New ‘Amber’ documentary explores cold trail of Arlington girl’s abduction 27 years ago
After 27 years, Amber Hagerman’s abduction and murder remains unsolved.
The suspected abductor snatched the 9-year-old Arlington girl while she was riding her bicycle in a parking lot of a laundromat near her home. The Star-Telegram reported two years ago, 25 years after the abduction, how the girl with long brown hair and freckles was filled with a boundless love of life — of going to school at Arlington’s Berry Elementary, playing with her collection of Barbie dolls, riding her pink bicycle with her younger brother, Ricky Hagerman.
“I miss her voice. I miss her touch. I miss her hugs,” Donna Williams, Amber’s mom, told the Star-Telegram in 2021. “I remember everything about her. There’s nothing I’ve forgotten about her. She is the love of my life.”
A new 92-minute documentary, “Amber: The Girl Behind the Alert,” now streaming on Peacock tells the story of Amber. Interviews with Williams and other family members paint a picture of a life that was taken so abruptly. Footage from the days leading up to Amber’s abduction is part of the documentary, Peacock says.
Hagerman was kidnapped in broad daylight on Jan. 13, 1996, while riding her bike in Arlington. As thousands searched for Hagerman, her body was found a few days later in a nearby creek.
In the months after Hagerman’s death, the public pushed for a way to develop an early warning system to find abducted children. Later that same year, the AMBER or America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response was created as a legacy to Hagerman’s abduction and death.
How the Amber Alert came to be
The idea for an alert started with a conversation Diana R. Simone, a massage therapist, and her client, the late Rev. Tom Stoker of Fort Worth, had about the grim details coming out of the Hagerman abduction and murder case, Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy wrote in 2019.
Simone wondered then if the ubiquitous brick-sized cellphones could sound an alarm. “Why not radio?” Stoker had suggested.
The Hood County woman called a local radio station and the idea of the Amber Alert was in motion.
That year, seven local radio station managers did the hard work to set up a local broadcast alert system, similar to those for thunderstorms, Kennedy wrote in the Star-Telegram.
The alert system has since rescued 794 children. Law enforcement officials like the information it helps gather.
“It’s fantastic that it acts as a deterrent,” Simone said.
A bizarre coincidence
According to the Peacock Blog, the new documentary includes footage of Amber’s final days before the abduction.
“The community was shocked – not only to learn of the abduction but also the bizarre coincidence that a news crew had been following Amber’s family for months,” according to the website. “Footage of Amber was released and a desperate search began.”
“Amber: The Girl Behind the Alert” is now streaming on Peacock.
