Serialously with Annie Elise - 232: The Darkest Ride: Terror Lurking in the Bushes | The Disappearance of Amber Barker

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

The evening of December 18, 1997, 10-year-old Amber Barker was at her friend's house in Oklahoma City. Around 6 pm she spoke to her mother on the phone and told her she was on her way home. Amber got on her bicycle and headed the short distance home, but Amber would never make it…  Rocket Money Go to https://RocketMoney.com/ae today and cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster! Jolie Head to https://www.jolieskinco.com/ae to try it out for yourself with FREE shipping  Smalls Head to https://www.smalls.com and use code AE for 50% off our order  Beam Visit https://www.shopbeam.com/ANNIEELISE and get up to 40% off your order  Mint Mobile Grab 3 months of service for just $15 bucks a month at https://www.mintmobile.com/ae Shop the Merch: www.annieelise.com Follow the podcast on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serialouslypodcast Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serialouslypod/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise All Social Media Links: https://www.flowcode.com/page/annieelise_ SERIALously FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/SERIALouslyAnnieElise/ About Me: https://annieelise.com/ For Business Inquiries: [e-mail] Sources: News 9  News on 6  Newspapers.com  KOCO  Charley Project  Crime Watchers  PollyKlaas.org

Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialously with me, Annie Elise. I hope you guys are all having a good start to your week so far, had a good weekend. We are going to dive right into today's case. It's actually one that came from TikTok. And the reason I say came from TikTok is because when I tell you how many times I was tagged in this video and in this story, literally in the hundreds, maybe even thousands, it was like a tsunami of mentions and tags and DMs over the weekend of everyone like wanting me to talk about this case. So

did some research, wanted to see is there enough information, what value could we add to it, and now here we are. We are talking about it. And it's the case of Amber Barker. It's a 10-year-old little girl who went missing in Oklahoma in 1997. And the details will literally leave your jaw on the floor. So I'm going to jump right in. It is the face and the case investigators cannot forget. The whole family was questioned. Everybody was questioned. Taking out a police station, a polygraph, and all that.

Did you undergo a polygraph? Yes, I did. Then they let him go and then three days later they found him hanging dead in the park. I just want to tell Amber if you're out there, I did. Uh then they days later they found him I just want to tell Amber I love you. In december o of Oklahoma City were feel very excited for the holi down the days until the h were busy wrapping gifts

were of course putting up decorations. Now at that time, a little girl, 10-year-old Amber Renee Barker, lived in the city with her mom. And even though Oklahoma City was pretty big, Amber and her mom had a home in the cozy, close-knit neighborhood just northwest of downtown. It was kind of the place where the neighbors all knew one another, the kids all played outside until the streetlights came on, you know the vibe, right? Now, Amber had a big family with a bunch of brothers and sisters. She was the youngest in the family, in part because her parents got a divorce while her mother was pregnant. So, they split up before she was born, which, also, fun fact, she was

born on Valentine's Day in 1987. She mostly lived with her mom Bonnie, and the two of them were very, very close. Now, Amber, being a young 10-year-old kid, she was afraid of the dark, and because of that, she refused to sleep in her own bedroom. Instead, almost every single night, she and Bonnie would watch a movie together in the living room, and then they would fall asleep on the couch together. Amber was also close with her dad Robert. She was a bit of a tomboy. She liked to work on cars with her dad.

It was really something that they bonded over. And the two of them talked about Amber learning how to weld when she got a little bit older. She was also very artistic. She was making pictures with spray paint. Her favorite colors to use were blue and green. I mean, she just had so many amazing characteristics about her.

Now at 10 years old, Amber was in the fourth grade and she was definitely a bit of a teacher's pet. She was very responsible. She always followed all of the rules and her favorite task that she especially loved was being a hall monitor, which I didn't even know that those things existed. Okay. I thought that was just something from like sitcoms or movies, but she loved to do it. And whenever anybody asked Amber about what she wanted to do when she grew up, she would just tell them she already knew. She wanted to be a veterinarian. She loved animals. Now Amber could be shy and she could be quiet, but she would also open up to people that she knew a little bit better, like her family and friends. She liked spending time with

her friends after school. On the weekends, she would go to the local park with them. She'd ride bikes around the neighborhood with them. I mean, just really wholesome things. So Thursday, December 18th, was a relatively normal day. Amber woke up, she got dressed, she ate breakfast, and she went off to school. Afterwards, she got home and she hopped on her bike like she always did. A blue 10-speed bicycle. She rode a few miles north to go see a friend over at their house. And keep in mind, Amber made this trip all the time. It took her maybe 10 minutes to get to the friend's house, that's it.

And this was somebody that she knew and hung out with most days after school too. So again, everything was just normal and very routine that day. Another thing that was normal was that Amber's mom, Bonnie, had a rule, be home before sunset. Like I said, Amber was pretty responsible. She was a big rule follower. So usually there weren't any issues around this rule. She had to be home by sunset and she always was. Except that day by 5 45,

it was already dark and Amber still wasn't home. That was a really unusual because Amber just didn't miss curfew. But right when Bonnie was starting to get worried and wonder what was going on, she got a phone call. And it was from Amber. Amber told her that she was still over at her friend's house. She was very, very apologetic because she knew that she had broken a rule, something that she never did. She just said that she had lost track of time.

