Missing Person Photos
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe.
By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends.
A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.
Resources for Missing Persons
According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day.
Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends.
Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.
Missing Person Photos
Amber Jean Swartz-Garcia
Amber, date, approximate 1988; Age-progression at age 39 (date, approximate 2019); Kim Swartz; Floyd Swartz; Timothy Bindner, date, approximate 2001; Curtis Dean Anderson
Date Missing 06/03/1988
Missing From
Pinole, California
Missing Classification Non-Family Abduction
Sex Female
Race
White
Date of Birth 08/19/1980 (42)
Age 7 years old
Height and Weight 4'0, 65 pounds
Clothing/Jewelry Description A short-sleeved white shirt with teal bands around the bottom of the shirt, the neck, and the bottoms of both sleeves and images of multicolored sunglasses printed on it; purple corduroy pants, pink socks, brand-new white LA Gear sneakers with pink or white laces, and emerald earrings with gold posts.
Medical Conditions Amber has a hearing impairment and uses a hearing aid and reads lips. She has a slight speech impediment due to her impaired hearing. She also suffers from migraine headaches due to a concussion she sustained in 1984. The headaches cause loss of balance and vomiting. She took the prescription medication Fiornal for them at the time she disappeared. Amber had neither her hearing aid nor her medicine with her when she vanished.
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Amber's teeth are crooked and her upper right front tooth was missing at the time of her 1988 disappearance. Her ears are pierced and she is right-handed. Amber has a scar on the inside of her right eyebrow and moles on her throat and below the right side of her lower lip. She sucked her thumb when she was tired or nervous at the time of her disappearance. Some agencies refer to her as Amber Swartz or Amber Garcia Swartz. Her nicknames are Am and A.J.
Details of Disappearance Amber was last seen jumping rope at approximately 4:15 p.m. in the front yard of her family's residence on Savage Avenue in Pinole, California on June 3, 1988. She was not usually allowed to play in the yard alone but her mother, Kim Swartz, made an exception that day because their neighbors would be arriving home soon.
Kim checked outside approximately 15 minutes after Amber left the house and noticed she had disappeared. The child has never been heard from again. She may have been holding an adult-sized leather jump rope with wooden handles at the time of her disappearance. It disappeared along with her and was never found.
Authorities did discover a pair of pink socks near Amber's residence on June 4, the day after her disappearance. The socks were found on a baseball diamond by the creek that flows behind Amber's house. Kim believes they may have belonged to her daughter, but she is uncertain and additional clues were never located. The socks were located after the area had been searched once already; it is believed that they were left after the initial search.
For many years, Timothy Bindner was a suspect in Amber's disappearance, as well as the disappearances of Michaela Garecht, Ilene Misheloffand Amanda "Nikki" Campbell. A photo of Bindner is posted with this summary. He maintains his innocence and successfully sued Amanda's hometown of Fairfield, California in 1997 for defamation of character.
He has been ruled out in Michaela's , and in 2020, David Misch, was charged with her kidnapping and murder. Misch is a suspected serial killer. He is awaiting trial in Michaela's and in the 1986 double murder of two women.
Bindner approached many of the mothers of missing girls from the East Bay area offering his assistance, including Amber and Michaela's families. He introduced himself to Kim three days after Amber vanished. Investigators asked Kim to maintain a quasi-friendship with him in hope of learning if he was connected to any of the girls' s. She and authorities agreed that Bindner appeared to playing mind games with victims' loved ones and law enforcement.
Kim was married to Amber's father, police officer Floyd "Bernie" Swartz, when he was killed in the line of duty in May 1980. Photographs of Kim and Floyd are posted with this summary. Amber was born three months after her father's death. Any connection between her and James Richard Odle, the man who murdered her father, was ruled out. He was on death row in in 1988.
In a surprise development in the summer of 2009, investigators announced they'd identified the man responsible for Amber's abduction and murder and were closing her . Curtis Dean Anderson, a known pedophile and violent criminal, was already in prison for the 1999 kidnapping and murder of a seven-year-old Vallejo, California girl and the kidnapping and molestation of an eight-year-old girl when he confessed to Amber's murder in 2007.
Anderson stated said he just happened to be driving in the neighborhood, saw Amber and kidnapped her "for company." He stated he sedated Amber with root beer schnapps and took her to a motel in the Tucson, Arizona area, where he suffocated her about a day and a half after her abduction. He then left the child's body in an isolated area beside Highway 10 in Benson, Arizona. It has never been found. A photograph of Anderson is posted with this summary.
Anderson made the confession a month before he died in prison in December 2007. He also confessed to other sexual assaults, kidnappings and abductions in the San Francisco Bay area, but he only signed a statement in Amber's . Authorities spent eighteen months investigating his confession and couldn't find any evidence to refute it.
Many, including Kim, remain skeptical of Anderson's claims, however. Anderson enjoyed the notoriety he got for his crimes and enjoyed teasing and manipulating the police and the families of his victims, and some believe his statement about Amber was just another example of this.
In 2013, after an online petition campaign, the Pinole Police Department reopened the investigation into Amber's disappearance. The department cited, in part, new forensic techniques that will allow them to better process old evidence.
Amber's body has never been found.
Investigating Agency
Pinole Police Department
510-724-8950
Other
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Child Protection Education of America
NamUs
The Lowell
The North County Times
The San Francisco Chronicle
ABC News
Unsolved Mysteries
Johnny Miller #64
News Making News
Amber Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Stalemate: a Shocking True Story of Child Abduction and Murder
Rope Burns
Missing-Persons.org
Child Quest International Inc.
Operation Lookout
The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes
The San Jose Mercury News
The Associated Press
The Contra Costa Times
The Vallejo Times Herald
Facebook Page for Amber Swartz-Garcia
NBC Bay Area
The San Francisco Chronicle
Missing Person Photos
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe.
By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends.
A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.
Resources for Missing Persons
According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day.
Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends.
Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.
Missing Person Photos
