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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 that
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wonders who's buried in the grave of the guy that invented the old Switcheroo ladies and gentlemen here is the captain
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yeah it's good to be seen good to see you thanks for listening and thanks for telling a friend
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today we are switching things up a bit here we are still drinking fine beer from our friends at Fat Bottom Brewing
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Company but today we are going with their other beer made four major league soccer in Nashville's own soccer club
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this delightful Brew is called pitch Invasion this is a logger it's crisp it's clean it's delicious it's a
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traditional American lager with super Crush ability ABV 4.5 garage grade three and three-quarter
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bottle caps out of five and let's give some praise and thank yous to our good friends for helping us out with this
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week's show first up a big cheers to Regina in Mackinaw Illinois and a big shout out to Gwen in Alexandria Virginia
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here's a cheers to Fatma and Dearborn Michigan a big shout out to Jill in Elkhart Indiana next we have Valenta and
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we also have Diane both who reside in beautiful Parts Unknown and both who donated very generously to this week's
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beer fun so we of course send Valenta and Diane a big warm Ron Swanson please and thank you because they along with
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everyone else we just mentioned here today well they went to True Crime garage.com and helped us out with this
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week's shows and for that we thank you yeah bwr you win beer run how about you treat yourself go to our
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store Page and treat yourself we have a bunch of new shirts I think you'll look fabulous in one of them and you get to
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support the show in the process keep the lights on keep the beers flowing and uh
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keep that paycheck coming into the kernel and Colonel that's enough of the business all right everybody gather
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round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] foreign
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[Music] most of us are used to driving on the interstates and hardly give it a second
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thought but we should some of the nation's worst criminals including serial killers proud those busy highways
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tonight news 13's Kim Holland is on special assignment to report on the danger and a new weapon to fight it
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she was Somebody's Daughter most likely murdered and dumped in the harsh New Mexico desert she still had a ribbon on
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her from a County Fair in Missouri and she wore handmade jewelry her bloody body buried in a shallow grave two men
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on Horseback stumbled upon the body here in 1999 just outside of Grants the case
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had grown cold so 10 years later in 2009 the FBI headed back out to the woman's grave site her body has never been
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identified so we never found a wallet or any ID the interstate roadway system connects cities towns and
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communities across the country allowing anyone with a vehicle to move quickly easily and anonymously because the New
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Mexico Jane Doe was found near Interstate 40. the FBI wondered if she could have been murdered by a serial
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killer we look at any connection to the highway just this year the FBI utilized a new tool to try to crack the New
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Mexico's place they entered it into a program the agency created in 2004 all the cases in
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the database have one thing in common the victim or suspect had some link to the interstate local law enforcement
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officers are able to submit violent crime cases involving rape murder found human remains and suspicious kidnappings
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to the FBI the FBI then decides if the case should be included in the database this map shows the more than 500 cases
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that are in the serial killing database the FBI and officers across the country can search the system to see if any of
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the cases can be connected and traced back to a serial killer oftentimes interstates allow for a crime of
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opportunity for Killers who Target drug users prostitutes and hitchhikers investigators for example will look for
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a link to a transient or a truck driver follow an interstate and you may find a death here more victims down the road
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and a killer at the end of the line that's exactly what spurred the FBI's Highway serial killings database in 2004
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in investigators noticed patterns in up to 200 unsolved cases numerous prostitutes working truck stops had been
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killed and dumped mostly along I-40 from Oklahoma all the way to the east coast the feds along with local agencies
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linked a bunch of the cases and arrested long-haul trucker John Williams and his
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girlfriend at the time Rachel Cumberland for about 20 of the murders the FBI then
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realized cases not obviously related might be so it created the highway serial killings database and opened it
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up to police and Sheriff's departments across the country so every law enforcement agency now can look into the
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database put their cases in there modify their cases and do their own searches and the system works agencies across the
