A Good Man Is Hard to Find — My Search for Ronald H. Tammen, Jr.
A new take on Ronald Tammen's 1953 disappearance from Miami University
2008 Butler County Cold Case Investigation, Amnesia, Carl Knox Investigation, Joe Cella, Oxford PD Investigation, Potential Tammen Sightings, The Investigations
A late-night knock at the door
Clara Josephine Spivey lived with her husband, Carl, in a two-story home on North Main Street in Seven Mile, Ohio. Carl, who was once the mayor of that small town, was an electrician by trade and Clara's second husband. Her first husband had been tragically killed when, in 1918, a mere five months into their marriage, the delivery truck he was driving collided with a train in nearby Hamilton. Clara married Carl two years later.
By the spring of 1953, Clara was 54 years of age with two grown children. Son Jearl was 32 years old and married. The best I can tell, he was also an electrician living about 20 miles from his parents, in Lebanon, Ohio. Daughter Barbara was 28 and married to a man named Donald Ries. (They would divorce in 1963.) From what I can tell, the couple was also living in Seven Mile.
Late on Sunday, April 19, 1953, reportedly at about midnight, there was a knock on the Spiveys' front door. Clara was apparently still up at that hour, along with Barbara and at least one other person whom we'll discuss a little later in this post. Perhaps Clara was emboldened by the presence of the other night owls sitting up with her—safety in numbers, and all that. Or maybe it was just the innocence of the times. Whatever her reason, she went ahead and opened the door.
Thankfully, there was nothing to fear. Standing on her porch was a well-mannered young man with a smudge on his cheek—probably from fixing a flat tire, she presumed—and an embarrassed look on his face. The jacket he had on didn't seem at all sufficient for the chilly temperatures, in her viewpoint, and he wasn't wearing a hat either. He had dark, deep-set eyes and close-cropped hair—his most distinguishing characteristics in her mind's eye. He asked for nothing except some direction.
"What town am I in?" the youth had asked her, according to the earliest news accounts. And then: "Where will I be if I go in that direction?", pointing northeastward, toward Middletown.
Clara recalled telling the youth that he could catch the bus to Middletown, which just so happened to stop at the nearby corner at that time of night. It wasn't until the next day that she realized the information she'd given him was in error. The bus schedule for the Oxford Coach Lines had been changed that very day, April 19, and the last run from Oxford to Middletown, which passed through Seven Mile, had been suspended.
Other than perhaps a twinge of regret for having led her visitor astray, Clara didn't think much about the incident afterward. Then, that June, she learned about Ronald Tammen. She'd somehow missed all the ballyhoo about Tammen when he'd first disappeared, and only became aware of the story by way of a follow-up news article that, in essence, reported that A) he'd been gone for two months, and B) there were no new leads. The article, which featured a large photo of Tammen, appeared in the June 20 issue of the Hamilton Journal-News, Clara's most likely preferred news source. The same article also appeared in the June 22 issue of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Sometime after seeing the article, she notified the Oxford police, and by June 29, her story was being reported across the Miami Valley as the first real clue in the case. Clara Spivey was convinced that the young man at her doorstep had been Tammen. That photo, which had immediately whisked her back to the night in question, served as proof.
The photo of Tammen that appeared in the June 20, 1953, Hamilton Journal-News and the June 22, 1953, Cincinnati Enquirer.
Oscar Decker, Oxford's police chief, welcomed the potential sighting with a great big bear hug. If it happened to be Ron Tammen, he reasoned, that would bolster the amnesia theory very nicely.
"Tammen disappeared about 8:30 or 9 o'clock from his room in Fisher Hall," Decker was quoted as saying in one of the June 29th articles. (Based on the font and layout, I think it was the Cincinnati Enquirer, though my clipping doesn't contain a reference.) "If he wandered away, it would have taken him about three hours to walk to Seven Mile."
Sure, it was cold, it was hilly, it was late, but it was totally doable in his opinion.
Also convincing to Decker was Clara's description of what Tammen was wearing that night. The June 29th Hamilton Journal-News article said this: "Mrs. Spivey described the youth's wearing apparel almost perfectly, according to the chief." Also, the September 18, 1953, issue of the Miami Student said: "Although she could not see under the dim porch light what the man was wearing, Mrs. Spivey declared that he seemed to have on a light-weight coat with a checked pattern and dark trousers." Investigators had described Tammen as wearing a blue and tan checked or plaid wool jacket (sometimes referred to as a mackinaw) and blue pants when he disappeared.
An article in the July 3, 1953, Hamilton Journal-News stated that Henry Ciesicki, who was identified as president of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, had interviewed Mrs. Spivey and found that she was indeed positive that the young man she saw was Tammen after looking at photographs of him. However, the article continued, "There were certain discrepancies as to the type of clothing the missing student was wearing and that of the man whom Mrs. Spivey saw, Ciesicki said." The discrepancies were brought up again in an article by Joe Cella in the April 22, 1954, issue of the Hamilton Journal-News: "[Tammen's] brother, Richard, maintains that there are some discrepancies in Mrs. Spivey's story. The type of clothing worn and missing has come up for considerable discussion throughout the investigation."
