Latest / Hell and Gone: Murder Line / Pattern of Life

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Pattern of Life · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans. We are on our way to the
0:16
Speaker 1: Little Rock Police substation and we are going to meet
0:19
Speaker 1: with Bruce Maxwell, who is now the detective on Ebbie's case.
0:24
Speaker 1: I think I don't expect a lot from this. I
0:27
Speaker 1: feel like this meaning, first of all, Bruce Maxwell never
0:30
Speaker 1: call me back. My honest impression is that after Laurie
0:34
Speaker 1: called the chief and made some calls, they all hung
0:38
Speaker 1: up the phone and went in there and said, can
0:39
Speaker 1: you just do this as a favor so this woman
0:41
Speaker 1: doesn't go to the news. That's actually what I feel
0:43
Speaker 1: like happen. But we'll see how it goes. I'll keep
0:46
Speaker 1: an open mind. How you feeling, Mike, I feel I
0:55
Speaker 1: feel not hopeful about them sharing information, but I think
1:00
Speaker 1: it will be important to to ask him the questions
1:04
Speaker 1: that we're going to ask, just to get the reaction
1:07
Speaker 1: from them, and also to press them and make them
1:12
Speaker 1: understand that we know more than what they think we know.
1:23
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone, Mike, our producer,
2:01
Speaker 1: Gabby and I are at the l RPD station. We're
2:04
Speaker 1: waiting to see Bruce Maxwell, the new detective on Ebbie's case.
2:10
Speaker 1: He agreed to meet with us, but he said, we
2:11
Speaker 1: can't record him. He's made it clear that he does
2:14
Speaker 1: not want to be in this podcast. He told us
2:18
Speaker 1: that he took the case over about a month ago,
2:20
Speaker 1: but he says he hasn't really done anything yet because
2:22
Speaker 1: he's had COVID. During the meeting, Bruce expressed and frustration
2:27
Speaker 1: at the massive amount of data that he's had to
2:29
Speaker 1: go through. The only thing he would say is that
2:33
Speaker 1: anything after the twenty sixth of October is bs. He
2:36
Speaker 1: wouldn't really elaborate, but he said, I will tell you that,
2:40
Speaker 1: and you figure out why I think that, and we'll
2:42
Speaker 1: let you know. Welcome to Arkansas, like I. So it
2:48
Speaker 1: was interesting because, as so many meetings with the police
2:52
Speaker 1: do here, it starts with them telling you they can't
2:54
Speaker 1: tell you anything and then ends with them telling you things.
2:57
Speaker 1: So here's what I got. Bruce got the case September
3:00
Speaker 1: of this year. Bruce caught COVID. He had nothing to
3:05
Speaker 1: say about the case in the beginning, said it would
3:08
Speaker 1: be irresponsible to discuss in the beginning right. He did
3:12
Speaker 1: specifically say that anything after the twenty six was bullshit.
3:18
Speaker 1: I proceeded to ask him about cell phone tower data.
3:22
Speaker 1: He said at first that they had it all, but
3:26
Speaker 1: then he said, well he really wasn't sure. What I
3:29
Speaker 1: thought was interesting, though, is that, like a lot of people,
3:33
Speaker 1: he seems to just sort of stick with that line
3:37
Speaker 1: of the FBI has already done everything, But then it
3:40
Speaker 1: kind of goes to, well, I'm pretty sure they've done everything.
3:42
Speaker 1: So it's like, if you actually don't know something's been done,
3:45
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you right right, It's just it's this sort
3:53
Speaker 1: of just well, it's been done. It's almost more important
3:56
Speaker 1: to insist that the box has been ticked, rather than
3:59
Speaker 1: like check and see if it's actually been done. It's
4:02
Speaker 1: it's weird. He also said he's currently starting from scratch,
4:06
Speaker 1: so it is December eighth today. He's not going to
4:12
Speaker 1: look at any of the notes. He's going to do
4:14
Speaker 1: all his cell tower data, which will take for one person.
4:19
Speaker 1: That could take him three to six more months for
4:22
Speaker 1: one person to do it individually. If you're not doing
4:24
Speaker 1: that every day, because he has other casework and receive
4:26
Speaker 1: phone calls about other cases that's going on, you know,
4:29
Speaker 1: while while he's in there, So he's not dedicating a
4:31
Speaker 1: team to this at all. He's taking all of this
4:33
Speaker 1: on him himself. I think we're just gonna have to
4:36
Speaker 1: do it ourselves. But it was important to go in there.
