WEBVTT - The Last Goodbye 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:20.120 The destination is on your right. Hi, joy aunt. It's humid. 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:28.240 It's very humid. Violence, suffering, and death are never more 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:33.479 sobering than when juxtaposed with an exceptional human being, so 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.080 much life left to live. Nice to me, Let me 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:40.520 give you a hug. I'm a little that's okay, that's okay. 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:45.280 As with many unsolved Thomas sides, there is a face 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:49.680 attached to this case. It's one you're likely familiar with, 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:55.600 the dispensable girl next door, smiling, laughing, making those around 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.600 her feel loved, full of joy and light one day 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.320 and the next nothing more than a mention on the 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.760 nightly news or a faded memory, a piece of paper 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.920 handed out to strangers and posted in grocery store windows. 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.959 You need Yeah, I'm also the voice in on sold 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.440 case as well. That is a different story. Victims can 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.920 no longer speak for themselves, which leaves it up to 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:37.920 others to speak for them. My name is m William Phelps. 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:41.360 I'm an investigative journalist and author of more than forty 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:46.399 true crime books. This is season three of Paper Ghosts 0:01:47.240 --> 0:02:03.920 in Plain Sight. Thank you. So you live on a 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:12.239 golf course? Do you play golf? Joanne Ziwiki is an outspoken, 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.880 kind hearted woman. Petite with white hair, she could be 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:21.000 anyone's grandmother. Quite the conversationalist, Joanne never runs out of 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.880 things to discuss, especially when it concerns her only daughter, 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:30.600 Tammy Joe's Wicki, whose murder thirty years ago still remains unsolved. 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.840 Let me just go get my case. It's the reason 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:38.400 why I paid Joanna visit over the summer. Uh No, 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:41.480 I think I got it. We spent countless hours talking 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.000 on the phone. But this would be our first time 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.600 meeting face to face, barely nine o'clock and it's not 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:54.280 ninety degrees already nine. We now get this. This is unusual. 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.920 Joanne has lived in a modest, single family home in 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.320 central Florida for the better part of twenty three years, 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.840 seven of which have been spent alone after her husband 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:09.280 Hank passed away in two thousand fifteen. She keeps busy, 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:13.600 often talking to neighbors, helping them with everyday chores, or 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.760 watching the golfers play on the course outside her window. 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:22.920 Inside family photos dot the walls, some of Joanne with 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:26.600 her late husband, others of her many grandchildren, and a 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:32.200 handful of her daughter Tammy. You see the pictures up there. 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:34.800 I do. I do see the pictures that was at 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.040 the beach, that was our that was all of us 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:41.400 at the beach, And there's a picture with Tammy and me. 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.680 Nearly every photo of Tammy's a wiki shows her smiling 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.840 ear to ear, her golden blonde hair always with bangs, 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:54.480 often fluctuated in length, her green eyes always protected by 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:59.480 a pair of round, amber wire framed glasses. There's a sentimental, 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.320 yet umbertone and Joanne's voice whenever she talks about Tammy. 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:07.400 You can hear the pain is still very real and 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.960 very much present. I had people saying to me, why 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.760 do you keep her picture around? Why don't I keep 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.360 the picture around? Yeah? Why wouldn't you want to not 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.480 remember her? People or I don't know, they don't think 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:26.279 in those terms. I try not to focus on things 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:31.240 too too strongly. I try to just live through day 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.440 to day, look for the good things in life, and 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:38.000 forget about the other things. What got you interested in 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:43.600 all this? Well, my brother's wife was murdered um and 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:46.360 she was five months pregnant. She was strangled to death. 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:51.040 It's an unsolved case that was would have to be terrible. 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:56.000 What's driven me is helping families find answers and telling 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:00.760 family stories. You know, with every murder there's a ripple effect, 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.520 and that ripple effect still keeps going to this day. 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.039 I can see it on your face. I I it's there. 