Ebby Steppach /// Part 1 /// 343 | Forensic Files

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about three weeks before Abby disappeared her behavior changed drastically she would tell us she was
going someplace or with someone and we would find out that's not where she was Abby was provoking arguments and wanted
to move out she left and eventually ended up with my son Trevor a couple of days before Evie was reported missing
she went to a party he texts me on Saturday October 24th that she needed to speak to me about something important
she indicated that an individual at this house had sexually assaulted her and videotaped it there were four boys at
the party she told me she was assaulted by one Abby was hysterical and wanted my
husband to go to the police station with her I told Abby that I would beat her after dinner to sit tight and I'd let
her know when I was on my way the last question I asked her was that she wanted to go file a police report and she
stated yes I'm certain the next afternoon my stepson Trevor came by he contacted
Abby about an hour later and she told him that she was outside his house so Trevor went out didn't see her asked her
where she was she didn't know where she was but she knew she was with her car at
that point Trevor told me what had happened told me have you sounded really messed
up disoriented never heard her sound like that before come on Ollie Trevor is the last person
in our family to speak to Abby I would like for four individuals that were at that party that evening with my daughter
to come forward and give a formal interview with the Little Rock Police Department to either help them move
forward in the investigation clear their name [Music] some cases we approach the story by
starting off with the main event which may be a murder an abduction or a disappearance but in this case the
events unfold in such a peculiar way we will just roll with the chronological approach much of the biographical
information we are about to relay comes from a series of articles and a y magazine dedicated to this strange case
now the trailer you just heard was taken from the dr. Phil show who has done some
extensive coverage on this case Abbey Jane Stevic was born March 31st 1997 to Lori and Peter stetic Abby's name which
Laurie laughingly says she borrowed from a church friend whose daughter's name was Evie her unusual name signified how
special and unique her mother felt her child was Abby's middle name is Jane which is also her mother's middle name
as well Lori hoped her little girl would embody a combination of her mother's traditional religious values and a
free-spirited one-of-a-kind persona Abby's family consisted of an older brother older half-brother actually
named Trevor and a younger sister named Harris Lori says she and Eddie's father split when Abby was just a first grader
Lori says that the marriage was a quote bad situation but when it ended it was still abrupt and shocking to her and her
daughters Lori went on to marry Michael Jernigan who helped bring some stability
to this broken family teenaged Abby was known as AB ster to her family she loved
hot pockets her dog fur ball music the beach and the color purple when she graduated from high school
Abbey wanted to go to cosmetology school and later get her real estate license she was also interested in languages she
studied Spanish Turkish and Hebrew Lori says Abby was always stubborn and independent when she was young she did
not like her name and she went through phases where she would insist on being called something else Lori says Abbey
was a homey person she liked to stay home she had friends over to her house more than she would go to their homes as
she got older she developed into a fiercely loyal person while she was hard to get to know her friends say that once
you broke down her walls she was selfless and generous and passionately stuck by her friend's sides
and Abby's friend Danielle Westbrook described her as kind loyal loving courageous strong and perseverance one
story that captures this is when her classmate this was a boy named Caleb Boyd he was apparently wrongfully
incarcerated for having a gun on school grounds the way that this story works is
instead of turning her back on him like so many of his other friends did right Abby took the lead in mobilizing
students in support of Caleb she initiated a letter-writing campaign and petitioned the court and it worked
getting Caleb released although these characteristics of Abby's were largely positives her mom says there were some
downsides to her loyal and trusting nature Abby got hurt a lot because her strong feelings weren't always returned
in her early high school years she was bullied and she changed schools switching to the little scholars of
Arkansas Academy from another small private school later Abby's loyalty and stubbornness reared
its head when her mom tried to get her to see that a few of her boyfriends and other friends were less than she
deserved as high school progressed her independence morphed into full own rebellious nests Abby started
breaking her parents rules and hanging out with a new crowd a group that she met at her job at Foot Locker at the
McCain mall she had worked hard to land this job this was the summer before her senior year Abby spent most of her money
on makeup and clothes and she started to work more and more to be around these other kids her parents didn't know
