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welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
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as always is a man who has learned the magical medicinal powers of the SE ladies and gentlemen here is the c yeah
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and I live in a pineapple it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling the
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around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime hey hey hey hey hey I don't need let you
00:04:05
miss [Music] me I you miss [Music] me back in 2003 we started seeing a marked increase in the number of bodies
00:04:39
recovered along the side of the road and as we started digging into it more and more we started noticing within our
00:04:46
database a number of bodies along the side of the road victims kept coming up as prostitutes specifically truckstop
00:04:54
prostitutes and one after another our main suspects or confirmed offend Enders were identified as truck drivers and so
00:05:03
putting those pieces together we started to say something's going on we have an inordinate number of victims and
00:05:09
offenders from this rather specific pool of the population so what's going on here what are we missing and this is not
00:05:18
to say that every truck driver is a serial killer obviously um but when we see them come up when we know that we've
00:05:25
identified one as a subject they're extremely difficult to track down and the mobility of their occupation allows
00:05:33
them access to so many different areas of victim selection and then victim release locations so we've developed
00:05:42
this initiative to try to focus in on these cases to help those agencies who are investigating these types of cases
00:05:50
that don't know where to turn that don't have the information or know what information they should even be
00:05:55
requesting to try to track these guys down and then once they've been identified to them to then tie them to
00:06:03
similar cases Nationwide and that's where vicap really comes in is because it's a database of these similar types
00:06:11
of cases we can use things like the offender Mo like building a timeline on the subject and being able to place them
00:06:18
in the location of a similar case to tie them back to additional cases hey hey hey hey hey I you with
00:06:37
me you heard it right there that is the voice of a great woman an incredible crime fighter who we have talked about
00:06:45
so much recently on this greatest of True Crime shows greatest of course that is if you prefer a little hint of garage
00:06:53
in your crime reporting turns out most do that there at the start of our true crime talk in today's trailer was the
00:07:01
voice of Christine Palazo an FBI crime analyst who worked on the highway serial killer initiative and of course was so
00:07:10
instrumental in the identifying serial killer Sam little and his victims a case and serial killer that we profiled here
00:07:20
3 weeks ago in the garage in a three-part series starting with episode 585 titled Sam little the Killer of
00:07:29
women back to Christine palalo I think that someone should build a statue of this woman for all of her brilliant and
00:07:37
hard work that she has done over the years saving lives no doubt I'll start making one out of mashed potatoes and
00:07:44
helping to find Justice for some victims when Justice looked to be so doubtful that is Agent palalo dropping us some
00:07:52
knowledge about the FBI's Highway serial killer initiative and vicap which our listeners know stands for the violent
00:08:00
criminal apprehension program now we are going to start off today talking about a
00:08:07
young woman named tamy Joe zawicki who unfortunately could possibly fit into both of those categories concerning the
00:08:16
FBI the highway serial killer initiative and vicap and this is such a scary and sad story Tammy Joe zwiki was a
00:08:26
wonderful very intelligent bright and enthusiastic young woman now if anyone wants to look Tammy up you can find her
00:08:34
on the FBI's website fbi.gov Tammy can be found under the seeking information category there they have listed reward
00:08:44
information as well which says the FBI is offering a reward of up to $50,000 in this case and listen
00:08:53
carefully because this case is incredibly solvable so listen carefully because as our friend Robert Stack said
00:09:00
maybe you can help solve a mystery we will start this True Crime Story off with a paragraph from Ron aran's
00:09:07
masterful article from People magazine that he wrote on this case titled the long road back Ron's article came out in
00:09:16
August 23rd of 1993 this was one year after the crime and starts off by citing some statistics
00:09:25
just keep in mind these statistics are from 199 93 and the article starts off statistics and crime reporting tell us
00:09:34
much about murder in the US we know that on average 20,000 Americans are killed every year and we often learn how they
00:09:43
were murdered and why far less visible however are the repercussions of those homicides the pain that a victim's
00:09:51
family and friends must live with in the months and years after this is the story
00:09:57