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country with the help of the FBI have identified about 200 suspects in nearly 600 unsolved cases since the database
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began detectives in New Mexico have solved two of four cases in the database although it doesn't appear they're
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connected to a serial killer yet but they're still looking for the killer of new Mexico's Jane Doe investigators hope
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the highway serial killers initiative will help Crack the Case and bring a daughter back home to her family Kim
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Holland KRQE news 13. now if you would like to see the highway serial killers initiative map or check out the specific
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items found on Jane Doe's body go to our website at krqe.com [Music] if you go to
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fbi.gov and you go to the category of seeking information you will find a report and a poster seeking information
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to help solve the murder of Tammy J zawicki and I'm going to read some information from that poster I wish
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everybody will go to fbi.gov and view that there and review that information this is a good review of everything that
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we covered here yesterday in the garage captain and it says that Tammy zwicki was found murdered in Lawrence County
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Missouri August 23rd 1992 and it has a picture of her 1985 Pontiac T-1000 that she was driving that
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was a white vehicle with New Jersey plates the description of our victim they have her listed as has blonde hair
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height five foot two inches tall green eyes 120 pounds and she was a Caucasian female there is a reward the FBI is
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offering a reward for up to fifty thousand dollars for information leading to the identification of the individual
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or individuals responsible for this crime and it gives us a little bit of a brief history in this report that says
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the wiki was reportedly last seen with her vehicle at mile marker 83 on Interstate 80 in Central Illinois
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between 3 10 p.m and 4 P.M on August 23rd 1992. it was also reported that a tractor-trailer was seen near zawiki's
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vehicle during this time period the driver of the tractor-trailer is described as a white male between 35 and
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40 years of age over six feet tall with dark bushy hair some of the victim's personal property
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is known to be missing and I want everybody to pay close attention to these items here because finding these
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items locating one of these items could be the breadcrumb in the trail that we need to create to lead us to Tammy's
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killer so these missing items these are known to be missing items include a Canon 35 millimeter camera a musical
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wrist watch the watch is Loris brand this one's very interesting to me here Captain because this doesn't
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it's not a one-of-a-kind item but it's an item that I've never heard of before so it must be somewhat rare right this
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wristwatch Loris brand l-o-r-u-s in case I'm not saying that correct correctly but at the time that
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she went missing the watch played the tune Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head that's interesting so this item would be
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of particular interest if anyone can locate an item like that and why these are important because we know that a lot
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of killers like to keep items of their victims have souvenirs might be some items that you would stumble upon
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your uncles office or something where it doesn't make sense for them to have these items
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now we went through The Disappearance yesterday we went through all of the items in the timeline as
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and the details of the early investigation and what we have now here Captain is we're kind of lost in the aftermath a
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little bit we have her parents her family who are searching for answers we have investigators in three different
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agencies that we know of that are working the case we have Tammy's parents Hank and Joanne who they appeared on a
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couple of different TV shows and radio shows trying to raise awareness for their daughter's case they appeared on
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am Philadelphia and they also appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and on the Oprah Winfrey Show they were focusing in
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on Highway murders of women we have a quote from Joanne her mother who says as tough as it was emotionally to talk
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about we decided on lots of exposure to keep Tammy's story alive her husband Hank added that they wanted to help take
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back America's highways then expressing his frustration at the slow pace of the investigation Nation at the time of the
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Oprah Winfrey Show he stated I just want them to find the person who killed our daughter if they don't catch that son of
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a [ __ ] I don't know what I will do yeah sad stuff now we have Joanne's sister Bonnie who says losing your kid is every
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parent's worst nightmare she said I just told Joanne hang in there if you let yourself fall apart the criminal hasn't
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only taken one life but two or more I understand the parents frustrations but these types of crimes are very hard to
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investigate because we don't know exactly who was in that area or why they were in that area agreed and this is
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very likely a stranger on Stranger crime and we're probably dealing with an individual that has the ability to
