OH OH - Ronald Tammen, 19, Oxford, 19 April 1953

New Posts

suzannec4444 said:
Hi
They need to probably check this DNA with Mr Bones in Pennsylvania also.I was looking for a connection with Mr Bones and the Boy in the box found in 1957.

suzanne
Click to expand...

I thought a while back about a possible connection between Ronald Tammen and Mr. Bones who was found in 1958. But I checked the height and Ron was 5'10" and 175 pounds and 19 years old. Mr. Bones they thought was between 30-35 and he was 6'4" at 200 pounds. A significant difference in height. It still wouldn't hurt to check it out. You never know.

I thought of 2 possible scenarios with Ron Tammen. I read more than once that he went to investigate a noise. One article said the noise was out in the hall (Charley Project) and another said it was in the basement of the old Fisher Hall. (I can't find that particular news article at the moment but I'm still looking). I thought maybe if it was in the basement someone could have been down there and knocked him over the head or he could have tripped and fell in the dark and hit his head on something. When he woke up he didn't know who or where he was. He then showed up at the woman's house between 11PM and midnight asking about a bus to Middletown. She thought it was Tammen and said he appeared disheveled and confused. If he suffered a head injury (and it WAS him that knocked on her door that night) it's entirely possible he had amnesia. If the UID in Georgia turns out to be him, the time frame would fit for him to have just taken off not knowing who he was or where he was going. He disappeared on April 19 and the badly decomposed body in Georgia was found in late June. That's only about a 2 month time span. According to experts, loss of memory can last from 2 hours to about 2 months, depending on how serious the initial head injury is. Here's a link to an article about it.

http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/amnesia.shtml

The other possibility is the blood test having something to do with his disappearance. It may very well have been taken for the purpose of proving paternity. For a 19-year-old college sophomore that would have been a very difficult thing to deal with back in 1953. It would still be difficult to deal with today but it was definitely more unheard of back then. It is odd that he requested that blood test and went to the Butler County Coroner in Hamilton to do so. It had to have been for something secretive or he would have had it done in Oxford where the University was. If it was something to do with the military, he could have had the blood test done at the time of the physical.
 
Walker County authorities say they plan to exhume the body of man found off U.S. 27 in the Walnut Grove area in late June 1953.

The remains were never identified and the case remained unsolved. The body was eventually buried at LaFayette City Cemetery.

“It is looking like we are going to do an exhumation and a definite date has not been set yet,” Capt. Mike Freeman said Wednesday.

Investigators want to know if the body is 19-year-old Ronald Tammen Jr., a sophomore who disappeared from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in April 1953.

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_...&pnpID=730&NewsID=872663&CategoryID=3511&on=1
 
Police say DNA could link missing Miami student to remains found in Georgia.

HAMILTON — Butler County Sheriff's Office Specialist Frank Smith said it would have been "virtually impossible" in 1953 for law enforcement in the rural South and Oxford, Ohio, to link an unidentified man found dead in the Georgia woods and a missing Miami University student.

http://www.oxfordpress.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/01/17/hjn011808missingfolo.html

Missing case revived after 55 years

OXFORD - He just vanished.

One moment Ronald Henry Tammen Jr. was thumbing through a psychology book in his dorm at Miami University, and then, who knows what.

On a cold April night in 1953, the 19-year-old went from man to phantom when no one was looking.

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080118/NEWS01/301180081
 
chicoliving said:
Police say DNA could link missing Miami student to remains found in Georgia.

HAMILTON — Butler County Sheriff's Office Specialist Frank Smith said it would have been "virtually impossible" in 1953 for law enforcement in the rural South and Oxford, Ohio, to link an unidentified man found dead in the Georgia woods and a missing Miami University student.

http://www.oxfordpress.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/01/17/hjn011808missingfolo.html

Missing case revived after 55 years

OXFORD - He just vanished.

One moment Ronald Henry Tammen Jr. was thumbing through a psychology book in his dorm at Miami University, and then, who knows what.

On a cold April night in 1953, the 19-year-old went from man to phantom when no one was looking.

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080118/NEWS01/301180081
Click to expand...