things were exacerbated by the car the Abby got from her father Peter Lorre said it gave her daughter the feeling
that she could go wherever she wanted to whenever she wanted to right that's a typical feeling for teens
hey I got a car I'm out of here man mm-hmm Abby who was a very pretty girl 5 foot 2 110 pounds with blond hair and
hazel eyes she is acting out in ways her parents do not like did not like and we
all know this is we don't mean to give Abby a bad name this is a phase most kids go through a lot of kids go through
they want to not be around their parents not listen to their parents and they're
hanging out with these these other people that her parents are calling kids but let's keep in mind these are people
that she's working with so as we go through this we are uncertain in the captain and I talked about this last
week we are uncertain if these are in fact actually kids because it's a job so at the youngest we're probably looking
at what 17 or 18 but very likely 19 20 maybe even 21 year old young adults now Abby
as we said she's acting out she's lying to her parents you know not going where she says she's going hanging out with
people that she says she will not hang out with she and her mom and stepdad continue to butt heads and things
escalated Abby would periodically storm out to stay at her friend's home at Danielle's home but would always return
home the next day now when Abby started her senior year in the fall of 2000 fifteen she made a decision that her
mother would not support she switched schools this was from the Lisa Academy to Little Rock Central High which is a
very big school she went from a small school to a very large school this was a major change for Evie who had been in a
sheltered private school her whole life sure enough new kids she was hanging out
with introduced her to marijuana her parents did not approve and in a heated argument in September Abby and her mom
agreed that she should move out Lori was determined to stand firm her house her rules
and if heavy moved out she couldn't come back Lori agreed to pay for certain things
but Abby would largely be on her own and she would have to work quite a bit of this situation reminds us of Brianna
Maitland the case we covered episode 254 and 255 Brianna switched schools as well and
remember she started hanging out with the wrong crowd right eventually moving out of her parents house and working a
lot vanishing in 2004 and unfortunately not seen since Abby didn't have much of a plan
in fact she rotated between houses quite a bit she crashed at her older brother Trevor's home she stayed with her
biological father Peter and with a friend Kaylie Foley so she's bouncing around from all of
these three homes for a time and Laurie and Michael began receiving calls from Central High Abby was missing school
they decided not to confront her about this she is still in school but technically she is an adult at this time
right sometime around mid-october Abby showed up at Danielle's place asking to stay there for a while the two shared
Danielle's room listening to music and they went out on long drives but since they went to different schools
Danielle was never really sure what F was doing if she was not at the home yeah it seems like she had to do a lot
of work to figure out where she was gonna stay so it'd be a lot more work on top of
that to figure out how you're gonna get from this random spot that you're staying at to school on the morning of
Wednesday October 21st Abbie was supposed to drive Danielle to school on her way to school after
Danielle's doctor's appointment Danielle texts Abby that her appointment was running late telling Abby to go on
without her Abby text back saying no it's not a big deal at all I swear I didn't want to go
to school today anyway because of all that drama Danielle does not know what drama
Abby was referring to Abby never ended up going to school that day it's unclear how many days she missed but she and
Danielle went to services at the Assembly of God Church in Little Rock that evening Thursday and Friday
I don't know if EBI went to school I could not find anything that stated that she did so we can only guess that what
the drama was and if she was still avoiding school because of it but on Friday night October 23rd we do know
that Abby went to a party Danielle did not go with her because she did not know the other people attending this party
right we don't know if these were kids from Central High School or people that Abby was working with at Foot Locker or
others but it was some group that she was hanging out with at this time this will be easy to understand why we don't
know who this is in just a quick bit on Saturday October 24th Abby told Danielle
that her brother Trevor was worried because she hadn't been to his place all week long so she needed to go over there
and see him the friends agreed to see each other on Sunday at the church ice cream social so Abby went to her brother
Trevor's place and then she went to her grandparents house this is Peggy and Bill Holman Abby was close with them and
loved staying at their house Abby spent the day sleeping and watching her favorite show spongebob
she had dinner with her grand parents and they went out for TCBY around 7 p.m. and around 8 p.m. she was
gonna be leaving her grandparents telling them that she's gonna go hang out with her stepfather
