“Don’t you dare!” said Tammy’s mother, Susan, when the officer from the Springfield Police Youth Aid Bureau wanted to list Tammy as a runaway in an incident report on July 22, 1994. “She is MISSING!” she insisted.
So the officer listed her as a missing person. However, when Richard called four days later, the cop who answered the phone said, “Because of her age, being 15, we consider that she has run away. If she was younger, around 10, we would consider her a missing person.”
Richard tried to explain that before Tammy left, she had assured her sister Allison that she would return in the wee hours, and she had finished her summer school math homework that was due the next day. Also, she had taken nothing with her, and had left the door open to sneak back in—indications that she intended to come home that night.
But the Springfield Police were overworked, undermanned, and not interested in pursuing a teen they thought was likely to return. In Springfield, there were around 1,300 missing youth in 1994, and in the summer, the police were fielding up to 20 missing youth reports every weekend. At the time, police admitted that with resources stretched so thin, days would pass in which the Youth Aid Bureau didn’t have time to have officers investigate missing person reports at all.
“She will come back!” her family prayed. Richard called Tammy’s friends and popped in on a few to see if she was indeed staying with them, with no luck. He didn’t think she had fled the family, but then again, because teens are sometimes unpredictable, he didn’t even want to consider foul play or murder at that point—to think the unthinkable was not an option.
When considering whether or not a teen has run away, a parent or police officer will never be able to truly delve into the adolescent’s mind, but they do try to turn back the clock and look for changes in behavior, mood swings, and relationships with family members—especially in the month and days leading up to when the youth goes missing. In Tammy’s case, they had a diary, which indicated the usual teenage challenges, but also a desire to have a baby, which is not your average 15-year-old’s dream. It was puzzling.
Tammy’s Final Night
In the early evening of July 21, 1994, a family friend named Pam and several of her children were over the Lynds house for dinner and the kids played hide and seek. Tammy, according to Richard, had wanted to spend the weekend at Pam’s—which she did on occasion—but Pam’s family was going to be busy moving on Saturday, and Tammy was extremely disappointed at this, and threw a mini-fit, storming to her room.
At midnight, Allison said Tammy told her she was going to meet her friend and sometimes lover Ricky and she would be back at 3:00 a.m., but according to Susan’s statement (below), the family eventually came to believe that Tammy told Allison this story to shift attention away from the direction she was really heading in—south toward the other end of Lamont Street, instead of northeast, toward Ricky’s house—in case Allison told anyone.
Tammy had taken the wind chimes off the door so they wouldn’t make any noise, left the door ajar, unlocked the side gate (pictured below), and slipped out to avoid setting off the main motion detector-lights. Richard said he forgot to check the next day if she had left the gate unlocked to more easily sneak back home.
Without packing clothes and other necessities, the notion of Tammy running away in the middle of the night would have been an incredibly spontaneous act.
“You’re telling me a teenager who’s planning to run away sits down and finishes her homework first?” asked Susan in a story in the Valley Advocate from 2000. “No way,” she answered her own question. “She was planning to come that night. I’m sure of it.”
The Youth Aid Bureau told Richard they believed she would return to the house within a few days—to stay home for good, or to pick up some clothes and take off again. So, on the advice of Officer C. Robert Taylor, Richard didn’t go to work on Monday, parked at the nearby Our Lady of the Sacred Heart school lot to make it look like he wasn’t home, and stayed in the kitchen, leaving the kitchen door unlocked. But Tammy didn’t return.
At one point, someone called the Lynds house and told Susan that Tammy was in Florida, but he did not say his name and quickly hung up. “Why would someone say this?” they wondered. Then Richard had an idea—it was a longshot. “When we were on a vacation trip to Florida and the Bahamas, in April of 1994, Tammy met a boy on the trip, and she had communication with him once we got back home,” said Richard. “I called him to ask if he knew Tammy was missing. He didn’t know.”
Richard decided to call the State Police, hoping they would help, but they told him that since Tammy hadn’t disappeared from a state highway, the Springfield Police would remain in charge. This is what he didn’t want to hear, because the Springfield cops didn’t seem to care. In Susan’s statement, she said, “This family was treated very poorly by those who should have been helping to find the answers to what happened to Tammy.”
