New leads considered in murder of Eastside High grad Tammy Zywicki

Illinois State Police have turned to a nationally known organization of criminal investigators for help in solving the 1992 murder of Tammy Zywicki.

Master Sgt. Jeff Padilla told The Greenville News Wednesday that State Police investigators presented evidence to members of the Vidocq Society in Philadelphia in November and have been following up on their suggestions since.

He declined to say what the new avenues of investigation are for fear of compromising the investigation.

Zywicki, a 1989 graduate of Eastside High School, was stabbed to death after her car broke down on Interstate 80 near LaSalle, Illinois. She was on her way to Grinnell, Iowa, where she was a senior at Grinnell College.

Her body, wrapped in a sheet and blanket and secured with duct tape, was found nine days later 490 miles away in Missouri.

Asked why the State Police turned to the Vidocq Society, Padilla said, "The ISP is not shy about asking for assistance. We have no ego when it comes to investigations."

Zywicki's mother, JoAnn Zywicki, said she was surprised the Vidocq Society had been consulted but was heartened by the news. She has been critical of the way the investigation was handled from the beginning and in the years since.

A group of Tammy's college friends and an archeologist who knew her from her summers working at a Blockbuster store in New Jersey have created an online petition to encourage Illinois officials to release more information on the crime in hope of garnering new leads.

In addition, a retired Illinois State Police investigator believes he knows who committed the crime and would like to see a grand jury empanelled to hear the evidence. If the state attorney in LaSalle County, Illinois, where Tammy's Pontiac T2000 was found the day she disappeared, does not want to proceed with the case, Martin McCarthy, the retired investigator, said he wants the state to appoint a special prosecutor.

Brian Towne, the LaSalle County state's attorney, told The News he could not comment on anything dealing with a grand jury because such proceedings are secret. He also said by law the only reason a special prosecutor can be appointed is if the local prosecutor has a conflict of interest.

"I have no conflict or appearance of a conflict," he said. "No one wants to solve this case more than I do."

The criminologists

The Vidocq Society began with a 1990 luncheon involving three men from various specialties in criminal investigation — a former special agent for the U.S. Customs Service, a forensic sculptor and a prison psychologist. Their intent was simply to eat well and discuss crimes and mysteries.

Before long, they had formed a more formal group and narrowed its interest to cold cases. Now, the society has a membership of about 150 people from all areas of criminal investigation.

The society's name comes from Eugene Francois Vidocq, who is considered the founder of modern criminal investigation. A thief who spent some years in prison, Vidocq became an informant to the police and ultimately founded a private detective agency in the early 1800s. He is credited with developing modern record keeping, the science of ballistics and making plaster of Paris casts of shoes.

The society receives about 100 requests a year from law enforcement agencies that have been stymied in their investigations. They agree to consider 11, one for every monthly luncheon, held in the Union League in Philadelphia.

News reports have given members credit for helping solve decades-old murder cases, including one from 1984 involving a Drexel University student found barefoot in a stairwell at the Philadelphia school. She had been strangled. A Vidocq member suggested investigators look at someone with a foot fetish.

Officers found a security guard who had been discharged from the Army for stealing women's shoes. He was convicted.

In at least one instance, society members suggested a death that looked suspicious was an accident.

Law enforcement officials submit a document detailing the facts of an investigation and, if chosen, make a formal presentation at the monthly luncheon.

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State police

Padilla said his agency petitioned the Vidocq Society in 2013 to hear the Zywicki case. The meeting in November lasted 3.5 hours.

"We detailed the entire case as we had it," Padilla said.

That meant photos and discussion of both crime scenes — where Tammy's car was found and where her body was discovered. He said forensic evidence was taken from the car.

The investigators also told society members about several people they consider suspects.

McCarthy, the retired ISP investigator who worked on the task force when Tammy's body was found, believes the killer was Lonnie Bierbrodt, a trucker who had family in LaSalle and who lived in Missouri. He died in 2002.

Bierbrodt was identified by a nurse in LaSalle as being the person she saw with Tammy on the day Tammy disappeared. The nurse was on I-80 returning with her children from McDonald's. She named Bierbrodt after he and his wife came into a clinic where she worked.

Bierbrodt was questioned by police and released. When he was questioned, his wife said he was with her in Missouri at the time of the abduction and murder.

McCarthy and JoAnn Zywicki have said the wife has not been interviewed by police in the years since. They also allege that leads have gone uninvestigated.

Padilla said, "We fully and thoroughly investigate every lead in this case."

He said investigators have not shared with the family all that they have done for fear of compromising the investigation.

Complex case

The case was complex from the beginning, Padilla said, and continues to be. Asked what was complex, he said, "The crime and the ensuing investigation makes this a continued significant effort."

Padilla also said he doesn't have an answer for why the case has remained unsolved for so long.

"It's a process," he said.

Technology available now was not available then. The nature of the case itself makes it difficult, he said.

Much of what is publicly known about the investigation has come from McCarthy and Mrs. Zywicki. The murder weapon has not been found, and no one knows for sure where the murder took place. Tammy had been stabbed in a circle around her heart and had few defensive wounds.

She died of internal bleeding and was found wearing clothes different from those she was last seen in when she left the Chicago area after dropping her brother off at Northwestern University. Tammy also had on underwear that her mother said was uncharacteristic. Tammy's watch, which played "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head" and a newly purchased Canon camera have never been found.

Tammy's college friends said in interviews with The News that leads could be generated if the State Police released all the information in one place.

State's attorney Towne said, "That would jeopardize the case more than anything."

He said people sometimes confess to crimes they didn't commit. To have assurance that is not the case, some information needs to be known only to the investigators and the killer.

Padilla said he did not know why the task force set up in the days after Tammy's body was found was disbanded within a few months of the murder. Then, there were 14 people plus the FBI involved, McCarthy said, and just as a lead on Bierbrodt was developed, the task force was disbanded.

Now assigned are four investigators who have limited responsibility for other cases, Padilla said.

"This case has never been closed," he said.

Investigators meet with supervisors quarterly to discuss progress on all cases and more regularly on this particular case, Padilla said. The team will meet next week to review what's been done on the suggestions made by the Vidocq Society. He would not reveal what suggestions were made.

Asked how close they were to making an arrest, Padilla said, "There is still work for us to do."

Padilla said there has never been a main suspect in the case, and that several people are still being investigated, some still living.

That idea haunts JoAnn Zywicki.

"What if it isn't the one they've suspected all these years? Someone's still out there and who knows what they might have done."