UPDATE: Illinois State Police said are seeking information about a person of interest — Theresa “Teri” Belenske, whose maiden name was Theresa Vega — in connection with Tammy Zywicki’s death. The announcement was made Aug. 23, 2026, which is the anniversary of Zywicki’s disappearance and subsequent violent death. The police announcement, which you may read in full here, stated in part:
“Special agents are looking for information about a person who may have a connection with the unknown truck driver. Theresa ‘Teri’ Belenske (maiden name Theresa Vega) was known to hitch hike and may have been traveling with the unknown suspect at some point prior to Tammy’s death. Belenske would have been 32 years old at the time of Tammy’s death. She passed away in 2014 at the age of 54. Belenske is not a suspect, but a person of interest. Special agents are looking for information about Belenske from the late 1980’s through the mid 1990’s. Belenske has ties to cities in California, including Oceanside, Vista, Pomona, San Bernadino, and Fontana.”
(End of update)
Tammy Zywicki could have been 55 years old, the gods of good health willing, this year. Instead, she was murdered — stabbed to death while driving alone to Grinnell College from Evanston, Illinois.
Her name is familiar to anyone who remembers when she went missing Aug. 23, 1992, on her way back to Grinnell for her next year in school. Moreover, it comes up this time of year, with the anniversary of when her empty car was found in Illinois and the start of college classes, not just at Grinnell College but on college campuses throughout the Midwest.
People have daughters — and worry.
Zywicki’s name became one more of the many synonymous with the dangers women should not have to face when predators — usually men — want to harm them. Her disappearance and the discovery of her body Sept. 1, 1992, were reported widely by state and national media.
“Try to stay in your car. Wait for help at least 30 minutes in daytime,” a statement from the Iowa State Patrol advised people whose cars broke down along a highway. “If at all possible, do not leave your car at all at night or in foul weather.” The advisory said to call police if you had access to a telephone, but this was the pre-cellphone era.
Her death at the age of 21 refocused Take Back the Night rallies in Grinnell and heightened safety awareness among women and parents who had children in college. The effect on Grinnell College, where students are returning this week, was profound 34 years ago.
“We have a lot of work to do,” then-senior Nyasha Spears said at a news conference after Zywicki’s body was found along Interstate 44 in rural Lawrence County, Missouri, between Springfield and Joplin. Her death was brutal. Law enforcement officials said she was sexually assaulted and stabbed eight times. Reports said she had been wrapped in a red blanket and bound with duct tape.
Change was needed, Spears said Sept. 3, 1992, to stop a norm “that young women, especially, cannot walk down the streets by themselves at night,” the student newspaper, The Scarlet & Black, reported at the time.
The story was particularly difficult for The Scarlet & Black staff to report. Zywicki had been the paper’s photo editor in spring 1990.
One of the paper’s current reporters, Thai Theodoro, wrote about Zywicki’s death and her Scarlet & Black connection last year. The story won the Iowa College Media Association’s first-place award for best profile.
“She was a joy to work with,” Jessica Weisel, a Scarlet & Black colleague when Zywicki was photo editor, told Theodoro. “I actually have been a lifelong hobbyist of photography because of her.”
As with other murder victims, Zywicki’s death is worth remembering for many reasons, but a prime one is that her murderer has not been found. Uncovered, a national organization tracking cold cases, estimates that Iowa has 748 unsolved murders.
RELATED: DOUGLAS SHONDEL’S MOTHER SEEKS ANSWERS IN HIS COLD CASE, by Dustin Reed Terry, The Cold Cases
RELATED: THE 40-YEAR HUNT FOR MICHELLE MARTINKO’S KILLER: HOW DNA FINALLY SOLVED IOWA’S MOST HAUNTING COLD CASE, by Dustin Reed Terry, The Cold Cases
Jody Ewing, who has run the Iowa Cold Cases website since 2005, has around 700 unsolved murders on her site, dating back to Nathaniel Carnagy’s case in 1847 in Linn County. However, she has around 100 more to put up, she said in a phone conversation Friday, Aug. 21, 2026.
“A lot of it is keeping up,” Ewing said. “There are so many cases in the news now.”
The Iowa Attorney General’s Office lists 532 cases under investigation on its homicide cold case site.
Ewing said Zywicki’s case attracted attention for several reasons.
“A lot of it was because it was a young college student,” Ewing said. “We still consider her an Iowa cold case because she was going to Grinnell College at the time.”
“The FBI got involved with it. It seems like they had so much evidence in the case.”
Zywicki was wrapped in a Kenworth Truck Co. blanket; a trucker lived close to where the body was found. A medical facility worker said she saw a watch matching the description of one missing from Zywicki’s vehicle. The woman told the worker her husband gave it to her. The husband resembled the suspect’s description, but authorities did not charge him.
“It just seemed like there were a lot of coincidences,” Ewing said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says Zywicki — born March 13, 1971 — was last seen publicly with her car at Interstate 80’s mile marker 83 near LaSalle, in central Illinois, between 3:10 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Aug. 23, 1992.
“It was also reported that a tractor/trailer was seen near Zywicki’s vehicle during this time period. The driver of the tractor/trailer is described as a white male between 35 and 40 years of age, over six feet tall, with dark, bushy hair,” the FBI alert for her death states.
Items missing from her car included a 35mm Canon camera and a Loris musical wristwatch that played the song “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”
Authorities thought they had a suspected at one time — he matched the description — but that did not pan out.
Zywicki’s parents, Hank and JoAnn Zywicki, went to Grinnell in November 1992 to meet with college officials and students who had offered sympathy and support for their daughter. They announced a scholarship in their daughter’s name and a reward funded by an anonymous donor, and they thanked people.
“We understand why Tammy chose Grinnell,” JoAnn said at a news conference covered by The Scarlet & Black. Hank could not finish a sentence when talking about turning off the I-80 Grinnell ramp.
RELATED: WAS SERIAL KILLER HENRY LEE LUCAS BEHIND DULUTH COLD CASE STABBING MURDER? by Brad Hunter, Cold Case USA
Neither parent got to see justice for their daughter. Hank died in 2015 at the age of 75. JoAnn died in May 2025 at the age of 82. Her obituary asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Tammy J. Zywicki ’93 Memorial Scholarship Fund at Grinnell for a student there with a passion for photography that matched her daughter’s.
Now, Grinnell College awards a Bachelor of Arts Exhibition Tammy J. Zywicki Memorial Prize for Photography and a rock with a plaque that holds a big “Z” and a memorial for Zywicki is on the campus. Off campus, a Facebook page called “Who killed Tammy Zywicki” is dedicated to her memory.
Victims’ families never forget, Ewing said. “With all family members, it is as if it happened yesterday. All of the cases, they get choked up, they start to cry,” she said. “They have a lot of frustration, as well, that investigators are not talking with them as much as possible.”
Zywicki’s brother, Todd Zywicki, held out hope of identifying the killer someday when he told the LaSalle News Tribune for a story last August that Illinois State Police and the FBI had recovered DNA they previously thought was unusable.
“There still remains optimism and hope that from the DNA evidence they’ve been able to collect, that they’ll be able to find a lead,” Zywicki told News Tribune reporter Maribeth M. Wilson.
Perhaps.
Meantime, late August always will serve as a reminder of yet one more life cut short by violence.
Lyle Muller is a retired longtime Iowa journalist who serves as the Grinnell College Scarlet & Black professional adviser.
He is a member of one of Iowa’s fastest-growing news and opinion efforts, the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. You may find all of the collaborative’s writers here. Subscribe and support them.
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