She wasn't hurt, she wasn't in danger, there was nothing to worry about. She just simply lost track of time. She wasn't hurt. She wasn't in danger. There was nothing to worry about. She just simply lost track of time. Now she did sound really freaked out, but mostly because she thought that she was going to be in trouble for getting home so late. But Bonnie assured her daughter that everything would be okay. She wasn't going to punish her, especially because this was just like a one-time thing. She knew Amber was a good kid. She had never done anything like this before. So she just told her, you know, just get home safely. So Amber said that she was going to leave right away and bike straight home. Again, she sounded a little worried, but not in a way that was like a huge red flag for Bonnie. It sounded more like Amber was just nervous because she had never ridden

alone in the dark before. It was going to be a new experience for her and not one that she was completely thrilled about. Remember, she was scared of the dark. Well, Bonnie was in full, like, understanding mom mode. So on top of telling Amber that she wasn't angry and that she wouldn't be getting into any trouble, Bonnie also told Amber not to be so worried about getting home. She said it was a quick trip. She had biked the same route a million times before during the day. So everything would be all right. Just be calm, you'll be fine, I'll see you soon. So then they told each other their goodbyes, they said that they would see each other soon, and they hung up. Now given that the bike ride was only about 10 minutes, Amber should have been home around 6pm or so. So when 610 rolled around, Bonnie started getting worried. But she tried not

to freak out too much. I mean, maybe Amber didn't leave for home immediately after hanging up the phone. Maybe she stopped to say bye to her friend. Maybe she went to use the bathroom. Maybe she got a quick drink of water. Who knows? I mean, there were a lot of perfectly valid, legitimate reasons for her not to be home yet. So Bonnie waited for five more minutes. Then ten more minutes. But by 6.30, there was still no sign of Amber. And it was late enough now that Bonnie knew that it wasn't some ordinary delay. Something was wrong.

So she got in her car and she drove toward that friend's house and the whole time she was looking at all of the roads, all of the sidewalks, just looking for her daughter on her blue bike. But unfortunately, she didn't see any sign of her. So the next step was for Bonnie to call everybody that she knew. Amber's friends, her family, people from the school, literally anyone that she could think of.

Her hope was that someone had seen Amber and knew what had happened to her. But the only person who admitted to seeing Amber that day was the friend that Amber had been visiting with. And they told Bonnie that Amber did leave right away after they were done talking on the phone. There was no bathroom break. There was no long goodbye. None of the things that she was thinking could have been a possibility. The friend even said that they had watched Amber get onto her bike and start heading down the street toward home. So she had definitely been on her way a while ago. Needless to say,

this situation did not sound good. I mean, all the signs pointed to Amber being in trouble. So that's when Bonnie picked up the phone, dialed 911, and reported her 10-year-old daughter as missing. Right away, the police sprang into action. I mean, they had every reason to take this report seriously right off the bat. First of all, Amber had never run away before. She didn't have some sort of history of taking off. She also had no reason to just suddenly run away now. She got along with her family. She got good grades. She hadn't ever complained about bullying or a boyfriend or anything like that. And sometimes, unfortunately, in these cases, you do see the police kind of dragging their feet a little bit, right? Not taking the disappearance

seriously right away. But that was not the case here. They immediately understood that this was a very big deal, and they did everything that they could do to try and track Amber down. They started by canvassing the neighborhood, questioning neighbors, searching for anyone who might have seen Amber or heard anything unusual. But all of their initial investigations went nowhere. Nobody had seen her. In fact, they wondered if that was one of the key issues, visibility, meaning that literally people were not able to see Amber at night here. Specifically,

the police theorized early on that maybe this wasn't even a crime at all, that maybe Amber had been hit by a car on her way home. This all just somehow was some horrific tragic accident. There were a few problems though with this theory. I mean, she wasn't in any of the local hospitals. She hadn't been found hurt or dead at the side of a road either. I mean, not yet anyway. But their theory was that maybe a driver might have run her over by accident, then panicked and because of that disposed of her body and her bike somewhere. But that theory didn't hold up for long because the next morning at around 1030 a.m

Amber's bike was found it was found lying against a tree in Denniston Park just a few blocks from both her and her friend's house and the bike it was in great shape There was no dense no scrapes No other damage that might suggest that it was in some sort of car accident. Now as for the question of how that bike ended up there, well, most of the kids in the neighborhood apparently liked playing in this park, and Amber was no different. It was a go-to spot for her. She hung out there all the time. So with the bike being found there, the new theory was that maybe Amber stopped at this park on her way home from her friend's

house. Maybe she wanted to take a break, catch her breath during this long ride home, even though it was only 10 minutes. Or maybe she spotted some friends and decided to hang out and play with them for a while. But then think about it. Amber had already called her mom,

apologized for being late, and said that she was nervous about riding home in the dark. So if she was really that nervous to make that 10 minute bike ride straight home, would she really go off course to hang out at the park after dark? It didn't add up.

Either way, the police kept the bike to do some more investigating and to try to learn more. The next step was to raise awareness, to make sure that people knew that Amber was missing. They were asking for tips, they were asking for leads, everything. They went on the news, they printed flyers, and they stood on the streets asking anyone who happened to pass if they had heard or seen anything weird in the neighborhood. The hope was that maybe somebody might have seen

Amber while they were driving home, because she did disappear right around 6 p.m. So maybe somebody who didn't even know Amber or know anything about her case might have spotted her when they were driving past. They might have been coming home from work and they might not have thought anything about it at the time. They might not have even realized that they had any information that the police were interested in hearing. So now the police were going out to everyone else saying basically, yes, we do want to hear from you. Tell us what you know. And keep in mind with all of this going on, it had still been less than 24 hours since Amber had gone missing. And during that day, on day two, Amber's family was handing out flyers everywhere.

And during that, they started talking to one man who said that he thought he had seen Amber on the day of her disappearance, that he thought he saw her at around 5.25 p.m. He described the girl that he had seen, and it did sound exactly like Amber, a fair skinned, five foot tall girl with long dark hair and bangs, and the girl he saw even had a blue bike. According to this man, there was also a boy with this girl. The boy was selling candy and Amber was talking to him. So that all sounded pretty compelling.

