Speaker 1: Dark Cast Network. Welcome to the dark Side of podcasting.
Speaker 2: On July sixth, nineteen eighty three, eighteen year old Tammy
Speaker 2: Lynn Leppert left her home in Rockledge, Florida, with a
Speaker 2: friend for what was supposed to be a fun day
Speaker 2: at the beach. Tammy was a budding actress who had
Speaker 2: landed small roles in movies like Scarface and spring Break,
Speaker 2: but in the weeks leading up to that summer day,
Speaker 2: she had been acting strangely. She told her mother that
Speaker 2: she'd seen something awful and even feared that someone was
Speaker 2: trying to kill her. That afternoon, she got into an
Speaker 2: argument with her friend and he dropped Tammy off alone
Speaker 2: near Coco Beach's landmark Glass Bank building. She made a
Speaker 2: few urgent phone calls from a nearby payphone, and then
Speaker 2: vanished without a trace. Decades have passed without any sign
Speaker 2: of the teenager. What happened to Tammy Lynn Leppert? When
Speaker 2: a person goes missing, the it's a special kind of
Speaker 2: pain and then not knowing. I want to tell the
Speaker 2: stories of those who never came home. Today, I want
Speaker 2: to tell you the story of Tamil and Leopard. I'm
Speaker 2: ConA Gallagher and flick and this is and then they
Speaker 2: were gone.
Speaker 3: Welcome back, everyone, Welcome back.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us once again. I'm ConA and
Speaker 2: I and we're the husband and wife team behind this podcast.
Speaker 2: Each week, I tell you the story of an unsolved
Speaker 2: missing person's case. Ethan doesn't know anything about the case
Speaker 2: going into the episode and is here to provide his
Speaker 2: reactions and questions in real time, hopefully asking some of
Speaker 2: the same ones you have at home. This story is
Speaker 2: one that's been kind of on my radar for a while.
Speaker 2: Me was young, talented, and according to some on the
Speaker 2: cusp of stardom, and then she disappeared. It's one of
Speaker 2: those stories though, that seems to have endless possibilities. So
Speaker 2: I'm curious to get your take on it because I
Speaker 2: think I have a theory, but like I could be
Speaker 2: easily persuaded, you know, Okay, I'm not. I don't feel
Speaker 2: very confident in it.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, you've piqued my curiosity for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also shout out to one of our fans who has
Speaker 3: the same last name. Probably not related though, I know.
Speaker 2: But it's funny because I talked in this episode about
Speaker 2: how this was an unsolved Mysteries episode and it was
Speaker 2: actually the season five premiere. Ooh, Robert Stack called her
Speaker 2: tamy Lynn leepert ah and I was like, that can't
Speaker 2: be right because it's definitely spelled Leopart, and then everything
Speaker 2: else I saw pronounced it Leopert.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm just gonna chalk that up to just Robert
Speaker 2: Stack doing his own thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean he probably didn't even read the script at
Speaker 3: that point. I mean you said season five, he was
Speaker 3: probably just reading off a teleprompter at that.
Speaker 2: Point, yeah, and just was going for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And who's going to correct Robert Stack.
Speaker 2: Nobody? And that's what I love. So, you know, if
Speaker 2: he says it's Liebert, but I am going to go
Speaker 2: with Leopert for this episode. Before we get started, we
Speaker 2: want to take a moment to think our amazing Patreon
Speaker 2: supporters Danny B, Alicia A, Stephen L. Aaron Sarah S,
Speaker 2: Amelia R. Kristin M and Riley s. We are so
Speaker 2: grateful for your support.
Speaker 3: Thank you all so much.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to join them, you can head over
Speaker 2: to our Patreon and sign up at any level and
Speaker 2: you'll get access to ad free episodes and a free
Speaker 2: copy of the e book that I wrote, can we
Speaker 2: reemphasize ad free ad free episodes starting at just two
Speaker 2: dollars a month?
Speaker 3: So stop with the reviews.
Speaker 2: Now, with that out of the way, let's get into
Speaker 2: the disappearance of Tammy Lynn Leppert. Tammy Lynn Leppert was
Speaker 2: born on February fifth, nineteen sixty five, in Rockwidge, Florida.
Speaker 2: She was the youngest of five children and grew up
Speaker 2: with her mother, Linda Curtis, who was a theatrical and
Speaker 2: modeling agent. From a very early age, Tammy seemed destined
Speaker 2: for the spotlight. She entered her first beauty contest at
Speaker 2: the age of four and went on to compete in
Speaker 2: over four hundred pageants.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, certainly easy to get into that many
Speaker 3: when your mom is the talent agent.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, but I think she became the talent agent
Speaker 2: to represent her daughter. Oh okay, yeah, Like I don't
Speaker 2: think she was established before that. But what's crazier is
Speaker 2: that she won about two hundred and eighty crowns.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: So it's like not only a wild success rate, but
Speaker 2: just I did not know there were that many pageants
Speaker 2: in general. Isn't that crazy that by the time. She
Speaker 2: was a teenager. So she started at four and she
Speaker 2: did them. I don't know when she stopped. Well, let's
Speaker 2: just say like, I mean, she disappeared when she was eighteen.
Speaker 2: So at most fourteen years you can do four hundred pageants.
Speaker 3: I guess I don't know anything about the child pageant world.
Speaker 2: I just think that's absolutely fascinating. So, yeah, she was
Speaker 2: a big deal in the pageant world, and she was
Speaker 2: such a star early on that a local newspaper once
Speaker 2: dubbed her Bervard's answer to Shirley Temple, and Bervard is
Speaker 2: Bervard County where she lived. But yeah, she was definitely
Speaker 2: a local celebrity. Linda Curtis devoted herself to managing Tammy's
Speaker 2: blossoming career. She wasn't just a pageant queen. Tammy also
Speaker 2: did some modeling and even grace the cover of CoverGirl
Speaker 2: magazine in October nineteen seventy eight, when she was thirteen.
Speaker 2: By her mid teens, she began landing small roles in movies.
Speaker 2: She was a party girl in the teen film Little Darlings,
Speaker 2: into bikini contestant in the comedy spring Break. Now, these,
Speaker 2: of course weren't you know, high art or anything like that.
Speaker 2: But even though she had like small parts her body,
Speaker 2: like her hips specifically ended up being the movie poster
Speaker 2: for spring Break.
Speaker 3: Oh no, kidden.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a huge deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But her most notable role, and why people listening may
Speaker 2: have heard of her because this is kind of always
Speaker 2: brought up, was a brief appearance in Scarface, And.
Speaker 3: She've seen Scarface many times, so I'm curious.
Speaker 2: It's a blink and you'll miss her kind of role, Like,
Speaker 2: she doesn't have any lines. Basically, it's the chainsaw scene
Speaker 2: and she is a blonde in a blue bikini who
Speaker 2: leans into the car and acts as a distraction during it.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was obviously a bit role, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't a major film, so well, you know, it
Speaker 2: was a step up. It opened up new doors, new possibilities, everything. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Tammy had big dreams of moving to Hollywood and becoming
Speaker 2: a star, and by nineteen eighty three it looked like
Speaker 2: she was on her way. So that summer, Tammy was eighteen,
Speaker 2: and by then she was the only child who was
Speaker 2: still living with Linda. Linda sometimes took in other young
Speaker 2: people who were involved in show business. One such person
Speaker 2: was a guy named Wing Flanagan. What, Yeah, which is
Speaker 2: just an amazing name.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's got to be a stage name, right,
Speaker 3: I have no idea that's Wing flann Yeah.
