WEBVTT - Everyone's Daughter 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:06.080 Paper Ghosts is a production of I Heart Radio. For 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.400 three days now, students have been back in the classroom 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:14.480 at Grinnell College, but for many, concentrating on class is difficult. 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:18.280 One week ago, Grenelle seen your Tammy z Awiki disappeared. 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:22.120 Now students here are doing everything they can to help 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:26.080 locate Zwiki. That clip you just heard was from one 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:30.120 of nearly half a dozen news stories about Tammy Ziwiki's disappearance. 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.920 Within days of her vanishing, nearly everyone she'd met or 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:37.920 been close to was getting involved in what would become 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.760 a massive search effort to try and find her. And 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.800 nowhere was that more noticeable than at Grinnell College in 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:49.040 Central Iowa. You don't think much about the bad things 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:50.959 that happened to people. You never think, oh, well, it's 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.560 never gonna happen to me or my friends. And now 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.280 it's it's coming set my friends, And now you know, 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:01.680 I'm having reality hit you really hard. At the time, 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:04.959 I was in Michigan and Tammy was coming. She had 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.000 already left the East Coast and I think was staying 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.520 in Pennsylvania with relatives, and she knew that I was 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.120 going back to college at the same time, and that 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.200 I was looking for a ride because my ride had 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:20.720 fallen through. Stacy Pappus was a friend and classmate of 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:25.120 Tammy's Wikis. They had met their freshman year at Grinnell 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.440 College and each had plans to be back on campus 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.440 the week before classes started. Stacy says they talked about 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.399 car pooling that last leg of the drive along I 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:41.720 eight to Grinnell. Except this was and trying to get 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.200 in touch with someone in real time, it's far more difficult. 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.080 We spoke through answer machine messages to each other. Um, 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:50.640 you know, she left me a message, and then I 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.120 left her message because she was checking in with her 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:55.640 mom as she went along on the road. We're leaving 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:57.800 each other messages, and it just was getting too hard. 0:01:57.840 --> 0:01:59.640 So I just found another ride, and I was like, oh, 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.720 don't worry about it. I got another ride. I'll see 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:06.480 you there. When I arrived on campus. Of course, you know, 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:08.720 whenever you arrive, you have all this stuff to unload, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.959 and so you're dragging your stuff through the hall of 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:18.720 what they called the Loggia, which is this covered, screamed 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:24.119 in long porch that connects five or six storms, and 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:28.320 all along the Logha there was all these handmade paper 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:32.640 signs on the kiosks and on the doors, and they 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:38.040 all said, Tammy, call your mom. She's freaking out, Tammy. 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.560 Where are you, Tammy? Call your mom? Tammy were worried 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:46.919 and I ran into someone who was putting up these 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.239 fires or or something, and I was like, Hey, what's 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:51.520 going on with Tammy? And she's like, no one can 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.160 find her. We don't know if she even arrived on campus. 0:02:55.120 --> 0:03:00.160 That's the moment that for me that I realized that 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:09.519 something was really not not great. Previously, on paper Ghosts, 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:12.639 they got a call and they said, if you heard 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:16.040 from Tammy, we can't find Tammy. We had a hard 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.799 time with the police. They just kept telling us from 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.480 the beginning, shella, she'll be back, She'll be back. If 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:23.520 you've been on our eight cars are just zooming down. 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:26.720 There is nothing there but cornfields for miles and miles 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.639 and trucks and trucks, trucks all over. It's the main part. 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:35.280 One of the witnesses, I saw a tractor trailer from 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.120 an orange stripe, and so we had a post drawn 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.600 up and I just starting that trying to find the trunk. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.120 We knew at that point that something really bad had happened, 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:48.760 and we knew that whatever situation she was in was 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:52.360 in a really dangerous one. My name is them William Phelips. 