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[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you're
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doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who
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has learned the magical medicinal powers of the sea ladies and gentlemen here is
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yeah and I live in a pineapple it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling my
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friends [Music] this week we are very excited to be featuring a great beer from our friends
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at Fat Bottom Brewing Company in beautiful Nashville Tennessee fat bottom is the official craft beer partner of
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the mls's Nashville soccer club and everyone should try this wonderful Session IPA from Fat Bottom called
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Breakaway Session IPA Breakaway has amazing fruit Aromas and citrus forward Hops and a little punch as well in this
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easy drinking IPA garage grade 4 and a quarter bottle caps out of five and here's some praise and thank you that
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goes out to our friends for helping us out with this week's beer run first up at cheers to Joshua and Mount Eaton Ohio
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and a big we like you jib to Ashley in Hamilton Ohio next up here's a big Ron Swanson please and thank you that goes
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out to maata and Shawnee Kansas and a big shout out to Lauren and Warwick New York next up here is a cheers to Kevin
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in Indian Head Maryland and last but certainly not least we have Daniel in Essexville Michigan everyone we just
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mentioned they went to our website True Crime garage.com and helped us out with this week's beer yeah BW double r u n
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beer run if you need more True Crime garage for your ear balls and we know you do because your balls are sweaty uh
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business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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[Music] I need you with me [Music] [Music] back in 2003 we started seeing a marked increase in
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the number of bodies recovered along the side of the road and as we started digging into it
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more and more we started noticing within our database a number of bodies along the side of the road victims kept coming
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up as prostitutes specifically truck stop prostitutes and one after another our main suspects or confirmed offenders
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were identified as truck drivers and so putting those pieces together we started
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to say something's going on we have an inordinate number of victims and offenders from this rather specific pool
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of the population so what's going on here what are we missing and this is not to say that every truck
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driver is a serial killer obviously but when we see them come up when we know that we've identified one as a subject
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they're extremely difficult to track down and the mobility of their occupation allows them access to so many
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different areas of victim selection and then victim release locations so we've developed this initiative to
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try to focus in on these cases to help those agencies who are investigating these types of cases that don't know
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where to turn that don't have the information or know what information they should even be requesting to try to
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track these guys down and then once they've been identified them to then tie them to similar cases Nationwide and
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that's where vicap really comes in is because it's a database of these similar types of cases we can use things like
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the offender's Mo like building a timeline on the subject and being able to place them in the location of a
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similar case to tie them back to additional cases [Music] you heard it right there that is the
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voice of a great woman an incredible crime fighter who we have talked about so much recently on this greatest of
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True Crime shows greatest of course that is if you prefer a little hint of garage
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in your crime reporting turns out most do that there at the start of our true crime talk in today's trailer was the
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voice of Christine Palazzolo an FBI crime analyst who worked on the highway serial killer initiative and of course
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was so instrumental in the identifying serial killer Sam little and his victims a case and serial killer that we
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profiled here three weeks ago in the garage in a three-part series starting with episode
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585 titled Sam little the killer of women back to Christine Palazzolo I think that someone should build a statue
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of this woman for all of her brilliant and hard work that she has done over the years saving lives no I'll start making
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one out of mashed potatoes and helping to find Justice for some victims when Justice looked to be so doubtful that is
