232: The Darkest Ride: Terror Lurking in the Bushes | The Disappearance of Amber Barker

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Speaker 18 Hey, True Crime Besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Seriously.

Speaker 18 Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialously with me, Annie Elise. I hope you guys are all having a good start to your week so far.
Had a good weekend.

Speaker 18 We are going to dive right into today's case. It's actually one that came from TikTok.

Speaker 18 And the reason I say it came from TikTok is because when I tell you how many times I was tagged in this video and in this story, literally in the hundreds, maybe even thousands.

Speaker 18 It was like a tsunami of mentions and tags and DMs over the weekend of everyone like wanting me to talk about this case.

Speaker 18 So did some research, wanted to see is there enough information, what value could we add to it?

Speaker 18 And now here we are. We are talking about it.
And it's the case of Amber Barker. It's a 10-year-old little girl who went missing in Oklahoma in 1997.

Speaker 18 And the details will literally leave your jaw on the floor. So I'm going to jump right in.

Speaker 20 It is the face and the case investigators cannot forget.

Speaker 21 The whole family was questioning. Everybody was questioning.

Speaker 21 Taking down a police, taking them polygraphed and all that.

Speaker 18 Did you undergo a polygraph?

Speaker 21 Yes, I did.

Speaker 21 Then they let him go and then three days later they found him hanging dead in the park.

Speaker 22 I just want to tell Amber if you're out there, I love you.

Speaker 18 In December of 1997, the people of Oklahoma City were feeling very festive, very excited for the holidays.

Speaker 18 Kids were counting down the days until the holiday break, parents were busy wrapping gifts and presents, and families were of course putting up all of their holiday decorations.

Speaker 18 Now at that time, a little girl, 10-year-old Amber Renee Barker, lived in the city with her mom.

Speaker 18 And even though Oklahoma City was pretty big, Amber and her mom had a home in the cozy, close-knit neighborhood just northwest of downtown.

Speaker 18 It was kind of the place where the neighbors all knew one another, the kids all played outside until the street lights came on. You know the vibe, right?

Speaker 18 Now, Amber had a big family with a bunch of brothers and sisters. She was the youngest in the family, in part because her parents got a divorce while her mother was pregnant.

Speaker 18 So they split up before she was born, which, also, fun fact, she was born on Valentine's Day in 1987. She mostly lived with her mom Bonnie, and the two of them were very, very close.

Speaker 18 Now, Amber, being a young 10-year-old kid, she was afraid of the dark, and because of that, she refused to sleep in her own bedroom.

Speaker 18 Instead, almost every single night, she and Bonnie would watch a movie together in the living room, and then they would fall asleep on the couch together. Amber was also close with her dad, Robert.

Speaker 18 She was a bit of a tomboy. She liked to work on cars with her dad.

Speaker 18 It was really something that they bonded over, and the two of them talked about Amber learning how to weld when she got a little bit older. She was also very artistic.

Speaker 18 She was making pictures with spray paint. Her favorite colors to use were blue and green.
I mean, she just had so many amazing characteristics about her.

Speaker 18 Now, at 10 years old, Amber was in the fourth grade, and she was definitely a bit of a teacher's pet. She was very responsible.
She always followed all of the rules.

Speaker 18 And her favorite task that she especially loved was being a hall monitor, which I didn't even know that those things existed, okay?

Speaker 18 I thought that was just something from like sitcoms or movies, but she loved to do it.

Speaker 18 And whenever anybody asked Amber about what she wanted to do when she grew up, she would just tell them she already knew. She wanted to be a veterinarian.
She loved animals.

Speaker 18 Now, Amber could be shy and she could be quiet, but she would also open up to people that she knew a little bit better, like her family and friends.

Speaker 18 She liked spending time with her friends after school. On the weekends, she would go to the local park with them.
She'd ride bikes around the neighborhood with them.

Speaker 18 I mean, just really wholesome things. So Thursday, December 18th, was a relatively normal day.
Amber woke up, she got dressed, she ate breakfast, and she went off to school.

Speaker 18 Afterwards, she got home and she hopped on her bike, like she always did. A blue 10-speed bicycle.
She rode a few miles north to go see a friend over at their house.

Speaker 18 And keep in mind, Amber made this trip all the time. It took her maybe 10 minutes to get to the friend's house.
That's it.

Speaker 18 And this was somebody that she knew and hung out with most days after school, too. So again, everything was just normal and very routine that day.

Speaker 18 Another thing that was normal was that Amber's mom, Bonnie, had a rule: be home before sunset. Like I said, Amber was pretty responsible.
She was a big rule follower.

Speaker 18 So usually there weren't any issues around this rule. She had to be home by sunset, and she always was.
Except that day by 5:45, it was already dark, and Amber still wasn't home.

Speaker 18 That was a really unusual because Amber just didn't miss curfew. But right when Bonnie was starting to get worried and wonder what was going on, she got a phone call and it was from Amber.

Speaker 18 Amber told her that she was still over at her friend's house. She was very, very apologetic because she knew that she had broken a rule, something that she never did.

Speaker 18 She just said that she had lost track of time. She wasn't hurt.
She wasn't in danger. There was nothing to worry about.
She just simply lost track of time.

Speaker 18 Now she did sound really freaked out, but mostly because because she thought that she was going to be in trouble for getting home so late.

Speaker 18 But Bonnie assured her daughter that everything would be okay. She wasn't going to punish her, especially because this was just like a one-time thing.
She knew Amber was a good kid.

Speaker 18 She had never done anything like this before. So she just told her, you know, just get home safely.
So Amber said that she was going to leave right away and bike straight home.

Speaker 18 Again, she sounded a little worried, but not in a way that was like a huge red flag for Bonnie. It sounded more like Amber was just nervous because she had never ridden alone in the dark before.

Speaker 18 It was going to be a new experience for her, and not one that she was completely thrilled about. Remember, she was scared of the dark.
Well, Bonnie was in full, like, understanding mom mode.

Speaker 18 So, on top of telling Amber that she wasn't angry and that she wouldn't be getting into any trouble, Bonnie also told Amber not to be so worried about getting home. She said it was a quick trip.

Speaker 18 She had biked the same route a million times before during the day, so everything would be alright. Just be calm, you'll be fine, I'll see you soon.

Speaker 18 So then they told each other their goodbyes, they said that they would see each other soon, and they hung up.

Speaker 18 Now given that the bike ride was only about 10 minutes, Amber should have been home around 6 p.m. or so.

Speaker 18 So when 610 rolled around, Bonnie started getting worried, but she tried not to freak out too much. I mean, maybe Amber didn't leave for home immediately after hanging up the phone.

Speaker 18 Maybe she stopped to say bye to her friend. Maybe she went to use the bathroom.
Maybe she got a quick drink of water. Who knows?

