Amber Hagerman

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Amber Hagerman

Amber Hagerman (November 25, 1986–January 17, 1996) was a young girl who became a victim of an abduction and murder.

1 The Abduction
2 Search for Amber
3 The Amber Plan
4 AMBER Alert
5 See also
6 External Links

[edit] The Abduction

Nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was riding her bicycle with her brother, Ricky, on Saturday January 13, 1996 near her grandmother's home in Arlington, Texas when a neighbor heard her scream. The neighbor saw a man pull Amber off her bike, throw her into the front seat of his pickup truck, and drive away at a high speed. The abduction occurred in broad daylight.

[edit] Search for Amber

The neighbor called police and provided a description of the suspect and his vehicle (the witness described the abductor as a white or Hispanic male, driving a late model black pickup truck.), but couldn’t recall much else. Arlington Police and the FBI interviewed other neighbors and searched for the suspect and vehicle. Local radio and TV stations covered the story in their regular newscasts.

Four days later, following an extensive, area-wide search, Amber’s naked body was found with her throat slit at the bottom of a creek bed at the Forest Hollow apartment complex in north Arlington, by a resident who was walking his dog. The suspect has never been found and her murder remains unsolved.

[edit] The Amber Plan

A concerned citizen contacted a Dallas area radio station, suggesting the idea that Dallas radio stations should repeat news bulletins about abducted children just like they do severe weather warnings.

The idea was presented to the Association of Radio Managers (ARM) composed of general managers of major radio stations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The general managers agreed that such a program would provide an important public service and might help save the life of a child.

The Dallas Amber Plan was started in July 1997 (other locales now also have similar plans) to help safely recover missing children that police believe have been abducted. Since then, the program has successfully recovered eight children and expanded to other cities and states nationwide.

[edit] AMBER Alert

In October 2000, the United States House of Representatives adopted H.R. 605 which encouraged communities nationwide to implement the AMBER Plan. In April 2003, President Bush signed the Amber Alert legislation making it a national program. While the Amber Alert system is now mandated across the country, some states are still trying to implement the procedures necessary in bringing the alerts to the public. Hampered by outdated Emergency Broadcast guidelines and different activation criteria in each state, the system needs a fair amount of fine-tuning to be optimally effective.

There was a 2006 Lifetime movie made called Amber's Story starring Elisabeth Rohm and Sophie Hough.