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Agent Palazzolo dropping us some knowledge about the FBI's Highway serial killer initiative and VI cap which our
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listeners know stands for the violent criminal apprehension program now we are going to start off today
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talking about a young woman named Tammy Joe zawicki who unfortunately could possibly fit into both of those
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categories concerning the FBI the highway serial killer initiative and VI cap and this is such a scary and sad
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story Tammy Joe zawicki was a wonderful very intelligent bright enthusiastic young woman now if anyone wants to look
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Tammy up you can find her on the FBI's website fbi.gov Tammy can be found under the
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seeking information category there they have listed reward information as well which says the FBI is offering a reward
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of up to fifty thousand dollars in this case and listen carefully because this case is incredibly solvable so listen
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carefully because as our friend Robert Stack said maybe you can help solve a mystery we will start this True Crime
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Story off with a paragraph from Iran aryan's masterful article from People magazine that he wrote on this case
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titled the long road back Ron's article came out in August 23rd of 1993. this was one year after the crime and starts
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off by citing some statistics just keep in mind these statistics are from 1993. and the article starts off
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statistics and crime reporting tell us much about murder in the U.S we know that on average 20 000 Americans are
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killed every year and we often learn how they were murdered and why far less visible however are the
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repercussions of those homicides the pain that a victim's family and friends must live with in the months and years
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after this is the story of one such crime the killing of a 21 year old college student
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on or shortly after August 23 1992 and how it challenged and changed the lives of her family classmates and
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community over the following 12 months as in any investigation Captain the timeline is always extremely important
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so let's dive right into the timeline and a shout out here to the good folks over at uncovered.com who have one of
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the most comprehensive timelines for Tammy's case our timeline is going to start in August 21st 1992. August 21st
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was a Friday that year now we already said that Tammy was quite intelligent but she was rather driven as well in
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fact Tammy is a double major in art history and Spanish and she has recently returned from studying abroad in Madrid
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good for her Captain I think if I ever get the opportunity to go to Madrid I don't think that I'm coming back nor
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would you study but Tammy is back and she's getting ready to start her senior year at Grinnell College which is a
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private school located in Grinnell Iowa home of the fighting squirrels as said she studied in Spain during the spring
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semester of her junior year then Tammy spent the summer living at home with her parents and working at a video store
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this in New Jersey on Friday August 21st Tammy and her younger brother Darren are leaving from
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their parents home in New Jersey it's my understanding that they moved there the
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year before when their father Dan was transferred Tammy grew up most of her younger years in Greenville South
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Carolina so they're heading from New Jersey to Pittsburgh this is because Tammy's parents they're already in
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Pittsburgh they're visiting either family or friends and Tammy and Darren will be stopping there and staying the
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night Darren is 19 years old and he's attending Northwestern University plan Tammy and Darren will stay the
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night in Pittsburgh with their parents from there they will drive about seven and a half hours to Northwestern
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University to get Darren to campus Tammy will stay one night there with a friend of hers at Northwestern and then
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Tammy will continue on traveling solo from Northwestern University to Grinnell college so Sammy will travel the 295
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miles from Northwestern to Grinnell by herself this is roughly a four and a half to five and a half hour drive
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depending on Route and anybody that's done any traveling knows that's two long days of travel so everything starts off
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according to plan Tammy and Darren arrive in Pittsburgh they stay the night there on Saturday August 22nd Tammy and
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Darren make the long trip from Pittsburgh to Evanston Illinois home of Northwestern University
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now this leg of the trip was not only the longest part of the drive but this is where they start to run into some car
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trouble Tammy is driving a white 1985 Pontiac T1000 four-door hatchback Darren would later say that they had to
