just a different time. You
can be a kid out and play and not have
to worry about stupid stuff like this, and it makes
it really hard on the family. They can't, like I
(18:58):
would saying in the documentary, you can see the news
vans just completely crowded the street, and it was I
can't imagine just not being able to go stand outside
and try to look up and down the street for
(19:19):
your kid, or to call their name and not have
a bunch of you know, cameras in your face recording it.
You know, answers would come. Four days later, on the
morning of January seventeenth, the body of Amber Hagerman was
found in a creek culvert behind an apartment complex when
(19:39):
a resident of the complex was out walking his dog
around midnight. She was faced down in the creek and
nude except for one sock. There had been a crew
working there earlier in the day, so it was assumed
that and then there was a storm that rolled in,
so it was assumed that the storm that night had
(20:00):
washed her body down to the culvert from another location.
Police and the chaplain notified the family, but news was
quickly out and it was almost immediately broadcasted on the news.
The family watched as Amber's body was moved from the
creek to a vehicle to transport her to the morgue.
(20:20):
Her funeral service was held just days later, on January twentieth,
at a local Episcopalian church. It was attended by several
hundred community members, friends, family, and it obtained national attention.
Amber was laid to rest and the community mourned her
(20:41):
loss with her family. It did not take long for
authorities to set up a task force. It comprised of
fifteen members to handle the heavy you know investigation. That
number has dwindled over the years, but there is still
a reward of seventy five thousand dollars that was promised
in return for any information given that leads to the suspect.
(21:06):
Over the years, an estimated seven to eight thousand tips
have been phoned into the police regarding Amber's abduction, but
nothing has led to an arrest. Not much has been
released to this day regarding evidence and the autopsy. One
detail that stood out was that they estimated Amber had
been deceased for about forty eight hours, meaning she had
(21:29):
been with her abductor and alive for that same amount
of time. It is known that the cause of death
was a large slit across her throat, but there were
other multiple stab wounds and lacerations found on her body
as well. It was also found that Amber was a
victim of sexual assault, though just how far is unknown.
(21:51):
Some reports that I read state it is just short
of quote unquote rape. However, I it's hard to know
what that means. Sexual assault of a child is still
I don't. It doesn't matter what it is, it's still horrendous.
Possibly they have refrained from releasing so much information due
(22:14):
to the nature of it and not wanting to give
out too much information in case that you know, can
be like convolute potential suspect. Over the coming days and months,
Donna and Richard put aside their personal issues to show
a united front when speaking publicly publicly regarding Amber, it
(22:37):
is because of their determination to get answers for their
daughter's murder and to try to protect children from similar
faiths in the future that laid the groundwork for services
and laws in effect today. And when we come back
from this break, we will talk about the legacy Amber
Hagerman is known for.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Some murders shake the world to its core, some mysteries
never unravel, and some tragedies leave us asking one question,
how could this happen? From mass killings that leave entire
communities in shock to unsolved disappearances that haunt families for decades,
(23:36):
you'll hear it all on season six of Nineties Crime Time.
In each episode of this season, we'll dig deep into
some of the deadliest massacres to the coldest calculated murders,
and you'll find out what made these cases some of
the most chilling cases of the decade, even if you
(23:58):
haven't heard of some of them. From small towns to
busy cities, from quiet nights to violent acts that chatter peace,
Nineties crime Time will bring you stories of murder and mystery,
So set your calendars and tune in on January ninth,
twenty twenty four, to the season six premiere of nineties
(24:22):
Crime Time and I'll See You Then.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
In nineteen ninety six, nine year old Amber Hagerman had
been abducted and brutally murdered in the Dallasport Worth area.
The national attention and outcry in this case for justice
would have long reaching effects that no one could have
foreseen at the time. One of those is a national
(25:01):
database for sex offenders. In this day and age, we
have all heard of this registry, and it seems like
it should be a given that it's just always been
a thing, and that is far from the actual case.
The database was only signed into national law initially in
(25:22):
nineteen ninety four. It has seen several updates in form
of new acts, with the Amber Hagerman Act in nineteen
ninety six being one of them. Up until nineteen ninety four,
most states had some type of registry, but not all
were public, and there was a broad definition on what
the charges listed could be.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Just a broad not specific.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, they were not very specific. It could be, you know,
in some states, it could be that they actually were
convicted of child molestation. In other states, it could be
that they had been convicted of rape, but there was
(26:08):
not a uniform across the states of what charges specifically
would get you on this list. And even at that,
like I was reading, there were some states that have
had registries since the nineteen thirties, which is great. They
didn't share it with anybody else. They didn't check up
(26:30):
on these people. There was no time limit that you
would be on this list, so you know, nobody was
regulating them. What if the person was dead, they no
longer need to be on that list, like, there were
no updates. They also were not sharing this with the
general public. You could not, as the public go and
ask to see this list.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Really, right, so it's just for the police.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
It was just for the police, which.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
The police didn't even share it.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
They didn't share it. But they also that could lead
to harassment. It could lead to and I'm not saying
don't get it twisted. I believe that people who do
this and are on this list for specific crimes, they
don't deserve a moment's piece. I'm not going to go
(27:19):
as far as saying that you know the harassment, but
there are some states that would put you on if
you had a conviction of skinny dipping in decent exposure
in public. You don't need to be on a sex
offenders list for skinny dipping.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Doing it in front of kids.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
If you're in a public pool in the middle of
the day and you skinny dip, that's one thing. If
you're in a lake in the middle of the night
just for a swim, nobody's around you. I don't know
that that warrants being on a sex offender's list. Like
that's where specific charges need to come into play. So
(27:57):
it was a very broad It was open for interpretation.
It was a good start, you know. It laid some
groundwork to where we're at today. The Jacob Wetterling Act
was the first iteration of what we have on the
books today, and it was named after an eleven year
old boy from Minnesota who was abducted. What started at
(28:18):
the state level was passed by Congress into a law
required all states to mandate the same requirements across the
board in regard to registration, also the length of time
a convicted person would be listed on the registry and
the specific charges that could require the registration. So a
(28:41):
good generalization of where we are today. In nineteen ninety six,
it was found that there was still too much room
for error after a seven year old Megan, seven year
old girl named Megan Kanka, who was abducted from her
front yard in nineteen ninety four by their neighbor who
was a sex offender. Her parents were not aware that
(29:04):
a sex offender had moved into the neighborhood. There was
no notification. So this seven year old was playing in
their front yard under supervision. Mom, you know, a blink
of an eye, tension diverted and this little girl was
lured away by this neighbor from her front yard into
(29:26):
his home. Oh no, it is he lured her away
from she was on her front yard, in on her
actual yard, and he lured her into his home. That's intention.
You Obviously there's no reform been made there, and you
(29:52):
I I would have liked to have known that somebody
like that was moving into my neighborhood. President Bill Clinton's
sign Meghan's Law as an addition to the Jacob Wetterling
Act to try to establish community notification on sex offenders
moving into an area. The next edition would be the
Amber Hagermann Child Protection Act Law of nineteen ninety six.
(30:16):
Clinton also signed that in October of that year, so
nine months after Amber's murder. This law would create what
is known today as the Amber Alert, and I will
get more in depth into that in a moment. The
last and most current edition that would be the most
(30:36):
comprehensive policy was the Adam Walsh Act, which was signed
into effect in two thousand and six. It's well known
most everybody who is into true crime knows of Adam Walsh.
