A Mother Confronts Her Daughter’s Killer | The Case of Amber Dubois & Chelsea King
– Pay attention to this confrontation. It may just look like harassment, but what’s actually happening is much more disturbing. – This is the mother of Amber Dubois, the 14-year-old girl who disappeared on February 13th, 2009. The straight-A student never made it to school that morning and with no witnesses, evidence or leads, police are at a loss.
February 25th, six miles south of where Amber was taken, 17-year-old Chelsea King is out jogging when she disappears in broad daylight. After days of searching, the authorities are about to lose hope. But when Amber’s mother begins noticing similarities between the two cases, she decides to take matters into her own hands.
– It gets harder every day. The only thing that keeps me going is knowing I’ll find her. – She’s ready to do anything to find her daughter, even facing the man suspected of killing her. – I was on a mission to find out what happened to Amber. And I said to him, “Where’s my daughter?” “God made animals because they are nice and cute.
I like horses and cats. When I grow up, I wanna be a marine biologist because I wanna work at SeaWorld.” – Amber Dubois is 14 years old. Though these diary excerpts are from many years ago, her love for animals has never diminished. Like many introverted people, Amber feels a deep connection with them. When she gets the opportunity to raise an animal herself for a school project, she jumps at the chance.
– In eighth grade, the agricultural teachers came to the junior high school and Amber was hooked. She was, from that day on, she came home and she’s like, “Mom, I’m gonna raise a lamb and I get to go to fair and I get to show this lamb!” And, you know, she was just so excited about it. – Amber diligently researches all about the process, her internet history and books on her bedside table prove it.
She can’t wait for the day she will finally meet her lamb. – And she had named it Nanette. Well, it was the last day to turn in the deposit for the lamb. She was all excited when I left that morning. She was like, “Thanks, Mom! I love you so much. Thank you for the lamb.” – At 4:00 PM, Carrie’s still at work.
She’s expecting her daughter to call her when she gets home. But instead, she receives a call from her longtime boyfriend, Dave, who tells her that Amber hasn’t returned from school. – Dave did go to the school right after that and went by the farm to see if she was there and she wasn’t. And then, he drove to where her agriculture class teacher was at and the teacher said, “Amber didn’t make it to school.
” And I knew right then something had happened to Amber because there was nothing that would stop her from making it to school that day. This was the day she had been waiting for all year long. I knew that something bad had happened. I walked into my boss’s office and I started crying. I told him that someone had taken Amber.
And then he was like, “Don’t be silly.” And I said, “Someone’s taken her, she’s gone!” – By 5:45 PM, Dave has already contacted the Escondido Police Department. Carrie returns from work in a hurry and quickly puts together a small search team over the phone. – And I probably had 15 people show up right away and we started going door to door.
– They’d only realized Amber was missing 30 minutes ago. But it turns out, she had never made it to school, meaning she’d likely been gone for close to nine hours. Police and neighbors alike mobilize immediately. And by the next day, the entire community is outside looking for Amber. – Carrie is caught between hope and despair.
She knows the first 24 hours are crucial when a child goes missing. Yet, she spent most of her time arguing with the police. They’re convinced Amber ran away, wasting time canvassing local party spots, checking friends’ homes, and questioning boys she could have been seeing. But to Carrie, none of that sounds like her daughter.
Amber is a straight-A student planning to start college early. She has never missed a day of school before. Eventually, the police begin going through Amber’s room, find her journal and computer and realize her mother is right. – What we found was that she liked to read. She had a couple close friends. She was not making contacts on the internet that we could find.
And the websites that she visited were all about animals and learning more about animals. – The police have to accept Carrie’s theory. Amber wouldn’t have left on her own. Somebody must have taken her. The registry lists about 100 offenders in Escondido at the time, but the police want to speak with the family before expanding their investigation.
They bring everyone in: Carrie, Amber’s father, Mo, along with her current boyfriend, Dave. – I think I’ve known Amber since she was about four years old. Me and her mom were friends for a long time before we started dating. To me, Amber’s my baby girl. All Amber wanted that day was to go pay for her lamb. And when I left, I wrote the check for her to grab on her way out the door.
I was the last person that seen Amber. – To Carrie, Dave’s day should have been predictable. She assumes he left for work after her. Stayed there for most of the day, came home to find Amber missing, then called the school and the police. That’s what everyone thinks happened until Dave begins to walk them through the actual events of February 13th.
