 Tammy Zewicki was on her way to college in the fall of 1992, but shortly after setting out on her trip, her car broke down. Several witnesses spotted her on the side of the highway, and before long, a truck driver had pulled over to help. No witnesses reported anything suspicious, but just moments later, Tammy would vanish, leaving nothing but her car behind, and it would seem that this good Samaritan wasn't so good after all. Tammy Zewicki was born in Pleasant Hill, Pennsylvania, back in March of 1971. Tammy was born into a family of brothers, being the only girl among her three siblings. Shortly after her birth, her family relocated to Greenville, South Carolina, where Tammy would spend the majority of her childhood. By the time she graduated high school, her family relocated once again, this time going to Marlton, New Jersey. By this point, Tammy had already moved on to college, attending Grinnell College all the way up in Iowa, a lengthy 17-hour drive from her parents' home. But when Tammy wasn't busy with college, she would return home to her family, and she would spend her summer months with her family in New Jersey. She could often be found at her summer job at the local blockbuster video store. For Tammy, life was going quite well. She was a very well-educated young woman with a very promising future ahead of her, and it's clear to see that she was doing her best to make a name for herself, and her family were incredibly supportive. Tammy was attending college to major in both art history and Spanish, and the 1992 and 1993 college season was her senior year, meaning she'd nearly made it to the end of the line and was almost ready to start job hunting. Tammy never publicly mentioned what she planned to do after college, but whatever it was, she was excited. In virtually every photo that's been shared of Tammy, she's beaming with excitement and happiness, and a smile like hers doesn't come around very often. Tammy was genuinely happy about what the future had in store for her. But little did she know this happiness was about to be stolen. It was August 21st, 1992. Tammy and her brother Darren had just left their parents' home in New Jersey together, heading back towards their colleges. Darren was heading off to college in Illinois, while Tammy was obviously heading up to Iowa. Tammy more or less needed to pass by her brother's college in order to get to her own, so she offered to drop him off along the way. Tammy planned on spending the night at her brother's college of Northwestern, located just outside of Chicago. She had a friend who was also attending Northwestern and didn't need to be back at her own college until September 8th, so she wasn't pressed for time by any means. Along their journey to Northwestern, Tammy and her brother Darren passed through Pittsburgh to spend some time with their parents who'd been visiting family in the area. The two spent the night in Pittsburgh, then headed off towards Darren's college the following morning on August 22nd. Darren recalls that the two were having car troubles all throughout their journey, and they needed to pull over multiple times. Tammy had been driving her 1985 Pontiac T1000. In these days, these cars are notorious for their countless issues, so it's understandable that the two were having constant car troubles, even though the vehicle was only seven years old at this point. Darren remembers that the two needed to pull over two or three times to add coolant and oil to the car, and each time they did this, the car would begin acting normally again. On August 22nd, the two made it to Northwestern, where Tammy was finally able to spend some time with one of her friends. But for reasons that remain unclear, she decided not to hang out for too terribly long. Despite the fact that she didn't need to return to college for several days, she opted to head back towards her own campus on August 23rd, the day after she dropped off her brother. It's rumored that she headed off to school early so that she could take photos of her school's athletes during practice. Tammy had a passion for photography, and she was hoping to take some of these photos to provide to the school's yearbook. Tammy left her friend's house at around noon on August 23rd. Her brother checked out her car before she left that day, and he told her that if it started acting up again that she should stop at a rest stop for a while, presumably to give the car some time to cool down so it didn't overheat. It seems like her car did fine for several hours, as she made it all the way to I-80, around mile marker 83, before she ever needed to pull over. Unfortunately, she didn't end up making it to a rest stop as her brother had hoped. Between 3 and 4 pm, Tammy was spotted on the side of the highway. We don't know exactly what was going on, but we know that she was spotted looking under the hood by several drivers who had passed by. She wasn't pulled over for too terribly long before an 18-wheeler driver offered to help her out. We don't know if he offered to give Tammy a ride to the nearest rest stop, if he offered to help fix her car, or if he offered to drive her to her college. There's just no way of knowing, because after the man pulled over and spoke with Tammy, she disappeared. Considering it was the middle of the afternoon, and I-80 is a remarkably busy highway, I feel it's safe to assume that whatever happened to Tammy likely didn't happen on the side of the road. Investigators never pinned this down with any certainty, but what most likely happened is that Tammy was abducted by this driver and stowed away in his truck. Several witnesses got a pretty good look at the man, and he was described as being between 30 and 45 years old with dark, bushy hair. He was described as being about 6 feet tall, so with Tammy being 5'2", it's safe to say there was a distinct size difference between the two of them. Witnesses got a very good look at the suspect's truck, and they were able to provide investigators with a clear description of the vehicle. The truck and the trailer were said to have been wiped, and each of them had a brown and orange stripe running across them, with what appeared to be a faded company logo stamped in the middle of the