Speaker 1: Paper Ghosts is a production of iHeartRadio, previously on Paper Ghosts.
Speaker 1: So they took to DNA and how did you feel
Speaker 1: about that? Oh, it didn't bother me because I mean
Speaker 1: I I wasn't part of it. They got to eliminate everybody. Well,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I mean, it's always easy to
Speaker 1: tell the truth, right when you start making up stories.
Speaker 1: It'll change over time. I mean, if you know, if
Speaker 1: I told you'll lie today and you came back to
Speaker 1: me five years later, you know I'm asking the same question,
Speaker 1: I may not respond the same way. Right, He alone
Speaker 1: perpetuated the Lonnie beer Brott sort of fantasy as a
Speaker 1: suspect because he was no longer part of the investigation,
Speaker 1: so he wasn't aware that Lonnie had been eliminated. My
Speaker 1: name is eem William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist. Then off,
Speaker 1: they're more than forty true crime books. This is season
Speaker 1: three of Paper Ghosts in Plain Sight. As you have
Speaker 1: heard throughout the podcast, retired ESP Master Sergeant Marty McCarthy
Speaker 1: has been the driving force behind the accusation that Lonnie
Speaker 1: beer brought, a former truck driver with a criminal background
Speaker 1: from LaSalle County Illinois had something to do with Tammy
Speaker 1: Ziwicki's murder. Because of that, beer Brought's name has become
Speaker 1: almost synonymous with the case. Here's a guy who was
Speaker 1: cleared through blood and DNA, a person law enforcement is
Speaker 1: convinced had nothing to do with Tammy's murder, and yet
Speaker 1: if you look online, he might as well be guilty.
Speaker 1: By the fall of twenty twenty two, I'd confirmed through
Speaker 1: multiple sources that Lonnie beer Brought was no longer a
Speaker 1: suspect and Tammy's murder. Law enforcement, however, did not do
Speaker 1: much to publicly clear Lonnie's name, or at the very
Speaker 1: least reach out to Marty to tell him to back off.
Speaker 1: Hello Marty, Hello Marty, how you doing. It's Matthew. So
Speaker 1: I called Marty myself to discuss the facts that his
Speaker 1: prime suspect, Lonnie beer Brought, was not Tammy's killer, and
Speaker 1: that much of the ribbing he'd done against the ESP
Speaker 1: and FBI was for nothing. Yeah, man, good good. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to follow up with you and talk about
Speaker 1: a few things. Lonnie beer Brought was completely and clearly
Speaker 1: ruled out by blood and DNA. Okay, And they first
Speaker 1: ruled him out in nineteen ninety three, and so what
Speaker 1: do you think of that? I don't take much of it.
Speaker 1: I mentioned that everyone i'd spoken to in law enforcement
Speaker 1: was basically on the same page about Lonnie in their view.
Speaker 1: The eyewitness's story about seeing him along the roadway with
Speaker 1: Tammy and later seeing his wife wearing a watch similar
Speaker 1: to Tammy's, well those stories were false. We could talk
Speaker 1: about that eyewitness because the eyewitness account I don't think
Speaker 1: I can put much weight in. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: why she's traveling on the other side of the highway
Speaker 1: and she calls this in a week later, and well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't become an issue, you know, it doesn't become
Speaker 1: an issue until about a week later. Well, that's what
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. I mean, I mean, you have
Speaker 1: an eyewitness who Okay, a week ago, I saw I
Speaker 1: drove by, and I saw this green or blue truck
Speaker 1: and I saw this guy talking to her. Well, I've
Speaker 1: seen cars broken down myself. There's no way I could
Speaker 1: remember what I saw. I don't think it's a good
Speaker 1: piece of evidence to go on. Okay, do you think
Speaker 1: Lonnie stopped in his truck when Wickie's car broke down?
Speaker 1: I don't think that was Lonnie. And here's here's why,
Speaker 1: because just up the road from where Tammy was broken down,
Speaker 1: there was another car broken down. Yeah, and and so
Speaker 1: I don't know that saw Tammy or saw the other
Speaker 1: girl who was broken down. I don't know that. We
Speaker 1: don't We have no way of knowing that. And I
Speaker 1: can't hang my hat on a witness on the other
Speaker 1: side of the highway driving sixty miles an hour. She
Speaker 1: wasn't violent, no, no, no, no, okay, So she slows
Speaker 1: down down, So she slows down, but she's on the
Speaker 1: other side of the highway and feeling she's on wait, wait,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, wait a minute, let me finish, And
Speaker 1: she drives by on the highway, and then a week
Speaker 1: later she gives a statement about it. So if she
Speaker 1: had an eerie feeling, I don't know why she didn't
Speaker 1: report it that day or why didn't she stop, why
Speaker 1: didn't she drive away? That You're kind of sound to
Speaker 1: me like the state police's view of the witness. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're just down on the witness. Not fun. You concluded
Speaker 1: a watch. I just lost my she lost my credibility
Speaker 1: with this watch story. With you know, every Lonnie beer
Speaker 1: Brod to make him the guy. The entire case hangs
Speaker 1: on her everything. I think that's true, and I think
Speaker 1: that that's exactly what happened. People flying by an eighty
Speaker 1: five miles an hour. She's the honest. Why would lie.
