Speaker 1: Paper Ghosts is a production of iHeartRadio. Throughout the decades
Speaker 1: I've been covering true crime, I've looked into more than
Speaker 1: a hundred missing persons and murder cases. I've interviewed scores
Speaker 1: of law enforcement victims, families, even killers themselves, all to
Speaker 1: gain a better understanding of how investigations are handled and
Speaker 1: the tools law enforcement used to develop information and solve crimes.
Speaker 1: Much has changed over the years, but in the past
Speaker 1: decade or so, I've witnessed a major shift, one that
Speaker 1: I hadn't anticipated, the emergence of a new group of investigators, citizens, sleuths.
Speaker 1: And nowhere is that phenomenon more obvious than in Tammy
Speaker 1: Zuwiki's case. Oh there was all kinds of stories, you know,
Speaker 1: You'd read that she was picked up by a stranger,
Speaker 1: some guy in a truck stopped to help her, another
Speaker 1: guy in a pickup truck. Patrick Jones is the founder
Speaker 1: of the Who Killed Tammy's a Wicki Facebook group, a
Speaker 1: passionate collection of Tammy's friends, family members, true crime buffs,
Speaker 1: and citizen investigators. Well, the Facebook page it grew like
Speaker 1: you wouldn't believe. I mean, I was just hoping, Oh,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll get one hundred people, two hundred people, and
Speaker 1: I think today I'm trying to look at it right now,
Speaker 1: We've got over four thousand members on there. Patrick started
Speaker 1: the Facebook group in two thousand and nine. He didn't
Speaker 1: know Tammy, but was drawn to her story and sometimes
Speaker 1: had a picture of Tammy on the front page. And
Speaker 1: I looked at her and I was thinking, I got
Speaker 1: a daughter about the same age. While working my way
Speaker 1: through Tammy's case, I felt that the group warranted a
Speaker 1: closer look. For what it's worth, I'm not a fan
Speaker 1: of online sleuthing. Citizen sleuths have the power to shift
Speaker 1: the narrative in a case. They can interfere with investigations
Speaker 1: accused innocent people of a crime. More than anything, though,
Speaker 1: they can inject themselves into someone else's story, and for
Speaker 1: better or worse, some members of the who Killed Tammy
Speaker 1: Ziwiki Facebook group have succeeded in doing just that. Another
Speaker 1: article came out like thirteen, fourteen years ago whatever it
Speaker 1: was about Tammy's case, and I was reading it and
Speaker 1: then I said, you know what, maybe I'll put something
Speaker 1: on Facebook. I'll offer a reward, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I put a thousand dollars reward or something. Today Patrick
Speaker 1: works as a firearms instructor and an engineer at the
Speaker 1: Forest Preserves. Before that, he worked part time as a
Speaker 1: police lieutenant in a village outside Chicago. We had like
Speaker 1: four or five members, which they were all police officers.
Speaker 1: All the guys at the police department jumped down right away,
Speaker 1: you know, as a favorite, so I could build it
Speaker 1: a little and then alone came Robert. Robert was hugely
Speaker 1: instrumental in developing the website with Me or Facebook page.
Speaker 1: Robert cut Lark is someone I met in the earliest
Speaker 1: days of my investigation. You might remember him from the
Speaker 1: first episode. He's the archaeologist who grew up a town
Speaker 1: over from Tammy in New Jersey and has developed a
Speaker 1: close friendship with Joanne Ziwiki over the years. Like Patrick,
Speaker 1: he's also an administrator of the Facebook group. He's dug
Speaker 1: up so much stuff it's unbelievable. On our Facebook page,
Speaker 1: We've got a file section that's just phenomenal. You could
Speaker 1: go through there and read everything about who they've investigated
Speaker 1: over the years, who they've ruled out. And Robert's been
Speaker 1: in contact with the all the various agencies that have
Speaker 1: been helping out FBI, State Police and what have you.
Speaker 1: A lot of good has come from the Facebook group.
Speaker 1: Several of Tammy's old friends and peers are members, which
Speaker 1: made it easy to reach out to them for this podcast.
Speaker 1: Patrick and Robert were also immensely helpful in the earliest
Speaker 1: days of my research, provided me with documents and valuable contacts.
