Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Missing Ebby Steppach: Why did police wait to look?

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Missing Ebby Steppach: Why did police wait to look? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: zoom dot com, legal zoom dot com Climb stories with
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Speaker 1: Nancy Grace on sirius XM Triumph Channel one thirty two.
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Speaker 1: Abby's step I disappeared in October two thousand and fifteen,
1:14
Speaker 1: but no one has come forward with information. She is
1:17
Speaker 1: still missing and that is why her family announced today
1:19
Speaker 1: they're increasing the reward to fifty dollars. We believe there
1:23
Speaker 1: are people out there that were with her day, or
1:25
Speaker 1: they are too prior to her disappearance that may have
1:27
Speaker 1: information about what happened to her or who she was with.
1:29
Speaker 1: The case moved to a cold case squad with four
1:32
Speaker 1: retired homicide detectives. A lot of mistakes were made, things
1:35
Speaker 1: were missed, and when the homicide squad got the case,
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Speaker 1: they had to start all over, start over from day one.
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Speaker 1: They're following new leads, working in conjunction with the FBI.
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Speaker 1: I'm un present, confident that it's being worked. It's being
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Speaker 1: worked hard. Missing but not forgotten, Missing but not forgotten.
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Speaker 1: I'm talking about a beautiful young girl, Ebbie Stepic. Ebbie Stepic,
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Speaker 1: now gone vanishing. With me her mother, I'm Nancy Grace.
2:14
Speaker 1: This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
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Speaker 1: Straight out to our special guest, Ebbie's mother, Lorie Journegan,
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Speaker 1: also with me, little rock radio host Dot Washburn to
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Speaker 1: both of you, Welcome to Syria. Sex M one two.
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Speaker 1: I want to hear all about Ebby. First to you,
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Speaker 1: Lori Jurnagin. Tell me what happened when Ebby went missing.
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Speaker 1: Start at the beginning. For our listeners that don't know Ebbi. Um,
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Speaker 1: this is so overwhelming. I'm sorry if I start crying. UM.
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Speaker 1: Ebbie was a senior, had just started high school, had
2:56
Speaker 1: started a new school by her choice, UM, and she
3:03
Speaker 1: went to a party. She was staying with my son,
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Speaker 1: her brother. She went to a party on Friday night,
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Speaker 1: October and was assaulted sexually assaulted. UM. She found out
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Speaker 1: that it was being recorded, so she left the party.
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Speaker 1: She contacted my husband Saturday evening UM and told him
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Speaker 1: about it. She didn't want me to know about it,
3:32
Speaker 1: told him that she wanted that. She did call the police, UM,
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Speaker 1: they were not helpful. She told my husband exactly what happened.
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Speaker 1: She mentioned she had also text other friends and told
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Speaker 1: him what happened. So this guy that raped her, she
3:49
Speaker 1: knew him correct from school? From school and is that
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Speaker 1: one of the guys that went on to get a
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Speaker 1: scholarship up to school? Exactly? Mm hmm okay, Uh, so
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Speaker 1: that happens that night. She doesn't tell you because she
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Speaker 1: doesn't want you upset. She tells her dad instead. Did
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Speaker 1: they report the rape? No, he did not. Ebby called
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Speaker 1: the police before she told my husband, which is ebby stepdad. UM.
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Speaker 1: She did not get any answers from the police what
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Speaker 1: to do. Uh. They did not give her any answers
4:29
Speaker 1: of coming downtown reporting it. So after she told my
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Speaker 1: husband in text message everything that happened, he was going
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Speaker 1: to meet her and go to police station with her.
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Speaker 1: Before they met, Ebby disappeared. Oh my stars, I didn't understand.
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Speaker 1: I did not understand that that timeline, because what I
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Speaker 1: thought happened was the night before she was raped by
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Speaker 1: a guy that she knew. She's still in high school,
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Speaker 1: that she called police, nothing was ever done about it.
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Speaker 1: She disappears, and he goes on to get a sports scholarship.
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Speaker 1: Is my understanding of what happened. And then the next
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Speaker 1: morning she goes with her brother. She's supposed to go
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Speaker 1: with her brother to visit the grandma and west Little Rock.
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Speaker 1: Your husband, her stepfather was supposed to meet her there,
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Speaker 1: but when he gets there, she's gone. Her family never
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Speaker 1: saw Abby again. Is that correct? That's correct. She was
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Speaker 1: at her grandmother's house around seven pm. She texts my
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Speaker 1: husband told him everything that happened. He said, I'll meet you.
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Speaker 1: She didn't want to become to my parents house. He didn't.
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Speaker 1: She didn't want them upset, so she said, yes, we'll
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Speaker 1: meet um. He left, called her to get a place
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Speaker 1: to meet. He never heard from her. He couldn't get
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Speaker 1: in touch with her. He verified with my parents that
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Speaker 1: she was there, that she left. She actually told my
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Speaker 1: parents I'll be back later, love you, was not upset
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Speaker 1: and left. We don't know where she went, or who
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Speaker 1: she met, or what happened to her until five thirty
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Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon the next day. The next afternoon, after all
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Speaker 1: of us trying to reach her, she finally answered the phone.
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Speaker 1: My son called her. She finally answered the phone. He said,
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Speaker 1: where are you? And she said, I'm in front of
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Speaker 1: your house. So my son, Trevor hung up and said, okay,
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Speaker 1: I'm on my way out. He went out there. She
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Speaker 1: wasn't there, and he called her back. He said, you're
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Speaker 1: not here. Where are you? And she said, I don't know.
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Speaker 1: I'm with my car and he Isn't it true that
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Speaker 1: in the conversation, your son says, every sounded very disoriented,
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Speaker 1: that she didn't seem to know what was going on.
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Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? What do you mean
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Speaker 1: by she sounded disoriented? She didn't sound drunk or slurring,
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Speaker 1: but she did not know where she was. She didn't
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Speaker 1: know who was with her. All she could say to
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Speaker 1: him was I'm in my car. I'm with my car.
