March 1, 2023 • 38 mins
Tammy’s case gets a second look from a seasoned group of exclusive investigators, who cast doubt on several core theories and point the Illinois State Police in a new direction. Phelps digs further into two key suspects, and pushes law enforcement on why they didn’t do more to exonerate an innocent man.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Paper Ghosts is a production of iHeartRadio. Throughout the decades
I've been covering true crime, I've looked into more than
a hundred missing persons and murder cases. I've interviewed scores
of law enforcement victims, families, even killers themselves, all to
gain a better understanding of how investigations are handled and
(00:24):
the tools law enforcement used to develop information and solve crimes.
Much has changed over the years, but in the past
decade or so, I've witnessed a major shift, one that
I hadn't anticipated, the emergence of a new group of investigators, citizens, sleuths.
(00:46):
And nowhere is that phenomenon more obvious than in Tammy
Zuwiki's case. Oh there was all kinds of stories, you know,
You'd read that she was picked up by a stranger,
some guy in a truck stopped to help her, another
guy in a pickup truck. Patrick Jones is the founder
(01:06):
of the Who Killed Tammy's a Wicki Facebook group, a
passionate collection of Tammy's friends, family members, true crime buffs,
and citizen investigators. Well, the Facebook page it grew like
you wouldn't believe. I mean, I was just hoping, Oh,
maybe we'll get one hundred people, two hundred people, and
(01:27):
I think today I'm trying to look at it right now,
We've got over four thousand members on there. Patrick started
the Facebook group in two thousand and nine. He didn't
know Tammy, but was drawn to her story and sometimes
had a picture of Tammy on the front page. And
I looked at her and I was thinking, I got
a daughter about the same age. While working my way
(01:49):
through Tammy's case, I felt that the group warranted a
closer look. For what it's worth, I'm not a fan
of online sleuthing. Citizen sleuths have the power to shift
the narrative in a case. They can interfere with investigations
accused innocent people of a crime. More than anything, though,
(02:10):
they can inject themselves into someone else's story, and for
better or worse, some members of the who Killed Tammy
Ziwiki Facebook group have succeeded in doing just that. Another
article came out like thirteen, fourteen years ago whatever it
was about Tammy's case, and I was reading it and
then I said, you know what, maybe I'll put something
(02:31):
on Facebook. I'll offer a reward, you know, I think
I put a thousand dollars reward or something. Today Patrick
works as a firearms instructor and an engineer at the
Forest Preserves. Before that, he worked part time as a
police lieutenant in a village outside Chicago. We had like
four or five members, which they were all police officers.
(02:53):
All the guys at the police department jumped down right away,
you know, as a favorite, so I could build it
a little and then alone came Robert. Robert was hugely
instrumental in developing the website with Me or Facebook page.
Robert cut Lark is someone I met in the earliest
(03:15):
days of my investigation. You might remember him from the
first episode. He's the archaeologist who grew up a town
over from Tammy in New Jersey and has developed a
close friendship with Joanne Ziwiki over the years. Like Patrick,
he's also an administrator of the Facebook group. He's dug
up so much stuff it's unbelievable. On our Facebook page,
(03:38):
We've got a file section that's just phenomenal. You could
go through there and read everything about who they've investigated
over the years, who they've ruled out. And Robert's been
in contact with the all the various agencies that have
been helping out FBI, State Police and what have you.
A lot of good has come from the Facebook group.
(04:01):
Several of Tammy's old friends and peers are members, which
made it easy to reach out to them for this podcast.
Patrick and Robert were also immensely helpful in the earliest
days of my research, provided me with documents and valuable contacts.
More than anything, the Who Killed Tammy Zowiki Facebook group
(04:22):
provides a real sense of community for those morning Tammy
time and again. I was struck by the effort folks
like Robert and Patrick put into keeping Tammy's story alive
and finding ways to honor her memory. Mostly, we're talking
about decent people with good intentions. They want to help
(04:44):
and they genuinely care about the Ziwiki family. But good
intentions are often not enough, and in this case, the
Facebook group can sometimes become a place where speculation and
conspiracy is allowed to exist and ultimately cast out on
innocent people. When you started the page, were you getting tips? Yeah?
(05:08):
We actually we were getting What was the first big
major tip that you got? The biggest thing we ever
got was that what the hell's his name? The guy
didn't find a body? Uh Lonnie Dumot Lonnie Damot previously
(05:29):
on Paper Ghosts. He came in. He was posting like
a son of a bitch, and then people were all
of a sudden, everybody was asking questions like you wouldn't believe.
I think he wanted to confess to something. In my
opinion that he wants to say, Hey, here's what happened.
Do you remember the type of watch she was wearing?
And did the watch play that song ranging Jane Jobs
(05:50):
came falling on my head she was wearing that watch. Yeah,
I've done this long time, and I just thought, well, bingle,
how many coincidence gonna be here? My name MM William Phelps.
I'm an investigative journalist an author of more than forty
true crime books. This is season three of Paper Ghosts
In plain Sight. There has been a cloud of suspicion
(06:30):
lingering over Lonnie Dumont since the day he discovered Tammy's body. Lonnie,
you may recall, is the repairman from Missouri who stopped
his truck to cover his tools back in September of
nineteen ninety two and stumbled upon Tammy's body. Like many
of those interested in Tammy's case, Lonnie joined the Facebook
(06:53):
group in twenty twenty and began answering questions from its members.
Lonnie dum he got on and he just started acting goofy,
putting all kinds of stuff out, and we've got screenshots
of everything that he put out, and he's just to me,
it seems a little weird with him. Like Patrick, Robert
(07:14):
Cutlaric is suspicious of Lonnie Dumot, though for different reasons.
In his view, Lonnie has given varying accounts of how
and why he came upon Tammy's body. The reasons given
for him coming off the highway depends on what source
you read. The earliest reference was that he had stopped
(07:35):
to relieve himself. Later, in nineteen ninety three, with the
publication of the People magazine article, it says that, and
this is coming from the man himself, Lonnie Dumot, that
he pulled over because he wanted to cover up the
tools in the back of his vehicle. Now fast forward
(07:55):
to twenty twenty one. People May Magazine did a television
production on Tammy's case. They interviewed mister Dumont, and mister
Dumott said that he got out of his vehicle to
move his tools into the cabin the vehicle, so we
have some discrepancies as to what actually was going on there.