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stop a couple of times because the engine was stalled the T-1000 model sounds like a Terminator model from the
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long road back article Darren explains quote the engine would just decelerate the oil light would Flicker and then
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when you'd pull over the engine would shut off after the next two stalls I added oil and water and it ran fine
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once in Evanston Tammy drops Darren off and then she stays the night with her friend
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this brings us to Sunday August 23rd before Tammy left Darren says he checked everything on the Pontiac and told Tammy
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if the car started doing what it had done the day before to just stop somewhere like at a rest area and wait
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until the evening when it was cooler and then continue to drive so it sounds to me Captain like the car was mostly
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overheating sounds to me to be the problem and this being August as well just because we're in the garage doesn't
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mean we're mechanics Tammy left Evanston Illinois heading west to Grinnell Tammy
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made it past Chicago heading toward interstate 80. at about 505 p.m that Sunday about four hours after she had
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said goodbye to her brother an Illinois State Police Officer spotted a white 1985 Pontiac parked on the westbound
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shoulder of I-80 this is five miles east of LaSalle located next to mile marker 83. the
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locked car was tagged as an abandoned vehicle now not until 2 pm the next day which would be Monday the vehicle would
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be towed away and not until 7 pm would the owner be identified of this abandoned vehicle all right but we need
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to fill in some of the gaps here yes Captain so we have Tammy she leaves her friends home around lunchtime that day
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now at approximately three to four pm Witnesses would later report seeing Tammy pulled over on the shoulder of
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Interstate 80. this is as said next to mile marker 83 the exit for Utica so unfortunately
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she doesn't make it very far before she runs into what we can presume was additional car trouble right depending
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on what route one would take you are looking at a four and a half to five and a half hour drive from Northwestern to
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Grinnell College Tammy only made it about an hour and 40 minutes to about two hours of drive time
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her route is a little curious to me I would have taken 88 until it picks up Interstate 80 so she's a little further
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south than what I would have expected but it is still in route to Grinnell now here's where things get a little
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messy police say according to eyewitness statements they have about 20 different
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vehicle types that supposedly stopped to help Tammy but one in particular stood out to law enforcement that was a
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semi-truck or a tractor-trailer before we get back to the article it is important to note that Tammy's friends
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at Grinnell College often just called her Z on Monday August 24th now this is back at home in New Jersey
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her parents the zawikis had expected Tammy to make her usual check-in call when she arrived at Grinnell when she
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didn't telephone on Sunday evening turns out neither parent was overly concerned they said quote we thought she
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had probably met up with friends and it got too late to call this is Tammy's mother saying this her name is Joanne
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but by Monday morning when they still hadn't heard from Tammy they began to worry
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and we have her father Hank says by then we knew something was wrong it just wasn't
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like her not to check in with us you were stating that there was problems with the car before and hey if I just
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add a little bit of water I add a little oil it fixes the problem it could be the
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reason why her driving plan is a little different than what you would have taken
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because there could have been some issue going on with the car that she tried to
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you know make a stop to fix got back on the freeway and and then then the car stopped
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working and not only that the the reason for to to go kind of into panic mode here for
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the zwikis would be not only the the concern that she didn't call Sunday night she still hasn't called Monday
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morning but by now you've likely spoken to Darren your son who has told you yeah
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we ran into some car trouble right from between Pittsburgh and Northwestern and I told her what to do the car
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checked out and looked to be fine when she left but now you know hey my 21 year old daughter is driving solo by herself