Speaker 2: And he was also an unsolved mysteries he was interviewed
Speaker 2: and he's a character and yeah, Wing Flanagan. So Wing
Speaker 2: was eleven when he started living with them, so he
Speaker 2: was more like a younger brother figure to Tammy, and
Speaker 2: the two definitely had like a sibling kind of relationship, gotcha. So,
Speaker 2: by all accounts, Tammy was a happy, outgoing girl. Linda
Speaker 2: described her daughter as someone who quote woke up with
Speaker 2: a smile and went to bed with a smile end quote.
Speaker 2: But in the summer of nineteen eighty two, Tammy started
Speaker 2: to change, and it had everyone around her worried. That year,
Speaker 2: after filming wrapped on spring break, Tammy attended a weekend
Speaker 2: party by herself out of town. Now no one knows
Speaker 2: exactly what happened at this party, but according to Wing,
Speaker 2: Tammy quote came back a different person end quote. The
Speaker 2: bubbly and extroverted teen returned home sullen, withdrawn and deeply shaken.
Speaker 2: Wing would ask her something was wrong, and Tammy would
Speaker 2: be evasive, she'd changed the subject or insists that nothing
Speaker 2: was bothering her and then try to laugh it off,
Speaker 2: but something had clearly rattled her. Over time, Tammy also
Speaker 2: began to become increasingly paranoid. At one point, she said
Speaker 2: to her mom, quote, Mom, what would you say if
Speaker 2: I told you someone was trying to kill me? End quote?
Speaker 2: Linda of course asked Tammy for more information.
Speaker 3: Is someone trying to kill you? Yeah? Right?
Speaker 2: But Tammy refused to say anything specific. But on another occasion,
Speaker 2: she told her mom that she had seen something really
Speaker 2: awful that she wasn't supposed to have seen. In the
Speaker 2: Unsolved Mysteries episode that I mentioned earlier, Wing told a
Speaker 2: story of how the phone rang one day and Tammy
Speaker 2: told him to answer it and tell whoever was calling
Speaker 2: that she wasn't there. So Wing did it, and you know,
Speaker 2: he thought it was weird, like she was just being
Speaker 2: super intense about it. I guess like the impression that
Speaker 2: I got was that it wasn't like, oh, this guy's
Speaker 2: calling me, who I'm not interested? Just tell him I'm
Speaker 2: not home. Like it seemed like it was more than that,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In another incident, Tammy pulled Wing over to a window
Speaker 2: and pointed out a new van that was parked across
Speaker 2: the street. The van had like mirrored reflective windows, and
Speaker 2: she whispered to Wing, look, they can see us, but
Speaker 2: we can't see them. She was convinced that someone was
Speaker 2: spying on her.
Speaker 3: Creepy.
Speaker 2: As weeks went by, Tammy's fear and anxiety seemed to grow,
Speaker 2: but you know, she still pushed ahead with her acting ambitions.
Speaker 2: In March nineteen eighty three, she got the opportunity to
Speaker 2: film the small part in Scarface, which was shooting down
Speaker 2: in Miami. She went there and stayed with a family friend,
Speaker 2: Walter Leebowitz. During production. For the first few days, everything
Speaker 2: was fine, but then there was a scene with an
Speaker 2: execution that used fake blood and it triggered Tammy in
Speaker 2: a major way. She suddenly broke down on set, crying hysterically,
Speaker 2: to the point that the crew had to take her
Speaker 2: and put her in a trailer because she couldn't calm down.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she had bit part, like, you know, she
Speaker 2: did not have her own trailer, like they put her
Speaker 2: in somebody's trailer because she was like hysterical.
Speaker 3: I feel like I need the like IMDb scarface and
Speaker 3: see if that like pops up in the trivia.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think it does. Yeah, it pops up a lot.
Speaker 2: Walter Leibowitz rushed to check on her and found Tammy
Speaker 2: in what he described as quote a tremendous state of
Speaker 2: fear and anxiety end quote. She was shaking and sobbing.
Speaker 2: In the midst of this panic, Tammy said something about
Speaker 2: money laundering and kept repeating that they were going to
Speaker 2: kill her and she didn't know where to hide. Walter
Speaker 2: had no idea what could have caused her to be
Speaker 2: so afraid, so from his perspective, her fear was very
Speaker 2: real and extremely intense, but he didn't know if what
Speaker 2: she was afraid of was real or if she was
Speaker 2: like having some sort of mental breakdown.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He was so concerned learned that he called Linda and
Speaker 2: urged her to get Tammy professional help. He told her
Speaker 2: that she should take Tammy to see a doctor and
Speaker 2: also go to the police to figure out if this
Speaker 2: was like all psychological or if Tammy actually had something
Speaker 2: she needed to be worried about. After Tammy returned home
Speaker 2: to Rockwodge, Linda arranged for her to speak with a
Speaker 2: Brevard County Sheriff's deputy about her fears. However, when the
Speaker 2: officer came to talk to Tammy, she downplayed the situation.
Speaker 2: She never mentioned that she felt that her wife was
Speaker 2: in danger, and the conversation didn't really reveal much of
Speaker 2: anything that police could work with. Maybe Tammy was too
Speaker 2: scared to tell the police what she thought was happening,
Speaker 2: or perhaps by that point she was unsure what was real.
Speaker 2: In any case, her erratic behavior continued. Tammy became extremely
Speaker 2: cautious about what she ate or drank. According to Linda,
Speaker 2: she was convinced that somebody was trying to poison her.
Speaker 2: She would refuse any food or drink from open containers
Speaker 2: and even made other people like Wings, sample her food first.
Speaker 3: Which like killing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Some days Tammy would seem almost normal, but other days
Speaker 2: she was jumpy, edgy, and looked, as Wing put it,
Speaker 2: like a wild, scared version of herself. Things continued in
Speaker 2: that vein until they came to a head on July first,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. That day, Tammy was at home with Wing.
Speaker 2: According to him, he was sitting on the couch reading
Speaker 2: when Tammy suddenly accused him of staring at her. He
Speaker 2: hadn't been and he denied it, but Tammy gragitated. She
Speaker 2: stepped outside, but almost immediately she tried to come back in,
Speaker 2: only to find that the front door had blown shut
Speaker 2: and had locked behind her.
Speaker 3: Oh no.
Speaker 2: Unable to get back inside, Tammy began to panic. She
Speaker 2: pounded on the door, yelling to be let in, and
Speaker 2: when that didn't work quickly enough, she grabbed a baseball
Speaker 2: bat and smashed a window to reach the lock and
Speaker 2: let herself in. Wing opened the door and told her
Speaker 2: to stop, but Tammy was in a frenzy. She actually
Speaker 2: lunged at Wing and attacked him with her fists, screaming
Speaker 2: and accusing him of deliberately locking her out.
Speaker 3: And how old was Wing at this point?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I mean, she was eighteen, so he
Speaker 2: was probably like fourteen.
Speaker 3: I think, geez, yeah, it's gotta be terrifying for.
Speaker 2: Him, I know. Wing later said that Tammy's eyes had
Speaker 2: a crazy look and he wasn't even sure that she
Speaker 2: recognized him. In that moment, Linda ran into intervene, desperately
Speaker 2: repeating Tammy, it's mother, I love you, over and over
Speaker 2: until Tammy seemed to snap back to reality. And calm
Speaker 2: down now. As you can imagine, this outburst was very
Speaker 2: alarming to Linda, so that same day she brought Tammy
Speaker 2: to the Brevard County Mental Health Center, where they put
Speaker 2: her on a seventy two two hour psychiatric holt. Doctors
Speaker 2: ran a full battery of tests, and through that we
Speaker 2: learned that drugs were not the cause of all of this.
Speaker 2: They found no evidence of drug or alcohol use, which
Speaker 2: backs up what friends have said about Tammy. They said
Speaker 2: that she wasn't into drugs and that she didn't even drink.