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.240 I was first introduced to Joanne by a man named 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.760 Robert cut Leric. He's one of the administrators of the 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.839 Who Killed Tammy's a Wicked Facebook group. In two thousand seventeen, 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.680 a member of the group, familiar with my work on 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.080 cold cases, reached out to ask if I would look 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.440 into what happened to Tammy. In any given month, I 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.200 received dozens of messages from people across the country looking 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.200 for help and a loved one's missing or murder case. 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.760 There's an endless number of reasons why certain cases appeal 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:48.560 to different people. For me, it's the possibility of developing 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:52.720 new information, the opportunity to help a family when no 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.400 one else will. And even though it's been thirty years, 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:01.200 Tammy's case seems solvable to me. I wouldn't even be 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.200 here talking to you now though it wasn't for rong. 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.160 Robert cut Laric has been helpful and as someone who 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.120 has become a source of support for Joanne over the years. 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.560 He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the case and actually 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.039 grew up one town over from where the Ziwiki has 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.120 lived in New Jersey, but says he didn't get interested 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.320 until years later. It was just bored with what I 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.000 was doing, and it popped into my head. So I 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.760 went to this relatively new fangled thing called the Internet. 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:31.880 The reason why I was looking it up was because 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.000 I wanted to see if it had been solved, and 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:38.640 it hadn't. He just called me and he said, you know, 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.720 he was interested in finding out more information. I mean, 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.159 he didn't know Tammy. He was grutinized by the place 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.560 and a lot of other people because he didn't know Tammy, 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.880 and yet he got involved in it, you know, with 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.880 the whole thing. Did you think it was weird at 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:56.880 the beginning when he called, Yeah, I did. I mean 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.719 I was very careful to begin with. What did you 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:01.880 think of him when you met him? He was easy 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:03.560 to talk to, and he knew a lot. He had 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.680 been following the case, and I was careful, you know, 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.000 I was. I was wondering, you know, you just you 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.440 don't say, Okay, this guy is really somebody I want 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.920 to really get involved with I was. I was cautious. 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:20.040 What was his interest in the case, Just a young girl. 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.320 Mates had seen the pictures of the paper and things 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:25.840 like that, and he thought it was so terrible that 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.080 it happened. And at first I don't know what he 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:31.200 wanted to do. He was about the same age as 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.160 she was, and it really just hit him part and 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:37.440 he was just interested in the story. And then it 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.239 just got to revolved from there. An archaeologist by trade, 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.520 it's in Robert's nature to dig and patiently uncover information. 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.280 I started collecting every scrap up newspaper article there wasn't 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.800 the case and trying to get a picture of what happened. 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:59.040 He's not alone. Thousands of people, including many who never 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.960 met Tammy, have tried for years to understand what happened 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:07.680 to her. As for me, my approaches to not follow 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.720 that lead to truly serve an unsolved murder case in 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:16.120 an investigative fashion, not to mention honor the victim respectfully. 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:20.160 Within that process, I need to think beyond the box. 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.560 What I mean is, if I were to go down 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.840 the same rabbit holes everyone else has explored for the 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.760 past thirty years, I would be doing nothing more than 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:35.560 spending my wheels rehashing old information. What I need to 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:40.040 consider is within all that law enforcement has done, and 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:44.280 within all the theories presented, there is undoubtedly a different 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:48.439 direction to explore in finding the answer to this mystery. 