And suddenly, the room goes quiet until Carrie jolts up. – We’re sitting with the detectives and everything and he’s telling what he did that day. And I’m like, “Just take him in!” That’s how bad he looked. – Dave begins by stating his day started like any other, he woke up and put on his gym clothes. He remembers hearing Amber speaking excitedly about her lamb downstairs.
– She came up several times and I think it was the fourth time that she asked for the check. I said, “Sweetie, I will give you a check before I leave. Just go downstairs, you’ll have a check, I promise.” I wrote out the check for the lamb and I walked right in here and Amber was sitting on the floor right there.
She was eating a bowl of cereal. And I said, “Sweetie, here’s your check for your lamb. I’ll see you later, I love you.” And I turned around and walked out the door and went about my day. – He continues, but his story doesn’t line up. First, he randomly decided to take a day off work, unusual for a business owner.
Then, he didn’t answer the phone when the high school secretary called to alert them that Amber, who had a perfect attendance up to that point, hadn’t shown up at school. Around lunch, Dave turned up at Carrie’s work, bringing her chocolate and roses for Valentine’s Day, in spite of the fact that the couple had never celebrated the occasion before.
He didn’t tell her he had taken the day off. Then, he decided to go watch a movie at the theater all on his own. For someone Carrie describes as a creature of habit, nothing about Dave’s day makes any sense. But with nothing specific to incriminate him, the police have to let him go. On the way home, Carrie realizes that her boyfriend omitted one crucial detail concerning his relationship with Amber.
– They really didn’t talk for the whole month before Amber went missing. – Amber and I didn’t always get along perfectly. It’s a house, there’s rules. She’s a teenager. She doesn’t wanna follow the rules. There’s gonna be a certain amount of conflict. – Once home, Carrie can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.
She’s starting to have serious doubts about Dave, but brushes it off and goes to their bedroom to calm down. There, she notices a necklace hanging from the bedpost. Carrie is certain she saw her daughter wearing it the day she disappeared. She isn’t sure if she’s imagining things, but she refuses to take any chances.
– I went down to the police, and I’m crying, freaking out. I asked them, “Please, come to the house! You don’t need a search warrant. Just come to the house and search.” – Carrie had actually mentioned that to us, “Just arrest him!” However, in order to arrest Dave, we would need probable cause, which would include evidence.
– With nothing solid to hold against Dave, the police press Carrie for answers. She goes on to explain that the tension between her boyfriend and Amber has been building up for years. – A lot of that friction stemmed from her wanting to be in her room most of the time, reading. Dave didn’t appreciate that. He thought she should be more part of the family.
At one point, Dave took the door off of Amber’s room so she couldn’t hide in her room. One of the things that we found while interviewing Carrie was that Dave and Amber had just called a truce and Dave took her to a bookstore to buy some more books. And less than 12 hours later, Amber went missing. – Even though she can’t prove anything, it all becomes too much for Carrie who decides to leave with her youngest daughter, Allison, opting to continue looking for Amber alone.
– You’d just set out on your own? – Oh, I had to. – Why? – I couldn’t lay, because I couldn’t lay in the same bed with the man who I thought might have done something to my daughter. Did I think honestly that Dave premeditated the… that he could have? No. Did I think maybe Amber bugged him five or six times about the check like she did? And there was maybe a confrontation.
Maybe she’d fell down the stairs. I don’t know what- I can’t tell you what went on through my head. But did I think that Dave planned to kill Amber? Absolutely not. Did I think an accident might have happened? Yeah. And he hid it? Yeah. – Dave, who has raised Amber as his own daughter for years is unable to convince Carrie of his innocence, left alone in the family house as the search goes on.
He falls into a deep depression, lets his business fall apart, racks up debt, and waits in vain for his life partner to reconsider to no avail. – I feel like I’m 100 years old. It’s taken a huge toll on everybody. It’s just destroyed everybody’s lives. – Six months into the search, Carrie is still out looking for Amber when she receives an unexpected call.
– This lady had contacted me from Maine through our website we had for Amber. She had a dog, Quincy, and the dog was trained for long distance scent work. So, she was offering to come out and follow Amber’s scent trail from the house to wherever they ended up. Right away, I put Amber’s hairbrush and some other stuff in a plastic bag.
So, the dog got the scent. Escondido PD had one of their dog handlers follow her on her mission. – The dogs lead Carrie to the Native American community of Pala in the desert north of Escondido. She extends her search there, but the police are hesitant. Trails usually dissipate after 12 days, and it’s been six months since Amber disappeared.
