Nearly 30 years ago, in January of 1996, Arlington, Texas, was the site of a tragic abduction that would change the way kidnappings are handled in Texas forever. On January 13, 1996, 9-year-old Amber Hagerman and her little brother went for a bike ride. Sadly, though, this ride ended in tragedy.
Amber and her 5-year-old brother wanted to go for a ride; they were only supposed to go around the block, but according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the young siblings took a detour to the parking lot of an abandoned Winn-Dixie with a “cool ramp.”
Texas Tragedy That Led to The Creation of AMBER Alerts
As the tragic story goes, her brother decided to leave first; he headed back to their grandparents. It was at some point after he left that Amber was abducted. According to reports, the man was either white or Hispanic and driving a black truck. One witness said this man snatched Amber “kicking and screaming” off of her bike.
Tragically, by the time that Amber was found, she had been murdered and her body dumped in a creek at a nearby apartment complex…