Speaker 18 I mean, there were a lot of perfectly valid, legitimate reasons for her not to be home yet. So Bonnie waited for five more minutes.
Then ten more minutes. But by 6.30 there was still no sign of Amber.

Speaker 18 And it was late enough now that Bonnie knew that it wasn't some ordinary delay. Something was wrong.
So she got in her car and she drove toward that friend's house.

Speaker 18 And the whole time she was looking at all of the roads, all of the sidewalks, just looking for her daughter on her blue bike. But unfortunately, she didn't see any sign of her.

Speaker 18 So the next step was for Bonnie to call everybody that she knew. Amber's Amber's friends, her family, people from the school, literally anyone that she could think of.

Speaker 18 Her hope was that someone had seen Amber and knew what had happened to her. But the only person who admitted to seeing Amber that day was the friend that Amber had been visiting with.

Speaker 18 And they told Bonnie that Amber did leave right away after they were done talking on the phone.

Speaker 18 There was no bathroom break, there was no longabite, none of the things that she was thinking could have been a possibility.

Speaker 18 The friend even said that they had watched Amber get onto her bike and start heading down the street toward home, so she had definitely been on her way a while ago.

Speaker 18 Needless to say, this situation did not sound good. I mean, all the signs pointed to Amber being in trouble.

Speaker 18 So that's when Bonnie picked up the phone, dialed 911, and reported her 10-year-old daughter as missing. Right away, the police sprang into action.

Speaker 18 I mean, they had every reason to take this report seriously right off the bat. First of all, Amber had never run away before.
She didn't have some sort of history of taking off.

Speaker 18 She also had no reason to just suddenly run away now. She got along with her family.
She got good grades. She hadn't ever complained about bullying or a boyfriend or anything like that.

Speaker 18 And sometimes, unfortunately, in these cases, you do see the police kind of dragging their feet a little bit, right? Not taking the disappearance seriously right away. But that was not the case here.

Speaker 18 They immediately understood that this was a very big deal, and they did everything that they could do to try and track Amber down.

Speaker 18 They started by canvassing the neighborhood, questioning neighbors, searching for anyone who might have seen Amber or heard anything unusual. But all of their initial investigations went nowhere.

Speaker 18 Nobody had seen her. In fact, they wondered if that was one of the key issues, visibility, meaning that literally people were not able to see Amber at night here.

Speaker 18 Specifically, the police theorized early on that maybe this wasn't even a crime at all, that maybe Amber had been hit by a car on her way home.

Speaker 18 This all just somehow was some horrific, tragic accident. There were a few problems, though, with this theory.
I mean, she wasn't in any of the local hospitals.

Speaker 18 She hadn't been found hurt or dead at the side of a road either. I mean, not yet anyway.

Speaker 18 But their theory was that maybe a driver might have run her over by accident, then panicked, and because of that, disposed of her body and her bike somewhere.

Speaker 18 But that theory didn't hold up for long, because the next morning, at around 10.30 a.m., Amber's bike was found.

Speaker 18 It was found lying against a tree in Deniston Park, just a few blocks from both her and her friend's house. And the bike? It was in great shape.

Speaker 18 There was no dents, no scrapes, no other damage that might suggest that it was in some sort of car accident.

Speaker 18 Now, as for the question of how that bike ended up there, well, most of the kids in the neighborhood apparently liked playing in this park. And Amber was no different.
It was a go-to spot for her.

Speaker 18 She hung out there all the time. So with the bike being found there, the new theory was that maybe Amber stopped at this park on her way home from her friend's house.

Speaker 18 Maybe she wanted to take a break, catch her breath during this long ride home, even though it was only 10 10 minutes.

Speaker 18 Or maybe she spotted some friends and decided to hang out and play with them for a while. But then think about it.

Speaker 18 Amber had already called her mom, apologized for being late, and said that she was nervous about riding home in the dark.

Speaker 18 So if she was really that nervous to make that 10-minute bike ride straight home, would she really go off course to hang out at the park after dark? It didn't add up.

Speaker 18 Either way, the police kept the bike to do some more investigating and to try to learn more. The next step was to raise awareness, to make sure that people knew that Amber was missing.

Speaker 18 They were asking for tips, they were asking for leads, everything.

Speaker 18 They went on the news, they printed flyers, and they stood on the streets asking anyone who happened to pass if they had heard or seen anything weird in the neighborhood.

Speaker 18 The hope was that maybe somebody might have seen Amber while they were driving home, because she did disappear right around 6 p.m.

Speaker 18 So maybe somebody who didn't even know Amber or know anything about her case might have spotted her when they were driving past.

Speaker 18 They might have been coming home from work and they might not have thought anything about it at the time.

Speaker 18 They They might not have even realized that they had any information that the police were interested in hearing.

Speaker 18 So now the police were going out to everyone else saying basically, yes, we do want to hear from you. Tell us what you know.

Speaker 18 And keep in mind, with all of this going on, it had still been less than 24 hours since Amber had gone missing. And during that day, on day two, Amber's family was handing out flyers everywhere.

Speaker 18 And during that, they started talking to one man who said that he thought he had seen Amber on the day of her disappearance, that he thought he saw her at around 5.25 p.m.

Speaker 18 He described the girl that he had seen, and it did sound exactly like Amber, a fair-skinned, five-foot-tall girl with long dark hair and bangs, and the girl he saw even had a blue bike.

Speaker 18 According to this man, there was also a boy with this girl. The boy was selling candy and Amber was talking to him.
So that all sounded pretty compelling. Maybe it could have been a lead.

Speaker 18 Maybe it could have been a sign. Except Amber wasn't missing at 5.25 p.m.
when that man saw this little girl. Remember, she was still at her friend's house.

Speaker 18 We know that she hadn't left yet because she called her mom from her friend's phone, and her friend also confirmed that Amber didn't leave to head home until much later.

Speaker 18 So the best guess that anybody could come up with was that the man had seen a different little girl who just happened to look just like Amber.

Speaker 18 It was the kind of neighborhood with a lot of families and kids, so it made sense.

Speaker 18 And since this man didn't actually know Amber, it definitely would be easy for him to confuse her with a different little girl who had maybe been out on the street at that same time.

Speaker 18 So, the police ruled the tip out, thinking it had nothing to do with Amber. And with that sighting ruled out, they didn't have a whole lot of other leads or theories to go off of.

Speaker 18 But that fact, in and of itself, told them something.

Speaker 18 If Amber wasn't seen by any of her friends and if she wasn't in a car accident, that really only left one final possibility: the possibility that no parent ever wants to consider.

Speaker 18 It was looking more and more likely that Amber was kidnapped.

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Speaker 19 Okay, sure.

Speaker 27 No, there's smoke in my house.