Speaker 2: But somewhat frustratingly, doctors weren't able to diagnose Tammy with
Speaker 2: any clear mental illness or condition in those three days.
Speaker 2: So at the end of seventy two hours, with no
Speaker 2: firm answers about what was wrong, Tammy was released back
Speaker 2: home on July fourth, nineteen eighty three. Tammy's family still
Speaker 2: didn't know what had caused her drastic change in behavior.
Speaker 2: Was it a psychological break, possibly the onset of a
Speaker 2: mental illness like schizophrenia, or was Tammy truly terrified for
Speaker 2: legitimate reasons, having seen or heard something that put her
Speaker 2: life in danger. We still don't know.
Speaker 3: It seems as though it was the third option. You know,
Speaker 3: she goes to that party and then comes back changed
Speaker 3: and then starts having all of these episodes and right,
Speaker 3: so clearly she saw something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I'd be curious you said that they
Speaker 3: didn't find any evidence of drug use, but that party happened,
Speaker 3: however long ago. Most drugs only stay in your system
Speaker 3: for seventy two hours, most hard drugs, I should say, right, So, like,
Speaker 3: had she taken any drugs at that party, it all
Speaker 3: would have been out of her system by them, oh
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 2: But what that proved was that there wasn't ongoing drug use,
Speaker 2: or there wasn't drug use that directly, you know, was
Speaker 2: contributing to these outbursts, right or anything like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2: I mean, she very much could have taken drugs at
Speaker 2: the party. She could have been slip drugs at the party.
Speaker 2: I mean that's more of what I was thinking, exactly. Like,
Speaker 2: we have no idea. I just think that, you know,
Speaker 2: some people may want to write off this behavior as
Speaker 2: like drug induced paranoia or something like that, and it
Speaker 2: was it definitely does not seem like that is the
Speaker 2: case at all. So what we do know is that
Speaker 2: even after her short hospital stay, Tammy remained on edge.
Speaker 2: Linda later said that upon coming home, Tammy asked Linda
Speaker 2: to promise that if anything happens to me, get even
Speaker 2: with that person for me. Linda, of course tried to
Speaker 2: ask four questions like who is that person? What do
Speaker 2: you think is going to happen, But Tammy still wouldn't say.
Speaker 2: She just told her he is still going to try
Speaker 2: and kill me. Now, at one point, Timmy did mention
Speaker 2: to her mom that a friend of hers had bragged
Speaker 2: about a big drug and money laundering scheme going on
Speaker 2: in the area, involving some prominent local figures. So one
Speaker 2: interpretation is that Tammy thought that this friend or the
Speaker 2: people involved in that criminal scheme might come after her
Speaker 2: since she knew too much. And again like this is
Speaker 2: not confirmed, of course, but it's something to keep in mind.
Speaker 3: We go on.
Speaker 2: On July fifth, nineteen eighty three, the day after Tammy
Speaker 2: got out of the hospital, she spent time with her
Speaker 2: close friend Rick Adams. Now, Rick was perhaps one of
Speaker 2: the last people aside from family, to really talk with
Speaker 2: Tammy before she disappeared. Now, Rick and Tammy had been
Speaker 2: friends for years and he too was aware that something
Speaker 2: had been troubling her. In fact, earlier on, Tammy had
Speaker 2: also told Rick that she believed somebody was going to
Speaker 2: kill her, so, like he was well aware of everything
Speaker 2: that had been going on with her. So that day,
Speaker 2: on the fifth, when they were hanging out, Tammy broke
Speaker 2: down to Rick and repeated that she had seen something
Speaker 2: that she shouldn't have seen. Now, she still wouldn't tell
Speaker 2: Rick exactly what it was, but she was clearly very upset.
Speaker 2: Tammy asked Rick to take her to church, so they
Speaker 2: went to a local evangelical temple in Rockledge to pray.
Speaker 2: While they were there, Tammy burst into tears and cried
Speaker 2: inconsolably for several minutes. The way he described it, he
Speaker 2: said she cried harder than he's ever seen anyone cry.
Speaker 2: Rick did his best to comfort her, and when he
Speaker 2: drove Tammy home afterward, they actually made plans to go
Speaker 2: back to church together the next day. As Tammy got
Speaker 2: out of Rick's car, she told him that she loved
Speaker 2: him and then said that she might be going away
Speaker 2: for a while. Now Rick didn't know what she meant
Speaker 2: by that, but at the time he assumed that she
Speaker 2: was talking about an upcoming trip to California for movie rules.
Speaker 2: But obviously, looking back, he wonders if maybe she meant
Speaker 2: something completely different. The next morning, July sixth, nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 2: Linda said that Tammy seemed calmer and more like her
Speaker 2: old self. She also said that it was a very
Speaker 2: normal morning. Linda began to think that maybe the worst
Speaker 2: was behind them. In fact, she actually thought that Tammy
Speaker 2: might have been purposely acting extraordinarily normal that day, as
Speaker 2: if she was trying to reassure her mom that she
Speaker 2: was okay, now okay. Around eleven am, Tammy decided to
Speaker 2: go out with another friend of hers, twenty year old
Speaker 2: Keith Roberts. Tammy told her mom that she and Keith
Speaker 2: were going to spend the day in Cocoa Beach, which
Speaker 2: was a favorite hangout spot of hers. Cocoa Beach is
Speaker 2: only about a twenty minute drive from their home in Rockledge,
Speaker 2: and Tammy loved it there. She once said, quote, ever
Speaker 2: since I was a little girl, I've always dreamed of
Speaker 2: having a house on Cocoa Beach and living happily ever
Speaker 2: after end quote, Tammy got dressed to go out. She
Speaker 2: put on a light blue denim shirt with flower apple
Speaker 2: cats on the shoulders, a matching denim's skirt, and flipflops.
Speaker 2: She grabbed her gray purse and headed for the door.
Speaker 2: Linda did, however, notice one odd detail. Tammy left without
Speaker 2: combing her hair, which is very unlike her. Tammy was
Speaker 2: usually meticulous about her appearance, so Linda found it strange
Speaker 2: that she'd rush out with messy hair. In fact, Tammy's
Speaker 2: friend Rick said that it was one of the things
Speaker 2: about her that drove him crazy. Tammy took forever to
Speaker 2: get ready and wouldn't go anywhere unless she looks perfect.
Speaker 2: As Tammy went out the front door, she called back
Speaker 2: to her mom, quote by Mommy, I'll see you in
Speaker 2: a little bit end quote, and those were the last
Speaker 2: words that Linda ever heard her daughter say. She would
Speaker 2: later say that she watched Tammy get into Keith's car
Speaker 2: as she felt a sudden gut feeling of dread. For
Speaker 2: some reason, she felt that it might be the last
Speaker 2: time she would ever see Tammy, and tragically that intuition
Speaker 2: turned out to be true.
Speaker 3: So up to this point, I was thinking that maybe
Speaker 3: Tammy was overacting the day before because she was planning
Speaker 3: on running away to escape whoever might be after her,
Speaker 3: that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, you mean overacting like when she was.
Speaker 3: At the church, No, no, no, overacting with her mom.
Speaker 2: She was good, yeah, fine, yeah, okay, yeah yeah, And I.
Speaker 3: Was thinking that that, you know, after she said goodbye
Speaker 3: to her friend saying you won't see me for a while,
Speaker 3: that maybe she was planning on disappearing to avoid whoever
Speaker 3: was after her. Okay. The hair thing has thrown me
Speaker 3: off though.
Speaker 2: It's a weird detail and I don't know what to
Speaker 2: make of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, same, because she was dressed nicely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that's why I described her outfit, you know.