This is the thread for this case, Ronald Tammen, in the Cold Case section with some other articles on him.


http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31201
 
[FONT=Verdana,Arial]From the Walker County Messenger, GA[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana,Arial]Investigators will exhume body found in 1953 [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial][FONT=Verdana,Arial]01/30/08[/FONT]
Josh O'Bryant
Respond to this story
Email this story to a friend

[FONT=Verdana,Arial]Walker County authorities say they plan to exhume the body of man found off U.S. 27 in the Walnut Grove area in late June 1953. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial]The remains were never identified and the case remained unsolved. The body was eventually buried at LaFayette City Cemetery. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial]“It is looking like we are going to do an exhumation and a definite date has not been set yet,” Capt. Mike Freeman said Wednesday. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial]Investigators want to know if the body is 19-year-old Ronald Tammen Jr., a sophomore who disappeared from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in April 1953. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial]Forensic pathologist Kris Sperry, who is Georgia’s chief medical examiner, and GBI anthropologist Rick Snow will be on hand during the exhumation. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial]“It is just in the planning stages,” Freeman said. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial]After the body is exhumed, the plan is to perform DNA tests and compare the results to DNA from Tammen’s living siblings, Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana,Arial]If there is a match, the case would be upgraded to an active homicide investigation, Wilson said. The unidentified man was described as 5-feet, 9-inches and 155-160 pounds, with dark brown hair and between ages 25 and 30. Tammen went missing on April 19, 1953. He was said to have been 5-feet, 10-inches and 175 pounds. He was last seen around 8:30 p.m. that day, when he was issued fresh bed sheets, because someone had placed a fish in his bed. "If it isn't (Tammen), we hope to gain enough evidence to possibly identify who it really is...Somebody, somewhere wants to know," Freeman said.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana,Arial]
ACF5AB5.jpg
[FONT=Verdana,Arial]Ronald Tammen, Jr.[/FONT]



[/FONT][/FONT]
 
This is a very interesting article with another interview with Ron Tammen's sister.

Sister Could Help Solve Miami Student Mystery

Last Update: 1/31 6:46 pm
Print Story | Email Story

videobullet.gif
Disappearance Haunts Family
videobullet.gif
Sister Could Help Solve Mystery of Missing Miami Student
videobullet.gif
Remains Found In Georgia May Be 1953 Miami Student

D-N-A could solve the 55 year old mystery of a missing Miami University student. Butler County's cold case detective has DNA from Ron Tammen's sister. Tammen disappeared from his campus dorm room in 1953. His sister's DNA will be compared with remains found in Georgia a month after the sophomore disappeared.

The mystery haunts the Ohio campus and as Local 12's Deborah Dixon tells us, it tore apart an All-American family.

1953...Americans liked Ike. He was sworn in as the 34th president...music was simpler, sweeter, so was life.

Marcia Tammen, Ron Tammen's Sister:"This was Ronald on prom night graduation. That's me with his date."

Marcia Tammen grew up with her four brothers in an Ozzie and Harriet-type family in this Cleveland suburb of Maple Heights.

"Good family ties happy dining room conversations."

Deborah Dixon:"The Tammen boys were known for their musical talents and their clean cut good looks they always wore crisp white shirts and khaki pants to school."

At Miami University, Ron was a sort of genius in math and science. The 19 year-old sophomore bore the Tannem good looks, had a 3.2 average and played in a dance band. He seemed to have it all. Then he was gone. Ron's roommate found his radio on, a book open on his desk and the keys to his 1939 green Chevy, big enough for his bass fiddle, still in the car. For the Tammen family, April 19th 1953 was the day the music died.

"Dead or alive, we don't know, this was the haunting questions absolutely devastated the entire family."

Marcia Tammen does not believe her focused brother, who wanted to serve his country like his brothers, simply walked away from life.

"We were a very close family. He wouldn't have picked up and left his mother in the unknown. He had too much respect for the family."

Marcia recalls the receipt from the coroner's office where her brother went for a blood test. He paid 20 dollars instead of getting a free one on campus. Why? That's all part of the mystery.

And this is just plain spooky, a painting of Jesus, Marcia got at bible school the morning of April 19, 1953. Ron disappeared that night. It says only "one life will soon be past..."

It was the day her mother's life began to fade away, as she began waiting for her son to come home..or for answers.

"You can't tell me people don't die of broken hearts...they do."

Marcia says if the John Doe in Georgia is not her brother, she will pray for his family. Because she knows what they've been going through.

Deborah Dixon, Local 12.

While the Tammen case is familiar to a lot of people, other local residents remember another story of a missing man... an unknown man. His body was pulled from the Great Miami River in 1997 and he's never been identified.

We'll have that story tonight on Local 12 Live at 11:00 pm.
 