Speaker 1: I don't think she lied. I don't think she lied.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that what she saw, I don't think
Speaker 1: she saw, you know, she she's just kind of you know, oh,
Speaker 1: oh my god, there's a girl missing. Now I saw something.
Speaker 1: Much of Marty's theory about Lonnie beer Brod hung on
Speaker 1: the eyewitness's account. I don't blame him for pursuing this
Speaker 1: lead or for being alarmed by what the witness told
Speaker 1: him a decade later, But I spent a year trying
Speaker 1: to confirm her story and just couldn't. The other thing
Speaker 1: is a sticking with that same witness. There is no watch.
Speaker 1: Tammy's watch is still missing. They don't have the watch.
Speaker 1: No one's produced the watch, never had the watch. That
Speaker 1: was a story that got out there that she has
Speaker 1: no idea. No, no, no, that's not true. The witness
Speaker 1: told me. I'm just going with the witness told me.
Speaker 1: The only witness as far as I know as who
Speaker 1: actually saw it, knew where she was, and everything showed
Speaker 1: her to watch. It was on her risk, right, I got,
Speaker 1: I got all that. I just I don't think the
Speaker 1: witness is correct. You know you're a polarizing figure in
Speaker 1: all of this. You and the Illinois State Police don't
Speaker 1: like each other. Well, let me let me put it
Speaker 1: this way. I was on that task force and I
Speaker 1: was never satisfied with that report, and I on my
Speaker 1: own went down and found this information out about Mommy.
Speaker 1: They had never done it. The case agent never did
Speaker 1: ship after the case was referred to him. Not ship,
Speaker 1: he threw that whole lead out. That lead was pursued
Speaker 1: quite thoroughly. Lonnie's car and home were searched, he provided
Speaker 1: blood and DNA, his ex wife gave a lengthy interview
Speaker 1: and passed polygraph. It wasn't blown off, though it may
Speaker 1: have seemed that way at the time. As much as
Speaker 1: I respect Marty, it doesn't really matter if he believes
Speaker 1: any of this or decides not to accept it. Those
Speaker 1: are the facts of the case. If you choose to
Speaker 1: look the other way. In my opinion, of developed tunnel vision,
Speaker 1: and that lead was never pursued. Had I not been involved.
Speaker 1: Let me just finish that lead would never pursued if
Speaker 1: it ends up now that he's cleared. Fact, I went
Speaker 1: through everything I had developed up to this point, focusing
Speaker 1: on the idea that the ISP hadn't done enough to
Speaker 1: clear line. They had done the work. Marty just wasn't
Speaker 1: briefed about it, and so he assumed the worst. But
Speaker 1: Marty wouldn't budge for whatever reason, He's still not convinced
Speaker 1: that Lonnie can be fully eliminated. Why wouldn't they come
Speaker 1: out with that information? I never did. I asked about
Speaker 1: DNA over the years. I've had so many different answers.
Speaker 1: One that there is no DNA. Who is who is
Speaker 1: saying this? Oh that's the ISP that's saying it to me. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but I don't think the i ISP tested this stuff.