He was a six year old boy who disappeared from
a Florida shopping mall in nineteen eighty one. His father,
(30:59):
John Walsh, would go on to be a big advocate
for law reform and uniform investigation procedures, as well as
host a little show called America's Most Wanted Yes. This
Act tightened up the minimum guidelines that states could operate
within for the registry and the requirements of the convicted
(31:20):
persons going forward after registration. It also widened the types
of charges and even required certain miners charged with adult
crimes to be on the registry. I will say there
is some now, there is some talk of it's too
much that some of the charges that are listed on
(31:44):
the registry are maybe don't need to be on there.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
It's a little too harsh.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
It's a little too harsh, but also that it I
do believe that there are people who can reform. And
there are cases of people who you know, might have
had charges that fall under a sexual nature. So let's
(32:13):
say skinny dipping, or you know, there are other cases
of you know, there are multiple things that you can
look at when you're researching this, if anybody really wants
to go and look at what the concerns are now
for this. But there are charges who fall they fall
(32:37):
under a sexual nature, but they're not necessarily towards one
person or a group of people. It's not like it's
child pornography. It's not. It's I did something stupid at
the time and I shouldn't have done that, but the
police have caught me and charged me very harshly, and
now I'm a registered sex offender. Whether they should or
(33:02):
shouldn't be on that list really not for me to decide.
But I can see the point being made that this
ruins people's lives.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, And.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
While I can't agree that there is a need for it,
I think I think they're still room for a discussion
of how far do we go with it?
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Well, I mean, that's the thing too, is like you know,
we institute these laws, we can still change them exactly.
They need to be tweaked every so often.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
They should be as you know, the internet in nineteen
ninety six, when this was an even two thousand and six,
is not what it is today. There are a lot
more regulations that have come because of internet and social media.
Are they enough? Are they too? Much? Like these should
always be reevaluated. They are not stacked it and they
(34:01):
shouldn't be. But they can affect people's lives indefinitely.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, I was gonna say forever and.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Make it so that they can't find housing, they can't
get jobs, they can't you know, Yes, they've served their
time and they've gone through their parole and they have
maybe reformed or maybe their charge was was didn't even
require jail time. It just required a role and a
fine and community service. Maybe they've done all of that
(34:32):
and they're on the registry and it follows them for
the rest of their life, even after they have done
what they were asked to do. Yeah, And while there
are some people I would say yeah, sucks to suck,
there are a few things that I've read that it
was you know, yeah, I don't know that that's fair
(34:55):
to them. And I'm not talking, you know, cases of rape.
I'm not talking cases of child molestation. I'm talking, you know,
the the crimes that aren't even felonies. Some of them
can wind you up on a sex offender's list. But
that is that, that is a whole that could be
(35:16):
a whole episode in itself. With discussion now going back
to Donna and Richard, Amber's parents for a moment, they
truly turned the grief of this, you know, event that
affected them, catastrostrophic event that affected their lives, right, they
(35:37):
turned it into whatever positive thing that they could. After
Amber's death, one way was to found a local group
that they named People Against Sex Offenders or PASSO. This
organization was run by Richard and was instrumental in many
community forums, town hall meetings, and it led to the
(36:00):
push for a more nationally recognized registry. They were supported
by many other families who had experienced similar tragedies. One
such person was Mark Glass, whose daughter poly class Her
abduction and murderers well known in California. The group also
pushed for legislature to be passed that would enact harsher
(36:23):
laws and sentencing on sex criminals, and both Donna and
Richard would speak publicly about the hardships their family had endured,
and they would eventually make a trip to Washington, d C.
To speak before a committee regarding the Amber Hagerman Act.
They were invited to be at the signing of the
bill in nineteen ninety six and acknowledged by then President
(36:44):
Clinton for their efforts. The president who signed the bill
that Adam Walsh Act was George Bush, who at the
time was actually governor in Texas. Wow, when this was
going on, George or w George W. No, George just
(37:05):
George nother second one, George W Yeah, Okay, George W. Bush? Sorry?
But what is the Amber alert system? How did it
come to be? So surprisingly, it was not Donna or
Richard or any member of the family that had this idea.
(37:25):
When the news of Amber's abduction was being reported throughout
the Dallasport Worth area, many news and radio stations were
taking calls from concerned citizens, and these people were asking, like,
what do we do, what are we looking for? How
do we help? And one caller, Diana Simone, actually had
a suggestion that seemed so logical that it was almost
(37:48):
comical how it had not been implemented before. Now, Diana
asked if it were possible for the community to be
notified immediately after nine to one to one resources were
contacted with a true abduction impertinent details given that may
lead to the capture of a suspect. She stated that
if there could be an immediate response in the news
(38:10):
or especially in the case of radio broadcasts, the public
listening in their cars while out and about or families
at home would be able to keep an eye out
for a suspect or a certain type of car, and
out of this suggestion, the Amber Alert, or as it's
known by its full name America's Missing Broadcast Emergency System,
(38:34):
was born. Diana asked that if this were to be implemented,
it be named after Amber Hagerman. So at first it
was only enacted and used in the Dallas Fort Worth area,
but popularity of its spread and it began to be
used in similar fashion in other regions of the country.
(38:56):
It was usually named after a local child abduction case,
and believe me, there are no shortage of these cases.
While the use of this system is now widely known,
it's been implemented in several other countries, Canada, Mexico, European countries,
(39:18):
China has their own version, Russia has their own version.
South American countries have their own version of this. And
is it is rolled into you know, what started as
a Dallas Fort Worth area broadcasting emergency system has rolled
throughout the world into you know, a very a very
(39:47):
I mean, there's don't get me wrong, there's a lot
of people who are like this, this is annoying. This
broadcast alert is annoying when it comes up. There have
been cases of people listening to things and have headphones
in their ears in the broadcast up and they've suffered
permanent ear damage hearing damage from that. There are people, well, yeah,
(40:07):
it's it's starring. It's meant to be so to get
your attention. It is. There's people who say that the
information on the side of the roads is distracting for
drivers on their phone, right yeah, because you're fiddling with
a big, huge ass screen of your Tesla driving down
(40:29):
the road, you know, or or your your SUV or
or your small i mean, god, even some of these
small cars there. The screens that they have now for
their dashboard is just like their control system is it's
bigger than an iPad. It's huge, but regardless, for it
(40:51):
to start in this one area and to slowly just
spread across the world to try to stop, you know,
to try to get public eyes on possible abductions. Is
it's astounding to me that this one thing could have
(41:11):
such a reaching effect.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
And it's not like it takes extra effort. That it's
already in place, right, it's just utilizing it a different way.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Right. So, while this system is widely known and has
been implemented in many other countries, the girl who has
been named after still has not received the justice that
she deserves. It has been twenty nine years and they
are still hoping to find the person responsible for her
(41:47):
abduction and murder. So the FBI did a profile in
the early days of the investigation. I'm going to read
that to you so quote. Amber's abductor was profiled as
an opportunistic predator who targeted Amber for the sole reason
that she was alone and accessible. He lives or works
in the area of Arlington, as he seems very comfortable
(42:10):
with the landscape. He is white or Hispanic, and most
likely suffered some type of stressor before the crime. He
may have been laid off, fired, divorce, or had some
other stressful event occur before the abduction. The perpetrator probably
has a criminal record and may have committed crimes against
children before. The man lives in a place with privacy
(42:33):
enough to keep a child hidden for two days. Because
of this, he probably does not live in an apartment
or similar housing. He may live alone. Profiling, of course,
is not an exact science, but the FBI claims that
this is the type of man who had perpetrated similar
crimes in the past, so it seems like it shouldn't
(42:57):
need to be said. But this profile, actually, I think
is very helpful. I think the problem is, and it
was stated in many articles that that area of Arlington
has and I'm sure now has a much more diverse community,
(43:17):
but at the time had a large population of Hispanic people.
