OK, let’s face it: the question still remains whether or not Tammy Lynds was killed on the night of July 21, 1994—the evening she went missing—or later. One of her friends said she was running away that night. And another, the late Jason "Lumpy" Francis, said she was over a friend’s house around the time of his birthday, which was July 25. He claimed as much in a Facebook message to someone shortly before his fatal overdose in 2021:
His assertion (not to me, but to someone following the case) that her father Richard saw Tammy having sex through a window (and her fleeing the house through a window) was called preposterous by Richard. He said that he DID go to what he erroneously believed was the house in question on July 23 (but was actually the house next door) and he hollered from the street for Tammy to come out, but a woman came out, told him there was no Tammy there, and said, “Get lost or I’ll call the police.” So Richard left.
You can see Jason’s discomfort when he typed, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” and he also infers his uneasiness with a zipper-mouth emoji that he won’t discuss it further, except to say that Tammy’s supposed sexual partner wasn’t a murderer—he wrote he didn’t think he “had anything to do with anything.”
Just in case Tammy WAS at this house at one point, Richard recently sent a Facebook message to the neighbor who yelled at him, asking for ANY information, but she never responded. (Not even with a “Get lost!”). It may seem like a Hail Mary pass, but at this stage of a stagnant investigation, he is willing to try anything:
If Tammy had run away on July 21 and had been couch-surfing at friends’ houses, Francis is only person so far who has claimed that he saw her days later, and no parents or Tammy's friends have come forward to admit that she had stayed at their houses—although someone could have snuck her in at night, I suppose. Still, hiding out for several DAYS without any adults knowing? Did anyone see ANYTHING? Now is the time to come forward. Where was she between July 21 and November 4, 1994, when she was found aside Fox Road as a skeleton?
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In the blog’s online comments, as well as on the Hell’s Acres Facebook page, there has been chatter about “secret rooms” in the Lynds house on Lamont Street, implying that these were some kind of sinister sex rooms or something. I asked Richard about these supposed rooms, and he replied that he had created “shelving doors” to replace closet doors to increase storage space. Yes, the shelving doors opened to reveal closets, which someone with quite the imagination could compare to the kinds of moving bookshelves you see in the movies—the ones that open to secret passageways, but Richard was happy to quell these rumors with photos and explanations.
I know that people accuse Hell’s Acres of being Richard’s “obedient lackey,” according to one comment, but I assure you that were no “rape rooms” in the Lynds home. Plus, readers have asked for photos of the inside of the home, so here goes:
“The shelving door in the living room was a regular closet that I took the door off of,” he said. “I built the shelving door for storage of all the movies we had. Inside this closet, I lined all the walls with cedar. This closet was used for general storage, including a large safe we had.”
Below, you “can see the shelving door on the left wall in the picture of the living room. The front door, just past the shelving door, is the door that Tammy left through,” he said. “My recliner was on a left to right angle, in front of this front door.” This was the chair that Richard was asleep in when the girls woke him to go to bed:
This shows the front door and the old white closet door in the living room:
This is how the recliners were positioned when Tammy went out the front door that night:
Below is a photo of the girls’ bedroom. Around the corner to the left in this picture is a small storage area with a shelving door. “Next to the shelf is the window that Allison was kneeling at, watching Tammy walking south on Lamont, the night Tammy left,” he said.
Below is the small storage opening, to the left of the window, in the girls’ room:
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One of the more intriguing notes of Tammy's mother Susan is dated from July (or is it September?) 17, 1997, and is barely legible because of the low quality of the scan. It reads, “Tammy is walking in the woods. She is startled by noise. Runs. Chased by three people, 2 white, 1 black. Tripped on tree roots, fell, and twisted ankle. Got up, grabbed, throat slit, raped, thrown in bushes, covered, left for dead.”
Richard doesn’t know what to make of it and says it isn't Susan's handwriting. It’s almost like a dream or vision. Did Susan or someone she knew have this visualization or nightmare? Who wrote this? The description of the assailants are vague—and yet are too specific to be a generic “what-if” scenario.
A cut jugular vein is a possibility in this case, because the blade wouldn’t have nicked a bone. But unless someone comes forward with an eyewitness account of this, the scene will remain a mysterious item in Susan’s notes—unless she decides to expand on it.
In fact, the rumor of Tammy having her throat slashed has been thrown around for a while and it’s difficult to tell where it originated. Does anybody out there know? Please feel free to enlighten me.
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One of Tammy’s friends—we’ll call her Laura—went to New North Middle School with Tammy for two years. They were writers on the school newspaper together, and sat next to one another on the bus, and Tammy let her braid her hair. She described Tammy as “sweet,” but was one of those girls who “stuck out, and when you’re a white girl in Springfield, it’s important to blend in and not stick out. But she didn’t care that she stuck out, and I think that probably caused her problems.”
As detailed in Part 5, Tammy was beaten up at Central High School in what her mother insisted was a racial attack. “She had an ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude,” said Laura. “I learned to shut my mouth to avoid fights. But I left the Springfield schools after two days at Commerce High School. I never said anything wrong, but some big black girl was saying she was going to cut my face with a box cutter. Everyone was warning me, and I had never even met this person.” After that, Laura went to schools in the suburbs through the school choice program. “I wish she would have had that opportunity—it may have changed some things,” she said.
In Tammy’s murder, police had eliminated the main attacker in the school hallway assault—a girl who also had bothered her for months on the bus (below), but it’s unknown how much they investigated her fellow assailants, or the one that pulled a knife on Tammy and her boyfriend on Rosewell Street one day.
