Speaker 1: Paper Ghosts is a production of iHeartRadio previously on Paper Ghosts.
Speaker 1: So they come to you and you give them the
Speaker 1: ok to consume that DNA. I first called Joanne and
Speaker 1: we have this discussion about this is our one shot.
Speaker 1: You know, we may not get it again if we
Speaker 1: agree to do this. She was in complete agreement and said,
Speaker 1: we've got to do what we've got to do. In
Speaker 1: the process of our analysis of the physical evidence using
Speaker 1: more modern DNA tests, the shoelaces were of tremendous interest
Speaker 1: to us. A couple of local FBI agents came to
Speaker 1: my house and took a DNA swab for me. They
Speaker 1: apparently have found mail DNA that they can use. Obviously
Speaker 1: they have something that they're processing. My name isem William Phelps.
Speaker 1: I'm an investigative journalist, the author more than forty true
Speaker 1: crime books. This is season three of Paper Ghosts in
Speaker 1: Plain Sight. Over the course of my investigation into Tammy
Speaker 1: Ziwiki's murder, I kept coming back to one word trust.
Speaker 1: From the beginning. Everything in Tammy's case, the crime scene
Speaker 1: on I eighty, the time of day, a highway full
Speaker 1: of witnesses, just about everything pointed to one conclusion, Tammy
Speaker 1: trusted her killer enough to willingly accept a ride. I
Speaker 1: think she trusted somebody and took a ride or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then it went off the rails from there. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it would be a serial killer. It
Speaker 1: could be just a random, one time event. You know,
Speaker 1: the opportunity was there, they took her. I believe her
Speaker 1: murderer posed as a good samaritan, pulled over under the
Speaker 1: guy eyes of offering help, and he probably offered her
Speaker 1: a ride. So many of the people interviewed for this
Speaker 1: podcast agreed that on the surface, whoever abducted and murdered
Speaker 1: Tammy did not ostensibly pose a threat, and despite what
Speaker 1: early witness statements and the media seemed to imply, I'm
Speaker 1: convinced this person was not a trucker. I believe that
Speaker 1: she was dumped across the state to draw interest away
Speaker 1: from where she was picked up, and I believe that
Speaker 1: that's because that area has a connection to her killer.
Speaker 1: And I really believe that the case was getting national news,
Speaker 1: it was getting a lot of attention, and I think
Speaker 1: that the body was left so that we would find it.
Speaker 1: It could have been dumped in a far more remote,
Speaker 1: discreete area. If you're a trucker, you know where people
Speaker 1: are not going to be. You know there are places
Speaker 1: that are deserted. And while it wasn't left in the
Speaker 1: middle of the road, it was left in a place
Speaker 1: where it was going to be found. And I think
Speaker 1: that that was on purpose, so that we would look
Speaker 1: in Missouri and stop looking in Illinois. Tammy's friends Stacy
Speaker 1: Pappus states perfectly what I have come to believe over
Speaker 1: the past year that Tammy's killer likely acted on an
Speaker 1: opportunity and abducted her at random, but had certainly thought
Speaker 1: things out meticulously afterwards. Like Stacy, I believe his movements
Speaker 1: after Tammy's death were calculated and meant to distract, and
Speaker 1: he knew a thing or two about where to dump
Speaker 1: a body. Here's Tammy's best friend, Jen Nelson. I think
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine a monster who would abduct a
Speaker 1: young woman, kill them and only do that once in
Speaker 1: their life. No, I think it's a monster who was
Speaker 1: out there and was going to hurt somebody else. There
Speaker 1: are so many different ways that life in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: two were different than today that it sometimes makes it
Speaker 1: hard for listeners to imagine how did this happen. Why
Speaker 1: did this happen? You know, well, why didn't she do
Speaker 1: this or that? And you have to really put yourself
Speaker 1: back into nineteen ninety two to have a better grasp of,
Speaker 1: you know, what she was thinking, what she was feeling,
Speaker 1: what the investigators were doing to try to investigate this case.
Speaker 1: Brian town is a special prosecutor for the State of Illinois.
