Amber Alyssa Tuccaro was a 20-year-old Indigenous woman and member of the Mikisew Cree First Nation who disappeared while visiting the Edmonton area in August 2010. She lived in Fort McMurray and had flown to Edmonton on August 17 with her 14-month-old son, Jacob, and a female friend. They stayed at a motel in Nisku, near Edmonton International Airport.
Although August 18, 2010, is generally associated with her death because it was the last day she was known to be alive, her exact date and cause of death have not been publicly established.
On the evening of August 18, Tuccaro left the motel without her son, intending to travel into Edmonton. Investigators determined that she accepted a ride from an unknown man at about 8 p.m. What happened during that ride became the most significant piece of evidence in the investigation. While inside the vehicle, Tuccaro was involved in a recorded telephone conversation during which the driver could be heard speaking in the background.
The conversation showed that Tuccaro was becoming increasingly concerned about where the man was taking her. She wanted to go into Edmonton, but the driver repeatedly assured her that they were heading toward the city and mentioned 50th Street. Tuccaro questioned the route and challenged the driver about where they were going. At one point she warned him that he had better not be taking her somewhere she did not want to go. Investigators later concluded that instead of traveling toward Edmonton as Tuccaro expected, the vehicle was apparently moving south and east from Nisku into rural Leduc County.
After the telephone conversation ended, there were no confirmed sightings of Tuccaro. Her family quickly became alarmed, but the initial police response later became the subject of intense criticism. Family members said they were initially told she might simply be out partying and would return. Her missing-person entry was also removed from the police system for a period after reported sightings that were never adequately verified. It was not reinstated until September 23, more than a month after she vanished.
Important physical evidence was also mishandled. Tuccaro had left belongings, including a suitcase, at the motel. A subsequent independent review found that police failed to seize the suitcase promptly and failed to properly preserve the property once it came into their possession. Some of the belongings were ultimately destroyed. The review also found substantial delays and failures to follow established missing-person investigative procedures.
Nearly two years after the disappearance, investigators with Project KARE took the unusual step of publicly releasing portions of the recording containing the unknown driver's voice. Police described identifying the man as a critical part of the investigation and considered him a person of interest because he was known to have been with Tuccaro after she was last seen by others. The recording generated numerous tips. Several women subsequently said they believed they recognized the voice and reportedly identified the same man, but RCMP investigators examined that information and said the individual was not considered a person of interest after their investigation.
Only days after the recording was publicly released, the case changed dramatically. On September 1, 2012, recreational horseback riders discovered what appeared to be a human skull on a rural property in Leduc County, south of Edmonton. Police searched the surrounding area and recovered additional remains. Dental records were used to identify them as Tuccaro's. The location was in the same general rural direction investigators believed the unidentified driver had taken her on the night she disappeared. Authorities subsequently treated the case as a murder, although the precise manner in which she was killed has not been publicly disclosed.
The unknown man heard on the recording has never been publicly identified by police. Investigators have continued asking people familiar with the voice, speech patterns or circumstances of Tuccaro's final trip to come forward. Despite years of tips and investigative work, no one has been arrested or charged with her murder.
Another potential lead surfaced in early 2020. A man contacted the RCMP and alleged that his father might have been responsible for Tuccaro's disappearance and murder, as well as several other missing-person and homicide cases in Alberta. He reportedly believed the man's voice on the recording was his father's. RCMP investigators reviewed the information but cautioned that a number of the other cases the tipster had attributed to his father had already been solved and that erroneous allegations could harm both the investigation and Tuccaro's family. Police did not publicly name the father as a suspect or announce any charges resulting from the tip.
The handling of the original investigation eventually underwent formal scrutiny. Tuccaro's mother, Vivian "Tootsie" Tuccaro, filed a complaint in 2014 with the civilian body responsible for reviewing the RCMP. Its investigation concluded that the original missing-person inquiry was deficient, finding that some officers were inadequately trained or failed to follow their training, policies and investigative guidelines. Among the problems identified were the delay in properly investigating the disappearance, inaccurate public statements suggesting there was no reason to believe Tuccaro was in danger, the temporary removal of her missing-person status, and the mishandling and destruction of her belongings.
In July 2019, Alberta RCMP Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki formally apologized to Tuccaro's family, acknowledging that the early investigation lacked the urgency and care it required and was not consistent with established RCMP standards. The force maintained that the homicide investigation remained active and that investigators were still committed to identifying the person responsible.
Tuccaro's family continued publicly appealing for information in the years that followed. During a renewed appeal in Edmonton in March 2023, RCMP leadership stated that investigators remained committed to the case and would continue working until evidence supported charges. No arrest, criminal charge, trial or conviction has been announced in connection with Amber Tuccaro's murder, and the unidentified driver whose voice was captured during her final known journey remains one of the central unanswered questions in the investigation.