stripes. The truck also reportedly had Nebraska plates. Later that day, Illinois police noticed that Tammy's car had been abandoned on the side of the road. A ticket was placed on the car, and when no one returned to pick it up, the car was towed to the Illinois State Police impound lot the very next day. This was also around the time that Tammy's family realized something was terribly wrong. Tammy was in the habit of calling her family when she arrived safely at college. When her family never heard from her that night, they became incredibly concerned. By the following morning, on August 24th, Tammy's mother contacted the Illinois State Police and asked to file a missing person report. The police accepted the report and submitted it to their database, but it seems as though her case wasn't really taken very seriously. Tammy's family have been somewhat critical of the police and their lack of interest in the early days of the investigation. They revealed that police believed Tammy had run off with a boyfriend and didn't want to be found, but there was no evidence to suggest that Tammy even had a boyfriend at this time. They took police several days before they actually bothered investigating Tammy's disappearance, but by this point, it was far too late. About a week after Tammy was reported missing, police made a haunting discovery. They were contacted by a truck driver named Robert Bullington. Robert says that he saw Tammy on the date of her disappearance. He mentions that he saw her entering into the aforementioned 18-wheeler, but he had even more info to share. Robert actually knew the driver of this truck personally, at least to a certain extent. The two had spoken on CB Radio before, and they'd been in contact with each other earlier that day. Robert says that the truck driver went by the name of Jerry, but it's possible that Jerry was just a pseudonym that the man used on CB Radio. Robert spoke with Jerry immediately after he picked up Tammy, but it's never been revealed if Jerry explained what his intentions were with her. Whatever the case was, Robert says that Jerry confirmed that Tammy was perfectly fine, and this was the last interaction they had. Robert remembered his conversation with Jerry when he noticed missing person flyers for Tammy. He immediately called the police to report his interaction with this man, but by the time he made the report, Jerry was long gone. But shortly after this report is when police made a startling update to the case, a report that would change everything. It was September 1st, 1992. A man had pulled over onto the side of the road in Sarcoxie, Missouri, near I-44, to relieve himself and stretch a tarp over some of his tools that he'd been carrying in the back of his truck, as he just heard that rain was about to roll in. As he stepped outside of his truck, he noticed something just off the side of the road but couldn't make out what it was. As he drew closer, the realization of what he had just walked into finally struck. He had stumbled onto a crime scene. Police responded to the scene of the discovery and quickly announced what everyone had feared. Tammy Zawicki had finally been found, but it was far too late for her. Her body was found wrapped in a red blanket that had a label tying it to the Kenworth Trucking Company. Some reports of Tammy's discovery suggest that she was wearing the same outfit that she had disappeared in, but her family claimed that she wasn't. They believe that at some point, she changed into different clothes. But the worst thing was police uncovered evidence that she'd been taken advantage of before she lost her life. The coroner was able to determine that she lost her life between four and seven days before being discovered. So it's entirely possible she lost her life the same day she was reported missing. If all of this weren't bad enough, police revealed that she'd sustained at least seven wounds to her chest, all of which were within the vicinity of her heart. And this obviously is what led to her losing her life. Police say that if her parents are correct and she was wearing different clothing than what she'd originally been wearing, then they haven't been able to recover this original set of clothes. It wasn't found in her car, nor was it found during any follow-up investigations. She was also known to have been wearing a very distinct Loris brand watch. It had a green band with a green umbrella on its face and played the song, Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. But this watch was never recovered, nor was her Canon 35 millimeter camera or a St. Giles soccer club patch that she was known to be carrying. After all of this was revealed, there was virtually zero progress in Tammy's case for the next two years. But in 1994, a nurse came forward after she'd spotted a man who came into her clinic who bore a striking resemblance to the man who was seen with Tammy when she vanished. Allegedly the same man went by the name of Jerry on the CB radio. The man who came into the clinic that day was Lonnie Beardrop. Lonnie was a long-haul trucker who lived in Missouri at the time, the same state where Tammy's body was found. And his home was within a few miles of the dump site. The man had even grown up near the area where Tammy's car broke down. Soon after Tammy vanished, the man had sold his vehicle and police found this a bit suspicious. But if this weren't bad enough, the man even worked for Kenworth Trucking Company, the same company who manufactured the blanket that Tammy's body was found wrapped in. Police were eventually able to locate the man's old vehicle that he had sold, but they weren't able to find any evidence inside of it. The man also supplied a DNA sample to investigators, but his sample didn't yield any results pertaining to the investigation. Shortly after, the man was cleared of any involvement and detectives announced that they would be disbanding the task force that was dedicated to Tammy Zawiki's investigation. They reduced the number of officers on the case from 14 down to just two. This would be the final update until 2002, eight years after Lonnie was labeled as the primary suspect. Detective Martin McCarthy, a retired detective who'd been working