Amber Jean Swartz-Garcia Missing 26 Years

The Abduction of Amber Jean Swartz-Garcia

 Amber was abducted in 1988 while jumping rope in her front yard. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

 ON June 3, 1988, 6 year-old Amber Jean Swartz-Garcia was last seen jumping rope at 4:15 PM in the front yard of her family's home located on Savage Avenue in Pinole, California. It was unusual for Amber's mother, Kim, to let her play alone outside, but she made an exception because the neighbors would be coming home soon. According to Stalemate by John Philpin, Kim's neighbor walked through the front door with her daughter at 4:30 PM and asked where Amber was. When she saw Amber was not outside, she searched around the yard and a nearby vacant lot for Amber. She called the only two neighbors Amber would go to without permission. There was still no sign. At this point, Kim and her friend searched the neighborhood, banging on doors, looking in swimming pools and behind bushes. Forty-five minutes had passed since Amber was last seen, and after no sign of her turned up, Kim phoned the police. The search that day turned up no sign of Amber. She has never been seen or heard from again, and the adult-sized leather jump rope with wooden handles she was playing with vanished along with her. That also has never been recovered.

At the time of Amber's disappearance in 1988, she was 4'0" and 65 pounds. She has blond hair and blue eyes. In 1988, her teeth were crooked and her upper right front tooth was missing. Her ears are pierced, she is right handed, she has a scar on the inside of her right eyebrow, moles on her throat and below the right side of her lower lip. At that time, she sucked her thumb when she was nervous or tired. She went by the nicknames "Am" or "AJ". She was last seen wearing a short-sleeved white shirt with teal bands around the bottom of the shirt, neck and bottoms of both sleeves. There were images of multicolored sunglasses printed on her shirt. She was also wearing purple corduroy pants, pink socks and brand new white LA Gear sneakers with pink or white laces, along with emerald earrings with gold posts.
For medical conditions, Amber has a hearing impairment and uses a hearing aid or reads lips. Due to her impaired hearing, she has a slight speech impediment. In 1984, she suffered a concussion and may have migraines or headaches because of it, which cause loss of balance or vomiting. She took the prescription Fiornal, and did not have this or her hearing aid with her at the time of her disappearance.

As described in Stalemate, the intial search for Amber was started right away, but focused on the inside of Amber's home and their backyard. It was not until dark that the Contra Costa County Search and Rescue Units brought in their blood hounds to search areas that Amber may have wandered to on her own. One of the bloodhounds traced Amber's scent from the front door of her home, down the sidewalk to the right of the house and stopped, which indicated that her scent went no further then that. At 5:00 AM the next morning, an organized search consisting of volunteers, motorcycles, horses and helicopters took place (Philpin, 1997). Authorities discovered a pink pair of socks found on a baseball diamond by the creek that flows behind Amber's house. Although Kim believes the socks belong to her daughter, it is not certain and additional evidence was not located.

A Witness Comes Forward 

(Account of Events and Credit to Stalemate, page 41-2, by John Philpin)

Stalemate is written by an investigator about the East Bay Area abductions. 

Shortly after 5 PM of the day Amber went missing, a witness was parked near the gate to Alvarado Park, at the northernmost end of the Wildcat Canyon Regional Park (Philpin, 1997). He had taken his daughter out for ice cream, and chose to come to the park to eat their treat. While he was there, he noticed a man take a small, blond girl by her neck and seat of her pants, and force onto the floor of the passenger side of the car. They drove away. Although the witness assumed it was a father disciplining his child, he was uneasy about how the man handled her. He wrote down a description of the man, the car and what he could remember of the license plate number. It was not until he saw the story of Amber's abduction on the news that he contacted police. He realized that Alvarado Park was only ten minutes away from the neighborhood Amber went missing from. According to Stalemate, the car was described as being large, light blue and gray, however news articles and Charley Project describe it as being tan. It was an older model four-door, General Motors car.The man he saw was a clean-shaven white male, and he had sandy hair, possibly wearing a baseball cap. He was described as being about forty years-old, 5'7" and about 160 pounds. The man was never identified, and it was never confirmed if Amber was the child sighted that day.

Case Closed? 

