I’ve been thinking about a girl I knew when I was little. I was only four or five years old at the time. She was 16 years old, and she had beautiful blonde hair. I remember her hair because she would lean forward, brush her hair upside down, and flip it back up. It was one of the neatest things I had ever seen, so I would try to do it as well. She was a model and an aspiring actress after all. Her name was Tammy Lynn Leppert.
Tammy won hundreds of beauty pageants and was even on the cover of Cover Girl. (A few years later, she had small parts in Little Darlings and Scarface.) Both my sister and I went to the same model and talent agency as her which was owned by her mother. We were always in awe of the older models, and we enjoyed striking our model poses next to them. We were learning, and Tammy was one of our teachers. Ten or so different poses were taught to us, and a photo was taken of each pose. Tammy is in these pictures – such a beautiful girl.
Years later and after we moved to Maine, I remember my parents telling me that Tammy was missing. She was last seen walking in near the Glass Bank in Cocoa Beach. Was she kidnapped? Did she runaway? In 1983, Tammy was only 18 years old, and she had her whole life ahead of her.
Ten years later, in 1993, Unsolved Mysteries aired a segment about her. I remember seeing her mom, Linda, pleading for information about her daughter’s whereabouts. In the episode, there was speculation that a serial killer, who was active in Florida during this time, had abducted her. And, there was information about her becoming paranoid. She believed she was being followed in the weeks before she vanished.
Watch Part 1 of the Unsolved Mysteries segment on Daily Motion.
Thirty years later, I still wonder what happened to her. I don’t like to think that it was anything bad. I was a little girl when I knew her, and I looked up to her. I like to imagine she decided that she didn’t want the life that others had planned for her, so she simply left. I imagine that she found a wonderful man, they moved to an exotic location and now have a few children. These thoughts are probably better than her true story.
Tammy’s mom died in 1995. In her last days, she still asked for information about what had happened to her daughter. As she rests, I hope she has found all of her answers.
More information