And while there were probably a lot of people out
and about at three pm on a Saturday, there was
people in the laundrymat, there was people at the other businesses,
there was people outside. It was a warm day for
a January, you know day, it was like seventy The
(43:40):
news said people were probably out doing yard where kids
were outside playing. Somebody saw something but for some reason,
only one witness account has ever been given, and they
fear it's because people were scared of deportation or too
(44:02):
many questions being asked about their status.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Because then they had the anonymous line.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
They had a line. Yeah, I don't know that it
was anonymous though, but they had a line. I'm sure
they would have taken information anonymously. But the police do
still to this day reiterate they're not interested in anybody's
visa status. They're not interested in why you were where
(44:29):
you were and why you didn't say anything before. They
don't care. They just want to find the person who
did this.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
And can you blame them?
Speaker 1 (44:38):
I can't. I can't blame them. I can't.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
I would be scared as hell never trick people before, Right.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
No, I would be scared as hell to say anything.
I would.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
People don't trust the government, Oh.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
No, right, wonder why I cannot blame anybody for not
coming forward. But I do have to believe that it
weighs on your conscience. So regardless of how you can
get information to the authorities, you have to try. You
have to know that it's going to make some good
(45:13):
in this case, and it's not just her case. It's
any case. It's any case where a child, you know,
their crime against his child, or a person has gone
unsolved and somebody knows something but they're too scared to
come forward. It's it's it's hard, and that would not
be something that I want weighing on my chest, you know,
(45:36):
I can't imagine the guilt of that. So that being said,
if anyone has any information on Amber's abduction or murder,
there is a number to call. So eight one seven
five seven five eight eight two three will connect you
to the Arlington Police Department. And this is still an
open investigation. They do have DNA events.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
You're fucked.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
I think the thing. I think the problem is she
was in the water for they believe forty eight hours.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
DNA is at some point they will be able to
test whatever DNA they have in a way that makes
it very clear who the suspect is.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Mom may identified DNA of the frozen guy in the
Alps they found, right, he's like two thousand years old, yep.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
So I think they are protecting because you know, in
the early infancy of DNA testing, you had to have
certain type, you had to have enough of it. I
think they've been protecting what they had, and good for
them to know that at some point it would be
testable and they wouldn't waste it trying to test it.
(46:58):
So they have it. They're just biting their time. But
you know, Donna and Richard and her Amber's brother Ricky,
the family, they deserve answers, They deserve to know and
be able to put this to rest. Yes, you know,
as much as they can, beyond what they've already done.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Yeah, the loss of a loved one never gets easier,
but I think getting the answers will put, you know,
at ease some of their worries.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yeah, but it's also closure.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
It's it's closure, and I think, I mean, I think
that they have tried to find closure in many different
ways that the documentary goes into it. It's called After Amber.
So the documentary was done, like I said, by a
local news outlet in Texas. So it's called After Amber
(48:01):
an a w f A A documentary and I will
link it to the show notes and and on social media.
It was hard to watch because you you really had
an in depth view of them dealing with it and
in their real time. You know, she they were recording
(48:24):
the day that she was abducted, and and it it
really you know, you see what it did to her parents,
you see what it did to her brother. And you know,
he was five at the time. And at one point
they show him getting some mental health help and and
(48:45):
I I hope that he is is able to come
to terms with them, you know, at this point, but
they showed him as a little kid needing, needing an outlet,
needing to two. I understand, trying to understand, where's my
sister at? Where did she go? Why isn't she here?
(49:07):
You know, And he was blaming himself for leaving. He's five,
he's five years old, and he was like, I shouldn't
have left my sissy. I shouldn't have left my sissy.
I can't That's just it broke me. It just completely
broke me. So warning, you know, it is a really
(49:30):
fly on the wall look at somebody's grief, at somebody's
life after an event like this. But I thought it
was worth it to watch because a lot of the
news nowadays, like when you pull up a Wikipedia page
or news articles about Amber, it goes right into yeah,
(49:50):
she was abducted and murdered, and now we have the
Amber Alert and the whole history of the Amber Alert,
and that's great, But there's a child behind this, is
a family behind this, and and that should be that
shouldn't necessarily the Amber Alert shouldn't be what comes up
more prevalent when you when you look at her name.
(50:12):
If I was researching specifically amber alert, I would expect that.
But when you look at just her name and research
and type that into research, you know, search engines, it's
it's very it's very much Ambler Amber alert comes up first.
(50:32):
So I think I think watching the documentary if if
people are really you know, want to get the full story,
it's a good watch. And it's from the nineties. Don't
don't get me wrong. The it's from the nineties. Anybody
who knows you know, you know it's the nineties. But
(50:53):
but yeah, it is something that I didn't know that
I didn't know all the information. It just never occurred
to me to think, well, who was Amber. I knew
that there was just a little girl named Amber who
was abducted and didn't really question why or what happened.
(51:20):
And I will say, you know, whatever you think of
the Amber Alert system or the National Sex Offenders Registry.
There was documentation, well you know, statistics that were put
out at the end of last year twenty twenty four
that the Amber Alert nationwide has helped something like eleven
(51:44):
hundred children not you know, they were abducted and then
they were able to find the suspects and retrieve the
children unharmed, relatively unharmed. So while that seems like a
little amount that this is twenty nine years old, that
(52:05):
is eleven hundred children who are still with their families.
And yes, that doesn't that's not as statistic about how
many times it's been used and how many children they
haven't found.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
But even saving one I think is worth it.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely, it's there shouldn't be anything we don't
do for our children, no, yeah, So it's amazing to
me that they've been able to do that. And I
would say that all of those families probably agree. Yeah,
(52:43):
they have their children back.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
I'll just say this though too. And even after this
is over and the court is done and their sentence,
they're not going to have a good time in prison either.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Oh god, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
They don't take kindly to those like people that harm
kids or child molests. Sirs. Or you know, basically pedophiles. Yeah,
they do not have a good time in prison. And
those prisoners know, you know, they want to see paperwork.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
Yeah, they shouldn't have a good time. Nobody should have
a good time in prison. It's it's it's prison.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
But no, especially those guys. Those guys get hurt.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah, it's a special place.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Fall downstairs all the time.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Oh yeah, yep, which I don't you know.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
I don't wish harm on anyone, but.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
I don't feel bad.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
No, I don't feel bad. So a lot of them
don't make it out. I was just reading today a
story about that. Like there was a guy who he
was in prison, he was in New York. Yeah, he
was in prison or he was on trial for oh
he punched like a twelve year old kid and they
(53:50):
found him dead.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
You know, Oh wow, that sucks. Yeah, kids should be
off limits. Yeah they really should.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
You shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
It's it's gross. It's just it's gross.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
So that's our episode today. We've we've discussed a lot,
unpacked a lot, but Amber definitely has a legacy. Yeah,
and hopefully they are able to figure out, you know,
at some point use this DNA and figure out who
(54:26):
who did this? Or just bring them to justice. Well,
I mean if they're dead, but at least yeah, I
don't know, bring it to light. I mean, if they're dead,
they're dead. There's nothing that anybody can do about that.
