WEBVTT - The Missing Watch 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:08.440 Paper Ghosts is a production of iHeartRadio. Previously on Paper Ghosts. 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:11.640 Going down the highway between here and the next exit. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.280 I talked myself in and out of calling the police 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:18.560 about a hundred times, and the last thought I had was, 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.720 if it was my daughter, I'd want to know. Back then, 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.239 my understanding was that to the extent that there were 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:29.120 any traces of DNA on anything like the blanket or 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:33.000 clothes or anything like that, the technology was such that 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:36.760 they just couldn't. It wasn't usable, right, There wasn't enough 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.440 of it. A lot of people were critical of the 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:42.280 publicity that was put out the States, and well, doesn't 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.800 it bother you? Yes, but I see her face, whether 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:46.800 I see it on a picture or whether I don't. 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:51.279 My name is em William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:55.279 and author more than forty true crime books. This is 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:10.920 season three Paper Ghosts in Plain Sight. Over the past 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:14.080 thirty years, a number of suspects have stood out in 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:18.600 Tammy Ziwiki's murder case. When I began my own investigation, 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:22.800 it was apparent that the semitruck driving serial killer types 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:25.960 who preyed upon young females in the late eighties and 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:30.000 early nineties were at the top of the list. There 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.440 was also Lonnie Dumott, the guy who found and helped 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:37.000 move Tammy's body from the roadside in Lawrence County, Missouri. 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.080 And then there was a lead that came in five 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:45.640 days after Tammy was reported missing in August of nineteen 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.360 ninety two. That tip from an eyewitness who said she 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:53.480 was driving eastbound on Interstate eighty when she saw a 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.080 man in a blue or green pickup truck parked behind 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.680 Tammy's car along the westbound side of the highway. It 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.120 was a lead that former ISP investigator and Marty McCarthy 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:11.280 believes was largely ignored. So what do we know about 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:17.840 this man? All slender, unshaven, just kind of disheveled, I 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.600 would say, And you've got to have ballpark hat, kind 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:27.040 of a typical denizen in a home, I mean, nondescriptive 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:31.920 in that sense. White guy. Marty believes to this day 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.600 that the guy driving that pickup truck is the best 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.880 suspect in Tammy's disappearance and murder. If you look at 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:44.840 all the details on paper, it's understandable why he appeared suspicious. 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.360 All the pieces seemed to fit when you break this 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:53.880 lead down, any investigator worth their weight would be drawn 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:58.280 to the guy. Still based on the sheer number of 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.760 tips about a white on my truck seen park near 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:06.679 Tammy's car, the esp was solely focused on finding an 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:13.360 eighteen wheeler, specifically one with rust colored stripes, essentially a 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:18.079 needle in a haystack. As the year came to an end, 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:23.600 Tammy's case had started to run cold. Then in early January, 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.960 a new call came into the tip line. Call comes 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.359 to the office from this woman who I don't know 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.480 if anybody recognized her or not, saying, hey, these people 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:39.840 they came to my office. It turned out the person 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.600 on the other end of the line was the same 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.280 woman who just four months earlier had called in the 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.640 tip about the blue or green pickup truck. She calls 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:52.480 back in, you know, and I gonna go out and 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.120 see her, and no one talked to her an intermediate 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.720 period of time. During this second call, the eyewitness claimed 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:00.680 that the man she had seen on the side of 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.160 the road with Tammy had actually shown up to her 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.400 place of work along with his wife. She has an 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.080 airy feeling about him from the get go. She told me, 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.280 this guy whoa I had my hair kind of went up. Guy, 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.360 it looks like the guy out of the road. Looks 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.200 like the guy she told me that, And I don't 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.440 think he obviously wouldn't have recognized her, but she was 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:26.039 somewhat free by that. He just kind of sits there, 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.600 Marty says. The person the eyewitness identified was a thirty 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:34.359 one year old