Speaker 1: More than anything, the Who Killed Tammy Zowiki Facebook group
Speaker 1: provides a real sense of community for those morning Tammy
Speaker 1: time and again. I was struck by the effort folks
Speaker 1: like Robert and Patrick put into keeping Tammy's story alive
Speaker 1: and finding ways to honor her memory. Mostly, we're talking
Speaker 1: about decent people with good intentions. They want to help
Speaker 1: and they genuinely care about the Ziwiki family. But good
Speaker 1: intentions are often not enough, and in this case, the
Speaker 1: Facebook group can sometimes become a place where speculation and
Speaker 1: conspiracy is allowed to exist and ultimately cast out on
Speaker 1: innocent people. When you started the page, were you getting tips? Yeah?
Speaker 1: We actually we were getting What was the first big
Speaker 1: major tip that you got? The biggest thing we ever
Speaker 1: got was that what the hell's his name? The guy
Speaker 1: didn't find a body? Uh Lonnie Dumot Lonnie Damot previously
Speaker 1: on Paper Ghosts. He came in. He was posting like
Speaker 1: a son of a bitch, and then people were all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, everybody was asking questions like you wouldn't believe.
Speaker 1: I think he wanted to confess to something. In my
Speaker 1: opinion that he wants to say, Hey, here's what happened.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the type of watch she was wearing?
Speaker 1: And did the watch play that song ranging Jane Jobs
Speaker 1: came falling on my head she was wearing that watch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've done this long time, and I just thought, well, bingle,
Speaker 1: how many coincidence gonna be here? My name MM William Phelps.
Speaker 1: I'm an investigative journalist an author of more than forty
Speaker 1: true crime books. This is season three of Paper Ghosts
Speaker 1: In plain Sight. There has been a cloud of suspicion
Speaker 1: lingering over Lonnie Dumont since the day he discovered Tammy's body. Lonnie,
Speaker 1: you may recall, is the repairman from Missouri who stopped
Speaker 1: his truck to cover his tools back in September of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two and stumbled upon Tammy's body. Like many
Speaker 1: of those interested in Tammy's case, Lonnie joined the Facebook
Speaker 1: group in twenty twenty and began answering questions from its members.
Speaker 1: Lonnie dum he got on and he just started acting goofy,
Speaker 1: putting all kinds of stuff out, and we've got screenshots
Speaker 1: of everything that he put out, and he's just to me,
Speaker 1: it seems a little weird with him. Like Patrick, Robert
Speaker 1: Cutlaric is suspicious of Lonnie Dumot, though for different reasons.
Speaker 1: In his view, Lonnie has given varying accounts of how
Speaker 1: and why he came upon Tammy's body. The reasons given
Speaker 1: for him coming off the highway depends on what source
Speaker 1: you read. The earliest reference was that he had stopped
Speaker 1: to relieve himself. Later, in nineteen ninety three, with the
Speaker 1: publication of the People magazine article, it says that, and
Speaker 1: this is coming from the man himself, Lonnie Dumot, that
Speaker 1: he pulled over because he wanted to cover up the
Speaker 1: tools in the back of his vehicle. Now fast forward
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty one. People May Magazine did a television
Speaker 1: production on Tammy's case. They interviewed mister Dumont, and mister
Speaker 1: Dumott said that he got out of his vehicle to
Speaker 1: move his tools into the cabin the vehicle, so we
Speaker 1: have some discrepancies as to what actually was going on there.
Speaker 1: Robert says he doesn't know the origin of the story
Speaker 1: about Lonnie Dumot's stopping to relieve himself. Neither did Lonnie
Speaker 1: when I asked him about it last summer. There's another
Speaker 1: report of you said you stopped to take a piss,
Speaker 1: did you, No, I stopped to get my tools out
Speaker 1: of the back of the truck. There has been a
Speaker 1: lot of energy focused on Lonnie Dumont's recollections from that day,
Speaker 1: some of which were made nearly thirty years after the fact,
Speaker 1: among them the order in which Lonnie and the state
Speaker 1: trooper handled Tammy's body. The original story, as heard from
Speaker 1: mister Dumot, was that the police officer was squeamish and
Speaker 1: was nervous about cutting open the blanket, and Lonnie volunteered
Speaker 1: to do it for him, and he says that he
Speaker 1: cut the blanket open and the officer was the one
Speaker 1: who cut the sheet. However, he posted on Facebook in
Speaker 1: a comment the opposite that the officer cut the blanket
Speaker 1: and he cut the sheet. I mentioned all this not
Speaker 1: to discredit anyone, but rather to show the ways in
Speaker 1: which cybersleuthing can become problematic. You can't speculate that a
Speaker 1: guy might be guilty of murder because of a spotty
Speaker 1: recollection from thirty years ago. Lonnie has a vested interest
Speaker 1: in the case, and his presence in the Facebook group
Speaker 1: does not strike me as suspicious in any way. Whatsoever
Speaker 1: he found Tammy's body, it makes sense why he'd want
Speaker 1: to see what was going on with the case. Regardless,
Speaker 1: there are those who continue to believe that Lonnie's involvement
Speaker 1: at the crime scene was intentional, a stealthy way to
Speaker 1: account for his DNA being left at the scene. So
Speaker 1: your gut is that he's got something to do with it.
