Tami Jackson’s Killer(s) Will Be Found | Tami Jackson’s Murder, Part 3

Part 3. On January 26, 1994, 17-year-old Tami Renee Jackson’s body is discovered. Port Authority workers on Hutchinson Island, near Savannah, Georgia, find Tami; she has been stabbed more than 130 times, is bound, and has been run over by a vehicle. Investigators process evidence at the scene and conduct interviews with potential witnesses, but eventually, the case goes cold.

In this episode of Zone 7, Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum, recaps Tami’s cold case  with Stacy Patterson, sister of Tami Jackson. Stacy discusses how her emotions and grief process around getting the phone call that Tami was pronounced dead by murder. Sheryl explains how new technology makes this case solvable and educates the listeners on types of tools that could be used to catch the murderer(s?)

Show Notes:

0:00 Introduction to Zone 7 with Sheryl McCollum 

0:10 Brief overview of the homicide case involving victim, Tami Jackson

[2:31] A quote from the medical examiner… “This was a slow death. Tammy Jackson suffered before she died.”

[3:15] Stacy shares her experience getting the call about Tami’s death 

[5:37] “You're not only dealing with the information coming so slowly, but you're also just dealing with the whole grief process…” -Stacy

[7:13] Tami Jackson’s case is currently ongoing and solvable

[8:06] Detective Tara Smith and all her conviction

[9:21] Describing M-Vac

[9:58] Describing the Bardole Method

[10:23] Describing Phenotyping

[11:27] CODIS explained 

[13:43] This is a LIVE ongoing case… Anyone with information should come forward

[14:40] Zone 7 is not just a podcast. Listeners are part of this cold case. Anybody can solve a cold case and everybody should try. If you think of something we hadn't thought of, let me know. Hit me up on social media. Email me, call me

[16:23] Thank you for joining us on Zone 7. We'll see you next time as we take on the case of 19 year old Britney Phillips, raped and strangled in her own apartment just across the street from her former school.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
In seventeen year old Tammy Jackson had just moved out
of her parents house and into her boyfriend's apartment in Savannah, Georgia.
Tammy was a typical teenager by all accounts. She was
close to her family, she loved her friends, She went
to school every day. She loved a dance, she loved

(00:30):
a party. She loved to go out. But according to
her sister Stacy, she had just started to run with
the wrong crowd. Weeks before her death, she was staying
with friends because she was a little afraid to stay
at her apartment because her boyfriend was out of town
on t d Y, and one night she just needed

(00:53):
a break. It was just too many people at a
small house, so she decided to walk to the corner store.
A man that was a utility worker saw her leaning
in a car talking to two men. It did not
sit right with him so much so he was compelled

(01:13):
to drive over to her and ask her point blank
if she was okay. Well, apparently, according to him, Tammy
looks up at him and smiles and says she's okay,
She's fine, and he drives off. But he still has
a nagging feeling that whatever he was watching was not right.
Something was just bad, wrong with that whole scene. Well,

(01:37):
that's the last time somebody saw Tammy Jackson alive. Construction
workers found her body on January at about seven am
on Hutchinson Island. It's a river island just across from
what's known is like the River Walk there in Savannah
River Street. She had been stabbed over a hundred and

(02:01):
thirty times, bound with rope, and run over by a car.
This case needs to be solved because there is literally
a killer walking around free, a killer that was able
to bound and torture a seventeen year old girl and

(02:25):
just leave her there to die a slow death, now, y'all.
That's a quote from the medical Examiner. This was a
slow death Tammy Jackson suffered before she died. Stacy gets

(02:45):
a call that Tammy's dead. Her first thought is it's
an accident. Was it a correct did she fall somehow?
She is completely tragically caught off guard when she learned
runs later that she was murdered, and then her whole
life flips around and she's got to try to find

(03:08):
justice for her baby sister. Just listen to what she
has to say. We knew she was dead. We didn't
know how, We didn't know what had happened, was in
an accidentally, We didn't even we didn't even know it
was murder in the beginning. And I actually say they didn't.

