Beauty Queen on the Way to Hollywood Vanishes After Growing Terrified

Tami Lynne Leppert, a Florida model and aspiring actress, disappeared on July 6, 1983, in Cocoa Beach, and her case remains unsolved more than 40 years later. She had won 280 beauty pageant crowns, appeared on a CoverGirl cover in 1978, and landed small film roles as she seemed headed toward Hollywood.

Born in Rockledge, Florida, on February 5, 1965, Leppert began entering pageants at age four. Her mother, Linda Curtis, who worked as a theater and modeling agent, said she spent much of her time driving her daughter to appearances and watching her succeed. Leppert first appeared in films in 1980, with an uncredited role in Little Darlings, then in Spring Break and later in Scarface.

Family and friends said a cast party after Spring Break marked a turning point. Leppert became withdrawn, feared someone was after her, and told her mother, “What would you say if I told you someone was trying to kill me?” Later, while living with a family friend during Scarface, she had what was described as a breakdown on set after seeing a blood effect in a shooting scene. In the weeks before she vanished, she was afraid of food and drink, believing she might be poisoned, and said she had seen something terrible at a crew party, but would not explain what.

On June 1, 1983, she smashed her own windows with a baseball bat and attacked her friend Wing Flanagan, leading to a three-day psychiatric observation, which found no signs of drugs or alcohol. On the day she disappeared, she left home without brushing her hair, left after an argument with the man she was dating, and was last seen near the old Glass Bank building, about eight kilometers from home. Reports say security cameras may have shown her alone in a nearby lot, and she then tried repeatedly to call her aunt and a friend from a pay phone, leaving urgent messages. She wore a blue denim skirt, a blue floral shirt, carried a gray bag and sandals, though some reports said she may have been barefoot.

Investigators explored theories involving serial killer Christopher Wilder and John Brennan Crutchley, but neither was linked to her. Her mother believed Leppert may have known too much about local drug trafficking and money laundering. No body, named suspect, confession, or resolution has ever emerged.