Let me get some opinions on this. I've always been completely fascinated with these two cases, but it never occurred to me to compare them with each other. Let me begin by saying that I have always favored a mob connection to the Tammen disappearance. He was a musician, held a musician's union membership and both his home town and the area around southwest OH and northern KY (especially Newport, KY) were areas where the mob was making major inroads at that time. As a musician playing gigs around his home town and around SW Ohio, he could have easily come in contact with that element or have seen something he shouldn't have seen, or even gotten a glimpse of a lifestyle that ultimately held some appeal for him. I always felt that he went to the coroner for the blood type test because he was worried that something might happen to him and he wanted his blood type in the hands of the county coroner, just in case. It could have been fear, because of something he knew that he should not have known, or it could have been because he was contemplating a different life and recognized the inherent dangers that came with it.
There was a great deal of talk about the investigation of Tammen's disappearance being totally FUBAR'ed by the police. There was the housing director of MU who said he was certain he saw Tammen in NYC in the company of two other men and that Tammen was making extended, but expressionless eye contact with him at the restaurant. This gentleman also said he reported the sighting to an MU official who never passed it on to the authorities. I've also heard murmurs that, initially, MU tried to keep the disappearance hushed up. That came from one of Tammen's house mates. An investigator questioned why the FBI jumped in on the investigation of his disappearance. A second investigator said there were rumors that he could not get in to.
“Some suggest he was killed, some suggest his involvement with the government and other suggestions — I can’t really get into that,” Smith said.
Now, all that being said, here are some correspondences between the two: Very close in age, the height and weight works, check out the squared chin, thin lips, the shape of the brows, shape of the hairline, cheek bone structure, hair color (both were brown). Even though Chandler's driver's license says his eye color was gray, in all the pics of him currently posted, they look quite brown, as was Tammen's. Now the one thing about Chandler that has always looked bizarre to me was his nose. He has an extremely wide septum (the tissue and cartilage that divides the nostrils). I question whether the man had a nose job or nose fracture(s) in the past. Tammen was on the wrestling team. They believe Chandler was connected to the Navy. Tammen was in the Navy ROTC. Tammen had been a business major at the time of his disappearance. Chandler dabbled in stocks and bonds, which I find a bit unusual given that everyone around him took him for a simpleton with a gift for engineering. Chandler had a connection to California and, according to him, he lived in Florida at one time. He says on his apartment application that he has a brother in Colorado and a sister in Ohio. Tammen's father moved to Florida after his mother died, his brother relocated to California, and his sister remained in Ohio. I thought I had seen a reference to one of his brothers being in Colorado at one time, but now I can't find it. I'm not sure when Tammen's last brother passed away, but the sister is the only surviving member of his immediate family. Is it possible that he wanted to be near family but not close enough to endanger them or have them find out he was still alive? His sister is in Ohio, and that is where Chandler finally died. I believe that, by that time, she was already the only surviving member of the Tammen brood. Chandler settles in Eastlake, which is only 27 miles from Tammen's childhood home of Maple Heights.
Of course, even this would be just part of the story. If they are one and the same, he was living a very different life between '53 and '77 or '78 when he decided he wanted things to get a lot quieter in his life.
Oh, and when Chandler is invited to a costume party that no one thought he would attend, he shows up decked to the nines as a gangster.
Ronald H. Tammen, Jr.
John Doe known as Joseph Newton Chandler III