Speaker 1: Prior to that, he was the state's attorney for LaSalle
Speaker 1: County from two thousand and six two sixteen and the
Speaker 1: assistant state's attorney in nineteen ninety two when Tammy went missing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I say this all the time that you
Speaker 1: can't look at a nineteen ninety two case through a
Speaker 1: contemporary lens or an emotional feeling of what's going on today.
Speaker 1: But subconsciously you do unless you're conscious of the fact
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't exactly right. It's all about, you know,
Speaker 1: the era. And I certainly wouldn't call this a cold case,
Speaker 1: but in virtually every cold case in the United States
Speaker 1: of America, that's the first and sometimes most difficult hurdle
Speaker 1: for an investigation is to say, Okay, I've got to
Speaker 1: get back to nineteen fifty six or nineteen seventy three
Speaker 1: or whatever year we're talking about. And I've got to
Speaker 1: think like they thought then and try to have that perspective.
Speaker 1: Otherwise it's going to be a difficult investigation. If she
Speaker 1: felt any discomfort from a truck driver, she could easily
Speaker 1: ran into those corn fields. I mean, you run into
Speaker 1: one of those corn fields right there, you're gone. You're hiding. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Being a Midwest guy, I can tell you that in August,
Speaker 1: the corn is pretty high, and absolutely she could have
Speaker 1: very easily escaped any kind of attacker. And I eighty
Speaker 1: in that particular area of that corridor is wide open.
Speaker 1: There might be some fences, but certainly I think she
Speaker 1: would would have been able to escape if she had
Speaker 1: felt threatened or if someone was trying to abduct her.
Speaker 1: It's a thought that haunts me. Tammy was abducted from
Speaker 1: a busy highway in Illinois in broad daylight on a
Speaker 1: hot afternoon in August nineteen ninety two. A flood of
Speaker 1: tips led law enforcement to search for a trucker a
Speaker 1: connection with her disappearance. It was even a composite of
Speaker 1: an eighteen wheeler with two stripes released. Tammy's body was
Speaker 1: found nine days later in Missouri, just fifteen feet off
Speaker 1: the shoulder of an exit ramp frequented by truckers, which
Speaker 1: begs the question did her are capitalized on the frenzied
Speaker 1: search for a trucker. Here's former IP Lieutenant Jeff Paedia.
Speaker 1: One of the things that led to the overall truck
Speaker 1: driver theme was the fact that the betting that she
Speaker 1: was wrapped in would have fit the betting in the
Speaker 1: back of a sleeper birth. That doesn't mean it was
Speaker 1: from a sleeper birth, and that doesn't mean that that
Speaker 1: betting wasn't just bought at a Walmart or any other
Speaker 1: store along the way. And so, you know, that's I think,
Speaker 1: sort of a good lesson about jumping to conclusions. You know,
Speaker 1: you have, all right, it fits the betting that she's
Speaker 1: wrapped in fits a sleeper birth. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: it was a truck And then it, particularly as a supervisor,
Speaker 1: you start saying something like that, or you even voice that, oh,
Speaker 1: it must have been a truck driver. Every one of
Speaker 1: your detectives then is focused on truck drivers. And that's
Speaker 1: the last thing we wanted, you know, because we did
Speaker 1: have other information out there. And then you know, you
Speaker 1: want to keep all things open. I've said it all along.
Speaker 1: There's been an element of tunnel vision that, in my view,
Speaker 1: hindered progress in the investigation, at least in the early days.
Speaker 1: And as the saying goes, if you don't change the
Speaker 1: way you look at things, the things you look at
Speaker 1: will not change. So if I shift my focus from
Speaker 1: truck driver to someone Tammy could have trusted, a new
Speaker 1: pool of potential suspects opens up. We always struggled with
Speaker 1: the idea of, you know, the couple things somebody in
Speaker 1: a position of authority, or somebody right at her age
Speaker 1: that she may have known. Like, we had the idea
Speaker 1: that we thought that there was a possibility that the
Speaker 1: actual offender was another Grinnell College male student, because she
Speaker 1: would have to have recognized, you know, like, oh, I
Speaker 1: recognize you from campus, aren't you? You know? Or you
Speaker 1: have somebody with a badge in a uniform that they're like,
Speaker 1: come on, i'll hop in, I'll give you a ride,
Speaker 1: and then she would feel comfortable with that. Law enforcement
Speaker 1: followed that threat, but there was no evidence to support
Speaker 1: a fellow Grinnell's students involvement, or any student for that matter.
