The day after Amber's kidnapping, a pair of socks were found near the Swartz's house. Did they belong to Amber? Kim, to this day, believes they may have. The socks would become a significant clue in the case. FBI agents visited Kim that afternoon. They asked some unusual questions which, only later, made sense to the anguished mother. In the days following Amber's disappearance, many strangers offered to help. But three days after her daughter vanished, Kim was visited by Tim Bindner. According to Kim, Bindner became extremely emotional as he talked of Amber. Kim Swartz would discover Tim Bindner was well known to various law enforcement agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area. In fact, Kim would later come to believe Bindner was the person investigators were asking the pointed questions about the day before.

Over the course of more than a decade, several young girls vanished along the Interstate 80 corridor. In some of these cases, Bindner reportedly conducted his own searches for the girls. And at various points in those investigations, Tim Bindner found himself considered a "person of interest." Tim Bindner was questioned extensively by the FBI following Amber Swartz's abduction. According to authorities, the results of his polygraph were inconclusive. Tim Bindner's attorney, John Burris, maintains that Bindner's actions should not be viewed with suspicion and says that Binder is just trying to be helpful in trying to find missing children.

As Kim spent more time with Tim Bindner, she came to believe he had a darker side. Bindner reportedly visited cemeteries, often in the dead of night. And he had an apparent attraction to the gravesites of certain girls. According to John Philpin, Tim Bindner seemed to have a particular interest in the grave of a girl named Angela Bugay. Five-year-old Angela disappeared four and a half years before Amber and was later found sexually assaulted and strangled. The FBI placed Tim Bindner under surveillance. His alleged habit of visiting Angela Bugay's gravesite up to 90 times a year had caught their attention. According to John Burris, the fact that Bindner visits gravesites should not cast suspicion on his client.

Sadly, five months after Amber's disappearance, the East Bay Area was shocked by the abduction of another young girl: nine-year-old Michaela Garecht outside a Hayward market. Investigators believe that Tim Bindner was in the vicinity of Michaela's abduction that day. By now, parents in the surrounding communities were living in fear. Then two months later in nearby Dublin, California, 13-year-old Ilene Misheloff disappeared. Despite the fact that some suspicion had been directed at him, Tim Bindner helped search for Ilene.

A few years later, a mother in the town of Fairfield informed police that her daughter had begun receiving mail from a man they didn't know. The letters were from Tim Bindner. Just a few blocks from where the letter was received, another young girl disappeared. Four-year-old "Nikki" Campbell was playing in her driveway. Following her disappearance, the Fairfield Police Department searched Tim Bindner's home and found nothing. However, in the wake of that highly publicized search, a local man phoned Kim Swartz. He told Kim that late on the afternoon Amber disappeared, he witnessed a chilling scene as he drove into a park not far from the Swartz home. He said he saw a man throw a young girl into his car. He had his niece write down the man's license plate. When he learned about Amber's disappearance, he was certain she was the girl in the park and he quickly reported what he had seen to the Pinole Police Department. Pinole authorities, however, told Kim Swartz they are convinced that the incident that the man witnessed did not involve Tim Bindner. The license plate reportedly was traced to a different vehicle that had been junked in Los Angeles. The police also said they had interviewed Bindner within days of Amber's abduction and that, unlike the man the witness saw, Bindner had a full beard.

Believing that his reputation had been unfairly tarnished by the Fairfield Police Department's handling of the Nikki Campbell investigation, Tim Bindner brought a defamation lawsuit against the city of Fairfield. The city settled out of court for $90,000. Although he has been questioned by police, it's important to note Tim Bindner has not been charged with any crime relating to the disappearances of these girls.

For her part, Kim Swartz refuses to give up. Even though Amber would today be in her 20s, Kim will not rest until she finds out what happened to her daughter. Within weeks of Amber's disappearance, Kim Swartz created the Amber Foundation for Missing Children. The Foundation's goals continue to be educating parents on ways to prevent child abductions so that what happened to Kim Swartz may never happen to them.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Amber Swartz, or any of the other cases mentioned above, please contact the FBI or call the Unsolved Mysteries hotline, 1-800-876-5353.

For more information on the Amber Foundation, please call or write: