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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Mike Morford
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- [01:00]
Mike Ferguson
Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
- [01:38]
Mike Morford
Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 404 of the Criminology podcast.
- [01:42]
Mike Ferguson
I'm Mike Ferguson and this is Mike Morford.
- [01:44]
Mike Morford
Mr. Morford, how you doing this week, buddy?
- [01:47]
Mike Ferguson
I'm doing pretty good. A little bit under the weather, but getting through it. Not complaining. What are you. What are you up to?
- [01:52]
Mike Morford
I'm on my own this week. My wife is down your way. Not your way, but she's in Florida for spring break.
- [01:59]
Mike Ferguson
Oh, the. Out there on the beach, getting in trouble, having a few too many drinks, having run ins with the. The local police.
- [02:06]
Mike Morford
That kind of stuff I've been seeing on the news. A lot of spring break partying going on. She's probably not in that mix, hopefully, but she's down there sunning for sure. Having a few, I imagine.
- [02:20]
Mike Ferguson
Hope you don't have any calls saying that you, you know, you have to come down there and bail her out. That'd be a problem.
- [02:25]
Mike Morford
That would be a problem because I'm kind of far away. All right, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had new support from Kim Klein and Bernadette Pelletier. So great new support. We really appreciate it.
- [02:40]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, thank you so much for that support. It really helps out for everyone that supports the show. We can't thank you enough. If you want to get started, head over to patreon.com criminology all right, we're
- [02:51]
Mike Morford
hurtling into this week's case and in this episode we're Talking about the 2015 murder of a young woman named Ebby Stepik in West Little Rock, Arkansas. The murder of Ebby Stepik is a crime that shocked her community. But it's really the details and events around and preceding her murder that have stumped investigators for over a decade as they try to figure out if the thing's going on in Ebby's life played a role in her death.
- [03:20]
Mike Ferguson
On October 26, 2015, 18 year old Abby Jane Stepek was reported missing. She was last seen when she left her grandparents home in West Little rock, Arkansas around 8pm on the 24th. Abby had recently upended her entire life. She transferred from a charter school to a public school, Central High School in Little Rock for her senior year and just one month before she disappeared, she moved out of her parents house. She wanted to be more independent and live with fewer roles. Her mom Lori told dateline. She went through a lot of changes all at once and suddenly she was chomping at the bit to take control over life. But her stepdad and I were really strict and Abby started to push back and rebel. Abby's friend Daniel Westbrook told THB11.com she was rebellious, she was independent. She's going to do whatever she wants.
- [04:13]
Mike Morford
So you know we see this a lot more right in teenagers who are around Abby's age. It's a time in your life where you're ready to break free. You want to be your own boss. Hell, I'm sure you and I had that kind of streak in us. I know I did it. I think it happens a lot. During this time, Ebby had also been hanging out with new friends and skipping school. There were a few places she would stay, including with friends, her biological father, her grandparents and her older brother Trevor. A few weeks before her disappearance, she was staying with her friend Kaylee, who lived with her mother Margie Foley. On the day Abby vanished, October 24, 2015, she was spending time at her grandparents house watching SpongeBob SquarePants and napping. After dinner they went to a TCBY together for frozen yogurt. It seemed like a pretty normal day up to this point, but that was all about to change.
- [05:16]
Mike Ferguson
Shortly after this trip out to tcby, Abby called the Little Rock Police Department. Two calls lasted about a minute each. Just after those calls to the police, Abby sent a text message to her stepfather Michael. She asked him to go to the police station with her so that she could report a serious crime. She told him that she had been sexually assaulted at a recent house party. Most reports are unclear as to what actually happened. Many mentioned that four men assaulted her that night, while others state that there were four men in the room watching the attack happen. Abby told her stepfather that one of the men had recorded the entire thing. However, according to a text Abby sent to her friend Gage Fulton the day after the incident happened, the details were slightly different. According to TrueCrimeNews.com, abby confided in Gage that she had been hanging out with a few guys and smoking with them before she had sex with one of them and that she felt forced into it and that one of them had recorded her without her knowledge or consent. So it's clear that whatever happened at that party, it had been weighing on Evie enough that she felt she needed to get the police involved. But unfortunately what's not clear is exactly what went down and who was involved.