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Speaker 1: And the more he tried to question her, that's all
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Speaker 1: he could get from her was And this conversation went
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Speaker 1: on four minutes, and all she could say over and
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Speaker 1: is I'm with my car. I don't know who I'm with,
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Speaker 1: I don't know where I am. And he when that's
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Speaker 1: all I could get from her, He called my husband
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Speaker 1: to get her phone pink to find out where she was.
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Speaker 1: That that's what was going on. He called my husband.
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Speaker 1: That's where they were trying to do. At the same time,
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Speaker 1: I has been driving everywhere looking to her. And when
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Speaker 1: Trevor called her back, she never answered again. We've never
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Speaker 1: heard from her again since that phone call to dot Washburn.
8:13
Speaker 1: Little Rock radio hosts joining us. Isn't it true that
8:16
Speaker 1: a few days after she disappears, her car it was
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Speaker 1: a silver Volkswagen, and her belongings, including her cell phone,
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Speaker 1: her contact lenses, were found in West Little Rock? What
8:28
Speaker 1: do we know? Doc? Yeah, the car was found and
8:34
Speaker 1: the guy who found it was I guess the security
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Speaker 1: guy there at the at the development of the neighborhood
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Speaker 1: there in West Little Rock. And he contacted the police
8:46
Speaker 1: saying I don't know why this this car is out here. Um,
8:50
Speaker 1: I guess the the keys are still in ignissition that
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Speaker 1: the battery was dead, it was out of gas, and
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Speaker 1: it took several days for the police to respond. Why
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Speaker 1: did it takes several days for the police to respond.
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Speaker 1: Ebbie had already been reported missing, and this is her car.
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Speaker 1: Sure well, the the guy, the guy didn't know it
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Speaker 1: was was Ebbie's car apparently, But when the police did
9:15
Speaker 1: finally went out there and got the car. You know,
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Speaker 1: Ebbie's name is on the title, and her birth father's
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Speaker 1: name is on the title, And even though everybody in
9:25
Speaker 1: town knows she's missing, the police called the birth father
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Speaker 1: and say, hey, we find a car out here. What's
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Speaker 1: what's going on? As if they didn't. That just seems
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Speaker 1: unimaginable to me that this girl, this young girl, high schooler,
9:40
Speaker 1: for Pete's sake, goes missing in a relatively small town.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, we compare it to New York
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Speaker 1: or l A, San Francisco. This is a small town.
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Speaker 1: Everybody knows she's missing, and there's her car, and it
9:56
Speaker 1: takes days for police to get there, and then they
10:00
Speaker 1: called the dango. Oh hey, even found your car. The
10:02
Speaker 1: thing that always has mystified me is the way that
10:07
Speaker 1: the people who were assigned to her case, with a
10:09
Speaker 1: little police department, UH, seemed to be intent on not
10:13
Speaker 1: getting to the bottom of what happened to her. Why
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Speaker 1: do you say that because of everything that I have
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Speaker 1: been told, the way that they treated uh Ebbie's mother
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Speaker 1: and stepfather, and and for that matter, the guy who
10:28
Speaker 1: finds the car. UM. You know, Ebbie's family was told, oh, yeah,
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Speaker 1: we interviewed him and everything, etcetera, etcetera. Months later to
10:36
Speaker 1: find out, no, they didn't. Months later to find out
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Speaker 1: that apparently this guy had a video on a thumb drive,
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Speaker 1: UM that they never bothered messing with for that matter, UM.
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Speaker 1: The refusal to try to find out much about the
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Speaker 1: people she was hanging out with. UM. Nobody of the
11:00
Speaker 1: police department with with with a crew that was investigating
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Speaker 1: this at first, was was interested in trying to get
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Speaker 1: cell phones of people that she was with. I mean,
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Speaker 1: it's just one thing after another, and and the verbal
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Speaker 1: abuse I believe, and of course Laurie can speak to
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Speaker 1: us better than than I can, UH, that that she
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Speaker 1: and her husband experienced from from people who are still
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Speaker 1: on the Forest with a little white police depart hold on,
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Speaker 1: hold on verbal abuse, abuse on a victim's mom with
11:30
Speaker 1: me is Ebby's mom. And if you could see the
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Speaker 1: photos of this girl, she is absolutely stunning. She's just precious.
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Speaker 1: And in a few short years, my little Lucy would
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Speaker 1: be her age and my John David too. Laurie Juragan,
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Speaker 1: who is Abby's mom? What is Dot Washburn saying about
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Speaker 1: verbal abuse? This is the first time hearing of this.
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Speaker 1: I've not read this or learned this from my research.
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Speaker 1: What verbal abuse is Dot talking about? Lorie? Okay, it
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Speaker 1: happened the whole during the whole case. These officers, this lieutenant,
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Speaker 1: the sergeant, the detective. No one would investigate this, no one.
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Speaker 1: It went on and I would show up at the
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Speaker 1: police station. I brought I can't tell you how many
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Speaker 1: copies of phone records I brought. Every time I would
12:24
Speaker 1: show up, they would it would be ugly, and they
12:29
Speaker 1: got mad because I would come down and confront them. Uh,
12:32
Speaker 1: they got mad because I would show that, you know,
12:35
Speaker 1: I would show where they were lying to me. It
12:38
Speaker 1: got so bad that the prosecutor here in Little Rock
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Speaker 1: sent one of his ex employees with me so she
12:47
Speaker 1: could take notes, just just to have some when they're
12:51
Speaker 1: taking notes. That's the third party. When I asked them
12:55
Speaker 1: for the phones, the boys phone, they said no, we
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Speaker 1: didn't get them, and I was just I couldn't believe it.
