NH NH - Tammy Belanger, 8, Exeter, 13 Nov 1984
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ThunderFist
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That is an interesting theory, but if his confession to other inmates is true, Wonyetye likely murdered Tammy. There was an article in a newspaper printed in 1992 saying he had confessed to some inmates that he raped, strangled and killed two 8-year-old girls. What we know for sure is that the headline specifically mentioned Marjorie "Christy" Luna (it said Greenacres girl), the other girl whose disappearance he has also been a suspect in, both girls were 8 years old at the time of their kidnappings, and Wonyetye lived in both areas when they occurred. He was reportedly seen outside the store Christy Luna was walking to when she went missing, and the day Tammy disappeared was the first time he ever called in to work. Wonyetye reportedly asked the owner of the motor inn he was staying at to cover for him by saying that he had been at the inn all day, to which she said she couldn't tell anyone that, as she was sure she had seen him leave that morning. Later, when a news report about Tammy was being shown, the motor inn's owner asked if he thought they would find Tammy, and Wonyetye's reply was, "Not now they won't." I really wish the police would offer his friend who was supposedly with him when Tammy went missing and says he knows what happened to her immunity for telling what he knows. That would give the family closure and I doubt they want much else, especially since Wonyetye is dead.
folieadeuxnola
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There were human remains found in Kingston over the weekend its only a few miles from Exeter. LE is currently investigating however have not released any information.
http://www.unionleader.com/public-s...l-remains-found-in-kingston-woods--20170410/1
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http://www.unionleader.com/public-s...l-remains-found-in-kingston-woods--20170410/1
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
folieadeuxnola
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Unfortunately remains maybe from an abandoned grave yard
http://www.eagletribune.com/news/ne...cle_f229a6cc-2080-11e7-b49b-d712a0a24ed3.html
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http://www.eagletribune.com/news/ne...cle_f229a6cc-2080-11e7-b49b-d712a0a24ed3.html
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Steelslady
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I sometimes think they were so focused on trying to nab Wonyetye for Tammy's disappearance that they got side tracked and didn't look elsewhere.
Tammy, you will never be forgotten.
Tammy, you will never be forgotten.
Steelslady
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I know this probably will be met with opposition, but I never felt he was involved in this. I truly feel the newbies were so damn desperate to solve her case quickly to make a good impression, that they only looked at him as a POI because he fit neatly into their investigation.
I fear that they focused so much on this man that they didn't look at other possibilities. This was "the one" and they were determined to get this one to confess. Meanwhile, years later, not one lead has panned out. Also, I think that friend is full of BS- he's had plenty of time to come forward since Wonyetye's death and hasn't. If he was telling the truth, they'd have arrested by now.
Just my haunting thoughts and opinions on Tammy's disappearance.
Steelslady
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It's amazing because people read that article and took it for a fact that it was her photo when it was a girl that looked similar but not Tammy. They never did say who the girl was in the photo.
Steelslady
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Did they even bother to look at students or staff at Phillips Exeter Academy, not too far away from where she was last seen?
http://www.wmur.com/article/5-former-phillips-exeter-staffers-accused-of-abuse/9085625
Two teachers were accused of sexual misconduct on students back in the 80's! The street she was last seen on, Court Street, is the same street that the Academy is on
http://www.wmur.com/article/5-former-phillips-exeter-staffers-accused-of-abuse/9085625
Two teachers were accused of sexual misconduct on students back in the 80's! The street she was last seen on, Court Street, is the same street that the Academy is on
ThunderFist
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I have to disagree with you on this, on the grounds that an article in the Palm Beach Post dated Jan. 14, 1992, says that Wonyetye confessed to inmates that he had raped and killed two girls, and this article in particular names Christy Luna from Greenacres, FL, who Wonyetye is also accused of abducting. The article further mentions that Wonyetye says the girls he did this two were 8 years old, which is the age that both Christy and Tammy were when they were abducted, and we already know that he lived in Florida when Christy went missing, and in New Hampshire when Tammy disappeared. According to the article, and at least one other by, I believe, another newspaper in Florida, eight to twelve inmates in New Hampshire testified that Wonyetye had told them this, and three or four inmates' accounts were consistent with one another. If those inmates are still alive, I think LE should contact them and find out if they remember what Wonyetye told them, since it is probably the only closure Tammy's and Christy's families will ever get. Here is a link to the newspaper article I mentioned above. Sorry, this was the only link I could find to it at the moment.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/missing87975/unsolved-child-abduction-tammy-lyn-belanger-t2572.html
Steelslady
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Thank you for replying. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I am aware of all those articles and believe me, I have scoured them up and down, inside and out. The only thing besides a picture similar looking to Tammy that was in his home as some kind of evidence was cat fur all over his clothing- he did not own a cat, but allegedly, one of his alleged victims had cats and supposedly, LE was checking it out to see if the fur matched one of the other victim's cats. Tammy didn't have a cat.
I don't recall the name, but there was another young girl also missing that they had suspected him of murdering, and she was eight years old.
Unfortunately, they never found any evidence of Tammy being in his car or in his home. At this point, I wish that they did, at least we would know for a fact that he did something to her and that they had the right one. Not a piece of hair, her hair ribbon, clothing, backpack- not a blessed thing has been found of hers anywhere- not just his car or home, but anywhere, which is just frustrating.
We also had another girl disappear, Sarah Pryor, who went missing in Wayland, Mass, also unsolved, however, there was a bone fragment that was tested from a construction site, and it belonged to Sarah. That's all that they have on her case. Their main suspect is a man who is imprisoned in Texas who committed a similar crime.
I have often wondered if these two cases were related- both happened in countrified towns in NH and Mass, both were walking by themselves, Tammy was eight and Sarah was nine at the time of their disappearances, and both girls went missing 11 months apart. I know from talking to people, from family, friends, and folks online- many have always wondered if these two girls disappearances were done by the same person/people. Also, the person who was a suspect in Sarah's case, was also under suspicion of kidnapping Cathy Malcomson, age 17, August 1985. There were other girls kidnapped/murdered around the New England states as well in that time frame, ages 8-17. Many in countrified areas, towns that were considered "safe".
ThunderFist
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Wonyetye's other alleged victim was Marjorie Christina Luna, aged 8, of Greenacres, FL. She went missing prior to Tammy's disappearance, and Wonyetye lived there at that time, and was reportedly seen outside the store the day Christy (that is what she went by) disappeared. It has been said that not only did Christy have at least one cat, I believe she had multiple cats, but she was said to always be covered with cat hair. The possibility was looked into whether the cat hair found could have come from one of Christy's cats, not whether it could tie into Tammy. The day Christy disappeared, she had walked to the Greenacres Grocery, as it was known at the time, to buy cat food for her cats. Wonyetye lived in that area, and then moved to the Exeter area later that year, and Tammy disappeared while he was there. Wonyetye reportedly asked the owner of the motor inn where he was staying to cover for him by saying he was there all day, and she responded by saying she couldn't do that, since she remembered him leaving that morning. We know Wonyetye called in sick to work the day Tammy disappeared, and it was the first time he had done that at the job he was working at at the time. While staying at the motor inn, the owner asked Wonyetye casually if he thought Tammy would ever be found, and his reply was very suspicious: "Not now they won't." Why would he say something like that if he had nothing to do with it? One of the other users on wed sleuths brought up the possibility that Tammy's body could have been placed inside a scrap car before it was destroyed, and that if he did that, Tammy's remains would have been destroyed as well, and that is a very distinct possibility in a lot of our minds. Then there was the supposed confession to the New Hampshire inmates that he had raped and then killed two girls. One article says they were both 8 years old, which both Tammy and Christy were at that time, and we know that rape is something Wonyetye was definitely capable of, as he had been arrested prior to these disappearances after he was caught raping his 13-year-old stepdaughter. Then we have the inmates who testified that he told them about the murders. Since Wonyetye was in New Hampshire when he made the confession, this would have been after Tammy's disappearance, which was the second to happen, and both articles that talk about the confession agree on the numbers. Eight to twelve made statements about Wonyetye's alleged confession, and three to four gave consistent statements. Moreover, Wonyetye told these inmates that he killed two girls, and two girls are all he was ever formally suspected of kidnapping. I can't imagine who else it might be. Unfortunately, we do have only circumstantial evidence to go on, but the facts that we do know more than convince me that Wonyetye was guilty. I would still like to see, if it's possible, for law enforcement to contact the inmates who testified about the confession, and who are still living, and see if they remember what Wonyetye told them. Wonyetye kept claiming he never met either girl, telling Christy's mother this to her face, and the bodies may never found, especially if the scrap car theory is true, so that testimony, or any notes that may have taken in regards to it, should they resurface, would give the families closure. If I were related to either girl, I would want any closure I could get, especially with the knowledge that their killer died in prison.