she tells her grandparents that she does plan to return to their home for that night and asking them not to lock the
doors the holmen's never saw her again and when they tried calling her later that
evening before going to bed there was no answer it turns out that that same night
around 7:50 p.m. Abby had begun texting her stepfather that she wanted him to bring her to the police station so she
could report an incident that happened at the party the night before she told him that she was the victim of a sexual
assault and for males were involved one guy had sexually assaulted her and he also videotaped the whole event it's
unclear what the role of the other three boys was but it was implied that they were also complicit somehow Abby story
is backed up by some text that she sent on the morning of Saturday October 24th this is to a friend named gage Fulton
here's the conversation that gage later had with Monty Vickers a private investigator on the case describing the
text between him and Abby he says Abby says I was hanging out with some dudes last night and we smoked and I had sex
with one of them and he effing recorded me mm-hmm she says this was when she wasn't looking
Vickers asked gage did she tell you that she was raped - which gage replies says
she said she felt forced into it her last text message to me is saying I am going to kill myself well it seems like
they were drinking out this party possibly these guys are older we don't know I think we both kind of assumed
that that that these are probably more likely people from footlocker than her high school you
or friends of footlocker friends yeah so it seems to me that maybe she felt pressured or whatever but anyway she
ends up having sex with this individual then he tapes it or films it without her
knowledge right and he's probably sharing this with the other guys at the party and that's probably why she is
saying that they're involved in some way yeah in in we say the word sex but we're
using that very vaguely well those are also her words yeah but we have her telling gage that she said she felt
forced right right so now we do know that Abby did not kill herself instead she began texting her stepfather
while he was eating dinner that night Abby requested that Michael not tell her mother she had already called the police
but didn't feel that she had received any good advice on what to do right so Abby felt it would be better if she went
to the police station in person and she wanted her stepfather to go with her the
two agreed to meet around 8:00 p.m. at the holmen's and head down to the station together but we do know that
Abby left the Homans house before Michael arrived and the grandparents told Michael that they were under the
impression that she had gone to meet him she was never seen again now Michael fears that she may have
decided to try to confront one of the boys or all of the boys at the party about this incident by herself right and
he says probably to try to get a hold of the video according to Laurie Abby's cell phone records indicate the EBI made
two calls to the Little Rock Police Department that night around 7:30 p.m. and each only lasted about a minute but
the Little Rock Police Department has said they have no record of those calls okay right right so the but but Abby's
mom does so we know that they happened right Abby's phone records also show that she continued to open and read text
messages until the night of Sunday octo were 25th unfortunately boy wait say that again well the phone records show
that and I have here in my notes that she indicating a B but I think what we should be clear on is we don't know who
was opening right and reading text messages but somebody was until Sunday of October 25th right it's clear to me
that that we have Lori her mother believes it to be Abby but as as we just stated we don't know her heart no I
think what happened is she goes missing and somebody is going through her phone to try to clear some evidence I think
that's what it is well and nobody knows where she spent that Saturday night right I mean she could already be in
danger as you just said now the family started to be worried when no one heard from her by the next morning right we
got to keep some things in mind here there's a lot going on and there's a lot going on in this phase of eby's life as
we already stated she's not always honest about where she is who she's hanging out with and there were times
even before moving out that she would leave in an argument and go stay somewhere and then come back the next
morning one the difficult thing is that she is 18 so technically she says I have
to be honest about where she's gone yeah so you have like really mixed emotions and thoughts and feelings by her family
right now where she didn't show up to meet her stepdad she tells her grandparents that she left to see the
stepdad he shows up at their door and they're like what are you doing here right but at the same time you got these
concerns but you also have a history of somebody running out for the night right
and not being where they're supposed to be they say that they tried calling and texting Abby and all of those texts were
it's according to her phone records state that they were read by somebody mm-hmm they weren't responded to finally
around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday the 25th Abby's brother Trevor got a phone call from her
she did not sound like herself he said she sounded panicked and disoriented Abby told him that she was in her car