man named Lonnie beer Brought, not to 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:39.039 be confused with Lonnie Dumott, the repairman who found Tammy's body. Rather, 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:44.039 this Lonnie Lonnie beer Brought was a former semitruck driver 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.680 and a convicted felon who had been ordered to serve 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:53.200 three concurrent twenty year sentences for armed robbery. He ended 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:58.280 up getting paroled in July nineteen ninety. Is a trucker 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:05.039 violent felon got a green pickup truck a few miles 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:11.440 from the scene. Lived in Sharkozi, sal Peru. According to 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.560 the esp the beer Brought family owned property about ten 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:19.320 miles from the stretch of highway in Sarcoxi, Missouri, where 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.679 Tammy's body was found. Sarcoxi wasn't a heavily traffic city 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.680 at the time, still isn't today. There are only about 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.360 fifteen hundred residents, and back in nineteen ninety two, the 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.400 only logical route off the highway to get to the 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.880 beer brought residents was Exit thirty three, the same exit 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:44.440 where Tammy's body was found. More importantly, Lonnie beer Brott 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:49.080 also had family five hundred miles away in Peru, Illinois, 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.960 the neighboring town from where Tammy went missing. He was 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.600 from that area as well, and the ISP confirmed that 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.000 on the day Tammy vanished August twenty third, nineteen ninety two, 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.960 beer Brott was just minutes from the spot on I 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.760 eighty where she was last seen. I've done this long time, 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:12.640 and I just thought, whoa bingle. I can't say everybody 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.760 else did, but how many coincidences can there be? Here? 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.839 So they decided to go down the whole task force 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.880 to Missouri, and for whatever reason, I didn't get a 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.239 signed to go down there. I don't know why. I'll 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:28.960 take who knows. I didn't care. I had some stuff 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.400 to do here, and they took as I recall, they 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.280 took a lot of physical evidence out of there. Did 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:38.280 they bring him in for questioning? They come back and 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:44.279 they bring him in, interview him, take his blood, take 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.120 all the samples, DNA all this kind of ship. At 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:51.080 the time, Marty was actually out in the field assigned 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.760 to handle other parts of the Ziwiki investigation, so the 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:59.599 responsibility of documenting and chasing leads fell on other members 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.960 of the task force, including one of Marty's colleagues, who 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:07.840 questioned Lonnie beer Brott at the station. So he says, yeah, 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:11.840 I interviewed him. He's just spacing as hell. He's just like, 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.880 doesn't say anything, and it was just kind of a 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:21.920 space cadet type of thing which happened. Meantime, while he 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.560 is there at the State Police, incomes his brother and 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.880 makes a big scene saying, hey, where's you got my brother? 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:30.560 What are you doing? What are you making a big 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.720 scene in the State Police about where he's supposed to be, 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:41.080 which always interesting. Newspapers reported that beer Brott's wife and 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:45.440 d laws were interviewed. Investigators searched through the beer Brott's 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.240 trash and reviewed their phone records. But before anyone on 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:53.040 the task force could further pursue their strongest lead yet, 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.840 Marty and his colleague were hit with a surprising development 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.200 all of a sudden in February, they walk in were 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:04.840 dissolving the task force fifteen sixteen. Guy. They had been 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:08.160 taken from other districts. There's other cases building up. Commanders 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:11.280 are saying blah blah, blah blah. I can understand that, 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.840 and we've been there for a number of months. But here, 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.480 in my view, we get the best lead we've ever had. 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:22.360 By early nineteen ninety three, the fourteen member task force 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:27.440 investigating Tammy's murder had completely disbanded, citing a lack of 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:32.199 progress as the main reason. Investigators vowed to follow any 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.080 additional leads as they came in, but the number of 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:39.840 law enforcement working the case was significantly cut. To me, 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:44.240 it's a clear example of the department's mismanagement early in 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:49.560 this investigation. Why take a team of seasoned investigators chasing 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.400 a lead their supervisor deemed one of the most relevant 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.040 off the case. This always bugged me, but I'm told 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.760 no one in certain terms to stay out of this case, 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.800 and I do because I know what those will do. 