(08:19):
Robert says he doesn't know the origin of the story
about Lonnie Dumot's stopping to relieve himself. Neither did Lonnie
when I asked him about it last summer. There's another
report of you said you stopped to take a piss,
did you, No, I stopped to get my tools out
of the back of the truck. There has been a
(08:39):
lot of energy focused on Lonnie Dumont's recollections from that day,
some of which were made nearly thirty years after the fact,
among them the order in which Lonnie and the state
trooper handled Tammy's body. The original story, as heard from
mister Dumot, was that the police officer was squeamish and
(09:05):
was nervous about cutting open the blanket, and Lonnie volunteered
to do it for him, and he says that he
cut the blanket open and the officer was the one
who cut the sheet. However, he posted on Facebook in
a comment the opposite that the officer cut the blanket
(09:30):
and he cut the sheet. I mentioned all this not
to discredit anyone, but rather to show the ways in
which cybersleuthing can become problematic. You can't speculate that a
guy might be guilty of murder because of a spotty
recollection from thirty years ago. Lonnie has a vested interest
(09:51):
in the case, and his presence in the Facebook group
does not strike me as suspicious in any way. Whatsoever
he found Tammy's body, it makes sense why he'd want
to see what was going on with the case. Regardless,
there are those who continue to believe that Lonnie's involvement
at the crime scene was intentional, a stealthy way to
(10:15):
account for his DNA being left at the scene. So
your gut is that he's got something to do with it.
I honestly think that. Yes, I don't think that he's
been rolled out, you know, by the law enforcement, but
I think he's got something to do it. It's just
too coincidental. As it turns out, law enforcement would make
(10:38):
an effort to rule Lonnie Dumot out as a suspect. Hi,
mister Dumont money and is with the FBI at a
job in Missouri. And when you have an opportunity that
you please Lonnie, says a case agent from one of
the FBI's Missouri field offices reached out in twenty twenty
one to get his version of events and also request
(10:58):
a sample of his DNA. He says, the first time
he listened to that voicemail, he thought it was a joke.
I thought that this guy was one of my buddies
calling me doing a prank. But it wasn't. It actually was.
When I called him back, he said, I'm I'm out
at the FBI at Joplin. There's a guy, an investigator
(11:20):
doing an investigation out of Chicago. And he said, I'm
doing this interview for him. And then when I met him,
I met him in a little restaurant and there was
two of them come out and I'm sitting there and
they come in and he said that that he was
gonna talk to me, and this other guy sat right
(11:42):
by us, and all he did was watched me. He
must have been a profiler. And they sat there and
talked to me for all quite a while and asked
me different questions and like what what kind of question? Well,
they asked me about just pretty much about what you've
asked me. And he said that anything that I if
I remembering thing, call him and that would relay the
(12:03):
message to the guy in Chicago. I've spoken to Lonnie
on several occasions, mainly to hear him tell his story
multiple times. Time and again. I found his version of
events to be consistent and entirely plausible. I also learned
(12:25):
from the Lawrence County Sheriff's office that Lonnie was mentioned
in their crime scene report. It noted that he was
a volunteer fireman at the time, which makes sense why
he would have been asked to assist in moving Tammy's
body out of the gulch. That same report, however, did
not mention that Lonnie helped carry the body. This doesn't
(12:47):
mean he didn't help, only that there's no record of it.
Lonnie maintains that up until the fall of twenty twenty one,
when the FBI called him, no one from law enforcement
had spoke to him since the day he found Tammy's body.
What did they want from you? They just wanted to
interview me and talk to me and blood. They took
(13:09):
us DNA sample And how did they do that? Dwamam
mouth and why did they say they needed that? They
said they're trying to eliminate everybody from being a suspect.
And he said, we know that she touched the blanket.
We know that. But he said that any DNA that
would be found on her body or her clothes, they
(13:29):
would be tested against. And since that day, I've never
heard anything Roman. The fact that this meeting between Lonnie
and the FBI occurred relatively recently says so much. For one,
the FBI took Linny's DNA because they believe his story
or like me, couldn't rule out the possibility that he
(13:51):
helped move Tammy's body. Also that the Bureau is making
another run at testing old DNA from Tammy's clothing, her body,
the blanket, or any additional evidence found at the scene
and collected throughout the investigation. They said, we've done got
(14:11):
stuff from their families, so DNA from their families. So
they when they'd come and talk to me, he is
probably on you on the list of people to talk to.
And they said that it that's all they really needed.
It seems to me that law enforcement is trying to
(14:34):
produce a match, rule out anyone who could have inadvertently
left DNA at the scene, or potentially build a genealogy database.
What's more, the FBI has had Lonnie Dumott's DNA for
a year and a half and has not made any
moves to arrest him. The FBI and ISP won't comment
(14:55):
on an active investigation, but likely if Lonnie was their guy,
he'd be locked up by now. And so they took
to DNA And how did you feel about that? Oh,
it didn't bother me because I mean, I know I
wasn't part of it, but they got eliminate everybody. And
I figured that, you know, I could have been a
(15:16):
crap head and said no, I'm not gonna do it,
you know. But like I told him this, he's just
way to just involve me from what you're doing is
to give you a DNA sample. Like many others in
this story, Lonnie Dumont's integrity has been questioned. I spoke
(15:37):
to a source who claimed Lonnie once gave an interview
to a major media outlet and scared the reporter so
much that they wondered if he was confessing to Tammy's murder.
It makes sense to be initially suspicious of Lonnie Dumont.
He found the body, and he hesitated about calling it in.
(15:57):
He then offered to help move it, almost guaranteeing some
of his DNA would be left at the scene. But
in the end, as far as Lonnie Dumott is concerned,
I have found zero evidence that he had anything to
do with Tammy's a wiki's abduction or murder. Two thousand
(16:29):
and two marked the tenth anniversary of Tammy's death. The
FBI offered a fifty thousand dollars reward for any information
leading to the arrest and conviction and Tammy's kidnapping and murder.
The milestone also led to an onslaught of media coverage,
which in turn provided newly retired ISP investigator Marty McCarthy
(16:52):
a platform to voice his opinions. All the airtime in
print space that the media gave to Marty's theories about
the eyewitnesses claims regarding Lonnie beer Brod were hard to ignore,
which is why I think the IP and FBI decided
to make a few moves. As the agent in charge,
(17:13):
this was, you know, this case kind of came to
me with the press guy saying, hey, you know, the
news media wants to do something on this thing. Thomas
Kanner was the special Agent in charge of one of
the FBI's Southern field offices. He was tasked with interviewing
Lonnie beer Brodd's ex wife. At that ten year mark,
(17:34):
he still seemed to be the most logical guy, you know,
And so I said, get her an interviewer again. You know,
I know she's probably been interviewed multiple times for interviewer again,
and then CF she'll submit to a polygraphingstanding Lonnie beer
(17:58):
Brott had died by the time as ex wife to
the polygraph. If she had ever been afraid to speak
up before his death, there was no reason to protect
him any longer. And if anybody could get a confession
or do a polygraph, I mean I would put I
would put my money on this guy. All the places
(18:18):
I've been and all the polygraphers that I've had that worked,
you know, for me, this guy was by far the
dog best. Many might know that polygraphs are not allowed
as evidence in court, but the beauty of polygraphing beer
Brott's ex wife was that it wasn't for any sort
of court proceeding. It was to gauge whether she was
(18:40):
telling the truth about not having the green musical watch
and not having any knowledge of her ex husband's involvement
in Tammy's murder. The pre polygraph interview, which can be
far more in depth than the actual polygraph, also gave
the interviewer an opportunity to check her story for inconsistencies.
