Monsters Among Us: The Tragic Betrayal And Murder Of Tammy Epperson
Monsters Among Us: The Tragic Betrayal And Murder Of Tammy Epperson
Tammy Epperson found joy and purpose in helping former addicts like herself overcome their addictions and get their lives back on track. However, one of these men would become fatally obsessed
Background
Tammy Epperson was getting her life back on track.
After doing a brief stint in jail for theft and drug possession, she’d resolved to focus on staying clean. For the first time in her life, Epperson was holding down a stable job, working as an office manager for a Hollywood telephone answering agency.
More than that, though, she’d made a comfortable home for herself, decorated with mementos from her life: photographs from her prior work as a model, certificates from her high school equivalency exam and completion of a drug treatment program, gifts from her loved ones.
She went to church on Sundays and volunteered for various recovery programs to help others overcome their own drug addictions.
It seemed to Epperson and those who loved her, that she was finally on the road to making a happy and healthy life for herself.
Instead, she fell victim to a sudden and tragic end at the hands of a monster.
Meeting Troy
In the summer of 2000, Epperson visited the Weingart Center, a human services center that provided short-term housing, substance abuse recovery programs, medical services, and other assistance to Los Angeles County’s homeless population.
Epperson was at the Center to see a friend, Timothy Todd, who worked there. She’d recently broken up with her boyfriend Ronald Sims after he relapsed into heroin abuse, but the two remained close, and, as she confided to Todd, she wasn’t looking to meet anyone else.
Still, when Epperson caught the eye of Center resident Troy Lincoln Powell, who had recently been released from a stint in jail, Todd didn’t see any harm in introducing the two.
He’d seen firsthand what a powerful influence Tammy had on those who, like Sims, were attempting to lift themselves out of the cycle of substance abuse, and hoped that maybe she could help Powell, too.
The three became fast friends. They went to movies and restaurants together and often went for long drives in Powell’s truck.
However, it didn’t take long for the relationship to take a darker turn.
A Dark Past
While Epperson and Todd remained close to Powell, others in her life weren’t so sure about the man’s character.
Sims, in particular, was afraid to be around him for extended periods of time; Powell had been a member of a neo-Nazi gang during his time in prison and had the tattoos to prove it.
Sims was Black, and from the beginning felt a very strong sense of animosity from Powell which he believed was due to his interracial relationship with Epperson.
Perhaps Epperson and Todd were oblivious to Sims’s concerns; perhaps they sympathized with Powell’s difficult past and hoped to help him make something better of himself.
Regardless, Sims’s dislike of Powell didn’t seem to have much of an effect at first, apart from fracturing their friend group.
Despite being much closer to Powell, Todd didn’t see too much cause for suspicion. In later court depositions, Todd was insistent that Epperson and Powell were never romantically involved. They were all friends, he claimed, and the two only very rarely spent time with each other outside of his presence.
But, regardless of whether that was the case, Powell didn’t see it that way.
Dangerous Obsession
Powell had become obsessed with Epperson, making disturbing claims to Todd: “If I can’t have her, nobody will. I’ll kill her and myself.” He monitored the time she spent with other men, showed up at her work with flowers and teddy bears, made constant phone calls, and waited outside her home and church in his truck to offer her rides.
At first, Epperson tolerated the behavior. She was determined to help Powell, even if his behavior scared her at times.
By the end of October, though, she’d reached her limit.
It was time to cut Powell off for good.
Murder Of Tammy Epperson
It was a Sunday morning in early November.
Tammy had finally ended her friendship with Powell, although he continued to harass her and leave frequent messages on her answering machine.
She sought refuge in her work and through the church where she attended services and counseled recovering addicts.
On the day of the murder, Epperson had stopped outside the church to chat with Sims after service. Sims was back on the path to recovery, and the two were hopeful that they might be able to support each other and perhaps even rekindle their relationship.
But as they talked, they noticed a menacing figure watching them from across the street.
According to Sims’s testimony, Epperson told him that she needed to “deal with this matter now” before crossing the street to talk to Powell.
It was the last time he would ever see her.
Ballington Plaza, the transitional housing unit where Epperson lived, recorded her entering the lobby with Powell at 10:45 am that morning.
A few hours later, Powell left the building alone. This raised red flags as it was against the building’s policy for guests to enter and exit unattended by residents, but Powell simply told a security guard that Epperson was “in her unit resting.”
Later that day, Todd received two calls from Powell, who claimed that he had killed Epperson. Todd didn’t take him very seriously, but he passed on the message to Sims who, following their encounter that morning, was far more concerned.
Sims called the police, as well as the door guard at Ballington Plaza. Investigators found the deadbolt on Tammy’s door locked, forcing them to break down the door revealing the gruesome crime.
