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This video explores a real-life crime story that shocked the nation and left investigators searching for answers. From the background of the case to the key events and unanswered questions, we break down the facts in a clear and respectful way.
True crime stories help us understand how investigations work and how small details can change everything. This documentary-style video is made for viewers interested in real events, criminal psychology, and justice systems in the USA and UK.
⚠️ This content is for educational and informational purposes only.
Watch till the end for the full story and analysis.
true crime, real crime stories, crime documentary, unsolved mysteries, criminal psychology, police investigation, real events, documentary
True crime stories help us understand how investigations work and how small details can change everything. This documentary-style video is made for viewers interested in real events, criminal psychology, and justice systems in the USA and UK.
⚠️ This content is for educational and informational purposes only.
Watch till the end for the full story and analysis.
true crime, real crime stories, crime documentary, unsolved mysteries, criminal psychology, police investigation, real events, documentary
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NewsTranscript
00:01On this channel, we often mention the massive leaps and bounds forensic science has taken
00:07in the last few decades. Tools like the MVAC system and genealogy testing have brought answers
00:13to hundreds of cold cases that nobody ever thought would be solved. But it's also worth
00:20noting that there are still thousands of cases waiting to see justice. Join us for today's
00:27episode as we examine three chilling cases that are still unsolved in 2025.
00:57Amber Hagerman. Nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was last seen riding her bike around Arlington, Texas
01:07on January 13th, 1996. She had spent the day with her younger brother Ricky riding around on their
01:15bikes, having left their grandmother's house at around 1.30pm that afternoon. The sibling's
01:21grandmother had warned them to stay close, and they always did. However, after riding around
01:26the car park of an abandoned Winn-Dixie grocery store, Ricky decided to go home without his
01:32older sister because she wanted to stay out longer. When Ricky returned with his grandfather
01:37a short time later, there was no sign of Amber, only her pink bicycle, lone and abandoned.
01:44Arlington police would later tell the media outlets that a witness had seen the little
01:48girl being taken. Quote,
01:50He described the suspect carrying Amber in that same position as she kicked and screamed
01:56to his truck, putting her inside the driver's side door. The witness was an elderly man named
02:01Jimmy Keville. He saw the black pickup truck pull up and noted that it had been parked at a nearby
02:07laundromat before Amber was taken. The perpetrator was described as being white or Hispanic in his
02:13twenties or thirties and under six feet tall with dark hair. Police believe that he was a local to
02:19the area. After witnessing the terrifying event, Jimmy called the police. In the following days,
02:26law enforcement searched for the little girl. The pickup truck seen at the time of her abduction
02:31had headed towards the center of Arlington, but there was no sign of her. Four days later,
02:37on January 17th, her body was finally found. A man walking his dog late that night found her lying
02:44in a creek behind an apartment complex. Amber's clothes were missing and severe laceration wounds
02:51were found on her neck. She was just five miles from where she was last seen and her estimated date
02:57of death was January 15th. One police detective recalled the tremendous amount of violence used in the
03:04murder. Quote, Amber was totally nude except for a sock on her left foot. We rolled her over and I
03:12caught her head in my hands. Several lacerations to the throat. A knife or screwdriver had been used to
03:19rip her throat out. While her family grieved, one local mother had an idea. She suggested to a radio
03:26station that a national alert system for missing children be created, which subsequently led to the
03:32creation of the Amber Alerts, with Amber being short for America's Missing Broadcast Emergency Response.
03:40The alert system was launched in 1996 and today works by broadcasting the missing child's information
03:46via the likes of digital billboards, transportation signs, text messages, and Facebook alerts.
03:53It has contributed to the recovery of 1,221 children, according to the official Amber Alert website.
04:02The website also states that such alerts serve as a deterrent for child predators and have led to the
04:07release of some children after the perpetrator heard the Amber Alert. Though it has been nearly three decades
04:14since Amber went missing, investigators have stated that the case is still active.
04:19Arlington Police Sergeant Grant Gilden told People,
04:23We continue to have leads and there are still several leads that we continue to investigate
04:28extensively as possible suspects. A lot of people will refer to Amber's case as what's commonly referred
04:35to a cold case, but for the Arlington Police Department, it has never been listed as a cold case
04:41because we've never gone 180 days without having some lead come in.
04:46Amber's case has received over 7,000 tips and in 2021, investigators reported that they had
04:53DNA evidence that may belong to Amber's killer, but despite this, her killer remains at large.
