Murders and Mysteries of New England · Marti Shaw

The Disappearance of Tammy Belanger

·21 min

Mardi Shad opens the episode by greeting listeners and explaining why the previous week’s episode did not go out on time. She says the family had personal changes and the episode was not ready yet. She makes it clear she would rather release a complete episode than a rushed one. Then she turns back to New England and, more specifically, New Hampshire. The case is a disappearance. Tammy Belanger is the focus. Mardi says the case grabbed her attention even though there was not much information about it to find. She describes it as something that has been lost in time. She hopes that talking about it will help bring it back into people’s minds. A warning comes first. The episode includes sexual assault content. After that, the story moves into the available facts and the gaps around them. Tammy’s routine matters because her father believed she followed it closely. Nelson Belanger says she enjoyed school. He says she had good grades and was very punctual. He also says she was timid. He did not think she would leave with a stranger. He also did not think she would accept a ride from a neighbor. The episode then shifts to people who drew investigators’ attention. WCVB-TV in Boston identified Victor Wunetti as a suspect in Tammy’s disappearance. A photo of Tammy was found in his house. The host describes the rest of what investigators found there as deeply unsettling. Wunetti kept trophies. Those included girls’ underwear and school photos. Some of the photos had been stolen from nearby homes. Mardi reacts strongly to that material and says it gave her chills. She also walks through another figure, Eddie. Eddie was seen parking at poles and playgrounds where he could watch children. The episode treats that behavior as a major red flag. It also includes allegations that he sexually gratified himself while watching children, including one prison account that says he did so while watching Sesame Street. Investigators found a scrapbook tied to Eddie that was full of photos of girls. One image of Punky Brewster in that scrapbook reportedly resembled Tammy. The episode keeps circling back to the same problem. There is no clean answer. Tammy is still missing. No one knows exactly what happened to her. The host closes by saying that the case nevertheless had an effect. Schools became more proactive about calling parents when a child did not arrive for the day. The episode ends as a reminder that some cases never resolve neatly, even when they leave a lasting change behind.

As heard by us

A grounded disappearance case with enough detail and unease to linger.

The episode treats Tammy Belanger's disappearance as both personal and deeply unsettling, and it is strongest when it stays close to the known details: her school-day routine, her habits, and her father's view that she would not have simply wandered off or left with a stranger.

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Why you'd press play

A New Hampshire disappearance case with a school-routine timeline, unsettling suspect details, and a lasting school-notification precedent.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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