Speaker 1: I honestly think that. Yes, I don't think that he's
Speaker 1: been rolled out, you know, by the law enforcement, but
Speaker 1: I think he's got something to do it. It's just
Speaker 1: too coincidental. As it turns out, law enforcement would make
Speaker 1: an effort to rule Lonnie Dumot out as a suspect. Hi,
Speaker 1: mister Dumont money and is with the FBI at a
Speaker 1: job in Missouri. And when you have an opportunity that
Speaker 1: you please Lonnie, says a case agent from one of
Speaker 1: the FBI's Missouri field offices reached out in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one to get his version of events and also request
Speaker 1: a sample of his DNA. He says, the first time
Speaker 1: he listened to that voicemail, he thought it was a joke.
Speaker 1: I thought that this guy was one of my buddies
Speaker 1: calling me doing a prank. But it wasn't. It actually was.
Speaker 1: When I called him back, he said, I'm I'm out
Speaker 1: at the FBI at Joplin. There's a guy, an investigator
Speaker 1: doing an investigation out of Chicago. And he said, I'm
Speaker 1: doing this interview for him. And then when I met him,
Speaker 1: I met him in a little restaurant and there was
Speaker 1: two of them come out and I'm sitting there and
Speaker 1: they come in and he said that that he was
Speaker 1: gonna talk to me, and this other guy sat right
Speaker 1: by us, and all he did was watched me. He
Speaker 1: must have been a profiler. And they sat there and
Speaker 1: talked to me for all quite a while and asked
Speaker 1: me different questions and like what what kind of question? Well,
Speaker 1: they asked me about just pretty much about what you've
Speaker 1: asked me. And he said that anything that I if
Speaker 1: I remembering thing, call him and that would relay the
Speaker 1: message to the guy in Chicago. I've spoken to Lonnie
Speaker 1: on several occasions, mainly to hear him tell his story
Speaker 1: multiple times. Time and again. I found his version of
Speaker 1: events to be consistent and entirely plausible. I also learned
Speaker 1: from the Lawrence County Sheriff's office that Lonnie was mentioned
Speaker 1: in their crime scene report. It noted that he was
Speaker 1: a volunteer fireman at the time, which makes sense why
Speaker 1: he would have been asked to assist in moving Tammy's
Speaker 1: body out of the gulch. That same report, however, did
Speaker 1: not mention that Lonnie helped carry the body. This doesn't
Speaker 1: mean he didn't help, only that there's no record of it.
Speaker 1: Lonnie maintains that up until the fall of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: when the FBI called him, no one from law enforcement
Speaker 1: had spoke to him since the day he found Tammy's body.
Speaker 1: What did they want from you? They just wanted to
Speaker 1: interview me and talk to me and blood. They took
Speaker 1: us DNA sample And how did they do that? Dwamam
Speaker 1: mouth and why did they say they needed that? They
Speaker 1: said they're trying to eliminate everybody from being a suspect.
Speaker 1: And he said, we know that she touched the blanket.
Speaker 1: We know that. But he said that any DNA that
Speaker 1: would be found on her body or her clothes, they
Speaker 1: would be tested against. And since that day, I've never
Speaker 1: heard anything Roman. The fact that this meeting between Lonnie
Speaker 1: and the FBI occurred relatively recently says so much. For one,
Speaker 1: the FBI took Linny's DNA because they believe his story
Speaker 1: or like me, couldn't rule out the possibility that he
Speaker 1: helped move Tammy's body. Also that the Bureau is making
Speaker 1: another run at testing old DNA from Tammy's clothing, her body,
Speaker 1: the blanket, or any additional evidence found at the scene
Speaker 1: and collected throughout the investigation. They said, we've done got
Speaker 1: stuff from their families, so DNA from their families. So
Speaker 1: they when they'd come and talk to me, he is
Speaker 1: probably on you on the list of people to talk to.
