It took just eight minutes for 9-year-old Amber Hagerman to be abducted after leaving her grandmother’s home to ride her bike Jan. 13, 1996. The Arlington girl’s body was found four days later in a creek bed a few miles away. Her throat had been cut.
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Photos and details from this 2017 article:
"He described Amber’s abductor as a white or Hispanic man in his 20s or 30s, under 6 feet tall and with a medium build and brown or black hair. His truck, a single-cab pickup, was in good condition and was solid black, with no chrome or striping.
Police have said that the truck was believed to be a 1980s or 1990s full-sized, fleetside pickup with a short wheelbase and a non-sliding, clear rear window."
"In the days after Amber’s abduction, more than 50 police officers and FBI agents worked to bring the third-grader home to her family. Their hopes were dashed when the girl’s naked body was spotted near a drainage culvert in a creek bed behind an apartment complex."
"Police said at the time that maintenance workers at the apartment complex had been near the creek where Amber was found just hours before the grim discovery, and her body was not there. The Times reported that a rainstorm caused a rapid rise in the creek waters, which may have carried her body to where it was found."
"Authorities said that Amber was kept alive for at least two days after she was abducted, according to the NCMEC website. That fact leads detectives to believe that someone, somewhere may have seen something related to her killing."
I'm sure these questions have already been asked and answered, but:
- Has car ownership data from that year been digitized yet? Can it be searched to see who owned trucks matching these details? The truck was apparently all black with no chrome trim, and I guess maybe that was notable because it was custom. It didn't ring a bell for anyone in the area?
- How likely is it that the maintenance workers would have seen her body when they were "near the creek"?
- If she was carried to that part of the creek by creek waters, what are the theories of when and where she was put into the waters? She went missing on the 13th and was found on the 17th. Could we at least estimate a radius of where she might have been dumped?
- Also, she'd had that bicycle for less than a month. How often did she go out riding it? Was she out riding often at about the same time of day? Were there any other reasons why she might have attracted the attention of someone in the community (she frequently had lemonade stands, she sold girl scout cookies, she participated in some type of annual community event)?
- I'm so confused about the timing around when her body was found. How many hours between when maintenance workers were around and when her body was found? Had that area been searched at all prior to the discovery? Was her body found during a dedicated search for her or randomly by someone? Would the killer have any reason to want her body to be found quickly? Is there any chance the killer knew that her body would be found there at that time and made that choice intentionally?
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