Latest / Hell and Gone: Murder Line / The Little Rock Girl

Transcript

The Little Rock Girl · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Every single time I listen to a
0:14
Speaker 1: true crime podcast or watch a TV show, they say
0:18
Speaker 1: the same thing. It was such a small town, you
0:22
Speaker 1: never expected such a horrific murder to happen there. But
0:27
Speaker 1: one thing you learn working in true crime is that
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Speaker 1: evil is everywhere, and it definitely does not discriminate by
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Speaker 1: zip code. But there are some cold cases that captivate
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Speaker 1: the public imagination, and as the years go by and
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Speaker 1: the cases remain unsolved, the names of these victims become
0:46
Speaker 1: synonymous with the town itself. In Little Rock, Arkansas, that
0:52
Speaker 1: name is Ebbie Jane Steppack. It seems like everyone in
0:57
Speaker 1: Arkansas knows Ebbie Steppeck. They know that Ebbie was eighteen
1:02
Speaker 1: years old when she vanished without a trace. They know
1:05
Speaker 1: that her case has been one of the most extensively
1:07
Speaker 1: covered cold cases ever in Arkansas. Maybe they've seen her
1:12
Speaker 1: high school portrait or the missing posters that have papered
1:15
Speaker 1: the city streets and been all over social media since
1:19
Speaker 1: Ebie disappeared in twenty fifteen. And yet, even though Ebbie
1:24
Speaker 1: is everywhere, so much of her life and her case
1:28
Speaker 1: remain a mystery. What really happened to Ebbie Steppick. I'm
1:35
Speaker 1: Catherine Townsend. This is hell and gone. You just you
2:07
Speaker 1: just go straight. It's out's up here on the right,
2:12
Speaker 1: and I'm back in Arkansas. This time I'm in Little Rock.
2:16
Speaker 1: My producer, Gabby is driving us to our first stop
2:20
Speaker 1: of the day. I had a lot of weird dreams
2:22
Speaker 1: last night about men surrounding our car, so hopefully that
2:25
Speaker 1: won't happen. But yeah, So this is our first day
2:31
Speaker 1: on the case. We're going to be meeting with Ebbie
2:35
Speaker 1: Steppeck's mom. I've been in contact with Ebbie's mom, Laurie
2:40
Speaker 1: for a few months now. She's walked me through the case,
2:44
Speaker 1: what's missing and what they don't know. She's also been
2:47
Speaker 1: telling me a lot about Ebby in many ways, Ebbie
2:52
Speaker 1: Steppeck was a typical teenager. She was living in West
2:56
Speaker 1: Little Rock with Laurie, her stepdad, Michael, and her younger sister.
3:00
Speaker 1: Her older brother Trevor lived nearby, so did her maternal grandparents.
3:07
Speaker 1: Both of Ebbie's parents, her mom, Laurie and her dad Peter,
3:10
Speaker 1: were hairstylists, and Ebbie had dreams of going to cosmetology school.
3:16
Speaker 1: She loved doing her hair and switching up styles and colors.
3:21
Speaker 1: She also loved to do her makeup. Ebbie's friends and
3:25
Speaker 1: families say that as she grew up, she developed a
3:29
Speaker 1: strong personality. She was fiercely loyal, she loved to make
3:33
Speaker 1: everyone laugh, and she loved to entertain. Like a lot
3:38
Speaker 1: of teens, she was a child of divorce, and she
3:41
Speaker 1: was dealing with the conflicts that come with being part
3:43
Speaker 1: of a blended family. Ebbie was eighteen years old. She
3:47
Speaker 1: was at a crossroads, deciding who she wanted to be
3:51
Speaker 1: and what she wanted to do with her life. Loved
3:55
Speaker 1: and just make sure we're right on the rightway. Okay,
3:58
Speaker 1: So we take a left here, and then we take
4:00
Speaker 1: a right, and then it's really close. I've been a
4:03
Speaker 1: Little Rock a lot. I was actually born in Little Rock,
4:07
Speaker 1: and I grew up just a few miles from here
4:09
Speaker 1: in the southern part of the state. While working on
4:12
Speaker 1: previous seasons of the podcast, it seemed like I was
4:15
Speaker 1: always driving through Little Rock for one reason or another.