The Tale of Curtis Dean Anderson

Although Anderson confessed to Amber's abduction, there has never been any proof to corroborate his story. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

There were various suspects in Amber's disappearance. A partial reason for the large mass of suspects was the astonishing amount of young girls who vanished or turned up murdered within the East Bay area in a certain period of time. All these disappearances had the potential to be connected to one another, meaning suspects in one case could be a suspect in another. The fact was, either some of these cases were connected, or there were multiple killers targeting young children in the same area over time. Perhaps that's why it was so shocking when Pinole Police and the FBI announced they had solved the disappearance of Amber during the summer of 2009. They named the man responsible to be Curtis Dean Anderson, who they say confessed to the abduction and murder of Amber during an interview in November 2007. He claimed he wanted some company on a road trip to his Aunt's house in Arizona, and decided to search for a "companion" in the Pinole area because he was familiar with it. He said he spotted Amber in the front yard of her house, and he pulled her into his car, keeping her quiet by giving her root beer schnapps on the way to Arizona. He went on to say that he killed Amber in a motel room by the Tuscon area, disposing of her body in the desert off Highway 10 near Benson. He claimed Amber was his first victim.

He was already in prison, having been convicted for the kidnapping and murder of Xiana Fairchild from Vallejo, California, and the kidnap and molestation of Midsi Sanchez in 2000. Midsi was able to escape, and her identification of Anderson led to his arrest. The FBI criminal profiler believes Anderson was telling the truth about his crimes, and there are other open cases he is considered a suspect in.

Xiana Fairchild was kidnapped and abducted by Curtis Dean Anderson, who also claimed to have taken Amber. Photo Credit: GeoCities.WS. 

Not only did investigators name Anderson the person responsible for Amber's abduction and murder, but they also said the case was officially closed. For many, this was problematic due to the lack of evidence. Despite the amount of years that went by, Anderson was not able to produce any evidence of his involvement in Amber's disappearance. There were no witnesses, no clothing found that belonged to Amber and no jump rope. When authorities searched the exact area Anderson claimed to have placed Amber's body, they came up with absolutely nothing. Also troubling was the fact that investigators were unable to administer a polygraph test or follow-up questions to Anderson, because he died a month later. The lack of evidence and methods use to corroborate his story was troubling, perhaps for no one more then Amber's mother, Kim, who was unconvinced he was the right guy due to lack of physical evidence. 

Other Suspects

Timothy Bindner

Investigators have never been able to rule Bindner in or out as a suspect. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

Out of all the suspects considered in these East Bay area child abductions, not one of them was as difficult to rule in as a suspect or rule out as one as was Timothy Bindner. He showed a deep obsession over the string of missing girls from the area, starting out with the disappearance of Angela Bugay. In November of 1983, five year-old Angela went missing from her apartment complex she shared with her brother and mother in Antioch, California. A week later, her remains were found in a shallow grave. Authorities were able to save DNA found in 1983 that helped build a case against another man, Larry Graham, with the use of forensic technology today. Although Timothy Bindner was not guilty in the disappearance of Angela, he often visited her grave.
He would often send birthday cards and gifts of money to young girls in the East Bay area, which many were uncomfortable with. He approached many of the missing girls' families of the East Bay area and offered to help in the search of the missing girls. He also bore a striking resemblance to the man seen throwing a little blond girl into his car at Alvarado Park. He was officially named a suspect in the disappearance of Amber. Police were concerned that he was unable to provide a verifiable alibi for where he was at the time of Amber's abduction. His stories were also inconsistent. He claimed he was at St. Joseph's Cemetery in San Pablo after he was done with work at 4:00 PM. He says he was home at 5:00 PM that evening, but his wife stated it was closer to 6:00 PM.