Speaker 1: And they said that it that's all they really needed.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that law enforcement is trying to
Speaker 1: produce a match, rule out anyone who could have inadvertently
Speaker 1: left DNA at the scene, or potentially build a genealogy database.
Speaker 1: What's more, the FBI has had Lonnie Dumott's DNA for
Speaker 1: a year and a half and has not made any
Speaker 1: moves to arrest him. The FBI and ISP won't comment
Speaker 1: on an active investigation, but likely if Lonnie was their guy,
Speaker 1: he'd be locked up by now. And so they took
Speaker 1: to DNA And how did you feel about that? Oh,
Speaker 1: it didn't bother me because I mean, I know I
Speaker 1: wasn't part of it, but they got eliminate everybody. And
Speaker 1: I figured that, you know, I could have been a
Speaker 1: crap head and said no, I'm not gonna do it,
Speaker 1: you know. But like I told him this, he's just
Speaker 1: way to just involve me from what you're doing is
Speaker 1: to give you a DNA sample. Like many others in
Speaker 1: this story, Lonnie Dumont's integrity has been questioned. I spoke
Speaker 1: to a source who claimed Lonnie once gave an interview
Speaker 1: to a major media outlet and scared the reporter so
Speaker 1: much that they wondered if he was confessing to Tammy's murder.
Speaker 1: It makes sense to be initially suspicious of Lonnie Dumont.
Speaker 1: He found the body, and he hesitated about calling it in.
Speaker 1: He then offered to help move it, almost guaranteeing some
Speaker 1: of his DNA would be left at the scene. But
Speaker 1: in the end, as far as Lonnie Dumott is concerned,
Speaker 1: I have found zero evidence that he had anything to
Speaker 1: do with Tammy's a wiki's abduction or murder. Two thousand
Speaker 1: and two marked the tenth anniversary of Tammy's death. The
Speaker 1: FBI offered a fifty thousand dollars reward for any information
Speaker 1: leading to the arrest and conviction and Tammy's kidnapping and murder.
Speaker 1: The milestone also led to an onslaught of media coverage,
Speaker 1: which in turn provided newly retired ISP investigator Marty McCarthy
Speaker 1: a platform to voice his opinions. All the airtime in
Speaker 1: print space that the media gave to Marty's theories about
Speaker 1: the eyewitnesses claims regarding Lonnie beer Brod were hard to ignore,
Speaker 1: which is why I think the IP and FBI decided
Speaker 1: to make a few moves. As the agent in charge,
Speaker 1: this was, you know, this case kind of came to
Speaker 1: me with the press guy saying, hey, you know, the
Speaker 1: news media wants to do something on this thing. Thomas
Speaker 1: Kanner was the special Agent in charge of one of
Speaker 1: the FBI's Southern field offices. He was tasked with interviewing
Speaker 1: Lonnie beer Brodd's ex wife. At that ten year mark,
Speaker 1: he still seemed to be the most logical guy, you know,
Speaker 1: And so I said, get her an interviewer again. You know,
Speaker 1: I know she's probably been interviewed multiple times for interviewer again,
Speaker 1: and then CF she'll submit to a polygraphingstanding Lonnie beer
Speaker 1: Brott had died by the time as ex wife to
Speaker 1: the polygraph. If she had ever been afraid to speak
Speaker 1: up before his death, there was no reason to protect
Speaker 1: him any longer. And if anybody could get a confession
Speaker 1: or do a polygraph, I mean I would put I
Speaker 1: would put my money on this guy. All the places
Speaker 1: I've been and all the polygraphers that I've had that worked,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, this guy was by far the
Speaker 1: dog best. Many might know that polygraphs are not allowed
Speaker 1: as evidence in court, but the beauty of polygraphing beer
Speaker 1: Brott's ex wife was that it wasn't for any sort
Speaker 1: of court proceeding. It was to gauge whether she was
Speaker 1: telling the truth about not having the green musical watch
Speaker 1: and not having any knowledge of her ex husband's involvement
Speaker 1: in Tammy's murder. The pre polygraph interview, which can be
Speaker 1: far more in depth than the actual polygraph, also gave
Speaker 1: the interviewer an opportunity to check her story for inconsistencies.