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Speaker 1: Another one of Ebbie's friends had Ebbie's original phone and
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Speaker 1: had been sharing the cloud with Ebby. I asked if
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Speaker 1: they got her phone. No, we didn't get them. I
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Speaker 1: asked them, are they No, we're not. We don't have
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Speaker 1: probable cause. I was just outrage. I can't even describe
13:24
Speaker 1: how I felt. How I still feel about it. I'm
13:27
Speaker 1: so angry. Um. When I I got so angry that
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Speaker 1: the whole police force, like the captain, all the lieutenants,
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Speaker 1: everyone met with me. I went over reason after reason
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Speaker 1: after reason to get these boys phones, to get subpoenas
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Speaker 1: for him, and that captain looked at me and said,
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Speaker 1: there's no probable cause. And I looked at him and said,
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Speaker 1: what does it take for probable cause? And he looked
13:54
Speaker 1: at me and said, I decide what's probable cause. I this,
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Speaker 1: I can't even I can't even express how what that
14:06
Speaker 1: did to my family. Over and over it got to
14:09
Speaker 1: be so bad. Um, I had the Lieutenant Well, the
14:14
Speaker 1: sergeant that was head of this case at the time.
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Speaker 1: We were very angry at each other and we had
14:20
Speaker 1: text messages back and forth. They took my husband. They
14:25
Speaker 1: didn't ask for polygraph tests for us from the beginning,
14:28
Speaker 1: which we were absolutely would have done in a second.
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Speaker 1: Um there this sergeant, for whatever reason, was hell bent
14:37
Speaker 1: on running, putting my my husband, putting this on my husband.
14:43
Speaker 1: There's no wreck, I mean everything. There's nothing that would
14:47
Speaker 1: suggest my husband had anything involved. Well, the last person
14:51
Speaker 1: to talk to her was her brother, and your husband's
14:57
Speaker 1: whereabouts have been verified. At the time of that conversation,
15:00
Speaker 1: he was not with her. I Nancy Grace, this is
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Speaker 1: Crime Stories, and we are investigating the disappearance of a
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Speaker 1: beautiful young high school girl out of Little Rock. Her
15:12
Speaker 1: name is Ebby Ebby Jane Steppack, and her face and
15:21
Speaker 1: so many of her pictures just seemed to say. Her
15:25
Speaker 1: face just seems to say help me. Are you through
15:30
Speaker 1: looking for me? Have you forgotten about me? I'm looking
15:35
Speaker 1: at so many pictures of her right now as I'm talking.
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Speaker 1: Beautiful girl, blonde hair, green eyes. She wears contact lens,
15:45
Speaker 1: but her contact lenses were left behind in her car
15:50
Speaker 1: along with her cell phone. Why why take a listen
15:56
Speaker 1: to a recent announcement regarding the reward for information leading
16:01
Speaker 1: to the discovery of Ebbe Stepic. Today, Laurie and I
16:06
Speaker 1: are announcing an increased reward in Ebbie's case. The reward
16:10
Speaker 1: amount for information leading to Ebbie's whereabouts is now fifty
16:13
Speaker 1: tho dollars. Joining me right now, very special guests, Ebbie's
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Speaker 1: mother Laurie Jurnakin and Little Rock radio host Dot Washburn.
16:23
Speaker 1: To you, Doc again. Thank you to both of you
16:25
Speaker 1: for being with us in the search for Ebby. It's
16:28
Speaker 1: really hard for me to believe, coming from being part
16:33
Speaker 1: of the criminal justice system, relying on cops every day, investigators,
16:39
Speaker 1: medical examiners to take the stand and help me prove
16:43
Speaker 1: a crime occurred, It's really hard for me to hear
16:46
Speaker 1: that police and Little Rock we're stonewalling Abbie's mom. What
16:51
Speaker 1: do you And I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I
16:54
Speaker 1: mean it does happen. All you gotta do is google
16:58
Speaker 1: uh police, bad cops, and you'll see a million videos.
17:03
Speaker 1: For me, that's always hard to take, but I'm I
17:07
Speaker 1: want to hear what you think happened. I have no
17:11
Speaker 1: reason to disbelieve Abby's mom. I have every reason to
17:16
Speaker 1: believe her because she wants to find her daughter. I
17:19
Speaker 1: want to find her daughter. So what is she talking about? Doc, Well,
17:24
Speaker 1: I've ever since I sat down with with Laurie and
17:28
Speaker 1: her husband and they told me the story of what
17:31
Speaker 1: they had been through. This is months before they came
17:33
Speaker 1: on the radio with me, and I said, let me
17:35
Speaker 1: know what I can help. I just got the impression
17:39
Speaker 1: that there are some bad apples in every bunch, and
17:42
Speaker 1: that would include a little Rock police department. And I
17:45
Speaker 1: just wonder who knows who and who may have been
17:49
Speaker 1: trying to protect somebody, I mean, the the the when
17:53
Speaker 1: when I mentioned earlier the verbal abuse, Lorie's only scratched
17:57
Speaker 1: the surface. There. There was a lot more, in my opinion,
18:00
Speaker 1: lot worse. Laurie, tell Nancy Grace what happened when you
18:06
Speaker 1: apparently committed the unpardonable sin of referring to some of
18:10
Speaker 1: the guys that that Ebby have been hanging out with
18:12
Speaker 1: his thugs. Yeah. I want to hear exactly what happened, Laurie,
18:17
Speaker 1: because you confronted the police about the guys that were
18:23
Speaker 1: at that party that night, and they didn't want to
18:27
Speaker 1: hear anything about it. They did not want to hear
18:31
Speaker 1: one word about it. So, Laurie, my question is, what
18:35
Speaker 1: has become of those guys that you believe raped Ebby. Nothing.
18:43
Speaker 1: They've gone to school there on with their lives. They
18:47
Speaker 1: have not been questioned again. They were questioned at the
18:50
Speaker 1: very beginning briefly. Um, the guy said no, you're not
18:54
Speaker 1: getting our phones, and they were left. I mean, so
18:56
Speaker 1: they've gone on with their lives. They're you know, we're
19:01
Speaker 1: less looking for our daughter, Abbie step It. Ebbie step
19:05
Speaker 1: It was a senior at Central High School at the
19:07
Speaker 1: time she vanished. She had previously attended Little Scholars of
19:13
Speaker 1: Arkansas Academy, which is a charter school there for smart
19:17
Speaker 1: kids that focuses on math, science, engineering, computer technology. Her
19:23
Speaker 1: family fear she may have even become the victim of
19:27
Speaker 1: human trafficking. To Lori Joern again, why do you think
19:33
Speaker 1: that is a possibility that Ebbie has been human trafficked?