Angela Bugay was abducted and murdered  in 1983. While her case is not connected to that of the East Bay Area abductions, Amber and Amanda's scent would be tracked to her grave. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

His connection to two other cases, that of Nikki Campbell and Michaela Garecht was also considered. On November 19, 1988, Timothy Binder left the Hayward Fire Department, which was located two miles north of the Rainbow Market. He had been in Hayward for two weeks to practice for the fire fighter's test, which he failed. He claimed to investigators he left for Oakland, California right away that morning. Not long before that day, Bindner had wrote a letter to law enforcement and predicted that the next missing girl would be nine years-old. Coincidentally, on November 19, 1988, 9 year-old Michaela Garecht was abducted from the Rainbow Market by a Caucasian man who took her scooter. When she tried to get it back, he threw her in his car and drove off.
Bindner would then send a Christmas card to an FBI profiler, with an image of a little girl on the cover, holding up four fingers. Shortly after, four year-old Nikki Campbell went missing from Fairfield, California while riding her bike. In a later investigation, police bloodhounds picked up Amber Swartz-Garcia's scent at the grave site of Angela Bugay. Nikki Campbell's scent would also be traced to that same grave site. Timothy Bindner was known to visit these sites very often, however, it would not be enough evidence to charge Bindner with anything. He was never able to be officially ruled out as a suspect. He was also named a suspect in the disappearance of Nikki Campbell in 1992, although he was never charged with it due to lack of evidence.

What's interesting is how close all these towns that the girls vanished from were to Oakland, California, where Bindner resided at the time. By I-80 San Pablo, where Tara Cossey vanished from in 1979, was 20 minutes away from Oakland. By I-80, Pinole, where Amber vanished in 1988, would be about 22-25 minutes from Oakland. Hayward, where Michaela Garecht was abducted in 1988, would be 20 minutes away from Oakland by I-880 N, and Dublin, where Ilene Misheloff was abducted in 1989, would have been 25 minutes away by I-580W and I-880W. Finally, Fairfield, where Amanda Campbell was abducted in 1991, would have been 45 minutes away from Oakland by I-8W. All these girls were taken in towns that ranged from 20-25 minutes away from Oakland, with exception of Fairfield, which would be 45 minutes away. They were all taken in broad daylight, the majority of abductions happening during after school hours. It was most likely that the suspects approached the girls with their vehicles, then sped off.

James Daveggio and Michelle Michaud

 Daveggio and Michaud are on death row for the brutal murder of Vanessa Swanson. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

Another one of the more defined suspects in Amber's disappearance was James Daveggio, a sex offender, and his girlfriend Michelle Michaud. Daveggio was known as "Froggie" because he had a very raspy voice. They were charged with the 1997 abduction, rape and murder of 22 year-old Vanessa Lei Samson. They had other charges against them in the 1990s for sexual assault. They both are both still awaiting their sentence on death row in Almeda County for their viscous crimes. They are also suspects in the disappearances of Illene Misheloff and Michaela Garecht, and I hope investigators can fully rule them in or out as suspects before they have their sentences carried out.

Stephen Kiesle

The third suspect in Amber's disappearance was Stephen Kiesle, who was previously a priest. He was charged with molesting three girls from the Santa Paula Catholic Church in Freemont, California. He worked there from 1968 to 1971. The victims of the molestation resembled Amber, and Kiesle lived one block away from Amber's home in 1988. Kiesle's home was searched in 2002, not only for evidence in Amber's disappearance, but evidence in the disappearance of Jennifer Martin and Anthony Franko as well. The searched turned up a bag of dirt with decomposed clothing it in. Given the lack of announcement, I believe nothing in the bag was found to have belonged to any of the missing children.

The Missing East Bay Girls
Tara Lossett Cossey

 Tara was last seen walking down the street to buy sugar for her mother.Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

On June 6, 1979, 12 year-old Tara Cossey was last seen in her hometown of San Pablo, California, walking to Pirelli's Liquor Store to purchase a bag of sugar for her mother during the day. She was last seen walking through the Montalvin Shopping Center. She has never been seen or heard from again.  

With Tara's case, there is little to find for case updates and not many anniversary articles written about her. There were rumors going around within the community that authorities recovered the bag of sugar Tara had bought before she vanished, but I am not sure if it's true because I have never been able to find that information published anywhere. There were two suspects in Tara's disappearance that have been made known to the public. First is Timothy Binder, who is also a suspect in the rest of the missing East Bay girls' disappearances. Second is Philip Joseph Hughes Jr., a serial killer whose first victim was teenager Maureen Field from Pleasant Hill, California, who he offered a ride to in 1972. He would go on to to abduct 15 year-old Lisa Beery from near her Montclair, California home in 1974, then 25 year-old Letita Fagot, who he took from inside her Walnut Creek home. He was convicted in 1980 for all three of the abductions and murders. 