Steelslady
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I know, this is so frustrating. The part that keeps me from thinking it was him was the lack of any DNA of Tammy's. Not a blessed thing. He wasn't a very clean man- his car and home were dirty. While cat fur was found in his home, nothing of poor Tammy was ever found, not even a hair.
Believe me, this scum bag, in my opinion, should never have gotten out after raping his poor step daughter, then saying it was all her fault because she wanted it! Unfortunately, from what I gleaned from one article I read, none of the cats fur matched the ones in his home. It is strange he was in both places, and if this ******* did do this to both of these girls, well, there's a special place below reserved just for him.
I know this may sound bizarre, but I have wondered if he got his jolly thrills out of telling people stories just to rile up the masses. He admitted what he did to his step daughter, even though he blamed her. As a matter of fact, the poor girl told her mom this was going on before she even married him, and she didn't believe her own daughter and married the *******! But he owned up to it, didn't deny it, didn't try to kill the mother and daughter- let's face it, he would have had time to do that before going to court, but he didn't.
I want to know about his so called friend that said he was in the car when Tammy was abducted. There's no way LE would let someone like this out of their sight, if this person existed and was telling the truth. Hello, accessory to kidnapping, rape and murder charges? This isn't directed at you, but the fools that keep saying this so called friend exists.
Did you read my articles about the teachers at Phillips Exeter Academy, which was on the way to school? There were rumors back in the 80's going around about one teacher- that's what makes me think that there might have been someone else they didn't look at closely, or maybe they didn't want to look at them, if you know what I mean.
ThunderFist
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I read the article you linked to, along with another one that discussed Phillips Exeter's sordid past. Here is the problem with your theory. Both articles refer to the children who were victims as students, which indicates that they were all students at Phillips Exeter. Nowhere in either article does it mention victims who did not attend the academy. Meanwhile, I looked up Lincoln Street School and Court Street, the street where Tammy was last seen, on Mapquest. Depending on where on Court Street Tammy was seen, there are two possible routes she could have taken to get to school, neither of which extends to Main Street, where Phillips Exeter is located. From the direction Tammy would have been walking, Main Street lies at the opposite end of Lincoln Street, which would have been farther than Tammy would have gone that day. It seems unlikely to me that the faculty of Phillips Exeter would have ever taken notice of Tammy unless she had friends on Main Street that she visited, or unless the perverts were prowling the neighborhood looking for victims outside the academy. Firstly, no evidence supports that notion, and secondly, given the likelihood that they would have been recognized due to their position within the community, that wouldn't have been a smart thing to do anyway. Had that been going on and they were to be recognized, not even an attempt by administration to cover that up would have been successful.
-Nemo-
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Can you miss a person you've never met?
I was 6-years-old when she disappeared. I still remember that November day when the grown-ups in my life told me about the little girl who was taken—Tammy. I remember seeing that black and white photo emblazoned on posters and in the newspapers. And I remember that not long after my elementary school, in nearby Raymond, implemented lessons on "stranger danger".
And then it seemed like I was introduced into a whole new frightening world of missing kids—Adam Walsh, Johnny Gosh, Etan Patz, and on and on.
I also remember when I learned that the well-meaning adults in my life had lied to me. They hadn't told me the truth when I'd asked them if monsters existed.
They had said, "No, monsters aren't real,"
But they lied.
Maybe they felt guilty. It was people who looked like them, other grownups, who were the monsters after all.
After that "go out and play" took on a sinister connotation. That's when I learned that it wasn't safe. That's when I learned that there was nothing to depend upon.
I just miss her.
And yet, we never met.
I carry her black and white picture with me. I still visit that area around River and Court Street when the days become shorter and the air becomes crisper. I honestly don't know why I go there, something just calls me, like a cenotaph of sad echoes—something deep and unresolved. Maybe it's the same thing that calls to you. The same thing that brings you here.
My ideas of justice and compassion are informed in no small part by the memories of that time Tammy was abducted. I hold the conceit that keeping Tammy in my thoughts might add to the meaning of her life, likely cut short by the selfish and brutish inclinations of a stranger. A stranger who, for the sake of his own desires, held no self higher than his own. A stranger whose name we just might know and who now will not see justice, at least not in this life.
I see now having read all the responses on this forum, that there are many, many others whose lives have been deeply impacted by Tammy. And many people who have insight into her case.
I have often wondered what I could do for Tammy—something more than just keeping her in my thoughts.
There's not much I can do... but I can write.
I've thought about possibly writing an essay on her and her case... maybe even a book. At the very least, I could compile enough information about her and her case to present it to one of the vast multitudes of True Crime podcasts in the hopes that they may cover it. And in covering it maybe, just maybe, something new might come of it. At the very least, it would give her case more exposure.
So, that's precisely what I've started to do.
I feel like her case has received somewhat woeful coverage and the one podcast that did talk about her was, to be frank, underwhelming in tone and quality.
Honestly, I’d just like to properly tell Tammy’s story. And not so much the horrible things that likely happened to her or the man who likely victimized her but... who she was. She lived for 8 whole years, she was only a victim for likely a few hours.
As I do research, I will gladly post any new information I may find here. I have access to public records, newspaper archives, and genealogy resources.
I’m not sure how long this will take.
I still live in Raymond, NH. I have a daughter who will be turning 8 in a few months. When I look at her I can’t help but think of Tammy.
I still miss Tammy. Her 8 years on this Earth were cut short but her life has meaning.
And the very fact that three out of four of Terry Rasmussen’s known NH victims, whose remains were discarded like so much detritus in Bear Brook State Park, have finally been identified—a case that for my entire life seemed basically forgotten and unsolvable—gives me hope that Tammy, too, might finally be brought home.
Peace.
I was 6-years-old when she disappeared. I still remember that November day when the grown-ups in my life told me about the little girl who was taken—Tammy. I remember seeing that black and white photo emblazoned on posters and in the newspapers. And I remember that not long after my elementary school, in nearby Raymond, implemented lessons on "stranger danger".
And then it seemed like I was introduced into a whole new frightening world of missing kids—Adam Walsh, Johnny Gosh, Etan Patz, and on and on.
I also remember when I learned that the well-meaning adults in my life had lied to me. They hadn't told me the truth when I'd asked them if monsters existed.
They had said, "No, monsters aren't real,"
But they lied.
Maybe they felt guilty. It was people who looked like them, other grownups, who were the monsters after all.
After that "go out and play" took on a sinister connotation. That's when I learned that it wasn't safe. That's when I learned that there was nothing to depend upon.
I just miss her.
And yet, we never met.
I carry her black and white picture with me. I still visit that area around River and Court Street when the days become shorter and the air becomes crisper. I honestly don't know why I go there, something just calls me, like a cenotaph of sad echoes—something deep and unresolved. Maybe it's the same thing that calls to you. The same thing that brings you here.
My ideas of justice and compassion are informed in no small part by the memories of that time Tammy was abducted. I hold the conceit that keeping Tammy in my thoughts might add to the meaning of her life, likely cut short by the selfish and brutish inclinations of a stranger. A stranger who, for the sake of his own desires, held no self higher than his own. A stranger whose name we just might know and who now will not see justice, at least not in this life.
I see now having read all the responses on this forum, that there are many, many others whose lives have been deeply impacted by Tammy. And many people who have insight into her case.
I have often wondered what I could do for Tammy—something more than just keeping her in my thoughts.
There's not much I can do... but I can write.