Speaker 23 Yeah, right.

Speaker 24 A smoke alarm texting you. That's a new one.

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Speaker 23 Hello?

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Speaker 19 Well,

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Speaker 18 What do you think makes the perfect snack?

Speaker 41 Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.

Speaker 7 Could you be more specific?

Speaker 41 When it's cravenient.

Speaker 26 Okay.

Speaker 41 Like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right now in the street at AM P.M., or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at AM PM.

Speaker 18 I'm seeing a pattern here.

Speaker 26 Well, yeah, we're talking about what I crave.

Speaker 7 Which is anything from AM PM?

Speaker 41 What more could you want?

Speaker 42 Stop by AMPM, where the snacks and drinks are perfectly cravable and convenient. That's cravenience.
AMPM, too much good stuff.

Speaker 18 Nobody could find any sign of Amber Barker anywhere, even though the police searches were incredibly intense. They were looking for her everywhere, and Bonnie was pleading for help.

Speaker 22 Amber, we're with you, and mommy's gonna come and get you, honey. I really love you.
I just wanna tell Amber if you're out there, I love you.

Speaker 18 Sadly, by this time, investigators were seriously considering the possibility that Amber might have been dead.

Speaker 18 So their searches now weren't limited to only areas where a girl who was alive might turn up, like parks and friends' houses.

Speaker 18 They were also looking in all the places where somebody might dispose of a body, like storm drains. They also had divers looking in nearby creeks and rivers.

Speaker 18 And to give you a sense of how serious they were, at one point the detectives even set up roadblocks and they would stop any driver who happened to come through. They would show them a photo of Amber.

Speaker 18 They would ask if they had seen this girl or in general, if they had seen anything suspicious in the area recently. They would just try to get answers.

Speaker 18 Other officers went up to the kids who lived in the neighborhood to see if they had any information too.

Speaker 18 Not just information about Amber specifically, but they wanted to know where different children would like to go, where they all hung out, where the secret spots were.

Speaker 18 Were there any places that they would sneak off to in order to get away from their parents, anywhere that Amber might have run away to, or where her kidnapper might have run away to, you know, if she had been maybe taken by an older kid or even a teenager.

Speaker 18 I mean, seriously, they were looking at every single possibility. There was no scenario that was too out there or too wild for them to explore.

Speaker 18 But no matter where they looked or who they talked to, they found nothing. Eventually, they brought in the FBI to help them investigate.

Speaker 18 And if there's one silver lining to this whole situation, it's that kidnapping is a federal crime.

Speaker 18 So even though the police still didn't know for sure if Amber was kidnapped or not, their suspicions were strong enough that they could ask for extra help.

Speaker 18 They could bring in the big guys, the big team, right? So the FBI agents and the police worked together to set up a system that would manage all of the hundreds of tips that were pouring in.

Speaker 18 And I mean, when you have that many officers out there, cars pulling cars over, chatting up the local kids, doing all the things, you do end up with a ton of information you need to vet through.

Speaker 18 The issue was that they didn't know how much of that information was relevant or useful. So the next step was to sift through everything, figure out what was important, sort everything out.

Speaker 18 Well, as the saying goes, quantity doesn't always equal quality. Because even though there were hundreds of tips flooding in, the investigation was going nowhere.

Speaker 18 Everyone in Oklahoma City, especially in the area where Amber lived, they had their eyes peeled, but nothing was happening.

Speaker 18 They all agreed that they would report anything that they saw or anything that they noticed, no matter how small or how significant it might have felt, but they still ended up with nothing.

Speaker 18 That is until the night of the 20th. And to give you a sense of the timeline, that still is just two days after Amber went missing.

Speaker 18 And that's when the police got a phone call from a woman who said that she found a single shoe that looked like it belonged to a young child.

Speaker 18 Now, when Amber had gone missing, she had been wearing dark pants, a cream long sleeve shirt with a brown collar, and no excuses sneakers.

Speaker 18 The shoe that the woman had seen was also a no-excuses sneaker, and it was also the right color and size.

Speaker 18 So when the police went and recovered this shoe and showed it to Amber's mom Bonnie, she said right away that it was Amber's. It had to be.

Speaker 18 The shoe was found 20 blocks south of Amber's house and 13 miles from Denniston Park, that park where all the kids hang out, also where Amber's bike had been found.

Speaker 18 And once the police found the first shoe there, they began searching the area to see if they could find any other clues around, which was a good call. because they ended up finding a lot.

Speaker 18 At around 9 a.m., the investigator saw a second shoe, the other half of this pair. It was a few blocks away from where the first shoe had been found.

Speaker 18 Then, at around 1.40 p.m., the same day, her beige shirt was found in some bushes. After that, they found a sock.
And then, one of Amber's sisters found a silver ring on the side of a street.

Speaker 18 It was the same style and same size as a ring that Amber wore all the time. So basically, these items were scattered all over, several blocks apart from one another, yet all in the same neighborhood.

Speaker 18 It was almost like a trail of breadcrumbs leading towards something, something bigger.

Speaker 18 Now, Amber's pants, underwear, and her other sock were never found, but the evidence from the items that were found was extremely troubling, because her sweater had vomit on it.

Speaker 18 And inside the vomit, the police found something that they believed could be semen, but they couldn't confirm that that's what it was for sure, which more on that in a second.

Speaker 18 I do have to say, though, that this detail is especially disturbing if it's true, because if Amber was vomiting and if her throw-up had semen inside of it then that tells you a little bit about what might have happened to her after she was kidnapped and it tells you what sick horrible things her abductor subjected this young innocent 10-year-old girl to one of her shoes also had a tiny speck of blood on it the investigators wanted to look at the dna in the blood but the sample unfortunately was too small There just wasn't enough of it there for them to get anything useful out of it.

Speaker 18 However, the material that may have been semen was a little bit more helpful. Again, there wasn't enough of it to get any solid DNA, but the police now knew something important.

Speaker 18 That Amber's abductor and kidnapper most likely was a male. They also believed that her kidnapper almost certainly assaulted her in a sexual way after abducting her.

Speaker 18 There were also blue fibers on Amber's sweater, and this was important because Amber's older sister Debbie had an ex who drove a silver Mitsubishi with a blue interior.

Speaker 18 The carpet was blue, the seats were blue, even the dashboard was blue. And this ex was 24-year-old Daniel Smith.
And I know what you guys might be thinking. Uh, that's a bit of a stretch.

Speaker 18 I mean, a lot of people have blue seats or blue carpet on their cars, so how does the presence of blue fibers tell the police enough to make them take a closer look at the ex-boyfriend Daniel?

Speaker 18 Well, Daniel wasn't just some random guy who Debbie had a fling with for a week or two or something like that. They were very serious.

