Eighteen-year-old Tammy Leppert seemed destined for glory. The Rockledge, Florida, model participated in her first beauty pageant at age four. By age sixteen, she had competed in over three-hundred such pageants, taking the crown in two-hundred-eighty of them. Hollywood came calling, and the beauty queen landed several bit parts in films. With her radiant smile, fantastic figure, and her theatrical model-agent mother, Tammy seemed to have a ticket for stardom. Somehow, however, bad ingredients were mixed into the recipe for success.

For over forty years, instead of gracing movie posters and magazine covers, Tammy Leppert has been featured on missing person flyers. The bombshell blond may have been bestowed with beauty, but shortly after beginning her acting career, she became tormented with trauma. Whether the trauma was in her surroundings or only in her head is the still the subject of debate.

Tammy Leppert

Tammy’s triumphs in the beauty pageants propelled her to being featured on the cover of the October 1978 issue of CoverGirl magazine.

The CoverGirl Cover Girl

Additional features in multiple modeling magazines led to spots in several commercials and then the big screen, as Tammy landed small uncredited roles in the 1980 film Little Darlings and the 1982 teen exploitation film Spring Break.

Some sources state it is her toned legs, hips, and torso gracing this publicity poster for Spring Break.

Bit Parts On The Big Screen

 

Tammy In Spring Break

From CrimeBlogger1983

Something else, however, knocked Tammy out.

Tammy In Spring Break

After returning from a weekend party celebrating the film’s completion, Tammy’s mother-agent, Linda Curtis, said her daughter seemed paranoid and retreated into isolation, refusing to leave her home or take phone calls.

Tammy told her mom she had seen something awful but could not tell anyone. She also said she believed someone was trying to kill her.

Linda Curtis

Tammy’s Mother

After two weeks of virtual seclusion, Tammy came out of her shell, accepting another small part in the Al Pacino film Scarface, which began shooting in Miami in March 1983. Clad in a blue bikini, she serves as the distraction at the lookout car during the chainsaw shower scene.

Tammy In Scarface

Shortly after this scene was shot, Tammy suffered another breakdown.

 

On the fourth day of filming, Tammy began crying uncontrollably on the set of Scarface after watching a scene in which a man was shot and artificial blood spurted from the wound. When asked what was wrong, she mentioned money laundering but would not elaborate.

Producers had planned additional scenes for Tammy, but her breakdown forced her to withdraw from the film.

Tammy Has To Withdraw From The Film 

At home, Tammy’s paranoia became more rampant. She was certain someone was trying to poison her and refused to drink from open containers.

Her breakdown reached its boiling point on July 1 when she smashed a window with a baseball bat after accidentally locking herself out of the house.

The Beauty Suffers A Breakdown

Linda checked her daughter into the Brevard County Medical Hospital for a physical and psychiatric examination. After finding no traces of alcohol or drugs in her system, doctors released her on July 5, after three days, without any determination for the causes of her behavior.

That evening, Tammy went out with Rick Adams, described as her “best friend.” While they prayed together at church, Tammy began crying again. She said she had seen something she was not supposed to have seen but, again, refused to elaborate.

Doctors Have No Explanation

For Tammy’s Behavior

Tammy seemed fine the following day, however. When her friend Keith Roberts stopped at her home at 11:00 a.m., Tammy told her mom they were going to the beach for a few hours. Linda was glad Tammy again felt like getting out of the house, although she found it odd that her daughter did not comb her hair before she left. The meticulous model was usually obsessed with looking pristine in public, and almost always spent considerable time on her appearance before going anywhere.

When Tammy had not returned home that evening and after being unable to reach Keith, Linda called the police and reported her daughter missing.

Tammy Goes Missing . . .

When Keith was reached the following day, he said he and Tammy had had a verbal argument on the way home from the beach after he refused to take her to Fort Lauderdale, one-hundred-eighty miles away. The dispute culminated in Tammy’s demanding to be let out of the car.

Keith said she exited his car near an Exxon station in Cocoa Beach, approximately five miles from her home, at roughly 3:00 p.m. Tammy subsequently made four phone calls: three to her aunt and one to a friend, both of whom were not at home. Saying she was calling from a nearby payphone, she left messages each time with a seeming sense of urgency in her voice.

. . . Following An Argument

Tammy was last seen walking two blocks from where Keith said he dropped her, along a state road near Cocoa Beach’s former Glass Bank.

The Former Glass Bank

Cocoa Beach, Florida

Many of Tammy’s friends initially believed she disappeared of her own free will as she had told them of her desire to leave home and move to California. Linda acknowledged she and her daughter had frequent arguments about her career and that Tammy was looking forward to an upcoming three-month-long trip to the Golden State, but Linda did not believe she wanted to leave home permanently.

