MILLER COUNTY, Mo. – The Miller County Prosecutor has filed capital murder charges in the 1984 disappearance of Eldon teenager Tammy Rothganger. 

In his complaint, Prosecutor Benjamin Winfrey accuses Martin Dean Priest of strangling Rothganger to death on May 16, 1984. 

Priest is currently serving a life sentence for an unrelated murder in Kansas. Priest has been accused of multiple murders in Missouri and Kansas, according to Eldon Police Captain Brian Kidwell in the probable cause report.

Rothganger was last seen, by her mother, leaving for Eldon High School on the morning of her disappearance. Priest has been described as a “live-in paramour” of Rothganger’s mother in the probably cause statement. 

According to a juvenile witness, Priest and another man picked up Rothganger in a car that morning at the intersection of First Street and Pine Street, near the Eldon High School. Rothganger got in the back seat and the car turned left on Second Street. That was the last time the witness would see her friend.

The male passenger in the vehicle, a juvenile at the time, reported to witnessing Priest stop the car and hit Rothganger in the back of the head with a wrench, causing her to lose consciousness. Priest then allegedly raped Rothganger, strangling her until she was dead, according to the witness. The witnesses, identified only as D.N., told investigators that he and Priest hid the body at a residence before later returning to transport and bury the body in an unmarked location. 

While the witness identified as D.N. was a juvenile at the time of the murder, he would be at least 45 years old today. His identity is currently being protected and it is unclear if charges are pending for his role in the murder and subsequent cover up. 

The prosecuting attorney has released no information regarding the search for Rothganger’s remains in the reported “unmarked location.”

Priest, who had served time in prison for the murder of a 13-year-old girl before Rothganger’s disappearance, allegedly went on to commit multiple violent crimes before being found guilty of one murder in a double-homicide that occurred on Christmas Day 1984. 

He is currently serving a term of life in prison.

LakeExpo.com reporters are currently investigating this case in detail and will be publishing more extensive reports this week.


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