19:36
Speaker 1: At first, I thought that theory is far fetched. The
19:39
Speaker 1: more I find out about human trafficking, I don't believe
19:42
Speaker 1: it's far fetched anymore. No, I don't either. Um. You know,
19:46
Speaker 1: that's part of the devastating things I've had that we've
19:50
Speaker 1: we've had to delve into, um, the fact that her
19:54
Speaker 1: car hurt their dogs. She's been searched, It's been searched
19:58
Speaker 1: and searched. There's been no evidence of her being in
20:02
Speaker 1: that park. Um and also Edbie. Ebbie was not using drugs.
20:08
Speaker 1: She wasn't drinking. For her to be that disoriented speaks
20:13
Speaker 1: to somebody gave you said a park? Did I hear
20:20
Speaker 1: you say? No, there's no evidence she was in a park.
20:22
Speaker 1: Why why do you say that? Well, the dogs have
20:25
Speaker 1: not picked up on a scent. That area has been
20:28
Speaker 1: searched three or four times. There's no trace of her.
20:31
Speaker 1: But I'm saying, I'm saying, why do you even suspect
20:34
Speaker 1: the park? Her phone was pained when she was talking
20:39
Speaker 1: to my son. Her phone was pained from that in
20:42
Speaker 1: that park, her mom. But wasn't her phone found in
20:46
Speaker 1: her car? Yes, the phone was found in her car,
20:52
Speaker 1: but it was pained just before that in the park.
20:55
Speaker 1: Who pained it? Uh? Little Rock police department pained it.
20:59
Speaker 1: There are red chineld ping was wrong. They put in
21:03
Speaker 1: the wrong phone number and got a different pain. That
21:06
Speaker 1: went on for about three months. So when we finally
21:10
Speaker 1: realized where the correct pain was. It was from her
21:13
Speaker 1: phone in that park. Now, Ebbie had a very unusual tattoo.
21:18
Speaker 1: What did it say, Lisa? With every with every darker
21:25
Speaker 1: night becomes a brighter day. And is that on her arm?
21:31
Speaker 1: That's on her torso on her right, with every with
21:36
Speaker 1: every darker night there comes a brighter day. Yes, and
21:43
Speaker 1: that was her heart. This is just so perplexing to me.
21:49
Speaker 1: Dot Washburn, little rot radio host. What what do you
21:55
Speaker 1: believe became of Ebby? Because see, I find it too
21:58
Speaker 1: much of coincidence that she was raped the night before
22:03
Speaker 1: and it was videoed by the creep that did it,
22:09
Speaker 1: and in the next within you know, forty eight hours,
22:12
Speaker 1: she goes missing, her car has found abandoned in an
22:16
Speaker 1: unrelated upscale suburban home housing development. I find that very
22:22
Speaker 1: I mean, there is no coincidence in criminal criminal law.
22:25
Speaker 1: I very often say so, it's hard for me to
22:28
Speaker 1: think that one night she's raped, she calls the police,
22:32
Speaker 1: she tells her stepdad, there's an outcry, witness two of them,
22:40
Speaker 1: and then suddenly she's gone, I'm just not buying it, Doc, No,
22:47
Speaker 1: I'm not either, Nancy. And obviously you're you're thinking like
22:50
Speaker 1: a prosecutor. And you know, I've never had any law
22:53
Speaker 1: law courses, and I've talked to polny lawyers, and usually
22:58
Speaker 1: I think the most reasonable, excellent nation is a correct one.
23:01
Speaker 1: And the fact that the people at the Little Rock
23:04
Speaker 1: Police Department who were supposed to be investigating, are telling
23:08
Speaker 1: Laurie and her husband right off the bat, well, don't
23:10
Speaker 1: go to the media, don't publicize this. And the fact
23:14
Speaker 1: that they told this family for months. Yes, we we
23:18
Speaker 1: interviewed the custodian there at the at the residential area
23:23
Speaker 1: where the car was found, and then months later when
23:27
Speaker 1: Ebby gets ahold of a private investigator, he finds out
23:30
Speaker 1: now they didn't interview the guy, and the guy had
23:33
Speaker 1: video on the thumb drive for months. It might have helped,
23:35
Speaker 1: but now the thumb drive has gone. And the fact
23:38
Speaker 1: that they're refusing to follow up with these guys that
23:42
Speaker 1: that Ebbie was hanging out with. I mean, the whole
23:46
Speaker 1: crew that was handling supposedly this investigation for the first
23:49
Speaker 1: eight months seemed determined to not want to know what
23:53
Speaker 1: happened to her. We hope and we pray that she's
23:56
Speaker 1: still alive. But I think that if they had actually
23:59
Speaker 1: conducted a competent investigation from the start, then we would
24:05
Speaker 1: have found out. And now we're here at sirius x
24:09
Speaker 1: and crime online dot Com are joining the hunt for
24:13
Speaker 1: the missing Little Rock girl Ebby Stepic the Missing team
24:20
Speaker 1: whose parents now fear she may have been kidnapped or worse,
24:26
Speaker 1: joining us now. Abby was planning to go to the
24:29
Speaker 1: Little Rock p D to report a sex assault a rape,
24:34
Speaker 1: but before she could actually talk to police, Before she
24:39
Speaker 1: could get to the police station, she disappears. Why She's
24:46
Speaker 1: become famous within the Little Rock, Arkansas community, but for
24:51
Speaker 1: for what? For going missing? Ebby goes to a house party.
24:57
Speaker 1: That was the end of the true ill for Ebby.
25:02
Speaker 1: For all intents and purposes. She goes to a party
25:05
Speaker 1: on a Friday night. She has sex assaulted there. It
25:08
Speaker 1: was video taped. Police never got that video to her
25:14
Speaker 1: mom joining me, Lorie Journe again, Laurie, When you wake
25:19
Speaker 1: up in the morning and you put your feet on
25:23
Speaker 1: the floor and you think of your girl Abby, what
25:30
Speaker 1: goes through your mind? Um, I'm I'm devastating. I miss
25:39
Speaker 1: her so much. Um. I have so much anger towards
25:47
Speaker 1: two police that were involved in this. In the beginning.