4:39
Speaker 1: I would say, it's not adversarial like at least he
4:42
Speaker 1: you know, he was very friendly. He was friendly and polite.
4:45
Speaker 1: And I told you what I said. We're gonna go
4:47
Speaker 1: in there and it's gonna be like I guarantee you
4:50
Speaker 1: it's gonna be that kind of thing where it's like, well,
4:51
Speaker 1: I better do this. Just to you know, yesterday there
4:54
Speaker 1: was a conversation that took place between the chief and
4:56
Speaker 1: him and he was like, I'm getting calls some Laurie,
4:59
Speaker 1: so can you just sit down with them and just
5:02
Speaker 1: you know, And that's exactly what happened. So that's my
5:06
Speaker 1: interpretation of what just took place. So the whole time
5:12
Speaker 1: that I've been investigating Ebbie's death, one issue we have
5:15
Speaker 1: is that the police have this timeline information, but we
5:18
Speaker 1: don't know what that information is. But what was conveyed
5:21
Speaker 1: to us by the LRPD and by former Detective Tommy
5:24
Speaker 1: Hudson is that the police do know Ebbie's whereabouts through
5:28
Speaker 1: Sunday and they know who she was with. We have
5:31
Speaker 1: found those people that were with her after the Friday
5:35
Speaker 1: night Insiday and I can track her all the way
5:37
Speaker 1: to early Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon when she talked
5:40
Speaker 1: to Trevor, which she was the last person she talked to.
5:43
Speaker 1: And you know these guys that I talked to over night,
5:46
Speaker 1: I mean, they are some shady guys. According to Laurie
5:50
Speaker 1: and Ebbie's stepdad Michael, the police have told them multiple
5:53
Speaker 1: times that they knew where Ebbie was on Saturday night.
5:57
Speaker 1: They've said she was quote safe, unharmed, and with friends.
6:01
Speaker 1: And Tommy kept saying she never met a stranger. She
6:05
Speaker 1: didn't meet a stranger. If she met one person for
6:08
Speaker 1: five minutes, she was meeting that person again, you know,
6:10
Speaker 1: several hours later and again especially if they're gonna, you know,
6:14
Speaker 1: do drugs or something like that. I mean, she was
6:17
Speaker 1: very transient. She didn't know a stranger. And I'm not
6:21
Speaker 1: trying to say she was making poor decisions because she's
6:24
Speaker 1: a teenage girl. I mean a teenage boys make poor
6:27
Speaker 1: decisions sometimes. But you know, I don't think she was
6:30
Speaker 1: ever apprehensive who she met or anything like that. And
6:34
Speaker 1: you know, didn't other's people out there that could hurt
6:37
Speaker 1: you or do bad things. And you know, I'm not
6:40
Speaker 1: saying these are the guys that did it. But it's
6:42
Speaker 1: just these guys have been and some of the guys
6:45
Speaker 1: are still on my radar as a today. This whole time,
6:49
Speaker 1: we've had no idea what was happening with Ebbie from
6:52
Speaker 1: the Saturday when she was with her grandparents to Sunday
6:54
Speaker 1: when she had that phone call with Trevor. But now
6:57
Speaker 1: we know that she was in contact with at least
7:00
Speaker 1: one more person. His name is Eric. Hello, Oh hey, Eric,
7:09
Speaker 1: thanks for calling back. Eric went to Central High School.
7:13
Speaker 1: He was on the football team, and everyone I talked
7:16
Speaker 1: to says that Eric is a nice guy. He was
7:18
Speaker 1: someone who adored Ebbi. Laurie said that she believed Eric
7:22
Speaker 1: was totally in love with her daughter and devoted to her.
7:25
Speaker 1: I don't know if I ever told her I loved her,
7:27
Speaker 1: got the chance to tell her, you know, but like
7:28
Speaker 1: I had loved her. We knew we liked each other,
7:30
Speaker 1: and that's why we liked told each other like I'm
7:32
Speaker 1: always be there for you, Like we had being through
7:35
Speaker 1: a lot already together, so we would just you know,
7:38
Speaker 1: I had to understand it, and like we give out
7:39
Speaker 1: at each other, but you know, we still cared about
7:42
Speaker 1: each other. We still wanted each other to be okay.