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.839 In my experience talking to detectives from around the country, 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.000 murder is not that complicated a riddle to solve. The 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:03.240 simplest answer often is the answer her. The key is 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:15.800 knowing where to look for it. It was nearing the 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:20.520 end of summer and twenty one year old Tammy Joe 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.000 Zwicki was getting ready to start her final year at 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:28.600 Grinnell College, a private liberal arts school in Iowa. She 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.960 was double majoring in art history in Spanish and spent 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.040 most of her free time doing the things she loved most, 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.880 taking pictures. Tammy spent the summer at her family's house 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.800 in Marlton, New Jersey, a relatively quiet suburb just half 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:47.080 an hour east of Philly. Her oldest brother, Todd, was 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:49.800 working at a law from in Atlanta, but her two 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.199 other brothers, Darren and Dean, were back home with her. 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.080 She was fresh off as semester abroad in Spain and 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.360 spent those few months back in the States, working part 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:06.640 time at local stores, taking photos and hanging out with friends. Well, 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:08.960 it was just a busy time, Tammy. She was at 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.760 home and she was an organizer and says she organized everything, 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.520 and she fixed her room the way she wanted to be. 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.320 When she came back, come again, don't anybody change it around. 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:21.720 That's my room, stay out. It was what she told 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.480 a boys. And she had visited a lot of her 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.520 friends and just really enjoyed her time there. She had 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.040 one more year left that she was heading right into 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:35.280 her senior year. Jen Nelson was Tammy's closest friend. They 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.640 first met at Grinnell College three years earlier, when Jen 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.640 was a student adviser assigned to help Tammy on her 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:45.640 first day of school. We had talked about the possibility 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:50.680 of finding a place to find jobs and be roommates together. 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.040 Jen says they've made plans to see each other as 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:58.000 much as possible. At the time, she was living in Chicago, 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.960 where Tammy would spend the false am stir studying photography 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.760 at the Art Institute. We were excited about her semester 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.960 in Chicago since I had already graduated and was back 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.079 in Chicago. I was looking forward to getting to spend 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.840 time with her while she was here for the semester. 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.080 On the morning of August one, Tammy and her brother 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:23.239 Darren packed up Tammy's white Pontiac He one thousand hatchback. 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:26.880 The plan was for Tammy to drive Darren back to 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.319 his college campus in Illinois, then to drive to her 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.160 own school in Iowa, where she'd visit with friends and 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.559 take photos for the yearbook before heading back to Chicago 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.240 to start a semester. They were excited about getting back 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.840 to school and getting back in with their friends and everything, 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.120 because you know their friends want her in college. Your 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.240 friends are all over the country. Tammy and Darren left 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.520 New Jersey and headed west to Pittsburgh, where they spent 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:56.160 the night with relatives. From there, the two drove roughly 0:11:56.280 --> 0:12:00.880 five miles about eight hours to Evanston, Illinois, where Darren 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.920 would be dropped off to start his sophomore year at 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:08.240 Northwestern University. It was a route Tammy was familiar with, 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:12.080 having driven it with her dad once before, except this 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.679 time there were issues with the car. Her brother, Darren 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.960 would later say in an interview that they experienced engine 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:23.640 problems since leaving New Jersey, The engine would decelerate, the 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.880 oil light flicker, and when they pull over the engine 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:30.120 would shut up. The car stalled a few times during 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:32.560 the trip, but Darren said it was running fine once 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:37.360 he topped off the oil and water. Were they calling 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.199 along the road, Darren and Tammy? Were they checking in 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.360 with you? Not? Not a whole lot, but they checked 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:45.640 in from time to time. Do you remember anything? She said, 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:48.920 just that they were on the road and didn't They 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:52.920 didn't have much traffic and everything seemed to be going okay. 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.160 Tammy also spent that night in Evanston at the home 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.880 of a friend she had met in Spain the previous semester, 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.480 and next morning she went over to see Darren one 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:06.920 last time before heading out to Grinnell. Darren said he 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.480 checked the car and told Tammy that if it started 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.360 acting up again she should pull over and wait until 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.440 evening to let the engine cool down. There was no 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.640 reason for Darren to worry about his older sister. Tammy 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:22.120 was tough, she was savvy. She had this I can 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.560 take care of myself attitude he learned to find for 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:29.160 herself because her brother's they didn't give her much room. 