Amber Hagerman

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

She was abducted from a shopping center parking lot while riding her bicycle with her younger brother, near her grandmother's home in Arlington, Texas, on Saturday, January 13, 1996. The abduction occurred in broad daylight and in full view of a witness whose property backed up to the parking lot. (The witness described the abductor as a white or Hispanic male, driving a late model black pickup truck.) Amber's abductor grabbed her off her bicycle, threw her into his vehicle and sped off. Four days later, following an extensive, area-wide search, her 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.

Following her death, the AMBER Alert was formed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (other locales now also have similar plans) and unveiled in October 1996. The system is used by local citizens who work with radio stations and local law enforcement to broadcast news bulletins about abducted children to the general public, in an effort to save children's lives. In October 2000, the United States House of Representatives adopted H.R. 605 which encouraged communities nationwide to implement the AMBER Plan.