parked outside of his house so he hangs up the phone he goes outside to meet her
but she is not there there's no sign of her or her car mm-hmm he calls her back and asked you know where are you she
said she was in her car but did not know where she was and she could not tell him
who she was with the last thing she said was I'm [ __ ] up after four minutes of
back-and-forth with a beam OTT making any sense at all and not giving him any information she hung up the phone and no
one has ever heard from her again her phone started going to voicemail on Sunday night when Abby hadn't turned up
at her grandparents home and after that worrisome phone conversation with Trevor
her family started actively looking for her searching the neighborhood and calling around to her friends Abby's
sister texted Danielle asking if Abby was at her place Danielle who was at the ice cream social said she had planned to
attend with Abby right but obviously if he's not there correct and now Danielle is joining in
the hunt as well she starts calling and texting Abby's phone she starts calling other friends to see if anyone knew
where she could be when she got no response from Abby Danielle started driving around looking for EBI and
places she knew her friend would frequent but all of this effort nobody would find anything
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/ garage [Music] all right we're back cheers mates we are back after that strange phone call
Abby's brother called the police to report her missing but he received the typical runaround that we've seen in so
many other cases it's all it almost seems just in a terrible way it almost seems funny to even say it because we've
repeated it so many times right throughout these different cases now this one is a little different this
response is a little different than we've heard in the past and maybe it's some form of progress I don't know
captain you beat the the decider there but he's told that they need to wait 12 hours before filing a report nope
there's no there's nothing a little bit of a shorter time period most of time we
hear less of a b24 we've heard 36 hours here they want 12 so Lori her mother says the second that the clock hit the
12 hour mark she called the police she called back to the Little Rock Police Department rain a police officer came to
the house on Monday to speak with the family and fill out a missing-persons report
but the Little Rock Police Department did not seem too interested in the missing persons case they seemed to give
Lori's concern about her daughter very little wait and took a perfunctory report without much follow-up at all
yeah now in the cops defense I I really want to know how many times do they get calls where they're getting called backs
within minutes hey we can't find my son can't find my daughter and then five minutes later
they're going up sorry we found them well we do know that that is the case most of the time and the other thing too
look we'll go down this road because you you started us down the road in this particular situation I can kind of see
it from that perspective of oh we just have some people that are overreacting and they want to file a
report but yet the person that they're trying to report missing they've already told me she's hanging out with the wrong
crowd she leaves and doesn't come home some nights she's a dull she's an adult she's living
elsewhere and we don't really know where she's living so III go ahead no yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
the thing that I always drives me nuts though is when they go well there are adult and they have the right to go
missing and I would just say that that look I understand people have the right to go missing but the person that is you
know the person that has the right to go missing that normally goes missing there
probably is some conflict with the family so the family is not going to be calling for a while right yeah I mean
but when a family is calling going hey we can't find our son or daughter and the cops go well they're our adult they
have the right yeah we know that they have the right but this is at a character and and and I think the cops
need to take that more serious it's out of character and then here's the other thing too that that yes and I'm gonna be
my own devil's advocate here where I say that I understand this from the cops perspective where they're saying here's
this this 18 year old who doesn't come home some nights lives elsewhere couchsurfing basically right but then
here's the other time the other thing you got to consider that's all been going on for a while and they've never
called the police before right so very likely this is very different than any of those other times and and maybe they
are not overreacting at all maybe they are reacting appropriately and we need to step in and get involved in this
though again this is also in a day and age where we're very connected so if you're not getting a hold of somebody it
becomes spooky pretty quickly now to put it in its shortest form possible the jernigan x' did not feel that the police
were treating their missing daughter's case with an appropriate sense of urgency
on October 30th the Little Rock Police Department this is lieutenant Steve McHale Han
he's the media spokesperson for the police department he told the media that there was no immediate danger in Emmys