4:19
Speaker 1: It's also where the Arkansas State Police and the Little
4:22
Speaker 1: Rock Police Department are based. Little Rock is divided by
4:26
Speaker 1: several highways. Interstate thirty divides north and south, Interstate four
4:31
Speaker 1: thirty and six thirty divide east and west, and basically
4:35
Speaker 1: anything west of Interstate four thirty is considered West Little
4:39
Speaker 1: Rock and it's an area that has expanded rapidly over
4:43
Speaker 1: the past two decades. Cantrell Road and Channell Parkway are
4:47
Speaker 1: the major roads that run through this part of town.
4:50
Speaker 1: It's full of affluent neighborhoods with names like Brody Creek,
4:54
Speaker 1: Woodland's Edge, and the Channel Valley. Channell Valley is where
4:59
Speaker 1: Ebby's family lives. It looks a little like the Ozarks.
5:02
Speaker 1: I mean, there are kind of rolling hills, there are
5:04
Speaker 1: a lot of trees. It's got almost like a semi
5:08
Speaker 1: rural feel in this part of West Little Rock. There
5:11
Speaker 1: are a lot of little gated communities and lakes. In general,
5:15
Speaker 1: it's very safe, very friendly, nice area. We arrive at Laurie's,
5:24
Speaker 1: so you turn into this little subdivision and it's basically
5:28
Speaker 1: it's just a planned little community. Really nice houses, nice yards.
5:33
Speaker 1: They're set, they're close to each other. They look like
5:36
Speaker 1: they're all kind of a similar architectural style. Hi, how
5:50
Speaker 1: are you. Hi's our producer. Hello, thank you. She listens
5:56
Speaker 1: to sounds. I don't want to I want to worry
5:58
Speaker 1: about hi talking, So y'all come on here. Laurie and
6:03
Speaker 1: her family have moved since we went missing, but they
6:06
Speaker 1: still live in the same general area. The house is gorgeous,
6:11
Speaker 1: with white walls, big overstuffed sofas, and while we're there,
6:15
Speaker 1: it's beautifully decorated for the holidays. In Ebbie's senior picture,
6:20
Speaker 1: she looks exactly like her mom, Laurie. Both are petite
6:24
Speaker 1: and blonde. Laurie says they were alike in personality too.
6:29
Speaker 1: The personality traits they shared made them super close, but
6:33
Speaker 1: it also meant that as Ebbie grew up and became
6:36
Speaker 1: a teenager, they clashed. Ebbie's the strongest filled person that
6:42
Speaker 1: I know, other than myself. We are both so stubborn.
6:49
Speaker 1: That is our biggest defective character, but it's also our
6:54
Speaker 1: strongest thing we have going for us too. Like a
7:00
Speaker 1: lot of teens, Ebbie was rebellious. She was, also, according
7:04
Speaker 1: to her friends and family, a combination of naive and fierce.
7:08
Speaker 1: She would do anything for a friend in need. She
7:11
Speaker 1: would also not shy away from speaking out for people
7:14
Speaker 1: she believed were being wronged, Like in her junior year
7:18
Speaker 1: of high school, she defended a classmate who was wrongly
7:21
Speaker 1: incarcerated after a gun was found in his car in
7:24
Speaker 1: the school parking lot. Ebbie rallied her classmates and wrote
7:28
Speaker 1: letters to help the young man get his name cleared.
7:31
Speaker 1: In the summer of twenty fifteen, after her junior year
7:34
Speaker 1: of high school, Ebbie's independent street kicked into high gear.
