177. Looks Like THEY Are Hiding Something - Uncovering Tamara Tigard

Published: Feb. 9, 2021, 5:01 a.m.

One day in March 1980, a member of the U.S. Army (her rank still not clear) named Tamara Tigard, who was living (or was she stationed?) in Las Vegas, went for a walk.\xa0 And then vanished.\xa0\xa0One month later, 1,200 miles away near the small town of Jones, Oklahoma \u2013 on Tamara\u2019s 21st birthday, as it happens \u2013 the unclothed body of a young woman was found in a shallow grave on the banks of the North Canadian River.\xa0 The body had been covered with \u201cwet\u201d lime, which, intentionally or not, had acted to preserve the body to a remarkable degree.\xa0\xa0Even so, authorities could not identify the body \u2013 and no reported missing persons reports matched the dead woman\u2019s description, so \u201cThe Lime Lady,\u201d as she came to be known, was buried in an unmarked grave there in Central Oklahoma, leaving law enforcement with a mystery that would last for the next four decades.\xa0\xa0Almost exactly four decades, as it turns out.\xa0 Because in 2020, through the unending determination of the Oklahoma County Sheriff\u2019s Office, in particular Captain Bob Green, familial DNA technology through assistance of The DNA Doe Project finally identified the \u201cLime Lady\u201d as none other than Tamara Tigard,\xa0 who had disappeared 40 years before in Las Vegas.\xa0\xa0But with that mystery solved, an entire universe of new questions arose.\xa0 How did this young soldier get from Las Vegas to Oklahoma?\xa0 Was she dead or alive when she arrived in Oklahoma?\xa0 Obvious suspects (such as Tamara\u2019s ex-husband, who had a long rap sheet, have been vetted with no success.\xa0\xa0There\u2019s also the conundrum of Tamara\u2019s manner of death \u2013 forensics experts have determined that she was not only shot with a .45 caliber handgun \u2013 she died with her clothes on \u2013 her shooter was actually walking toward, or charging, her as he (or she) was shooting.\xa0 So why was she buried with no clothes?\xa0\xa0And just what was a member of the Army doing living in Las Vegas, when\xa0 no army base is located there?\xa0 And how come the Army continued to show Tamara as being on active duty even after she disappeared, never reporting her as AWOL or otherwise discharged?\xa0 And how about that \u201cTamara Tigard\u201d living in Ohio who evidently stole Tamara\u2019s identity \u2013 has that ever been looked into?\xa0\xa0These are all mystifying questions that Melissa explores in this episode \u2013 and even though the crime happened 40 years ago, those questions even today leave the mind to wander from the mostly plausible to the possibly conspiratorial.\xa0\xa0 And of course, as is usually the case \u2013 even all these decades later, there must be someone still alive who knows the true story behind Tamara Tigard\u2019s untimely death.\xa0 If you think you might know who that person is \u2013 or if you are that person, call Captain Bob Green of the Oklahoma County Sheriff\u2019s Department at (405) 713-1000.