25:50
Speaker 1: I have so much gratitude for the the Caxus that
25:53
Speaker 1: have it. Now. I miss her so much. I miss
25:58
Speaker 1: her so much. I don't know what happened to her.
26:04
Speaker 1: I just I wonder back. I want her body back.
26:09
Speaker 1: It for me to think that someone kidnapped her, which
26:15
Speaker 1: is very real possibility, from somebody she knows or somebody
26:19
Speaker 1: she doesn't know. Human trafficking in our area is so
26:23
Speaker 1: prominent from what I know about it. Being groomed by
26:28
Speaker 1: guys that you meet, by employers, by boyfriends, all those
26:32
Speaker 1: things are possibilities. That's where sex trafficking came into this.
26:38
Speaker 1: As you start searching for her and the people around her, Um,
26:43
Speaker 1: the next thing is is that she's killed. Where where
26:47
Speaker 1: is she? If she was in her car at the park,
26:51
Speaker 1: there should be some trace of her somewhere there should
26:55
Speaker 1: There was no trace of her. There was no smells, blood,
26:59
Speaker 1: netmet came in. National Centers for Exploited Children came in.
27:03
Speaker 1: And what became of that? What became of that? When
27:05
Speaker 1: they entered the scene, Laurie, they entered the scene. Um.
27:11
Speaker 1: I calling Nick, who is a huge advocate for missing children,
27:16
Speaker 1: invited me to a round table with the National centers
27:20
Speaker 1: and and when I went to that round table, I
27:25
Speaker 1: told them what was going on, and the officers and
27:28
Speaker 1: detectives were horrified that that happened. They they asked me
27:34
Speaker 1: if Ebbie was registered with Nick Nick and I said,
27:36
Speaker 1: I surely she is. They checked and they came to say, no,
27:40
Speaker 1: she's not. You know, you can imagine the emotions I
27:46
Speaker 1: had with that. I called the detectives and Little Rock said,
27:49
Speaker 1: you've got to get registered today. I want an email
27:52
Speaker 1: today telling me she's registered. They called me back the
27:56
Speaker 1: next day. They registered in the system. And this national
28:00
Speaker 1: of database that they're required to register missing persons immediately
28:05
Speaker 1: while requires them to do that, it's been almost a
28:08
Speaker 1: year and a half, they hadn't. I got a registered
28:11
Speaker 1: and they contacted Nick Nick contacted a little police department
28:18
Speaker 1: and asked if they could come up there meet with
28:20
Speaker 1: them and go over this case. They have resources the
28:24
Speaker 1: best in the world. Nickmick does a little I could
28:28
Speaker 1: never heard of them. They had never heard of him. Well,
28:32
Speaker 1: I'm going back over all the evidence. In my mind,
28:36
Speaker 1: I mean, what team girl, he's behind her cell phone
28:39
Speaker 1: or clothing or makeup contact lenses and her cell phone.
28:44
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the world. Why would she willingly leave
28:48
Speaker 1: that behind? There was a fifty thousand dollar reward offered
28:54
Speaker 1: for information leading to the discovery the whereabouts of Abby.
28:59
Speaker 1: We are joining the search here at sirius XM one
29:02
Speaker 1: thirty two and crime online dot com the search for
29:06
Speaker 1: a Little Rock teen girl Ebby step it Where is Ebby?
29:12
Speaker 1: She was last seen at her grandmother's house. Her parents
29:15
Speaker 1: are desperate to find her. She made one mystery call
29:18
Speaker 1: to her brother, but was disoriented and it was clearly
29:22
Speaker 1: asking for help, but couldn't seem to be able to
29:25
Speaker 1: say where she was or who had her. Days later,
29:28
Speaker 1: her car turns up in an upscale area near Little Rock.
29:33
Speaker 1: It was sitting there. Took police three days to come
29:36
Speaker 1: get her car, in the car, her cell phone, her makeup,
29:41
Speaker 1: her contact lenses. No teen girl wants to be separated
29:45
Speaker 1: from her cell phone. I can tell you that much.
29:49
Speaker 1: So let me go to our special guest dot Washburn,
29:51
Speaker 1: Little Rock radio host and Ebby's mother, Lorie Journe. Again, Lorie,
29:59
Speaker 1: have there been any sightings of her at all since
30:03
Speaker 1: she went missing? She's completely off the grid. She's not
30:08
Speaker 1: on social media. She hasn't been seen anywhere. No, one
30:12
Speaker 1: has talked to her. Our detective said she's literally vanished
30:17
Speaker 1: off the face of the earth. Ebbie was. Ebbie was
30:21
Speaker 1: all about social media. She was on social media all
30:24
Speaker 1: the time, as kids are. She's not been on anything
30:28
Speaker 1: anywhere the FBI or involved in it. They can't find
30:32
Speaker 1: any trace of her on social media anywhere. I'm reading
30:35
Speaker 1: a post that you, Laurie Jernigan posted. It says, Lord God, Almighty,
30:41
Speaker 1: maker of heaven and Earth. I asked, boldly, give me
30:46
Speaker 1: Ebby today. Tell me what was going through your mind
30:54
Speaker 1: when you wrote that, Laurie. Now I write that I
30:57
Speaker 1: feel that every day I pray to have her every day.
31:03
Speaker 1: I have a very strong faith. But this will sure
31:06
Speaker 1: make you question it. And I plead. We have every
31:11
Speaker 1: Spacebook page and we have so many followers that pray
31:15
Speaker 1: for her and pray for us every day. I don't
31:18
Speaker 1: even know most of these people, but Ebbie has touched
31:21
Speaker 1: their heart. In the mystery, you can't you can't just disappear.