But that doesn't mean that you should die with your name.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
No, but the family should have closure, the family shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
He deserves closure. Thank you for listening with us. We
we are happy to have everyone with us and enjoy
the rest of January. We'll be back with a special
episode on the thirty first, and as always, remembered to
be kind. Never know what people are going through, especially
(55:11):
in these trying times. We appreciate all of you. Thank
you so much and we will see you next time.
And remember stay out of the damn woods. Bye guys, Bye,
What Happens in the Woods is a true crime podcast.
We discuss events that are often violent in nature.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listeners discretion is advised.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello, Welcome to What Happens in the Woods podcast. If
you are new here, we're so happy to have you
with us at the campfire, and if you've come before,
welcome back. Close up and get ready for this episode. Hi, Bryce, Hello,
how's it going. It's going, it's going. We are well
into the new year. It's just moving right along and
(00:53):
we hope that everybody as well. Life is good. Just
that time of reflection and new new resolutions for the year.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
We're supposed to do that.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Ooops, yeah, that's I don't you know, same ship, new year,
same ship. Do you have any any news, any updates
for us?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Any updates?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
H no, no, okay do you no, no updates?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I don't have any updates. O mm hmm. Now you're
the update man.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Not me. It's still the same okay, all right, just
the same old, same old.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
All right. Well, let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Then, let's get into it, all right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So before I do, there's some trigger warnings here in
this case does involve a murdered child, and there's some
some graphic nature to that not a whole lot. And
of course, if any of this is a possible trigger
for you, skip this one. Catch up with us next time.
(02:10):
No hard feelings, we get it. Yeah, all right, let's
dive in. So today, the day of this episode release,
so January seventeenth, mark's a very it's a very reflective
important day in true crime history. Do you possibly know why?
(02:34):
I don't think you will, but you might surprise me.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah. What it's my brother's birthday, okay.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
In true crime history.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, okay, Well, happy day my peace died.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, that's no lie. Now, happy birthday uncle for.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Uncle for uncle. Yeah, it's my brother's birthday. Happy birthday, Chris.
Although you don't listen.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
He's a hater.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
No, I don't think he listens to the podcast. It's fine,
it's fine.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I mean I don't know. That's okay.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
He'll never hear this.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
We could talk mad shit right now. He'll never know.
Your sister might tell him though, a little bit less
Uh this is true. Yeah, bitlessens all right. So that
is not the occasion that I'm offering too though. Yeah,
So today is the day that the body of a
young girl in Arlington Texas was found. Okay, this crime
(03:31):
and the effect it had on the community would lead
to laws that strengthened a national sex offender registry as
well as the alert system which bears this girl's name. Okay,
so today we will discuss the murder of Amber Renee
Hagerman and the creation of the Amber Alert. Oh yeah,
(03:54):
And it's not hart whatsoever to find information on the
history and evolution of the Amber Alert. It's what comes
up when you search under her name specifically, and the
lack of information on her actual story. And I can
(04:15):
say for myself, I was not very familiar with the
actual crime of you know, this little girl whose legacy
has has now reached into a national alert system that's
actually international.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Now, yes, oh, I was not aware of that.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Right, So there's a lot. Our story is centered in Arlington, Texas,
and Arlington is kind of part of the mid Cities
region of Dallas Sport Worths, So it's it's just kind
of a large metropolitan area in Texas. It was traditionally
considered a very safe area. And Amber Hagerman was born
(05:03):
to parents, Donna Whitson and Richard Hagerman. Donna was nineteen
and Richard was thirty six. She was born on November
twenty fifth, nineteen eighty six. Donna considered her sort of
like her an angel, a miracle baby, and felt lucky
to have had a child. As a child, as a
young lady. In adolescent, Donna suffered from an illness they
(05:26):
did not mention anywhere, doesn't matter, but she was paralyzed
from the waist down. Oh, and it was something that
she was able to overcome. And however, whatever this illness was,
however it came and went, she was able to walk
(05:49):
and move and go on to lead, you know, a
relatively normal life outside of this tragedy that we're speaking of.
The couple also had a son, Richard Junior, who they
called Ricky, just a few years later. Amber was a shy,
but very smart girl. She loved her family, She loved
(06:11):
to learn. Her mother, Donna, was not able to finish school,
but instilled a love of learning in her daughter, and
when Amber started school, she immediately wanted to do her
best and be the best. She was very proud of
her good grades, and her favorite thing in school was
creative writing. It is repeated several times that Amber was
(06:33):
remembered as a kind and good friend by her schoolmates
and her girl Scout troop. She was the type of
girl that kids wanted to be friends with and she
just kind of made them feel at ease. It's also
said that Amber loved to sing and that one of
her favorite songs to sing was America the Beautiful and
(06:53):
because it has the line in it that states for
Amber waves of grain. When Amber was about seven, her mom, Donna,
made the decision to leave Richard Richard possibly there was
some abuse going on. She and the kids went to
a local shelter in Arlington and they were just getting
(07:16):
their lives back on track. Around the time of Amber's
abduction and murder in late nineteen ninety five, Donna and
the kids were taking part of a documentary that a
local news channel was making as a part of his
series discussing welfare reform and success stories, and Donna was
a success story. Donna had moved into the shelter as
(07:38):
a single mother. She had not asked Richard for child support,
and she was utilizing the welfare system to help her
and the kids get back on track. Donna was able
to get her ged and she was entered into a
work program to learn job job skills in a school
that was training medical assistants. She volunteered her time while
(08:01):
waiting for that to begin at the welfare office and
she was recognized as the as a Local Like Volunteer
of the Year because of her efforts of that and
the kids and Donna were able to get their own apartment.
They were able to move out of the shelter, and
their journey and a lot of footage of the family
(08:23):
are chronicled in this documentary which I will link you
can't watch it on YouTube, the full documentary, and this
later turns into so much more. It turns into more
than what it was you know, initially intended to be.
In the video, you can see Amber share her scrapbook
of awards and certificates she received for her grades and
(08:46):
her perfect attendance, and she shared some of her creative
writing and photos of her friends things from her you
Know girl scout troop. The documentary was set to airs
just days after the murder took place and was delayed
as you would expect, but the family asked that the
(09:07):
filming crew still be involved, letting them into their lives
during one of the worst things a family could go through.
So it was Saturday, January thirteenth, nineteen ninety six, the
Amber would be abducted. The day had begun as any
other weekend might have, according to the account of the
day later given by Amber's grandma, Donna, and the kids
(09:30):
were at the park that morning, and then they had
lunch at Burger King. Then they came to see their grandparents,
Glinda and Jimmy Whitson, at their home, and this was
around three PM. The kids had just received bicycles for
Christmas that were kept at the Whitson's home, and at
three ten pm, after getting permission to ride the bikes,
(09:52):
the kids set off with strict instructions to only ride
around the block. Jimmy was outside working on a car,
and the family was in and out of the house,
so there wasn't much concern for the kids to be
riding around the neighborhood. And I have to say it
was just the time like I would be outside. I mean,
(10:13):
nineteen ninety six, I was outside constantly. Even earlier than that,
in the eighties and the nineties, you'd be outside running around.