If Hughes was responsible for taking Tara, her disappearance would not be related to the other East Bay missing girls'. However, I do not think that Tara fits in with his choice of victims. He chose victims who were ages 15 and up. His target were more young, adult women then little girls and at 4'11", Tara was quite tiny to appear to be an adult woman. His victims were white with long, brown hair, and actually held strong resemblances to an ex girlfriend he was emotionally damaged by. Tara was part Native American with black hair. He also got very brave in 1974, and started taking women from by their homes, or actually breaking inside of their homes to get them. Tara vanished on her walk to or from the liquor store. I believe Tara's disappearance to be much more similar to that of Amber Swartz-Garcia, Illene Misheloff, Michaela Garecht and Amanda Campbell. Like the other four girls, she was taken during broad daylight while away from adult supervision. San Pablo is also only a 12 minute drive (with no traffic) from Pinole, which is where Amber Swartz-Garcia would become the next East Bay Area girl to disappear. 

Michaela Joy Garecht

Michaela was abducted while trying to grab her scooter from a man who moved it. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

On November 19, 1988, 9 year-old Michaela Garecht rode to Rainbow Market on her scooter with a friend in Hayward, California to get some candy and sodas. The market, today it is Mexico Super, was only two blocks from her home. When the girls exited the store, Michaela noticed that one of their scooters had been moved in the parking lot, next to a car. Before they entered the store, the girls had placed both scooters by the side door of the market. When she went to retrieve it, an unidentified white male grabbed her and forced her inside of his vehicle. Michaela's friend went inside of the store to get help, but the unidentified male escaped with Michaela. 

The man who took Michaela was described to be between 18 to 24 years-old in 1988. He had a pockmarked and very pimpled face at the time. He was slender and had long, dirty blond hair. A witness described him as having fox eyes, that "look right through you". He was wearing a white T-shirt, and drove a large, older, American-made model sedan. It was described as a four door vehicle, and was cream, tan or gold in color. There may have been cement splatters on the sides and the lights set into the rear bumper. The front bumper was battered, making the car appear it had been in a previous accident. The vehicle in it's entirety was described as run-down. The car was last seen speeding south on Mission Boulevard towards Union City, with Michaela still inside.
The description of the car used in Michaela's abduction has striking similarities to the description of the car seen at Alvardo Park, where a witness saw a little blond girl, who bore a strong resemblance of Amber, being forced inside a car. Both cars were described as old and run down. Both witnesses claimed is was an American-made sedan model, most likely General Motors. There are recorded witness accounts from both cases that name the car to be tan in color. The male in both cases is described as white with light colored dirty blond to sandy hair. The only difference is the age description, which was an estimate or guess in the first place.

 These are sketches of Michaela's abductor. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

Although Michaela is still missing, her case is one that is hard to call a cold case because it has never grown cold. There has always been a large pool of suspects. There has always been tips and information coming through. There are a lot of news articles on her disappearance, and her case is often thought of when there are large developments in cases not too far from the area, such as the development behind the crimes of the Speed Freak Killers, who killed at least 15 people from the 1980s to the 1990s. They were finally arrested in 2000, but did not resurface as suspects in Michaela's disappearance until 2012. Some believe that Loren Herzog, one of the killers, bears a strong resemblance to the sketch of Michaela's kidnapper. Bones discovered in a well were tested to be Michaela's but it was not a match. My heart goes out to her mother and family, who had to endure the pain during the wait to find out if it would be a match to her. Most importantly, Michaela's mother keeps an updated blog about Micahela's disappearance, writing entries to Michaela and a letter to her kidnapper. Please go to The Wondering Heart to view more details about Michaela.

Michaela's mother keeps an updated blog for her daughter. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

Police had an immediate response to Michaela's abduction, and the possibility of there being a connection between her disappearance and Amber's was never ruled out. Both girls had blue eyes and blond hair. They were taken in broad daylight, and the kidnapper waited until the girls were alone for a short amount of time to take them. Michaela was taken five months after Amber disappeared. Pinole and Hayward are about 43 minutes apart from each other. Timothy Binder was also a suspect in Michaela's disappearance, as he was in Hayward the morning of her abduction. As of now, there has never been any evidence of foul play in Michaela's disappearance. Michaela, like the other girls who's stories are shared in this entry, could be anywhere today.