I've thought about possibly writing an essay on her and her case... maybe even a book. At the very least, I could compile enough information about her and her case to present it to one of the vast multitudes of True Crime podcasts in the hopes that they may cover it. And in covering it maybe, just maybe, something new might come of it. At the very least, it would give her case more exposure.
So, that's precisely what I've started to do.
I feel like her case has received somewhat woeful coverage and the one podcast that did talk about her was, to be frank, underwhelming in tone and quality.
Honestly, I’d just like to properly tell Tammy’s story. And not so much the horrible things that likely happened to her or the man who likely victimized her but... who she was. She lived for 8 whole years, she was only a victim for likely a few hours.
As I do research, I will gladly post any new information I may find here. I have access to public records, newspaper archives, and genealogy resources.
I’m not sure how long this will take.
I still live in Raymond, NH. I have a daughter who will be turning 8 in a few months. When I look at her I can’t help but think of Tammy.
I still miss Tammy. Her 8 years on this Earth were cut short but her life has meaning.
And the very fact that three out of four of Terry Rasmussen’s known NH victims, whose remains were discarded like so much detritus in Bear Brook State Park, have finally been identified—a case that for my entire life seemed basically forgotten and unsolvable—gives me hope that Tammy, too, might finally be brought home.
Peace.
Gardener1850
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Welcome to Websleuths -Nemo- ! What a compassionate and well written first post here.
You should be a blogger or an investigative journalist who covers cold cases.
Please join us over in the threads on Terry Rasmussen and the Allenstown victim's if you have an interest in that case as well:
NH - NH/CA - Terry Peder Rasmussen, suspected SK, Allenstown, 1981-2000's - #3
NH - NH - Allenstown, Adult Female & 3 Children, found Nov'85 & May'00 #2
-Nemo-
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Thank you. I will gladly join those threads.
-Nemo-
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I'd like to share a rough draft of what I've been working on:
The Abduction of Tammy Belanger
By: Wayne Cole
-1-
Exeter, N.H. had always seemed like a safe town.
That Tuesday morning in the middle of November began like any other for young Tammy Lynn Belanger. She had been described as quiet, timid even, but she had been making the walk to Lincoln Street Elementary School on her own for the better part of two years. The mile-long route was a familiar one and she knew that if she left a little before 8 am she could make it well before the morning bell rang at 8:26. It was a relatively cool morning, typical of autumn in New England, so she slipped an aqua colored jersey with black and white stripes over her purple sweater and then donned her blue-sleeved tan jacket. With a flip of her long brown hair, which she wore with bangs and had pulled back in twin ponytails, she headed towards the door. On the way out she grabbed her red backpack, which she had studiously written her name and address on, and began the walk up River Street.
Her normal route to school would, starting at her home on 34 River Street, take her up to River Street Extension and over to South Street. From South Street, she would cross Court Street, which was also the relatively busy Route-108 that headed south into Massachusetts. She would then head south on Court Street/Route-108 and make the first right onto Elm Street. From Elm Street it was a short way to Front Street/Route-111, which cuts the campus of Philips Exeter Academy neatly in half. Here, heading west, she would cross Front Street. She would then make a right turn on to Lincoln Street, where she would be merely a moment or two from the warmth and safety of her third-grade classroom. All told the walk should take her roughly twenty minutes.
She had made that walk so very many times before. She was often seen by her neighbors, who described her as not only shy but friendly. One of her fellow classmates had remarked in later years that she was very quiet, had almost seemed to ignore him, but had been one of the only students to come and visit him when he was laid up at home with a broken leg.
In fact, Tammy was seen that morning. Betty Blanchette, a neighbor and family friend, observed Tammy, like many mornings before, walking her familiar route as she crossed Court Street at around 8 am. “She looked both ways before crossing, “Blanchette remarked. “And then she just skipped across the street, you know how little girls do. Then she was out of sight.”
It was a typical scene, not unlike what could be seen unfolding in many towns across the nation, young children lugging backpacks on their way to school—to see them walking alone was so normal as to seem banal.
But there was something different about that morning, though Betty Blanchette would not realize it for several hours, for she had just joined a club of dubious distinction, one that most caring and thinking people would never choose to join.
-2-
Betty Blanchette was the last known person to see Tammy alive.
That is, other than the person, or people, that abducted her. Maybe Tammy’s neighbors were not the only ones who had been watching her make that familiar walk to school?
As mentioned, Tammy was described as timid, and because of this it was stated that she would never willingly approach or get into a car with a stranger. This seems to leave only two possibilities: it was someone she knew, maybe an adult she recognized or trusted, or it would have taken physical force, possibly a sudden and violent ambush, to get her into a car.
The environs around Court Street are heavily settled, while it may not be the busiest area in town, at 8 o'clock in the morning people are on the move—going to work and school. Routes 108 and 111 are right there. Philips Academy is right there. Houses line the streets. The Exeter Safety Complex is right there. Tammy had just been seen by a neighbor as she crossed Court Street.
This was a brazen act. And it would seem to indicate a certain level of organization, calculation, and planning. Either that or an impulsivity and recklessness grounded in strong sexual desire and a willingness to engage in high-risk behavior with the promise of very deep consequences for failure.
Maybe it was a combination of both. Even a reptile has an innate sort of cunning.
All of this seems to point to the fact that Tammy was likely targeted. Someone had watched her, gotten to know her routine. He had become familiar with the blind spots in the neighborhood, the best places to lay an ambush. This points to a man relatively comfortable with his surroundings, and familiar with the area around the town of Exeter. Maybe he felt confident because he had done something like this before. He sat in his car as she walked by. Possibly fantasized about it. Maybe he even knew her name.
Maybe it didn't matter that she had a name.
Maybe he had watched other girls around town. And gotten to know their routines, too. It was an activity he enjoyed—something that was almost second nature—finding places that the children congregated, where they rode their bikes and played together. Exeter was a thriving town of 11,000 strong. Rows and rows of houses, rows and rows of families with children. Playgrounds, parks, and front yards. There was plenty of opportunity for a predator to troll.
Maybe he had identified a certain vulnerability in Tammy’s routine, saw an opportunity that he just could not let pass. Maybe he got tired of fantasy.
Then again maybe it was all just chance, mere simple and indifferent cause and effect, a confluence of ricocheting events that led an innocent girl into the arms of a deviant.
And this is assuming that Tammy’s abduction was perpetrated by a single individual.
There are a lot of unanswered questions about what happened after Tammy crossed Court Street. Where precisely was she taken along the route? Was it a stranger that took her? Someone she knew? Had she been watched? Had a location to snatch her been chosen beforehand, somewhere an abduction wouldn’t be obvious? Was it a crime of opportunity? Where was she taken after the abduction? How quickly was she murdered? Where are her remains?
Or, maybe beyond all hope, is she still alive?
-3-
There are many questions but not many answers. What answers there are, seem to be built on a foundation of shifting sand and circumstantial evidence. For one, we do know that her parents were not notified of her absence from school that morning. At that time the Exeter School system did not have a policy in place to notify parents if their children were tardy or absent. It was late in the afternoon when Tammy’s mother, Patricia, waiting for her arrival home, realized she had never made it to school that day. Understandably frantic, she immediately filed a missing person’s report with the Exeter police—several hours after Tammy had last been seen crossing Court Street.
The police, having been notified, initially thought Tammy had simply strayed and would quickly be found. But it soon became apparent that was not the case. Local officials then activated the Interstate Emergency Unit, a 52 –town mutual aid network. And thus began an extensive multi-day search, which included helicopters and hundreds of volunteers. Boats were called in to scour the Exeter River which flows behind the Belanger house. Divers were on scene to search the depths of a nearby quarry. Searchers looked for freshly dug tracts of earth in surrounding woods. Leaf and compost piles in neighboring yards were turned over. Eventually, multiple ponds around town would be drained.
Four days after Tammy was last seen the police called off the search, saying they believed she had been abducted and taken out of the area.
There were moments of hope in the search for Tammy. For instance in 1985, as one of the helicopters involved in a search flew over Exeter, a red backpack was spotted under a bridge. With bated breath and a burgeoning sense of optimism, the searchers rushed over to the location—only to experience a crushing feeling of disappointment. The bag belonged to a transient, who was found to have no relation to the case. Disappointment was a sentiment that would become very familiar to the people involved in the search for Tammy. “It’s as if is this young lady walked into a vacuum” Exeter Police Chief Frank Caracciolo said to a reporter at the time.
