Narrator (14:23)

The Moth podcast, real people tell their stories of heartbreak, humor and crime live on stage.

Jake Brennan (14:29)

This identity theft was different because this person had messed with the most dangerous type of person that exists, which is someone with limited options and a lot of free time.

Narrator (14:40)

For mysteries big and small. Follow and listen to the Moth on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jake Brennan (14:52)

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In the weeks and months and years before this tragedy, however, the Algiers was already well established as an infamous locale in town, seeing as it was a magnet for sex workers, drug dealers and the Detroit PD's vice squad. It's also said to be the first place David Ruffin took Tammy Terrell just hours after they met. And their immediate sexual attraction demanded equally immediate privacy action. A sorted joint like the Algiers was custom made for moments like these. It was cheap. It was the last place two successful entertainers would be expected to frequent. And it was only a mile and a half down the road from where David and Tammy were now both working@ Hitsville USA. It wasn't long, however, until David decided that he wasn't content to just hide Tammy away at the Algiers. He wanted the world to know that she was just like the song said, his girl. And he spared no expense in doing so. He bought the two of them matching mink and sable threads as well as rings and watches made of gold and diamonds. They traveled in a stretch limo when they weren't riding on David's motorcycle, and he got them an apartment on the west side of town with bear and leopard skin rugs in the sitting room, an octopus in formaldehyde positioned under a lavish glass coffee table in the living room, and a giant painting of a black stallion that he hung over the bed. David Ruffin lived as excessively as any of Motown's stars, perhaps driven by a desire to make up for lost time, that time being the years he spent living in poverty, growing up with no running water in rural Mississippi. And so, as The Temptation scored four more number one R&B singles in 1966 and two number one R&B albums the following year with the hit songs Ain't Too Proud To Beg and I Wish It Would Rain, featuring David Ruffin on lead vocal for the Temptation's new superstar, excess became part of the ongoing celebration. It was a celebration fueled by cocaine and women, because Tammy Terrell wasn't David Ruffin's one and only. There was Jenna, the former Go Go dancer that David knocked up and stepped out on. And then there was Sandra, his wife back home, the one David cheated on with the Go Go dancer and who, as David told the dancer, had died in childbirth but in reality was very much alive and busy raising his two other infant children. Tammy was oblivious to the existence of these other women, at least for a while. So oblivious, in fact, that she said yes when David proposed to her. But to those not blinded by gaudy diamond rings and even gaudier furs, to those on the outside looking in all the showy clothing and the cocaine, the multiple women, it painted a very clear picture. Shelly Berger, the Temptation's longtime manager, put it this way, bluntly, and I quote, I think David dreamed of being a pimp. Even David's older brother Jimmy, whose ballad what Becomes of the Brokenhearted cracked the Billboard top 10 in the summer of 1966, used the word pimping to describe how David used and disposed of the women around him. But Tammy Tyrell wasn't one to be played by any of this pimp shit. Neither was she the type who was going to let herself get tossed by the wayside. She was a Tyrell. She was a born fighter. The window sash was thrown open and the balmy Detroit air came flooding in. Tammy was already hot, her heart racing, her head pounding. The tears running down her face and the warm blast from outside did her no favors, just like David did her no favors. Not anymore. Not since she'd discovered the truth that he was a liar and a cheat. She was just another spoil that the giant reaped. She stuck her head out the open window and then the upper part of her torso followed. She half contemplated going all the way just to piss David off. Wouldn't that be something? It would give a whole new meaning to his song I know I'm losing you, and that motherfucker would be sorry once and for all when he looked down from the apartment to see her lifeless body splayed out on the sidewalk below. As passersby stopped panicking, screaming in shock, she