(19:03):
So I was waiting and waiting and waiting and and
and you know, when he does a polygraph, it's a
it's not a twenty minute operation. So he called me
later in the day and he said, well, it's probably
not what you want to hear. But I ran her
three times. I changed up the questions, you know, we
taught him. We spent hours on you know, the pretests
(19:26):
and just like I would on anything else. And my
estimation as she's telling the truth. Beer Brotzeck's wife also
spoke to the media around this time. In an interview
with the Courier Post newspaper, she stated that her husband
had never given her a musical watch and that she
(19:46):
was puzzled by the origin of the story. What's more,
she said, if she thought for one minute that he
had been involved in Tammy's abduction and murder, quote, I
would have gone straight to the police. Well I think,
you know, I mean, it's always easy to tell the truth,
(20:06):
right when you start making up stories, it'll change over time.
I mean, if you know, if I told you'll lie
today and you came back to me five years later
and asked me, Hey, you know, Tom, you know you
know ask me the same question, I may not respond
the same way. Right, you might change one little thing.
How often do people get interviewed by either the Illinois
(20:31):
State Please, the Missouri the Highway Patrol world it was
investigetting down there, or the FBI. I mean, that's probably
for most people. Unless you're just a criminal, it's probably
a one time event in your life. You would think
that story would be easy to recite over and over
and over again, much like the ESP and FBI. Back
(20:55):
in two thousand and two, I felt I needed to
speak to Lonnie beer Brott's ex wife, but all my attempts, calls, messages,
even doorknocks went unanswered. My associate producer did manage to
make contact in late twenty twenty two. Lonnie beer Brottzeck's
wife wasn't in a hurry to get off the phone,
though she did ultimately decline to be interviewed for the podcast.
(21:21):
I have no reason not to believe her. It's also
not her obligation to make anyone believe her. She's a
private citizen who's already spoken to police and the media
about what she knows. As for Tammy's watch, the watch
is still missing. The watches is still out there. It's
(21:41):
still among the list of items that would connect someone
to this investigation. Jeff Padilla was a young detective with
the Illinois State Police in nineteen ninety two, the year
Tammy was murdered. He was familiar with the case, but
wouldn't get involved until twenty twelve, when he became squad
(22:05):
supervisor over a group of detectives working missing persons and
murder cases in the region. That time, the case was
a bit installed and there hadn't been what I thought
was an appropriate amount of movement on it. So I
assigned myself in a number of other of my detectives
(22:27):
to go back and look at the investigation from the
very beginning. That meant reinterviewing old witnesses and reviewing the
many theories that had gotten attention over the years. There
was a time where in the heart of this second
like real push in this investigation, where we were getting
a lot of mediate inquiries and there was a lot
(22:48):
of physical evidence that had never been analyzed. As for
Marty's eyewitness, the woman whose claims fueled rampant speculation about
Annie beer Brot and created a narrative about the whereabouts
of Tammy's watch. Padilla says her story never passed the
(23:09):
smell test. Yeah, that was completely false. And the way
that she identified Lonnie beer Brod was she was going
by on the interstate in the opposite direction while doing
seventy five miles an hour, which I take witness identification
with a huge grain of salt, and it has to
be backed up with evidence. Even more important is the
(23:32):
fact that her story about seeing Lonnie bear Brott's wife
wearing a watch similar to Tammy's was nowhere in her
initial statements the police. By the time she had told
Marty McCarthy her version of events ten years later, the
information about Tammy's watch had already been made public. So
then Lonnie beer Brod suddenly became a very heavy focus
(23:55):
of the investigation. You know, he voluntarily came in and
gave blood and DNA samples, and since then we know
that he was not our offender in this case. Lonnie
beer Brot was eliminated from our investigation as a suspect.
Padilla says, that Lonnie beer Brott had been ruled out
through DNA and blood analysis as early as nineteen ninety three.
(24:19):
How did Marty not know about this? He wasn't working
the case, but as an ISP investigator, it's surprising he'd
be completely kept out of the loop. He was not
was not involved in overall investigative decisions or command decisions
with regard to the investigation. He alone perpetuated the Lonnie
(24:40):
beer Brot sort of fantasy as a suspect because he
was not aware of and rightfully so, he was no
longer part of the investigation, so he wasn't aware that
Lonnie had been eliminated. I respect Marty McCarthy's public service
and his work as a active His many achievements speak
(25:02):
for themselves. But I was going to have to go
back to him at some point, provide him with what
I had developed, and allow him a chance to speak
to it. Jeff Padilla and the Illinois State Police bear
some responsibility. More than twenty years after clearing Lonnie bear
Brought as a suspect in Tammy Ziwiki's murder, he was
(25:24):
quoted in a news article describing beer Brought as quote
someone who remains a person of interest because of some
of the circumstantial information surrounding him end quote. Why did
investigators allow Lonnie's name to be dragged through the mud
for decades? I mean he remained at an option because
(25:45):
the DNA. Certainly that was when DNA was in infancy.
Many of the tests were entrusted. As Padilla explained, even
with his new team of investigators re examining the case files,
not much progress was made in the investigation. So in
twenty fourteen, law enforcement decided to try a different approach.
(26:09):
We weren't going to narrow our investigation based on our
preconceived notions, and that's why, you know, ultimately it was
really really beneficial to us to take the investigation to
the VDOX Society in Philadelphia. The VDOX Society is an
elite group of experts in the criminology field, ranging from
(26:30):
federal agents to forensic pathologists. Their work is pro bono,
so there's a limited number of cases they can take
on each year. Tammy's was one of them. We got
a lot from them, and in fact, the direction we
went thereafter was because of the information we had received
(26:52):
from the VDOX Society. Eugene Francois Vidac was a nineteenth
century Frenchman and world renowned detective. He got a start
as a criminal before becoming an informant and eventually an agent.
(27:14):
His admirers included three forensic experts who founded the VDC
Society in nineteen ninety and named it in his honor.
Each month, experts from all fields of criminology meet to
go through cases presented by police departments from across the country.
The VDC Society agreeing to look at your case is
(27:34):
a huge deal and requires lengthy preparation. Investigators need to
go through every element of the case file, follow up
on outstanding leads, and make sure they're ready to present
and defend their work to VDC members. We were only
the second group from the Illinis State Police to ever
presented to the VDAX Society. Jeff Paedia says the group
(27:57):
helped change the IPS approach to Tammy's case. We were
had a number of dead ends until we we spoke
to the VDOC Society. They provided us with insight into,
for example, the wound pattern and evidence that were in
the crime, the autopsy photos, the group's theory about the
(28:18):
nature of tammy Stab wounds, piqued my interest. Several members
of law enforcement have told me the seven stab wounds
around Tammy's heart were not methodical. Members of the VDOX
Society had a different opinion, and sitting in a room
with you know, one hundred highly experienced scientists, forensic scientists, corners, detectives,
(28:41):
and psychiatrists and psychologists involved in criminal investigations, so that
that was pointed out to us that that was likely
there was a pattern to the stab wounds. The group
also had a different opinion about how long Tammy's body
had been out on the roadside before it was discovered.