Speaker 18 They actually had a common law marriage because of how long they were together. They also lived together and had a daughter together.

Speaker 18 In spite of all of that, though, their relationship was rocky, and that's putting it mildly, actually.

Speaker 18 Daniel and Debbie fought all the time, non-stop, and Debbie didn't feel comfortable or safe around Daniel sometimes. So at one point, she actually ran away to get away from him.

Speaker 18 She took her daughter and she went all the way to Oregon to stay with some other family members. She didn't tell Daniel where she was because she didn't want him tracking her down.

Speaker 18 Now, on the day that Amber went missing, Daniel was at Bonnie's house trying to find Debbie and his daughter.

Speaker 18 He was also there when Amber called her mom to say that she was about to head home at 5.45 p.m. And when the police first questioned him, he admitted that he was there and he heard this phone call.

Speaker 18 And then, right after that call, he hopped in his car and he drove off. Pretty suspicious timing, right?

Speaker 18 Well, according to Daniel, his decision to leave right after that phone call right then and there had absolutely nothing to do with Amber.

Speaker 18 His main focus was on finding Debbie and finding his daughter. Remember, they had left to go stay with family in Oregon.

Speaker 18 Now at that time, he had been at Bonnie's house for long enough to confirm that they were not there. So he says it was time for him to leave, to look somewhere new, and to move on to the next place.

Speaker 18 But eventually, according to Daniel, he realized that he wasn't going to make any progress that night. He wasn't going to track Debbie down.
So to unwind, he went to a club and he had a beer.

Speaker 18 Then, once he had blown off some steam, he said he got a second wind. So he headed out to keep the search going.
For Debbie, not Amber.

Speaker 18 The problem is that the police were never able to verify this story.

Speaker 18 They couldn't find anyone who was willing to come forward and say that they were with Daniel or that they had talked to him around that time or had even seen him at that nightclub.

Speaker 18 Nobody who could clear him. There was absolutely nobody who could confirm that Daniel went to that bar or had a beer there.
And it's not the most damning situation, I will admit.

Speaker 18 If you're driving all over town trying to find your ex or trying to find out which of your ex's friends they might be staying with, you're probably going to spend a lot of alone time in the car.

Speaker 18 You're not going to have a lot of eyewitnesses around to vouch for your whereabouts.

Speaker 18 And if you're also at a bar where nobody really knows you or recognizes you, how likely are the people really going to remember your face and be able to tell the police that you were there?

Speaker 18 If Daniel's testimony was true, it makes sense that he would have a hard time confirming his alibi. But now you add in the blue fibers on Amber's clothing, and it just didn't look good.

Speaker 18 But here is where it gets weird and kind of confusing. See, Amber's mom, Bonnie, claimed that Daniel wasn't at the house when Amber first called her.

Speaker 18 She said that Daniel left several hours before the phone call. So it's not like he heard her on the phone and then he hopped into his car and seized that chance to go kidnap and hurt Amber.

Speaker 18 It didn't even sound like he had any way of knowing that Amber would be out on the street at that time. But someone else was at the house who also said that Daniel was there when Amber called.

Speaker 18 His name was Joseph Bishop. Joseph was in his late teens and he was dating Brandy, another one of Amber's sisters.

Speaker 18 Anyway, Joseph was at the house too, and he told the police that Daniel was definitely home when Amber called home. Not only that, but he was confident that Daniel overheard the phone call.

Speaker 18 He also said that Daniel left immediately after Bonnie hung up, and according to Joseph, generally when Daniel left Bonnie's house, he would turn east and head back home.

Speaker 18 But this time, he went west, the same direction that Amber was coming from, the direction of her friend's house.

Speaker 18 Joseph was eventually given a polygraph test, and he passed, so the police had absolutely no reason reason to believe that he was lying.

Speaker 18 But at what point do all of the coincidences here start to add up and, you know, the expression where there's smoke, there's fire comes into play?

Speaker 18 Because Daniel was going in the same direction of Amber. There were blue fibers that were found on her clothing.
He had blue fibers in his car.

Speaker 18 What about the confusion over whether Daniel was even at the house at the time? I mean, why would Brandy say he wasn't there? But Joseph said he was and Joseph passed the poly?

Speaker 18 Was Bonnie possibly just distraught over her missing daughter, not remembering these crucial critical details of that day? Or is it suspicious that Joseph is pointing fingers?

Speaker 18 Now, as if all of that isn't enough, Daniel also had a very troubling history.

Speaker 18 Just one month before Amber's disappearance, there was a domestic disturbance at the home where he lived with Amber's sister Debbie.

Speaker 18 And because the disturbance was so intense, somebody called the police. Debbie told the officers that Daniel had hit her after she refused to have sex with him.

Speaker 18 Daniel wasn't arrested, however, he was given a citation. Now, if you think that's bad, get this.
In 1995, he had been convicted of an attempted kidnapping.

Speaker 18 So, again, I think you can tell from that alone why the police thought that those blue strands on Amber's clothing was definitely worth taking a closer look at it, right?

Speaker 18 And that's before I even tell you about the details about the attempted second kidnapping of his. Yes, second.

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Speaker 18 So, Daniel Smith, the shady partner of Amber's older sister Debbie, had been convicted once before of attempted kidnapping. See, one night, a woman was leaving a club in downtown Oklahoma City.

Speaker 18 She was walking toward her car when a man jumped out from where he had been hiding. He crouched over near the driver's side door of her car, just kind of waiting for her to come out.

Speaker 18 Well, now, as this woman got closer, the guy attacked her. He was able to get her keys away from her, and then he opened the front door of her car.

Speaker 18 He tried to shove this woman inside and even grabbed her by the throat, choking her. It isn't clear exactly what happened after that, but somehow this woman did get away.

Speaker 18 She called the police, and they eventually learned that this man who had attacked her, Blitz attacked her at that, was Daniel, so they arrested him.

Speaker 18 And the woman was positive that Daniel was trying to sexually assault her as well, but Daniel claimed that he just wanted to steal her car.

Speaker 18 I mean, not the best defense in the world because car theft is also not a good look, but I can see how maybe he thought that that was a better defense than admitting that he was committing, you know, a violent crime.

Speaker 18 But since he did claim that this was an attempted theft, he was only charged with robbery at first. Eventually, though, the charge was upgraded to kidnapping.

Speaker 18 Then at one of Daniel's court hearings, a bouncer from the club testified against him.

Speaker 18 But as soon as this guy was done giving his statement, Daniel stood up right there in court in front of the judge and jury and everybody else, and he said, as soon as I get out, you're a dead man.

Speaker 18 So after that, Daniel was also charged with intimidating a witness, which honestly, what did he really expect to happen in that moment?

Speaker 18 I mean, how did he realistically think that this would all play out for him? To literally threaten a witness in front of everyone, including a judge? I mean, not the brightest move.