The day after Tammy’s abduction the Exeter School System, and many surrounding communities implemented mandatory verification of student absences. Cold comfort to both Tammy and the Belanger family. A quote from one local paper, not long after her abduction, summed up rather succinctly the innocence lost: “Exeter, a town of 11,000, where children no longer walk alone.”
-4-
In the days and weeks following Tammy’s abduction, Lincoln Street Elementary would come to see lines of over a hundred cars form as parents dropped off and picked up their children.
It is not that these types of tragedies had not started to seep into communities like Exeter before Tammy’s abduction. On the opposite side of the state, the communities in the Connecticut River Valley were dealing with a rash of murders of women and girls. They had begun to experience for themselves the terror of being the hunting grounds for a type of offender that would soon capture the imagination of the entire nation—the serial killer.
Just a few years before, across the Connecticut River, Springfield, VT had experienced the fallout from the crimes of a serial killer, Gary Lee Schaefer.
Another serial murderer was also at work closer to Exeter. A man going by the name of Bob Evans had deposited a couple of 55-gallon drums in Allenstown, on the border of Bear Brook State Park. One of those drums and its sad contents would be discovered in 1985—there was even short-lived speculation that they were the remains of Tammy. Another drum would lay undiscovered for 15 more years. And it would be many more years before Bob Evans’ real name, and the crimes that he had committed would be known to the world. By that time, Terry Peder Rasmussen would have changed his name several more times and claimed more victims across the country.
There had been young women and girls who had gone missing around the city of Manchester, N.H. Laureen Rahn was 14-years-old when she disappeared from Manchester on April 26th, 1980. Shirley McBride was 15-years-old when she was last seen in Concord on July 13th, 1984. Denise Beaudin was 23-years-old when she and Dawn, her six-month-old daughter, went missing from Goffstown, NH on November 26th, 1981. It is now known that Denise was a victim of Terry Rasmussen. Dawn luckily survived. Rasmussen was eventually linked to another woman who had gone missing from Manchester in 1980, Denise Daneault.
In the nearby city of Portsmouth, N.H., two young women were murdered in just over a year. In September of 1981, the body of Laura Kempton, 23-years-old was found bludgeoned to death in her Chapel Street apartment. And then in October of 1982, 20-year-old Tammy Little was found murdered in her apartment on Maplewood Avenue. Her death was also caused by massive head injuries. There were other similarities. Both women had ground floor apartments, both were students at the Portsmouth Beauty School, and both had modeled for local photographers.
Just four years before Tammy’s abduction in Exeter, in the bordering town of Newton, 15-year-old Rachael Garden entered Rowe’s Corner Market to purchase bubblegum and cigarettes. She then began the walk to a friend’s house on Main Street. Like Tammy, she was last seen walking near Route 108.
But even with all that, these events still seemed like outliers—anomalies. A number of these girls and young women were dismissed as runaways—despite the protest of their families. The lifestyles of others were brought into question—whether fairly or not. A lot of things that are known now about these cases just were not known, or even conceivable then.
The people of rural NH were still able to dismiss these types of crimes as the problems of more metropolitan areas, like Boston or New York. These certainly were not the types of crimes that would be committed against grade-school children, were they?
Maybe it was naivety or willful blindness. Maybe it was a stubborn refusal to accept that the village-like mentality of NH, where one not only trusted one’s neighbor but knew their name, had begun to give way to a new world.
-5-
In time, the police in Exeter would name a suspect in Tammy’s case. Two days after Tammy’s abduction, the Exeter Police received a call from an NH parole officer. One of the felons he was monitoring worked in Exeter at an auto body shop off of Main Street, not far from the route Tammy walked to and from school almost every day.
That felon had missed work on the day of her abduction.
And he had prior convictions for sexual offenses against young girls.
That felon’s name was Victor George Wonyetye Jr. He had been released from prison in 1983 on charges of molesting his step-daughter.
Wonyetye was a career criminal with multiple burglary convictions in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. He had spent part of his youth in nearby Dover, N.H. He would also come to be a suspect in another murder of an 8-year-old girl, who vanished six months before Tammy, in Greenacres, Florida on the afternoon of May 27th, 1984. Her name was Marjorie Luna. Wonyetye just happened to be at a party in the neighborhood when she disappeared. Marjorie was last seen just a few hundred feet from her home, on her way back from a local store to buy food for her cats.
In 1992, in Florida, Wonyetye was convicted and sentenced to 75 years in prison for burglary and indecent exposure. At the trial, several inmates who shared a cell with Wonyetye testified that he had admitted to sexually assaulting and killing both Tammy and Marjorie. It’s reported that as many as a dozen inmates came forward to state that Wonyetye talked about kidnapping, raping, strangling, and then disposing of their bodies.
Still, there are some who question the veracity of that testimony.
He was never charged in either abduction. And there is no direct or physical evidence linking him to either crime.
Wonyetye passed away in 2012.
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There are still rumors that there was someone, an acquaintance or friend, who witnessed Tammy in Wonyetye’s car that November morning. There are rumors that the Blue 1975 Oldsmobile Omega that he drove at the time had a peculiar modification—the interior passenger side door handle was removed. There were allegations that the dashboard of that same car was covered with graffiti—the names of young girls. There are rumors that a picture of Tammy was found at his mother’s house in Florida. There are allegations that a manager of a motor inn in Rye, NH, where he was staying in 1984, heard him remark that they would never find Tammy. There are allegations that Wonyetye would occasionally remark to his friends that he could dispose of a body in such a way as to never be found—remarks that would leave his friends befuddled, removed of proper context. There are even allegations that Wonyetye’s burglaries were sometimes odd. He would take only a small, worthless item or a small amount of cash, in one instance it is purported he only took seven dollars. The implication seems to be that, if he wasn’t really taking anything of value when he burgled, just what was he getting out of it?
There are so many rumors and allegations.
Some of them, like the photo of Tammy in Wonyetye’s possession, have subsequently been disproven. He had a photo of a girl that resembled but ultimately wasn’t Tammy. Other rumors seem to have been confirmed. For instance, Wonyetye’s nephew admitted that his uncle told him that he would have the young girls he slept with write their names on the dashboard of his car. Other anecdotes just float out there in the ether. Their truth or falsity left to the biases or inclinations of the individual.
Is it possible that Wonyetye is, in fact, not guilty of the crime? There is no doubt that his criminal record clearly indicates that he is a sexual predator, a predator that targeted young girls. Before he was arrested in Florida he was surveilled by police peeping into the windows of young girls while pleasuring himself. Similarly, he was also surveilled masturbating outside of community pools and miniature golf courses. He was also witnessed attempting to approach two-young girls in his car. The officer tailing him broke cover and intervened. Finally, he was arrested attempting to break into a home of one of the little girls he had been watching.
At the home in Lake Worth that he shared with his mother, detectives found a large collection of children’s underwear advertisements Wonyetye had clipped from newspapers. His friends in NH jokingly called him “Chester the Molester” because of his predilection for bringing young girls to his motel room. The court record of his 1979 trial for molesting his 13-year-old step-daughter in Rollinsford, NH is a testament to his twisted, craven desires. His subsequent correspondence with the trial judge after his conviction is a sad litany of humanity’s ability to rationalize the most despicable of behavior—especially when it is one’s own. "This girl used me to get and have anything she wanted simply by saying she loves me and giving me sex any time I wanted it and didn't even have to ask," he wrote the judge. "She was the one who climbed into my bed."
Wonyetye’s own lawyer in that trial wanted him to get a psychiatric examination. Defense attorney Daniel Newman wrote to the judge about “[Wonyetye’s] response of amorality and total indifference to customary concepts of guilt . . . The total unreality with which the defendant views the alleged repeated raping of his stepdaughter suggests a psychiatric imbalance that further warrants examination,"
Victor Wonyetye was able to convince that prison psychologist that he was not an ongoing threat to young girls.