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travel a great distance and a short period of time again the other problems with the investigation will be that we
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don't know when exactly she was killed or where so we are missing at least one crime scene in this case we have some
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more quotes from her mother Joanne and she says it's coming on one year so this is leading up to the one year very sad
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anniversary of their daughters first disappearance and then death right she says it's coming up on a year still no
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results from the investigation but what can I do I have no faith in the FBI or police in particular she is concerned
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about a recent loss of possible evidence the evidence was this we have witnesses
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at a gas station near where Tammy's body was found they reported seeing a truck and a
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trucker that might be could be linked to Tammy's case yet police who initially said they had collected receipts from
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this gas station turns out that they never actually did and the receipts were eventually thrown
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away Master Sergeant Harold Hendrickson of the Illinois State Police said the oversight occurred because they were
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simply stretched too thin in this case like many others the victim's parents take on this responsibility on
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themselves they don't trust the FBI they don't trust the police department so they're going to start reaching out and
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trying to support other individuals that have been through the same type of situation and trying to bring awareness
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to crimes of this nature the first of these situations of giving back and being an advocate not only for their
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daughter but for other victims out there to my knowledge Captain came before just
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the day before Tammy would have turned 22 years old when we have Joanne her mother who stood before about 50 or so
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students she was a speaker for a talk sponsored by the South Jersey survivors of violent crimes
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to have an impact to make people aware of Highway homicides in America of prevention of such crimes and the role
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of police this would become a mission one that would soon blossom into other talks other support group visits from
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Joanne and members of Tammy's family in Iowa a local private detective had volunteered his services to
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Tammy's family this is former Grinnell Police Chief Jim Ahrens he was investigating trucking companies and
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their routes he and the police believe the likely killer of Tammy was a trucker because Tammy's body was found a
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sufficient distance down the on-ramp to have been dumped from the back of a truck so this is really interesting here
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Captain because we got two angles to this Theory right one angle is that because her body was transported such a
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great distance away in a somewhat relatively short period of time it makes sense that the killer had the
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ability to do this and so therefore a trucker would fit this scenario and could be a a possible
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occupation of our suspect yeah it makes sense but they're going to double down on this thought in this Theory this Jim
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Aarons who is saying that us and the police when we look at where her body was located where where it was actually
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found 14 feet from the side of that on-ramp or off-ramp they're saying that if you took a truck and you lined it up
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to just where where it would meet to you know get almost to the turn so we have a tractor trailer right
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the back of the trailer is about the distance from where her body was found to where the vehicle
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would make the turn that makes sense so it almost like fit perfectly right like it's almost like a
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puzzle piece when you're looking at this crime scene of where her body was eventually located the private detective
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goes on to say that he also believed that the murderer may be responsible for other unsolved cases in that region he
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said I want nothing to do with the reward I just want to catch the guy I believe
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he's still out there and I think he's going to do it again now at the time of that interview the private detective was
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referring to the 100 000 reward that was offered up by an anonymous Pennsylvania donor to anyone
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with a tip that would help arrest and convict the murderer of Tammy zwicki right as he had in the past her father
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Hank continued to feel that he was somewhat somehow partly responsible for his daughter's fate because of the
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faulty car well so they've heard a lot of pushback from the general public right they've a little bit of victim
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blaming here saying you know why wasn't she driving a a safer vehicle a better running vehicle why was she traveling
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alone and because she's a college student and you know how much College cost well and
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not only that this this is here's the thing we don't need the public to point that out to the parents of a dead child
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that when their child has been murdered they wrestle with all these with all these thoughts and and second guessing
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themselves and questioning everything they did every day every day so we don't have to do that