Speaker 18 Now, let's just say Daniel does not sound like the brightest crayon in the box, okay? But he did do one smart thing. He took a plea bargain and he pled guilty to attacking this woman.

Speaker 18 And in exchange, he received a five-year deferred prison sentence.

Speaker 18 So basically, this meant that if Daniel could be on his best behavior and not commit any more crimes and followed certain rules that the judge gave him, he could avoid going to prison.

Speaker 18 So Daniel was sent to this sort of boot camp for only four months. Specifically, it was the William S.
Key Correctional Center for young adults. And actually, he did well there.

Speaker 18 He followed the rules, he did all the things that he needed to do, all so he could avoid going to prison. In fact, Daniel even went back to school.

Speaker 18 He had dropped out when he was 15 years old, so he never got his high school diploma, but at the correctional center, he was able to take classes and get his GED.

Speaker 18 So it really did seem like he was turning things around, like he was back on the right track and living a better life.

Speaker 18 And when the judge saw how well he was doing, he felt for him, especially given Daniel's background, because apparently he had a very rough and difficult childhood.

Speaker 18 He had been in the foster system since he was just six years old. He had also abused drugs and he had a pretty bad drinking problem.
But that was all changing now.

Speaker 18 Daniel was doing good enough that the judge decided he needed some encouragement. He needed to see that his good work was paying off.

Speaker 18 So that is when the judge decided to drop those witness intimidation charges from the trial. And after that, Daniel was just put on probation.

Speaker 18 He still had to attend weekly AA meetings and regular counseling sessions. He also had to find a job, not necessarily a full-time job, but a job, at least part-time work.

Speaker 18 And he was meeting with his parole officer regularly. But as far as that was concerned, he was a free man.
And of course, like I mentioned before, he was with Debbie.

Speaker 18 They were common law married, even though they had never had a wedding. So because of that, it should really go without saying that he saw Amber quite a bit.
She was his wife's sister, after all.

Speaker 18 I mean, they were a part of each other's lives. Well, as it turned out, Amber didn't like Daniel, and I mean, she really didn't like him.

Speaker 18 I mentioned before that Amber could be very shy with people that she didn't know very well, right? But eventually, more times than not, she would warm up. But that's not at all what was going on here.

Speaker 18 Amber was literally afraid of Daniel. She was outspoken about it too, and she would tell anyone who would listen that she was afraid of him and, more than that, afraid of one thing in particular.

Speaker 18 She was afraid that he would take her away from her home one day. On the day before Amber disappeared, she told her dad Robert and her brother Eddie that she was scared of Daniel.

Speaker 18 Apparently, not too long ago, he tried to shove her into his car, so this wasn't some sort of idle fear or paranoia. She had a reason to be scared of him.

Speaker 18 She also said that she had managed to get away from him and ran inside the house, but either way, she was very reasonably not comfortable around Daniel.

Speaker 18 She didn't know if or when he would try something like that with her again. That same day, she also had a conversation with her mom where she said that she had seen Daniel driving by their house.

Speaker 18 She thought that he was there to look for her, to keep tabs on her, to get a sense of when she was home, what her schedule was like, all of the weird, stalkery things that people do.

Speaker 18 Which, how awful is that?

Speaker 18 I mean, first and foremost, for any 10-year-old girl to be afraid of somebody in general, but a 10-year-old innocent girl to be afraid of their sister's boyfriend/slash husband, somebody who is so personally involved and intertwined in your life, that is extremely terrifying.

Speaker 18 And I'm just speculating, but I do have to wonder if this might have been the reason that Amber went to her friend's house in the first place.

Speaker 18 I mean, I know that she and her friend hung out a lot, and it's not like she needed, you know, a big solid excuse to go and see her friend, but i also have to imagine that if she was feeling unsafe in her own home and like maybe this creep was always watching her maybe she just wanted to get away from him she might have wanted to go somewhere where she felt a little more secure and like she had a little bit more privacy i even wonder if you could go a step further maybe and speculate that it might have been part of the reason that she didn't like sleeping alone Maybe it wasn't fear of the dark.

Speaker 18 Maybe she might have also been worried, rightly, as it may have turned out, that if she was alone in her room with nobody watching her, Daniel might come in and do something to her.

Speaker 18 So all to say, there were a lot of reasons and past experiences to warrant finding Daniel suspicious. He had all the red flags you could think of, so the police brought him in for an interrogation.

Speaker 18 They asked him all their questions, but they didn't find a smoking gun.

Speaker 18 Now, he didn't say anything to let them clear him, but he also didn't break down and confess or say anything to implicate himself either.

Speaker 18 They asked if he would come back though and take a polygraph test with the FBI, and Daniel agreed. But then, the day that the lie detector test was scheduled to happen, he just never showed up.

Speaker 18 Now, on top of that, he also missed his AA meeting, which that was a parole violation. So, this was now enough for the police to bring Daniel in.

Speaker 18 They didn't officially name him a suspect, but they did send some squad cars out and officers to find him to take him back to the station. The problem was, they couldn't find him anywhere.

Speaker 18 There was absolutely no trace of where he had gone. Finally, on the night of Sunday, December December 21st, Daniel's car was found.

Speaker 18 It was abandoned at a local gas station, but Daniel was nowhere around it. The police searched his car, but they didn't find much.

Speaker 18 They did find some brown hair near the passenger side door, which I'll say right there, the police never publicly confirmed whose hair it was, but given that Amber also had brown hair, it felt like it was another clue, another red flag.

Speaker 18 The next morning on Monday, December 22nd, the search for Daniel continued.

Speaker 18 A neighborhood watch group was helping the police scan the neighborhood looking for him, too, and in the early morning hours, they found Daniel.

Speaker 18 He was in a park less than one mile from where his car had been found. The problem was, he was dead, and it was clear that it was by his own hand.

Speaker 18 Which, that also is one more, you know, red flag of suspicion in this whole case, right? Was he so guilty and so nervous that he was going to get caught that he just suddenly decided to kill himself?

Speaker 18 And unfortunately, that stalled the investigation into finding Amber.

Speaker 18 Even with the police and the FBI working through Christmas, working through the new year, they weren't able to find anything about what had happened to her.

Speaker 18 Like everyone else, Amber's mother, Bonnie, had felt hopeful at first when Amber was first declared missing.

Speaker 18 Bonnie felt confident that Amber would be found, that she would get home, she'd be safe and sound.

Speaker 18 She prayed that Amber would just walk in the front door at any minute, that she would see all the presents under the tree, that her eyes would light up and they could celebrate Amber's favorite holiday together, that they would, you know, have a happy Christmas and everything would go back to normal.

Speaker 18 But instead, Bonnie now had to learn to live with this whole new definition of normal.