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.960 I'm an investigative journalist an author of more than forty 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.840 two crime books. This is season three of the paper 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:12.720 Posts in plain Sight. Despite what Tammy's Wicki's family and 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:17.040 friends believed, law enforcement assumed that the one year old 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.279 student had taken off on her own, even after her 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.880 car was found abandoned alongside of a busy highway in Illinois. 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.360 In their defense, young people often choose to go off 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:33.080 the grid. Maybe Tammy wanted to leave. Maybe she had 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.400 a boyfriend no one knew about. But any time I 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.600 broached this idea, someone else in Tammy's life told me 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:45.000 there was just no way. Tammy was not someone who 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.719 would have packed it in or taken off with someone 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:52.039 without telling her loved ones. First. Her family knew this, 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.360 all her friends knew this. The police, they're wondering if 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.320 she's run away, and how do we convince them this 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.720 is not who Tammy is and she would not do that, 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.679 and we need to take it seriously. Tammy's best friend, 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.599 Jen Nelson was among many who believed the Illinois State 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.719 Police were slow to act. I was calling all of 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.800 the major networks in Chicago and trying to get them 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.800 to run a story on her, and I got increasingly 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:25.039 angry because they kept saying that it wasn't newsworthy, and 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.120 you know, for a couple of days, it wasn't newsworthy. 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:33.000 And a reporter actually told me that there were many 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.280 many young blonde women that went missing every year, so 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.560 this wasn't something that was going to make the news. 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:43.560 The hands on action from Grinnell's students was beyond what 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:48.320 anyone could have imagined. During that first week Tammy was missing, 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:52.760 her friends and classmates formed a sort of grassroots coalition 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:58.080 and spread out across the region, posting and distributing hundreds 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:03.240 of missing person flyers at truck stops, convenience stores, and airports. 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:08.120 They sent more than ten thousand posters to post offices 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:12.360 in every city and town in Iowa. They knocked on doors, 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:18.080 asking anyone and everyone if they had seen Tammy. Nobody 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:23.200 was giving up. We went to gas stations, we went 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.040 to restaurants, road stops, truck stops, and we asked if 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.800 we could put signs up for Tammy. And we had 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:35.160 a description of the truck that the witnesses saw near 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.680 Tammy's car, and I think the sign said something like, 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.880 have you seen this truck? Amy Joe was one of 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.120 Tammy's teammates at Grennell and the co captain of the 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:49.680 woman's soccer team. In she says, the notion that one 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.440 of her friends could have been abducted on the side 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:56.120 of a busy Midwest highway shattered the sense of safety 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.720 that so many young people felt at the time. Grnell 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.719 call it was a was like a bubble. We didn't 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.200 lock doors. We didn't We didn't even lock our bikes. 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.920 We just we had bikes that we just left all 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.480 over campus and they were always there when we wanted 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:14.720 them again or we took another bike, and we all 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.360 we just shared everything. It was a very safe community. 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.240 We walked everywhere at all hours of the day and night, 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.840 and they were I don't remember any security concerns ever. 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:33.960 And then this happened. When a loved one goes missing, 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:38.640 it throws off the entire natural balance of life that 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.920 mundane every day ebb and flow we all take for granted. 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.920 As the days add up, you question everything and wait 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:51.200 for what feels like will be the inevitable. But Tammy's 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:55.600 friends and family were relentless and hopeful, which was what 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.960 in my view made people take notice. Here's jen Nels 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.000 and again. Yeah, it became a bigger and bigger story 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:07.200 as the days went by, I think because the news 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:12.400 had spread beyond Illinois and Iowa and the conversations were happening. 