of one such crime the the killing of a 21-year-old college student on or shortly after August 23
00:10:06
1992 and how it challenged and changed the lives of her family classmates and community over the following 12 months
00:10:15
as in any investigation Captain the timeline is always extremely important so let's dive right into the timeline
00:10:23
and a shout out here to the good folks over at uncovered. who have one of the most comprehensive
00:10:29
timelines for Tammy's case our timeline is going to start in August 21st 1992 August 21st was a Friday that year
00:10:39
now we already said that Tammy was quite intelligent but she was rather driven as
00:10:44
well in fact Tammy is a double major in art history and Spanish and she has recently returned from studying abroad
00:10:52
in Madrid good for her Captain I think if I ever get the opportunity to go to Madrid I don't think that I'm coming
00:10:59
back nor would you study but Tammy is back and she's getting ready to start her senior year at grenell College which
00:11:07
is a private school located in grenell Iowa home of the fighting squirrels as said she studied in Spain during the
00:11:15
spring semester of her junior year then Tammy spent the summer living at home with her parents and working at a video
00:11:22
store this in New Jersey on Friday August 21st Tammy and her younger brother Darren are leaving from their
00:11:30
parents' home in New Jersey it's my understanding that they moved there the year before when their father Dan was
00:11:37
transferred Tammy grew up most of her younger years in Greenville South Carolina so they're heading from New
00:11:45
Jersey to Pittsburgh this is because Tammy's parents they're already in Pittsburgh they're visiting either
00:11:51
family or friends and Tammy and Darren will be stopping there and staying the night Darren is 19 years old and he's
00:11:59
attending Northwestern University the plan Tammy and Darren will stay the night in Pittsburgh with their parents
00:12:06
from there they will drive about 7 and 1 half hours to Northwestern University to
00:12:12
get Darren to campus Tammy will stay one night there with a friend of hers at Northwestern and then Tammy will
00:12:20
continue on traveling solo from Northwestern University to grenell college so Sammy will travel the 295
00:12:29
miles from Northwestern to grenell by herself this is roughly a 4 and 1/2 to 5 1/2 hour drive depending on Route and
00:12:38
anybody that's done any traveling knows that's two long days of travel so everything starts off according to plan
00:12:46
Tammy and Darren arrive in Pittsburgh they stay the night there on Saturday August 22nd Tammy and Darren make the
00:12:53
long trip from Pittsburgh to Evanston Illinois home of Northwestern Unity iversity now this leg of the trip was
00:13:02
not only the longest part of the drive but this is where they start to run into some car trouble Tammy is driving a
00:13:10
white 1985 Pontiac T1000 four-door hatchback Darren would later say that they had to stop a couple
00:13:20
of times because the engine was stalled the T1000 model sounds like a Terminator
00:13:25
model from the long road back article Darren explains quote the engine would just decelerate the oil light would
00:13:33
Flicker and then when you'd pull over the engine would shut off after the next two stalls I added oil and water and it
00:13:41
ran fine once in Evanston tamy drops Darren off and then she stays the night with her friend this brings us to Sunday
00:13:52
August 23rd before Tammy left Darren says he checked everything on the Pontiac and told Tammy if the car
00:14:00
started doing what it had done the day before to just stop somewhere like at a rest area and wait until the evening
00:14:08
when it was cooler and then continued to drive so it sounds to me Captain like the car was mostly overheating sounds to
00:14:16
me to be the problem and this being August as well well just because we're in the garage doesn't mean we're
00:14:21
mechanics Tammy left Evanston Illinois heading west to grenell Tammy made it past Chicago heading toward Interstate
00:14:30
80 at about 5:05 p.m. that Sunday about 4 hours after she had said goodbye to her brother an Illinois State Police
00:14:40
Officer spotted a white 1985 Pontiac parked on the westbound shoulder of I 80 this is 5 Mi east of lale located next
00:14:50
to mile marker 83 the locked car was tagged as an abandoned vehicle now not until 2:00 p.m. the the next day which
00:14:59
would be Monday the vehicle would be towed away and not until 700 p.m. would the owner be identified of
00:15:08
this abandoned vehicle all right but we need to fill in some of the gaps here yes Captain so we have Tammy she leaves
00:15:15
her friends home around lunchtime that day now at approximately 3: to 4:00 p.m. Witnesses would later report seeing
00:15:24
Tammy pulled over on the shoulder of Interstate 80 this is as said next to mile marker 883 the exit for
00:15:33
UDA so unfortunately she doesn't make it very far before she runs into what we can
00:15:40
presume was additional car trouble right depending on what route one would take you are looking at a 4 and 1/2 to 5 and
00:15:48
1/2 hour drive from Northwestern to grenell college Tammy only made it about an hour and 40 minutes to about 2 hours