In determining Tammy’s state of mind before her disappearance, a look at Tammy’s diary pages that were available reveal that she did have some problems with her mother—like all teenagers—but it was getting “out of hand,” in Tammy’s opinion:
She also wrote of difficulties with both her parents, but she was extremely vague:
In a school assignment, she wrote about a negative pregnancy test, and refers to conflicts with her brother and sister, but the complaints about her siblings are trivial:
To be sure, teen girls argue with their parents, but Richard said later he found out that Tammy and Susan had extremely physical fights in which Susan dragged Tammy on the floor by her hair. The result was Tammy cutting off her ponytail (forever preserved in the frame below) to avoid this.
Richard also said that he found out later that Susan had taken Tammy to a doctor in downtown Springfield once to get an abortion—something that might have caused friction between the two, especially if Tammy wanted to have a baby.
According to Richard, who said he supplied Hell’s Acres with all the diary notes that he had from Tammy, his daughter kept another diary, which was under lock and key—a book that her mother took from her, and no one has seen this diary, other than Susan—as far as we know. Still, there must be some confusion about what was preserved, because there are diary pages in a spiral notebook, but also notations in a nicer book, with filigree designs in the margins and what seems to be a lock hinge on the left:
A Party?
On September 25, 2019, Tammy’s old friend Jason Francis described to Allison (related by her in the statement below) a party on Lamont Street around July 25, 1994—four days after Tammy disappeared—in which Richard, searching for Tammy, supposedly peeped in a window and saw his daughter having sex with the teen who lived there. According to Francis, his mother called the police on Richard, and they showed up at the house. Tammy “was horrified, got dressed in a hurry, and went out the window.”
The notations in this statement point out the implausibility of several of his claims, including the police visiting on a complaint about Richard (there would have been a record of this), and Tammy climbing out the window—she would have been unlikely to do this while Richard was alleged to have been waiting outside the very same window.
Most notably, Richard would have notified police of Tammy’s whereabouts, and even if Tammy had escaped that situation, the sighting would obviously have been reported. For the record, Richard did say he intended to go to this house to look for his daughter, and he started shouting from the curb for Tammy to come out, but he was in front of the wrong house, even though it looked like there was a party going on. “An older woman came out and told me there was no Tammy there, and to get lost or she would call the police,” said. “It turned out the house I was looking for was next door.” The house he intended to visit seemed quiet.
If Tammy were at this supposed party four days after she left home, it would mean that she indeed was a runaway before she was killed. However, Jason Francis (pictured below) was a troubled young man who was in the throes of addiction as he got older and died of a drug overdose in 2021, taking God knows what secrets to his grave. Maybe he knew something about Tammy’s fate (and possibly told someone), but the veracity of his statement is somewhat suspect because of its inconsistencies.
23 comments:
You’re always teasing us with stuff… what the heck is up with that??? I save that notebook diary page and inverted it… you can clearly see that Tammy was writing about what she “liked about her school schedule”, that’s finally something positive and unrelated to smells or her murder and we don’t get to see it all… Totally not your fault and this is a well written, yet heartbreaking post… it’s hard to say great job when it didn’t make me feel good reading it…
I thought I had that diary page. I’m looking for it now.
This sounds a lot like my mom. She got pregnant with me in high school. I’m not sure what it is about certain parents in general and their love of blaming kids for everything.
Why can’t parents learn to have a conversation and communicate like adults?
What does yelling, hitting or blaming your child ever accomplish?
It’s a tragedy that we’re never able to connect with our parents, to talk about the things that mean the most to us. Tammy had questions like we all do and she was struggling to find answers.
I can see myself in these writings and it brings back horrible childhood memories. Why can’t you sit still, why can’t you stop talking, why don’t you ever behave. Adults in the 80’s had no issues smacking kids around and belittling them just for the hell of it and perhaps at times to let out their frustration at their inability to address situations with a positive attitude.
Kids need to hear that parents make mistakes too.
Poor Tammy, I know exactly how it felt to want someone to listen, to try to help answer my questions and not to be accused of anything because I wanted to talk. Adults went out of their way to scare us back the, some were more terrifying than others.