There would be other kids running around. Parents were in
or out of their homes or just inside. Nobody nobody
had to worry about that. No, it's this is completely normal.
(10:34):
So if anybody's listening, they're like, what the fuck you're
not watching your kids. We didn't have to.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
We didn't have helicopter parents.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, you know you, I mean kind of like, hey,
go find something to do. Let the parents be like
we we didn't. I never at once felt like I
couldn't be outside and that it was unsafe as a kid,
Like never, I never felt that way. And now the
thought of, yeah, my kids being outside when they were
(11:02):
growing up without me watching them, it was terrifying because
of things like this. Yeah, and that's not to say
that there weren't people who were predators. There were. We
just we didn't hear about it as much, and we
didn't we weren't worried about it. So the pair rode
(11:24):
up the road about a tenth of a mile from
the grandparents' home to a parking lot that had at
one tint to a parking lot that it had at
one time been on the side of a wind Dixie
grocery store. So the wind Dixie had closed, it was
the parking lot in this area was vacant. The grocery
store was closed, but there was a laundromat. There was
(11:45):
a few other small businesses that were still operating. This
particular parking lot was a favorite for the neighborhood kids
to ride around as it had a ramp like where
the deliveries could be made by truck, so it kind
of went up and down that they just love to
ride down and ride on.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Plus there's no traffic, come on, vacant parking lot. Yeah, no,
is that worried about cars?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
You could just run around to your heart's content.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Almost immediately, Ricky wanted to turn back so they didn't
get in trouble. He was five years old. He was
worried about getting in trouble. And Amber's like, okay, go home.
Then I'm going to ride around and you know, I'll
be there soon. When Ricky gets back to the house,
Donna and her father noticed that he was alone and
(12:35):
they're like, hey, where's Amber. Where's your sister? And he
replied that she was still at the parking lot and
they were like, no, go right back, tell her to
get home. And so Ricky goes back to the store
parking lot. Amber was already gone. It was three eighteen pm.
It took eight minutes for her to be taken.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Oh, I mean, that's all it takes.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
That's all it take.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Blink of an eye.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Ricky came back as fast as he could to get
somebody when he saw her bike, but no Amber. Jimmy there,
her grandfather jumped in a car, drove up to the
parking lot, only to find police were already there.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Oh wow, right.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
One officer was holding a pink bike, which was the bike,
and Jimmy told them, I think that's my granddaughter's, and
the officers advised him that they were responding to a
nine to one to one call that had come in
in reporting a possible abduction of a young girl. They
were able to respond within three minutes to this call.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
That's still too long.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Unfortunately it is. It is because it literally takes five
seconds to grab a kid and walk off.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
You know. A witness who lived across the streets saw
the abduction as it was taking place. Sony eight year
old Jim Kivel was working in his backyard when he
witnessed a black or blue dark colored truck drive up.
A man got out, grabbed Ambert. He forcefully took her
(14:13):
off of her bike and made her get into his
truck this entire time. She was screaming and kicking, and
that's what caught the man's attention. And he was obviously
seventy eight years old. He's not running anywhere to get
to her. But he was in his backyard and there
was a chain link fence in between them, so he
could not have physically gotten to the area to do anything.
(14:37):
But he immediately went inside and called nine to one one.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Good for him.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah. He told them that he saw the truck go
east on Abram Street and that he believed that the
girl did not want to go with the man. He
was able to give the only description that authorities have
of the suspect to this day. Witches a young white
or Hispanic man twenty to thirty years old, with dark
(15:04):
brown or black hair. The man was less than six
feet tall and of medium built. The truck seemed to
be a single cab, so just the front seat, nineteen
eighties or nineties truck in very good condition, no chrome piping.
He was able to see that, so police questioned the family,
(15:26):
neighbors asked around to see if anyone else had seen
the incident. They had no other potential witnesses and no leads.
There were helicopters that circled the area, and a search
effort was quickly organized and included members of the local
police and FBI. The family sat waiting hoping for Amber
(15:48):
to be found. They quickly made flyers and they walked
around the neighborhood with volunteers to post them anywhere they could.
And this story quickly got picked up on national news
and as more and more reporters began camping out at
the Whitston's home, it made the family leaving difficult, so
(16:09):
they essentially were stuck in their home waiting for news,
couldn't do anything without reporters just counting them.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, a couple of things I think, you know, like
in the nineties, that's when news became sensationalized and like
everybody wanted to watch because I think that's when like,
not not to you know, romanticize it, but like that's
when they started airing like live chases on TV.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, OJ Simson chase. Yeah, I mean that were.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Just la in general, and there's a high speed chase. Yeah.
The nineties was like really when television was just like
at its peak, like it Yeah, I mean, like news
especially everyone wanted news. M So all this was sensationalized,
so them wanting to be first, and I think it's
(17:06):
it's horrible and to her ass people like that, you know,
I mean they've just gone through this tragedy and now
they're surrounded their house, like, talk to us, talk to us,
talk to us.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, and there's I mean, you can see the footage
of this because, like I said, the documentary crew was
still there. It was filming.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And they actually have video footage of her in the
neighborhood riding on this pink bike before she took off
and was abducted.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah. And that was the other thing that I wanted
to mention too, is like my brother and I always
took off together, but my dad always said never too.
I don't care if you're fighting, you two, don't ever separate.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I was like, I don't know how many times I
had to wait for my brother to catch up, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Like, but yeah, yeah, I mean, unfortunately that is. But
as a kid, you don't think that. You don't think
you're like, yeah, go home, you don't want to be here,
go home. I'll be there in a minute. Like you
don't think that that decision is going to mean so much.
(18:15):
And in my case, I didn't have a sibling out
there with me. I was alone. I would ride for
blocks and blocks and blocks by myself away from my house,
and you know, but yeah, that's that was.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
That was too. It is like we always had a
group of friends that ride with too.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, I didn't necessarily have anybody that lived in my
neighborhood that I would, you know, I I it was
a different time. It was just a different time. You
can be a kid out and play and not have
to worry about stupid stuff like this, and it makes
it really hard on the family. They can't, like I
(18:58):
would saying in the documentary, you can see the news
vans just completely crowded the street, and it was I
can't imagine just not being able to go stand outside
and try to look up and down the street for
(19:19):
your kid, or to call their name and not have
a bunch of you know, cameras in your face recording it.
You know, answers would come. Four days later, on the
morning of January seventeenth, the body of Amber Hagerman was
found in a creek culvert behind an apartment complex when
(19:39):
a resident of the complex was out walking his dog
around midnight. She was faced down in the creek and
nude except for one sock. There had been a crew
working there earlier in the day, so it was assumed
that and then there was a storm that rolled in,
so it was assumed that the storm that night had
(20:00):
washed her body down to the culvert from another location.
Police and the chaplain notified the family, but news was
quickly out and it was almost immediately broadcasted on the news.
The family watched as Amber's body was moved from the
creek to a vehicle to transport her to the morgue.