05:01Police believe that there are witnesses who didn't come forward at the time,
05:04but may have relevant information. If you have any information about Amber's case,
05:09you can call the tip line, which was established shortly after she went missing, at 817-575-8823.
05:18Alternatively, you can call Crime Stoppers of Tarrant County anonymously at 817-469-8477.
05:27Vicki Lee Lamberton grew up in Harper, Kansas, but by all accounts seemed to harbor feelings of shame
05:40around her upbringing and often told people she was raised in Colorado instead. During her late teens,
05:46while attending Union College in Nebraska, Vicki meant Lowell Lamberton, who was her professor.
05:52The pair quickly struck up a romantic relationship, moving to Worcester in 1968 and marrying in 1969.
06:00At the time of her disappearance in 1974, Vicki, now 24, was on her way to obtaining her master's degree
06:07in psychology. She was studying at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, and with the
06:12help of her professor, Dr. Roger Barker, had visited New York City to apply for her psychology doctorate
06:19at Columbia University. But not all was thriving in Vicki's life. She had separated from her husband
06:26in January, and Lowell suspected that she was, in fact, having a relationship with her married
06:31professor. In early February, she moved out of the home she was sharing with one of her brothers,
06:37Robert, and moved her belongings into Robert Barker's garage. Lowell and Robert later saw her
06:42shopping with her professor, cementing the idea further that the pair were romantically involved.
06:48But despite this, sometime in February, Vicki reached out to her estranged husband.
06:53Over the phone, they discussed the idea of rekindling their relationship. Vicki suggested
06:59that they might meet up when she returned from a weekend trip to Maine she was taking with one
07:03of her friends, and said she would call him upon her return. But Lowell never heard from her again.
07:10Alarm bells began to ring when Vicki didn't get in touch after that weekend. When Lowell contacted
07:15Vicki's friends, he discovered that no such trip had been planned. The friend stated, in fact,
07:21that she hadn't spoken to Vicki recently. Upon hearing this, Lowell decided to visit Roger Barker
07:27at Assumption College to ask if he knew where Vicki had gone. However, Barker wasn't present.
07:33Staff at the university informed Lowell that he had spent the weekend on a skiing trip in Vail,
07:38Colorado, and that he'd been hospitalized with pneumonia, which delayed his return home.
07:43His wife had reportedly returned to Massachusetts without him.
07:47Lowell pressed on anyway, and visited Barker in March, about one month after Vicki was last
07:53heard from. Barker agreed that he'd stored her belongings for her, but said that he didn't
07:57know Vicki particularly well, and was unaware of her whereabouts. Furthermore, he implied that
08:03the 24-year-old was romantically entangled with someone else, although he did not seem to know
08:08who, or at least he didn't share much information. Details into the investigation into Vicki's
08:14disappearance are non-existent because there was never an original investigation. The 24-year-old
08:20was not reported missing until 36 years later in 2010, with many family members stating their
08:27belief that she'd met someone new and had left to start afresh. Lowell noted that Vicki had mentioned
08:33the idea of leaving her old life behind sometime before she went missing, specifically stating
08:38that she wanted to go someplace where nobody knows who I am. She also discussed changing her skin color.
08:44Notably, photographs of Vicki online show her looking drastically different, from having cropped
08:49beach blonde hair, to a reddish mullet style haircut, to a very dark bob, perhaps suggesting the idea that
08:56she sought to change her looks and escape her old life. Her date of disappearance is listed as
09:02February 1st, though her husband heard from her at some point after this in February, and although
09:07her brothers decided to retrieve her belongings from Barker's garage about a year after she went
09:12missing, nothing useful was ever found. Barker continued to deny knowing anything about her
09:17disappearance during this time. Sometime after her disappearance, the man who lived on Vicki's family's
09:24old farmstead received a peculiar call, telling him that the 24-year-old had gone to Europe.
