Disappearance of Tammy Lynn Leppert

Actress Tammy Lynn Leppert starred in Scarface, Spring Break, and Little Darlings. Critics were predicting that she would become one of the big stars of the 80s. In 1982, she went to a weekend party unchaperoned and came home a different person. She became paranoid. She wouldn’t leave her room or answer the door. She refused to eat from open containers and even had her friend test for poison in her food.

After filming a particularly gruesome gun battle scene for Scarface, she had a breakdown and had to be escorted off the set. She confided to her mother that someone had bragged to her about a large money laundering and drug trading operation involving high-profile citizens in Florida, ranging from police officers to bankers and prominent locals. She also said she had seen something “horrible” that she wasn’t supposed to see, but refused to elaborate. Her mother took Tammy to the County Sheriff’s Office to report the alleged scheme, but when interviewed seven years later, Officer Mike Wong could not recall many specific details about the meeting.

Over months, she became paranoid and became convinced that somebody was out to kill her. In July 1983, she got off from her friend’s car at North Orlando as he had refused to drive her 170-mile to Fort Lauderdale and suggested dropping her off back home instead. Shortly after, she made three urgent calls to her aunt and her friend, both of whom weren’t able to pick up her calls. This is the last known contact from Tammy. Police quickly dismissed her as a runaway case and a private investigator and even Unsolved Mysteries producer Matt Klineman found that the police department did little to help with her case and did not want to share any information or leads with her mother, a request that he said was outside the norm.