couldn't help but see the irony of her situation on the radio. Her duets with young America's beloved Marvin Gaye, songs like Ain't no Mountain High Enough and you're Precious Love, the songs that were making her famous Temptations famous actually were a stark contrast to the bitter drama playing out in her real life. It's a common misconception that Tammy and Marvin were lovers, because the classic duets they cut are some of the greatest love songs ever. But theirs was a collaborative musical love. It existed on the microphone and on the records. The love that Tammy had experienced with David, or what she thought was love. Maybe what she fooled herself into believing was love. That love hurt. Marvin's love didn't hurt like that, which made her wonder, was it even real? Right then David came storming out of the bedroom in his underwear, coked up as usual, squeezing his runny nose in between his fingers. Go ahead. He yelled at Tammy. Do it. He got closer, close enough now that she could smell his sweat and his cologne. It was a combination that she once found undeniable, but now it just made her angry. She was also angry that she was failing to elicit the desired response. She knew that what David was doing at this moment was exactly what she was doing, trying to hurt him. Go ahead. He yelled. Jump. Tammy's head was throbbing. She'd endured headaches her entire teenage and adult life, but her time with David had made them even worse. She pulled herself back inside the apartment and slammed the window Shut. Fuck you, David. All you care about is yourself. Eddie and Otis and the other guys told me all about your bullshit. How you want to change the name of the band to David Ruffin and the Temptations like your Diana fucking Ross. Bitch. You're not even Mary fucking Wilson. Why don't you take your stupid country ass and fuck off back to whatever backwater hole you crawled out of? Or better yet, go crawl him back to the latest and greatest whore you just fucked. Yeah, I know all about that shit, David. It takes two, babe. Just like Marvin said. Do you want to talk about a real man, David? Marvin's a real man. Marvin's a class act. He's not like you and he's not like James Brown. He doesn't need to beat a woman to feel like a real man. In fact, he's twice the man that you are. And he's got twice the voice too. At that, David's eyes went so wide it looked like the horn rims would pop right off his face. He walked away into another room, rambling. And then moments later was back, still pissed off, still in his tighty whities, still coked out of his gourd. Only this time, in his hand, he held a large and heavy object. And he proceeded to use that very large and heavy object to inflict maximum pain and do maximum damage to the face of Tammy Terrell. Tammy would later tell multiple people that David Ruffin hit her in the head with his motorcycle helmet. She also said that after all the previous instances of physical abuse she'd endured while with him, this one, the motorcycle helmet incident, that this was the one that ended their relationship for good. By the time that Tammy walked away from David, everyone at Motown knew what was going on. Even studio head Barry Gordy knew the score. And this was a guy who Tammy had come to see the way she saw Marvin Gaye. As a man who wasn't like the rest, but was something of a protector. But the protectors had all gone silent and the damage had been done. It was there in the cold light of day, written all over her petite body. The welts, the bruises, the golf ball sized knot that she showed to the temptations. Otis Williams. Otis is the last surviving member of the group and the only one to write a book. In his memoir, Originally published in 1988, Otis had this to say about it all. Quote, David's thing with Tammy was intense and quite tumultuous. Their relationship was definitely a rocky one, unquote, rocky, tumultuous. David's thing. Why was David Ruffin's violent and destructive behavior still being swept under the rug two whole decades after the fact? Was it to protect a legacy? To protect that squeaky clean money making image? Even the popular Temptations miniseries, it was released 10 years after Otis Book. While it didn't portray David in the greatest light, it failed to admit a deeper truth. A truth that was known to everyone who spent any time inside the walls at 2648 W. Grand Blvd. In Detroit. A truth that was the first thing on everyone's minds when the worst fate imaginable befell Tammy Turrell the day that death came calling. We'll be right back after this.