7:46
Speaker 1: Eric and Ebbie met shortly after Ebbie started at Central
7:49
Speaker 1: High School in August twenty fifteen. They had a pre
7:52
Speaker 1: calculus class together. Eric said he was good at math
7:56
Speaker 1: and he would help Ebby with her homework. At first,
7:59
Speaker 1: he says, they started hanging out through friends in a
8:02
Speaker 1: group that included his sister, a girl named Carly, and
8:05
Speaker 1: another their girl named Mary. Eric had just come out
8:08
Speaker 1: of a long relationship, and at one point Ebbie had
8:11
Speaker 1: been dating his cousin. But soon Ebbie and Eric started
8:15
Speaker 1: hanging out one on one. Ebby had texting me about
8:18
Speaker 1: something I can't remember, but then she ended up coming
8:21
Speaker 1: over that we ended up going and smoking. I just
8:23
Speaker 1: remember that being like one of the firsure real times
8:25
Speaker 1: we hung out without, you know, everybody, because I wasn't
8:28
Speaker 1: even thinking about relationships, and at that time that was
8:31
Speaker 1: like right in the middle of football season, so it
8:34
Speaker 1: actually didn't kind of do come naturally. And then you
8:38
Speaker 1: guys were I mean, would you were you just kind
8:39
Speaker 1: of hanging out or were your boyfriend girlfriend or so
8:42
Speaker 1: we like when we first started talking, we you know,
8:46
Speaker 1: we're trying to make it that but we were both
8:49
Speaker 1: and we both like we're stilled talking to other people.
8:52
Speaker 1: But what happened was the real reason why we never
8:55
Speaker 1: really started dating like Ebbie. Like I said, Ebbie was
8:58
Speaker 1: you know, free spirits, so she would just do with anything,
9:00
Speaker 1: go hang out, you know, with anybody. When I was
9:10
Speaker 1: talking Eric, he also told me about Chalamont Park. This
9:13
Speaker 1: whole time, no one has been able to tell me
9:16
Speaker 1: why Ebbie was at that park specifically. Eric said that
9:20
Speaker 1: Ebbie loved hanging out in Chelmont Park. In fact, he
9:23
Speaker 1: said she considered it her happy place. He has memories
9:27
Speaker 1: of going there with her, pushing her on the carousel
9:31
Speaker 1: and hanging out in the little playground area. Eric said
9:34
Speaker 1: that high school kids would sometimes hang out in that park.
9:37
Speaker 1: They would kick back, have a few drinks, or maybe
9:39
Speaker 1: do drugs or hook up. It was considered a safe
9:42
Speaker 1: place somewhere where you could have some privacy. You said
9:46
Speaker 1: that when y'all were hanging out, I mean people would
9:48
Speaker 1: like hang out and drink and things like that, but
9:50
Speaker 1: you never saw anyone like in the man hole doing
9:52
Speaker 1: stuff like there's not even something that it was disgusting.
9:57
Speaker 1: Is not something that you know, people want to do.
10:00
Speaker 1: Eric also said that he knew Ebbie did hang out
10:03
Speaker 1: there with other people, people he didn't no, and people
10:06
Speaker 1: he says that sometimes did drugs with her. You know,
10:09
Speaker 1: I wish I would have talked to her more about
10:10
Speaker 1: in essence, because then I maybe would know, you know,
10:13
Speaker 1: some names to give, but I, like, I wouldn't want
10:16
Speaker 1: to know who she was, you know who else. But
10:20
Speaker 1: we were telling every like, you can't keep hanging out with,
10:23
Speaker 1: you know, random people. She was just ways she wasn't
10:27
Speaker 1: as cautious that she should have been. But you shouldn't
10:30
Speaker 1: even live like cautiously, so I can't even necessarily really
10:33
Speaker 1: blame her. And during this time, Eric saw Abby doing
10:36
Speaker 1: increasingly risky behavior, like one time he said she wanted
10:40
Speaker 1: to get a tattoo, but she wasn't going to a
10:42
Speaker 1: tattoo shop. And this was one of the only time
10:45
Speaker 1: she ever asked me to go somewhere, like actually go
10:47
Speaker 1: somewhere with her, like usually it's just to hang out. Oh,
10:50
Speaker 1: let's find something to do. I think it was because
10:52
Speaker 1: like the way to little set of lay Duty, he
10:54
Speaker 1: was a dude. He was chilling on the couch when
10:56
Speaker 1: we walked in this house, and then there was an
10:58
Speaker 1: a k pourt. He said it on the table, and
11:00
Speaker 1: that's the whole time. I told her, I like, you
11:01
Speaker 1: don't need to be in places like that. And then
11:03
Speaker 1: we went to the back room or whatever it is
11:05
Speaker 1: that looked like he probably was on crack ten years
11:07
Speaker 1: ago with a Jackie tattooed and they were doing tattoos.