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:33.520 Three brothers, three brothers. Yes, she was tough. They made 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.160 her tough. She wasn't afraid of anybody or anything. She 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.680 lived pretty well the way she wanted to. At around 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.000 one in the afternoon on Sunday, Tammy said her goodbyes 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.800 to her brother on Northwestern's campus. The drive to her 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.680 own school would take no more than five hours. When 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.280 do you begin to worry when I wasn't getting hold 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:57.760 of her Because she was pretty dependable. Her calling us 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.760 was unusual that she didn't go. She would check in, 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.199 what's the plan is she supposed to call you when 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:07.000 she gets there? Yeah, And she didn't call, So then 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.400 I started calling around campus because she should have been 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:14.160 there by then. It's hard for anyone to say what 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.680 exactly happened after Tammy's a wiki left her brother's school, 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.080 but here's what's been pieced together in the years that followed. 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.840 Tammy was about two hours into the drive when her 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.600 car broke down along I eighty in Lasau County, Illinois. 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.400 She was stranded near mile marker three on the westbound 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:38.760 side of the highway. Witnesses reported seeing a young woman 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.560 matching Tammy's description looking under the hood of her car. 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.720 A little after three pm. You're standing on the sideline 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.520 off the side. It's amazing how fastest cars are going 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:54.200 standing there. Marty McCarthy is a former Illinois State Police 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:58.720 investigator who spent years looking into the Tammy's a Wiki case. 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:01.480 Have you been on eighty Cars are just zooming down. 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:06.000 There is nothing there but cornfields for miles and miles 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:10.680 and trucks, trucks all over. It's a main artery. And uh, 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.640 they are less capable of stopping obviously in cars, and 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:17.640 so people may have noticed this really blonde girl, young 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.800 girl next to her car and maybe wanted to stop 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:22.760 and help her, but it would have been by time 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.440 making that recognition and stopping and pulling off. You know, 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.720 it just didn't happen. Many people did notice Tammy on 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:33.320 the side of the road that day. While I was 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.200 looking into her case, a source provided me with the 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.760 official tip sheet from the earliest part of the Illinois 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:49.760 State Police's investigation. On Sunday, August, dozens of people claimed 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.400 to have seen Tammy standing near her car for close 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:59.160 to an hour after three pm. By four pm, several 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:03.560 eyewitnesses accounts reported seeing just the car on the side 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:07.640 of the road, no signs of Tammy. Then at five 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:12.080 oh five PM, a state trooper found the hatchback. It 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:15.720 was locked, so he tagged it and marked it as 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:20.640 an abandoned vehicle. By Monday afternoon, it had been towed. 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.080 As far as the police were concerned, Tammy was an 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.880 adult who likely took off on her own. It's just 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:34.480 a ben car. It's not adult college girl. I think 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:36.920 like that, that's just not going to get on their radar, 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:42.160 and rightly so. And I mean, it's just At the 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.680 beginning of the summer, I took a trip out to 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:49.480 LaSalle County in Illinois to see the site myself. I 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.360 parked by mile mark eighty three around the same time 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.800 of day as Tammy had and recorded what I heard 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.520 out of every ten vehicles that passed by, at least 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:04.600 six or eighteen wheel tractor trailer type trucks. The shoulder 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.000 of the road where Tammy pulled over is so narrow 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.359 that if you stretch your arm up you can nearly 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.879 touch the cars as they whiz by. If you remove 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:17.120 the cars, there's not much else, just thousands of acres 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:21.000 of farmland. The closest Sexit ramp with a gas station 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:25.959 at pay phone was two miles away plus the Midwest 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.520 in the summer, in the middle of the day, it's hot. 