- [06:27]
Mike Morford
After the call from Abby to her stepfather Michael, asking him to help get the police involved, he agreed that they would meet up and they would go to the police station together. They didn't have any specific time set, but he planned to go meet her at her grandparents house after he and his wife, Abby's mother Lori, had finished with dinner. However, around 8pm Abby left her grandparents house. She told them that she was going to meet Michael. Phone records show that she texted several people, including the men she was planning to accuse of sexually assaulting her at the party. She was clear about her plans to go to the police about the incident. After leaving her grandparents home, she stopped answering the phone for family members. And that night she didn't come home. And more. I think we just kind of have to talk a little bit about this scenario. Now you said it right. It's not exactly clear what happened. The reporting is a little bit all over the place but it sounds like there's no doubt something happened at that party, the details of which are just not completely known. But I think to Abby she was at the point where, you know, she was going to get the police involved. She had told people, you know, she reached out to her stepfather. But then you have these texts that night apparently to the men that she was planning to accuse. Now we don't know exactly what was in the text, but I think these are very important details when you know that she is going to go missing.
- [08:12]
Mike Ferguson
The timing, sending these messages out to these people that she's going to report on, lining up with her going missing, that's pretty troubling. And but at least for the police, when they get involved. There's a little bit of a paper trail or digital trail is probably a better phrase. So you have to hope that, you know, the police would check these guys out. At least no one knew where Abby was overnight on the 24th or all day on the 25th. She wasn't online or on social media which was odd for her. And she didn't respond to text messages either. But she finally ended up calling her older brother Trevor the next evening on the 25th. This call was a four minute call around 5:30pm and it's the last time anyone's known to have spoken to Abby after she left her grandparents house. Trevor told THB11.com Abby sounded very disoriented and completely out of it. He actually said it kind of sounded like she was high on drugs. She also sounded scared and concerned. Trevor had no idea where she was or who she was with. But she told Trevor that she was in her car parked in front of his house. He went outside to check on her but she wasn't there. Her car wasn't on the street. He called her back and she admitted she didn't know where she was. All she said was, I'm fucked up. Then she hung up. It was the last time he'd ever talked to his sister.
- [09:34]
Mike Morford
And we talk in many episodes about the last conversation that someone you know has with a person you know, usually a loved one, a family member, a friend who then later goes missing. And I think this one between Trevor and Ebby is a very interesting but strange conversation. I mean I, I don't think there's any doubt that you know, something was going on with Abby, whether it was drugs, which Trevor has even said he thought she might have been high. To say hey, I'm right outside of your house. And then for Trevor to go out and she's not there and then to have a later conversation where she admits she doesn't know where she is and that she's, you know, messed up. I think that's pretty telling that there, there was probably some drug use going on.
- [10:35]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, it's a very frustrating clue too because it's the first time anybody has heard from Abby in a couple of days basically. So he was probably relieved to get the call but then frustrated at the same time because she wasn't making a lot of sense. He thought she was outside, she wasn't there. So probably led to more questions and frustration than anything else.
- [11:00]
Mike Morford
Concerned about the calls with Abby, Trevor called their mother Lori and told her that something was wrong. But Abby's mother and stepfather were told by police that because Abby was 18 and legally an adult, they couldn't report her missing for 12 hours. They were finally able to officially report her disappearance in the early hours of the 26th, despite having tried to do it the day before. And we talk about this all the time how those first hours when someone are missing, they're crucial, yet somehow, police want to wait. And here we are doing it again. Now you have to look at it from the perspective of police. Abby has called her brother. So wherever she was, she was free to call, and she was capable of making a call. But still, based on how she sounded and the accusations she had made, this seems like enough for them to have waived any type of waiting period and, you know, begin the search for ebby quickly. When they started the search, it had been two days since anyone had laid eyes on ebby stepping.
- [12:15]
Mike Ferguson
On October 28, two days after Abby was officially reported missing, Guy hooper, the security guard at chalamont park, Called the police to report that a silver 2003 Volkswagen Passat had been abandoned there. Two days later, investigators confirmed that this was Ebby's car. The battery had died, and the gas tank was completely empty. It was unlocked. Her purse, makeup bag, and phone were still inside the car. So were the keys to the car and her contact lenses. Some of her makeup, which was expensive and very important to Abby, was strewn about the car, and some of it was even broken, which was extremely concerning to her parents. She never would have let her makeup get ruined like that and never would have treated her own belongings like that. And if she had taken off, she would have taken all of it with her. Makeup was her passion. She wanted to become a cosmetologist and do makeup professionally. The car was towed to the police impound lot, where the trunk was apparently left open, Letting days of rain pour inside, Potentially destroying evidence.
