Tuesday, February 7th 2023, 10:28 pm
A new piece of evidence could mean everything for a Tulsa murder that's gone unsolved for 18 years, or it could be nothing. That's why the victim's mother is asking for help.
Brittany Phillips was raped and murdered in 2004. It's just come to light that a week after her murder, Brittany's grandfather received a card from her. If she's the one who mailed it, it could change a lot about the case.
Brittany sent a card to her grandfather every year but could never remember his address, so she sent the card through her father.
Her father just recently found the last card Brittany sent, hidden away in a box.
It arrived after Brittany had been buried, but had a stamp on it, similar to one that was bought September 29, 2004.
Brittany's mother has always been told Brittany died either September 27 or 28, so this was a shocker, to say the least.
"It was almost like being told she'd died again. It was a piece of her," Maggie Zingman, Brittany's mother.
She's not showing the exact stamp since it and the card are evidence and she gave them to police. But she said stamps like this one are bought at a kiosk or at a post office desk.
"There's really two viable options, two options and number one is tearing my hear apart, is that she mailed it," said Maggie.
She said the second option and likely the more logical one, is Brittany asked a friend to mail the card for her.
However, Maggie asked Brittany's brother and a handful of friends and they didn't mail it.
So now she's asking anyone who did mail it, to please come forward.
"We need to know because this changes the whole timeline on her death. This can affect so many things," Maggie said.
Brittany was in college when she was raped and strangled in her South Tulsa apartment.
Originally, investigators believed DNA from the scene would solve the case.
It was compared to more than 1,500 suspects, but they were all ruled out because they weren't a match.
Then, a few years ago, Maggie got the devastating news that DNA was not the killer's after all, but belonged to a young man who had spent the night with his girlfriend at Brittany's apartment.
That means some of those suspects who were ruled out could still be the killer.
Maggie wants to know if this new piece of evidence might be significant. To know that, she needs to know if someone besides Brittany mailed the card.
"Is it going to bring her back, no. But, we need to find out if someone mailed it. This is just so important because if not, that stamp, I don't know how to express this, that stamp can't lie," Maggie said.
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