Amber Hagerman Part 2: The Search

Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

Vincent Strange

True Crime

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At about 3:18 PM on January 13th, 1996, in east Arlington, Texas, 78-year-old retired machinist and WW2 Veteran Jimmie Kevil dialed 911. He’d just witnessed a man in a pickup truck kidnap a little girl, he told the operator. The girl was 9-year-old Amber Hagerman. Police responded and a search began. Folks in the neighborhood, too, came out to look for her and the black truck her abductor drove. But there was a problem: this was Texas and black pickups were everywhere. Everyone in Arlington was hanging on to the hope that Amber would be returned unharmed, unlike the victim in the last kidnapping case in the city, the 1994 abduction of 16-year-old Lisa Rene.

If you have any information about the abduction and murder of Amber Rene Hagerman, please call the Arlington Police at (817)459-5772. You can also submit a tip by texting 847411 and typing ArlingtonPD, no spaces, first, followed by a space and your information. To remain anonymous and be eligible for a reward, please call Tarrant County Crime Stoppers at (817)469-8477

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The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Dallas Morning News, and the docuseries Amber: the Girl Behind the Alert were used as sources for this episode.

#JusticeForAmberHagerman #AmberAlert #AmberHagerman #Arlington #ArlingtonTX #TarrantCountyTX #Texas #TrueCrime #TexasTrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #GoneCold #GoneColdPodcast #ColdCase #Kidnapping #Abduction #Unsolved #Murder #ColdCase #UnsolvedMurder

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Gone Cold Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter. Listener discretion is advised.
0:09.3	On Saturday, January 13, 1996, a call came in at 911 dispatch in Arlington that would launch one of the largest investigations in North Texas history.
0:23.3	Arlington 911, what are you reporting?
0:26.0	Yeah, I saw a black pickup pull over here on Abrams Street and grabbed a little girl,
0:31.2	and he took off toward town with her.
0:33.6	What kind of truck was he in?
0:35.5	Looked like, kind of like a Ford, but it was a black one.
0:39.4	He didn't bother the bike.
0:40.8	He just grabbed her and took off.
0:43.2	She hollered real loud, because I could hear it plumb over here.
0:47.1	So that's what made me think there was something foul about it.
0:50.7	Okay, we'll be out there shortly, sir.
0:54.1	The caller was 78-year-old Jimmy Kevall, a retired machinist and World War II Navy veteran.
1:02.1	The girl he saw snatched right off her bicycle on the east side of an abandoned Wind Dixie grocery store was nine-year-old Amber Hagerman.
1:12.5	She and her five-year-old brother Ricky had ridden their bikes to the vacant building to ride up and down the truck delivery ramp.
1:21.2	Ricky didn't stay long before heading back, fearing the trouble he'd be in for breaking the rules their mother had set,
1:29.3	which did not include a truck ramp at a vacant grocery store.
1:34.8	Amber stayed behind but assured her little brother she'd be along soon.
1:40.7	The winter day was unseasonably warm at almost 80 degrees, so Jimmy Kevel just so happened to be out back doing yard work.
1:50.8	Since his backyard was separated from the site of the abduction by a chain-link fence and a grass alleyway,
1:58.2	Jimmy's line of sight was basically unobstructed, and not much more than
2:02.8	100 feet separated the man from what he saw. He noticed a little girl riding around the ramp of
	...

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