(20:20):
Her funeral service was held just days later, on January twentieth,
at a local Episcopalian church. It was attended by several
hundred community members, friends, family, and it obtained national attention.
Amber was laid to rest and the community mourned her
(20:41):
loss with her family. It did not take long for
authorities to set up a task force. It comprised of
fifteen members to handle the heavy you know investigation. That
number has dwindled over the years, but there is still
a reward of seventy five thousand dollars that was promised
in return for any information given that leads to the suspect.
(21:06):
Over the years, an estimated seven to eight thousand tips
have been phoned into the police regarding Amber's abduction, but
nothing has led to an arrest. Not much has been
released to this day regarding evidence and the autopsy. One
detail that stood out was that they estimated Amber had
been deceased for about forty eight hours, meaning she had
(21:29):
been with her abductor and alive for that same amount
of time. It is known that the cause of death
was a large slit across her throat, but there were
other multiple stab wounds and lacerations found on her body
as well. It was also found that Amber was a
victim of sexual assault, though just how far is unknown.
(21:51):
Some reports that I read state it is just short
of quote unquote rape. However, I it's hard to know
what that means. Sexual assault of a child is still
I don't. It doesn't matter what it is, it's still horrendous.
Possibly they have refrained from releasing so much information due
(22:14):
to the nature of it and not wanting to give
out too much information in case that you know, can
be like convolute potential suspect. Over the coming days and months,
Donna and Richard put aside their personal issues to show
a united front when speaking publicly publicly regarding Amber, it
(22:37):
is because of their determination to get answers for their
daughter's murder and to try to protect children from similar
faiths in the future that laid the groundwork for services
and laws in effect today. And when we come back
from this break, we will talk about the legacy Amber
Hagerman is known for.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Some murders shake the world to its core, some mysteries
never unravel, and some tragedies leave us asking one question,
how could this happen? From mass killings that leave entire
communities in shock to unsolved disappearances that haunt families for decades,
(23:36):
you'll hear it all on season six of Nineties Crime Time.
In each episode of this season, we'll dig deep into
some of the deadliest massacres to the coldest calculated murders,
and you'll find out what made these cases some of
the most chilling cases of the decade, even if you
(23:58):
haven't heard of some of them. From small towns to
busy cities, from quiet nights to violent acts that chatter peace,
Nineties crime Time will bring you stories of murder and mystery,
So set your calendars and tune in on January ninth,
twenty twenty four, to the season six premiere of nineties
(24:22):
Crime Time and I'll See You Then.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
In nineteen ninety six, nine year old Amber Hagerman had
been abducted and brutally murdered in the Dallasport Worth area.
The national attention and outcry in this case for justice
would have long reaching effects that no one could have
foreseen at the time. One of those is a national
(25:01):
database for sex offenders. In this day and age, we
have all heard of this registry, and it seems like
it should be a given that it's just always been
a thing, and that is far from the actual case.
The database was only signed into national law initially in
(25:22):
nineteen ninety four. It has seen several updates in form
of new acts, with the Amber Hagerman Act in nineteen
ninety six being one of them. Up until nineteen ninety four,
most states had some type of registry, but not all
were public, and there was a broad definition on what
the charges listed could be.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Just a broad not specific.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, they were not very specific. It could be, you know,
in some states, it could be that they actually were
convicted of child molestation. In other states, it could be
that they had been convicted of rape, but there was
(26:08):
not a uniform across the states of what charges specifically
would get you on this list. And even at that,
like I was reading, there were some states that have
had registries since the nineteen thirties, which is great. They
didn't share it with anybody else. They didn't check up
(26:30):
on these people. There was no time limit that you
would be on this list, so you know, nobody was
regulating them. What if the person was dead, they no
longer need to be on that list, like, there were
no updates. They also were not sharing this with the
general public. You could not, as the public go and
ask to see this list.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Really, right, so it's just for the police.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
It was just for the police, which.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
The police didn't even share it.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
They didn't share it. But they also that could lead
to harassment. It could lead to and I'm not saying
don't get it twisted. I believe that people who do
this and are on this list for specific crimes, they
don't deserve a moment's piece. I'm not going to go
(27:19):
as far as saying that you know the harassment, but
there are some states that would put you on if
you had a conviction of skinny dipping in decent exposure
in public. You don't need to be on a sex
offenders list for skinny dipping.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Doing it in front of kids.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
If you're in a public pool in the middle of
the day and you skinny dip, that's one thing. If
you're in a lake in the middle of the night
just for a swim, nobody's around you. I don't know
that that warrants being on a sex offender's list. Like
that's where specific charges need to come into play. So
(27:57):
it was a very broad It was open for interpretation.
It was a good start, you know. It laid some
groundwork to where we're at today. The Jacob Wetterling Act
was the first iteration of what we have on the
books today, and it was named after an eleven year
old boy from Minnesota who was abducted. What started at
(28:18):
the state level was passed by Congress into a law
required all states to mandate the same requirements across the
board in regard to registration, also the length of time
a convicted person would be listed on the registry and
the specific charges that could require the registration. So a
(28:41):
good generalization of where we are today. In nineteen ninety six,
it was found that there was still too much room
for error after a seven year old Megan, seven year
old girl named Megan Kanka, who was abducted from her
front yard in nineteen ninety four by their neighbor who
was a sex offender. Her parents were not aware that
(29:04):
a sex offender had moved into the neighborhood. There was
no notification. So this seven year old was playing in
their front yard under supervision. Mom, you know, a blink
of an eye, tension diverted and this little girl was
lured away by this neighbor from her front yard into
(29:26):
his home. Oh no, it is he lured her away
from she was on her front yard, in on her
actual yard, and he lured her into his home. That's intention.
You Obviously there's no reform been made there, and you
(29:52):
I I would have liked to have known that somebody
like that was moving into my neighborhood. President Bill Clinton's
sign Meghan's Law as an addition to the Jacob Wetterling
Act to try to establish community notification on sex offenders
moving into an area. The next edition would be the
Amber Hagermann Child Protection Act Law of nineteen ninety six.
(30:16):
Clinton also signed that in October of that year, so
nine months after Amber's murder. This law would create what
is known today as the Amber Alert, and I will
get more in depth into that in a moment. The
last and most current edition that would be the most
(30:36):
comprehensive policy was the Adam Walsh Act, which was signed
into effect in two thousand and six. It's well known
most everybody who is into true crime knows of Adam Walsh.
He was a six year old boy who disappeared from
a Florida shopping mall in nineteen eighty one. His father,
(30:59):
John Walsh, would go on to be a big advocate
for law reform and uniform investigation procedures, as well as
host a little show called America's Most Wanted Yes. This
Act tightened up the minimum guidelines that states could operate
within for the registry and the requirements of the convicted
(31:20):
persons going forward after registration. It also widened the types
of charges and even required certain miners charged with adult
crimes to be on the registry. I will say there
is some now, there is some talk of it's too
much that some of the charges that are listed on
(31:44):
the registry are maybe don't need to be on there.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
It's a little too harsh.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
It's a little too harsh, but also that it I
do believe that there are people who can reform. And
there are cases of people who you know, might have
had charges that fall under a sexual nature. So let's
(32:13):
say skinny dipping, or you know, there are other cases
of you know, there are multiple things that you can
look at when you're researching this, if anybody really wants
to go and look at what the concerns are now
for this. But there are charges who fall they fall
(32:37):
under a sexual nature, but they're not necessarily towards one
person or a group of people. It's not like it's
child pornography. It's not. It's I did something stupid at
the time and I shouldn't have done that, but the
police have caught me and charged me very harshly, and
now I'm a registered sex offender. Whether they should or
(33:02):
shouldn't be on that list really not for me to decide.
