Cold murder case of 23-year-old New Jersey woman solved after 27 years

Authorities announced Monday that an arrest has been made in the unsolved murder of a New Jersey woman who was killed and abandoned in a park nearly 30 years ago.

Tamara “Tammy” Tignor was 23 years old when she was killed. Her body was found Nov. 4, 1997, near Washington Valley Park in Bridgewater Township, about 35 miles southwest of Central Park.

Robert Creter, a 60-year-old man from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, was arrested earlier this year and charged with Tignor’s murder, the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office said Monday. Creter arrived in New Jersey on November 26 after being extradited from Canada.

“The arrest of a suspect in this decades-old case is a testament to law enforcement’s unwavering commitment to justice, no matter how much time has passed,” said Col. Patrick Callahan, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police.

According to police, Tignor was last seen getting into an orange van in Newark, New Jersey. Investigators believe Creter picked her up in the van, sexually assaulted her and then strangled her to death before dumping her body in the park.

At the time of the murder, Creter was a 33-year-old man living in the North Jersey area, cops said.

According to investigators, Creter, who was born in Canada, returned to the country in 2002. Advances in DNA technology allowed police to identify him as a suspect in January 2023. He was charged in May 2023, arrested in Canada in June 2024 and extradited to the United States last week.