Coming Forward

season four. I said back at the beginning of this season that we wanted to go through the process of elimination. We wanted to put the evidence out there in the most logical way, and then Malna called action so that people would come forward and help us construct the timeline. It's like deja vu all over again again. We're going back to the timeline, back to the beginning of the investigation. We've come full circle and we have to question everything that we knew to be true. I'm a journalist and

an investigator, not a police officer. I don't have access to case files. I can't make people talk to me. Instead, my strategy has always been to try and get all the information that is out there, to talk to as many people as I can, and crucially to try to spot in consistencies, and in this case, some people's stories are not matching up. A big part of my job is separating those little white lies from the lies that indicate that a person could be hiding something truly horrifying.

I'm Catherine Townsend. This is hell and gone. Let's go over what we figured out so far. At the beginning of the case, there was a narrative that Ebbie had been gang raped by four guys at a party, and that this had been a big party. That's what a lot of people thought, including Ebbie's friend Kayley, Like people explained it like it was like a big, huge party and there were so many people, and then now hearing that like it was only a few friends. So I

didn't know about that at all either. But we now know that this was just a small gathering of friends and judging by Ebbie's messages that she was having a conflict with one guy l because she believed that he had videotaped her without her consent. Kayley also verifies this from some of the screenshots that appeared on her phone storage. It was just screenshots of herds falk into this one guy on Instagram and she was like, your friend needs

to delete up video, like it's not okay. I didn't know that he was trying to take a video, and she was like, if you don't delete it, I'll get the cops involved. And then he was just like, no, you don't need to do that. We don't need to get them involved. This sounds very similar to the social media exchanges that we saw. Ebbie was contacting C to

get L's info, and C seemed to be cooperative. Though these guys had been treated in a lot of media stories as the only suspects, we found no evidence that there had been any communication between C and L and Ebbie after early Saturday. Then there's the car. In the beginning, the only story that we ever heard was that the security guard, Guy Hooper, had reported Ebbie's abandoned car. Then we found the incident report, the one that showed that it was Lee, the neighbor, and not the security guard

who reported Ebbie's car on Friday, October thirtieth. We still have questions about Saturday night. We know that Ebby saw Eric probably late on Friday night, and spent the rest of the night there. At some point on Saturday, she went to her brother's house. She saw Danielle. She spent the afternoon at her grandparents. Then she exchanged those Instagram messages with Eric late on Saturday afternoon, letting him know

that she was okay. On Saturday night, Trevor went to a wedding out of town, so Ebby could not stay at his house. It seemed like her plans changed after the assault. She didn't go out of town or to the church event to meet Danielle. It's possible that she could have met another friend on Saturday night. We know that she talked to Leo shortly after the assault, and

according to our source, she seemed distraught. Kaylee also told us about someone else who she introduced Ebby two, someone who had smoked pot with Ebbie recently, and someone who was the cause of friction between Ebby and her parents. His name is Charles. Charles was one of Kayley's managers at Big Rock Fun Park, where she got a job after leaving Playtime Pizza. That's the job where she met

and became friends with Ebby. Apparently, Ebby's parents got upset because Ebbie was hanging out with Charles, who they considered about influence, and Kayley believed that by extension that meant they considered her about influence. We know that Ebby was going through a tough time, but again, there is zero indication that she was suicidal. Unfortunately, Trevor passed away, so there's no way to know exactly what he heard in

his last conversation with Ebbie. But there was someone else who was there during that conversation, someone who overheard Trevor and Ebby talking that Sunday, right before she disappeared. We'll be right back. The person who overheard Trevor and Ebby's conversation was Rebecca. Rebecca and Trevor had known each other for a long time. They were friends who had reconnected and started dating. They were living together in twenty fifteen

when Ebbie came to stay with them. She says she doesn't think she has any helpful information, but she did help confirm a lot of the details that we had been hearing secondhand. I didn't see her a whole lot, really, because she was young, you know, had friends hung out, and you know, I just didn't see her a lot. But then I don't know what all happened, but she was going through some hard times. For whatever reason, she moved in with Trevor and I I think it was