7:39
Speaker 1: She started working first at Playtime Pizza, then at the
7:43
Speaker 1: footlocker store in McCay Mall, which was a few miles
7:46
Speaker 1: away in north Little Rock. She started arguing more and
7:50
Speaker 1: more with her stepdad and her mom. Soon she was
7:53
Speaker 1: hanging out with a new set of friends, friends that
7:56
Speaker 1: her parents and her old friends didn't know. Ebbie had
8:00
Speaker 1: been attending a private Magnet school called Lisa Academy for
8:03
Speaker 1: several years. The school was and according to some of
8:07
Speaker 1: her fellow students, it was a fairly sheltered environment. But
8:11
Speaker 1: that summer, Ebbie told her parents that she planned to
8:14
Speaker 1: transfer to Little Rock Central High School for her senior year.
8:19
Speaker 1: Central High was a flashpoint in the civil rights movement.
8:22
Speaker 1: You may recognize it from the famous case of the
8:25
Speaker 1: Arkansas Nine. As a large public school, at Central, it
8:30
Speaker 1: was easier for Ebby to get lost in the crowd.
8:34
Speaker 1: She started skipping school, staying out late, and defying her parents.
8:38
Speaker 1: More and more frustrated, Michael and Laurie laid down the law.
8:43
Speaker 1: They told Ebbie that if she couldn't follow their rules,
8:46
Speaker 1: she couldn't live under their roof. So Ebby made the
8:50
Speaker 1: decision to move out. Ebbie started CouchSurfing. She would stay
8:56
Speaker 1: with her brother, Trevor or sometimes were their grandparents or
9:00
Speaker 1: one of her girlfriends. Talking to Laurie, it's obvious that
9:05
Speaker 1: this was a heartbreaking decision for she and her husband
9:08
Speaker 1: to make, but it's one that they stuck with because
9:11
Speaker 1: they were worried that Ebbie was going off the rails.
9:14
Speaker 1: They wanted to help her get back on the right track.
9:18
Speaker 1: She told Trevor she was tired. She was tired of
9:21
Speaker 1: living the way she was living. She'd seen more things
9:24
Speaker 1: than she ever wanted to see again. He was talking
9:28
Speaker 1: to her about not necessarily coming back home, but letting
9:32
Speaker 1: Michael help her, letting us help her to get her ged,
9:39
Speaker 1: get in beauty school, as getting her an apartment, helping
9:43
Speaker 1: her just get her life going. Trevor and Michael were
9:47
Speaker 1: talking there was gonna be a conversation that they were
9:50
Speaker 1: going to sit down and talk to Ebbie and say, hey,
9:54
Speaker 1: we're gonna help you get your life back, and she was.
9:58
Speaker 1: She said she was really ready to stop. During this time,
10:06
Speaker 1: one of the friends Ebbie was staying with was Danielle. Hello, Hey,
10:10
Speaker 1: is this Danielle. Yes, Hey, it's Catherine Townsend. Hey. I
10:16
Speaker 1: talked to Danielle on the phone about what Ebbie's life
10:19
Speaker 1: was like during this time. First, I just wanted to ask,
10:21
Speaker 1: can you tell me how you met her and what
10:23
Speaker 1: she was like? Yeah? So, well, I had known her.
10:30
Speaker 1: Danielle was one of Ebbie's best friends. She talked about
10:34
Speaker 1: how when she met Ebbie, they didn't like each other
10:37
Speaker 1: at first, probably because, as Danielle explained, they both liked
10:41
Speaker 1: the same guy. It was nothing serious, she said, just
10:45
Speaker 1: your typical teenage drama. They became friends a few months later.
10:50
Speaker 1: I reached out to her via social media and I
10:53
Speaker 1: just said, hey, I just want to apologize, you know,
10:57
Speaker 1: for being the way that I was during said situation,
11:01
Speaker 1: and I would really like it if we could be friends.
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Speaker 1: And she apologized back, and so anyways, that was the
11:09
Speaker 1: beginning of us becoming friends. I mean, as far as
11:13
Speaker 1: her personality, you know, she she had a very strong personality.
