Speaker 1: Paper Ghosts is a production of iHeartRadio. In the very
Speaker 1: first episode of Paper Ghosts, I talked about the importance
Speaker 1: of hearing from loved ones and a missing person or
Speaker 1: murder case. We rely on them to introduce us to
Speaker 1: and humanize a victim, share details about a life that
Speaker 1: was lost, but more significant to me than anything else,
Speaker 1: a life that was lived as a victim's advocate. Talking
Speaker 1: to families and friends is the most moving aspect of
Speaker 1: any story I cover, and always my starting point into
Speaker 1: a case. In high school, Ye to Tammy Ziwiki's loved
Speaker 1: ones painted a beautiful picture of who she was, allowing
Speaker 1: me a glimpse into who she might have become. Because
Speaker 1: of time constraints, many of these stories didn't make it
Speaker 1: into the third season of Paper Ghosts, but I thought
Speaker 1: it would be a disservice if they went unheard, so
Speaker 1: I'm sharing them here to help us better understand the
Speaker 1: amazing young woman behind the headlines. That picture up there,
Speaker 1: that was taken at the beach we were or that
Speaker 1: was our summer vacation. That's the whole family. How old
Speaker 1: is she there? Oh? I guess she was about baby
Speaker 1: sixteen or fifteen. Sixting she liked her long hair. Tammy
Speaker 1: Joseph Wicki was born on March thirteenth, nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: in pleasant Hill, Pennsylvania. Her mom, Joanne, describes her as
Speaker 1: a good natured, independent person who was rarely seen without
Speaker 1: her camera or her cat. Tell me about that picture there,
Speaker 1: that's her cat. She'd ever lived without a cat. She's
Speaker 1: not one in their dorm room. She snuck a cat
Speaker 1: into it, yes, really yes, And did she ever get caught? Nope?
Speaker 1: And the one she's stuck in there, she managed to
Speaker 1: keep it in there because her best friend was the
Speaker 1: dorm monitor or whatever it was, and she wouldn't down.
Speaker 1: She was just a very young She was an easy
Speaker 1: corn person. Everyone I spoke with described Tammy as audacious
Speaker 1: while also being slightly rebellious, not to mention a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. She was the only daughter in a family
Speaker 1: of six something. Her brother Todd thinks truly shaped who
Speaker 1: she was. Tammy was one of these sweet but also
Speaker 1: tough kind of girls. Right. The toughness, I think it's
Speaker 1: partly a personality, partly dealing with three brothers. But she
Speaker 1: was just a truly kind person who had really good friends.
Speaker 1: She was involved in music for a while. She did
Speaker 1: color guard in the band, played a lot of sports,
Speaker 1: but just a very fun, adventurous person who was open
Speaker 1: to new experiences, made friends easily, was a natural leader.
Speaker 1: She actually, I think found her high school soccer team
Speaker 1: because she wanted to play soccer and they didn't have one,
Speaker 1: so she founded it. Became to co captain. When she
Speaker 1: was little, she used to play on boys teams, you know,
Speaker 1: until basically she got to high school and they creative
Speaker 1: girls team. God bless the woman who coached the team
Speaker 1: knew almost nothing about it. She had been the cheerleading coach.
Speaker 1: And I look back and I think we'll thank goodness
Speaker 1: she had the energy to do this. Amanda Potts played
Speaker 1: soccer with Tammy at east Side High School in Taylor,
Speaker 1: South Carolina, a suburb of Greenville. The women's sports programs
Speaker 1: were still new when they attended, but Tammy, who played
Speaker 1: for years on wreck teams, was a standout. She was
Speaker 1: a fierce midfielder. She had endless energy. I learned what
Speaker 1: midfield meant by watching Tammy play, because she could really
Speaker 1: make the plays happen. Amanda described Tammy as the opposite
Speaker 1: of a Southern bell, which she added got you noticed.
Speaker 1: In South Carolina in the mid eighties, we had to
Speaker 1: wear these short shorts. Oh my god. The team uniforms
Speaker 1: were yellow jerseys with like blue pinstripes and these blue
Speaker 1: shorts that barely covered anything. And the poor cheerleading coach
Speaker 1: now soccer coach, used to yell, manage your shorts, ladies,
Speaker 1: and Tammy thought that was hilarious. And I can remember
Speaker 1: her teasing us, manage your shorts. Manage your shorts. Soccer
Speaker 1: was an important part of Tammy's life in high school.
