Bobbie Jo was not from Kentucky. All the motorcycle gang members thought she was and, quite honestly, you and I would think there was a good chance she was, too. And that worked out well.
The 1%-ers – hardcore motorcycle gangbangers prowling Southern and Central Illinois – sold Bobbie Jo load after load of drugs after month after month: cannabis, crack, cocaine, heroin, LSD, crystal meth... And Bobbie Jo just kept buying and buying and buying, the 1%-ers never questioning the Kentucky-esque twang that so fit her name, the big Harley she rode in on or her modus operandi.
They didn't know Bobbie Jo wasn't Bobbie Jo at all until that day at the courthouse in Belleville. They didn't know that a snitch had got her into their circle, warmed them up to her, and made them trust. They, who would sell their own soul to the devil lest get caught drug trafficking, believed in Bobbie Jo. So when they saw her on the St. Clair County courthouse steps clad in a very un-Bobbie Jo-like business suit on the date of their arraignment, they were a little confused: “Oh no, Bobbie Jo! They arrested you too?”
For Bobbie Jo, the charade that defined that era of her life had ended. No longer would she climb onto the Harley in both Collinsville and Danville, ride hours through the backwoods of southern Illinois, trade illicit drugs for cash hand-to-hand, and return in the evening to live what felt like her double life as an average law-abiding citizen.
The swimming, tennis, basketball, badminton and softball playing, teaching-certified 1982 Eastern Illinois University graduate would no longer act the part as an undercover motorcycle drug purchaser. She could now be herself: Tammra “Tammie” Byers, an Illinois State Trooper since 1983.
It was by chance that Byers was Bobbie Jo at all. A driver's education course added to her undergraduate load happened to include a motorcycle endorsement. Needing a female agent to assume the undercover role, the Illinois State Police Southern Intelligence Gang Crimes Unit based out of Springfield assigned Byers who, in 1986, had just completed the Illinois State Police Academy's Department of Criminal Investigation's New Agents Class, and was one of very few females who fit the bill.
The role led her down a path she never intended. An Eisenhower High School in Decatur, Illinois, graduate, Byers headed to Charleston because that's where her friends, teammates of hers on her high school's sports teams, had headed. They loved the school and Byers did not doubt she'd feel the same, pursuing a teaching certificate after enrolling in 1978.
That's a decade before she'd find herself on Route 51, just south of Oconee, Ill, one cold January day; the day her partner was killed.
Byers posed as the niece of Alfred E. Buscher, Assistant Warden of the Vandalia Correctional Center, supposedly broken down on the side of Route 51 with two friends that fateful day. Buscher, a cog in the scheme's wheel, telephoned Raymond Ruhl, also an employee of the correctional center and a suspect wanted for hiring a hit man to murder his wife, Lisa. Authorities had received a warrant for Ruhl's arrest as a result of the “murder for hire” allegations.
Busher requested he assist his niece and her inoperable automobile on Route 51 just south of Oconee. Ruhl, the nervous sort, always cautious, always suspicious, did not fall for the ploy. When he arrived at the setup, he refused to get out of the car even as Byers approached the vehicle, asking for his help.
About to call off the plan due to Ruhl's not cooperating, one of Byers' “friends” – undercover agent Virgil Lee Bensyl – approached Ruhl's car, revealing his position with the Illinois State Police. Ruhl, known to own countless guns and function as an arms dealer, had a weapon concealed in his jacket. Upon hearing Bensyl's announcement, he fired a shot over Byers' left shoulder, inflicting a fatal wound.
Byers returned fire and recoiled to the rear of the vehicle. The slow-motion seconds that ensued produced countless gun shots, back-up officers' arrival, another officer critically wounded and Ruhl dead. Byers, in the line of fire throughout the shootout, came out unscathed physically, but emotionally wounded. Her perseverance and relentless fighting earned her an Illinois Governor's Award of Valor and National Association of Chiefs of Police Silver Star of Bravery.
The experience taught her never to stop fighting no matter the circumstance; a trait instilled in her early days as a student-athlete, but fostered throughout her 27 years of ups and downs, crime and punishment, creation of memories both held dear and pushed to the outer reaches of remembering.
The yin and yang of positive and negative experiences fueled Byers' career, leading her up the ladder from Trooper to Special Agent to Sergeant to Master Sergeant. The self-labeled “anal-retentive neatnik” behaviors that allowed Byers to manage her schedule as a multi-sport athlete at EIU made her the perfect woman for the job as the Illinois State Police Statewide Evidence Vault Custodian to which she was appointed in 2003.
Coordinating the largest single move of evidence in State Police history – from a 10,000 square foot Armory basement in Springfield to a brand-new 25,000 square foot, multi-storied vault – Byers and her officers safely transported and secured over 28,000 exhibits, completing the task in 2008 and earning an Illinois State Police Unit Citation honor.
In November 2008, Byers returned to EIU for the first time in years to attend the Pioneers of Women's Athletics ceremony. Having represented EIU in an era where women were not awarded letters for their efforts, Byers received the overdue symbolic acknowledgement for her role in paving the way for Panther female student-athletes to come. The gesture reconnected Byers with her alma mater and gave her what she comments as her greatest experience with EIU.
In those years Byers was a uniformed Panther, she stood tall on a variety of fields, always herself, never giving up, always persevering. That resilience and drive has fueled her in many a circumstance her tenure with the Illinois State Police has presented her, no matter the uniform the position required. Even when she was Bobbie Jo.