- [13:14]
Mike Morford
So we have a couple of things here that, you know, I think people point to from the standpoint of the police and say, ah, maybe you could have done something a little bit better. You know, we talked about this waiting period, and I get it. Over the years, departments have had policies right? About how long they have to wait to make a report. I get that. But, you know, for me, it seems like there should be carve outs or there should be caveats, Even when you have those kind of policies, where the circumstances around someone being missing are so eerie, or whatever word you want to use, that, you know, that period gets waived in certain cases. But I think for many departments over the years, it's just been that kind of standard. All right, this is our policy, and this is what we're going to do without looking at the whole scope of the situation. And then obviously, you know, leaving this trunk open while it's at the impound lot. You know, to me, that's. That's a gaffe because we don't know if there was evidence in there, but why would it not be sealed up?
- [14:34]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, I don't know what the procedure is at the specific lot, but, you know, just closing a trunk, making sure the vehicle's secure, that seems like it would be pretty simple and common sense to do. But I. I want to go back to something you said. You mentioned looking at everything involved, the scope. You know, I understand there's a policy of, well, we have to be missing a certain amount of time. They're an adult. But if we go back to the fact that we know that police were going to be called because of this incident that happened to Abby, and then she goes missing after, you know, telling these people that are supposedly involved that she's going to the police, that seems like it would trump the need to wait. And that might show that she's in a dangerous situation. So, you know, I'm a little upset that they didn't jump into action sooner.
- [15:31]
Mike Morford
Despite Abby's abandoned car and the troubling scene in it, the authorities still seem to treat Abby's disappearance as if she had just voluntarily run away from. But her family thought there was no possible way she left on her own without her car and her belongings. Abby's family offered a $15,000 reward for information leading to her confirmed whereabouts. As much as they hoped she was okay and out there someplace, they also began to fear the worst. That she had been killed or that someone had taken her against her will and that she was out there somewhere being trafficked across state lines and sexually assaulted. All kinds of things went through their minds, none of them good.
- [16:16]
Mike Ferguson
It wasn't just Abby's family that were worried about her. Many people who knew Abby worried that she had been killed. Just over a week after Abby disappeared, Abby's friend Kaylee Foley and her mom, Margie, decided to investigate the area near Chalamont park where Abby's car had been found. They went there just days after Margie smelled something awful coming from a drainpipe on the edge of the parking lot and told Kaylee to get back in the car. She immediately knew she was smelling human decomposition. Margie told Kaylee to get back in the car because she didn't want her to have to experience that terrible smell. Margie then called 911 to report what she believed to be the smell of a dead body. An hour later, officers finally responded, but they told Margie that a sewage pipe was basically bound to smell bad, like sewage at times. There was nothing there. Margie would later tell thv11.com I was kind of dismissed by them. In late November and early December 2016, there was another search of Shallowant Park. Cadaver dogs were brought in, but they didn't pick up a cent to follow.
- [17:19]
Mike Morford
Evie's family was able to raise the reward from 15 to $50,000. As if Abby being missing wasn't hard enough on its own, her family had to deal with fake sightings and bogus demands for ransom. It was truly an ordeal. In 2017, Little Rock Police homicide detective Tommy Hudson came out of retirement to join the newly formed Cold Case Unit and subsequently took over the investigation into Abby's disappearance. He immediately was not happy with what he found. Detective Hudson told Dateline, when I got the case, the there were things that weren't done that should have been done on the front end. Detective Hudson's investigation started from square one. He told Dateline it was up to us to clean up the mess and basically start from the beginning. Abby's mom Lori felt that Detective Hudson was onto something, Saying on the Dr. Phil Show, I believe we would know where our daughter is had they not mishandled her case.
- [18:22]
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- [19:24]
Mike Ferguson
on May 22, 2018, investigators once again returned to Shalomont Park. Detective Hudson just kept Thinking about the drainage piped nearby's car. There was a lot of rain after Ebbie disappeared, and that paired with the smell Margie fully reported, plus the close proximity of the car, it interested the detective. He told Dateline I kept thinking she might have been washed into the pipe. Authorities were able to see inside the drain pipe by using a remote control camera. Multiple obstructions were spotted, causing investigators to change their method. They started to dig down to the pipe using a bulldozer so they could get around the obstructions and see into the blocked section of pipe. Once the pipe was excavated, investigators were able to see human remains, and they knew that they were Evie's. For three years, she had been less than 20 yards from where her car had been found parked.