However, this could also imply something different. What if the trail is fresh? What if Amber is still out there? – As soon as she told me that, I thought maybe she’s alive. It consumes you, you know? You don’t know where your daughter is, you know, your child is, it just changes your whole world. I’m trying to keep things positive, but it’s really hard.
Come home, please. – Ultimately, nothing ever comes of it and another six months pass. In total, a full year passes with no trace of Amber. – So February 13th, 2010 came around and we had decided to do a jogathon at the high school to raise money to continue searching for Amber. And the police came to the school that day and told me that they were no further along on the case than they were a year before.
Kind of sits in the whole heartbreak and let down. It takes a toll on you. I mean, I tried to go back to work and I couldn’t work. I couldn’t be in an enclosed office without getting anxiety. – After that last ditch effort, the search is called off. Things slowly start returning to normal in Escondido, but not for Carrie.
She’s still suspicious of Dave and refuses to return home. Her days are split between searching for her daughter and running Amber’s website from a friend’s house. Two weeks later, her roommate suddenly bursts into her room. – She said, “Carrie, there’s another girl missing. She’s 17, her name’s Chelsea.” My immediate thought is I wanted to get in my car and drive over there and help search for her.
– At this point, Carrie knows nothing about this case, but she can’t allow someone else to suffer as she did without at least attempting to lend a hand. So, that afternoon, she drives down to Rancho Bernardo to meet with Brent and Kelly, the parents of missing teenager Chelsea King. – I saw Carrie at the search center and I recognized who she was and I walked over to her and I gave her a big hug.
– And he said, “I don’t know you, but I wanna tell you that I love you. Thank you so much for helping with my daughter when you’re going through the same stuff with your daughter.” – Drawing on the contacts she’s made during the search for Amber, Carrie brings many new volunteers to the park grounds. And within two days, they discover a vital clue.
Chelsea’s underwear and socks are found near a running trail. – We showed the photographs to the Kings, and at that point, Mrs. King became extremely distraught. – When they shared with me the evidence, I still believed my daughter was able to be found. – While forensic experts analyze the evidence, the search effort to locate Chelsea intensifies.
– Breaking news: Authorities are searching a North County neighborhood this morning in hopes of finding a missing teenager. – Chelsea King is described as having strawberry blonde hair. – And this is brand new video tonight of the path that search crews are combing through at this hour in their desperate quest to find 17-year-old Chelsea King.
– Anybody out there, if you know anything, please just help us bring her home. – She’s a great kid. – She’s such a good girl. She needs to come home. – Over the next few days, Carrie gets to know Kelly and Brent, who eventually tell her a little more about Chelsea. – She was on the cross-country team, but then she was also training for a half marathon ’cause she wanted to accomplish that before she left for college.
Chelsea used running to settle herself. A kid in high school, especially a kid in high school that wants to achieve big things, has lots of pressure on them. – So, on the afternoon of February 25th, just over a year after Amber’s disappearance, Chelsea went for a run at Rancho Bernardo Community Park and never came back, leaving her car and all her belongings behind.
Kelly goes on to describe the agonizing hours that followed. – As the afternoon wore on, and as it grew colder outside, and as sunlight was fading, the urgency went from, “I’ve got to find her now and bring her home so that we can have dinner and I can make sure she’s okay.” It went more to, “I need to bring her home unhurt.
I need to bring her home alive.” And I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to do that. – For a while, the search yields no further discoveries. But Carrie refuses to give up hope. After all, if they can find Chelsea alive, it would also mean there’s a slim chance Amber’s still out there. – I don’t wanna bury Amber, you know? I’m like, I’d rather have her missing than have to bury her and stuff.
And it hit me really hard, it’s heartbreaking. I mean, there was times that we would, we were so sure we were gonna find her. We’d have, you know, waters and blankets and everything in the car ’cause we were gonna bring her home this day, you know? And we’d go out and search and search and search. And so, it was a difficult time.
– Carrie feels herself reliving Amber’s disappearance all over again. But this time, she isn’t alone. The Kings share her burden. – And she looked at me and I looked at her and I told her how strong she is to be here with us. – In that moment, I understood her pain. I understood her fear. It was like looking in a mirror.
– Eventually, the DNA tests from the underwear and socks come back to the detectives. The results are heart-wrenching. They’ve got two matches. The first is, of course, Chelsea, and the second is serial r****t and child m******r, John Albert Gardner. – It never crossed my mind that a known s****l predator living eight miles from our house did this.
