It began with an ambush of a family as they were coming home from church in West Columbia, South Carolina. David Allen Dietz and an unidentified accomplice allegedly ordered his ex-girlfriend, and their 7-month-old son to get into his silver Ford Explorer.
Dietz allegedly fired shots as he sped away with Eva Arce Perez, and their son, Allim Dietz. South Carolina issued an AMBER Alert at 12:46 a.m. on Jan. 4, 2009, in a desperate attempt to recover the infant and his mother.
“It was just so tense,” said Glenda Booth, South Carolina's AMBER Alert Coordinator for the past four years. “This was a very frightening AMBER Alert. I really thought we were going to lose our victims.”
Dietz was a former law enforcement officer with a history of aggression. On the night of the abduction, he was wearing a black T-shirt with the word “Police” on the sleeves and on the back of the shirt.
A small army of federal, state and local law enforcement officers quickly gathered at the command center. “Everyone was working on it together,” said Booth. “It was a huge effort, and it was going non-stop from Saturday night until Monday morning.”
Near the beginning of the ordeal Booth called Lamar Advertising to see if the company could post an AMBER Alert on its electronic signs. The company offered to post the alerts on the signs for the next three hours. “Those types of partners are invaluable,” said Booth.
A break came when a citizen saw the AMBER Alert and recognized the suspect as someone she had seen with Jamie Burgess, a 17-year-old runaway. Law enforcement confirmed that Burgess was with Dietz during the abduction.
“We made the decision to list Burgess as a victim because law enforcement did not have enough information to charge her as an accomplice,” said Booth. Her database screens only have fields for a “victim” or a “suspect” but now a field is being considered for a “person of interest.”
Another break occurred when the female victim borrowed a phone and called her mother. Investigators traced the call to Madison, Georgia. South Carolina cancelled its alert, and an AMBER Alert was activated in Georgia.
A police officer located the suspect's vehicle and law enforcement officers surrounded a hotel for the next 13 hours until a negotiator convinced Dietz to give up. “I'm just so thankful the mother and child are safe,” said a relieved Booth.
Looking back, Booth said they experienced a few problems with their IT and blast fax, plus questions about listing the accomplice. But the AMBER Alert still went out through the Emergency Alert System, National Weather Service and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
South Carolina will start testing their plan monthly to correct any possible problems, but Booth is pleased that once again the AMBER Alert worked. The public was notified, law enforcement received tips and a small baby and his mother are miraculously safe.
AMBER Alert Fact: More than $1.5 billion dollars in federal stimulus money has been earmarked for innovative road projects. Some states plan to use the money to install more electronic signs that can warn drivers about accidents and inform them about AMBER Alerts.