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for them trust me this is something that when when your child is taken from you and when you're a loved one is killed
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especially a child that you you are supposed to be protecting right that you're going to blame yourself you're
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going to blame things that you did or did not do through the course of their lifetime and say constantly go what if I
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could have done this what if I sh maybe I should have done this and this is just
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another example he's saying that he feels partly responsible for his daughter's fate because he he raised her
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to be cautious with strangers saying that maybe if she had been more of a free spirit or if I had raised her
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to be more of a free spirit then she would have just taken the first ride that was available to her
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and got through the whole thing without a problem you know we did say that multiple people according to Witnesses
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stopped that day so maybe the killer the abductor would seem to be one of the last or the
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last person to stop and he's saying if I just would have raised her different and and taught her to not be
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so cautious and worried about strangers then maybe she would have just taken the first ride
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just got in and maybe that wouldn't have been a problem it would have been somebody that would have been okay for
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her to ride but the the first person that stopped could be the the murderer you know yeah I I I understand what
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you're saying in this case it seems like a multiple people stop but there could be a situation where the
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only person that does stop is somebody that's there to harm you well exactly there's no correct answer to these
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questions or these things that that eat these family members up of victims I mean this stuff eats at you and he goes
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on to say in this article he said that what's so frustrating there are prostitutes and other kinds of women in
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Crazy situations and they're still alive then there's a kid like Tammy someone you protected nurtured and guided she
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worked hard went to school on a scholarship did all of the right things and someone takes her life it's unfair
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totally wrong he says people talk about God and how he controls things well why did he let this happen right
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I do want to go on to point out some of the better things here in regard to the family and and their thoughts
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you know when when pressed with those types of questions why was she traveling alone
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the zwickeys have said quote Tammy has incredibly good judgment she wouldn't get into a car with a stranger
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her mother pointed out Tammy Street smarts adding that her daughter was a strong-willed tough cookie who worked in
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many jobs throughout her life and keep in mind she traveled to Spain on her own she was in another country
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for a semester less than a year before she is abducted and killed right but um a person with a knife or a person with a
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gun it's a whole different scenario maybe she is the type of person that wouldn't have gotten in a car with a
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stranger but that gun that knife told her otherwise agreed you may not have a a choice in the matter but what
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the family is pointing out is they're saying what why would we have any concern of her traveling by herself
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right you know this is nothing new to her she went to a whole other country by herself for a semester well and as a
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parent at some point you have to let go and let them Venture off into the world you can't protect them 24 7. yeah if
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your kid is 57 years old and you're still a helicopter mom well there's other problems going on in that Dynamic
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yeah I mean you could put your child in a bubble if you want Bubble Boy well let's get into some of the possible
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suspects because we do have suspects that have been that we will recognize by name here so the first one is Clark
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Perry Baldwin he's a long-haul trucker from Iowa he was arrested in May of 2020 this after forensic genealogy linked his
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DNA to the 1990s era slangs of three different women women from Wyoming and Tennessee the Des Moines Register
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reported that Clark Perry Baldwin age 58 at the time was taken into custody at his Waterloo home after investigators
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linked his DNA with semen and other materials recovered from the victims two of whom were pregnant Baldwin worked as
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an over-the-road truck driver for most of his career living in Nashua and Waterloo Iowa and Springfield ill and
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Springfield Missouri in 1991 he was charged with raping a 21 year old hitchhiker at gunpoint in Wheeling
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County Texas the woman told police that Baldwin struck her on the head bound her
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hands and mouth and tried to choke her to death he allegedly admitted to the assault but
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was released pending grand jury proceedings the charges were then dismissed after the state was unable to
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locate the victim that's according to court documents what else do we have on this giant pile of donkey turds we'll go
