Ron Tammen was a normal college sophomore in the spring of 1953. He was on the Miami University wresting team, played in the campus jazz band, was in ROTC, and was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He was popular, attractive, and very involved with campus life. He was all of those things until April 19th, 1953, when he vanished into the unusually cold spring night. Ron Tammen was studying in his dorm room in Fisher Hall around 8:30 that evening when he went to see the dorm mother to get new sheets, due to a fellow resident placing a fish in his bed. She saw him return to his room, however when his roommate, Dayton native Charles Findlay, returned later that night Tammen wasn't there. Charles walked in the room to find the radio and lights were on, Tammen's psychology book was open, and his keys and wallet were on his bed. It was if Tammen had stepped out for a moment and would return shortly. Ron Tammen, however, was never seen again.
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Ron Tammen,, Jr.
Photo courtesy of the Ohio Attorney General |
Theories abound concerning Ron Tammen's mysterious disappearance, however there are three main ideas about what happened to him. Some believe he suffered a spontaneous bout of amnesia and simply forgot who and where he was and just walked away. Others think he met with foul play. The fish in his bed was most likely a fraternity prank, and some of the former residents of Fisher Hall believe his fraternity was somehow involved. An extensive search of the woods around Oxford revealed nothing though, and there were no signs of a struggle. The most plausible theory centers around the military. The draft for the Korean War was still ongoing, and Tammen could have planned to run away to avoid getting drafted, although this us unlikely considering he was part of the ROTC program. Tammen could also have disappeared because he
joined the military. Two weeks before he disappeared, Tammen went to the Butler County Coroner's office to get a blood test. The FBI and CIA were actively recruiting on college campuses during this time, and Tammen came from an extremely wealthy and patriotic family, which may have given him a leg up for a job. The police and Tammen's family members believe that whatever happened to him, he planned to leave that night, and they also believe he is still alive.
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Fisher Hall, courtesy of Miami University
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Despite their belief in his survival and no proof of his actual death, Ron Tammen has become the most well known ghost story at Miami University. Although Fisher Hall was torn down a short time after Tammen's disappearance, The Marcum Conference Center stands in its place and is supposedly haunted by his ghost. As an undergrad at Miami, we were warned not to walk around Marcum alone at night, not for the practical dangers of walking in the dark woods alone, but because we might disappear into the woods as Ron Tammen did. His story remains alive through creative classroom lectures and occasional appearances on the front page of the student newspaper. In the case of Ron Tammen, his history is interesting not because of what we know, but because of what we don't. The lack of definitive truth is the very thing that makes us want to keep digging into his story, which has caused Ron Tammen to be remembered far longer than if we had all the pieces to his tale.
- Krista Dunkman
Sources:
http://miamistudent.net/trail-to-the-truth-the-ron-tammen-mystery-58-years-later/
https://www.miamialum.org/s/916/16/interior.aspx?sid=916&gid=1&pgid=417
http://miamistudent.net/cold-case-miami-alumna-resurrects-mystery-man/
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