now resides in the computer memory bank of Florida Crime Information center. A comunity of 5,944, roughly the size of Indian
Harbour Beach. She can be found there alongside another cocoa beach entry Keith D. Fleming. who vanished in 1977 at age 13.
Cocoa Beach Police Capt. Bob Wicker is mildly indignant over curtis' allegation that his department blew the investigation
of Tami's disappearance. He says he coudn't find a hint of foul play.
"I can't say there was anything unusual about the case. Other than some faintly problems I understand she was having at
home" Wicker says. "The agent in charge was a real go-getter. He he was the type the sees communists behind every tree,
if you know what I mean."
The case fell into the departments lap when Tami, a Rockledge resident, was last reported seen in Cocoa Beach. Among other
things, Curtis says the young man who picked up her daughter up on the morning of July 6, 1983, was never thoroughly
interrogated. She says that Tami once told her that she feared the same man-A businessman-wanted to kill her.
Wicker dismisses.
"Nothing in the report has him down as a suspect" He says. "We have no reason to believe he did anything wrong, at this
time." Wicker says he has no current Address on the man Tami was last seen with. Because the case is still pending, he says,
records on the investigation remain closed.
"FAMILY PROBLEMS"
Tami-Lynn Leppert lived in fear shortly before she vanished. Strangers prowled around the eyes of those she knew best.
She woudn't drink from open containers; She only ate food from someone else's plate, Not hers; She stayed in her room and
refused to answer the door. Linda Curtis concedes these things. She says she got her first glimpse of deterioration the
year before, When Tami broke down on the set of Brian DePalma's cocaine-war thriller, "Scarface." A blood-and-guts scene
during the filming sent her into hysterics.
But Curtis insists that Tami's authentic tears were rooted in a confession that would consume her. Tami told her mother that
how in an effort to score points, a friend bragged to her on a large-scale, drug-money laundering operation in Brevard. Cops,
Bankers, Leading citizens-the people in on the take were powerful, powerful enough to make Tami fear she knew too much.
Curtis says she told Tami to make a report with the Brevard County Sheriff's Department.
Officer Mike Wong, now with the department's drug task force , says he vaguely remembers his meeting with Tami. "It was so
long ago," Wong says "and the best I can recollect , the the conversation didn't have anything to do with anyone trying to
kill her. I think she came in to talk about some stolen propety she wanted back."
Wong expresses bewilderment over the drug scenario. "the last I heard, they thought that racecar driver was involved."
That referance is to serial killer Christopher Wilder.
Before he was shot to death in a tussle with a state trooper on the canadian border in spring 1984, Wilder's murder spree
lanced Brevard. The FBI linked Wilder-A Grand Prix aficianado who posed as a fashion phographer-with the abduction and
murder aspiring Satelite Beach model Terry Ferguson , last seen at Merritt square mall.
Curtis filled a $1 million wrongul death sult against wilders astate that year. She says Wilder met her daughter daughter
on the set of "Spring Break" in fort lauderdale and traveled to Brevard in a fruitless effort to convince Curtis to let
him photograph Tami.
Curtis said she never considered Wilder a strong suspect. She says she only sued the Wilder estate luring the manhunt to
force him to answer questions about Tami. She dropped the lawsuit after wilder's death.