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.879 On the day Tammy's car broke down, the temperature was 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:38.200 in the eighties at best. Passing Tammy on the side 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.000 of the road at seventy eight miles per hour, you 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:45.800 had seconds to assess the situation. Standing there in the 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.919 same spot as Tammy did thirty years earlier made it 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.960 easy for me to understand why the sight of even 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:57.600 one vehicle stopping to help might be a godsend. But still, 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:03.879 would she have just taken anyone's offer her help? Was 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:07.800 Tammy the type of person who would trust somebody to 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:12.280 help her? Or would she be standishous, very cautious, very cautious, 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:16.240 very cautious? So she wasn't naive in anyway. No, Dammy 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:20.040 was by no, meaning that I and she had the 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.480 three brothers. They didn't give her much more in an 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:26.040 inch of anything, and we moved and she had to 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.119 get to know new people all the time. She was 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:34.639 very cautious with people. Police frequently categorized these types of 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:40.080 situations as runaway cases, and to their credit, that often 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.919 ends up being the scenario. But Tammy's friends and family 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.960 refused to believe that she had just taken off. It 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:51.560 would have been out of character. What's the first indication 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.359 that you heard of that something might have been wrong. 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.040 I was back then in Charlottesville to get ready to 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.480 start my final year of law school, and I got 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.639 a call from either my mom or dad at the time. 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:08.639 That's Todd Zwicki, Tammy's eldest brother, and they said, have 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.720 you heard from Tammy. We can't find Tammy. People just 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:13.520 thought they just didn't know where she was, what it 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.520 might be going on. The police were not alarmed, and 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:18.359 so at that point I thought, oh, that's weird, and 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:20.840 they basically said, well, if you hear from her, let 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.000 us know. Not a big alarm at that point, and 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.080 then um, it was within a day or two later, 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.639 when she hadn't turned up, that things got more urgent. 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.600 A little over twenty four hours had passed before Tammy 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.760 Ziwiki was identified as the owner of the Toad Pontiac. 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:41.439 It wasn't until the car's registration was entered into a 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.520 database that word finally got back to Hank and Joanne 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.359 Ziwiki that their daughter may have been last seen in 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:53.000 LaSalle County, Illinois. A missing person's report was immediately filed 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.440 with the Illinois State Police, and both Hank and Joanne 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.879 packed their bags and headed in that direction. That's when 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.760 I hopped on a plane and flew out there. Hearing 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:07.359 that the Zowikis dropped everything and immediately went to Illinois 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:10.960 gave me a better understanding of how close knit the 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:14.720 family was. They were not just another family in denial 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.280 of a troubled daughter. If the Ziwikis were uprooting their 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.119 entire lives and high tailing it out to the Midwest, 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.680 they knew something wasn't right. We all met in Chicago. 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:28.840 We were staying with our friend's parents, and I joined 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.760 them pretty soon after that to try to help and 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:33.320 try to figure out what was going on and just 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:36.760 help anyway I could. We had central control in my 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:40.600 dining room. That's Jen Nelson, Tammy's closest friend, who you 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:45.080 heard earlier. The dining room table had maps out of 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:49.000 Illinois and Iowa, and we were coordinating groups that were 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:52.560 searching different areas and getting reports back in when people 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:56.840 would return from searching. For the next week, the Ziwiki's 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:00.000 new home base was with Jen Nelson's family in Chicago. 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.959 They'd make the ninety minute drive back and forth Lassau 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:08.000 County every day to meet with local law enforcement. The 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:11.719 Zawikis were not doing well, None of us were. Who 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.480 was getting worse and worse to think about what could 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:18.680 what could be happening to her and why we hadn't 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.399 been able to find her. And I think the longer 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:26.160 it goes on, the more likely you are to get 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.600 bad news. And you know that, and it weighs you down. 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.480 So what do you guys do next? What are you feeling? 