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.360 By May of nineteen ninety three, eight months after Tammy 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:11.600 Ziwiki's murder, police said they had followed up on more 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:15.000 than six hundred and fifty leads and twenty five hundred 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.880 truck sightings to no avail. A police spokesperson at the 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:23.679 time said they just ran out of leads. Because of this, 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.880 the Illinois State Police did something it hadn't yet done. 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:33.120 Investigators publicly released a list of items belonging to Tammy 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.120 that were missing from her car and person when her 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.880 body was found. Among them Tammy's pair of round, wire 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:45.520 framed eyeglasses, a woman's watch that played rain drops keep 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.440 falling on My head, a pair of gray A six 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:53.440 running shoes, a large brown faux alligator skin purse, Tammy's 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:58.000 driver's license, and her cannon EOS thirty five millimeter camera 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:03.079 and lens. The spokesperson noted that the ISP had been 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:07.320 aware of the missing items all long, but quote, we 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.520 have no new suspects and no new leads, so it 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:16.760 doesn't matter anymore. Quote their hope that someone had purchased 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.000 one of the items at a pawn shop or would 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:31.600 see one of them and call in. After Marty McCarthy 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.400 was removed from the task force in nineteen ninety three, 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.560 he eventually became the commander of the ISP's the vision 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:45.600 of internal investigations for all state employees in the Chicago area. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.800 All along he never stopped thinking about what happened the 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.720 Tammy's at wiki. When he retired in two thousand and one, 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.680 he amped up his involvement in the case and became 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:00.200 determined to find out more about the man in the 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:05.120 pickup truck. He believes that Lonnie beer Brott was that 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:10.600 man and had something to do with Tammy's murder. Marty 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.320 eventually connected with Tammy's mom to share his theory and 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:19.120 discuss the investigation. For him, it was about getting this 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:23.720 Ziwicki family the answers they deserved and following evidence he 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:27.720 believed had been overlooked. I'm up in Michigan on vacation. 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.000 I'm playing tennis with my wife and I stopped. I said, God, 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.560 damn it, I just can't live with this. So what 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:35.640 are you doing? We're playing tennis? I cannot live with 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:37.960 this bad. I gotta do something. I gotta call missus Wickie, 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:44.240 just driving me crazy. I go call her and I said, Hello, 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.800 it was Morney McCarthy. Blah blah blah. I said, I said, 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.760 have you ever heard of Lonnie beer brod No, although 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.960 she wasn't happy with the investigation at that time, I said, well, 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:56.960 Lonnie beer rot was a suspect in this case, a 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.319 very strong suspect in this case. I just wanted to 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.240 know if you knew, and if you didn't know, I 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.840 wonder why. And I personally believe he should be pursued. 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.240 And she said, I agree with you. I'm on your side. 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.640 And we took off for like twenty years together. And 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.719 as talking to people as part of his own investigation, 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.760 Marty made a point of reaching out to the eyewitness 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.760 who led investigators to beer Brought in the first place. 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.040 He trusted her account and deemed her to be extremely 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.600 credible because her husband was a prominent member of the 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:35.600 law enforcement community. It was during one of their meetings 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.959 in the early two thousands that Marty claims the eyewitness 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.480 revealed new details to him about her encounter with the 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:46.840 beer Brought family a decade earlier, details which shifted his 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:52.200 investigation into high gear. As he explains it, the eyewitness 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:56.640 said she found herself engaged in conversation with Lonnie beer 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.920 Brott's wife on the day they came into her workplay 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:04.800 in nineteen ninety three. Missus bear Rock is talking. Lonnie's 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:09.560 sitting there morrows and the wife is rattling on and 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:13.319 she starts talking about Lonnie gave me this watch. It 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.880 plays a musical tune, and she kind of showed it 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.679 to me, and and you were seeing it, and I 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.199 couldn't see it on it like that. She didn't play 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:29.640 a tune for me, so I go, holy shit, Holy shit. 