Maybe it could have been a lead. Maybe it could have been a lead. Maybe it could have been a sign. Except Amber wasn't missing at 525 PM when that man saw this little girl. Remember, she was still at her friend's house. We know that she hadn't left yet because she called her mom from her friend's phone. And her friend also confirmed that Amber didn't leave to head home until much later. So the best guess that anybody could come up with was that the man had seen a different little girl who just happened to look just like Amber. It was the kind of neighborhood with a lot of families and kids, so it made sense.

And since this man didn't actually know Amber, it definitely would be easy for him to confuse her with a different little girl who had maybe been out on the street at that same time. So the police ruled the tip out, thinking it had nothing to do with Amber. And with that sighting ruled out, they didn't have a whole lot of other leads or theories to go off of. But that fact in and of itself told them something. If Amber wasn't seen by any of her friends and if she wasn't in a car accident, that really only left one final possibility. The possibility that no parent ever wants to consider.

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Amber, we're with you, and Mommy's gonna come and get you, honey. I really love you. I just want to tell Amber if you're out there, I love you. Sadly, by this time, investigators were seriously considering the possibility that Amber might have been dead. So their searches now weren't limited to only areas where a girl who was alive might turn up, like parks and friend's houses. They were also looking in all of the places where somebody might dispose of a body, like

storm drains. They also had divers looking in nearby creeks and rivers. And to give you a sense of how serious they were, at one point the detectives even set up roadblocks and they would stop any driver who happened to come through. They would show them a photo of Amber, they would ask if they had seen this girl or in general if they had seen anything suspicious in the area recently. They would just try to get answers. Other officers went up to the kids who lived in the neighborhood to see if they had any information too.

Not just information about Amber specifically, but they wanted to know where different children would like to go, where they all hung out, where the secret spots were, where there are any places that they would sneak off to in order to get away from their parents, anywhere that Amber might have run away to, or where her kidnapper might have run away to, or where her kidnapper might have run away to, you know, if she had been maybe taken by an older kid or even a

teenager. I mean, seriously, they were looking at every single possibility. There was no scenario that was too out there or too wild for them to explore, but no matter where they looked or who they talked to, they found nothing. Eventually, they brought in the FBI to help them investigate, and if there's one silver lining to this whole situation, it's that kidnapping is a federal crime. So even though the police still didn't know for sure if Amber was kidnapped or not, their suspicions were strong enough that they could ask for extra help. They could bring in the big guys, the big team, right? So the FBI agents and the police worked together to set up a system that would manage all of the hundreds of tips that were pouring in.

And I mean, when you have that many officers out there, cars pulling cars over, chatting up the local kids, doing all the things, you do end up with a ton of information you need to vet through. The issue was that they didn't know how much of that information was relevant or useful. So the next step was to sift through everything, figure out what was important, sort everything out. Well, as the saying goes, quantity doesn't always equal quality. Because even though there were hundreds of tips flooding in, the investigation was going nowhere. Everyone in Oklahoma City, especially in the area where Amber lived, they had their eyes peeled, but nothing was happening. They all agreed that they would report anything that they saw or anything that they noticed, no matter how small or how significant it might have felt, but they still ended up with

nothing. That is until the night of the 20th. And to give you a sense of the timeline, that still is just two days after Amber went missing. And that's when the police got a phone call from a woman who said that she found a single shoe that looked like it belonged to a young child. Now when Amber had gone missing, she had been wearing dark pants, a cream long-sleeve shirt with a brown collar, and no-excuses sneakers. The shoe that the woman had seen was also a no excuses sneaker and it was also the right color and size.

So when the police went and recovered this shoe and showed it to Amber's mom, Bonnie, she said right away that it was Amber's, it had to be. The shoe was found 20 blocks south of Amber's house and 13 miles from Denniston Park, that park where all the kids hang out, also where Amber's bike had been found. And once the police found the first shoe there, they began searching the area to see if they could find any other clues around, which was a good call, because they ended up finding a lot.

At around 9 a.m., the investigator saw a second shoe, the other half of this pair. It was a few blocks away from where the first shoe had been found. Then, at around 1.40 pm, the same day, her beige shirt was found in some bushes. After that, they found a sock. And then, one of Amber's sisters found a silver ring on the side of a street. It was the same style and same size as a ring that Amber wore all the time. So basically, these items were scattered all over, several blocks apart from one another, yet all in the same neighborhood. It was almost like a trail of breadcrumbs leading towards something, something bigger. Now Amber's pants, underwear, and her other sock were never found.

But the evidence from the items that were found was extremely troubling, because her sweater had vomit on it. And inside the vomit, the police found something that they believed could be semen, but they couldn't confirm that that's what it was for sure, which, more on that in a second. I do have to say, though, that this detail is especially disturbing if it's true, because if Amber was vomiting, and if her throw-up had semen inside of it, then that tells you a little bit about what might have happened to her after she was kidnapped. And it tells you what sick, horrible things her abductor subjected this young, innocent

10-year-old girl to. One of her shoes also had a tiny speck of blood on it. The investigators wanted to look at the DNA in the blood, but the sample, unfortunately, was too small. There just wasn't enough of it there for them to get anything useful out of it. However, the material that may have been semen was a little bit more helpful. Again, there wasn't enough of it to get any solid DNA, but the police now knew something important.

