The Disappearance and Unsolved Murder of Amber Tuccaro

Amber Tuccaro was a 20 year old young woman who went missing from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 2010. Amber’s remains were found just days after her final phone call was released in hopes to identify the mystery man who she was last with. Though there have been many tips about the identity of the suspect, the RCMP still have yet to take this person into custody.

Amber Alyssa Tuccaro was born on January 3, 1990 and was part of Alberta’s Mikisew Cree First Nation. At the time of her disappearance she had a 14-month old son named Jacob, whom is now raised by Amber’s mother Vivian Tuccaro. Vivian remembers her only daughter Amber as a loving and caring mother and young woman.

On August 18, 2012, Amber, her son, and a female friend arrived at a motel in Nisku, Alberta, Canada. They planned to stay in a hotel just outside Edmonton for the night to save money. However, Amber’s excitement led her to try and hitchhike into the city that night on her own between 7:30-8 P.M. That was the last time Amber’s friend remembers seeing her. After Amber did not return the next day, her friend contacted her mother, who then contacted the RCMP. However, Vivian says that the RCMP did not take Amber’s disappearance seriously, passing it off and saying she just might be out partying. This was far from what really happened.

After a little over 2 years, the RCMP publicly released about 4 minutes out of 17 minutes of Amber Tuccaro’s last phone call. This audio was recorded because the phone call came from Amber’s brother who was incarcerated at the time; all phone calls going out are recorded. In the phone call, Amber can be heard having an altercation with the man she was riding with. She is heard confronting the man about where they were going and saying, “You better not be taking me anywhere I don’t want to go.” Amber continuously asks the man where the strange roads were taking them, and he gives what can be assumed to be false directions. After a while, the phone call becomes unintelligible and drops. This was the last Amber was heard from.

Just 4 days after the audio of Amber’s final call was released, on September 1, 2012, Amber’s remains were discovered. Her remains were found by horseback riders on a rural property near Leduc County. Because of the state of decomposition, investigators could not determine Amber’s cause of death. Her death was classified as a homicide based on the circumstances in which she disappeared.

After the release of Amber’s phone call audio, multiple people came forward claiming to recognize and know the man who’s voice is on the audio. Some have even gone as far as to publicly release the name of the possible suspect. The RCMP claim to have investigated this man and determined that he was not a person of interest.

Amber’s mother Vivian says that Amber’s case was never handled correctly by the RCMP to begin with. She eventually filed a complaint against the RCMP for this, and rightfully so! This is a very common and unfortunate factor when it comes to investigating crimes against Native women and children. When she was told that Amber might be out partying, Vivian knew that this was wrong because she knew that Amber wouldn’t just leave her baby Jacob behind for that. Amber just wanted to go explore, she wasn’t going to party. But because of this assumption, Amber was taken off the missing persons list. It took Vivian a month to get her daughter back on the missing persons list. On top of that, all of Amber’s belongings that the police had collected were destroyed after she was taken off the missing persons list, so they couldn’t even be used for evidence! Very poorly handled on the RCMP’s part.

Amber’s case is one of many unsolved cases of Indigenous women going missing and being murdered and investigators not taking their cases serious. These women deserve justice. Amber had so much she was looking forward to and it was snatched away by an evil person who is still out there and can do this to someone else. But because of the investigators’ lack of care, it’s as if Amber was still violated and disrespected after death. You can hear the fear in Amber’s voice in her final phone call and can only imagine those final moments. She didn’t deserve that and she didn’t deserve how her case was treated. I hope that Amber’s case and all the cases like Amber’s will be solved in the following years and the monster who did this will finally be brought to light.

This is the link to the audio of Amber’s last phone call. If anyone recognizes the man’s voice, do not hesitate to reach out to investigators. Victims deserve justice.