Down the Drain

heard about Ebbie's case when it happened. When I saw in the news that her remains were found, I remember feeling not exactly happy, but I definitely felt hopeful for her family. I thought, maybe now the investigation can stop being such a wild goose chase and they can finally get some answers and some justice. But since Ebbie's body was found, there have been major developments. It's twenty twenty two now. Officially this is still an open and active investigation. Unofficially,

the case appears to have gone stone cold. We're still stuck in the same cycle, hearing the same rumors and the same narrative that we were hearing back in twenty fifteen, that there are multiple people of interest that no one has been ruled out and no one has been ruled in. This has been extremely frustrating for Ebby's family. Why are they on the radar? Don't just say on the radar?

Why are they still on there? Once again, I have some people telling me to leave things up to law enforcement, and I know from experience that once you start digging up dark secrets, life can get messy and complicated for a lot of people. But I also know from experience that sometimes digging is the only way to get answers and justice. It's time to stir things up. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is hell and Gone. Mike and I have been a Little Rock for a couple of days, and we're

trying to get information about an open case. I've talked to Detective Tommy Hudson several times. Tommy is the detective who's responsible for organizing the search inside the drain pipes in the park where Abby's body was discovered in twenty eighteen. But it's pretty clear that police will not release any information about the evidence they have so far, about any

potential suspects, or really anything else. Tommy retired from the Little Rock Police Department in September twenty twenty one, and when that happened, Ebby's case went to a new detective. His name is Bruce Maxwell. Record your message at the tone when you were finished, hang up or press pound for more options. Hi, Bruce, this is Katherine Townsend. I've

been working on a podcast about Ebbie steps. We're waiting on a callback from Bruce to touch base and let him know what we're doing, and also to see if we can find out anything from him. But first we agree we need to take a more detailed look at the crime scene. Mike and I head back to Chalamont Park. The drain where Ebby was found is a storm drain. It's used to drain water when it rains so the

part doesn't flood. It looks pretty normal. There's an opening at the curb about five feet long for the water to fall through, and then there's a manhole cover at the top. Laurie meets us there are you. Thank you to me for you to have to rush over. I'm sorry, Oh no, I wasn't very far away. She gets her husband, Ebbie's stepdad Michael, on the phone. He's helping direct us. Crawling down here and there's not it's it's sort of a you got to figure out how to grab that.

You gotta lower yourself in it, push your feet on the little things. I see the little thing. I climbed down the rungs on the side of the drain and I get to the bottom about eighteen feet down. Who all right, Hey, we're down. The floor of the drain is covered in leaves. And once you're down here, you can see the opening to another pipe. But you can't see this from the top. What does it look great? Down there? It is a I would say about half of me's three foot opening. Sorry, my voice is shaking.

It's because I actually am scared. But I'll be fineful, I'll come down there with you. I'll want to go look at something. Okay, just once that, Mike, let me try to get the light on. Mike and I look into the pipe. The opening is only about thirteen inches across. It's about one and a half my body length that I was thinking if I was to try to go in there two which is that's gonna be right? Yeah, it's close to eight nine feet before before that turn.

I would say it's about like I could definitely crawl in here. But I'm not sure. I couldn't turn around to come back out. Yeah, you don't have to get pulled out, and I could slide, and then what are we gonna do. You're gonna buy me a lot of therapy. Yeah, you'll be out of there. And even though I really don't want to, I crawl into the pipe, I squeeze my shoulders into the pipe. But then after that, once my shoulders cleared, I can't move my arms down here.

You can really tell that the pipe ankles down and even on a dry day it's slippery. Mike has to grab my ankles to pull me out. I also try going in feet first in the pipe. I can't. My arms are out. If I put my arms like Superman like forward, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to pull myself out of here. In fact, I'm sure that I can't. If I was on my own down here, I'm afraid that I could have slid farther down. When it's slick with water analogy and stow. It's just like

a little it's like a slid, a slide. It's downward sloping. It If you pushed me down there and there was water and stuff, it would be easy to do despite my claustrophobia. It was super important to come down here because one thing becomes clear. There is no way that Ebbie could have accidentally fallen into this pipe from the top. But also if someone had just dropped something here. I mean, I'm just gonna be so like if someone dropped something here,

it's not going to naturally go in there. It would be like just what I just did. Before we leave Schalamont Park, Laurie makes another call to try and get in touch with the detective Bruce Maxwell. Hey, Bruce, please call me back as soon as you can. I have some stuff I really need to tell you about. Thank you, Tiding. The police believe that Ebby's body was in the pipe the entire time since she went missing in twenty fifteen.