Was the visitor on Mrs. Spivey's porch Ronald Tammen? Before placing your vote, here are some additional points to consider:
If it was Ron who showed up on Mrs. Spivey's doorstep, he would have most likely traveled State Route 73 East to 127 South, which leads directly into Seven Mile. The terrain is hilly, and it seems as if it would require some fairly purposeful trekking as opposed to the wanderings of someone with amnesia. Moreover, if Ron had been on foot, he would have passed by numerous homes along Main Street on his way to Mrs. Spivey's. An atlas from 1930, which shows the number of properties that existed in northern Seven Mile at that time and, presumably, a corresponding number of houses, can be viewed below. (Mrs. Spivey's property is along Hamilton & Eaton Road, aka Main Street, near High Street.)
For a closer view, click on image.
An atlas of the northern part of Seven Mile from 1958 is here.
But don't just take the Butler Co. cartographers' word for it. Follow the route for yourself in this video, and try to picture a totally out-of-it Ronald Tammen walking these roads on a chilly, snowy night in unsuitable outerwear. Are you as convinced as Oscar Decker that it was Ron? (Uncopyrighted traveling music provided by the YouTube Audio Library. Apologies in advance for my knack for driving over every possible bump in the road.)
The time of the encounter
As discussed earlier, the first time anyone had heard about the potential Spivey sighting was on Monday, June 29, 1953, when at least two news articles were published. The article that I believe was in the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the visitor had arrived on Mrs. Spivey's doorstep at "about midnight," while the Hamilton Journal-News reported that the time of night was "about 11 o'clock." The time discrepancy is intriguing, because the author of both articles was Gilson Wright, a Miami journalism professor who was also an on-call correspondent for a number of area papers. (I'm certain that Wright wrote both articles because, even though there isn't a byline for either article, the Journal-News identifies Wright as the correspondent for its Oxford section on that date, and the two articles, though not identical, have the same phrasing throughout.) That the same reporter would publish conflicting times for the encounter on the same news day is kind of, um, bizarre, considering the significance of the hour to the overall timeline. "About midnight" was the most frequently reported time over the years, including later issues of the Journal-News, which is why I repeated it in the third paragraph of this post. Also, Oscar Decker is quoted directly in the September 18, 1953, article of the Miami Student, saying that the time was "about midnight." On the other hand, the 11 p.m. time was attributed to Mrs. Spivey (who, after all, would have been the best source), though not as a direct quote. "Mrs. Spivey said the youth came to her door about 11 o'clock…," Wright stated in that article.
If the June 29th Hamilton Journal-News version is closer to the truth, Ron wouldn't have had the full three hours that Oscar Decker estimated a walk to Seven Mile would have required. According to this September 2018 fitness article and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a brisk walking pace is considered to be 3 miles per hour or 20 minutes per mile. If the time was midnight, Tammen would have had 180 minutes to walk approximately 11 miles, or a little over 16 minutes per mile. That would have been a pretty good clip, but still doable. But if the time was 11 p.m.? Ron would have needed to be in a full-on run. The latter scenario wouldn't exactly fit the storyline that everyone was selling, would it? What's more, if Ron had been at the Delta Tau Delta song practice until around 10:30 p.m., as has been claimed by at least one person, there was no way Ron could have made it to Seven Mile by either 11 p.m. or midnight if he was walking.
But what if Ron Tammen had actually been driven to Seven Mile? If a car was involved, there are a few possible scenarios to consider:
He hitchhiked.
Ron was known to hitchhike from place to place, especially when he didn't have a car on campus. Granted, it would have been odd for him to choose to hitchhike out of Oxford as opposed to driving his own car. However, if, for some reason, he did so and someone picked him up somewhere between Fisher Hall and Seven Mile, chances are that person would have reported it when the media began publicizing his disappearance. If Oscar Decker had received such a call, you better believe that he would have announced it to the press. From what I can tell, there were no phone calls from anyone who either picked up a hitchhiker or who spotted someone walking alongside that stretch of road on April 19, 1953. One caller did think he'd spotted Tammen in Middletown the week after the Spivey article was published, though that obviously didn't check out.
He was "kidnapped" and left in Seven Mile as a prank.
As we've discussed elsewhere on this site, fraternities back then used to kidnap pledges and drop them off in the middle of nowhere so they would have to find their way home. Many people, including yours truly at one point, have wondered if that might have been what happened to Ron—the whole fraternity-prank-gone-awry theory. But several factors have led me to rule this theory out. First, the men in Ron's fraternity are wonderful people and they don't act all weird when I ask them about Ron Tammen. They really would love to know what happened to him. Second, Ron wasn't a pledge. He was an active member of Delta Tau Delta, which means that he wouldn't have been a target for such antics. Third, he didn't live in the fraternity house, which, according to one of his fraternity brothers, was home base from which a guy would have been kidnapped if he were being kidnapped.
Fourth (and perhaps foremost), instead of asking Mrs. Spivey for directions, wouldn't Ron's more obvious first question be "Can I use your phone?" According to Carl Knox's notes, the door to his dorm room was left open and his car keys were in his desk. He could have asked someone from Fisher Hall to pick him up. His roommate, Chuck Findlay, would have been back by then. Also, the questions the visitor asked didn't pertain to finding his way back to Oxford. In April 1954, Mrs. Spivey would embellish her conversation with the young man to include her pointing the way to Hamilton, Middletown, and Oxford. But that wasn't the case in June 1953. As described above, the youth asked her what town he was in and where he would be if he went in "that direction," which was toward Middletown. She'd told him how to catch the bus to Middletown, the crucial detail that enabled her to date stamp the night he'd appeared at her door, since the bus route had ended on April 19. Based on her earliest recollection and, in my view, the one that would have probably been most accurate, there was no mention of Oxford.