Speaker 1: What I was sent to the FBI. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they worked together, so they all knew what was going
Speaker 1: on within the investigation. Well, I don't know much about
Speaker 1: the DNA. I find it strange that if they had this,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have come out with us, and I mean
Speaker 1: they could have. I find that strange. Number One, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you he is cleared. He is cleared. Lonnie
Speaker 1: beer brought has been cleared from this crime. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm open to anything if they have evidence of this,
Speaker 1: But in my experience, I accept the witness. She gave
Speaker 1: me this information. I did everything I could to get
Speaker 1: that to the State's attorney and to the state police,
Speaker 1: and they threw up a wall. From the minute I
Speaker 1: mentioned it to him, I saw him that strange and
Speaker 1: weird now knowing what they know at the time, which
Speaker 1: is this, They've already ruled him out with DNA, So
Speaker 1: why waste time on the guy he been ruled How
Speaker 1: come the state's stourney never said that? Why would he
Speaker 1: tell you that? The state's attorney never said that, the
Speaker 1: state police never said that. If that's true about Lottie
Speaker 1: in ninety three, why wouldn't they put that out? And
Speaker 1: here this is the first time here, it's what twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, that's the first time I've heard this. It's
Speaker 1: from you in twenty twenty three? Was that put out
Speaker 1: publicly that Lottie was eliminated? I don't know why they
Speaker 1: would put that publicly out until they needed to. I mean,
Speaker 1: they were they were keeping a lot of their cards
Speaker 1: close to the vest On this right. Do you know
Speaker 1: how much press There was a lot of it, instigated
Speaker 1: by me all over the count Yeah, I've looked at
Speaker 1: was the suspect and here they had the capability in
Speaker 1: ninety three to bow that out of the water and
Speaker 1: never did. Don't you find that suspicions? No, The fact
Speaker 1: is the ISP and FBI were not running an investigation
Speaker 1: based on what Marty was telling the media. That would
Speaker 1: only hinder their work on the case. There was also
Speaker 1: a lot of information the ISP did not want release
Speaker 1: to the public. What would it take for you to
Speaker 1: believe that Lonnie didn't do this? I'd like to be
Speaker 1: convinced that if there's no evidence of the watch, then
Speaker 1: there's probably any any more information to go on. Monnie.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I'm telling you, there is zero information
Speaker 1: about that watch. That watch is a story that got
Speaker 1: out there somehow by so it's not a story. It's
Speaker 1: not a story. It's from the eyewitness who interviewed them,
Speaker 1: if not just some rumor. Right, What I'm saying is
Speaker 1: she put out that story. I don't know why. Marty
Speaker 1: and I spoke close to an hour. It got heated
Speaker 1: at times. He was not ready to believe that beer
Speaker 1: Brott was innocent. No matter what I said, I do
Speaker 1: know that Marty ultimately wants Tammy's killer to be caught
Speaker 1: and brought to justice, and he's not looking for any fame.
Speaker 1: And if that guy is someone other than Lonnie beer Brott,
Speaker 1: so be it. Marty told me he's okay with that.
Speaker 1: Why did you push Lonnie so hard in the media
Speaker 1: when you knew that it was going to piss off
Speaker 1: the state police because I thought as the killer. One
Speaker 1: of the goals within all the work I do is
Speaker 1: to portray the true nature of what investigators go through
Speaker 1: and show how their work truly unfolds in real time.
Speaker 1: If there is one standout lesson I have learned over
Speaker 1: the years, it is the tedious nature of the ups
Speaker 1: and downs, the exhilaration of thinking you've got your guy,
Speaker 1: only to be let down when that last pace of
Speaker 1: the puzzle doesn't fit. Over the course of its investigation,
Speaker 1: THESP looked at many different potential suspects, people outside the
Speaker 1: traditional serial killing trucker. Most of those inquiries never made
Speaker 1: headlines and are known only to the people's task with
Speaker 1: investigating them. Well, I appreciate you getting back to me
Speaker 1: so quickly. I was working Sunday and I heard something
Speaker 1: on the radio. Your podcast was about Tammy jose Wikis.
Speaker 1: Right away I recalled that there were some similarities in
Speaker 1: our case. After the first few episodes of this season aired,
Speaker 1: I got a call from a former detective who'd worked
Speaker 1: in the area of Tammy's abduction in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 1: He remembered her story and had knowledge of a potential suspect,
Speaker 1: one I hadn't previously known about for various reasons. He's
Speaker 1: asked for his name not to be used, but agreed
Speaker 1: to share his recollection. I remember I was on my
Speaker 1: way home. I was getting ready to leave because we
Speaker 1: worked a ten hour shift, and then we got the
Speaker 1: call on that The call was from a neighboring police district,
Speaker 1: from officers who said a man walked into their station
Speaker 1: and claimed that there was a dead body in this camper,
Speaker 1: which was parked in a campground that was under my
Speaker 1: sources jurisdiction. So we all went to the scene. Camper
Speaker 1: was locked up tight. They actually got a warrant for
Speaker 1: the camper, and the body was found. It was actually
Speaker 1: wrapped up in a blanket with duct tape on each end.