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.440 What's going on? Well, you just you don't feel anything. 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:38.400 You just kind of do and hope that's the whole thing. 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:43.280 You hope that maybe she's just stopped someplace and just 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.160 forgot to call. I had car trouble something like that. 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:49.639 But then as each day went by, and you know, 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.960 you you lost hope. And what did you think then? 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:55.800 I didn't think. I didn't know what to think. I 0:21:55.920 --> 0:22:01.080 was just blank. No. No, that feeling when you know 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:04.679 that her car had been abandoned on the road and 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:10.200 towed away, was what let go of any little hope 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:14.000 that she had walked off for help and found help, 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.199 you know, or that you know, we knew at that 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:21.480 point that something really bad had happened, and our hope 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:23.560 was that she was alive and we could find her, 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:26.960 but we knew that whatever situation she was in was 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:45.639 in a really dangerous one. By August, two days after 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:50.600 Tammy disappeared, a massive search effort was underway. The Illinois 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:54.919 National Guard had helicopters flying over the area where Tammy 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:58.680 was last seen on the side of Interstate eight. State 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:03.880 police canine units search acres upon acres of ground. Roadblocks 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:08.240 were set up on interstates. We opened the investigation because 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:10.800 the car was recovered and she was nowhere to be faring. 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:14.560 Tim really is a former FBI agent. It was nearly 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:17.520 a decade into his twenty three year career with the 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.520 Bureau when he was assigned to work the Tammy's a 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:25.000 wikie case. We opened a kidnapping case and not knowing 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:28.720 where you are what happened to her, and so we 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.760 worked the case as much as we could, so we 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:35.000 had no clue where she was, didn't know where you 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:37.800 begin to look at the I s P. Now they 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:41.080 have a special investigative Unit who are also looking into this, 0:23:41.119 --> 0:23:44.359 and are you guys working together. What we had was 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:47.600 we had kind of a gentleman's agreement. They would cover 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:50.080 all leads in a state of Illinois, we would cover 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:53.800 the our stately. So the two meshed and that was 0:23:53.880 --> 0:23:56.639 the general agreement we had with the state police. And 0:23:56.640 --> 0:23:59.840 were they good about it. Very much. So they put 0:23:59.880 --> 0:24:03.520 the cover season investigated on a case and they did 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:06.760 a good job in current leads, a good task force. 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:11.600 One of those investigators was Marty McCarthy, who became part 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:15.480 of that new task force created by the Illinois State Police. 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:19.199 After getting his start with the local police department, he 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:23.040 worked for the Illinois Bureau of Investigation, which he describes 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:26.800 as the state's version of the FBI. He left that 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:29.520 to join the FBI, but returned to the I s 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:33.080 p S Investigated Division because he wanted to work on 0:24:33.119 --> 0:24:35.920 Tammy's case. Asked to come back to work this case, 0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:38.960 and it was really kind of shocked to see what 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:41.679 the state of investigation was. This is my personal opinion, 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:46.440 of course, the state of investigation was at that time. 0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:51.320 The people I've spoken to are generally split in their 0:24:51.400 --> 0:24:55.680 views of how law enforcement handled this case. FBI agent 0:24:55.720 --> 0:25:01.320 timilely gave the task force top marks. Marty's opinion is different. 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:05.000 It makes him a polarizing figure in the community. But 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:08.639 if you know nothing else about Marty, know this. He 0:25:08.760 --> 0:25:12.640 is unafraid to speak his truth. And in his opinion, 0:25:12.960 --> 0:25:17.119 the investigation was a mess from day one. They merged 0:25:17.400 --> 0:25:22.600 under his umbrella, separate division, but the state police bureaucracy 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:24.879 was in charge of us as they had not been before. 0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:32.160 They are, in my view, basically highway patrol, and they 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:35.159 do that and that's their emphasis. And they told me 0:25:35.160 --> 0:25:38.480 a number of times that they just don't see investigation 0:25:38.520 --> 0:25:41.159 as especially they'll tell you that they see, well, the 0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:44.520 troopers investigate traffic accidents. It's not the same thing. They 0:25:44.520 --> 0:25:47.640 didn't believe that, and in fact, would put guys at 0:25:47.680 --> 0:25:51.360 lieutenant captain level in charge of investigatives who had never 0:25:51.359 --> 0:25:54.440 worked the case in their life. Marty's assessment of how 0:25:54.520 --> 0:25:57.919 the Illinois State Police operated at the time echoes what 0:25:58.040 --> 0:26:01.840 I've heard from Tammy's own family. As her brother Todd 0:26:02.000 --> 0:26:05.480 explained to me, the Ziwikis had to fight to convince 0:26:05.560 --> 0:26:09.400