On April 16, 1989, the life of 18-year-old Tammie Lynn Erwin, a young woman, was violently cut short near Palm Springs, California. Her body was discovered in a deserted area of Riverside County, where she had been shot to death. For years, her case remained a painful, unsolved mystery for her family and investigators, one of several killings of women in Southern California that seemed to have no answers.
The truth behind Tammie's murder began to surface nearly a thousand miles away and many years later. The path to justice was intricately linked to the crimes of Andrew Urdiales, a former United States Marine who had been stationed at various bases in Southern California between 1984 and 1991. Urdiales embarked on a horrific killing spree that spanned a decade, from 1986 to 1996, leaving a trail of at least eight murdered women across California and Illinois.
Tammie was his fourth known victim in California.
While serving in the military, Urdiales targeted women, often shooting or stabbing them. On that day in April, Urdiales picked up Tammie and drove her to a remote location in Palm Springs. After sexually assaulting her, he shot her in the head and hip. Following the murder, he dismantled the handgun he had used to kill her, as well as two previous victims, and disposed of the parts.
The investigation into these murders grew cold. After being honorably discharged from the military, Urdiales moved back to his home state of Illinois, where his violence continued. It was not until November 1996 that a crucial break occurred. Police in Hammond, Indiana, arrested Urdiales for loitering in an area known for prostitution and found a handgun in his truck. Ballistics testing connected the weapon to three recent murders in Illinois. During interrogation, Urdiales not only confessed to the three Illinois killings but also stunned investigators by admitting to five unsolved murders in California, including Tammie's.
Urdiales was first tried in Illinois and sentenced to death for two of the murders in 2002, and convicted of a third in 2004. However, when Illinois abolished capital punishment in 2011, his sentences were commuted to life in prison without parole. This decision paved the way for his extradition to California in 2011 to finally face charges for the murders of Robbin Brandley, Julie McGhee, Mary Ann Wells, Denise Maney, and Tammie Erwin.
In 2018, an Orange County jury found Andrew Urdiales guilty of all five murders and, after hearing the devastating details of his crimes, recommended the death penalty. During the sentencing hearing, Tammie's family delivered powerful victim impact statements. Her father, Charles Erwin, spoke of his unending grief, stating, “On April 16, 1989, Andrew Urdiales not only killed my daughter, but he killed me inside. This has ruined my life. It has turned my physical being into pieces; my mental being into pieces.” A letter from her stepmother, Linda Erwin, read in court, conveyed a similar sentiment of a life frozen in time: “We can’t live our lives in a normal manner. We can’t let go. It’s like we are trapped in 1989.”
On October 5, 2018, a judge affirmed the jury's recommendation, and Andrew Urdiales was sentenced to death. However, he would not be executed by the state. Less than a month later, on November 2, 2018, the 54-year-old serial killer was found unresponsive in his cell on death row at San Quentin State Prison, having died by suicide. While his death brought an end to a long and painful legal chapter, it could never erase the profound loss suffered by the families of his many victims.
