Unseen - The Santa Claus Kidnappings | The Disturbing Case of Amber Daniels | UNSEEN

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

"Is he going to kill us?" -- On the early morning of December 4th, 1997, 10 year old Amber Daniels is standing in the middle of a dirt road, barefoot, in her pyjamas, faced with an impossible choice: run away on her own from the man who kidnapped her, or stay with him to try and save her sisters. What happened to her family the previous night, now known as the Santa Claus killings, would only be solved because of Amber’s courage, and she would make sure her kidnapper would pay for what he took from her. External Footage from: "Shattered", "Welcome To Santa Claus", "Homicide For The Holidays On Oxygen", "Death In Santa Claus". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I got about six photographs here, and you may or may not know who's in these pictures, okay? And that's okay. And I want you to do, look at them. And if you recognize any of them, you tell me. This guy here is the guy that you were with last night. Okay, he's the one that you were underneath the bridge with. This is 10-year-old Amber Daniels. Hours before this footage was recorded,

Amber was found on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with two other young girls. When police attempt to locate their parents, they learn that all three children are part of the Daniels family, a household known for fostering many kids. But when police arrive at the home, the front door is wide open. What they discover inside is one of the most disturbing home invasions the state of Georgia has ever seen. It will launch a statewide manhunt for the mass murderer known as the Santa Claus killer. Must have had 100 law enforcement officers and agencies coming in and helping us certain. This is the most agents I've seen. 10-year-old Amber Daniels, kidnapped, abused, along with her two younger sisters,

but she survived, outsmarting her captor. She went on to solve her own case and made sure the man responsible would pay for what he took from her. It's 5 a.m. on December 4, 1997, a farmer in Bacon County, Georgia, is working on his property when he spots three young girls walking along the side of the road. He goes over to them, asking if they are okay, when he notices their barefoot with only pajamas on. One of the kids say they are from Santa Claus, Georgia, a small town 50 miles north. The man, realizing the children are far from home, quickly calls 911 and alerts them of the kids found alone near his property. The Bacon County Police arrive at the scene and take them back to the station, asking where they live and what happened?

The 10-year-old, Amber, says their sisters and part of the Daniels family and gives them her home address. Deputy Sheriff Mike Harlan is sent to the children's house to get any information he can. I expected anxious parents, or at least a mother or somebody meeting me at the door. But when he arrives, everything is hauntingly quiet. As Deputy Harlan makes his way towards the home, he notices the front door is open. The officer loudly announces his presence, asking if anyone is home, no response. Upon entering, the sound of an alarm clock radio, a home security system beeping, and a baby cry. immediately become louder. As Harlan walks further into the home, he sees something moving underneath

the table. It's a little boy. Silent and in a state of shock, the boy quietly signals the police officer. He really didn't say much of anything. He kind of pointed toward the bedroom there appeared to be blood on the frame of the bedroom door. Harlan very gently pushes the door open. When he enters the room, he discovers the body of a young woman, motionless on the floor. the police officer takes another step inside and notices two shapes on the bed. It doesn't take long for him to realize that two more bodies, an adult man and an adult woman, are lying underneath the sheets, not breathing. Next to them, he sees a baby crying.

The deputy checks the rest of the house, discovering another horrifying scene in one of the kids' rooms. A little boy lays motionless in his bed, blood around him, dead. Not knowing there's still a shooter on site. I grabbed the baby up, grabbed the other little boy up in my arms, and we went back out to the door. Back in the police station in Bacon County, investigators asked the three little girls what happened to them. Amber, who is the oldest, starts to tell her story and reveals a name that will change everything. She tells them that she was taken from her bedroom earlier that night by a man named Scott. The year is 1995. Amber is eight years old and lives with her biological mother, Kim, who is a recovered alcohol.

Growing up, Amber and her siblings were routinely placed in foster homes as her mother was unable to take care of them. But throughout the years, Kim was determined to better her life and become sober to provide a loving, supportive home for her three children. While attending Alcoholics Anonymous, she meets another recovering alcoholic, Danny Daniels, and they fall in love and start a new sober life. They had quit drinking. They had changed everything about their lives. The day that child services let me return back home to my mother was probably one of the best days of my life. I ran to her arms and there was a man to stand in their open arms and welcomed me into his house and wanted to love me just as much as my mom.

Danny and Kim got married, bringing together his teenage daughter, Jessica, and her three kids, Brooke, Bryant, and Amber all under one roof. Kim's aspiration of providing a secure, loving and supportive home for her children, was becoming a reality. Just a few years before, it was her who needed assistance for her children. Now that Kim was sober with a stable home, she was eager to give back and open her doors to foster children, creating a nurturing environment of her own.

Amber remembers from a young age how her family started to welcome foster children. It was so exciting to have kids to play with. One of the first foster children that Daniels welcomed was a young girl named Joanne. I just knew that she was going to be my best friend. She was the same age as I was. She was so nice, and I just loved her red hair. Joanne's biological mother would be allowed to come over for visits, often accompanied by her son, Jerry Scott Heidler.