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for five and a half hours roughly in a vehicle that is not in Tip-Top shape right
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so Tammy's mother Joanne she repeatedly called Tammy's friends at Grinnell wondering if anybody had seen her and of
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course nobody is reporting that they had in fact somebody wrote on the message board which was located just outside of
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Tammy's dorm room and wrote Z where have you been your mom's having a cow so everybody was expecting her to show
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up at some point unfortunately that doesn't end up being the case well I feel bad for her mom because that hurt
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really bad to have a cow but a couple things one when your vehicle is not driving correctly you're more likely to
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get into an accident so you have that to think about or if she pulls over on the side of the road
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she could get hit by a moving vehicle um people drive like yahoos and then you have the other possibility that if she
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breaks down in a bad location that she's met with the wrong crowd or somebody with nefarious thoughts stops to help
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her instead of somebody being a Good Samaritan so a lot of possibilities of of putting yourself in a bad position so
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now we have both parents that are extremely worried Joanne asked Grinnell Police to look for Tammy's car
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then began calling Iowa and Illinois State Police it was only after their daughter's
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hatchback had been towed and a description logged on a computer that the zawikis Learned of its location
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now keep in mind this is we've already pointed out this is going to be later on Monday once this vehicle is towed so
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Hank when he finds out this new information her father he immediately filed a missing persons report with the
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Illinois police because that's where the vehicle was found in the state of Illinois
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he described his daughter in the report as five foot two inches tall 120 pounds blonde with green eyes and long blonde
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hair now he later added that she was probably wearing turquoise shell wire rim glasses and had her hair in a
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ponytail and when last seen by her brother she was wearing a white T-shirt dark shorts and gray running shoes she
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also had a fabric friendship necklace and a green watch that played Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
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it's also reported in the report that she was carrying about 150 dollars in cash credit cards a leather handbag
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extra clothing and a box and several cameras now in Illinois the state police they
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scoured the interstate the I-80 site where Tammy's car was found eventually using metal detectors search
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dogs and a helicopter the car which this is really disappointing to hear she's missing we can believe that it's
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due to her car trouble but when police find it in they say that it started up without any
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problem after being towed but like you stated earlier it sounds like the car possibly was overheating so when she
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pulls over on the side of the road the car cools down when they try to start it back up it starts up fine yeah you just
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gotta chill out for a little bit there so it says in it's reported that they checked the vehicle for fingerprints the
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problem with putting that item right here in our timeline is I don't think that it fits right here in the timeline
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I know for a fact that they checked the vehicle for fingerprints however this was done days
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later it wasn't done right after it was towed or right after it was identified as belonging to this now missing person
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well because State Highway Patrol sees abandoned cars all the time hundreds and hundreds of them a day and
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so this is a typical procedure we're going to take the car we're going to give them a day
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for the owner to come move it oh they don't move it we're going to tow it now we're going
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to figure out who owns this vehicle now we got to contact somebody that has connected to them so it is a process and
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I know with a lot of these missing person cases you know like Mara Murray and stuff where people go law
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enforcement didn't do enough well if they could go back in time and if if somebody would have told them hey you
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need to uh really do your due diligence and look for evidence in this vehicle because this person will be missing for
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the next 20 or 30 years but an abandoned car just becomes very routine for law enforcement and you're right captain
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that is absolutely the case especially in a case like Mara Murray's where she is not reported missing for several days
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but in this case it's quite a bit different because the vehicle's towed at 2 pm she's reported missing at 7 pm and