around August of twenty fifteen. Yeah, I think that was about right because she was just needing the place to stay and going through a lot, and you know, we went to like Harvest Best together. She would go to work. I think she worked at Lady Footlocker. She's super sweet, but just not super like open, like you know, she's not going to just come up and hug in start talking to you forever. So I didn't get to know her personally super well, even though she lived there. But anyway,

she was a sweetheart. I think she's from what I've like, I've talked to a lot of people now and it seems like, you know, there's a lot going on. She tended to kind of compartmentalize different. I remember sometimes I would come in and she would be laying on the couch and she the TV would be on, but she wouldn't even be looking at it. She would just be kind of looking up into space, like just thinking, you know, because yeah, she did that a lot when she would

come to you gu's house. Did she tend to leave her car there? Did she let other people drive her car? She never brought anything or anyone over to our house, so and I never saw her leave with anyone, like. She would always leave alone in her car and come back alone, like I never saw anyone else. And she would even go and hang out with us a couple of times, like I said, of harvest fests and things

like that. But she was just super chilled, super quiet, super and she made a lot of like Instagram videos while she was at our house. And I've been a cute but she just was very kind of I don't want to say, a loaner. What I saw was that she was a loaner. I don't guess she was out there in the world, but for it. As far as

when she got home, she was, she was alone. Rebecca confirms that she and Trevor went to the wedding on Saturday night and Trevor didn't want Ebby to stay at the house while they were out, and so the weekend when she went missing, you were sort of temping about I wonder if you could just tell me about the call. What happened we I want to say, I mean, I don't remember, but I want to say. It was a Sunday. It was a lazy day at home, not working, so I feel like it was a Sunday, So we're like

wondering where she went at his friend's house. You know, we weren't concerned. She was like seventeen, eighteen year old girl. We know, you know, we've been that age. We weren't worried about where she was. But she called and he's like, where are you, Like, you know, why haven't you been home? And she said I am here. And we were all sitting in the living room when she said that. He put her on speaking phone and she's like, yeah, I'm here, and Trevor gets up and he goes and looks in

the driveway. Her car's not there, and so he's like, you're not here, ebbie, and she's like, yes, i am. And anyway, she hangs up the phone and Trevor starts crying and I'm like, why are you crying? Like she's just you know, whatever is it. I wasn't worried once again at all. For some reason, I just didn't expect her to come up missing, So not worried, not worried, And she's like Finally he gets back on the phone with her, and she's like, I'm fucked up. And that's

all she would say over and over again. And he's like, oh my god. And then at that point I'm like, Okay, this is not good. She's somewhere, it doesn't know where she's at, and she's messed up. So we're like, we've got to find you, you know. And I don't know. I really don't know if like she hung up, never answered again, or why they didn't continue talking, but I

doant to know. As they got off the phone with each other, and we started driving up and down Cantroll and Ronnie's Caam and going places we thought she might be. So we were just driving all around West led her on, just trying to find her. Didn't find her, talking to everybody. Laurie at that point started getting really freaking out and called the police, and there you go. That was the

last time I ever heard from her. And when she was on speaker phone, I mean, other than her saying I'm sucked up, did she say anything else or did you hear anything else that sounded like the could be anyone around her? Not really, not at all. I mean, she she just sounded like she was confused and she didn't know where she was, and she sounded very sad,

like she was very upset. I don't know what she was upset about, but she was very like, I'm I'm sorry for custom, but she's like, I'm sucked up, Like you know, I just remember her saying it like that over and over again, like she couldn't believe it, or like I don't know and I can't think of anything that would make me think I was somewhere else, Like it had to have been something really strong or like, I don't know, but it was. She didn't slur her words,

she wasn't. She didn't sound messed up. She just said she was It's so weird. I don't know, but she didn't like, she didn't sound like she was about to fall down and drink. And I can tell you that, like, no way on Saturday night when y'all were at the wedding did she ever think anything about where she was going or like why she wasn't. I guess she wasn't saying at your place because it's because y'all weren't going

