TAMMY ZYWICKI: Who killed this Grinnell College senior in Iowa - August 1992

On a sweltering August day in 1992, Tammy Jo Zywicki dropped her younger brother off at Northwestern University in Illinois, and set out for Grinnell College in Iowa, excited for her senior year.

The 21-year-old never made it.

Hours after Tammy left the Chicago area and headed west toward Iowa on I-80, her white 1985 Pontiac 1000 hatchback was found abandoned on the side of the road, five miles east of LaSalle, Illinois.

Tammy — an upbeat, athletic, talented amateur photographer from Marlton, New Jersey — was nowhere to be found.

For nine days, her family, friends and the police looked for her.

Their desperate search ended on Sept. 1, when a driver spotted her body, wrapped in a blanket, on the side of a Missouri interstate.

"I was just numb," Tammy's mother, JoAnn Zywicki, now 78, tells PEOPLE about learning her daughter was dead. <more at link>

College Student Was Brutally Slain on Drive to Campus in 1992: Will DNA Advances Catch Her Killer?

The Tammy Zywicki murder case is the focus of the March 22 season premiere of <em>People Magazine Investigates</em>, airing at 10 ET/9 CT on Investigation Discovery and discovery+

people.com

An #IOWA college student went missing in 1992. Later, she was found murdered and wrapped in a blanket. Who killed her?

For nearly three decades, police have been hunting for answers about who killed Tammy and how her remains ended up 500 miles south from where she was last seen.

www.crimewatchers.net

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Remembering Tammy Zywicki `93

Tammy Jo Zywicki `93 never made it back to Grinnell. The date was Aug. 23, 1992. Zywicki, 21, was driving from Evanston, Illinois, to Grinnell College, where she was expected to arrive that evening. Hours later, her car was found along Interstate 80 (I-80) by an Illinois state trooper and...

thesandb.com

Remembering Tammy Zywicki `93​

33 years later, the Scarlet & Black revisits Tammy Zywicki’s story and her ties to the paper, with her murder still unsolved

Tammy Jo Zywicki `93 never made it back to Grinnell.

The date was Aug. 23, 1992. Zywicki, 21, was driving from Evanston, Illinois, to Grinnell College, where she was expected to arrive that evening. Hours later, her car was found along Interstate 80 (I-80) by an Illinois state trooper and ticketed for being abandoned. That same evening, her mother called the Illinois State Police to report her missing.

Nine days later, Zywicki’s lifeless body was found 500 miles away, along Interstate 44 in rural Lawrence County, Missouri.

Those details, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have been at the heart of an over-30-year-old cold case murder. Just last month, one of the most prominent suspects passed away, leaving the details surrounding Zywicki’s death still unknown.



The case has been featured on dozens of networks, including CNN, the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and “America’s Most Wanted.” Thousands of leads over the years raised suspicion about Bruce Mendenhall, a long-haul trucker later convicted of murder and suspected in a string of highway killings, who has since died and was considered a possible suspect.

Another possible suspect, Clark Perry Baldwin, a former Iowa truck driver and suspected serial killer, convicted in 2024 of a Tennessee murder and linked to two others in Wyoming, also died in prison last month before standing trial.

Multiple Scarlet & Black stories have been written about Zywicki’s death, including a piece about Women Take Back the Night, a long-standing annual march and vigil against sexual violence, which was held on Oct. 29 that year in her memory.


In a statement to The Scarlet & Black, Gabrielle Szlenkier, public affairs officer for the FBI’s Chicago office, which has been overseeing the case, said the bureau “continues to aggressively investigate this case along with the Illinois State Police until a positive resolution is reached.”

The statement encouraged anyone with information to come forward, even if they’re not certain of its value. Tips can be submitted online at tips.fbi.gov or by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI.

The FBI has offered a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the identification of the individual or individuals responsible for Zywicki’s murder.

Even as the case remains unsolved, Zywicki’s memory has never left Grinnell.

 

[Mel70]

Didn't she gave a pink umbrella watch?.