Police found no evidence Tammy traveled to California. They also investigated her possible knowledge of the money laundering which she had alluded to on the set of Spring Break. Several dozen cases of money laundering in Florida were under federal investigation at the time, many of which involved prominent bankers and other local citizens, as well as police officers. Investigators could not determine which one Tammy was alluding to or if she actually had any knowledge of such a crime.

California Dreamin?

Keith Roberts is the last person Tammy Leppert knew who is known to have seen her. Although Linda later claimed Tammy had once told her that he had threatened to kill her, authorities cleared him of any involvement her disappearance.

Roberts was arrested for cocaine possession in 2017.

Keith Roberts

Christopher Wilder is a person of interest in Tammy’s disappearance. The serial killer lured women by posing as a fashion photographer, with promises of photographing them for magazines. Tammy would have been a tantalizing target, tailor-made for Wilder’s method of operation.

The Australian native who was dubbed “The Model Killer” murdered at least eight young women in a killing spree across America in 1984, the year after Tammy vanished. Several of these murders occurred in his home state of Florida; his first known victim was killed only a few miles from Cocoa Beach, not far from where Tammy was last seen. Wilder is suspected of killing several more women whose remains have never been found.

After being tracked to New Hampshire in April 1984, Wilder was killed in a struggle with police as they attempted to arrest him.

Linda said a man resembling Wilder had visited Tammy’s model agency several times in the months before her disappearance. She also believed Tammy had met him on the set of Spring Break, but no one involved in the film’s production could recall having met him or his being on the set.

Following Wilder’s death, Linda filed a $1 million lawsuit against his estate, contending he had most likely kidnapped and killed Tammy, but she later withdrew it after concluding that he was probably not responsible.

It has not been established that Wilder was in Cocoa Beach at the time of Tammy’s disappearance or that they had ever met.

Christopher Wilder

Another person of interest in Tammy Leppert’s disappearance is John Crutchley, the so-called “Vampire Rapist” and suspected serial killer. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1986 for the kidnapping and raping of a woman in Orlando, approximately forty miles from where Tammy was last seen.

Crutchley committed suicide in prison in 2002. He is a suspect in the murders of upwards of thirty women, but authorities have ruled him out of involvement in Tammy’s disappearance.

John Crutchley

Investigators, as well as many of Tammy’s friends, initially believed she left of her own accord, but with the passage of over forty years with no confirmed sightings, the general consensus is that she was suffering from a mental illness which, coupled with her physical features, made her an attractive target for a person with sinister motives.

Foul Play Likely

In the years following Tammy’s disappearance, police received two telephone calls from a woman saying Tammy is still alive. In the first call, the woman said she was well and would later contact the police. During the second call, she said Tammy had attended college and was now a nurse. Police have found no evidence to support either claim.

Some have speculated that Tammy was murdered by a former boyfriend, but nothing has been found suggesting so. She was rumored to have been three months pregnant and seeking an abortion at the time of her disappearance, but no evidence has surfaced supporting these claims as well.

Theories And Rumors But Still No Answers

Tammy’s mom, Linda Curtis, died in 1996 at age fifty-five.

Linda Has Passed

Tammy Lynn Leppert was last seen in Cocoa Beach, Florida, on July 6, 1983.  At the time of her disappearance, she was eighteen-years-old, five-feet-four-inches tall, and weighed between one-hundred-five and one-hundred fifteen pounds. She had blonde hair and hazel-colored eyes.

Tammy was wearing a blue denim skirt, a light blue shirt with flower appliques on the shoulders, and flip-flops when last seen. She was also carrying a gray purse.

The Missing Beauty

Tammy Leppert would today be fifty-nine-years-old. It is believed that her dental records have been lost due to poor recordkeeping.

Thirteen Jane Does having similar physical features as Tammy found from 1984-2014 in Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, Tennessee, and California, have been confirmed by The National Center and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) not to be her remains.

If you have information relating to the disappearance of Tammy Leppert, please contact the Cocoa Beach, Florida, Police Department at 407-868-3269 or 321-868-3251.

Computer-Aged Image Of Tammy Leppert

Additional aged-enhanced drawings of Tammy Leppert are shown below.

The first image is done by Danny Sollitti, a police sergeant and artist. The other images are from forensic artist Diana Trepkov.

Aged-Enhanced Drawings of Tammy Leppert

SOURCES:

• Brevard Today
• Charley Project
• Doe Network
• Florida Today
• Miami Herald
• Orlando Sentinel
• Tamp Tribune
• Unsolved Mysteries