“I thought the case was closed,” asserted one of Tammy Lynds' friends while being questioned by police on January 23, 1995. He had also heard gossip that detectives had gotten nowhere in the investigation. But the detective told him he was wrong—that the case was still very much alive, that police were going through names in her phone ledger, and kids were still being interviewed. Then his grin turned into a frown, and with a sigh, he quickly took a seat.
He slumped in the chair and wondered if he was mentioned in Tammy’s diary, one of the main pieces of evidence that people were whispering about. One of his legs was trembling, and then his knee began bouncing like a kangaroo.
“What’s wrong?” the detective asked. “Are you nervous? Why is your leg shaking?”
“I always do that with my leg,” he insisted.
“Where have I heard that before?” he commented. The detective was accustomed to his nervous tic, because he had been in legal trouble in the past.
He didn’t answer.
That’s how Tammy’s case went in the early days, and that’s how it has been going for 29 years. Rumors. Second- and third-hand information. Innuendo. Stories from friends and acquaintances about suspicious people like the one above.
And there are still no answers.
With a lack of solid leads, and the investigation fading with every month passing, since 1995 it has been up to the Lynds family to ask around the neighborhood and see what they could come up with. They didn’t get much progress. In fact, the answers they received led to even more questions about what happened to their 15-year-old daughter, who snuck out one summer night, was missing for more than three months, and was found as a skeleton in the woods off Fox Road in Springfield. They entered the world no family wants a part of: an unsolved murder mystery.
And in this journey, the Lynds family talked to a lot of people and took many notes. They soon came to realize, like many cold case investigators, that sifting through information in these cases was like assembling a jigsaw puzzle that was bought at a tag sale—one that has been mixed up with other puzzles. As renowned investigative crime journalist Michelle McNamara pointed out, you have to investigate each puzzle piece, and you can immediately discard some of the pieces that obviously will never fit, but there are other pieces you set aside to reinvestigate. And, unfortunately, there will always be missing pieces.
The Lynds are still plodding along, putting together the puzzle. Here are some of the odd-fitting pieces that have led to even more questions.
The Threatened “Suspect”
One of Tammy’s friends, who had told Tammy's mother Susan about supposed teenage satanic rituals taking place in the woods at the end of Lamont Street—and that Tammy may have been sacrificed in one of these ceremonies—had also informed her that a couple of his friends, who “hated Tammy,” had concocted a rumor that Tammy’s father Richard was the murderer, and they wanted him to go along with the story. But he said, “No way,” gave them the middle finger, and walked away.
In the same bizarre conversation, he further told Sue that he himself and his stepfather were early suspects in the investigation, but that was no longer the case, and that it was ridiculous he had ever been a suspect because he “loved Tammy like a sister.” He went on to mention that drawings about the murder were penned by students on his desk at Putnam High School, which he took as a threat, including the one below.
A student also allegedly wrote something about a baby on his desk because Tammy was pregnant. The harassed student insisted to Sue that he “told the cops about things on his desk, about the threat to him,” she wrote, “and they ignored his calls when he phoned them.”
Sue felt that this youth was attempting to gain the trust of her family by telling these stories and trying to impress them with information about the case. But the effect was just the opposite: she didn’t want her surviving children to have anything to do with this guy. “Call it mother’s intuition,” she wrote.
Gang Initiation?
On February 3, 1995, a teen from the neighborhood told the Lynds family of a Pine Point street gang called the Young Crazy Kings who hung out and played basketball at the Balliet School’s outdoor courts off Breckwood Boulevard, and as Latin Kings wannabes, they might have adopted the Latin Kings’ supposed initiation requirement of killing someone, placing “a rose in the victim’s mouth as a calling card,” and placing black and gold beads on or near the body.
Among the personal effects found on Tammy, according to the autopsy report, were multicolored “love beads,” but it didn’t note which colors they were. Richard doesn’t remember if his daughter owned any beaded necklaces. Even though the brother of Tammy’s old boyfriend confirmed to the Lynds family the existence of this very gang on April 19, 1995, let’s face it: the possibility of a gang of 13- and 14-year-olds killing a girl is remote. They’re simply too young to perform an execution-style initiation slaying, and we would have heard more about this gang as its members got older and committed more crimes. But the Lynds were open to ANY leads at that point. And when you think about it, many people believe that at least one 15-year-old friend or enemy of Tammy killed her, so age was no object in considering who might have done this deed.
