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The Murder of Tammy Zywicki
On August 23, 1992, Grinnell College student Tammy Zywicki disappeared while travelling from her home in Marlton, NJ to Grinnell, IA. Her abandoned car was found that same day along I-80 near North Utica, IL. Nine days later her body was found about 500 miles away alongside an on ramp to I-44 near Joplin, MO. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death. Her killer remains at-large.

Victim
Tammy Jo Zywicki was born on March 13, 1971 in Pleasant Hills, PA to Henry "Hank" Zywicki and Joann Zywicki. Tammy had three brothers, two older and one younger. Hank's job as a civil engineer required the family to move around the country quite often. By 1992 the family had lived in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, South Carolina, and New Jersey. She graduated from Eastside High School in Taylors, South Carolina, where she was a member of the Girl's Soccer Team and the Yearbook Committee. She also played soccer for the Greenville County Recreation Commission and the St. Giles Soccer Club, both in Greenville, SC. In 1989 she began attending Grinnell College in Iowa where she was pursuing dual degrees in Art and Spanish. She also played Varsity Soccer for the college and intramural Rugby. Tammy worked for the school newspaper and the Office of Sports Information. She was an avid photographer and enjoyed nature. During the 1991 school semester, she studied abroad in Spain. In the summer of 1992, she worked for Blockbuster Video in Marlton, NJ. Her return to the Grinnell campus was primarily to take photos of the football team for the school yearbook. After completing that task, she was to leave the campus and report for an internship at the Art Institute of Chicago on September 8, 1992.

Disappearance
On August 23, 1992, Tammy Zywicki left Evanston, Illinois, where she had spent the night at a female friend's house. Around noon, she stopped in at Northwestern University to say goodbye to her brother Daren, who she had dropped off at the campus the previous day. Her vehicle had brake and engine problems since leaving New Jersey, and had stalled twice in Indiana. However, both she and Daren felt the car was safe to drive. At some point between leaving Northwestern University campus and reaching mile marker 83 on I-80 near North Utica, Illinois, she stopped in at a Hardee's restaurant and had a meal. Between the times of 3:10 pm and 4:10 pm, several motorists observed her and her white, 1985 Pontiac T-1000 hatchback along the side of the road at mile marker 83. The hood of the vehicle was up, and several witnesses saw Tammy looking into the engine compartment.

One witness reported seeing a vehicle, possibly a pickup truck, parked behind Zywicki's car. The witness also described a man who she believed to be the driver of the vehicle, and later identified him as Lonnie Bierbrodt of Pierce City, Missouri.

Another eyewitness, a local Diesel mechanic, reported seeing a white tractor trailer and cab parked near Tammy's car. Both the trailer and cab were reported to have had two brownish orange rust colored diagonal stripes that were raked back at an angle. This eyewitness also described a person, possibly the truck driver, looking into the engine compartment with Tammy: White male, 30 to 45 years old, about 6 feet tall, with dark, bushy, neck-length hair.

The Illinois State Police placarded Tammy's car as being abandoned at 5:00 pm that day, as the driver was nowhere to be found. The vehicle was reported as being locked, and an open camera bag was observed on the front seat in plain view. There were no signs of foul play. The vehicle was towed at 1:45 pm to the State Police impound yard.

When Tammy did not call home as scheduled to tell her parents that she had arrived safely, her mother began calling Tammy's college friends and the college administration to see if she was on campus. On August 24, 1992 at 9:30 pm. Tammy's mother filed a missing persons report with the Illinois State Police.

Police Investigation
By 11:30 pm on August 24, 1992, the Illinois State Police (ISP) issued a missing persons bulletin for Tammy Zywicki. By the morning of August 25th, the police realized that her car had been impounded the previous day, and moved the vehicle to the State Police garage for forensic examination. The FBI was called in to consult on the case, and a 14 man task force was formed by the ISP. A search using K-9 units, fixed and rotary winged aircraft, and the Illinois National Guard was conducted along the I-80 corridor. The Zywicki family mobilized the Grinnell and Northwestern college communities to aid in the search for Tammy. The students utilized email and USENET to get the word out to other colleges to be on the lookout for Tammy. Amateur radio operators (AKA Ham Radio operators) sent out bulletins about her disappearance to over 24,000 police stations around the country. The Clinton-Gore presidential campaign bus carried Tammy's missing person flyers to other parts of the nation.

At 10:00 am on September 1, 1992, a motorist named Lonny Demotte had pulled over to the apron of the on ramp to I-44 at mile mark 33. He stopped to cover some tools in the back of his truck, as it had started to rain and he did not want them to get wet. He smelled an odor and identified the source: a red blanket sealed with silver duct tape in tall grass just 14 feet from the edge of the asphalt of the on-ramp. Suspecting that it was a body, he left the scene and phoned the Missouri State Highway Patrol from an unknown location. He returned to the scene and met up with the responding patrolman. They both worked to make a cut in the blanket with a knife, and looking into the blanket saw a human leg.

The body was that of an unidentified white female, aged 17 to 21, 5'2" tall, 115 to 120 lbs., with auburn hair. Eye color could not be determined due to the effects of decomposition. The body was muscular, tanned, and well manicured. There were no broken fingernails or bruises to indicate that a struggle had taken place, other than a slight discoloration on the neck of the victim. There were a total of eight stab wounds to the body: 1 to the upper right bicep, and seven to the chest in a circular pattern around the heart. One lung (with two wounds), the pericardial sac, and the liver had been punctured. The wound channels were 1" to 1.5" wide. The pathologist who performed the autopsy determined that the victim had internally bled to death.

The victim was wearing a pair of "frilly" panties and a lacey, flesh colored bra with the word "Love" embroidered between the cups. Worn over the undergarments was a blue t-shirt emblazoned with a white soccer ball and the words "Eastside High Eagles Soccer - 1989". She was also wearing blue or black cut-off sweatpants that were decorated with embroidered patches. Two of the patches were round in shape and white in color, with green lettering saying "GCRC Division Champs" and "GCRC Soccer County Runners-up”. Both of these patches were found sewn onto the left leg of the garment. The right leg of the garment had an American flag patch sewn onto it. Also, the right leg had an area that looked as if a patch had been torn off of the garment. She was wearing white athletic socks with no shoes, however a pair of shoe laces were recovered with the body. The body was wrapped in a sheet, and the sheet was then wrapped in a red blanket. The blanket had been sealed on the ends with duct tape.

Despite several discrepancies between the body and Zywicki, such as the fact that Tammy had blonde and not auburn hair and was not known to wear lingerie', the body was eventually identified as hers by comparing 5 dental cavities from the body with Zywicki's dental records. The discrepancies were explained away as the effects of decomposition.