PINOLE, Calif. -- Ending 21 years of agony for a Pinole mother, authorities announced Monday that notorious child killer Curtis Dean Anderson admitted before his death that he abducted and murdered the 7-year-old daughter of a slain police officer in 1988.

At an emotional press conference, authorities said Anderson confessed to killing Amber Swartz-Garcia during a 5-hour prison interview with an FBI profiler on Nov. 5, 2007.

“Amber was kidnapped and murdered by Curtis Dean Anderson, the same person who was convicted of murdering 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild and kidnapping and sexually assaulting an 8-year-old Vallejo child in 2000,” said Pinole Police Chief Paul Clancy.

Clancy added that the Pinole youngster was taken to an Arizona ranch where she was sedated her with alcohol-laced soda, assaulted and murdered. Her body was dumped in the Arizona desert.

Anderson told authorities he was driving to Arizona and abducted Amber for company, Clancy said

"In a case of tragic timing, Amber was standing in front of her house at the exact moment Anderson randomly drove through her neighborhood," Clancy said. "He opened the car door and pulled her in."

Clancy said authorities believe the girl was killed soon after she was abducted.

Since his confession, Clancy said local and FBI investigators have spent nearly the last two years making sure Anderson claims were true. A process made more difficult when Anderson died a month after the interview.

Chillingly, Clancy said Anderson to confessed to other child murder-abductions but only identified them as “FBI cases.”

The announcement ended 21 years of agony and wondering for Amber's mother, Kim.

"I never thought this day would come and that that (her daughter had been killed) would be true," she told reporters. "We don't have her. We don't have anything of hers. We don't have her jump rope. Her clothes. Her shoes. A bone. We know what they are saying but we don't have her."

Anderson – who was serving a 300-year sentence when he died -- became a suspect in the Swartz case, Clancy said, when he was arrested and convicted of the Fairchild murder.

He was convicted and received a 251-year sentence for kidnapping and sexually assaulting an 8-year-old Vallejo girl in 2000. The victim was shackled to the front seat of Anderson's car for two days and managed to escape by getting hold of the keys, flagging down a passing truck and diving through the open window.

He was later sentenced to another 50-years to life after pleading guilty to the 1999 kidnapping, molestation and murder of Fairchild.

Xiana disappeared while on her way to school in San Jose. Her fate remained a mystery until her skull was discovered more than a year later.

Swartz – the 7-year-old daughter of a slain police officer -- vanished on June 3, 1988 while jumping rope in her front yard. At the time of her disappearance, the Pinole youngster was wearing a white T-shirt and purple pants.

The disappearance hit the Pinole Police Department hard. Amber's father, Pinole Police Officer Floyd "Bernie'' Swartz, had been killed while cornering a slaying suspect about three months before the girl was born.