VA VA - Tammy Salyer, 18, Bristol, 28 Feb 1990

Police don’t have the bullet that killed Tammy Salyer.

They don’t have the shell casing that could link it to the murder weapon. They don’t have the car in which the 18-year-old Virginia High School graduate died.

And they won’t say what happened to them.

After more than 15 years of investigation, the city Police Department has lost evidence, accused a dead woman of murder and made no arrests.

NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD CASE

Questions have surrounded Salyer’s death for years, ever since the chilly night of Feb. 28, 1990, when a bullet struck her in the head as she drove home from work on northbound Interstate 81 near what’s now Exit 7.

Police said for a decade and a half that the bullet crashed through the driver’s side window of Salyer’s car just after midnight, apparently fired from a passing car.

Her car ran off the road, crossed the median and the southbound lanes, ricocheted off a tree and crashed into a fence, police said.

Authorities said they found just one clue – the bullet that killed her, damaged almost beyond recognition. A search of the interstate failed to turn up a shell casing that could have helped identify the gun.

Salyer’s family wasn’t surprised. They learned more than five years ago that the shooting wasn’t random, that it wasn’t a drive-by and that Salyer might have known her killer. But they still don’t have the answers they want.

VANISHING EVIDENCE

Teresa Salyer finally saw the photo around 1998.

Police told the family it came from an enlargement of one of the original crime scene photos. They didn’t say how they found it or why no one mentioned it before.

It showed a shell casing lying in the back seat of her sister’s car.

"I saw the picture myself," she said. "If I hadn’t seen the picture myself, I wouldn’t have believed it."

YEARS OF DEAD ENDS

The case came after two other killings that remain unsolved – the deaths of 8-year-old Travis Shane King, who disappeared Aug. 22, 1986, and was found dead across the state line the next day, and Ngoc Duong "Mai" Helvey, a 30-year-old expectant mother found beaten and stabbed to death in her crafts shop on Feb. 13, 1984.

TIMELINE
http://www.tricities.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=TRI%2FMGArticle%2FTRI_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031785398520&path=!news
The link won't post correctly. You will need to cut and paste into your address bar.

So if I am understanding this the shell casing was in the back seat in a picture but was said to be never recovered.

Yah that is weird about the shell casing picture. Sounds like someone misplaced some evidence.

Salyer case theories
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Sunday, Jan 15, 2006 - 12:01 AM
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Through the years since Tammy Salyer's murder, I have kept interest and concern about this disgusting situation. I cannot believe some of the stuff I have heard both directly and read in the newspaper.

I just finished reading the article about the case in the Dec. 30 edition of the Bristol Herald Courier. The way I understand the theory of what happened is this:

Judy Weaver shoots Salyer through the window of her stopped car. The bullet hit her in the head. Then, someone moves Salyer from the driver's seat, drives the car across the northbound lanes of traffic, across the median, across the southbound lanes of traffic, up the bank, hits a tree and stops against the fence. Then, someone puts Salyer back into the driver's seat, puts the seatbelt on her and slumps her over into the passenger seat.

If the deadly shot was fired through a closed window from a pistol, the only way the empty casing could possibly get inside the car would have been by some fingers attached to a hand. And, if anyone would pull over on the interstate highway because someone flashed their lights at them, they would have to know who was flashing their lights, unless they were red or blue lights. If a person did pull over, the first thing they would do is roll down the window — no matter what color the flashing lights were.

When they run out of dead people to blame for Salyer's death, they will have to start looking for live ones. Anyone living in the area could possibly become the next suspect.

How many of you can prove where you were that night-

It would also be interesting to know what the medical reports had to say about Salyer's injuries, as well as the actual cause of death. As long as it was an honest report, that is. As we all know, a piece of paper will lie there and let you write anything on it.

I am proud of the Herald Courier for keeping us informed about the Tammy Salyer case, and I hope you will stay on it. The truth needs to surface, and eventually it will.

Don McCarter
Bristol, Va.

http://www.bristolnews.com/tristate...px.-content-articles-TRI-2006-01-15-0007.html

News article:

http://cache.zoominfo.com/CachedPage/?archive_id=0&page_id=619552903&page_url=www%2Ebristolnews%2Ecom%2Fservlet%2FSatellite%3Fpagename%3DTRI%252FMGArticle%252FTRI%5FBasicArticle%26c%3DMGArticle%26cid%3D1031773955398%26path%3D&page_last_updated=2%2F29%2F2004+6%3A32%3A01+PM&firstName=Tammy&lastName=Salyer

Police later speculated the shot that killed Tammy came from a passenger in a vehicle in the left lane of I-81 North. A spent bullet found at the scene was identified as coming from a large-caliber pistol, possibly a 9 mm. The gun was never found.


Another one:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/4227/viewall-page-286


Not all of the region's unsolved murders are so old. Eighteen-year-old Tammy
Salyer was felled by a sniper's bullet as she drove her car on Interstate 81 in
Bristol Virginia on March 1, 1990.

There are suspects in Salyer's killing, but investigators still need some final bits
of evidence to pull their case together, Mahoney said. A break in the case
could come soon, the detective added.

And the original story that started this post:


http://www.virginianewsday.com/node/4318

mysteriew said:

...YEARS OF DEAD ENDS
The case came after two other killings that remain unsolved – the deaths of 8-year-old Travis Shane King, who disappeared Aug. 22, 1986, and was found dead across the state line the next day, and Ngoc Duong "Mai" Helvey, a 30-year-old expectant mother found beaten and stabbed to death in her crafts shop on Feb. 13, 1984....

Click to expand...

It seems that there may be a break in the Travis Shane King Murder. Bristol Police are requesting that Fred Howard Coffey, Jr. (serving a Life term for murder in North Carolina) be extradited to Virginia to face charges. He has long been the primary suspect in this case.

Re: Police name killer in 1990 I-81 murder

Kingport [TN] Times-News--
Thursday, September 22, 2005
By BECKY CAMPBELL

"Based upon an extensive investigation over the past 15 years, including information provided by witnesses, BVPD determined that Judy Annette Blanton Weaver, formerly of the Benhams area of Washington County, Va., and Bristol, Tenn., shot and killed Ms. Salyer," Price said in a department press release.

Weaver died in 1997, prior to investigators learning about her involvement in Salyer's death.
snip
"It appears that Tammy Salyer was followed up I-81 as she returned home from her employment at Burger King on the Volunteer Parkway in Bristol, Tenn. She pulled off to the side of the interstate in response to flashing headlights from the Weaver vehicle," Price said.

"Judy Weaver removed a pistol from the console of her vehicle, walked to the side of the Salyer vehicle and made one shot through the driver's side window into the head of Ms. Salyer."

Click to expand...