Speaker 3: Very eighties outfit. Oh yeah yeah right, denim skirt. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but yeah, the hair being messy, Now it's thrown me
Speaker 3: for a liop and making me think another mental health
Speaker 3: issue or potentially a psychotic break of some sort. But yeah,
Speaker 3: like it doesn't seem and I'm sure you'll go into it. It
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like her behavior was the same as like
Speaker 3: her kind of manic episodes.
Speaker 2: Right yeah, so yeah with the hair, I don't know,
Speaker 2: because yeah, like all morning apparently it was uneventful. She
Speaker 2: was acting completely fine. But yeah, so like why would
Speaker 2: she be acting completely fine, get dressed, look nice, you know,
Speaker 2: make plans, and then not brush her hair. Like that's
Speaker 2: so strange.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. I'm gonna have to think on this.
Speaker 3: As the story progresses.
Speaker 2: Well, it gets weirder, you know, like there's more to
Speaker 2: it obviously. So what happened next, though, comes only from
Speaker 2: Keith Roberts's account, since he was the last known person
Speaker 2: to be with Tammy. According to Keith, he picked her
Speaker 2: up from her house and they headed toward Cocoa Beach
Speaker 2: in his car. Sometime around early afternoon. They started arguing
Speaker 2: while they were driving. Keith later told police that Tammy
Speaker 2: had been acting real paranoid and talked about wanting to
Speaker 2: leave home. He claimed that Tammy asked to borrow three
Speaker 2: hundred dollars and wanted him to drive her down to
Speaker 2: Fort Watterdale to stay with some friends. Now Fort Waterdale
Speaker 2: is over one hundred and seventy miles south of Cocoa Beach,
Speaker 2: which is not just a short trip. Yeah, now it
Speaker 2: sounds and of course I can't verify this, but I
Speaker 2: do believe that. Keith said he gave her the money,
Speaker 2: but said, listen, I can't drive you to Fort Waterdale
Speaker 2: in the middle of the day.
Speaker 3: If we are to believe Keith, that does back up
Speaker 3: my thought that she was planning on disappearing for a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: Still doesn't explain the hair.
Speaker 2: No, but this whole thing about him refusing to drive
Speaker 2: her to Fort Laderdale apparently set Tammy off. According to Keith,
Speaker 2: she became irrationally upset and demanded that he stopped the
Speaker 2: car and let her out immediately. So Keith says that
Speaker 2: he complied, and sometimes around three pm that afternoon, he
Speaker 2: pulled over a few blocks away from the Glass Bank
Speaker 2: in Cocoa Beach and let Tammy out of the car.
Speaker 2: The Glass Bank was a distinctive multi story building along
Speaker 2: State Road A one A. It was a local landmark,
Speaker 2: and right next to it was an Excellon gas station
Speaker 2: and like a strip mall. This spot was roughly five
Speaker 2: miles from Tammy's home. Just to give you an idea
Speaker 2: of where we were. Keith then drove away, leaving Tammy there,
Speaker 2: and according to him, he never saw her again. Now
Speaker 2: this is fishy, obviously, Like I never trust it when
Speaker 2: somebody says, oh, yeah, I got into a fight with
Speaker 2: this person, but they were fine. They just happened to disappear, yeah,
Speaker 2: right afterwards, and we're never seen again. Because he's certainly
Speaker 2: not the first person in a story that we've covered
Speaker 2: to have a story that's similar to that, right, But
Speaker 2: in this case, we have some evidence that corroborates his story.
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask, Yeah, I mean, you're talking about
Speaker 3: a gas station and a famous landmark. Yes, it's nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty three. Yees, cameras did exist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've heard rumors of CCTV, but I don't
Speaker 2: know if there actually is any in this case.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, So what was the evidence though.
Speaker 2: Well, the evidence is that almost immediately after Keith dropped
Speaker 2: her off, Tammy used a nearby pay phone, I think
Speaker 2: the one at the gas station, to make a series
Speaker 2: of phone calls. She made three calls in quick succession
Speaker 2: to her aunt, Ginger Coolsch, who owned a costume shop
Speaker 2: in Cocoa Beach. Unfortunately, Ginger was out of town, so
Speaker 2: she didn't pick up. Tammy left urgent messages for aunt
Speaker 2: Ginger asking her to call back. She said it was important.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I mean so that does kind of corroborate
Speaker 3: his story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, At least like the timeline. You know, Tammy also
Speaker 2: placed called to her friend Ron Abeles, who owned a
Speaker 2: nearby video store on a one A. Ron unfortunately also
Speaker 2: wasn't available to answer when Tammy called. So it seems
Speaker 2: that within a short span, Tammy was desperately trying to
Speaker 2: reach someone she trusted who could possibly come get her
Speaker 2: or help her. And these are people who had businesses
Speaker 2: close to where she was at the time, So it
Speaker 2: seems like that's why she chose those two particular people
Speaker 2: to call.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as opposed to her mom, right, And.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know how Linda's health was at
Speaker 2: the time. I know later on her health failed drastically
Speaker 2: and she had trouble walking and things like that, So
Speaker 2: I don't know how her health was at this point.
Speaker 2: I don't know if she was driving, if she was
Speaker 2: even in a position where she could have come to
Speaker 2: get Tammy. So it could have been purely logistical that,
Speaker 2: like she didn't even bother to call her mom because
Speaker 2: maybe her mom wasn't even able to help, so she
Speaker 2: was just trying people who are nearby. And Ginger would
Speaker 2: later say, quote, Tammy was definitely afraid of somebody. End
Speaker 2: quote that was her impression upon hearing that Tammy had
Speaker 2: tried so hard to reach her. Now we don't know
Speaker 2: as something specific spook to Tammy in those moments after
Speaker 2: Keith drove off, or if her general fearfulness was at
Speaker 2: a peak, but it's clear that Tammy did not want
Speaker 2: to be alone and was scared of someone or something.
Speaker 2: Despite those urgent calls, Tammy unfortunately did not manage to
Speaker 2: connect with anyone, and after that, Tammy Lynn Leppert seemingly vanished.
Speaker 2: No One who knew her saw or heard from her again.
Speaker 2: After roughly three pm on July sixth, nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 2: when night fell and Tammy still hadn't returned home or
Speaker 2: contacted her family, Linda knew that something was very wrong.
Speaker 2: Tammy had promised to be back in a little bit,
Speaker 2: and she was typically good about checking in. In the
Speaker 2: early morning hours of July seventh, Linda contacted the Cocoa
Speaker 2: Beach Police Department to report her daughter missing. Now I'm
Speaker 2: assuming that that July seventh date is correct. I mean,
Speaker 2: it does make sense. After all, like we know, Linda
Speaker 2: was already concerned about Tammy, so if she didn't come home,
Speaker 2: it would make sense that she would report her missing
Speaker 2: the next morning, right, But I have seen the police report,
Speaker 2: which is two pages long and has almost no information
Speaker 2: on it, and it stated July eleventh.
Speaker 3: Oh that's a big difference right now.
Speaker 2: I haven't found a definitive explanation for the discrepancy in
Speaker 2: my research, but based on everything we know about how
Speaker 2: cases like this are handled.
Speaker 3: I guess he's an adult. Yeah, she can be out
Speaker 3: on her own exactly, call back in forty eight hours,
Speaker 3: and yeah, if she hasn't come home, then we'll yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it sounds like that's exactly what happened. My
Speaker 2: guess is that Linda did call police on July seventh,
Speaker 2: but they just didn't do an actual report until the eleventh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: And this is borne out by the fact that we
Speaker 2: do know Cocoa Beach police initially classified Tammy as a
Speaker 2: possible runaway. Now, in their defense, there were a few
Speaker 2: reasons why they leaned toward that theory.
Speaker 3: I mean, that was my theory already.
