Remembering Tammy Zywicki

a case. In high school, Ye to Tammy Ziwiki's loved ones painted a beautiful picture of who she was, allowing me a glimpse into who she might have become. Because of time constraints, many of these stories didn't make it into the third season of Paper Ghosts, but I thought it would be a disservice if they went unheard, so I'm sharing them here to help us better understand the amazing young woman behind the headlines. That picture up there, that was taken at the beach we were or that

was our summer vacation. That's the whole family. How old is she there? Oh? I guess she was about baby sixteen or fifteen. Sixting she liked her long hair. Tammy Joseph Wicki was born on March thirteenth, nineteen seventy one, in pleasant Hill, Pennsylvania. Her mom, Joanne, describes her as a good natured, independent person who was rarely seen without her camera or her cat. Tell me about that picture there, that's her cat. She'd ever lived without a cat. She's

not one in their dorm room. She snuck a cat into it, yes, really yes, And did she ever get caught? Nope? And the one she's stuck in there, she managed to keep it in there because her best friend was the dorm monitor or whatever it was, and she wouldn't down. She was just a very young She was an easy corn person. Everyone I spoke with described Tammy as audacious while also being slightly rebellious, not to mention a lot of fun. She was the only daughter in a family

of six something. Her brother Todd thinks truly shaped who she was. Tammy was one of these sweet but also tough kind of girls. Right. The toughness, I think it's partly a personality, partly dealing with three brothers. But she was just a truly kind person who had really good friends. She was involved in music for a while. She did color guard in the band, played a lot of sports, but just a very fun, adventurous person who was open to new experiences, made friends easily, was a natural leader.

She actually, I think found her high school soccer team because she wanted to play soccer and they didn't have one, so she founded it. Became to co captain. When she was little, she used to play on boys teams, you know, until basically she got to high school and they creative girls team. God bless the woman who coached the team knew almost nothing about it. She had been the cheerleading coach. And I look back and I think we'll thank goodness

she had the energy to do this. Amanda Potts played soccer with Tammy at east Side High School in Taylor, South Carolina, a suburb of Greenville. The women's sports programs were still new when they attended, but Tammy, who played for years on wreck teams, was a standout. She was a fierce midfielder. She had endless energy. I learned what midfield meant by watching Tammy play, because she could really

make the plays happen. Amanda described Tammy as the opposite of a Southern bell, which she added got you noticed. In South Carolina in the mid eighties, we had to wear these short shorts. Oh my god. The team uniforms were yellow jerseys with like blue pinstripes and these blue shorts that barely covered anything. And the poor cheerleading coach now soccer coach, used to yell, manage your shorts, ladies, and Tammy thought that was hilarious. And I can remember

her teasing us, manage your shorts. Manage your shorts. Soccer was an important part of Tammy's life in high school. She also loved photography and became the yearbook photo editor, and her beloved thirty five millimeter camera was never far from her side. One thing is clear from the many stories or friends shared. Tammy liked to have fun. She enjoyed life. But in the midst of all these sweet

natured stories, a common thread came through. God. I remember a story about a time when she was walking down the hallway with a friend and a guy was sort of harassing him, and she turned around and just kind of ducked him. I don't know if she I think she just pushed him hard and he left them alone after that. How can you forget a girl who Again we're talking the mid to late nineteen eighties, and Tammy she knew what she was worth, do you know what I mean? Like she was not going to be harassed.

Within all that, Tammy had a mind of her own, and joe Anne explained she was fiercely driven. She rarely got caught up in any drama and instead stayed focused on her future. Well, she did very well with writing, writing with something that she from the time she was in a second grade or something, she really enjoyed writing. Also, photography, she did some very, very very good photography, so she

was added in that direction. I could see her for one of the magazines, you know, writing and pictures and things like that, and I think that's what she would have been happy with, Dawn, And that was kind of what she was. I was looking at every opportunity she had. She did. She took a lot of pictures. While many of her peers stayed in the South. When it came time to attend college, choosing schools like Clemson or the University of South Carolina, Tammy decided on a different route,

