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

[Kentuckiana]

Let me start with the disclaimer that I haven't read everything that everyone has posted to this thread yet and that my thoughts on this are strictly opinions and theories based on information I have read about the case over the years. I've been fascinated with the Tammen disappearance since I first heard about it in 2001. I lived in Butler County, OH for almost 20 years and am very familiar with a number of the locations associated with the case.

I have always believed that he wanted to be blood typed because he feared that something might happen to him and he wanted a record of his blood type on file somewhere for investigators to refer to. He could have gotten typed on campus, but he didn't. He went all the way to Hamilton to a doctor to get blood typed. He didn't go to just any doctor, either. He went to the doctor who was the county coroner to get his blood typed. If this blood typing was, as he told the doctor, in case he had to donate blood to someone, he could have been typed right there at the health services on campus instead of driving all the way to Hamilton.

There were some things going on in Ohio in that era, of which many people not connected to the area aren't aware. Organized crime was really making significant inroads into Ohio and Northern Kentucky during those years. I checked on Tammen's home town and they were having major problems with the mob. Newport, Kentucky, just across the river from Cincinnati, was a hotbed of mob activity. Robert, being a musician, could well have gotten connected to them either through playing gigs in clubs, or knowing other musicians who did have those connections, in his home town. Robert was a member of the musicians' union.

What I found curious is that Miami U is not an inexpensive university and never has been. Although one article I found referred to the family as "wealthy" and "patriotic," I can find no further information to justify that assessment. Maple Heights was a solidly middle class town. When I did genealogical work on the family looking for clues back in early 2000s, I found the family was comfortable, but hardly wealthy. I can't recall the specific details now, but Tammen's father had a blue collar job identified in those records, yet he had two sons attending Miami U at the same time. Not only that, but Miami U was one of the most distant in-state universities that these boys could have gone to from their home town. Something else that has always given me pause is that his frat brothers were the ones who reported him missing, not his own brother, who also lived on campus.

Tammen was only a sophomore, but had been selected to be a Resident Advisor/Assistant (RA). This came with a perk: he was able to have his car on campus. The article this information came from seems to now be gone from the net. It was a newspaper article from one of the local papers. I believe I found it in the Hamilton paper. Anyway, the article implied that being made an RA when you are just a sophomore was a bit unusual and that being allowed to have a car on campus was a big perk to being appointed to such a position. When I went to look for that article today, I found another article that attributed being allowed to have a car on campus to him being in the Campus Owls group.

Personally, I have big doubts about Mrs. Spivey's story about him showing up on her door step. Apparently at least one of the current investigators also has dismissed the story as not being credible. She did not come forward with that story until the summer after he disappeared. She said that she had overheard discussion about the missing student while she was in town and that she had not heard that a student had been missing prior to that. After hearing about the missing student, she recalled that it was on that exact same date that a young man with "vacuous eyes" showed up on her door step, at midnight, asking about a bus. She recalled what he was wearing, and that she was surprised to not hear a car start when he left, but doesn't mention not hearing a car pull up to begin with. Her daughter, in a later interview after her mother had passed away, supported her story saying she could "remember that night well" but doesn't explain why she didn't mention the missing student to her mother when the news first broke, and discuss the possibility that the person who showed up at the house recently might have been Ron. That was a huge local story. There were over 400 people, and that was just the ROTC students alone, out hunting for him. I find it hard to swallow that she never heard a peep about the story until summer rolled around. On a side note, I've always been enchanted by Seven Mile, OH. Blink and you might miss the whole village driving through. It makes Mayberry look like a big city. It's a little neighborhood in the middle of a lot of cornfields, basically. I often had to drive through it going to hospice cases. I loved driving through there in the autumn. It's very picturesque at dusk in the fall.

 

[Kentuckiana]

Another thing I wanted to mention: the story that he left the room to investigate a strange noise came from a psychic the students hired one Halloween and has been repeated by various outlets as one of the facts of the case ever since. No one, as far as anyone knows, was in the room with him when he departed the final time so no one knows what prompted him to leave the room.

