The past claims of one of Tammy Lynds’s friends, the late Jason “Lumpy” Francis, always have to be taken with a billion grains of salt, not only because his longtime drug abuse might have clouded his memory, but also because he was certainly a “person of interest” in the early days of her murder investigation.
Shortly before Francis’s overdose death in 2021, an individual
looking into the case had a phone conversation with him—a recorded talk in
which he related a story that in the days after Tammy went missing, his friend invited
Tammy over his house and the guy was “messing around” with her until both saw
her father, Richard, in the window. Then she quickly dressed, made a hasty
exit, and no one saw her between that time and “when the bad thing happened,” said
Francis.
Francis saw none of this—the story was related to him by the mother of Tammy’s sex partner as soon as he showed up at the house after rolling a joint. Too bad the joint rolling delayed him, or he could have caught the whole frantic scene! But did it really happen? Richard said it didn't.
According to the phone conversation, at one point Jason was
working at a Dunkin Donuts when a police officer came in, recognized him, and
told him that he had worked on the Tammy Lynds case, and that at first Richard
was the prime suspect, but “they don’t have enough evidence.” Really? A cop who
investigated the murder openly talked to one of Tammy’s friends about who they
suspected? The fact that Richard was initially a suspect was indeed true, but so
many of Lumpy’s statements in the call are beyond bizarre.
Unbelievably, he couldn’t recall the year that Tammy was murdered, or what time of year it was when she went missing, or where she was found. He
asked the caller if her body was discovered “over by the school,” presumably
meaning Mary M. Lynch Elementary School. Of course, he couldn’t remember the
name of the school. Keep in mind that he was a friend of Tammy, and all her
friends at least know these basic facts. The crime is burned into their memory,
but apparently not his. “So she was outside, near the street, like towards the
woods or something?” he asked the caller.
This is such an obvious deflection that it would be almost laughable
if we weren’t reading about a murder—he is SO INNOCENT that he clearly knows
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the slaying. He has moved on because it has nothing to
do with him IN ANY WAY.
“What I was told by police was that she was stabbed 27 times with
a Swiss army knife,” he said. “I’ll never forget.” In one fell swoop, he expected the person on the phone to believe that he had NO IDEA that she was found as a
skeleton (a coroner obviously can’t count the number of stab wounds when there
is no flesh on the corpse), and at the same time he declared that a murder
weapon was determined (when actually a cause of death was never found).
“You remember the officer you talked to?” he was asked.
“No, I don’t,” he answered, postulating that the cop must be
elderly by now. “Like 65 or 75,” he said. Well, at least his math skills were
sharp as a tack.
He said it was well known among their circle that Richard “did
dirty things” with Tammy, and that’s partly why Francis didn’t want to date
her—because she must have had such emotional baggage from that, she wasn’t
someone “I’d be interested in doing anything with. She’s got too much going
on.” God forbid that Francis would even dream of taking advantage of a
vulnerable teenage girl! He had morals!
Tammy’s alleged sex partner in the incident Francis described has
come into some suspicion over the years, but Francis pooh-pooed the idea that
he killed her. “I mean, I knew that kid for a long time, and there’s no way on
God’s green earth that he’s capable of anything like that without showing signs
or anything,” he said.
This fascinating conversation included a brief discussion about
two other shady characters in Tammy’s orbit who died by suicide. One, he explained,
was a heroin user, “and sometimes drug addicts kill themselves.”
Yes, this sentence had to be the most ironic musing in this whole
dialogue. Words of wisdom, Jason. Words of wisdom. Too bad he didn’t take them
to heart. Did I mention that Lumpy sounded incredibly high throughout the call?
“He dated my girlfriend after I dated her,” Francis continued. “We
ended up fighting and he ended up trying to shoot me in the head.” How does one
“try” to shoot someone in the head? Was he saying the gunman missed? Did the
gun jam? Did Jason wrestle the gun out of his hand? He didn’t elaborate on that
one.
Francis was then asked about another person of interest in the
case, and he described him as his best friend, although he wasn’t clear how
many siblings the guy had and whether or not the dude had a sister—he wasn’t
sure. He was clueless about the kid’s family members—his best friend indeed. At
least he remembered that he lived on Gilbert Avenue.
So I guess much of this strangeness and lack of clarity can be
chalked up to Francis’s drug use. A scroll down his Facebook profile reveals
the usual memes of a troubled soul, including these two below, complete with comments
from a guy calling him a low-life for stealing from him for his addiction, etc.
However, I still can’t get past Francis’s profession of such total
ignorance of the well-known facts about Tammy’s murder. Methinks he doth play
dumb too much. You could see that he was trying distance himself as much as
possible, but I believe it makes him even more suspect—that he either knows much more,
or could have even been at the scene.
I had such high hopes for this recorded conversation. When I heard
a rumor that part of it was Jason’s assertion that he and his friend “were the
last ones to see her the night she went missing,” I thought that it might have
promise in taking us somewhere in the investigation.
This past summer, when I went hiking in the Rocky Mountain
National Park, I was in the town of Estes Park and I was driving north in
search of the nearest trail—and there it was! Lumpy Ridge! I took it as a sign
from God—that I would soon hear the recording, and it might lead to some kind
of discovery.
Then, weeks later, I finally got a hold of the audio file, and the
only revelation was that Lumpy was full of shit.
Oh well, the investigation moves on, keeping in mind that by
dying, Jason Francis could easily be blamed for the murder by a suspect who is
being given the third-degree by a detective, and then Lumpy has no chance to
defend himself—a guy who died two years ago without even a real obituary to
remember him by. I’m positive that this has been considered more than once by
the perpetrator(s). He probably even has a detailed BS story ready to tell, and who
could disprove it? If an investigator turns up the heat: “I was there, but I didn’t do it! Jason did it before I could stop him. I thought he was just
trying to scare her!” Sadly, Francis is the wild card the real murderer can throw down in this case.
Yep. When the going gets tough, just blame Lumpy. Here's the $64,000 question: is he completely blameless?