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.600 There were questions coming up about why there weren't emergency 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:19.080 call boxes that she could have gone to and called 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:24.120 for help. By the end of the first week, everyone 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:28.840 including law enforcement, was working under the assumption that Tammy 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:34.600 was in trouble. After investigators released information about a white 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.959 semi truck and a person of interest, more witnesses were 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.200 calling into report what they'd seen on the highway the 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:46.840 afternoon Tammy's car broke down. Some even said they saw 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.760 a girl resembling Tammy running on the side of the 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:55.719 highway in Iowa. I witness testimony is very fragile, and 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:59.280 you're talking about an interstate at the time with people 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:01.160 going by and so me five or eighty miles an hour. 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:03.840 If you think about the last time you were on 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.439 the interstate, you know, how much did you pay attention 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:07.800 to a car broken down? On the side of the 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:09.319 road if you can even remember the last time you 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.240 saw that. Jeff Padilla is a retired lieutenant with the 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.880 Illinois State Police, which he first joined back in nine 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.640 He wasn't a member of the task force, but would 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:23.480 go on to work on Tammy's case in later years. 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.680 We did have other information out there about, you know, 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.120 the pickup truck and the white truck, the stripe truck, 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:32.440 and then we had information that there was another white 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.440 car broken down just east of her. So you know, 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.720 then we were like, okay, we're are people getting confused 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:44.160 between that broken down white vehicle. So um, you have 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:49.160 to remember that there was several days between when her 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:53.960 car broke down and when her family notified the State 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.360 Police that she was missing. However, it didn't get in 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:58.480 the media right away, and people weren't aware of it 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:02.680 until probably the week later, and so those tips began 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:07.600 to come in after that information came out in the media. Um. 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.520 In my opinion, witness information is great, but you really 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.120 need to back it up with some hard evidence. Tammy's 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:17.240 white Pontiac hatchback was the only thing resembling a crime scene, 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:22.040 and it was mostly empty. Her large brown faux alligator 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:26.600 skin purse, which contained her driver's license, was missing, as 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:31.080 well as her beloved thirty five millimeter camera. Among the 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.240 items left were an empty camera bag and a fountain 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.440 soda cup from Hardy's, which was the last known stop 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.560 Tammy made before stalling on the side of the road. 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:44.280 Tammy is a very young girl on our way to college. 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:49.479 Who would she willingly go with on a sunny afternoon 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:52.880 in the summer when her car broke down. There was 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.680 no indication that there was a struggle at all. The 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.880 car was locked, although you have to you can't roll 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.440 on the fact that the car was locked because somebody 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.040 at the tollyard could have locked it. Because there was luggage, 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.520 There was valuables in there. Um, there were items that 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.040 belonged to Tammy that were in there. When law enforcement 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.760 finally went through the car meticulously to see if anything 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:21.160 could be gleaned forensically, Padilla says, nothing was found. I 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.440 know that her car was processed by crime scene text 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:28.440 forensic wise. To my knowledge, there was nothing of any 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.760 value to us from the car. We did dust for 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:35.600 fingerprints along the inside of the front of the car 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.240 and the fan cowling, and all these items and that 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:40.920 are in the very front of the car, for example, 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.560 if somebody had leaned into the car to look to 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:45.680 see if there was it was a broken hose or something. 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.240 We tried to get prints from that and there was nothing. 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:52.840 We didn't get anything. By the eighth day, Tammy's parents, 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.880 including her eldest brother Todd, decided to leave Chicago and 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.439 head back home. They were not getting the re sults 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:04.320 they'd hoped for because nothing other than a search for 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.400 Tammy was happening. Well, I was there. I remember how 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.679 many days basically nothing was happening. We've done all we 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.000 could do, so um I went back to school. It 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.760 was still unresolved. At that point. We were still assuming, 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.680 or at least hoping it would be a happy ending. 