That Amber's abductor and kidnapper most likely was a male. They also believed that her kidnapper almost certainly assaulted her in a sexual way after abducting her. There were also blue fibers on Amber's sweater, and this was important because Amber's older sister Debbie had an ex who drove a silver Mitsubishi with a blue interior. The carpet was blue, the seats were blue, even the dashboard was blue. And this ex was 24-year-old Daniel Smith. And I know what you guys might be thinking. Uh, that's a bit of a stretch. I mean, a lot of people have blue seats or blue carpet

on their cars, so how does the presence of blue fibers tell the police enough to make them take a closer look at the ex-boyfriend Daniel? Well, Daniel wasn't just some random guy who Debbie had to fling with for a week or two or something like that. They were very serious. They actually had a common law marriage because of how long they were together. They also lived together and had a daughter together. In spite of all of that though, their relationship was rocky, and that's putting it mildly actually. Daniel and Debbie fought all the time, non-stop. And Debbie didn't feel comfortable or safe around Daniel sometimes. So at one point, she actually ran away to get away from

him. She took her daughter and she went all the way to Oregon to stay with some other family members. She didn't tell Daniel where she was because she didn't want him tracking her down. Now on the day that Amber went missing, Daniel was at Bonnie's house trying to find Debbie and his daughter. He was also there when Amber called her mom to say that she was about to head home at 5 45 p.m. and when the police first questioned him, he admitted that he was there and he heard this phone call. And then, right after that call, he hopped in his car and he drove off. Pretty suspicious timing, right?

Well according to Daniel, his decision to leave right after that phone call right then and there had absolutely nothing to do with Amber. His main focus was on finding Debbie and finding his daughter. Remember, they had left to go stay with family in Oregon. Now, at that time, he had been at Bonnie's house for long enough to confirm that they were not there. So, he says it was time for him to leave, to look somewhere new, and to move on to the next place.

But eventually, according to Daniel, he realized that he wasn't going to make any progress that night. He wasn't going to track Debbie down. So to unwind, he went to a club and he had a beer. Then, once he had blown off some steam, he said he got a second wind. So he headed out to keep the search going. For Debbie, not Amber. The problem is that the police were never able to verify this story. They couldn't find anyone who was willing to come forward and say that they were with Daniel or that they had talked to him around that time or had even seen him at that nightclub. Nobody who could clear him. There was absolutely nobody who could confirm that Daniel went to that bar or had a beer

there. And it's not the most damning situation, I will admit. If you're driving all over town trying to find your ex or trying to find out which of your ex's friends they might be staying with, you're probably going to spend a lot of alone time in the car. You're not going to have a lot of eyewitnesses around to vouch for your whereabouts. And if you're also at a bar where nobody really knows you or recognizes you, how likely are the people really going to remember your face and be able to tell the police that you were there? If Daniel's testimony was true, it makes sense that he would have a hard time confirming

his alibi. But now you add in the blue fibers on Amber's clothing, and it just didn't look good. But here is where it gets weird and kind of confusing. See, Amber's mom, Bonnie, claimed that Daniel wasn't at the house when Amber first called her. She said that Daniel left several hours before the phone call. So it's not like he heard her on the phone and then he hopped into his car and seized that chance to go kidnap and hurt Amber.

It didn't even sound like he had any way of knowing that Amber would be out on the street at that time. But someone else was at the house who also said that Daniel was there when Amber called. His name was Joseph Bishop. Joseph was in his late teens and he was dating Brandy, another one of Amber's sisters. Anyway, Joseph was at the house too, and he told the police that Daniel was definitely home when Amber called home. Not only that, but he was confident that Daniel overheard the phone call. He also said that Daniel left immediately after Bonnie hung up.

And according to Joseph, generally, when Daniel left Bonnie's house, he would turn east and head back home, but this time, he went west, the same direction that Amber was coming from, the direction of her friend's house. Joseph was eventually given a polygraph test, and he passed, so the police had absolutely no reason to believe that he was lying. But at what point do all of the coincidences here start to add up and, you know, the expression where there's smoke, there's fire comes into play? Because Daniel was going in the same direction of

Amber. There were blue fibers that were found on her clothing. He had blue fibers in his car. What about the confusion over whether Daniel was even at the house at the time? I mean, why would Brandy say he wasn't there, but Joseph said he was and Joseph passed the poly? Was Bonnie possibly just distraught over her missing daughter, not remembering these crucial critical details of that day? Or is it suspicious that Joseph is pointing fingers? Now as if all of that isn't enough, Daniel also had a very troubling history.

Just one month before Amber's disappearance, there was a domestic disturbance at the home where he lived with Amber's sister Debbie, and because the disturbance was so intense, somebody called the police. Debbie told the officers that Daniel had hit her after she refused to have sex with him. Daniel wasn't arrested, however, he was given a citation. Now, if you think that's bad, get this. In 1995, he had been convicted of an attempted kidnapping. So again, I think you can tell from that alone why the police thought that those blue strands on Amber's clothing, it was definitely worth taking a closer look at it, right? And that's before I even tell you about the details about the attempted second kidnapping of his. Yes, second.

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Right now, you can get up to 40% off Beam's best-selling Dream Powder for a limited time. Just go to shopbeam.com slash Annie Elise and use code Annie Elise at checkout. That's shopbeam.com slash Annie Elise and use code Annie Elise for up to 40% off. Sweet dreams. So Daniel Smith, the shady partner of Amber's older sister Debbie, had been convicted once before of attempted kidnapping. See, one night, a woman was leaving a club in downtown Oklahoma City. She was walking toward her car when a man jumped out from where he had been hiding. He crouched over near the driver's side door of her car just kind of waiting for her to come out.

Well, now, as this woman got closer, the guy attacked her. He was able to get her keys away from her, and then he opened the front door of her car. He tried to shove this woman inside and even grabbed her by the throat, choking her. It isn't clear exactly what happened after that, but somehow this woman did get away. She called the police and they eventually learned that this man who had attacked her, Blitz attacked her at that, was Daniel, so they arrested him. And the woman was positive that Daniel was trying to sexually assault her as well, but Daniel claimed that he just wanted to steal her car.