once again expressing her independence. Classmates say they initially had no idea where Grinnelle was, but that they weren't surprised. Tammy had decided to go mainly because she longed for a differn experience, and so in nineteen eighty nine, Tammy packed up her belongings and moved to Iowa to study art history in Spanish. She took academic seriously, and we were often studying either at the library or in a dorm room or in a lounge. But that was sort

of the way it was at Grinell. People were having fun, but it was also an academically challenging school, and you went there because you wanted to learn and you were ready to work hard. That's Jen Nelson, Tammy's closest friend from college. She was incredibly friendly and people were drawn to her. She was always there for a laugh. She wasn't judgmental. She just liked to have fun. She also took it seriously academically, we all did at that school. But it was I liked studying with her, I liked

hanging out with her, I liked dancing with her. She was the kind of person that just brought the party to whatever conversation you were having. I think what I remember most isn't as much about her her play on the field, but just the energy that she brought to the team and the fun and the camaraderie. A lot of Tammy's college life revolved around sports, soccer, rugby, photographing

various teams. Most of her friends also knew her as a teammate, including Marta, who was co captain of the soccer team at Grinnell and called Tammy by her nickname Z. So we had this large group of freshmen on the soccer team, and she played for two years as a soccer player, and then she switched over to rugby, and that was sort of no surprise to a lot of us that she wanted to get in and play maybe

with someone demon even tougher, tougher sport with rugby. So she switched over, and then she became our photographer for a number of sports, but including our women's soccer team. And so we also have this really clear memory, or what I do, of Tammy being on the sidelines, still in her soccer shorts, but with a camera around her neck and just you know, circling the field and taking photos of us. Amy Joe was the other captain of Grinnell's soccer team. She and Marta asked to be interviewed

together and wasted no time swapping stories about Tammy. Marta and I and Tammy were There were eight of us freshmen in the fall of nineteen eighty nine, and so we all started the same year, and we were the biggest recruited class that Grenell College Soccer women's soccer had ever had. So we were special because it was only the fourth year of the program. Maybe, but I actually met Tammy on a recruiting visit to Grnew we went. I went out with her and are another soccer player

at the time. We went to the bar. Marta and Amy Joe further described Tammy as someone who quote brought the fun. It's a sentiment echoed by pretty much everyone I spoke with, including another college friend, Stacy Pappas. I remember one beautiful day, I was inside working and I heard a bit of a commotion outside and it was Tammy and she was just diving into a pile of leaves and just playing and just like like, hey, come out,

come out, all you people's study. She was joyful, you know, just u she when she was on the sideline, she would be starting a cheer or making up a funny rhyme or doing some kind of a like a song or doing something to just keep everybody laughing. Oh and also her pregame breakfast on the road when we would travel.

She we were chatting earlier, Martin and I were remembering she would or always order like a huge stack of chocolate chip pancakes and just you know, while we were all trying to like eat something that was like a good thing to eat before a game, she would just be pouring on the maple syrup and coach Coach would just roll his eyes like, oh boy, you know, but yeah,

she just went for it. Hearing these anecdotes about Tammy takes her out of the true crime headline space and humanizes her memory and who she was, which is something that is very important to me personally as well as with my work. Thirty years have passed, and yet listening to her friends talk about her, you'd think it was yesterday. Losing someone to murder can have that kind of lasting influence on your life. It almost intensifies those memories, illuminates them.

I can see from here how she was so special, how she had such a full life in front of her, in a way that at the time I could. I knew I was sad, obviously, but I think I'm sadder now than I was then. If that makes sense, it makes perfect sense, because in one way, there is the what could have been way of thinking all that was missed, all that never was. As time went on, it was easier. I didn't want to go back to Grinnell, I didn't want to go to the reunions. I didn't want to

think about it. And then I got to the point where, you know, I've got kids. Now. I have a teenage daughter, blonde ponytail running down the soccer field, and of course I thought of Tammy as I coached her. Every time i'd see her running down the field after a soccer ball and turn with a big smile on her face after making a play. It made me happy thinking about Tammy and thinking about the fact that that spirit was

living on in other people. Something I've thought about while researching this story is the fact that what happened to Tammy happened to so many young women during that period, and albeit in smaller numbers, it still happens today. A few days after Tammy's body was found in September nineteen ninety two, a journalist for the Chicago Tribune wrote an opinion piece about Tammy's case titled never More Free or