I don't believe he was dodging the draft. Musicians were highly valued as morale boosters and, by all accounts, he was very good. I think he likely would have ended up in one of the various music groups in one of the branches of the military, rather than in a combat role.

As far as the various reasons for a blood test, since the coroner really didn't know him from Adam, there would be no reason for him to lie to the coroner if he wanted the blood test for a marriage license, impending surgery (which his family would have most likely known about), a new job, etc. In fact, I would think that his friends or his brother would have been confided in about any of those things. I also believe if there was a paternity issue, that his friends or his brother would have been confided in. I think the excuse he gave the coroner (that he might donate blood) is ridiculous. He could have gone to a number of places right there in Oxford to get blood typed and, at any rate, when you donate, they will still type you at that time to be certain of compatibility. He chose to drive all the way to Hamilton to be typed by the coroner of the county for a reason. I am convinced he wanted his blood type on record with the coroner in case something happened to him. I don't think a simple disappearance is what he was afraid of (as would be the case if he was being recruited by the CIA or the FBI). When the CIA or some other covert group wants to recruit someone, they try to keep them in one piece. They aren't much use to them otherwise. Which brings my train of thought right back to the mob.

 

[Kentuckiana]

Janice Pennington (formerly of the Price Is Right tv game show) married husband Fritz Stammberger in 1974. A year later, he went a solo mountain climbing expedition in Pakistan and was never seen or heard from again. His body was never found. ... So yes, it's possible that anyone with family and a spouse can disappear without notice while in the CIA.

But he didn't exactly disappear with no notice. She was given a story to explain his disappearance: that he was on a solo mountain climbing expedition.

The house mother, Mrs Todhunter, was the one who said he told her he had found a dead fish in his bed when he asked her for clean linens. This begs the question if the dead fish was a message from the CIA to get going and he knew it, why bother changing the linens and telling the house mother about the fish? Just go.

As far as leaving the room to check on a strange sound he heard, that came from a psychic that some students hired for Halloween to tell them what happened to Tammen and has been erroneously repeated as a fact of the case by various news outlets since.

 

[SnowAngels]

Wow what an interesting case. Would love to know what happened to him?

 

[Vivette]

Oh god, this case. I hope we will get answers someday.

 

[Noirdame79]

I find it interesting that this article http://miamistudent.net/?p=109100 states that Marcia Tammen believes Ron is still alive and that he just walked away from his life for whatever reason (although there are no direct quotes from her on that subject) without letting anyone know, in contrast to another article where she was quoted as saying that he would never have done that, that he loved his family too much and that he was very considerate and responsible.

Sadly, her brother Richard (who was a freshman at the time of Ron's disappearance) died in a fire some years ago and her two other brothers have also passed away, so she is the closest living relative of Ron.

The CIA thing does seem possible, but I don't quite believe it. I don't the dead fish signifies CIA or government involvement. It appears that no one who knew Ron at that time detected a change in his behavior, but the fact that he had his blood typed by the County Coroner's Office raised a red flag for me. As another person suggested, maybe he just wanted to have his blood type on file in case something happened to him. The fact that he left everything behind, lends little weight to the theory that he left of his own accord. His bank account remained untouched, his Social Security Number was never used and that he didn't even take his coat - well, that suggests that he met with foul play or some kind of accidental death, perhaps from a prank or hazing gone wrong.

I agree with Vivette. I hope there will be some answers in the case.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

SBM

I find it interesting that this article http://miamistudent.net/?p=109100 states that Marcia Tammen believes Ron is still alive and that he just walked away from his life for whatever reason (although there are no direct quotes from her on that subject) without letting anyone know, in contrast to another article where she was quoted as saying that he would never have done that, that he loved his family too much and that he was very considerate and responsible.

One of the most awful things about unexplained disappearances is that it forces the family and loved ones onto an emotional rollercoaster. Marcia Tammen may very well have believed both things at various times, depending on where she was on that rollercoaster. It doesn't help that she was only 10 years old when he disappeared and so probably only had about 3 years of direct memories of him (people lose most memories of very early childhood when the brain undergoes a big reorganisation between age 4 and 6; then he'd been gone to university for almost 2 full years). It isn't unlikely that she has more memories of family anecdotes about Ron than she has actual direct memories.