Speaker 1: It was that grayish silver duct tape. Inside the blanket
Speaker 1: was the body of Denise Marino, a twenty five year
Speaker 1: old waitress from West Chicago. The camper was parked at
Speaker 1: the now defunct Hideaway Lakes Campground justice of Yorkville, Illinois,
Speaker 1: a city about halfway between Chicago and LaSalle County, where
Speaker 1: Tammy was abducted just eight months prior. The man who
Speaker 1: owned the camper was Charles D. Parker, a thirty eight
Speaker 1: year old ex con who had served eight years out
Speaker 1: of a fifty year sentence in prison for rape. So
Speaker 1: I spent several hours interviewing him, and he admitted to
Speaker 1: being the only one with her drinking. They were drinking
Speaker 1: excessive mouth alcohol and they were inhaling carburetor cleaner. He
Speaker 1: met her at a bar in West Chicago and then
Speaker 1: somehow convinced her to go back there with I believe
Speaker 1: he convinced her to go back there with and from
Speaker 1: what I can recall, but she did leave with him willingly.
Speaker 1: My source described a deeply unsettling scene. The young woman
Speaker 1: had been stabbed a number of times and had been
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted. The body was it was obviously signs of
Speaker 1: you know, just brutal, almost like a torturous thing that
Speaker 1: he had did her. It was she was bound in
Speaker 1: duct tape and then wrapped up in the blanket with
Speaker 1: duct tape. But now the interesting thing he took her
Speaker 1: after she was dead. He took her into the showers,
Speaker 1: which it wasn't too far a walk from where his
Speaker 1: camper was. It was one of those truck bed campers,
Speaker 1: and it was up on Jack's so he could drive
Speaker 1: in and out from underneath of it. You don't see
Speaker 1: him any much anymore, but it was a camper mounted
Speaker 1: on the back of the pickup bed. But it was
Speaker 1: a pickup. It was a pickup truck. Many of the
Speaker 1: circumstances surrounding how they met and how he lured her
Speaker 1: back to his camper did not fit with Tammy's abduction.
Speaker 1: But there was one detail that piqued my interests and
Speaker 1: certainly got my attention. One of the investigators searching the
Speaker 1: camper found the ring that said Tammy, but it was
Speaker 1: spelled Tami. Okay. It was kind of like a square
Speaker 1: ring yea with two letters on the bottom two letters
Speaker 1: on the top formed a bigger square. I went back
Speaker 1: and asked Tammy's family, and a half a dozen of
Speaker 1: her friends. If any of them we call a ring
Speaker 1: anything like that, none did. I still hadn't found out. However,
Speaker 1: if Parker had been completely eliminated, the chances were slim
Speaker 1: he'd had anything to do with Tammy's murder. But you
Speaker 1: can never be entirely certain unless the evidence backs it up.
Speaker 1: And he was questioned about the ring Charlie was and
Speaker 1: what did he say about it? What the other detective
Speaker 1: told me is he got very angry when he was
Speaker 1: asked about it. He said, I did not kill Tammy
Speaker 1: Jose Wiki. That's what he said to him, allegedly when
Speaker 1: he was asked about it, and he got angry. He
Speaker 1: got angry. The way I recalled him, describe me it
Speaker 1: to me is while he said that he pounded his
Speaker 1: fist on the table and what happens after that? To
Speaker 1: my knowledge, the other detective brought that information to ESP
Speaker 1: and nothing became of it. I remember Charlie and this
Speaker 1: case in particular because he had tortured her. It was
Speaker 1: an exceptionally violent rape and murdering. Former IP Lieutenant Jeff
Speaker 1: Padilla was certain that Parker could be excluded from Tammy's
Speaker 1: case based on the violent nature of Parker's crimes, and
Speaker 1: also how Parker met the victim and got her back
Speaker 1: to his camper. I might also add that Parker was
Speaker 1: sloppy in didn't seem to be honestly smart enough to
Speaker 1: get away with the murder. For thirty plus years, we
Speaker 1: had looked at him, and we had talked about him,
Speaker 1: and we had talked about him, and he didn't fit
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. Yes, he had a pickup truck,
Speaker 1: but it was in like an encampment. He didn't live
Speaker 1: in a neighborhood. It was like a mobile home. She
Speaker 1: had come with him voluntarily back and at some point
Speaker 1: the sexual interaction turned violent, and Charlie found her and
Speaker 1: then tortured her throughout the night before she finally died
Speaker 1: of blood loss. So the m that entire situation did
Speaker 1: not fit at all with what had happened to Tammy,
Speaker 1: and we didn't dismiss it. But the DNA that we
Speaker 1: did have was, you know, there was never enough for
Speaker 1: a codus inquiry. You know, you essentially could Charlie's DNA
Speaker 1: is available and it has been encoded. You could do
Speaker 1: a one to one inquiry against him, which I know
Speaker 1: has been done since then. The m O didn't really match,
Speaker 1: so we did the best we could to look into it,
Speaker 1: but it didn't fit what we had with Tammy. One
Speaker 1: of the more interesting and certainly promising threats the IP
Speaker 1: followed early into the investigation is worth mentioning, if only
Speaker 1: to put one of the more popular Internet based theories
Speaker 1: in this case into perspective and maybe even gained some
Speaker 1: insight into where it originated. There was a guy that
Speaker 1: was a truck driver for a company that came onto
Speaker 1: the radar and it turned out, you know, he was
Speaker 1: truly a sex offender. He had done a home invasion
Speaker 1: rape in like nineteen eighty eight, just prior to the
Speaker 1: DNA and sex offender laws and was sentenced to like
Speaker 1: four years in prison and got out right before Tammy
Speaker 1: was abducted and murdered. You know, he had done he
Speaker 1: had met this girl at a diner that was a waitress.