Narrator (26:32)

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When David Ruffin's on and off again girlfriend Jenna, the former Go Go dancer he'd had an affair with while still married to his first wife, a woman who had given birth to one of his children, heard about David's affair with Tammy Tyrrell. She became distraught. She tried to take her own life, first by slashing her wrist with a razor and then by drinking bottles of eye drops that contained high levels of mercury. Neither did the job instead, landing her on the floor of her apartment, bloody and sick, where a friend found her shortly after. The first phone call the friend made was to David Ruffin. She expected David to drop everything and haul ass to take care of the mother of his child. David's response, however, was quite the opposite. Why are you calling me? He asked. Call the police. But when Tammy Terrell collapsed on stage while performing with Marvin Gaye on October 14, 1967 in Virginia after the alleged motorcycle helmet incident and after her presumed breakup with David Ruffin, David came running. He found Tammy back in her hometown in a Philadelphia hospital. At first, her dramatic collapse was chalked up to exhaustion. Her grueling tour with Marvin, performing every night seven days a week meant popping aspirin every night seven days a week. To keep her persistent headaches at bay, doctors ran a few tests and sent her home for bed rest. But before too long, she was back. After her dentist noticed that half of her face was sagging. This time, doctors discovered a tumor in the lower posterior part of her brain. They operated and removed the tumor, but the malignant growth had, for who knows how long, blocked drainage of spinal fluid which had built up around her brain. This, the doctor said, was why she experienced such debilitating headaches. So a few months later, a second surgery was performed to insert a small tube in her head and to drain the fluid. But then the tube stopped working properly, so additional surgeries were needed. Tammy would go on to have eight surgeries in total over the next few years. It was a long, drawn out ordeal during which the once stunning beauty would lose her hair, her sight, and drop down to just over £90. And when the going got tough for Tammy Terrell, however, David Ruffin was nowhere to be found. He left her bedside. He stopped calling, he stopped thinking of her. In fact, he was onto his next mark, Barbara Gail Martin, daughter of Frank Sinatra's right hand man, Dean Martin. Whether David truly missed Tammy Terrell, we'll never know. But we do know that at this time in early 1968, there was plenty that David Ruffin was missing. Eddie Kendrick's, Paul Williams, Melvin Franklin and Otis Williams were standing around backstage at the Versailles Hotel in Cleveland, looking fine in their neatly pressed matching suits. All of them wondering the same thing. Where the fuck was David? It was June 22, 1968, and the Temptations were preparing to perform the second to last show of a ten night run at the Versailles. For the first time since their inception, all members of the Temps were, honest to God, millionaires. Their latest Single I Wish It Would Rain had recently topped the RB chart in March and made it all the way to number four on the Billboard Hot 100. But then just a month later in April, shots rang out in the Memphis sky. Martin Luther King Jr. Was assassinated while standing on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel, a hotel that the temps had stayed at recently while on tour. The gold star glow of success was suddenly tinged with the bloody shadow of fear for Eddie, Paul Melvin and Otis. The simple act of stepping out onto a stage in front of a largely white audience, the lights blinding your eyes. It felt like you were presenting yourself as a target. And if that wasn't bad enough, David Ruffin, the voice of that latest number one R B single, was once again mia. It wasn't unusual for David to miss rehearsal. He'd been spending more time in LA than Detroit these days and in general his MO was this. Drive around in his fancy ass car, peacock around in his fancy ass clothes, get off with one of his fancy ass women and make it to the show in dramatic last minute fancy ass fashion. He was big time in the mall, putting forth an unsolicited bid to be the leader of a band that wanted nothing to do with with leaders. What they all wanted was their fifth member here with them right now. But David was 200 miles away in Buffalo, watching from the crowd as his latest flame, the Rat Pack progeny, tried to get her own career off the ground. So they went on without him. And halfway through the show there was a commotion. Someone made their way through the audience and up onto the stage. It was David. He slid right into the dance moves. The group was in the middle of his voice, blending in perfectly with them all, as if the first half of the set had just been a warm up for this, for David's triumphant return for the show to start for real. The audience ate it up. The Temptations, on the other hand, had long since had their fill of David Ruffin. They made sure they got Barry Gordy's blood blessing. And when they had it, they told the one time sleeping giant that he was being cut down to size. David was out and his replacement, Dennis Edwards was in. But David wasn't about to go quietly. He showed up at the next gig and the next. Wired on cocaine, he made a beeline for the stage. He was a man possessed. He was a man scorned. He was a man who didn't take no for an answer. The Temptation's road manager, Don Foster, stepped out of the shadows and got directly in front of David blocking his path. Don put his hands up. The fuck are you doing, Dave? David didn't slow down. He raised his hand and slapped Don hard across the face. And Don recoiled backward and the path was cleared. Seconds later, David was back on stage, microphone in hand, singing alongside his replacement. This went on for the next month. David stage bombing and upstaging until Motown hired a bodyguard and