A search for a teenager who’s been missing for 6 days now, but 14-year-old Amber Dubois’ family is not stopping. The FBI has stepped in and the family is now working with a private investigator. Here’s tonight, there’s been a possible break in the case of 14-year-old Amber Dubois who’s been missing for more than 2 months.
Dave Cave lived in Escondido with his fiance, Carrie, and her 14-year-old daughter, Amber Dubois. Amber was at that difficult age people often describe as a transition period between childhood and adulthood. From Dave’s point of view, she had become rebellious. She pushed back against rules, tested every boundary, and often ended up arguing with him.
But the truth was, Dave had never really been an authority figure in her life. To Amber, he was still a stranger who had stepped into the private world she shared with her mother and was now trying to bring in his own rules. Around her friends though, Amber seemed like a completely ordinary high school girl. She loved spending time with her girlfriends and she enjoyed reading.
She was not a spoiled or careless teenager. She did well in school, took her classes seriously, and had not even started wearing makeup yet. Deep down, her parents’ divorce had been painful for her and when another man appeared in her mother’s life, Amber understood that her whole world was changing whether she was ready for it or not.
Dave, who had taken on the role of stepfather, never tried to push too far when it came to raising her. He only asked Amber to help her mother with small things around the house and to at least listen to his opinion from time to time. But even those simple requests were enough to make Amber angry. Eventually, the tension between them reached a point where Amber simply began ignoring him.
Their quiet standoff lasted for more than a month. Every time Dave opened his mouth, Amber would make a point of covering her ears and walking out of the room. Then one day in February, something changed. Amber suddenly sat down beside Dave and suggested they talk. That evening, the stepfather and stepdaughter finally said out loud everything they had been keeping inside.
They shared their frustrations, their hurt feelings, and all the resentment that had been building between them. By the end of that conversation, they decided to leave the past behind and try to begin again. As a gesture of peace, Dave even invited Amber to walk around the mall with him.
He and his stepdaughter bought some clothes, a few books, and a couple of small cute trinkets. When they came back home, they were both pleased and in a good mood. For the first time in a long while, Dave and Amber felt like they were becoming a real family. Near the end of the school quarter, Amber was assigned a class project connected to Future Farmers of America.
Escondido sat in a valley, almost hidden from the outside world by the hills surrounding it. The city had originally developed as an agricultural community. It was common for local residents to keep farm animals, and children were taught from a young age how to care for livestock. Amber had always dreamed of having a pet of her own.
As part of the school course, students were given a chance to raise lambs. All they had to do was bring a check to school, and then each child could choose the animal they liked and take it home. Their grades depended on how responsibly they cared for their animals. They had to brush them, feed them, and watch their health closely.
But for Amber, the most exciting part was that the lamb would stay with her permanently. When Amber heard the news, she hurried home full of excitement. She told Carrie and Dave all about the school project and looked at them with pleading eyes. They did not need much convincing. Dave wanted to strengthen the fragile bond that had only recently started forming between him and his stepdaughter.
So, he agreed without much hesitation to pay for the lamb. He told Amber he would write the check so she could finally have the pet she had dreamed of. Amber smiled with genuine happiness and even hugged her stepfather. In that moment, it was clear that she truly appreciated his effort and care. Help this channel grow.
Like the video, leave a comment, and subscribe for more cases. It really helps us a lot. Thank you. Early in the morning on February 13, Amber came to Dave for the money. Her stepfather wrote the check for her and then left for the gym. But when he returned home, Amber was no longer there. Usually after classes ended, Amber came straight back home.
The school was only a short distance away, so she did not need to ride the school bus. But that day, for some reason, Amber was late. At first, Carrie and Dave did not panic. Maybe she had stayed behind to talk with her friends. Maybe she was spending time with her lamb and simply lost track of the time. Later, Dave decided to call the school anyway, just to ask whether Amber’s classes had ended.
That was when he heard the news that stunned him. Amber had never shown up to class at all. Of course, Amber was a strong-willed teenager and she could be difficult at home, but she was not the kind of girl who would skip school for no reason. She had always been responsible about her studies and especially on that day, when the students were supposed to bring in the money for their lambs.