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.000 It's important to note that the eyewitness did not mention 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.520 a watch in her statement to the police. It wasn't 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:42.120 until nearly a decade later, during her meeting with Marty, 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.880 and long after it was publicized that Tammy's watch was missing, 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.280 that she told the story of Lonnie's wife wearing one. 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.720 How many fucking watches play a tune. I want to 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.839 know what that tune is. Let's find out. If that 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.120 is rain drops, that's the killer to me. Just that's it. 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:05.080 And all we gotta do is find that out. Here's 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:09.560 Tammy's mom, Joanne. Do you remember the type of watch 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.800 she was wearing. Did the watch play that song rain 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.400 gain drops keep falling on my head? She was wearing 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.400 that watch for sure? Yeah. And did it have a 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.560 green watch band? Do you remember? I don't remember for sure. 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:26.960 Grein was her favorite color, so I'm sure it was 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:30.160 a green watch band. It was just a simple watch. 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:34.000 It wasn't anything fancy. If I remember her saying she 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.920 needed a watch to keep todd because she had to 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.520 move from one place to another set but you recall 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:48.560 it playing rain drops keep falling on your head. During 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.360 the latter part of twenty twenty one and throughout twenty 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.520 twenty two, I made repeated attempts to reach out to 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:59.360 the eyewitness to verify Marty's story about the watch. She 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:04.360 never re bonded. What worries me about her information is 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:07.880 that I'm hearing its secondhand and have no convincing way 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:12.920 to corroborate it. She seems credible, but it's important to 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:17.760 note that the beer brought identification, the watch story, and 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.040 the sighting of the pickup truck all come from her 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:25.160 and her alone. What I have been able to verify 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.720 through police documents is that the eyewitness did call the 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:33.880 IP Task Force in January nineteen ninety three. She said 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:37.120 the Beer Brought's visit to her workplace occurred the previous 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.640 month in December, and that Lonnie's wife did most of 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.080 the talking for him. That the couple was originally from 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:47.480 the LaSalle County area of Illinois, but as of December 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:52.560 nineteen ninety two, had still maintained property in Lawrence County, Missouri. 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:57.880 Here's Tammy's brother, Todd Zuwiki. Obviously, over time, we've had 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:00.600 some people who look like plausible suspects. You know, there 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.880 was the whole story with Lonnie beer Brought and the 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.840 watch in the life. You know, kind of not quite 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.560 clear what that evident, you know, where that all led, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.080 but that was who a lot of people thought was 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.760 the most pausible suspect. Marty says. The witness also told 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.760 him something he'd never heard before. That after the esp 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.720 paid a visit to the Beer brought residence and brought 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.800 Lonnie in for questioning, Lonnie and one of his brothers 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.720 showed up to the witness's place of work upset. The 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.080 next day or very soon after that, they both show 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:39.320 up unannounced. She's scared. Who called the police? Who called? 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:40.600 Who told us son of my brother? You know, it 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:42.160 made a big scene there, and that kind of thing 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.880 to me. Oh shit, Now, I'm not even sure the 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:49.080 state police knows that second part. But my view was, 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.200 I I haven't I can't write a police report. I'm retired. 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.560 I called the States Attorney and he said, oh yes, 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.280 sah but I said, I'll be right, I'll come done 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.320 her right now. So I sit out there in his 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.000 waiting room for an hour, about an hour, and I'm 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.919 being blown off. So I go to the sectarise, Hey, 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.920 look here's the deal. Well he's in there with a meeting. 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.040 I gotta say, yeah, okay, fine, I'm gonna go over 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.280 to the newspaper with this information. I'm gonna give this something. 