11:16
Speaker 1: She came off one way, but like I think she
11:20
Speaker 1: kind of did it to sort of intimidate people, like
11:23
Speaker 1: I'm not one to be played with. Once we got
11:26
Speaker 1: past that, I mean, she was so sweet to me,
11:28
Speaker 1: and you know, we would hang out all the time
11:31
Speaker 1: and we really just we enjoyed doing anything. That pretty
11:34
Speaker 1: much got both of us out of the house. Danielle
11:37
Speaker 1: never knew why Ebby decided to transfer from Lisa Academy
11:41
Speaker 1: to Central High School, but she also didn't know a
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Speaker 1: lot of what Ebby was up to in the weeks
11:46
Speaker 1: before she disappeared. After Ebbie left home, she was always
11:52
Speaker 1: on the road in her Volkeswagon Pacade. On Tuesday, October twentieth,
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Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, Ebbie sent a message to Danielle on Snapchat.
12:01
Speaker 1: The message read, Hey, I know this is a lot
12:04
Speaker 1: to ask, but is there any way your mom would
12:06
Speaker 1: let me stay the night tonight. Danielle wrote back that
12:09
Speaker 1: that was fine. She told Ebbie to come on over
12:12
Speaker 1: for dinner. You know, she would come here and there
12:14
Speaker 1: would be some night she'd be like, well, I'm gonna
12:16
Speaker 1: go home for the night, you know. Of course, I
12:18
Speaker 1: never really know she actually went home, or if she
12:21
Speaker 1: went somewhere else, But I know for sure there were
12:24
Speaker 1: at least a couple of nights when she said, well,
12:27
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to a friend's house and then
12:29
Speaker 1: I'll come back, and she just wouldn't come back. I
12:33
Speaker 1: know there were several days when she would like skip school,
12:36
Speaker 1: just wouldn't go. But you know, of course, again that
12:40
Speaker 1: was one of the situations where I didn't know where
12:42
Speaker 1: she went, or who she was with or anything like that.
12:45
Speaker 1: On Wednesday, October twenty one, Danielle and Ebbie went together
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Speaker 1: to an event at a local church. They went home afterward,
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Speaker 1: and Ebbie spent Wednesday and Thursday nights at Danielle's house.
12:58
Speaker 1: On Friday, October twenty three, Ebbie told Danielle that she
13:02
Speaker 1: was going to a party. She asked Danielle if she
13:05
Speaker 1: wanted to go with her, but Danielle said she didn't
13:08
Speaker 1: know anyone who was going to be there, so she declined,
13:12
Speaker 1: and something happened at that party, something that would change
13:17
Speaker 1: the course of Ebbie's life. For several years, every time
13:29
Speaker 1: you would see a news story about Ebbie Steppit, the
13:32
Speaker 1: same narrative gets reported about what allegedly happened that Friday, night.
13:37
Speaker 1: The reports say that Ebbie was gang raped by several
13:40
Speaker 1: young men at a party, but that's not what happened.
13:46
Speaker 1: On Friday night, Ebbie went out with a male friend
13:49
Speaker 1: from Central High School. Together, they went over to the
13:52
Speaker 1: home of another Central High School student in Little Rock,
13:56
Speaker 1: and it wasn't really a party. It was just a
13:58
Speaker 1: few friends hanging out. Ebbie, her friend, the friend they
14:02
Speaker 1: went there to see, and two other guys. We'll never
14:06
Speaker 1: know exactly what happened that night, but piecing together Ebbie's
14:11
Speaker 1: text messages after the fact, it seems like what happened
14:14
Speaker 1: to Ebby may have started out as a consensual sexual
14:18
Speaker 1: encounter with one guy. Then at some point she thought
14:22
Speaker 1: that the person she was having the sexual encounter with
14:26
Speaker 1: was videotaping her without her permission. Ebbie was angry. She
14:32
Speaker 1: texted another one of her friends, a guy named Gage.