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But the question must be asked:
Is Wonyetye’s history, and his proximity to the two crimes enough to condemn him?
There were several other people of interest in the Luna case before Wonyetye became a suspect. Two men, who are brothers, were known to have been visited by Marjorie and a 6-year-old friend at their residence several times. Both brothers were subsequently charged with molesting the friend. Marjorie’s own stepfather also became a person of interest. In time, the cases against all three men fell apart.
The case against Wonyetye still stands.
In Tammy’s case, it is less clear that there was ever any other viable suspects.
Again, the Exeter police believe Wonyetye is responsible for the disappearance of Tammy. Several officers, including the former chief of police who had started his career in Law Enforcement a mere 3 years before Tammy was abducted, have gone on record stating they are certain Wonyetye was the one responsible. As Chief Richard Kane put it in an interview with WMUR in 2013, “There was no one else that really rose to his level. He was the one that committed that crime,”
During the investigation, detectives from both New Hampshire and Florida noted the similarities in their cases. There were witnesses that observed an individual matching Wonyetye’s description, driving a vehicle similar to the one he owned, in the area near both abductions. However, witnesses in Exeter failed to identify him in a police lineup. One, in fact, chose someone other than Wonyetye.
Wonyetye offered alibis for both crimes. There appears to be a conflict between his apparent attendance at a party, during the day of the Luna abduction, and his purported alibi—attending church with family and then bowling with relatives afterward. He claims his first knowledge of Marjorie’s abduction came when watching TV with his parents that evening. It should be noted that his parent’s home in Lake Worth is a mere 12-minute drive from Greenacres where Marjorie was last seen.
In New Hampshire, Wonyetye conceded he was not at work around the time of Tammy’s abduction but said he had coffee with an employee of a convenience store and was later seen by his parole officer—the same parole officer who apparently notified the police about his presence in Exeter. The owner of the auto body shop where he was employed said that Wonyetye seemed isolated and listless in the days following Tammy’s abduction.
Ultimately, the strength of these alibis is uncertain.
During the investigation, detectives put tracking devices on Wonyetye’s vehicle, they sifted through his garbage, had a team of investigators assigned to follow him, tapped his phone, and monitored his mail.
The detectives involved came to know a lot about Victor G. Wonyetye, Jr.
But the most important question is the one that is still unanswered:
“Was he the one responsible?”
-8-
Chief Kane retired from the Exeter police force in 2016 and Tammy’s case is now overseen by a new Chief of Police. Some of the officers on the force were not even born when Tammy went missing.
The Exeter police have 12 bound volumes on Tammy’s case.
Over the years, based on tips, they have dug up the grave of an elderly woman who was buried around the time Tammy was abducted, thinking Tammy’s body might be hidden within; they have drained more ponds, followed up leads offered by psychics, and they continue to field calls to this day.
Nothing of Tammy has ever been found.
In the end, what is certain, what cannot be disputed, is that for all intents and purposes Tammy Belanger seemingly vanished on that cool morning on the 13th of November, 1984—her 200 paces down Court Street rendered as nebulous and indeterminate a mystery as any that have weighed upon the collective consciousness of humanity.
The thought of Tammy, the 8-year-old child, torn away from the warm certainty of her life is a chilling one that has haunted many people, many children in the small state of New Hampshire. To know that somewhere in her consciousness she must have been aware of the grave danger she was in evokes such a sense of pathos as to lead one to tears. The horrors she had to face—as alien as it all must have seemed—to be pulled away beyond help from her bright and innocent world, so close to her own front door, and to be plunged into the unknown—a child alone…
It’s enough to sear the heart and pierce the soul.
Whoever is responsible for this crime did more than just abduct Tammy. That person, or persons, inflicted a grievous wound upon the hearts of her family, friends, classmates, and the entire community. It is a wound that reverberated out beyond Exeter to encompass surrounding communities. And it is a wound that has not been confined by time or space.
If one thinks about it there are really two types of time. There is clock time, that which binds us to the conventional world and the roles we assume in it. And there is heart time. Heart time is something unto itself, it is a force or a place where an event that took 35 seconds can last for 35 years—and cascade out beyond those who lived it to be carried on indefinitely into an as yet undiscovered future.
In 1985, the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on Missing Children. Representative Bob Smith, of New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional district which includes Exeter, read the following into the Congressional Record:
“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Oklahoma and all the individuals who have participated in this special order today. Mr. Speaker, one of my young constituents has been missing since November 13, 1984. I am participating in this special order because I want to do everything I can to help call attention to the case, in the hope that she might be found. Her name is Tammy Belanger. She is from Exeter, NH. She is 8 years old, has long brown hair and brown eyes. She is 4 feet 6 inches tall, and slender. Like thousands of children, Tammy started off to school that morning of November 13 and has not been seen by her parents since. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children assist parents and local enforcement officers in finding missing children. I ask that anyone having information about Tammy Belanger call their number 1-800-843-5678, toll-free.
Mr. Speaker, Exeter is a small New Hampshire town of 11,000. Child abuse and kidnapping, as we all know, has encompassed all areas of the Nation. It is not limited exclusively to metropolitan cities. It has raised its ugly head in small-town America as well. Something must be done. The FBI reports that sexual offenders have the highest rate of repeat offenses. Seventy to ninety percent will be released to repeat their crimes. Reports on missing children are equally staggering. Child kidnapping by strangers ranges from low estimates of 5,000 to as high as 20,000 yearly.
Those of us in Congress must make a bipartisan effort to enact strong legislation confronting this frightening and repulsive tragedy facing our families and especially our children. I have cosponsored H.R. 605 which amends the criminal code to provide a mandatory life sentence for any non-parent who kidnaps an individual under the age of 18 and imposes the death penalty in cases where the victim dies as a result of the kidnapping. We have the power and the responsibility to keep these criminals away from our children. It is time to get on with that job.
Mr. Speaker, the hope of rehabilitating any 5, 10, 20, or even 50-time offenders is not worth risking the safety of one innocent child. We must get these despicable people off our streets and we must help their victims. Mr. Speaker, $3.9 million was spent last year for Government chauffeur driven limousines for low-level government officials. How many children like Tammy may have been found with that money?
Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, please help us find Tammy Belanger and bring her home. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.”
It’s been 35 years since Tammy Belanger disappeared as she walked to school on that cool November morning.
The wound is still there. We still miss her.
Above all, we want to find her and bring her home.
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A timeline of Victor Wonyetye
05/07/1943 - Victor Wonyetye is born in Pennsylvania.
1959 – Wonyetye family moves to Dover, N.H.
1962-70 - After a childhood dotted with trips to juvenile court and reform school, Wonyetye racks up about 30 burglary convictions in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
07/27/1973 - He is arrested for molesting the 8-year-old daughter of a female friend.
01/17/1974 - State drops the case.
06/09/1974 - He marries the girl's mother.
09/26/ 1977 - His parents retire in Florida. They buy a house in Lake Worth.
01/22/1979 - His wife catches him in bed with her 13-year-old daughter.
06/08/1979 - He is convicted of raping the girl and sentenced to 71/2 to 15 years in prison.
07/28/1983 - He is paroled, moves to Rye, N.H., and gets a job in an auto body shop.
05/07/1984 - After living with his mother in Lake Worth for two months, he is arrested for night prowling.
05/27/1984 – Marjorie Luna disappears in Greenacres.
08/23/1984 - He is sentenced to 30 days in jail on the night prowling charge.
11/02/1984 - He moves back to Rye, N.H. His parole officer gets him a job at an Exeter body shop.
11/13/1984 - Tammy Belanger disappears in Exeter.
11/19/1984 - FBI first talks to him about Belanger's disappearance and searches his car.
11/29/1984 - He is arrested for violating parole.
12/27/1984 -He is the first and last suspect identified in the Belanger disappearance.
12/28/1984 - His parole is revoked.
01/30/1991 - He finishes his prison sentence in New Hampshire and leaves for Florida within weeks.
06/04/1991 - He is arrested after officers compile videotapes of him masturbating outside children's windows. He is charged with burglary and possession of burglary tools.
09/09/1991 - His trial is set to begin.