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:16.480 He didn't want to talk to. Be fine, I'll be 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:20.240 over the newspaper he comes out. Marty's next move would 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.960 turn him into a polarizing figure. He made good on 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:28.320 his promise to contact the media. If you google Tammy's case, 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.920 you'll see his name all over it. He's been very 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:40.200 critical of how the ISP handled the investigation. Unfortunately, I 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.560 can't interview Lonnie beer Abrod. He died in two thousand 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.040 and two while serving time in prison on unrelated charges. 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.040 When Marty sought out Lonnie in the years after he retired, 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.359 the state's attorney explained that Lonnie had passed away and 0:17:55.440 --> 0:18:00.680 that interest in him as a suspect fizzle. Marty told 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.400 me he didn't understand why investigators had not pursued beer 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:08.720 Brott more aggressively even after his death. He even pleaded 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.280 with the prosecutor to pursue a case, but was told 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.879 protocol required the state police to bring the case forward 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:20.360 for prosecution, something they never did. What I said, these 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:22.040 guys are not going to bring this case. They don't 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:23.560 believe it. And this was the information. You don't have 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.680 to believe me. Go get this information. No, I doesn't 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:28.400 work that way. Why now, I said, get a grand 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:35.480 jury in here. I just couldn't believe it. As I 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:39.159 began to look into every aspect of the early investigation, 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.520 one of the first things I did was identify who 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:46.920 exactly was responsible for following up on the eyewitnesses tip. 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:52.679 Turns out it was an ISP investigator named Bill Hamill, who, 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:57.040 like Marty, was a member of the Task Force. Folks 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.480 I've spoken to describe Hamill as a respect of guy 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.879 and a thorough investigator, but Marty believes Hamil dropped the 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:09.800 ball on this one. On the official tip sheet, which 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.120 I obtained from a source, there's a hand drawn star 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:17.520 next to the eyewitness's name. It was put there, according 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:22.719 to Marty, by an IP supervisor and was meant for Hamil. 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.600 Marty claims the star in and of itself was important. 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.159 Marty says. The eyewitness told him that no one reached 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:33.800 out to her after she called in the initial tip, 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:36.840 and that by the time investigators finally got around to 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.240 interview in Lonnie Beer brought months later, he could have 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.960 destroyed crucial evidence. By then. All I know is that 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:47.560 they found the vehicle a pickup truck. It had been 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:52.439 sold and cleaned, and they do a crime scene on that. 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:55.960 They find his house. He has sold it, cleaned it 0:19:56.080 --> 0:20:01.600 and left. To clarify, Beer brought wife's Toyota pickup truck 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:07.240 was blue. Still, did the ISP miss a crucial window 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:11.479 of opportunity to connect the Lonnie Beer brought the Tammy's murder? 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:17.240 That tip was followed up on. Every single tip is documented, 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:22.240 every single one. Jeff Padilla, a retired ISP lieutenant who 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:26.000 you've heard in previous episodes, is adamant at the department 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:30.400 followed up on every credible lead that came in. They 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.119 had to. It was not only part of their job 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:39.080 but standard policy. There was a pickup truck recovered and analyzed, 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:44.120 but the information related to the pickup truck didn't coincide, 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:48.119 and basically it was eliminated. Padilla told me there was 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.640 and still is evidence that was never publicly released, evidence 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:57.359 that helped the ISP way how seriously they viewed Lonnie Beer, 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.320 brought as a suspect, already says once he heard the 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:05.200 eyewitnesses watch story, he sprung into action and went further 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:07.840 up the chain of command. I called out there and 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.320 talked to this guy's supervisor, Hamil supervisor. He didn't know 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:13.080 any about the case. He's a new guy. I said, hey, 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:15.919 you know, this woman is whitness. He hasn't been interviewed 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:19.399 in ten goddamn years. Now there's new information. You got 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.880 to send somebody out there to talk to her. I said, well, 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:28.520 you see, okay, guess who he said, hail. So Hamil 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:32.720 goes out there at interviews, and the whole contain already 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:35.000 I talked to her about this. The whole thing is 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.400 McCarthy should have nothing to do with this. He's he's retired, 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:40.600 he's got don't know anything about this. The whole thing 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:44.399 was a downer on me. What information he got, I 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:47.199 don't know. Did she give him the watch story. I 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:50.040 presume she did, but I never saw that report. But 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:52.560 he's already got a blown out. It's a watch Watch. 