On November 4, 1994, almost four months after 15-year-old Tammy Lynds snuck out of her house at midnight, her skeleton was found in the brush just off Fox Road in Springfield.
Nearly 30 years later, and more than a decade since I wrote Part 1, the homicide remains unsolved, with very few revelations. Here’s one of them: after Tammy’s sister, Allison, said that Tammy was supposed to meet someone the night she went missing, police interviewed the very person Tammy allegedly had named as her potential rendezvous partner. A pair of detectives spoke to the boy in his backyard, away from his parents. At that point, her whereabouts were still unknown.
“The two officers told me they already knew what Tammy and I had been doing together,” he said. “They said she wrote a detailed description of everything in her diary,” and as long he told the truth, “I wouldn’t get in any trouble and they wouldn’t tell my parents. So I told them.”
His voice was quivering, and he was shaking as he told them about the “inappropriate kid stuff” he and Tammy sometimes did when they were alone. He was nervous, because after all, he was only 15, and a girl was missing. “Then they asked if they could look around,” he said. “My parents agreed—we had nothing to hide.”
Ricky (last name withheld by request) still had nothing to hide when he was pulled out of a classroom after Tammy’s remains were found. “I was called into the office at school and I had a picture of her shoved in my face,” he said. “Then they brought me to the station for questioning.”
In the almost three decades since the murder, those following the case have believed that a key to solving the murder is determining who Tammy met with that night. But Ricky said it wasn’t him.
In fact, more than just about anything, Ricky would like this murder solved—because he and Tammy were friends.
At times, life hasn’t been easy for Ricky, who has multiple medical conditions, including hyperthyroidism, and he is on permanent disability for an untreatable genetic skeletal muscle disorder. Still, among all the difficulties of his of his childhood and adulthood, one of the most frustrating tribulations has been losing a friend to murder, and then seeing her grieving family in limbo all these years.
Ricky knew Tammy well—he had dinner at her house on occasion, he attended Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School with her, and they remained friends, even though after graduating from OLSH she went to Central High School and he went to Putnam. The murder had a chilling effect on a typical group of adolescent friends who tried to break up teen boredom with the usual activities and shenanigans.
“Tammy would read comics in my basement with me and my cousins at times,” he said “We all would ride the trails in the woods around North Branch and up and down the side streets off Sunrise Terrace when she came around. Tammy even came over and swam in our pool with my cousins and my mom at least one time that summer. There were occasions where a bunch of us would play video games together. We used to talk on the phone about all kinds of random stuff, like Star Trek. She loved Star Trek.” Tammy, who was interested in astronomy and wanted to be an astronaut, had talked enthusiastically with Ricky about comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which was about to hit Jupiter in the summer of 1994. “We were excited to get our driver’s permits,” he said. “We also used to prank call people all the time. I was the number one offender, saying whatever stupid stuff came into my head.”
Tammy’s death left a void not only with her family, but also her friends. Ricky felt it immediately. “My mother dropped me off to see the movie Star Trek Generations alone in West Springfield that November of 1994 after Tammy was found, because no one else I knew liked Star Trek,” he said.
To this day, Ricky doesn’t know who else was questioned by police about the murder, except for a 13-year-old neighborhood boy who had commented to another kid that the skeleton that was found, which was still unidentified, was probably Tammy. Detectives were told about this remark, and they went to his home. “I guess his mom let the cops talk to him alone,” and the boy broke down and cried. He knew nothing, recalled Ricky. “I remember his older brother laughing about how swollen his little brother’s eyes were,” he said.
The next time Ricky was interviewed was in 2012, when police were re-investigating the cold case. He told them all he knew. Again, he had nothing to hide, and he doesn’t to this day.
In Ricky’s correspondence with Allison over the years, she told him she believes that the person who lured her sister out of the house on that fateful night had pretended that Ricky wanted to see her. Supposedly, her friend Owen (not his real name) had also asked her sister if she wanted to spend Friday night (the following night) roller skating at the Interskate 91 rink in Wilbraham, but her parents said no.
Several years ago, a paranormal investigator—who in videos has tried to contact Tammy’s spirit for clues—interviewed her father, Richard Lynds, who said on camera it was his understanding that Tammy was romancing two boys simultaneously at the time of her death: Ricky and someone named David. “She was playing a game between them,” he said. “All I know is Tammy was dared out by somebody.” Based on her diary, Richard Lynds had originally assumed it was Ricky—Richard and Tammy’s brother had pedaled their bikes over to his house and talked to him, his mother, and his siblings on the day she was reported missing—but apparently David is also someone to consider in this mystery.
