Teen Missing For 6 Years; FBI To Help In Case
Renewed Effort Hopes To Develop New Leads In 16-Year-Old's Disappearance
COLUMBIA, Tenn. -- The FBI is helping in a renewed effort to find a teenager from Maury County who has been missing for six years. Since Amber Cates, 16, vanished, detectives have investigated for years but turned up nothing.
“If she's not on this earth, then she's with our Maker and she's OK,” said Trudy Cates Currington.
Amber’s mother, Trudy Cates Currington, said she doesn't know where her daughter could be. Police questioned the last person who was with her and another man in prison, but it did not lead to any arrests.
“We were close. She wouldn't have left me without a word,” said Currington.
Sheriff Enoch George said Maury County is now teaming up with the FBI to work on cold cases, and the first case is Amber’s disappearance.
“The FBI has a lot more sophisticated equipment than we have,” said George. “I feel like the more agencies that pull together to work to keep law and order in Maury County, I feel like we'd be better off.”
Another part of this new partnership will also include a billboard from the FBI that will be used to solicit information about Amber's case.
“There are a lot of cases all over the nation that they really put a lot of emphasis on, and Amber's case has had some, but it needs to be not just for me and my family. It’s great it’s first, but there are a lot of families in the same situation,” said Trudy.
Maury County detectives sent DNA from Amber's mother to a lab in Texas to see whether her remains might be in any database of bodies that have been recovered.
WSMV.com