00:15:56
of drive time her route is a little curious to me I would have taken 88 until it picks up Interstate 80 so she's
00:16:05
a little further south than what I would have expected but it is still in route to grenell now here's where things get a
00:16:14
little messy police say according to eyewitness statements they have about 20 different vehicle types that supposedly
00:16:21
stopped to help Tammy but one in particular stood out to law enforcement that was a semi truck or a tractor
00:16:32
trailer before we get back to the article it is important to note that Tammy's friends at grenell College often
00:16:40
just called her Z on Monday August 24th now this is back at home in New Jersey her parents the Z wikis had
00:16:50
expected Tammy to make her usual check-in call when she arrived at grenell when she didn't telephone on
00:16:57
Sunday evening turns out neither parent was overly concerned they said quote we thought she
00:17:03
had probably met up with friends and it got too late to call this is Tammy's mother saying this her name is Joanne
00:17:10
but by Monday morning when they still hadn't heard from Tammy they began to worry and we have her father Hank says
00:17:19
by then we knew something was wrong it just wasn't like her not to check in with us you were stating that there was
00:17:26
problems with the car before and hey if I just add a little bit of water I add a
00:17:31
little oil it fixes the problem it could be the reason why her driving plan is a
00:17:36
little different than what you would have taken because there could have been some issue going on with the car that
00:17:41
she tried to you know make a stop to fix got back on the freeway and and then then the car
00:17:49
stopped working and not only that the the reason for to to go kind of into panic mode here for the Z wikis would be
00:17:59
not only the the concern that she didn't call Sunday night she still hasn't called Monday morning but by now you've
00:18:06
likely spoken to Darren your son who has told you yeah we ran into some car trouble right from between Pittsburgh
00:18:13
and Northwestern and I told her what to do the car checked out and looked to be fine when she left but now you know hey
00:18:22
my 21-year-old daughter is driving solo by herself for 5 and 1/2 hours roughly in a vehicle that is not in tiptop shape
00:18:32
right so Tammy's mother Joanne she repeatedly called Tammy's friends at grenell wondering if anybody had seen
00:18:39
her and of course nobody is reporting that they had in fact somebody wrote on the message board which was located just
00:18:47
outside of Tammy's dorm room and wrote Z where have you been your mom's having a
00:18:53
cow so everybody was expecting her to show up at some point unfortunately that doesn't end up being
00:19:01
the case well I feel bad for her mom cuz that hurt really bad to have a cow but a
00:19:06
couple things one when your vehicle is not driving correctly you're more likely to get into an accident so you have that
00:19:13
to think about or if she pulls over on the side of the road she could get hit by a moving vehicle um people drive like
00:19:22
yahoos and then you have the other possibility that if she breaks down in a bad location that she's met with the
00:19:30
wrong crowd or somebody with nefarious thoughts stops to help her instead of somebody uh being a Good Samaritan so a
00:19:37
lot of possibilities of of putting yourself in a bad position so now we have both parents that are extremely
00:19:44
worried Joanne asked grenell police to look for Tammy's car then began calling Iowa and Illinois State
00:19:53
Police it was only after their daughter's hatchback had been towed and a description logged on a computer
00:20:00
that the zis Learned of its location now keep in mind this is we've already pointed out this is going to be later on
00:20:09
Monday once this vehicle is towed so Hank when he finds out this new information her father he immediately
00:20:17
filed a missing person's Report with the Illinois police because that's where the
00:20:23
vehicle was found in the state of Illinois he described his daughter in the report as 5'2 in tall 120 lb blonde
00:20:33
with green eyes and long blonde hair now he later added that she was probably wearing turquoise shell wire rim glasses
00:20:44
and had her hair in a ponytail and when last seen by her brother she was wearing
00:20:49
a white T-shirt dark shorts and gray running shoes she also had a fabric friendship necklace and a green w watch
00:20:58
that played Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head it's also reported in the report that she was carrying about
00:21:06
$150 in cash credit cards a leather handbag extra clothing and a box and several cameras now in Illinois the
00:21:17
state police they scoured the interstate uh the I80 site where Tammy's car was found eventually using metal
00:21:26
detectors search dogs and helicopter the car which this is really disappointing to hear she's missing we can believe
00:21:37
that it's due to her car trouble but when police find it and they say that it started up without any problem after
00:21:45
being towed but like you stated earlier it sounds like the car possibly was overheating so when she pulls over on