The CIA thing does seem possible, but I don't quite believe it. I don't the dead fish signifies CIA or government involvement.

I think the dead fish was a prank but I think it had something to do with his disappearance. If it didn't have any connection, whoever played the prank would have come forward after he disappeared and said something like "I was the one who snuck into Ron's room and put the fish in his bed. I was just playing a prank/had been dared and it was never meant to be anything more than to cause the minor inconvenience of changing his bed linens."

As for CIA methods of the time, Richard Feynman was secretly recruited from MIT for the Manhattan Project. As I recall from his autobiography, he was instructed to tell his wife, family and intimate associates that he had gotten a job out west but not to specify the type of job, his employer, how long he'd be there or the location of his work. He was given a target date but told to schedule his train ticket sometime in the weeks before or after that date so that no one would figure out that there were a bunch of physicists leaving MIT all at the same time (didn't work; the ticket agent for the railroad figured out the pattern). That is pretty far from some scheme where leaving a dead fish in one's bed is the signal to drop everything and disappear without explanation.

It appears that no one who knew Ron at that time detected a change in his behavior, but the fact that he had his blood typed by the County Coroner's Office raised a red flag for me. As another person suggested, maybe he just wanted to have his blood type on file in case something happened to him. The fact that he left everything behind, lends little weight to the theory that he left of his own accord. His bank account remained untouched, his Social Security Number was never used and that he didn't even take his coat - well, that suggests that he met with foul play or some kind of accidental death, perhaps from a prank or hazing gone wrong.

I agree with Vivette. I hope there will be some answers in the case.

I think the blood typing may have had nothing to do with Ron's life but everything to do with a close friend or fraternity brother's life. Back then, if an unmarried woman got pregnant and the father did not want to be bothered, it was a well known ploy to find other men to testify that they had also had sex with the victim at around the right date for conception, so how could the paternity be established? The reason it was a well known ploy was because, shamefully, it worked so well in court. Blood typing was the only way to rule a man in or out so far as paternity was concerned, so a man looking to weasel out of paternal obligations needed to find one or more friends of his own blood type who would testify in court for him. If the mother's lawyer found out that the witness had been blood typed after the pregnancy was known but before the court order directing the witness to submit to blood typing, that information could be used to impeach the witness. By going to a doctor relatively far away, he could get the test done with little chance of being detected; had his test been of the blood type wanted, he would have received a court order and undergone an "official" first test.

I theorise that Ron's blood type came up wrong for the use of a paternity case, so he was never named and did not testify.

Like you, I think Ron Tammen was the victim of some sort of prank or hazing gone terribly wrong. I think that finding members of the various fraternities on campus at the time might reveal what really happened, particularly anyone who was a pledge at that time. Those men are likely to be 80+ years old by now, so would have little material reason to withhold information. Perhaps if they were approached via the angle that Ron's sister, Marcia, is his only living relative and still yearns for an answer, that might tempt at least one person into confessing.

 

[Noirdame79]

^^^^^ Grainne Dhu, I understand the point you are trying to make. Marcia Tammen would not be the first loved one of a missing person to cling to that hope, especially in view of the fact that in recent years so many missing people have been found alive, sometimes years after the fact. What I found strange is that the article link that I posted, those comments about Ron possibly being alive and having simply walked away from his life, were attributed to her rather using exact quotes, which makes me wonder if what she said was misunderstood and misconstrued. Especially considering the fact that it was the complete opposite of what she stated in another article.

Back to Ron, although he was by all accounts mature for his age, I don't know how much real world experience he had, which is something that make the theory of him simply walking away from his life even more difficult to believe, not to mention his close family ties and the fact that he was such a dedicated student. I suppose in those days it was probably easier, at least on the surface, to run off and assume a new identity, but the emotional and mental capabilities of pulling it off and staying gone are something else entirely. Ron was still a 19-year-old, with a promising future ahead of him, and I don't know if he would have been able to do such a drastic and seemingly permanent action, and never see his family and friends again, not to mention to forsake the future that he was working so hard for. All who knew him well insisted that it was simply not an aspect of his personality to take off and leave everything and everyone behind, with no word to anyone.