Speaker 1: So I was waiting and waiting and waiting and and
Speaker 1: and you know, when he does a polygraph, it's a
Speaker 1: it's not a twenty minute operation. So he called me
Speaker 1: later in the day and he said, well, it's probably
Speaker 1: not what you want to hear. But I ran her
Speaker 1: three times. I changed up the questions, you know, we
Speaker 1: taught him. We spent hours on you know, the pretests
Speaker 1: and just like I would on anything else. And my
Speaker 1: estimation as she's telling the truth. Beer Brotzeck's wife also
Speaker 1: spoke to the media around this time. In an interview
Speaker 1: with the Courier Post newspaper, she stated that her husband
Speaker 1: had never given her a musical watch and that she
Speaker 1: was puzzled by the origin of the story. What's more,
Speaker 1: she said, if she thought for one minute that he
Speaker 1: had been involved in Tammy's abduction and murder, quote, I
Speaker 1: would have gone straight to the police. Well I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's always easy to tell the truth,
Speaker 1: right when you start making up stories, it'll change over time.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you know, if I told you'll lie
Speaker 1: today and you came back to me five years later
Speaker 1: and asked me, Hey, you know, Tom, you know you
Speaker 1: know ask me the same question, I may not respond
Speaker 1: the same way. Right, you might change one little thing.
Speaker 1: How often do people get interviewed by either the Illinois
Speaker 1: State Please, the Missouri the Highway Patrol world it was
Speaker 1: investigetting down there, or the FBI. I mean, that's probably
Speaker 1: for most people. Unless you're just a criminal, it's probably
Speaker 1: a one time event in your life. You would think
Speaker 1: that story would be easy to recite over and over
Speaker 1: and over again, much like the ESP and FBI. Back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two, I felt I needed to
Speaker 1: speak to Lonnie beer Brott's ex wife, but all my attempts, calls, messages,
Speaker 1: even doorknocks went unanswered. My associate producer did manage to
Speaker 1: make contact in late twenty twenty two. Lonnie beer Brottzeck's
Speaker 1: wife wasn't in a hurry to get off the phone,
Speaker 1: though she did ultimately decline to be interviewed for the podcast.
Speaker 1: I have no reason not to believe her. It's also
Speaker 1: not her obligation to make anyone believe her. She's a
Speaker 1: private citizen who's already spoken to police and the media
Speaker 1: about what she knows. As for Tammy's watch, the watch
Speaker 1: is still missing. The watches is still out there. It's
Speaker 1: still among the list of items that would connect someone
Speaker 1: to this investigation. Jeff Padilla was a young detective with
Speaker 1: the Illinois State Police in nineteen ninety two, the year
Speaker 1: Tammy was murdered. He was familiar with the case, but
Speaker 1: wouldn't get involved until twenty twelve, when he became squad
Speaker 1: supervisor over a group of detectives working missing persons and
Speaker 1: murder cases in the region. That time, the case was
Speaker 1: a bit installed and there hadn't been what I thought
Speaker 1: was an appropriate amount of movement on it. So I
Speaker 1: assigned myself in a number of other of my detectives
Speaker 1: to go back and look at the investigation from the
Speaker 1: very beginning. That meant reinterviewing old witnesses and reviewing the
Speaker 1: many theories that had gotten attention over the years. There
Speaker 1: was a time where in the heart of this second
Speaker 1: like real push in this investigation, where we were getting
Speaker 1: a lot of mediate inquiries and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of physical evidence that had never been analyzed. As for
Speaker 1: Marty's eyewitness, the woman whose claims fueled rampant speculation about
Speaker 1: Annie beer Brot and created a narrative about the whereabouts
Speaker 1: of Tammy's watch. Padilla says her story never passed the
Speaker 1: smell test. Yeah, that was completely false. And the way
Speaker 1: that she identified Lonnie beer Brod was she was going
Speaker 1: by on the interstate in the opposite direction while doing
Speaker 1: seventy five miles an hour, which I take witness identification
Speaker 1: with a huge grain of salt, and it has to
Speaker 1: be backed up with evidence. Even more important is the
Speaker 1: fact that her story about seeing Lonnie bear Brott's wife
Speaker 1: wearing a watch similar to Tammy's was nowhere in her
Speaker 1: initial statements the police. By the time she had told
Speaker 1: Marty McCarthy her version of events ten years later, the
Speaker 1: information about Tammy's watch had already been made public. So
Speaker 1: then Lonnie beer Brod suddenly became a very heavy focus
Speaker 1: of the investigation. You know, he voluntarily came in and
Speaker 1: gave blood and DNA samples, and since then we know
Speaker 1: that he was not our offender in this case. Lonnie
Speaker 1: beer Brot was eliminated from our investigation as a suspect.