Two people, Lonnie Dumott and a police source who helped
(29:03):
move Tammy's body back in nineteen ninety two, both claimed
that she appeared to be in an advanced state of decomposition.
The officer I spoke with even said that when he
went to help pick up the body bag, Tammy's body
nearly came apart. I mean that may have been his impression,
but she was not. No, she was not that decomposed.
(29:24):
Like that's some of the misinformation that's out there. One
of the real stumpers in the investigation was that, you know,
she was missing for all that time, but she was
not that decomposed. She was certainly recognizable. Padilla says he
and other investigators can't be exactly sure how long Tammy
was dead before she was discovered, nor can he officially
(29:47):
rule out one of the more wild theories in the case,
the idea that her body was kept in a refrigerated truck.
What he and many of his colleagues who are actively
working the case are an agreement about is that it's
unlikely that Tammy was on the roadway for days on end.
That remains an open question and something that we've struggled
(30:07):
with throughout the investigation. They did bring into the famous
forensic entomologists from Believe he's from the University of Indiana
and he went through He's the one that gave the
age of the of the of the flies to be
able to give us an idea how long she had
been out there, which also supported the fact that she
was not had not been out there very long. Based
(30:30):
on the life of a flight the blue bottle fly cycle,
it may have been a day or a day and
a half. Taking into account what the VDOC experts found.
One theory is that Tammy may have been kept a
life at least a week after her abduction. I never
mentioned that to missus Zwicky because I never wanted, you know,
my supposition. You know, it's bad enough what she had
(30:52):
gone through, and for me to suppose something like that
just because it's a possibility that didn't you know, I
never wanted to say that her until one hundred percent
knew that may have been the case. It's a deeply
troubling idea, though other evidence in the case does seem
to support the theory. You know, there was an analysis
(31:12):
of the food that was in her stomach, so we
know that she had a meal which we had the
receipts for, just before she broke down. Padilla is referring
to the Hearty's fast food chain where Tammy picked up
some lunch. Many have thought the fact that she had
undigested food in her stomach was a clear indicator she'd
been killed right away, but scientists who looked at the
(31:35):
case think it's possible that her parasympathetic system, the part
of the nervous system that controls things like rest and digestion,
was overwhelmed by the stress of the situation. More simply put,
her body was stuck in flight mode and unable to
do much else. Those same scientists also said they couldn't
(31:58):
rule out the possibility that Tammy's killer kept her somewhere
and fed her during that time period. So one of
the aspects was the food that had remained in her
stomach when her body was recovered. So you would think
a meal that you ate today is going to be
completely digested nine days from hour seven days from hour
five days, really, you know within you would think within
(32:21):
twenty four hours. However, we debated the timeline based on
when her body was recovered there was still undigested food
in her stomach, and so how to explain that. Investigators
like Padia have pushed back against the theory that Tammy's
body was in an advanced state of decomposition, but she
(32:43):
had been outside for a significant amount of time that
it was difficult to know exactly what happened. For example,
Padilla says it was almost impossible to tell whether Tammy
was sexually assaulted. It was something the esp did initially
look into in the nine but the technology wasn't as
advanced then as it is today, and there was an
(33:05):
initial positive positive indication for DNA on a vaginal swab
that was later determined to be a false positive. There
was never any seaman collected. There was never any seminal
fluid connected. I mean she was fully clothed, her T
shirt was on, her braws on, her panties were on correctly,
(33:27):
her shorts were on. There was no appearance of sexual assault.
Not that doesn't mean that there wasn't sexual activity. To me,
the question of whether or not Tammy's murder was a
sex crime could play a vital role in searching for
viable suspects. Quite often for the offender, sex crimes have
very little to do with our own ideas of traditional
(33:52):
sexual acts, and so we always had the potential that
this was a sex related and so that's always been
you know, been out there and then that, to my knowledge,
that remains possibility. The VDOX Society floated the theory that
Tammy could have been unconscious when she was stabbed, and
(34:14):
that the act of stabbing her was a way to
wake her up, like a sternam rub. And then and
then the one is the one is deep enough where
it's not in her sternum. It goes between between the
ribs and punctures her pericardial sack and she ends up
dying from that, And was there a toxicology report done,
(34:36):
any presence of any type of drugs in her system
that he could have used. Yeah, I mean we thought
about like if he used chloroform or something like that.
I believe we were told at the time that nothing
like that would have remained in her system. And it's
not like today's roof and all or or something more
powerful where it would stay in her system. Basically, the
(34:58):
chloroform was used through you know, through a soaked rag.
She would be knocked unconscious and then by the time
she woke up, all of that would be the chloroform
would be out of her system. A forensic psychiatrist told
me years ago that a knife can be what he
called a surrogate penis to compensate for sexual dysfunction. Yes,
(35:22):
we we also thought that the puncture that killed Tammy
may have been inadvertent in the process, so that the
series of stab wounds in the center of her chest,
which were all very close. It was the size of
a pipe plate. So if somebody's fighting, you're not going
(35:45):
to get you know, shallow depth stab wounds in a
pipe plate, right, you know, if I'm trying to stab you.
You're gonna be fighting back. You're gonna get stabbed in
the hand, in the arm and the forearm and the
elbow and the you know, in the your bicep, your
trisep I'm maybe going to get you in the chest.
But these were, you know, so these were very different.
(36:08):
Padia says. The information from the Vdox Society changed the
ISP's direction of the case. The group helped them identify
new pools of suspects and more importantly, potential new sources
of DNA which they could go on to test and
use to create genealogical profiles, and as often as the
(36:32):
case with active investigations, new developments are ongoing for the
ISP and for myself. After hearing the first couple episodes
from this season, a detective from a neighboring town from
where Tammy went missing contacted me with information if you
(36:53):
had heard along with a new suspect, someone who checked
nearly every box and Tammy's a Wiki's murder and was
found in possession of what some may call a trophy.
(37:14):
On the next episode of Paper Ghosts, the body was
it's obviously signs of you know, just brutal almost like
a tortuous saying that he had did her. It was
she was bound in duct tape. A couple of local
FBI agents came to my house and took a DNA
swab for me. I first called Joanne and we have
(37:36):
this discussion about this is our one shot. You know,
we may not get it again if we agree to
do this. If you are enjoying Paper Ghosts, please listen
to my other podcast, Crossing the Line with m William Phelps,
where I use the same storytelling elements you've heard in
Paper Ghosts and cover missing person and murder cases. Paper
(37:59):
Ghosts is written and executive produced by me and William
Phelps and iHeart executive producer Christina Everett. Additional writing by
our supervising producer Julia Weaver. Our associate producer is Darby Masters,
Audio editing and mixing by Christian Bowman and Abu Zafar.