Speaker 1: So then if you apply the logic that Tammy instinctively
Speaker 1: trusted a stranger, you could draw the conclusion that this
Speaker 1: person was someone in a position of authority. If you
Speaker 1: recall from an earlier episode, Tammy's car was found locked
Speaker 1: on the shoulder of the interstate. There was no sign
Speaker 1: of a struggle in or around the vehicle. Her purse,
Speaker 1: along with her I D were not in the car,
Speaker 1: So it seems that when her abductor arrived to offer help,
Speaker 1: Tammy felt at ease, took her bag and left willingly
Speaker 1: with that person. It's a point I brought up with
Speaker 1: Jeff Hanford, a former ISP officer who worked on Tammy's case.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, in my talks that I gave
Speaker 1: after this, I would tell them I wouldn't accept any
Speaker 1: help from anybody who is not a uniform policeman. I said,
Speaker 1: because I know how you know what they're going to
Speaker 1: do for you. They're going to call you a tow
Speaker 1: truck that's on a list that's been vetted. You said,
Speaker 1: uniform policeman. Why only uniform policemen. People are impersonating policeman,
Speaker 1: aren't going to be in a marked car with a uniform,
Speaker 1: and they're just not. It's too much, it's too dangerous.
Speaker 1: You know, it's too easy to get caught. Nowadays, they'll
Speaker 1: see county deputies out there quite a bit too. I've
Speaker 1: noticed that, so you know, I've been a uniform police
Speaker 1: officer in a mark squad car. That's what you want,
Speaker 1: that's the ultimate, because you'll be out of there in
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. Law enforcement received countless tips from motorists about
Speaker 1: the day Tammy went missing, and looking at an ISP
Speaker 1: handwritten witness tipsheet and time sequence report, I didn't see
Speaker 1: any indication of a marked or unmarked police vehicle stopping
Speaker 1: to help. Then again, if people driving on the interstate
Speaker 1: saw a police vehicle park next to a stalled car,
Speaker 1: I think there would be relief, no cause for alarm,
Speaker 1: and no reason to report it. In my view, it's
Speaker 1: safe to assume there was something about the person who
Speaker 1: pulled over that put Tammy at ease, the collar of
Speaker 1: a clergyman, perhaps maybe an elderly man, or someone with
Speaker 1: a badge. Tammy was tough. Tammy grew up with three brothers.
Speaker 1: Tammy wasn't naive. But if a guy shows up in
Speaker 1: a collar, or a guy shows up with a badge,
Speaker 1: she's going with him. Sure, I agree with you, And
Speaker 1: that kind of dovetails in perfectly with the fact that
Speaker 1: Tammy's family firmly believes that she never would have gotten
Speaker 1: into a semi truck with a truck driver that you know,
Speaker 1: she didn't know and had no connection to nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 1: It was a different era, as a different time. You know,
Speaker 1: a young lady, college bound or somewhat college educated or
Speaker 1: getting her education would have trusted police and would have,
Speaker 1: when stranded on the side of a busy road, happily
Speaker 1: gotten into a squad car with someone in a position
Speaker 1: of authority. The possibility that a man in uniform was
Speaker 1: responsible for Tammy's a Wiki's abduction and murder is a
Speaker 1: theory I've been pursuing since I learned from someone deeply
Speaker 1: connected to the case that, as of early twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: the prime suspect law enforcement has been zeroing in on
Speaker 1: is a former police officer Waitnia from the slum. In
Speaker 1: the days and weeks after I learned that a former
Speaker 1: police officer was now the prime suspect and Tammy's a
Speaker 1: Wiki's abduction and murder, the puzzle pieces in this case
Speaker 1: began to fall into place. My source, who was asked
Speaker 1: to remain anonymous, told me this officer has been on
Speaker 1: law enforcement's radar since the earliest days of the investigation,
Speaker 1: and he remains at the center of the latest inquiries today.
