By admin 
The Illinois State Police has for the first time released the name of a person of interest in the 1992 murder of Tammy Zywicki, a graduate of Eastside High in Greenville.
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In a podcast released Sunday, the 34th anniversary of her death, investigators said DNA from Theresa “Teri” Belenske (maiden name Theresa Vega) was found on the blanket Zywicki’s body was found wrapped in.
She may have been traveling with the suspect who has eluded them for so long.
Belenske died in 2014, but investigators hope someone has information about the people she came in contact with as she hitchhiked around the country.
Their profile of the killer says he was a white man with brown hair, charismatic and able to overpower Zywicki physically or emotionally. They also said he was tied to the trucking industry and likely had a history of domestic violence.
Zywicki disappeared after her white Pontiac T1000 broke down on Interstate 80 in LaSalle County, Illinois, Aug 23, 1992. She was on her way back to Grinnell College in Iowa.
Her car was found by an Illinois State Police trooper and marked as being abandoned.
It was towed the next day, which was the same day Tammy’s mother JoAnn contacted ISP to say her daughter was missing.
Zywicki’s body was found on Sept. 1, 1992 just off the roadway on Interstate 44 in rural Lawrence County, Missouri, some 500 miles from where her car was abandoned.
“There was no attempt to bury her body, left for someone to find,” Acting Lt. Ryan Kaney said.
An autopsy found she was stabbed eight times in a circular pattern on her chest.
Belenske was 32 at the time of Tammy’s death and investigators stressed she is not a suspect but a person of interest. They hope someone who knew her from the late 1980s through the mid 1990s can provide some information. Belenske was known to frequent various places in California, including Oceanside, Vista, Pomona, San Bernadino, and Fontana.
New leads
The State Police said, along with the FBI, they have explored new leads, examined 200 pieces of evidence, and retested items with modern DNA technology.
Kaney said they discovered hair samples in evidence and have eight partial prints from the car. One belonged to her father, the others are unknown.
The FBI is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the identification of the individual or individuals responsible.
The police also hoped to renew attention on items belonging to Zywicki that are missing, including a Canon 35mm camera and a Lorus brand musical wristwatch, which played the tune “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.”
Also taken was a red and white soccer patch monogrammed with “St. Giles Soccer Club, Greenville, SC.”
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The crime
Tammy hoped for a career in photography. On the day she was abducted, she was returning early to school to take photos of athletes for the yearbook before going to an internship at the Art Institute in Chicago.
She had grown up in Greenville, a star soccer player at Eastside High School. Her family moved to New Jersey after her high school graduation.
Tammy dropped her younger brother, Daren, off at Northwestern University, where he was studying civil engineering. Tammy’s car overheated a time or two on the drive.
Tammy spent the night with a friend and headed for Grinnell, Iowa, 300 miles away. At mile marker 83 on Interstate 80, the Pontiac apparently broke down again.
Passersby saw a young blond woman outside the car between 3:15 p.m. and 4:10 p.m. They said the hood was up. Others saw a tractor-trailer truck pulled up behind and a white man in his 30s, possibly mid-40s standing with a woman. He had long, dark hair and was 6 feet tall.
Another motorist saw a man walking from a pickup truck toward Tammy’s car as she stood in front of it.
Kaney said 27 people have reported seeing Zywicki or her car and one was a woman who broke down a mile or two away at about the same time and was helped by a Good Samaritan. She saw Tammy’s car as she passed by.
The discovery
On Sept. 1 a man stopped on the side of Interstate 44 in Missouri to either relieve himself or cover tools because it had started raining. He told authorities both stories.
While he was outside his truck, he said, he smelled an odor and saw something resembling the form of a human body in a red blanket secured on the ends with duct tape. The man went to the closest highway patrol office and returned with an officer, who cut open the blanket and saw a leg.
Inside the blanket, the body, later identified through dental records as Tammy, was wrapped in a sheet.
The website
Investigators said the Facebook page Who Killed Tammy Zywicki? has been helpful in developing leads. It was started by Patrick Jones, who read about the case in a newspaper, and maintained through the years by New Jersey archaeologist Robert Kotlarek.
The page has a trove of documents, including a highly detailed narrative of how the crime unfolded. It is running a series of posts now called As It Happened, a brief rundown of the crime.
The page also was a source of comfort for JoAnn Zywicki, who died in 2025 at the age of 82. Her husband Hank died in 2015 at 75. JoAnn Zywicki once told The State her husband blamed himself for not getting their daughter a better car or what was then new technology, a cellphone.
Tammy is buried in West Newton Cemetery in West Newton, Pennsylvania beside her parents.
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