Amber Swartz: Family still searching for missing 7-year-old East Bay girl 37 years later

PINOLE, Calif. (KGO) -- A renewed push for answers is being made in an East Bay cold case. A Pinole girl who was last seen jumping rope in her front yard 37 years ago would have turned 45 years old on Tuesday, August 19, 2025.

"Here we are 37 years later still looking for Amber," her mom Kim said.

Kim gathered with community members on Tuesday night in Pinole at what is now Amber Swartz Park to acknowledge what would have been Amber's 45th birthday.

The park is right next to the home where Amber lived, and the front yard where she was last seen jumping rope in 1988 at the age of seven.

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Back in 2009, Pinole police announced that Curtis Dean Anderson, who was in prison and had a long criminal record, had previously confessed to her kidnapping and murder a month before he died. But no evidence was ever collected proving that was true.

"He's not the only one who has said he took my daughter and what he did to her and blah, blah, blah," Kim said. "There is about half a dozen of them who have done that through the years."

Now though, police and city officials are again shining a light on the case. Community members made shirts showing what Amber looked like when she went missing, and what she may look like if she is alive.

"They are looking to try and get her DNA," Kim said. "They have mine and they have her older brothers. I gave 'em a tooth, they're trying to find the tooth, years ago I gave them a tooth."

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"That's why we're pulling all the evidence that we can that we can possibly get some DNA from and not only get it from that, but be able to hopefully get our sample to compare against Amber and against any possible suspects," Justin Rogers of the Pinole Police Department said.

"I have complete confidence in our law enforcement officers, our detectives, to keep doing the work they're doing to investigate this case," Pinole Mayor Cameron Sasai said.

"It changed our community in this town and on this little street, and it's kind of sad to not have any answers and feel like it's been swept under the rug, so it's about time something is getting going again," Amber's childhood best friend Mariessa Kneip said.

"I would rather have her alive, but at this point however I can have her back, I just want her back," Kim said.