The Reckoning

I may not respond the same way. Right, He alone perpetuated the Lonnie beer Brott sort of fantasy as a suspect because he was no longer part of the investigation, so he wasn't aware that Lonnie had been eliminated. My name is eem William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist. Then off, they're more than forty true crime books. This is season

three of Paper Ghosts in Plain Sight. As you have heard throughout the podcast, retired ESP Master Sergeant Marty McCarthy has been the driving force behind the accusation that Lonnie beer brought, a former truck driver with a criminal background from LaSalle County Illinois had something to do with Tammy Ziwicki's murder. Because of that, beer Brought's name has become

almost synonymous with the case. Here's a guy who was cleared through blood and DNA, a person law enforcement is convinced had nothing to do with Tammy's murder, and yet if you look online, he might as well be guilty. By the fall of twenty twenty two, I'd confirmed through multiple sources that Lonnie beer Brought was no longer a suspect and Tammy's murder. Law enforcement, however, did not do much to publicly clear Lonnie's name, or at the very least reach out to Marty to tell him to back off.

Hello Marty, Hello Marty, how you doing. It's Matthew. So I called Marty myself to discuss the facts that his prime suspect, Lonnie beer Brought, was not Tammy's killer, and that much of the ribbing he'd done against the ESP and FBI was for nothing. Yeah, man, good good. I just wanted to follow up with you and talk about a few things. Lonnie beer Brought was completely and clearly ruled out by blood and DNA. Okay, And they first ruled him out in nineteen ninety three, and so what

do you think of that? I don't take much of it. I mentioned that everyone i'd spoken to in law enforcement was basically on the same page about Lonnie in their view. The eyewitness's story about seeing him along the roadway with Tammy and later seeing his wife wearing a watch similar to Tammy's, well those stories were false. We could talk about that eyewitness because the eyewitness account I don't think

I can put much weight in. And I'll tell you why she's traveling on the other side of the highway and she calls this in a week later, and well, it doesn't become an issue, you know, it doesn't become an issue until about a week later. Well, that's what that's what I'm saying. I mean, I mean, you have an eyewitness who Okay, a week ago, I saw I drove by, and I saw this green or blue truck and I saw this guy talking to her. Well, I've seen cars broken down myself. There's no way I could

remember what I saw. I don't think it's a good piece of evidence to go on. Okay, do you think Lonnie stopped in his truck when Wickie's car broke down? I don't think that was Lonnie. And here's here's why, because just up the road from where Tammy was broken down, there was another car broken down. Yeah, and and so I don't know that saw Tammy or saw the other girl who was broken down. I don't know that. We don't We have no way of knowing that. And I can't hang my hat on a witness on the other

side of the highway driving sixty miles an hour. She wasn't violent, no, no, no, no, okay, So she slows down down, So she slows down, but she's on the other side of the highway and feeling she's on wait, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute, let me finish, And she drives by on the highway, and then a week later she gives a statement about it. So if she had an eerie feeling, I don't know why she didn't report it that day or why didn't she stop, why

didn't she drive away? That You're kind of sound to me like the state police's view of the witness. I mean, you're just down on the witness. Not fun. You concluded a watch. I just lost my she lost my credibility with this watch story. With you know, every Lonnie beer Brod to make him the guy. The entire case hangs on her everything. I think that's true, and I think that that's exactly what happened. People flying by an eighty five miles an hour. She's the honest. Why would lie.

I don't think she lied. I don't think she lied. I'm just saying that what she saw, I don't think she saw, you know, she she's just kind of you know, oh, oh my god, there's a girl missing. Now I saw something. Much of Marty's theory about Lonnie beer Brod hung on the eyewitness's account. I don't blame him for pursuing this lead or for being alarmed by what the witness told him a decade later, But I spent a year trying to confirm her story and just couldn't. The other thing

is a sticking with that same witness. There is no watch. Tammy's watch is still missing. They don't have the watch. No one's produced the watch, never had the watch. That was a story that got out there that she has no idea. No, no, no, that's not true. The witness told me. I'm just going with the witness told me. The only witness as far as I know as who actually saw it, knew where she was, and everything showed her to watch. It was on her risk, right, I got,