09:29The caller also asked for Lowell's number. By the time of the phone call, Vicki's family had moved
09:35to Texas. Interpol reported that there was no record of her having been to Europe. One of her
09:41brothers, Brent, wondered, where did the person get the phone number? He believes that Vicki herself
09:47may have been behind the phone call. In 1980, six years after she went missing, one of Vicki's brothers
09:54tracked down one of her friends. The friend stated that she'd last heard from Vicki on the night she'd
09:59called Lowell. She explained that she was going to Colorado with Roger Barker for the weekend and
10:04mentioned the possibility of the pair getting married, though the Charlie Project notes that
10:08Barker already had a wife. Vicki stated that she'd called her friend when she returned, but she never
10:14heard from the 24-year-old again. Notably, Vicki's driver's license has never been renewed, and her
10:20social security number has never been used since she went missing. As of 2012, Lowell maintained his
10:26belief that his wife had left to start anew and that she was still alive. He moved to Oregon sometime
10:32after Vicki went missing and remarried in 1991, almost 20 years later. He died in 2021, never knowing what
10:41became of his first wife. Vicki's brother Robert worked tirelessly to chase down Leeds and try to find
10:47her, but he died in 2009 without finding the truth. Vicki was, at one point, suspected of being the lady of the
10:55June's, who has now been identified as Ruth Marie Terry. She has been ruled out as a match for the
11:01Virginia Beach Jane Doe, a woman whose dismembered remains were found in Virginia Beach in 1976.
11:08Vicki Lamberton is still missing. She was 24 when she vanished from Worcester, Massachusetts in February
11:15of 1974. She is described as a white woman with light brown hair and brown eyes. She is five foot three
11:22inches tall and weighed about 110 pounds at the time of her disappearance. If she is still alive,
11:28she will be 75 years old. She may use her maiden name, Lockwood. If you have any information about
11:35her disappearance, you can contact the Worcester Police Department at 508-799-8651.
11:43Richard Colvin Cox. 21-year-old Richard Colvin Cox was last seen on January 14th, 1950. Born in 1928 in
11:59Mansfield, Ohio, Richard volunteered for the U.S. Army after leaving high school. He was successfully
12:05recruited and underwent his basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky before being assigned to the U.S.
12:11Constabulary, where he spent time in Germany and reached the rank of Sergeant. In 1948, he attended
12:18the U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School in West Point, New York, and was found to be an
12:24academically gifted student, ranking 100th out of 550. On the surface, it seemed that Richard was doing
12:31well in life. He was performing well in school, voted his cadet company's top cadet, and even became
12:37engaged to his girlfriend, Betty Timmons. His only known complaint was that he didn't particularly
12:43enjoy life at prep school, something he discussed in letters to his family. On the day of his
12:49disappearance, January 14th, 1950, Richard attended a basketball game, which pitted Rutgers University's
12:57Scarlet Knights against the Army's Black Knights. Shortly afterwards, he was seen talking to a man
13:03who was described by witnesses as looking dark-haired and rough-looking. Following this, Richard returned
13:10to his room and told his roommate that he was signing out because he was dining with a
13:14visitor, with the roommate recalling that the 21-year-old seemed not apprehensive, just sort
13:20of disgusted. He left with the aforementioned visitor and was never seen again. The man Richard
13:26had been talking to was initially thought to be someone named George. George first entered the case
13:32on Saturday, January 7th, about one week before the disappearance. At 5.45 that afternoon, Peter
13:39Haynes, Richard's classmate, who was acting as charge of quarters in cadet company B2, Richard's
13:44company, received a phone call from someone looking to speak with the 21-year-old. The caller was
13:50described as having a tone that was rough and patronizing, almost insulting. When they were told
13:56by Peter that Richard wasn't in his room, the caller stated, well, look, when he comes in, tell him
14:01to come down here to the hotel. Just tell him George called. He'll know who I am. We knew each
14:07other in Germany. I'm just up here for a little while and tell him I'd like to get him a bite to
14:12eat. Peter would later state that he wasn't 100% sure the name he'd been given was George, because
14:18it answered so many phone calls that day while on duty, and this specific call had not seemed
14:23particularly important at the time. Forty-five minutes later, a man entered Great Hall, which was
14:29an area of the school where cadets could meet guests. The on-duty cadet telephoned Richard to let him
14:35know he had a visitor. The man was described as being just under six feet tall and weighing around 185
14:42pounds. He had fair hair and a light complexion and wore a belted trench coat and no hat. Richard soon
14:49arrived at the hall and shook hands with the man. The on-duty cadet who observed the interaction
14:54stated that Richard seemed pleased to see the fair-haired stranger. Richard subsequently signed
15:00out in order to take his visitor to dinner at the Thayer Hotel, located on campus grounds. However,
15:07he later told his roommates that the pair didn't go out to eat. Instead, they drank whiskey while sitting
15:12in the man's car. He returned late that evening, where he took a shower and had a nap. A short time
15:18later, he altered the time he'd written in the departure book, changing 1923 to 1823, to make it
15:26appear as if he'd attended the 6.30pm cadet super formation, even though in reality, he had skipped
15:32it. Notably, this fabrication wasn't noted until 1952, when the book was forensically examined. Had this
15:40deception been discovered by his superiors, Richard would have been charged with violating the cadet
15:45honor code. Bizarrely, later that night, at 10.30pm, when lights out was announced, Richard's roommates
15:52were startled when he woke up, ran out into the hallway, and shouted what sounded like Alice. When
15:58asked who Alice was, Richard didn't respond. Instead, he went back to bed and promptly fell asleep. His
16:05roommates wondered if Alice was the name of a sweetheart he had before meeting Betty, but there was never any
16:11evidence to support this idea. The following day, Richard told his roommates about the man who'd
16:16visited him, whom he never referred to by name. He stated that he was a former US Army Ranger who'd
16:23served in his unit in Germany. The man had a tendency to gloat about killing German troops during World
16:29War II, and often gleefully boasted about how he'd cut off their genitalia afterwards. The man also claimed
16:36to have impregnated a German girl, whom he then hanged to prevent her from having the baby.