[FONT=Verdana,Arial]Body to be exhumed in Walker County on Friday [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial][FONT=Verdana,Arial]02/05/08[/FONT]
Email this story to a friend

From the Rome, GA News-Tribune

[FONT=Verdana,Arial]Walker County Georgia Sheriff Steve Wilson announced today that an unidentified decomposed male body found off Rogers Road in the Walnut Grove Community in June 1953, and later buried at the City of Lafayette Cemetery, will be exhumed on Friday at 10 a.m. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial]Walker County investigators, along with investigators from Butler County, Ohio, have been comparing the Walker County case with the April 1953 disappearance of Miami of Ohio University student, 19-year-old Ronald Tammen. Walker County detectives reopened the investigation the first week of January, according to Sheriff Wilson. By exhuming the unidentified human remains, authorities are optimistic that DNA samples can be obtained and compared to Tammen’s siblings. Sheriff Wilson said Georgia’s Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Kris Sperry, GBI Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Fredrick Snow, and Walker County Coroner Dewayne Wilson will attend the exhumation. Butler County Ohio Sheriff’s Office investigators are also expected to attend. [/FONT]
[/FONT]
 
Stella said:
Bump. Any news?
Click to expand...

I've been checking his name in Google News every day and so far, nothing. A couple of the articles from February said after they got the DNA from the UID in Georgia, it could take several months to get back the results after comparing the DNA with Ron Tammen's sister. It will be 4 months in early June.
 
Rhett said:
Mary Beth, please keep us all posted.
Click to expand...

I certainly will, Rhett..I'm very anxious for the results on this. Even though the articles from February said it could take up to 6 months, I'm afraid it might get pushed back farther because of newer cases with pending trials, etc. that need to get results sooner. I hope not...I know how anxious I am for the DNA results, I can't imagine what his family is going through waiting for the results, nor what they have gone through for the past 55 years wondering what happened to him.
 
I wonder being that he was found in shorts and a T shirt, if he didn't just wander around and develop hypothermia. The lady said the boy's eyes that came to her door looked vacuous. Doesn't that mean, dazed or confused? Maybe someone had hit him in the head and he had amnesia, then wandered around out in the cold and snow until he finally succumbed to hypothermia. Thus, the reason he was only in shorts and a T-shirt, being that hypothermia makes you feel very hot after a while. Maybe his body had been laying there for a couple of months. Didn't one of the articles say the body was decomposed pretty badly? I pray this is him so that his family finally has some answers and they can bring him home.
 
Tranaice said:
I wonder being that he was found in shorts and a T shirt, if he didn't just wander around and develop hypothermia. The lady said the boy's eyes that came to her door looked vacuous. Doesn't that mean, dazed or confused? Maybe someone had hit him in the head and he had amnesia, then wandered around out in the cold and snow until he finally succumbed to hypothermia. Thus, the reason he was only in shorts and a T-shirt, being that hypothermia makes you feel very hot after a while. Maybe his body had been laying there for a couple of months. Didn't one of the articles say the body was decomposed pretty badly? I pray this is him so that his family finally has some answers and they can bring him home.
Click to expand...

I have often wondered about the possibility of a head injury. In one of the first articles I read it said that when he was in his room he heard a sound coming from the bottom floor of the dormitory building and went to investigate. Of course, I can't find it now but I'll keep looking for it. But I remember reading it when I first read about this case. I have always thought that if that were true, someone might have been down there up to no good and when Ron found them they hit him on the head. It just seems to fit that he suffered some sort of head injury that gave him amnesia because of the lady who said he came to her door around midnight and he seemed confused, that is if it WAS Ron Tammen who was at her door that night, but she was sure that it was. I don't know how badly decomposed the body in Georgia was when it was found. He disappeared on April 19, 1953 and the body was found in late June. But if the body in Georgia does turn out to be Ron, who knows how long he wandered around before he ended up there?

I also pray that it is him so his family can have some answers about what happened to him.
 
I am old enough to remember the fifties; in many ways, it was a very different time from today.

When I read about the blood test, I immediately wondered if Ronald Tammen had a friend or fraternity brother who was afraid he'd gotten a girl pregnant. Back then paternity testing consisted of checking blood types; a specific man could be ruled out if the child had a blood type ruled out by genetics. So a common ploy by young men at that time was to find one or more friends of their own blood type who would be willing to say they'd had sex with the mother, too.

If the friends were sufficiently convincing, the judge would rule that paternity could not be established. Most judges assumed that a mother who denied having sex with more than one man was probably lying out of embarrassment. Not fair to the child at all! but people didn't think in those terms back then.