Speaker 1: Padilla says, that Lonnie beer Brott had been ruled out
Speaker 1: through DNA and blood analysis as early as nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: How did Marty not know about this? He wasn't working
Speaker 1: the case, but as an ISP investigator, it's surprising he'd
Speaker 1: be completely kept out of the loop. He was not
Speaker 1: was not involved in overall investigative decisions or command decisions
Speaker 1: with regard to the investigation. He alone perpetuated the Lonnie
Speaker 1: beer Brot sort of fantasy as a suspect because he
Speaker 1: was not aware of and rightfully so, he was no
Speaker 1: longer part of the investigation, so he wasn't aware that
Speaker 1: Lonnie had been eliminated. I respect Marty McCarthy's public service
Speaker 1: and his work as a active His many achievements speak
Speaker 1: for themselves. But I was going to have to go
Speaker 1: back to him at some point, provide him with what
Speaker 1: I had developed, and allow him a chance to speak
Speaker 1: to it. Jeff Padilla and the Illinois State Police bear
Speaker 1: some responsibility. More than twenty years after clearing Lonnie bear
Speaker 1: Brought as a suspect in Tammy Ziwiki's murder, he was
Speaker 1: quoted in a news article describing beer Brought as quote
Speaker 1: someone who remains a person of interest because of some
Speaker 1: of the circumstantial information surrounding him end quote. Why did
Speaker 1: investigators allow Lonnie's name to be dragged through the mud
Speaker 1: for decades? I mean he remained at an option because
Speaker 1: the DNA. Certainly that was when DNA was in infancy.
Speaker 1: Many of the tests were entrusted. As Padilla explained, even
Speaker 1: with his new team of investigators re examining the case files,
Speaker 1: not much progress was made in the investigation. So in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, law enforcement decided to try a different approach.
Speaker 1: We weren't going to narrow our investigation based on our
Speaker 1: preconceived notions, and that's why, you know, ultimately it was
Speaker 1: really really beneficial to us to take the investigation to
Speaker 1: the VDOX Society in Philadelphia. The VDOX Society is an
Speaker 1: elite group of experts in the criminology field, ranging from
Speaker 1: federal agents to forensic pathologists. Their work is pro bono,
Speaker 1: so there's a limited number of cases they can take
Speaker 1: on each year. Tammy's was one of them. We got
Speaker 1: a lot from them, and in fact, the direction we
Speaker 1: went thereafter was because of the information we had received
Speaker 1: from the VDOX Society. Eugene Francois Vidac was a nineteenth
Speaker 1: century Frenchman and world renowned detective. He got a start
Speaker 1: as a criminal before becoming an informant and eventually an agent.
Speaker 1: His admirers included three forensic experts who founded the VDC
Speaker 1: Society in nineteen ninety and named it in his honor.
Speaker 1: Each month, experts from all fields of criminology meet to
Speaker 1: go through cases presented by police departments from across the country.
Speaker 1: The VDC Society agreeing to look at your case is
Speaker 1: a huge deal and requires lengthy preparation. Investigators need to
Speaker 1: go through every element of the case file, follow up
Speaker 1: on outstanding leads, and make sure they're ready to present
Speaker 1: and defend their work to VDC members. We were only
Speaker 1: the second group from the Illinis State Police to ever
Speaker 1: presented to the VDAX Society. Jeff Paedia says the group
Speaker 1: helped change the IPS approach to Tammy's case. We were
Speaker 1: had a number of dead ends until we we spoke
Speaker 1: to the VDOC Society. They provided us with insight into,
Speaker 1: for example, the wound pattern and evidence that were in
Speaker 1: the crime, the autopsy photos, the group's theory about the
Speaker 1: nature of tammy Stab wounds, piqued my interest. Several members
Speaker 1: of law enforcement have told me the seven stab wounds
Speaker 1: around Tammy's heart were not methodical. Members of the VDOX
Speaker 1: Society had a different opinion, and sitting in a room
Speaker 1: with you know, one hundred highly experienced scientists, forensic scientists, corners, detectives,
Speaker 1: and psychiatrists and psychologists involved in criminal investigations, so that
Speaker 1: that was pointed out to us that that was likely
Speaker 1: there was a pattern to the stab wounds. The group
Speaker 1: also had a different opinion about how long Tammy's body
Speaker 1: had been out on the roadside before it was discovered.
