On July 21, 1994, 15-year-old Tammy Marie Lynds seemed nervous and afraid. She planned on sneaking out of her house to see a friend or possible boyfriend and told her 10-year-old sister, Allison, that she was dreading the encounter.
Before she left home, she woke her dad, sleeping on the couch, to tell him to go to bed. Tammy walked out the front door, slipped out the yard’s side gate, avoided tripping the motion sensor lights, and disappeared.
When Tammy had not returned home, her family reported her missing on July 22.
On November 4, 1994, Tammy’s body was found in a wooded area off Fox Road in Springfield, Massachusetts, by a man riding in the woods with his son. The medical examiner could not determine the cause of death due to decomposition.
Tammy wrote about sneaking out and meeting her boyfriend in her diary a week before her disappearance. That night, a group of men outside a bar made her feel uncomfortable as she walked by, and in her diary, she wrote, “but when I was going past the first bar, I had a man start following me, I booked.” It is unclear which bar she refers to or if police could track the men down and interview them.
Tammy wrote, “When I got to his house he let me in and I lad [sic] on his bed he closed the window. Then he turn [sic] off the lights and then unbuttoned my shirt and lad [sic] down with me, kissing me also. Then he asked me if I wanted to do the…”
Little was done to investigate Tammy’s death, and by all accounts, the media stopped reporting on it. When Tammy’s family reported her missing, the police labeled her a runaway. Even after finding her body, investigators did not seem in a hurry to find the killer.
Twenty-two years have passed since Tammy’s death, and not one person has been charged in her case or named a suspect.
True Crime Diva’s Thoughts
I would like to know who this “boyfriend” was. I think he’s the key here. He’s not named in her diary, and I don’t think police ever found out who he was. Surely, Tammy’s friends knew who this person was. Why didn’t they go to the police?
Interestingly, Tammy doesn’t name the boyfriend in her diary. Maybe she did that in case someone read it. But why the secrecy? Why did she sneak out at night to meet him instead of somewhere during the day? It was almost as if they could not be seen together.
It appears there was some sexual activity between her and this mystery guy. How far it went, nobody knows, but could she have been pregnant the night she disappeared? Maybe she decided to tell him, and that was why she wasn’t looking forward to going. And maybe he didn’t like what she had to say, and something happened. From what I understand, the night she disappeared, she was supposed to meet this guy in the woods somewhere, not his house. So, I feel like she had something to tell him. Maybe that she was pregnant, or she was going to break things off. Exactly where they were to meet is unclear. Her body was found at a common dumping ground, so she probably wasn’t killed there.
She was murdered. I’m guessing strangulation or smothering was the cause of death. And I think her killer is the mystery guy. If he did not kill her, why hasn’t he come forward about the meeting that night or the previous rendezvous in his bedroom?
There is a slight chance a stranger abducted her as she walked to meet him, but I don’t think that is what happened. She had a reason for dreading the meet. Whatever that reason was, we may never know.