14:36
Speaker 1: The text read, I was hanging with some dudes last
14:39
Speaker 1: night and we smoked and I was having sex with
14:41
Speaker 1: one of them and he fucking recorded me, dude, like
14:44
Speaker 1: when I wasn't looking. There is a black hole of
14:48
Speaker 1: information about what was going on that weekend, and we're
14:52
Speaker 1: working to try to find out what happened. But we
14:56
Speaker 1: do know that Ebby must have made her way back
14:58
Speaker 1: to her brother Trevor's house later on Friday night, because
15:01
Speaker 1: Trevor told Laurie that Ebby was there when he woke
15:04
Speaker 1: up that Saturday. Now, at this point, Ebbie and her mom,
15:08
Speaker 1: Laurie were still not communicating at all. This was part
15:12
Speaker 1: of their agreement after Ebbie moved out, So the whole
15:15
Speaker 1: time this was playing out, Laurie had no idea what
15:19
Speaker 1: was happening to her daughter after that happened. That was
15:23
Speaker 1: on a Friday night, she came home to Trevor's. He
15:27
Speaker 1: didn't know anything that happened. He called me and asked
15:30
Speaker 1: if Ebbie could stay with me that day, so he
15:33
Speaker 1: had a wedding to go to and didn't want to
15:35
Speaker 1: leave her home by herself. I said no, If she
15:39
Speaker 1: couldn't come home, that was the deal. And I knew
15:44
Speaker 1: if Ebbie and I saw each other, everything would break,
15:48
Speaker 1: and then she would lie and be gone two days later,
15:52
Speaker 1: and we'd read right back where we started from. Danielle
15:56
Speaker 1: saw Ebbie on Saturday, the day after the party. She
16:00
Speaker 1: said she had no idea that her friend had been
16:03
Speaker 1: through a trauma the night before Saturday I saw her.
16:06
Speaker 1: She came to my mom's house, but she had to leave.
16:09
Speaker 1: She didn't tell me where she was going. She just
16:11
Speaker 1: told me she had something that she had to take
16:13
Speaker 1: care of and then she would be back. Ebbie never
16:16
Speaker 1: went back to Danielle's and that's the last time that
16:19
Speaker 1: Danielle ever saw her friend. We know that she spent
16:22
Speaker 1: the afternoon at her grandparents' house, just hanging around in
16:26
Speaker 1: her pj's watching her favorite shows. So she went to
16:29
Speaker 1: my mom and dad's all day until at night. She
16:34
Speaker 1: stayed over there, slept, had a great day. My parents
16:38
Speaker 1: didn't know anything that had happened. On Saturday evening, Laurie
16:43
Speaker 1: and Michael were out to dinner when Laurie started feeling sick,
16:47
Speaker 1: and then Michael got a text from Ebbie. She said,
16:51
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you something, but don't tell mom. I
16:54
Speaker 1: was raped and video taped and I want you to
17:00
Speaker 1: go to the police with me, but I don't want
17:03
Speaker 1: mom to know. And he said, okay, let me get
17:07
Speaker 1: your mom home and then well, you know, we'll figure
17:11
Speaker 1: out a place to meet. She said, okay, he said,
17:15
Speaker 1: stay put. Michael was focused on getting Marie home and
17:20
Speaker 1: then he says his plan was to meet up with
17:23
Speaker 1: Ebbie so they could go to the police station together.
17:26
Speaker 1: He told her to stay where she was at her
17:29
Speaker 1: grandparents house, but Ebbie didn't stay put. Instead, she told
17:34
Speaker 1: her grandparents that she was going out to meet Michael.