Speaker 1: She also loved photography and became the yearbook photo editor,
Speaker 1: and her beloved thirty five millimeter camera was never far
Speaker 1: from her side. One thing is clear from the many
Speaker 1: stories or friends shared. Tammy liked to have fun. She
Speaker 1: enjoyed life. But in the midst of all these sweet
Speaker 1: natured stories, a common thread came through. God. I remember
Speaker 1: a story about a time when she was walking down
Speaker 1: the hallway with a friend and a guy was sort
Speaker 1: of harassing him, and she turned around and just kind
Speaker 1: of ducked him. I don't know if she I think
Speaker 1: she just pushed him hard and he left them alone
Speaker 1: after that. How can you forget a girl who Again
Speaker 1: we're talking the mid to late nineteen eighties, and Tammy
Speaker 1: she knew what she was worth, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like she was not going to be harassed.
Speaker 1: Within all that, Tammy had a mind of her own,
Speaker 1: and joe Anne explained she was fiercely driven. She rarely
Speaker 1: got caught up in any drama and instead stayed focused
Speaker 1: on her future. Well, she did very well with writing,
Speaker 1: writing with something that she from the time she was
Speaker 1: in a second grade or something, she really enjoyed writing. Also, photography,
Speaker 1: she did some very, very very good photography, so she
Speaker 1: was added in that direction. I could see her for
Speaker 1: one of the magazines, you know, writing and pictures and
Speaker 1: things like that, and I think that's what she would
Speaker 1: have been happy with, Dawn, And that was kind of
Speaker 1: what she was. I was looking at every opportunity she had.
Speaker 1: She did. She took a lot of pictures. While many
Speaker 1: of her peers stayed in the South. When it came
Speaker 1: time to attend college, choosing schools like Clemson or the
Speaker 1: University of South Carolina, Tammy decided on a different route,
Speaker 1: once again expressing her independence. Classmates say they initially had
Speaker 1: no idea where Grinnelle was, but that they weren't surprised.
Speaker 1: Tammy had decided to go mainly because she longed for
Speaker 1: a differn experience, and so in nineteen eighty nine, Tammy
Speaker 1: packed up her belongings and moved to Iowa to study
Speaker 1: art history in Spanish. She took academic seriously, and we
Speaker 1: were often studying either at the library or in a
Speaker 1: dorm room or in a lounge. But that was sort
Speaker 1: of the way it was at Grinell. People were having fun,
Speaker 1: but it was also an academically challenging school, and you
Speaker 1: went there because you wanted to learn and you were
Speaker 1: ready to work hard. That's Jen Nelson, Tammy's closest friend
Speaker 1: from college. She was incredibly friendly and people were drawn
Speaker 1: to her. She was always there for a laugh. She
Speaker 1: wasn't judgmental. She just liked to have fun. She also
Speaker 1: took it seriously academically, we all did at that school.
Speaker 1: But it was I liked studying with her, I liked
Speaker 1: hanging out with her, I liked dancing with her. She
Speaker 1: was the kind of person that just brought the party
Speaker 1: to whatever conversation you were having. I think what I
Speaker 1: remember most isn't as much about her her play on
Speaker 1: the field, but just the energy that she brought to
Speaker 1: the team and the fun and the camaraderie. A lot
Speaker 1: of Tammy's college life revolved around sports, soccer, rugby, photographing
Speaker 1: various teams. Most of her friends also knew her as
Speaker 1: a teammate, including Marta, who was co captain of the
Speaker 1: soccer team at Grinnell and called Tammy by her nickname Z.
Speaker 1: So we had this large group of freshmen on the
Speaker 1: soccer team, and she played for two years as a
Speaker 1: soccer player, and then she switched over to rugby, and
Speaker 1: that was sort of no surprise to a lot of
Speaker 1: us that she wanted to get in and play maybe
Speaker 1: with someone demon even tougher, tougher sport with rugby. So
Speaker 1: she switched over, and then she became our photographer for
Speaker 1: a number of sports, but including our women's soccer team.
Speaker 1: And so we also have this really clear memory, or
Speaker 1: what I do, of Tammy being on the sidelines, still
Speaker 1: in her soccer shorts, but with a camera around her
Speaker 1: neck and just you know, circling the field and taking
Speaker 1: photos of us. Amy Joe was the other captain of
Speaker 1: Grinnell's soccer team. She and Marta asked to be interviewed
Speaker 1: together and wasted no time swapping stories about Tammy. Marta
Speaker 1: and I and Tammy were There were eight of us
Speaker 1: freshmen in the fall of nineteen eighty nine, and so
Speaker 1: we all started the same year, and we were the
Speaker 1: biggest recruited class that Grenell College Soccer women's soccer had
Speaker 1: ever had. So we were special because it was only
Speaker 1: the fourth year of the program. Maybe, but I actually
Speaker 1: met Tammy on a recruiting visit to Grnew we went.