(38:22):
Our series theme number four four two is written and
performed by Thomas Phelps and Tom Mullen. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Paper Ghosts is a production of iHeartRadio. Throughout the decades
I've been covering true crime, I've looked into more than
a hundred missing persons and murder cases. I've interviewed scores
of law enforcement victims, families, even killers themselves, all to
gain a better understanding of how investigations are handled and
(00:24):
the tools law enforcement used to develop information and solve crimes.
Much has changed over the years, but in the past
decade or so, I've witnessed a major shift, one that
I hadn't anticipated, the emergence of a new group of investigators, citizens, sleuths.
(00:46):
And nowhere is that phenomenon more obvious than in Tammy
Zuwiki's case. Oh there was all kinds of stories, you know,
You'd read that she was picked up by a stranger,
some guy in a truck stopped to help her, another
guy in a pickup truck. Patrick Jones is the founder
(01:06):
of the Who Killed Tammy's a Wicki Facebook group, a
passionate collection of Tammy's friends, family members, true crime buffs,
and citizen investigators. Well, the Facebook page it grew like
you wouldn't believe. I mean, I was just hoping, Oh,
maybe we'll get one hundred people, two hundred people, and
(01:27):
I think today I'm trying to look at it right now,
We've got over four thousand members on there. Patrick started
the Facebook group in two thousand and nine. He didn't
know Tammy, but was drawn to her story and sometimes
had a picture of Tammy on the front page. And
I looked at her and I was thinking, I got
a daughter about the same age. While working my way
(01:49):
through Tammy's case, I felt that the group warranted a
closer look. For what it's worth, I'm not a fan
of online sleuthing. Citizen sleuths have the power to shift
the narrative in a case. They can interfere with investigations
accused innocent people of a crime. More than anything, though,
(02:10):
they can inject themselves into someone else's story, and for
better or worse, some members of the who Killed Tammy
Ziwiki Facebook group have succeeded in doing just that. Another
article came out like thirteen, fourteen years ago whatever it
was about Tammy's case, and I was reading it and
then I said, you know what, maybe I'll put something
(02:31):
on Facebook. I'll offer a reward, you know, I think
I put a thousand dollars reward or something. Today Patrick
works as a firearms instructor and an engineer at the
Forest Preserves. Before that, he worked part time as a
police lieutenant in a village outside Chicago. We had like
four or five members, which they were all police officers.
(02:53):
All the guys at the police department jumped down right away,
you know, as a favorite, so I could build it
a little and then alone came Robert. Robert was hugely
instrumental in developing the website with Me or Facebook page.
Robert cut Lark is someone I met in the earliest
(03:15):
days of my investigation. You might remember him from the
first episode. He's the archaeologist who grew up a town
over from Tammy in New Jersey and has developed a
close friendship with Joanne Ziwiki over the years. Like Patrick,
he's also an administrator of the Facebook group. He's dug
up so much stuff it's unbelievable. On our Facebook page,
(03:38):
We've got a file section that's just phenomenal. You could
go through there and read everything about who they've investigated
over the years, who they've ruled out. And Robert's been
in contact with the all the various agencies that have
been helping out FBI, State Police and what have you.
A lot of good has come from the Facebook group.
(04:01):
Several of Tammy's old friends and peers are members, which
made it easy to reach out to them for this podcast.
Patrick and Robert were also immensely helpful in the earliest
days of my research, provided me with documents and valuable contacts.
More than anything, the Who Killed Tammy Zowiki Facebook group
(04:22):
provides a real sense of community for those morning Tammy
time and again. I was struck by the effort folks
like Robert and Patrick put into keeping Tammy's story alive
and finding ways to honor her memory. Mostly, we're talking
about decent people with good intentions. They want to help
(04:44):
and they genuinely care about the Ziwiki family. But good
intentions are often not enough, and in this case, the
Facebook group can sometimes become a place where speculation and
conspiracy is allowed to exist and ultimately cast out on
innocent people. When you started the page, were you getting tips? Yeah?
(05:08):
We actually we were getting What was the first big
major tip that you got? The biggest thing we ever
got was that what the hell's his name? The guy
didn't find a body? Uh Lonnie Dumot Lonnie Damot previously
(05:29):
on Paper Ghosts. He came in. He was posting like
a son of a bitch, and then people were all
of a sudden, everybody was asking questions like you wouldn't believe.
I think he wanted to confess to something. In my
opinion that he wants to say, Hey, here's what happened.
Do you remember the type of watch she was wearing?
And did the watch play that song ranging Jane Jobs
(05:50):
came falling on my head she was wearing that watch. Yeah,
I've done this long time, and I just thought, well, bingle,
how many coincidence gonna be here? My name MM William Phelps.
I'm an investigative journalist an author of more than forty
true crime books. This is season three of Paper Ghosts
In plain Sight. There has been a cloud of suspicion
(06:30):
lingering over Lonnie Dumont since the day he discovered Tammy's body. Lonnie,
you may recall, is the repairman from Missouri who stopped
his truck to cover his tools back in September of
nineteen ninety two and stumbled upon Tammy's body. Like many
of those interested in Tammy's case, Lonnie joined the Facebook
(06:53):
group in twenty twenty and began answering questions from its members.
Lonnie dum he got on and he just started acting goofy,
putting all kinds of stuff out, and we've got screenshots
of everything that he put out, and he's just to me,
it seems a little weird with him. Like Patrick, Robert
(07:14):
Cutlaric is suspicious of Lonnie Dumot, though for different reasons.
In his view, Lonnie has given varying accounts of how
and why he came upon Tammy's body. The reasons given
for him coming off the highway depends on what source
you read. The earliest reference was that he had stopped
(07:35):
to relieve himself. Later, in nineteen ninety three, with the
publication of the People magazine article, it says that, and
this is coming from the man himself, Lonnie Dumot, that
he pulled over because he wanted to cover up the
tools in the back of his vehicle. Now fast forward
(07:55):
to twenty twenty one. People May Magazine did a television
production on Tammy's case. They interviewed mister Dumont, and mister
Dumott said that he got out of his vehicle to
move his tools into the cabin the vehicle, so we
have some discrepancies as to what actually was going on there.
(08:19):
Robert says he doesn't know the origin of the story
about Lonnie Dumot's stopping to relieve himself. Neither did Lonnie
when I asked him about it last summer. There's another
report of you said you stopped to take a piss,
did you, No, I stopped to get my tools out
of the back of the truck. There has been a
(08:39):
lot of energy focused on Lonnie Dumont's recollections from that day,
some of which were made nearly thirty years after the fact,
among them the order in which Lonnie and the state
trooper handled Tammy's body. The original story, as heard from
mister Dumot, was that the police officer was squeamish and
(09:05):
was nervous about cutting open the blanket, and Lonnie volunteered
to do it for him, and he says that he
cut the blanket open and the officer was the one
who cut the sheet. However, he posted on Facebook in
a comment the opposite that the officer cut the blanket
(09:30):
and he cut the sheet. I mentioned all this not
to discredit anyone, but rather to show the ways in
which cybersleuthing can become problematic. You can't speculate that a
guy might be guilty of murder because of a spotty
recollection from thirty years ago. Lonnie has a vested interest
(09:51):
in the case, and his presence in the Facebook group
does not strike me as suspicious in any way. Whatsoever
he found Tammy's body, it makes sense why he'd want
to see what was going on with the case. Regardless,
there are those who continue to believe that Lonnie's involvement
at the crime scene was intentional, a stealthy way to
(10:15):
account for his DNA being left at the scene. So
your gut is that he's got something to do with it.