I got all that. I just I don't think the witness is correct. You know you're a polarizing figure in all of this. You and the Illinois State Police don't like each other. Well, let me let me put it this way. I was on that task force and I was never satisfied with that report, and I on my own went down and found this information out about Mommy. They had never done it. The case agent never did ship after the case was referred to him. Not ship, he threw that whole lead out. That lead was pursued

quite thoroughly. Lonnie's car and home were searched, he provided blood and DNA, his ex wife gave a lengthy interview and passed polygraph. It wasn't blown off, though it may have seemed that way at the time. As much as I respect Marty, it doesn't really matter if he believes any of this or decides not to accept it. Those are the facts of the case. If you choose to look the other way. In my opinion, of developed tunnel vision, and that lead was never pursued. Had I not been involved.

Let me just finish that lead would never pursued if it ends up now that he's cleared. Fact, I went through everything I had developed up to this point, focusing on the idea that the ISP hadn't done enough to clear line. They had done the work. Marty just wasn't briefed about it, and so he assumed the worst. But Marty wouldn't budge for whatever reason, He's still not convinced that Lonnie can be fully eliminated. Why wouldn't they come out with that information? I never did. I asked about

DNA over the years. I've had so many different answers. One that there is no DNA. Who is who is saying this? Oh that's the ISP that's saying it to me. Yeah, okay, but I don't think the i ISP tested this stuff. What I was sent to the FBI. Yeah, I mean they worked together, so they all knew what was going on within the investigation. Well, I don't know much about the DNA. I find it strange that if they had this, they wouldn't have come out with us, and I mean

they could have. I find that strange. Number One, Well, I'm telling you he is cleared. He is cleared. Lonnie beer brought has been cleared from this crime. I mean, I'm open to anything if they have evidence of this, But in my experience, I accept the witness. She gave me this information. I did everything I could to get that to the State's attorney and to the state police,

and they threw up a wall. From the minute I mentioned it to him, I saw him that strange and weird now knowing what they know at the time, which is this, They've already ruled him out with DNA, So why waste time on the guy he been ruled How come the state's stourney never said that? Why would he tell you that? The state's attorney never said that, the state police never said that. If that's true about Lottie

in ninety three, why wouldn't they put that out? And here this is the first time here, it's what twenty twenty three, that's the first time I've heard this. It's from you in twenty twenty three? Was that put out publicly that Lottie was eliminated? I don't know why they would put that publicly out until they needed to. I mean, they were they were keeping a lot of their cards

close to the vest On this right. Do you know how much press There was a lot of it, instigated by me all over the count Yeah, I've looked at was the suspect and here they had the capability in ninety three to bow that out of the water and never did. Don't you find that suspicions? No, The fact is the ISP and FBI were not running an investigation based on what Marty was telling the media. That would

only hinder their work on the case. There was also a lot of information the ISP did not want release to the public. What would it take for you to believe that Lonnie didn't do this? I'd like to be convinced that if there's no evidence of the watch, then there's probably any any more information to go on. Monnie. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, there is zero information about that watch. That watch is a story that got out there somehow by so it's not a story. It's

not a story. It's from the eyewitness who interviewed them, if not just some rumor. Right, What I'm saying is she put out that story. I don't know why. Marty and I spoke close to an hour. It got heated at times. He was not ready to believe that beer Brott was innocent. No matter what I said, I do know that Marty ultimately wants Tammy's killer to be caught and brought to justice, and he's not looking for any fame. And if that guy is someone other than Lonnie beer Brott,

so be it. Marty told me he's okay with that. Why did you push Lonnie so hard in the media when you knew that it was going to piss off the state police because I thought as the killer. One of the goals within all the work I do is to portray the true nature of what investigators go through and show how their work truly unfolds in real time.