17:37
Speaker 1: When Michael got Laurie home, he tried to get in
17:40
Speaker 1: touch with Ebbie, but she never replied. Eventually, he called
17:45
Speaker 1: her grandparents house, so he was calling my mom to
17:49
Speaker 1: ask her where she was. She said she didn't know
17:53
Speaker 1: she was going to meet him, and my mom didn't
17:56
Speaker 1: get She wasn't alarmed because Ebbie was real flighty. Anyway,
18:01
Speaker 1: Trevor was at a wedding, so I think that's what
18:05
Speaker 1: Michael was thinking. There's just nothing he could do but wait.
18:11
Speaker 1: To this day, no one in Ebbie's family knows where
18:14
Speaker 1: she went on Saturday night. It's Sunday, October twenty five,
18:24
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, and it's the day after Ebbie texted her
18:28
Speaker 1: stepdad Michael about wanting to file a sexual assault claim.
18:33
Speaker 1: Michael had been trying to get in touch with her
18:35
Speaker 1: so they could meet up and make a plan to
18:37
Speaker 1: go to the police, but Ebbie never answered. Now, at
18:41
Speaker 1: this point, Michael says he was concerned, but not panicked.
18:45
Speaker 1: He just assumed that Ebby, like she had many times before,
18:49
Speaker 1: gone back to her brother Trevor's house. Meanwhile, Trevor and
18:53
Speaker 1: Ebbie's sister were calling her all day and not getting
18:57
Speaker 1: any response. Ebbie was supposed to go to a church
19:00
Speaker 1: event with Danielle, but she didn't show on Sunday afternoon,
19:07
Speaker 1: is when I was at a separate church event and
19:11
Speaker 1: I got a call from her sister and she had
19:14
Speaker 1: asked me like, hey, have you talked to Ebbie? Have
19:16
Speaker 1: you seen her? Because we haven't talked to her or
19:19
Speaker 1: heard from her, And I said no. I said, I
19:22
Speaker 1: can go make sure that she's not at my mom's house,
19:24
Speaker 1: you know, just in case like her phone had died
19:26
Speaker 1: or something. So I left the event that I was
19:29
Speaker 1: at and went to my mom's house to see if
19:31
Speaker 1: she was there, and she wasn't. So that was kind
19:34
Speaker 1: of once we started to realize, hey, something's up. A
19:38
Speaker 1: few hours later, Danielle got another call from Ebbe's sister.
19:42
Speaker 1: That was when she told me about she had talked
19:44
Speaker 1: to Trevor, and then after that we were just completely
19:47
Speaker 1: in the dark. What she's talking about is this Trevor
19:52
Speaker 1: dialed Ebbie's number at around five thirty on Sunday afternoon.
19:58
Speaker 1: No one answered, but then just a few minutes later,
20:01
Speaker 1: his phone rang and it was Ebby, and that phone
20:05
Speaker 1: conversation with Trevor would change everything. One of the most
20:10
Speaker 1: heartbreaking parts of this case is the fact that Trevor
20:13
Speaker 1: also passed away in twenty nineteen of a heart attack,
20:17
Speaker 1: so we can't ask him exactly what was said on
20:20
Speaker 1: this phone call. Here's what Laurie remembers. Trevor just runs
20:27
Speaker 1: in the house, bust in the house. Heys like, Mom, Mom, like,
20:34
Speaker 1: what Something's happened to Ebbie? Something has happened. And I'm like,
20:40
Speaker 1: what what are you talking about? He was like, I
20:43
Speaker 1: was talking to her on the phone. She's somewhere. She's
20:47
Speaker 1: fucked up, she can't talk. She's in her car. She
20:52
Speaker 1: doesn't know where she is or who's with her. But
20:55
Speaker 1: something's happened. We got to find her, call the police.
