Amber Hagerman - Arlington, TX
N 32° 44.062 W 097° 05.119
14S E 679409 N 3623460
A 50' mural dedicated to Amber Hagerman decorates the retaining wall behind La Michoacana meat market at 1610 E Abram St, Arlington, TX. She was abducted at this location in 1996, and found murdered days later.
Waymark Code: WM12MAM
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 06/14/2020
Views: 1
The
AMBER Alerts that we receive at all hours of the day are named for this beautiful girl. The system is the end result of countless efforts to protect children from predators, and initially, it was intended only for local use. The AMBER Alert system is now used worldwide to provide notifications for missing children, and the widespread use of cell phones makes it easy for all of us to keep an eye out.
Amber Hagerman and her brother, Ricky, were riding their bicycles here in January of 1996 when she was abducted. Ricky returned home to notify the family, and the search began, including the police, the FBI, and even Marc Klaas, who became a child advocate after losing his own daughter, Polly, to a predator. Unfortunately, Amber's body was found four days later in a creek less than five miles from this site. As of this posting, her murder remains unsolved.
Gallery photos of the mural show the site before and after the restoration of the "Arlington's Little Angel" sculpture. It was originally created in 2013, but airbrush artist, Patch, and his associate, Michelle Feigenbaum, returned in 2019 to repaint it and add two images of Amber.
The retaining wall is about three feet high closest to the building, but it tapers off to being just a few inches high at the opposite end. The mural's background is mostly pink and purple, although large sunflowers with a stars-cosmos vibe are at both ends and in one middle section. "Amber Hagerman" is in blue script between the sunflowers and one image of a smiling Amber, and on her other side is a scene with flowers and Monarch butterflies. A little farther down is the second image of Amber, blowing the seeds off a dandelion -- a reworking of a photo of her blowing out her birthday candles -- with "Arlington's Lil Angel" in blue script, complemented by pink roses. There's a purple aura around her head, which continues to the adjacent block, where the seeds have become Monarch butterflies. Amber loved flowers, butterflies, and bears, and Patch incorporated them into this section, which has a brown teddy bear on a swing and a white roller skate. The skate has purple wheels and a purple pom-pom on it, and the yellow Monarch was inspired by a real butterfly that was flying around while the mural was being reworked. There are more sunflowers as the mural narrows, with a pink patch (and an orange square) identifying putative sponsors, "Entertainmentcrazy.com", "Players Dallas", and "Sellers Drywall". There are some other small but interesting details in the mural, including butterflies, roses, and a ladybug.
If anything, visitors are encouraged to bring a broom to sweep up all the trash that accumulates in front of the mural and on the ground around the memorial. This young lady's memory deserves better.