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subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for [Music] details [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
00:01:45
you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always as a man that pointed
00:01:51
out hey it's October did anybody wake up Green Day yet he is the captain Oh yeah
00:01:57
dookie dookie dookie it's good to to be seeing and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a
00:02:06
[Music] friend an excellent selection for this week we are drinking Shadows of their
00:02:14
eyes which is a dark sour aged in Oak barrels by the fine sour beer company known as Rare Barrel ABV 6.8% garage
00:02:24
grade four out of five bottle caps and here are the fine folks that contributed to this week's beer run first up out of
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Sparta New Jersey we got Gary B listening in the car New Jersey you'd think maybe uh Gary ve like Gary
00:02:40
vanderchuck maybe he's listening to True Crime garage while he's going on his garage sales next up we have Suzanne in
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Sacramento California and next a longdistance cheers to Vanessa from Cologne Germany and a big shout out to
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Aaron in Bloomington Indiana next we have Jane and in Crownsville Maryland and last but certainly not least we have
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Suzanne in Junction City Kansas wait oh I want to give a shout out to Stephanie at pastimes up in North Columbus she's a
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longtime listener listening at work so to everyone out there wherever you choose to listen to TCG we thank you and
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for our old episodes download the Stitcher app they are free and you can check out our weekly
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skull logo baseball te's and we also have zodiac logo te's and we have them in double XL and triple XL so get those
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before they're gone and that is enough of the Beers N that's right that's enough of you Captain that's enough of
00:03:48
me everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music]
00:04:06
a young woman has a traumatic experience at a party she decided to go to the police about what happened to her but
00:04:13
before she does she vanishes the only contact with her a mysterious phone call to her brother in which she says she
00:04:21
doesn't know where she is then she disappears her car is found as for our missing 18-year-old eie Steck no sign of
00:04:30
her nothing let's dive back in shall we now remember we talked about phone data and social media in episode one and how
00:04:39
the investigator was confused about ebbie's phone and about her social media EB's family once again tries to get
00:04:47
involved they even offered to pay for an IT expert to help to access and analyze
00:04:54
all of this data and then all of this only to be told that the department would not accept outside help detectives
00:05:02
also failed to obtain surveillance footage from the Walmart Super Center on Chanel Drive which could have captured
00:05:09
eie and a final insult for8 months the Little Rock Police Department treated the case essentially as a
00:05:18
runaway and the case sat in the Major Crimes division with virtually no movement even as late as November 2nd
00:05:28
when EB's family were in rated that she would not have been out of contact for so long Channel 7 News in Little Rock
00:05:35
reported that quote police tell Channel 7 they believe eie is still alive and in
00:05:41
the area and as Michael Jernigan put it to Kar KTV quote the whole first 30 days
00:05:47
was just the cops counting on Ebie showing back up Lori echoed this sentiment saying for the first part of
00:05:55
the investigation no one was looking for her now Lori is not the type to take this line down the family hired Monty
00:06:05
Vickers a retired 22e Little Rock Police Department detective turned private investigator to
00:06:12
help them someone needed to care about EB's case as ex police himself at first Vickers was hesitant to get involved in
00:06:23
such a recent active case being handled by the force he had once been a part of right
00:06:30
but he decided he could perhaps act as a goete he doesn't want to take over the investigation he doesn't want to get in
00:06:37
the way of the investigators he thinks that they need a go between for the parties involved to help with what
00:06:43
seemed to be a poor relationship between the police department and the jernigans
00:06:49
but when the Little Rock Police Department would not return his calls and he caught wind of the botched
00:06:55
investigation he says that was enough for him that he was now going to actively get involved in the
00:07:03
investigation yeah cuz a lot of these departments they hold a lot of respect for former employees so when they call
00:07:12
it's a big deal but when they're not making a big deal of it something's fishy he says and he's on record as
00:07:19
saying such he says quote I found out pretty quickly they didn't give a damn what I had to say they wouldn't call me
00:07:26
back they basically just wouldn't talk to us to the family or to him he said he charged the family one single dollar to
00:07:35
get to work on this investigation Vickers discovered that none of EB's bank cards or accounts had
00:07:42
