Tammy Zywicki
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In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.

Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder.

My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice. Today, I'm discussing the case of Tammy Zwicky.

Tammy was an ambitious, upbeat, creative young woman who was about to start her senior year of college. She dreamed of being a professional sports photographer or a Spanish teacher. She wasn't sure yet. But in August 1992, Tammy was driving back to college after summer break when she had car trouble on the highway. The next day, her vehicle was found abandoned on I-80 outside of Utica, Illinois. A week after that, she was found dead 500 miles away.

Although it's been over 30 years since Tammy's murder, investigators believe that with new technology, her case can be solved. This is the case of Tammy Zwicky. The Zwickys are what you'd think of as the typical all-American family. Hank is an engineer, and Joanne is a stay-at-home mom to four kids, three boys and a little girl, Tammy Jo.

When Tammy's 10, the family moves to Greenville, South Carolina. It's in the middle of the school year, so it's a tough transition. But Tammy jumps right in and starts making friends. Even as a kid, she's super confident and fun-loving. She also loves sports. She's a star on the soccer team, and a talented photographer, too. She fell in love with the hobby after taking a photography class her junior year.

Tammy seems to be good at everything she does, and she's got a cool style. One friend describes her as wearing long skirts with combat boots, and making the pieces work together perfectly. She even has this wristwatch with a green band and a green umbrella on the face. When you press a button, it sings the song, Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. Tammy's just fun. Even as a teenager, she's totally herself, and loved by those around her.

While Tammy loves having fun and goofing around with her friends, she also excels academically. One friend describes her as, quote, "...one of those students who didn't have to study." When the time comes to research colleges, Tammy has a lot of options. And always the adventurer, she wants to go somewhere a little different from the areas she grew up in. She eventually lands on Grinnell College. It's a small but prestigious school in Grinnell, Iowa.

Now, this is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, so it's a pretty tight-knit community, and it seems like Tammy really finds her place there. She decorates her dorm room with posters of James Dean. She and her roommate also adopt a three-legged cat, which they name Tripod Bob. He actually becomes kind of a campus celebrity. In 1991, the cat earns 110 votes in the election for student government president. Now, it's not enough to win, but he does come in third place.

Tammy's studying Spanish and art history, and after graduating, she either wants to teach Spanish at a college or become a professional sports photographer. And it doesn't seem like she's really far from that goal. Tammy's already working for the athletics department as a photographer. During her junior year in 1992, Tammy spends the spring and summer studying abroad in Madrid. While she's there, she also travels around Spain, Italy, and Portugal.

She enters her senior year with even more excitement ahead. She has a fall internship at the Art Institute in Chicago, where she's going to work on her photography. Tammy's worked hard, and it's paying off. But before her internship starts, she plans to head back to Grinnell for a couple weeks to take some pictures of the football team. Tammy's younger brother actually goes to Northwestern University, which is just outside of Chicago. So they're gonna make it into a whole road trip. She'll

She'll drop him off in Chicago and then continue on to Grinnell. On the morning of August 22nd, Tammy and her brother take off in Tammy's white Pontiac T1000. The car is only 7 years old, but it's not in the best shape. They have minor engine trouble while driving through Indiana, but they do get it sorted out and make it to Northwestern that night. Tammy drops her brother off, then spends the night with a friend she met while studying abroad.

The next day, Sunday, August 23rd, Tammy stops at her brother's place around 1pm. He checks the engine before she leaves, and everything looks fine. He tells her that if the car stalls again, she should just stop at a rest area for a while to let the engine cool off. They say goodbye to each other, and Tammy takes off for Grinnell, heading west on I-80.

This is about a five-hour drive, so she should get home around 6 p.m. But that evening, Tammy doesn't call home. Her parents were expecting her to call when she reached Grinnell. So when they don't hear from her, they start to get worried. Joanne calls Tammy's friends, and they haven't seen or heard from her either. One friend scribbles a note on the message board outside of Tammy's dorm. Quote, "'Z, where have you been? Your mom's having a cow." End quote.

Now, remember, this is the early 90s, far before cell phones were common.