Her absence made no sense. Her parents immediately understood that something was wrong and rushed to the police. Thankfully, the officers did not dismiss their concerns. They accepted the report right away and launched a large-scale search. From the very beginning, this was treated as more than just a teenager staying out too late.
Police searched the neighborhood, spoke with Amber’s school friends, and requested her phone records from the mobile provider. Every small detail mattered now. Who had seen Amber last? Which way had she walked? Had anyone noticed a car, a stranger, or anything that felt out of place that morning? Carrie and Dave could not just sit at home and wait.
The helplessness was unbearable. They drove the route Amber would have taken to school again and again, looking towards sidewalks, side streets, parking lots, and empty spaces where she might have passed. They put up flyers around the city and knocked on doors throughout the area, hoping someone had seen her, even for just a few seconds.
Every answer gave them a little hope, and every no pulled them deeper into fear. Over the next several days, more than 400 volunteers joined the search. On foot, they covered an area 500 square kilometers, hoping to find even the smallest clue that could lead them to Amber. People moved through fields, roadsides, trails, and neighborhoods, calling her name and scanning the ground for anything that might belong to her.
A backpack, a piece of clothing, a phone, anything. But the more ground they covered without finding her, the heavier the silence became. Then, investigators discovered something that immediately raised concern. Amber had a flip phone. During the entire time people were looking for her, that phone had remained turned off.
But then at one point, it suddenly powered on for just a few seconds. Someone checked the voicemail, and almost immediately after that, the phone was switched off again. So, the question became obvious: Who had turned it on? Was it Amber herself, hiding somewhere and keeping the phone off on purpose so she would not be traced? Or had someone taken her and was now checking her messages to see who was trying to reach her? That tiny burst of activity from the phone raised more questions than answers.
It proved the phone had not simply been lost and forgotten. Someone had access to it. Someone had handled it. But whether that person was Amber or someone else, police could not yet say. Police did not know what to think. But one thing was already clear. Amber had not simply gone out for a walk and lost track of time.
Either she had run away, or something far more serious had happened. And with every hour that passed, the second possibility became harder for her family to ignore. Investigators decided to start with the darkest possibility. Could someone have hurt Amber? And if so, why? What possible motive could there be? She was a 14-year-old girl on her way to school.
She was carrying a check for a lamb, excited about a class project, and looking forward to something that should have been innocent and ordinary. That made the situation even harder to understand. That was when police attention slowly shifted toward Amber’s stepfather, Dave. According to people around him, his behavior that day had been unusual.
That morning, Dave had left the house early to go to the gym. On its own, that was not strange. He often worked out before heading to work. But that day, after leaving the gym, he did not go to the office. Instead, Dave drove back home. He told police he had taken the day off on purpose so he could work on tax documents.
But there was a problem with that explanation. Before that day, Dave had never brought that kind of paperwork home. The first time he did, it happened to be the same day his stepdaughter vanished. And to investigators, that felt strange. There was also another detail that stood out. Sometime during the day, Dave went to visit Kerry, Amber’s mother, at her workplace.
He brought her flowers and chocolate-covered strawberries, telling her he wanted to surprise her for Valentine’s Day. But it was not Valentine’s Day yet. It was February 13. Dave was not the kind of man who cared much about holidays. In fact, he usually acted like Valentine’s Day did not exist at all. So when he suddenly showed up with flowers, sweets, and a romantic gesture, Kerry was more than surprised.
She was shocked. It was not just the gifts that confused her. It was the timing, the mood, and the fact that it felt so unlike him. The whole thing did not fit the man she knew. What happened next seemed even more unusual. Dave sat down at Kerry’s desk and began talking about random things, one topic after another.
Kerry hinted several times that she needed to get back to work, but Dave acted as if he did not understand. It took about 45 minutes before she finally managed to get him to leave. Later, that visit would be replayed in everyone’s mind again and again because it had happened during the very hours when Amber was missing. After that, investigators had more questions.
Why had Dave suddenly become so romantic and attentive? Was he trying to build an alibi? Was he watching Carrie’s reaction? Or could he have had something to do with the disappearance of his 14-year-old stepdaughter? That same day, teachers at Amber’s school noticed that she had not come to class.