Tammy’s disappearance was certainly convenient for one of her attackers, because he had an October 14, 1994 court date to answer for the assault. However, charges had to be dropped because the plaintiff, Tammy, was missing:
The lack of legal proceedings certainly worked out well for him, because he eventually became a Springfield firefighter—something that wouldn’t have happened if he had been found guilty of assault and battery, according to the Fire Department’s longstanding “no felony conviction” policy, which also applies to juvenile felony convictions.
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In the latest development in this case, Richard has written Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, asking her office to investigate. He did this because he doesn’t trust Hampden County DA’s office with a proper investigation, which is understandable considering the files and evidence have been LOST. Granted, this inexcusable data loss occurred during another administration, and the present DA, Anthony Gulluni, actually has an excellent track record on cold cases. But the problem lingers, since the assistant district attorney Richard worked with, Jane Montori, is still in the office as chief of its appeals division.
I doubt that the present DA would ignore or stall the case (even though publicity about the lost evidence aspect reflects badly on the office). Hell, it probably wasn’t even former DA Mark Mastroianni’s office that lost the files—it was likely the Springfield Police. And in the long run, it’s probable that the AG would simply just kick the case back down to the DA—but at least as a result of Richard's letter, maybe there would be some semblance of oversight, which is what Richard has been asking—so this doesn’t get broomed under the rug.
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Richard is also pursuing a memorial to Tammy—actually he pushed this in 1995 but was rebuffed because it’s on city parkland. But now Springfield is much more receptive to this notion. In fact, things are surprisingly moving quickly—and I say this because the city NEVER moves that fast on ANYTHING like this.
Amazingly, the city has agreed to cover the cost, and it actually ordered a bench and will meet with Richard sometime in the next couple of months to finalize a location. At the time Tammy died, Richard made a huge wooden cross in commemoration of his daughter (below), which stood in until the gravestone was set.
The problem is that the cross, if incorporated into this memorial, is made out of wood, which would be susceptible to burning and theft: it is three feet wide and five feet tall, so it wouldn’t be easily embedded into the back of a bench. Including the cross in this monument would require some serious thought and creativity. The city has so far discussed several sites for a Tammy memorial, including Fox Road, the island dividing Berkshire Avenue and Boston Road, and the empty lot where the former Russell’s restaurant stood at the intersection of Fargo Street and Boston Road:
The former Russell’s a vacant lot, which is not likely to be developed (the city has tried like hell for years) would also be a good place to establish a neighborhood park to help make up for all the woods the city has lost over the years between Lamont Street and Grayson Drive. A bench next to the splash pad at the Balliet Middle School grounds at Breckwood Boulevard and Seymour Street has also been discussed.
Hell’s Acres readers: what would you think would be a fitting memorial?
13 comments:
Thank you 🙏 for staying with this people do care ! She deserves justice .
Are you all done with this story. Hope you can move on.
Not done yet!
It’s fantastic that you got involved Hell’s Acres, this memorial wouldn’t be happening without your help.
It really sucks Tammy had so many issues in school. I’m sure they had a lot to do with her needing to attend summer school. On the flip side, it is nice to see that some of these rough characters were able to turn their lives around. Being a firefighter isn’t an easy job and is something to be proud of.
Why don’t they do something at the top of Fox rd? A statue with a plaque, didn’t Tammy like astronomy? That field with the hill is a perfect location to lay out to watch shooting stars.
Do you have better pictures of the crime scene? Did anyone notice what could have been blood stains on those logs? Do you think the knife found at the scene was the murder weapon?
DNA testing has advanced even further in the last decade. So much so that it would be wise to retest any of the evidence that is still in police custody. I know you say the original file was lost. But what about the statements from the second round of questioning done around 2012/13? Do you know how many people agreed to speak with detectives at this time?
If this Lumpy character spoke with the family before he died, it’s reasonable to assume that he spoke with detectives that second round of questioning. It was a decade ago at this point, though this is something you could verify this week with a couple phone calls. Unless you’re going to tell us that those files are also missing?
He kicked her in in the head several times as she was being held down.
Oh my… in my defense, your previous blog only mentions several assailants. There’s no way to pick these guys apart in your story. One’s a rapist, druggie pulling knifes on people. Others have died for whatever preventable reasons.
I’m not gonna comment on anyone involved in those school fights anymore, but I sure would like to hear any first hand accounts. Now that it’s been so long, maybe people can give a different perspective on what transpired. You know what they say hindsight is 20/20.
These may seem like an odd questions, but you asked your readers their thoughts on a memorial.
Why hasn’t this information been shared and this question about a bench location been asked of all the followers on Tammy’s Facebook memorial page? It does currently have over 400 followers.
Is it possible that someone who follows that Facebook memorial page is unaware of your blog, but has information that could help solve her case? I assume lots of people read this blog, but don’t feel comfortable commenting. Could people have missed all of this information?
Have you gotten anywhere with those threats? Why would anyone be trying to silence people?
If some people are working with a news agency and you’re pumping out stories on your end, how is anyone sure that they’re not mucking things up for the other? A legitimate news agency wouldn’t condone some of the behavior here. So that begs the question….
I know there’s some confusion as to what evidence was lost and what still exists. Is it possible any other evidence in Tammy’s case from 1994 survived? That finger nail must’ve come from somewhere, was there any information labeled on its packaging? Touch DNA has advanced so far, certain items could still contain evidence. That note mentions her being covered, yet it doesn’t describe what was used. The killers nights have touched more than people realized
Does anyone think Tammy might have been walking across those logs and fallen? That’s totally something a young kid would enjoy and accidents do happen. I thought she had guy friends who lived on Beacon Circle? Would someone admit that Tammy made it to their house that night, but they let her walk home alone cause they were to tired/lazy after sex?
Could police have found and cleared the guy Tammy was going to see years ago? If he was underage, they wouldn’t have released his name.
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