Jerry, or as the kids referred to him as simply, Scott, was 18 years old and was very friendly with all the kids, playing games with them, jumping on the trampoline, and even teaching the children how to fish. I can remember him giving me piggyback rides and putting me on his shoulders. Jerry was so much fun. He would always play with us, and he seemed to be very loving and kind. He seemed like any other normal person that came in and out of our house. But one day, Jerry stops coming over.

Two years go by, and his sister Joanne has gone back into her mom's care, leaving the Daniels behind, and neither Amber nor her family have heard from Jerry since then. It's now 1997. The Daniels have a full house, with three foster children added to their original four. As the holidays approach, they look forward. forward to a festive time together as the family has already put up their Christmas tree. It's December 4th, only a few weeks before Christmas, Amber is sleeping peacefully like any other night when suddenly she's woken up. Even though she hasn't seen him in years, the little girl recognizes Jerry.

And he's yelling at me to wake up, wake up, you've got to wake up. Amber is in shock. In the distance, she can hear her siblings crying from the other room. Jerry tells her they must leave the house immediately. I was frightened and scared. And hearing the girl, I didn't know what was going on. Jerry grabs a hold of Amber's arm and rushes her down the hallway. The little girl is very confused and asks him where her parents are. He tells her that her mom and dad are not in the house and that they've already left with the other children.

And they've told him to get her and her two other young sisters, Amanda and Brooke. But just before they leave by the front door, Amber turns around and sees her four-year-old brother, Corey, hiding underneath the kitchen table. In the distance, she hears her baby brother Gabe crying. Why are we leaving them? Why are we leaving them? He said, your mom and dad's going to come back and get him. Jerry was always good to us, so it felt okay to leave with him. They all get inside his van, as he tells them he is taking them to their parents. But as he continues to drive down the deserted road, the girls become increasingly worried and begin to cry,

not knowing where they are going or where their parents are. After driving for more than half an hour, the car slows down and turns on to a side street and then parks underneath a bridge. Jerry then proceeds to turn off the engine and tells Amber to get in the back with him as he makes Amanda and Brooke move to the front. And so now I'm getting a little more scared at this point because now I'm confused what's going on. The man proceeds to remove his clothing. Amber notices a knife in his boot and a gun on the floor of the vehicle. He then forces himself on 10-year-old Amber. Exema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with ebbglis.

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of shock, Amber wonders where Jerry is leading them. Suddenly, the car comes to a stop. It's the middle of the night, but Amber realizes they are on top of a bridge. Jerry takes the gun and forces Amber, Brooke, and Amanda out of the van. He keeps threatening them with the gun while he walks closer and closer to the edge of the bridge. Below, there's a fast-moving stream of water. The three scared kids stay close together and have no idea what will happen next. But unexpectedly, Jerry throws the gun over the bridge and into the water. And my mind just said, this is your opportunity.

You're out of that van. Run. We can hide in the woods, just run as fast as you can. The three barefoot children start to run away from the van. Behind them, Jerry screams for them to stop and come back. Amber hears him chasing after them, and she increases her pace. Her attacker is bigger than her and her two sisters, but Amber still hopes they can outrun him. But Jerry is coming closer and closer behind Brooke and violently grabs her arm, stopping her right in her tracks.

And he told me if I didn't get back in the van, he was going to throw her over the bridge. And I'd never see her again. Amber is forced to make an impossible choice. save herself and sacrifice the life of her younger sister, or risk what will happen to her if she goes back in the van. Amber knows the only way to protect her younger sister and ensure she's safe is to follow Jerry's demands. Her and her sister, Amanda, begin to slowly walk back to Jerry and Brooke. Once they are together, Jerry orders them back in his van as he begins to drive them further away from their home. He turned down this road and so I asked him again,

where are you taking us? What are we doing? He got agitated and started yelling and then he pulled up in a little dead-in spot and put us out and told us that we were to wait there for five minutes until he came back. He kept saying, I'll be back in five minutes. I'll be back in five minutes. You better be here. They all stand silently, watching Jerry's car drive away. They dare not move until they no longer see the lights of his vehicle. After counting for 65 seconds, Amber tells her sisters to run. I told the girls that we've got to find help. We've got to tell them what's happened. We've got to find our parents. We've got to get back home. As they run along the road, they see a secluded farmhouse in the distance,

but all of a sudden, car headlights beam right in front of their path. So I made the two girls jump down in the ditch to try to keep from being seen, and the car slowed down, and I knew that we had just been caught. Our lives were over. Amber is petrified. A man emerges from the car, but it's not her attacker. Instead, a local farmer steps out and immediately offers her assistance.