They assumed she might be sick, so they called the house to check on her. But no one answered. By that time, Dave had already returned from the gym. According to him, he had been home alone. So if he was really inside the house, why did no one pick up the phone when the school called? It was one of those details that might have meant nothing on any other day, but on that day, with Amber missing, it suddenly felt important.
When police learned about these details, they asked Dave directly where he had been that day and why he had not answered the phone if he was home. Dave could only shrug. He said he had no explanation and simply had not heard the call. The story was confusing and it created a lot of suspicion, but suspicion was not evidence.
Police still did not have a single solid piece of proof connecting Dave to Amber’s disappearance. Without that, they could not arrest him. They could question him, watch him, and compare his statements to the timeline, but they could not move beyond suspicion. But the people around Dave began to look at him differently.
Even Carrie, Amber’s own mother, started to question whether he was telling the truth. Carrie could no longer sleep in the same bed with a man who was under suspicion, and this was not a small accusation. It was the possible disappearance of her only daughter. Every time she looked at Dave, the same question returned to her mind.
What if he knew more than he was saying? Dave strongly denied having anything to do with what happened to Amber, but Carey could not silence the doubts in her mind. Six weeks after Amber disappeared, Carey ended the relationship and moved out of Dave’s home. She did not believe Dave had planned anything ahead of time, but she could not completely dismiss the thought that maybe Amber, with her teenage defiance, had somehow pushed him too far.
And once that kind of thought enters a person’s mind, living under the same roof becomes impossible. Dave took a lie detector test eight different times. Each time, the results suggested he was telling the truth. Still, over the following months, every move he made was watched closely by the public. For many people, the suspicion had already taken root, and it was not easy to pull it out.
The real problem was that nobody knew what had happened to 14-year-old Amber Dubois. There were theories. There were suspicions. There were painful questions, but there were still no answers. No one knew the truth. If Dave was guilty, then it meant he had managed to deceive everyone around him and walk away without consequences.
But if he was innocent, then his entire life had been torn apart because of one strange day and one phone call that no one answered. Six months after Amber disappeared, in August of 2009, her family hired a canine search team to try to track her by scent. The dogs led the handlers toward a highway in a remote area near an Indian village.
But after that, the trail suddenly went cold. The dogs moved along the road, sniffing through the air, but Amber herself was nowhere to be found. Carey still refused to give up hope that her daughter was alive. Almost a full year passed, and the disappearance of Amber Dubois remained unsolved. Then another teenage girl vanished.
On February 25th, 2010, police were told that 17-year-old Chelsea King had gone out for a run and never came back. Her car was later found near a local hiking trail in a public park in San Diego, California. Chelsea had last been seen in the area near the lake. That lake was only about 16 km from Amber’s home.
By car, it was just a short drive away. Just like Amber, Chelsea King was a high school student. She was an ordinary girl with a bright future ahead of her. She played in the Youth Symphony Orchestra, earned straight A’s, worked hard in school, and planned to attend college. But life had something far darker waiting for her.
Amber Dubois’ family joined the search for Chelsea, along with hundreds of volunteers. They printed flyers and put them up around the city. Just like Carrie had done a year earlier while searching for her own daughter. Until the very end, Carrie wanted to believe that Amber would still come home alive and safe. But while she waited for answers in her own daughter’s case, she also wanted to help another family search for their missing girl.
At first, police did not connect Amber’s disappearance with Chelsea’s. The girls were not related. They did not know each other, and they had never spoken. There was even a good chance they had never heard of each other at all. Still, people in the community began to feel uneasy.
This was supposed to be a quiet and peaceful area, a place where serious trouble rarely happened. But now, within 1 year, two teenage girls had disappeared. To many people, that felt like more than a coincidence. Because of that, residents began to wonder if both girls had been targeted by the same person.
Eventually, police started considering that possibility, too. As they searched for Chelsea King, they also began looking for anything that might connect her disappearance to Amber’s case. One day, a search team was moving through the grass near the trail where Chelsea usually ran. Not far from the path, they found a sock and a pair of women’s underwear.
The items were shown to Chelsea’s parents. Her mother confirmed that they belonged to her daughter. When investigators tested the biological evidence found on the underwear, they got a match. The DNA belonged to a man whose name was already listed in the national registry of people convicted of sex-related offenses.