I mean, not the best defense in the world because car theft is also not a good look, but I can see how maybe he thought that that was a better defense than admitting that he was committing, you know, a violent crime. But since he did claim that this was an attempted theft, he was only charged with robbery at first. Eventually, though, the charge was upgraded to kidnapping. Then at one of Daniel's court hearings, a bouncer from the club testified against him. But as soon as this guy was done giving his statement, Daniel stood up right

there in court in front of the judge and jury and everybody else, and he said, as soon as I get out, you're a dead man. So after that, Daniel was also charged with intimidating a witness, which honestly, what did he really expect to happen in that moment? I mean, how did he realistically think that this would all play out for him to literally threaten a witness in front of everyone, including a judge? I mean, not the brightest move. Now, let's just say Daniel does not sound like the brightest crayon in the box, okay? But he did do one smart thing. He took a plea bargain, and he pled guilty to attacking this woman. And in exchange, he received a five-year deferred prison sentence.

So basically, this meant that if Daniel could be on his best behavior and not commit any more crimes and followed certain rules that the judge gave him, he could avoid going to prison. So Daniel was sent to this sort of boot camp for only four months. Specifically, it was the William S. Key Correctional Center for young adults. And actually, he did well there. He followed the rules, he did all the things that he needed to do, all so he could avoid going to prison. In fact, Daniel even went back to school. He had dropped out when he was 15 years old, so he never got his high school diploma. But at the the correctional center, he was able to take classes and get his GED. So it really did seem like he was turning things around,

like he was back on the right track and living a better life. And when the judge saw how well he was doing, he felt for him, especially given Daniel's background, because apparently he had a very rough and difficult childhood. He had been in the foster system since he was just six years old. He had also abused drugs and he had a pretty bad drinking problem. But that was all changing now. Daniel was doing good enough that the judge decided he needed some encouragement.

He needed to see that his good work was paying off. So that is when the judge decided to drop those witness intimidation charges from the trial. And after that, Daniel was just put on probation. He still had to attend weekly AA meetings and regular counseling sessions. He also had to find a job, not necessarily a full-time job, but a job at least part-time work.

And he was meeting with his parole officer regularly. But as far as that was concerned, he was a free man. And of course, like I mentioned before, he was with Debbie. They were common law married, even though they had never had a wedding. So because of that, it should really go without saying that he saw Amber quite a bit. She was his wife's sister, after all. I mean, they were a part of each other's lives. Well, as it turned out, Amber didn't like Daniel. And I mean, she really didn't like him. I mentioned before that Amber could be very shy with people

that she didn't know very well, right? But eventually, more times than not, she would warm up. But that's not at all what was going on here. Amber was literally afraid of Daniel. She was outspoken about it too, and she would tell anyone who would listen that she was afraid of him, and more than that, afraid of one thing in particular.

She was afraid that he would take her away from her home one day. On the day before Amber disappeared, she told her dad Robert and her brother Eddie that she was scared of Daniel. Apparently not too long ago, he tried to shove her into his car. So this wasn't some sort of idle fear or paranoia. She had a reason to be scared of him. She also said that she had managed to get away from him and ran inside the house, but either way, she was very reasonably not comfortable around Daniel.

She didn't know if or when he would try something like that with her again. That same day, she also had a conversation with her mom where she said that she had seen Daniel driving by their house. She thought that he was there to look for her, to keep tabs on her, to get a sense of when she was home, what her schedule was like,

all of the weird stalkery things that people do. Which, how awful is that? I mean, first and foremost, for any 10-year-old girl to be afraid of somebody in general, but a 10-year-old innocent girl to be afraid of their sister's boyfriend slash husband, somebody who is so personally involved and intertwined in your life, that is extremely

terrifying. And I'm just speculating, but I do have to wonder if this might have been the reason that Amber went to her friend's house in the first place. I mean, I know that she and her friend hung out a lot, and it's not like she needed, you know, a big solid excuse to go and see her friend, but I also have to imagine that if she was feeling unsafe in her own home and like maybe this creep was always watching her Maybe she just wanted to get away from him She might have wanted to go somewhere where she felt a little more secure and like she had a little bit more privacy I even wonder if you could go a step further Maybe and speculate that it might have been part of the reason that she didn't like sleeping alone

Maybe it wasn't fear of the dark Maybe she might have also been worried, rightly, as it may have turned out, that if she was alone in her room with nobody watching her, Daniel might come in and do something to her. So all to say, there were a lot of reasons and past experiences to warrant finding Daniel suspicious. He had all the red flags you could think of.

So the police brought him in for an interrogation. They asked him all their questions, but they didn't find a smoking gun. Now, he didn't say anything to let them clear him, but he also didn't break down and confess or say anything to implicate himself either. They asked if he would come back, though, and take a polygraph test with the FBI, and Daniel agreed. But then, the day that the lie detector test was scheduled to happen, he just never showed up. Now on top of that, he also missed his AA meeting, which that was a parole violation. So this was now enough for the police to bring Daniel in. They didn't officially name him a suspect, but they did send some squad cars out and officers to find him to take him back

to the station. The problem was, they couldn't find him anywhere. There was absolutely no trace of where he had gone. Finally, on the night of Sunday, December 21st, Daniel's car was found. It was abandoned at a local gas station. But Daniel was nowhere around it. The police searched his car, but they didn't find much. They did find some brown hair near the passenger side door, which I'll say right there. The police never publicly confirmed whose hair it was, but given that Amber also had

brown hair, it felt like it was another clue, another red flag. The next morning on Monday, December 22nd, the search for Daniel continued. A neighborhood watch group was helping the police scan the neighborhood looking for him, too, and in the early morning hours, they found Daniel. He was in a park less than one mile from where his car had been found. The problem was he was dead. And it was clear that it was by his own hand. Which that also is one more, you know, red flag of suspicion in this whole case, right? Was he so guilty and so nervous that he was going to get caught that he just suddenly decided to kill himself?

