Saturday, July 14, 2007

Illinois police get break in Zywicki murder investigation

A man who has confessed to six murders may have also been responsible for the 1992 murder of Illinois woman Tammy Zywicki, whose body was found near Springfield, Mo., stabbed eight times and wrapped in a blanket:

Zywicki vanished from Interstate 80 near LaSalle-Peru on Aug. 23, 1992, as she drove back to Grinnell College in Iowa just after dropping off her brother at Northwestern University in Evanston. She was found sexually assaulted and stabbed to death in Missouri nine days later.

As CBS 2's Dana Kozlov reports, the arrest of Bruce Mendenhall in Tennessee could be a break in the Zywicki case.

Mendenhall, 56, a suspected serial killer is originally from Albion, Ill. He was arrested Thursday after officers spotted his semi-truck and realized it matched a description of one linked to the murder of 25-year-old Sara Hulbert last month.

"Inside the left driver’s door there were several blood spots, and obviously that heightened or suspicions at that point, and I asked if I could get up inside the cab to have a visual look around and he said OK,” said Sgt. Pat Postiglione of the Nashville Police Department.

Mendenhall told police he's killed victims in Tennessee, Indiana, Georgia and Alabama. Nashville police say authorities from around the country are now calling for more information.

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