to be there. Yeah, Her and Trevor like argued about it because Trevor was like, why can't you just say at your friend's house tonight? You know, I know you're gonna have people over I can't remember exactly what he said, but he's trying to make her a little bit more responsible, like, yeah, how to make sure she took care of her where she was going, you know, trying to be the bigger brother. Anyway,

she didn't, and she wanted to hang out with her friends. Again, totally understandable, but she never told us, like like again when we would go to work every day, like we didn't know what she did all day long. You know, we don't know. I don't know. I guess that's part of being like a thirty year old with a nineteen

year old. You're just not super parent parential yet. So we didn't like keep great calves on her, you know, we just have her, let her live there and go as she pleased because she's you know, she wouldn't our kids. I wish imber, but it now, Yeah, so it's just I don't know it. So Rebecca says the police never

reached out to her. I don't know why the police never reached out to me, not that I have any information, if you can see, but I watched TV and I know that like every tiny detail matters, But like I was reaching out to the detective that we uf. Lourie kind of gave everybody, like all of Trevor's friends, this number to call if we saw anything, because we were all drunk around looking for he a car like her driving around. We thought she had like ran away and

that she didn't want to be found. But we were trying to find her type of situation at first, and I would be calling that number trying. I thought I saw her car one time, so I called it and left a message, and I'm like, oh my gosh, you'll have to answer me. No one ever called me back.

Like it was very frustrating. It's a nightmare mess, Like they did not take it serious at first, and then they didn't even do the right things when they did start taking it seriously, and literally Laurie had to fight tooth and nail for them to even try to figure out what happened, like or find her. I mean, it's disgusting, really. She says, she'll call us back if she can think

of anything else. We'll be right back. Technically, the police investigation into Ebbie's death is still classified as open, so police won't officially close the case, but Detective Bruce Maxwell recently told Laurie his theory is that Ebbie somehow crawled into that pipe herself. But as we've seen from our multiple visits to the crime scene and from what everyone is said about Ebbie's behavior, Detective Maxwell's theory makes zero

sense to me. I know you've told me before, but just for the podcast purposes, can you just tell me how you knew Ebbie and how you first sort of like got the idea and started to make a podcast. Yeah, so Ebbie and I knew each other as kids. I must have been, oh god, this is Astrid. She knew Ebbie and elementary school, and in twenty twenty she started compiling her own podcast called Subterfuge and Shall Want Park. And she told me that Ebbie's case has had a

huge impact on the community. Ebbie's case especially has been at the top of everyone's mind since twenty fifteen. Honestly, people are still like very angry about this, and it seems like they've lost a significant amount of trust in law enforcement and Little Rock, which is really sad because you know, there's supposed to be a resource there to help, but this just seems to have done like a lot of damage in people's psyches. Astrid reached out to me

after this podcast stared airing. We've been talking about some of the rumors that surrounded Ebbie's case and about how important it is to clear up these misconceptions so that we can understand what's actually going on in order to move this case forward. One of the things Astrid says she questioned was the way that Ebby's body was found.

Tommy Hudson said that he had sent robots down into the drain system in the park and that after they hit an obstruction, they dug up that pipe and Ebbie's remains were identified, but Astrid said that she heard a different story. I think it was after I released the second episode, so kind of right out a year ago. I got this message from a girl and basically it was like, you need to talk to one of my

ex boyfriends. Like he didn't have anything to do with it, It's just he has something that might help you piece everything together. He has something important I think you should know.

So she put me in contact with him. I reached out to him, and he apparently worked at a plumbing company back in twenty eighteen when Ebbie's body was found, and so he and his co worker that day they went out to de Chalamont Park because apparently I'm not sure if this is documented or not, but apparently there has been problems for months and months and months with the drainage system and the water system. The source of the problem was in the park obviously, so they took

a look at it. They were like, hey, there's something that's clogging your drain like way way way back, something that we can't see. You need to call in someone from the city with the right equipment and cameras. You need to put a camera down there and see what's you know, obscuring this and like causing all these problems. So that's what they do. They put a camera down there and then not long after that's when they see human remains, and that's immediately when they called the police.