Speaker 18 And it was made much worse by Daniel for him taking his own life and taking whatever information he might have known with him.

Speaker 18 There were so many unknowns, the police didn't even name Daniel as a suspect, which is very frustrating because I already ran through all of the evidence against him.

Speaker 18 The timing of his death also certainly sounds suspicious. I mean, that's a red flag in on its own, right?

Speaker 18 But from the sound of it, even with all those clues, all those leads, those like weird circumstances and coincidences, it wasn't quite enough for the police to publicly come out and say that he did it or that he even had something to do with it or that the disappearance was solved.

Speaker 18 I mean, nothing. Time went on and every couple of years, the authorities would release age-progressed photos of Amber.
They would ask if anybody had seen her.

Speaker 18 Occasionally, tips would come in here or there with people saying that Amber is alive, that she's living in different areas in the United States, you know, all of the tips that we always hear, but none of those tips panned out.

Speaker 18 And unfortunately, decades went by.

Speaker 20 David, glad you're with us. It is the face and the case investigators cannot forget.
Little Amber Barker would have turned 27 this year.

Speaker 44 She disappeared back in 1997 while riding her bicycle home in our northwest Oklahoma City neighborhood.

Speaker 45 New Zealand crime tracker Adriana Ivashinski is digging into this and talked with those closest to the case. Adriana?

Speaker 47 Well, Oklahoma City Police tell me this is still an active investigation and they have never given up hope of one day answering the question of what happened to Amber.

Speaker 47 Oklahoma City Police confirmed they have been quietly looking into this case for the past four years.

Speaker 47 Investigators with their Crimes Against Children unit have been going over every piece of evidence with a fresh set of eyes to see if there's something there that was missed the first time.

Speaker 47 Police did recover Amber's bicycle as well as her shoes and a sweater. And on that sweater, police found partial DNA of a man, but are yet to make a match.

Speaker 48 Investigators believe that somebody out there knows the whole story, or at least enough of the story, for us to be able to put the pieces together.

Speaker 48 And after all these years, we still want to hear from that person. That information is still vital to the case.

Speaker 47 And if you have any information, you are urged to call Crime Stoppers at 235-7300. There is a reward.
Live in the newsroom.

Speaker 46 Adriana Ivashinski, News9.

Speaker 44 All right, stay on top of it for us.

Speaker 44 Both police and the family want to know is to where to locate Amber and if she is actually deceased, they want to find the body and be able to give her a proper burial.

Speaker 18 But that is not the end of the story. Starting with in 2007, Amber's father, Robert, died and six years later in 2013, her sister Brandy also passed away.

Speaker 18 And the circumstances around her death were a little suspicious. A month before her death, Brandy moved from Oklahoma City to a smaller town in Oklahoma to be with her boyfriend.

Speaker 18 And this guy, I'm sorry to say, was bad news. Soon after Brandi moved, her boyfriend just left her.
Like, she literally had uprooted her whole life.

Speaker 18 She went to a place where she had no family, no friends, no job, all for this guy, and he just like booked it, ghosted her, and peaced out. I don't know the full context here.

Speaker 18 I mean, maybe the relationship was already rocky and Brandy only moved with him as a last-ditch effort to save it.

Speaker 18 Maybe she did something that was a red flag or a deal breaker for him after she moved in with him. I don't know.
Or maybe he was just this massive asshole. I don't know the full situation.

Speaker 18 There's a lot of possibilities. But what I do know is that Brandy Brandy moved to be with this guy.
And now they were broken up and she had nowhere to live.

Speaker 18 She also was unemployed and didn't have the money to rent her own apartment. So instead, she ended up living in a trailer.

Speaker 18 The man who owned the trailer and who usually lived there was in the hospital, and I'm guessing that she must have gotten a good deal on rent or something. Maybe it was even free.
I don't know.

Speaker 18 But the point is, she was staying there rather than letting it sit around empty.

Speaker 18 Then sometime in the summer of 2013, a bunch of huge storms, which included tornadoes, hit the area where Brandy was living.

Speaker 18 And then one morning, Brandy was found in a ditch, 20 feet from her trailer. Her clothes were also all scattered all around her on the ground.

Speaker 18 The ditch was full of water, and the police ruled that Brandy must have gotten caught in one of those storms, and then she had drowned because of it.

Speaker 18 But a lot of people did not agree with their findings.

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Speaker 18 Apparently, according to the gossip, there wasn't even a storm the night when Brandy died.

Speaker 18 On top of that, her body had a really bad head injury, and it didn't seem like the sort of injury that you would get from hitting a piece of, you know, flying debris that was being blown around in the wind.

Speaker 18 It seemed much more serious. Now, that didn't automatically mean that Brandy died due to foul play because apparently she also had a history of drug use.

Speaker 18 So, one theory is that she got high, that she wandered out of her trailer, and then she passed out, hit her head, and either overdosed or drowned in that ditch that was filled with water.

Speaker 18 If that's the case, maybe the police were trying to protect her reputation when they say that she died in a storm. You know, it was a polite lie so that they wouldn't be speaking ill of the dead.

Speaker 18 Debbie, her sister, has said that she believed that theory.

Speaker 18 But even as she was saying that, you know, going to reporters and saying that she thought it was an overdose, she also made a point of saying that Brandy's ex was really bad news.

Speaker 18 Apparently, about a month before her death, this ex had attacked Brandy. He allegedly had beaten her up and he had cut her throat.

Speaker 18 So, this led some people to think that maybe he or somebody else murdered Brandy and then got away with it because of her past history with drug use and the fact that she lived in this tornado county and all of these, you know, coincidences that could explain it away.

Speaker 18 And sadly, the tragedies don't stop there. A year after Brandy died, Bonnie also passed away.
That's Amber's mother. She died from natural causes.

Speaker 18 She died without any concrete answers about the real cause of death for both Brandy or Amber. But up until her death, Bonnie always maintained that Daniel did something to Amber.

Speaker 18 Specifically, Bonnie thought that Daniel killed her. Although it was hard for Bonnie to admit that because in one interview, she said that she never wanted to give up hope.

Speaker 18 She never wanted to let go of the possibility that maybe someday Amber would come back home, you know, come in the door and she would be fine.

Speaker 18 But as the years went by, that looked less and less likely. Even Bonnie had to admit that if Amber was alive out there somewhere, that she would have found a way to get in touch with her by now.

Speaker 18 She would have gotten in touch with the family eventually.

Speaker 18 Even if she was being held hostage or something horrible like that, she believes that she could have figured out a way to either get out or get the message out.

Speaker 18 And the fact that she didn't seem like confirmation that Amber, sadly, was deceased.

Speaker 18 But not everybody agrees with Bonnie's take because you'll remember that Daniel was common-law married to Amber's sister Debbie and that the two of them had a daughter together.