It’s horrifying to think Tammy wanted to tell people what was going on, but couldn’t trust any adults not to flip out, so she kept everything she was up to, to herself.
I know she doesn’t appear to have had many friends from the lack of responses, what about the kids that didn’t really care for her? Did any of them ever come forward with information about anything she might’ve been up to or anyone they saw her with?
How old was Tammy when she had this abortion?
That sounds horrific, a young teenage girl forced to spread her legs and kill her own baby. Tammy wasn’t old enough to understand the mental consequences of these types of actions.
This is really hard to take in. She got pregnant on purpose the beginning of June 1994, had an abortion at one point, then on July 21, 1994 she had a conversation with a friend sounding sad, then mysteriously disappeared into the night, never to been seen again. WTF
She also doesn’t mention any previous abortion or any pain related to having one in that final dairy entry.
What did the baby’s father have to say about the abortion? Her parents must have questioned this guy right after she went missing. That’s the first person I would’ve gone to see. Tammy must’ve been feeling so confused, angry, heartbroken, betrayed.
Suicide seems like a real possibility after reading all this. I can’t understand how this girl could keep such a horrific experience like this to herself.
Unless she never got a chance to tell her friends and she got that abortion on July 21,1994. Holy shit guys, Who The Fork is your records guy?
How is it that her sometime lover didn’t speak of this abortion?
Could Tammy have died on the side of Fox rd from the side effects of this abortion?
Come on guys, she was happy and full of life in the July 15, 1994 diary entry.
What the Hell did this innocent young girls last few weeks look like.
Tammy could’ve easily suffered a post-abortion hemorrhage.
You’re supposed to take it easy for weeks after that type of procedure.
Not sneak off in the middle of the night.
If she did die from abortion complications, there wouldn’t be any evidence in her skeletal remains.
Hopefully her old medical records still exist.
The Tragedy of Tammy Lynds:
Forced abortion gone wrong-maybe
Murdered by family member -maybe
Murdered by friend- maybe
Murdered by stranger- maybe
Suicide- maybe
Accidental slip/fall death-maybe
Allergic reaction death- maybe
Drug overdose death- maybe
Where are we going?
I don’t know what to say about a lot of this new info. I wish I had something to add, but I haven’t heard anyone mention an abortion before.
This case has a guardian angel making sure no one comes forward to help.
Why haven’t you brain stormed with Crash Barry on this latest blog streak you’ve been on? Maybe he would be willing to come interview people.
You started this Fox rd Mystery series five years before broaching the Danny Croteau murder.
It took forty nine years for authorities to get a B.S. confession out of R.L. about Danny’s murder.
Without a cause of death. You will never be able to charge anyone with anything. You need to have her body exhumed and reexamined. Then and only then will you be able to proceed with this investigation. Stick to facts jack, not fables.
So many secrets. Wtf
Why is no one asking about the diary in Tammy's mother's possession? Did the police ever look at it?
We do not know of that diary’s status—whether it still exists today, and it’s doubtful police ever saw it.
Hi folks. Any threats will be reported. And you WILL be tracked and caught—believe me. Also, keyboard commandos don’t do well in prison.
I think I may have seen her at Central hs that summer now come to think of it but thought maybe it was the year before . Not thinking so now . It was 94 .
I know another creep that lived in those places on Grayson and he was a bad seed ,sex offender right around the corner from Fox rd . He’s a dead mf now but in and rapier post you shed light on the many perverts loose in the hood and the hobos on the woods right there! Losing a murder file? They need to pull out all the stops now . I know at that time DSS now DCF shared files with the cops so could they have it? If they were looking at all angles ? Maybe it travelled over there ?
Sad but true
It’s super fucked up that Lumpy was used like that… before he died someone was pressuring him about this Tammy chick. Seriously on his fucking case. Someone threatened him to. Lumpy was having crazy ass panic attacks looking over his shoulder left and right. He told me he was guilt tripped into saying some shit that wasn’t true and that someone was gonna show up on his doorstep. I wished he never talked to the people who were fucking with him. Sure he stole some money and shit from a couple people that doesn’t mean he knew shit about that girls death.
