Jul 13, 2007 11:28 pm US/Central
Confessed Killer May Be Linked To Zywicki Murder
Bruce Mendenhall Was Arrested In Tennessee And Confessed To Several Slayings
by Dana Kozlov
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Tammy Zywicki was killed almost 15 years ago.
An Illinois truck driver confessed to the murders of six women, and now authorities are questioning whether he's linked to the unsolved murder of Tammy Zywicki, 15 years ago.
Zywicki vanished from Interstate 80 near LaSalle-Peru on Aug. 23, 1992, as she drove back to Grinnell College in Iowa just after dropping off her brother at Northwestern University in Evanston. She was found sexually assaulted and stabbed to death in Missouri nine days later.
As CBS 2's Dana Kozlov reports, the arrest of Bruce Mendenhall in Tennessee could be a break in the Zywicki case.
Mendenhall, 56, a suspected serial killer is originally from Albion, Ill. He was arrested Thursday after officers spotted his semi-truck and realized it matched a description of one linked to the murder of 25-year-old Sara Hulbert last month.
"Inside the left driver's door there were several blood spots, and obviously that heightened or suspicions at that point, and I asked if I could get up inside the cab to have a visual look around and he said OK," said Sgt. Pat Postiglione of the Nashville Police Department.
Mendenhall told police he's killed victims in Tennessee, Indiana, Georgia and Alabama. Nashville police say authorities from around the country are now calling for more information.
Fifteen years ago next month, 21-year-old Tammy Zywicki's parents tearfully pleaded for her return after she was abducted along I-80. Her body was found a week later near Springfield, Mo., stabbed eight times and wrapped in a blanket. Witnesses told police they'd seen a semi-truck near her disabled car the day she disappeared.
Witnesses described a tall, brown-haired man, 35 to 40 years old, standing near Zywicki and her car. Later, investigators released a sketch of the suspected truck - white with brown and yellow stripes on the cab and trailer. Mendenhall's cab is yellow; his trailer is white with a horizontal brown stripe along the side.
Police say Mendenhall confessed to shooting Sara Hulbert. It is not clear how he says he killed his other victims.
The Chicago FBI is in charge of the Zywicki case. Friday night a spokesperson told CBS 2 Chicago agents will follow all logical leads in the Zywicki case, including the possibility that Mendenhall's arrest could be one of them.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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