by Tom Chillemi –
The search continues for who killed Margaret “Peggy” Lammers, who was found murdered in her family’s vacation home in Deltaville on July 11, 2017.
Initially there were fears by local residents that a killer was loose in Deltaville. However, the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office said there was nothing that would lead them to believe the community was at risk. In the three years since Lammers’ death, no other mysterious murder has occurred in Middlesex County, and the two Middlesex murder cases since 2017 resulted in convictions.
Lammers’ murder remains an active case and has not gone cold, said Maj. M.E. Sampson of the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office. The FBI’s Richmond field office and the Virginia State Police joined the investigation and are searching for answers to Lammers’ murder. “They have been invaluable with resources they offered in this investigation,” said Major Sampson. “The combined effort has resulted in new leads and we are diligently working every angle to bring closure to Peggy’s family and the community.”
Investigators are still asking the public to contact them with information. “Any information, no matter how insignificant it might seem, could be key to the investigation. Don’t hesitate to contact the sheriff’s office crime line at 804-758-5600.”
DNA discovered
In May 2018, Garth Wheeler who was then MCSO chief deputy said, “We are confident that an arrest is imminent.” However, Deputy Wheeler noted that solving cases takes time.
DNA from someone other than Lammers’ was recovered from the crime scene. Processing DNA by the Virginia Forensic Laboratory can take a year, and law enforcement agencies are limited to submitting three DNA samples at one time, said Major Sampson. The MCSO has submitted DNA to a private laboratory in Florida, seeking to speed up the investigation.
The cottage
Since 1986, Lammers and her family lived in Gates Mills, Ohio, near Cleveland. Her parents, Dr. John L. and Marjorie L. Thornton built the family vacation cottage in 1970 on Stove Point Road. When Lammers’ father died in November 2016, Lammers traveled back and forth from Ohio to Richmond and Deltaville as she and her siblings dealt with the settling of their parent’s estate, explained her sister Anne Thornton Fergusson of Richmond.
On June 30, 2017, the family gathered at the cottage for the Independence Day holiday. It would be the last time the cottage would be a happy place. By July 5 everyone had left. Lammers returned to the cottage alone on July 8, and Fergusson and other family members spoke with her in the coming days.
Lammers’ husband Tony Lammers, who lives out of state, had called the sheriff’s office on July 11, 2017 stating that attempts to contact his wife at the Deltaville residence via cell and house phones had been unsuccessful.
According to the search warrant, a Middlesex deputy responded and noticed an open sliding glass door at the rear of the single-story residence.
The deputy entered the house and found some things out of place — some handbags had been dumped out and a telescope was knocked over.
The deputy found Peggy Lammers’ body in a hallway in “a pool of blood.” The deputy also noticed bloody shoe prints on the floor of the residence. The victim was barefoot. The search warrant lists evidence collected, including a fixed-blade knife, beer bottles and DNA swabs.
Lammers, 61, had been bludgeoned. “I will never get over losing my sister, my best friend, in our favorite place on earth in such a violent and cruel way,” commented Fergusson in a previous Southside Sentinel article. Fergusson has said repeatedly that her goal is to keep Peggy Lammers’ name in the news hoping that it will prompt someone to come forward with information.
In 2018, the family offered a reward for information on the murder.
The murder has been devastating to Lammers’ daughter, A.J. Lammers, who goes by her initials A.J. “It’s a trauma I will carry with me for the rest of my life,” she said.