11:15
Speaker 1: Eric was on the football team, so he was friends
11:18
Speaker 1: with c and with l. They weren't people who, to
11:21
Speaker 1: his knowledge, were caught up in violence or in drugs.
11:25
Speaker 1: He did say they might smoke some pot or drink. Basically,
11:28
Speaker 1: he described them as pretty much normal high school kids.
11:31
Speaker 1: The week before the party, Eric and Ebbie weren't really talking.
11:36
Speaker 1: Eric said that one of their friends lied to Ebby
11:38
Speaker 1: about Eric cooking up with someone else, so the two
11:41
Speaker 1: of them seemed to try to get back at each other.
11:44
Speaker 1: Eric thinks that that's part of the reason why Ebbie
11:47
Speaker 1: went to hang out with CNL that night. But after
11:51
Speaker 1: the party, Eric got a DM from Ebbie. She DMI
11:55
Speaker 1: saying that something happened to whatever, and I'm pretty sure
11:58
Speaker 1: in the DMOR she said, you know, she was raped
12:00
Speaker 1: to say should be at and I think I was
12:02
Speaker 1: asking her questions, but she didn't really want to talk
12:04
Speaker 1: about it. I will now say I just come over.
12:07
Speaker 1: She was stressed out, she was being a destroyer. Eric
12:11
Speaker 1: comforted her, but at this point he didn't know where
12:14
Speaker 1: she had been or who she'd been with. She slept
12:18
Speaker 1: in Eric's sister's bed. They had breakfast together in the morning,
12:22
Speaker 1: and then he says that he believed she was determined
12:26
Speaker 1: to talk to her family and possibly go to the
12:28
Speaker 1: police about the alleged sexual assault. He says he can't
12:32
Speaker 1: remember if they sent any more texts on Saturday, but
12:36
Speaker 1: according to what we have from police, Ebbie sent Eric
12:39
Speaker 1: an Instagram message on Saturday night at around six forty
12:42
Speaker 1: five pm, and in that message, she said she was
12:46
Speaker 1: still at Moppy's house. Moppy was Ebbie's nickname for her grandmother,
12:51
Speaker 1: and Detective Bruce Maxwell said in an email to Laurie
12:54
Speaker 1: that Ebbie had had no contact with anyone from Saturday
12:57
Speaker 1: evening when she sent the DMS to Eric, until Sunday
13:00
Speaker 1: when she called Trevor. But Eric tells us that is
13:04
Speaker 1: not true. We'll be right back. On Sunday, Eric got
13:16
Speaker 1: a call from Ebbie's brother, Trevor. Trevor told him that
13:20
Speaker 1: they couldn't find Ebby, and he asked if he'd seen her.
13:23
Speaker 1: I lived in a high rise condo, came in, I
13:27
Speaker 1: would rather call me. I was in the lobby when
13:29
Speaker 1: he called me, like our kind of crows, Like I
13:31
Speaker 1: never moved until until I actually talked to her. This
13:34
Speaker 1: means that Eric also talked to Ebby on Sunday. He
13:39
Speaker 1: can't remember if she called him back or if he
13:41
Speaker 1: finally got through to her, but he does remember what
13:44
Speaker 1: happened after she picked up. It's something that has haunted
13:48
Speaker 1: him for years. Do you remember the very last time
13:53
Speaker 1: you talked to her on Sunday? It was either right
13:59
Speaker 1: before I'm almost positives, right before she talked to her brother,
14:04
Speaker 1: And what did she say? What was she like? Then?
14:07
Speaker 1: She wasn't really good at as I was trying to
14:10
Speaker 1: see where she was, and she didn't tell me anything
14:12
Speaker 1: that I could actually help. She said, I'm sorry. A
14:15
Speaker 1: couple of times. It was weird, like I never heard
14:18
Speaker 1: a voice sound like that, Like I said, like, you know,
14:20
Speaker 1: she would go crazy places like I've never seen or scared,
14:23
Speaker 1: you know, like I've even heard of a cry, but
14:26
Speaker 1: like that was a different, like just was scared. Ebbie
14:31
Speaker 1: sounded totally out of it, like she had been roofied.