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.520 When a loved one goes missing, everything is upbended, jobs 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.040 are put on hold, commitments are dropped, and life becomes 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:34.000 a series of sleepless nights waiting for that dreaded knock 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:36.800 on the door or the phone call you do not 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:43.000 want to answer, until finally it happened and everything you 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:47.680 thought you knew changes. I took a phone call in 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.160 the kitchen and it was one of the reporters that 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.280 had been covering her case for quite a while, and 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.439 he said, Jen, don't say anything. I just want you 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:15.080 to listen. They found a body in Missouri. Hope. It's 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.120 a strange concept for anyone who has been in a 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:22.440 similar situation to the Zowiki family. You want to believe 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.160 hope is real, even when every ounce of your soul 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:29.760 fights against it and tells you something different. When more 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:31.920 than a week passes and you have not heard from 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.440 a loved one who has gone missing and a body 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:39.320 has been found, worst case scenarios begin to dominate every thought, 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:45.560 day and night. Hope turns to despair. You despise hope, 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.840 and it becomes nothing more than a shallow, pointless word. 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.120 At this stage, all you can do is think about 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:57.320 the horror of your impending reality. It is by far 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:01.640 the most heartbreaking aspect of the work I do, bringing 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:05.520 the victims family members back to the moment when the 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:11.080 proverbial knock on the door finally comes. Well, they had 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:16.319 found a body alongside the head, and they they hadn't 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.880 identified it at that time yet, but they wanted us 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.560 to know. And when you heard that it was in Missouri, 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:26.960 what were you thinking? We weren't thinking. We didn't expect 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.440 it when you got that call. Did you know when 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:33.280 your gut or did you think I'm gonna be hopeful? 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:39.040 Be hopeful? We're positive people, right right, Yeah, and now 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.680 we were helpful. By day nine, the Wikis had received 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.840 word that the body of a female had been found 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:52.160 in Sarcoxi, Missouri. At first, they were skeptical. Sar Coxy 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.760 was five miles away, a seven hour drive from where 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:02.040 Tammy went missing in Illinois. Plus initial media reports claimed 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:06.560 the young woman police found had reddish hair. Tammy was blonde. 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.480 Here's Stacy Pappas, whom you heard at the beginning of 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:15.080 the episode. I had heard of rumor that a body 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.640 was found in Missouri, and a lot of people had 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:22.040 a very bad feeling about it. I still didn't think 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.080 that it was her because Tammy was was blonde and 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:29.040 never had dyed her hair to my knowledge, and um, 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:30.960 you know, I just I was like, well, it can't 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:34.920 be can't be Tammy because Tammy's not a redhead. Authorities 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:38.520 were careful not to jump to conclusions either. During the 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.960 early nineties, there were dozens of missing young women in 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:47.320 the Midwest, some even fitting Tammy's description. Don Laken, the 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.680 Lawrence County corner at the time, spoke to the media 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:54.800 about the discovery. There's nothing that can be said because 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:59.600 until we have a plaustive identification, you know, I wouldn't 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:02.240 put any family through that one way or the other. 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:04.960 Thin just no family deserves to go through that, And 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.080 this is a very hard situation, no matter whose childhood was. 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.240 Police confirmed via dental records that the body found in 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:18.200 Missouri was in fact Tammy's a Wicky. That reddish color 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.280 in her hair was the result of dye from the 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.000 clay and soil on the ground. Worst of all, it 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:29.480 was evident she suffered a brutal death. When does the 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.920 identification take place? When do you know for sure? It 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:35.920 wasn't too long after that. It was only a few 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.440 days after that that we knew for sure and they 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.640 called you with some information. Did you have to send 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.000 dental records or anything like that? Now they had records, 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:47.880 I think they had records from the college. And did 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.360 they ever ask you to come down and identify her. No, 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.280 