31:28
Speaker 1: You just can't disappear. And I don't understand FBI, you know,
31:36
Speaker 1: law enforcement. No one can find what happened to her,
31:39
Speaker 1: can't find her or find what happened to her. You know,
31:42
Speaker 1: it's amazing to me. It's amazing to me Dot Washburn
31:46
Speaker 1: police told the parents not to go public. That that
31:51
Speaker 1: why you know, that's the six or four tho dollar question, Nancy.
31:55
Speaker 1: I wish I knew. But again, the way they treated
31:59
Speaker 1: this family, at least the the police with the Little
32:04
Speaker 1: Right Police Department, who were supposedly supposed to be doing
32:08
Speaker 1: the investigation for the first eight months is it's an outrage. Um.
32:14
Speaker 1: You know that the people who picked up the ball
32:17
Speaker 1: after the first eight months seemed to have been doing
32:19
Speaker 1: a good job, but so much was lost in that
32:22
Speaker 1: initial time period that you can't go back and get.
32:25
Speaker 1: What's amazing to me is that the rape was never
32:28
Speaker 1: investigated and the alleged rapist has now gone off to
32:34
Speaker 1: college with a scholarship. The alleged rapist. I can't outright
32:39
Speaker 1: say rape because it was never even investigated. So nobody's
32:44
Speaker 1: a suspect, nobody's a perpetrator, nobody's person of interest because
32:48
Speaker 1: it was never investigated. And then the videotape, as I
32:53
Speaker 1: understand it was on a hard drive was on and
32:57
Speaker 1: that's been lost. Explained that to me, do the thumb
33:00
Speaker 1: drive that I was talking about was was the video
33:03
Speaker 1: of where the car was found the security guy at
33:06
Speaker 1: the development. Wait wait, wait, there's surillance video of her
33:09
Speaker 1: car being driven. What do we know about that video?
33:13
Speaker 1: Is it real? Is that her car? Well, you know,
33:17
Speaker 1: if the Little Rock Police Department, if the people at
33:21
Speaker 1: the Little Rock Police Department hadn't lied and said, yeah,
33:24
Speaker 1: we interviewed the security guy out at the development, and
33:27
Speaker 1: months later the p I found out, well, no, that's
33:31
Speaker 1: not true. They didn't interview him, and he had a
33:33
Speaker 1: thumb drive with video of that area for several months
33:37
Speaker 1: before he got rid of it. Um, you know that
33:41
Speaker 1: there's so much like that that has been missed by
33:44
Speaker 1: people who seem to be determined to not find out
33:47
Speaker 1: what happened to this young lady. I have no doubt
33:50
Speaker 1: in my mind that this is not a case of
33:53
Speaker 1: a runaway. So many times police will label a case
33:57
Speaker 1: as she's a runaway, she'll turn up. There is no way,
34:02
Speaker 1: no way that Ebbie would have stayed gone this long,
34:05
Speaker 1: Absolutely no way that she would leave behind her cell phone.
34:09
Speaker 1: That she would not have turned up. There would been
34:11
Speaker 1: be no sightings of her whatsoever. Lori Jernigan, you're convinced
34:16
Speaker 1: this is not a runaway, a runaway scenario, and I
34:19
Speaker 1: agree with you. Why do you say that Ebbie is
34:23
Speaker 1: so close to her family. We're very close. She she
34:27
Speaker 1: would spend the night out, but she would come home. Um.
34:30
Speaker 1: She wanted to be at home. She wanted her friends
34:33
Speaker 1: to be at our home. She was more comfortable at home.
34:36
Speaker 1: There's not a day that has been gone by in
34:39
Speaker 1: her life that she's not We haven't been in contact
34:42
Speaker 1: or with her, Um. There was no question she would
34:46
Speaker 1: never do this. If she was mad at us or
34:48
Speaker 1: mad at someone, she would still never stay out of
34:52
Speaker 1: contact with us. Let's talk about the facts. Let's talk
34:55
Speaker 1: about her cell phone. What evidence, if any, was recovered
35:01
Speaker 1: from her cell phone? What were her last phone calls
35:03
Speaker 1: and text Do you know that? No? I don't why
35:09
Speaker 1: I've not been told that the FBI has it. The FBI?
35:15
Speaker 1: Would they allow you to see it? We first got
35:17
Speaker 1: the phone, UM, in the very beginning, the little police
35:22
Speaker 1: department gave us the phone and asked us if we
35:24
Speaker 1: knew how to unlock it. Oh boy, that's not a
35:26
Speaker 1: good sign and they couldn't get it unlocked. Well, I
35:31
Speaker 1: don't know her past code. I assumed police officers knew
35:34
Speaker 1: how to do that, Well, ours didn't. They didn't know
35:37
Speaker 1: how to get into her Snapchat, her Instagram, her Facebook.
35:42
Speaker 1: I literally had to download and copy the the directions
35:48
Speaker 1: for law enforcement to get information from apps. I had
35:53
Speaker 1: to download that. That's what you agree to when you
35:55
Speaker 1: download any any app. I had to copy that and
35:58
Speaker 1: give that to them so they can figure out how
36:00
Speaker 1: out of contact Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. So the FBI has
36:04
Speaker 1: it now. It's amazing to me that you don't know.