21:00
Speaker 1: When Trevor comes in and tells me that I can't
21:04
Speaker 1: even describe. I know that something bad is happening. And
21:12
Speaker 1: Trevor said, Mom, I just talked to her. I said
21:16
Speaker 1: where are you and she said, I'm out in front
21:19
Speaker 1: of your house, and Trevor's like, I hung up, walked
21:22
Speaker 1: outside and she's not there. So I called her bag
21:25
Speaker 1: and I said, Ebbie, you're not out in front of
21:26
Speaker 1: my house. Where are you? And she said, I'm in
21:30
Speaker 1: my car and I'm really fucked up. I don't know
21:34
Speaker 1: who I'm with, I don't know where I am. And
21:41
Speaker 1: even though she had no idea where she was and
21:44
Speaker 1: she was messed up, Ebbie knew that she was in trouble.
21:49
Speaker 1: That's all that I know that kept going on in
21:54
Speaker 1: the phone conversation. I could never get Trevor to tell
22:00
Speaker 1: me every single word that was said. I wanted to
22:03
Speaker 1: know every single word, and he couldn't tell me every
22:06
Speaker 1: single word. This is how the call with Ebbie ended.
22:10
Speaker 1: He said, Okay, I'm gonna hang up and get Michael
22:13
Speaker 1: to turn your location on your phone. And she said okay,
22:19
Speaker 1: and she hung up, and that's the last that we
22:22
Speaker 1: ever heard from her, and her phone was never answered again.
22:27
Speaker 1: At this point, Laurie and Trevor are freaking out. Laurie
22:32
Speaker 1: was trying to absorb this. This was the first time
22:36
Speaker 1: that she was hearing that her daughter may have been
22:38
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted and now could be in serious danger and
22:43
Speaker 1: a lot of this is a blur. But Trevor's on
22:46
Speaker 1: the phone with the police. He's like, something's happened to
22:49
Speaker 1: my sister. You've got to do something. You've got to
22:51
Speaker 1: find her. And the police are like, there's nothing we
22:54
Speaker 1: can do, and he said, then put an all points
22:57
Speaker 1: bulletin out for her car because something has happened to
23:02
Speaker 1: her right now. Somebody's done something to her or was
23:05
Speaker 1: doing something to her. So, according to Laurie, the police
23:10
Speaker 1: said they would put out an all points bulletin on
23:13
Speaker 1: the car. She says after that they didn't do anything.
23:18
Speaker 1: Trevor told Michael to track Ebbie's location on her iPhone.
23:22
Speaker 1: Michael said that he tried, but Ebbie's location services feature
23:26
Speaker 1: was turned off. Then, Laurie says they tried to report
23:30
Speaker 1: Ebbie missing, but the police told her that she had
23:33
Speaker 1: to wait twelve hours. This is not true, but it
23:38
Speaker 1: is a common misconception that people have and because of that,
23:42
Speaker 1: crucial hours can be lost when someone goes missing. Over
23:47
Speaker 1: the next several days, after Ebbie's phone called Trevor, her
23:51
Speaker 1: family and friends called everyone they could think of. They
23:54
Speaker 1: papered the area with flyers, Laurie is a hairdresser and
23:58
Speaker 1: some of her clients worked in the media, so that
24:01
Speaker 1: night had her face in car in everything on TV
24:06
Speaker 1: that night. Ebbie was a kid who lived and breathed
24:09
Speaker 1: on social media. Her family scoured her Facebook, her Instagram,
24:14
Speaker 1: and her Snapchat for potential clues. They also looked through
24:17
Speaker 1: Ebbie's phone records. They found out that after that four
24:22
Speaker 1: minute call with Trevor, all contact with Ebbie stopped. After that,
24:27
Speaker 1: her phone was never answered again. They could also see
24:32
Speaker 1: her last Instagram post. It looks like she's belted into
24:36
Speaker 1: the passenger seat of a car, maybe her car. She's
24:40
Speaker 1: looking into the lens. The caption reads, I Know what
24:44
Speaker 1: you did. On October thirtieth, twenty fifteen, five days after
24:50
