Rolling Meadows fliers ask for help in girl's murder case
Editor's note: This article was originally published in the Daily Herald on July 10, 1998.
Fliers with two different pictures of Amber Gail Creek are going up around Rolling Meadows.
Police there are hoping residents who remember the 14-year-old can help solve her murder.
The crime alert fliers, which resemble missing persons posters, can be found in McDonald's and other fast-food restaurants in town, as well as other places teenagers might go, officials said.
Rolling Meadows police took the initiative to post the fliers, they say, because Amber often hung out in the community.
They now hope other teenagers will recognize the pictures and call them with leads.
"We put them in places were teenagers hang out and places where we think she might have been," police Cmdr. Dave Scanlan said Thursday.
Amber, formerly of Palatine and Lake Zurich, was found dead Feb. 9, 1997, in Wisconsin. She was last seen in Chicago on Jan. 23, 1997, before she ran away from the state facility where she last lived. Until last month, Wisconsin police did not know who Amber was. Her parents positively identified her June 26 after police and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found a match using her dental records.
The fliers Rolling Meadows police have posted include two distinctly different pictures of Amber. One shows her at her 13th birthday party with long blond hair. The other was taken two days before she last was seen. Her hair is short and dark.
Rolling Meadows is part of an Illinois-Wisconsin task force searching for Amber's killer.
In Illinois, the task force is also is comprised of the North Resident Agency of the FBI, located in Rolling Meadows, the Palatine Police Department, the Cook County Sheriff's Department as well as Chicago and Illinois State police.
The task force will award $2,500 to anyone who offers a tip that leads to an arrest and conviction.
Anyone with details is asked call the Amber Creek Task Force Hotline at (414) 636-3842. Calls also are being taking by Rolling Meadows police. Call investigator Tom Gadomski at (847) 255-2416, ext. 3073, or investigator Mark Hogan at ext. 3072.