The Fourth and Final Trip: May 7, 2011

 After the third trip I took in March 2007, things started to change in my own life.  There were some job issues and I was not making the money I needed to make anyway.  Less money made it more difficult to continue these pursuits of playing private eye.  I started drinking which was not smart and did not help in getting into any sort of shape or helping to make good decisions.  I was NOT the FBI or police investigating Tammy Zywicki's case anyway.  

The apprehension of truck driver Mendenhall in July 2007, 15 years later, looked good at first glance.  But the more I looked at him, it seemed like he preyed on prostitutes.  That combined with everything else I had already learned about the case started to make me skeptical that it was a truck driver at all. But with the distance involved I could completely understand the theory of it being a truck driver.  

The trips were over with. It was after this point that I wanted to continue Tammy Zywicki's case, but had no idea what else to do.  That is when I came up with the idea for this blog. I had seen other people online start blogs sharing their ideas about true crime, and I figured I had an even better blog idea as I had actually investigated a case. I started this blog on February 27, 2008.  I wrote a lot of posts, but many of them were full of theories without any sort of facts behind them.  I deleted most of these posts as I hope that people that may come across my blog use it for the information that matters in helping get Tammy Zywicki's case solved.  One post I wrote was based on a trip I took on May 7, 2011 to Ottawa, IL.  I copied and pasted it, a post called "Hardees" from June 27, 2011 below:

I read two interesting items concerning Tammy Zywicki's case that I did not know before. First, before she ever broke down at MM83 near Utica, IL, her car also broke down earlier near Morris, IL. Second, supposedly she stopped at a Hardees before she broke down at MM83. A Hardee's drink cup and a napkin that had been used to check the oil were found in her car by police after she disappeared. The only Hardee's I could find is an abandoned building that used to house the restaurant. It is located off Exit 90 in Ottawa, IL although I am not sure that is the one she went to the day she disappeared. The Hardee's has a large parking lot and the restaurant has alot of windows with the drive-thru facing the parking lot. I assume she went through the drive thru because she had to keep going to school, but maybe she stopped to use the washroom. Obviously the police went there to help establish a timeline on the day of her disappearance. IF that is indeed the right restaurant, the fact it is so close to her breakdown point would be important. There is one common sense conclusion I can come to right now. Either she sat in her car at the restaurant parking lot and drank her soda or she drank it as she sat on the side of I-80. OR she was really thirsty. From the drive-thru to the breakdown point would be about 10 minutes. The police would not need this much guesswork. They would just get a copy of the receipt from the restaurant and talk to whoever might have took her order or might have seen her there. The other reason the Hardees is important is that it is a stopping point, a place she might have been seen. What is kind of interesting about the media reports in Tammy Zywicki's case is that there is alot of talk about people that might have seen her, whether at a motel in Mendota, or as they drove past in their car. There is nothing about the people that actually DID see her, like the workers at Hardees. But all of this post is based on an assumption. It could be the police giving media the wrong info so as to keep information to themselves when she actually visited a McDonalds or Burger King. Or it is a different Hardees and not the one I am writing about. One of the things I wonder about is since dogs and metal detectors were used alongside I-80 checking for traces of Tammy Zywicki, were they used at the Hardee's restaurant? The prevailing theory in this case is that her car broke down because it overheated. I do not know much about cars, but one thing I do know is that a car's engine is hottest immediately after you turn it off, especially if you have been traveling a distance in the heat. Sitting in a drive-thru with the car idling or in a parking lot with the car off I would think cause the car to have more problems if it was overheating. It's strange her car did not break down at Hardees.

Remember when I wrote that over time things change and you have to remember that?  

On May 7, 2011 there was no Hardees restaurant in Ottawa, IL that I can recall seeing.  But today in 2021 there does look to be a Hardees restaurant in Ottawa, IL.  I do not remember ever seeing an actual Hardees restaurant in May 2011.  The post I wrote above was based on this abandoned building that looked like it once used to be a fast food restaurant.  I assumed this was the old Hardees that had since closed. I do not know if that was the actual Hardees restaurant Tammy Zywicki got food from on August 23, 1992.

After visiting the abandoned glass window building, I decided to go into downtown Ottawa.  Ottawa, IL actually has a very nice downtown area.  I remember there being an orchestra along the square and how well kept the area was with lots of greenery.  I sat along a ledge in the square area just thinking about how nice the area looked, but also about whether I should go out to MM83 again.  I decided against it.  There was nothing left to do in Tammy Zywicki's case.  I had seen all the sites associated with the case.  I did not even know if I had the right old Hardee's restaurant.  

At this point in Tammy Zywicki's case, I came to realize something very important.  In order to come up with good ideas and good theories you have to have good information.  To this day I am still confused as to what Tammy Zywicki was wearing when she disappeared versus when her body was found.  Did she change out of her clothes and then was murdered?  Or was she murdered and then the killer dressed her body?  In the People magazine article, "The Long Road Back", it said she was found wearing undergarments that did not appear to be her own.  Having good information is so important instead of guessing about it.  