Regarding the hazing/prank gone wrong, that does seem to be the most likely scenario. Although the authorities initially dismissed the theory that he met with foul play, due to his physical strength and athleticism, that doesn't mean that he couldn't have been surprised or accosted by more than one individual. I'm quite convinced that there had to be more than one person involved, but I do question how amateurs (as college students most certainly would not be experienced criminals) would not leave any traces or give themselves away, but then again, as the police didn't exactly do a thorough investigation and that the University did its best to sweep it under the rug, it's entirely possible that any evidence was overlooked, deliberately or not.

Kentuckiana's theory regarding the mafia is possible too, and while Ron himself may not have had direct connections to local organized crime, someone he knew or associated with could have. Maybe his disappearing was some kind of retaliation or meant to send some kind of message to a certain someone. Or it might have been a case of mistaken identity, that someone else was the target, but they hurt Ron instead, and either didn't realize it, or did too late and covered it up. Kentuckiana also pointed out that Ron's brother didn't report him missing, even though he lived on campus as well. Did his brother know something? Was his brother the target, and Ron taken by mistake? Since his brothers are all deceased, we'll never know for sure, which is one of the many frustrating aspects of this case.

I can't look at photos of Ron without thinking about what might have been. Handsome, intelligent, athletic, talented, well-liked, polite - he must have been a dream to be around, and the kind of guy that many girls would love to date. It's a shame how it was all taken away, and how his family and friends were left grieving and not knowing. His parents died without knowing what became of their son. Heartbreaking.

Maybe someone will come forward as you said, you never know. Marcia deserves closure and I want to know what happened to Ron, and he should have a final resting place. If the stories about his ghost haunting Fisher Hall before it was torn down is true, I hope his spirit is at peace.

 

[liz b.]

Leaving or sending someone a dead fish ? In Sicily it means that he/she will soon "sleep with the fishes ' just saying...No idea how a clean cut college guy would have known the kind of people I'm referencing...

 

[Grainne Dhu]

Bingo. The biological facts don't matter if a man is willing to sign the birth certificate. In my state, the birth certificate isn't so much about biological facts as it is about who is stepping up to take up the burden of a parent's responsibilities and rights.

Also, he was only a sophomore and had at least 2 years of college deferment left, and the Korean War was already winding down when he disappeared (armistice was just a few months later), but maybe he was looking ahead to the possibility of Vietnam, which was already in the pipeline by then.

Ronald Tammen would have had to be a major prophet to see that we were going to become heavily involved in Vietnam. In 1953, the US just had a couple hundred "military advisors" in Vietnam; the escalation of involvement did not happen until 1960.

Having said that, I don't think that's why he got a paternity test, or that he was trying to avoid the draft. I teach adults, and all male students are required to register for Selective Service to get financial aid (and who doesn't need financial aid these days?), and none of them are apprehensive about or even much aware of what Selective Service even entails. (On the other hand, the draft isn't active right now, and plenty of my students eventually go military for the educational benefits.)

I grew up during the active draft for Vietnam. Every boy my age knew darn well what registering for the Selective Service meant, how the lottery worked, etc. I would be surprised beyond belief if Ronald Tammen didn't know.

College-age is when schizophrenia, bipolar, etc. often begin to manifest themselves, and 1950s middle America was not a good time or place to be if you were struggling with issues such as sexuality, for example. So I would lean toward something along those lines as a possible reason to either disappear, or at least, to have secrets. (Not that there's any evidence of either in this particular case. But I'm not sure those things were spoken out loud as possibilities at that time.)[/QUOTE]

Mental illness had not occurred to me but it could be. Being in college back then was much more regimented than it is now and universities took their status as in loco parentis seriously, so there were things like curfews, etc. In an environment like that, if Ronald Tammen was experiencing early schizophrenia, it would be easier to hide because he would have had many fewer choices to make. His daily schedule and the level of accountability were very high, comparatively speaking.

For me, what argues against the possibility is that he disappeared so thoroughly. I doubt he would have fallen through the cracks without a trace and kept doing so for 50 years.

