Right 2: Age-progressed by NCMEC to 45 years and 50 years
Right 2: Age-progressed by NCMEC to 45 years and 50 years
Name: Tammy Lynn Akers
Nickname/Alias: Unknown
Case Classification: Endangered Missing
Missing Since: February 7, 1977
Location Last Seen: Roanoke, Roanoke County, Virginia
Date of Birth: June 28, 1962
Age: 14 years old
Race: White
Gender: Female
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 85 lbs.
Hair Color: Red
Eye Color: Blue
Distinguishing Marks/Features: Protruding navel; black mark on her cheek; scarred earlobes
Dentals: Available
Fingerprints: Unknown
DNA: Available
Clothing: Jeans, green short sleeved sweater, suede shoes, suede jacket
Jewelry: Unknown
Additional Personal Items: Unknown
Tammy Akers was last seen on the night of February 7, 1977. She told her mother she was going out to meet her friend, Angela Rader . She was gone when her parents came home, and neither Akers nor Rader showed up for school the next day at William Ruffner Junior High School.
They were never heard from again.
Akers had run away with Rader previously.
Akers and Rader both worked for a friend of their families at the time they disappeared.
Detectives questioned the man in 1980, after two young women said they were at a party a couple of years earlier where the man drunkenly fired a gun and sobbed that "he wished he hadn't hurt Tammy."
Police learned nothing from their interview with the man, who was known to party with young girls. They watched him closely for a few years. In 1984, he was charged with sexually molesting a girl younger than age 13, but was acquitted.
The man has since been convicted for the 1994 murder of a family of four, and was executed in April 2003.
The suspect has always maintained that he had nothing to do with what happened to Tammy Akers and Angela Rader. No one has been charged in their disappearance.
Agency Name: Roanoke Police Department
Agency Contact Person: Investigator William Engel
Agency Phone Number: 540-853-2212; 540-853-5305
Agency E-Mail: police@roanokegov.com
Agency Case Number: 06-120677
Agency Name: Virginia State Police - Cold Case Unit
Agency Contact Person: Special Agent Barry Koesee
Agency Phone Number: 540-380-5700
Agency E-Mail: vspwsc@vsp.virginia.gov
Agency Case Number: M016024786
NCMEC Case Number: 786744
NamUs Case Number: 1783
Added: Prior to 2011; Last Updated: 03/19/2024 - By: mc
Questions or comments? Please contact appropriate member of the Area Team
** Listed information is from the time of disappearance.
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