Tammie was born on 7/03/1972. She was the youngest of six children. They were all between the ages of three and eight when I married Bill Hieber Sr. in 1976. Instead of calling ourselves the Brady Bunch, we called ourselves the Hieber Herd. We lived in Geyser Crest, Saratoga. Bill and I both commuted daily to work in Albany.

I remember some of Tammie’s favorite things, such as horseback riding, drawing pictures of horses, babysitting, and Air Supply music. She was excited about becoming an aunt in about a month. She also loved the camping vacations we took to Cape Cod and Florida.

Tammie had attended Geyser Crest Elementary School. She was in seventh grade at Saratoga Junior High School. She decided to skip school on April 28 without our knowledge or permission.

Eight o’clock rolled around and Tammie had not shown up at home. None of us had any knowledge of her whereabouts. I drove to her friends’ house to see if she might by chance be there. They had no house phone. She was not there.

She would never not come home. She would always at least call me to come and get her if this was a last-minute thing. This was not like her. I immediately contacted the Saratoga Springs police who said I needed to wait for 24 hours before they would consider her a missing child. I called back on April 29 at 8 a.m. and confirmed that none of us had had any contact with her since the previous morning. Their department then worked closely with the State Police to investigate her disappearance. They registered her in the NCMEC database as missing.

No one has seen or heard from her since her disappearance. The authorities do suspect homicide.

I met Mary Lyall in 2009. She invited us to Missing Persons Day, The Ride for Missing Children in Albany, and later the Utica Ride. Our family is very grateful to her and to all of you for participating in these rides. Your rides remind us that there is hope in getting some answers by keeping our stories alive. We enjoy meeting all of you, as well as other families who have stories of missing loved ones. Your goal of educating all of the school children in how to stay safe is commendable. “Make our Children Safe, One Child at a Time”. THANK YOU!