Speaker 1: Two people, Lonnie Dumott and a police source who helped
Speaker 1: move Tammy's body back in nineteen ninety two, both claimed
Speaker 1: that she appeared to be in an advanced state of decomposition.
Speaker 1: The officer I spoke with even said that when he
Speaker 1: went to help pick up the body bag, Tammy's body
Speaker 1: nearly came apart. I mean that may have been his impression,
Speaker 1: but she was not. No, she was not that decomposed.
Speaker 1: Like that's some of the misinformation that's out there. One
Speaker 1: of the real stumpers in the investigation was that, you know,
Speaker 1: she was missing for all that time, but she was
Speaker 1: not that decomposed. She was certainly recognizable. Padilla says he
Speaker 1: and other investigators can't be exactly sure how long Tammy
Speaker 1: was dead before she was discovered, nor can he officially
Speaker 1: rule out one of the more wild theories in the case,
Speaker 1: the idea that her body was kept in a refrigerated truck.
Speaker 1: What he and many of his colleagues who are actively
Speaker 1: working the case are an agreement about is that it's
Speaker 1: unlikely that Tammy was on the roadway for days on end.
Speaker 1: That remains an open question and something that we've struggled
Speaker 1: with throughout the investigation. They did bring into the famous
Speaker 1: forensic entomologists from Believe he's from the University of Indiana
Speaker 1: and he went through He's the one that gave the
Speaker 1: age of the of the of the flies to be
Speaker 1: able to give us an idea how long she had
Speaker 1: been out there, which also supported the fact that she
Speaker 1: was not had not been out there very long. Based
Speaker 1: on the life of a flight the blue bottle fly cycle,
Speaker 1: it may have been a day or a day and
Speaker 1: a half. Taking into account what the VDOC experts found.
Speaker 1: One theory is that Tammy may have been kept a
Speaker 1: life at least a week after her abduction. I never
Speaker 1: mentioned that to missus Zwicky because I never wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: my supposition. You know, it's bad enough what she had
Speaker 1: gone through, and for me to suppose something like that
Speaker 1: just because it's a possibility that didn't you know, I
Speaker 1: never wanted to say that her until one hundred percent
Speaker 1: knew that may have been the case. It's a deeply
Speaker 1: troubling idea, though other evidence in the case does seem
Speaker 1: to support the theory. You know, there was an analysis
Speaker 1: of the food that was in her stomach, so we
Speaker 1: know that she had a meal which we had the
Speaker 1: receipts for, just before she broke down. Padilla is referring
Speaker 1: to the Hearty's fast food chain where Tammy picked up
Speaker 1: some lunch. Many have thought the fact that she had
Speaker 1: undigested food in her stomach was a clear indicator she'd
Speaker 1: been killed right away, but scientists who looked at the
Speaker 1: case think it's possible that her parasympathetic system, the part
Speaker 1: of the nervous system that controls things like rest and digestion,
Speaker 1: was overwhelmed by the stress of the situation. More simply put,
Speaker 1: her body was stuck in flight mode and unable to
Speaker 1: do much else. Those same scientists also said they couldn't
Speaker 1: rule out the possibility that Tammy's killer kept her somewhere
Speaker 1: and fed her during that time period. So one of
Speaker 1: the aspects was the food that had remained in her
Speaker 1: stomach when her body was recovered. So you would think
Speaker 1: a meal that you ate today is going to be
Speaker 1: completely digested nine days from hour seven days from hour
Speaker 1: five days, really, you know within you would think within
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. However, we debated the timeline based on
Speaker 1: when her body was recovered there was still undigested food
Speaker 1: in her stomach, and so how to explain that. Investigators
Speaker 1: like Padia have pushed back against the theory that Tammy's
Speaker 1: body was in an advanced state of decomposition, but she
Speaker 1: had been outside for a significant amount of time that
Speaker 1: it was difficult to know exactly what happened. For example,
Speaker 1: Padilla says it was almost impossible to tell whether Tammy
Speaker 1: was sexually assaulted. It was something the esp did initially
Speaker 1: look into in the nine but the technology wasn't as
Speaker 1: advanced then as it is today, and there was an
Speaker 1: initial positive positive indication for DNA on a vaginal swab
Speaker 1: that was later determined to be a false positive. There
Speaker 1: was never any seaman collected. There was never any seminal
Speaker 1: fluid connected. I mean she was fully clothed, her T
Speaker 1: shirt was on, her braws on, her panties were on correctly,
Speaker 1: her shorts were on. There was no appearance of sexual assault.