Someone who knew him drove him there.
Perhaps someone else could have driven Ron to Seven Mile—someone like the mysterious woman from Hamilton, for example. If that's true, why he would have gotten out of the car at Mrs. Spivey's residence isn't clear, unless, perhaps, he'd tried to escape as the car had slowed down on Main Street. But if he did escape, why (again) wouldn't he have asked Mrs. Spivey if he could use her telephone to call for help? And where did he go after he left Mrs. Spivey's? Perhaps someone overpowered him and pushed him back in the car. Still, the young man's questions for Mrs. Spivey don't exactly jive with those that might have been asked by someone who was being taken somewhere against his will. At least, they aren't the sorts of questions that someone would have asked had he been thinking clearly.
The other people in the room
In Joe Cella's 1976 article in the Hamilton Journal-News, we learned that Clara's daughter Barbara, whose last name was now Jewell after a second marriage, was also present when the visitor showed up at the door. Though Clara had died in 1975, Barbara stood by her mother's story. Here's what Cella wrote:
"Mrs. Spivey has since died but her daughter, Mrs. Barbara Jewell of Seven Mile, remembers the night well. She was there when the knock was answered.
'I still believe it was him,' said Mrs. Jewell. When her mother viewed a photograph of Tammen at the time, she said, 'That's him. I know I'm not mistaken.'"
Barbara Jewell passed away in 1999. However, in 2012, Frank Smith, Butler County's former cold case detective, informed me of someone else who was present when the visitor showed up at the door. Smith had stopped by a United Dairy Farmers store for a cup of coffee around the time that the Butler County Sheriff's Office was getting a lot of local press for their work regarding the dead body in Georgia. According to Smith, a guy came out of the store and said he'd been reading in the paper about the Tammen case.
Recounted Smith, "He said, 'I was there that night when the door was opened too.'"
Smith then added, "And he told me, he said that he absolutely was confident that that was not Tammen that knocked on the door that night. He thought it was one of the local ruffians that lived down the road. But he was absolutely confident."
According to Smith, the man who approached him—as he recalled, it was Mrs. Spivey's son—had been in the military and was battling cancer. He also said that he'd passed away shortly after they talked. I accepted this information at face value and didn't delve further, which turned out to be a mistake. Memories, as I've come to learn time and again, aren't 100 percent foolproof. If I'd done my fact checking a little sooner, I might have been able to speak with the man myself.
Several years ago, as I was doing some online research, I discovered that the man who'd approached Frank Smith couldn't have been Clara Spivey's son. Jearl Spivey had died in 1980, long before Smith had gotten involved in the case. Donald Ries, who, along with Carl Spivey, had passed away in the 1970s, could also be ruled out. However, another possible candidate did pop up—Paul Jewell, Barbara's second husband. Jewell died in 2014, two years after my conversation with Smith. According to his obituary, Jewell had worked at the Champion Paper Company and, later, The Workingman's Store, a beloved clothing and shoe store for everyday working people that his parents had opened in Hamilton and where he eventually became owner. The obit also said that he'd served in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1960, and suggested that memorials be given to the American Cancer Society, among other charities. My guess is that Paul Jewell was the man who approached Frank Smith.
There is one puzzling aspect to placing Jewell in Mrs. Spivey's home late at night on April 19, 1953. Paul Jewell was 13 years younger than Barbara, born in September 1937. In April 1953, Barbara was still married to Donald Ries, whereas Paul would have been 15 years of age and a sophomore at McGuffey High School in Oxford. (He graduated in 1955.) From what I can tell from old city directories, Paul and Barbara were married in the mid-1960s. So one question I have is, if it was Jewell, why would he have been at the Spiveys so late on a Sunday night when the next day was a school day for him? Another big question I have is: again, if it was Paul Jewell who spoke with Frank Smith, did he and Barbara actually see the visitor or did they just hear Clara's account, like the rest of us, and form their own opinions? Unfortunately, I'm not sure we'll ever know the answer.
So what do you think? Was it Ronald Tammen at Mrs. Spivey's door or merely one of Seven Mile's local ruffians? Feel free to register your vote here:
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And now, for all you readers in the U.S., please be sure to vote for real if you haven't already. It's our right, our privilege, and our obligation and probably way more important than anything else we may have on our plates these days.
Let's also open up the floor. Feel free to weigh in on anything Tammen-related, especially your thoughts on Mrs. Spivey's story and why you voted one way or the other in our poll.
November 1, 2018 December 27, 2021
Published by jwenger
I've been a science writer for more than 25 years in academia and the government. Currently, I'm researching and writing a book about an unsolved Ohio mystery. View all posts by jwenger
Okay I'm still not sure what to think of the night Ron disappeared. Yeah , I know, no one else does either. But what bothers me most is that IF Ron went to song practice that night, why isn't that documented better? When it was discovered that he was gone, why didn't several of the fraternity brothers come forward back then and say, "Hey he was with us that night, just so you know." The fact that we're relying on someone's memory many years later saying "Oh sure he was with us that night" that's unsettling to me because everything he did that night should have been more appropriately documented! And I get an uneasy feeling when dealing with someone's memory of an even especially if the event was over 50 years ago. My own memory as I get older fails me sometimes and there are times when I don't trust it and I'll clarify with a friend or a relative if I'm remembering something correctly.