So it is just possible she had car trouble and got stuck on the road. But even then, she could have found a payphone to call home from. Her family just knows it isn't like her to leave everyone hanging. So when her parents still don't hear from her by the next morning, they call the police. And the response is not great. According to Joanne, the police tell her that Tammy probably just ran off with her boyfriend. But Joanne says Tammy doesn't even have a boyfriend. And

and it's totally out of character for her to run off like that. We all know that in missing person cases, time is everything. So this dismissiveness from officers is really frustrating. Tammy's parents are ringing the alarm bells so early on, and it seems like the police just don't listen. But Joanne isn't going to just wait around. She takes matters into her own hands. She calls the local paper, and the next morning there's a story about Tammy's disappearance.

Unfortunately, there are conflicting details in news reports about how long it actually takes for police to start investigating, but it seems like they didn't start until at least one to three days after Tammy was last seen.

But once they do start looking into it, the case seems to move pretty quickly. Police finally put out an APB telling officers to be on the lookout for Tammy's car. And as it turns out, Tammy's car was already found. It was left on the side of I-80 near Utica, Illinois. A state trooper apparently marked it as abandoned at 5 p.m. on August 23rd, just hours after Tammy left the Chicago area.

In the time between the car being found and police investigating Tammy's disappearance, the car had already been towed away and was handled by multiple people, which means it's impossible to dust for fingerprints, so crucial evidence might have already been lost. Now, when the car was found, it was locked, and there weren't any signs of a break-in, but Tammy's purse and one of her cameras were missing.

It seems like she may have had car trouble and pulled over to see what was wrong. It also looked like she probably left to go get help, taking her purse and camera with her. Once the news actually gets out, leads start pouring in. Around 60 eyewitnesses call in to report seeing Tammy on the side of the road, hunched over the engine. This was between 3.10 and 4 p.m. Some eyewitnesses also report seeing a green Datsun pickup truck pulled over behind her.

Others report seeing a white semi-truck with brownish-orange diagonal stripes, and a trucker who appeared to be helping Tammy. He's been described as a white male between 35 and 40 years old, with dark bushy hair. But without other details, it's hard to track this man down.

On Tuesday, August 25th, Tammy's parents and older brother travel to Illinois to be closer to the search. They stay at the home of one of Tammy's friends in Chicago. While the investigation was slow to start, within a few days, the Illinois State Police had put together a task force of 14 officers dedicated to finding Tammy. FBI agents are also called in to help. Since they don't know what direction Tammy might have gone in, they search by air, all the way from Iowa to Indiana.

Meanwhile, dozens of Grinnell students mobilize to help with the search. Tammy's friends make flyers and drive all over the Midwest, handing them out to truck drivers and anyone else who might have seen Tammy. But after a week, the search hasn't really gotten anywhere. Nine days after Tammy disappeared, her family makes the heartbreaking decision that it's time to go home and wait for the police to do their jobs.

On September 1st, Hank and Joanne Zwicky fly back out of Chicago, and during their layover in Cincinnati, an airport official flags them down. There's someone on the phone for them. The Zwickys are ushered into a small room, where they answer the worst phone call a parent can ever get. A woman's body has been found in Missouri. The police think it might be Tammy.

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Tammy's body was found by a driver who'd stopped an I-44. She was wrapped in a red blanket sealed with duct tape, lying about 14 feet from the edge of the road. It does take a couple days to ID her body, not only because of the decomposition, but also because there were unfortunately a lot of young women matching Tammy's description who had disappeared in the area. But after comparing dental records on September 3rd, they confirm it is Tammy.

The autopsy shows that Tammy had been sexually assaulted and stabbed. She died just a few hours after she disappeared. Based on the decomposition, she'd been lying on the side of the road for days before she was finally discovered. But there's no murder weapon found at the scene, and investigators aren't sure where she was actually killed.

Now, there are a few other things that are worth noting here. First, Tammy was found wearing different clothes than what she was last seen in. When she visited her brother to say goodbye on August 23rd, she was wearing a white t-shirt, but she was found in a blue t-shirt. Now, the blue shirt definitely belonged to her. It had the name of her high school on it, but we don't know why she would have changed. Second, her athletic shorts are missing her soccer club patch, which isn't found on her body or in her car.

She's also missing her watch, the one I mentioned earlier, the green one that sings, Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. Also, Tammy was found wearing lace underwear and a frilly bra with the word love embroidered on it. Her mom says this is something she wouldn't have usually worn. Now, obviously, Tammy could have owned some lingerie she didn't tell her mom about, but it does raise the question of whether someone else put these undergarments on her either before or after she was murdered.

There's also the question of why Tammy was found in Missouri, 500 miles away from where she was last seen. Police make the assumption that she may have been killed by a truck driver. Maybe they disposed of Tammy's body further along the route to throw off the police. It's also extremely worth noting that the blanket Tammy was wrapped in had a logo for Kenworth, a truck company.

