Resources for Missing Persons

According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day. Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends. Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.

Missing Person Case Updates with Photos

Tammy Sue Rothganger








Tammy, date, approximate 1984; Age-progression to age 42 (date, approximate 2010); Martin Priest in the 1980s; Priest in 2010
Date Missing 05/16/1984
Missing From
Eldon, Missouri
Missing Classification Endangered Missing
Sex Female
Race
White
Date of Birth 08/10/1968 (54)
Age 15 years old
Height and Weight 5'7, 140 pounds
Clothing/Jewelry Description A sweatshirt, Nike shoes, a chain necklace with an arrowhead pendant and a leather wristband.
Associated Vehicle(s) Blue Plymouth
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Sandy blonde/brown hair, brown eyes. Tammy has a tattoo of the letter "R" on her left arm, and also a scar on her left arm. She has several moles on her cheeks and chin.
Details of Disappearance Tammy was last seen at Eldon High School at approximately 7:45 a.m. on May 16, 1984. The school is just across the street from her home in Eldon, Missouri.
Her mother's live-in boyfriend, Martin Dean "Marty" Priest, said she didn't go inside the building and he pulled up on the curb to find out where she was going. Tammy supposedly told him she was going to skip school and meet friends at Rock Island Park, and Priest said he offered to take her there.
She was last seen getting into a blue Plymouth outside the school. Tammy never attended classes that day and has never been heard from again. Her family reported her missing that afternoon.
Photographs of Priest are posted with this summary. In 1980, four years before Tammy disappeared, he had been sentenced to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder in the death of a 13-year-old girl whose mother he'd been dating. He was released after three years when the verdict was overturned on appeal.
Tammy's mother, Sandra Kuchan, stated that initially after Tammy's disappearance, Priest suggested she had run away and offered to help put up missing persons posters for her. Later, however, he told her he had Tammy and that she would only ever see her daughter again through him.
Kuchan went to the police and told them about this, and they told her to start keeping a diary of what Priest said, in he revealed information that could lead her to her daughter. Kuchan maintained her relationship with Priest for a time, in hopes of finding Tammy, but eventually cut off contact with him.
After Tammy's disappearance, Priest was implicated in a Christmas 1984 double homicide in Kansas. The victims were William Mayhugh and Freida Bayliff. He was acquitted in Bayliff's death but convicted of Mayhugh's murder and sentenced to life in prison.
In 1987, while he was in custody, he was charged with murder and aggravated robbery in connection with the shooting death of 15-year-old girl, Katrina Cheely, in 1984. Her body wasn't found for four months. A jury acquitted Priest at his trial in that .
In January 2016, while still incarcerated in Kansas, Priest was charged with Tammy's murder. Authorities stated he had knocked her unconscious, raped her and strangled her in the backseat of his car.
A witness, Priest's thirteen-year-old nephew David Nicholas, was present in the car at the time; he was friends with Tammy and had a crush on her. He kept secret what he had seen for decades because he wanted to protect his mother and older brother, who also knew about the crime. He came forward with his story after his mother died.
David testified against his uncle at Priest's trial in 2018. He said he was riding in the car with Priest when they saw Tammy smoking outside the school. Priest pulled over and had his nephew convince Tammy to get into the car. She seemed nervous and David didn't understand why. When they stopped to use the bathroom, Tammy tried to run away, but Nicholas convinced her to come back to the car.
At some point, Priest said he knew Tammy and David were boyfriend and girlfriend. He told Tammy to get in the backseat of the car and said she and David should have sex. There was sexual abuse within the family, and David had previously had sex in front of family members. He and Tammy did what Priest told them to do, and afterwards Tammy got back into the front seat of the car.
Priest dropped something on the floorboard on Tammy's side and asked her to pick it up, and when she bent over to do so, he struck her on the head with a wrench, knocking her unconscious, and began to rape her. David tried to stop his uncle, but Priest hit him. At some point, Tammy woke up and said "no", but Priest wouldn't stop and ultimately strangled her to death.
With Tammy's body in the car, Priest drove along a back road from the Bagnell Dam area, getting lost a few times, before arriving at David's mother's house. He and David didn't speak to each other. They took Tammy's body into a back bedroom, but other family members discovered her.
David's older brother, Michael Nicholas, testified about this, describing how their mother screamed and yelled at Priest when she found out what had happened. No one called the police, however, and there was a decision to hide Tammy's body.
Martin returned that night in a truck with a barrel and tools, and made David come with him. They put Tammy's body in the barrel, dumped it into a depression and covered it with dirt. David later tried to lead the police to the spot, but a search turned up nothing.
Priest maintained his innocence, and his defense argued that his nephews were liars and pointed to their extensive criminal records as adults. He was, nevertheless, convicted of Tammy's murder and sentenced to life in prison.
He was already serving a life sentence in Kansas at the time he was charged in Tammy's , and he will not be eligible for parole in Kansas for 25 years. He will have to complete the Kansas sentence before he can start serving the life sentence in Missouri for Tammy's murder.
Foul play is suspected in Tammy's disappearance due to the circumstances involved.
Investigating Agency
Eldon Police Department
573-392-5611
Other
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
The Doe Network
Finding Tammy Rothganger from Eldon, Missouri
The Hutchinson News
The Jefferson City News Tribune
The Wichita Eagle
Oklahoma Department of Corrections
Connect Mid-Missouri
The Lake News
NamUs
KY 3
The Columbia Tribune
KRCG 13

Missing Person Photos

A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe. By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends. A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.

Resources for Missing Persons

According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day. Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends. Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.

Missing Person Case Updates with Photos