01/15/1992 – He is convicted by Jury on nineteen counts of trespassing, possession of burglary tools, exposure of sexual organs and attempted burglary. He faces up to 43 years in prison because of his status as a habitual offender.
05/12/1992 – He is sentenced to 75 years in prison. The presiding judge, Walter Colbath Jr., cites his lack of remorse and 23 prior convictions, including aggravated sexual battery against his stepdaughter as reasons for the stiff sentence. Colbath states that Wonyetye is a continuing danger to society.
04/2012 – Wonyetye released from prison.
12/2012 – Victor Wonyetye dies at the age of 69 in Central Florida.
The Abduction of Tammy Belanger
By: Wayne Cole
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Exeter, N.H. had always seemed like a safe town.
That Tuesday morning in the middle of November began like any other for young Tammy Lynn Belanger. She had been described as quiet, timid even, but she had been making the walk to Lincoln Street Elementary School on her own for the better part of two years. The mile-long route was a familiar one and she knew that if she left a little before 8 am she could make it well before the morning bell rang at 8:26. It was a relatively cool morning, typical of autumn in New England, so she slipped an aqua colored jersey with black and white stripes over her purple sweater and then donned her blue-sleeved tan jacket. With a flip of her long brown hair, which she wore with bangs and had pulled back in twin ponytails, she headed towards the door. On the way out she grabbed her red backpack, which she had studiously written her name and address on, and began the walk up River Street.
Her normal route to school would, starting at her home on 34 River Street, take her up to River Street Extension and over to South Street. From South Street, she would cross Court Street, which was also the relatively busy Route-108 that headed south into Massachusetts. She would then head south on Court Street/Route-108 and make the first right onto Elm Street. From Elm Street it was a short way to Front Street/Route-111, which cuts the campus of Philips Exeter Academy neatly in half. Here, heading west, she would cross Front Street. She would then make a right turn on to Lincoln Street, where she would be merely a moment or two from the warmth and safety of her third-grade classroom. All told the walk should take her roughly twenty minutes.
She had made that walk so very many times before. She was often seen by her neighbors, who described her as not only shy but friendly. One of her fellow classmates had remarked in later years that she was very quiet, had almost seemed to ignore him, but had been one of the only students to come and visit him when he was laid up at home with a broken leg.
In fact, Tammy was seen that morning. Betty Blanchette, a neighbor and family friend, observed Tammy, like many mornings before, walking her familiar route as she crossed Court Street at around 8 am. “She looked both ways before crossing, “Blanchette remarked. “And then she just skipped across the street, you know how little girls do. Then she was out of sight.”
It was a typical scene, not unlike what could be seen unfolding in many towns across the nation, young children lugging backpacks on their way to school—to see them walking alone was so normal as to seem banal.
But there was something different about that morning, though Betty Blanchette would not realize it for several hours, for she had just joined a club of dubious distinction, one that most caring and thinking people would never choose to join.
-2-
Betty Blanchette was the last known person to see Tammy alive.
That is, other than the person, or people, that abducted her. Maybe Tammy’s neighbors were not the only ones who had been watching her make that familiar walk to school?
As mentioned, Tammy was described as timid, and because of this it was stated that she would never willingly approach or get into a car with a stranger. This seems to leave only two possibilities: it was someone she knew, maybe an adult she recognized or trusted, or it would have taken physical force, possibly a sudden and violent ambush, to get her into a car.
The environs around Court Street are heavily settled, while it may not be the busiest area in town, at 8 o'clock in the morning people are on the move—going to work and school. Routes 108 and 111 are right there. Philips Academy is right there. Houses line the streets. The Exeter Safety Complex is right there. Tammy had just been seen by a neighbor as she crossed Court Street.
This was a brazen act. And it would seem to indicate a certain level of organization, calculation, and planning. Either that or an impulsivity and recklessness grounded in strong sexual desire and a willingness to engage in high-risk behavior with the promise of very deep consequences for failure.
Maybe it was a combination of both. Even a reptile has an innate sort of cunning.
All of this seems to point to the fact that Tammy was likely targeted. Someone had watched her, gotten to know her routine. He had become familiar with the blind spots in the neighborhood, the best places to lay an ambush. This points to a man relatively comfortable with his surroundings, and familiar with the area around the town of Exeter. Maybe he felt confident because he had done something like this before. He sat in his car as she walked by. Possibly fantasized about it. Maybe he even knew her name.
Maybe it didn't matter that she had a name.
Maybe he had watched other girls around town. And gotten to know their routines, too. It was an activity he enjoyed—something that was almost second nature—finding places that the children congregated, where they rode their bikes and played together. Exeter was a thriving town of 11,000 strong. Rows and rows of houses, rows and rows of families with children. Playgrounds, parks, and front yards. There was plenty of opportunity for a predator to troll.
Maybe he had identified a certain vulnerability in Tammy’s routine, saw an opportunity that he just could not let pass. Maybe he got tired of fantasy.
Then again maybe it was all just chance, mere simple and indifferent cause and effect, a confluence of ricocheting events that led an innocent girl into the arms of a deviant.
And this is assuming that Tammy’s abduction was perpetrated by a single individual.
There are a lot of unanswered questions about what happened after Tammy crossed Court Street. Where precisely was she taken along the route? Was it a stranger that took her? Someone she knew? Had she been watched? Had a location to snatch her been chosen beforehand, somewhere an abduction wouldn’t be obvious? Was it a crime of opportunity? Where was she taken after the abduction? How quickly was she murdered? Where are her remains?
Or, maybe beyond all hope, is she still alive?
-3-
There are many questions but not many answers. What answers there are, seem to be built on a foundation of shifting sand and circumstantial evidence. For one, we do know that her parents were not notified of her absence from school that morning. At that time the Exeter School system did not have a policy in place to notify parents if their children were tardy or absent. It was late in the afternoon when Tammy’s mother, Patricia, waiting for her arrival home, realized she had never made it to school that day. Understandably frantic, she immediately filed a missing person’s report with the Exeter police—several hours after Tammy had last been seen crossing Court Street.
The police, having been notified, initially thought Tammy had simply strayed and would quickly be found. But it soon became apparent that was not the case. Local officials then activated the Interstate Emergency Unit, a 52 –town mutual aid network. And thus began an extensive multi-day search, which included helicopters and hundreds of volunteers. Boats were called in to scour the Exeter River which flows behind the Belanger house. Divers were on scene to search the depths of a nearby quarry. Searchers looked for freshly dug tracts of earth in surrounding woods. Leaf and compost piles in neighboring yards were turned over. Eventually, multiple ponds around town would be drained.
Four days after Tammy was last seen the police called off the search, saying they believed she had been abducted and taken out of the area.
There were moments of hope in the search for Tammy. For instance in 1985, as one of the helicopters involved in a search flew over Exeter, a red backpack was spotted under a bridge. With bated breath and a burgeoning sense of optimism, the searchers rushed over to the location—only to experience a crushing feeling of disappointment. The bag belonged to a transient, who was found to have no relation to the case. Disappointment was a sentiment that would become very familiar to the people involved in the search for Tammy. “It’s as if is this young lady walked into a vacuum” Exeter Police Chief Frank Caracciolo said to a reporter at the time.
The day after Tammy’s abduction the Exeter School System, and many surrounding communities implemented mandatory verification of student absences. Cold comfort to both Tammy and the Belanger family. A quote from one local paper, not long after her abduction, summed up rather succinctly the innocence lost: “Exeter, a town of 11,000, where children no longer walk alone.”
-4-
In the days and weeks following Tammy’s abduction, Lincoln Street Elementary would come to see lines of over a hundred cars form as parents dropped off and picked up their children.
It is not that these types of tragedies had not started to seep into communities like Exeter before Tammy’s abduction. On the opposite side of the state, the communities in the Connecticut River Valley were dealing with a rash of murders of women and girls. They had begun to experience for themselves the terror of being the hunting grounds for a type of offender that would soon capture the imagination of the entire nation—the serial killer.
Just a few years before, across the Connecticut River, Springfield, VT had experienced the fallout from the crimes of a serial killer, Gary Lee Schaefer.