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identified as the owner and Driver of the vehicle that was towed so yeah it takes some time for those things to work
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their way through the system but they had all the information Illinois State Police did at that time that night and
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it wasn't fingerprinted that night now when the vehicle was eventually searched we learned that Tammy's leather bag the
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money any money that she was carrying credit cards and a Canon EO s camera we're all missing from the
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vehicle so either she took those with her or somebody else took those from her on Monday August 31st investigators
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announced that they were looking for a white five axle semi-tractor trailer with two brownish diagonal stripes on
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both the tractor and trailer they say that drive-by Witnesses reported seeing the truck and its driver near mile
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marker 83 on Interstate 80 on August 23rd roughly between 3 and 4 P.M and a man was seen with the semi truck
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as well and that man is described as a white male about six feet tall with bushy dark hair the man appeared to be
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talking to a young blonde woman who resembled Tammy our missing person the two were standing by her car
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apparently checking something under the hood According to some of these Witnesses Illinois State Police
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Lieutenant Harold brignado said of the man he is the last person we know who may have talked to her he's not a
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suspect we just want to talk to him now of course with this announcement Captain leads are flowing in this is
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when we get about 60 people reporting that they saw Tammy on the side of the interstate between 3 and 4 P.M on that
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Sunday afternoon the hood of her car was up some reported seeing a green Dotson pickup parked behind her vehicle
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another described a tractor-trailer truck with stripes down the side of the trailer but again over 20 vehicle types
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were reported as being seen parked at that General location and that General time
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which really confuses matters quite a bit later police would say that we had all of these reports of people seeing
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other vehicles stop there on the side of Interstate 80 but right we didn't have anyone coming forward saying that they
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were somebody that actually stopped to help Tammy or somebody that comes forward and says they they stopped and
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spoke with her right and just think about the distance that she was covering that day over 200 and
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some miles if somebody stopped to help her that was traveling a distance like that there they could be two to three
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hundred miles away when cops are looking for answers nine days after Tammy disappears this is on Tuesday September
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1st a man driving on Interstate 44. this is in Missouri in the state of Missouri
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this is 490 miles from where Tammy was last seen this man was driving for his work that
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day and he stopped because he was concerned that his tools in the back of his truck were getting wet it was
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raining fairly heavily at this time when he stops while stopped he noticed something
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wrapped in a blanket secure it on both ends with duct tape it was about 14 feet from the edge of the roadway he said
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there was a foul odor the man is 37 year old Lonnie DeMont he said quote I was finished and was
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coming around to the front of the truck when I smelled the odor I looked right and saw the blanket in the grass just
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from the shape of it I could tell it was a body so DeMont drove to a nearby Highway Patrol station
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and tells them what he witnessed then he returns to the scene with an officer they made a small cut in the
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blanket and saw a human leg the body which was lying face up on a grassy slope again about 14 feet from the
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pavement had been wrapped tightly in a white twin size sheet and a dull red blanket silver duct tape closed off both
00:27:15
ends so somebody unfortunately wrapped up this package nice and neat almost like a
00:27:24
large burrito here on the side and I'm I'm guessing by our Witnesses statements here
00:27:33
I can visualize this and agree with the size and the shape that unfortunately what we're looking at here is probably a
00:27:41
bottle [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] we are back cheers mates cheers cheers
00:28:15
to you Colonel now they're not going to be able to identify this body right away
00:28:20
right unfortunately it's going to take dental records that would soon tell detectives that this was in fact the
00:28:26
body of their missing college student Tammy's a Wiki Tammy was wearing an East Side Eagles t-shirt and shorts that had
00:28:35
a Greenville County Recreation Soccer League logo on it important to note really kind of a bizarre fact of this
00:28:45
case these are not the clothes that she had on when she left Evanston remember we
00:28:51