If there is one standout lesson I have learned over the years, it is the tedious nature of the ups and downs, the exhilaration of thinking you've got your guy, only to be let down when that last pace of the puzzle doesn't fit. Over the course of its investigation, THESP looked at many different potential suspects, people outside the traditional serial killing trucker. Most of those inquiries never made headlines and are known only to the people's task with

investigating them. Well, I appreciate you getting back to me so quickly. I was working Sunday and I heard something on the radio. Your podcast was about Tammy jose Wikis. Right away I recalled that there were some similarities in our case. After the first few episodes of this season aired, I got a call from a former detective who'd worked in the area of Tammy's abduction in nineteen ninety two. He remembered her story and had knowledge of a potential suspect,

one I hadn't previously known about for various reasons. He's asked for his name not to be used, but agreed to share his recollection. I remember I was on my way home. I was getting ready to leave because we worked a ten hour shift, and then we got the call on that The call was from a neighboring police district, from officers who said a man walked into their station and claimed that there was a dead body in this camper, which was parked in a campground that was under my

sources jurisdiction. So we all went to the scene. Camper was locked up tight. They actually got a warrant for the camper, and the body was found. It was actually wrapped up in a blanket with duct tape on each end. It was that grayish silver duct tape. Inside the blanket was the body of Denise Marino, a twenty five year

old waitress from West Chicago. The camper was parked at the now defunct Hideaway Lakes Campground justice of Yorkville, Illinois, a city about halfway between Chicago and LaSalle County, where Tammy was abducted just eight months prior. The man who owned the camper was Charles D. Parker, a thirty eight year old ex con who had served eight years out of a fifty year sentence in prison for rape. So I spent several hours interviewing him, and he admitted to

being the only one with her drinking. They were drinking excessive mouth alcohol and they were inhaling carburetor cleaner. He met her at a bar in West Chicago and then somehow convinced her to go back there with I believe he convinced her to go back there with and from what I can recall, but she did leave with him willingly. My source described a deeply unsettling scene. The young woman had been stabbed a number of times and had been

sexually assaulted. The body was it was obviously signs of you know, just brutal, almost like a torturous thing that he had did her. It was she was bound in duct tape and then wrapped up in the blanket with duct tape. But now the interesting thing he took her after she was dead. He took her into the showers, which it wasn't too far a walk from where his camper was. It was one of those truck bed campers, and it was up on Jack's so he could drive

in and out from underneath of it. You don't see him any much anymore, but it was a camper mounted on the back of the pickup bed. But it was a pickup. It was a pickup truck. Many of the circumstances surrounding how they met and how he lured her back to his camper did not fit with Tammy's abduction. But there was one detail that piqued my interests and certainly got my attention. One of the investigators searching the camper found the ring that said Tammy, but it was

spelled Tami. Okay. It was kind of like a square ring yea with two letters on the bottom two letters on the top formed a bigger square. I went back and asked Tammy's family, and a half a dozen of her friends. If any of them we call a ring anything like that, none did. I still hadn't found out. However, if Parker had been completely eliminated, the chances were slim he'd had anything to do with Tammy's murder. But you can never be entirely certain unless the evidence backs it up.

And he was questioned about the ring Charlie was and what did he say about it? What the other detective told me is he got very angry when he was asked about it. He said, I did not kill Tammy Jose Wiki. That's what he said to him, allegedly when he was asked about it, and he got angry. He got angry. The way I recalled him, describe me it to me is while he said that he pounded his fist on the table and what happens after that? To my knowledge, the other detective brought that information to ESP

and nothing became of it. I remember Charlie and this case in particular because he had tortured her. It was an exceptionally violent rape and murdering. Former IP Lieutenant Jeff Padilla was certain that Parker could be excluded from Tammy's case based on the violent nature of Parker's crimes, and also how Parker met the victim and got her back to his camper. I might also add that Parker was sloppy in didn't seem to be honestly smart enough to

get away with the murder. For thirty plus years, we had looked at him, and we had talked about him, and we had talked about him, and he didn't fit for a number of reasons. Yes, he had a pickup truck, but it was in like an encampment. He didn't live in a neighborhood. It was like a mobile home. She had come with him voluntarily back and at some point the sexual interaction turned violent, and Charlie found her and then tortured her throughout the night before she finally died

of blood loss. So the m that entire situation did not fit at all with what had happened to Tammy, and we didn't dismiss it. But the DNA that we did have was, you know, there was never enough for a codus inquiry. You know, you essentially could Charlie's DNA is available and it has been encoded. You could do a one to one inquiry against him, which I know has been done since then. The m O didn't really match, so we did the best we could to look into it,