At this point, it seems like the obvious suspect is the truck driver who witnesses saw pull over to help Tammy on the afternoon she disappeared. But after sorting through hundreds of leads and pulling over dozens of trucks that match the description, investigators still can't identify the driver. So they turn to the media. On September 4th, the day after Tammy's body was identified, the FBI gives a description of the truck to America's Most Wanted, hoping someone will call in with a tip.

Meanwhile, the Zwickys get to work on creating more media pressure and give interviews to news outlets across the country. They decide that getting as much exposure as possible for the case is the best way to keep the pressure on.

The thing is, back then, even more so than today, the widespread idea was that if a woman is assaulted or killed, it's because she did something wrong. She dressed too provocatively, or was walking alone at night. If a woman behaved in the right way, did all the right things, supposedly they would be safe.

But Tammy's death destroys that illusion. For many, it shows how vulnerable women are to random acts of violence. It's horrifying to think that a young woman traveling alone can be abducted and murdered in broad daylight on a busy highway with witnesses all around. Still, a lot of people look for ways to blame Tammy. It seems like everyone has an opinion on what she could have done differently. She should have had a cell phone.

She should have had someone driving with her. She shouldn't have been driving a car that was so likely to break down. And this kind of speculation not only has consequences for all victims, it has consequences for the family. Her dad Hank spent years blaming himself for not getting his daughter a cell phone or a better car.

It's honestly heartbreaking. The truth is, Tammy didn't do anything wrong and neither did her father. She was just driving back to school on a Sunday afternoon. If something like this could happen to her, it could happen to anyone at any time.

The Chicago Tribune writes, quote, End quote.

At Grinnell, Tammy's fellow students turn their fear into action. The students start a club called Fearless. They promote road safety and prevent violence against women. They hold rallies and group therapy sessions for students grieving Tammy. Pretty soon, several other colleges start their own chapters of the club.

The Illinois Trucking Association also sets up a crime prevention network, and they collect tips from hundreds of truck drivers who might have information about the case. Overall, the trucking industry is really cooperative with the investigation. One worker from the association said that they're tired of having a bad name because of crimes like this, and they want to do whatever they can to help solve Tammy's murder.

And more help comes from an anonymous businessman who puts up a $100,000 reward for information leading to Tammy's killer. His name has never been released, but he apparently doesn't have any personal connection to Tammy or the family at all. He's just a good Samaritan who was touched by Tammy's story.

For months, though, all this attention and public pressure doesn't really lead anywhere. As summer turns to fall, Joanne Zawicki can't stop thinking about the fact that her daughter's killer is still out there somewhere, spending Thanksgiving with family, living their life without any consequences. Of course, this is all while Tammy's family tries to make it through their first Thanksgiving without her. They light a candle in her honor.

and everyone stays as upbeat as possible under the circumstances. But Joanne says it's rough. She's having trouble coping. Her husband Hank just holds all his emotions in. Tammy's brothers seem to be working through their grief, but it's never easy, especially around the holidays. Christmas was Tammy's favorite holiday, and she always decorated the tree all by herself. This year, though, the rest of the family has to chip in.

The family also buys a crested cockatiel named Ed as a gift to themselves. Tammy and her dad had apparently talked about getting a pet bird for years, but never did. Throughout all this grief, Joanne is constantly hounding the police. She's frustrated with how little progress they're making. Just waiting and waiting for Tammy's killer to be caught.

And then finally, in January 1993, a new tip comes in. Way back in August, a nurse called in a tip. She said she was driving an I-80 the day Tammy disappeared. And she saw Tammy and a man in a green pickup truck on the side of the highway. At that time, she didn't have any other information to add, so the investigators didn't really follow up with her. But months later, in January 1993, a married couple comes into the medical facility where she works.

And she immediately recognizes the husband. It's the man with the green pickup.