(03:29):
By the time I got the phone call, they knew
she had been murdered. And that's it. So we've got
information little by little by little. And you know, by
the time I found out about it, um, because that
was really before cell phones were a thing. So I
my boyfriend was waiting on me when I came home

(03:50):
from school that day and told me go home and
call my call home and I did, and then um,
my uncle. My mom said, your uncle is gonna come
pick you up and bring you home. And then my
uncle got me and then we had to go to
his house to get his stuff together before we came
back to Savannah. And my aunt was on the phone

(04:12):
with her mom who lived in Savannah, listening to the
six o'clock news, and they were talking about her on
the news, so she's relaying everything, so I'm getting more
information that way. It was awful. It was awful ful.
I mean, that trip from Atlanta to Sapana is the
longest trip of my entire life. Having to get you know,

(04:34):
that four hour drive, and and then when I got home,
it was still just more of not a lot. And
and also you didn't have a cell phone or anything,
so it's not like you could call your mama and
talked to your dad and talked to your sister tera.
I mean, you're just stuck in that car waiting for

(04:55):
and half nothing but my nothing but my thoughts. It
was off right, It's terrible, it's awful. And then you know,
of course murder is horrific, but then you find out
the facts of the murder. And then you know, for me,
even reading the autopsy, just that last line of the
autopsy just you know, to me, punges you right in

(05:19):
the head. You know, this was a slow debt. Yeah,
having all of that just real for you, all of
that truth is too much. It's too much, it really is.
And and then to have no action and no just
and again because it was you're not only dealing with
the information coming so slowly, but you're also just dealing

(05:41):
with the whole like grief process, which you know when
you first when something first happens, you know, you kind
of go numb a little bit, and you're it's almost
like an out of body experience. So for a lot
of that in the beginning, I can't like, I I
can't remember a lot that happened because you're you're just

(06:05):
not in your mind anymore, so reality doesn't really sink
in until later. And I mean I can remember it
being months later where I was like, like, I remember
laying in bed going like hitting my fist against my
hands and I did it a hundred and thirty times

(06:27):
to see how long it took to stab somebody, like
how many times you intentionally did that? And and then
then the slow death. It was just like we were
getting all this stuff and people are telling us these
things and we're just like okay, okay, okay, okay okay.
And then later when everything settles down and then you

(06:50):
actually have a moment to just digest everything that you've
been told, that was when that was the hardest part.
There were there were years where I literally could not
talk about Tammy without shaking and having panic and anxiety
because my body would just react like there's nothing I
could do about it. I believe this case is solvable

(07:16):
with all the new technology and geniuses that we have
work in DNA right now, whoever tied the knots that
bound that child left their DNA. She was found quickly,
so the biological evidence it would have been pristine. The
killer or killers touched her clothes, a necklace she was wearing,

(07:40):
and of course that rope in. He would have ever
dreamed that something could have come back on him like
his d NA. He would have never, in his wildest
dreams understood phenotyping and what they could do to him.
In two two and we've got the best there is

(08:01):
on this case. I want y'all to listen one more time.
Two Detective Taras Smith and all her conviction. They weren't
wearing gloves. They weren't. Why would you Why would you
have gloves on? You would not have gloves on. You wouldn't.
Only after O. J. Simpson you may think to put
gloves on. I know that it took you a considerable

(08:24):
amount of time to tie this knot. I know that
it took you considerable amount of time to stab her
a thirty times. I know that it did. That that
is excessive, and that you touched her. You had to
have tied her up. You had to have touched her.
So whether you wanted her body to be found because
you're a six serial killer, or is revenge killing, or

(08:45):
you're mad because you're married. Whatever I will get you.
Science will get you. My bread and butter is interviews
and interrogations, and all I need is just a little bit.
The suspect is going to be done. I mean, there's
no way unless they're dead. I'm coming for you. See,

(09:09):
if you touch that rope in your bare hands, we
could do tons of things. Now we've got some tools
and our toolbox we didn't have years ago. We've got
the MVAT, which Jared Bradley would tell you how his
daddy invented it. It's almost like a vacuum cleaner, a
steam cleaner for carpet that you can rent that shoots

(09:32):
out the solution and then it sucks it right back
up and it cleans your carpet. It's very similar. But
you use that in fact on clothing, on rope, on rocks,
even and you can extract DNA out of those items.
That will give us again the opportunity to identify who
touched those items, be at the victim or the killer,

(09:53):
and we'll be able to discern which is which. From
that system, then we have the Bardole method. Francine Bardole
invented a method where she wanted to get d N
A off spent shell casings. Well back in the day,
we were all told at a crime scene a spent
cell casing because there's fire involved, would burn up all
the DNA. Well, Francine Bardle's had some incredible luck getting

