True Crime Collection

Disappearance of Tammy Kingery

Tammy, a native of Northwest Indiana, met her husband Park Kingery there in the mid-1990s when the 2 worked together at a local drugstore. On 20th September 1994, the 2 were engaged. After their marriage, the couple had 3 children and settled down in a house they built in a wooded area of Edgefield County, South Carolina, just north of North Augusta, near where Park Kingery had gotten a job as a welder. After finishing a degree in nursing in 2001, Tammy took a job as a nurse in a local branch of the NHC Healthcare nursing home. She was still working there in September 2014. 

Her marriage to Park was strained. While her father, who still lived in Indiana, says he was not aware of any martial or psychological issues his daughter may have had at the time, her mother says the couple had grown distant from each other since their youngest son was born and had considered divorce. Tammy had an ongoing struggle with depression for which she took medication; it had led to extramarital affairs and attempts to take her own life. 

During the first weeks of September, Tammy seemed to be suffering physically according to Park she had missed a few days of work, which was unlike her. She often went to bed shortly after returning from work. Park says Tammy believed no treatment would work. In the middle of that month, around 16th September, Tammy began having trouble sleeping. One night she woke up sweating so severely she had to change her clothes. She confided this to her 2 sisters, with whom she spoke regularly. They advised her to make an appointment to see the doctor, which she did, for 21st September. 

On the morning of 20th September 2014, Tammy went to work her shift starting at 7am. Her coworkers there say she was agitated about something, uncharacteristically raising her voice in conversation, and checked her own blood pressure 4 times, finding it high. They urged her to calm down as her agitation was keeping her heart rate high.

Not too long after arriving, she called Park to say she was feeling a little lightheaded and wanted to come home. Since she did not feel up to driving, he picked her up, leaving her car at work, and brought her home, where she changed into her pyjamas and lay down to take a nap. Around 10am, he left with the couple's 2 sons to do some errands and give his wife the chance to rest. Their daughter was still at the house of a friend with whom she had spent the preceding night. 

Park dropped the older son off at his mother's house so the boy could mow the lawn. He took the younger boy with him on his errands, visiting several stores where the 2 were seen by security cameras. When he returned to the house, the dog was outside and the door was locked. Inside they found a note from Tammy reading: "Gone for a walk. Be back soon. Love you." Tammy was initially reported to have taken a Hard Rock Café backpack with her, but that was later corrected as the backpack had been sold a week before at a yard sale. Her purse, wallet, cell phone, and keys were still inside the house. 

When he saw the note, Park believed right away that something was wrong. His first thought was that she had attempted to walk back to her job in order to retrieve her car. He left his sons at home and drove the route she would have taken but did not find her. He called his daughter and told her to get into a car with her friend and look for her mother; he called his mother-in-law, who came to the house right away. At the home he and his son called and searched for Tammy in the thick surrounding woods. At 2pm they called the police. 

Deputies from the Edgefield County Sheriff's Office responded. They, too, attempted to locate Tammy nearby but could not. Then they searched the house for any signs that a crime might have been committed; there was nothing unusual. Search dogs were given the nursing scrubs Tammy had worn to her job that morning but did not find a trail anywhere. 

The search was quickly expanded to use a South Carolina Law Enforcement Division helicopter and more deputies fanned out over a larger area around the Kingery house. They also searched a hiking trail near Interstate 20 where Tammy had often gone in the past. A notice put out for her drew reports of sightings in the Central Savannah River area of South Carolina and Georgia around North Augusta, one of a white female walking along the interstate in Columbia County, Georgia, 30 miles to the west. But by nighttime, neither Tammy nor any clues to her whereabouts had been found.