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back to the register for this next bit which says the 1990s murders Baldwin is accused of include the 91 murders in a
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Tennessee of 32 year old Pamela Rose McCall and her unborn fetus Pamela was last seen at a Tennessee truck stop days
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before she was found in the woods off of Interstate 65 in Spring Hill Tennessee she was located in March of 91. an
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autopsy determined she had neck injuries and died of strangulation sperm was recovered from pantyhose that she was
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wearing in Wyoming Baldwin was charged in the deaths of two women whose bodies were found in 1992
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the bodies were found roughly 400 miles apart the women were never identified unfortunately and are referred to as
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Bitter Creek Betty and I-90 Jane Doe all these crimes are going to be linked through CODIS and forensic genealogy was
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conducted to lead detectives and investigators to Baldwin according to investigators they had
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always suspected that a truck driver killed the three women in all three cases here we learned captain that
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investigators zeroed in on Baldwin after finding DNA in commercial genealogy databases of someone related to this
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suspect to his profile court documents State this now we had Waterloo FBI who secretly collected DNA from Baldwin's
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trash and a shopping cart he used at a Walmart and testing revealed that we have a match and according to CBS News
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investigators from multiple States this after we've already figured out boom this guy is a long-haul trucker and boom
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he's a serial killer investigators from multiple States started looking into whether Baldwin
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could be responsible for several other unsolved homicides and we have detectives with the Iowa division of
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criminal investigation that stated we are looking at any connections that Baldwin may have had to other cold cases
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right one case involves the 1992 death of Tammy Joe zwicki age 21 in an Iowa college student who was last seen after
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her car broke down on Interstate 80 in Illinois so investigators from multiple states are looking at being at this
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Clark Perry Baldwin for possible involvement in any of their unsolved Highway killings good news here they
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have his DNA they've already connected his DNA to multiple cases that we know of
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unfortunately shortly unfortunately recently what we learned here Captain is that while they were
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looking at Baldwin in the case of Tammy Joe's Wiki they have recently backed away from that
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idea now I have seen it reported that DNA evidence has proven that he's not the perpetrator
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of Tammy's murder however it's a little inconclusive I've not seen anything to back that statement up I've
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only found that in one location so I'm a little I'm a little sketchy of that being the absolute
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in this case but it would make sense knowing that they do have his DNA right we should note though that the case that
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kicked off all of these different stories that we've reviewed this week and last week is the unsolved murder of
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Kristen Schmidt we should note that Baldwin was a free man driving around this country when Kristen Schmidt was
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killed he wasn't apprehended until 2020. maybe not responsible for murdering Tammy but possibly responsible for
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murdering Kristen foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we are back cheers mates
00:28:14
we have no bad edits ever ever but we've had a couple people complaining saying that they're
00:28:22
listening to the show and it's like repeating lines so you want to make sure that one you're subscribed to that
00:28:29
you're downloading the episodes or that you're listening through Wi-Fi if you're
00:28:34
not and it loses signal it will rebuffer back to a spot that was previously downloaded as you're streaming so that's
00:28:44
why you're probably hearing lines repeated so you want to make sure that you subscribe download or listen to the
00:28:52
show through Wi-Fi thank you so much for that this is going to lead us to a case
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where the highway serial killer initiative by the FBI provided information that assisted local law
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enforcement with homing in on a killer a killer trucker this takes place in 2007
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when Sergeant Pat postiglione a veteran homicide investigator with the Nashville
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Police Department had a case in which a 25 year old sex worker named Sarah Holbert was found on June 26 2007. her
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body was found behind a truck stop in Nashville Tennessee she had been shot with a 22 caliber gun and a plastic bag
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fastened over her head with electrical tape just three weeks earlier on June 6 48 year old Samantha winters
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also a sex worker had been found in a trash can at the Pilot Travel Center on Highway 231 in Lebanon Tennessee
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she was also shot with a 22 caliber and her head was bagged as well now on a hunch
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our detective called the FBI and learned that sure enough there were a number of recent cases in which sex
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workers were found dead along highways in the states of Georgia and Tennessee and they all had been shot with the 22
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caliber gun so our detective and his partner spent hundreds of hours reviewing videotape
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footage from the truck stop from the night that Sarah disappeared checking out all the big rigs that came in and