on Tammy's case, spoke out about the investigation and mentioned that Lonnie had never truly been cleared as a suspect. Yes, they confirmed his DNA wasn't a match and this had more or less ruled him out, but he remained on their list as a person of interest. But Detective McCarthy clarified the situation by saying that things weren't as simple as the media made them out to be. According to McCarthy, Lonnie's DNA was only cleared on a technicality. The DNA sample that police had managed to pull from the scene of the crime was incomplete and it was an incredibly small quantity as well from what I can tell. Because of this, there wasn't enough of a sample available to definitively prove whether or not Lonnie was actually involved. This didn't mean that he wasn't responsible, it just meant that there wasn't enough evidence to prove it with any certainty, even though officers had heavy suspicions about this man. The main piece of evidence that I personally find incredibly fascinating is that not only did Lonnie perfectly fit the bill of the man that witnesses spotted with Tammy that day, but he also reportedly gave his wife a Loris brand watch around the time that Tammy disappeared. The watch was reportedly shockingly similar to the watch that Tammy wore and if you ask me, it may have been the same watch. Unfortunately, Lonnie passed away in 2002 and his involvement in the case more or less ended here as police obviously had no way to ask him any further questions. But by 2007, another five years later, police announced another update in which they believed a man by the name of Bruce Mendenhall may have been involved in Tammy's disappearance. Bruce was yet another trucker with an interesting past. Detectives were able to convict Bruce for taking the life of another victim named Sarah Holbert and they even tied him to 11 more cases, but Tammy's case was never officially connected to Bruce. Police once again had strong suspicions that he may have been involved, but there simply wasn't enough evidence to tie him to the case with any certainty. He also seemed to prey on street workers and addicts and Tammy didn't fit this bill at all. So the chances of Bruce being responsible are relatively slim. Though we do know that he worked predominantly in Illinois at that time, so he certainly would have had the opportunity. There was one other man who police suspected may have been involved in Tammy's disappearance, a man by the name of Clark Perry Baldwin. Clark was a cross-country trucker who was arrested in 2020 after DNA tests tied him to the homicides of at least three other women, but very shortly after he was apprehended, police cleared him of any involvement in Tammy's and Wiki's case. This brings us to 2023, 31 years after the crime took place. As it stands, this case remains officially unsolved, but I know there are a lot of you out there who don't really like cases like this that have no real ending and I don't like it when crimes go unsolved either. So with this in mind, I'd like to revisit a couple of things involving Lonnie Beardrop. If you remember Detective McCarthy, he believes without a doubt, Lonnie is the man behind the crime. This may also explain why the task force that was dedicated to the case was disbanded so suddenly. It's possible that the detectives knew who the killer was, but they also knew that there simply wasn't enough evidence to ever pin him to the crime. So the unit was disbanded until further evidence can be found. And really just look at the guy. He looks exactly like the descriptions given by witnesses. If you remember, the guy was described as being between 30 and 45. Lonnie was 32. He was described as having brown bushy hair. Lonnie had brown bushy hair. Lonnie was also a convicted felon who had been given two 20 year sentences for armed violence and attempted murder. He made parole in 1990 after which he started driving for Kenworth Trucking Company, the same company that was branded on the blanket when Tammy was found in. If this wasn't enough, Lonnie also had no alibi for the time that Tammy went missing. And investigators have reason to believe he was within Tammy's general vicinity at that time. The only details that I haven't been able to confirm are the height estimates given by witnesses. They described the man seen with Tammy as being about six feet tall, but I haven't been able to determine how tall Lonnie was. The literal only information I could find that might rule Lonnie out is that the witnesses who spotted the suspect that day never reported him wearing glasses. And we know that Lonnie had worn glasses pretty much his whole life. But we can't forget the watch. Lonnie reportedly gave his wife an identical watch to the one that Tammy was missing. Now, I don't know what other evidence you could possibly want. I'll never accuse an innocent man of a crime. That's just not the kind of show I'm running here, but this man is new levels of suspicious. In my own mind, I've made peace with the idea that Lonnie was most likely the killer. Being a two-time convicted felon, we already know that he was a pretty bad guy. We just don't know if he managed to turn himself around while he was in prison. Detective McCarthy has also resigned to believing that Lonnie was the killer and that alone says an awful lot, considering he has access to all sorts of additional evidence and information that's never been made public. And if all of this public information points to Lonnie, I can only imagine what information that's being withheld may implicate him as well. So in the end, Tammy's case may be officially unsolved, but I think I speak for nearly everyone when I say it's only a matter of time before this case is truly solved. I assume investigators still have Lonnie's DNA on file, as well as the partial DNA recovered from the crime scene. And with the rapid advancements in DNA technology these days, only time will tell. Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of True Crime Stories. If you enjoyed this video, check out this other interesting case I covered and don't forget to subscribe. It's totally free and keeps you up to date with all of my future videos. But my name is Ty Nott and I'll catch you guys in the next one.