Speaker 1: Ebbie went missing, police searched Ebbie's two thousand and three
24:54
Speaker 1: silver Volkswagen Pasade. It was sitting in the parking lot
24:58
Speaker 1: of Shalamont Park, a small residential park near her home
25:02
Speaker 1: in West Little Rock. La and Michael find out to
25:07
Speaker 1: their horror that Ebby's car has been sitting there in
25:10
Speaker 1: the park since the day she disappeared, and that people
25:14
Speaker 1: in the area had been calling the police for days
25:17
Speaker 1: about an abandoned car. It was called in every day
25:21
Speaker 1: by the security guard by neighbors. Lee was a neighbor
25:27
Speaker 1: who lived very close to the park and regularly took
25:30
Speaker 1: walks there in the mornings. And Lee is the one
25:32
Speaker 1: who called Laurie to tell her the police had found
25:35
Speaker 1: Ebby's car. And she calls me and says, Laurie, they're
25:39
Speaker 1: up here with Peter with the car. Peter is Ebbie's
25:45
Speaker 1: biological father, and because both Peter's name and Ebbie's name
25:49
Speaker 1: were on the title of the car, police called him
25:51
Speaker 1: to let him know that the Volkswagen had been found abandoned. So,
25:56
Speaker 1: even though Ebby's family had reported her missing several days earlier,
26:00
Speaker 1: and even though there were supposed to have been an
26:03
Speaker 1: all points bulletin put out on that car, when police
26:06
Speaker 1: called Peter to tell him that his abandoned car had
26:08
Speaker 1: been found, police had not connected that Volkswagen to Ebby.
26:13
Speaker 1: They called Peter and said, Peter, we have your car
26:17
Speaker 1: up Peter, and Peter's like, what, Yeah, we have your
26:20
Speaker 1: car up here, and he said, that's my daughter's car.
26:23
Speaker 1: Who's missing. Who's missing. Peter raced over to the park
26:29
Speaker 1: and met police there. This is what they found. Ebby's
26:35
Speaker 1: car was unlocked, the keys were in the ignition, and
26:38
Speaker 1: the car was out of gas, as if it had
26:40
Speaker 1: been left running. All of Ebbie's personal belongings were left
26:44
Speaker 1: in that car, her clothes, her purse, and her phone.
26:48
Speaker 1: Her makeup, which she usually kept in pristine condition, was
26:52
Speaker 1: broken and scattered everywhere. Laurie knew her daughter, She knew
26:57
Speaker 1: that Ebby's entire life was in that car. She believes
27:02
Speaker 1: Ebby would never have gotten out of that car, walked
27:05
Speaker 1: away and left everything she owned behind, including by the way,
27:09
Speaker 1: her contact lenses, the ones she couldn't see without, and
27:13
Speaker 1: her phone, which she had with her all the time.
27:17
Speaker 1: It made no sense. Michael and Trevor went to the
27:21
Speaker 1: park to see if they could find any sign of Ebby,
27:25
Speaker 1: but she was gone. And I don't know why she
27:27
Speaker 1: went to the park. We didn't know anything that was
27:30
Speaker 1: going on with her, where she was going. None of
27:33
Speaker 1: her friends knew any of the people she was hanging
27:36
Speaker 1: out with. No one knew anything about who she was
27:40
Speaker 1: around or where she met him. What was Ebby doing
27:45
Speaker 1: in Chalamont Park? Did she go there to meet someone
27:49
Speaker 1: or had someone picked her up there and taken her
27:52
Speaker 1: somewhere else. Her family said they had no idea. They're
27:57
Speaker 1: open to the possibility that Ebby had been leading a
27:59
Speaker 1: whole other life that they knew nothing about. I'm Catherine Townsend.
28:06
Speaker 1: Is Hell and Gone. Hellan Gone is a production of
28:12
Speaker 1: School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It's written and hosted by
28:15
Speaker 1: me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts and Michael
28:19
Speaker 1: dowd Our. Executive producers are Brandon Barr, Else Crowley, and
28:24
Speaker 1: Virginia Prescott. Mix and Master is by Ryan Peoples and
28:28
Speaker 1: our music is by Bensley. School of Humans