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out and looking for anything suspicious they noted one yellow truck that parked and departed within a 30-minute window
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so very short for a typical trucker stop they put out a B on the lookout for the
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truck purely on Instinct and the next day our detective found that truck at a truck stop near an area known to be
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frequented by sex workers so he goes up to the truck knocks on the cab we get a generic looking white man that
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comes out of the truck his name was Bruce Mendenhall now this is from the LA Times quote his shirt was unbuttoned and
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he wore no shoes as postiglione that's our detective sized him up he said he noticed a speck
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of Blood on the man's thumb and what he thought were several corresponding drops
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on the driver's door of the truck Mendenhall calmly agreed to submit to a DNA swab and signed a consent form
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granting the detective permission to search his truck guess what they found in the truck a thong some whipped cream
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and a nine iron a cell phone an ATM card that did not belong to him in fact it belonged to a 31 year old
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mother of two who had gone missing from a truck stop near Indianapolis just 12 hours earlier
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he also found bloody women's clothing in a plastic bag gun cartridges a rifle tape a night
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stick latex gloves handcuffs sex toys and more than 300 items of what was listed as items of Interest they found
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blood or DNA that would link him to five victims linking him to at least five female victims this all located inside
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his truck and that is not the worst of it right you'd think it can't get worse than anything that these two garage have
00:32:38
already listed for me no it does because they found a piece of cut out flesh containing the tattoo of what would turn
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out to be one of his victims so he just had a random piece of Flesh that had a tattoo on it as a souvenir yeah who
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knows I'm not going to try to get inside his mind I don't think this is a um Jane
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Gum situation Buffalo Bill situation where he's creating a skin suit this to me might be we've seen this in some
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other cases where a killer will in the hopes of the victim not being able to be identified will remove a
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tattoo by cutting off the flesh where the tattoo is on the body and so that appears to be what he did
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here either to deter investigators make it more difficult for them to identify the
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victim or as you said who knows this could just be some kind of sick weird souvenir that he kept for any
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number of disgusting reasons now fortunately he's picked up by this good detective
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who not lazy not stupid did all the extra work did all the smart stuff and got this monster off of our highways and
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in 2010 this Bruce mandenhall guy was convicted of first degree murder he was sentenced to life in prison he
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eventually confessed to killing Six Women these were women who had last been seen near
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truck stops in Tennessee Indiana Georgia and Alabama we prefer the smart not stupid not lazy police officers but
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on the flip side of that Captain we prefer stupid and lazy criminals so listen to this because when this Bruce
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Mendenhall while he's awaiting trial yeah he digs himself a little bit deeper right by offering to pay two other
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inmates to kill three Witnesses who were scheduled to testify against him what a
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dumbass now police catch on to this as well this ends up earning Mendenhall a conviction for conspiracy to commit
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murder and an additional 30 years test run on the blood that was found in mendenhall's truck showed that it
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belonged to Leticia Milliken a 28 year old drug addicted transient from Tennessee Latricia was reported missing
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in June of 2007. her family hadn't heard from her in some time now blood links him to her disappearance unfortunately
00:35:23
she has never been located her body has never been found so he's he's a scumbag but how would he be connected to
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Schmidt's case or Zoo Wiki's case well the of course the obvious answer here is that he's a
00:35:39
long-haul truck driver and in both situations that is where the investigation is taking investigators so
00:35:46
he's reportedly a suspect in multiple other murders keep in mind Mendenhall was a trucker for 18 years
00:35:56
who knows how many women he could have killed during that time period we know that he's guilty of six
00:36:03
um he suspected in several other homicides one of those is in fact Tami zawicki our Grinnell college student
00:36:11
that was found stabbed to death in 92 the one that we spent the majority of yesterday talking about now
00:36:19
this report here states that Mendenhall is the prime suspect in Tammy's murder and I think that part of this is because
00:36:29
he was based in Illinois this is where Tammy went missing from the last known location of where Tammy was before she
00:36:37
was later found killed but it's interesting to me here captain that on several news outlets we find that Bruce
00:36:46
Mendenhall is listed as the prime suspect in Tammy's a Wiki's case and I'm not doubting those sources
00:36:56
I'm simply pointing out that if you go to other news outlets they actually suggest that another guy is the prime
00:37:04
suspect in Tammy's murder now Mendenhall has a few nasty monikers and is known by
00:37:14
the names of the truck stop killer the rest stop killer and the frosty shooter now those names aren't cool but his name
00:37:23
should be more like wrinkly balls panty sniffer killer he was not picked up until