Much the same for suicide. The bodies of most suicides in the midwest eventually turn up, usually sooner rather than later, because it takes much more effort to hide a body effectively here. People who are suicidal typically don't have the emotional energy to effectively hide themselves before they kill themselves. Most of them are convinced everyone in their life would be better off without them, so they also have less motive to hide than a murderer or a group of frat boys whose prank went lethally wrong.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

As far as the various reasons for a blood test, since the coroner really didn't know him from Adam, there would be no reason for him to lie to the coroner if he wanted the blood test for a marriage license, impending surgery (which his family would have most likely known about), a new job, etc. In fact, I would think that his friends or his brother would have been confided in about any of those things. I also believe if there was a paternity issue, that his friends or his brother would have been confided in. I think the excuse he gave the coroner (that he might donate blood) is ridiculous. He could have gone to a number of places right there in Oxford to get blood typed and, at any rate, when you donate, they will still type you at that time to be certain of compatibility. He chose to drive all the way to Hamilton to be typed by the coroner of the county for a reason. I am convinced he wanted his blood type on record with the coroner in case something happened to him.

SBM

I have mentioned at various times one more reason for a man to be blood typed in those days: he had a friend who wanted to get out of a possible paternity claim. Blood typing was nowhere near as certain as DNA; all it could do was rule one out as a father.

A successful defence against a paternity claim back then often consisted of bringing in one or more other men who were willing to testify under oath that they had sex with the woman in question. I think it is possible that one of Ron's frat brothers was facing such a situation and asking for volunteers of a certain blood type. If that were the case, then it would make sense for Ron to go to a doctor unlikely to be discovered by the woman's lawyers and be blood typed with the intention of "supporting" his frat brother. The whole scheme would go something like this: baby born, paternity suit filed against Young Man A, who would be ordered to be blood typed and found as possible but who would then name B, C and D as also having had sex with the woman, the court would subpoena B, C and D, order them to be blood typed and when it turned out that they could all potentially have fathered the baby, court dismisses paternity suit. If the young woman and/or her family had enough money, they could attempt to impeach B, C and D by showing they had secretly sought blood typing previous to being named in court (secrecy of medical records was not a thing back then), so if one were A, B, C or D, one went to a different medical provider to be blood typed.

Often enough, there wasn't even a need to go to court. Many women and/or their families were unwilling to face the humiliation of being accused of being promiscuous, so all it took was the bluff by the responsible man to head off a court hearing. When I grew up, there was still an operating agency in my hometown called the (First Name)(Last Name) Home for Unwedded Mothers. What generally happened was a young woman was committed to the home by her family, had her baby and gave it up for adoption, then returned home as if nothing had happened. To further her anonymity, the home gave each woman committed a false name to use for her pregnancy and delivery.

It was horrible.

 

[STANDREID]

Although possible, I think the amnesia theory and a random attack are so remote that they are hardly worthy of consideration. That leaves me with 4 "better" possibilities.

1-It was an elaborately staged voluntary disappearance. Why? He was tired of it all, he was gay, he had some other personal issue?
2-It was some sort of prank that went wrong and he died as a result.
3-He was kidnapped, perhaps by mistake, and killed when his abductors realised their error or got cold feet.
4-He was killed because he knew something or was having an affair with someone's wife or another problem like a grudge of some kind.

Very mysterious whatever it was.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

Leaving or sending someone a dead fish ? In Sicily it means that he/she will soon "sleep with the fishes ' just saying...No idea how a clean cut college guy would have known the kind of people I'm referencing...

Gangster movies were a popular part of the film noir movement (which lasted from about 1940 to 1960). I don't have any titles that come to mind that feature a scene with a dead fish sending such a message but I think it must have been well known because I can remember understanding that message from at least the middle 1960s and my parents were hardly frontrunners in popular culture (they refused to get a TV, for instance).

 

[liz b.]

Gangster movies were a popular part of the film noir movement (which lasted from about 1940 to 1960). I don't have any titles that come to mind that feature a scene with a dead fish sending such a message but I think it must have been well known because I can remember understanding that message from at least the middle 1960s and my parents were hardly frontrunners in popular culture (they refused to get a TV, for instance).