– A task force quickly assembles to find and arrest Gardner. – At approximately 4:20 this afternoon, investigators with the fugitive task force arrested 30-year-old John Albert Gardner III. – The San Diego police waste no time and immediately start interrogating the suspect. – We were watching him on the interview camera on the room.
He was arrogant. We took a picture of Chelsea in there to play on his emotions. He didn’t react to Chelsea’s picture, he just looked at it and said, “I don’t know who she is. I had nothing to do with it.” And at some point, we got tired of the same questions and we decided to take a break. – But this is actually an interrogation strategy.
They leave the picture of Chelsea on the table and return to the observation room. After a few minutes, Gardner picks it up. Holding it in front of him, he suddenly starts talking to himself. – He looked at the picture and said, “You bitch! You ruined my life.” Now, we know we have the right person. It’s kind of strange, though, because during the interview, he brought up the name of Amber Dubois and said we were probably gonna try to frame him for that as well.
When he brought up Amber’s name, it makes you start thinking, is he involved in this too? – San Diego Police are quick to contact the North County Cold Case Unit. – Then, of course, my mind starts going, is it the serial killer? Or, you know, your mind just goes crazy after that. – The news hits like a bombshell.
Not only might Gardner be involved in Amber’s disappearance too, but Carrie and the Kings, by joining forces, indirectly led the police to him. But without a body, there’s still no case and no charges will hold. – The fifth night in the search for Chelsea King and investigators are undeterred. – 3,000 people showed up, five days in a row in the rain.
– With no other choice but to move forward with what little evidence they have, detectives organize a meeting with the DA to see if there’s any other way they can put Gardner on trial. – The detectives were presenting the case when everybody’s pager went off. And everybody’s heart sank. – The FBI has found a body on the shore of Lake Hodges.
Chelsea is dead. – I wanted to go kill him. I just wanted to kill him. – I didn’t know that I could hate someone. And there was someone on this planet I truly hated. – I really thought I was pretty liberal. I thought everyone could change and everyone deserved a second chance. But when I actually sat in the courtroom with John Gardner, my sister’s killer, my ideologies were flipped upside down.
I hated him. I hated everything about him. I couldn’t even look at him as another human. I just saw an abomination of evil and menace. At that moment, I finally believed that ultimate evil deserves ultimate punishment. And what’s more evil than child r*** and murder? – The entire King family wants the death penalty and so does the DA.
There’s only one problem. What about Amber? The police still have no lead, just a throwaway comment from Gardner. They’ve determined that Carrie’s boyfriend, Dave, can’t be the culprit since every element of his strange day has been accounted for since then, making Gardner their only suspect. If they execute him, they may never find out what really happened to Amber.
– The King family knew that they had gone for several days without knowing what had happened to her. And they could not conceive how Carrie and the family had dealt with this for over a year. So, what eventually occurred was that there was a deal facilitated by the King family. – In exchange for a confession regarding the murder of Amber Dubois and the location of her remains, the Kings, who had been perfect strangers to Carrie merely a week ago, agree to make an impossible choice.
– For me, it was a very hard decision personally to say I’m okay with him not having the death penalty on him. But emotionally, there’s no way I couldn’t give that to Amber’s family. They’ve been through so much and her and I share that bond. – And so, the Kings and the district attorney talked and they said, “Let’s take the death penalty off.
The Dubois family needs to know what happened to their daughter.” I was in tears. I mean, when I found out, I mean, how would any parent feel? You know, I mean, they gave me closure that I needed and I got the closure because they wanted our family to have the answers, which I’m very thankful for. – With the deal approved, Gardner fulfills his end of the bargain.
He leads the officers 23 miles north of Escondido. And soon enough, they recognize the area. They were right here seven months ago with Carrie and the tracking dog. Gardner points to a disturbed patch of ground on the side of a hill, and the forensic team starts digging. – They said they identified her from dental records.
I don’t recall. I mean, when you find out your daughter’s remains have been found, it’s a blur. I can’t tell you how I reacted ’cause I don’t remember. – But this isn’t over for Carrie. She needs to know what happened to her daughter, regardless of how disturbing it may be. Yet, Gardner refuses to talk and his lawyer blocks every attempt Carrie makes to meet with him.
Out of options, the desperate mother decides to wait outside the jail and corner Gardner’s mom after she visits her son. – Look, I just wanna visit your son. – Excuse me. – Don’t touch me, or I’ll hit you. – I’m not, stay away from her. – Don’t worry. – I’m not here to harass you. I wanna talk to your son and find out why he murdered my daughter.