case and she was likely missing because she wanted to be then Little Rock's Channel 7 News reported that police
found surveillance footage showing Abby's car traveling on Cantrell Road in West Little Rock sometime shortly after
she went missing while this report aired at the end of the week whenever disappeared there was no
indication of when the footage of the car had been taken right so it's on TV but we don't know exactly when that
footage was taken it turned out it was most likely sometime that weekend the crucial time period in which Abby did
vanish shallow mount park is a neighborhood park there's a pool there and a playground it's maintained and
operated by the large Chanel Valley homeowners association a sign at the entrance of the park reads private for
residents only it is in a very upscale area of West Little Rock near Joe Robinson High School another large High
School in the city on route 10 in order to get to the private neighborhood park drivers have to take one of two access
roads one of these is shallow Mont Drive which becomes North field drive and takes drivers out to Chanel Parkway by
the Walmart Supercenter the other way takes drivers on Shah Lamont Drive to Cantrell Road which is route 10 a
security guard named guy Hooper who was employed by the Neighborhood Association
to patrol the park he called the Little Rock Police Department on the night of October 28th he was calling to report an
abandoned vehicle parked in the parking lot of the park police took a report but didn't make it over to the park
until October 30th two days later Wow so I want you to keep in mind how this whole thing went down
this this man guy Hooper he's a security officer he calls in this abandoned vehicle and then he waits for police for
a couple of hours and they don't show up they don't respond the entire time to which he's like alright I'll be back
again tomorrow to patrol again right I believe he actually called the following day as well and then again
waited another hour too but as said it was two days later before anyone showed up to take a look at this vehicle Wow
and just to go back to the hole we don't believe that she's in danger we think that she went missing on her own like we
have a couple points of evidence to make him believe not that one she's basically
saying that there was a sexual assault that happened to me and I want to report it I called your police station multiple
times I'm making arrangements to go down there so we should take that serious and
then the remarks that she made to her friend saying well I'll kill myself now and maybe that is just you know it was
just a figure of speech and it wasn't something that she was actually going to do but just that in itself means that
she's in possibly in danger of harming herself hmm and so we should take this more serious it seems it's just like a
load of horseshit well once they finally went down there to investigate this abandoned vehicle what they found was
Abby's silver 2003 volkswagen passat Arkansas plate 137 ufm parked in the parking lot and it had been there since
the night of October 25th this is according to the security office okay so the 25th that's the Sunday that's the
same night that she spoke with Trevor on the phone yes that's Sunday okay the car
keys were still in the ignition the vehicle was out of gas and the battery was dead
even more disturbing were the contents of the vehicle which included her contact lenses her wallet and her cell
phone all of which were sitting on the front seat now really truly what they find there keep
in mind she's moving around from house to house at that time staying a little bit with her brother a little bit with
her biological father and then a friend or two they're gonna find not only just these
items but they're gonna find basically all of her possessions that travel along with her from house to house in this car
yeah her car becomes basically her storage unit yeah now these items are of importance because Lori later said that
Abby couldn't see without her contacts and she would never ever not take her phone somewhere with her she Lori says
this was Eddie's lifeline to her family and I'll keep in mind living with she's not living with her family but she's
still close with them and the fact that all of Abby's makeup was still sitting in the vehicle as well that Lori says
was the clincher for her she immediately knew that something was wrong something
bad had happened now let's take our own little investigation into this vehicle to
captain what did we say here we got the the car keys still in the ignition bad sign we got the automobile out of gas
and the battery was dead that to me suggests that somebody left the vehicle running right in that parking spot and
we do know that it was there since that what did we say Sunday the 25th and they're not there looking at it and so
October 30th that's it I get abandoned vehicles I don't get having these types of possessions being
found inside the vehicle in plain sight one two vehicle out of gas and the battery's dead keys in it somebody left
that vehicle running this is very strange stuff yeah now upon finding the car Little Rock police called Abby's
father Peter this is her biological father his name is on the car registration it was he who notified his ex-wife
Laurie the eby's car had turned up police apparently failed to notice that the name of a missing young woman was