placed him at the foot of the stage. The big dude took the macho energy emanating from David Ruffin and sent it back out into the universe, where David received it, acknowledged it, and finally stopped showing up. The Temptation's next few studio albums took a giant step away from David Ruffin, away from the traditional Motown sound and into the realm of a post Jimi Hendrix, post Sly Stone psychedelic soul sound, full of fuzzed out guitar tones and harder wanna take you higher rhythmic edges. Albums like Cloud 9, Puzzle People and Psychedelic Shack represented a bold new phase in the life of one of Motown's most successful vocal groups. Psychedelic Shack in particular was the number one R B record in America for four straight weeks, beginning in mid April of 1970, until it was dethroned from the top spot by Isaac Hayes, new long player on May 16, the very same day that Tammy Terrell, who'd been in a coma during the Temptation's entire run at the top, died at the age of 24. Tammy Terrell's funeral was held a few days after her death at the Jane Methodist Church in Philadelphia. According to an article in Jet magazine at the time, thousands of mourners were in attendance. That number would have been much higher, however, had Tammy's mother let just anyone walk through the church's front doors. But not just anyone was welcome that day. There was a very specific and very large group of people that were forbidden from attending Tammy Terrell's funeral. Anyone who worked for or was affiliated with Motown Records was not welcome. Not Berry Gordy, not any of the Temptations, and certainly not David Ruffin. None of those people were welcome. Except for one, that is Marvin Gaye. And Marvin Gaye fought back tears as he delivered the ceremony's emotional eulogy, while one of his duets with Tammy, you're All I Need to get by, played softly in the background. Marvin's speech moved the entire room. And that song of theirs was perhaps never more powerful than it was in that moment. The fact that Marvin Gaye was the only Motown artist present at the funeral spoke volumes. And it also amplified what was now being heard through the grapevine that David Ruffin had had in some way played a part in Tammy's death. And that the Temptations, very Gordy Motown at large, Marvin excluded, they were all complicit because they did nothing about it. The Grapevine said that the abuse Tammy sustained during her time with David, being hit with a motorcycle helmet and perhaps even worse, only compounded her existing medical condition and ushered her faster toward the end End of her short life. If Tammy's days were numbered from the start, then David removed a few weeks here and there from the calendar. At least that was the Grapevine talking. Back in Detroit, David Ruffin was holed up in his place on Parkside. The doorbell rang. He opened the front door to see his on again, off again girlfriend, Jenna standing there. He let her in and then led her to his bedroom. If David wasn't mourning, he was doing a great job hiding it. But then, David was always in control of what everyone else saw. If only he could have kept control of the Temptations. Jana got nosy and started poking around one of the drawers of his dresser, which was slightly open. And stuffed inside were photos of Tammy, letters from Tammy, newspaper articles about Tammy. Jenna looked at David. Are you gonna keep all these? She asked. Why do you care? David said. She's dead. Maybe it was the thought of Tammy six feet under. Maybe it was Jenna poking through his shit. Or maybe it was just David being David, as they used to say around the Motown offices whenever Tammy showed up. Black and blue. Whatever it was, before Jenna left that day, David broke her nose with his fist. Marvin Gaye, meanwhile, was dealing with a broken heart that would never be whole again. Tammy's death crushed him. It sent him spiraling into cocaine addiction, a path that had been blazed by a certain David Ruffin long before him. Marvin used coke and later PCP to self medicate and to dull himself to the reality of a world without Tammy in it. It was a world that was beyond fucked up. Marvin didn't recognize it anymore. Far too many people were dying. And while he never got over losing Tammy, Marvin took that pain, that heartbreak, and put it into his next record, what's Going On? The first Motown album that was more than just a collection of songs and one of the greatest albums ever made. It was an album made for a new decade, a new America, inspired by one of Motown's greatest talents, a woman the great label had so wrongly let down. And the fact that Tammy Tyrell didn't get to hear her friend Marvin's masterpiece, well, that's just a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. All Right Discos. Thanks for listening to this episode of Disgraceland, our part two episode on the Temptations. Listen, if you're an Apple podcast listener, get auto downloads turned on so you don't miss any of our stories. Guys, the question of the week that I want to hear from from you on is was Tammy Terrell the most mistreated woman in music history? It's a long list, I know, but this story, my God damn just let down all over the place from so many different people. 617-906-6638 with your answers, hit me up on voicemail. Send me a text disgracelandpodgmail.com if you want to email me at scracelandpod on the socials, you're gonna be able to hear your answers. Some the of of your answers. Anyways, on the next episode coming up in your feed, the afterparty episode where we play your answers to our question of the week. Again, was Tammy Tyrell the most mistreated woman in the history of music? Yeesh. That's a tough one. I know. Get at me. We'll get into it on the after party. All right. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man. If you work as a manufacturing facilities engineer, installing a new piece of equipment can be as complex as the machinery itself. From prep work to alignment and testing, it's your team's job to put it all together. 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