Ilene Beth Misheloff

Ilene vanished on her walk home from school. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

On January 30, 1989,13 year-old Ilene Beth Misheloff from Dublin, California, was walking back to her home from her classes at Wells Intermediate School. According to an article on San Francisco: CBS Local, she had been excused early from a physical education class. Several of her classmates reported seeing her walking alone down Amador Valley Boulevard and San Ramon Road, heading near Village Parkway and the Shamrock Shopping Center around 3:00 PM. Ilene never made it home and she has never been heard from since.

At the time of Ilene's disappearance,  she was carrying a dark blue backpack along with a black, molded, hard flute case. She was 5'3" and 115 pounds in 1989. She has brown hair and brown eyes. He ears are double pierced and she wore braces. She has freckles on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, and a small lump on the inside of her left ankle. At the time of her disappearance, Ilene was wearing a charcoal-gray pullover Espirito polo sweater, a pink and charcoal-gray skirt with horizontal stripes, black low-top Keds sneakers, and two earrings in each of her ears.

Ilene only for sure made it two miles down her usual route to get home. Where she vanished from on her walk home from there is still unknown. Going through the wide alley behind the shopping center, which was a furniture center called Sawmill and Gallagher's Pub, was a short cut to her home. Her usual short cut would continue across the boulevard and through John Mape Park along a dry creek bed. A discovery was later made, which may or may not hold the answer of where Illene was abducted from along her route home. Her dark blue back pack was found abandoned in the dried-up creek bed in John Mape Park. However, authorities feel this does not prove that Ilene was abducted by the creek bed in the park. Her backpack was located after that area had already been searched. Authorities believe someone purposely placed it there after they took Ilene.

 Ilene was a talented figure skater, and even competed against future Olympic champion, Kristi Yamagucchi. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

There have been various suspects in the abduction of Ilene. According to an article in the SF Gate, a priest from Sierra Nevada, a utility worker from Oakland and a drifter from Texas were all suspects. James Daveggio, suspected in Michaela Garecht and Amber Swartz-Garcia's abductions as well, has also been identified as a suspect. Along with his girlfriend, Michelle Michaud, he would "hunt" young women down to abduct and torture. He was finally arrested and given the death penalty after he brutally abducted and murdered college student Vanessa Lei Samson. She was abducted from Pleasantown, which is where Daveggio committed most of his known crimes, which made him end up as a registered sex offender. It is very possible that Vanessa Samson was not their first victim, and it is unknown how long they have been carrying out their crimes. Pleasantown is only a nine minute drive from Dublin, California, which is where Ilene vanished from. Dublin is also only 18 minutes east of Hayward, where Michaela was taken from and is 40 minutes away from Pinole, where Amber was abducted.
Timothy Binder, as mentioned early, was also someone who has been looked at in the disappearances of all the East Bay girls, but authorities have never been able to prove his involvement in any of their disappearances. However, they have also never been able to prove his innocence in any of the disappearances either. Perhaps the biggest question is, are all these missing girls' cases connected, and are they all connected through Daveggio or Bindner? It is still a mystery.

Ilene was great at school and had many goals in life. At only 13, she had already decided she wanted to become a pediatrician. She was also a very talented figure-skater, winning first place all over the Bay Area. She even competed against fellow ice-skater Kristi Yamaguchi, who would become a world-famous figure skater, and an Olympic Gold Medalist. Yes, this is how talented Ilene was. She could have grown up to be an Olympic gold medalist or follow her dream as a pediatrician. With all the articles I have read about her, it seems she could have become whatever she wanted to and be successful at it, but someone took that chance away from her.

Amanda Nicole Eileen Campbell

Amanda vanished while riding her bike to a friend's house. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

On December 27, 1991 four year-old Amanda Nicole Eileen Campbell was playing at a friends house with her brother, which was only fours houses down from her own. Between 4:30 PM to 5:00 PM, Amanda left the residence on her bike to go to another friend's house around the corner, which was eight houses down from where she already was. She was never seen or heard from since.