– Gardner’s mom, who has been hiding her son in a county where he isn’t registered as an offender, never talks to Carrie again. But she definitely brought her plea to her son’s attention because the next morning, Carrie is invited to meet with him in jail. – I was on a mission to find out what happened to Amber, and I said to him, “Will you walk me through that day?” – Gardner answers all of her questions.
She learns that her young daughter, at only 14, fought back verbally and physically every step of the way. Knowing that, gives Carrie the strength to do the impossible. – It’s Amber making me forgive him. I have to forgive in order to live my life. I didn’t forgive what he did, but I forgave him because I have to be a mom to my other daughter.
And holding on to all that hate wasn’t gonna do me any good. – Although she’s now on a journey toward healing, life will never be the same for Carrie and her family. With Dave cleared of any wrongdoing, the couple reunites after the case closes. They marry in 2012 and have remained together ever since. But for Carrie, something else takes hold.
After living and breathing search and rescue for over a year, she realizes she has something to offer parents of missing children, something few others can. Inspired by Quincy, the Labrador who nearly found Amber six months into the search, Carrie adopts a puppy and names her Amber in her daughter’s honor. A few years later, Amber has become an accomplished rescue dog.
– Michelle Bearer’s 17-year-old daughter, Destiny, went missing on Saturday, causing great concern for her family. On Sunday, Carrie McGonigle and Team Amber Rescue stepped in to help search for the at-risk teens. After two hours of searching, the dogs led the team to Destiny, safe and sound in Kit Carson Park, bringing much relief to this worried mom.
– I gotta tell you, I’m just kind of welling up with emotion because they’re amazing people, sorry. – With Team Amber, Carrie and her dog have located many missing teenagers. And in 2011, found the remains of nursing student Michelle Lee, helping solve her murder. – Carrie McGonigle, whose own daughter was murdered in southern California, went out with her dog in her attempt to do something to honor her daughter and her daughter’s memory, goes out with her dog who’s not a cadaver dog and finds the remains,
something that the police have been unable to do despite months of searching. Carrie McGonigle, I wanna ask you, and I know you were with a whole team, but given that you’ve done something to give closure to another family, you’ve healed someone else’s pain, did you do this to honor your daughter? – She answers the same way every time someone asks her: having lived it herself, she can’t let anyone else suffer in the same way, not if she can help it.
– I do it so other parents know that they’re not in this by themselves. I mean, it’s a terrible group to be in. No one wants to be in this group. But when you are, you have a lot of love and support from other families. – And the same goes for the Kings. Their story doesn’t end with Gardner’s arrest. On the contrary, Brent and Kelly’s fight to protect children from s****l violence has just begun.
On the day of the conviction, they announced their campaign to reform California’s s** crime laws, appearing on television alongside Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher. – It’s clear in this case that the system failed. You had a known s** offender, whose psychological report said he will reoffend. He’s a danger to society, he’s callous.
He violated his parole seven times. And yet, he was still let out. – Even Gardner himself agrees that he should never have been allowed to return to society in the first place, and that no reform is possible for him. – I’m the most dangerous type of s****l predator. I’m like an animal, just like they said, I’m an animal.
I never want to be let out. I will kill. I am the type that needs to be locked up forever. – Chelsea’s Law passes in 2010 and around 50 offenders are charged under its provisions every year since then. – What Chelsea’s Law says is: if it’s first offense or fifth offense, we don’t care. You’re gonna get 25 to life if you put great bodily harm on a child in the commission of a s** crime.
The coward that did this is to our daughter had done it to another child, but she survived it. If Chelsea’s Law was on the books before, then this would not have happened to either Amber or Chelsea. – Because of Chelsea, California’s children will be safer. Because of Chelsea, this never has to happen again. – But California isn’t enough.
Since then, the Kings now joined by their son, Tyler, run Chelsea’s Light Foundation, a nonprofit raising millions in scholarships and campaigning for the nationwide adoption of Chelsea’s Law. – What we’re trying to do is write a law that will protect other families from ever having to have a Chelsea’s Law or an Erin’s law or a Megan’s Law or a Jessica’s law.
We don’t want any more of these laws. We want to get the people that do this off the street so that we don’t have to keep naming laws after our dead children. – And through it all, just as Carrie does, the Kings take solace in knowing that even though their daughter is gone, she’ll never be alone. – I find comfort in that we have these two little warriors.
They’re in heaven now. And they’re- they’re not alone because Amber and Chelsea are now together. – Are you going now? – Yeah, she’s going, bye. – Bye! Can you say bye? Give me kisses. Blow kisses.