Reality started to set in after this point.  There was not much more to write about.  And there were other things going on in my life that were important as well.  I wanted to get out of my job and had wasted far too much time there already.  In September 2011 shortly before my cancer surgery, I decided I had enough of the case.  But I still followed Tammy Zywicki's case after this point because I wanted to see it solved.   

I became more interested in other cases, but I never forgot about this one.    

   

The Third Trip: March 2007

The first two trips I took regarding Tammy Zywicki's case provided me with background about Tammy Zywicki and the area where she was abducted from.  But the crime scene location was down in Sarcoxie, MO.  Even though it is theorized that is not where Tammy was probably killed, it played an important part in understanding why her body was left in that particular location.  I had a good idea about which exit I thought might be the one where her body was found.  I decided even if I was wrong it would give me a good idea about how the killer interpreted the area he chose to leave her body.  

I chose to leave in the late afternoon around 4 or 5 pm to see how easy it would be to get to the Sarcoxie, MO area.  I found it to be relatively easy interstate driving.  Except for around the St. Louis, MO area, it was a straight shot southwest. It took a total of around 8-9 hours to get to Sarcoxie, MO from the Chicagoland area.  In terms of travel, it certainly made sense it could be a truck driver.  

But there were other things that made me question how well this truck driver actually knew the Sarcoxie area.  All the highway exits were open view exits.  That means that Tammy Zywicki's body was almost certainly left alongside the highway entrance ramp at night because if the killer had tried to place her body during the day that person would have risked someone driving along the highway looking and seeing them.  When I was there parked alongside the highway entrance ramp I worried police might think the wrong thing about me.  However when I went looking for where I thought the killer placed Tammy Zywicki's body I thought it was on the left hand side of the entrance ramp because I remember there being flat stones placed along the sloping ditch area on the right hand side.  I kept forgetting things have changed since it was almost 15 years later.   

I explored the area going north from the highway exit to search that area and then south to search that area.  The area south was very desolate and very wooded.  There was a rundown gas station/convenience store across the other side of the highway from where Tammy Zywicki's body was found.  The parking lot was located right next to the woods with a few semi trucks backed up to the start of the woods.  I could not help wondering why a truck driver would not choose to park at that gas station and then take a body and walk into the woods to place it.  They could literally walk behind their semi into the woods. 

Even as I was driving from the Chicagoland area down to Sarcoxie, MO, I could not help thinking about how many exits I passed that were better or at least the same as the one Tammy Zywicki's body was eventually found at.  Maybe Tammy Zywicki was still alive by the time she got to the Sarcoxie, MO area?  That made sense.  But it also drove me to start thinking about crazy theories that had no basis in fact, like maybe the guy that found the body did it?  But then I realized how dumb a theory that was because it would mean he would have to have been in the Utica, IL area along I-80 where Tammy Zywicki's car was on August 23, 1992.  I realize today how dumb a theory that was, but back then I have to unfortunately admit I actually considered it.

I could never actually figure out what was so special about the highway exit where Tammy Zywicki's body was found.  The only thing I ever came up with is that it is the first Sinclair gas station you would come across if you were traveling southwest.  And I do not even know if it was a Sinclair gas station back in August 1992.  I did go inside the convenience store/gas station located across from where Tammy Zywicki's body was found.  It was rather rundown.  I think there was a restaurant near it as well, but I did not stop by the restaurant.  

Finally, I headed further west into Oklahoma for some further research.  I remembered stopping at an oasis over the interstate where there are various fast food places to eat.  I ate some McDonalds and remembered the piece of paper in the tray reading that I was sitting in the largest McDonalds in the world.  

Once I headed back home, I took a detour onto I-39 to go north to see the MM83 area one last time.  I have not been back since.  I tried a little experiment parking on the road(overpass) that crossed over I-80.  I wanted to see if it was possible if maybe Tammy had tried to walk into the farm field next to MM83 and to the overpass road.  It was doable, but your shoes get caked with dirt because of the soil.  Unfortunately that is probably not what happened to Tammy Zywicki as police had dogs out looking for her scent shortly after she disappeared. 

As I walked back along the overpass road towards the south side where I had parked my car, I stopped and looked down at all the cars and trucks going north/south along I-80.  I imagine anyone who saw me probably wondered why I was standing there looking at MM83 from above.  Then I thought it was a good photography shot so I took a picture with my disposable camera that I lost later.  I thought it might be the type of shot Tammy Zywicki would have taken.  I read that photography was a big part of her life.  I thought about a lot of things standing there looking at MM83.  Mostly I tried to imagine her car parked there alongside the highway.

Then I got back in my car, drove back to the Utica exit, and headed back home eastbound past MM83 for the last time.