Tammy Zywicki case: Hardees

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.