but it didn't fit what we had with Tammy. One of the more interesting and certainly promising threats the IP followed early into the investigation is worth mentioning, if only to put one of the more popular Internet based theories in this case into perspective and maybe even gained some insight into where it originated. There was a guy that was a truck driver for a company that came onto the radar and it turned out, you know, he was

truly a sex offender. He had done a home invasion rape in like nineteen eighty eight, just prior to the DNA and sex offender laws and was sentenced to like four years in prison and got out right before Tammy was abducted and murdered. You know, he had done he had met this girl at a diner that was a waitress.

She was like seventeen years old, eighteen years old, followed her home, waited outside her residence, saw like when her parents left, then broke into the house while she was there, and then raped her on the floor in the hallway and took her panties as a souvenir, and we were I was like, this has got to be our guy, and that was never nobody had ever looked into this

that guy's background. If you recall, there was talk early on about Tammy's killer potentially keeping her body in a refrigerated truck before placing it off Exit thirty three in Missouri, which answered the question of why perhaps her boy was not in an advanced stage of decomposition. He was a truck driver. It was a refrigerated truck, so that could account for some of the lack of d comp on Tammy. When she was recovered, he was up and down I eighty.

As the IP began looking into the guy, they realized he had taken off to the Upper Midwest for three days near the time of Tammy's disappearance. And at that time, you know, like if you'd get a little paper receipt from the tollway, that was a big deal because the tolls were expected for trucks, so they everybody saved the receipts, and he didn't have his receipts from going to Michigan.

So when we went back and looked at the case, and particularly after VIDOC, he's a guy that that pops and took up a lot of time from us, because then we went back and looked at all that. We went after him hard, you know, had the FBI do a covert surveillance to him and recovered, you know, and then did a one to one DNA comparison on him and eliminated him, even though he was like perfect candidate. But boy, we thought for probably a year and a half,

we thought he was good for Tammy's murder. I mean, so there's a good example here. You are, you got your guy. You could easily tunnel vision that guy and bullhorn that for the next twenty five years, right, Yeah, because we dug I mean, I mean that's how we found out all about this previous charge and it was like, oh my god, look at that. We thought we hit the jackpot, and it turned out it wasn't. You never

got a chance to interview him in the aftermath. We just knew that without the DNA being a match, we were out of luck with him. Within all the theories and suspects I had encountered, many of which seem promising at face value, there always seemed to be something missing, something important. The science DNA is going to solve Tammy's case.

I am completely certain of that, and as these things generally go, something we hear about every day within the world of true crime, technology has caught up to Tammy's case. A new DNA profile has been extracted from old evidence, which has opened up a full proof way of developing a new suspect. We're sorry you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. You have reached the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office. If this

is an emergency, please hang up and die. All nine one one, Good morning, Sergeant Phillips. This is m William Phelps, Matthew. Hey, you've reached the law office of Pierre and Dannally. Please leave your name number. In the year leading up to the release of this season and even after, I've pounded the pavement and made call after call, placing my entire focus on several unanswered questions from years past and several

new questions that had arisen in recent months. Most of the time I got this, Please leave a message, give me your number if you want to call back. Thank you. In my line of work, you get used to leaving voicemails and never hearing back from people, but persistence is key, and every now and again it pays off. Hi, Karen, Nice to meet you. Karen Donneley is the former state's Attorney for LaSalle County, Illinois, a position she held from two sixteen to twenty twenty. During that time, she became

deeply familiar with Tammy's case. Yeah, we met about two years after she left office at her legal practice in downtown Ottawa, Illinois. You've heard from Karen briefly in earlier episodes. She had Tammy's case for four years as state's attorney, and she was brief by investigators from the FBI and IP whenever significant developments came up. Like many others from the region, Karen was already quite familiar with Tammy's story.

I was alive and present during this when it happened, so I was very aware of it and very concerned that this happened in such a close location to where I live, and that she was such a young age when she was taken. So that's how I knew of it.