I honestly think that. Yes, I don't think that he's
been rolled out, you know, by the law enforcement, but
I think he's got something to do it. It's just
too coincidental. As it turns out, law enforcement would make
(10:38):
an effort to rule Lonnie Dumot out as a suspect. Hi,
mister Dumont money and is with the FBI at a
job in Missouri. And when you have an opportunity that
you please Lonnie, says a case agent from one of
the FBI's Missouri field offices reached out in twenty twenty
one to get his version of events and also request
(10:58):
a sample of his DNA. He says, the first time
he listened to that voicemail, he thought it was a joke.
I thought that this guy was one of my buddies
calling me doing a prank. But it wasn't. It actually was.
When I called him back, he said, I'm I'm out
at the FBI at Joplin. There's a guy, an investigator
(11:20):
doing an investigation out of Chicago. And he said, I'm
doing this interview for him. And then when I met him,
I met him in a little restaurant and there was
two of them come out and I'm sitting there and
they come in and he said that that he was
gonna talk to me, and this other guy sat right
(11:42):
by us, and all he did was watched me. He
must have been a profiler. And they sat there and
talked to me for all quite a while and asked
me different questions and like what what kind of question? Well,
they asked me about just pretty much about what you've
asked me. And he said that anything that I if
I remembering thing, call him and that would relay the
(12:03):
message to the guy in Chicago. I've spoken to Lonnie
on several occasions, mainly to hear him tell his story
multiple times. Time and again. I found his version of
events to be consistent and entirely plausible. I also learned
(12:25):
from the Lawrence County Sheriff's office that Lonnie was mentioned
in their crime scene report. It noted that he was
a volunteer fireman at the time, which makes sense why
he would have been asked to assist in moving Tammy's
body out of the gulch. That same report, however, did
not mention that Lonnie helped carry the body. This doesn't
(12:47):
mean he didn't help, only that there's no record of it.
Lonnie maintains that up until the fall of twenty twenty one,
when the FBI called him, no one from law enforcement
had spoke to him since the day he found Tammy's body.
What did they want from you? They just wanted to
interview me and talk to me and blood. They took
(13:09):
us DNA sample And how did they do that? Dwamam
mouth and why did they say they needed that? They
said they're trying to eliminate everybody from being a suspect.
And he said, we know that she touched the blanket.
We know that. But he said that any DNA that
would be found on her body or her clothes, they
(13:29):
would be tested against. And since that day, I've never
heard anything Roman. The fact that this meeting between Lonnie
and the FBI occurred relatively recently says so much. For one,
the FBI took Linny's DNA because they believe his story
or like me, couldn't rule out the possibility that he
(13:51):
helped move Tammy's body. Also that the Bureau is making
another run at testing old DNA from Tammy's clothing, her body,
the blanket, or any additional evidence found at the scene
and collected throughout the investigation. They said, we've done got
(14:11):
stuff from their families, so DNA from their families. So
they when they'd come and talk to me, he is
probably on you on the list of people to talk to.
And they said that it that's all they really needed.
It seems to me that law enforcement is trying to
(14:34):
produce a match, rule out anyone who could have inadvertently
left DNA at the scene, or potentially build a genealogy database.
What's more, the FBI has had Lonnie Dumott's DNA for
a year and a half and has not made any
moves to arrest him. The FBI and ISP won't comment
(14:55):
on an active investigation, but likely if Lonnie was their guy,
he'd be locked up by now. And so they took
to DNA And how did you feel about that? Oh,
it didn't bother me because I mean, I know I
wasn't part of it, but they got eliminate everybody. And
I figured that, you know, I could have been a
(15:16):
crap head and said no, I'm not gonna do it,
you know. But like I told him this, he's just
way to just involve me from what you're doing is
to give you a DNA sample. Like many others in
this story, Lonnie Dumont's integrity has been questioned. I spoke
(15:37):
to a source who claimed Lonnie once gave an interview
to a major media outlet and scared the reporter so
much that they wondered if he was confessing to Tammy's murder.
It makes sense to be initially suspicious of Lonnie Dumont.
He found the body, and he hesitated about calling it in.
(15:57):
He then offered to help move it, almost guaranteeing some
of his DNA would be left at the scene. But
in the end, as far as Lonnie Dumott is concerned,
I have found zero evidence that he had anything to
do with Tammy's a wiki's abduction or murder. Two thousand
(16:29):
and two marked the tenth anniversary of Tammy's death. The
FBI offered a fifty thousand dollars reward for any information
leading to the arrest and conviction and Tammy's kidnapping and murder.
The milestone also led to an onslaught of media coverage,
which in turn provided newly retired ISP investigator Marty McCarthy
(16:52):
a platform to voice his opinions. All the airtime in
print space that the media gave to Marty's theories about
the eyewitnesses claims regarding Lonnie beer Brod were hard to ignore,
which is why I think the IP and FBI decided
to make a few moves. As the agent in charge,
(17:13):
this was, you know, this case kind of came to
me with the press guy saying, hey, you know, the
news media wants to do something on this thing. Thomas
Kanner was the special Agent in charge of one of
the FBI's Southern field offices. He was tasked with interviewing
Lonnie beer Brodd's ex wife. At that ten year mark,
(17:34):
he still seemed to be the most logical guy, you know,
And so I said, get her an interviewer again. You know,
I know she's probably been interviewed multiple times for interviewer again,
and then CF she'll submit to a polygraphingstanding Lonnie beer
(17:58):
Brott had died by the time as ex wife to
the polygraph. If she had ever been afraid to speak
up before his death, there was no reason to protect
him any longer. And if anybody could get a confession
or do a polygraph, I mean I would put I
would put my money on this guy. All the places
(18:18):
I've been and all the polygraphers that I've had that worked,
you know, for me, this guy was by far the
dog best. Many might know that polygraphs are not allowed
as evidence in court, but the beauty of polygraphing beer
Brott's ex wife was that it wasn't for any sort
of court proceeding. It was to gauge whether she was
(18:40):
telling the truth about not having the green musical watch
and not having any knowledge of her ex husband's involvement
in Tammy's murder. The pre polygraph interview, which can be
far more in depth than the actual polygraph, also gave
the interviewer an opportunity to check her story for inconsistencies.
