The Disappearance of Tammy Belanger

Eight-year-old Tammy Belanger disappeared on November 13, 1984 while walking to school on Court Street in Exeter, NH. She has never been located. Alexis Welch looks into this unusual missing person's case.

Transcript

On a chilly fall morning on November 13th, 1984 the town of Exter NH began to wake up.  Exeter could be described as picturesque.  Full of historic new england buildings, the small town is cut in half by the Squamscott River.  8-year-old Tammy Belanger put on her purple sweater, a tan jacket with blue sleeves, and corduroy pants.  She ate her breakfast.  She put on her red backpack with her name and address written on the inside. At around 8 am she set off on her roughly one-mile walk to her elementary school in Exeter, New Hampshire.  This had been her routine for two years.  However, today was different.  Tammy would never arrive to her third grade classroom. 

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You're listening to gone cold NH, My name is Alexis Welch, and this is the disappearance of Tammy Belanger. 

Please note that this episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual crimes committed against children.  Listener discretion is advised. 

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Tammy normally made this walk with a boy her age, but as fate would have it he was sick and decided to stay home.  So Tammy set out alone.  As it was the 80s, an 8 year old walking to school alone was not unusual.  She had been doing this route since the first grade, she knew it by heart.  As she walked, a neighbor, Betty Blanchet, glanced up while eating her breakfast just in time to watch the third grader look both ways for cars and skip across Court street.  She saw Tammy cross this street almost every day, but something about this morning was different.  Miss Blanchet would be the last person to see Tammy.  

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In 1984, things were different.  If a third grader doesn’t show up to school today, the parents are immediately called.  However, in 1984 this was not policy.  So when Tammy didn’t show up to her elementary school on lincoln st. no concerns were raised.  After all, what could possibly happen to a little girl in a small town of just over 12,000?  So the school day progressed…. Children Playing 

The school day ended and Patricia Belanger, Tammy’s mother, waited for Tammy to return home.  By 3:30 pm Tammy still wasnt home.  The worried mother called the school hoping that her third grader had stayed behind.  It was during this phone call that Tammy’s mother received the shocking news that not only was Tammy not at school, the third grader had never shown up.  This was incredibly out of character for Tammy.  

From a newspaper clipping from the Boston Globe, Tammy’s Father Nelson Belanger: “She enjoys school and has good grades.” “She is very punctual. She gets up early and has breakfast and goes to school right when she should at 8.” 

There was no chance Tammy had decided just to skip that day.  She loved school.   Something had to have prevented her from getting to her class.  Tammy’s mother immediately called the police.  By this point Tammy had been officially missing for at least 7 hours.  As it was november in NH, the sun had already begun to set.  The initial worry is that she got lost, and with dropping temperatures It was critical that they found Tammy, and fast.  

A family abduction was quickly ruled out.  She had a good relationship with her family.  Because of this fact the police quickly realized that tammy was probably abducted by a stranger. This would bring in an large amount of man power and would spur a multi-day search for the missing girl.  Covering roughly 8 square miles, volunteers searched on foot through the woods, with the help of bloodhounds. Police searched via helicopter and boat.  The coast guard drug rivers and divers searched the flooded quarry in Exeter.

I spoke with Benjamin Agotti of the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit to get more information on the search: 

Agotti: “There was a large investigation that was done and a search for her that I know carried not only throughout Rockingham county but also bled over the border into Northern MA and Southern ME.”

This disappearance would bring in police from multiple towns, the fire department, volunteers, and the coast guard.  This long and thorough search brought up no evidence.  It was as though Tammy disappeared out of thin air. 

Tammy’s school picture was quickly circulated throughout New England in the hopes that someone had seen her.  The picture shows a sweet smiling little girl.  Her brunette hair is cut into thick straight across bangs.  She has an unmistakable lazy eye and a mole on her left cheek.  

While the volunteers continued to search for physical evidence, the FBI and state police sorted through the thousands of tips that would be reported in the following two days.  Out of these numerous tips, nothing would lead investigators to Tammy.  

The police were getting desperate, they entertained every possibility.  Maybe Tammy had wandered off, gotten lost in the thick New Hampshire woods, and maybe she was waiting to be found.  However, with the temperatures dropping below freezing at night, there wasn’t a real possibility Tammy could’ve survived against the elements for long.  So the reality set in. Tammy was probably abducted, and by November 20th, a week after Tammy had been last seen, police had given up hope Tammy would be found alive. 

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It felt as though every lead had been exhausted and still there was no trace of Tammy.  Family abduction was almost completely out of the picture, so the police began to look into anyone in the area that could have taken Tammy. 

Enter Victor Wonyetye (pronounced wuh-NET-ee)

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A 6 foot 215-pound man with black and gray salt and pepper hair, bulbous hair and dark brown eyes, with a sordid past.  Before Victor had even graduated high school he had spent six years in juvenile detention for four total convictions.  He also had 10 separate cases for burglary in Pennsylvania juvenile courts.  After Victor dropped out of high school, he and his family moved to Dover NH.  From the ages of 18 to 26, Victor accrued almost 30 felony charges in the New England area. 

As many criminals do, Victor's crimes escalated. 

In the early 70s Victor began seeing a woman with an eight-year-old daughter. 