Speaker 2: Well, exactly right, and in their case, a few of
Speaker 2: Tammy's close friends, when interviewed, mentioned that Tammy had been
Speaker 2: having conflicts at home. There were rumors that Tammy and
Speaker 2: her mom, Linda, argued about Tammy's career and independence. In fact,
Speaker 2: one friend recalled Tammy saying, man, when I hit eighteen,
Speaker 2: I'm out of here now. If that's true, it could
Speaker 2: indicate that Tammy had at least talked about leaving home
Speaker 2: on our own terms. Another friend, Rona Bellis, the video
Speaker 2: store owner that Tammy had tried to call, told her
Speaker 2: reporter that when he first heard Tammy was missing, he said, quote,
Speaker 2: I wasn't too surprised. I remember Linda as being very well.
Speaker 2: How should I put this aggressive about Tammy's acting career?
Speaker 2: I always wondered if there were problems there? End quote.
Speaker 2: Now that said, Linda has insisted that Tammy would never
Speaker 2: have left without staying in touch. She always let Linda
Speaker 2: know where she was going and would call if she
Speaker 2: was late. And Ginger put it this way, quote the
Speaker 2: only way Tammy wouldn't call Linda is if something bad
Speaker 2: happened to her, or if she was under someone else's control.
Speaker 2: End quote. Plus, as Linda pointed out on Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 2: Tammy already had plans to go to California for three.
Speaker 3: Months, right, So how unsupportive was her mom?
Speaker 1: Really? Well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if she just wanted to get away from
Speaker 2: her mom, like she was already going to be getting
Speaker 2: away from her start to California, literally across the country.
Speaker 2: You cannot get further away really in America than Florida
Speaker 2: to California, you know, So, like it was fine, she
Speaker 2: could have just gone. She didn't need to do this
Speaker 2: whole vanishing.
Speaker 3: Act unless she was running away from somebody else.
Speaker 2: Right, And then of course there's the fact that Timmy
Speaker 2: left everything behind, all of her clothes, makeup, and her
Speaker 2: personal items. She even left twenty thousand dollars in her
Speaker 2: bank account and her hairbrush and her hair brush. But
Speaker 2: twenty grand in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 2: That's a shitload of money. And if you're going to
Speaker 2: start a new life, it seems like you would want that.
Speaker 3: But she did have her purse, because you said that
Speaker 3: she walked out with her purse.
Speaker 2: She had her purse. But I mean her bank account
Speaker 2: was never used or whatever. And she asked Keith to
Speaker 2: borrow three hundred bucks.
Speaker 3: Maybe she was thinking that if she had accessed that money,
Speaker 3: it would have been traceable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean sure, but it's still wild. They keep
Speaker 2: in mind, this girl's eighteen years old too, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So despite the families, please, police did not launch an
Speaker 2: intensive search. They did take a missing person's report and
Speaker 2: spoke to Keith, Roberts and other friends. However, by all accounts,
Speaker 2: Keith was not interrogated. He was more questioned in a
Speaker 2: cursory way, despite being the last person with Tammy and
Speaker 2: him admitting that they had had an argument right before
Speaker 2: her disappearance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, he should have been suspect number one
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 2: Oh and also her other friend Rick, the one who
Speaker 2: she's with the night before. He said that police never
Speaker 2: talked to him, despite the fact that they were together
Speaker 2: the night before she disappeared.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this does not sound like they're taking this seriously.
Speaker 2: Not at all. Koco Beach police have said that Keith
Speaker 2: cooperated and that they found no evidence to implicate him. However,
Speaker 2: Linda strongly disagreed. She said over the years that she
Speaker 2: felt the police blew the investigation early on by not
Speaker 2: treating Keith as a serious suspect. According to Lieutenant Jim Scraggs,
Speaker 2: the original detective assigned to Tammy's case, Keith spoke to
Speaker 2: them only by phone, Scraggs said that Keith actually broke
Speaker 2: two appointments to come down to the station for a
Speaker 2: face to face interview. So it appears that Keith avoided
Speaker 2: meeting with police in person, which is, you know.
Speaker 3: A little suspicious. That's not the best look.
Speaker 2: Scragg's never got the chance to interview Keith properly. After
Speaker 2: a couple of phone conversations, Keith basically ghosted the investigators,
Speaker 2: but still the police publicly stated that Keith Roberts was
Speaker 2: not considered a suspect due to lack of evidence, so
Speaker 2: they essentially just took his story at face value.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean even if even with the phone calls
Speaker 3: that she made, yes, that corroborates his timeline, right, But
Speaker 3: I mean unless he presented some sort of alibi, you know,
Speaker 3: almost immediately after.
Speaker 2: Dropping, it doesn't mean that he didn't startle him back, right,
Speaker 2: He could have come back for sure. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: it was so strange to me that they're just like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: well if you said you didn't do anything like all
Speaker 2: right now. For his part, Keith later spoke to the
Speaker 2: media to defend himself. He claimed that he had never
Speaker 2: been asked to take a polygraph and that he was
Speaker 2: never invited to the station for an interview, which does
Speaker 2: contradict the detective's account. Keith said that he did everything
Speaker 2: the police asked and that he was fully cooperative. What
Speaker 2: did happen in the early investigation was something rather bizarre
Speaker 2: mystery phone calls. Within the first couple of weeks after
Speaker 2: Tammy disappeared, Cocoa Beach Detective Harold Lewis received two separate
Speaker 2: phone calls from an anonymous woman, and the first call,
Speaker 2: this woman claimed that Tammy was alive and well and
Speaker 2: that she would make contact with her family when she
Speaker 2: was ready. The caller basically told police, don't worry, she's okay,
Speaker 2: she just needs some time. Then, not long after, a
Speaker 2: second call came from presumably the same woman, and in
Speaker 2: that one, she said that Tammy was doing what she
Speaker 2: always wanted, going to school to become a nurse. What
Speaker 2: right now? This was obviously odd on many levels. For one,
Speaker 2: Tammy had never expressed any interest in becoming a nurse.
Speaker 2: In fact, she was actually afraid of blood, according to
Speaker 2: her mother, so that career path would be extremely out
Speaker 2: of character, and this led Linda to believe that the
Speaker 2: calls were bogus.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Probably.
Speaker 2: The detective Lewis interestingly kind of took them to heart.
Speaker 2: He was quoted as saying, quote, I have a gut
Speaker 2: feeling that Tammy just split end quote. In other words,
Speaker 2: his instinct was that Tammy left on her own, and
Speaker 2: these calls seemed to confirm that she was out there somewhere.
Speaker 2: Police were never able to trace those calls or identify
Speaker 2: the woman, and to this day we don't know if
Speaker 2: they were cool prank, a friend of Tammy's trying to
Speaker 2: mislead investigators.
Speaker 3: Or Tammy herself. Exactly.
Speaker 2: From the family's perspective, every moment the police assumed Tammy
Speaker 2: was a runaway was a moment that was wasted in
Speaker 2: finding her. Over the years, Linda was very vocal that
Speaker 2: the Cocoa Beach pat did not do enough early on.
Speaker 2: She even alleged that Tammy had told her that she
Speaker 2: was afraid of Keith Roberts. Linda felt that Keith should
Speaker 2: have been thoroughly interrogated and even considered a suspect and
Speaker 2: foul play, but police maintained that they did look into
Speaker 2: Keith and simply found no evidence tying him to wrongdoing.
Speaker 2: It's one of those situations where something definitely could have
Speaker 2: been done. They could have searched his car or given
Speaker 2: him a polygraph, but it just didn't have. With no
Speaker 2: trace of Tammy turning up in those critical first weeks,
Speaker 2: various theories started to emerge, both within law enforcement and
Speaker 2: among Tammy's family and friends. So let's go through the
Speaker 2: main theories.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: The first theory is that Tammy ran away to start
Speaker 2: a new.