That means two and a half years of water and rain coming through that drain, pushing her body further down. Forensics on a case like this, where a body has been exposed to the elements for years, can make determining manner of death more complicated. I called up a forensics expert, Vadal Herrera. We are the rogie dangerous field of medicine. We didn't get any respect. This is a thankless profession. It never stops. Vadal has been working in the death

care industry for almost fifty years. He was a deputy medical investigator in LA and in nineteen eighty eight he founded the company one eight hundred Autopsy. The company provides access to a network of professionals you can perform autopsies and offer second opinions in cases where families are dealing with a mysterious death. Its motto is the deceased must be protected and given a voice. Every death has its

unique story and circumstances. So we're only concerned about the body because you've get so many different stories from different ages, is different witnesses, and a lot of times they only want to tell you what they want you to hear. The body will tell you what happens. I told Vidal about Ebby, And in a case like this, where it's been years, the body will likely have very little helpful forensic evidence because it's going to be washed away. It's going to be eaten away. I don't know how much

clothing in there work. And yet to take me into consideration, the climates under storms, tornadoes, you have rain, you have snow, and then you have carnivorous creatures, the razorbacks, the wild animals, rodents, maggots. What about toxicology, I mean, is there any toxicology you can do after that long? The only toxicology could do is is in her bone marrow. If she has some hair left, you can also do the toxicology and the hair. When you do toxicology, it's a history of drugs. Just

now what she ingested. You know, twenty fours before that, she may have injecting her inhaling or something. It would be in her hair and in her in her bone marrow. Because there's nose, there's no viable tissue left after that time. Mostly like that, the creatures ate and ate it off. And when someone calls you, if this was a call right and her family calls you for a second opinion, what steps would you recommend that someone takes. Usually what we do is are asking, why do you want a

second opinion? Well, I can't sleep, I can't rest. So then when they go over the details of the informa like this, just say, if the mother would have called me, I would have said, honestly, ma'am, there's really nothing we can do. Thank god that she was identified but right now there's really no tissue remaining. It's going to answer your question as to why she died, her circumstances, where

her body was located. That Morris was going to say a lot in itself, but in pashysicality of something viable to collect, it's not there. Since we don't have access to Ebbie's case file, we can't see her autopsy report or any information about the state of the body and the crime scene where she was found. Officially, we don't have any forensic information or any determination on the manner or cause of death. Videll says he's run across plenty

of cases like this before that transparency. After six months, every record should be available for them to say it's under investigation. That's fucking bullshit. That's unacceptable. During one of our interviews at Laurie's house, Mike and I asked about what she and Ebbie's stepdad, Michael knew about the forensics of the case. I went down with Tommy Hudson and Peter, her dad, and met with the corner. They gave us some information that wouldn't give us everything. They won't. They

won't tell us all the specifics. They did tell us. There were certain things ruled out, and then there were things that they wouldn't disclose Tommy, and then wouldn't tell us, wouldn't tell me the position of the body, you know, head first, she's first up down, none of that. He said also that that's for the killer to know. And did they tell you if they ruled they said the manner of death was homicide. I believe that's what's on the death certificate, is homicide, but I think it's also

listened as undetermined. Manner of death has a few options natural accidental suicide or homicide. There's also undetermined, meaning that everything could still be on the table, including the possibility that Ebby crawled down in that pipe herself. But if we believe that Ebby crawled down the drain herself, she would also have to close that very heavy manhole cover over her. When we were at Chalmont Park, Michael told us about a re enactment that the FBI did at

the scene. The girl that did the reenactment part for the MPI got down in there in all the different ways that we're talking about, but they also put the cover back on it. During this FBI recreation, they had a female agent who was about Ebby's height and weight try to get down into that pipe. The agent and the recreation was able to close the manhole cover, but it was tough, and this was in broad daylight. But from the phone call with Trevor, we know that Ebby