The gist of what I'm saying here is that IF Ron went to song practice that night, no way he made it to Seven Mile.
If he didn't go to song practice that night, it would be doable, BUT, that would have been one rough hike to Seven Mile in cold weather. Sure he could have gotten a ride with someone but even that leaves me puzzled.
I don't know about Mrs. Spivey's story either. Again it wasn't until June that she came forward with her story. I would have thought that with a missing person in the area, even 2 months back everyone should have seen Ron's picture within a 50 mile radius of Oxford. Sure I suppose she could have been completely oblivious but if she was that oblivious to finally take note some two months after the event, that makes me trust her memory even less.
Enough of my ramblings for now. I absolutely love this site!
jwenger
Reply to DRader
First, thanks so much for your enthusiasm for this site! And I do know what you mean about song practice — I was pretty much reeling after I first heard my source's story. I couldn't understand why it wasn't covered then, and it's also discouraging that I can't corroborate it now. Here's why I lean heavily toward believing his story anyway:
1) His memory regarding that night, not to mention of his entire time at Miami, is uncanny, like no one else I've spoken with. He can name off places and dates and names and other details like no one I've encountered, and they check out. When I questioned him about whether he could be mistaken, he was resolute. He is 100 percent certain that he walked back with Ron that night.
2) There was another person–someone named Chip Anderson–who walked back to the freshman dorms with my source and (allegedly) Ron. My source told me that he and Chip stayed in touch with each other after graduation and they used to talk about that night/walk with Ron whenever they got together. Even though Chip has since passed away, those conversations would have helped keep that memory alive.
3) As I mentioned in one of my posts, April 19 is my source's birthday, which I think would make that evening more memorable to him than others.
4) My source remembers telling Dean Knox about walking back from song practice with Ron and having Dean Knox tell him that he was likely the last person to have seen Ron before he disappeared. For Knox to have said that would have been very memorable.
So why wasn't this info brought out in the investigation? Well, it might have been. I don't believe we have all of Knox's notes, and I do believe that my source spoke with him. As for news reports, it occurs to me that the first news article from the reporter who I trust implicitly–Joe Cella–was on the first anniversary of Tammen's disappearance. All of the early stuff came from Gil Wright, who was employed by the university and, in my opinion, really more of a university spokesperson when it came to covering the Tammen story. (I got into that in another. post as well.) Could it be that the university preferred the 8:30 timeline and pushed that narrative? That's my hunch.
The Spivey sighting is interesting, and I'm still on the fence on that one, in addition to the possible Wellsville sighting in August of 1953. To me, the true benefit of both potential sightings is that they help demarcate when investigators stopped searching for Tammen. When the Spivey sighting was first reported in June 1953, it was all over the papers, and they were treating it as a bona fide clue. When H.H.Stephenson, a university official who actually knew Tammen, thought he'd seen him in August 1953, no one did a thing with that information. They buried it. It's my belief that someone told investigators to stop looking for Tammen between those two months.
Stevie J
I encourage everyone to talk up this rocking site, especially with fellow Miami grads.
Reply to Stevie J
Thank you, Stevie J!
Brilliant comments, all! Just a heads up: stay tuned for the next post, which will be on the morning of Nov. 22. Think of it as an ice breaker for your Thanksgiving dinner — the "adult" table, of course. 🦃🦃🦃
Ron could not have gotten there if he was a music practice at 10:00. And it doesn't make sense–he was perfectly normal all day and at practice then wanders beyond human capacity to a stranger's door on a cold, wet night. Absurd. Mrs. Spivey either saw one of the "ruffians" mentioned who was not Ron and she was just mistaken; or it was a kind of contrived distraction to throw people and make them think Ron had amnesia, which explanation seems to have been favored by key faculty members at Miami U. Sounds like the kind of not-so-subtle yet hard to debunk incidents "intelligence" agencies set up to create confusion around any event that so needs clear and present evidence.
No matter how hard I try, I can't find a plausible and rational explanation for the three youths phone calls. Here's some possibilities:
A. It never happened. Nobody called. I think that's possible, but it beggars belief there'd be a newspaper article printing such a brazen lie, or alternatively, someone would so brazenly lie to the column writer. I think it's possible, but implausible.
B. The calls were fraudulent. The people who called didn't have children who'd lost their memories, but were essentially plants of some kind. This is massively sinister to think about it. I think it's possible, but implausible.
C. The calls really happened, and were from parents of children who'd lost their memories.
C(1). Those children had lost their memories at Miami due to psychology experiments conducted there. I don't really agree with Jen on this one. My reasons why are below.
C(1)a. Someone at Miami was in panic/coverup mode and wanted to try to keep this from blowing up completely before Ron(as all the others did) recovered his memory, so they orchestrated phone calls to the Tammens. This does sort of sound (more) plausible/reasonable than the others, but if a parent made such a call, surely it'd come up that Ron and their child were at Miami. How couldn't it? Unless……they were coached not to. And in my mind, that goes off the deep end.