Speaker 1: I worked for months to back up this information and
Speaker 1: aid carefully whether to include it in the podcast. In
Speaker 1: the end, I was told that including this detail would
Speaker 1: not hinder the act of investigation. An accusation against a
Speaker 1: member of law enforcement isn't an easy one to make
Speaker 1: or prove. Investigators didn't want to tip off a potential
Speaker 1: suspect too early, which, for reasons I now understand, is
Speaker 1: why for many decades it was imperative that any word
Speaker 1: about the suspect stay out of the press. And in
Speaker 1: thinking about this suspect, it makes a little more sense
Speaker 1: now why it felt as if someone was mucking around
Speaker 1: with the case in the beginning of the investigation. It
Speaker 1: could also be the reason why the IP dissolved the
Speaker 1: task force after just six months. Was it because they
Speaker 1: thought one of their own could be responsible. What's even
Speaker 1: more alarming is what I heard in early twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: I met with another law enforcement source who confirmed the
Speaker 1: cops suspect theory. That source told me this suspect had
Speaker 1: taken two previously unplanned days off from work after Tammy
Speaker 1: was abducted, which could account for a lot of unanswered questions,
Speaker 1: most importantly why her body was found five hundred miles away.
Speaker 1: It's a point I brought up with Jeff Padilla. There's
Speaker 1: so much land out there to dump a body that
Speaker 1: no one would ever find. And if I'm familiar with it,
Speaker 1: the land, why put her on the side of the
Speaker 1: road exactly exactly? And typically we know, you know from
Speaker 1: my experience, a body dump is meant to create time
Speaker 1: and distance between the offender and the victim. You know now,
Speaker 1: now that lends credence to some of those other theories.
Speaker 1: You know, why would somebody want to create time and
Speaker 1: distance between them and Tammy? Many serial killers I have
Speaker 1: interviewed have told me that the more distance they put
Speaker 1: between themselves and their victims, the better the chances are
Speaker 1: of never being connected to that victim. The fact that
Speaker 1: Tammy was missing for nine days and then found alongside
Speaker 1: a busy exit ramp in a neighboring state tells me
Speaker 1: her killer was well aware of this concept. If I'm
Speaker 1: a cop in Illinois. The last thing I'd want is
Speaker 1: for one of my colleagues to find her body another state,
Speaker 1: another jurisdiction. So here's a theory, right, So she's abducted,
Speaker 1: the call goes out and everyone's looking for an eighteen
Speaker 1: wheel or truck driver, right right. Nine days pass, and
Speaker 1: she's dumped by a truck stop. Yep, because everybody thought
Speaker 1: it was you know, everybody believed it was a truck driver.
Speaker 1: So why not make it look like it was a
Speaker 1: truck driver, right right, and going buy the betting that
Speaker 1: fits the size of a truck birth. An important point
Speaker 1: to factor into the trucker theory is how easy it
Speaker 1: would have been for a truck driver to dump Tammy's
Speaker 1: body anywhere else but where she was found. Consider the
Speaker 1: typical over the road trucker who spends days traversing the country.
Speaker 1: If he's holding onto the body for nine days, he
Speaker 1: might as well have driven to Washington State and dumped
Speaker 1: her there. But to travel five hundred miles and then
Speaker 1: dump her out in the open, it defies logic, even
Speaker 1: for a psychopath. If I'm the offender and I'm the
Speaker 1: truck driver, and for whatever reason, she gets in the
Speaker 1: truck with me. I've got her, I'm going to take
Speaker 1: care of business. And then when she dies straight down
Speaker 1: I eighty, I just pull over, wait for nobody's coming by,
Speaker 1: pull her body out, and dump her in the ditch.
Speaker 1: My second source told me that a search warrant was
Speaker 1: conducted on the police officer's home in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: and during that search, many items of interest were found,
Speaker 1: including an old mattress in his basement and other items
Speaker 1: that made it quote appear as though someone was being restrained.