have our witnesses there her friend her brother the solar right before she left she also had on lacy panties and a bra
00:28:59
embroidered with the word love and the Brazier was like a nude color or flesh tone and we have her mother who goes on
00:29:09
record Joanne stating this is not anything that Tammy would have picked out for herself or purchased for herself
00:29:16
to her knowledge so go ahead so it leans towards this idea that maybe a perpetrator
00:29:23
uh abductor or trickster into getting hey get into my vehicle I'll take you down to the gas station well now once I
00:29:30
get you in the vehicle I can control you and then he puts her in a situation where he says you need to put on this
00:29:36
outfit or you need to put on this lingerie or whatever that seems like the situation but keep in mind the East Side
00:29:44
Eagles t-shirt and the shorts with the Greenville County recreational soccer league logo on them those those two
00:29:53
items belong to her she just wasn't wearing those according to our Witnesses when she left just a few hours earlier
00:29:59
but yeah you're right with the undergarments this according to her family they're
00:30:04
saying these were we don't believe these two be hers and we believe whoever abducted her made
00:30:11
her wear these for whatever reason at some point now the Lawrence County coroner his name
00:30:18
is Don Lakin had performed the first examination of what was initially described as a shoeless badly decomposed
00:30:27
body and he States in his early report it appeared to be a white female approximately 16 to 24 years of age she
00:30:36
was clothed in a blue T-shirt with East Side Eagles soccer 1989 printed and white lettering on the front and had a
00:30:46
pair of faded blue cut off sweatpants athletic socks that is the description of her clothing some of the more grim
00:30:56
findings from our corner here are seven puncture wounds made by a sharp instrument no more than a half inch wide
00:31:05
these were found in the upper chest area the weapon had penetrated the lungs liver and pericardial Sac around the
00:31:14
heart the victim's right bicep was also punctured possibly due to a struggle or maybe she went to defend herself or
00:31:23
block the knife with her hand or arm and receive the puncture to the right bicep
00:31:31
right a bruise-like discoloration appeared on the right side of her neck interesting and then a quote from the
00:31:38
coroner says the odd part was she didn't appear to have any blood just some body
00:31:43
fluids on the sheet and blanket from the decomposition end quote he estimated that the body had been out in the sun
00:31:51
for four maybe five days all right so let's take some inventory of the situation here shall we our
00:32:01
victim has been stabbed seven times six times in a circular pattern around her heart
00:32:08
and once in her right arm the knife used was small per the report most likely a pen knife is what experts
00:32:16
have said and I've reviewed conflicting reports on the amount of defensive wounds some say
00:32:23
that she put up quite a struggle others say that there was a surprising lack of defensive wounds I'm not
00:32:30
100 percent sure why the discrepancy in this description well hopefully she was able to rip this son of a bitch's
00:32:38
testicles out but discrepancies like this make it hard to examine the case yeah and it sounds to me like they've
00:32:45
done a couple of examinations so maybe they had other findings later but again we can only report to you what we have
00:32:54
viewed and read ourselves and from the prior information in that report the other thing that really sucks here
00:33:03
for any type of investigation is we don't get a good idea of when she was killed
00:33:08
or where right we're we're simply told that he estimated that she had been out in the
00:33:15
sun for four or maybe five days well it was nine days later from the time that she was we can just say abducted we
00:33:24
don't have to keep saying disappeared or went missing it's obvious at this point
00:33:28
that she's been abducted by somebody and had to have been abducted on that day that her vehicle broke down so it's nine
00:33:34
days later when the body is found and if our coroner is suggesting that it's four
00:33:39
or five days out in the sun I think he's kind of ballparking it here Captain I don't think he's you know giving us uh I
00:33:46
don't think that's a really a window of time that we should be really anchored to here in our
00:33:53
investigation right but it does sound to me unfortunately like there was a possibility that she may have been held
00:34:00
somewhere for a period of time and obviously they're stating she wasn't killed on the side of the road there
00:34:07
everything points to she's been killed elsewhere and then somebody pulls up and dumps the body there 14 feet from the
00:34:16
edge of the road on this offering a lot of killers will take their victims back to their home and then torture them at
00:34:26
their home and then once they kill the victim they they dump the victim but some of these truck drivers they can
00:34:32
just they can use their truck as their little torture chamber and when they're done with their victim they can then
00:34:40
just dump them on the side of the road well in one of the serial killers that we started off talking about last week
00:34:47
keep in mind he had a partner for some of his murders he had his girlfriend riding shotgun with him so in that
00:34:55
situation you have somebody that is there to help you control your victim while you're still traveling and keep in
00:35:01
mind too we also have to factor in the distance between where we know she was last seen
00:35:09
and where the body is eventually found nine days later it's what did we say captain 490 miles
00:35:18
yeah that's at 60 mile an hour that's over eight hours of driving we love math right there so we have at least one day
00:35:27
in some kind of vehicle transporting the body right regardless of the situation and
00:35:36
she may have been sitting out there her body may have been on that roadside for the entirety of those four or five
00:35:45
days as the coroner was stating that she had been out in the sun doesn't mean that she had to have been there in that
00:35:52
location but he's saying she's been out in the sun and she may have been there that entire time
00:35:59
the other thing too and we're going to keep going back to this a couple times because it's worth really exploring and
00:36:06