they said we could if we wanted to, and you 0:16:54.360 --> 0:17:00.320 chose not to. Moments like these become seer in your 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:05.200 mind forever. It's the kind of heartbreak you think cannot 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:11.159 get any worse. Here's Tammy's brother, Todd. I don't even 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.440 remember now whether it was my father or mother who 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.119 finally told me what had happened, that they had found 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:21.040 her to this day, I remember being in my room 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:25.000 just getting it on the phone and just collapsing on 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.040 the floor. I just couldn't believe it. I mean, at 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.080 that point, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:33.320 I just had not really thought about anything to that 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:37.240 point except finding her. And I was so wrapped up 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:39.719 in the anxiety and the effort and doing everything we 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:42.280 could to try to cooperate and come to a happy ending, 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.919 that it never even really occurred to me that this 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:50.320 might be how it ended for Tammy's friends. The feeling 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:54.879 was much the same. I just remember feeling physically physically 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.679 ill when I found out that it was Tammy, like 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:01.800 sick to my stomach, and also just shock. I've never 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.080 had a death so close to me, that of someone 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.760 my age that wasn't a grandparent or a great grandparents, 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:13.679 so was it was just unbelievable that that could happen, 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:21.760 that could have been any one of us. Going back 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.639 to what I mentioned, in the last episode. When I 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.639 decided to look into Tammy's case, I knew I needed 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:32.000 to think outside the traditional box, beyond those theories and 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:35.600 sightings of a semi tractor trailer truck with two rust 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:39.480 colored stripes. And the more I heard about Tammy's character, 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.240 the more I became skeptical of the idea that she 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:48.160 would have accepted help from a trucker. Let me ask 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:50.840 you this. Let's say the person pulls up and there 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.240 are a cop, they have a badge, or they have 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.480 a collar, and they're a priest, or there's somebody else 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:00.679 in a trustworthy part of life. What would she have 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:02.880 done at that point? I don't think she would get 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:04.960 in the car with them. I guess if it were 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:09.119 a police officer offering to bring a tow truck, you know, 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:12.480 that might be one thing. But it's a question you 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:14.560 could ask every one of us when we were that 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.560 age and driving. I mean, my car broke down on 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.000 the highway a few years after Tammy died, and a 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.640 truck pulled up behind me, and the driver got out 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.320 and came to offer me help. And I opened my 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:30.240 window half an inch and he said, you know, I'm 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.040 glad you're not getting out of the car and just 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:34.399 stopping to let you know that I've called the police 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:36.760 and they're on their way to help you. A number 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.320 of people I spoke with said they bought a cell 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:45.560 phone in the months after Tammy's murder. What's so discouraging 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.280 about it is if this had been, you know, three 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:51.760 years later, she would have had a cell phone in 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:56.960 the car. It was right before widespread access to cell 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:01.240 phones came around, where a young girl, you know, called 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.840 subtrunck with a cell phone or a newer even right, 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:05.520 And you can think of all the different things that 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:10.480 could have been different. Tammy's friends and classmates also helped 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:14.439 found a group on campus called Fearless, which focused on 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.400 the safety of young women and fought to get emergency 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:24.840 call boxes installed along major highways nationwide. Everyone was desperate 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:30.600 to wrestle something positive from the tragedy. As for Hank 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:34.600 and Joanne's WICKI, they appeared on Oprah Winfrey's talk show 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.600 one month after their daughter's murder. It was part of 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:44.000 a segment about the dangerous women face driving alone. I 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:47.679 was asking Joe Ane Wiki during the break, who do 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.200 they suspect as Tammy's killer? Is it a serial killer 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:56.159 or do they have any clue? I've put it this 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:58.879 right in the authorities haven't been too free with information 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:03.280 with uh. All we know is there following leads and 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:07.119 beyond that, do you feel the killers will be found 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:10.800 or killer as the days go on? I'm not as 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:14.639 an optimistic as my wife because of over the period 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:18.200 of time, as we've seen how the authorities operate, and 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:25.159 they i'll call them archaic methods of even communication and 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:35.280 and doing their work, I do have doubt. Hope turned 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:42.560 to anger, then outrage. Who would do this? What happened? 