A Cold Springs mother, Amber Luck, whose case has been dropped, is defending herself after she and her husband were arrested for child abuse, neglect, and obstruction on August 20th, with the arrests making it onto the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office social media and then all over local media.
“We love our children deeply and would never intentionally place them in harm’s way,” Amber Luck wrote Our Town Reno, sending along a document showing she has now been cleared “due to insufficient evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“The incident that led to our arrest was simply an accident,” she indicated in her message to Our Town Reno.
“Our 3-year-old son, who is very adventurous, slipped out of the house while I was in the bathroom and my husband was in the backyard. We live in a neighborhood that had a power outage at the time, so we never received notifications from our security cameras. In those few minutes, he walked down the block carrying a piece of pizza to his brother at school. Thankfully, nothing happened to him.
Since then, we’ve put strict safety measures in place, including additional locks and a safety plan to ensure this never happens again. Like any parent, I’m not perfect — accidents happen — but to have our family treated as criminals has been devastating.”
She says she and her husband are now pursuing legal action and filing a lawsuit against the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office.
“I strongly believe the Sheriff’s Office rushed to make an example out of us, in response to the tragic death of Izabella Loving due to real abuse,” Luck wrote.
The five-year-old Loving was found dead in Cold Springs in April 2025, with both her parents now incarcerated, with her father facing a first degree murder and child abuse charge, and the mother a child abuse charge.
“Our children are now being bullied at school, our family is being harassed on social media, and our reputation in our community is destroyed,” Luck wrote to Our Town Reno.
“We want accountability, and we want to prevent other families from going through the same nightmare we have endured. Families like mine deserve fairness, truth, and justice.”