Sep 22, 2009 10:17 pm US/Central
Cold Case Minute: Tammy Zywicki
Bill Kurtis
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
It's hard to believe the Tammy Zywicki story from 17 years ago still hasn't been solved. At the time, the crime shocked Chicago and especially parents who watch their sons and daughters drive off to college every fall. Who doesn't take a deep breath in fear that something might happen? As CBS 2's Bill Kurtis reports in this cold case, it did.
Tammy Zywicki was a year away from graduation and on her last official drive to college in the summer of 1992.
On August 23rd, the 21-year-old dropped off her brother at Northwestern University. She then pointed her car toward Grinnell College in Iowa for a senior year she would never begin.
Later that day, Tammy's white 1985 Pontiac was discovered off Interstate 80, abandoned with no trace of the young coed. It was as if she simply vanished.
Nine days later, the unthinkable happened. Near the town of Joplin in rural Missouri, almost 500 miles from her recovered car, Tammy's beaten body was uncovered in a ditch. She had been stabbed repeatedly and sexually assaulted.
Somewhere between Chicago and central Illinois, the drive for Tammy Zywicki took a deadly turn.
A nationwide manhunt followed with facts that could script every parent's nightmare: a young daughter is kidnapped and brutally murdered while driving to college alone.
A passerby caught the last known glimpse of Tammy alive on Interstate 80 by LaSalle, Ill. At mile marker 83, she was seen crouched over her popped hood after her car had apparently broken down.
A few feet away, by a parked tractor trailer, stood a trucker just watching. Detectives wonder: could this man be a Good Samaritan or a big rig killer?
Every trucker convicted of murder was ruled out by trucking routes or jail records.
In 1992, physical evidence was sparse. Swabs of DNA were preserved, but were too small to sample 17 years ago.
But it's a different story in the 21st century. Investigators confirm a DNA profile now exists, thanks to modern technology.
The next step is finding a suspect, and the FBI is asking you to help.
The last person seen with Tammy alive is the driver of the tractor trailer, described as a white male between 35 and 40 years old, over six feet tall, with dark, bushy hair. He would have been driving west on Interstate 80 by LaSalle, Ill. sometime in the afternoon hours of August 23, 1992.
There is a $50,000 reward for information surrounding this case. If you have any information about the kidnapping and murder of Tammy Zywicki, please contact the Chicago FBI at (312) 421-6700.
Tammy would be 38 years old this year.
If it happened today, things could be very different. A simple little thing like a cell phone could have saved Tammy's life. There's always constant contact with a cell phone. For Tammy Zywicki, help would have been just three digits away.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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