- [20:15]
Mike Morford
And we touched on it already, morph. But, you know, there's. There is a lot of criticism from people towards the police and the handling of this case. But, you know, there's also criticism by Detective Hudson. I mean, you know, he said it right. There were some things that were not done correctly, and they're kind of hard to dismiss. Margie telling the police that, you know, she smelled decomposition. She was basically told, ah, it's just sewage. She even said, right. I felt like I was being dismissed. Now, the one thing that did stand out to me is that they brought cadaver dogs in, but they didn't alert, and that was a little shocking.
- [21:04]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. I think it goes to show that, you know, cadaver dogs are a good tool to use, but they're not always accurate. If you're relying solely on your dogs and maybe their handlers and their skills, you know, maybe you have to have other methods, just getting in someplace and looking in there physically like they finally did.
- [21:25]
Mike Morford
Abby's mom, Lori, felt guilty when she heard the news. She felt she didn't do enough telling thv11.com I felt like I had failed when I learned that. Why didn't I dig up the parking lot? Why didn't I insist that the drain had been searched? Of course, this was not the answer that Ebby's family wanted, but at the very least, it was an answer they didn't have to keep waiting, wondering if they would ever know where she was. A statement released by her family read in part, God hears and answers all prayers. Yesterday, God answered the family's prayers to find Abby. Others who knew Abby were angry. Margie Foley told the AP News, it just makes me physically ill thinking that the girl that I had in my home had taken in was decaying down there, and that's what I smelled. And nobody did anything. They just left her there.
- [22:20]
Mike Ferguson
Despite the condition of the remains, the exposure to water, and the time that had passed, the medical examiner was apparently able to determine a preliminary cause of death, but it's been withheld from the public. It could be to protect the investigation, or perhaps it could be that because it's just preliminary and they don't want to release information that could be incorrect. We just don't know. But maybe it can help solve the case one day or weed out false confessions. We don't know if they've developed any more information about her cause of death. Abby's family believes that if she had been found closer to the time she actually disappeared, her murder would have been easy to solve. There would have been more obvious leads, more evidence to be collected. With the rain in the days after her disappearance and the time it took to find her body, a lot of evidence was probably washed away or eventually deteriorated. Even her actual cause of death may have been more obvious. If she had been found sooner, the medical examiner likely would have been able to observe any bruises, scratches, cuts, bite marks, stab wounds, bullet holes, burns, or abrasions on her body. And more complete toxicology tests would likely have been able to be ordered.
- [23:27]
Mike Morford
And I think all of what she's saying is true. Right. The finding of her body earlier on could have resulted in more information. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I also think that Lori feeling guilty is so very natural. We talk about it, we hear about it a lot in these cases that we do where whether it's justified or not. And in most cases, it's not justified, but people can't help but feel guilty. What if I had done this? Should I have done that? All of those questions are going to go through people's minds. And then in this case, to add on, there's the frustration towards the police. That's pretty obvious for many people.
- [24:21]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. In this case, I don't blame the family because we clearly see several missteps from the investigation not starting right away to the car's trunk being left open at the impound yard, to not getting in there and searching that drain pipe sooner. One thing happens. You could say, okay, it's a mistake. When several things happen, it's a pattern.
- [24:51]
Mike Morford
It's also frustrating that Shalomont park had been searched earlier in the investigation, multiple times even, but nothing was found. Abby's body was not in the opening of the tunnel. She ended up wedged somewhere down the pipe. There were clumps of debris, or what they called obstructions on either side of her body. So it's not hard to see how a visual search or visual searches even missed her remains. However, this was the exact location, the very same pipe that her friend's mother had been so concerned about Due to the strong, rancid smell. It was such an obvious location that it became the focus of the new investigation, which was looking at the case with fresh eyes.
