Tammy Mahoney

Case background and investigation

Tammy Mahoney was 19 years old and a student at SUNY Morrisville in central New York when she disappeared on Friday, May 8, 1981. According to CNY Central, she was hitchhiking on State Route 46 near the city of Oneida that evening. Her family and friends never heard from her again, and no trace of her has been found in the decades since.

For many years the public account of her last movements was limited to the fact that she had been seen hitchhiking. Investigators long believed that she had been picked up and taken to a gathering on territory of the Oneida Indian Nation. Spectrum News reported in 2021 that investigators believe she was killed the night she disappeared, and CNY Central has reported that law enforcement believes she was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered. No one has been charged, and those beliefs have not been tested in court.

The case is being investigated by the FBI together with the New York State Police. In 2016, searches of wooded areas and of a property on Chestnut Ridge Road produced no evidence, according to CNY Central. In 2019 the reward for information was increased, with the Oneida Indian Nation matching the federal contribution for a reported total of $40,000.

In October 2020 the FBI made a public appeal about a wallet that had been handed in at the Oneida police station about a week after Mahoney vanished. Agents said they wanted to speak with the unidentified person who turned it in, believing that person might have knowledge of what happened. FBI Special Agent Thomas Relford told Spectrum News in 2021 that the appeal had produced promising leads and that investigators needed someone who had been at the party, or who had heard about it afterward, to come forward.

In March 2022 the FBI publicly confirmed key details for the first time: that Mahoney was taken to a party at a residence on Territory Road, and that she was last seen leaving on foot following an altercation. On May 8, 2023, the 42nd anniversary of her disappearance, the FBI and State Police announced that more investigators and resources were being assigned to the case. Officials said additional witnesses had gone on the record during the previous year and that their accounts corroborated what earlier witnesses had reported.

Mahoney's mother died without learning what happened to her daughter, her sister told Spectrum News. As of the most recent reports located, the case remains open, no remains have been recovered and no arrests have been made. The FBI asks anyone with information to contact its Albany field office.