Speaker 3: Life, right which I you kind of thought, well, I
Speaker 3: can definitely see it. There's behaviors and things that she
Speaker 3: said that would indicate to me that she wanted to
Speaker 3: disappear for a little while.
Speaker 2: And it was essentially the initial police theory. Some investigators,
Speaker 2: like Detective Lewis, thought that Tammy's erratic behavior was a
Speaker 2: sign of a mental health crisis, and that maybe she
Speaker 2: voluntarily left to get away from her fears or her problems.
Speaker 2: The anonymous calls bolstered this idea by suggesting that Tammy
Speaker 2: was alive and just didn't want to be contacted for
Speaker 2: the time being, and there were a few reported sightings
Speaker 2: of Tammy in the years after, but of course none
Speaker 2: were ever confirmed. The problem though with the intentional disappearance
Speaker 2: theory is that it doesn't really fit Tammy's personality or
Speaker 2: her habits, although her personality and her habits had really
Speaker 2: changed in the year prior to her disappearance. So even
Speaker 2: that's kind of hard to say. You know, her entire family,
Speaker 2: you know, of course, has consistently said that she would
Speaker 2: never do that, and as the years went by with
Speaker 2: no word from her, the idea that she's out there
Speaker 2: living happily somewhere kind of became a little harder to believe. Still,
Speaker 2: some in law enforcement kept their runaway theory on the
Speaker 2: table for a long time, even as late as the
Speaker 2: mid nineties. A Brevard County sheriff spokesperson said that some
Speaker 2: authorities quote continue to think that foul play was not
Speaker 2: involved end quote in Tammy's case. Now, the second theory,
Speaker 2: of course, is that foul play was involved, specifically that
Speaker 2: Keith Roberts harmed her.
Speaker 3: The only issue that I would have with that is
Speaker 3: the timing. Yeah, so we know that he dropped her
Speaker 3: off outside of the glass building. She goes and uses
Speaker 3: a payphone, possibly at the gas station next to this.
Speaker 3: This is three o'clock in the afternoon, right, So even
Speaker 3: if he circles back to try and find her. It's
Speaker 3: the middle of the afternoon, like broad daylight, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: so yes, I suppose in theory he could have waited
Speaker 3: until nightfall. But then how would he have found her.
Speaker 3: He has no idea where she was going.
Speaker 2: He's going to follow her in his car all day like.
Speaker 3: Right, but go go ahead. I just I think that's
Speaker 3: a little far fetched.
Speaker 2: But well, yeah, but you know, he was the last
Speaker 2: person to see Tammy. They got into an argument. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe it escalated into violence, Like could he have snapped
Speaker 2: and hurt her and then lie about dropping her off?
Speaker 2: Like maybe he didn't actually drop her off. Maybe she
Speaker 2: just said, hey, let me pull over. I need to
Speaker 2: make some phone calls. Yeah, he waited for her, and
Speaker 2: she willingly got back in the car, and then something happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly a possibility. I mean, either way, I think
Speaker 3: that he should have been investigated a little bit more.
Speaker 2: Oh and you know, so Keith was a known person
Speaker 2: to Tammy's family, and according to Linda, Tammy was afraid
Speaker 2: of him. But again, if she was afraid of him,
Speaker 2: why would she have gone out with him that day
Speaker 2: in the first place. I don't know. But going back
Speaker 2: to the supposed drug money laundering scheme. If Tammy had
Speaker 2: seen something illegal, or if she feared someone in her circle,
Speaker 2: it's possible that Keith could have been involved in that somehow.
Speaker 3: So I am curious, do we know anything about this party? No?
Speaker 3: So perhaps Keith was at this party. He could have been.
Speaker 3: Keith was the one that took her to the party, he.
Speaker 2: Could have been. Absolutely. Now, Keith does appear to have
Speaker 2: at least like one drug arrest, so he does have
Speaker 2: some connection to drugs, but nothing that would necessarily indicate
Speaker 2: that he was involved in some big like drug money
Speaker 2: laundering scheme. Now, the third theory is basically what Tammy
Speaker 2: had been saying in the months leading up to her disappearance,
Speaker 2: that she was killed because of something she knew and
Speaker 2: you know, maybe that didn't have anything to do with Keith.
Speaker 2: So this is the theory that Linda Curtis firmly believed. So, remember,
Speaker 2: Tammy had told her mother about this laundering operation. She
Speaker 2: also mentioned that cops, bankers, and other prominent citizens were involved.
Speaker 2: Tammy implied that knowing about this put her in danger,
Speaker 2: and so Linda thinks that Tammy might have been eliminated
Speaker 2: by people who were involved basically, you know, she's just
Speaker 2: saying that, yeah, maybe what Tammy had been saying for
Speaker 2: the past year was actually true. Now, of course, there
Speaker 2: is also a little bit of a basis. This is
Speaker 2: the early eighties in Florida, and there was a ton
Speaker 2: of drug trafficking going around. Cocaine was booming at the time.
Speaker 2: That was like the whole point of Scarface.
Speaker 3: Was the entire point of Scarface.
Speaker 2: Yes, and yes, there were also several money laundering investigations
Speaker 2: going on in the area at that time, so it's
Speaker 2: not completely impossible that Tammy could have overheard or seen
Speaker 2: something related to that. Now, if this theory is true,
Speaker 2: then the likely scenario is that someone Tammy knew, maybe
Speaker 2: the French who bragged or an associate of that friend,
Speaker 2: lured her or ambushed her after she left Keith's car.
Speaker 2: Unless you believe that Keith is related to this right
Speaker 2: right now, you can't imagine that if she was truly frightened,
Speaker 2: she might have agreed to meet someone who promised to help,
Speaker 2: only to be betrayed. This is obviously allative, but Linda
Speaker 2: Felter was too coincidental that Tammy disappeared, you know, after
Speaker 2: being paranoid about just this thing happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, another theory that's not related to any of this
Speaker 2: is that a serial killer abducted Tammy.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 2: Now, the early eighties saw a number of serial killers
Speaker 2: operating in Florida, so naturally Tammy's case was compared against
Speaker 2: their patterns. The most prominent of these was Christopher Wilder,
Speaker 2: who's sometimes called the Beauty Queen Killer. Wilder was an
Speaker 2: Australian born serial killer who lived in South Florida. In
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, the year after Tammy's disappearance, he embarked
Speaker 2: on a brutal cross country spree of abducting, raping, and
Speaker 2: killing young women. His mo was to lure aspiring models
Speaker 2: by offering photography gigs, which made people immediately think of him.
Speaker 2: In Tammy's case, Yeah, after all, she was a model
Speaker 2: and actor and was exactly the type of girl who
Speaker 2: he would target. Now, even though his killing spree wasn't
Speaker 2: known to have started until the next year, one of
Speaker 2: Wilder's earliest suspected crimes was the abduction of a girl
Speaker 2: from a mall in Cocoa Beach in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 2: which is the town and the year that Tammy went
Speaker 2: missing from Yea. Wilder wasn't caught for anything then, but
Speaker 2: once his nineteen eighty four spree was identified, people retroactively
Speaker 2: linked him to earlier disappearances in Florida. Now Linda Curtis
Speaker 2: initially latched onto Wilder as a possible culprit. She even
Speaker 2: claimed that Wilder had met Tammy on the set of
Speaker 2: Spring Break in nineteen eighty two. Interesting, Linda said that
Speaker 2: a man resembling him visited her modeling agency multiple times
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty three looking for models. Now, of course
Speaker 2: we don't know if it was actually Wilder, but that's
Speaker 2: what Linda said believed. Linda even filed a one million
Speaker 2: dollar wrongful death lawsuit against Wilder, accusing him of abducting
Speaker 2: and likely killing Tammy. However, after Wilder was killed in
Speaker 2: a police shootout in nineteen eighty four, she dropped the lawsuit.