- [25:39]
Mike Ferguson
So investigators now know where ebby ended up, and they might know what happened to her, but they still don't know who's responsible for her death. At least nothing they can likely take to trial yet because no arrest had been made. According to KATV.com, investigators now believe that Ebby was in the vicinity of 53rd street and University Avenue on Saturday, October 24, through the early morning hours of October 25. They're not sure where she was before 7pm or after 3 in the morning, but they finally verified some of her final whereabouts. No one knows why she was there or who she was with in that area. There are a few businesses, traffic churches and gas stations, Multiple homes and some apartment complexes. It hasn't been pinpointed exactly where ebby was. This is information that should have been in the hands of a lead detective within days of Ebby's disappearance. But as far as we know, it wasn't information that was gathered until 2025, or at least that's when it was released to the public. And I think for the family, for the public, you want to know as much as you can. You want to figure out what happened and have some kind of answers. And sometimes the police, for whatever reason, they choose to sit on information and not release it. And that can be frustrating.
- [26:56]
Mike Morford
Yeah. And the other thing it does is it makes it hard to know exactly when they actually had the information. Did they have it early on and just make it public here recently? That's the more likely explanation. You would like to think that's the explanation. Not that they didn't gather the information until 10 years later, but it's what you just talked about, morph. All of those things that caused people to think there was some sort of COVID up. And there are some details in this case that seem to kind of lean towards that theory. The huge delay in properly investigating Abby's disappearance, the fact that Margie had to call multiple times to be connected to someone who would come out to the park and search, only to be dismissed. Not immediately investigating the same make and model car reported as abandoned, that a missing person Drove, leaving the trunk open while it rained. Now these are some things that people look at and say, oh, well, there must be a cover up. But the other explanation for me, and maybe the one that is more likely, is that it just could be bad police work, incompetence. But you'd have to say neither scenario is good. You know, we've seen in many other cases that there doesn't need to be a conspiracy or an intended cover up for an investigation to go off the rails. It could be as simple as they got it in their heads that she ran away. So nothing was really given the importance that it should have been. They just didn't do a thorough job because they felt that she would turn up safe and sound. Once it became clear that they were dealing with something serious, it was too late.
- [28:52]
Mike Ferguson
Those who believe the truth was covered up also tend to believe that Ebby's death was related to the incident at the house party. Because the young men have never been named publicly, all we really have to go off about them are rumors. The biggest one is that one of them was the son of a high ranking Little Rock Police Department officer, possibly even the chief. That rumor is easy to buy into because if this was a cover up by one officer, they would have to be pretty high up to not be found out. The way that Ebby's car was left unlocked with the keys in the ignition climb could cause speculation that Ebby was pulled over by an officer or by someone pretending to be one. But the security guard at the park believed he had seen Abby there previously meeting with someone. This could point more toward her unexpectedly being taken from her car. With the battery dead and gas tank empty, it really seems like someone got out of the car with it still running. Maybe Abby stepped out to talk to someone she trusted for a minute and planned to get back into her car, but never made it.
- [29:51]
Mike Morford
Some people don't think that the COVID up theory is all that crazy, because that area has had more than its share of shady investigations and botched or mishandled cases. And it stretches back decades. One infamous case in that area is the boys on the Tracks case from August 1987. In that case in Alexander, Arkansas, just a bit over 10 miles from where Abby was found, two teenage boys, 16 year old Don Henry and 17 year old Kevin Ives, were struck by a passing train. As they laid on train tracks for years, there were arguments as to whether they were already dead when the train hit them. Officials tried to say that was the case, but evidence pointed to them being murdered. And then Laid on the tracks. It turned out that there was a lot of drug activity in that area and. And people connected to the case were alleged to have been involved in the drug dealing activity. At least five people connected to the case, either as investigators or witnesses, died under mysterious or violent circumstances within a couple of years of the boy's deaths. If there was something to that theory that a cover up happened in that case, then certainly the same thing happening 10 miles away in Ebby's case has to be on the table.
- [31:12]
Mike Ferguson
While some people believe in a police led cover up in Ebby's case, others believe the answers may lie closer to home. There are those who suspect Abby's stepfather For whatever reason. People wonder why Abby called him instead of her mom about something so personal. And also wonder why he didn't immediately tell his wife what Abby told him about being assaulted instead finishing dinner and then going to her. But from what we know, Abby didn't want him to tell her. There was a reason she didn't want to live with her mom or want her in her business. So we don't know what the relationship was really like. It can also be hard to talk about something you know will upset one of your parents. Maybe her stepfather was less emotional and Abby felt that his stoicism could help her keep it together. As for Abby's mom, Laurie, she told dateline. I'm grateful that I wasn't told about that text about what happened. I know I would have been hysterical and rushed over.