was extremely disoriented, and it was after five pm. Sundown was at six twenty three pm that day, so it would have been getting dark or pitch black. And even if Ebbie could have crawled down and covered the manhole somehow, why would she. Was she trying to hide from someone or was she there alone. One part of this case that's never been fully covered in the public is Ebby's mental health issues. Her family tells us that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that she had gone off

her medication in the past. She was also prescribed two other drugs which she was taking for medical conditions that were unrelated to bipolar disorder. Because Ebby's brother Trevor said that she was slurring her words and appeared to be really intoxicated during their last phone conversation, we do have to consider the possibility that she could have been affected by mixing her medication with possibly another drug or drinking alcohol.

People experiencing bi polar disorder can experience paranoia and audio and visual hallucinations, but Laurie says that to her knowledge, Ebbie never experienced that. Ebbie had been dealing with bipolar disorder and exhibiting erratic behavior for a long time, but she did have certain patterns. For example, Ebbie always had her phone with her, so why would she leave it behind? And even with her nomadic lifestyle, she was always with people like Danielle, or with her grandparents or Trevor or

other friends. She was in constant contact with people, So why would she go to Chalamont Park alone? Here's Danielle. There was no reason for her to go sit in a park by herself at night. Ebbie wasn't the type of person, Hey let me just go sit in this park for a little bit. The way that I think she went there with intentions of meeting someone she knew. Listen, Ei, he had a strong personality. But she wasn't stupid. She

she is very very smart. And for her to just think, oh, hey, let me go sit in a park at night, no like that, that's just that's so out of the ordinary for me to even I couldn't even process that through my head. Even if she would have told me I'm going to go sit in a park at night by myself. Yeah, I'm like, no're you're too smart for that, Like I know you would I do at Almost everyone we've talked to thinks it's extremely unlikely that Ebbie could have gone

down in that pipe herself. Even Tommy Hudson, the detective who investigated the case for years. I asked him point blank about the manner of death, and I know you're not releasing the cause of death, but did you is it? Is it manner of death homicide or manner of death undetermined?

I will say, okay, uh and and and there's just there there's a reason for that, is you know, I mean, it's my standard answer on the cause of death is you know, we investigate everything is a homicide until proven otherwise, you know, on the people that know that as they're being a killer. And you know, so I think that

needs to remain that way. People disagree with me about some people that have the police department, but then again, these are the people that have the investigation on the front end, and I don't give them that much weight. Is she didn't crawl down there by ourselves. Somebody put her down there. While we wait to see if we can get any more information from the new detective Bruce Maxwell, We're going to see if there's anything we can do to eliminate some of the suspects, because what Laurie said

sticks with me. There can be twenty five people on the radar, why are they still on there? And when we talk to Tommy Hudson, he confirmed that no one has been officially ruled out. Everybody's on the radar still. So who are these multiple people of interest? First, there are the four guys she was with at the small party on Friday night. The friend who drove Ebby to the party has never been publicly identified, but we know

who he is. Let's call him by his first initial C. We've also been able to identify the other guys at the party. El is the guy that Ebbie is accusing of sexual assault. L also attended Central High with Ebbie and was a talented football player. And we know that on Saturday, Ebbie was at her grandparents' house during the day. While she was there, Ebbie texted C. In that text message, Ebbie told C that she believed that El had been filming her during that sexual encounter. At that party, she

asked for Elle's number. C texted her that phone number. He also texted that he had spoken to L and LL denied having a video. After Ebbie went missing, police did talk to C and L, but according to Laurie, the police only interviewed them once and their phones were not subpoena And ever since that weekend, no one else has been able to talk to them, not the web slues, not the private investigators, not the FBI, not even Tommy. When I got the case, I was never able to

interviewed these guys because they'd all retained counsel. Because between the detectives that had the case prior to me getting the case, and then all the private investigators that were involved in pursuing the case at that time, along with the people that were sitting in there underwear at three o'clock in the morning and trying to investigate the case, it shot all those all those good interviews that you could have done with those guys on the front end

to help eliminate them. Since I've left, I don't think they've still been interviewed or swab Because number one, you're you're not gonna be able get to search more to get a swab. No one has been able to talk to these guys since Ebbie went missing in twenty fifteen, so that's what we're going to try to do. We're going to go track down See. You're going to take exit one nine. Hey, Mike, my producer, Gabby and I are all heading to See's house. We're going to get close.

