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Speculation surrounds anniversary of slayingARLINGTON (AP) — Five years after the unsolved killing of 9-year-old Amber Hager-man, those who were closest to her continue to daydream about the teen-ager she would have been.The Girl Scout was abducted while riding her bicycle in 1996. She was later found dead in a riverbed, but the killer was never found.Amber would have been 14 this year, and life has gone on for her circle of friends. They’ve traded Barbies and cartoons for Backstreet Boys, crushes and makeup.The transition is one not lost on Amber’s mother, Donna Whitson Norris.“I think about her going to junior high and high school, meeting her first boyfriend,” Norris told The Arlington Morning News. “I imagine how pretty she would be in her prom dress. I don’t get to see that. It’s not fair. I am very angry at the person who did this to my daughter. He stole so much from me.”Norris said it brings comfort to imagine what Amber would be like now. She thinks about it when she looks at Amber’s closest friends — Amanda Booth, Paige Hornback and Cassie Freeman.I still talk to Cassie all the time. She does so many things Amber would be doing,” Norris said. ‘‘I should be buying Amber makeup, helping her with clothes and having mother-daughter chats with her.”Amber’s friends are normal teen-agers concerned with popularity, fashion and boys.They spend hours listening to their stereos and contemplating which ‘N Sync guy is their favorite. They surf the Internet and chat through America Online Instant Messenger.Amanda, Amber’s best friend, believes the slain girl would have been like her — into cooking, home economics class, the pep squad, choir and making good grades.“She’d be doing better than I am in school — she always did better,” said Amanda, now an eighth grader.Writing was a passion of Amber’s, her mother said. She loved spelling and grammar. She also enjoyed music and 1singing.Though she tries lt;not to dwell on 1losing Amber, she sometimes misses the counsel of the friend she could “tell anything to.”Amber’s legacy has been a positive one. The Amber Plan — an alert program in which law enforcement and media work together to notify the public quickly of child abductions — has helped recover missing children in Texas and Oklahoma, officials say.It was also Amber’s case that inspired the Amber Hagerman Child Protection Act. a federal law that strengthens federal penalties against violent sex offenders.“She'd be doing better than I am in school — she always did better. ”Amanda BoothAMBER HAGERMAN’S BEST FRIEND
Newspaper Details
Odessa American
Odessa, Texas, US
Sun, Jan 14, 2001
Page 23
Full Page
Clipped by
La C.
WI, USA 15 Dec 2023
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Odessa American