- [32:05]
Mike Morford
Yeah, that was something that kind of jumped out at me as well. I know people can be very close to their step parents. Right? A stepfather or stepmother. But it did jump out at me. You know, why did Abby choose to confide in him rather than her mom? Now, Lori saying that she would have been hysterical might have been the answer to that question.
- [32:31]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, maybe Ebby had a sense that would happen. But to your point, it is common that a lot of times, if a woman has been through something like Ebby appears to have been through, they'll confide in another woman, A family member, a friend. Even in police investigations, if there are rape cases, they'll all often send in a female police officer to talk to a woman who's been assaulted. So, you know, I can see why some people look at that with a little bit of suspicion.
- [33:08]
Mike Morford
Well, unfortunately, in these cases where there's a lot of unknowns, almost everybody involved at one point or another is going to have some suspicions cast on them. We see that in pretty much every case Right. Until the police come out and say, this is exactly what happened and these are the people who were involved. There are a lot of people who are kind of under the cloud of suspicion, and I say it a lot, but that has to be very tough to live with if you didn't have anything to do with the person's death or murder. Living with that, I can only imagine how tough that would be day or night.
- [33:58]
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- [34:09]
Mike Morford
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Mike Morford
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- [34:27]
Mike Morford
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- [34:46]
Mike Ferguson
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- [34:48]
Mike Morford
Step into the zero proof season at rk0proof.com There was a renewed suspicion on members of Abby's own family, including her uncle Tim Stepic, since in early 2024 he was arrested for sexually assaulting or harassing underage teenage staff members at his business Tim's Tavern. He entered a plea of no contest to three misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a minor and received one year of probation. While this is very disturbing that someone close to Abby was involved in a crime like this, it seems investigators don't believe that her family is involved. Detective Hudson told THV11.com I can categorically tell you that her stepfather, her father, nobody in her family is a suspect that we're looking at in the case. And I just talked about, right, Suspicions being cast on family members and people close to Abby until the police come out and say they're not involved. And that's exactly what Detective Hudson did. I mean, that's a very emphatic statement and it's a definitive one. I can categorically tell you that her stepfather, her father, nobody in her family is a suspect. I mean, that is to me a very big statement because the police don't have to come out and say that. So the fact that they do means to me that hopefully they have completely vetted all of these people and they're not involved.
- [36:35]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, that's A pretty emphatic statement to basically paint a picture of, okay, nothing to see here. Some people are even suspicious of Guy Hooper. The security guard who called in Abby's car is abandoned. We've seen perpetrators insert themselves into a case before, so you can understand the reasoning here. But as far as we know, he's been nothing but helpful and was just trying to do his job initially, and calling in Abby's car as abandoned was the right thing to do. Family spokesperson Michael Mazzello told the Independent.com we know that the security guard has been cooperative with the current investigation, and it does not appear that he participated in the death or disappearance of Evie.
- [37:15]
Mike Morford
And Guy Hooper provided some very interesting details which may be connected to Evie's case. He told police that he believed he saw Ebby at the park with two young black men just a few days before she disappeared. He told them all to leave because it was getting late. None of them gave him any trouble. But a few days later, he saw Abby there at the park in the backseat of her car. She was with one of the men she was with the first time he saw them. Just days later, he saw her there a third time. The same man was also there, along with Mormon. The man that guy saw all three times was about 5 foot 7 and had long dreadlocks. He said that Ebby was hugging and kissing the man. He later came to believe this man was Keith Pruitt, who would have been in his late teens or early 20s when Ebby was killed. Guy was able to pick his photo out of a lineup because he was charged with human trafficking and promoting prostitution in Louisiana. A co defendant in that Louisiana case, Gary Jackson, was also picked out of a photo lineup by Guy as being one of the men Eppie was with.
- [38:27]
Mike Ferguson
It's unclear whether these two men picked out of a lineup by the security guard who did live in Little Rock at the time, or any of the men involved in the incident at the house party. But Abby's stepdad, Michael, confirms that the police do know the names of at least two of the men involved. I want to point out that at the time of Guy Hooper's interview, Abby's body still hadn't been found. The prevailing theory, or fear, was that she had been trafficked or was alive and being held by someone. The two men Guy believed he had seen with her had been busted in a trafficking sting. There's no way to know whether that knowledge impacted the identifications, but if these men were indeed hanging around with Ebby, then certainly their records for those kinds of crimes are very troubling.