(19:03):
So I was waiting and waiting and waiting and and
and you know, when he does a polygraph, it's a
it's not a twenty minute operation. So he called me
later in the day and he said, well, it's probably
not what you want to hear. But I ran her
three times. I changed up the questions, you know, we
taught him. We spent hours on you know, the pretests
(19:26):
and just like I would on anything else. And my
estimation as she's telling the truth. Beer Brotzeck's wife also
spoke to the media around this time. In an interview
with the Courier Post newspaper, she stated that her husband
had never given her a musical watch and that she
(19:46):
was puzzled by the origin of the story. What's more,
she said, if she thought for one minute that he
had been involved in Tammy's abduction and murder, quote, I
would have gone straight to the police. Well I think,
you know, I mean, it's always easy to tell the truth,
(20:06):
right when you start making up stories, it'll change over time.
I mean, if you know, if I told you'll lie
today and you came back to me five years later
and asked me, Hey, you know, Tom, you know you
know ask me the same question, I may not respond
the same way. Right, you might change one little thing.
How often do people get interviewed by either the Illinois
(20:31):
State Please, the Missouri the Highway Patrol world it was
investigetting down there, or the FBI. I mean, that's probably
for most people. Unless you're just a criminal, it's probably
a one time event in your life. You would think
that story would be easy to recite over and over
and over again, much like the ESP and FBI. Back
(20:55):
in two thousand and two, I felt I needed to
speak to Lonnie beer Brott's ex wife, but all my attempts, calls, messages,
even doorknocks went unanswered. My associate producer did manage to
make contact in late twenty twenty two. Lonnie beer Brottzeck's
wife wasn't in a hurry to get off the phone,
though she did ultimately decline to be interviewed for the podcast.
(21:21):
I have no reason not to believe her. It's also
not her obligation to make anyone believe her. She's a
private citizen who's already spoken to police and the media
about what she knows. As for Tammy's watch, the watch
is still missing. The watches is still out there. It's
(21:41):
still among the list of items that would connect someone
to this investigation. Jeff Padilla was a young detective with
the Illinois State Police in nineteen ninety two, the year
Tammy was murdered. He was familiar with the case, but
wouldn't get involved until twenty twelve, when he became squad
(22:05):
supervisor over a group of detectives working missing persons and
murder cases in the region. That time, the case was
a bit installed and there hadn't been what I thought
was an appropriate amount of movement on it. So I
assigned myself in a number of other of my detectives
(22:27):
to go back and look at the investigation from the
very beginning. That meant reinterviewing old witnesses and reviewing the
many theories that had gotten attention over the years. There
was a time where in the heart of this second
like real push in this investigation, where we were getting
a lot of mediate inquiries and there was a lot
(22:48):
of physical evidence that had never been analyzed. As for
Marty's eyewitness, the woman whose claims fueled rampant speculation about
Annie beer Brot and created a narrative about the whereabouts
of Tammy's watch. Padilla says her story never passed the
(23:09):
smell test. Yeah, that was completely false. And the way
that she identified Lonnie beer Brod was she was going
by on the interstate in the opposite direction while doing
seventy five miles an hour, which I take witness identification
with a huge grain of salt, and it has to
be backed up with evidence. Even more important is the
(23:32):
fact that her story about seeing Lonnie bear Brott's wife
wearing a watch similar to Tammy's was nowhere in her
initial statements the police. By the time she had told
Marty McCarthy her version of events ten years later, the
information about Tammy's watch had already been made public. So
then Lonnie beer Brod suddenly became a very heavy focus
(23:55):
of the investigation. You know, he voluntarily came in and
gave blood and DNA samples, and since then we know
that he was not our offender in this case. Lonnie
beer Brot was eliminated from our investigation as a suspect.
Padilla says, that Lonnie beer Brott had been ruled out
through DNA and blood analysis as early as nineteen ninety three.
(24:19):
How did Marty not know about this? He wasn't working
the case, but as an ISP investigator, it's surprising he'd
be completely kept out of the loop. He was not
was not involved in overall investigative decisions or command decisions
with regard to the investigation. He alone perpetuated the Lonnie
(24:40):
beer Brot sort of fantasy as a suspect because he
was not aware of and rightfully so, he was no
longer part of the investigation, so he wasn't aware that
Lonnie had been eliminated. I respect Marty McCarthy's public service
and his work as a active His many achievements speak
(25:02):
for themselves. But I was going to have to go
back to him at some point, provide him with what
I had developed, and allow him a chance to speak
to it. Jeff Padilla and the Illinois State Police bear
some responsibility. More than twenty years after clearing Lonnie bear
Brought as a suspect in Tammy Ziwiki's murder, he was
(25:24):
quoted in a news article describing beer Brought as quote
someone who remains a person of interest because of some
of the circumstantial information surrounding him end quote. Why did
investigators allow Lonnie's name to be dragged through the mud
for decades? I mean he remained at an option because
(25:45):
the DNA. Certainly that was when DNA was in infancy.
Many of the tests were entrusted. As Padilla explained, even
with his new team of investigators re examining the case files,
not much progress was made in the investigation. So in
twenty fourteen, law enforcement decided to try a different approach.
(26:09):
We weren't going to narrow our investigation based on our
preconceived notions, and that's why, you know, ultimately it was
really really beneficial to us to take the investigation to
the VDOX Society in Philadelphia. The VDOX Society is an
elite group of experts in the criminology field, ranging from
(26:30):
federal agents to forensic pathologists. Their work is pro bono,
so there's a limited number of cases they can take
on each year. Tammy's was one of them. We got
a lot from them, and in fact, the direction we
went thereafter was because of the information we had received
(26:52):
from the VDOX Society. Eugene Francois Vidac was a nineteenth
century Frenchman and world renowned detective. He got a start
as a criminal before becoming an informant and eventually an agent.
(27:14):
His admirers included three forensic experts who founded the VDC
Society in nineteen ninety and named it in his honor.
Each month, experts from all fields of criminology meet to
go through cases presented by police departments from across the country.
The VDC Society agreeing to look at your case is
(27:34):
a huge deal and requires lengthy preparation. Investigators need to
go through every element of the case file, follow up
on outstanding leads, and make sure they're ready to present
and defend their work to VDC members. We were only
the second group from the Illinis State Police to ever
presented to the VDAX Society. Jeff Paedia says the group
(27:57):
helped change the IPS approach to Tammy's case. We were
had a number of dead ends until we we spoke
to the VDOC Society. They provided us with insight into,
for example, the wound pattern and evidence that were in
the crime, the autopsy photos, the group's theory about the
(28:18):
nature of tammy Stab wounds, piqued my interest. Several members
of law enforcement have told me the seven stab wounds
around Tammy's heart were not methodical. Members of the VDOX
Society had a different opinion, and sitting in a room
with you know, one hundred highly experienced scientists, forensic scientists, corners, detectives,
(28:41):
and psychiatrists and psychologists involved in criminal investigations, so that
that was pointed out to us that that was likely
there was a pattern to the stab wounds. The group
also had a different opinion about how long Tammy's body
had been out on the roadside before it was discovered.
