First of all, I cannot believe that I am writing about Richard Lynds in the past tense. I was last wishing him well on November 7, a day before his heart surgery, and now he’s dead.
I talked with him on the phone on November 1 for 47 minutes and now he is gone? What the hell? He got through his heart operation, but he didn’t survive the complication of five unexpected abdominal surgeries, and died on December 12.
He had joked before he went to the hospital that he was getting cow tissue for a new mitral valve in his heart, reminding him of his farm upbringing in South Hadley. Here’s his old house, now deteriorating:
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When he married Susan, he originally wanted to purchase a house in a rural town, like Monson, but she convinced him to buy a home in Springfield—close to her family in Ludlow.
“Susan wanted six kids and I didn’t,” he said. “In October of 1984 I got fixed so I would never have any more kids with Susan.”
The marriage was marred with acrimony, and I asked him why it took so long to decide on getting a divorce. Things were not good—before Tammy’s murder, but especially afterward. After they moved from Pine Point to Northampton, he said she decked him a couple of times with sucker punches—once knocking him out. Another time he said he called the police, and they arrested her when they saw his swollen, red eye. He said that when the children were growing up, he hung out with his kids when she disappeared on weekends. “I found out about Susan's boyfriend from Allison during my divorce in 2006,” he recalled.
Again, I asked him what took so long to end it. He must have loved her, I insisted. He shrugged. He said that finally, when the kids grew up and moved out of the house, there was no reason to stay married. He drew up divorce papers with a lawyer, put them on her pillow, and she found them when she was on the phone with her mother. “Oh my God, he’s divorcing me,” she announced.
Mind you, I’m only getting half the version of this tale. I know Richard could be short-tempered, hard-headed, and stubborn—so I’m sure Susan’s take on this tale would be quite different.
He found love after Susan. He married Mary, who died of COVID in 2020, and he was the boyfriend of Linda, who was by his side until the very end. Yours truly met Linda this past summer—I have corresponded with her since, and it was obvious that she adored Richard, and the feeling was mutual.
It's not my intention to write some kind of half-assed obituary on Richard, but there are a few things I'd like to say about him.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Richard liked working with his hands, whether it be a complex Lego project, constructing a remote-controlled boat, or building a shed. Once you got him talking about the 1986 addition and remodeling of his house, believe me, you’d hear about the entire process, right down to the last nail.
Tammy in the old kitchen in 1984:
Tammy and Josh in the kitchen during construction:
The new kitchen:
Richard hammering away, putting in new second floor stairs before the second floor construction started:
Richard and his father putting in the new bay window in the living room:
The new second floor being built to Richard’s plans:
Construction begins on the back deck:
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★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
I’m somewhat surprised that the city of Springfield was playing ball with Richard about plans for Tammy’s memorial, because there was a rumor that the Springfield Police had dragged their feet on Tammy’s murder investigation as a result of bad feelings they had over a dispute he had with the Boston Road bar Mattie’s when he was president of the Pine Point Neighborhood Council. In 1992, residents had complained to the Council about underage drinking there, and this resulted in a hearing with state Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission.
The problem was that the owner had been married to a Springfield police officer who died in 1986 but her family still had strong connections to the police, who also did not take kindly to his haranguing the force over Tammy’s murder investigation over the years.
Still, inferring that the Springfield Police weren’t interested in finding the murderer because of petty stuff—this flies in the face of what the Homicide squad does every day, and that is trying its damndest to put murderers in jail. Frankly, it’s an incredible insult. Springfield Homicide wants killers caught. Period.
Richard launched his own citizen investigation about his daughter’s death in earnest in in 2018, five years after the case file was lost, and he approached a former judge, but was asked to be quiet.
“In 2018, I found many of Tammy's old friends on Facebook,” he said. “At that time, I asked to be friends with them. Most of them did say yes. I then introduced myself to them and said briefly that I knew that they had knowledge about Tammy's case, and I will get the truth. I texted everyone once to see what kind of responses I would get. I got back nothing until here on your blogs.”
Unfortunately, Richard had blundered into the social media world by being a little too in-your-face. In his notes, he pointed out that a couple of Tammy’s friends had shared one of his memorial posts (below), but his subsequent contact with these guys proved unproductive. Things turned sour, and they blocked him.
For years he suspected Ricky, Tammy’s friend and sometimes lover, in the murder—and they clashed—but that changed for a bit this past summer when it became clear that both were former suspects who were looking for the same thing: the truth. In fact, it was Ricky who persuaded Richard to contact—and trust—Hell’s Acres with telling Tammy’s story. Last August, Richard acknowledged that he had been unfair to Ricky. “We never were able to talk like we are today,” said Richard. “My first contact with Ricky was in 2018. I texted him with saying a lot of things that today I know I should not have. But I had no direction to go in. I also started to hunt online all the other kids that I found out were friends or knowledge from Tammy from here phone book. I had a very long list.”
Richard knew full well, especially after Tammy’s case file was lost, that justice doesn’t just fall out of the sky. Often you have to fight for it. But at times he got too combative. Ricky made much of a claim about Richard’s alleged drunkenness the day Tammy went missing—an accusation made by a visitor at the Lynds house—and soon Ricky and Richard were fighting online again.
Richard said that the observation about his intoxication wasn’t true—that he pretty much gave up alcohol and smoking on December 22, 1982. “After that, I might have had a beer at family gatherings,” he said.
And then there was the rumor that Richard had molested and killed Tammy. The main instigators of “the father did it” rumor are, in my opinion, the top suspects. One of them is the late Jason Francis. I believe they told police this in 1994 to divert attention from themselves. I’ll tell you one thing—Richard didn’t kill her. He did rub people the wrong way when he was trying to figure this crime out, so he became a convenient scapegoat for some. But the guy had been going at great lengths to get this case solved. If it was all a cover for his guilt, it was an extremely elaborate one, and I’m not easily fooled. Yes, he lost his temper during this investigation. I can’t defend all his actions, but to all these people who seem to have hated his guts: how perfectly would YOU behave if your daughter was slaughtered?
“My problem has been all the years that no one has been willing to sit down, in person, and talk with me,” said Richard. “I have been on my own for 29 years. All these people have been accusing me of so many things, without asking about my side of the story. It makes it hard to go forward like I want to on this. I hope someday it will all open up and I will get the truth about how and why Tammy was killed.”
And then came his health issues. “I do not want to stop trying to solve my daughter’s case, but I have more important things to worry about right now,” he said. “Will I survive my open heart surgery coming up in November?”
I thought he would survive. But his unexpected death is a reminder that life is precious—that you should hug your family members, and not take them for granted, because they can be gone in an instant. Richard knew that more than anyone.
He is with Tammy now, and knows the answers about her death. But where does that leave us? For information on Tammy’s murder, I was relying solely on him and a couple of others.
In 2023, the last year of Richard’s life, the rest of his family and the vast majority of Tammy’s friends have remained incredibly quiet about her murder, even though this latest publicity—yes, I’m talking about this blog—is clearly the last gasp of this investigation.
Why the silence? Please enlighten me.
