Tammy Sue Wice

A woman is found stuffed in the trunk of her car, strangled
In the spring of 1991, Tammy Sue Wice, a vibrant 21-year-old woman, was embracing a new chapter of independence in Bremerton, Washington. A Spokane native and a bright student who excelled in German at University High School, Tammy had recently moved into her own apartment for the first time. She was building a life for herself, working as an accounting assistant at Simpson & Fisher Companies Inc., where she was well-regarded and considered her colleagues a second family. Her older sister, Tina, recalled how excitedly Tammy would share details about decorating her new place. Though she had recently broken up with her live-in boyfriend, Craig Morris, whom she had met while briefly attending Washington State University, they remained close friends. Her family described her as outgoing, caring, and very trusting.

The last time anyone heard from Tammy was the evening of Wednesday, May 15, 1991. Around 6:30 p.m., she spoke with her sister on the phone. She had plans to meet her ex-boyfriend, Craig, for his 8:30 p.m. basketball game at the local YMCA, but she never arrived. When she failed to show up for work the next day, a place where her punctuality was legendary, her colleagues and family knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. Her employer, Robert Camp, noted that Tammy was so predictable she would call if she was going to be even three minutes late. Concern quickly mounted. Craig Morris went to the Bremerton police on Thursday, and Tammy’s parents, Harry and Eileen Wice, traveled from Spokane, pleading with authorities to begin a search.

The family and her employer grew increasingly frustrated with the Bremerton Police Department's response. They were repeatedly told of the department's standard policy to wait 72 hours before actively investigating an adult missing-person case unless there was clear evidence of foul play. Rebuffed by police, Tammy’s loved ones took matters into their own hands. They distributed flyers with her photograph and description. On Sunday, May 19, about 30 of her friends and co-workers fanned out across the city. After only about 10 minutes of searching, they found her locked car parked on a Bremerton street, about a half-mile from the YMCA where she was supposed to have been four nights earlier.

Police were called to the scene and impounded the vehicle. Four hours later, they opened the trunk and made the devastating discovery of Tammy’s body. She was reportedly wearing the same clothes she had worn to work on Wednesday. The initial autopsy found no visible signs of injury, leading to toxicology tests to check for poison or drugs. It was later determined that Tammy Sue Wice had died of strangulation. An initial finding from the Kitsap County coroner estimated her time of death as late Friday night or early Saturday, raising painful questions about whether she might have been found alive if a search had begun sooner.

The investigation that followed was fraught with difficulty. The crime scene yielded very little physical evidence, leading detectives to believe she was killed elsewhere before being placed in her car. Her wallet was missing, but other valuables were left behind. Sgt. Rob Forbes, head of the police department's detectives, noted the perplexing nature of the scene, stating that the careful way her body had been placed in the trunk suggested the killer cared about her. He described the case as "stumped" due to the lack of clues.

Detectives interviewed several people, and two men took polygraph tests. A third man, a former boyfriend, declined to take one. Despite their efforts and a "Crimestoppers" appeal in local newspapers, no significant leads emerged. Tammy’s murder was one of four unsolved homicides in Bremerton in 1991, an unusually violent year for the city that had recorded nine killings in two years, compared to 12 in the entire preceding decade. Though initially critical of the police, by January 1992, Tammy’s family felt the department was doing a good job and communicating regularly, but simply had no clues to follow. The case of Tammy Sue Wice’s murder remains unsolved, leaving her family and community with unanswered questions about who took the life of a young woman just as she was starting to build it on her own.