On July 27th, 1973 Victor was arrested and charged with molesting the 8-year-old. 

But Victor had a good lawyer who convinced the jury that the 8-year-old girl couldn’t distinguish between what actually happened and her imagination.  It didn’t help that the girl's mother didn’t believe her either. 

Five months after the state dropped the case against Wonyetye, he married the girl’s mother.  This would begin the long-term grooming and molestation of Wonyetye’s now stepdaughter.  When the girl was 11 she was hospitalized after Wonyetye’s molestation escalated.  Unfortunately, it would be another two years before he would finally be arrested for his crimes.  It took his wife reporting him to the police for him to finally be charged. 

He was sentenced to 7.5 to 15 years in 1979.  After serving just about four years he was released on parole.  He then moved to Rye. After an extended stay in a Rye motel, Victor left to move in with his parents in Florida.  However, he returned to NH rather quickly as he had fled the state without informing his parole officer.  He also got into legal trouble in Florida forcing him back to NH, where he landed at the Rye motor inn.  His parole officer got him a job stripping paint at an auto body shop in Exeter.  Per his parole orderWonyete was perfectly punctual.  That is until the day Tammy disappeared.  

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Wynonyete’s auto body job just so happened to be on the same route Tammy took nearly everyday on her walk to school.  So there is a very good chance Wonyete had seen Tammy prior to the 13th.  On that day Wynonyete was supposed to be at work at 7am, he didn’t show and ended up calling out of work at around noon that day.  Two days after Tammy disappeared, Wynonyete’s parole officer called the Exeter police department and informed them that Wynonyete was a convicted child rapist and he was living in Exeter.  I spoke with Rhonda Randall, one of the creators of Oak hill Research to get more information.  

Rhonda Randall 1:40-2:22: The reason he became a person of interest within three days of Tammy’s Belanger's disappearance was that his car was seen in the area.  He had missed a day of work which he hadn’t missed because part of his parole conditions were that he stay employed. He asked a person at the hotel to vouch for him to say that his car was there all day.  There were things right away that brought him to their attention, and the fact that he had this conviction on a 13 year old was also a factor. 

I was surprised that a violent convicted sex offender could live in this sleepy town without a sole knowing.  However it wasn’t law in NH at the time for a sex offendr to be reported to local authorities or other citizens 

Me 2:28: I noticed the town wasn’t notified of his status as a sex offender, could you speak on that?  

Rhonda 3:15: Apparently it wasn't until after Tammy Belanger went missing that his parole officer notified the police that he was working in town.  That is one of the main criticisms people have with this case is the delays that happened because it was two days after she went missing that the parole officer notified the police it was six days after she went missing that the FBI searched his car and it wasn't until two weeks after that his room at the motel was searched…  

Rhonda 3:12-3:35: So there were just these really big delays that probably allowed him plenty of time once he knew he was on the radar to dispose of evidence.  Although he certainly also kept some evidence as it seems he almost wanted to taunt the police.  

Rhonda 3:48-4:23: In his trunk they found a chain saw which doesn’t bode well for what happened to her. Stolen items, a piece of carpet, a sex toy, and then at the motel where he stayed they found a whole bunch of clippings of newspaper pictures and things of girls who were about ten including some of brook shields, magazine ads of children wearing underwear. 

If Victor had committed this crime he had ample time to cover up any evidence he had.  

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Ben Agotti: I know when you flood an area with officers that makes it very difficult for people 

who are trying to avoid interaction with law enforcement from doing so. People who are criminally responsible tend to get very nervous around law enforcement. They end up acting in a certain way that calls attention to them.

But that’s just it.  Sure there was ample police presence but victor wasn’t even considered for two days.  None of his property was searched for six days.  By the time he was, all that could’ve remained of Tammy was circumstantial evidence. 

Rhonda Randall 9:05-9:30: In about 85% of cold cases they know very well who did it they just don't have the evidence to bring forward a conviction, I think that must be very frustrating for the police to know that these predators are out there but you can’t just have circumstantial evidence and convict someone.

So Wynonyete wasn’t arrested, and Tammy’s case went cold. 

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In the spring of 1984, just before what would take place in Exeter, another little girl, Christy Luna, was walking to the store to buy cat food in Greenacres florida.  She was wearing a bathing suit and walking alone.  She went missing and just like Tammy it was as though she disappeared into thin air.  If you’ll remember, after he was released from prison in NH and stayed in Rye, Wynonyete moved back to florida. He lived nearby at that time.  And just like with Tammy’s case he was investigated, but only circumstantial evidence was found. 

Rhonda Randall 10:10-10:45: He’s been looked at as a lead suspect in both of those cases and he was later, in 1992, convicted of burglary and indecent exposure because the police had him under surveillance and they found him looking in the windows of a young girl and masturbating.  He was given a 75 year sentence as a habitual offender.  

Victor was sentenced to 75 years as a habitual offender.  While serving out his sentence he reportedly confessed to other inmates that he had abducted and murdered both Belanger and Luna. 

These confessions cannot convict Wonyete.  He was released from prison and died 8 months later in 2012.  

Missing for 37 years 11 months and 26 days on the date of this recording, Tammy Belanger’s case remains cold. 

After being arrested in florida, police searched his home in and found a scrapbook.  It contained a published photo of Tammy, whom he claimed to have never known. 

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