And then when I became state's attorney, we had a small file on it that we kept in the office, and I looked at the file to see if there was anything in there that was worth noting, and there really wasn't anything that was new until I was approached by the investigators because they liked to come every year and tell us, you know, whoever sitting in the seat of states Attorney, what's going on. And so you began to look back at this case and what strikes you

mostly about it. I was concerned that there was no resolution. It was so many possibilities, but nothing was ever zeroed in on that when I spoke to members of the FBI or Illinois State Police that there wasn't much that they were going on, and we just felt like it was a dead end. And therefore, when I was State's Attorney, I offered whatever services I could give them, whether it was monetary, you know, anything that we could do. I was willing to help. And what did you do? First?

The investigators came and met with members of the State's Attorney's office every year to give us an update what they were doing, just to give us a heads up in case they needed something from us. We were often briefed on where they were at. Here's what you know some of the public doesn't know. Here's what we're doing. They don't share everything with me. They gave us a

lot of information about what they were doing. They would often come to us and ask for permission to do certain things that I had to clear with Tammy's mother. In twenty twenty, law enforcement asked Karen Donnelly to reach out to Tammy's mom, Joanne, discussed using the remaining DNA that investigators had inevidence. It was later on in my ten year of state's attorney that they came to me and asked for permission to consume what they had insofar

as the DNA evidence. That's important to say consuming because they only have so much correct. Once it's choosed up, it's gone. This might surprise the general public, but certain DNA tests require physically using up part of the actual sample in evidence, and so once the source sample is gone, that's it. It's gone. Investigators are left with a profile they can match to offenders who are already in some type of DNA database, but they're unable to go back

to that sample again. This can be a big deal, especially in an era of constantly evolving technology. Law worseman agencies are also hesitant to consume all available DNA because it can haunt prosecutors. Later, defense attorneys will often ask to test DNA independently, and if there's nothing left to test,

it can make it more difficult to be successful in core. Still, it was clear that law enforcement was taking one last chance at solving Tammy's case via DNA, and from what I had learned, it wasn't a shot in the dark. They had good reason. So they come to you and you give them the ok to consume that DNA. I first called Joanne and we have this discussion about this as our one shot. You know, we may not get it again if we agree to do this. She was in complete agreement and said we've got to do what

we've got to do. So I authorize them to consume the sample, and that was for testing, to put it into CODAS or genealogical or they had a suspect. I don't know that they had a suspect. I know that when we gave them the authorization to consume the sample, it was going to be put into the CODA system. And I believe at the time there may have been issues about a backlog and codas, and at that time I did offer any resources I could, as far as reverse genealogy because I'm a crime scene nut and I

watch all those shows. And I offered that to the investigators and said, if you need funding to provide the sample to them to do this reverse genealogy to see if they get a hit, I would fund that. And did they take your offer? They weren't at that point yet, because I think they were still waiting to submit to CODIS. Since twenty twenty, investigators working on Tammy's case have refocused

on DNA. They started reaching out to people connected to Tammy and anyone involved in the earliest days of the investigation and asking them for a DNA sample. On top of that, with the help of more advanced forensic and DNA technology, they started to go back through all the evidence to see what, if anything, the killer could have left behind. When I spoke to Joanne Ziwiki, she confirmed that the ISP had been in contact as recently as twenty twenty two and had told her they were sending

DNA to a lab in California for testing. Here's Tammy's brother, Todd. DNA evidence became more sophisticated, that started becoming more promising. I started to hear rumors that they had additional DNA that was usable, and so, you know, in the last few years, I've become a little bit more optimistic as it sounded like the operation was still proceeding and that they were building, you know, potentially building a case and starting to express some greater optimism than they did for

decades before that. And recently your mom has told me that has been calling to ask, you know, we have some DNA that we want to submit somewhere in California, right what have you heard about that part of it? A couple of local FBI agents came to my house and took a DNA swab for me, and I believe they've done the same thing with both of my brothers. They apparently found now DNA that they can use and they wanted to make sure it wasn't ours, So obviously

