- Born
- Died
- Height5′ 4″ (1.63 m)
- Tammy Lynn Leppert was an American beauty queen and model. She had a few acting roles in the early 1980s but mysteriously disappeared at the age of 18. Her disappearance has generated much publicity, and her case remains open.
In 1965, Leppert was born in Rockledge, Florida. The city was a fashionable resort town in the late 19th century and early 20th century. By the 1960s, it had turned into a bedroom community for the nearby Kennedy Space Center. Leppert was a curly-haired blonde girl with hazel eyes. Around 1969, the 4-year-old Leppert participated in her first beauty contest.
Leppert spent most of her childhood in near-constant competition for beauty pageants. She is estimated to have been a contestant in about 300 beauty pageants and to have won about 280 crowns. She started a modeling career in her late childhood and continued modeling into her teen years. In 1978, her photos appeared in the magazine "CoverGirl".
Leppert had aspirations for an acting career, though she lacked formal training in acting. In 1980, she had a bit part in the teen-oriented comedy-drama film "Little Darlings". The film's plot revolved around two teenage girls who placed a bet on which of them would lose her virginity first, while several other girls took an interest in their contest.
In 1983, Leppert appeared as a female participant in a boxing match featured in the sex comedy "Spring Break". After the end of the film's shooting, Leppert decided to party. She went unaccompanied to a weekend party but reportedly had a disturbing experience there. After she returned home, Leppert started displaying signs of paranoia and persecutory beliefs. She was convinced that somebody would try to kill her and started taking precautions to prevent anyone from placing poison in her food and drink.
Leppert's last acting role was in a key scene of the crime drama film "Scarface". Her role was that of a bikini-clad girl who intentionally distracts the lookout car, preventing its occupants from intervening in a torture scene. Leppert reportedly displayed irrational behavior on the film's set and was escorted to her home after the fourth day of filming.
After Leppert stopped working on "Scarface", Leppert's mother became convinced that something was wrong with her daughter. She arranged for Leppert to undergo a medical evaluation in a medical center. After staying there for 72 hours, Leppert was released. The examining doctor found no signs of drug or alcohol use in Leppert, and she appeared to be physically healthy.
On July 6, 1983, Leppert arranged for a male friend to drive her to an unspecified location. They argued during the drive, and the friend dropped her off at Cocoa Beach, Florida, not far from Leppert's residence. He was the last person to see her alive. Leppert vanished without a trace, and the police and FBI soon started investigating her disappearance. As of the early 2020s, the investigative authorities have acquired a DNA profile of Leppert, but they do not have her dental records and fingerprints.
The FBI has theorized that Leppert was killed by serial killer Christopher Wilder (1945-1984), an amateur photographer who habitually targeted models and beauty contestants to rape and kill. Wilder lived in Florida from 1969 to 1984, and he went on a cross-country crime spree a few months following Leppert's disappearance. However, there is no physical evidence tying him to the case. Another major suspect was John Brennan Crutchley (1946-2002), a convicted rapist and kidnapper who was also suspected of being both a serial killer and a professional spy. Crutchley moved to Florida in 1983 and resided in the same county as Leppert. However, authorities were never able to prove that Crutchley had ever killed anyone.
Leppert's disappearance has ensured enduring fame from her, and she is often featured in true-crime books and documentaries. Various investigative authorities have repeatedly announced possible new leads when unidentified female corpses with superficial similarities to Leppert have been discovered. Between 1984 and 2014, the remains of 13 different women were compared to physical samples from Leppert, but none of them was an exact match. It is not clear whether Leppert is still alive or long gone.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Dimos I
- The story about her going missing appeared on the original "Unsolved Mysteries" with Robert Stack, Season 5 Episode 1.
- Tammy Lynn Leppert was a model/actress. By the age of 16, she had already competed in more than 300 beauty contests and had taken home 280 crowns. Just prior to her vanishing, she appeared in the 1983 film "Scarface" as the girl who was a distraction at the lookout car during the bloody chainsaw shower scene. Prior to that, among other minor roles, she had been in the teen movie Spring Break, where she had a role as a participant in a boxing match. Reportedly, her legs, hips, and torso were used in the main poster for the movie. It is claimed she had planned to go to Hollywood in 1983.
She was last seen in Cocoa Beach, Florida on July 6, 1983. She was reported to have worn a blue shirt decorated with flowers, along with a skirt of the same color, made from denim, a gray purse, and sandals. A friend of hers told authorities he had an argument with Leppert while transporting her by vehicle from her home in Rockledge, Florida, and later told authorities that he left her standing in a parking lot outside the Glass Bank near an Exxon gasoline station in the vicinity of State Road A1A between 2nd Street North and 3rd Street North in Cocoa Beach, Florida. - Has been a missing person since 1983.
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