been accessed in any way since she disappeared that plus the fact that she would never have left without her car
00:07:49
and all of her possessions the family feared the worst even more alarming Vickers uncovered that eie sent several
00:07:57
text messages to the young young men she had had the encounter with at the party
00:08:02
on the Friday before she vanished threatening to go to the police and have them arrested it seems that Michael's
00:08:10
concerns that eie might have confronted one of these boys or all of them alone might be correct right or they could
00:08:19
have said oh she's going to go to the cops and there's and she could say I have a copy of the video Let's just say
00:08:27
she said that then that gives us motive even if she's not going to confront them
00:08:33
that gives them a reason to find her right well Vickers found out who these boys were and searched the areas near
00:08:42
their homes this is for any clues as to EB's whereabouts he came up with nothing to
00:08:50
his dismay he discovered that the police had in fact talked to these guys at some
00:08:55
point but never looked at their phones despite the family telling the police department about the rape
00:09:01
allegations and that there may be a video why right and it's not clear if they ask for the phones but we know that
00:09:09
they didn't look at them well what we do know is the detectives on the case told
00:09:15
the family and they told Vickers the private investigator that they did not have probable cause to search the phone
00:09:22
so basically they're stating we could have asked these boys to see their phones and they said no and
00:09:29
we don't have probable cause to to search the phones Beyond them allowing us or not allowing us now five months
00:09:37
after eie was last seen Vickers made arrangements to meet with guy Hooper remember he's the security guard who
00:09:45
called the police when he found a vehicle in shamont park yeah Little Rock Police assured Vickers that they had
00:09:54
spoke to this man to the security officer so he assumed this would be just like a quick confirmation that Hooper
00:10:02
didn't know anything more than what was related to him from police instead the meeting resulted in a 45-minute taped
00:10:10
interview to vicker's shock he was told by Hooper that he had never been contacted by police further he told
00:10:19
Vickers he had made a report to the police about the abandoned car on Tuesday night after it had been sitting
00:10:25
there for 3 days he waited for the police by the car for 2 to 3 hours but the police never came the police didn't
00:10:33
show up to take a look until 2 days later and even more startling Hooper told Vickers that he
00:10:41
had dash cam video of EBY and a man that she had met at the park on multiple occasions Hooper had gotten fairly close
00:10:53
to the pair in some words I guess right apparently he had quote run them off off
00:10:59
several times the guard saved all of the dash cam video on his hard drive at his
00:11:06
home he finished his shift he had this dash cam and he would put this video at the end of every shift on his computer
00:11:13
at home unfortunately his computer had died and this took place in January of 2016 and the computer could not be fixed
00:11:22
so it was thrown out all of this potential dash cam veillance footage went with the
00:11:31
computer it's gone it's gone because nobody nobody thought to reach out to this guy and in fact the private
00:11:39
investigator working for the family he was a little slow to reach out to him too because he had already been told by
00:11:45
his old buddies at the police department that they they spoke to this guy while Vickers was trying to dig up any
00:11:52
evidence and clues Lori and Michael received some assistance from an organization called Halo's invest
00:11:59
instigations this is a private Mississippi firm that looks into cases of missing or trafficked kids Halo's
00:12:07
volunteers scoured the internet for photos of eie in the event that she was trafficked they also conducted a search
00:12:14
of the shamont park Woods assisted by the Little Rock Police Department this is 4 months after eie
00:12:22
vanished the organization also helped with publishing the case sending EB's missing person's poster to to hospitals
00:12:30
and police stations all over the country in case she turned up somewhere the case manager for Halos
00:12:37
Tina stores said her firm often sees cases of missing kids that police have dismissed as runaways as they seem to
00:12:45
have here to her it didn't look like EBY left voluntarily meanwhile the jernigans
00:12:51
were being inundated with all sorts of hoax messages false alarms and Facebook pranks where people claim to be Ebie but
00:13:01
some of these were enough to point them in the direction of sex trafficking some
00:13:06
emails were sent to the family showing that eie was sold for $25,000 people claim to have seen her on
00:13:14
back page and Craigslist Lori began to realize that this threat was very real right Sergeant
00:13:21
Allan hamy with the vice unit told Little Rock's thv11 that his detectives handle reports
00:13:28
of human and sex trafficking every single day but he still didn't seem to feel a sense of urgency about ebbie's
00:13:36
case despite her parents' real concerns he said quote we're going to try everything we can to help them find her
00:13:43
and locate her and see if she wants to be found we don't know that finally about 6 months after eie
00:13:52