So according to Astrid's source, it was actually the plumbing company who alerted the police to the remains instead of the department having a hunch. I have the phone number of one of the plumbers, but so far he's not calling me back, so right now I can't confirm this story. But Leslie, the person who told us about her son's encounter with Guy Hooper and a longtime resident in the area, told me that she had heard some similar stories. That's

the story that was one everywhere. So neighbors were complaining to the city for a while about problems with that sewer and causing issues, and I did hear that more than once after they dug her up, and so I was like, oh, okay, Well then he comes on and says, oh no, and I'm totally contradictory, and I thought, well, maybe he's just protecting they were spinning it that way to protect the integrity of investigation. Yeah, they might really, I can understand that, And that's why it may be.

I understand that you say things on the air, you know, in public that to protect the integrity of the investigation. Maybe he has a really strong lead and he's afraid to say anything, you know, Yeah, and because he doesn't want to jeopardize who he's got in his side. But no, now, both of these things could be true. Maybe the residents were having issues at around the same time that Tommy Hudson got the idea to put robots down the drain pipe.

Moni also mentioned that he had a similar idea. It certainly seems like a logical step for a cold case investigator to take, but it does call into question, like so many other things, the information provided by the LRPD. Then there's the other piece of potentially crucial forensic evidence, that red or orange red towel, the one that was snaking out from the passenger seat of Ebby's car. By using what we do know about the crime scene, we

can figure out some things about the perpetrator. We can deduce that it was someone who knew the area very well. I believe the towel was not, as one of the early investigators suggested, put outside the car by Ebby. In her last Instagram post, Ebby was pictured in what looked

like the passenger seat of her car. I think it's far more likely that the towel was used to drag Ebby out of the car and down into the drain, either by someone lifting the man who cover or pushing her down into the gutter, or maybe it was a two man job. One person could have slid the body into the gutter while the other one waited at the bottom of that storm drain and pushed her body into the pipe. While I've worked on this case, I feel like I've gotten to know Ebby stepic and I feel

like I understand her much better. Ebby compartmentalized her life and her friend groups, and because of that, a lot of her friends didn't know each other, and even if they did, they haven't talked each other in a long time. But now those people are older, some of them have kids of their own, and they may have gotten past the things that worried them when they were seventeen or eighteen. A lot of people are coming forward now and speaking out, what do you think? I mean, what do you think

will happen? Do you think this will ever get solved? I definitely think so. I think that. I definitely think that regardless of whether or not it's you know, these guys that were at the party, or if it was the security guard, I think that, you know, the perpetrator had help. And it's really hard to keep a big secret like that. Somebody's gonna crack, and the end of this season does not mean the end of our investigation. Ebbie Steppock was like so many of us. She was

a young woman. She had just turned eighteen. She was figuring out who she was going to be and what she was going to do with her life. She was sometimes flawed and sometimes naive, but she had a good heart. She was someone who stood up for other people. She was someone who loved her friends and family. When I stay up late at night, I replay all the possible

scenarios in my head. I think about the horror and inhumanity of a person who could take someone in a vulnerable position like she was and put her down there alone in the dark. I absolutely believe that whoever did this was extremely calculating. They were calculating enough to possibly back her car into that parking spot near the manhole, and calculating enough to know that there was a thirteen inch concrete pipe all the way at the bottom of that storm drain. So once again, this podcast is a

called action. I'm asking everyone in the community who may have been afraid to speak out, or worried about getting in trouble, or just not trusting of the police, I'm asking you to put that aside. I'm asking you to try to imagine if this was your friend or daughter or sister down there alone in the dark, you would want to go to the ends of the earth to find out who put her there. So we're not giving up.

We're keeping the tip line open, and I'm going to continue to fight my hardest to figure out what really happened to Ebie Stepic and to try to get answers and justice for her family. I believe it's what Ebby would have done. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone. Helen Gone is a production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It's written and hosted by me Katherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts and Mike Doubt. Our executive producers are

Brandon Barr, Else Crowley and Virginia Prescott. Mix and Master is by Ryan Peoples, and our music is by Bensley. If you have any information regarding Ebby's case, please call or text our tipline at six seven eight six three two six one five nine. School of Humans. School of Humans