Tamara Lee Tigard was 21 when she left her Las Vegas home for a walk in March 1980 and never returned. A month later, on what would have been her twenty-first birthday, fishermen found the nude body of a young woman on the banks of the North Canadian River near Jones, Oklahoma. She had been shot multiple times in the chest with a .45 caliber handgun; a dime and fabric driven into her body suggested she had been clothed when killed. The killer had covered the body with quicklime in an apparent attempt to hasten decomposition, but the lime actually preserved the remains and the victim became known for decades as the Lime Lady.

Traditional investigative methods failed to identify her and the case went cold while her parents and sister died without knowing her fate. In 2018 the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office worked with the DNA Doe Project; genetic genealogy produced a likely name quickly, and dental records from Tamara’s time in the U.S. Army confirmed the identification in December 2019. A Las Vegas missing persons report had been filed after her disappearance but was mistakenly cleared when another woman was found using her identity. No arrests have been announced and there are no publicly named suspects; the homicide remains under active investigation.

Did anyone who knew Tamara in Las Vegas or the military recognize details that might help investigators?