00:21:51
the side of the road the car cools down when they try to start it back up it starts up fine yeah you just got to
00:21:58
chill out for a little bit there so it says in it's reported that they checked the vehicle for fingerprints the problem
00:22:06
with putting that item right here in our timeline is I don't think that it fits right here in the timeline I know for a
00:22:14
fact that they checked the vehicle for fingerprints however this was done days later it wasn't done right after it
00:22:22
was towed or right after it was identified as belonging to this now missing person well because State
00:22:29
Highway Patrol sees abandoned cars all the time hundreds and hundreds of of them a day and so this is typical
00:22:39
procedure we're going to take the car we're going to give them uh a day for the owner to come move it oh they don't
00:22:45
move it we're going to tow it now we're got to figure out who owns this vehicle now we got to contact somebody that is
00:22:52
connected to them so it is a process and I and I know with a lot of these missing
00:22:57
person cases you know like Mar Murray and stuff where people go law enforcement didn't do enough well if
00:23:03
they could go back in time and and if if somebody would have told them hey you need to uh really do your due diligence
00:23:10
and look for evidence in this vehicle because this person will be missing for the next 20 or 30 years but abandoned
00:23:17
car just becomes very routine for law enforcement and you're right captain that is absolutely the case especially
00:23:24
in a case like Mara Murray's where she is not reported missing for several days but in this case it's quite a bit
00:23:32
different because the vehicle's towed at 2 p.m. she's reported missing at 700 p.m. and identified as the owner and
00:23:40
Driver of the vehicle that was towed so yeah it takes some time for those things
00:23:45
to work their way through the system but they had all the information Illinois State Police did at that time that night
00:23:53
and it wasn't fingerprinted that night now when the vehicle is eventually searched we learned that Tammy's leather
00:24:00
bag the money any money that she was carrying credit cards and a Canon EO s camera were all missing from the
00:24:10
vehicle so either she took those with her or somebody else took those from her on Monday August 31st investigators
00:24:19
announced that they were looking for a white five axle semit trctor trailer with two brownish diagonal stripes on
00:24:28
both the tractor and trailer they say that drive by Witnesses reported seeing the truck and its driver near mile
00:24:36
marker 83 on Interstate 80 on August 23rd roughly between 3 and 4 p.m. and a man was seen with the semit truck as
00:24:49
well and that man is described as a white male about 6 feet tall with bushy dark hair the m man appeared to be
00:24:58
talking to a young blonde woman who resembled Tammy our missing person the two were standing by her car apparently
00:25:07
checking something under the hood According to some of these Witnesses Illinois State Police Lieutenant Herold
00:25:14
brignardello said of the man he is the last person we know who may have talked to her he's not a suspect we just want
00:25:24
to talk to him now of course with this announcement Captain leads are flowing in this is when we get about 60 people
00:25:32
reporting that they saw Tammy on the side of the interstate between 3 and 400 p.m. on that Sunday afternoon the hood
00:25:41
of her car was up some reported seeing a green Dotson pickup parked behind her vehicle another described a tractor
00:25:49
trailer truck with stripes down the side of the trailer but again over 20 vehicle
00:25:55
types were reported as being seen parked at that General location and that General time which really confuses
00:26:04
matters quite a bit later police would say that we had all of these reports of people seeing other vehicles stop there
00:26:12
on the side of Interstate 80 but right we didn't have anyone coming forward saying that they were somebody that
00:26:19
actually stopped to help Tammy or somebody that comes forward and says they they stopped and spoke with her
00:26:26
right and just think about the distance that she was covering that day over 200 and some miles if somebody stopped to
00:26:34
help her that was traveling a distance like that they're they could be 2 to 300 miles away when cops are looking for
00:26:42
answers 9ine days after Tammy disappears this is on Tuesday September 1st a man driving on Interstate 44 this is in
00:26:52
Missouri in the state of Missouri this is 490 mil from where Tammy was last seen this man was driving for his work
00:27:01
that day and he stopped because he was concerned that his tools in the back of his truck were getting wet the it's was
00:27:08
raining fairly heavily at this time when he stops while stopped he noticed something wrapped in a blanket secured
00:27:17
on both ends with duct tape it was about 14 ft from the edge of the roadway he said there was a foul odor the man is 30
00:27:27
7-year-old Lonnie damont he said quote I was finished and was coming around to the front of the truck when I smelled
00:27:36
the odor I looked right and saw the blanket in the grass just from the shape of it I could tell it was a body so