Amber breathes a sigh of relief, urging her sisters to come out from their hiding spots. they are ushered to safety. The man contacts the police and the local sheriff arrives and takes the three girls to the police station. Everybody in our family, family members that I hadn't seen in years, they were there. And I said, well, where's mom and daddy? And Corey walked up to me and said, they're dead. And I said, stop lying. I said, that's not true. But Amber looks around the room, seeing the adults and her distant family members all quiet, she knows what her little brother is saying is true. Her mother is no longer alive.

After everything she went through in the night, Amber is in a state of shock, and now learning her mother and stepfather are gone, she begins to cry. But Amber knows who did this, and she wants to make sure he is captured and brought to justice. She tells officials the crucial piece of information, the name of the man responsible, Jerry Scott Heidler. He is the brother of one of the foster children, and would come by to the Daniels family often, playing with the children and expressing unwanted romantic interest to the teenage

daughter, Jessica. He searched for any information they have on Jerry and find he is already in the police records. Due to his prior arrest on a DUI charge, they have his mugshot in their file. Investigators then present Amber with a series of photographs, seeking confirmation of the man responsible for her abduction. I got about six photographs here, and you may or may not know who's in these pictures, okay? And that's okay, and I want you to do, look you out of them, and if you recognize any of them, you tell me. They just showed me a picture of this the guy.

And I said, yes, this is Scott Hattler. In order to build the case against Jerry and find out exactly what happened that night, Amber is asked to walk through the events of the night and bravely recount exactly what Jerry did to her and where he went. And I had to show him where the dirt road was that he had taken us. And I remember telling him everything that he said and everything that he did. With the information Amber provided, police go back to the Daniels household and meticulously gather evidence from the

crime scene, collecting fingerprints, a cigarette butt, and DNA samples. Investigators believe that earlier that night, at around 1 a.m., before Jerry abducted Amber and her two younger sisters, he infiltrated the Daniels family home through a back window. He then went to the oldest daughter's room, 16-year-old Jessica, and attempted to make advances on her. Detectives believe she must have resisted, running to the safety of her parents' bedroom, but then Jerry, having been to the house multiple times before, navigated to the cabinet where the family stored their shotgun. Seizing the firearm, Jerry proceeded to enter the parents'

bedroom, murdering 16-year-old Jessica, the two adults, Kim and Danny, and 8-year-old Bryant, before running out of ammunition. He then entered Amber's bedroom and took her and the sisters. With all of Amber's details and their physical evidence from the crime scenes, they have enough information to make the arrest, but Jerry is still evading capture. Nowhere to be found, police use all available resources to track him down. I have never seen so much officer presence. Investigators suspect he might be hiding in his mother's home. In Alma, Georgia, only an hour from the crime scene, several police officers are en route

to Jerry's mother's address. However, upon their arrival, there is no sign of him anywhere. Their search extends around the outside of the house until they finally discover him, hiding underneath the floorboards in a small crawl space. Jerry Scott Heidler is charged and arrested with four counts of murder, three counts of kidnapping and burglary. He didn't resist. He confessed to it.

He made it to it. And he said it was like a dream to him. As Jerry is in prison awaiting trial, Amber is processing the tragedy that happened to her family. She has lost her mother, father, older sister, and younger brother right before Christmas. Christmas was a big part of our family every year. That was our thing. But this year, when the night of December 24th finally comes, there is no celebration, no chair.

Only grief. That's when the realization hit. They weren't coming back. August 30th, 1999, the trial for Jerry Scott Heidler begins. Amber is now 13 years old, and her interview is played during the trial and used as evidence against him. The whole community is emotional, devastated by the traumatic incident that went through their small town. It only takes the jury 20 minutes to come back with the verdict. We, the jury fixed the sentence at death.

On December 2nd, 1999, Jerry Scott Heidler is convicted of four counts of malice murder, kidnapping, aggravated child molestation, and burglary. He is sentenced to death and currently remains on death row. That's the only time that I witnessed Jerry Heidler showing any remorse. He dropped his head in a tear coming in his eye. As long as he couldn't get out and couldn't hurt anybody else, that was perfectly fine. It's been more than two decades after the tragedy. Today, Amber is not letting her past define her, determined to live her life to the fullest. Amber's mother overcame personal struggles to ensure her children would grow up feeling loved.

Now, Amber has started a family of her own. She pours love and attention into her child, making it her mission to recreate the nurturing and beautiful home life her own mother worked hard to build. Knowing that I get to see him grow up, I miss that with my mom. He is my future. Faden is the future for me. I pray that he never has to go through anything that I ever went through as a child. I pray that he has the good days that I had.

I wouldn't do anything for him. Amber realized that what happened to her as a child was not her fault, letting go of the anger from her past, knowing it doesn't create love for her family in the present. I've had a point in my life that if I could go tell him that I forgive him for what he did, I would. I can't change the past but I can make my future better

for myself, for my family. If I'm going to hate him for the rest of my life, what's the point? I will always be the better person.