Speaker 1: She was like seventeen years old, eighteen years old, followed
Speaker 1: her home, waited outside her residence, saw like when her
Speaker 1: parents left, then broke into the house while she was there,
Speaker 1: and then raped her on the floor in the hallway
Speaker 1: and took her panties as a souvenir, and we were
Speaker 1: I was like, this has got to be our guy,
Speaker 1: and that was never nobody had ever looked into this
Speaker 1: that guy's background. If you recall, there was talk early
Speaker 1: on about Tammy's killer potentially keeping her body in a
Speaker 1: refrigerated truck before placing it off Exit thirty three in Missouri,
Speaker 1: which answered the question of why perhaps her boy was
Speaker 1: not in an advanced stage of decomposition. He was a
Speaker 1: truck driver. It was a refrigerated truck, so that could
Speaker 1: account for some of the lack of d comp on Tammy.
Speaker 1: When she was recovered, he was up and down I eighty.
Speaker 1: As the IP began looking into the guy, they realized
Speaker 1: he had taken off to the Upper Midwest for three
Speaker 1: days near the time of Tammy's disappearance. And at that time,
Speaker 1: you know, like if you'd get a little paper receipt
Speaker 1: from the tollway, that was a big deal because the
Speaker 1: tolls were expected for trucks, so they everybody saved the receipts,
Speaker 1: and he didn't have his receipts from going to Michigan.
Speaker 1: So when we went back and looked at the case,
Speaker 1: and particularly after VIDOC, he's a guy that that pops
Speaker 1: and took up a lot of time from us, because
Speaker 1: then we went back and looked at all that. We
Speaker 1: went after him hard, you know, had the FBI do
Speaker 1: a covert surveillance to him and recovered, you know, and
Speaker 1: then did a one to one DNA comparison on him
Speaker 1: and eliminated him, even though he was like perfect candidate.
Speaker 1: But boy, we thought for probably a year and a half,
Speaker 1: we thought he was good for Tammy's murder. I mean,
Speaker 1: so there's a good example here. You are, you got
Speaker 1: your guy. You could easily tunnel vision that guy and
Speaker 1: bullhorn that for the next twenty five years, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we dug I mean, I mean that's how we
Speaker 1: found out all about this previous charge and it was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, look at that. We thought we hit
Speaker 1: the jackpot, and it turned out it wasn't. You never
Speaker 1: got a chance to interview him in the aftermath. We
Speaker 1: just knew that without the DNA being a match, we
Speaker 1: were out of luck with him. Within all the theories
Speaker 1: and suspects I had encountered, many of which seem promising
Speaker 1: at face value, there always seemed to be something missing,
Speaker 1: something important. The science DNA is going to solve Tammy's case.
Speaker 1: I am completely certain of that, and as these things
Speaker 1: generally go, something we hear about every day within the
Speaker 1: world of true crime, technology has caught up to Tammy's case.
Speaker 1: A new DNA profile has been extracted from old evidence,
Speaker 1: which has opened up a full proof way of developing
Speaker 1: a new suspect. We're sorry you have reached a number
Speaker 1: that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.
Speaker 1: You have reached the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office. If this
Speaker 1: is an emergency, please hang up and die. All nine
Speaker 1: one one, Good morning, Sergeant Phillips. This is m William Phelps, Matthew. Hey,
Speaker 1: you've reached the law office of Pierre and Dannally. Please
Speaker 1: leave your name number. In the year leading up to
Speaker 1: the release of this season and even after, I've pounded
Speaker 1: the pavement and made call after call, placing my entire
Speaker 1: focus on several unanswered questions from years past and several
Speaker 1: new questions that had arisen in recent months. Most of
Speaker 1: the time I got this, Please leave a message, give
Speaker 1: me your number if you want to call back. Thank you.