C(1)b. Someone at Miami was in panic/coverup mode, had a pretty good idea Ron wasn't coming back, and hoped against hope that the legitimate phone calls would be a red herring to get the Tammens to think it was just a matter of time before he came back. That goes off the deep end too, because the bill comes due sometime.
C(2). Those children had lost their memories across the state of Ohio, and someone had been furiously searching newspapers and calling local law enforcement offices. There are two primary problems here, logistics and motive. It wasn't like you could google stuff back then, and what exactly could anyone hope to gain by it?
And that's it. I can't think of anything else. The motive for the calls just doesn't exist. What COULD the parents have hoped to accomplish? Ron would show up or not, no matter what had happened to their children. Are we to think three different people decided in two days to call someone they didn't know and possibly offer them false hope? Would anyone reading this take the same action? I mean, some college professor, or law enforcement office you don't know calls and asks you to do it? I wouldn't dream of it.
I don't like which answer I am leaning toward. None of them are nice to think about. I would welcome someone suggesting an idea I haven't come up with.
They should have handed Mrs. Spivey a picture of Chuck Findlay and asked if that's who she saw……just saying. I am taken aback they'd be that naïve in how they handled it.
Not sure what you mean by this. Why do you think she could have seen Chuck Findlay?
Reply to jwenger
Just to see if she'd say, "Oh yeah, that's him.", which is what I think would have happened.
OK, gotcha. So they could have given her a photo of any guy to see what she'd say…interesting thought.
My take on Mrs. Spivey is that she was probably mistaken that it was Ron at her front door. Your video of the trek between the college and Seven Mile was an eye-opener. No way did Ron walk that distance. Hitchhike? Perhaps, but if he did that I agree why not ask the person at the door to use the phone? Still on the fence with the woman in the car. I think it was a rumor that spread on campus with no basis. I work on a college campus. The rumors that fly!!! Thank you for the information on this case. Even though I am excited when I read a new entry – I'm always a little sad afterwards because I know that no matter how much is uncovered – Ron will never be found alive. That makes me sad for his remaining family and those of us who got to know him through your excellent research.
Reply to Angela C.
Thank you so much for your kind words. Glad to have you on board!
Just a quick note to all commenters: I'm going to refrain from officially "liking" your comments this time around, since I don't want to sway the vote one way or the other. Just know that I think they're all great, and feel free to keep them coming!
Brett N.
Great post! And, it's great timing as I have been thinking about this Spivey sighting the last few weeks. Second, great video. It really helps to see the terrain of that particular region near Oxford and Seven Mile. I never knew Ohio was so hilly. Reminds me of the countryside in the Seattle suburbs where I grew up. If that is the only route that Ron could have taken that night, then my vote is no–that wasn't him. If it was cold, dark, and wet with a light snow falling, and . . . I'm sure that streetlights were next to none on the dark route, I would say it would have taken him longer on foot to reach Seven Mile. He could have hitchhiked. And he could have been with the mysterious woman too. I read recently somewhere (can't remember where) that Spivey's son (if that was him) stated that the young man that showed up on their doorstep didn't happen on the night Ron disappeared. Not sure if that was true or not. Overall, I just feel that this was a coincidence encounter with a local youth that night. I still believe that Ron left willingly on his own accord. And I believe that now more than ever before, since getting a copy of his Psychology book. I won't say too much for right now, but after thoroughly examining the book for almost two months, I feel there are many indicators in the chapters that may have inspired and helped Ron with his disappearance. And they might provide a possible clue that involved H.H. Stephenson and his August 1953 sighting of Ron in Wellsville, NY.
Reply to Brett N.
Thanks so much! I'm intrigued that you'd read about another young man showing up on another night. If you ever remember where you read it, can you let me know? On that same subject, one of my sources — a former newspaper editor who had written a 50-year anniversary article on the Tammen disappearance (he has since died) — had told me about a man who had stopped him in the grocery store after reading the article. The man told him that his family had a visitor on the same night as the Spiveys and the young man (also handsome, also a student) had eaten at their house then went on his way. He also felt sure it was Tammen. When I'd heard about it, the man and his wife had passed away, but I was able to track down their daughter. She said that they did have a visitor when the family lived in Seven Mile, but they'd moved from there in the late 1930s! Anyway, she was super nice and we laughed about it, but it's interesting how a memory can be evoked by something and then turn into something else entirely…
jwenger: It was a recent article I came across online. I think it was published around 2010. I came across it while looking at Ron's profile on NamUs. It was when I had been looking at his "comparison" list to see what other cases have been compared to his DNA (Marcia's, I presume, from the last blog post about the body found in Georgia). I'll try and see if I can find the article again.
Awesome—thanks!
jwenger: Found it. It was a 2011 article from the Miami Student. It mentions Detective Frank Smith:
"Smith said Tammen did not appear at the Spivey residence the evening he disappeared. He said he tracked down Spivey's son, who recalled the night very vividly."
From an investigative standpoint, we do not believe that was Ronald Tammen," Smith said."
http://miamistudent.net/trail-to-the-truth-the-ron-tammen-mystery-58-years-later/
Thanks! Yeah…it couldn't have been Jearl Spivey.
Anyone remotely interested in this case has to get the book. I have some thoughts, too. Have you figured out where an hour's reading started so as to end up on the page left open in Ron's room?