00:27:44
damont drove to a nearby Highway Patrol station and tells them what he witnessed
00:27:53
then he returns to the scene with an officer they made a small cut in the blanket and saw a human leg the body
00:28:02
which was lying face up on a grassy slope again about 14 ft from the pavement had been wrapped tightly in a
00:28:09
white twins siiz sheet and a doll red blanket silver duct tape closed off both ends so somebody unfortunately wrapped
00:28:22
up this package nice and neat almost like a large burrito here on the side and I'm I'm guessing by our witness's
00:28:33
statements here I can visualize this and agree with the size and the shape that unfortunately what we're looking at here
00:28:42
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00:31:12
all right we are back cheers mates cheers cheers to you Colonel now they're not going to be able to identify this
00:31:20
body right away right unfortunately it's going to take dental records that would
00:31:24
soon tell detectives that this was in fact the body of their missing college student Tami zawicki Tammy was wearing
00:31:32
an Eastside Eagles t-shirt and shorts that had a Greenville County Recreation Soccer League logo on it important to
00:31:42
note really kind of a bizarre fact of this case these are not the clothes that she
00:31:49
had on when she left Evanston remember we have our witnesses there her friend her brother that saw her right before
00:31:55
she left she also had on lacy panties and a brawl embroidered with the word love and the bazir was like a nude color
00:32:06
or flesh tone and we have her mother who goes on record Joanne stating this is not anything that Tammy would have
00:32:14
picked out for herself or purchased for herself to her knowledge so so go ahead so it leans towards this idea that maybe
00:32:22
a perpetrator uh abducts her or tricks her into get in hey get into my vehicle I'll
00:32:28
take you down to the gas station well now once I get you in the vehicle I can control you and then he puts her in a
00:32:34
situation where he says you need to put on this outfit or you need to put on this lingerie or whatever that seems
00:32:42
like the situation but keep in mind the East Side Eagles t-shirt and the shorts with the Greenville County recreational
00:32:50
soccer league logo on them those those two items belong to her she just wasn't wearing those according to our Witnesses
00:32:57
when she left just a few hours earlier but yeah you're right with the undergarments this according to her
00:33:04
family they're saying these were we don't believe these to be hers and we believe whoever abducted her made her
00:33:12
wear these for whatever reason at some point now the Lawrence County coroner his name is Don Laken had performed the
00:33:22
first examination of what was initially described as a SHO badly decomposed body
00:33:29
and he States in his early report it appeared to be a white female approximately 16 to 24 years of age she
00:33:37
was clothed in a blue T-shirt with Eastside Eagles soccer 1989 printed in white lettering on the front and had a
00:33:46
pair of faded blue cut off sweatpants athletic socks uh that is the description of her clothing some of the
00:33:54
more grim findings from our coroner here are seven puncture wounds made by a sharp
00:34:03
instrument no more than a half in wide these were found in the upper chest area the weapon had penetrated the lungs
00:34:11
liver and pericardial sack around the heart the victim's right bicep was also punctured possibly due to a struggle or
00:34:21
maybe she went to defend herself or block the knife with her hand or arm and received the puncture to the right bicep
00:34:32
right a bruis likee discoloration appeared on the right side of her neck interesting and then a quote from the
00:34:39
coroner says the odd part was she didn't appear to have any blood just some body
00:34:44
fluids on the sheet and blanket from the decomposition end quote he estimated that the body had been out in the sun
00:34:52
for four maybe five days all right so let's take some inventory of the situation here shall we
00:35:01
our victim has been stabbed seven times six times in a circular pattern around her heart and once in her right arm the
00:35:12
knife used was small per the report most likely a pen knife is what experts have
00:35:17
said and I've reviewed conflicting reports on the amount of defensive wounds some say that she put up quite a
00:35:24
struggle others say that there was a surprising lack of defensive wounds I'm not 100% sure why the discrepancy in
00:35:35
this description well hopefully she was able to rip this son of a bitch's testicles out but discrepancies like
00:35:41
this make it hard to examine the case yeah and it sounds to me like they've done a couple of examinations so maybe
00:35:48
they had other findings later but again we can only report to you what we have viewed and read
00:35:57
ourselves and from the prior information in that report the other thing that really sucks here for any type of
00:36:05
investigation is we don't get a good idea of when she was killed or where right we're we're simply told that he
00:36:14
estimated that she had been out in the sun for four or maybe 5 days well it was N9 days later from the time that she was
