Cold Cases
Amber Hagerman
(January 15, 1996)
Amber Hagerman was only 9 years old when she died. Abducted while riding her bike in Arlington, Texas, her disappearance ignited a huge search that brought in the FBI. Her body was found by a man walking his dog four days after she’d gone missing. Her throat had been cut, and evidence showed that she’d been alive for two days before being killed. The high-profile case and ensuing call from Amber’s parents for tougher laws for sex offenders, including a national offender registry, led to the creation of the AMBER Alert, a national bulletin distributed via TV and radio when a child goes missing. The alert’s name is technically “America’s Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response,” but it was named after Amber. |
Zodiac
(1968-1972)
Seven people were killed throughout Northern California by an unknown man who came to be known as the Zodiac killer because of the taunting letters he sent to police. The letters also included cryptograms, some of which still haven’t been decoded. The first killings came in December 1968 and July 1969, and the first letters claiming responsibility for those killings were sent to three newspapers in August 1969. Some victims were shot and others stabbed, setting the Zodiac apart from serial killers that stick to one method of execution. San Francisco police detective Dave Toschi was one of those who worked the case, and would later become the basis for the fictional character Dirty Harry. Despite a prime suspect in Arthur Leigh Allen — identified years later by an early surviving victim as the shooter — the case was never solved. Allen died in 1992, but a film positing him as a likely killer was released to acclaim in 2007. |
Kara Kopetsky
(CNN) -- A surveillance video shows 17-year-old Kara Kopetsky walking out of her high school on May 4, 2007, before classes let out.
She was having a bad day. She'd forgotten one of her textbooks, and that morning she called home and asked her mother to drop it off at the school office. She also asked her mother to wash her uniform so she could work the 4 p.m. shift at Popeye's Chicken. A bad day got worse when Kara had an argument with one of her teachers in class, according to police and her family. Frustrated, she left campus about 10:30 a.m., ditching school for the rest of the day. When Kara didn't come home from school as usual, her family -- mother Rhonda, stepfather Jim and stepbrother Thomas -- grew worried. They filed a missing persons report later that afternoon. Police told them they believed Kara was a runaway, and that she'd come back on her own in a few days. Click "Story Link" to read more |