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:54.880 You know, he just blown this thing off, and if 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:56.920 he wrote a report of that, I never saw it. 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:02.320 I tracked down Bill Hamil late twenty twenty two. He's 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.400 long since retired and now lives in the South with 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:08.480 his wife. I spoke with them both and found the 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:11.040 couple to be kind and more than willing to be 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.840 on the podcast, But a medical condition prevented Bill from 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.800 consenting to a formal interview with me. Because of that, 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:21.720 I worried about his recollections and felt it would be 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:39.399 unethical to air any part of our conversation. I've driven 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:43.680 down highways, and I've worked over and I've seen remote 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.000 canyons and places along the way where a guy could 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:51.440 pull over his vehicle and as a right circumstance, walk 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:53.960 out there and get rid of whatever he wanted, and 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:58.480 get back in his vehicle and drive off. Keith Hunter Jesperson, 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:02.160 otherwise known as as the Happy Face Killer, was a 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:06.719 semi truck driving serial killer who bound, raped, and strangled 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:10.879 eight women while criss crossing the country between nineteen ninety 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:15.639 and nineteen ninety five. What was the farthest distance you 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:18.280 ever traveled and the longest period of time you ever 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:22.600 traveled with a body in your truck the longest period 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:25.439 of time. Did you ever have to a body for 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:28.600 a couple of days for example? No, No, one never did. 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.920 Um maybe one hundred and fifty miles two in a 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:35.679 mile and the body was what in the cab with you? 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:40.480 And why did you hold on to the body for 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:45.280 that long looking for a place to put it. That's 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:48.240 one of hundreds of conversations I've had with jess Person 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:52.920 while he serves three consecutive life sentences at Oregon State Penitentiary. 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:56.840 And basically, a killer instant is based upon your comfort zone, 0:23:56.840 --> 0:24:00.840 and this is my comfort zone is a tool to 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:05.080 use and murder. I first connected with him in twenty 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:08.679 ten after looking into his murder cases and studying the 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:12.720 crimes of those like him. There's been closed the area. 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:15.840 It's like it's like my visers fell into a hole. 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:21.119 Jesperson is not and has never been, a suspect in 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:25.639 Tammy Ziwiki's murder. But as I continued my investigation, it 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:28.480 was hard not to think back to the conversations I 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:30.960 had with him. To me, it was WoT the game 0:24:31.080 --> 0:24:33.600 to the fact that I'll just see whether or not 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:37.080 discussing get in my truck or not. How he rationalized 0:24:37.160 --> 0:24:40.760 his horrific crimes and managed to evade law enforcement for 0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:44.320 as long as he did. Nobody who I was. Nobody 0:24:44.359 --> 0:24:47.879 had an idea if I even existed in the third place. 0:24:48.119 --> 0:24:51.159 And of course, if evil happens and someone must be 0:24:51.200 --> 0:24:54.040 responsible to why not waying to go to me? I know? 0:24:54.320 --> 0:24:57.119 The trail of murder left behind by a truck driver 0:24:57.240 --> 0:25:05.240 like jesperson offers valuable insight into Tammy's case. From the start, 0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:09.240 police investigating Tammy's murder looked at the possibility that a 0:25:09.320 --> 0:25:13.640 semitruck driver killed and dumped her body somewhere along their 0:25:13.640 --> 0:25:17.560 truck route, and for what it's worth, it's a strong theory. 0:25:19.119 --> 0:25:22.439 Several well known serial killers were operating at the time. 0:25:22.920 --> 0:25:26.320 In June nineteen ninety two, just two months before Tammy 0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:30.639 was murdered, three women forty seven year old Cheryl Leavitt, 0:25:31.160 --> 0:25:35.480 nineteen year old Susie Streeter, and eighteen year old Stacy McCall, 0:25:35.960 --> 0:25:39.720 disappeared from Cheryl's home, about thirty miles from where Tammy's 0:25:39.760 --> 0:25:43.880 body was found. The women were more famously known as 0:25:44.160 --> 0:25:47.520 the Springfield Three, and to date they have not been 0:25:47.560 --> 0:25:52.720 found What's more, Susie and Stacy were young and blonde 0:25:53.119 --> 0:26:00.280 like Tammy. Were the cases connected. Here's Tammy's brother Todd's wiki. 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:05.600 Most of the time, when you hear these stories come out, 0:26:05.800 --> 0:26:09.080 it's these interstate truckers who also kind of live on 0:26:09.080 --> 0:26:11.800 the fringe of society and move around, and you know, 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:14.560 nobody really knows that much about them or where they 0:26:14.600 --> 0:26:17.600 go and when they go. There there were other truckers 0:26:17.680 --> 0:26:21.880 who would come up. Bruce Mendenhall was a name I recall. 0:26:22.520 --> 0:26:26.119 Bruce Mendenhall was a trucker from southern Illinois who became 0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:31.480 a solid suspect for esp investigators. Mendenhall was known as 0:26:31.720 --> 0:26:35.119 the truck stop killer because he preyed upon vulnerable women, 0:26:35.400 --> 0:26:39.680