And unfortunately, that stalled the investigation into finding Amber. Even with the police and the FBI working through Christmas, working through the new year, they weren't able to find anything about what had happened to her. Like everyone else, Amber's mother Bonnie had felt hopeful at first

when Amber was first declared missing. Bonnie felt confident that Amber would be found, that she would get home, she'd be safe and sound. She prayed that Amber would just walk in the front door at any minute, that she would see all the presents under the tree, that her eyes would light up and they could celebrate Amber's favorite holiday together, that they would, you know, have a happy Christmas and everything would go back to normal. But instead, Bonnie now had to learn to live with this whole new definition of normal.

And it was made much worse by Daniel for him taking his own life and taking whatever information he might have known with him. There were so many unknowns, the police didn't even name Daniel as a suspect. Which is very frustrating because I already ran through all of the evidence against him. The timing of his death also certainly sounds suspicious. I mean, that's a red flag in on its own, right? But from the sound of it, even with all of those clues, all of those leads, those like weird circumstances

and coincidences, it wasn't quite enough for the police to publicly come out and say that he did it or that he even had something to do with it or that the disappearance was solved. I mean, nothing. Time went on and every couple of years, the authorities would release age-progressed photos of Amber. They would ask if anybody had seen her occasionally tips would

come in here or there with people saying that Amber is alive that she's living in different areas in the United States, you know all of the tips that we always hear but none of those tips panned out and unfortunately decades went by. Even glad you're with us. It is the face and the case investigators cannot forget. Little Amber Barker would have turned 27 this year. She disappeared back in 1997 while riding her bicycle home in her northwest Oklahoma City neighborhood.

News 9 crime tracker Adriana Iwashinsky is digging into this and talked with those closest to the case. Adriana? Well, Oklahoma City police tell me this is still an active investigation and they have never given up hope of one day answering the question of what happened to Amber. Oklahoma City police confirmed they have been quietly looking into this case for the past four years. Investigators with their crimes against children unit have been going over every piece of evidence with a fresh set of eyes to see if there's something there that was missed the first time. Police did recover Amber's bicycle

as well as her shoes and a sweater. And on that sweater, police found partial DNA of a man but are yet to make a match. Investigators believe that somebody out there knows the whole story or at least enough of the story for us to be able to put the pieces together. And after all these years, we still want to hear from that person. That information is still vital to the case.

And if you have any information, you are urged to call Crimestoppers at 235-7300. There is a reward. Live in the newsroom, Adriana Iwiszczynski, News 9. All right, stay on top of it for us. Both police and the family want to know is to where to locate Amber, and if she is actually deceased, they want to find the body

and be able to give her a proper burial. But that is not the end of the story. Starting with, in 2007, Amber's father Robert died, and six years later in 2013, her sister Brandi also passed away. And the circumstances around her death were a little suspicious. A month before her death, Brandy moved from Oklahoma City to a smaller town in Oklahoma to be with her boyfriend.

And this guy, I'm sorry to say, was bad news. Soon after Brandy moved, her boyfriend just left her. Like she literally had uprooted her whole life. She went to a place where she had no family, no friends, no job, all for this guy, and he just like booked it, ghosted her, and peaced out. I don't know the full context here. I mean, maybe the relationship was already rocky and Brandy only moved with him as a last-ditch effort to save it. Maybe she did something that was a red flag or a deal breaker for him after she moved in with him. I don't know. Or maybe he was just this massive asshole. I don't know the full situation. There's

a lot of possibilities. But what I do know is that Brandy moved to be with this guy. And now they were broken up and she had nowhere to live. She also was unemployed and didn't have the money to rent her own apartment. So instead, she ended up living in a trailer. The man who owned the trailer and who usually lived there was in the hospital, and I'm guessing that she must have gotten a good deal on rent or something. Maybe it was even free, I don't know, but the point is she was staying there rather than letting it sit around empty. Then sometime in the summer of 2013, a bunch of huge storms, which included tornadoes, hit the area where Brandy was living, and then one morning, Brandy was found in a ditch,

20 feet from her trailer. Her clothes were also all scattered all around her on the ground. The ditch was full of water, and the police ruled that Brandi must have gotten caught in one of those storms, and then she had drowned because of it. But a lot of people did not agree with their findings. -♪ ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYING -♪

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On top of that, her body had a really bad head injury, and it didn't seem like the sort of injury that you would get from hitting a piece of, you know, flying debris that was being blown around in the wind. It seemed much more serious. Now that didn't automatically mean that Brandy died due to foul play because, apparently, she also had a history of drug use. So one theory is that she got high, that she wandered out of her trailer, and then she passed out, hit her head, and either overdosed or drowned in that ditch that was filled with

water. If that's the case, maybe the police were trying to protect her reputation when they say that she died in a storm. You know, it was a polite lie so that they wouldn't be speaking ill of the dead. Debbie, her sister, has said that she believed that theory. But even as she was saying that, you know, going to reporters and saying that she thought it was an overdose, she also made a point of saying that Brandy's ex was really bad news.

Apparently, about a month before her death, this ex had attacked Brandy. He allegedly had beaten her up and he had cut her throat. So this led some people to think that maybe he or somebody else murdered Brandy and then got away with it because of her past history with drug use and the fact that she lived in this tornado county and all of these, you know, coincidences that could explain it away. And sadly, the tragedies don't stop there. A year after Brandy died, Bonnie also passed away. That's

Amber's mother. She died from natural causes. She died without any concrete answers about the real cause of death for both Brandy or Amber. But up until her death, Bonnie always maintained that Daniel did something to Amber. Specifically, Bonnie thought that Daniel killed her. Although, it was hard for Bonnie to admit that because in one interview she said that she never wanted to give up hope. She never wanted to let go of the possibility that maybe someday Amber would come back home. You know, come in the door and she would be fine.