As for the coincidence, do you really believe someone else knocked on her door between 11-12 the very night Ron disappeared? In your life, how many people have knocked on your door at that time? Happened to me once, a guy who'd run out of gas. One night out of over 20,000 in my life. I think the possibilities are two: either Ron was there, or she made it up.
Stevie J: I think it could be a coincidence. Or perhaps there is a chance someone did knock on their door, but on another night–before or after Ron disappeared.
I also agree that anyone interested in this case should get a copy of the Psych book. I believe Ron read this book probably in its entirety, especially the middle and latter halves. I think the time he spent with the book the night he disappeared, he wasn't reading it, but he was actually "doing something" possibly to ready for the task. This "something" alludes to a specific action in the book and it's even mentioned within the first 5 minutes of the film, "Hypnotic Behavior," in which the screen captures on page 296 (figure 149) are taken from in the book, and hint at a "subjective action" that Ron could have been utilizing for over a period of time, up until the last week he was seen. There are important things discovered in the book that are not in the index, either. This finding may have a strong reference and lead into H.H. Stephenson's possible sighting of Ron too. I have a huge amount of notes, but I don't want to get off topic to the blog and seem like a troll. But be sure to watch the film: https://archive.org/details/hypnoticbehavior
H. Upton
Regarding the coat – I thought I remembered reading that he left his coat in the dorm room (and therefore wouldn't have been wearing one when he left) but maybe I have amnesia!
Been thinking about the three youths phone calls… what exactly was the motivation for that stage production? It makes no sense no matter how I spin it. I strongly feel Gilson Wright was behind it, but WHY? More thoughts tomorrow.
I agree about Gilson Wright may have been the orchestrator of the three youths and the phone calls. Who knows, maybe certain figures associated with (and within) Miami University knew beforehand the exact time and day of Ron's disappearance. They could have orchestrated the whole event about the young man at the Spivey's door to throw everyone off and for a loop.
I don't think any of this happened. People always have and always will seek attention.
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Who Is (or Was) Ronald Tammen?
The Investigations
My Ongoing Quest…
…for Interviews
…for News Sources
On Not Taking 'No' for an Answer
Putting Things Together (Discussion)
The 'Good Man' Public Records Request Score Card — Last updated 10/7/22 — 2 updates
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Blog Posts at a Glance
January 20 -- Follow the inconsistencies: one tape, two very different explanations
January 15 -- Announcing: something new and something that's growing very old
January 1 -- Breaking the CIA's MKULTRA code, part deux
December 29 -- More evidence that St. Clair Switzer was on the CIA's payroll
December 19 -- On the extraordinarily, mind-bogglingly stupendous value of editors…and how they just may help us find the interview with Carl Knox's former secretary
December 9 -- FAILURE! My wild ride through the Ohio Court of Claims has come to an end
November 27 -- Ron Tammen had two missing person file numbers
November 22 -- The hockey coach tape was produced for the Miami Stories Oral History Project. So why did so many people act so bizarrely as soon as I started sniffing around?
November 16 -- In honor of gaps and holes: how missing numbers and deleted video footage can provide clues to an interview with Carl Knox's former secretary
November 12 -- Miami U officials sent me a hockey coach recording in which the first 5 minutes had been cut
October 28 -- The 'Miami Hockey Coaches' interview was made into a perfectly good, perfectly wonderful DVD. So why does the university keep sending me damaged tapes?
October 27 -- I think the hockey coach tape had been successfully converted to DVD…
October 13 -- There's a Miami Hockey Coach tape, and I just finished watching part one
October 12 -- Who is Athena and what does she know about the Miami Hockey Coaches tape?
October 6 -- The disappearance…and reappearance of 3 hockey coaches and a broadcaster
October 1 -- Was Ron Tammen spotted by H.H. Stephenson at the Adirondack Inn?
September 25 -- The backup tape
September 20 -- My latest discovery re: accession numbers and archive numbers and their relationship with a certain hockey tape
September 14 -- It's raining hockey tapes…hallelujah
September 2 -- Miami U can't produce the hockey coach tape. Here's why that's a very big deal
August 25 -- More evidence that St. Clair Switzer was involved in something in 1956-57 that he didn't want to talk about
August 19 -- A rift between friends: Did Doc Switzer and Everett Patten have a falling out?
July 22 -- The missing hockey tape
July 3 -- In honor of July 4th, some additional musings on FOIA and Ron's missing person documents
June 24 -- I'm back from my search for the third unposted recording from Miami University's Oral History Project. Here's what I found.
June 9 -- A very brief debriefing
May 27 -- I now know for sure where room 1126 was…
May 4 -- I believe I know who two of the three unposted Oral History Project interviews were with
April 18 -- FOIA follies, part 2: 'Lost' mail, an old Steve Martin bit, and the interview with Carl Knox's former secretary
February 23 -- You guys. The 'Ident Missing Person File Room' wasn't in the Hoover Bldg after all. And wait till you find out who I think was overseeing it.
February 1 -- Tuesday two-fer: two new pieces of evidence that support our theory that Ron Tammen was alive in 2002
January 23 -- Mini bonus post: Were Richard Cox's FBI documents kept in the Identification Division's 'missing person file room' too?
January 21 -- I think I may know where the FBI's 'missing person file room' was located
December 30 -- More smoking evidence that Ron Tammen was alive in 2002
December 19 -- On this date in 1958, FBI Headquarters wrote an 'airtel' to the Cincinnati Field Office that might have something to do with Ron Tammen…why?
