Tammy Zywicki case since September 2011

Shortly after the 19th anniversary of the Tammy Zywicki case, I decided that there was little else to do and little else to write about.  I looked at all the places.  I studied the victim as best I could.  I came up with my own theories regarding evidence in the case.  But mostly with a small cancer surgery approaching and with other personal problems with my job, I came to the conclusion that while I care about the case, there are other things to do.  I got rid of all my speculative posts and kept only the ones that had factual information related to the case so that other individuals who may come across the case can use the info.  I took a few years off before coming back to true crime in other forums and other cases.     

Since I ended my blog on September 7, 2011, or took a 10 year break from posting to my blog, I have sporadically checked up on Tammy Zywicki's case.  On the 20th anniversary in 2012, I remember reading a news article about how her parents had went to visit the gravesite of their daughter and how there was renewed interest in the case by the Illinois State police and FBI.  That continues to this day.

In early 2015, the news said a renowned group of investigators called the Vidocq Society had chosen to look at Tammy Zywicki's case.  I had never heard of this group of people.  They are former investigators who have lots of experience in everything from criminal profiling to forensics.  They provided a profile of the type of offender most likely to have committed the crime.  Even though the Vidocq Society is more of a high level retired law enforcement club who lends assistance to cold cases I was surprised there was actually a group out there who did.  I thought I was the only one doing pro bono work for the FBI.  

Sometime after May 2015 I came across the news of the Mr. Zywicki's death.  Even sometimes when cases get solved, unfortunately it happens after the parents pass away.  It is hard to realize the fact that he never got to see the crime solved.  

I cannot remember exactly when I realized there was a facebook group that covered Tammy Zywicki's case.  But they always seem to have new information about any developments or new media that might be coming out concerning the case.  It is a great way to get the case recognition out there to other people who may not have heard about the case before.  

In 2017, on the 25th anniversary, it was reported that police were going to try to retest articles from Tammy's case to see if any of them could yield forensic evidence like DNA.  Maybe because of the prevalence of social media, but it seems like since 2017 more people are interested in Tammy Zywicki's case than ever before.  Numerous podcasts and shows have delegated some time towards covering the case.

Then last year, in March 2021, Tammy Zywicki's case got some major exposure on an episode of People Magazine Investigates.  The episode is called "Highway of Horrors".  I am not going to summarize the whole episode, but the one major thing I learned for the first time is that this case does have a chance to be solved through DNA.  I never thought there was DNA in the case because I could not understand why police and FBI did not rule out the main suspect, a truck driver named Bierbrodt.  He has been a suspect for a long time.   

And that is where Tammy Zywicki's case is today in 2022.  There seems to be more optimism that the case could finally be solved through DNA testing.  Only time will tell.

  

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. 

  

    

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.