The Second Trip: June 2006

 

All the trips I took in Tammy Zywicki’s case had secondary explanations.  I never took a trip to investigate Tammy Zywicki’s case in the direct sense. I would use another explanation that was the truth in case anyone asked. 

 

In June 2006, this was very much how my second trip came about.  I was very interested in travel and in one road in particular:  Route 66.  2006 was the 80^th anniversary of Route 66.  I had a plan for a small trip to follow the old Route 66 down to the middle of Illinois.  My plan was to explore Route 66 between Joliet and McClean, Illinois, then come back.  I chose McClean, Illinois because there was a famous truck stop called Dixie that supposedly had a bunch of Route 66 memorabilia.  Then I would come back up I-39 to explore the Lasalle, Mendota, IL area and eventually go back east home. 

 

If you do not know anything about Route 66, once you get down near Gardner, IL you can follow the frontage road along the expressway.  I-55 was the road that replaced Route 66 so the frontage road that runs alongside it near Gardner is the actual Route 66.

 

After the historical side of my trip was complete I went north along I-39 and thought that maybe this might be the area where the killer lived.  Since Tammy Zywicki was found in different clothing than what she was last seen wearing, I theorized that maybe she was in someone’s house in Illinois before being driven to Missouri.  From where Tammy Zywicki was abducted on I-80, I thought I-39 south meeting up with I-55 to I-44 was probably the route the killer took.   At one point I even theorized that it could be the Route 66 killer that was involved even though there is no such thing as far as I know.  When you are younger you come up with wild theories that have no basis in fact other than what you think. 

 

Taking some more information from the People Magazine article, “The Long Road Back” I wanted to go to the Mendota truck stop area off I-39.  One eyewitness account of Tammy Zywicki was from a motel clerk who said she swears she saw Tammy asking about information at the motel.  I think it was a Super 8 motel, because that was the closest one I found right next to the truck stop in Mendota.  It made sense.  I took numerous pictures of trucks with logos(today I ask myself why).  But I sat there wondering if any of the trucks driving past me might be the killer. 

 

I then took a square route east over to the road that goes south to the overpass that crosses over I-80 near MM83 and then back west and north again to the Mendota truck stop.  I think when you look at a location you have to look at the location as a whole (north south east west) to get a better picture of the travel and landscape.  Where Tammy disappeared from along I-80 is rather desolate.  Other than some farm houses, her best bet was to try and walk to the next exit along I-80 to maybe find a gas station.  I stopped at those gas stations too off the next exit, which if I remember correctly is Utica.  It is not too far down the interstate from where she disappeared.  But gas stations might have surveillance cameras.  Numerous motorists would have seen a woman walking west along I-80.  I do not remember reading about any people that witnessed this possible scenario.  And so for the most part I eliminated the idea that she walked to the next exit.  My conclusion is that whatever happened to Tammy Zywicki probably happened around the area of her car. 

 

Then I got back on I-80 eastbound and passed by MM83 again.    

The First Trip: July 30-31, 2005

 

I was thinking back about how I investigated Tammy Zywicki’s case and started to remember a little more.  I actually took four separate trips in regard to the case:  2005, 2006, 2007, and 2011.  I am trying to remember everything from memory so sometimes I forget important details.  As I relate my investigation into Tammy Zywicki’s case I will try and update any missed information.

After I read the article, “The Long Road Back”, in People Magazine, I realized that while the case happened in Illinois, Grinnell College played a big part in Tammy Zywicki’s life.  She actually had not been at the college since the end of fall semester the previous year.  In spring semester 1992, Tammy had gone to Spain to study abroad so when she made that fateful trip in August 1992 she was returning to school for the first time in almost 9 months.

Being able to understand how people think is a difficult task, especially when they are a complete stranger and you have never met them or any of their friends.  But I thought it was important to try to understand Tammy Zywicki and how she may have made decisions.  From what I read, Spain has a great party nightlife scene, and it is easy to let your guard down.  If you were to expect something bad to happen it would probably be when you are living in a foreign country, not on a U.S. interstate you have traveled numerous times before. 

I cannot conclude what happened to Tammy Zywicki on the afternoon of August 23^rd, 1992.  Did she willingly get into a stranger’s car or was she abducted from the side of the road?  But I think you have to try and look at the whole picture.  I read that in the FBI it is important to know how to read and interpret people.  And I wanted to try to get to know Tammy Zywicki and her life at Grinnell College.  In order to do that I felt it best to go to Grinnell College. 

