Friends and family members gathered and released balloons and ribbons at the same Sunset, Utah, park where 3-year-old Rachael Runyan was kidnapped and later murdered on August 26, 1982. “She was just so precious,” Elaine Runyan said of her slain daughter. “She just touched everybody’s heart.” Utah initially named its child abduction advisory the Rachael Alert in 2002. “There are children who are alive today because of Rachael,” Sunset Police Chief Ken Eborn said. The alert’s name was changed to the AMBER Alert after it was first used for the abduction of Elizabeth Smart. “I had no idea what the alert was at the time,” said Ed Smart, Elizabeth’s father, who spoke at the event on August 25, 2018.