16:41Richard met up with this man a little bit later, returning to his room at 4.30pm. He reportedly told
16:47his roommates that he hoped he wouldn't have to see the fellow again. This led them to understand that
16:52Richard didn't particularly like the man, although it's unclear why they continued to meet. Notably,
16:58the description given of this man is drastically different from the one seen talking to Richard at the
17:03basketball game. The George who'd visited him on campus was tall and blonde, compared to the dark
17:10haired and rough looking description given by witnesses of the encounter at the basketball game.
17:16Richard's absence was noted at 11 o'clock on the night of January 14th, and again at 2.30am. But
17:23because cadets were occasionally known to stay out late, even past curfew, no action was taken. It wasn't
17:29until the following morning that his disappearance was taken seriously. His roommates raised the matter
17:34with their superior, and this time CID and the New York State Police were both notified.
17:41The FBI later became involved with the case. A public appeal for information in the disappearance
17:46was made just three days after Richard vanished. A ground and air search of campus grounds was carried
17:52out, and numerous bodies of water, including a local pond, the Hudson River, and Lusk Reservoir,
17:58were extensively searched, but no sign of the missing cadet was found. The search for Richard lasted two
18:04months, but investigators had no evidence to show for their efforts. Using what they'd learned from
18:10his roommates, authorities attempted to track down George, but were unable to do so, as those who
18:16matched the description were found to have watertight alibis. Richard's time in Germany was closely
18:22examined, but produced no new leads, and the theory that he left voluntarily was abandoned because he left the
18:29equivalent of over $1,100 in today's money, as well as his civilian clothes and other possessions.
18:36One psychologist on the campus suggested that Richard was gay or bisexual in an attempt to explain why two
18:42single men met up so regularly. The FBI then decided to visit gay bars in New York City, looking for men
18:49who matched to the description of George and showing Richard's photograph to regulars and staff.
18:55However, nobody recognized his image or the description of George. Over the next few years,
19:01there were several unconfirmed sightings of Richard. One such sighting didn't emerge until 2021,
19:08over 70 years after the disappearance. A high school classmate of his named Ursula saw him just days
19:14after he went missing. She was walking on 4th Street in Mansfield, Ohio, when she saw him walking
19:20along the railroad tracks. She stated that she recognized him immediately because of his distinctive
19:25gait. The pair waved at one another, with Ursula assuming that he'd just gone off the train at Union
19:31Station nearby, and she waited for the passing train between them to move so she could approach him.
19:36However, by the time the train had moved on, Richard was gone. She stated that she never reported the
19:42sighting because she didn't want to jeopardize his life or career, believing that he'd possibly gone
19:46to work for an intelligence agency. She added that she didn't want this sighting to be made public
19:51until her death, speculating that at such a time, it would be safe for the sighting to be revealed,
19:57and would avoid upsetting Richard's life. In respect of her wishes, the writer who made the sighting
20:03public did not do so until Ursula passed away in 2020. Another sighting occurred just four years
20:09after Richard went missing. Ernest Shotwell, who'd attended the military prep school at the time,
20:15told the FBI that he'd bumped into the missing cadet in 1954 at a Greyhound bus station in Washington,
20:22D.C. He simply assumed by this point that Richard was no longer a missing person.
20:27Richard reportedly told Ernest that he'd left the school and was moving to Germany.