also on that registration and her license was in the vehicle while they were searching the car they left the
trunk open makes you wonder did they fail to notice this or they're choosing you know
because they're choosing not to look for somebody that we know that possibly is in danger or we know they're choosing
not to show up and take this report we know they're choosing not to go investigate this car for two days it's
ridiculous well and keep in mind a couple things if the security officer had called multiple
times to report an abandoned vehicle yeah the responding officer does not know I mean they may know that somebody
is missing or has been around but but very likely not because like we said the the missing persons report is filed it's
probably handed off to a detective by then and if they are not showing an actual concern for this missing
individual the responding officer to this abandoned vehicle can't put two and two together
right because he doesn't have enough information to do so so it's not until he calls the father that's on the
registration father calls mom hey they found our vehicle there it's gonna take Abby's family to bring it back around to
police and say look our daughter is missing and now you found her vehicle yeah with all our stuff in it right I
mean look we all know that teenagers are connected to their phones that that to me is a huge red flag and again like you
said the battery being dead no gas and the keys in the ignition hmm while they were searching the car the
officers left the trunk open and a rainstorm soaked many of Abby's belongings Channel 7 News reported that
there appeared to be no sign of a struggle inside or outside of the vehicle and it was found abandoned since Abby's
disappearance her mother has worked non-stop to keep her daughter's case in the public eye and in the active case
files on detectives desk but it hasn't been easy in fact at times it has been almost
impossible this is because the people who were supposed to help her and help her family who made a pledge to protect
and serve they failed on this investigation for months the Jernigan family says the Abby's car was the
subject of phone calls to the Little Rock Police Department not only from guy Hooper but several neighbors in the area
who called about the car that week well before police officers finally acted on the tip if the department had not
ignored these calls the trail would have been a lot fresher and even after they finally pieced together that the car and
the missing young woman were connected the police department dropped the ball the family got the runaround as to who
was in charge of this investigation police never contacted people that were suspected of being at the party Danielle
or any of Abby's other friends were not contacted the security guard who found the vehicle was not contacted no it took
them weeks to getting around to pinging Abby's phone to see where it had been and when they did they initially pinged
the wrong phone number so yeah let me take you through this horror story well I mean let's just reiterate the fact
that they opened they left the trunk open right what are ya [ __ ] hey I mean come on
it's a in what's the number one thing that we've seen time and time again one of the worst things for evidence is
water yeah and you just leave the trunk open right this is a crime scene or possibly
a crime scene mm-hmm and you don't know either way so you should protect it but you're too lazy or stupid or both or
both I guess there's gues there's another option nobody's ever wearing a shirt that says
I'm lazy and stupid we're gonna make we're gonna make sure that stupid for those of you who are proud yeah of
yourself so that trunk open here's something I put my bike in it let me take you through this horror story this
is about the pinging the her phone but it ends up being the wrong phone number all right so they ping her phone what is
believed to be Abby's phone yeah and police tell her mother and stepfather we've pinged the phone it's
it's coming from a location out about 45 minutes drive from your home so kind of
out away from the city and it's coming from a field out there listen to this I mean this is not sounding good right
your daughter's missing you start phone is pinging from a F field kind of out in
the middle of the country you start thinking that's possibly where her body is that's where we're going to
find her mm-hmm but then you're gone oh how did their phone get back to the car right right and that's I guess I'm a
little unclear on that captain what they're saying is that when they trace these pings around the time that she
went missing they had the phone pinging out in this other location now as you said though that's when the
parents are like oh my god we might find her body out in that field right and this is awful look if I'm the
investigator even if I ping the wrong phone right mm-hmm even if I'm a freaking [ __ ] captain
[ __ ] pants right and I'm hanging the wrong phone and then I know that the phone ended up at the car before I tell
anybody I am going and searching that field myself or double-checking the ping information right but I'm starting I'm
starting with I'm a dumbass right III ping the wrong phone but either way I made a mistake right but I'm going to be
a good detective a good investigator and before I tell the parents and freak them
the freak out I am gonna go check that field and then I'm gonna present the information but my maybe by checking the