In late July 2005 I made the trip out there.  I used my own car because it was a straight shot down I-80 to Iowa.  Grinnell itself is a small town that I do not think was too far from the interstate.  When I arrived on campus, my goal was basically to go to the school library and look at as many news articles as I could find about the Tammy Zywicki case from August 1992.  As I was not a student at Grinnell College, I wanted to be careful. 

I remember walking on campus and realizing how wide open and grassy the campus was.  I remember thinking how similar it was to the campus of the school I attended.  It was easy to find the library because the building looked almost the same as the one at my own school.  I went directly to the library and the microfilm room to get as much information from old newspapers as I possibly could.  I seemed to fit right in using the Grinnell library, but I was also much younger then and looked like a college student too.

I wish I could find all the information I had written down about Tammy Zywicki’s case.  I had a case file where I kept a bunch of newspaper articles and ideas about the case, but I had to quickly abandon the house I was living in.  Some of my stuff was left behind as well as other family items.  A fire damaged a lot of paperwork and other things that I had.  The house was deemed uninhabitable and I had to go immediately.  If the fire did not damage all my Zywicki information, the water the fire department sprayed on it probably did.  But if somehow I find it, I will try and post the information. 

 What I do remember is finding one article in a local newspaper in late August, early September 1992, about a woman who had been sexually assaulted on a rural road in Poweshiek County near a town called Montezuma.  Her car had broke down when a man stopped to help.  Instead he assaulted her.  But the description of the man was that he had blond hair.  Even so I felt it might be related to Tammy Zywicki’s case.  Maybe some man was going around looking for stranded motorists who were women?  I thought there might have been more articles about Tammy Zywicki, but I did not find out too much more than I had already known about her.

 I left Grinnell College and made the trip back home again passing by MM83, this time heading eastbound.  I kept reading up on criminal behavior and LTL trucking at the library.  I examined some other cases too.  I had gone to Grinnell College, but for my next trip I wanted to go in a different direction.    

10 years later

 It is sort of strange sometimes that I can actually remember where I was 10 years later.  Ten years ago I was out at the beach thinking.  I had some cancer surgery coming up and I was thinking about that a lot.  Sometime I think our experiences shape our taste in music and movies.  I like the music videos for the songs Radioactive by Imagine Dragons and Cells by The Servant because I wondered if they are about that cancer.  I think the answer is no, but I like the songs anyway.  This is one example of how each of us perceives information differently.   

In cases like Tammy Zywicki and really any case where a long period of time has passed, memories matter.  They matter because people change, but so do landscapes and locations.  My opinion is that the longer a case goes on the harder it is to solve.  Every case is framed within its relationship to time.  And if your best suspect at the time is a guy who was a trucker who lived near Sarcoxie, MO, and was possibly seen talking to Tammy Zywicki next to her car on August 23, 1992, that is what you go with.

I cannot stress this next point enough.  People that send in tips or are sure about some information they think they know is correct are mostly genuine in nature.  The woman who reported Lonnie Beirbrodt as a possible suspect was genuine.  All the people that have probably reported seeing the person who they think killed Abigail Williams and Liberty German are also genuine. That is another post for another time, but I could go on on on.  When people have theories and ideas or tips they think the police should know about, they are trying to help.  Unfortunately though, our memories are not always accurate.  

In the first 6 or 7 months of the Tammy Zywicki case, I was thinking about it so much that I literally started to dream about it. From August 2003 until March 2004, I was all in about solving Tammy Zywicki's case.  But reality slow set in that there are other cases.  There are other things going on.  I dreamt about this case in March 2004 and after that I realized it was time to step back and look at other cases. 

But I never stopped completely thinking about Tammy Zywicki's case.  And even though I came across Amanda Tusing's case and a few others, I always came back to this one.  So it was inevitable that when I had some vacation time from work in March 2007, I wanted to actually see the area where Tammy Zywicki's body was eventually found.  I thought it was probably Exit 33 along I-44 after studying topographical maps I saw at the bookstore.  And I thought it was most likely an entrance ramp from the slope of the road that I saw in some old news coverage of the case. 