36:07
Speaker 1: They haven't told you her her last text, her last voicemails,
36:13
Speaker 1: who spoke to her last and you can definitely triangulate
36:19
Speaker 1: or figure out where her cell phone had been prior
36:24
Speaker 1: to finding it, and where it had been prior to
36:26
Speaker 1: those last pings, if anybody contacted her said hey meet me,
36:30
Speaker 1: anything like that. And why do you think dot Washburn
36:34
Speaker 1: that her car turned up and this upscale housing development
36:39
Speaker 1: that she has no connection to, It looks like somebody
36:42
Speaker 1: dumped the car to me, I mean, look, if they
36:44
Speaker 1: had the search done out there and they couldn't find
36:47
Speaker 1: any trace that she had been in that development outside
36:51
Speaker 1: that car, you know, even if she was abducted, it
36:55
Speaker 1: doesn't look like she was abducted. There that that's the
36:58
Speaker 1: one thing and the other thing. As to what Laurie
37:01
Speaker 1: was talking about about how it seems to be like
37:05
Speaker 1: pulling teeth to get the Little Life Police Department interested
37:08
Speaker 1: in checking out social media, my understanding is, and I
37:13
Speaker 1: don't know if it's changed since Eby disappeared, but the
37:15
Speaker 1: Little Like Police Department didn't have an I T. Guy. Uh,
37:19
Speaker 1: they didn't know anything about social media. Oh, dear Lord
37:22
Speaker 1: in Heaven. I mean, it wasn't that long ago. For
37:26
Speaker 1: Pete's sake, every every force has an I T. Guy. Um,
37:31
Speaker 1: this is what we know. Ebby Stepic disappears October two
37:35
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen. No one has come forward with any information
37:38
Speaker 1: to help find her. She's missing. As of right now,
37:42
Speaker 1: the reward has increased for information leading to Ebbie's whereabouts.
37:47
Speaker 1: It is now fifty thousand dollars. That's a lot of money.
37:52
Speaker 1: Lori Jurna and her mom now has a little more
37:56
Speaker 1: hope because we now know that a new team has
38:00
Speaker 1: been assembled to help in the investigation. They are four
38:04
Speaker 1: retired homicide detectives. Listen to what Detective Tommy Hudson says.
38:12
Speaker 1: There are still leads being followed up on every Stopics disappearance.
38:17
Speaker 1: Not all the leads have been exhausted yet. It's a
38:19
Speaker 1: long drawn out case. I can tell you that we
38:23
Speaker 1: have resources from the FBI agent people run the building
38:27
Speaker 1: NBI I'm listen here that are assist us in the case.
38:30
Speaker 1: I'm happy that the family has agreed to raise the
38:34
Speaker 1: reward to be eighty thousand dollars. Any tempt that can
38:37
Speaker 1: come in, we investigate. The one thing we do ask
38:40
Speaker 1: the public is we're looking for information in regards to
38:44
Speaker 1: Miss stoics disappearance or what happened to Miss Stuby when
38:47
Speaker 1: I were so much looking for information about opinions of
38:49
Speaker 1: how the investigation should proceed, because what happens is when
38:53
Speaker 1: people start sitting information about how the investigations should proceed
38:56
Speaker 1: and bogs the investigation down. So we want the active
39:00
Speaker 1: information that's out there that we believe somebody in the
39:02
Speaker 1: public has about the disappears, particularly and Miss sticks friends
39:07
Speaker 1: and the people that she ran around with, especially in
39:09
Speaker 1: her social media contacts, that could help us the timeline
39:13
Speaker 1: we have established in her disappearance. They may have something
39:16
Speaker 1: that we can add to our initial timeline that may
39:19
Speaker 1: help us look in a certain origin that may help
39:21
Speaker 1: us try to find where he sat. Back to Laurie
39:26
Speaker 1: journ Again, mother of missing Ebby Jane, Laura, tell me
39:33
Speaker 1: how do you keep your hope alive that you will
39:37
Speaker 1: see her again? Faith? My my belief in God. Um,
39:43
Speaker 1: that's the only thing that keeps me going. And when
39:46
Speaker 1: I don't have it, as other prayers that keep me going,
39:50
Speaker 1: that's the only way I can keep going. UM. I
39:54
Speaker 1: will fight whoever I need to fight until I find her,
39:58
Speaker 1: until I find her body, until I find her, I
40:02
Speaker 1: will fight till my last breath. I have made so
40:05
Speaker 1: many enemies in our legal depart in our law enforcement
40:09
Speaker 1: here in Arkansas, and I've had also I've also had
40:16
Speaker 1: advocates show up in our police department. UM, that's where
40:22
Speaker 1: my that's where my hope lives. Is our detective right now,
40:25
Speaker 1: Tommy Hudson, he's obsessed with this. He came out of
40:29
Speaker 1: retirement for this case. That's that's the case he works
40:34
Speaker 1: on full time. UM. We had an assistant Chief Bewley
40:38
Speaker 1: Wane Buweley that when he removed the case from our
40:42
Speaker 1: original group, he apologized to me over and over of
40:46
Speaker 1: how we were treated, how the case was mishandled we
40:50
Speaker 1: had files falsified, we had um our original group investigators
40:56
Speaker 1: get into her Google account and manipulate her account. There's
41:00
Speaker 1: so many things that were done to, like God said,
41:03
Speaker 1: prevent us from finding our daughter. They wanted to stick
41:07
Speaker 1: with their theory she's a runaway, she'll come home. Of course,
41:13
Speaker 1: police always look at those closest to a victim, and
41:16
Speaker 1: that would include her stepfather. Police investigated him and he
41:21
Speaker 1: has totally been cleared. There was even no suggestion that
41:26
Speaker 1: he was involved in this, And I want to put
41:28
Speaker 1: that in the listeners minds right now, because there was
41:31
Speaker 1: nothing at all to suggest her brother or stepfather or
41:36
Speaker 1: bio dad had anything to do with her disappearance. And
41:40
Speaker 1: I'm saying that because that's the first place all homicide
41:44
Speaker 1: or kidnap investigations start with those family members and then
41:48
Speaker 1: it goes out to uh, love objects, romantic interests. X says,
41:53
Speaker 1: it goes from there. I'm gonna put it on the
41:55
Speaker 1: record right now. The stepfather, the bio dad, the brother
41:58
Speaker 1: have absolutely no nothing to do with Abby's disappearance. To
42:03
Speaker 1: Ebbe's mom, Laurie journagain, Laurie, when you think of Abby,
42:11
Speaker 1: what is your most vivid memory how happy she is,
42:18
Speaker 1: her love of people, animals, and her happiness, her affection.
42:26
Speaker 1: She she loved, loved, loved, and she helped others that
42:30
Speaker 1: gave her so much story to help others, her friends.
42:34
Speaker 1: The constant theme is she would do anything for you,
42:37
Speaker 1: and she she would. Um. I don't have that anymore.