Crime Scene
Police found Epperson’s once-grandmotherly apartment full of angels, lace doilies, and floral linens ransacked. The furniture had been demolished, with three of its four walls covered in splatters of blood.
And there in the middle of the room, at the foot of the bed, was Epperson’s body.
Nude from the waist down, someone had covered the lower half of her body with a towel before leaving–and locking the door behind them.
The crime scene investigation was conducted by Officer Ronald Raquel, a criminalist who specialized in blood splatter and sexual assault analysis.
Raquel concluded that the attack had begun in the bathroom, where Epperson’s killer slammed her head against the wall at least six times as her knees gave out beneath her. He then carried her out to the main room, where the physical and sexual assault continued.
“Whoever did this beat her and then beat her again,” Raquel stated. “And then after the pieces [of furniture] were too small to wield as a weapon, he took another item, and then beat her with this item again till it broke into smaller pieces, then took the time to pick up another small item…”
The autopsy, meanwhile, made it clear that Epperson had been alive for the majority of the attack.
She had numerous cuts and bruises on the backs of her hands and arms from attempting to defend herself, multiple wounds and lacerations on her face from being savagely beaten and slashed with furniture and household objects, and extensive hemorrhaging.
The evidence was conclusive: it was not just a murder, but vicious torture, with the clear intent of disfigurement.
Tracking A Killer
Powell became an obvious target for police suspicion. He was widely known at this point to have had a dubious relationship with Epperson, and the crime clearly seemed to be that of a jealous lover. Furthermore, he was one of the last people to have been seen with her alive.
So when they found an old prison friend of Powell’s, Chris Vannoy, in possession of Powell’s truck and wearing a Notre Dame baseball cap that had been splattered with blood, investigators brought him in for questioning.
It didn’t take Vannoy long to confess.
Powell had come over to his apartment just a few hours after the murder. He was clearly distressed and spent the next few hours making phone calls to family and friends.
Later, in the early hours of the morning, he confessed to Vannoy that he’d killed Epperson.
According to Powell, after the confrontation outside the church, they’d gone back to Epperson’s apartment to have consensual sex. When the two were finished, she got up and went to the bathroom to take a phone call from another man–presumably Sims, which enraged Powell.
In the ensuing argument, Epperson told Powell that he “didn’t own her,” and she could see whoever she wanted when she wanted.
This was his last straw. Powell claimed that in a blind rage, he then attacked her.
Powell went on to recount the murder to Vannoy in gruesome detail, at one point mentioning that during the beating, Epperson asked him, “Are you going to kill me, Troy?”–to which he answered, “Yes.”
The following day, Powell signed over ownership of his truck to Vannoy and fled.
Arrest And Trial
But Powell was no criminal mastermind. With Vannoy’s help, police set a sting and easily apprehended Powell in a seedy hotel, where they found him in bed watching a pornographic film.
Keys to Epperson’s offices were on the nightstand; he’d planned to rob them.
In the ensuing trial, Powell plead insanity.
He was a victim of an abusive childhood, he claimed, in addition to a form of epilepsy that caused explosive outbursts of anger and amnesia.
It was a convenient excuse for Powell, given he had an extensive history of violence against women prior to meeting Epperson. Two former girlfriends testified that they had been brutally assaulted by him before; one of them likely would have died if not for the intervention of neighbors.
Even Powell’s own family, who testified in his favor, had been victimized by him in the past.
During various emotional outbursts, he had shoved his older sister down the stairs for waking him up while hungover, attacked his younger sister with a pipe after his high school girlfriend broke up with him, and thrown his mother against a wall, breaking a vertebra in her back because she refused to give him more money.
Every time, he claimed that he had no memory of the episode.
But the jury didn’t buy it.
In addition to the extensive confession Powell made to Vannoy, which made it obvious that he knew exactly what he had done (and which was corroborated by crime scene details Vannoy wouldn’t have had access to)
The hateful and intentional nature of the crime conflicted with his claims that it was the product of a simple, mindless rage.
Aftermath
In the end, Powell was given the death penalty, which he currently awaits while on death row in San Quentin Prison.
Following the trial, prosecution attorney Vivian Moreno reflected on the crime, and Epperson’s legacy:
He picked on the wrong woman because I believe that he thought, “Here’s just another person on Skid Row. No one's gonna care. They’re gonna believe that she was my girlfriend and she cheated on me and I was angry.”
Of course, all that was disproved absolutely.
Sources:
Richards, Tori. “A Friend's Betrayal: The Murder of Tammy Epperson.” Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods, https://www.crimelibrary.org/criminal_mind/forensics/friends_betrayal/13.html
“People v. Powell.” Vlex.com, 13 August 2018, https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/people-v-powell-s137730-884773603
“Troy Lincoln Powell v. State Of California.” supremecourt.gov, 31 January 2019, https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-6916/86555/20190131145320253_PowellTroyLincolnOppositionBriefFinal.pdf
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