I think Ronald Tammen was probably the inadvertent victim of a fraternity prank gone wrong. He'd already been the victim of one prank that evening (the fish in his bed). His fraternity brothers or a rival fraternity mock-kidnapped him, took him a few miles out in the country and dumped him there, with the assumption he'd find his way back to his dormitory safely.

Where did the info about the weather come from? Zero degrees F after the middle of April would be some kind of incredible record setting cold spell. I found out that on 19 April 1953, there was a record low recorded in Columbus--of 19 degrees F. Columbus is only about 80 miles from Miami, so the weather was probably fairly similar between the two locations.

Speaking as someone who lives in the Midwest, after a midwestern winter, a temperature of 19 degrees F feels chilly but not really cold. If he were the victim of a prank, the pranksters probably didn't realise just how cold it was.

IF Ronald Tammen was the victim of a fraternity prank, it's possible he was just fine when he was left. He may have slipped and fallen on his own--a sad and unfortunate happening but not one that was done to him.

I think his bones are probably lying in some windbreak around Seven Mile. If he'd had a head injury, he may have started walking in the wrong direction.

On a night where temps got down to 19 degrees F, he'd probably be fine so long as he kept walking. If he had tired and decided to lie down in a sheltered spot, he could easily have gone into hypothermia and died before morning. The ground temps in Ohio in April are still quite cold after the winter freeze.

I think that if someone were to track down as many of the fraternity members from the Greek system at Miami in 1953 and tell them that his sister is still grieving, still wants to know what happened to her big brother and that no charges would be filed, then the truth will probably come out very quickly.

At this point in time, even if there were some sort of criminal liability, I doubt an effective case could be brought. The prosecutor would need more evidence than just a confession and after all these years, what other evidence could there possibly be left?
 
Excellent post, Grainne Dhu. Sounds very plausible.
 
Grainne Dhu said:
Where did the info about the weather come from? Zero degrees F after the middle of April would be some kind of incredible record setting cold spell. I found out that on 19 April 1953, there was a record low recorded in Columbus--of 19 degrees F. Columbus is only about 80 miles from Miami, so the weather was probably fairly similar between the two locations.

Speaking as someone who lives in the Midwest, after a midwestern winter, a temperature of 19 degrees F feels chilly but not really cold. If he were the victim of a prank, the pranksters probably didn't realise just how cold it was.
Click to expand...

Yeah I found that zero degree figure unusual for the time of year as well, I live in Maine and even here zero degrees in April is unheard of, heck even in winter it's considered very cold. I assumed the figure was probably due to media exaggeration, sort of like "it was so cold that night it felt like zero degrees". They also reported it was snowing, which is not unusual in April in the Midwest and snow is more likely to occur at 19F then at zero. If it was windy it may have felt quite cold though, cold enough to be fatal to someone not wearing proper clothing. However if Tamen died of exposure I don't see how a body was never found unless someone disposed of it... unless he happened to die in a flash flood zone, any rivers in the area?
 
KarlK said:
They also reported it was snowing, which is not unusual in April in the Midwest and snow is more likely to occur at 19F then at zero. If it was windy it may have felt quite cold though, cold enough to be fatal to someone not wearing proper clothing. However if Tamen died of exposure I don't see how a body was never found unless someone disposed of it... unless he happened to die in a flash flood zone, any rivers in the area?
Click to expand...

There is a river in the area. I haven't checked to see if it flooded that year but it's definitely a possibility.

If you've seen midwestern tree breaks between fields, you'd wonder why anyone's body was ever found. Farmers have been leaving trees between fields to cut down on wind erosion and as filter strips ever since the pioneer days. The trees are often wolf trees with lots of brush between them and they're nearly impenetrable, even on foot.

Someone on foot who wasn't a farm kid and who may have had a head injury could look at a wolf tree and see it as offering good shelter from the cold. They wouldn't be thinking in terms of leaving signs for searchers.

Another possibility is a ravine; again, usually left full of trees and brush. People usually don't go down in there and they can seem to offer shelter from the wind.

I know that if someone had died five years ago in the filter strip around the crick at the back of my property, I wouldn't have found them yet. That filter zone is full of poison ivy (which is also found in Ohio) and there's just no reason to go back there.

Of course, now I'm starting to wonder what might be back there!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

DNASolves

Who is Escambia County John Doe (1989)?

Members online

... and 179 more.
Total: 3,927 (members: 180, guests: 3,747)

Online statistics

Members online
180
Guests online
3,747
Total visitors
3,927
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
592,639
Messages
17,972,253
Members
228,847
Latest member
?Unicorn/Fkboi?
Back
Top