Amber Alyssa Tuccaro

Status:

Open

Offense Location:

Nisku, Alberta

Summary:

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. After arriving at Edmonton International Airport, she checked into the Nisku Palace Motel, and on the evening of August 19, 2010, left the hotel room to find a ride into Edmonton alone. A friend reported seeing her enter a vehicle sometime between 7 and 8 PM, and she was never seen again. Her remains were found by horseback riders on September 1, 2012, in the same area. No arrests have been made in the murder of Amber Tuccaro.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

On August 17, 2010, Amber flew to Edmonton from Fort McMurray with her 14-month-old son and a female friend for a weekend trip. Their plan was to stay just outside the city to save money, then head into Edmonton the following day. The party checked in to the Nisku Palace Motel in the nearby town of Nisku. As the next day turned to evening, Amber left the hotel room to find a ride into Edmonton alone. Amber's friend reported seeing her enter a vehicle, sometime between 7 and 8 PM. Police did not release a description of the car, for whatever reason, and Amber never arrived at Edmonton and was never seen again. Amber called her brother and because he was incarcerated, it was recorded and stored. In the recording, Amber can be heard to worry that the man who picked her up is not taking her where she wants to go. RCMP investigators believe that rather than driving Tuccaro north into the city, the man actually drove southeast along the rural roads of Leduc County.

Additional Details:

When Amber failed to return the next day, her friend called Amber's mother, who then contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to report her missing. Tootsie later told the media that the RCMP did not take Amber's disappearance seriously. They publicly stated that they believed Amber was alive and somewhere in the Edmonton area, suggesting she was probably out partying and would eventually reappear. Police initially told her family that Tuccaro was "probably out partying" and that they needed to wait 24 hours before initiating a missing person's investigation. In March 2014, Amber's mother, Vivian Tuccaro, filed a complaint against the Leduc RCMP saying they downplayed her disappearance, including taking her off the missing persons list after one month, despite no one seeing her. A suitcase with Tuccaro's belongings was also accidentally destroyed by investigators after they recovered it from her Nisku motel room. Horseback riders found a human skull on September 1st, and over the weekend dental records were used to identify it as belonging to Tuccaro. In August of 2012, two years after she went missing, the RCMP's Project KARE investigators held a news conference and released the cell phone recording of Tuccaro and an unknown male. Tuccaro got into a vehicle driven by the unknown man. After conducting their independent review of the RCMP's investigation, the Commission released a 120-page report in August 2018. The report concluded that the RCMP's investigation was "deficient in that various members were either not properly trained or did not adhere to their training and that various members did not comply with procedures and guidelines." Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki apologized to the family 11 months after the report was released on 25 July 2019 and said the RCMP's investigation "was not our best work." The family rejected Zablocki's apology. In 2017, the Tuccaro family increased the reward for information to $5,000 and started a Justice for Amber campaign on social media. On Monday in late December 2019, RCMP were contacted by a man implicating his father in the homicide of Amber Tuccaro. Mounties said the same man also contacted Banff RCMP in early December 2019, alleging his father may be responsible for a missing person from that area. At a March 2023 press conference marking the thirteenth anniversary of Amber's disappearance, another detail surfaced: the friend who had traveled with Amber to Edmonton, and who was the last person to see her at the motel, was never formally interviewed by police — not once, in over a decade.

Case Last Updated:

Nov 03, 2026