Speaker 1: In my line of work, you get used to leaving
Speaker 1: voicemails and never hearing back from people, but persistence is key,
Speaker 1: and every now and again it pays off. Hi, Karen,
Speaker 1: Nice to meet you. Karen Donneley is the former state's
Speaker 1: Attorney for LaSalle County, Illinois, a position she held from
Speaker 1: two sixteen to twenty twenty. During that time, she became
Speaker 1: deeply familiar with Tammy's case. Yeah, we met about two
Speaker 1: years after she left office at her legal practice in
Speaker 1: downtown Ottawa, Illinois. You've heard from Karen briefly in earlier episodes.
Speaker 1: She had Tammy's case for four years as state's attorney,
Speaker 1: and she was brief by investigators from the FBI and
Speaker 1: IP whenever significant developments came up. Like many others from
Speaker 1: the region, Karen was already quite familiar with Tammy's story.
Speaker 1: I was alive and present during this when it happened,
Speaker 1: so I was very aware of it and very concerned
Speaker 1: that this happened in such a close location to where
Speaker 1: I live, and that she was such a young age
Speaker 1: when she was taken. So that's how I knew of it.
Speaker 1: And then when I became state's attorney, we had a
Speaker 1: small file on it that we kept in the office,
Speaker 1: and I looked at the file to see if there
Speaker 1: was anything in there that was worth noting, and there
Speaker 1: really wasn't anything that was new until I was approached
Speaker 1: by the investigators because they liked to come every year
Speaker 1: and tell us, you know, whoever sitting in the seat
Speaker 1: of states Attorney, what's going on. And so you began
Speaker 1: to look back at this case and what strikes you
Speaker 1: mostly about it. I was concerned that there was no resolution.
Speaker 1: It was so many possibilities, but nothing was ever zeroed
Speaker 1: in on that when I spoke to members of the
Speaker 1: FBI or Illinois State Police that there wasn't much that
Speaker 1: they were going on, and we just felt like it
Speaker 1: was a dead end. And therefore, when I was State's Attorney,
Speaker 1: I offered whatever services I could give them, whether it
Speaker 1: was monetary, you know, anything that we could do. I
Speaker 1: was willing to help. And what did you do? First?
Speaker 1: The investigators came and met with members of the State's
Speaker 1: Attorney's office every year to give us an update what
Speaker 1: they were doing, just to give us a heads up
Speaker 1: in case they needed something from us. We were often
Speaker 1: briefed on where they were at. Here's what you know
Speaker 1: some of the public doesn't know. Here's what we're doing.
Speaker 1: They don't share everything with me. They gave us a
Speaker 1: lot of information about what they were doing. They would
Speaker 1: often come to us and ask for permission to do
Speaker 1: certain things that I had to clear with Tammy's mother.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, law enforcement asked Karen Donnelly to reach
Speaker 1: out to Tammy's mom, Joanne, discussed using the remaining DNA
Speaker 1: that investigators had inevidence. It was later on in my
Speaker 1: ten year of state's attorney that they came to me
Speaker 1: and asked for permission to consume what they had insofar
Speaker 1: as the DNA evidence. That's important to say consuming because
Speaker 1: they only have so much correct. Once it's choosed up,
Speaker 1: it's gone. This might surprise the general public, but certain
Speaker 1: DNA tests require physically using up part of the actual
Speaker 1: sample in evidence, and so once the source sample is gone,
Speaker 1: that's it. It's gone. Investigators are left with a profile
Speaker 1: they can match to offenders who are already in some
Speaker 1: type of DNA database, but they're unable to go back
Speaker 1: to that sample again. This can be a big deal,
Speaker 1: especially in an era of constantly evolving technology. Law worseman
Speaker 1: agencies are also hesitant to consume all available DNA because
Speaker 1: it can haunt prosecutors. Later, defense attorneys will often ask
Speaker 1: to test DNA independently, and if there's nothing left to test,
Speaker 1: it can make it more difficult to be successful in core. Still,
Speaker 1: it was clear that law enforcement was taking one last
Speaker 1: chance at solving Tammy's case via DNA, and from what
Speaker 1: I had learned, it wasn't a shot in the dark.