His name was John Gardner. At the time Chelsea King disappeared in 2010, Gardner was 31 years old. John Gardner had been born in 1979 and raised in California. From an early age, it seemed obvious that something about him was not right. He was not exactly seen as a bad child. He was simply different from the other children around him.
His father often punished him, yelled at him, made him stand in the corner, and sometimes used a belt. Later, John’s parents divorced, and after that, his stepfather became part of his upbringing. Unlike John’s biological father, his stepfather did not treat him harshly. But even with a better attitude from his stepfather, his sister, and his mother, nothing seemed to improve John’s behavior at school.
In class, John could not sit still for very long. When a teacher was explaining a lesson, he might suddenly stand up in the middle of class and start shouting something out. He constantly tried to pull attention toward himself. At his desk, he fidgeted, moved around, and distracted the students sitting near him.
Teachers did not know what to make of him. He clearly was not unintelligent, but he did not want to learn, and he made it hard for others to learn, too. At the urging of his teachers, John’s parents took him to a doctor to evaluate his learning abilities and behavior. That doctor referred him to another specialist, and then another.
But none of them could give the family a clear answer. His diagnosis changed again and again. The medications either did nothing helpful or seemed to make his behavior worse. In the end, doctors could not clearly identify the problem or find a treatment that truly worked. By the time John reached high school, his behavior had become even more difficult.
And after graduation, Gardner’s life began to fall apart completely. He did not go to college himself, but he began dating a girl who did. Every day, while waiting for her after class, John would spend hours hanging around the campus. Outsiders were not allowed to be there under school rules, but Gardner did not seem to care much about rules at all.
John had never been the type of person who respected boundaries or followed rules set by other people. Most of the time, he simply did whatever came into his head. Eventually, his girlfriend got tired of being warned by teachers because of him. She could not handle his clingy behavior anymore, so she ended the relationship.
But even after the breakup, John kept showing up on campus. He walked around the grounds, waited near her dormitory, and made everyone uncomfortable with his constant presence. At some point, the school administration had no choice but to involve the police. That was when John was arrested for the first time.
In 2000, when John was 20 years old, he invited his neighbor Kelly over to his place. He suggested they watch a movie together. He told her that he liked her, but only as a friend. Kelly was just 13 years old. She believed him. After all, John lived next door, and at first he did not seem like someone who would hurt her.
But the moment they were alone, something inside him seemed to change. John suddenly attacked Kelly and tried to remove her clothes. The girl was terrified. Compared to her, he was much bigger and stronger, and fighting him off was not easy. The only thing she could think to do was run. But Gardner, completely driven by his urges, did not want to let her leave.
When Kelly began screaming, it seemed to send him into an even darker state. He grabbed her by the blouse, blocked her way out, and began hitting her. No one knows how far things might have gone if John had not suddenly stopped. At some point, he seemed to snap back into himself.
He stopped raising his fists, apologized, and allowed Kelly to go home. Those sudden changes in Gardner’s behaviors scared Kelly even more. It felt as if two different people were living inside the same body. Crying and covered in bruises, Kelly rushed back home and told her parents what had happened.
Her father immediately contacted the police, and an investigation began soon after. During questioning, John Gardner stubbornly insisted that he had done nothing wrong. He claimed Kelly was too young for him. According to his version, they had simply watched a movie and then she left. He said he had no idea where the bruises on her body had come from.
Of course, that explanation sounded unbelievable to almost everyone, everyone except John. He appeared to believe his own story so strongly that it almost seemed as if he genuinely did not remember hurting Kelly. But the evidence against him could not be ignored. Gardner was charged in connection with an attack on a minor.
He reached a deal with prosecutors and eventually admitted guilt. Because of that agreement, his sentence was reduced. Instead of the 11 years in prison he could have faced, John received only 6 years. Since he had no previous criminal record, the court treated that as a factor in his favor.
In the end, Gardner spent 5 years behind bars. He was released on parole in 2006. For Gardner, the rehabilitation program for convicted offenders was not a real chance to change. It was simply a way to get out of prison. The psychologist who worked with him understood that John had no real intention of becoming a different person.