At the time of her disappearance, Amanda was 3'5" and weighed 59 pounds. She had blond hair and blue eyes. She has light brown moles near her forehead and nose. Amanda has a facial dimple and her ears are pierced. She sometimes develops a rash around her mouth. She may go by the nickname "Nikki". At the time of her disappearance, Nikki was last seen wearing a pink nylon jacket with sleeves that were too short, along with purple corduroy pants, a dark-purple short-sleeved shirt, white sneakers with a pink trim and Santa Claus earrings.

The area where Amanda vanished from. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

The immediate extensive search failed to find Amanda. She was a child that knew her Salisbury Drive neighborhood very well. She had never wandered off before or had gotten lost. Yet, there was also no witnesses that saw Amanda get abducted. According to Stalemate, it was 9:30 PM at night when the dogs and their handlers from the Contra Costa County Search and Rescue Team showed up. It was raining that evening, which worked in their favor since rain keeps the scent alive and holds it on the ground. The search dog tracked her scent from Larchmont Drive to Oliver Road, to a drive through at McDonald's. The scent continued going east on Travis Boulevard, to a west bound on-ramp to I-80. It is believed Amanda was pulled into a vehicle at the corner of Larchmont Drive and Salisbury Drive. Later that night, Amanda's small, purple and pink bike was found abandoned along a grassy area by Norwalk Place, a few blocks from her home. A pair of child-sized blue socks was located in the street, however it has never been confirmed that it belonged to Amanda.
In June 2001, a crawl space to a home on Salisbury Drive was searched as a tip had been given in 2000 that indicated she was buried under the house. The informant claimed that Amanda had been lured there and murdered. The residence was a block away from where Amanda was last seen riding her bike, and she had been friends with the three boys there. The searched turned up absolutely nothing, and the investigators announced they believed the family has no connection with Amanda's disappearance.

Amanda's bike was located close to her home. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

Out of all these abductions that took place, if there are two I had always been confident in thinking were connected, it is the abductions of Amanda Campbell and Amber Swartz-Garcia. Both girls had blue eyes and blond hair. They were only a couple years apart in age, and it was possible Amanda looked older then she really is. They both vanished around 4:30 PM from an area by their residence while they were unsupervised. Search dogs indicated they girls had been grabbed and put into a vehicle. A child's sock was recovered during a search for both girls, indicating the abductor grabbed them the same way or the girls put up a fight. Timothy Bindner has been a suspect in both cases for the girls. As mentioned above, a later investigation with police bloodhounds revealed Amber Swartz-Garcia's scent at the grave site of Angela Bugay. Nikki Campbell's scent would also be traced to that same grave site. Timothy Bindner was known to visit these sites very often. Fairfield is also only 27 minutes away from Pinole. It's hard to ignore the coincidences between Amber and Amanda's disappearances.

Are These Cases Connected?

Amanda (L) and Amber's (R) disappearances have a lot in common. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

It's no secret that there has been a string of child abductions and homicides in the East Bay Area. All of these missing children were very young, with the oldest one being Ilene at 13 years-old. They all vanished from the East Bay Area from towns only minutes apart. Their abductions span from 1979 to 1991. In each abduction, the girls are approached in broad daylight while they are alone or without an adult, even if it's only for a few seconds. Search dogs indicated it's most likely these girls were grabbed and thrown into a vehicle. In the search for Amanda and Amber, a child's sock was discovered that may have belonged to them, indicating the girls put up a fight. Who ever took these girls was very daring to take them in public places and in broad daylight, and is no doubt the ultimate opportunist. But, did the abductions really start with Tara? Did they really end with Amanda? If these cases are connected, why did the child abductor stop? Were they incarcerated? Was there too much police activity? Were they ill? Or did they move and continue their activity somewhere else, with more cases that investigators have yet to connect the dots to? What if these cases aren't connected? Does that mean there are multiple child predators still out there somewhere? 