Ricky had never heard of David or Sammy. “I don’t recall Tammy ever going roller skating or talking about it either,” said Ricky, who went to Interskate 91 a lot with his brother, friends, and cousins.
Murder Weapon?
In 2020, one of the paranormal investigator’s videos publicized for the first time what might have been the murder weapon: a knife that was allegedly found under Tammy’s remains. Richard Lynds described it as something like a carpet-cutting knife—more of a tool, with a removable blade.
Police had also showed Ricky the knife when they brought him in for questioning. “It was in a paper bag along with her rings—I remember because they said they took them off of her bones—and some clothing item I can’t recall, he said. “The knife was rusty, with a wooden handle and a dull tip. It wasn’t a sharp, sturdy knife.” Until the YouTube interview with Richard Lynds, “I was always under the impression that the knife and other trash were found in the general area, and not directly under her body,” said Ricky. According to Richard, some of his daughter’s teeth were found under her corpse as well. “I would imagine a forensic doctor should have been able to tell the difference of someone’s teeth getting knocked out before or after they died,” said Ricky.
Ricky pointed out that the knife could have been part of the roadside trash that was plentiful at the scene, but for some, a knife found underneath a murder victim is simply too much of a coincidence—and who can blame them? Police have never released the cause of death—or even if it had even been determined.
Was Tammy Pregnant?
There is also the possibility that Tammy was pregnant. Ricky had heard this through secondary sources—hearsay from relatives of Springfield police—and that some of her girlfriends knew she was pregnant, but this is unconfirmed. If true, this could certainly provide a motive for murder—a dreaded conversation that might have enraged the father of the child, or a jealous love interest. Can DNA be extracted from a skeletal fetus in an effort to determine the father?
The main unanswered question remains: Who was Tammy meeting with the night she went missing? “I don’t know of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Tammy for any reason,” said Ricky. He did say that Tammy and her brother had discussed Tammy being assaulted in school recently—an attack in which she was kicked by someone wearing construction boots and the incident resulting in a court case, according to Ricky.
In another one of the paranormal investigator’s videos, he explores the woods behind the area where Tammy was found, and discovers a depression he believes was a neighborhood party spot called The Pit. Richard Lynds believes Tammy was killed there that night and her body dragged up toward Fox Road. This leads to one of Ricky’s biggest frustrations: that Richard believes Ricky may have been involved in his daughter’s death—or at least knows more than he is letting on, or is protecting someone. Maybe he believes Ricky got his daughter into the habit of sneaking out at night, a practice that ultimately led to her murder—even though Ricky insists she never snuck out to meet him. Regardless, Richard’s suspicions almost led to a confrontation at a West Springfield bar.
Ricky used to sing karaoke at the bar, called Mingles, with his friends, when they saw Richard giving Ricky “the death stare,” he recalled. “Wherever I walked, his head turned. Mr. Lynds wasn’t trying to hide the way he felt either—you could see the hatred in his eyes. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed. Mr. Lynds was sitting to the right of the Megatouch machine by the front door. When I was getting ready to leave, he got up and also headed towards the door.” Ricky knew an employee working at the door, who told Richard, after he exited, that he wasn’t allowed back in. “I ended up waiting around another 20 minutes, then I left,” said Ricky. “I haven’t seen him since.”
And so it goes with the Tammy Lynds cold case. Aside from comments on various blogs, there hasn’t been much publicized about the murder, except for the paranormal videos and their online comments. There have been 15 of these videos so far, with some good interviews. Unfortunately, as the years go by, the Lynds family is frustrated that this cold case isn’t getting any warmer. The videos are “the only outlet they’ve had in decades to get their story out,” said Ricky. “What if someone watches those videos and then comes forward with some missing piece of the puzzle?”
Ricky is adamant that the answer to this confounding mystery doesn’t lie with him, but he is happy to help draw publicity to the case, because this might also prompt someone to offer a missing piece—which could lead to another piece, and so forth. It boggles his mind that no new details have officially been released—especially Tammy’s alleged pregnancy. “Can detectives really be holding everything back, waiting to hear one person slip about something so specific, they’re not willing to say anything at all?” he asked.
Those with any information about the case—no matter how small, or how insignificant it may seem—should call the Springfield Police Homicide Unit at 413-787-6355. People can also provide information anonymously through Text-a-Tip by texting the word CRIMES (2-7-4-6-3-7) and typing the word SOLVE followed by the information.