Speaker 1: The mattress, I'm told was dirty and had been recently
Speaker 1: slept on, and had stains that appeared to resemble blood.
Speaker 1: Could the mattress be the piece of evidence investigators were
Speaker 1: able to recently extract DNA from test and build a
Speaker 1: profile off of Many of those involved in the investigation
Speaker 1: have agreed on the theory that Tammy was restrained and
Speaker 1: held hostage for the period of time she was missing.
Speaker 1: As I was speaking to Jeff Padilla about the case
Speaker 1: in general, I slipped in a question about this. Part
Speaker 1: of our concern was that, you know, if you're going
Speaker 1: to restrain someone, you're going to have some ligature marks somewhere,
Speaker 1: and we had a hard time with that. We didn't
Speaker 1: there was no clear distinct ligature marks, which led them
Speaker 1: to you know, particularly in the in the beginning, some
Speaker 1: people believing that she was immediately killed. A victim who
Speaker 1: has been restrained for days may not always end up
Speaker 1: with ligature marks on their wrists or ankles. It all
Speaker 1: depends on how the victim is being restrained. This all
Speaker 1: led to that other issue. Found that Tammy's autopsy she
Speaker 1: still had the undigested food that she had eaten right
Speaker 1: before she broke down from whatever that was, the heartsease
Speaker 1: or whatever. So you know that that all lent to
Speaker 1: the fact, you know that she may have been killed
Speaker 1: right away, and then maybe she was just kept because
Speaker 1: you know, her body is kept for whatever reason. But
Speaker 1: that doesn't make like from from a bad guy's perspective,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make sense because you know, going back to
Speaker 1: the whole body dump thing, you want to get rid
Speaker 1: of that as quickly as it would be very strange
Speaker 1: to hang on to somebody like that unless you have,
Speaker 1: you know, you had somebody like you know that that
Speaker 1: had kept her alive somewhere. Whether Tammy was kept alive
Speaker 1: or killed right away is an important factor, especially for
Speaker 1: those desperate to know what happened to her, But it's
Speaker 1: irrelevant to the science behind catching her killer. That comes
Speaker 1: down to the DNA testing, completing a profile, and matching
Speaker 1: it to the suspect. My source said investigators are currently
Speaker 1: missing one piece, but that once they have it and
Speaker 1: arrest MORMP will be signed, sealed, and served. I am
Speaker 1: fairly certain the field work on all of this has
Speaker 1: been completed and it's just a matter of time to
Speaker 1: confirm what they already know. I recently shared some of
Speaker 1: what I had learned with Jeff Padia, who oversaw Tammy's
Speaker 1: case for many years. I'll just I will only say this,
Speaker 1: it's not the first I've heard of that. I have
Speaker 1: no knowledge that he is the current focus of the investigation.
Speaker 1: I am familiar with that line of inquiry. I guess
Speaker 1: we could call it. Among all the theories and leads
Speaker 1: over the past thirty years, this one seems the most credible,
Speaker 1: and according to my sources, current law enforcement believes this
Speaker 1: suspect is Tammy's killer. The news seemed to catch Jeff
Speaker 1: Padia off guard. I would be interested as to who
Speaker 1: would provide you that information With knowledge of the current investigation,
Speaker 1: but I also don't want to know. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I you know, I'd love to tell you, but I can't.
Speaker 1: I just can't. And no I did it. It It would
Speaker 1: be somebody with the same access to my friends and
Speaker 1: colleagues and folks that I worked with, so and I
Speaker 1: was told all their weight and to do now is
Speaker 1: just matched the DNA to this person. That's very interesting.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting that you say that. I've reached out
Speaker 1: to those leading the current investigation a number of times,
Speaker 1: but they've declined to participate. A spokesperson for the FBI
Speaker 1: said they were unable to provide any comments outside of
Speaker 1: what has already been released, but they appreciate the podcast's
Speaker 1: efforts in helping to bring attention to the case. After
Speaker 1: working on this case for as long as I have,
Speaker 1: I'll say this, the best lead, the most practical suspect
Speaker 1: is the former police officer. I'm hold law enforcement is
Speaker 1: currently pursuing from all the intel I have been given
Speaker 1: and a few off the record conversations, and arrest could
Speaker 1: be imminent, which in the real world of investigations could
Speaker 1: mean months or even years. I am not holding my breath,
Speaker 1: and neither should Tammy's friends and family. The last thing
Speaker 1: I want to do is give hope where there is none.