14:35
Speaker 1: Eric said that in the past he had seen Ebbie
14:38
Speaker 1: smoke pot or maybe do some party drugs sometimes like
14:41
Speaker 1: molly or coke, but never meth or heroine. He said
14:45
Speaker 1: that he had no idea what would make her sound
14:47
Speaker 1: like this. The way she sounded that she sounded exhausted,
14:51
Speaker 1: She sounded like out of it. She sounded like in
14:54
Speaker 1: cohering like she didn't really like she might not have
14:57
Speaker 1: like she knew where she was, but she couldn't. Either
14:59
Speaker 1: she knew where she was and she couldn't like explain it,
15:02
Speaker 1: or she just like was so out of it that
15:04
Speaker 1: she didn't eve she might not even know where she
15:06
Speaker 1: was at that point, like she was just like that
15:09
Speaker 1: far gone. Eric was focused, he says, on putting Ebby
15:14
Speaker 1: in touch with her brother. I knew something was wrong,
15:18
Speaker 1: but I thought he was gonna be Aby's gonna have
15:19
Speaker 1: to go to rehab. Once Ebby was in touch with Trevor,
15:31
Speaker 1: Eric said he kind of relaxed at this point. He
15:34
Speaker 1: thought Ebby would get the help she needed. She's at
15:37
Speaker 1: a load right now. She needs, you know, actually helps.
15:39
Speaker 1: She needs somebody that's gonna be able to take her
15:41
Speaker 1: to somewhere where she can, you know, get the help
15:44
Speaker 1: she you know, it's the same like that's happened before,
15:46
Speaker 1: Like Eby has somebody stressed out and going to get
15:50
Speaker 1: in contact with her Emby because if you know, her
15:51
Speaker 1: faults don't work. So Eric just mentioned that her phones
15:55
Speaker 1: don't work sometimes. That's phones plural. Laurie also forwarded me
16:01
Speaker 1: a photo of some stuff from the front seat of
16:03
Speaker 1: Ebbie's car. It's blurry, but it looks like a receipt
16:07
Speaker 1: for a Straight Talk phone number. All of the records
16:11
Speaker 1: we have are from Ebbie's primary phone, the one her
16:13
Speaker 1: parents paid for. Could Ebbie have had a second phone
16:18
Speaker 1: and was it ever found? I talk a lot about victimology,
16:24
Speaker 1: trying to get inside a victim's head. On Saturday, October
16:28
Speaker 1: twenty fourth, the day after the party, Ebbie sent that
16:32
Speaker 1: text to her friend Gage to say that she had
16:34
Speaker 1: been recorded without her consent. She ended that text with
16:38
Speaker 1: the line I'm going to go kill myself. So we
16:42
Speaker 1: do have to consider the possibility that she may have
16:45
Speaker 1: been in a suicidal state of mind. According to Eric,
16:50
Speaker 1: Ebbie was upset about what had been happening in her life,
16:53
Speaker 1: all the chaos and about what happened to her on
16:56
Speaker 1: Friday night, You don't think she would have had suicidal
16:59
Speaker 1: thoughts or anything like that. I mean, honestly, like, I'm
17:04
Speaker 1: not gonna you know, it passed her just because of
17:06
Speaker 1: the way life was going, Like me and her weren't
17:08
Speaker 1: the best, her mom and her mom and stepdad. You know,
17:12
Speaker 1: she felt like they didn't want hurt everything that was
17:14
Speaker 1: going on at school, and then after the video situation
17:18
Speaker 1: and her probably feeling like the police weren't gonna do
17:21
Speaker 1: nothing because I mean, I'm not saying and she wouldn't
17:23
Speaker 1: against suicide. Like that's enough to make anybody, you know,
17:26
Speaker 1: had thoughts. But I don't think that's the type of
17:29
Speaker 1: person Ebbie was. Like, she was a fighter for sure,
17:31
Speaker 1: Like and that's the whole reason she didn't go back home,
17:34
Speaker 1: because she felt like she could do it on her own.
17:36
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, even if she was, let's say, I
17:39
Speaker 1: don't believe she did have suicide thoughts of that day.
17:41
Speaker 1: But even if she did, how does that explain her
17:44
Speaker 1: being in a pipe? It doesn't. That's that's where the
17:47
Speaker 1: disconnected is. That's why I'm almost positive that it wasn't
17:50
Speaker 1: just hurt by herself. Looking at Ebbie's movements on Saturday
17:55
Speaker 1: and into Sunday, nothing there indicates a person who's contemplating suicide.
