Amber Alyssa Tuccaro’s mother continues to fight for justice nearly 13 years after her daughter’s disappearance.
The murder victim’s family held a news conference Thursday at the Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta office in Edmonton, hoping to draw attention to the unsolved crime.
“Please come forward, if you know anything about Amber’s killer, what happened to Amber that day, please come forward. Please,” said Vivian “Tootsie” Tuccaro.
Tuccaro, 20, was the mother of a son, Jacob, of the Mikisew Cree First Nation.
She was last seen on August 18, 2010 in Nisku, Alta, after getting into the vehicle of an unidentified man.
She stayed in the area for a few days after arriving from Fort McMurray with her young son and a friend.
On September 1, 2012, horsemen found her remains in the same area.
In 2012, police released cellphone footage between Tuccaro and the man who took her.
RCMP investigators believe the man was not driving Tuccaro north into town, but was actually driving southeast on Leduc County country roads.
“You better not take me where I don’t want to go,” Tuccaro tells the man.
The man insists he head north to 50th Street, and as Tuccaro repeats what he said to the person on the other end of the line, the call ends abruptly.
Speaking at Thursday’s news conference, Grand Chief of Treaty 8 Arthur Noskey urged police to do more to expedite justice in the case and urged the driver to come forward.
“It’s been 13 years and I pray to God that they eventually get closer,” Noskey said. “Whoever that voice was, to be judged, to be able to say yes, it was me, that would be a start [to] the process of healing and concluding this tragedy.”
RCMP Deputy Commissioner Trevor Daroux responded to the criticism at the news conference, saying the organization was “determined to move this investigation forward.
“And I’d say that too: there’s a person out there who’s responsible for this and I can tell you we’re not stopping. We will do everything we can to bring this person to justice.”
Daroux reiterated the family’s appeal for the public for information, saying someone out there knew something that could end the case.
In March 2014, Amber’s mother, Vivian Tuccaro, filed a complaint against the Leduc RCMP, saying they downplayed her disappearance, including being removed from the missing persons list after a month, even though no one saw her.
“Amber’s case was mishandled from the start, from the moment I called,” she said.
In 2017, the Tuccaro family increased the reward for information to $5,000 and launched a “Justice for Amber” campaign on social media.
Early investigation was flawed, independent review found
An independent federal review released in 2018 found that the Leduc Department’s investigation into her disappearance was flawed.
Amber’s brother, Paul Tuccaro, testified for two hours about his lax nature in the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls during their hearings in Edmonton.
In July 2019, RCMP apologized to Tuccaro’s family for mishandling the early investigation into her disappearance. Her family rejected the apology.