42:42
Speaker 1: I don't have her here. I don't get to see
42:45
Speaker 1: that face, hear her funny stories. I don't have that anymore.
42:52
Speaker 1: And those that have come to know her through this investigation,
42:56
Speaker 1: She's touched so many loves. She's touched so many loves
43:01
Speaker 1: through all this. I have to fight for her because
43:04
Speaker 1: Ebbie is a fighter, and I have to share everything
43:08
Speaker 1: that I have searched through. If it's human trafficking, if
43:12
Speaker 1: it's corruption, I search and search and I share everything
43:17
Speaker 1: I search. And that's what Ebby would do for me.
43:21
Speaker 1: If you are listening now as we join forces to
43:25
Speaker 1: help find Abby, if you have information, please call five
43:31
Speaker 1: zero one three seven one four six six zero repeat
43:37
Speaker 1: five zero one three seven one four six six zero,
43:41
Speaker 1: or email to t as In toy T Hudson, t
43:48
Speaker 1: h U D s O N at Little Rock dot gov.
43:53
Speaker 1: T Hudson at Little Rock dot GOV five O one
43:57
Speaker 1: three seven one four six six oh. There is a
44:00
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollar reward for information leading to the discovery
44:08
Speaker 1: of Abby Stepic breaking news. Now we are just learning
44:16
Speaker 1: regarding the beautiful Texas realtor, the mother who mysteriously goes
44:21
Speaker 1: missing just before Harvey hits Texas, before all the bedlam,
44:27
Speaker 1: the flooding, the evacuation, before Harvey hits, she goes missing
44:35
Speaker 1: and using Harvey as a cover. It remains a mystery
44:40
Speaker 1: what happened to Crystal Crystal McDowell, a mother of two
44:45
Speaker 1: who vanishes the day just hours before Harvey lands in
44:50
Speaker 1: the Gulf Coast area in southeast Texas. We're learning all
44:53
Speaker 1: of this from Chambers County Shore of Brian Hawthorne. Crystal's body,
44:58
Speaker 1: against all of our hopes and prayer, has been found.
45:02
Speaker 1: This gorgeous mom has been found slain. Repeat, the body
45:06
Speaker 1: of a Texas realtor has been found in a marshy
45:10
Speaker 1: wooded area. This is over two weeks after she disappears
45:14
Speaker 1: the day Hurricane Harvey makes landfall just before it hits.
45:20
Speaker 1: It was not Harvey related. Joining me three special guests,
45:24
Speaker 1: Paul Chambers, investigative reporter out of Texas Crime Stories contributor
45:30
Speaker 1: Karen Stark, renowned psychologists out of New York, and Paul Hargrave,
45:35
Speaker 1: Crystal's boyfriend who was one of the last people to
45:39
Speaker 1: see her and has been zealously seeking the truth regarding
45:44
Speaker 1: her disappearance. Paul Hargrave, thank you so much for being
45:47
Speaker 1: with us. When did you learn that Crystal's body had
45:51
Speaker 1: been found? I received a phone call from the the
45:55
Speaker 1: Texas Rangers. I thought that was very kind of him
45:58
Speaker 1: to call me and and notify of me. Um. Non
46:02
Speaker 1: answer is um, it's been a roller coaster of emotions
46:06
Speaker 1: these past few days. Um, it's uh, I don't I
46:11
Speaker 1: don't even recall. It was sometime in the afternoon, around
46:15
Speaker 1: two pm, and um, from that point forward, I left
46:19
Speaker 1: work and cut in the car and drove so UM
46:23
Speaker 1: my day. It's kind of washing together right now. But
46:26
Speaker 1: I got a call around two o'clock from the Texas
46:29
Speaker 1: Ranger to Paul Chambers, Texas based investigative reporter. Paul the
46:36
Speaker 1: narrow question where was her body found and in what condition?
46:40
Speaker 1: We don't know much about the crime scene, but her
46:43
Speaker 1: body was discovered in a wooded area of West Chambers County.
46:47
Speaker 1: They're not getting very specific, but they did tell us
46:50
Speaker 1: that the body was found by the Texas Rangers and
46:54
Speaker 1: detectives from the Chambers County Sheriff's Department. What's disturbing Paul
47:00
Speaker 1: Chambers is her body out there all this time in
47:03
Speaker 1: these horrible, horrible weather conditions as Harvey hits Texas. But
47:07
Speaker 1: to Paul Hargrave, her boyfriend grieving now, Paul, I want
47:13
Speaker 1: you to know, I know what you're going through. I
47:16
Speaker 1: know exactly what you're going through, and I am so sorry.
47:20
Speaker 1: And another thing that is upsetting me greatly as it
47:24
Speaker 1: is you. I'm sure her children probably don't know enough
47:27
Speaker 1: to to to understand this yet, but all of her
47:31
Speaker 1: friends said when she went missing, they knew what happened.
47:35
Speaker 1: It was not Harvey, it was not a failed evacuation attempt.
47:40
Speaker 1: They knew what happened. Paul Hargrave, Is that true? That
47:44
Speaker 1: is true, Nancy. We all had our suspicions. UM. I
47:48
Speaker 1: voiced my concerns is and as profoundly as I could
47:52
Speaker 1: to the detectives, to the Texas Ranger. However, because of
47:57
Speaker 1: my position in this all, being a person of interest, UM,
48:01
Speaker 1: I'm sure it didn't hold much water. Um, the sheriff
48:04
Speaker 1: thought probably it was just animosity between boyfriend and husband,
48:08
Speaker 1: ex husband and ext husband and boyfriend. I tried it
48:11
Speaker 1: to fleed my case. This is what we know now
48:14
Speaker 1: regarding the disappearance and now the death of this beautiful mother,
48:20
Speaker 1: Texas realtor Crystal Dowell. We know that there is foul play.
48:25
Speaker 1: We know there is a suspect in custody. We'll bring
48:28
Speaker 1: you the full story as we dig deep tomorrow. Nancy
48:33
Speaker 1: Grace Crime Stories signing off, goodbye friend,