parsing out as much as we possibly can here we have several reports of a bunch of
00:36:12
sightings of such Vehicles near mile marker 83 where Tammy was the last time she was seen or believed to have been
00:36:23
seen alive this again nine days before her body was discovered almost 500 miles away
00:36:30
we have all of those sightings we have all of those eyewitnesses but apparently no one saw whoever left Tammy's body
00:36:38
on the side of the road right but again a semi truck or a truck or a car being on the side of the road for
00:36:46
five minutes is not that unusual it's not going to be something that just sticks out like a sore thumb and if
00:36:54
you're doing anything in the middle of the night right I don't know that anybody driving by is
00:37:00
going to be very suspicious I think there's a lot of truck drivers will pull over on the side of the road
00:37:05
to sleep correct and that probably was more likely in the early 90s than today well and think about how much of your
00:37:14
you only need to do limited activity to get the body from a vehicle to this location on the side of the off
00:37:22
ramp on your screen she's about 120 pounds she's not that heavy well and regardless you're carrying her 14 feet
00:37:30
and what I'm pointing out here is if you have a small vehicle that's one thing but if you have a tractor trailer
00:37:37
that offers a decent amount of concealment too for what you are doing in that limited amount of time that you
00:37:44
need to be doing it yeah that's an excellent point now so this is a week later after the body's found this takes
00:37:51
us to Tuesday September 8th Tammy zawiki was laid to rest following a casket closed ceremony in a mass at a Catholic
00:38:00
Church in Newton Pennsylvania now by the time that Tammy was buried the hunt for her killer had sparked
00:38:08
Nationwide interests this especially after America's Most Wanted aired a spot announcement on her disappearance
00:38:18
that's what prompted a flood of tips about the truck with the diagonal stripes and logo that are now being
00:38:28
phoned into the investigators and because her death involved in abduction across state lines remember she was
00:38:37
believed to be abducted in Illinois she's found in Missouri we have the FBI agents the FBI and Agents from the FBI
00:38:46
that will join the 14 Illinois State Police investigators working with also the Missouri Authorities on the case
00:38:54
right at the beginning of the investigation the zwicki's criticized the police for treating Tammy's
00:39:04
disappearance or how they treated her disappearance initially as though she were a runaway and this is
00:39:13
this is one of those things we've reviewed this stuff and seen this in other cases too it's just incredibly
00:39:18
disappointing it's a real gut punch every single time but we're gonna we're gonna stay on this for just a minute
00:39:25
here because I have a big issue with this one okay look captain and I agree you get like a
00:39:32
victim or somebody that's missing that's the age like 12 or under 13 and under and the cops look at you and say well
00:39:38
they probably ran away and you you look at them cross-eyed going are you kidding
00:39:43
me they're too young to run away now maybe with 16 17 year old maybe if you have some kind of delinquent juvenile I
00:39:50
get that situation but what their response was what the Illinois State Police response was this she's probably
00:39:58
off with a boyfriend somewhere oh no no to which the parents informed the police
00:40:03
she does not have a boyfriend to which then they were told well she's probably off with one of her guy friends
00:40:09
somewhere she'll turn up this is why you don't assume because you make an ass out
00:40:14
of you and me you know you shouldn't especially in an investigation you're just gonna assume oh she's probably off
00:40:21
with a boyfriend or something that that's ridiculous that's like you always say lazy or stupid and and I
00:40:29
think that's both well here's the thing too I I worry that just the wrong lazy or stupid or both person answered the
00:40:36
phone that day because you gotta believe that there's plenty of good officers men
00:40:42
and women in the Illinois State Police today especially today but even back then as well
00:40:49
and this is just really a black eye for the entire department when you have somebody who gives this type of response
00:40:57
because you should take in account and factor in the character of the individual that is being reported
00:41:06
missing and the circumstances surrounding that disappearance right so yeah or where she went missing from
00:41:13
she's not going missing from a location that she has a huge history a big background no she's driving through
00:41:21
number one and number two you find her vehicle on the side of the interstate that's
00:41:27
that's alarming in itself without even having a missing person's report I mean think about this [ __ ] like let's say
00:41:35
I'm I'm from Ohio and you find my car in West Virginia and they just then assume
00:41:41
what we don't know exactly where he was going or where he was heading uh but but
00:41:46
he probably was off with a girlfriend what there's no evidence of this you have no
00:41:53
evidence that I I even know anybody in the area it's this well and that's not even
00:41:58
taking into account your character and what I'm trying to bring up here with Tammy is we're talking about a 21 year
00:42:06
old woman young woman who is on scholarship at a private college right this isn't somebody that just
00:42:13
willy-nilly decides not to show up one day or just goes because of her jib right that just decides oh I'm going to
00:42:19
smoke a bunch of pot and ride shotgun and Chase the Sun for three or four days no that's not the type of person that
00:42:25
she is there's nothing wrong with smoking pot and Chasing the Sun and so what I'm also disappointed in is
00:42:35
let's go back to something that we've already covered that I believe is key in in a second black guy on Illinois State
00:42:43
Police here coroner says that her body was out in the sun for four maybe five days
00:42:50
she's missing for nine before the body's located if you had taken this report this
00:42:56
missing persons report seriously there's a chance you could have gotten to her while she was still alive
00:43:04
we don't know that for certain because we don't have the scientific facts to back that statement up but we can base
00:43:10
