VA VA - Angela Rader, 14, & Tammy Akers, 14, Roanoke, 7 February 1977

georgiagirl

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The Doe Network:
Case File 1563DFVA

ARader.jpg

Rader, circa 1977

Angela Rader
Missing since February 7, 1977 from Roanoke County, Virginia
Classification: Endangered Missing




Vital Statistics
  • Age at Time of Disappearance: 14 years old
  • Distinguishing Characteristics: White female.
  • DNA: MtDNA Available



Circumstances of Disappearance
Rader was last seen in Roanoke County, Virginia on February 7, 1977. Angela Rader was with her friend Tammy Lynn Akers . Rader nor Akers showed up for school the next day at William Ruffner Junior High School. They were never heard from again.
Rader had run away with Akers a time or two before, something her family thinks kept the police from taking her disappearance seriously for several years. Rader and Akers both worked for a friend of their familes, Earl Bramblett, at the time they disappeared. Aker's older sister has said that Bramblett started molesting her at age 12, when he forced her to have sex with him. She believes Bramblett started molesting Akers about age 9. Bramblett has since been convicted for the 1994 murder of a family of four and was executed in April 2003.
Investigators believe that Bramblett may have played a part in Akers and Rader's disappearances. Bramblett reportedly told friends that he wished he hadn't "hurt Tammy" three years after she went missing. He was never charged in either Akers or Rader's disappearances.
Eight months after Bramblett landed on death row, investigators dug around his former Bedford County home looking for clues in the girls' disappearance. They were not given permission by current owners to dig inside the house, so the dirt basement where the girls may be buried has never been searched. Police found nothing outside.
Bramblett has always maintained that he had nothing to do with what happened to Tammy Akers and Angela Rader. In a letter to The Roanoke Times in 1998, Bramblett wrote: "And I will again express my opinion that Tammy Akers died in a bonfire in central Florida around 1980 and the police are aware of this and have withheld it from the public." Bramblett never explained his theory and police have never mentioned any Florida connection.




Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

Roanoke City Police Department
540-853-2212


NCIC Number:
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

Source Information:
The Roanoke Times


Last Updated on: March 8, 2005
Return to the Unexplained Disappearances' Index
 
This part does not make sense to me....

In a letter to The Roanoke Times in 1998, Bramblett wrote: "And I will again express my opinion that Tammy Akers died in a bonfire in central Florida around 1980 and the police are aware of this and have withheld it from the public." Bramblett never explained his theory and police have never mentioned any Florida connection.

In a bonfire?? What does that mean??
 
interesting piece
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/bramblett845.htm

angie rader:character in a play,"Death of the Smiley Face"
produced or written by some outfit in sarasota florida.
In the play a poem is quoted with the expression ". . .Mat maids and bonfire keggers on Saturday nights. . ."
No mention made of her death by bonfire as far as I noticed but I admit I only skimmed through it.
http://www.histage.com/pdf/8205f.pdf

Edited to add:
Note:Although the play was not put under production until 1999, a year after the man quoted about a bonfire death, I don't know what year the play was actually written. The only copyright date I have seen is 1999. I posted this info only because it seems a coincidence. I actually think he was just blowing smoke.
 
Angela Rader and her friend Tammy Akers disappeared together on 7 February, 1977. Although Earl Bartlett may seem a likely suspect, consider that the guy was probably a bit crazy - as evidenced by his story about the bonfire. Also - the bodies of the family he was convicted of murdering were all found, unlike the case of the still missing Rader and Akers.

It is possible that someone else may have abducted and murdered these girls. Look at the fact that this is a double abduction - a somewhat rare occurance. There was such a double abduction only two years earlier in March of 1975, when Sheila Lyon (a few days short of 13 years old, and her sister Katherine (Just short of 11).

A strong possible suspect in the Lyon Case was Fred Howard Coffey, Jr. He had moved to Maryland shortly before the Lyon Sisters disappeared and returned to Virginia about the end of July 1975. He was active in the Virginia Beach area, but his family home was in Bristol, VA in the western end of the state - not too far from Roanoake.
 
I do not understand how the current owners of the home could refuse to let them dig in the house. Personally I would do whatever I could to cooperate as finding those poor girls is more important than being inconvienced by a hole in your basement. Besides, wouldn't you always wonder what could be hidden under the house?
 
Masterj said:
I do not understand how the current owners of the home could refuse to let them dig in the house. Personally I would do whatever I could to cooperate as finding those poor girls is more important than being inconvienced by a hole in your basement. Besides, wouldn't you always wonder what could be hidden under the house?
I guess they dont' want their home disturbed but i would want to help a family find their kids, to hell with making a mess and i also don't want my home being a final resting place for the 2 girls, they deserve more than that
 
I posted this over in the Alcala photos thread, but it kind of got lost in the mess over there.

Do these photos look like a match for Tammy Akers and Angela Rader?
 

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I see more of a similarity in the match to Rader than Akers...The prominent cheekbones especially. The spacing between the eyes on Akers seems wider than on the possible match---But then again, with the way the photos are lit, its difficult to say.
Its definitely a good effort, at the least. :)
 
I see more of a similarity in the match to Rader than Akers...The prominent cheekbones especially. The spacing between the eyes on Akers seems wider than on the possible match---But then again, with the way the photos are lit, its difficult to say.
Its definitely a good effort, at the least. :)

I'm so bad at telling these things. I wish I knew how to do that trick Carl does with rotating and marking the features...
 
It has been over 35 years now since Angela and Tammy went missing.
 
ROANOKE, Va. — One day in the late 1970's two young girls vanished from school. No sightings, few leads,they're just gone. It's one of the oldest cold cases in the Roanoke Police files. They think they have their man and they believe the girls were murdered. The prime suspect was a convicted killer, but he took any clues to his execution. Those clues might just be buried in rural Bedford County.

*****************

http://articles.wdbj7.com/2012-10-18/cold-case_34563644
 
Those people really need to let someone dig up their basement my god. selfish. i get its an inconveniance but you live in a murderer/molesters house, wouldnt you want to help

Also it looks like a national forest or something near where they went missing, i feel like he either buried them in the basement or found a really good hiding spot
 
"Family members ask for help in Roanoke City's cold case"

http://www.wsls.com/story/28974645/family-members-ask-for-help-in-roanoke-citys-cold-case

At the time family, friends, and police believed Angela and Tammy ran away and would come back in a few weeks. Few leads and the passing of decades made this disappearance even harder to solve.

The investigation led authorities to a man named Earl Bramblett as a possible suspect. He was executed in 2003 for the brutal murder of the Hodges family in Vinton.
 
"Family of missing Roanoke woman still searching for answers 38 years later"

http://www.wdbj7.com/news/local/family-of-missing-roanoke-woman-still-searching-for-answers-38-years-later/33188706

Angela Rader and Tammy Akers went missing from a Roanoke neighborhood in 1977 after being dropped off at school. Now 38 years later after no trace of either girl, Rader's family is still asking a lot of the same questions, and publicly remembering the girls in hopes that it will spark someones memory.
 
Tammy's sister has a FaceBook page now for her. She also has a blog that she started late last year going over some of the events that led up to the disappearances and how Earl Bramblett fit into the picture: https://www.facebook.com/Missing-Tammy-Lynn-Akers-857771770946334/?fref=ts

Are basements really common in that part of VA? None of the house around where my sister lives (on the coast of VA) have them.
 

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