But I can see the point being made that this
ruins people's lives.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, And.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
While I can't agree that there is a need for it,
I think I think they're still room for a discussion
of how far do we go with it?
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Well, I mean, that's the thing too, is like you know,
we institute these laws, we can still change them exactly.
They need to be tweaked every so often.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
They should be as you know, the internet in nineteen
ninety six, when this was an even two thousand and six,
is not what it is today. There are a lot
more regulations that have come because of internet and social media.
Are they enough? Are they too? Much? Like these should
always be reevaluated. They are not stacked it and they
(34:01):
shouldn't be. But they can affect people's lives indefinitely.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, I was gonna say forever and.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Make it so that they can't find housing, they can't
get jobs, they can't you know, Yes, they've served their
time and they've gone through their parole and they have
maybe reformed or maybe their charge was was didn't even
require jail time. It just required a role and a
fine and community service. Maybe they've done all of that
(34:32):
and they're on the registry and it follows them for
the rest of their life, even after they have done
what they were asked to do. Yeah, And while there
are some people I would say yeah, sucks to suck,
there are a few things that I've read that it
was you know, yeah, I don't know that that's fair
(34:55):
to them. And I'm not talking, you know, cases of rape.
I'm not talking cases of child molestation. I'm talking, you know,
the the crimes that aren't even felonies. Some of them
can wind you up on a sex offender's list. But
that is that, that is a whole that could be
(35:16):
a whole episode in itself. With discussion now going back
to Donna and Richard, Amber's parents for a moment, they
truly turned the grief of this, you know, event that
affected them, catastrostrophic event that affected their lives, right, they
(35:37):
turned it into whatever positive thing that they could. After
Amber's death, one way was to found a local group
that they named People Against Sex Offenders or PASSO. This
organization was run by Richard and was instrumental in many
community forums, town hall meetings, and it led to the
(36:00):
push for a more nationally recognized registry. They were supported
by many other families who had experienced similar tragedies. One
such person was Mark Glass, whose daughter poly class Her
abduction and murderers well known in California. The group also
pushed for legislature to be passed that would enact harsher
(36:23):
laws and sentencing on sex criminals, and both Donna and
Richard would speak publicly about the hardships their family had endured,
and they would eventually make a trip to Washington, d C.
To speak before a committee regarding the Amber Hagerman Act.
They were invited to be at the signing of the
bill in nineteen ninety six and acknowledged by then President
(36:44):
Clinton for their efforts. The president who signed the bill
that Adam Walsh Act was George Bush, who at the
time was actually governor in Texas. Wow, when this was
going on, George or w George W. No, George just
(37:05):
George nother second one, George W Yeah, Okay, George W. Bush? Sorry?
But what is the Amber alert system? How did it
come to be? So surprisingly, it was not Donna or
Richard or any member of the family that had this idea.
(37:25):
When the news of Amber's abduction was being reported throughout
the Dallasport Worth area, many news and radio stations were
taking calls from concerned citizens, and these people were asking, like,
what do we do, what are we looking for? How
do we help? And one caller, Diana Simone, actually had
a suggestion that seemed so logical that it was almost
(37:48):
comical how it had not been implemented before. Now, Diana
asked if it were possible for the community to be
notified immediately after nine to one to one resources were
contacted with a true abduction impertinent details given that may
lead to the capture of a suspect. She stated that
if there could be an immediate response in the news
(38:10):
or especially in the case of radio broadcasts, the public
listening in their cars while out and about or families
at home would be able to keep an eye out
for a suspect or a certain type of car, and
out of this suggestion, the Amber Alert, or as it's
known by its full name America's Missing Broadcast Emergency System,
(38:34):
was born. Diana asked that if this were to be implemented,
it be named after Amber Hagerman. So at first it
was only enacted and used in the Dallas Fort Worth area,
but popularity of its spread and it began to be
used in similar fashion in other regions of the country.
(38:56):
It was usually named after a local child abduction case,
and believe me, there are no shortage of these cases.
While the use of this system is now widely known,
it's been implemented in several other countries, Canada, Mexico, European countries,
(39:18):
China has their own version, Russia has their own version.
South American countries have their own version of this. And
is it is rolled into you know, what started as
a Dallas Fort Worth area broadcasting emergency system has rolled
throughout the world into you know, a very a very
(39:47):
I mean, there's don't get me wrong, there's a lot
of people who are like this, this is annoying. This
broadcast alert is annoying when it comes up. There have
been cases of people listening to things and have headphones
in their ears in the broadcast up and they've suffered
permanent ear damage hearing damage from that. There are people, well, yeah,
(40:07):
it's it's starring. It's meant to be so to get
your attention. It is. There's people who say that the
information on the side of the roads is distracting for
drivers on their phone, right yeah, because you're fiddling with
a big, huge ass screen of your Tesla driving down
(40:29):
the road, you know, or or your your SUV or
or your small i mean, god, even some of these
small cars there. The screens that they have now for
their dashboard is just like their control system is it's
bigger than an iPad. It's huge, but regardless, for it
(40:51):
to start in this one area and to slowly just
spread across the world to try to stop, you know,
to try to get public eyes on possible abductions. Is
it's astounding to me that this one thing could have
(41:11):
such a reaching effect.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
And it's not like it takes extra effort. That it's
already in place, right, it's just utilizing it a different way.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Right. So, while this system is widely known and has
been implemented in many other countries, the girl who has
been named after still has not received the justice that
she deserves. It has been twenty nine years and they
are still hoping to find the person responsible for her
(41:47):
abduction and murder. So the FBI did a profile in
the early days of the investigation. I'm going to read
that to you so quote. Amber's abductor was profiled as
an opportunistic predator who targeted Amber for the sole reason
that she was alone and accessible. He lives or works
in the area of Arlington, as he seems very comfortable
(42:10):
with the landscape. He is white or Hispanic, and most
likely suffered some type of stressor before the crime. He
may have been laid off, fired, divorce, or had some
other stressful event occur before the abduction. The perpetrator probably
has a criminal record and may have committed crimes against
children before. The man lives in a place with privacy
(42:33):
enough to keep a child hidden for two days. Because
of this, he probably does not live in an apartment
or similar housing. He may live alone. Profiling, of course,
is not an exact science, but the FBI claims that
this is the type of man who had perpetrated similar
crimes in the past, so it seems like it shouldn't
(42:57):
need to be said. But this profile, actually, I think
is very helpful. I think the problem is, and it
was stated in many articles that that area of Arlington
has and I'm sure now has a much more diverse community,
(43:17):
but at the time had a large population of Hispanic people.
