March 28, 2024, 06:31:57 AM *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: NEW CHILD BOARD CREATED IN THE POLITICAL SECTION FOR THE 2016 ELECTION
 
   Home   Help Login Register  
Pages: 1   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Amber Hagerman case -- 15 years later, killer still free  (Read 22039 times)
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Nut44x4
Maine - USA
Global Moderator
Monkey Mega Star
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 18800


RIP Grumpy Cat :( I will miss you.


« on: January 13, 2011, 01:31:04 PM »

15 years later, killer still free in Amber Hagerman case

1.13.11
By Deanna Boyd | Fort Worth Star-Telegram
ARLINGTON -- Fifteen years after Amber Hagerman's slaying, her memory lives on in her grandmother's east Arlington home.

Photographs of the 9-year-old still dot the wood-paneled walls. Glenda Whitson can still picture her granddaughter helping her bake cookies in the kitchen. Donna Norris still vividly recalls the Christmas carols that her daughter used to belt out in the small one-story house.

"We feel closer to her here," said Norris, sitting in the living room while visiting her mother one recent evening. "We know she walked these floors, and she was happy here."

But to get to the house, Norris must pass by a painful reminder: the parking lot where her daughter was riding her bike on a sunny afternoon when a man threw her in a dark pickup and drove away. Amber's body, her throat cut, was found four days later in a creek about two miles away. The man was never identified.

Tonight, on the anniversary of her abduction, the family will gather in that parking lot, light candles, sing some of Amber's favorite songs and have a moment of silence as a reminder that justice has not been served.

"Part of me hopes he is dead or is behind bars so he won't do this to another child," Norris said. "Another part of me hopes he's out there somewhere, and maybe he'll brag about what he did or tell somebody so he can be put behind bars. So that Amber can get justice."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/01/13/106769/15-years-later-killer-still-free.html#
« Last Edit: January 13, 2011, 01:34:19 PM by Nut44x4 » Logged

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware/Of giving your heart to a dog to tear  -- Rudyard Kipling

One who doesn't trust is never deceived...

'I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind' -Edgar Allen Poe
Nut44x4
Maine - USA
Global Moderator
Monkey Mega Star
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 18800


RIP Grumpy Cat :( I will miss you.


« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2011, 01:33:11 PM »



On the afternoon of January 13, 1996, Amber Hagerman, 9, and her five-year-old brother, Ricky, pedaled their bicycles to an abandoned grocery store in Arlington, Texas. Minutes later, Ricky turned to head back home, about a block away.

Jim Kevil, a 78-year-old retiree, stood in his backyard not far away. “I saw [Amber] riding up and down,” he said later. “She was by herself. I saw this pickup. He pulled up, jumped out and grabbed her. When she screamed, I figured the police ought to know about it, so I called them.”

Kevil described the truck as being dark, possibly black. The abductor was white or Hispanic.

Police arrived within a minute or two. By that time, Jimmie Whitson, Amber’s grandfather, was on his way to the locale of the former Winn-Dixie store to check on her. (When Ricky had arrived back home without Amber, Whitson had grown worried.) By the time he arrived, cops were there.

Experts say that stranger abductions are rare. They are also among the most difficult cases to solve. Even with an eyewitness, investigators were stymied. They theorized that it was a crime of opportunity, that the kidnapper saw Amber alone and impulsively decided to snatch her. The vacant lot where children liked to play was on East Abram Street, not far from a huge General Motors plant. From the beginning, cops felt that the abductor was almost certainly familiar with the area.

Local police were joined by volunteers and the FBI in the massive search that followed. A truck similar to that of the kidnapper had been spotted outside a nearby laundromat before Amber was taken, but investigators never located the vehicle.

Four days later, a man was walking his dog near the Forest Hill Apartments, just a few miles from where the child had been snatched. At the bottom of a creek bed, he saw a child’s body. Amber Hagerman had been found.

An autopsy determined that Amber had been held alive for two days. During that time she was sexually assaulted.

Arlington police and the FBI formed a task force to search for the killer. Investigators followed up thousands of leads, but none turned up the murderer.

By 1999, the task force had been disbanded and the case had gone cold. The killer has gone undetected now for eleven years. Arlington detective Jim Ford recently said, “There would be nothing more important or rewarding than seeing this case get resolved because [it] is as bad as they get.”

Shortly after Amber went missing, a caller to a Dallas radio station asked a simple question: why can’t law enforcement team with the media to quickly provide information to the public when a child is abducted? The idea caught on, and the Amber Alert was born. It began locally as the Dallas Amber Alert. Then it became a state-wide program and finally went national.

Since its formation, the Amber Alert is credited with the rescue of more than three hundred missing and abducted children.

Glenda Whitson, Amber’s grandmother, prays that the killer will be caught. However, she’s not optimistic. “[Police] really don’t have much to go on,” she said. “A few fibers they found on her body, they tell us. They’re still working on it, and they call us now and then. They say they’ll never give up. After ten years, you lose hope that they’ll ever find him, but I still have a little bit of hope.”

A psychological profile was issued by police a few weeks after the murder. Unfortunately, it was a generic rehash of profiles released after many such crimes. The killer was at least 25, cops said. He lived or worked near the scene of the crime. Since Amber was alive for two days after she was kidnapped, the killer had to have had some place to keep the child. Something probably caused him to snap, police said.

Since 1996, a killer has roamed free. Did he keep trophies of his victim so he can relive his crime? Has he killed again? Is he free or incarcerated? Amber Hagerman deserves justice and her killer deserves a Texas send-off to Hell.
http://kidnappingmurderandmayhem.blogspot.com/2009/09/unsolved-murder-of-amber-hagerman.html
Logged

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware/Of giving your heart to a dog to tear  -- Rudyard Kipling

One who doesn't trust is never deceived...

'I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind' -Edgar Allen Poe
Nut44x4
Maine - USA
Global Moderator
Monkey Mega Star
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 18800


RIP Grumpy Cat :( I will miss you.


« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2011, 01:36:52 PM »

   
Logged

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware/Of giving your heart to a dog to tear  -- Rudyard Kipling

One who doesn't trust is never deceived...

'I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind' -Edgar Allen Poe
Sister
Monkey All Star Jr.
****
Offline Offline

Posts: 8648



« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2011, 10:57:29 AM »

I did not realize her killer had never been caught.  It's never too late!
Prayers for her family and friends.
Logged


Nut44x4
Maine - USA
Global Moderator
Monkey Mega Star
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 18800


RIP Grumpy Cat :( I will miss you.


« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2016, 11:54:09 PM »

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2016/01/11/20-years-later-detectives-have-information-to-share-on-amber-hagerman-case/
Logged

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware/Of giving your heart to a dog to tear  -- Rudyard Kipling

One who doesn't trust is never deceived...

'I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind' -Edgar Allen Poe
Pages: 1   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Use of this web site in any manner signifies unconditional acceptance, without exception, of our terms of use.
Powered by SMF 1.1.13 | SMF © 2006-2011, Simple Machines LLC
 
Page created in 6.159 seconds with 21 queries.