Tammy Lynn Jarschke, a 13-year-old white female from Seaside, California, was one of the victims of serial killer Joseph Michael Nissensohn. On June 24, 1981, Tammy and her friend, 14-year-old white female Tanya Jones, ran away from their foster home in Seaside. Their bodies were discovered months later in a remote forested area near Chews Ridge in Monterey County. The girls had been bound to trees with electrical wire, tortured, and murdered.
The case remained unsolved for decades until advancements in forensic technology and renewed investigations led to the arrest of Joseph Michael Nissensohn. In 2013, Nissensohn was convicted of the first-degree murders of Tammy Jarschke, Tanya Jones, and 15-year-old Kathy Graves of South Lake Tahoe, who was killed in 1989. The jury found that Nissensohn had subjected his victims to unimaginable pain and torture, preying upon vulnerable runaway girls. He was sentenced to death and is currently on death row at California State Prison in San Quentin.
Nissensohn's conviction brought some measure of closure to the families of the victims, who had waited decades for justice. Tammy's mother, Penny Jarschke, expressed the profound impact her daughter's murder had on her life, stating that it had completely destroyed her. The case highlighted the importance of persistent investigative efforts and the use of modern forensic techniques in solving cold cases.