Speaker 18 Well, almost any time that Debbie gave any kind of interview, she would say that she believed that Daniel was innocent, that he had nothing to do with Amber's disappearance.

Speaker 18 Debbie also claims that she knows who did it, and that she's told the police that, but she has never come out with a name.

Speaker 18 All she'll say is that the real kidnapper got away with it, and that the real kidnapper is still alive today.

Speaker 18 Now, as for the suspicious timing around Daniel's death by suicide, well, according to Debbie, he didn't actually die at his own hand. He didn't take his own life.

Speaker 18 According to Debbie, the person who hurt Amber also murdered Daniel, and this person had staged his death to make it look like he had killed himself, which,

Speaker 18 okay, if it goes really deep, let me just put my tinfoil hat on and get conspiracy theory here for a minute. I could see that maybe happening.
Maybe in a lifetime movie, not really real life.

Speaker 18 Possible, I don't know. But...

Speaker 18 There also is kind of this weird, and I'm just going to be very clear here, this is just speculation.

Speaker 18 There is absolutely no reason to believe that this is true, but there also is some weird undercurrent here of like, what's their name's Carla Homolka vibes.

Speaker 18 You remember the couple in Canada and she allowed her boyfriend to like rape her younger sister and then they murdered her and it was like this whole thing and he went on to like have this killing spree.

Speaker 18 I'm not saying that her sister is involved, but there are a lot of people out there as I was going into this deep, dark hole on this case that feel like there's some sort of weird cover-up happening here and that she's a little too stand by her man.

Speaker 18 Maybe she's doing that because he's innocent. Maybe he didn't really take his own life.
But there's something, you know, that doesn't sit right with a lot of people with this.

Speaker 18 And there have also been a few more recent developments here and they're worth touching on. In 2015, the police announced that they were collecting DNA from an Oklahoma County inmate.

Speaker 18 He went by a few different names, but most of my sources call him Forrest Rice. So that's the name I'm going to be using.

Speaker 18 Well, as it turns out, Forrest was best friends with Daniel, and Daniel was with him on the day that he died, the day that he killed himself, you know, unless you believe Debbie's claim that actually Daniel was murdered.

Speaker 18 Allegedly, Forrest and Daniel were also hanging out on the evening when Amber disappeared, and the following day.

Speaker 18 Which I do find interesting because the police said that nobody could verify Daniel's alibi. And make of this what you will, but Forrest's story also contradicts Daniel's alibi.

Speaker 18 Daniel said he was looking for Debbie all over town and then he stopped for a beer, right? But he didn't say that he was at Forrest's house all night.

Speaker 18 Now, maybe there's a way to reconcile all of that. Like Daniel went to Forrest's house while he was looking for Debbie, and then it was late enough for him to stop searching and just stay there.

Speaker 18 Maybe Forrest was with him looking for Debbie. Maybe there was time for Daniel to hurt Amber, then go to Forrest's house afterward, or maybe Forrest is lying.
I mean, there are a lot of possibilities.

Speaker 18 But here's where things get complicated. The police have always been very clear, very firm, that they don't believe that Forrest took Amber or that he killed her.

Speaker 18 They don't even consider him a suspect.

Speaker 18 In an interview, one spokesperson for the police department said that they just wanted to question Forrest because they thought that he might have some sort of information.

Speaker 18 Which reading between the lines, and this is just speculation, but I wonder if the detectives think that Daniel did it, but they can't prove it.

Speaker 18 And with Daniel dead, it's not like they can just pull him into an interrogation room and try to get a confession out of him.

Speaker 18 So instead, maybe they're trying to go for the next best thing, talking to Daniel's best friends, try to see if any of them know more than what they've been saying.

Speaker 18 And in fact, the police spokesperson implied that pretty strongly in their interview.

Speaker 18 They definitely made it sound like the police were only even looking at Forrest because of what he maybe knew about the real guilty parties.

Speaker 18 Except if that was true, if that was really what they had in mind, then why do the DNA testing on Forrest? Well, there are two things that are worth keeping in mind here.

Speaker 18 The first is that even though the police didn't have the technology to get DNA from what was possibly semen back in 1997, technology has come a long way since then.

Speaker 18 By 2015, the police had recovered partial DNA from that material they found inside her vomit.

Speaker 18 There wasn't enough of it to identify any one single individual, though, but there was enough for them to at least start ruling people out.

Speaker 18 If someone had a sample that was close to that partial DNA, they could be a suspect. If they weren't close, they could be ruled out.

Speaker 18 So I could see the police officers maybe doing these kinds of, you know, DNA comparisons as a matter of like due diligence and staying coarse with the investigation.

Speaker 18 Anyone they talked to, even if they weren't a major suspect, they might give a sample just to be safe.

Speaker 18 But to me, the more compelling reason that the police would need Forrest's DNA was if they thought that there was a chance that that might put him at the scene of a crime.

Speaker 18 It doesn't seem like they would spend the money and the laboratory's time and resources after so many years unless they really thought that there was a chance that there is a match here.

Speaker 18 So then you throw that into it, and it doesn't really fit the whole, you know, we just think that he knows something narrative that the police were putting out there. Who knows?

Speaker 18 I mean, there probably is more to the story, but nobody's talking. Nobody's really saying what is going on here.

Speaker 18 Either way, the investigators compared Forrest's DNA to the semen that was found on Amber's sweater and also to the blood that was on her shoe.

Speaker 18 But to this day, they haven't confirmed whether or not it was a match. They also haven't publicly cleared him or named him as a suspect.
So make of that what you will.

Speaker 18 I will say though, that like Daniel, Forrest wasn't really a great guy. He had many charges against him, including things like assault, battery, and even cooking meth.

Speaker 49 Well, the investigation now points here to this community corrections center where Forrest J. Rice is being held.
Now, according to this search warrant, police want Rice's DNA.

Speaker 49 They believe it may be the key to finding out what happened to Amber Barker.

Speaker 22 I just want to tell Amber if you're out there, I love you.

Speaker 49 They're pleased from past interviews. Amber Barker's family wishing for her safe return.

Speaker 22 Amber, we're with you, and mommy's going to come and get you, honey. I really love you.

Speaker 49 That was Amber's mother days after the nine-year-old Oklahoma City girl went missing in 1997. She never returned home after leaving her friend's house.

Speaker 49 Her blue bike was found in Denison Park a mile from her home. The next day, her sweater, shoes, and a sock were found on Northwest 12th near Drexel.

Speaker 49 Police now want to retest that sweater for DNA evidence. On it, they found vomit.
New court documents reveal there was possible ejaculate in the vomit.

Speaker 49 Investigators want to see if it's a match with Forrest Rice, who at the time was a close family friend friend of the Barkers.

