Two-year-old Amber Nichole Crum vanished from Dallas, Texas, on December 26, 1983. The last known sighting was about 9:45 a.m. in the pickup truck of her mother’s live-in boyfriend, James Britt Monroe. Monroe told police he left Amber unattended for a few minutes while he went into McDonald’s Grocery on Murdock Road; when he returned the child was gone. She was wearing a light blue long-sleeve shirt, a Dallas Cowboys windbreaker, a purple or lavender coat, blue jeans, and brown shoes.

Investigators arrested Monroe and charged him with murder weeks later, largely based on a statement from Amber’s mother, Stephanie Hughes, who said she believed Amber had died the night before she was reported missing. Hughes recanted at a preliminary hearing, then testified she thought Amber was alive and that her earlier statement had been coerced; a judge dismissed the murder charge and a grand jury declined to indict for lack of evidence. The investigation has followed other leads over the years, including a fingerprint comparison with a young girl abandoned in California in 1986 and inquiry into convicted child murderer David Elliott Penton, but no definitive link has been established.

Amber’s father, Larry Crum, has continued to press for answers and age-progressed images have been circulated. Does anyone have information about Amber’s whereabouts or recall seeing a small child near Murdock Road on December 26, 1983?