00:36:24
we can just say abducted we don't have to keep saying disappeared went missing it's obvious at this point that she's
00:36:29
been abducted by somebody and had to have been abducted on that day that her vehicle broke down so it's N9 days later
00:36:36
when the body is found and if our coroner is suggesting that it's four or five days out in the sun I think he's
00:36:42
kind of ballparking it here Captain I don't think he's you know giving us uh I don't think that's a really a window of
00:36:49
time that we should be mhm really anchored to here in our investigation right but it does sound to me
00:36:57
unfortunately like there was a possibility that she may have been held somewhere for a period of time and
00:37:04
obviously they're stating she wasn't killed on the side of the road there everything points to she's been killed
00:37:11
elsewhere and then somebody pulls up and dumps the body there 14t from the edge of the road on this off ramp a lot of
00:37:21
killers will take their victims back to their home and then tort them at their home and then once they kill the victim
00:37:29
they they dump the victim but some of these truck drivers they can just they can use their truck as their little
00:37:37
torture chamber and when they're done with their victim they can then just dump them on the side of the road well
00:37:43
and one of the serial killers that we started off talking about last week keep in mind he had a partner for some of his
00:37:50
murders he had his girlfriend riding shotgun with him so in that situation you have somebody that is there to help
00:37:58
you control your victim while you're still traveling and keep in mind too we also have to factor in the distance
00:38:06
between where we know she was last seen and where the body is eventually found nine days later it's what did we
00:38:17
say captain 490 miles yeah that's at 60 MPH that's over 8 hours of driving we love math right there so we have at
00:38:26
least one day in some kind of vehicle transporting the body right regardless of the situation and she may have been
00:38:38
sitting out there her body may have been on that roadside for the entirety of those four
00:38:45
or five days as the coroner was stating that she had been out in the sun doesn't
00:38:51
mean that she had to have been there in that location but he's saying she's been
00:38:55
out in the sun and and she may have been there that entire time the other thing too and we're going
00:39:02
to keep going back to this a couple times because it's worth really exploring and and parsing out as much as
00:39:08
we possibly can here we have several reports of a bunch of sightings of such Vehicles near mile
00:39:16
marker 83 where Tammy was the last time she was seen or believed to have been seen alive this again N9 days before
00:39:26
before her body was discovered almost 500 miles away we have all of those sightings we have all of those
00:39:33
eyewitnesses but apparently no one saw whoever left Tammy's body on the side of the road right but again a semi truck or
00:39:43
a truck or a car being on the side of the road for 5 minutes is not that unusual it's not going to be something
00:39:52
that just sticks out like a sore thumb and if you're doing anything in in the middle of the night right I don't know
00:39:59
that anybody driving by is going to be very suspicious because a lot of truck drivers will pull over on the side of
00:40:05
the road to sleep correct and that probably was more likely in the early 90s than today well and think about how
00:40:14
much of your you only need to do limited activity to get the B body from a vehicle
00:40:20
to this location on the side of the offramp well you're stating she's about 120 pounds she's not that heavy well and
00:40:28
regardless you're carrying her 14 ft and what what I'm pointing out here is if you have a small vehicle that's one
00:40:35
thing but if you have a tractor trailer that offers a decent amount of concealment too for what you are doing
00:40:43
in that limited amount of time that you need to be doing it yeah that's an excellent point now so this is a week
00:40:49
later after the bodies found this takes us to Tuesday September 8th Tammy zwiki was laid to rest following a casket
00:40:58
closed ceremony in a mass at a Catholic Church in Newton Pennsylvania now by the time that Tammy
00:41:05
was buried the hunt for her killer had sparked Nationwide interest this especially after America's Most Wanted
00:41:15
aired a spot announcement on her disappearance that's what prompted a flood of tips about the truck with the
00:41:24
diagonal stripes and logo that are now being phoned into the investigators and because her death
00:41:33
involved an abduction across state lines remember she was believed to be abducted
00:41:39
in Illinois she's found in Missouri we have the FBI agents uh the FBI and Agents from the FBI that will join the
00:41:48
14 Illinois State Police investigators working with also the Missouri Authorities on the case right at the
00:41:56
beginning of the investigation the zis criticized the police for treating Tammy's disappearance or how they
00:42:07
treated her disappearance initially as though she were a runaway and this is this is one of those things we've