Now, I think we do need to remember that this nurse only saw this guy from a distance, and it was several months earlier, so we should maybe take this with a grain of salt. But there is something else to support her claim. While the wife is getting a routine blood test done, she shows the nurse a watch her husband had recently given her. It has a green band, a green umbrella on the face, and it plays Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.

just like the watch Tammy was wearing when she went missing. When the nurse shares this information with police, they are able to track the man down. His name is Lonnie Bierbrot, and there's a lot of circumstantial evidence that leads investigators to think Bierbrot might be their suspect. He's a trucker. He was confirmed to be in Illinois in the same area as Tammy on the day she went missing. He lives in Missouri, close to where Tammy's body was found.

and he spent time in prison for armed robbery and attempted murder. He also owned a Green Datsun pickup truck, just like the one multiple eyewitnesses saw parked behind Tammy on the highway. Now, I said he owned it, past tense, because he apparently steam cleaned and sold the truck just days after Tammy was murdered. And you guys, the semi-truck he drives for work is a Kenworth, the same brand as the blanket Tammy was wrapped in.

Bierbrot is taken in for questioning, and as far as I can tell, he doesn't have an alibi. On the afternoon of August 23rd, he was visiting family just minutes away from where Tammy's car broke down. One of the investigators would later say it was hard to get much else out of him, because he seemed, quote, demented. Now, I don't know exactly what they mean by that, but it sounds like he wasn't very cooperative. The investigators do take hair and blood samples from Bierbrot for testing, but they don't

And then they let him go, and he's never questioned again. Honestly, I'm not really sure what happened here. The investigators say they don't have enough physical evidence to charge Beerbrot, because even though they have his DNA, there wasn't enough DNA found on Tammy's body to make a comparison. The green watch Beerbrot gave his wife was apparently never recovered either, but it's hard to say how thoroughly the investigators actually looked for it.

It seems like without anything physical linking him to Tammy, they just don't want to indict him. They basically just give up and stop looking into him. I mean, this guy was in the area. He had the same kind of truck. Not only that, after he's questioned, he goes back to the medical center, and he accosts the nurse asking how the police got his name. I'm not saying this guy did it. I'm just saying I think it warranted further investigation.

But then, just a few weeks after all this information comes out, the task force is suddenly disbanded. Authorities said it was because of a lack of progress. It's the same story we've heard a million times, you guys. The case isn't closed, but the team is reduced from 14 officers to 4. Then the team dwindles to 2 officers. Then, eventually, just 1.

I tried to find answers about why this all happened so quickly, basically right after the task force zeroed in on their first serious suspect. Now, of course, even if the police kept digging into Beerbrot, they may not have found anything. Like all people discussed on this show, he is innocent until proven guilty, and he did die in 2002 without ever being arrested or charged.

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After the Tammy's Wiki task force was disbanded, the investigation slowed down to a crawl. New leads still occasionally surface over the next few decades, but none of them really end up going anywhere.

As one of the more prominent examples, in July 2007, a trucker named Bruce Mendenhall is arrested for murder in Tennessee. He is eventually charged with killing four women at truck stops all around the country in 2007, and he's suspected of killing several more. His victims were mostly sex workers who were killed by gunshots, not stabbing, and his first murder was more than a decade after Tammy was killed.

but the circumstances are similar enough that the FBI decides to question him about Tammy. There aren't a lot more details that have been made public, but investigators say they checked Mendenhall's trucking routes to see if he could have been near Tammy the day she disappeared. In the end, they don't find any evidence to charge him, but they also can't rule him out as a suspect.

A detective on the case says, quote, he could have easily been where Tammy was, and there'd be no paper trail linking him to that area, end quote. Over the years, there have been countless leads like this, truckers who were arrested for other murders, and could have possibly theoretically killed Tammy too. In three decades, 12 different suspects have been investigated, seven were entirely ruled out, and the rest were never charged.

The investigation just keeps going in circles because there are so many potential suspects. There are so many women just like Tammy, who were kidnapped or killed on the road. Every time one of these cases is solved, there's new hope for Tammy's family. But it seems like every time it just turns out to be another random, senseless murder with no connection to Tammy.

In 2014, more than 20 years after Tammy's death, the Illinois State Police call in help from the VDUX Society. This is a volunteer group of criminal investigation experts, detectives, forensic specialists, FBI profilers, and so on. They're based in Philadelphia, but they consult on cold cases for police departments all over the country. The Illinois State Police send some investigators out to Philadelphia, and they show the VDUX Society all the evidence they have.

The specifics are never made public, but the investigators say they looked into the suggestions the society gave them. But again, it doesn't really seem to have gone anywhere. I can't find any updates on what they did with whatever information they got from this, so it could have been just a big nothing. But former investigator Martin McCarthy still thinks they had their suspect decades ago, Lonnie Beerbrot, and they let him get away.