Speaker 1: I am simply reporting the information I have developed from
Speaker 1: sources with impeccable credibility, and what I have been told
Speaker 1: by those who have the access and knowledge to make
Speaker 1: such claims. If this is all true, the sadder reality
Speaker 1: is that Tammy made the most responsible decision in her situation.
Speaker 1: She went with someone reliable, someone she should have been
Speaker 1: able to trust, and that fact alone makes this story
Speaker 1: all the more difficult to tell, not do once it
Speaker 1: with Today, I'm just saying it in there. I just
Speaker 1: so can't do much else with it, and there are
Speaker 1: I know there's going to be a couple of things,
Speaker 1: a couple of articles going out about it, but I'm
Speaker 1: just hanging in. I called Joanne Ziwiki last August on
Speaker 1: the thirtieth anniversary of her daughter's abduction. I thought about
Speaker 1: how hard this all must be, how draining it can get.
Speaker 1: I know what it's like from my own nephews and
Speaker 1: niece who lost their mother to murder in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: As a family member, you think about this stuff often,
Speaker 1: but on certain days of the year, it's impossible to
Speaker 1: think of anything else. It's hard because it brings it
Speaker 1: up against you know, everything again and at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know you never know what might come out of that.
Speaker 1: There's been some intings that have insolved after so many
Speaker 1: years because of it's being left in the spotlight. So
Speaker 1: you know, I looked forward for either way. But some
Speaker 1: days are good, some days aren't so good. If hope
Speaker 1: is part of this, then I can at least offer
Speaker 1: a slight bright spot for Joanne. Twenty six years after
Speaker 1: my sister in law's murder, I have been told investigators
Speaker 1: now have a few suspects they know committed the crime.
Speaker 1: So despite the times when it seemed law enforcement had
Speaker 1: someone only to then be let down or they had
Speaker 1: given up, there is sometimes light at the end or
Speaker 1: justice however you look cat it. Joanne told me that
Speaker 1: some people in her life encourage her to forget about
Speaker 1: all of this, to move on, to go about her
Speaker 1: days without stepping back in time. You have to go
Speaker 1: through it to know what it's like, especially when you
Speaker 1: have the other kids, because you see what the other
Speaker 1: kids have done them, what they're going through and everything.
Speaker 1: Joanne went on to tell me how hard it has
Speaker 1: been for her youngest son, Darren, who shared the first
Speaker 1: part of the road trip with Tammy and was the
Speaker 1: last one from the family to be with her. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to kind of just go with it and
Speaker 1: just take things a best you can from day to day. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, we all go through subsic and you know,
Speaker 1: as long as with each other and help each other,
Speaker 1: and you know, it works out well. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know right now, and anything I know now
Speaker 1: it supposedly the DNA is being destined in California by
Speaker 1: one of the best lamps out there. They haven't heard
Speaker 1: any say yeah, so anything comes up, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: let you know. The impact Tammy's a Wiki had on
Speaker 1: those in her life is everlasting. It's something that struck
Speaker 1: me in this case, how memories of the victim were
Speaker 1: so permanent. It's rare, actually not something I hear all
Speaker 1: the time. Tammy's best friend Jen Nelson summed it up perfectly.
Speaker 1: Losing your best friend in such a horrible way at
Speaker 1: such a young age has an effect on your life.