Another serial murderer was also at work closer to Exeter. A man going by the name of Bob Evans had deposited a couple of 55-gallon drums in Allenstown, on the border of Bear Brook State Park. One of those drums and its sad contents would be discovered in 1985—there was even short-lived speculation that they were the remains of Tammy. Another drum would lay undiscovered for 15 more years. And it would be many more years before Bob Evans’ real name, and the crimes that he had committed would be known to the world. By that time, Terry Peder Rasmussen would have changed his name several more times and claimed more victims across the country.
There had been young women and girls who had gone missing around the city of Manchester, N.H. Laureen Rahn was 14-years-old when she disappeared from Manchester on April 26th, 1980. Shirley McBride was 15-years-old when she was last seen in Concord on July 13th, 1984. Denise Beaudin was 23-years-old when she and Dawn, her six-month-old daughter, went missing from Goffstown, NH on November 26th, 1981. It is now known that Denise was a victim of Terry Rasmussen. Dawn luckily survived. Rasmussen was eventually linked to another woman who had gone missing from Manchester in 1980, Denise Daneault.
In the nearby city of Portsmouth, N.H., two young women were murdered in just over a year. In September of 1981, the body of Laura Kempton, 23-years-old was found bludgeoned to death in her Chapel Street apartment. And then in October of 1982, 20-year-old Tammy Little was found murdered in her apartment on Maplewood Avenue. Her death was also caused by massive head injuries. There were other similarities. Both women had ground floor apartments, both were students at the Portsmouth Beauty School, and both had modeled for local photographers.
Just four years before Tammy’s abduction in Exeter, in the bordering town of Newton, 15-year-old Rachael Garden entered Rowe’s Corner Market to purchase bubblegum and cigarettes. She then began the walk to a friend’s house on Main Street. Like Tammy, she was last seen walking near Route 108.
But even with all that, these events still seemed like outliers—anomalies. A number of these girls and young women were dismissed as runaways—despite the protest of their families. The lifestyles of others were brought into question—whether fairly or not. A lot of things that are known now about these cases just were not known, or even conceivable then.
The people of rural NH were still able to dismiss these types of crimes as the problems of more metropolitan areas, like Boston or New York. These certainly were not the types of crimes that would be committed against grade-school children, were they?
Maybe it was naivety or willful blindness. Maybe it was a stubborn refusal to accept that the village-like mentality of NH, where one not only trusted one’s neighbor but knew their name, had begun to give way to a new world.
-5-
In time, the police in Exeter would name a suspect in Tammy’s case. Two days after Tammy’s abduction, the Exeter Police received a call from an NH parole officer. One of the felons he was monitoring worked in Exeter at an auto body shop off of Main Street, not far from the route Tammy walked to and from school almost every day.
That felon had missed work on the day of her abduction.
And he had prior convictions for sexual offenses against young girls.
That felon’s name was Victor George Wonyetye Jr. He had been released from prison in 1983 on charges of molesting his step-daughter.
Wonyetye was a career criminal with multiple burglary convictions in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. He had spent part of his youth in nearby Dover, N.H. He would also come to be a suspect in another murder of an 8-year-old girl, who vanished six months before Tammy, in Greenacres, Florida on the afternoon of May 27th, 1984. Her name was Marjorie Luna. Wonyetye just happened to be at a party in the neighborhood when she disappeared. Marjorie was last seen just a few hundred feet from her home, on her way back from a local store to buy food for her cats.
In 1992, in Florida, Wonyetye was convicted and sentenced to 75 years in prison for burglary and indecent exposure. At the trial, several inmates who shared a cell with Wonyetye testified that he had admitted to sexually assaulting and killing both Tammy and Marjorie. It’s reported that as many as a dozen inmates came forward to state that Wonyetye talked about kidnapping, raping, strangling, and then disposing of their bodies.
Still, there are some who question the veracity of that testimony.
He was never charged in either abduction. And there is no direct or physical evidence linking him to either crime.
Wonyetye passed away in 2012.
-6-
There are still rumors that there was someone, an acquaintance or friend, who witnessed Tammy in Wonyetye’s car that November morning. There are rumors that the Blue 1975 Oldsmobile Omega that he drove at the time had a peculiar modification—the interior passenger side door handle was removed. There were allegations that the dashboard of that same car was covered with graffiti—the names of young girls. There are rumors that a picture of Tammy was found at his mother’s house in Florida. There are allegations that a manager of a motor inn in Rye, NH, where he was staying in 1984, heard him remark that they would never find Tammy. There are allegations that Wonyetye would occasionally remark to his friends that he could dispose of a body in such a way as to never be found—remarks that would leave his friends befuddled, removed of proper context. There are even allegations that Wonyetye’s burglaries were sometimes odd. He would take only a small, worthless item or a small amount of cash, in one instance it is purported he only took seven dollars. The implication seems to be that, if he wasn’t really taking anything of value when he burgled, just what was he getting out of it?
There are so many rumors and allegations.
Some of them, like the photo of Tammy in Wonyetye’s possession, have subsequently been disproven. He had a photo of a girl that resembled but ultimately wasn’t Tammy. Other rumors seem to have been confirmed. For instance, Wonyetye’s nephew admitted that his uncle told him that he would have the young girls he slept with write their names on the dashboard of his car. Other anecdotes just float out there in the ether. Their truth or falsity left to the biases or inclinations of the individual.
Is it possible that Wonyetye is, in fact, not guilty of the crime? There is no doubt that his criminal record clearly indicates that he is a sexual predator, a predator that targeted young girls. Before he was arrested in Florida he was surveilled by police peeping into the windows of young girls while pleasuring himself. Similarly, he was also surveilled masturbating outside of community pools and miniature golf courses. He was also witnessed attempting to approach two-young girls in his car. The officer tailing him broke cover and intervened. Finally, he was arrested attempting to break into a home of one of the little girls he had been watching.
At the home in Lake Worth that he shared with his mother, detectives found a large collection of children’s underwear advertisements Wonyetye had clipped from newspapers. His friends in NH jokingly called him “Chester the Molester” because of his predilection for bringing young girls to his motel room. The court record of his 1979 trial for molesting his 13-year-old step-daughter in Rollinsford, NH is a testament to his twisted, craven desires. His subsequent correspondence with the trial judge after his conviction is a sad litany of humanity’s ability to rationalize the most despicable of behavior—especially when it is one’s own. "This girl used me to get and have anything she wanted simply by saying she loves me and giving me sex any time I wanted it and didn't even have to ask," he wrote the judge. "She was the one who climbed into my bed."
Wonyetye’s own lawyer in that trial wanted him to get a psychiatric examination. Defense attorney Daniel Newman wrote to the judge about “[Wonyetye’s] response of amorality and total indifference to customary concepts of guilt . . . The total unreality with which the defendant views the alleged repeated raping of his stepdaughter suggests a psychiatric imbalance that further warrants examination,"
Victor Wonyetye was able to convince that prison psychologist that he was not an ongoing threat to young girls.
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But the question must be asked:
Is Wonyetye’s history, and his proximity to the two crimes enough to condemn him?
There were several other people of interest in the Luna case before Wonyetye became a suspect. Two men, who are brothers, were known to have been visited by Marjorie and a 6-year-old friend at their residence several times. Both brothers were subsequently charged with molesting the friend. Marjorie’s own stepfather also became a person of interest. In time, the cases against all three men fell apart.
The case against Wonyetye still stands.
In Tammy’s case, it is less clear that there was ever any other viable suspects.
Again, the Exeter police believe Wonyetye is responsible for the disappearance of Tammy. Several officers, including the former chief of police who had started his career in Law Enforcement a mere 3 years before Tammy was abducted, have gone on record stating they are certain Wonyetye was the one responsible. As Chief Richard Kane put it in an interview with WMUR in 2013, “There was no one else that really rose to his level. He was the one that committed that crime,”
During the investigation, detectives from both New Hampshire and Florida noted the similarities in their cases. There were witnesses that observed an individual matching Wonyetye’s description, driving a vehicle similar to the one he owned, in the area near both abductions. However, witnesses in Exeter failed to identify him in a police lineup. One, in fact, chose someone other than Wonyetye.