00:37:30
2007 and as we just stated he is listed by some news outlets as the prime suspect in Tammy's case but because he
00:37:40
was not arrested until 2007 Kristen Schmidt could possibly be one of his victims although the caveat here with
00:37:50
Bruce Mendenhall being the perpetrator of Kristen's murder is that he was not known to travel to the Pacific Northwest
00:37:59
so we don't have anything directly linking him to Oregon where she was picked up now
00:38:07
some words from the great Detective Pat postiglione who retired from Nashville homicide after 25 years on the
00:38:19
force and was the one to crack the case that ultimately took down this trucker serial killer Bruce Mendenhall
00:38:28
he said quote there's evil out there unfortunately I wish that wasn't the case but there's real evil out there
00:38:35
there's true evil and it lurks everywhere you have to really be aware of your surroundings Bruce Mendenhall
00:38:43
did not have killer printed on his forehead you would walk past him in a grocery store and not look twice at him
00:38:51
just said stupid this is going to bring us to another suspect in Tammy's case a short list of suspects which included
00:39:01
the name of a man named Lonnie beardbroke this man was detained and interviewed just two months after
00:39:07
Tammy's body was found Lonnie then was Lonnie then was 32 years old he had served some time in prison
00:39:15
nine years for two counts of armed robbery he received concurrent 20-year sentences but there were significantly
00:39:22
reduced unfortunately yes and what this points out though is a History of Violence or violent crimes committed by
00:39:30
this individual right now I don't know how Cooperative he was with their investigation or during the course of
00:39:38
these interviews that took place two months after Tammy's body was found the reports do state captain that he did
00:39:44
give or was forced to give hair samples and fingerprints but today what we learn
00:39:53
is that investigators are saying the problem with that is great he gave us hair samples and fingerprints but we
00:40:01
don't have a whole lot of physical evidence in this case right there wasn't a whole lot of physical evidence found
00:40:07
with Tammy's body and authorities didn't know where the crime scene was or even when the murder had taken place so again
00:40:14
we're missing that other crime scene we're missing the location where she was killed and
00:40:21
we know she was killed due to being stabbed but law enforcement has never recovered the murder weapon
00:40:28
right so there's not a lot that we're working with here now they had to let this
00:40:37
Lonnie beer broke go right because they don't have any evidence directly connecting him to Tammy's murder and
00:40:44
when they did even though they liked him a lot they didn't make they didn't make
00:40:48
his name public at that time now this his story is is really interesting in the way that it's all tied up in with
00:40:57
Tammy's case and this is why I kind of question those other outlets that say Bruce Mendenhall is the prime suspect in
00:41:05
Tammy's case right because we have one witness that doubles down on the doubles down on this Lonnie person being a good
00:41:15
suspect so in January of 1993 right Tammy was killed in 92. we have a nurse we'll just refer to her as a nurse her
00:41:26
husband was a judge okay so that adds to some credibility here on her part he calls the State Police in regard to
00:41:35
Tammy's case she's calling for the second time this is January of 93. she's calling for the
00:41:42
second time the first time she called her first call was made shortly after Tammy went missing this woman witnessed
00:41:50
Tammy on the side of the road on the side of Interstate 80. she had given a description of a man that she
00:41:57
said she saw standing with Tammy on that day in that question in that in that time that's in question in her second
00:42:05
call she said that the man she saw had came into her Clinic so she sees a guy with Tammy on the day
00:42:15
that Tammy goes missing she reports this shortly after Tammy goes missing two police now she's on the phone a second
00:42:22
time months later in January because she's going oh yeah you know the guy that I told you I saw standing with
00:42:29
Tammy that day he's in my office right now right it's the same guy so I couldn't provide you
00:42:36
with a name before to go track this guy down and interview him but today I know his name because he's in my clinic there
00:42:44
he is got him so she identified him to police this Lonnie beard brought and this man
00:42:51
was from Missouri uh who had family in the LaSalle area so think about this he has family in the general area of
00:43:01
where she goes missing right he also has ties to the area the general area where
00:43:06
she's found well that's kind of difficult considering that they're 490 miles apart
00:43:13
that's a tough coincidence to get over when you have this guy that you can now interview that's a real quinky dink I
00:43:21
don't know how aggressively police pursued him there's some reports out there that say that they they may not
00:43:28
have taken some of these calls as seriously as they should have I don't want to go too far down that road
00:43:34
because I don't know the details of of such well also sometimes they're just under staff what we what we do have
00:43:41
today when we look back on the case is this detectives saying that they think several things in regard to this witness
00:43:50
her statements and Lonnie as a potential suspect so detectives say one the nurse
00:43:57
we believe her to be a credible Witness and on top of that they find her statement her witness statement extra
00:44:06
valuable and they let it carry a little more weight because they say one she knows
00:44:12
the time that she saw Tammy and this is based off of fact because she had just left a McDonald's restaurant just swung
00:44:21
through the drive-through picked up some McDonald's and she had her receipt which was time stamped
00:44:29
and she said that she went to the McDonald's shortly before she saw Tammy and the man that she described standing
00:44:37
with Tammy so we have we don't have somebody looking back and going oh I think it was on that day that
00:44:42
the girl went missing no we have a date and a time stamp that puts this witness in the area yeah it confirms the time in
00:44:51
the day yeah exactly so according to investigators when they start looking into this Lonnie guy [ __ ]
00:44:59
bag [ __ ] face supposedly he's on vacation from his truck driving job he's also a trucker
00:45:06
when Tammy went missing he's supposedly on vacation at this time now his wife says well he couldn't have picked up
00:45:13
Tammy and killed her because he was at home with me in Missouri again where they live is not terribly
00:45:20
far from where Tammy's body was found the other thing too is they figured out that this Lonnie character once owned a
00:45:29
green Dotson truck the one that a bunch of eyewitnesses thought they saw yeah so
00:45:34
we had this tractor-trailer truck that's seen and we'll we've provided a description for that and we'll look to
