Why I chose Tammy Zywicki's case

Before I start this post, I want to state a disclaimer that I am recalling most everything I write from memory. It has been a while since I last posted to my blog(almost 10 years).  

 On Saturday, August 23, 2003, I stopped alongside Interstate 80 westbound at MM83. I wanted to see the spot where Tammy Zywicki, a 21 year old student on her way to Grinnell College in Iowa, had disappeared. It was a weekend and the 11th anniversary so I drove out to the spot to see what it looked like. I wondered what it looked like to Tammy Zywicki on August 23, 1992? What had changed and what was different?

 It was on Sunday afternoon, August 23, 1992, eleven years earlier, that Tammy Zywicki presumably had car trouble and pulled over. Witnesses would later recall that the car's hood was up and that various people had stopped to help Tammy. The most famous eyewitness account was that a semi truck with rust colored diagonal stripes on the cab and trailer had stopped to help Tammy. This later became the best lead at the time and was published in all the local newspapers. There was a drawing of the truck that appeared in local newspapers. I saw it and read about it in 1992. And I remembered it too.

 Around the 10 year anniversary of this unsolved case I read an online newspaper article from some Philadelphia newspaper about how the case had progressed over the last 10 years. The case had a main suspect who lived both in the Lasalle/Peru, IL and down south in the Sarcoxie, MO area where Tammy Zywicki's body had been located. The suspect had died in June 2002. It was mainly geography that caused me to choose this case. When I finally figured out the exit where Tammy Zywicki's body had been located(by deducing it from a People magazine article called the Long Road Back), I realized it was a little strange if it was indeed the truck driver suspect. Tammy Zywicki's body was found next to an entrance ramp, not exit ramp. This meant whoever left her body there was getting back on the interstate, not off of it. Yet this is where the suspect would have to get off to go home. I thought these were important details and until I finally visited the area in March 2007, I felt I had enough knowledge to look into her case. By the case being "solved" anyway, I felt I was not interfering with anything.

 I always thought it was a truck driver(even if not the truck driver suspect in the article), and I focused my "investigation" on the logo from the semi-truck, the brownish rusty orange colored diagonal stripes. I do not know how many hours I spent trying to look up logos. I would look up any type of logo that might be close to the one on the truck. I could never find an exact match. I would send the FBI ideas about logos that looked close. I remember even spending a lot of time researching train company logos, thinking that maybe the stripes with the line across it might have represented train tracks. Maybe the truck driver was hauling material for a train company? 

Sometimes when you look back at the decisions you make in life, you realize they were not the best decisions. But when you are younger especially, you understand that it was because you did not have all the information or know what the right thing to do was at the time.  And sometimes even when you are older you are still learning how to make better decisions too. 

So why did I choose Tammy Zywicki's case? I chose it because I was using as a test case to get into the FBI. I had this great idea that I would impress them by "investigating" Tammy Zywicki's case. I can tell you today looking back that if I had any advice for young people who want to get into the FBI it would be to do the things that matter: stay in physical shape, get skills the FBI is looking for, and try to stay out of trouble. Do not do what I did, start a blog to try and solve a case. You are not the FBI or police and do not have the resources to go about playing a fictional detective. My investigation into Tammy Zywicki's case was a smashing failure. 

Eventually after about 4 1/2 years I came up with an idea to start this blog, kind of as a way to put my thoughts down on paper, but also communicate them to whoever might be reading it, and maybe even help solve a case. There were other cases I looked into, but this was the only one I took the time to research and actually investigate by visiting the area where Tammy Zywicki's body was found. I took this trip in March 2007. What hopefully follows will be a description of how my investigation went, what I learned, and where it led me. Many of the posts might not even focus on Tammy Zywicki, but on what I did in trying to solve her case. I would like to say I started my investigation and my blog for Tammy Zywicki and her family. The reality is I have never met Tammy Zywicki or her family or anyone associated with her case. I started the investigation and blog for me.