He was only looking for a path back to freedom. Even so, he was released a year early. Once Gardner left prison in 2006, he continued breaking the law. He had been given a second chance, and he threw it away almost immediately. John was placed under house arrest. He was supposed to remain at home and wear an electronic ankle monitor, but he figured out how to disable the device and began moving around freely.
He bought weapons and illegal substances, spent time near places connected to children, even though he was forbidden to do so, and even moved close to a school. What made the situation even harder to understand was that the people responsible for supervising him seemed to act as if none of it was happening. Probation officers looked the other way, and the police did not step in.
Authorities did not appear to treat him like a serious danger to the public. According to court documents, while Gardner was wearing the ankle monitor, he violated the terms of his early release a total of 168 times. Now, after Gardner’s DNA was found on Chelsea King’s belongings, investigators went back through his court records. What they found was deeply troubling.
This was a man who had previously targeted school-age girls, hurt them, followed them, and tried to force himself on them. If John really was connected to Chelsea’s disappearance, then detectives had to ask another question. Could he also be responsible for what happened to Amber Dubois? Both girls had disappeared in the same general area, and both cases were surrounded by uncertainty.
Detectives decided they needed to review everything from the beginning. They reopened older cases and went back through statements, complaints, and reports from the area, especially those filed after John had been released from prison. That was how they found the case of 22-year-old Candace Moncaayo.
On December 27, 2009, about 2 months before Chelsea disappeared, Candace Moncaayo had filed a police report of her own. That morning, she had gone out for her usual run. After covering roughly 13 km, she started to feel tired and decided to stop for a short rest. That was when a man she did not know came toward her. At first, Candace had no idea what he wanted.
Trying to be polite, she greeted him. But the man did not respond like a normal stranger passing by. Instead, he suddenly went after her, forced her to the ground, and began pulling at her shirt. In that terrifying moment, Candace remembered everything her father had taught her. Her father was a respected professional kickboxer.
From the time Candace was young, he had taught her how to defend herself and what to do if someone ever tried to overpower her. And that training ended up saving her. Candace was terrified when she realized she was in the hands of a predator, but she did not freeze. She managed to fight back, swinging her arm and striking the attacker directly in the nose.
While the man was trying to deal with the blood on his face, Candace took the chance to run. She went straight to the police station and asked for help. Unfortunately, officers were not able to find the attacker at the time. The description was too general. Candace had not had enough time to study his face closely.
In that moment, all that mattered was getting away alive. But now detectives had a real suspect. His name was John Gardner. Investigators asked Candace to come to the police station, and there they showed her a photograph. She confirmed that the man in the picture was the same person who had attacked her. In Candace’s memory, that terrifying encounter was still sharp. She had no doubt.
It was Gardner whose nose she had broken while fighting him off. Soon after, investigators made another grim discovery. They searched the same area where Gardner had attacked Candace, and that was where they found the remains of 17-year-old Chelsea King. It is possible Chelsea might not have been found so quickly if nature and wildlife had not exposed what had been hidden.
Chelsea’s body was discovered in a shallow grave covered with leaves, branches, and dirt. Chelsea King had been ki- The evidence pointed directly to John Gardner. He was the man Chelsea had crossed paths with while she was out for her run, and that encounter had ended in tragedy. Later in court, Gardner admitted that he had attacked Chelsea and taken her to an isolated area.
He acknowledged that he had assaulted her, then ended her life by strangling her. Afterward, he buried her in a shallow grave near the lake. But at that point, police still did not know what had happened to Amber Dubois. Her body had not been found, and investigators still could not say for sure whether something terrible had happened to her or whether she had somehow run away from home.
Only Gardner knew the answer. So detectives decided to use a different tactic. Under California law, the crimes Gardner was facing could have made him eligible for the death penalty. Prosecutors gave him a choice. He could cooperate with authorities and receive life in prison, or he could face the possibility of the death penalty for Chelsea King’s and the attack on Candace Moncaio.
All Gardner had to do was admit what had happened to Amber and lead investigators to the place where she had been left. If Amber was no longer alive, then finding her was still incredibly important. Authorities wanted to return her to her parents. Her grieving mother and father deserved at least the chance to say goodbye to their daughter and give her a proper burial.