                           Amber's Case is Reopened in 2013

 Amber's case was reopened in 2013. Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

Amber's mother, Kim, had always been uneasy with the closure she received in Amber's disappearance. Curtis Anderson had confessed to taking Amber down to Arizona, where he killed her in a motel room. Still, criminals confess to crimes the didn't do everyday. It wasn't like he had anything to lose by saying he took Amber-he was already incarcerated for the murder of Xiana Fairchild. He had the death penalty on the table as it was. On top of that, a polygraph test and a follow-up interview was never administered. His claims on where Amber's body was never panned out, and he had nothing of Amber's or any proof that he took her. So, one can only imagine how ecstatic Kim was when the Pinole Police Department announced that in October of 2013, Amber's case would be reopened. The first reason was the advancement of technology, which can be of great help in solving her disappearance. The second was an online petition that held over 1,300 signatures from people demanding Amber's case be reopened due to the lack of evidence they had that Anderson took her. According to an article in the Daily News, Kim stated she never believed Anderson's story, and that he was using the confession to evade the death penalty. And while police say there is no evidence that proves Anderson's confession is false, there is also no evidence that proves it is true. The primary focus in this reopened case is one focus and one only: to find Amber.

These Girls Are Still Missing!

Amber, Michaela, Tara, Ilene and Amanda are all still missing. Please, if you know anything, big or small, please come forward. If you hear someone talking about any of this, please come forward. If you hear things you think may be rumors, still come forward. Anything you know or have seen, even if you think it's not a big deal, could be the piece to the puzzle these cases need to be solved. It has been decades that these families have went without answers. Please, be vigilant, share their stories. These families only want to have their daughters back.

If you have any information in the disappearance of Amber Swartz-Garcia, please contact

Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org 

Pinole Police Department 

 510-724-8950

If you have any information on the disappearance of Michaela Garecht, please contact

Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org

Inspector Robert Lampkin:Hayward Police Department(510) 293-7079Robert.Lampkin@hayward-ca.govorSpecial Agent Marty Parkerat the San Francisco FBI(510) 251-4169maparker@leo.gov If you have any information about the disappearance of Ilene Misheloff, please contact

Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org
Dublin Police Department1-925-833-6670
If you have any information on the disappearance of Amanda "Nikki" Campbell, please contact

Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org
Fairfield Police Department1-707-428-7355
If you have any information on the disappearance of Tara Cossey, please contact

Photo Credit: CharleyProject.org
Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department1-925-335-1582OR1-925-646-2441

Sources:
Charley Project: Amber Swartz-Garcia
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/swartzgarcia_amber.html
Charley Project: Amanda Campbell
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/c/campbell_amanda.html
Daily Republic about Amanda Article by Barry Eberling
http://www.dailyrepublic.com/featured-stories/quest-for-lead-in-campbell-case-continues-after-20-years/
Charley Project: Illene Misheloff
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/m/misheloff_ilene.html
News Article-Ilene Misheloff
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/01/30/vigil-planned-to-mark-25-years-since-ilene-misheloff-went-missing-from-dublin/
http://www.diablomag.com/January-2009/Gone-but-Not-Forgotten/
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Parents-still-hoping-20-years-after-abduction-3253019.php
Charley Project: Michaela Garecht
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/g/garecht_michaela.html
Missing Michaela
http://www.missingmichaela.com/the_kidnapping
Charley Project: Tara Cossey
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/c/cossey_tara.html
Angela Bugay
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Angela-Bugay-s-Mother-Faces-Suspect-in-Court-2941247.php
East Bay Area Abductions
Stalemate by John Philipin
REOPENED in 2014
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/police-re-open-amber-swartz-investigation-25-years-article-1.1476680
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Pinole-Police-Reopen-Amber-Swartz-Garcia-Case-226065901.html
Curtis Anderson and Xiana Fairchild
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12761828?nclick_check=1
Vanished: Missing Girls
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=132655
Police "solve" Amber's disappearance in 2009
http://abc7news.com/archive/6900946/
IDidItForJodie
http://ididitforjodie.com/2012/10/31/overlapping-murders-bernie-schwartz-and-amber-garcia-schwartz/
Timothy Bindner
http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_12326138Charles Jackson-Killer
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/CONTRA-COSTA-COUNTY-DNA-links-girl-s-1978-2605571.php
Philip Hughes Jr-Killer
http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/showthread.php?6092-1970s-serial-killers-sewed-fear-in-Contra-Costa
http://www.crimezzz.net/serialkiller_news/H/HUGHES_phillip_joseph_jr.php