00:42:15
reviewed this stuff and seen this in other cases too it's just incredibly disappointing it's a real gut punch
00:42:21
every single time but we're going to we're going to stay on this for just a minute here because I have a big issue
00:42:28
with this one okay look captain and I agree you get like a a victim or somebody that's missing that's the age
00:42:34
like 12 or under 13 and under and the cops look at you and say well they probably ran away and you you look at
00:42:41
them crossy going are you kidding me they're too young to run away what the now maybe with 16 17y old maybe if you
00:42:48
have some kind of delinquent juvenile I get that situation but what their response was what the Illinois State
00:42:56
police response was this she's probably off with a boyfriend somewhere oh no to which the parents inform the police she
00:43:04
does not have a boyfriend to which then they were told well she's probably off with one of her guy friends somewhere
00:43:11
she'll turn up this is why you don't assume because you make an ass out of you and me you know you shouldn't
00:43:16
especially in an investigation you're just going to assume oh she's probably off with a boyfriend or
00:43:23
something that that's ridiculous that's like you always say lazy or stupid and and I think that's both well here's the
00:43:32
thing too I I worry that just the wrong lazy or stupid or both person answered the phone that day because you got to
00:43:40
believe that there's plenty of good officers men and women in the Illinois State Police today especially today but
00:43:47
even back then as well and this is just really a black eye for the entire department when you have somebody who
00:43:56
gives this type of response because you should take in account and factor in the
00:44:03
character of the individual that is being reported missing and the circumstances surrounding that
00:44:11
disappearance right so yeah or where she went missing from she's not going missing from a location that she has a
00:44:18
huge history a big background no she's driving through number one and number two you find her vehicle on the of the
00:44:26
interstate that's that's alarming in itself without even having a missing person's report I mean think about this
00:44:34
[ __ ] like let's say I'm I'm from Ohio and you find my car in West Virginia and they just then assume well
00:44:42
we don't know exactly where he was going or where he was heading uh but but he probably was off with a girlfriend what
00:44:50
there's no evidence of this you you have no evidence that I I even know anybody in the
00:44:56
area it's this well and that's not even taking into account your character and what what I'm trying to bring up here
00:45:03
with Tammy is we are talking about a 21-year-old woman young woman who is on scholarship at a private college right
00:45:12
this isn't somebody that just willy-nilly decides not to show up one day or just go cut of her jib right that
00:45:19
just decides oh I'm going to smoke a bunch of pot and ride shotgun and Chase the Sun for 3 or 4 days no that's not
00:45:25
the type of person that she is there's nothing wrong with smoking pot and Chasing the Sun and so what I'm also
00:45:33
disappointed in is let's go back to something that we've already covered that I believe is key in in a in a
00:45:41
second black ey on Illinois State Police here the coroner says that her body was
00:45:48
out in the sun for four maybe 5 days she's missing for nine before the body's located if you had taken this report
00:45:57
this missing person's report seriously there's a chance you could have gotten to her while she was still
00:46:03
alive we don't know that for certain because we don't have the scientific facts to back that statement up but we
00:46:10
can base it off of the information that's been reported that there was a possibility that you had a couple of
00:46:16
days to find her and instead your answer is well she's probably off with some guy
00:46:21
friend somewhere up to no good mom and dad don't worry she'll turn up in a couple of days well and the detail that
00:46:29
you brought up earlier that keeps swirling around my head is this idea that she was in
00:46:36
clothes that her parents State belonged to her but in undergarments that they don't believe
00:46:45
are connected to their daughter they don't believe she owned those undergarments I mean just can't say with
00:46:53
100% certainty we can only base it off of what the family has said but this is not something that they've wavered on
00:47:00
over the years they've said this from the time that she was found until today that we don't believe that those were
00:47:08
hers we have no reason to believe that they they belong to her so we have a task force if you want to call it that
00:47:17
if you will right that we have the Illinois State Police involved we have Missouri authorities and we have FBI
00:47:24
agents all involved now the Z wikis over the years have pointed out that especially in the early
00:47:31
stages of this case this investigation they didn't feel like the communication between those three agencies or or
00:47:40
however many agencies were involved in this was great they don't think the communication was great that