it off of the information that's been reported that there was a possibility that you
00:43:15
had a couple of days to find her and instead your answer is well she's probably off with some guy friend
00:43:21
somewhere up to no good mom and dad don't worry she'll turn up in a couple of days well
00:43:27
in the detail that you brought up earlier that keeps swirling around my head it's this idea that she was
00:43:34
enclosed that her parents State belonged to her but in undergarments that they don't
00:43:43
believe are connected to their daughter they don't believe she owned those undergarments I mean just can't say with
00:43:52
100 certainty we can only base it off of what the family has said but this is not
00:43:58
something that they've wavered on over the years they've said this from the time that she was found until today
00:44:05
that we don't believe that those were hers we have no reason to believe that the they belong to her so we have a task
00:44:14
force if you want to call it that if you will right that we have the Illinois State Police involved we have Missouri
00:44:21
authorities and we have FBI agents all involved now these wikis over the years have pointed out that especially in the
00:44:30
early stages of this case this investigation they didn't feel like the communication
00:44:36
between those three agencies or or however many agencies were involved in this was great they don't think the
00:44:45
communication was great that there may have been some infighting or or at the very least not sharing of information
00:44:51
and we have said time and time again that the two of the best weapons that we have in fending off serial offenders
00:45:00
these days is that we apprehend them faster right we have less serial killers with
00:45:06
numbers as high as 20 30 40 people right because they're getting caught simply after one or two victims and a lot of
00:45:14
that is based off of two factors two major key factors one technology and two communication between all of
00:45:23
these law enforcement agencies now the highway the FBI's Highway serial killer initiative and VI cap and things like
00:45:32
that are all key pieces in opening up those lines of communication and kicking off the conversations keeping the
00:45:42
information flowing and getting to the right people now one thing I will say that is of good
00:45:49
work in Tammy's case is she is on several databases which is really to me the start of of any of this type of
00:46:00
investigation that first thing I do when when we take a look at a case for porch light
00:46:09
and it's a cold case the first thing I look at is what databases is our victim on or in most cases what what databases
00:46:17
should they be on and in Tammy's case if you look her up she's on several databases a couple that come to mind of
00:46:25
course we've already mentioned the FBI's website she's on the seeking information
00:46:29
category and probably some others and we also have her on the Iowa cold cases database and probably some more I I hope
00:46:39
because those are tools those are tools for not only solving these cases and bringing Justice for our victims and
00:46:47
their families and their friends but also tools for us to keep the public safe by getting these monsters off of
00:46:55
the streets out of our communities and in this case off of our nation's interstates and highways yeah because
00:47:02
any young female that has broken down on the side of the road or pulled over on the side of the road is a potential
00:47:09
victim for one of these monsters when you read about cases like this and about some of the other cases that we've
00:47:16
covered in the last couple weeks going back to to Sam little and last week's cases
00:47:24
but Tammy's especially it's when it makes you want to just fall to your knees and thank God that we
00:47:31
have cell phones these days because I I would guess and I would hope that Tammy's situation would have been that
00:47:39
much different that much better if she would have had some ability to communicate with somebody else or call
00:47:46
for help now on the better side of the investigation Captain we do know that when they were working the case
00:47:54
they worked the case quite hard as far as I can tell there were men from all over the country that were looked at as
00:48:01
possible suspects many of them truckers Persons of Interest included men from as
00:48:07
far away as Tampa Florida Humboldt County California and Nashville Tennessee now I'm going to circle back another
00:48:17
time to what I believe is one of the key elements in this case and is really it's
00:48:24
it's sad that so little came of this because in any case as a detective you would think having so many potential
00:48:32
Witnesses would be a godsend so in review and with a little more detail in the early weeks of the investigation
00:48:42
more than 60 drive-by Witnesses 6-0 drive-by Witnesses reported having seen Tammy on August 23rd right all together
00:48:53
they claim to have seen 26 different types of vehicles this including cars motorcycles and vans and trucks that
00:49:02
stopped to help her with men and women at different times apparently offering her assistance
00:49:10
remarkably none of the people who stopped has ever come forward to notify police of their
00:49:17
encounter with Tammy quote we can't explain it FBI agent Bob long said quote except that maybe these
00:49:26
people still don't know about the case or they're afraid to get involved [Music]
00:49:44
[Music] we pointed out there that the FBI is concerned that maybe people have not
00:49:54
heard of this case or for some reason they would be afraid of coming forward look it's been all of these years later
00:50:01
and nobody is going to fault you for calling in a tip or information today today is the day make it happen if you
00:50:09
know something say something report it if you have any information keep in mind there is a fifty thousand dollar reward
00:50:16
for information leading to the identification of the individual or individuals responsible for the murder
00:50:24
of Tammy Jose and the FBI would like for anyone with information to contact their
00:50:31
local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or consulate so much more to get
00:50:38
to we want to hear your thoughts on the blog at truecrime garage.com join us back here tomorrow same Back Time same
00:50:45
bat Channel and until then be good be kind and don't learn [Music] thank you foreign