And while there were probably a lot of people out
and about at three pm on a Saturday, there was
people in the laundrymat, there was people at the other businesses,
there was people outside. It was a warm day for
a January, you know day, it was like seventy The
(43:40):
news said people were probably out doing yard where kids
were outside playing. Somebody saw something but for some reason,
only one witness account has ever been given, and they
fear it's because people were scared of deportation or too
(44:02):
many questions being asked about their status.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Because then they had the anonymous line.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
They had a line. Yeah, I don't know that it
was anonymous though, but they had a line. I'm sure
they would have taken information anonymously. But the police do
still to this day reiterate they're not interested in anybody's
visa status. They're not interested in why you were where
(44:29):
you were and why you didn't say anything before. They
don't care. They just want to find the person who
did this.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
And can you blame them?
Speaker 1 (44:38):
I can't. I can't blame them. I can't.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
I would be scared as hell never trick people before, Right.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
No, I would be scared as hell to say anything.
I would.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
People don't trust the government, Oh.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
No, right, wonder why I cannot blame anybody for not
coming forward. But I do have to believe that it
weighs on your conscience. So regardless of how you can
get information to the authorities, you have to try. You
have to know that it's going to make some good
(45:13):
in this case, and it's not just her case. It's
any case. It's any case where a child, you know,
their crime against his child, or a person has gone
unsolved and somebody knows something but they're too scared to
come forward. It's it's it's hard, and that would not
be something that I want weighing on my chest, you know,
(45:36):
I can't imagine the guilt of that. So that being said,
if anyone has any information on Amber's abduction or murder,
there is a number to call. So eight one seven
five seven five eight eight two three will connect you
to the Arlington Police Department. And this is still an
open investigation. They do have DNA events.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
You're fucked.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
I think the thing. I think the problem is she
was in the water for they believe forty eight hours.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
DNA is at some point they will be able to
test whatever DNA they have in a way that makes
it very clear who the suspect is.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Mom may identified DNA of the frozen guy in the
Alps they found, right, he's like two thousand years old, yep.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
So I think they are protecting because you know, in
the early infancy of DNA testing, you had to have
certain type, you had to have enough of it. I
think they've been protecting what they had, and good for
them to know that at some point it would be
testable and they wouldn't waste it trying to test it.
(46:58):
So they have it. They're just biting their time. But
you know, Donna and Richard and her Amber's brother Ricky,
the family, they deserve answers, They deserve to know and
be able to put this to rest. Yes, you know,
as much as they can, beyond what they've already done.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Yeah, the loss of a loved one never gets easier,
but I think getting the answers will put, you know,
at ease some of their worries.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yeah, but it's also closure.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
It's it's closure, and I think, I mean, I think
that they have tried to find closure in many different
ways that the documentary goes into it. It's called After Amber.
So the documentary was done, like I said, by a
local news outlet in Texas. So it's called After Amber
(48:01):
an a w f A A documentary and I will
link it to the show notes and and on social media.
It was hard to watch because you you really had
an in depth view of them dealing with it and
in their real time. You know, she they were recording
(48:24):
the day that she was abducted, and and it it
really you know, you see what it did to her parents,
you see what it did to her brother. And you know,
he was five at the time. And at one point
they show him getting some mental health help and and
(48:45):
I I hope that he is is able to come
to terms with them, you know, at this point, but
they showed him as a little kid needing, needing an outlet,
needing to two. I understand, trying to understand, where's my
sister at? Where did she go? Why isn't she here?
(49:07):
You know, And he was blaming himself for leaving. He's five,
he's five years old, and he was like, I shouldn't
have left my sissy. I shouldn't have left my sissy.
I can't That's just it broke me. It just completely
broke me. So warning, you know, it is a really
(49:30):
fly on the wall look at somebody's grief, at somebody's
life after an event like this. But I thought it
was worth it to watch because a lot of the
news nowadays, like when you pull up a Wikipedia page
or news articles about Amber, it goes right into yeah,
(49:50):
she was abducted and murdered, and now we have the
Amber Alert and the whole history of the Amber Alert,
and that's great, But there's a child behind this, is
a family behind this, and and that should be that
shouldn't necessarily the Amber Alert shouldn't be what comes up
more prevalent when you when you look at her name.
(50:12):
If I was researching specifically amber alert, I would expect that.
But when you look at just her name and research
and type that into research, you know, search engines, it's
it's very it's very much Ambler Amber alert comes up first.
(50:32):
So I think I think watching the documentary if if
people are really you know, want to get the full story,
it's a good watch. And it's from the nineties. Don't
don't get me wrong. The it's from the nineties. Anybody
who knows you know, you know it's the nineties. But
(50:53):
but yeah, it is something that I didn't know that
I didn't know all the information. It just never occurred
to me to think, well, who was Amber. I knew
that there was just a little girl named Amber who
was abducted and didn't really question why or what happened.
(51:20):
And I will say, you know, whatever you think of
the Amber Alert system or the National Sex Offenders Registry.
There was documentation, well you know, statistics that were put
out at the end of last year twenty twenty four
that the Amber Alert nationwide has helped something like eleven
(51:44):
hundred children not you know, they were abducted and then
they were able to find the suspects and retrieve the
children unharmed, relatively unharmed. So while that seems like a
little amount that this is twenty nine years old, that
(52:05):
is eleven hundred children who are still with their families.
And yes, that doesn't that's not as statistic about how
many times it's been used and how many children they
haven't found.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
But even saving one I think is worth it.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely, it's there shouldn't be anything we don't
do for our children, no, yeah, So it's amazing to
me that they've been able to do that. And I
would say that all of those families probably agree. Yeah,
(52:43):
they have their children back.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
I'll just say this though too. And even after this
is over and the court is done and their sentence,
they're not going to have a good time in prison either.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Oh god, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
They don't take kindly to those like people that harm
kids or child molests. Sirs. Or you know, basically pedophiles. Yeah,
they do not have a good time in prison. And
those prisoners know, you know, they want to see paperwork.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
Yeah, they shouldn't have a good time. Nobody should have
a good time in prison. It's it's it's prison.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
But no, especially those guys. Those guys get hurt.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah, it's a special place.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Fall downstairs all the time.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Oh yeah, yep, which I don't you know.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
I don't wish harm on anyone, but.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
I don't feel bad.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
No, I don't feel bad. So a lot of them
don't make it out. I was just reading today a
story about that. Like there was a guy who he
was in prison, he was in New York. Yeah, he
was in prison or he was on trial for oh
he punched like a twelve year old kid and they
(53:50):
found him dead.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
You know, Oh wow, that sucks. Yeah, kids should be
off limits. Yeah they really should.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
You shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
It's it's gross. It's just it's gross.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
So that's our episode today. We've we've discussed a lot,
unpacked a lot, but Amber definitely has a legacy. Yeah,
and hopefully they are able to figure out, you know,
at some point use this DNA and figure out who
(54:26):
who did this? Or just bring them to justice. Well,
I mean if they're dead, but at least yeah, I
don't know, bring it to light. I mean, if they're dead,
they're dead. There's nothing that anybody can do about that.
But that doesn't mean that you should die with your name.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
No, but the family should have closure, the family shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
He deserves closure. Thank you for listening with us. We
we are happy to have everyone with us and enjoy
the rest of January. We'll be back with a special
episode on the thirty first, and as always, remembered to
be kind. Never know what people are going through, especially
(55:11):
in these trying times. We appreciate all of you. Thank
you so much and we will see you next time.
And remember stay out of the damn woods. Bye guys, Bye,
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