they have something that they're processing. They did find something somewhere that was usable, that was different from what they had previously had, at least enough and good enough condition that they wanted to take my own DNA and rule out the possibility there was one of us, one of the boys in the family. I've also been told by law enforcement who were present at the body recovery site in nineteen ninety two that they too, had recently given

the FBI their DNA. Every DNA expert I consulted with, along with former members of the ISP, talked about one of three scenarios likely taking place. That technology had caught up with the DNA collected at the time Tammy's body was recovered, a new suspect had been developed, and or

investigators were now pursuing investigative genetic genealogy. Forensic genetic genealogy is a labor intensive science that utilizes genetic information from direct to consumer companies like ancestry, dot Com and twenty three in May to identify suspects or victims in criminal cases. Many see it as a magic investigative wand to wave and a suspect of peers, but it's far more difficult

than that. Millions of DNA profiles within a database help investigators create family trees, working backwards funneling down with the hope of matching a DNA sample to a suspect. As former ISP Lieutenant Jeff Pedia explains, the DNA analysis part of the investigation is complex work. Just remember that there's going to be the involvement of essentially two different laboratories,

so one can extract DNA and then expand it. You know, so if you if you had a limited sample, you could then you would use that that lab for that, But then you would need another you would need a genealogy like a laboratory that specializes in genealogy DNA because it's much different, right, right, two different types of testing if you the source of the DNA in Tammy's case has never been made clear to the public. Where exactly did the most viable DNA sample or samples come from

and what does it tell us about Tammy's killer. So there was never no um DNA on her shorts or anything like that, like semen blood no okay, no, okay, okay. So yes, there's was lots of blood. The problem is that her blood contaminated and eliminated the ability for us to collect epithelial DNA. Basically, the blood soaked like her blood soaked T shirt was of no use to us.

By the time Padilla and his team started working the case, technology had advanced to the point that investigators were able to collect and test epithelial DNA or touch DNA, which essentially are cells that have been left behind on an object. Or surface tammy shirt wasn't something they could test, but other sources now provided investigators with the opportunity to develop valuable samples. Items such as the blanket that her body was wrapped in, the clothing that she was found in.

There was duct tape that was used to secure the ends of the blanket that she was wrapped in, and so all of those items, those physical items were available to us. Her shoe were of interest to us. I'll say that in the process of our analysis of the physical evidence using more modern DNA a test, the shoelaces were of tremendous interest to us, which was a struggle getting any of this um any of this physical evidence reanalyzed. So the DNA is definitely DNA that can connect the

killer to her murder. Yes, that is the power of technology evolving, catching up two killers in this particular case. You en, DNA was in its infancy at that time, there's very limited opportunities to do DNA, and the DNA

tests were inaccurate or inconclusive. But by twenty and twelve we had some really DNA had made some tremendous advancements as it continues to do, and so I thought it was worth it to go through the case foule like it was brand new, like we had just got and make it a bit of a project for the detectives assigned me. The issue at hand was whether the amount of DNA law enforcement had left to test in twenty twenty two was enough to develop a viable DNA profile

that could be compared to forensic genealogy databases. Somebody had to have contact with the sheet when she was wrapping. Somebody had to have contact with the duct tape. Somebody had to have contact with Tammy's clothing and body, and so all those items were methodically identified In talking with different investigators from the case. I'm confident it was all

of this information. Advancements in DNA technology, swab samples, a new lab involved, and potential forensic genealogy began to make more sense to me during the summer of twenty twenty two when I learned about the latest potential suspect, someone connected to the DNA findings who had been on investigator's radar since the early nineties. Someone was still alive, not a semitruck driver or a known serial killer. I'm told the person law enforcement has been hyper focused on at

the time of this recording. It's right there throughout it all on the ground, in the thick of it, wearing a uniform on the next episode of Paper Ghosts, and some interms have insolved after so many years because of its being left in a spotlight. So some days are good, some days I'm so good. We always struggled with the idea of, you know, the couple of things, somebody in a position of authority, or somebody right at her age

that she may have known. I believe that she was dumped across state to draw interest away from where she was picked up, and I believe that that's because that area has a connection to her killer. If you are enjoying Paper Ghosts, please listen to my other podcast, Crossing the Line with Them 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 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 abou 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.