At the time of this disappearance there was a large Italian American community in and around Cleveland Ohio. Lot of organized crime there too. I grew up in NYC, and doubt if any of my Irish or Jewish friends were familiar with the dead fish symbolism. It was introduced big time into our pop culture during the scene in "The Godfather" movie...just saying..

 

[Grainne Dhu]

At the time of this disappearance there was a large Italian American community in and around Cleveland Ohio. Lot of organized crime there too. I grew up in NYC, and doubt if any of my Irish or Jewish friends were familiar with the dead fish symbolism. It was introduced big time into our pop culture during the scene in "The Godfather" movie...just saying..

In any case, if Ronald Tammen had mob connections, would he have mentioned finding a dead fish in his bed to anyone else? I think it was most likely part of a culture of pranks. And that an attempted prank, either connected to the fish or unconnected, went very, very wrong.

I wish someone could look up the membership of the various fraternities on campus and then track down all those men and interview them. Perhaps emphasise that Marcia Tammen is the last living member of the family and, after all these years, deserves some sort of answer. People almost invariably talk, either directly or indirectly, about what troubles them and I don't think frat boys from the 50s were any different. Even if no one is willing to be a stand up mensch and say "I did this. It started as a prank but went wrong when (fill in the space)" someone may well remember a frat member who was extremely interested in the disappearance or who offered odd theories very early on or some such behaviour.

Or an even bigger giveaway: someone who either left school before finals that term or who left the school that summer without having mentioned any such plans prior to 19 April 1953.

 

[liz b.]

After doing a bit of reading I doubt this was a hazing incident, or " a prank". Ronald wasn't a freshman, in fact he was a rising junior. And already established in his fraternity. His brother, Richard was a freshman though. Interestingly, Richard would have been a legacy admission to Ron's fraternity.

Other things : finals were a week away, but Ron kept a 3.2 GPA, which is solid. Also, Ron was scheduled to register with the draft the following week. Doubt if that was an issue, as he was in the Air Force ROTC.

He had visited his parents a week before he disappeared. They said he seemed in good spirits. He dated, but did not have a steady GF.

Two things I wonder about : between 1951 and 1953 there was a huge scandal involving the fixing of college basketball games. Organized crime had approached students at various colleges. I know of NO such things happening at Miami University, but I do wonder if any students had been approached in this way, and if so, did Ron somehow find out ?

Other thing is that Fisher Hall had previously been an asylum. It had been owned by a Dr. Harvey Cook. Dr. Cook had a tunnel built, connecting the asylum to his house. I think if Ronald was abducted he may well have been taken down to the tunnel. I wonder if he ever left the campus.

I think the woman who said she thought he came to her door was mistaken. What a baffling case !

 

[twinklesweet]

I believe the woman who stated she and her mother saw Tammen that night.

If you watch the YouTube documentary video, you see the woman discussing how it is her AND her mother that saw him at the door. So it is two witnesses not just the one. (See it at 3:29 in the part 2 of the video)

Here are the video links if you want to watch:
Part 1-[video=youtube;tyJuLtshonI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyJuLtshonI"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyJuLtshonI[/video]
Part 2-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6MmvO6yxcY

The woman made the revelations NOT a year later but just months later. He disappeared April 19, 1953 but she recognized him once she finally saw a photo in the paper in June 1953.

The proof of this? Notice the date of the letter the Dean of Men Carl Knox wrote to the Tammen family. It is July 6, 1953. It mentions the report from the eyewitness but he pooh-poohs it because he says there is a discrepancy in the attire described (which I will prove to you in a minute there was not).

The link to read the letter is here:
http://rocket.lib.muohio.edu/mysteries/files/taj00100316.jpg

And here is an article dated June 28, 1953 that is all about her sighting, too. “Woman Gives First Clue of Missing Miami Student; Bears Out Amnesia Theory.”
http://rocket.lib.muohio.edu/mysteries/files/taj00100321.jpg

So she went public with it in June 1953.

This next article is dated April 16, 1954 (a year after the disappearance).