RICK ADAMS
WAS one of the few people Tami-Lynn Leppert trusted to the end. "It's hard to say why, really" Adams says. "Maybe it's
because I never really wanted anything from her. "now 27, Adams sifts through his pictures. Pointing out the times he
escorted her to both his junior and senior proms at Cocoa High School. It was one of those hard-to-catagorize teen-age
relationships-not exactly a hot romance, but not exactly little sister/big brother either. He knows only one thing for sure
"She could've dated anybody she wanted to. "They drifted apart after he graduated. Perhaps that was inevitable."Tami had alot
of pressure about her apearance in public, "Adam recalls. "Because of who she was, she felt like she had this image she had
to live up to. Everything she did was, like, fine-tooth combed. Her make up had to be just right, every hair had to be in
place, what she wore had to be perfect. It drove me crazy, to tell the truth. I got burned out on the whole thing, with with
so many people hanging around, so many people coming up to her. It was almost like having to compete for attention, and I
wasn't into that." but shortly before she disappeared, Adams says Tami began confiding in him, telling him that someone was
trying to kill her. He says the fear was real. "I knew it wasn't drugs. I can say for sure that Tami wasn't into drugs. She
didn't even drink. "Finally, on Tuesday evening July 5, 1983. Tami told Adam she had "seen something she shouldn't have
seen" She didn't get aspecific. They went to pray at Rockville Evangel Temple. "Tami cried as hard as I've seen anyone cry
before" Adams says.He dropped her off in front of her house around 11 that night . They made pland to go back to church
wednsday afternoon."And then." Adams says "She looked at me and said. I just want you to know that I may have to go away for
a while. But I also want you to know that I love you."
Then they hugged each other, and held the embrace for as long as it took.
Rick Adams never got a chance to ask her what she meant. He called late the next morning to reconfirm their date.
She was already gone.
CURTIS CONCEDES TAMI
had been restless, that her career hadn't advances as quickly as she wanted. She says Tami was preparing to pursue some
acting leads waiting for her in California.
But paranioa engulfed her first. It was the last of June, first of July 1983.
"Tami went outside for some reason-which seemed strange, considering how she afraid to go outside-when the door slammed
and locked behind her. I think a gust of wind caught it." Curtis says. "Anyway, she went berserk. She bashed the window with
a baseball bat she picked up in the front yard, and she reached her and inside to unlock the door. "She came running in,
Yelling and screaming, but before she could do anything I pinned her against the wall and kept saying. " I love you, Tami I
love you Tami, over and over again, And then she went limp."
The next day Curtis checked Tami into the Brevard mental health center for 72 hour observation. " Then they released her and
said she was normal as far as they could tell." Curtis says. "So we were all set to check her with another psycho therapist.
But We were too late."
Curtis was sitting in the house that wednsday morning when she heard a car horn beep out front. Tami peered out the window
and went out the door. she was wearing a light blue blouse, a denim shirt and was barefoot. She stuck her head back in and
said "bye mommy, I'll see you in a little bit, OK?"
"For some reason, I was preoccupied that day and I didn't pay much attention to it, and I'll never forgive myself for that."
Curtis says. On the other hand since her daughter did not have her purse. curtis didn't think she was going far.
Ten minutes later, Curtis heard the car engine crank up. She rose to see what was going on. Tami was riding away in the
car of the young man she suppossedly feared.
It was 11 a.m. Linda Curtis never saw her daughter again.
THE LAST REPORTED
contact Tami attempted came in a flurry of calls she made that wednesday afternoon.
Three times she left urgent messages for her aunt, Ginger Kolsch, at Kolsch's Cocoa Beach costume shop, Balloonatics. Kolsch
was out of town, Tami said she was calling from a nearby location.
"Tami was definately afraid of somebody," Kolsch says. "It was real, I'm convinced of that."
Kolsch says the runaway scenario doesn't wash.
"DID YOU EVER
see her play Peter Pan?" asks Rick Adams. "Linda's got it on video."
The performance in an enduring image in Adams' memory, a special place for the little girl he thought was destined to be a star.
This is the one where Tami-Lynn Leppert, dressed as the famous boy-who-wouldn't-grow-up, is confronted with a dying Tinkerbell
poisoned by the notorious Captain Hook. And the only way to save Tinkerbell's life is to rally the support of the audience.
"Oh, please, please, everyone who believes in fairies, clap your hands!" Tami urges.
Grief and fear come trickling down Tami's cheeks so easily it flows like blood from a fresh wound.
"Please!"she continues with greater conviction, "Louder! Oh please, louder!"
The audience responds with lusty, award-winning applause and Tami's tears of sorrow smear with tears of relief.
Tinkerbell lives.
"She could make you cry, man," Adams says, "That was Tami at her best. She had the gift."
A fountain of sorrow, forever young.
Florida Today March 18, 1990
By Billy cox