(10:16):
d NA off spent shell casings, so you know, that's
one of the things we utilize. And then there's phenotyping
where para bond has been able to put samples into
a system and give you literally a human face and
be able to tell you this is a Caucasian male

(10:37):
with blonde hair, blue eyes, and freckles, like this is
the person you're looking for. It is almost scary what
they are able to do. Now that again we couldn't
do a decade ago. We can send different pieces of
evidence to different private labs to show the jury there's
no collusion, just straight up scientific fact. If we have

(11:02):
more than one piece of evidence that would come back
with suspect DNA and that DNA shows the same suspect,
we're golden Detective Taras Smith if there is a DNA
match will be notified and then she'll get that person's

(11:23):
name if they're in CODIS. Now, I know most of
y'all know what code IS is, but I'm just gonna
explain it. It is the combined DNA Index system. So
the FBI has DNA from every convicted felon. So if
you have DNA from a scene and you believe that
it's somebody that has been in the system, you can
put that DNA in there and if we get a hit,

(11:46):
we got a name of the perpetrator. Now that's different
than using ancestral means. If you have DNA that you
put into ancestry or twenty three and me, that's gonna
connect family members for you. So you're gonna get who
a second cousin twice removed, or a mama or a daddy,
or a brother or a sister or a grandparent. But

(12:06):
CODIS is going to give you the criminal and at
that point she will decide the next steps. After the
person is identified. If they're not in CODIS, then she'll
use ancestry and other means to locate the identity of
this person. And again at that point, she holds all
the cards. She's gonna aside. What she does at that

(12:28):
point and when does she reinterview, does she offer a polygraph?
Does she just goes straight up get a warrant? It's
gonna be her ball game at that point. You know,
I get asked all the time when I give speeches
and I do trainings. You know, what is the statue
of limitations on murder? None? Baby, Not a Tara Smith

(12:52):
can go get a warrant twenty years from now if
she finds something. The most interesting outcome to me would
be for the suspect DNA to be located and there
be a codis hit or an ancestral hit, because at
that point we got the person. They're gonna have no

(13:14):
reason to have been around Tammy Jackson. They would have
had no reason to be out on Hutchison Island with her.
Not one witness, not one person has come forward saying
they saw her that night, they were with her that night,
they partied with her that night, no one. So, at

(13:35):
the very least, if they were with her, they've got
something to hide. Anyone with information should come forward. Now,
y'all have heard of a a p B at all
points bulletin, and y'all have heard of a bolo be
on lookout. Well, the Institute. We came up with something

(13:56):
called an a wick. Anyone with information contact so the
A week on this case is in full effect. You
can still come forward. If somebody said something to you
at a bar, if somebody used to date said something
crazy about Tammy Jackson had always bugged you, if somebody
used to be married to said something about that girl

(14:17):
out on Hudchinson Island, come forward. Let law enforcement know
what you know. Oftentimes, if they get the same name
coming up over and over and over, it'll give them
a direction on this case to go on before the
scientific evidence comes back. Now, y'all listen to me. We're

(14:40):
fixing us solve this thing. Y'all are not just listening
to a podcast. You are part of this cold case.
Anybody can solve a cold case, and everybody should try.
If you think of something we hadn't thought of, let
me know. Hit me up on social media, email me,

(15:01):
call me, find a way to get to me and
let me know what we haven't done. We'll do it.
We fixed us solved this thing, and you're going to
be a part of that. You know, y'all may be
wondering why am I doing this show. I have worked

(15:22):
with some of the most extraordinarily loving and devoted families,
dedicated and professional law enforcement officers, and helpful carrying media,
and I have added them to my inner circle. I
wanted to open our doors and show you a little
bit of my Zone seven to see how we actually operate,

(15:46):
to see our methodology and going after these cold cases.
It was just important to me that y'all got to
see a little bit behind the curtain, so to speak.
I'm going to end with a quote from somebody that
I respect act in my ZONNE seven. Detective Gilmore with
the c O p D Police in Maryland says, there's

(16:08):
always more to the story. Give it time and you'll
learn the truth. Well, there's more to tammy story, and
we hope to bring you an update real soon. Thank
you for joining us and being a part of my
ZIWN seven. We'll see you next time as we take

(16:29):
on the case of nineteen year old Brittney Phillips, raped
and strangled in her own apartment just across the street
from her former school. I'm Cheryl McCollough and this is
Zone seven.