December 4 -- The Cincy files, part 2: some quasi-relevant reading material in honor of today's game
November 16 -- Putting a dent in the Ident files: more evidence that the FBI knew what happened to Ron Tammen in 1973
October 28 -- Halloween 2021 and the muzzling of…me
October 22 -- Halloween 1973 and the muzzling of Joe Cella
October 6 -- The tinderbox and the match: the honest truth about the St. Louis fire of 1973
September 24 -- Zeroing in on Ron's 'zero' file
September 17 -- The second man, part 2: a Friday-night document drop
September 4 -- Did Richard blackmail Ron?, part 2
August 29 -- The second man
August 15 -- The sabbatical: how I think St. Clair Switzer and a well-known MKULTRA psychiatrist spent the summer of 1957
August 6 -- The Cincy file
July 23 -- For Marjorie, the woman who brought Ron Tammen into the world
July 11 -- The FBI's plagiarized narrative
July 10 -- As long as we're talking about 2008…why did the FBI destroy a file on Tammen in the middle of a reopened investigation?
July 9 -- Why did subsequent FBI reports fail to mention what officials had learned in 2002?
July 7 -- The eager, anguished fingerprint expungement of June 2002
June 26 -- Miami University's deafening silence: proof of a cover-up, part 3
June 12 -- If the Privacy Act was the reason that Ron Tammen's fingerprints were expunged, then guess what? Ron was alive in 2002
June 3 -- Breaking: the 9-5-52 Project Artichoke report wasn't typed on St. Clair Switzer's typewriter*
May 20 -- How did Doc Switzer get tangled up with the CIA? All roads lead to the RDB
May 10 -- Here it is: the document that allowed the FBI to expunge Ron Tammen's fingerprints 30 years ahead of time
May 5 -- Finally, an answer: Why Ronald Tammen's fingerprints were expunged and why it makes so much sense
April 30 -- Lies, deceit, and why I've come to believe that Ron Tammen's story is bigger than we realize
April 18 -- 68th anniversary bonus post: What does Ron Tammen's handwriting say about his personality?
April 11 -- Purged: All about the OTHER document that used to be inside Ron Tammen's fingerprint jacket…
March 5 -- The blog post I was hoping never to write
February 19 -- That cryptic note about H.H. Stephenson? It was probably written in 1976, NOT 1953
January 18 -- A Friday night insurance payment
December 23 -- Proof of a cover-up, part 2: hidden buzzers, forbidden words
November 30 -- Wait…was Ron being blackmailed by Richard?!
November 21 -- A 1950s Thanksgiving meditation, by Ronald H. Tammen, Jr.
November 17 -- Was Ron being blackmailed?
November 15 -- Follow the lie$, part 2: But wait, there's more
November 14 -- Follow the lie$
October 28 -- The Official AGMIHTF Guide to 'Who's Who' in Oxford Cemetery
August 31 -- Remembering Marcia Tammen
August 18 -- Proof of a cover-up
August 11 -- My theory on Ron Tammen's exact location the moment he disappeared, and other thoughts*
July 8 -- The layperson's unofficial, unauthorized FBI fingerprint protocol playbook**
June 14 -- The Ident files
April 19 -- The Wright Patt Connection, Part 2 — BONUS EDITION
April 18 -- The Wright Patt Connection
April 19 -- The 'I&I' guys: Why I think Ronald Tammen's psychology professor had a hand in his disappearance
April 7 -- MKULTRA and 'U'
March 25 -- Hypnosis—what's doable, what's doubtable (part 2)
March 5 -- Hypnosis—what's doable, what's doubtable (part 1)
March 1 -- The hypnotists of Oxford, Ohio
February 16 -- A chance encounter in Wellsville
February 2 -- The accidental, unlikely, real-life, and unsung heroes of MKULTRA
January 20 -- The return of Commander Robert Jay Williams
January 11 -- Was the CIA secretly recruiting gay men in the 1950s?
December 23 -- An ode to Joe on his 98th birthday
December 7 -- FOIA follies
November 22 -- Your Thanksgiving dinner icebreaker: Was Ronald Tammen gay?
November 1 -- A late-night knock at the door
October 6 -- A dead body in Georgia
September 15 -- The fish in Ron's bed
August 29 -- A case of amnesia, part 3: Three youths from Ohio
August 9 -- A case of amnesia, part 2: Things in Ron's background
August 2 -- A case of amnesia, part 1
May 14 -- Ronald Tammen's moment of crisis
April 28 -- You have questions? Here are some answers.
April 19 -- The open psych book
April 9 -- Closing a couple loops: Why Ronald Tammen was fingerprinted as a child, and why the FBI considered his prints 'criminal'
March 10 -- On April 19, 2018, Ronald Tammen will be missing for 65 years. Here's how the 'Good Man' blog is commemorating the anniversary.
February 22 -- Was Ronald Tammen hiding out as a technician at Welco Industries in 1973?
February 3 -- Hoover, JFK, and the day the FBI stopped writing to the Tammens
January 16 -- The dog handler, the dad, and the director
January 1 -- Did Ronald Tammen cross paths with Richard Colvin Cox?