Speaker 1: I went out with her and are another soccer player
Speaker 1: at the time. We went to the bar. Marta and
Speaker 1: Amy Joe further described Tammy as someone who quote brought
Speaker 1: the fun. It's a sentiment echoed by pretty much everyone
Speaker 1: I spoke with, including another college friend, Stacy Pappas. I
Speaker 1: remember one beautiful day, I was inside working and I
Speaker 1: heard a bit of a commotion outside and it was
Speaker 1: Tammy and she was just diving into a pile of
Speaker 1: leaves and just playing and just like like, hey, come out,
Speaker 1: come out, all you people's study. She was joyful, you know,
Speaker 1: just u she when she was on the sideline, she
Speaker 1: would be starting a cheer or making up a funny
Speaker 1: rhyme or doing some kind of a like a song
Speaker 1: or doing something to just keep everybody laughing. Oh and
Speaker 1: also her pregame breakfast on the road when we would travel.
Speaker 1: She we were chatting earlier, Martin and I were remembering
Speaker 1: she would or always order like a huge stack of
Speaker 1: chocolate chip pancakes and just you know, while we were
Speaker 1: all trying to like eat something that was like a
Speaker 1: good thing to eat before a game, she would just
Speaker 1: be pouring on the maple syrup and coach Coach would
Speaker 1: just roll his eyes like, oh boy, you know, but yeah,
Speaker 1: she just went for it. Hearing these anecdotes about Tammy
Speaker 1: takes her out of the true crime headline space and
Speaker 1: humanizes her memory and who she was, which is something
Speaker 1: that is very important to me personally as well as
Speaker 1: with my work. Thirty years have passed, and yet listening
Speaker 1: to her friends talk about her, you'd think it was yesterday.
Speaker 1: Losing someone to murder can have that kind of lasting
Speaker 1: influence on your life. It almost intensifies those memories, illuminates them.
Speaker 1: I can see from here how she was so special,
Speaker 1: how she had such a full life in front of her,
Speaker 1: in a way that at the time I could. I
Speaker 1: knew I was sad, obviously, but I think I'm sadder
Speaker 1: now than I was then. If that makes sense, it
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense, because in one way, there is the
Speaker 1: what could have been way of thinking all that was missed,
Speaker 1: all that never was. As time went on, it was easier.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go back to Grinnell, I didn't
Speaker 1: want to go to the reunions. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: think about it. And then I got to the point where,
Speaker 1: you know, I've got kids. Now. I have a teenage daughter,
Speaker 1: blonde ponytail running down the soccer field, and of course
Speaker 1: I thought of Tammy as I coached her. Every time
Speaker 1: i'd see her running down the field after a soccer
Speaker 1: ball and turn with a big smile on her face
Speaker 1: after making a play. It made me happy thinking about
Speaker 1: Tammy and thinking about the fact that that spirit was
Speaker 1: living on in other people. Something I've thought about while
Speaker 1: researching this story is the fact that what happened to
Speaker 1: Tammy happened to so many young women during that period,
Speaker 1: and albeit in smaller numbers, it still happens today. A
Speaker 1: few days after Tammy's body was found in September nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two, a journalist for the Chicago Tribune wrote an
Speaker 1: opinion piece about Tammy's case titled never More Free or
Speaker 1: More in danger? Reading it was edifying. The op ed
Speaker 1: said in part that Tammy's life was quote an example
Speaker 1: of the freedom women could only dream of two generations back.
Speaker 1: Her death is a reminder that in this age of freedom,
Speaker 1: women must still live in the bondage of fear. Here's
Speaker 1: Stacy Pappas again. I just think that, first of all,
Speaker 1: none of us are safe, while these people are probably
Speaker 1: our world. What happened to her should never happened, but
Speaker 1: obviously it does. We live in a world that it
Speaker 1: is a very broken and damaged world, and what can
Speaker 1: we do to make this a safer place for all
Speaker 1: of us, for this next generation of young women who
Speaker 1: are graduating from school. I think that we have an
Speaker 1: obligation to each other and to the next generation to
Speaker 1: do what we can do to heal this broken world.
Speaker 1: After Tammy's death, some of her friends formed a group
Speaker 1: called Fearless. Its goal was to help empower women on
Speaker 1: and off Grinnell's campus and ensure that all drivers were
Speaker 1: safe on the roadways. The leaders of Fearless used Tammy's
Speaker 1: death as a catalyst for a nationwide initiative, a movement
Speaker 1: to install emergency call boxes along major highways with regards
Speaker 1: to the violence Tammy suffered. The group's leader said, we
Speaker 1: have the job. That's our job to make sure that
Speaker 1: our generation doesn't have to get used to that, that
Speaker 1: our children don't have to get used to that, and
Speaker 1: our children's children don't have to get used to that.