00:47:47
there may have been some infighting or or at the very least not sharing of information and we have said time and
00:47:53
time again that the two of the the best weapons that we have in fending off serial offenders these days is that we
00:48:03
apprehend them faster right we have less serial killers with numbers as high as 20 30 40 people right because they're
00:48:11
getting caught simply after one or two victims and a lot of that is based off of two factors two major key factors one
00:48:19
technology and two communication between all of these law enforcement agencies now now the highway the FBI's Highway
00:48:28
serial killer initiative and vicap and things like that are all key pieces in opening up those lines of communication
00:48:39
and kicking off the conversations keeping the information flowing and getting to the right people now one
00:48:47
thing I will say that is of good work in Tammy's case is she is on several databases which is really to me the
00:48:57
start of of any of this type of investigation that first thing I do when when we take a look at a case
00:49:07
for porch light and it's a cold case the first thing I look at is what databases is our
00:49:15
victim on or in most cases what what databases should they be on and in Tammy's case if you look her up she's on
00:49:23
several databases uh couple that come to mind of course we've already mentioned the FBI's website she's on the seeking
00:49:29
information category and probably some others and we also have her on the Iowa cold cases uh database and probably some
00:49:38
more I I hope um because those are tools those are tools for not only solving these cases and bringing Justice for our
00:49:47
victims and their families and their friends but also tools for us to keep the public safe by getting these
00:49:54
monsters off of the streets out of our communities and in this case off of our nation's interstates and highways yeah
00:50:03
because any young female that has broken down on the side of the road or pulled over on the side of the road is a
00:50:09
potential victim for one of these monsters when you read about cases like this and about some of the other cases
00:50:16
that we've covered in the last couple weeks going back to to Sam little and last week's
00:50:24
cases but tamies especially it's when it makes you want to just fall to your knees and thank God that we have cell
00:50:32
phones these days because I I would guess and I would hope that Tammy's situation would have been that much
00:50:40
different that much better if she would have had some ability to communicate with somebody else or call for help now
00:50:49
on the better side of the investigation Captain we do know that when they were working the case they worked the case
00:50:56
quite hard uh as far as I can tell there were men from all over the country that
00:51:00
were looked at as possible suspects many of them truckers Persons of Interest included men from as far away as Tampa
00:51:09
Florida Humble County California and Nashville Tennessee now I'm going to circle back
00:51:18
another time to what I believe is one of the key elements in this case and is really it's it's sad that so little came
00:51:27
of this because in any case as a detective you would think having so many potential Witnesses would be a
00:51:36
godsend so in review and with a little more detail in the early weeks of the investigation more than 60 driveby
00:51:45
Witnesses 60 driveby Witnesses reported having seen Tammy on August 23rd right altogether they claim to have seen 26
00:51:57
different types of vehicles this including cars motorcycles and vans and trucks that stopped to help her with men
00:52:04
and women at different times apparently offering her assistance remarkably none of the people who
00:52:14
stopped has ever come forward to notify police of their encounter with tammye we can't explain it FBI agent Bob
00:52:23
long said except that maybe these people still don't know about the case or they're afraid to get
00:52:34
[Music] involved I don't need [Music] you and we pointed out there that the FBI is concerned that maybe people have
00:52:55
not heard of this case or for some reason they would be afraid of coming forward look it's been all of these
00:53:01
years later and nobody is going to fault you for calling in a tip or information
00:53:07
today today is the day make it happen if you know something say something report
00:53:12
it if you have any information keep in mind there is a $50,000 reward for information leading to the
00:53:19
identification of the individual or individuals responsible for the murder of Tammy joa wikii and the FBI would
00:53:29
like for anyone with information to contact their local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or consulate so
00:53:37
much more to get to we want to hear your thoughts on the blog at true Crim garage.com join us back here tomorrow
00:53:45
same bat Time same bat Channel and until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music]
00:54:01
[Applause] is it possible to predict the unpredictable can 3D printed life-size organ models help to map out complex
00:54:34
surgeries ahead of time is it possible it already is right here Mayo Clinic you know where to go