Speaker 49 He's said to have known Amber's brother-in-law, who was wanted for questioning at the time, but committed suicide. Investigators believe he may hold the key to finding Amber Barker.

Speaker 49 Dave Detling, KOCO, Five News.

Speaker 18 Now, there's one last person who I want to touch on here. Joseph.

Speaker 18 Because you'll remember, he was dating Brandy back in 1997, and he was at Bonnie's house for some reason the day that Amber went missing.

Speaker 18 He's the one who said that Daniel was there for that phone call from Amber to Bonnie. And then he said that Daniel left the house right after Bonnie was done with the phone call.

Speaker 18 Even though, remember, Bonnie had remembered it differently, and she said that Daniel hadn't been there for that phone call.

Speaker 18 And I think that this is pretty interesting because in the years after Amber's disappearance and after Daniel's death, the police treated Joseph like a person of interest.

Speaker 18 I don't really know why.

Speaker 18 I don't know if there was some sort of evidence that maybe made him look guilty or what, or if it really just does come down to the timing of that phone call and the fact that Joseph overheard it, but they did treat him like a person of interest.

Speaker 18 It's possible that there's some other information that hasn't been made public, something that maybe makes Joseph look guilty.

Speaker 18 But what I do know is that the police have definitely been treating him suspicious and keeping an eye out on him.

Speaker 18 For his part, Joseph makes it sound like he doesn't even know why they are suspicious of him at all. According to him, he's innocent.
There's absolutely no reason for him to be treated this way.

Speaker 47 We talked to Bishop today by phone.

Speaker 21 The whole family was questioning. Everybody was questioning.

Speaker 21 Taking down the police, taking him polygraphed and all that.

Speaker 18 Did you undergo a polygraph?

Speaker 21 Yes, I did.

Speaker 47 Bishop, who lives in Dallas now, says he does not know what happened to Amber Barker that day.

Speaker 21 No, I have no idea.

Speaker 47 Bishop was dating Amber Barker's older sister, Brandy, at the time and admits they had a rocky relationship. He says what happened to Amber most likely was taken to the grave with Daniel Smith.

Speaker 47 Smith was Amber's brother-in-law and committed suicide just days after police questioned him about her disappearance.

Speaker 21 Then they let him go, and three days later, they found him hanging dead in the park.

Speaker 47 Bishop says he, like Amber's family, wants to know what happened and says it is possible someone still knows something but just hasn't come forward.

Speaker 21 I hope someday they get all the answers they're looking for.

Speaker 18 Now, of course, different reporters and different people in the media have asked the police why they were even talking to Joseph, what kind of statement they wanted to make.

Speaker 18 And the investigators said basically the same thing about Joseph that they had said about Forrest earlier. He wasn't a suspect, but maybe he knew something.
And the police wanted to know what he knew.

Speaker 18 Like I mentioned before, when we were talking about the police questioning Forrest, it does sound to me like there is more to it than that.

Speaker 18 So I'm not sure how much we can take the police for at face value here. They might be keeping some of the parts of the investigation quiet and saying things that aren't totally true.

Speaker 18 That does happen because they don't want to ruin the integrity of the investigation. But the point is, that's kind of where we're at with this case.

Speaker 18 And that's why so many people are outraged on TikTok and why I was like tagged in literally this video a thousand times, because to this day, Amber has never been found. Not alive, not dead, nothing.

Speaker 18 The police also have never publicly named a suspect. However, the police have always been very, very careful to say that the case is not closed and that it's not cold.

Speaker 18 They're still investigating and they're still digging. Every few years, a new team will come on board.

Speaker 18 They will review everything, you know, hoping that maybe a fresh set of eyes can find something that all of those earlier investigations missed. But so far, nothing has come out of those reviews.

Speaker 18 No huge breaks, or at least no breaks that they have announced to the public anyway.

Speaker 18 It is possible that there are new directions and avenues of the investigation behind the scenes, maybe ones that we don't know about.

Speaker 18 And I really do hope that that's the case because I hope that Amber can get justice soon and her surviving family members, those who have survived.

Speaker 18 If Amber is alive today, that would mean she's 37 years old.

Speaker 18 Now, for the people watching on YouTube, I'm putting her age progression photo up now, and if you have seen her, please do call in and say what you know.

Speaker 18 It might seem hopeless given how many years have gone by, but Amber's body has never been found. There's also no proof out there that she is in fact dead.
So just in case, keep your eyes open.

Speaker 18 If you see something, say something.

Speaker 18 And even when it feels unlikely, let's just all together have a little bit of hope that maybe, maybe this story might have some sort of closure for Amber's surviving family.

Speaker 18 I think that's why it's going so viral online too. Everybody wants answers.
So please do your part in that too. Share a link to this episode.
Share a link to this video.

Speaker 18 Put it in your group chat on your social media on TikTok, wherever you want to put it. I don't copyright strike.
Don't worry.

Speaker 18 I just want these cases spread so that awareness is made and like hopefully some tips come in and answers can be found and people can figure out what really happened to Amber.

Speaker 18 And what do you think happened to Amber? Let me know if you're on watching on YouTube, let me know in the comment section.

Speaker 18 But if you're listening to the podcast version, let me know either in the QA section on Spotify or in the Apple review section. But what do you think happened?

Speaker 18 Do you think it was clear-cut that it was Daniel, that he attacked Amber as some sort of retaliation against Debbie since she fled with their child?

Speaker 18 Do you think that it was Joseph who was the other kid, the older teenage boy that was in the house, and that he was pointing the finger at Daniel because he's the one who's responsible.

Speaker 18 Could it have been a stranger? I mean, the blue fibers, you know, most seats, I don't remember in 1997 if it was mostly leather or cloth, but like it feels like that's kind of a big tell, right?

Speaker 18 Blue fibers, blue fibers. I don't know.
What do you guys think? In any event, thank you guys so much for hearing Amber's story today. And I think we're a far cry from where we were in 1997.

Speaker 18 I used to be able to ride my, I would actually be the, Amber would be the same age as me. I was born in 87 as well, which is a very scary thought to think about.

Speaker 18 But I remember I used to be able to just like ride my bike and go play with the neighbor kids until the street lights came on.

Speaker 18 And unfortunately, it feels like we live in a day and age now where you just can't do that anymore. There's not that same sense of innocence or freedom.
So

Speaker 18 please just be careful with your kids, your loved ones. If you're young yourself, be extra cautious.
Even if you're not young, hell, be extra cautious because there are so many predators out there.

Speaker 18 Some of them live closer than you think, too. Some of them are closer than you think.
So, please just always watch your back. All right, guys, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode.

Speaker 18 Until the next one, stay safe, be nice, don't kill people, don't join any cults, and just always watch your back. All right, bye.

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