- [39:10]
Mike Morford
And to me, they're very troubling, if what this guy is saying is correct and if he's correct with his identifications. You know, to me, more of just the. The mere fact that she was with these men who were busted for, you know, human trafficking. I mean, that's. That's kind of a. A big deal in this case. Now, we know that she wasn't trafficked because she was found, dad. But then your mind can go a bunch of different places. Did she find out what they were doing? Were these the men who assaulted her? Even though maybe, you know, she had hung out with one or more of these guys before? I mean, there's just a lot of avenues to go down. While many people feel that something involving human trafficking is the key to solving Ebby's case, Others feel that whatever happened at the house party may hold the answer. Ebby reportedly, just before she vanished, Told one or more of the men from the house party incident that she was going to the police. Then she vanished. It's hard for many people to dismiss the timing. It seems clear it may have given them a motive to want to silence Ebby. Authorities did apparently question the young men Evie was planning to report to the police, but all of them refused to cooperate or allow searches of their phones. Now, what's not clear is why they weren't compelled to cooperate. And it could be that they just didn't have enough evidence to get to that point.
- [40:52]
Mike Ferguson
There's one last theory that we need to talk about. With no cause of death being released and no publicly named suspects, One of the main theories in this case is that Abby tragically took her own life. The last text she actually sent to one of her friends, Gage Fulton, read, I'm going to kill myself. This is obviously alarming, Especially since she ended up dead not long after she sent that message. But this came before she texted her stepfather. It seemed like after she sent that text where she felt like she couldn't take it anymore, she changed her mind and reached out for help. The opening to the drain pipe where her body was found Looks extremely small. It's unlikely that Ebby could have lifted the manhole cover on her own and climbed into the pipe. So suicide seems to be the least likely scenario.
- [41:39]
Mike Morford
There's one other interesting bit of information that sheds light on Ebby's time before she died. It comes from her boyfriend at the time, Eric. He said that he talked to her face to face. It's not entirely clear when this happened, but it seems to be earlier on the night she vanished. When Eric saw her, she didn't seem under the influence of anything. But Eric recalled that something did seem off with Abby. He told THV11.com, she just wasn't her normal self. Like that was gone. It wasn't even a sense of urgency. Just like she knew something was about to happen. She almost knew she wasn't going to be okay. The next day when Abby's brother spoke to her, she sounded like she could have been under the influence of something. Eric believes that Abby's friends may be to blame for her death and that it could have just been a terrible accident that they covered up. He told thv11.com they might have given her something and she had a bad reaction going on. To add that after they realized she was dead, they probably put her down there into the drain pipe where she was found.
- [42:49]
Mike Ferguson
So we talked about a number of different scenarios. Human trafficking, retribution for going to the police over the house party incident, someone close to Ebby being involved in her death, the possibility of her dying accidentally or taking her own life. The fact is, we just don't know what happened. It's always possible that this was just a crime of opportunity. If she was out of it and by herself at the park, maybe a completely unrelated stranger happened upon her. Maybe her death, if she was murdered, has nothing to do with any of the scenarios or people we've talked about. Shallowant park may hold more clues in this case. Abby had been there multiple times. Her car and body were found there. This is a very small private park in the middle of a neighborhood. It's meant to be used by residents only. It's pretty out of the way, surrounded by woods. Chalamont Drive doesn't really look like a road you would take if you didn't live or know of someone in the area. It basically parallels a main road, but it takes a more scenic, winding route. It's not a shortcut. There are multiple roundabouts.
- [43:54]
Mike Morford
Detective Hudson has moved to a different cold case unit and even re retired since initially taking on this investigation. In 2024, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin announced a new cold case unit that would be digging into unsolved investigations. He told the Independent.com I would emphasize again that we're looking at the file with fresh eyes. We are re interviewing some of the witnesses, some of the individuals who were interviewed prior.
- [44:25]
Mike Ferguson
The young man Abby accused, who have never been publicly named, went on to college. They're still living out there someplace, living their lives, maybe hiding a terrible secret in the process. In 2019, Abby's brother Trevor passed away at the age of 35 after suffering a heart attack. Their mom, Lori, told DATELINE that she felt that the burden of being the last person to talk to Abby must have been too much for his heart. He had spent much of his free time, even on lunch breaks at work, looking for his sister. Lori no longer lives in Arkansas, but she hasn't given up hope that one day she'll learn the truth about what happened to her daughter. She told the Independent. I really believe that there's more than one person who knows what happened. I just hope they have the courage to come forward.