December 14 -- The missing fingerprints, part 4*
November 30 -- The missing fingerprints, part 3*
November 9 -- The missing fingerprints, part 2
October 29 -- The REAL phantoms of Oxford, Ohio
October 22 -- The missing fingerprints
October 8 -- Chuck Findlay's story
September 25 -- What would an introvert do?
September 16 -- Ronald Tammen's hectic, demanding, difficult, jam-packed, very busy day, part 2
August 30 -- Ronald Tammen's hectic, demanding, difficult, jam-packed, very busy day, part 1
August 18 -- Why did Ron Tammen get his blood typed?
August 4 -- The woman from Hamilton
July 23 -- Happy birthday, Ronald Tammen
July 16 -- Hitting the lottery
July 8 -- 8:30, 10:30…does it really matter?
July 4 -- On birthdays, memories, and song practice
June 28 -- When memories collide, part 2: Song practice, the University of Kentucky, and a meeting over coffee
June 16 -- When memories collide, part 1: The Delts, song practice, and a momentous walk home
April 14 -- Seeking Grace — the girl who went to the prom with Ronald Tammen
2008 Butler County Cold Case Investigation Amnesia Campus Owls Carl Knox Investigation CIA Cincinnati Field Office Evidence of a University Cover-up FBI Records Fisher Hall Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Records Gay in the Fifties Hypnosis J. Edgar Hoover/FBI Investigation Joe Cella Miami Hockey Coaches recording Miami University MKULTRA Oxford PD Investigation Potential Tammen Sightings Privacy Act or Court Order Expungement Psychology Department Richard Cox Ron's Draft Status Ron's Finances Ron's Friends and Family Ron's Grades Ron's Missing Fingerprints Ron's Missing Person File Ron's Sexuality Ron Tammen's Personal Life The Delts The Investigations Uncategorized University Faculty and Administrators
Latest AGMIHTF Updates from Facebook
If you're interested in keeping up with the finer details of my research (e.g., small developments that may not warrant a full blog post), here are some quickie updates on Facebook.
A Good Man Is Hard to Find: My Search for Ronald H. Tammen, Jr.
One tape, two different stories. Who's a girl gonna believe? ... See MoreSee Less
Follow the inconsistencies: one tape, two very different explanations
ronaldtammen.com
This morning, I was doing a little rereading of a blog post—the one from September 2, in which I wrote about the first time our Ohio Court of Claims mediation process had been declared a failure. A....
Be sure to stop by our new Ron Tammen chat room, and introduce yourself! Plus: according to a university spreadsheet, two hockey coach tapes were assigned to box CDS 18 in University Archives. As we already know, one tape---Hockey Tape #2 (EDIT)---was severely damaged and unwatchable. Now we learn that the other one is inexplicably missing. You guys? This really isn't normal. ... See MoreSee Less
Announcing: something new and something that's growing very old
Let's start with the fun news: we now have a chat room, a dedicated space on this blog site where you can discuss Tammen-related topics without interference from me. Oh, OK, I'll be checking in no...
This may be the strongest proof yet that St. Clair Switzer (Ron Tammen's psych prof) was CIA. ... See MoreSee Less
More evidence that St. Clair Switzer was on the CIA's payroll
Plus a bonus puzzler: Let's make a little history and break some CIA code Have you had enough holiday yet? Same. You want to do something kinda wild during this down week before New Year's? Me too...
Gosh, who should we nominate? (Deadline is Jan 6.) ... See MoreSee Less
It's time once again: Share your transparency horror story with a nomination to The Foilies 2023
www.muckrock.com
We are now accepting submissions for The Foilies 2023, the annual project to give tongue-in-cheek awards to the officials and institutions that behave badly (or ridiculously) when served with a reques...
Greetings, and a quick question for you: What do these two video cassettes have in common? Here's my latest post on the extraordinarily, mind-bogglingly stupendous value of editors…and how they just may help us find the interview with Carl Knox's former secretary: ronaldtammen.com/2022/12/19/yay-editors/ ... See MoreSee Less
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FBI FOIA Documents on Ronald Tammen
The Phantom of Oxford, part 1 of 2 (YouTube.com)
Ronald Tammen's birth certificate
Ronald Tammen's Selective Service Records (5th row from bottom)
Ronald Tammen's Selective Service Registration
St. Clair Switzer's Yale Transcripts (includes Miami Univ and Univ of Wisconsin)
A large sample of Carl Knox's Notes
Pages in Tammen's Psychology Book
My theory is that Tammen's psychology book was open to these two pages on his desk when he disappeared. Although Carl Knox said in his notes that the book was open to HABITS -- all caps and underlined twice -- I believe Tammen was reading the other page with the subhead "Post-hypnotic suggestion." See the 65th anniversary video on facebook.com/agmihtf for how I reached this conclusion.
Richard Cox's FBI files
CD #1 of 3
1167695-002 -- 79-HQ-23729 --- Section 1
1167695-002 --- 79-HQ-23729 --- Section 5
1167695-002 --- 79-HQ-23729 --- Section 10
1167695-2 - 79-HQ-23729 - Section 11
1167695-2 - 45A-SF-1773 - Section 5 Serial 234
1167695-2 - 47-HQ-39758 - Section 4 Serial 63
1167695-2 - 190-HQ-0 - Section 212 Serial 19488-19490
1167695-2 - 190-HQ-0 - Section 913 Serial 70675