20:31Ernest surmised that he was living nearby because he was dressed in light clothing despite the cold
20:36weather. Furthermore, he recalled that Richard seemed uncomfortable to see him and was very
20:41vague about his life and his plans. He apparently departed after just five minutes. By the late
20:471950s, the FBI deemed the investigation closed. They'd followed all the leads and tips, and it had led
20:54nowhere. Richard's family had him declared dead in 1957. Still, despite this, the agency occasionally
21:02continued to follow up on sightings and potential leads. In 1960, an FBI informant believed he'd seen
21:09Richard and spoken with him at a bar in Melbourne, Florida. Acquaintances called him Richard while he
21:15introduced himself as R.C. Mansfield. He apparently revealed information that lined up with Richard's
21:21life and even stated that Mansfield was not his real surname, but Cox was. Some of the things he told
21:28the informant suggested that he was working for an American intelligence agency, but although the FBI
21:33searched for such a man, they were never able to find him. Many of the theories pertaining to Richard's
21:39disappearance conclude that he joined an intelligence agency. This was the conclusion of a reporter named
21:45Jim Underwood, who wrote about the case in 1982. He spoke with a high school classmate of Richard's,
21:51who later became a prosecutor and had connections with the FBI. The old classmate told Underwood that
21:57he'd learned from one agent that they had come close to arresting Richard, but had been ordered
22:01not to pick him up, leaving them to speculate that he was undercover or working in intelligence.
22:07The classmate also stated that for years, he had requested to see the case files for himself,
22:12but excuses were always made, and by the time he was finally able to access them, the majority of the
22:18reports were redacted. A retired high school teacher named Marshall Jacobs also spent time looking
22:24into the disappearance in the 1980s. He learned that Richard had written to a woman he'd met in
22:29Germany, asking about Soviet activities in the country, though the letter was returned as
22:34undeliverable. Furthermore, an American man named John H. Noble, who was captured and imprisoned by the
22:41Soviets between 1945 and 1955, claimed that a prisoner by the name of Cox was being held in Siberia.
22:48Meanwhile, the FBI informant, who had bumped into R.C. Mansfield in Florida, was also deemed to have
22:55been credible, given the information they supplied about Richard's life. Still, whatever happened to
23:01Richard is unknown over seven decades later. Likewise, George has never been identified. The closest
23:08investigators came to the identification was when they discovered that a man named Robert Frisbee was
23:14stationed at Fort Knox at the same time as Richard. He matched the description of George and was known to
23:20have sold fake IDs in New York City in the 1950s. Investigators speculated that Richard had attempted to
23:27gain one in order to disappear voluntarily. Frisbee was arrested for murder in 1985 and stated that he didn't
23:34know Richard and had never done business with him. Marshall Jacobs, meanwhile, concluded that a man named David
23:40Westervelt, who served with Richard in Germany, was George. Westervelt fit the physical description and was
23:47interviewed several times about the disappearance by police at the time. Notably, Jacobs believed that
23:53Westervelt was a recruiter for the CIA. He believed that Richard voiced his unhappiness at the military
23:59school and that he'd been offered a way out, which involved him leaving behind everything and everyone he knew
24:05and changing his name. This way out was likely to work with the CIA or another intelligence agency.
24:12In the mid-1990s, Jacobs further learned from a retired CIA official that Richard was allegedly part
24:18of a team in Europe who worked to smuggle high-priority officials out of the Soviet Union.
24:24He later retired to Idaho, but was then diagnosed with a terminal illness. At the time of the account,
24:30he was reportedly at the National Institutes of Health Facility in Bethesda, Maryland.
24:36According to a report by the Times Union, however, even Jacobs himself admitted that there are holes
24:41in the story and contradictory information floating around. Writers and online sleuths have also noted the
24:47strangeness of recruiting a young man who was ranked only 100th out of 550 students, as opposed to picking
24:54someone from the top 10. Odder still is having him suddenly disappear one day, drawing attention to
25:00him and leading to his photograph to be printed in newspapers all across the country. Adding to the
25:06mystery is that many of the CID and FBI files that Jacobs obtained contain redacted information that's
25:13impossible to figure out in the same way that Richard's classmate had mentioned, and over 160 pages
25:19are missing from the files. Jacobs later contacted Harry Mayhafer, a graduate of the school Richard
25:26attended, who'd become a history writer later in life. The pair worked on a book about the
25:31disappearance together, in which Harry noted that even Jacobs has accepted the fact that neither he
25:36nor anyone else would ever know the full story. And there you have the facts. Please leave a comment
25:43down below with your own theories and speculations. And remember to like this video and subscribe to
25:49support the channel. Thank you for watching. Stay alert, stay safe, and I'll see you next time.
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