There is also the youth who “couldn’t hold it all in anymore,” according to Susan’s notes, and told friends that “four to five people were involved in her death.” Another teen, on December 9, 1994, told Tammy’s cousin that someone said his best friend killed Tammy, and if the investigation gets “out of control, he would get rid of the evidence.”
It’s unknown what Tammy’s friends and acquaintances shared with police, and who they considered strong suspects. We do know from notes in Richard Lynds’ binder, that Ricky (last name withheld), who was seeing Tammy, was eliminated as a suspect, as well as the girl who had attacked her in Central High School, according to a note from November 28, 1994–less than a month into the investigation, when detectives had already interviewed “a couple dozen people.” Were the other attackers in the Central High School incidents eventually crossed off the suspect list? The Lynds’ notes and records don’t say—they never found out.
The Knife
This unsolved murder is frustrating not only because of the lack of cooperation from individuals in Tammy’s neighborhood, but also because of the lack of evidence. All the physical evidence we know of is a knife, a fingernail that wasn’t Tammy’s, and, lately, a pair of nail clippers.
Indeed, objects found at the scene of the murder have been a source of contention and confusion since 1994. This year, Ricky said that at the police station shortly after Tammy was found he was shown a pair of nail clippers—they were medium-sized and didn’t include an attached nail file.
Tammy’s father Richard, however, was surprised to learn of the nail clippers when I told him this summer. “That’s the first I’ve heard of this,” he said incredulously.
It’s strange that the father of the murder victim didn’t know until 2023 of this find. It doesn’t smack of conspiracy or anything—just a weird oversight.
On November 7, 1994, Richard and Sue went down to the police station and Richard was shown a knife that police said was found under Tammy.
At home, right after the interview, Richard drew the knife, which was in a plastic bag, for his wife, describing it as something of a utility knife with a wooden handle:
Richard, who recently looked on the internet for the object similar to the one he was shown that day, found this razor knife scraper:
On January 23, 1995, Tammy’s sister Allison and her brother Josh were taken to the police station by their grandmother for interviews. Josh was shown a photo of the knife and drew a picture similar to his father’s:
Richard said that Josh described its shape and look as something like a “modified machete,” and that it looked like the following photo of a knife he found on the internet:
Allison, however, was shown the actual knife in the plastic bag and she drew this likeness:
“This was different from the one Richie was shown,” noted Sue. There was also a discrepancy about where the knife was found. Allison “said the detective said it was near the body,” wrote Sue. “But when she first said it to us, she said it was under her body.”
Ricky remembers being shown a knife like the one he found after an online image search:
“This is basic shape of the knife I recall seeing,” said Ricky. “The tip was a little more rounded, but it had a wooden handle and I thought screws or some sort of rivets. The blade looked flimsy like this one—this one has a flex to it. When I saw it, it reminded me of a knife you’d use at a steak house.”
But Ricky said he believes he was told that the knife was found near—not under—Tammy’s skeleton. “That had always been my understanding,” he said, until a few years ago.
So which knife is most like the one at the scene? Maybe it looks like a combination of all of them. Memory is a tricky thing—not always completely accurate. “Mine could be the wrong knife,” said Richard. “It has been 29 years.” He conceded it could have been like the one his son described. “I only had about five to ten seconds of seeing it, and it was covered in dirt and grass,” he said.
Why obsess about the appearance of the knife? Well, maybe someone saw a similar knife on the work bench of a neighbor or friend’s father. Maybe a teen shoplifted one from a store and bragged about it. And it may have been the murder weapon.
Richard Lynds doesn’t know if the knife was ever tested for DNA traces. In fact, he doesn’t even know if the tool still exists. Such is life with the Tammy Lynds murder mystery—so many questions. Maybe some answers will come with renewed interest in the case. To be sure, it’s unlikely to be solved by an armchair detective such as Hell’s Acres, but publicity and new revelations could prompt someone to come forward with information, and investigators can put together enough pieces of the puzzle to get a satisfactorily complete picture of what happened, with findings conclusive enough to finally charge a suspect.
“Maybe now people will feel more comfortable sharing anything they know or anything they’ve heard,” said Richard. He’s optimistic, but not blind to the challenge of solving a 29-year-old murder case. However, in rooting out fact from fiction, one of these stories might lead somewhere. Older and seemingly more impossible cases have been solved—all it takes is one promising lead to blow it wide open.
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