Amber Swartz

Case background and investigation

Amber Jean Swartz-Garcia was seven years old when she disappeared on June 3, 1988, from the front yard of her family's home on Savage Avenue in Pinole, a small city in Contra Costa County, California. She had gone outside to jump rope. Her father, Pinole police officer Bernie Swartz, had been killed in the line of duty in 1980, before she was born, according to KTVU and the Mercury News. Her mother, Kim Swartz, has campaigned on her behalf ever since.

The disappearance drew national attention, but for almost two decades no one was charged and no trace of Amber was found.

In November 2007, Curtis Dean Anderson, who was serving a sentence of about 300 years for the kidnapping and assault of one Vallejo girl and the kidnapping and murder of another, told FBI agents that he had taken Amber. According to statements by Pinole police reported by the Associated Press and the Mercury News, Anderson said he pulled her into his car as he drove through the neighborhood, gave her alcohol to sedate her, drove to Arizona, killed her in a motel in the Tucson area and left her body in the desert. He signed a short handwritten statement. Anderson died of natural causes the following month, before Pinole investigators could interview him again.

On July 6, 2009, Pinole Police Chief Paul Clancy and the FBI announced that they considered the confession truthful and were closing the case. Police acknowledged that they had found no physical evidence linking Anderson to the abduction; they said only that records showed he had been paroled in March 1988 and had been working in the area. Anderson was never charged or tried in connection with Amber. Searches in Arizona found nothing.

Kim Swartz did not accept the confession, noting that Anderson was known for making unreliable statements and that other people had also claimed responsibility over the years. After a family friend's online petition gathered more than 1,300 signatures, Pinole police announced in October 2013 that the case status had been changed from closed to open. The department said it had received no evidence contradicting the confession but that Amber had still not been located, and that newer technology might allow old evidence to be re-examined.

On August 19, 2025, which would have been Amber's 45th birthday, family and residents gathered at Amber Swartz Park, beside her former home. Pinole police told ABC7 and KTVU that detectives were reviewing the file, collecting items that might yield DNA for comparison, and that the department now questions Anderson's involvement. An age-progressed image was released. Amber is still listed as missing.