Two people, Lonnie Dumott and a police source who helped
(29:03):
move Tammy's body back in nineteen ninety two, both claimed
that she appeared to be in an advanced state of decomposition.
The officer I spoke with even said that when he
went to help pick up the body bag, Tammy's body
nearly came apart. I mean that may have been his impression,
but she was not. No, she was not that decomposed.
(29:24):
Like that's some of the misinformation that's out there. One
of the real stumpers in the investigation was that, you know,
she was missing for all that time, but she was
not that decomposed. She was certainly recognizable. Padilla says he
and other investigators can't be exactly sure how long Tammy
was dead before she was discovered, nor can he officially
(29:47):
rule out one of the more wild theories in the case,
the idea that her body was kept in a refrigerated truck.
What he and many of his colleagues who are actively
working the case are an agreement about is that it's
unlikely that Tammy was on the roadway for days on end.
That remains an open question and something that we've struggled
(30:07):
with throughout the investigation. They did bring into the famous
forensic entomologists from Believe he's from the University of Indiana
and he went through He's the one that gave the
age of the of the of the flies to be
able to give us an idea how long she had
been out there, which also supported the fact that she
was not had not been out there very long. Based
(30:30):
on the life of a flight the blue bottle fly cycle,
it may have been a day or a day and
a half. Taking into account what the VDOC experts found.
One theory is that Tammy may have been kept a
life at least a week after her abduction. I never
mentioned that to missus Zwicky because I never wanted, you know,
my supposition. You know, it's bad enough what she had
(30:52):
gone through, and for me to suppose something like that
just because it's a possibility that didn't you know, I
never wanted to say that her until one hundred percent
knew that may have been the case. It's a deeply
troubling idea, though other evidence in the case does seem
to support the theory. You know, there was an analysis
(31:12):
of the food that was in her stomach, so we
know that she had a meal which we had the
receipts for, just before she broke down. Padilla is referring
to the Hearty's fast food chain where Tammy picked up
some lunch. Many have thought the fact that she had
undigested food in her stomach was a clear indicator she'd
been killed right away, but scientists who looked at the
(31:35):
case think it's possible that her parasympathetic system, the part
of the nervous system that controls things like rest and digestion,
was overwhelmed by the stress of the situation. More simply put,
her body was stuck in flight mode and unable to
do much else. Those same scientists also said they couldn't
(31:58):
rule out the possibility that Tammy's killer kept her somewhere
and fed her during that time period. So one of
the aspects was the food that had remained in her
stomach when her body was recovered. So you would think
a meal that you ate today is going to be
completely digested nine days from hour seven days from hour
five days, really, you know within you would think within
(32:21):
twenty four hours. However, we debated the timeline based on
when her body was recovered there was still undigested food
in her stomach, and so how to explain that. Investigators
like Padia have pushed back against the theory that Tammy's
body was in an advanced state of decomposition, but she
(32:43):
had been outside for a significant amount of time that
it was difficult to know exactly what happened. For example,
Padilla says it was almost impossible to tell whether Tammy
was sexually assaulted. It was something the esp did initially
look into in the nine but the technology wasn't as
advanced then as it is today, and there was an
(33:05):
initial positive positive indication for DNA on a vaginal swab
that was later determined to be a false positive. There
was never any seaman collected. There was never any seminal
fluid connected. I mean she was fully clothed, her T
shirt was on, her braws on, her panties were on correctly,
(33:27):
her shorts were on. There was no appearance of sexual assault.
Not that doesn't mean that there wasn't sexual activity. To me,
the question of whether or not Tammy's murder was a
sex crime could play a vital role in searching for
viable suspects. Quite often for the offender, sex crimes have
very little to do with our own ideas of traditional
(33:52):
sexual acts, and so we always had the potential that
this was a sex related and so that's always been
you know, been out there and then that, to my knowledge,
that remains possibility. The VDOX Society floated the theory that
Tammy could have been unconscious when she was stabbed, and
(34:14):
that the act of stabbing her was a way to
wake her up, like a sternam rub. And then and
then the one is the one is deep enough where
it's not in her sternum. It goes between between the
ribs and punctures her pericardial sack and she ends up
dying from that, And was there a toxicology report done,
(34:36):
any presence of any type of drugs in her system
that he could have used. Yeah, I mean we thought
about like if he used chloroform or something like that.
I believe we were told at the time that nothing
like that would have remained in her system. And it's
not like today's roof and all or or something more
powerful where it would stay in her system. Basically, the
(34:58):
chloroform was used through you know, through a soaked rag.
She would be knocked unconscious and then by the time
she woke up, all of that would be the chloroform
would be out of her system. A forensic psychiatrist told
me years ago that a knife can be what he
called a surrogate penis to compensate for sexual dysfunction. Yes,
(35:22):
we we also thought that the puncture that killed Tammy
may have been inadvertent in the process, so that the
series of stab wounds in the center of her chest,
which were all very close. It was the size of
a pipe plate. So if somebody's fighting, you're not going
(35:45):
to get you know, shallow depth stab wounds in a
pipe plate, right, you know, if I'm trying to stab you.
You're gonna be fighting back. You're gonna get stabbed in
the hand, in the arm and the forearm and the
elbow and the you know, in the your bicep, your
trisep I'm maybe going to get you in the chest.
But these were, you know, so these were very different.
(36:08):
Padia says. The information from the Vdox Society changed the
ISP's direction of the case. The group helped them identify
new pools of suspects and more importantly, potential new sources
of DNA which they could go on to test and
use to create genealogical profiles, and as often as the
(36:32):
case with active investigations, new developments are ongoing for the
ISP and for myself. After hearing the first couple episodes
from this season, a detective from a neighboring town from
where Tammy went missing contacted me with information if you
(36:53):
had heard along with a new suspect, someone who checked
nearly every box and Tammy's a Wiki's murder and was
found in possession of what some may call a trophy.
(37:14):
On the next episode of Paper Ghosts, the body was
it's obviously signs of you know, just brutal almost like
a tortuous saying that he had did her. It was
she was bound in duct tape. A couple of local
FBI agents came to my house and took a DNA
swab for me. I first called Joanne and we have
(37:36):
this discussion about this is our one shot. You know,
we may not get it again if we agree to
do this. If you are enjoying Paper Ghosts, please listen
to my other podcast, Crossing the Line with m William Phelps,
where I use the same storytelling elements you've heard in
Paper Ghosts and cover missing person and murder cases. Paper
(37:59):
Ghosts is written and executive produced by me and William
Phelps and iHeart executive producer Christina Everett. Additional writing by
our supervising producer Julia Weaver. Our associate producer is Darby Masters,
Audio editing and mixing by Christian Bowman and Abu Zafar.
(38:22):
Our series theme number four four two is written and
performed by Thomas Phelps and Tom Mullen. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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