field and finding nothing mm-hmm I would then double check did I get the number right mmm yeah
they're looking for ping information that would have taken place around the time that she was trying to call her
brother that she spoke to Trevor right right so unfortunately they figure out law enforcement figures out that they
were pinging the wrong number I bet they didn't even figure that I bet somebody in our family figured that out well
they I believe it was a couple of days before they told the family oh we were paying the wrong number when
they finally pinged the correct number it did turn out that Abby was or the phone was in Charlemont Park when she
did in fact call Trevor right now the Little Rock Police Department also claimed to be unable to access Abby's
social media this is a part of the story that I really you know we're talking about things that the law enforcement
screwed up on that they messed up on that they dropped the ball right this one is is just a small part of the story
but truly I feel like this is where they missed the bus the most because we we have rumor of this video that might have
been on somebody's phone we have stalks and gauge coming forward saying that I trade text messages with her we know
that she or somebody was opening and reading text messages on her phone on that Sunday right so I really feel like
and especially given her age that this social media stuff could have really helped the investigation especially in
the early stages of the investigation what's going on here is they're telling the family we'd
know how to access these social media accounts we do not know how to get in there and do a little spy work and
figure out what was going on who she was talking to his word to stupid well and then on top of that what would be really
key here is to figure out where in fact she was going when she says that she was
going to meet her stepfather because we know from the stepfather right that's not the case he says I was going to meet
her here and now she's gone right so that could have really helped the early stages of the investigation why and she
at the park well at the very least let's say she communicated with four or five other people after she left her
grandparents house you need that trail of breadcrumbs but you need to follow the breadcrumbs to get you from person a
to person B to C and D until you get to the actual last person that spoke with her or had interaction with her so you
can figure out her location yeah by get to see the detectives the whole time on this case again
all right well we checked her we checked her phone this is the the detectives talking to the family we checked her
phone what's her name again hmm you know I mean that's that's kind of work they're doing
where's now yeah we we saw her car what's her name again yeah have you heard from her like no do
some work here now Laurie did try to assist the investigators as much as she possibly could regarding her missing
daughter's case she was the one that spent the the man-hours putting together Abby's phone records she got as much as
she could from her social media accounts and she passed all of this on to the detectives and unfortunately she says at
one point in this investigation when she is in there answering questions and talking with detectives she's saying the
detective seemed proud to tell her we have we've collected all this information we have tons of evidence we
have all this information regarding your missing daughter and he had it in the room with them right and Laurie says she
looked at all this information that he says he has and that has collected and she says
unfortunately this was everything this guy had she provided to him she provided this information so why he seemed proud
to have that information makes absolutely no sense at all stupid or lazy what's going on behind the scenes
yeah is the trouble of having Abby and the family come forward stating two things one Abby's intention was to meet
her stepfather at some point that evening her family saying the stepfather was going to meet Abby some point that
evening yeah those things are now working against Abby's family in this investigation because now the way that
they're working this investigation they're suspicious of the stepfather of course they want to know if if in fact
he was the last person to see her and what was really going on behind the scenes there yeah yeah basically if
they're basically believing that he is the murderer now mind you they wouldn't state in the beginning that this was a
real missing persons case to begin with now all of a sudden they're saying oh we
think that she disappeared because you made her disappear right and this whatever this theory is or how they ever
came up with this theory other than knowing that he might have been the last person that she intended to meet with
they're now using this as a theory and they're what they're claiming when they speak with the family is you're lying to
us you're you're you are telling us a different story because you're trying to cover up what truly happened to your
daughter when in reality what we have is a family who's trying to be actively involved in
an investigation that would not be moving forward without them yeah it's very difficult because we were talking
about this before I think on off the record where I do not like the idea when detectives say it's not my job to come