Speaker 2: She later admitted that she never truly thought that Wilder
Speaker 2: was the person who took Tammy. She was just desperate
Speaker 2: and hoped that by sewing she might get leads or
Speaker 2: force information out. But in the end police couldn't link
Speaker 2: Wilder to Tammy. His crime spirit was well documented once
Speaker 2: it ended, and none of the known evidence tied him
Speaker 2: to Tammy's case. Another serial predator that came up was
Speaker 2: John Brennan Crutchley, known as the Vampire Rapist. He was
Speaker 2: a convicted kidnapper slashed rapist in Brevard County who in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five abducted a woman, assaulted her, and drained
Speaker 2: her blood.
Speaker 3: Jesus Crutchley was his.
Speaker 2: Affected in as many as thirty women's murders. He had
Speaker 2: moved to Bervard County in nineteen eighty three, shortly before
Speaker 2: Tammy disappeared. Naturally, when he was arrested in eighty five,
Speaker 2: police looked at him for any unsolved cases, including Tammy's,
Speaker 2: but ultimately the Brevard County Sheriff's Department stated that Crutchley
Speaker 2: is not a suspect in her disappearance. They never found
Speaker 2: any link, and he died by suicide in prison in
Speaker 2: two thousand and two.
Speaker 3: See. The only problem that I have with the serial
Speaker 3: killer aspect is it's a huge coincidence that if a
Speaker 3: serial killer did kill Tammy, that all of this stuff
Speaker 3: beforehand was also going on.
Speaker 2: And didn't have anything to do with that at any
Speaker 2: rate to do with it. Yeah, and I've said many
Speaker 2: times on the show. I do believe in coincidences.
Speaker 3: But that's a little that's a lot far fetched, right, Yeah, Like, I.
Speaker 2: Cannot believe that she spent a year being completely paranoid
Speaker 2: that somebody who's going to kill her and it's related
Speaker 2: to some like drug trafficking, money laundering scheme, and then
Speaker 2: it's just a random serial killer going after models, right, Like.
Speaker 3: I can't. I don't buy that. Yeah, personally, I think
Speaker 3: it was. It was probably a mix of several of
Speaker 3: these theories, like, well, hold on, I'm not done yet.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, Yeah, so I've got another one. Because
Speaker 2: there have been rumors of something else entirely, like an
Speaker 2: accident or amnesia. Some people wondered if Tammy might have
Speaker 2: been pregnant and perhaps died from complications or a back
Speaker 2: alley abortion. Now this came up because there was a
Speaker 2: rumor that she was three months pregnant when she vanished. However,
Speaker 2: no evidence ever surfaced to confirm a pregnancy, and it
Speaker 2: remains an anecdote from the family that is unverified her family. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so I haven't talked about her older sister yet, but
Speaker 2: I'll get into her in a little bit. But Apparently
Speaker 2: this came from like a post that her sister had
Speaker 2: made on something somewhere on the internet that says that
Speaker 2: Timmy might have been pregnant when she disappeared, and you know,
Speaker 2: she asked to borrow three hundred dollars, Like sure, who knows,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, over the years, there were also a few tips
Speaker 2: that Tammy might be living with amnesia somewhere. Now, none
Speaker 2: of the tips panned out, But just because they didn't
Speaker 2: turn into anything to me, doesn't mean that we can
Speaker 2: rule them out completely. I think it's very possible that
Speaker 2: Tammy didn't meet with foul play, at least not on
Speaker 2: July sixth, nineteen eighty three. I think that she could
Speaker 2: have had a psychotic break and took off completely of
Speaker 2: her own volition. And maybe she did have amnesia, or
Speaker 2: maybe she didn't. Maybe she was just convinced that she
Speaker 2: couldn't go home or or whatever, that she had to leave.
Speaker 2: And so this is kind of like the theory of
Speaker 2: her running away to start a new life. But I
Speaker 2: don't think it was necessarily like a decision that she made,
Speaker 2: you know, Like, I don't think that it was necess
Speaker 2: the plan that she had when she set out that morning, right,
Speaker 2: if you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, perhaps she had.
Speaker 2: A psychotic break, did take off, and then eventually became
Speaker 2: homeless and just kind of disappeared that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's that's believable.
Speaker 2: That was kind of what I was leaning toward. That
Speaker 2: her disappearance was absolutely related to the fears that she
Speaker 2: had had over the past year, but not necessarily, that
Speaker 2: the fear was real, that not necessarily somebody was coming
Speaker 2: to kill her. I think that is possible that something
Speaker 2: did happen at the party, perhaps an assault, perhaps something
Speaker 2: involving drugs, and that triggered something within her mentally, and
Speaker 2: we saw that kind of bear out over the next year.
Speaker 3: I think something happened to her at the party.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I mean. I think that she was
Speaker 2: assaulted at the party. Yes, maybe she was drugged at
Speaker 2: the party, maybe both.
Speaker 3: I think that she was drugged and raped.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's very much a possibility, and that's
Speaker 2: why she changed so much and was withdrawn and sullen
Speaker 2: and all of that when she came back, and that
Speaker 2: it also triggered a mental break basically, Yeah, and that
Speaker 2: everything we saw for the next year was just the
Speaker 2: fallout from what happened to her at that party, not
Speaker 2: necessarily what she saw or what she overheard or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: So, I mean that's that's my general theory. Like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, what are your thoughts on this.
Speaker 3: Well, I completely agree with that. I think that I
Speaker 3: think something that directly happened directly to her, not necessarily
Speaker 3: her seeing somebody get murdered or rape, yeah, and that
Speaker 3: was triggering all the erratic behavior. I think that it
Speaker 3: did trigger some sort of psychotic break and maybe the
Speaker 3: person that did this to her at the party was
Speaker 3: somebody that was connected, which is why in her mind
Speaker 3: and when she had those episodes, she was saying things
Speaker 3: about him being somebody of importance or you know whatever,
Speaker 3: and that spurred on the paranoia, thinking that whoever this
Speaker 3: important person was that had raped her and drugged her
Speaker 3: or assaulted her or whatever, had connections and was following her.
Speaker 2: That's interesting because I haven't even really given any thought
Speaker 2: to like who could have done it, you know, But
Speaker 2: I think that does make a lot of sense, and
Speaker 2: it makes sense, you know, Listen, there are a lot
Speaker 2: of reasons why somebody wouldn't report an assault. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean a hundred million reasons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I wasn't even going down that rum.
Speaker 2: No, But but if that person was either important or
Speaker 2: connected to something nefarious, I mean, those are two very
Speaker 2: good reasons right there. Yeah, right, And so I think
Speaker 2: that does make a lot of sense. And I and
Speaker 2: I just hadn't thought of that at all.
Speaker 3: Now, what happened to her afterwards is what I'm a
Speaker 3: little unsure. Yeah, yeah, you know, I don't. I don't
Speaker 3: buy the serial killer.
Speaker 2: No, that not in July, because to me, it's just
Speaker 2: too much of coincidence. Yes, it is very weird that
Speaker 2: they were so close, that they were kind of in
Speaker 2: the same orbit as her, But yeah, I just I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't buy it.
Speaker 3: But I'm not entirely sure that I completely buy into
Speaker 3: her having a psychotic break and then amnesia then disappearing,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Right, And that's why I'm saying, like, I don't know
Speaker 2: that it was amnesia, right, I think it was maybe
Speaker 2: more of she just thought she couldn't go home. But
Speaker 2: you would think that after some amount of time would
Speaker 2: go by, that.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe I would change. But maybe her episodes got
Speaker 3: worse and worse.
