Post by Scumhunter on May 13, 2014 9:00:43 GMT -5
More than 21 years have passed since Tammy Jo Zywicki's abduction made international news. It's been 20 years since the FBI and Illinois State Police shut down a 14-member task force that failed to find her killer.
So there's no question the slaying and sexual assault of the former Grinnell College student is a cold case. And now, retired Illinois Master Sgt. Martin McCarthy would like Illinois authorities to finally explain why they ruled out the suspect who he believes was the most promising — or if they didn't, why no grand jury was convened to hear evidence against that man.
"They've done nothing, in my view," said McCarthy, who served on the Zywicki investigative task force. "I don't want to criticize the state police or the FBI. ... But I think a mistake was made here in terms of not following through."
McCarthy wrote The Des Moines Register this month, saying the Illinois State Police appeared to give up on the suspect after the 20th anniversary of Zwyicki's death in 2012. He said Director Hiram Grau, appointed in 2011, showed an interest in the case and contacted him after anniversary media reports — but when investigators were shut down by an uncooperative witness in Florida, the trail appeared to run dry.
Zywicki, 21, a New Jersey native, was abducted Aug. 23, 1992, as she was driving back to begin her senior year in Grinnell. She had dropped her brother off at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and was headed west on Interstate Highway 80, in central Illinois near LaSalle, when her 1985 white Pontiac hatchback broke down.
Her petite body was found nine days later, about 500 miles away in a ditch off a stretch of Interstate Highway 44 between Springfield and Joplin, Mo. She had been stabbed eight times, raped and rolled up in a red blanket, sealed on both ends with duct tape.
The case — featured on CNN, Oprah and "America's Most Wanted" — triggered thousands of leads, including suspicion that convicted murderer and suspected highway serial killer Bruce Mendenhall could have been to blame.
But McCarthy, who retired in 2001, has spoken out publicly several times to offer compelling circumstantial evidence that a trucker ex-con with ties to both Illinois and Missouri should have been suspect No. 1.
That trucker has since died, but Zywicki's family still has no answers.
The evidence
The task force investigating Zywicki's death received a call from a nurse, who said she drove by Zywicki's car on the afternoon of the abduction and saw a man standing with her outside the hatchback, McCarthy said.
The nurse had been eastbound on I-80, taking her kids to Princeton, Ill., to get McDonald's Happy Meals that day. She knew the time because she had an appointment.
An investigator put a star next to the woman's lead, but no one called her back at the time, McCarthy said.
The nurse wasn't able to identify the man until months later when, by happenstance, he and his wife came into the LaSalle County Health Department in Ottawa for some blood work. While there, the wife showed the nurse a watch given to her by her husband that played music, McCarthy said.
It matched the description of a watch Zywicki was said to have with her when she vanished. It played "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head."
McCarthy said the nurse called the task force again, and he and his partner interviewed her that night. Her information led to Lonnie Bierbrodt, a convicted felon paroled in 1990.
Bierbrodt lived in Missouri, close to the stretch of highway where Zywicki's body was discovered. He drove a Kenworth truck, according to news reports, and the red blanket in which Zywicki's body was found had a Kenworth logo.
Bierbrodt, a LaSalle County native, confirmed to investigators that he'd been there, minutes from the spot on I-80 where Zywicki was last seen, on the day of the abduction. His brothers and mother lived in the Peru, Ill., area, and he'd been trying to get a job there, McCarthy said.
McCarthy, who lives in Wheaton, Ill., said he learned from the nurse and the task force that Bierbrodt had sold his truck a few days after Zywicki disappeared. The task force had searched the truck, McCarthy said, but it's unclear whether anything was found.
After Bierbrodt was questioned and swabbed for DNA, he was released, McCarthy said.
DNA tested?
Among the evidence collected in Zywicki's case: a tiny piece of DNA found on her clothes.
McCarthy said he doesn't know whether police ever compared Bierbrodt's DNA with that evidence, which he said was semen. FBI Special Agent Thomas Kneir, who was in charge of the agency's Chicago office, said in 2004 that the sample was tested again that year, and the DNA collected was of too poor of quality and too small. It wasn't enough to solve the case simply through science, he said.
Kneir also told a Chicago Tribune columnist then that a circle of evidence pointed to one suspect, but he couldn't get the "circle into a noose."
FBI special agent Joan Hyde in Chicago declined to discuss the evidence.
Around January 1993, McCarthy said, investigators questioned Bierbrodt but didn't get much because he seemed "demented."
Shortly after, McCarthy said the nurse told him that Bierbrodt and his brother showed up at her office, asking how police got Lonnie's name. It scared her.
"I called the state police and told them, and I think they finally did send (someone) to see her who said I shouldn't be involved," McCarthy said.
Bierbrodt died in June 2002. But the retired investigator said he's stayed in touch with Zywicki's now elderly mother, JoAnn, who along with her husband has been critical of the investigation.
McCarthy said Director Grau sent two detectives to Jacksonville, Fla., in October 2012 to interview Bierbrodt's ex-wife, Carrie Bierbrodt, but she wouldn't let them in the door. In news reports, she insisted her husband didn't commit the crime.
McCarthy said he's still pushing for a grand jury to get answers. He thinks the nurse and Bierbrodt's ex-wife could provide some answers.
I tried to reach Carrie Bierbrodt at one of the last phone numbers published for her in Florida, but the number was disconnected.
I was unable to reach the nurse. A co-worker at the LaSalle County Health Department said she left there years ago. A phone call to her home was not returned.
Media representatives for the Illinois State Police did not return messages.
Greg Sticka, chief deputy assistant in the LaSalle County state's attorney office, said he's not allowed to comment on open investigations, "even if it's a very cold one."
Thoughts? I looked up Bruce Mendenhall and although it makes sense in that he was from Illinois and he murdered women from truck stops, most of his victims were prostitutes, and Tammy Jo wasn't
There seems to be a lot more circumstantial evidence to support Detective McCarthy's Bierbrodt theory, but unfortunately it seems there is not enough to charge him at the moment.
I hope McCarthy is successful in getting a grand jury. Even though Bierbrodt is now deceased, it will help Tammy's family with closure if he's proven to have killed her. Just like it helped John Walsh and Reve to finally get the confirmation Ottis Toole was their son's killer.
Admin Note #1: Our advice for anyone with information in Tammy Jo Zywicki's murder would be to contact your local FBI office or the Illinois State Police. The number to the Chicago field office is 312-421-6700.
Admin Note #2: If you have any news-related updates on this case, please contact us here: amwfans.com/thread/1662/website-contact-form
www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/investigations/readers-watchdog/2014/05/11/tammy-jo-zywicki-murder-iowa-investigation-grinnell-college-student-retired-detective-focuses-suspect-truck-driver-dna-readers-watchdog/8959307/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Mendenhall
