'People Magazine Investigates' Seeks To Solve 1992 Zywicki Murder

ILLINOIS — Tammy Zywicki, of Marlton, New Jersey, disappeared on an August night in 1992, somewhere between Evanston, Illinois, where her brother attended Northwestern University, and Grinnell, Iowa, where she attended college. Investigators hope a new show premiering Monday night might help them finally find her killer.

The 21-year-old woman was last seen alive on the side of Interstate 80 in LaSalle County, Illinois, where witnesses said either a tractor-trailer or pickup truck was parked behind her broken-down Pontiac T1000. Her body was found weeks later and 500 miles away, wrapped in a blanket along a rural stretch of Interstate 44 in Lawrence County, Missouri, between Joplin and Springfield. Police said she had been bound with duct tape, sexually assaulted and stabbed to death.

Zywicki's killer has gone free for nearly 30 years. But, investigators hope a new episode of "People Magazine Investigates," set to premier on Investigation Discovery and Discovery Plus Monday night at 9 p.m., may finally lead to a break in the case. The episode will air on Zywicki's 50th birthday.

"We have continued to work and will continue to work until [the case] gets solved,"Illinois State Police Lt. Jeff Padilla says in the episode, according to People.com. "I am optimistic that this case is going to be solved within the next year."

One suspect in Zywicki's murder, an Illinois trucker on parole for armed robbery at the time of her death, was said to have given his wife a watch matching one missing from Zywicki's body, according to the Northwest Indiana Times.

Also missing from Zywicki's body were a St. Giles Soccer Club patch and a Cannon 35 mm camera — in addition to the musical Lorus-brand wristwatch with a green umbrella on its face and a green band that played "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head."

Lonnie Bierbrodt died in 2002. Nevertheless, retired State Police investigator Marty McCarthy called him "a helluva suspect" in 2012.

Investigators have also looked at accused serial killer Clark Perry Baldwin, a long-haul trucker linked by DNA evidence to the murders of three other women around the same time, but they haven't found conclusive evidence linking him to Zywicki.

Police also haven't ruled out Bruce Mendenhall, an Illinois trucker accused of murdering women at truck stops across the country. He is now serving a life sentence for one such killing in Nashville, Tennessee.

The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the identification of Zywicki's killer. Anyone with information should call the Illinois State Police at 815-224-1171, email ISP.CRIMETIPS@illinois.gov, or the FBI's Chicago field office at 312-421-6700.