Gardner took time to think it over. He weighed what he was facing, considered the risks, and finally agreed to cooperate. He confessed that Amber’s body had been left in a remote area near land connected to an Indian tribe. Police went to the location he described and organized a search of the area. Before long, they found human remains.
By that point, very little was left. Even parts of the skeleton were missing. It appeared that wild animals had reached the remains over time and scattered them through the area. A dental examination later confirmed what Gardner had told investigators. Everything matched. The remains belonged to 14-year-old Amber Dubois.
On Friday, February 13, 2009, Gardner had been driving through the streets in his car. He did not seem to have any real plan that day. His mood was dark. His personal life was falling apart, and every day had started to feel just like the one before it. Out of boredom, he looked from side to side as he drove.
Then suddenly, he saw Amber. She looked happy, almost glowing with excitement. In her mind, she was already imagining bringing home the little lamb she had been waiting for. And that was when Amber caught John Gardner’s attention. He looked around carefully. There were houses nearby and if the girl screamed, someone would probably hear her.
If he wanted to avoid witnesses, he needed to frighten her badly enough that she would stay quiet. John stopped beside Amber, pointed a gun at her, and ordered her to get into the car right away. Gardner watched as the smile disappeared from her face. Her hands began to tremble. Terrified by the weapon, Amber did what he told her and sat down in the passenger seat.
John turned on the radio, thinking that upbeat music might calm her down. At that moment, he still had not fully decided what he was going to do with her. He turned the car around and drove toward the Indian village. Once they were out in that isolated area, something violent took over inside him.
After assaulting Amber, Gardner pulled out a knife and stabbed her several times, causing fatal injuries. At first, he had not planned to hurt her and he had not planned to take her life. He had considered letting the schoolgirl go, hoping she would be too scared to tell her parents. But at some point, his thoughts changed.
He later described a sudden urge to use the knife and watch Amber’s life fade away. When Gardner finally confessed, one thing became clear to everyone. Amber’s stepfather, Dave, had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance. Dave’s strange behavior that day still could not be fully explained.
He really had broken his normal routine and stayed home instead of going to work. He really had appeared at Carrie’s workplace with gifts the day before Valentine’s Day. And he really had missed the call from Amber’s school, even though he said he had been at home at the time. But the truth was much simpler than people imagined.
Dave had also been affected by the recent reconciliation with Amber. For the first time in a long while, he felt like things between them were finally getting better. That was why he had acted differently. He had not been hiding some dark secret. He had simply been happy. But by then, that explanation came too late.
Dave was innocent, and all along, he had been telling the truth. As it turned out, he had never hurt his stepdaughter. He had truly wanted to become something like a father figure in her life. But after Amber disappeared, the people around him began to see something suspicious in every small detail.
The deepest damage was done to his relationship with Carrie. For Dave, it was painful to realize that the woman he loved had believed he might be capable of harming her daughter. What hurt even more was that Carrie never really apologized for doubting him. From the day Amber vanished, their life together lost all its color.
Everything between them changed in an instant. Surprisingly, even after everything that had happened, Dave and Carrie continued to stay in contact. Their relationship was tense and damaged, but Dave still hoped, right up until the end, that he could prove his innocence to the woman he had once loved. Carrie, on the other hand, did not want to completely lose contact with the man she once believed might know more than he was saying.
In the end, those complicated circumstances helped the former couple reach the truth together. Because John Gardner admitted his guilt, there was no full trial under the plea agreement. Still, the judge wanted to give the people affected by this tragedy a chance to speak. In court, Gardner was called a monster, a sociopath, a serial predator, and an animal.
But none of it seemed to reach him. At one point during the hearing, Gardner began to cry. But to many people watching, it did not look genuine. It seemed more like a performance, another attempt to escape the full weight of what he had done. When Candace reminded Gardner about the broken nose, his composure completely disappeared. He could not stand the fact that a young woman he had tried to overpower had fought back and beaten him.
And now, in front of everyone, she had embarrassed him all over again. John started shouting and tried to convince his lawyer that Candace was lying. He claimed she had never managed to hit him and insisted that he had only let her go because he chose to. In the end, John Gardner was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
He remains behind bars to this day. And if you watched this story until the end, then you are a real true crime fan. Subscribe to the channel, turn on notifications, and leave a like. See you in the next video.