Speaker 2: Exactly, maybe they got worse and worse, and maybe she
Speaker 2: did meet with foul play in an unrelated event later on,
Speaker 2: which you know I mean, and I don't mean anything
Speaker 2: like a serial killer. I mean just run of the mill,
Speaker 2: like when you're living on the streets. Just bad shit
Speaker 2: happen sometimes, yeah, kind of way, And that maybe she
Speaker 2: ended up in a completely different state. And again, this
Speaker 2: is the early eighties. You know, we didn't have name us,
Speaker 2: we didn't have the DNA dough network, like, there were
Speaker 2: a lot of unidentified bodies around. And yes, now today
Speaker 2: with technology like we're still identifying people from back then
Speaker 2: and even older, you know. So I think she very
Speaker 2: well could be out there not alive right now and
Speaker 2: just nobody knows that it's her.
Speaker 3: Or she could have followed through on her plan to
Speaker 3: disappear and she started a new life and is still
Speaker 3: in hiding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just not interested in any of it, in
Speaker 2: letting anybody know about her, and is just living her
Speaker 2: new life and completely put her pass behind her, because
Speaker 2: you'd only be sixty right now. It's not like she
Speaker 2: would be incredibly old or anything.
Speaker 3: Like that, right And if you think like she she
Speaker 3: got away, she she was whatever in hiding somewhere. I mean,
Speaker 3: who's to say she didn't meet somebody and start her
Speaker 3: own family and just go with that, because you know, yes,
Speaker 3: she I guess she has a sister, but like it's
Speaker 3: not like she had you know, a husband kids that
Speaker 3: she ran out on, you know, right, So I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's it's that's certainly a possibility too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but do you see why I said at the
Speaker 2: beginning that like, I do have a theory, but I
Speaker 2: could be easily sweet because I just think there are
Speaker 2: so many different possibilities as to what happened to her
Speaker 2: that like, this is in a situation where I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh no, come on, there's one thing that could have
Speaker 2: happened to her. We all know what it is, Like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it's not that story. I'm not even sold
Speaker 2: that that Keith really had anything to do with this,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, despite despite his being shady.
Speaker 3: I mean, he was also a twenty year old kid
Speaker 3: that probably just didn't want to talk to the cops. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know right, So I don't know, there's a tremendous
Speaker 3: amount of possibilities of where she could have gone throughout
Speaker 3: the years.
Speaker 2: Tammy's mother, Linda continued to search for answers and her
Speaker 2: daughter's disappearance. Sadly, she passed away on October fifth, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five, at the age.
Speaker 3: Of fifty four. Oh that's young.
Speaker 2: Yeah, without ever learning what happened to Tammy. An article
Speaker 2: after her death said that she died without an ante
Speaker 2: her to the mystery of her missing daughter. Now and again,
Speaker 2: she did have I think she had cancer, she had
Speaker 2: heart failure, she had like all sorts of things happening,
Speaker 2: and I think she had been sick for a while.
Speaker 2: And so that's why I was like questioning whether she
Speaker 2: was either driving at that point or you know what
Speaker 2: it was. She was on the Insult Mysteries episode and
Speaker 2: she looked like she was in relatively good health at
Speaker 2: that point. But you know, who can say her mom
Speaker 2: dying twelve years after Tammy's disappearance really kind of makes
Speaker 2: me think that, you know, if she did choose to leave,
Speaker 2: I feel like with her mother dad, because that was
Speaker 2: like her closest family.
Speaker 3: Oh, it solidifies that she wouldn't come back.
Speaker 2: You think, so, you think she wouldn't just like pop
Speaker 2: her head out and be like, okay, well I'm here,
Speaker 2: I'm okay, Like don't worry about me. Everybody just leave
Speaker 2: me alone.
Speaker 3: No, I think the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, you think that now that her mom says,
Speaker 2: she's like, well, there's.
Speaker 3: Nothing, no reason to come out of hiding or go
Speaker 3: back and say yeah, I'm fine. Yeah, especially after twelve years.
Speaker 3: You know, she had probably started a new life if
Speaker 3: we are if that's what happens.
Speaker 2: Of course, Well, since Linda's death, Tammy's case has largely
Speaker 2: been championed by her older sister, Suzanne. Suzanne created online
Speaker 2: pages and forums, even back in the early days of
Speaker 2: the Internet, to keep Tammy's story alive. She ran a
Speaker 2: website and now a Facebook page titled My Missing Sister
Speaker 2: Tammy Leppert, where she shares memories and pleads for information.
Speaker 2: In one post, she wrote, quote, please help me find
Speaker 2: out what happened to my sister. Is she alive or dead?
Speaker 2: I just want to know? End quote. That simple please
Speaker 2: encapsulates with Tammy's family and so many other families of
Speaker 2: long term missing people have won it all along. Not revenge,
Speaker 2: not necessarily even prosecution, just the truth. And you know,
Speaker 2: we kind of talked about this a little before, but
Speaker 2: what gives me a little bit of hope in this
Speaker 2: case is modern technology. All it takes is one hit
Speaker 2: in a DNA database or one person with knowledge deciding
Speaker 2: to speak up. We've seen several cases as old as
Speaker 2: Tammy's or older that have been solved in recent years
Speaker 2: through genetic genealogy. There's no known crime scene, DNA here
Speaker 2: or anything like that, but if Tammy's remains are out
Speaker 2: there unidentified, there's a chance that they could be matched
Speaker 2: to her someday with a DNA profile that's on file.
Speaker 2: And again, I don't know if Tammy's DNA profile is
Speaker 2: on file, but at the very least we do have
Speaker 2: her relatives. Whether it's her mom or sister, I'm not sure,
Speaker 2: but I do know that there is DNA in the
Speaker 2: national database, so if somebody does pop up, they do
Speaker 2: have something to test it against. Over the years, every
Speaker 2: once in a while, a new lead will surface, but
Speaker 2: then fade. Yet tammy siblings and extended family have never
Speaker 2: given up hope of finding answers. They continue to push
Speaker 2: for the truth. Even the community in Bervard County remembers her.
Speaker 2: She's something of a local legend, the beautiful girl who
Speaker 2: vanished and left a haunting mystery behind. Timmy Lynn Leopard
Speaker 2: has been missing from Cocoa Beach, Florida, since July sixth,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. She's a white female with blonde hair
Speaker 2: and hazel eyes. She was last seen wearing a blue
Speaker 2: denim skirt, a light blue shirt with flower applicats on
Speaker 2: the shoulders, and flip flops. She was carrying a gray
Speaker 2: purse at the time of her disappearance. She was approximately
Speaker 2: five foot four and one hundred five to one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifteen pounds. Tammy was eighteen when she went missing.
Speaker 2: She would be sixty today. If you have any information
Speaker 2: about the disappearance of Tammu Ln Leopard, please contact the
Speaker 2: Cocoa Beach Police Department at three two one eight six
Speaker 2: eight three two five to one. You can see all
Speaker 2: the sources for this episode on with photos and videos
Speaker 2: at our website and then they Were Gone dot.
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Speaker 3: us and the more people that listen, the more chances
Speaker 3: we have of bringing someone home.
Speaker 2: And we'll see you here next week for a brand
Speaker 2: new episode.
Speaker 3: See you next week.
Speaker 2: And Then They Were Gone as hosted by Kona Gallagher
Speaker 2: and Ethan Flick. Our research, writing and editing is done
Speaker 2: by me ConA Gallagher. The music is The Stork by Ketza.
Speaker 2: Additional music is provided by High Angle. And Then They
Speaker 2: Were Gone is a little Monster production.
Speaker 3: Hey you could do it.