Speaker 1: But for me, I was surrounded by people who were
Speaker 1: taking action and helping out and making sure that there
Speaker 1: were positive things that came from this and that made
Speaker 1: all the difference, and it continues to make all the
Speaker 1: difference from the podcast to the Facebook group of people
Speaker 1: connecting and talking about what's going on with her. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of good people out there, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people out there who are trying
Speaker 1: to keep other people safe and be able to solve
Speaker 1: not only this crime, but others that are unsolved, and
Speaker 1: to try and keep people from falling victim again. So
Speaker 1: I just really appreciate everyone else who helps tell the
Speaker 1: story too. During my conversation with Joanne, I mentioned that
Speaker 1: we have to go on live life as full as
Speaker 1: we can motor through despite how difficult it can sometimes be.
Speaker 1: That's it, And I mean, I've got three sons, I've
Speaker 1: got seven grandkids, and I can't let this be in
Speaker 1: the middle of all of that. You know, they don't
Speaker 1: live near me, but I do stay in touch with them,
Speaker 1: worry about them down they're in college. I got three
Speaker 1: of them one second year of college and two of
Speaker 1: them in first year of college. Scary there. It is
Speaker 1: that ripple effect from Tammy's abduction and murder trickling out
Speaker 1: into the world, reaching the next generation of the ZOWICKI family, Well,
Speaker 1: what do you hope from me? If you can bring
Speaker 1: any attention to it, bring anything out that hasn't been
Speaker 1: out there before, I'd be grateful. I mean, if people say,
Speaker 1: why do you think about all that the years don't
Speaker 1: make any difference, You'd just like to know. The pain
Speaker 1: is the pain. Yeah. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: Tammy's case will be solved through the DNA evidence gathered
Speaker 1: from the Missouri crime scene and other locations, tested and
Speaker 1: run down by the many talented investigators working this case.
Speaker 1: My goal always and telling these stories is to give
Speaker 1: victims and their loved ones a voice and to try
Speaker 1: to best I can get family some answers which they
Speaker 1: so much deserve. I feel that this stage I know
Speaker 1: Tammy and all that I have heard and learned, I
Speaker 1: believe she would have gone on to be a remarkable success.
Speaker 1: She was, by all accounts, an incredible human being, which
Speaker 1: is why I wanted to know. For many of those
Speaker 1: I spoke with who they thought Tammy would be today,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that Tammy would be getting ready to
Speaker 1: get off work and put her hair up in a
Speaker 1: ponytail and go run and play some some fun co
Speaker 1: ed soccer wherever she was living, so I think she
Speaker 1: would have had, you know, multiple children. I think she
Speaker 1: would have had a big family like she came from.
Speaker 1: And I see her being a you know, a coach
Speaker 1: for soccer or whether it's kids or college. I kind
Speaker 1: of feel like she might have become a photojournalist. I
Speaker 1: could see her you know, in the Ukraine, documenting what's
Speaker 1: going on and you know, just sharing her her talents
Speaker 1: in that way. I think that she had a lot
Speaker 1: of talent and a lot to offer this world. And
Speaker 1: it's a it's a great loss to the world when
Speaker 1: when anybody has taken but I think that she had
Speaker 1: a lot to give. And one last time, here's Tammy's mother,
Speaker 1: Joanne's a WICKI just to you know the fact that
Speaker 1: why things like this has to happen, And I think
Speaker 1: about the person that did it to her would kind
Speaker 1: of like that person that happen. Yeah, why why do
Speaker 1: you take somebody's life that she had a lot to give.
Speaker 1: She was an all round person. I'd like to take
Speaker 1: this opportunity to thank you the listeners all of your
Speaker 1: support over the years, as well as to the sources
Speaker 1: who participated in this podcast and my deepest gratitude to
Speaker 1: Tammy's friends and most importantly, the Zwicki family who trusted
Speaker 1: me with Tammy's story. If you are enjoying Paper Ghosts,
Speaker 1: please listen to my other iHeart podcasts, Crossing the Line
Speaker 1: with Them William Phelps and White Eagle, where I use
Speaker 1: the same storytelling elements you've heard in Paper Ghosts. Paper
Speaker 1: Ghosts is written and executive produced by me Em, William
Speaker 1: Phelps and iHeart Executive producer Christina Everett. Additional writing by
Speaker 1: our 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.