up with theories it's it's my job to collect the evidence and for the evidence to tell me what's
happening now now hold on a second I understand you're saying that because you want to seem like you're smart and
level-headed but the truth of the matter is that you have to collect evidence and
along the way you have to create different theories multiple theories based off of the evidence you're seeing
yeah based off the evidence but also may be based off evidence you don't have yet
and you have to come up with multiple theories and then you have to go down those rabbit holes and and let the
evidence tell you if that theory is true or not in this case they come up with this theory that makes zero sense
because what we have what we have evidence of is this young woman making calls to the police saying that she was
sexually assaulted again I am sick and tired of let's just look the justice system doesn't take these claims serious
enough that's why she called the police department multiple times they should be
saying you were sexually assaulted come down to the station now we need to take this serious and then she's making
claims to her friends and now she's telling her stepfather now again we should take these claims serious because
not only is she stepping up to the plate which is so hard for these women to do but she's stepping up to the plate to
talk to police the police officers and law enforcement mm-hmm and that's frightening and again
she's a young woman and it's frightening to have to tell your stepfather frightening embarrassing whatever words
you want to use this is not somebody that you know that it's as frustrating and well super frustrating for a
multitude of reasons but also frustrating in the sense that you're telling the family that we don't want to
work with you because we think you're covering something up but you right but even though his wife even if that is
their theory and it doesn't appear that they were even investigating or working on
building a case around that theory there were they just weren't doing anything and having the excuse that the
stepfather is a suspect was just that an excuse to not do anything to just sit on
our hands and not have to do anything when we already know that you had this great lead of there was something that
went down at that party that might have been a major ordeal and it happened very
shortly before she went missing that's a frickin lead yeah now now I wouldn't I want to blame her so much if if they if
the sexual assault charges were against the stepfather then you go okay well a to B we're looking into this guy but
that's not who the allegations were against it was about this party and I'm surprised these morons didn't turn to
the stepfathers wife Eddie's mother and say collect evidence against him could you collected evidence on everything
else [Music] all right I'm looking at my phone I'm looking at my device and on both I have
the very awesome stitcher app it is free you can go out and get the stitcher app
and we have all of our old episodes on there for free for you to listen to also make sure you check out our other show
called off the record it is available on stitcher premium stay tuned until tomorrow it's going to get pretty heated
in the garage until then be good be kind [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Source: https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-72tt6-c36e40

Ebby Steppach /// Part 1 /// 343 Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarge.com A young woman has a traumatic experience and decides to go to the police. But before she does, she vanishes. She did make a mysterious phone call to her brother. In which she said she does not know where she is. Her car is found but as for 18 year old Ebby Steppach, there is no sign of her. Beer of Week - Shadows of the Eyes - batch 18 by Rare Barrel Micro Brewery Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 bottle caps Be SUPER and check out these SUPER supporters of TCG! www.YourSuper.com - use code GARAGE at checkout and get 15% off your order! www.ThirdLove.com/Garage - get 15% off your first purchase! www.HuntaKiller.com/Garage - embrace your inner detective and get 20% off your first box!

The full archive of True Crime Garage is available on the Stitcher listening app - for FREE. Our show “Off the Record” is only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

Abby Jane Stevic vanished after reporting a sexual assault; police response was inadequate and dismissive of her family's concerns.

Key points

Abby's Disturbing Night. Abby texts her stepfather about a sexual assault at a party, revealing a dark incident.
The Last Conversation. Trevor receives a panicked call from Abby, but she disappears shortly after.
Danielle Joins the Search. Danielle starts reaching out to friends and driving around looking for Abby.
Police Report Delays. Abby's brother calls the police to report her missing but faces delays.
Abandoned Vehicle Found. Abby's car is discovered abandoned with personal items inside, raising alarms.
Police Negligence. The police fail to act on multiple reports about Abby's car, causing frustration.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's good to hear you and it's good to be heard.

Big Nick's shoutout to the audience.

1:50WatchOct 16, 2019

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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