Wonyetye offered alibis for both crimes. There appears to be a conflict between his apparent attendance at a party, during the day of the Luna abduction, and his purported alibi—attending church with family and then bowling with relatives afterward. He claims his first knowledge of Marjorie’s abduction came when watching TV with his parents that evening. It should be noted that his parent’s home in Lake Worth is a mere 12-minute drive from Greenacres where Marjorie was last seen.
In New Hampshire, Wonyetye conceded he was not at work around the time of Tammy’s abduction but said he had coffee with an employee of a convenience store and was later seen by his parole officer—the same parole officer who apparently notified the police about his presence in Exeter. The owner of the auto body shop where he was employed said that Wonyetye seemed isolated and listless in the days following Tammy’s abduction.
Ultimately, the strength of these alibis is uncertain.
During the investigation, detectives put tracking devices on Wonyetye’s vehicle, they sifted through his garbage, had a team of investigators assigned to follow him, tapped his phone, and monitored his mail.
The detectives involved came to know a lot about Victor G. Wonyetye, Jr.
But the most important question is the one that is still unanswered:
“Was he the one responsible?”
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Chief Kane retired from the Exeter police force in 2016 and Tammy’s case is now overseen by a new Chief of Police. Some of the officers on the force were not even born when Tammy went missing.
The Exeter police have 12 bound volumes on Tammy’s case.
Over the years, based on tips, they have dug up the grave of an elderly woman who was buried around the time Tammy was abducted, thinking Tammy’s body might be hidden within; they have drained more ponds, followed up leads offered by psychics, and they continue to field calls to this day.
Nothing of Tammy has ever been found.
In the end, what is certain, what cannot be disputed, is that for all intents and purposes Tammy Belanger seemingly vanished on that cool morning on the 13th of November, 1984—her 200 paces down Court Street rendered as nebulous and indeterminate a mystery as any that have weighed upon the collective consciousness of humanity.
The thought of Tammy, the 8-year-old child, torn away from the warm certainty of her life is a chilling one that has haunted many people, many children in the small state of New Hampshire. To know that somewhere in her consciousness she must have been aware of the grave danger she was in evokes such a sense of pathos as to lead one to tears. The horrors she had to face—as alien as it all must have seemed—to be pulled away beyond help from her bright and innocent world, so close to her own front door, and to be plunged into the unknown—a child alone…
It’s enough to sear the heart and pierce the soul.
Whoever is responsible for this crime did more than just abduct Tammy. That person, or persons, inflicted a grievous wound upon the hearts of her family, friends, classmates, and the entire community. It is a wound that reverberated out beyond Exeter to encompass surrounding communities. And it is a wound that has not been confined by time or space.
If one thinks about it there are really two types of time. There is clock time, that which binds us to the conventional world and the roles we assume in it. And there is heart time. Heart time is something unto itself, it is a force or a place where an event that took 35 seconds can last for 35 years—and cascade out beyond those who lived it to be carried on indefinitely into an as yet undiscovered future.
In 1985, the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on Missing Children. Representative Bob Smith, of New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional district which includes Exeter, read the following into the Congressional Record:
“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Oklahoma and all the individuals who have participated in this special order today. Mr. Speaker, one of my young constituents has been missing since November 13, 1984. I am participating in this special order because I want to do everything I can to help call attention to the case, in the hope that she might be found. Her name is Tammy Belanger. She is from Exeter, NH. She is 8 years old, has long brown hair and brown eyes. She is 4 feet 6 inches tall, and slender. Like thousands of children, Tammy started off to school that morning of November 13 and has not been seen by her parents since. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children assist parents and local enforcement officers in finding missing children. I ask that anyone having information about Tammy Belanger call their number 1-800-843-5678, toll-free.
Mr. Speaker, Exeter is a small New Hampshire town of 11,000. Child abuse and kidnapping, as we all know, has encompassed all areas of the Nation. It is not limited exclusively to metropolitan cities. It has raised its ugly head in small-town America as well. Something must be done. The FBI reports that sexual offenders have the highest rate of repeat offenses. Seventy to ninety percent will be released to repeat their crimes. Reports on missing children are equally staggering. Child kidnapping by strangers ranges from low estimates of 5,000 to as high as 20,000 yearly.
Those of us in Congress must make a bipartisan effort to enact strong legislation confronting this frightening and repulsive tragedy facing our families and especially our children. I have cosponsored H.R. 605 which amends the criminal code to provide a mandatory life sentence for any non-parent who kidnaps an individual under the age of 18 and imposes the death penalty in cases where the victim dies as a result of the kidnapping. We have the power and the responsibility to keep these criminals away from our children. It is time to get on with that job.
Mr. Speaker, the hope of rehabilitating any 5, 10, 20, or even 50-time offenders is not worth risking the safety of one innocent child. We must get these despicable people off our streets and we must help their victims. Mr. Speaker, $3.9 million was spent last year for Government chauffeur driven limousines for low-level government officials. How many children like Tammy may have been found with that money?
Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, please help us find Tammy Belanger and bring her home. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.”
It’s been 35 years since Tammy Belanger disappeared as she walked to school on that cool November morning.
The wound is still there. We still miss her.
Above all, we want to find her and bring her home.
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A timeline of Victor Wonyetye
05/07/1943 - Victor Wonyetye is born in Pennsylvania.
1959 – Wonyetye family moves to Dover, N.H.
1962-70 - After a childhood dotted with trips to juvenile court and reform school, Wonyetye racks up about 30 burglary convictions in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
07/27/1973 - He is arrested for molesting the 8-year-old daughter of a female friend.
01/17/1974 - State drops the case.
06/09/1974 - He marries the girl's mother.
09/26/ 1977 - His parents retire in Florida. They buy a house in Lake Worth.
01/22/1979 - His wife catches him in bed with her 13-year-old daughter.
06/08/1979 - He is convicted of raping the girl and sentenced to 71/2 to 15 years in prison.
07/28/1983 - He is paroled, moves to Rye, N.H., and gets a job in an auto body shop.
05/07/1984 - After living with his mother in Lake Worth for two months, he is arrested for night prowling.
05/27/1984 – Marjorie Luna disappears in Greenacres.
08/23/1984 - He is sentenced to 30 days in jail on the night prowling charge.
11/02/1984 - He moves back to Rye, N.H. His parole officer gets him a job at an Exeter body shop.
11/13/1984 - Tammy Belanger disappears in Exeter.
11/19/1984 - FBI first talks to him about Belanger's disappearance and searches his car.
11/29/1984 - He is arrested for violating parole.
12/27/1984 -He is the first and last suspect identified in the Belanger disappearance.
12/28/1984 - His parole is revoked.
01/30/1991 - He finishes his prison sentence in New Hampshire and leaves for Florida within weeks.
06/04/1991 - He is arrested after officers compile videotapes of him masturbating outside children's windows. He is charged with burglary and possession of burglary tools.
09/09/1991 - His trial is set to begin.
01/15/1992 – He is convicted by Jury on nineteen counts of trespassing, possession of burglary tools, exposure of sexual organs and attempted burglary. He faces up to 43 years in prison because of his status as a habitual offender.
05/12/1992 – He is sentenced to 75 years in prison. The presiding judge, Walter Colbath Jr., cites his lack of remorse and 23 prior convictions, including aggravated sexual battery against his stepdaughter as reasons for the stiff sentence. Colbath states that Wonyetye is a continuing danger to society.
04/2012 – Wonyetye released from prison.
12/2012 – Victor Wonyetye dies at the age of 69 in Central Florida.
Steelslady
Justice for Kelsey
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I so understand you and your feelings. Tammy's disappearance has haunted me since she went missing. I have tried over the years to bring attention to her. I live in NH myself. I so want Tammy's parents to have answers, some closure as to what happened. Last night, I tried to upload her photo as my avatar- I just feel like she needs to be remembered.
People have discarded my thoughts on Tammy possibly being connected to other girls missing during that time frame, but I think it's a possibility. I've also been somewhat chastised for thinking that possibly she was a victim of one of the teachers at Phillips Exeter Academy- she walked by that school every day, in order to get to her school. Perhaps it's not related at all, but who can say?
Tammy, you've never been forgotten, I promise.