Under the bolded section “Woman Recognizes Photo,” it says, “This past summer, Mrs. Spivey recognized a picture of Tammen…” Well, if it was April 1954 then logically the past summer was 1953. (Oh, and she stated she did not pay attention until she saw a photo attached with the article about him missing so she had unknowingly missed the articles immediately after his disappearance. This should take care of the question “Why did she not say something sooner? Didn’t anyone talk to her about it?” Again, she said something two months after he was missing.)

Source: http://rocket.lib.muohio.edu/mysteries/files/taj00100319.jpg

From the same article, “Describing the youth as seeming rather embarrassed when she answered the door, she stated that he inquired of what town he was in and asked how to get out of town.” So she tells him to take the Oxford Bus Lines and what direction to go. Mrs. Spivey did not realize that very night was the first night the bus line there would no longer had a run at that time.

She also assumed he had car trouble since there was a smudge of dirt or grease on his cheek, too. This is why I believe he was not invited in. And we have no idea if there were any males in the household so if a strange young man knocks on your door at midnight and it is you and your elderly mother you might be more apprehensive about something like that.

Okay, the next part in the same article is very important!
“Although she could not see in the dim porch light what the young man was wearing, she believed he wore a light-weight checkered jacket and dark trousers. She remembered thinking it was unusual that he had no hat or heavier coat since the night was cold and damp.”
A checkered jacket.

Here is an article that states, “The only missing clothing disclosed by the authorities, was that presumably worn by Tammen, plus a plaid mackinaw jacket.”

Source: http://rocket.lib.muohio.edu/mysteries/files/taj00100324.jpg

So here we have the authorities stating he was wearing a plaid jacket. In the article before this it states the lighting level was low. Might Mrs. Spivey mistake a plaid jacket for a checkered jacket?

Also, it WAS snowing that night. “It was mid-April, yet gentle snow flurries danced in the cold night air…” (Source: http://rocket.lib.muohio.edu/mysteries/files/taj00100319.jpg)

Sadly, I believe he succumbed to the cold. I think it could have been from any of the following scenarios:

1.He was taken out there as a prank (not necessarily an initiation at all and no ill-intent meant) and dropped off
2.He hit his head somehow and was confused/an amnesiac
3.He had a nervous breakdown.
4.He fell asleep while reading that psych textbook. He was a sleepwalker.

I am more likely to think he had a breakdown/sleepwalked/hurt his head just due to the fact I think if more than one person had pranked him then someone somewhere would have talked.
To read all the old articles go to this link: http://rocket.lib.muohio.edu/mysteries/files/
And scroll down to any files with “ta” in the beginning of their file name. I suggest reading them all because they paint a more detailed picture. I liked reading the three part article about the blood test from the doctor, too. He really discusses how he tried to bring this blood test to the authorities' attention.

(Bolded parts added by me).

 

[twinklesweet]

I forgot to add he could have hit his head if it was snowing and the dorm hall had melted snow. Maybe he wanted to take a study break or go to the restroom and slipped. In a confused state he walked all the way to Seven Mile and then realized he had been confused when he asked Spivey where he was. If you read the articles they state the authorities said since he showed up at her door around midnight he could have walked it in three hours and it had been 4 hours since he was last seen. Ms. Todhunter gave him the fresh sheets at 8pm. I got the time of 8 pm from notes found here that are called "the official police report" but I think may be detective notes or notes from the Dean at the time...http://rocket.lib.muohio.edu/mysteries/files/taj00100314.pdf

Those notes also state he was wearing a "blue and tan blanket plaid jacket"!

 

[twinklesweet]

Googled blue and plaid mackinaw jacket and got this vintage beauty which could also be considered a checkered jacket at night.
View attachment 90139
View attachment 90138

 

[kiiwiih]

There is a similar case here in Iceland. In 1972 a 22 year old university student disappeared either from a club he was attending or from his dorm room late one night. There was a dorm neighbor that said she had seen him leave with a group of men at a late hour, after she had seen him come from the club (she had been walking to her room when she saw him leave with the men) but it was late and when spoken to again she couldn't remember if it was maybe when he had left to go out that she had met them in the hallway. Missing person cases always intrigue and sadden me and I hope a resolution will be found for Ronald's family.


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