We believe he knew PLENTY. But please elaborate on his state of mind. It’s always helpful to know. Thanks for writing. If he was coerced let us know details.
Check is cell phone and you’ll see [phone number redacted]. Lunpy was threatened. Warned that he better start talking. He was really losing it in the end . He was getting fucked up messages from [phone number redacted]: If the police don’t arrest the killer, I’ll [depiction of violence redacted]. My face will be the last thing they see.
I keep thinking about the autopsy report. The fact that the front teeth were missing and no identified signs of blunt force trauma. Is it possible that rather than strangulation she died if suffocation? If someone covered her mouth and nose with enough pressure, they may have stopped her from breathing and pushed her teeth enough to loosen them. The tissue and eyes would have held the evidence but all tissues were gone by the time she was found.Were the teeth roots ever examined? What was her oral hygiene like?
Also, the “love beads” she was wearing. Where did they come from? At 15, girls tend to wear things that have meaning to them especially if they “love” someone. If they were given to her by her special someone, they may have DNA on them….
The fingernail found with her body…. If it was not hers, where are hers? That may be an avenue to explore….
Has anyone looked at school rosters or tear books to ID the David and other boys Tammy wrote about in her diary???
I feel like there are a lot of areas not investigated.
Her body should be exhumed and reinvestigated for evidence by the familial genealogy teams now. They are solving cases older than this one now!
I lived a mile from the lynds's in 94 and my family knew them. My brother and I were in the same cubscouts troop and my sister was in her grade at central and like I said before this case affected me greatly at the time and has ever since. Out of respect for the deceased and her family I don' t want to fuel rumors or disinformation but is the possibility that she was killed by her family something the people in the neighborhood and who were close to the investigation seriously think may have been what happened? I know that before we moved away that I heard around that people were definitely saying this but but me being so young and now t that close with them and the dynamics of ther family I didn't know wether or not if this theory had anything to it. I remember my sister being the bitch she is and was saying she didn't care much for Tammyband and I'll never forget the word skank being written over Tammys portrait in the duggan yearbook but my sister was a totalp cliquey bitch and I'm sure that sentiment had to do more with how she felt about herself than tammy. But she always used to say that Tammy was killed by her father for being promise scuous and getting pregnant yada yada.. I'm just curious if there could be truth to that and if there are others out there who feel the same. Qll I know is that wen you see her pictures she looks like such a bright and beautiful little girl who is so full of life and I pray that justice is found for this person who's life was cut tragicly short and could have grown up to do great things. R.i.p Tammy - Brian duke
Hi Brian, thanks for commenting. The main instigators of “the father did it” rumor are, in my opinion, the top suspects. One of them is the late Jason Francis. We believe they told police this in 1995 to divert attention from themselves. If you have any more information, let me know. I’ll tell you one thing—the father didn’t kill her. He did rub people the wrong way when he was trying to figure this out, so he became a convenient scapegoat. But the guy has been going at great lengths to get this case solved. If it’s all a cover for his guilt, it’s an extremely elaborate one, and I’m not easily fooled. He has lost his temper during this investigation. I can’t defend all his actions, but to all these people who seem to hate his guts: how perfectly would YOU behave if your daughter was slaughtered. OK, homily over. Again, thanks, and let us know if you hear anything.
That makes alot of sense and I feel like the simplest explanations are often the right ones. I was really young at the time and only remember Richard as our den leader in cubscouts wen we would have our get togethers at the church on jasper st and I always thought he seemed like a kind man. I've been away from mass for so long I never got to see how the case went after it turned cold but it's never forgot about it and I just hope something breaks. I wish I had any information that could help but sadly I don't think m just a spectator who's passionate about seeing those who harm innocent children being held accountable for their actions and if m even more passionate about my boyhood home and the good people of the hat community keeping not only Tammy's but all those who were losts me mory alive. Thank you for t he work that you do and know that there are ppl far away from pine point that appreciate what your doing
I for one would really like to know if this lumpy stuff is true. There are several stories going around and some involve him being the victim. If he was being harassed and threatened. someone needs to look into it.
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