Speaker 1: They had good reason. So they come to you and
Speaker 1: you give them the ok to consume that DNA. I
Speaker 1: first called Joanne and we have this discussion about this
Speaker 1: as our one shot. You know, we may not get
Speaker 1: it again if we agree to do this. She was
Speaker 1: in complete agreement and said we've got to do what
Speaker 1: we've got to do. So I authorize them to consume
Speaker 1: the sample, and that was for testing, to put it
Speaker 1: into CODAS or genealogical or they had a suspect. I
Speaker 1: don't know that they had a suspect. I know that
Speaker 1: when we gave them the authorization to consume the sample,
Speaker 1: it was going to be put into the CODA system.
Speaker 1: And I believe at the time there may have been
Speaker 1: issues about a backlog and codas, and at that time
Speaker 1: I did offer any resources I could, as far as
Speaker 1: reverse genealogy because I'm a crime scene nut and I
Speaker 1: watch all those shows. And I offered that to the
Speaker 1: investigators and said, if you need funding to provide the
Speaker 1: sample to them to do this reverse genealogy to see
Speaker 1: if they get a hit, I would fund that. And
Speaker 1: did they take your offer? They weren't at that point yet,
Speaker 1: because I think they were still waiting to submit to CODIS.
Speaker 1: Since twenty twenty, investigators working on Tammy's case have refocused
Speaker 1: on DNA. They started reaching out to people connected to
Speaker 1: Tammy and anyone involved in the earliest days of the
Speaker 1: investigation and asking them for a DNA sample. On top
Speaker 1: of that, with the help of more advanced forensic and
Speaker 1: DNA technology, they started to go back through all the
Speaker 1: evidence to see what, if anything, the killer could have
Speaker 1: left behind. When I spoke to Joanne Ziwiki, she confirmed
Speaker 1: that the ISP had been in contact as recently as
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two and had told her they were sending
Speaker 1: DNA to a lab in California for testing. Here's Tammy's brother, Todd.
Speaker 1: DNA evidence became more sophisticated, that started becoming more promising.
Speaker 1: I started to hear rumors that they had additional DNA
Speaker 1: that was usable, and so, you know, in the last
Speaker 1: few years, I've become a little bit more optimistic as
Speaker 1: it sounded like the operation was still proceeding and that
Speaker 1: they were building, you know, potentially building a case and
Speaker 1: starting to express some greater optimism than they did for
Speaker 1: decades before that. And recently your mom has told me
Speaker 1: that has been calling to ask, you know, we have
Speaker 1: some DNA that we want to submit somewhere in California,
Speaker 1: right what have you heard about that part of it?
Speaker 1: A couple of local FBI agents came to my house
Speaker 1: and took a DNA swab for me, and I believe
Speaker 1: they've done the same thing with both of my brothers.
Speaker 1: They apparently found now DNA that they can use and
Speaker 1: they wanted to make sure it wasn't ours, So obviously
Speaker 1: they have something that they're processing. They did find something
Speaker 1: somewhere that was usable, that was different from what they
Speaker 1: had previously had, at least enough and good enough condition
Speaker 1: that they wanted to take my own DNA and rule
Speaker 1: out the possibility there was one of us, one of
Speaker 1: the boys in the family. I've also been told by
Speaker 1: law enforcement who were present at the body recovery site
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two that they too, had recently given
Speaker 1: the FBI their DNA. Every DNA expert I consulted with,
Speaker 1: along with former members of the ISP, talked about one
Speaker 1: of three scenarios likely taking place. That technology had caught
Speaker 1: up with the DNA collected at the time Tammy's body
Speaker 1: was recovered, a new suspect had been developed, and or
Speaker 1: investigators were now pursuing investigative genetic genealogy. Forensic genetic genealogy
Speaker 1: is a labor intensive science that utilizes genetic information from
Speaker 1: direct to consumer companies like ancestry, dot Com and twenty
Speaker 1: three in May to identify suspects or victims in criminal cases.
Speaker 1: Many see it as a magic investigative wand to wave
Speaker 1: and a suspect of peers, but it's far more difficult
Speaker 1: than that. Millions of DNA profiles within a database help
Speaker 1: investigators create family trees, working backwards funneling down with the
Speaker 1: hope of matching a DNA sample to a suspect. As
Speaker 1: former ISP Lieutenant Jeff Pedia explains, the DNA analysis part
Speaker 1: of the investigation is complex work. Just remember that there's
Speaker 1: going to be the involvement of essentially two different laboratories,
Speaker 1: so one can extract DNA and then expand it. You know,
Speaker 1: so if you if you had a limited sample, you
Speaker 1: could then you would use that that lab for that,
Speaker 1: But then you would need another you would need a
Speaker 1: genealogy like a laboratory that specializes in genealogy DNA because
Speaker 1: it's much different, right, right, two different types of testing
Speaker 1: if you the source of the DNA in Tammy's case
Speaker 1: has never been made clear to the public. Where exactly
Speaker 1: did the most viable DNA sample or samples come from
Speaker 1: and what does it tell us about Tammy's killer. So
Speaker 1: there was never no um DNA on her shorts or
Speaker 1: anything like that, like semen blood no okay, no, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So yes, there's was lots of blood. The problem is
Speaker 1: that her blood contaminated and eliminated the ability for us
Speaker 1: to collect epithelial DNA. Basically, the blood soaked like her
Speaker 1: blood soaked T shirt was of no use to us.