There was one problem with the truck driver theory that I thought about even before I took the drive.  I could not get over all the other exits that a truck driver would pass that would be so much better than the one where Tammy Zywicki's body was eventually found.  In order to really understand a case you have to actually see an area to try to get into the mindset of why that particular exit.  Maybe there was no other reason but that it was familiar to that person because it is where they might usually get off to go home.  I wanted to see the exit for myself.  And on a March weekend in 2007, that is what I did.  

The First 7 Months: August 23, 2003 - March 2004

I will try and keep my story about Tammy Zywicki and how I investigated her case.  There are times where it will probably sway away from Tammy, but I will do my best to get back on track.  

I need to correct something from an earlier post a few days ago.  Thinking back I remember I decided to look at Tammy Zywicki's case from the perspective of it NOT being a truck driver.  But I always considered the truck driver theory a good one because it makes sense.   

So Tammy Zywicki's case investigation basically started for me on Saturday, August 23, 2003.  All I saw when I went out there was the 83 mile marker.  Next to the side of the highway is a large grassy area bordered by some small trees and a small fence.  Across the way was a farm house with a pickup truck in the driveway.  I wondered if maybe Tammy had somehow walked to this house asking for help or to use the phone?  It is said that numerous people stopped to help her, but none had a phone and she decided not to take a ride with any of these people. 

I spent hours looking up the logo from the semi truck reportedly parked near Tammy Zywicki's car.  If only I could find that logo it would lead to the trucking company which would lead to the murderer.  That was easier said than done.  I wrote a few letters to the FBI anonymously until I realized that I am going to be applying anyway so I might well just send the letters with my name and address.  I even sent a letter to Illnois State police about the guy in the farmhouse because there is an overpass very near to the 83 mile marker.  Maybe he saw something that day when driving or maybe he was involved?  I probably would not send these letters today as I would assume that after over 11 years police would have already thought of these ideas. But during those first 6 months of my "investigation" I was consumed with looking at trucking logos or any logo really that might match the one from the semi parked near Tammy's car.

I was close to having enough of Tammy Zywicki's case after only 6 months.  I sent what I thought was my final letter to the FBI in March 2004 and decided the case was over.  It was probably a truck driver, but I was not convinced of it.  I had looked so intently at Tammy Zywicki's case that I even had a dream I thought might be related to it.  

But lets discuss why I thought it might not be a truck driver.  It had to do with location and circumstances.  Nobody knew Tammy Zywicki's car was going to break down that afternoon on August 23rd, 1992.  Tammy's body was found near the town of Sarcoxie, MO in southwest Missouri.  If a truck driver had been driving a route that day to Missouri and he was traveling westbound, I think he would have taken I-55 through Illnois.  But where Tammy broke down is closer to I-39.  Of course I know truck drivers go various places, but it is hard to believe anyone would continue to make stops with a kidnapping victim in their cab.  Again, the Lasalle/Peru suspect makes sense until you consider something else.  She had on different clothes from what she was last wearing.  It might seem like it takes a long time to drive from mile marker 83 near Utica, Illinois to Exit 33 in Sarcoxie, MO, but it can be done in a day even leaving in the mid afternoon.  And supposedly this man's wife was home.  Maybe he decided to drive to his place in Sarcoxie, MO with Tammy?  But then why wrap her body and take it back out to the highway exit, which was actually an entrance ramp to go further westbound away from Sarcoxie, MO towards Oklahoma.  

Then there were the eyewitness statements.  If a semi had been parked behind Tammy Zywicki's car and the hood of Tammy's car was up, it would take one heck of an eyewitness to make a positive ID.  If a witness had been traveling eastbound, then it would be very difficult to try and get a good glimse of her alongside the road.  But at least eastbound makes some sense.  Take your eyes of the road and you can start drifting.  If you really think about it, try looking away from the road for 3 seconds or more to see something or someone alongside the road on the other side.  It can be done going slow, but at 70 mph first you have to find your object and then try focusing on it to remember.

After about 6 months of looking at logos and writing letters, I realized it was going nowhere.  Around this time in March 2004 and for the next few years, I focused on hobbies and activities, but gained an appreciation for true crime.  Many of the first crimes shows on Court TV like Forensic Files came out during this time.  I figured it was better to try and actually learn a little bit more about crime than just trying to be my own detective.  I bought some books on true crime and started expanding my blog to more than just the Tammy Zywicki case.  

But I am not going to stray off point again, although from time to time I may title a post revisiting another case.  Not now though.  I want to keep the focus on Tammy Zywicki.