18:01
Speaker 1: Later that Saturday afternoon, after Ebbie had sent that text
18:04
Speaker 1: to Gauge, Ebby's despair had turned to anger. She googled
18:08
Speaker 1: sexual assault Anne how to file a police report. Her
18:12
Speaker 1: phone records show that she dialed the Little Rock Police Department,
18:16
Speaker 1: and her close friends and family say they didn't see
18:18
Speaker 1: anything off about her behavior. Ebbie went to Danielle's house
18:22
Speaker 1: at some point, and Danielle has said that she didn't
18:25
Speaker 1: seem to be in distress, and we also know her
18:27
Speaker 1: grandparents didn't see anything out of the ordinary with her behavior,
18:31
Speaker 1: and even into Sunday when she talked to Trevor, she
18:35
Speaker 1: was not expressing any kind of suicidal thoughts. She was
18:39
Speaker 1: asking for help. We'll be right back. Since we started
18:48
Speaker 1: our investigation, I haven't had any more direct contact with
18:52
Speaker 1: the detective Bruce Maxwell. That meeting we had was in
18:55
Speaker 1: December twenty twenty one. This episode comes out April twenty
18:59
Speaker 1: twenty two, and Laurie just called me with updates from
19:03
Speaker 1: Bruce's investigation. And when Laurie told me about what's been
19:06
Speaker 1: going on. I was shocked. I called up Mike and
19:10
Speaker 1: Gabby to give them the latest updates. So, Katherine, can
19:14
Speaker 1: you give us some updates about like what's going on
19:15
Speaker 1: with me? Yeah? Well, you remember when we saw Bruce
19:19
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago and he said that he hadn't
19:22
Speaker 1: even really started looking at Ebbie's case, he'd only had
19:25
Speaker 1: it for a few weeks. Well, since then, there's been
19:28
Speaker 1: a lot of back and forth between Bruce and Laurie.
19:31
Speaker 1: Laurie says Bruce told her that the timeline was completely wrong,
19:37
Speaker 1: that all this time, for six and a half years,
19:39
Speaker 1: the police thought they knew where Ebbie was on Saturday night.
19:43
Speaker 1: And you remember, they've been telling us this whole time
19:45
Speaker 1: that she was safe and with friends, and they had
19:48
Speaker 1: that time accounted for, and that the only time they
19:50
Speaker 1: didn't know where she was was on Sunday, shortly around
19:52
Speaker 1: the time before she went missing. But now Bruce is
19:55
Speaker 1: saying that he's seen some pictures on Ebbie's phone that
19:59
Speaker 1: he says, I've never been looked at. He says the
20:02
Speaker 1: timeline is off by a whole day, that in fact,
20:05
Speaker 1: police don't know where she was on Saturday night, and
20:08
Speaker 1: she sent an Instagram message from her grandparents. She was
20:11
Speaker 1: dming on Saturday afternoon, and after that they have no
20:14
Speaker 1: idea where she was until the phone call with Trevor.
20:17
Speaker 1: That's huge, But then it got a little weird because
20:21
Speaker 1: at that point I really expected Bruce to say, Okay,
20:24
Speaker 1: we have the timeline wrong. We're now going to go
20:26
Speaker 1: reinterview everyone. We're going to start from scratch. But instead
20:30
Speaker 1: what happened was shortly after that, he told Laurie that
20:33
Speaker 1: the only conclusion he could come to was that Ebbie
20:37
Speaker 1: had crawled down in the dream pipe herself, either because
20:41
Speaker 1: she was having some sort of suicidal thoughts or because
20:45
Speaker 1: she just crawled down there and got stuck, and that
20:48
Speaker 1: is his conclusion. He said also that there is no
20:52
Speaker 1: more work to be done on her case file, but
20:55
Speaker 1: he won't close the case officially. Well, when you close
20:59
Speaker 1: the case, then that opened the door to look at
21:02
Speaker 1: all of this information. It's the worst possible outcome for
21:04
Speaker 1: the family because what it means is they won't officially
21:08
Speaker 1: close it. They're keeping it officially an open and active investigation.