Speaker 1: We thought we were safe, We were nearly done. We
Speaker 1: studied abroad, and you know, had boyfriends and breakups and everything,
Speaker 1: and we were supposed to be taking on the world
Speaker 1: and somebody killed her. The story has to be about
Speaker 1: a real person who was proud and smart and fierce
Speaker 1: and not always perfect and funny, who loved her cats
Speaker 1: and broke up with her boyfriend. That person is the
Speaker 1: one who was killed. Her death means something. Last year
Speaker 1: was the thirtieth anniversary of Tammy's death. It was difficult
Speaker 1: for many of her friends and family to wade through
Speaker 1: memories open up to me about Tammy and her life,
Speaker 1: not to mention the pain they all went through. I
Speaker 1: immensely appreciate the trust in me to share such a
Speaker 1: personal and painful part of their lives and Tammy's life,
Speaker 1: and I'm very grateful for the opportunity. Some questions, even
Speaker 1: those that seem rather ordinary, can be the toughest to answer.
Speaker 1: What would have Tammy gone on to do? Oh heck,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. I know she wanted to
Speaker 1: do something with Spanish, and I wouldn't be surprised at
Speaker 1: all if she was a teacher, a Spanish teacher or a
Speaker 1: a Spanish prov with a sideline photography business and a
Speaker 1: couple of kids. I think she would have a family.
Speaker 1: I see her doing a lot like I did, becoming
Speaker 1: a coach and coaching her kids, you know, sports year round,
Speaker 1: you know, especially in soccer. You know. I think she
Speaker 1: would be a successful photographer. You know. I think whatever
Speaker 1: field she would have eventually gone into, I think she
Speaker 1: would have been at the top of her field. She'd
Speaker 1: be eating chocolate, sheip, pancakes. I like to think that
Speaker 1: she would be married and be a soccer mom and
Speaker 1: still be rocking the umbros or the soccer shorts, driving
Speaker 1: a minivan, go into games, taking pictures of her own
Speaker 1: kids playing. I see Tammy as a mom, an artist,
Speaker 1: a photographer, and just you know, joyful. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I would like to think of her as having traveled
Speaker 1: more of the world and bringing her photography around the globe,
Speaker 1: and and dancing and dancing, and yeah, yeah. A word
Speaker 1: we often hear within the victor side of the true
Speaker 1: crime space is closure, how the solving of a cold
Speaker 1: case can maybe shut the door for family members and
Speaker 1: friends and all the evil that happened. From personal experience,
Speaker 1: I can say it's not a word that best describes
Speaker 1: what victims families are looking for, yet it does offer
Speaker 1: some solace to put a cap on the justice end
Speaker 1: of it. I just I really do hope that Joanne
Speaker 1: has closure, you know, and her brothers have closure. They
Speaker 1: do deserve that, you know, to be at peace with
Speaker 1: this and not have to, you know, wonder any longer.
Speaker 1: And I hope that I hope they can do something
Speaker 1: to provide that peace to her family because they deserve it.
Speaker 1: They've been through a lot over these last thirty years,
Speaker 1: and no family should have to go through that. That
Speaker 1: was Mary Anne Fox, Tammy's good friend, and she caps
Speaker 1: There's the essence of what victims families, at least the
Speaker 1: hundreds I have interviewed as well as my own, are
Speaker 1: searching for peace, a way to close the door on
Speaker 1: the criminal part of it all, and remember their loved
Speaker 1: one as they were in the days and weeks that
Speaker 1: followed Tammy's death. The tragedy was a reminder for everyone
Speaker 1: of the dangers young women face every single day. But
Speaker 1: more than thirty years later, Tammy's loved ones hold onto
Speaker 1: memories of her smile, her laugh, her absolute zest for life.
Speaker 1: Her spirit lives in them. I missed Dammy. I have
Speaker 1: a picture oft I think of what she, where she
Speaker 1: would be and what she would be doing. I feel
Speaker 1: like she could have been a very successful young lady.
Speaker 1: If you are enjoying Paper Ghosts, please listen to my
Speaker 1: other podcast, Crossing the Line with em William Phelps, where
Speaker 1: I use the same storytelling elements you've heard in Paper
Speaker 1: Ghosts and cover missing person and murder cases. Paper Ghosts
Speaker 1: is written and executive produced by me Em William Phelps
Speaker 1: and iHeart executive producer Christina Everett. Additional writing by our
Speaker 1: supervising producer Julia Weaver. Our associate producer is Darby Masters.
Speaker 1: Audio editing and mixing by Christian Bowman and Abu Zafar.
Speaker 1: Our Series theme number four four two is written and
Speaker 1: performed by Thomas Phelps and Tom Mooney. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.