00:45:41
put some pictures on our social media of this tractor-trailer truck that they were looking for information on but we
00:45:48
also had this witness that said they saw a green Dotson truck I'm assuming that that witness is the same as the nurse
00:45:56
I don't know that for certain but we do know that at least one witness said they
00:46:01
saw this green Dotson truck Lonnie happened to own one at the time that Tammy went missing and oh by the way
00:46:09
police later find out that he cleaned it steam cleaned it and sold the truck shortly after Tammy's body was found
00:46:18
surprise surprise but seems like there's a pile of evidence piling up on this pile of [ __ ] that there is and
00:46:27
in fact there's at least one detective retired now that's on record with several news outlets saying look he
00:46:36
Lonnie beer broad was our Prime Suspect I believe that he is guilty of killing Tammy he thinks that the case is
00:46:45
solvable so much so that he says that he thinks that there is enough that they could lay out there to the public to
00:46:51
convince everyone that they could go ahead and close out the case now what's interesting to me is let's find some
00:47:01
more evidence on this guy I don't want to just close something out it'd be nice to get some DNA connecting this guy one
00:47:08
problem though is Lonnie passed away in 2002 another very strange thing in the Lonnie
00:47:16
being a suspect situation is it's been reported I I've not seen any names linking this or really tying down
00:47:25
this fact a little bit better we're putting a bow on it but it's been reported that he gave a watch
00:47:34
that was similar or damn near the same as the one that was missing from Tammy and from her car
00:47:43
when she was found killed the plays The Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head that he gave a watch to somebody that he
00:47:51
knew I believe a family member gave this as a gift again I don't think that that's a one of a kind item but I think
00:47:58
we all can agree here in the garage that that seems like a rather unique item yeah very unique that there's maybe not
00:48:05
100 million of them out there unique New York and so that seems like there's less
00:48:11
than 100 million of them yes it seems like that's an awfully big coincidence to to kind of get over that's a big
00:48:19
hurdle to get over and not connect him to Tammy's case another Winky Dink now we don't have anything linking him to
00:48:28
Kristen's case I know we went through several individuals and in fact we could have spent a whole year going
00:48:36
through this FBI's Highway serial killer initiative once you start looking at all
00:48:41
the suspected serial killers looking at all their victims looking at each of the
00:48:47
actual trucker serial killers that came up and I still think that that is going to be
00:48:54
how they track down Kristen Schmidt's killer that is going to be the Avenue that leads
00:49:03
them to Kristen Schmidt's killer I think it's a very solvable case me too I think
00:49:08
Tammy's case is very solvable and in a lot of ways I'm rather pissed off that Tammy's case isn't solved it
00:49:17
seems like there was a lot of meat on the bone there a lot to work with and if maybe certain people at certain agencies
00:49:23
would have just acted a little quicker maybe we wouldn't find ourselves in this situation the situation is this
00:49:31
we're just a month away from the 30-year anniversary of when Tammy was taken and
00:49:38
killed a long time has passed but it's too long without any answers that's too long without any justice well and then
00:49:44
double down on that here Captain because next year in June of next year will be 20 years
00:49:52
since Kristen Schmidt was killed now back to Kristen's case we posed a series of questions
00:50:01
on the unsolved murder of Kristen Schmidt to the Oregon State Police one of them was in reference to a 2015
00:50:11
article and the Legrand Observer which reports that police have identified a suspect
00:50:17
and a person of interest several years ago but no arrests have been made the Oregon State Police would not answer
00:50:25
our questions about that person or persons but it's worth noting that the OSP detective Greg Rutherford told the
00:50:36
Observer that investigators believe Kristen fell victim to a serial killer saying quote we suspect it was a serial
00:50:43
killer because of the method of death the killer appeared to be experienced he said that there were details about the
00:50:51
manner of death that they were keeping close to the vest because only the killer would know them
00:50:57
then D.A Martin Birnbaum told the East Oregonian way back in 2003 quote their running test to try to find out if
00:51:08
there's any DNA that can be salvaged from Kristin and guess what they do have DNA from Kristen's killer that's
00:51:19
awesome they were able to extract a profile from the sexual assault kit and some blood found on Kristin right we
00:51:27
don't know why the killer was bleeding perhaps Kristen scratched him hopefully she fought like hell and clawed him damn
00:51:34
near to death or perhaps he cut himself hitting her or on a weapon that has not been disclosed by police
00:51:42
the OSP would not tell us when we asked this question but good news the two samples yielded
00:51:49
one consistent DNA profile the OSP told us in an email suspect profile DNA was loaded into CODIS early on and to date
00:51:59
there have been no suspect hits from CODIS but the agency also told us something else
00:52:06
here is the email exchange True Crime garage what is the current status of the investigation are you considering the
00:52:12
use of forensic genealogy answer forensic genealogy testing is pending for suspect DNA identification
00:52:20
pending to us it sounds as though the DNA profile from Kristen's killer has been submitted for forensic genealogy
00:52:28
analysis right and we might have some answers soon as to who killed this young woman I'm hoping that the same thing is
00:52:36
happening in Tammy's case and that we are only days weeks maybe even a couple of months away from solving one if not
00:52:46
both of these horrific murders [Music] [Music] fascinating stuff thank you so much for
00:53:11
joining us here and let us enter your ear balls for another couple hours Colonel do you have
00:53:18
any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners we'd like to recommend Ginger strand's book killer on
00:53:25
the road violence and the American Interstate Ginger strand set out to write a book about the interstate
00:53:32
highway system but became so taken with the number of murders that the project morphed into a study on Highway
00:53:38
homicides and the suspects who commit them check out killer on the road violence in the American Interstate you
00:53:46
can find that great title and many more great recommendations on truecrimegarage.com's recommended page
00:53:52
and make sure you follow us on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook we appreciate it
00:53:58
until next week be good be kind and don't wither thank you [Music]