But as the years went by, that looked less and less likely. Even Bonnie had to admit that if Amber was alive out there somewhere, that she would have found a way to get in touch with her by now. She would have gotten in touch with the family eventually. Even if she was being held hostage or something horrible like that, she believes that she could have figured out a way to either get out or get the message out. And the fact that she didn't seemed like confirmation that Amber sadly was deceased. But not everybody agrees with Bonnie's take because you'll remember

that Daniel was common-law married to Amber's sister Debbie and that the two of them had a daughter together. Well almost any time that Debbie gave any kind of interview she would say that she believed that Daniel was innocent, that he had nothing to do with Amber's disappearance. Debbie also claims that she knows who did it and that she's told the police that, but she has never come out with a name. All she'll say is that the real kidnapper got away with it and that the real kidnapper is still alive today. Now, as for the suspicious timing around Daniel's death by suicide. Well, according to Debbie, he didn't actually die at his own hand.

He didn't take his own life. According to Debbie, the person who hurt Amber also murdered Daniel. And this person had staged his death to make it look like he had killed himself. Which, okay, if it goes really deep, let me just put my tinfoil hat on and get conspiracy theory here for a minute.

I could see that maybe happening. Maybe in a lifetime movie, not really real life. Possible, I don't know. But there also is kind of this weird, and I'm just going to be very clear here, this is just speculation. There is absolutely no reason to believe that this is true. But there also is some weird undercurrent here of like, what's their name? Carla Hamulka vibes. You remember the couple in Canada and she allowed her boyfriend to like, rape her younger sister and then they

murdered her. It was like this whole thing and he went on to like have this killing spree. I'm not saying that her sister is involved, but there are a lot of people out there as I was going into this deep dark hole on this case that feel like there's some sort of weird cover-up happening here and that she's a little too stand by her man. Maybe she's doing that because he's innocent. Maybe he didn't really take his own life, But there's something, you know, that doesn't sit right with a lot of people with this. And there have also been a few more recent developments here, and they're worth touching on. In 2015, the police announced that they were collecting DNA from an Oklahoma County inmate. He went by a few different names, but most of my sources call him Forrest Rice, so that's

the name I'm going to be using. Well, as it turns out, Forrest was best friends with Daniel. And Daniel was with him on the day that he died, the day that he killed himself. You know, unless you believe Debbie's claim that actually Daniel was murdered. Allegedly, Forrest and Daniel were also hanging out on the evening when Amber disappeared. And the following day. Which I do find interesting, because the police said that nobody could verify Daniel's alibi. And make of this what you will, but Forrest's story also contradicts Daniel's alibi.

Daniel said he was looking for Debbie all over town, and then he stopped for a beer, right? But he didn't say that he was at Forest's house all night. Now, maybe there's a way to reconcile all of that. Like, Daniel went to Forest's house while he was looking for Debbie, and then it was late enough for him to stop searching and just stay there. Maybe Forest was with him looking for Debbie. Maybe there was time for Daniel to hurt Amber, then go to Forest's house afterward. Or maybe Forest is lying. I mean, there are a lot of possibilities. But here's where things get complicated.

The police have always been very clear, very firm, that they don't believe that Forest took Amber or that he killed her. They don't even consider him a suspect. In an interview, one spokesperson for the police department said that they just wanted to question Forest because they thought that he might have some sort of information. Which reading between the lines, and this is just speculation, but I wonder if the detectives think that Daniel did it, but they can't prove it. And with Daniel dead, it's not like they can just pull him into an interrogation room and try to get a confession out of him. So instead, maybe they're trying to go for the next best thing.

Talking to Daniel's best friends. Try to see if any of them know more than what they've been saying. And in fact, the police spokesperson implied that pretty strongly in their interview. They definitely made it sound like the police were only even looking at Forrest because of what he maybe knew about the real guilty parties. Except if that was true, if that was really what they had in mind, then why do the DNA testing on Forrest? Well, there are two things that are worth keeping in mind here. The first is that even though the police didn't have the technology to get DNA from what was

possibly semen back in 1997, technology has come a long way since then. By 2015, the police had recovered partial DNA from that material they found inside her vomit. There wasn't enough of it to identify any one single individual, though, but there was enough for them to at least start ruling people out. If someone had a sample that was close to that partial DNA, they could be a suspect. If they weren't close, they could be ruled out. So I could see the police officers maybe doing these kinds of, you know, DNA comparisons as a matter of, like, due diligence and staying course with the investigation. Anyone they talked to, even if they weren't a major suspect, they might give a sample just to be safe. But to me, the more compelling reason that the police would need Forrest's DNA

was if they thought that there was a chance that that might put him at the scene of a crime. It doesn't seem like they would spend the money and the laboratory's time and resources after so many years unless they really thought that there would be a chance that there's a match here. So then you throw that into it and it doesn't really fit the whole, you know, we just think that he knows something narrative that the police were putting out there. Who knows? I mean there probably is more to the story, but nobody's talking. Nobody's really saying what is going on here. Either way, the investigators compared Forrest's DNA to the semen that was found on Amber's sweater and also to the blood that was on her shoe. But to this day, they haven't confirmed whether or not it was a match. They also haven't publicly cleared him or named him as a suspect, so make of that what

you will. I will say though, that like Daniel, Forrest wasn't really a great guy. He had many charges against him, including things like assault, battery, and even cooking meth. The investigation now points here to this community corrections center where forced J rice is being held now according to this search warrant police want rice's DNA they believe it may be the key to finding out what happened to amber barker