More in danger? Reading it was edifying. The op ed said in part that Tammy's life was quote an example of the freedom women could only dream of two generations back. Her death is a reminder that in this age of freedom, women must still live in the bondage of fear. Here's Stacy Pappas again. I just think that, first of all, none of us are safe, while these people are probably our world. What happened to her should never happened, but

obviously it does. We live in a world that it is a very broken and damaged world, and what can we do to make this a safer place for all of us, for this next generation of young women who are graduating from school. I think that we have an obligation to each other and to the next generation to do what we can do to heal this broken world. After Tammy's death, some of her friends formed a group

called Fearless. Its goal was to help empower women on and off Grinnell's campus and ensure that all drivers were safe on the roadways. The leaders of Fearless used Tammy's death as a catalyst for a nationwide initiative, a movement to install emergency call boxes along major highways with regards to the violence Tammy suffered. The group's leader said, we

have the job. That's our job to make sure that our generation doesn't have to get used to that, that our children don't have to get used to that, and our children's children don't have to get used to that. We thought we were safe, We were nearly done. We studied abroad, and you know, had boyfriends and breakups and everything, and we were supposed to be taking on the world

and somebody killed her. The story has to be about a real person who was proud and smart and fierce and not always perfect and funny, who loved her cats and broke up with her boyfriend. That person is the one who was killed. Her death means something. Last year was the thirtieth anniversary of Tammy's death. It was difficult for many of her friends and family to wade through memories open up to me about Tammy and her life,

not to mention the pain they all went through. I immensely appreciate the trust in me to share such a personal and painful part of their lives and Tammy's life, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity. Some questions, even those that seem rather ordinary, can be the toughest to answer. What would have Tammy gone on to do? Oh heck,

I mean, I don't know. I know she wanted to do something with Spanish, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if she was a teacher, a Spanish teacher or a a Spanish prov with a sideline photography business and a couple of kids. I think she would have a family. I see her doing a lot like I did, becoming a coach and coaching her kids, you know, sports year round, you know, especially in soccer. You know. I think she

would be a successful photographer. You know. I think whatever field she would have eventually gone into, I think she would have been at the top of her field. She'd be eating chocolate, sheip, pancakes. I like to think that she would be married and be a soccer mom and still be rocking the umbros or the soccer shorts, driving a minivan, go into games, taking pictures of her own kids playing. I see Tammy as a mom, an artist,

a photographer, and just you know, joyful. Yeah, I think I would like to think of her as having traveled more of the world and bringing her photography around the globe, and and dancing and dancing, and yeah, yeah. A word we often hear within the victor side of the true crime space is closure, how the solving of a cold case can maybe shut the door for family members and

friends and all the evil that happened. From personal experience, I can say it's not a word that best describes what victims families are looking for, yet it does offer some solace to put a cap on the justice end of it. I just I really do hope that Joanne has closure, you know, and her brothers have closure. They do deserve that, you know, to be at peace with this and not have to, you know, wonder any longer.

And I hope that I hope they can do something to provide that peace to her family because they deserve it. They've been through a lot over these last thirty years,

and no family should have to go through that. That was Mary Anne Fox, Tammy's good friend, and she caps There's the essence of what victims families, at least the hundreds I have interviewed as well as my own, are searching for peace, a way to close the door on the criminal part of it all, and remember their loved one as they were in the days and weeks that followed Tammy's death. The tragedy was a reminder for everyone

of the dangers young women face every single day. But more than thirty years later, Tammy's loved ones hold onto memories of her smile, her laugh, her absolute zest for life. Her spirit lives in them. I missed Dammy. I have a picture oft I think of what she, where she would be and what she would be doing. I feel like she could have been a very successful young lady.

If you are enjoying Paper Ghosts, please listen to my other podcast, Crossing the Line with em William Phelps, where I use the same storytelling elements you've heard in Paper Ghosts and cover missing person and murder cases. Paper Ghosts is written and executive produced by me Em 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. Our Series theme number four four two is written and performed by Thomas Phelps and Tom Mooney. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.