In May of 1998, Amber meets Matthew at a house party. She tells her aunt he is a “burly 6’5” 21 year old highway construction worker." Amber’s family says she and Matthew are “hot and heavy” for four months, but when Matthew finds out Amber is pregnant, he becomes cold.

On September 23, 1998, Amber calls her dad Steve and says she got into a minor car accident near the university - she rear-ended another car and hit her head on the windshield. Amber tells her dad she went to the University medical staff because she has a headache and was told she probably had a concussion and someone should call and check on her.

Amber's Car Accident (Aprox. Location)

Amber's father checks in on her throughout the day and night, speaking to her last at 7:16pm on her apartment's landline.

Amber's Apartment

The next day, Amber fails to show up to her 1:00pm class. Amber also fails to show up to her optometrist appointment. Amber's father calls to check in on her multiple times but receives no answer.

University of Wisconsin at Green Bay

After Amber doesn't return his calls, Steve begins to worry and drives 1.5 hours from Mayville (where he lived) to Green Bay and finds Amber’s apartment locked and her car missing. He contacts the police because he thinks it was weird that Amber would just take off without telling him. Steve is told to wait 48 hours to file a missing persons report.

Amber's Apartment

In the days following Amber's disappearance, police meet with Amber’s family at her apartment. They find Amber’s diary and Steve tells police that Amber is pregnant and that she believes the father to be Matthew Schneider. In a diary entry dated May 20 and 21, 1998, Amber writes that she met Matt at a house party. After meeting, they went to Amber’s and had consensual sex. On August 23, 1998, Amber writes that she asked Matthew to tell his fiance Heidi about the pregnancy, but when he refused, Amber spoke with Heidi and told her she was pregnant. Then Matthew’s parents found out. This made Matthew angry. He told Heidi and his parents that Amber was lying. Matthew tries contacting Amber multiple times in the two weeks prior to her disappearance. Amber wrote in her diary that Matthew wants her to get an abortion, but she said no.

Amber's Apartment

Police go to speak with Matthew while he is working in the area of Shawano on Highway 29. All Matthew tells police is that he has “never” had sex with Amber. He says he barely knows her and that they met at a restaurant and talked maybe twice. During this meeting, the police also meet with Nick Petit - Matthew’s coworker and friend. Nick says that his girlfriend possibly saw Amber driving her silver Subaru in Wausau, Wisconsin (95 miles from Green Bay). He gives police a detailed description of her car despite no public information being released at the time of the meeting

Possible Sighting of Amber

When police check Matthew’s phone records, they notice around 60 phone calls between him and Amber from the time they met until she went missing. Police speak with Matthew’s fiance Heidi and she tells police that Amber “had an almost fatal attraction to Matthew” and is making everything up. Once Amber went missing, the calls stop. Matthew has no alibi for September 23, 1998 and stops cooperating with investigators in October of 1998.

On October 1, 1998, Amber’s car (a silver 4-door 1988 Subaru GL with Wisconsin license plate X5725T with damage to the front end) is found in Green Bay. It is found unlocked and abandoned in the parking lot of the 50 Yard Line Sports Bar and Roadstar Inn near Lambeau Field Stadium on the south side of Lombardi Access Road. Amber’s purse is locked in the Subaru’s trunk, which is something Amber usually does. Her keys are in the ignition, the seat pushed all the way back, and her cell phone is plugged into the cigarette lighter. Some police don’t think Amber’s car was at that location the whole time Amber is missing. Witnesses say they think the car had been there since September 28. The car seat is pushed back into an unusual place for Amber. Police believe someone either moved the car seat back to throw police off or a very tall person was the last person to drive the car. Two days before Amber's disappearance, she gets an oil change and they write down what was on her odometer. When police look at the odometer after finding the abandoned car, there are around 900 miles which couldn’t be accounted for.

50 Yard Line Sports Bar and Roadstar Inn

During the first week of the investigation, Nick Petit and his girlfriend tell police that on September 23, 1998 Nick came home from work at around 6:00pm, and Matthew tells him he saw a movie and had dinner by himself after work. In the December 1999 John Doe hearing, Nick and his girlfriend both testify with a different story than what they told police in October 1998. Nick’s girlfriend says Nick wasn’t home the evening of September 23, and she called him multiple times to see where he was. Nick says he “most likely was not home that night” but couldn’t remember where he had been or what he had done.

In October 1998, Amber’s family hire a tracking dog. He searches Amber’s neighborhood and the area where her car is found. There are no leads. At first, police focus searches for Amber in the Green Bay area. By January 1999, they are searching the Washington County area. Amber’s family then go to psychic Sylvia Browne. She gives them information that lead police to a 2000 search in areas in central Shawano County near the Wolf River, but that search results in nothing. In 2000, police search around 30 acres of rural Portage County but find nothing. [source 14] In the spring of 2001, police search an eight acre Shawano County field east of Wittenberg, located off Highway 29. It is filled with clay and topsoil at the time Amber disappears. In December 2007, police search the same eight acre Shawano County field off Highway 29. [source 15] One theory is that Matthew buried Amber’s body under Highway 29 while it was under construction.

State 29 Highway from Green Bay to Wausau

Without a body and without any solid evidence against Matthew Schneider, Amber’s case goes dormant until January 2013 when new detectives are assigned to the case. They start over from the beginning, re-interviewing people, re-testing DNA, etc.  

On May 16, 2013, police interview Nick Petit again. He tells the investigator that he has “little continued contact” with Matthew since Matthew’s 2000 wedding. On April 14, 2015, Heidi Schneider tells police that Matthew and Nick have known each other “well before” they worked together in 1998, and that they continued speaking after 1998. On July 25, 2014, Nick tells police he wasn’t close to Matthew at the time of Amber’s disappearance to be involved, he had only known him a few months. According to the subpoena, Nick says he was “not close enough to have been willing to risk everything for helping Matthew out with anything concerning Amber Wilde”. In 2016, Nick stops cooperating with police, and refuses a polygraph.

In 2015, police file a subpoena for phone records from January 1, 2014 until the present date. In 2016, the subpoena is made public. The subpoena states that detectives believe the records will “constitute” evidence of first degree murder. What police find in those records has not been made public. In the subpoena, Matthew Schneider is referred to as a suspect - this was the first time police “publicly” name a suspect. After revealing Matthew’ Schneider’s name, police say he has been their primary suspect since the beginning.