I just want to tell him if you're out there I love you their pleas from past interviews amber barker's family wishing for her safe return. Amber, we're with you and mommy's gonna come and get you honey. I really love you. That was Amber's mother days after the 9-year-old Oklahoma City girl went missing in 1997. She never returned home after leaving her friend's house. Her blue bike was found in Denison Park, a mile from her home. The next day, her sweater,

shoes and a sock were found on Northwest 12th near Drexel. Police now want to retest that sweater for DNA evidence. On it, they found vomit. New court documents reveal there was possible ejaculate in the vomit. Investigators want to see if it's a match with Forrest Rice, who at the time was a close family friend of the Barkers. He said to have if it's a match with Forrest Rice, who at the time was a close family friend of the Barkers. He said to have known Amber's brother-in-law, who was wanted for questioning at the time, but committed suicide. Investigators believe he may hold the key to finding Amber Barker. Dave Detling, KOCO 5 News. Now there's one last person who I want to touch on here. Joseph. Because you'll remember, he was dating Brandy back in 1997, and he was at Bonnie's house

for some reason the day that Amber went missing. He's the one who said that Daniel was there for that phone call from Amber to Bonnie. And then he said that Daniel left the house right after Bonnie was done with the phone call. Even though, remember, Bonnie had remembered it differently, and she said that Daniel hadn't been there for that phone call. And I think that this is pretty interesting because in the years after Amber's disappearance and after Daniel's death, the police treated Joseph like a person of interest. I don't really know why. I don't

know if there was some sort of evidence that maybe made him look guilty or what or if it really just does come down to the timing of that phone call and the fact that Joseph overheard it. But they did treat him like a person of interest. It's possible that there's some other information that hasn't been made public, something that maybe makes Joseph look guilty. But what I do know is that the police have definitely been treating him suspicious and keeping an eye out on him. For his part, Joseph makes it sound like he doesn't even know why they are suspicious of him at all.

According to him, he's innocent. There's absolutely no reason for him to be treated this way. We talked to Bishop today by phone. As the whole family was questioning, everybody was questioned. Taking out a police station, a polygraph, and all that. Did you undergo a polygraph? Yes, I did.

Bishop, who lives in Dallas now, says he does not know what happened to Amber Barker that day. No, I have no idea. Bishop was dating Amber Barker's older sister Brandy at the time and admits they had a rocky relationship. He says what happened to Amber most likely was taken to the grave with Daniel Smith. Smith was Amber's brother-in-law and committed suicide just days after police questioned him

about her disappearance. Then they let him go and then three days later they found him hanging dead in the park. Bishop says he, like Amber's family, wants to know what happened and says it is possible someone still knows something but just hasn't come forward. I hope someday they get all the answers they're looking for. possible someone still knows something but just hasn't come forward. Now, of course, different reporters and different people in the media have asked the police why they were even talking to Joseph, what kind of statement they

wanted to make. And the investigators said basically the same thing about Joseph that they had said about Forrest earlier. He wasn't a suspect, but maybe he knew something and the police wanted to know what he knew. Like I mentioned before when we were talking about the police questioning Forest, it does sound to me like there is more to it than that. So I'm not sure how much we can take the police for at face value here. They might be keeping some of the parts of the investigation quiet and saying things that aren't totally true. That does happen because they don't want to ruin the integrity of the investigation.

But the point is, that's kind of where we're at with this case. And that's why so many people are outraged on TikTok and why I was like, tagged in literally this video a thousand times, because to this day, Amber has never been found. Not alive, not dead, nothing. The police also have never publicly named a suspect. However, the police have always been very, very careful to say that the case is not closed and

that it's not cold. They're still investigating and they're still digging. Every few years, a new team will come on board. They will review everything, you know, hoping that maybe a fresh set of eyes can find something that all of those earlier investigations missed. But so far nothing has come out of those reviews. No huge breaks. Or at least no breaks that they have announced to the public anyway. It is possible that there are new directions and avenues of the investigation behind the scenes, maybe ones that we don't know about, and I really do hope that that's the case because I hope that Amber can get justice soon and her surviving family members, those who have survived. If Amber is alive today, that would mean she's 37 years old.

Now, for the people watching on YouTube, I'm putting her age progression photo up now. And if you have seen her, please do call in and say what you know. It might seem hopeless given how many years have gone by, but Amber's body has never been found. There's also no proof out there that she is in fact dead. So just in case, keep your eyes open. If you see something, say something. And even when it feels unlikely, let's just altogether have a little bit of hope that maybe, maybe this story might have some sort of closure for Amber's surviving family. I think that's why it's going so viral online too. Everybody wants answers.

So please do your part in that too. Share a link to this episode, share a link to this video, put it in your group chat, on your social media, on TikTok, wherever you wanna put it. I don't copyright strike, don't worry. I just want these cases spread so that awareness is made and like hopefully some tips come in and answers can be found and people can figure out what really happened to Amber.

And what do you think happened to Amber? Let me know if you're watching on YouTube. Let me know in the comment section. But if you're listening to the podcast version, let me know either in the Q&A section on Spotify or in the Apple review section. But what do you think happened? Do you think it was clear cut that it was Daniel, that he attacked Amber as some sort of retaliation

against Debbie since she fled with their child? Do you think that it was Joseph who was the other kid, the older teenage boy that was in the house and that he was pointing the finger at Daniel because he's the one who's responsible? Could it have been a stranger? I mean, the blue fibers, you know, most seats, I don't remember in 1997 if it was mostly leather or cloth, but like, it feels like that's kind of a big tell, right?

Blue fibers, blue fibers? I don't know. What do you guys think? In any event, thank you guys so much for hearing Amber's story today. And I think we're a far cry from where we were in 1997. I used to be able to ride my, I would actually be, Amber would be the same age as me. I was born in 87 as well, which is a very scary thought to think about. But I remember I used to be able to just like ride my bike and go play with the neighbor kids until the street lights came on. And unfortunately it feels like we live in a day and age now where

you just can't do that anymore. There's not that same sense of innocence or freedom. So please just be careful with your kids, your loved ones. If you're young yourself be extra cautious. Even if you're not young, hell be extra cautious because there are so many predators out there. Some of them live closer than you think too. Some of them are closer than you think. So please just always watch your back. All right guys, thank you so much for tuning into another episode. Until the next one, stay safe, be nice, don't kill people, don't join any cults and just always watch your back. All right. Bye. you