Overview
- State police and the FBI announced Sunday that they have identified Theresa “Teri” Belenske as a person of interest in the 1992 kidnapping and murder of college student Tammy Zywicki.
- Belenske is not being labeled a suspect, she died in 2014, and investigators say she was known to hitchhike and had ties to several California communities.
- Officials are reexamining roughly 200 pieces of evidence and retesting items with modern DNA methods as they pursue new leads in the cold case.
- Longstanding witness reports that a semi-truck stopped near Zywicki’s disabled car in LaSalle County remain central to the probe, and an early multistate task force in 1992–93 identified and later released other persons of interest.
- The FBI is offering up to $50,000 for information and authorities are urging anyone with relevant memories about Belenske or her associates from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s to submit tips; media reports that Belenske’s DNA was found on the blanket wrapping Zywicki’s body are described by officials as developing.