21:12
Speaker 1: I'm using air quotes now, which means that no one
21:14
Speaker 1: can look at it. It's all confidential, but it's just
21:17
Speaker 1: sitting there collecting dust. So that's a terrible outcome for
21:19
Speaker 1: our family. Laurie tells me she's devastated. She feels like
21:25
Speaker 1: six and a half years later, she's back at square one.
21:30
Speaker 1: How can they be closing the case file, especially if
21:32
Speaker 1: they have so much data they need to review and
21:35
Speaker 1: to redo the entire timeline. I've said before in past
21:39
Speaker 1: seasons that while it can be frustrating to have zero
21:41
Speaker 1: access to the case files, the positive side of that
21:45
Speaker 1: is the fact that we know that everything we do
21:47
Speaker 1: have we've verified ourselves. But I keep feeling like with
21:51
Speaker 1: Ebbie's case, we're missing something. It feels like the scene
21:55
Speaker 1: at the end of the movie The Usual Suspects, after
21:57
Speaker 1: the detective has been listening to Kevin space he taught
21:59
Speaker 1: for hours. He steps back from that courtboard and realizes
22:03
Speaker 1: he was being misled from the very beginning. It feels
22:06
Speaker 1: like the pieces are all here, but we just can't
22:09
Speaker 1: quite put them together in the right order yet. So
22:13
Speaker 1: I go back again to the very beginning of the case.
22:17
Speaker 1: What did we know then? We had heard the media
22:20
Speaker 1: narrative about Friday Night, which we now know was wrong
22:24
Speaker 1: because there weren't four guys who would have had a
22:26
Speaker 1: motive to do Ebby harm. There was one person who
22:29
Speaker 1: Ebby was having a dispute with. What about the crime scene.
22:35
Speaker 1: We've always heard that the security guard was the first
22:38
Speaker 1: person who reported Ebbie's card to the police, and that
22:40
Speaker 1: he called the police on multiple days, but there seems
22:44
Speaker 1: to be some confusion about this. The neighbor Lee said
22:49
Speaker 1: she told the security guard about the car after noticing
22:52
Speaker 1: it in the parking lot for several days in a row.
22:55
Speaker 1: He told her money and others that he had called
22:58
Speaker 1: the police several times about that car. I've done several
23:03
Speaker 1: freedom of information requests with a Little Rock police. Not surprisingly,
23:07
Speaker 1: they tell me the case is an open investigation and
23:09
Speaker 1: that they can't release any information. Then I get an
23:13
Speaker 1: email from the LRPD, and when I open it, I
23:17
Speaker 1: am stunned. They were able to release the original incident
23:21
Speaker 1: report that relates to Ebby's abandoned car. This was before
23:25
Speaker 1: it became an official missing person's case. The incident report
23:30
Speaker 1: is from Friday, October thirtieth, five days after Ebbie went missing.
23:35
Speaker 1: The person who's listing as reported Ebby's abandoned car is Lee.
23:39
Speaker 1: The neighbor, not the security guard. Why would he tell
23:44
Speaker 1: people that he reported the car missing if he didn't.
23:48
Speaker 1: Why isn't he all over this incident report. Part of
23:52
Speaker 1: our investigation is figuring out Ebbie's pattern of life to
23:55
Speaker 1: the best of our ability, trying to figure out where
23:57
Speaker 1: she was every hour over the weekend until Sunday when
24:00
Speaker 1: she dropped off the radar. But we also need to
24:03
Speaker 1: look at the people who were around her and around
24:06
Speaker 1: Chalamont Park and figure out their patterns of life, because
24:10
Speaker 1: the evidence points to the person who put Ebbie in
24:12
Speaker 1: that drain pipe being someone who knows this area intimately.
24:17
Speaker 1: And besides the incident report, the security guard has given
24:20
Speaker 1: even more conflicting information and we need to figure out
24:24
Speaker 1: why his stories don't match. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is
24:29
Speaker 1: Helen Gone. Helen Gone is a production of School of
24:34
Speaker 1: Humans and iHeartRadio. It's written and hosted by me Katherine
24:38
Speaker 1: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts and Michael Doubt. Our
24:42
Speaker 1: executive producers are Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley, and Virginia Prescott.
24:47
Speaker 1: Mix and master is by Ryan Peoples and our music
24:50
Speaker 1: is by Bensley. If you have any information regarding the
24:55
Speaker 1: disappearance of Ebby Steppic. You can call our tipline at
24:58
Speaker 1: six seven eight six three two six one five nine
25:10
Speaker 1: School of Humans, School of Humans,