- [45:11]
Mike Morford
If you have any information about the murder of Ebi Jane Stepic, please contact the Little Rock Police Department's Cold Case Unit by calling 501-404-3128. You can also email ebitipsgmail.com. the potential reward amount has dwindled over the years, but there may still be a reward of up to $10,000 for useful information in this case. So morph, you know, as we wrap this case up, it's obviously a very tragic case, but also important to, you know, get the details out there. You know, it's a case I believe that a lot of people find frustrating, you know, frustrated with the police and how they handled certain things. Now, for me, I don't really subscribe to the COVID up theory as some people do. I'm looking at this as more of incompetence slash just bad police work, to be honest with you. I don't know how you feel about that part.
- [46:22]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, well, we mentioned earlier that if it is a cover up or if it's incompetence, neither one of those is good. And if you're Abby's family, then you have to wonder, is she ever going to get justice? And if she doesn't, is that because the police are responsible for standing in the way of that?
- [46:44]
Mike Morford
But I would say that there is a distinction, right, A cover up. Okay, well, you have police going out of their way and maybe police involved. I just doubt highly that in this situation that's the case. Not to say that it doesn't happen, because it does. We've, we've covered some cases where there was police cover up. I just think, you know, number one, you probably had a really bad policy about how many hours had to elapse before they could start to look into it with, like we said, right, no caveats, no carve outs, which I think is a bad thing. And then once they did start to work on it. I think there's no doubt there was, you know, some things that were handled incorrectly. You know, even detectives who later took on Abby's case came out to say that. So when you have members of the department saying that about people who worked on it earlier, it's pretty telling.
- [47:52]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, it's. It's frustrating, and this is a frustrating case all the way around because on top of the. The police issues, you have the unanswered questions, you have the mystery house party, what happened. You have guys that were seen hanging out with her that have shady backgrounds. You have to wonder how all these things play into Abby's death, if they play in at all. Or does her death have nothing to do with any of this stuff we've talked about? Could she have died at the hands of a stranger that she just happened to encounter? Or might her death be some kind of accidental death or overdose that somebody tried to cover up? We don't know everything the police know and whether it's. It's confirmed to be a murder, but we may never know. That's what worries me, because important evidence, DNA, hairs, fibers, things like that, that may have helped provide answers may have been washed away or destroyed by all that time she was down in that drain pipe, unfortunately.
- [49:01]
Mike Morford
Yeah. Frustrating, for sure. I think you're right about that. You know, for me, in the final analysis, there are some things that I kind of set to the side. Suicide is one of those things. I just don't understand why somebody would crawl voluntarily into this drain pipe even if they could, in the process of ending their. Their life. There's really no reason to do that. It seems more likely to me that she was killed or died, you know, in some kind of drug overdose, and somebody felt the need to cover it up because her body being in the drain pipe, to me, is someone needing to hide her body in the hopes that it wouldn't be found for some time, which it wasn't. And, you know, they were successful, whoever that was.
- [50:00]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, that's one thing I agree with you on. I believe that somebody put her body there to hide it and maybe get rid of evidence in it. To this point, as far as we know, it worked.
- [50:11]
Mike Morford
And I would just say I lean towards the. The people who she had been seen with at the park and the house party. And it's possible. We don't know for sure, but it's possible that at least two of those individuals could be in both of those categories. Right. And if they are, you would have to think they're extremely interesting potential suspects. The, the problem is to this point, you know, police haven't named them and obviously they, they don't have the type of evidence that it would take to, to bring a case against them. But maybe that will change in the, in the future. I mean, that's what we're always hoping for. But that's it for our episode on EBI Stepig. As always, if you love the show but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a review. You can leave a rating. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the Criminology Podcast really goes a long way if you
- [51:13]
Mike Ferguson
want to find us on social media. We're on every major platform. Just search for Criminology Podcast on your favorites. And you could check out our website, criminologypodcast.com for news about the show and old episodes. And if you want to join a discussion about the podcast or the cases we cover, head over to Facebook and join the Criminology Podcast Discussion and fans group.
- [51:34]
Mike Morford
So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morph, we'll talk to you next week.
- [51:45]
Mike Ferguson
Take care everyone. Sa.