Speaker 1: Not that doesn't mean that there wasn't sexual activity. To me,
Speaker 1: the question of whether or not Tammy's murder was a
Speaker 1: sex crime could play a vital role in searching for
Speaker 1: viable suspects. Quite often for the offender, sex crimes have
Speaker 1: very little to do with our own ideas of traditional
Speaker 1: sexual acts, and so we always had the potential that
Speaker 1: this was a sex related and so that's always been
Speaker 1: you know, been out there and then that, to my knowledge,
Speaker 1: that remains possibility. The VDOX Society floated the theory that
Speaker 1: Tammy could have been unconscious when she was stabbed, and
Speaker 1: that the act of stabbing her was a way to
Speaker 1: wake her up, like a sternam rub. And then and
Speaker 1: then the one is the one is deep enough where
Speaker 1: it's not in her sternum. It goes between between the
Speaker 1: ribs and punctures her pericardial sack and she ends up
Speaker 1: dying from that, And was there a toxicology report done,
Speaker 1: any presence of any type of drugs in her system
Speaker 1: that he could have used. Yeah, I mean we thought
Speaker 1: about like if he used chloroform or something like that.
Speaker 1: I believe we were told at the time that nothing
Speaker 1: like that would have remained in her system. And it's
Speaker 1: not like today's roof and all or or something more
Speaker 1: powerful where it would stay in her system. Basically, the
Speaker 1: chloroform was used through you know, through a soaked rag.
Speaker 1: She would be knocked unconscious and then by the time
Speaker 1: she woke up, all of that would be the chloroform
Speaker 1: would be out of her system. A forensic psychiatrist told
Speaker 1: me years ago that a knife can be what he
Speaker 1: called a surrogate penis to compensate for sexual dysfunction. Yes,
Speaker 1: we we also thought that the puncture that killed Tammy
Speaker 1: may have been inadvertent in the process, so that the
Speaker 1: series of stab wounds in the center of her chest,
Speaker 1: which were all very close. It was the size of
Speaker 1: a pipe plate. So if somebody's fighting, you're not going
Speaker 1: to get you know, shallow depth stab wounds in a
Speaker 1: pipe plate, right, you know, if I'm trying to stab you.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be fighting back. You're gonna get stabbed in
Speaker 1: the hand, in the arm and the forearm and the
Speaker 1: elbow and the you know, in the your bicep, your
Speaker 1: trisep I'm maybe going to get you in the chest.
Speaker 1: But these were, you know, so these were very different.
Speaker 1: Padia says. The information from the Vdox Society changed the
Speaker 1: ISP's direction of the case. The group helped them identify
Speaker 1: new pools of suspects and more importantly, potential new sources
Speaker 1: of DNA which they could go on to test and
Speaker 1: use to create genealogical profiles, and as often as the
Speaker 1: case with active investigations, new developments are ongoing for the
Speaker 1: ISP and for myself. After hearing the first couple episodes
Speaker 1: from this season, a detective from a neighboring town from
Speaker 1: where Tammy went missing contacted me with information if you
Speaker 1: had heard along with a new suspect, someone who checked
Speaker 1: nearly every box and Tammy's a Wiki's murder and was
Speaker 1: found in possession of what some may call a trophy.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Paper Ghosts, the body was
Speaker 1: it's obviously signs of you know, just brutal almost like
Speaker 1: a tortuous saying that he had did her. It was
Speaker 1: she was bound in duct tape. A couple of local
Speaker 1: FBI agents came to my house and took a DNA
Speaker 1: swab for me. I first called Joanne and we have
Speaker 1: this discussion about this is our one shot. You know,
Speaker 1: we may not get it again if we agree to
Speaker 1: do this. If you are enjoying Paper Ghosts, please listen
Speaker 1: to my other podcast, Crossing the Line with m William Phelps,
Speaker 1: where I use the same storytelling elements you've heard in
Speaker 1: Paper Ghosts and cover missing person and murder cases. Paper
Speaker 1: Ghosts is written and executive produced by me and 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 Mullen. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.