We're going to figure out if he's home or not. We're gonna go knock on the door and we're going to try to just talk to him. If you look at any articles about Ebbie's death, these guys, while they haven't been referred to you by name, remains suspects in the eyes of the public because their names have never publicly been cleared. Shortly after Ebbie went missing, we're told that all of the guys got lawyers, so it's impossible

to get them on the phone. We're being careful because we've been warned that See and his friends could be dangerous. I've heard this before, but I take everything out here with a grain of salt, and in any case, I'm not gonna let it stop me. Plus this time, I have Mike with me. When we pull up near the address we have for sea. We see a woman outside, We drive past and then turn around, and finally Mike and I get out of the car and walk over seeing anywhere. Sure. Ye, So I do a podcast called

Helen Gone. We're doing every stuffic case, and so we just really just wanted to. As soon as we mentioned Ebbie's name and told her what we were working on, she knew exactly why we were there. She says she sees mom, and while she didn't want to do an official interview, she did spend around twenty minutes talking to us. No. Two great tooth grade. He could It's it's hard. You could tell she really wanted to talk but wasn't supposed to.

He could feel the like pin up resentment. I was actually kind of hoping we'd run into one of his parents. Here's what happened. She let us know that he will not be talking. She said, this is something that's basically tortured them for years. There's a lot of anger toward Ebbie's family because she feels like her son was kind of thrown under the you know, thrown under the bus, and she you know, she just says, like he didn't have anything to do with it. He saw her on

Friday night. He was really cooperative with her when I guess she meant probably those texts we saw where it was like, you know, I need this guy's number, et cetera. And he gave her the number, and she says he didn't talk to her at all after that Friday. Even though their names haven't been published in the media. See's mom said this has followed her son around and haunted him for years. This is clearly something that has had

a massive impact on his life. His mom says he has a good job now and is on a good path. When Ebbie went missing, she said that police checked out his alibi and verified that he was either at his job or somewhere else all weekend. She said she doesn't understand why her son and his friends haven't been publicly cleared. I feel for people who are put in positions where they might not have done anything and their name gets brought up. I really do, and I've spent a lot

of my time trying to get those people cleared. At the same time, you know, the reality is there's someone there's someone dead, and there's a killer out there, and it's like it sucks that people who were around at the near the time of death do have to be underscrutiny, but that's just the nature of how it is. I think it went really well. Honestly, it could have. I

think it was fine. I think it was like, in a way better than talking to him, because I have a feeling he might have just shut the door in her face, and she was much more alike, yeah, sincere, Yeah, she understood why we were there. You know what else that told me though, that conversation, Like, is that so she's like, no one's coming here? Does that mean no journalist nobody has gone there? Ye talk to them, which is crazy. We can't officially clear CNL right now, but

it's a step in the right direction. I keep thinking about something Tommy said that there are other people who he's even more suspicious of than the guys that Ebbie was with on Friday night. But you know, the one thing I would say in their defense is it's like I said earlier, there's there's other people that were with her way after the point that all that allegedly happened that Friday night that I'm even more suspicious of than

those guys. I will say that in their defense right and uh, And we have found those people that were with her after the Friday night incident. I can track her all the way to early Sunday morning, in study afternoon when she talked to Trevor, which was the last person she talked to. You know, these guys that I talked to over night, I mean, I mean, I've told Laurie, I mean, they are some shady guys for me. Those guys, A couple of those guys, one of particulars really on

my radar. Who were these other guys? We need to find out where Ebbie was on Saturday night after she left her grandparents. Something happened to her, something that meant that by Sunday afternoon, when Ebbie called her brother Trevor for what would be her family's last ever conversation with her, she was in serious trouble. A lot can happen in twenty four hours. We just got a call back from Bruce Maxwell. We're going to see him in the morning.

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 Michael dowd Our Executive producers are Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley, and Virginia Prescott. Mix and Master is by Ryan Peoples and our music is by Bensley. If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Ebie Steppock, you can call our tipline at six seven eight six three two six

one five nine. School of Humans, School of Humans,