McCarthy did retire in 2001, but in the years since, he's been very vocal about the lack of follow-through in the investigation. He's also taken action. In 2015, McCarthy asked the governor of Illinois to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the case, and specifically Beerbrot's possible involvement.

But of course, the problem is, Beerbrot's been dead since 2002, and even if they were to find smoking gun evidence, you can't bring charges against someone who's dead. If Beerbrot did kill Tammy, it's too late to ever prove it in a court of law. But I would counter that by saying it could give Tammy's family some answers.

McCarthy and the Zwickys can't let go of the missteps in the early investigation. If they had started the search more quickly, if they hadn't towed Tammy's car before dusting it for evidence, if they'd taken Beerbrot more seriously as a suspect, then maybe this case could have been solved a long time ago.

Now, the Illinois State Police insists that they have fully investigated every potential lead. But Joanne Zwicky isn't so sure. She says she's heard from people who called police with information, but they were never interviewed. In fact, in my research, I found a man claiming to be the person who found Tammy's body, and he says he wasn't interviewed by police until 2020. That's what, almost 30 years later?

Joanne Zawicki is also frustrated that the task force was disbanded so quickly. And since then, the case has changed hands between a dozen different officers over the years. It's been three decades now, and the family is still desperate for answers and justice. Amazingly, despite all this grief and pain, the Zawickis haven't let Tammy's death consume them. They try to focus on the positive.

pointing out things that Tammy would have liked, appreciating the time and family they still have, not taking anything for granted. They kept some of Tammy's favorite things around the house, and even named their Wi-Fi network after her.

But the pain is still there in the back of their minds no matter how much time passes. One of Tammy's brothers says, quote, End quote. Tammy's dad, Hank, died a few years back, without ever getting answers about his daughter's death.

But Joanne is still fighting for answers. She still gives the occasional interview to keep Tammy's name in the press. She's also in touch with the moderators of a Facebook group called Who Killed Tammy's Wiki. It was actually started by two men who don't have any personal connection to Tammy. They just want to see her case solved. Right now, the group has almost 5,000 members from all over the world, and they have been responsible for finding new physical evidence and developing new leads.

Joanne credits the Facebook group for the media attention Tammy's story continues to get. In 2020, on the 28th anniversary of Tammy's death, one of the Facebook group founders organized a motorcycle ride in Tammy's memory in Illinois. It was such a success, they made it into an annual event. Last year, they added a second ride in South Carolina, and this year they're planning one in Iowa too.

The events raise public awareness about Tammy's case, and they're a powerful show of support for the Zawicki family. We all know that attention is crucial for keeping the investigation going, but that's pretty much where the case is today.

Right now, it seems like the best hope for solving Tammy's murder is that DNA evidence. Back in the 90s, they weren't able to analyze the DNA found with Tammy's body because it was so low quality. But we all know that technology has improved a lot since then. The police haven't released any specific details. But in 2021, they told People magazine, "...with recent advances in DNA technology, the investigation is moving forward."

The police still have DNA on file from some of the old suspects in Tammy's case, and they can also try finding a match through genetic genealogy databases. If a family member of Tammy's killer submits their DNA to a genetic testing company, the police can match it against their DNA evidence and narrow down a suspect. We're seeing this happen all the time right now.

Of course, this is a really long process. So even if the police are actively working on it, it could be years before they make any progress. Which brings me right to our call to action. It's been over three decades since Tammy's death, but we're closer than ever to finding her killer. New leads are still cropping up every few years, and it's only a matter of time before one of them pans out.

So let's keep up the pressure and make sure Tammy's story doesn't fade out. After all this time, her family deserves answers. Joanne Zawicki is still hopeful that one day she'll get to look her daughter's killer in the eye during their trial. She says, quote, I'd like to tell that person just what they did, that they took a life that had so much to offer, end quote. As a reminder...

21-year-old Tammy Zawicki was last seen on I-80 near Utica, Illinois on August 23rd, 1992. A green Datsun pickup truck and a white semi with brownish-orange stripes were both seen parked next to her. If you were in the area that day or have any information that might help with the case, you can call the Illinois State Police at 815-726-6477.

But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.

Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. This episode contains writing and research by Kate Gallagher, and it was edited by Amber Von Chasson. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show in your podcast player. It's an easy and free way to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice. You can also support what we do here over on Patreon at patreon.com.

patreon.com slash voices for justice. And for even more content, check out my other podcast, Disappearances, only on Spotify.