The Story Behind: Amber Alert

By Londyn Garden, lg120@uakron.edu

Before the Amber Alert there was Amber Hagerman. Amber Hagerman was born on November 25, 1986, in Arlington, Texas. She was born to Donna Williams and Richard Hagerman. She had a brother named Ricky who was 4 years younger than her. Amber’s parents were having problems. Amber’s mother Donna said he was physically abusive towards her, but Richard denied those allegations. The neighbors would frequently call the police on them because of the noise. The police then said if they had to come back they would take the children. That is all it took for Donna to take the kids. They lived in her car for 2 days then went to a women's shelter for 6 months. In August of 1995 they started filming for a documentary for single mothers on welfare.

4 months later Donna took Amber and Ricky to her parents. Amber and Ricky went to ride their bikes. Instead of going the usual way, Amber decided to go to an abandoned parking lot because she wanted to try out a ramp. Ricky got scared that he would get in trouble, so he decided to go back to his grandparents. When Ricky arrived at the house their grandfather, who was working in the garage, asked him where Amber was. Ricky told him that she was at the abandoned parking lot. He grabbed Ricky and put him in the truck, and they went down to the parking lot. When they got there the only thing they saw was Amber’s bike lying on the ground.

Minutes before 911 got a call on an abduction that had taken place at the parking lot. Jim Kevil, the man who called, said a white or hispanic male in his 20s-30s with a medium build picked up a girl who screamed and put her in a black Ford pick up truck. The police rushed over and were met with the scene of Ricky and his grandfather standing near Amber’s bike. At that scene the police found that Amber was the girl missing. Donna was distraught; when she found out, she ran down the street screaming for Amber until eventually collapsing.

The police's first instinct was that a family member took her, since most kidnappings are done by relatives. They also thought it was weird that the kidnapper went west on the street since that way went directly into town, but east went to the highway. Because of this they believe the kidnapper had a set designation and planned on taking someone that day. The search for a black pickup truck proved fruitless since it was in Texas and there are a lot of black pickup trucks. The police also had difficulty finding out where the kidnapper had taken her, since they could have gone to a residential or industrial area.

The police didn’t start contacting people that she was missing till 4:20 pm, which was almost an hour later. She wasn't put on the news till 6 since that’s when most people would be watching it. Since her family had recordings of her the police had the news crew put clips of her together so they could play it on tv. The police thought this was a very good idea because it would help them see Amber in a different light. As soon as the story hit, the police started getting calls about leads, but they never ended up anywhere. On the 4 nights she was missing, there was a huge storm, and the police got a call about a body in a ditch. It was confirmed that the body belonged to 9 year old Amber Hagerman. Instead of kidnapping, this turned into a homicide.

The damage done to Amber's body was a severe cut to the throat, which was later found to be the cause of death. On January 20th, 7 days after Amber went missing, her funeral was held. The entire town came out for her; they hung pink bows in her honor. Donna used her pain to help the police get better tools so this wouldn’t happen to someone else’s child. She finished medical school, and went and talked to schools about it.

Diane Simone heard about Amber’s case over the internet and came up with a plan. The Amber Plan. She went to radio stations to see if they had a plan in place to put information out about a missing child. They didn’t. She went to C.J. Wheeler, and together they came up with a plan. They would partner with the police department, and everytime a child went missing they got the information out.

For the first few years it didn’t work. Then, in 1998, 3 years later after Amber's abduction, there was a call about a baby named Raylee. Raylee’s mother Patricia would drop her off with a babysitter before she went to work. Then the babysitter would drop her off when Patricia was done with work. But this time they didn’t drop her off when Patricia got home. At first Patricia thought something happened to them, and started calling the hospitals. But when that didn't work, she called the police. The police were the ones to suggest that Raylee was kidnapped, so they put out an Amber Alert. 30 mins later a man called in and said he saw a woman fitting the description driving on the highway right next to him. That was the first time an Amber Alert brought someone home.

Within weeks, different towns and states were trying to implement Amber Alerts. Then in 2000, it became nationwide. In 2003, President Bush designated an official Amber office at the Department of Justice, and signed the Child Protect Act of 2003. There have been new technologies invented that the police believe could help find Amber’s killer, but the police are hesitant to use them because if they don't work then it destroys the last DNA evidence they have. They still believe the killers are out there and urge people to call if they have any information.