The AMBER Alert in Maricopa, Arizona, went out with very low expectations from law enforcement for a happy ending. On January 26, 2007, a young mother let a “friend of a friend” take her 6-year-old daughter to school. The friend turned out to be a registered sex offender from Louisiana and her daughter never showed up at school.

“This had the makings of a catastrophic situation,” said Maricopa Police Chief Patrick Melvin. “When we found out about the suspect's background, I was thinking ‘Oh no this is not going to be good.’”

The Maricopa Police Department was brand new and only had a few employees at the time. The Pinal County Sheriff's Office handled the case and issued an AMBER Alert for a 6-year old girl with blue eyes, shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair, last seen wearing pink footie-style pajamas.

The suspect, 26-year-old George Richard Horner, heard the alert on the radio and abandoned the victim in the desert. The girl was able to walk out of the desert and into a nearby community. A woman recognized the 6-year-old from the alert and called police a few hours after the notice went out.

“He was taking her out to the desert to kill her,” said Pinal County Sheriff Chris Vasquez about the suspect. “He got spooked by the AMBER Alert and thought he had to ditch her quick. He still thought she would die out there with the coyotes.”

“This is the closest call we've had of losing a child in the history of Arizona's AMBER Alert Plan,” said Arizona State AMBER Alert Coordinator Art Brooks. “The AMBER Alert saved this child's life.”

The alert also put Arizona's new operating system for AMBER Alerts to the test. Arizona, 11 other states, and FEMA are part of a pilot project for an operating system designed to make it easier for law enforcement to send alerts and updates. “It's faster, it's clearer, and it's light years beyond what we had before,” added Brooks. “The AMBER Alert went out without a hitch.”

Chief Melvin agrees: “It worked. It worked. It worked.” Ditto from Sheriff Vasquez: “It went perfectly and played a huge role in recovering this child.”

The alert worked so well that the facts in the case will be used in an upcoming Arizona AMBER Alert training video. “The alert worked like clockwork,” said Officer Joe Delgado, AMBER Alert Training Coordinator for the Arizona Department of Public Safety. “Everyone worked together. It was one of our greatest successes.”

The suspect was eventually arrested after trying to hide in the desert. Horner was charged with two counts of sexual conduct with a minor, one count of kidnapping, and one count of custodial interference of a sexual nature. The upcoming trial was cancelled after Horner committed suicide in jail. “He's facing a higher authority,” said Sheriff Vasquez.

The biggest lesson learned by everyone involved is that it is critical to quickly identify an AMBER Alert and get it out. To date, Arizona has issued 50 AMBER Alerts since the state's child abduction plan was launched in September 2002. AMBER Alert Coordinator Art Brooks said he will never forget this one. “This one rocked my world.”