Speaker 1: By the time Padilla and his team started working the case,
Speaker 1: technology had advanced to the point that investigators were able
Speaker 1: to collect and test epithelial DNA or touch DNA, which
Speaker 1: essentially are cells that have been left behind on an object.
Speaker 1: Or surface tammy shirt wasn't something they could test, but
Speaker 1: other sources now provided investigators with the opportunity to develop
Speaker 1: valuable samples. Items such as the blanket that her body
Speaker 1: was wrapped in, the clothing that she was found in.
Speaker 1: There was duct tape that was used to secure the
Speaker 1: ends of the blanket that she was wrapped in, and
Speaker 1: so all of those items, those physical items were available
Speaker 1: to us. Her shoe were of interest to us. I'll
Speaker 1: say that in the process of our analysis of the
Speaker 1: physical evidence using more modern DNA a test, the shoelaces
Speaker 1: were of tremendous interest to us, which was a struggle
Speaker 1: getting any of this um any of this physical evidence reanalyzed.
Speaker 1: So the DNA is definitely DNA that can connect the
Speaker 1: killer to her murder. Yes, that is the power of
Speaker 1: technology evolving, catching up two killers in this particular case.
Speaker 1: You en, DNA was in its infancy at that time,
Speaker 1: there's very limited opportunities to do DNA, and the DNA
Speaker 1: tests were inaccurate or inconclusive. But by twenty and twelve
Speaker 1: we had some really DNA had made some tremendous advancements
Speaker 1: as it continues to do, and so I thought it
Speaker 1: was worth it to go through the case foule like
Speaker 1: it was brand new, like we had just got and
Speaker 1: make it a bit of a project for the detectives
Speaker 1: assigned me. The issue at hand was whether the amount
Speaker 1: of DNA law enforcement had left to test in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two was enough to develop a viable DNA profile
Speaker 1: that could be compared to forensic genealogy databases. Somebody had
Speaker 1: to have contact with the sheet when she was wrapping.
Speaker 1: Somebody had to have contact with the duct tape. Somebody
Speaker 1: had to have contact with Tammy's clothing and body, and
Speaker 1: so all those items were methodically identified In talking with
Speaker 1: different investigators from the case. I'm confident it was all
Speaker 1: of this information. Advancements in DNA technology, swab samples, a
Speaker 1: new lab involved, and potential forensic genealogy began to make
Speaker 1: more sense to me during the summer of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two when I learned about the latest potential suspect, someone
Speaker 1: connected to the DNA findings who had been on investigator's
Speaker 1: radar since the early nineties. Someone was still alive, not
Speaker 1: a semitruck driver or a known serial killer. I'm told
Speaker 1: the person law enforcement has been hyper focused on at
Speaker 1: the time of this recording. It's right there throughout it
Speaker 1: all on the ground, in the thick of it, wearing
Speaker 1: a uniform on the next episode of Paper Ghosts, and
Speaker 1: some interms have insolved after so many years because of
Speaker 1: its being left in a spotlight. So some days are good,
Speaker 1: some days I'm so good. We always struggled with the
Speaker 1: idea of, you know, the couple of things, somebody in
Speaker 1: a position of authority, or somebody right at her age
Speaker 1: that she may have known. I believe that she was
Speaker 1: dumped across state to draw interest away from where she
Speaker 1: was picked up, and I believe that that's because that
Speaker 1: area has a connection to her killer. If you are
Speaker 1: enjoying Paper Ghosts, please listen to my other podcast, Crossing
Speaker 1: the Line with Them William Phelps, where I use the
Speaker 1: same storytelling elements you've heard in Paper Ghosts and cover
Speaker 1: missing person and murder cases. Paper Ghosts is written and
Speaker 1: executive produced by me and William Phelps and iHeart executive
Speaker 1: producer Christina Everett. Additional writing by our supervising producer Julia Weaver.
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Darby Masters, Audio editing and mixing
Speaker 1: by Christian Bowman and abou zafar Our series theme number
Speaker 1: four four two is written and performed by Thomas Phelps
Speaker 1: and Tom Mooney. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.