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.920 The first of many questions began to haunt not only 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:52.200 investigators but those closest to Tammy. So at that point 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:55.720 I think we really turned to how do we catch 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:59.720 this this person? How do we catch this monster? Because 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:02.040 if it's been done to Tammy, it's going to be 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:19.080 done again to somebody else. During a trip I took 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:22.840 to Illinois in the summer of I met up with 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:26.760 Marty McCarthy, one of the officers who worked on Tammy's case. 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:30.439 I paid him a visit after I spent some time 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:34.399 earlier in the day parked near mile marker eight three 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:38.840 in LaSalle County, Illinois to see the spot where Tammy's 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:45.320 car had broken down. Yeah, yeah, glad you got down. 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:51.200 A former Illinois State Police investigator, Marty is a law 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:55.600 enforcement man through and through. He has been retired for 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:58.119 more than twenty years, but still spends much of his 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:05.720 free time investigating eating what happened to Tammy. Marty is 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:09.480 a big dude, six ft two and solid. He's also 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:14.639 a towering figure in this case. He's tenacious, driven, and 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:17.919 as vocal as he comes across. I found him to 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:21.520 be quite charming. Have a cup of coffee or a coke, 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:28.640 um diet coke, If you have it, thank you. I've 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.560 met many cops like Marty throughout my career, those detectives 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:36.520 who cannot let go of a case. This is that 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:40.760 case from Marty, the one he could never solve. It 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:45.200 gnaws at him, and this is pretty We discussed how 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:49.400 fast and ferocious tammy story gained national attention and how 0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:53.439 that led to a bigger conversation about roadside safety for 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:57.560 young women. People were desperate to know how to get 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:01.680 out of a situation similar to Tammy's. The press got 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:05.719 involved big time, so it was a national thing. Everybody said, oh, 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:08.000 my god, could have been my daughter. It's college girl 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:11.639 going on a highway. People started buying phones. Guys and 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:14.320 taskforce are running out buying phone they saw whoa it's 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:16.520 could happen to my wife, got my daughter? Somebody can 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:20.440 breakdown on a highway, and of course interest groups for 0:24:20.600 --> 0:24:25.440 parents college putting out things, where's Pammy got that type 0:24:25.440 --> 0:24:28.960 of thing. Marty explained that in order to really understand 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:32.919 the complexity of what happened in the investigation and the 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:36.240 mistakes he believes were made, I needed to look at 0:24:36.240 --> 0:24:40.680 how the case was handled from day one. Current law 0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:44.320 enforcement working on Tammy's case have issues with his candor 0:24:44.720 --> 0:24:48.320 and his public criticism about their work. All of you 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:53.480 don't how could how could I fight it? A retired cop. 0:24:54.280 --> 0:24:57.760 After he retired in two thousand one, Marty continued to 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:02.000 make suggestions to the I s P his theories, things 0:25:02.040 --> 0:25:06.320 he discovered, but he went unheard. So he began talking 0:25:06.320 --> 0:25:10.080 to the media about those theories and the issues he 0:25:10.200 --> 0:25:15.320 had with the investigation well before then. One of those 0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:19.080 issues was that tip Marty previously mentioned to me, the 0:25:19.119 --> 0:25:22.680 one he says was received within days of Tammy's disappearance 0:25:22.760 --> 0:25:26.560 and went ignored. By police. It came from a woman 0:25:26.760 --> 0:25:29.720 who said she was driving eastbound on I eighty when 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:33.800 she saw a blue or green pickup truck parked behind 0:25:33.960 --> 0:25:38.480 Tammy's car along the westbound side of the highway. She 0:25:38.560 --> 0:25:41.080 claimed it was some time between three thirty and five 0:25:41.119 --> 0:25:44.480 pm that the hood of Tammy's vehicle was propped open 0:25:45.040 --> 0:25:48.240 and Tammy was standing in front of it wearing shorts. 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:52.560 The woman's name actually appears on that I s P 0:25:52.760 --> 0:25:55.920 Tip sheet a source gave me. On this sheet is 0:25:55.960 --> 0:25:59.320 a list of eyewitness tips that are deemed credible enough 0:25:59.520 --> 0:26:02.640 to lie. Each tip would then be assigned to an 0:26:02.640 --> 0:26:06.040 officer whose job it was to run it down engage 0:26:06.080 --> 0:26:10.160 its importance to the case. If warranted, a written statement 0:26:10.200 --> 0:26:14.080