25, 2010, 17-year-old Chelsea King went missing. “That is a little unusual.”Ī year passed. “Any motives or potential leads, they just kept going to a dead end,” Carter said. He said the investigation went in two directions, chasing the possibility that she’d run away and the possibility of foul play. And each day, when there were no new leads, “it was hard to hold onto hope,” Escondido Police Chief Craig Carter said this week.Ĭarter was a lieutenant when the girl disappeared, handling the media queries and becoming the face of the police investigation and task force. Throughout 2009, Amber’s photo was everywhere in North County - her blue eyes peering out from “missing” signs on light posts and in store windows.Īmber’s disappearance frustrated Escondido police. “She put it there when I had her with me.” A investigation that went nowhere “The fact that she is gone won’t remove that smile,” Dubois said. Dubois said he is protective of the children, watches out for them.Īnd he smiles when he thinks of his daughter. The shop has a bus stop in front of it and opens its doors to children waiting for the school bus. “I may smell a little worse, but I am happier.”įolks in town know about Amber. “I left an engineer’s life to sell dead fish,” he said with a laugh. He bought a tackle shop with a view of the water. “I had to start everything over.”Ībout five years ago, Dubois, who worked as an electrical engineer, and his longtime girlfriend Rebecca Smith moved to a fishing village - population 382 people in the last census - on the central Oregon coast. “It took a complete change of everything to get through this,” Dubois, 49, said in a telephone interview this week. The work helped, but he was still unsettled. He also successfully pushed for legislation, mostly related to law enforcement, such as creating a checklist to provide police investigators guidelines and resources during the initial hours of a missing-person investigation. He said her disappearance and death devastated him.įor a while, Dubois worked with families and organizations that searched for missing people.
Moe Dubois lived in Orange County when his daughter disappeared, but he was involved in his daughter’s life. The dog, with Cave by her side, found Le’s remains.Īmber the dog is 9 years old now and no longer healthy enough for missions. In 2011, Cave helped search for missing nursing student Michelle Le in Northern California. She also got a yellow Labrador, which she named after her slain daughter, and trained the animal to search. When the case was behind her, Cave assembled a group of volunteers and launched Team Amber Rescue. “Knowing how she died, it was a relief,” Cave said last week. He cried as he told her the details - including that Amber had told him he would not get away with it.
Helping othersĪfter Gardner’s arrest, but before his sentencing, Cave confronted her daughter’s killer in jail, and insisted that he tell her what happened. Moe Dubois and his longtime girlfriend moved to an Oregon hamlet and bought a seaside tackle shop. Cave recently moved into a new home on the outskirts of northern Escondido with her daughter and now-husband, whom she had been living with when Amber disappeared. Amber’s father pushed for legislative change targeting police investigations and sex offenders.Ī decade later those activities have faded. She sought clues everywhere.Īfter Amber’s remains were found, Cave formed a search and rescue organization. When Amber vanished, her mother was fierce and relentless. In 2010, after Gardner had abducted and killed a second North County teen, Chelsea King, he pleaded guilty to raping and murdering both girls, as well an assault on a third victim, and was sentenced to consecutive terms of life in prison without parole.