was last heard from the relationship between the jernigans and the Little Rock Police Department it became tox
00:13:58
toic this is as stated by ay magazine they continued to treat eie as a runaway Major Crimes detectives refused to get
00:14:08
warrants for the phones of the young men allegedly involved in the incident involving eie at the party the Little
00:14:16
Rock PD did not seem to appreciate the involvement of the private investigator or of halos or of anyone else and
00:14:24
wouldn't budge on investigating the case as a possible abduction or something worse well basically what they were
00:14:31
saying is we're going to sit on our fat asses right and unless the case gets solved by
00:14:38
somebody else or the information comes to us we're not going to do anything yeah and you know what I think
00:14:43
we have here captain and I can't say this with 100% certainty but I feel very confident saying this I feel like in
00:14:51
this situation we probably have two detectives that are sitting as you put it sitting on on their fat asses and
00:14:59
choosing not to do anything yeah sitting on their thumbs and spinning and I feel
00:15:04
like when we when we talk about this case when we tell this story we cannot tell it without telling these
00:15:09
mishandlings of the case however I think that these two detectives make the whole
00:15:16
department have a bad name and probably undeservingly so you know there's probably a lot of good officers with
00:15:22
inside of this department and for whatever reason the jernigans just got extremely unlucky that when the phone
00:15:30
rang that day and the call came in it went to this detective's desk and him and this guy worked it and they didn't
00:15:39
really work it and you can't say they worked it I guess I shouldn't and like I said LA and here's what they refused to
00:15:45
work it yeah yeah here's what is funny though is cuz when we were talking about the case last week I kept on trying to
00:15:51
come up with reasons and and try to go well maybe they're going through a divorce maybe there's bad things in
00:15:58
their life happening maybe uh maybe they knew people at the party maybe they didn't want to you know I mean like I
00:16:05
was trying to come up with all these reasons but after a week and the constant neglect it's like these are the
00:16:12
guys that sit in their office all day farting in their chair and then when they get up to get coffee come back they
00:16:18
sniff their chair that's what kind of guys these are so and I get what you were getting at when we talked last week
00:16:24
and that's not out of bounds that wouldn't be out of bounds you're talking about there's a potential here for some
00:16:30
type of cover up that maybe we have people that should be looked into that was at this party but it it almost seems
00:16:39
like these investigators are choosing not to look in that direction for whatever reason right like they're
00:16:43
connected to somebody at that party but then at the end of the day when you really look at this thing you see that
00:16:49
they're choosing not to look in any direction at all and so it to me it doesn't feel so much like a cover up it
00:16:56
feels more like but hold on here here's the reason why a couple guys that are bad at their job yeah seat sniffers but
00:17:02
here's where it makes it feel like a cover up because the what do we know that the lead seems so obvious right
00:17:10
because yes the motive seems obvious and then we go we got these individuals yes we talk to
00:17:17
them uh but there's no probable cause so we can't get this information well they're not looking anywhere else right
00:17:24
okay so the first place you looked you stopped looking after that so do you know what happened do you know somebody
00:17:31
at that party that makes it seem more likely to me that it's a cover up well right and when they are pressured when
00:17:38
they are pushed and pressured to give some kind of theory or some kind of answer to somebody look they feel like
00:17:45
they need to give an answer to the media he says we're going to try everything we
00:17:49
can to help find her to help locate her and see if she wants to be found they're still pointing to the idea
00:17:58
that she just took off on her own yeah and if I was the family I'd be going not only did she want to be found
00:18:04
she actually wanted to go to the police department to press charges against these these douche nozzles you know
00:18:11
right well around this time Lori lost it and she started writing letters to the chief of police the the head of the
00:18:20
major crimes division the mayor of Little Rock the governor of Arkansas and anyone else that she could think of so
00:18:28
she's not going to let it be the the buck stops with this guy that's not helping our case at all I'm going to
00:18:34
your bosses I'm going to the higher ups and I'm going to get some people involved and see what they think of this
00:18:40
situation the Little Rock Police Department their representatives agreed to meet with the family and at this
00:18:48
meeting Major Crimes division head Captain Mike Davis again denied that they had probable cause to search the
00:18:56
young men's phones telling Lori that quote there's probable cause when we say there's probable cause yeah when she's
00:19:05
pushing for them to yeah look into these phones and they're they're not budging yeah but obviously that's not the way
00:19:11
the law works but start with the idea that you asked these individuals and they denied it and I don't think that
00:19:19
has been reported mhm and so it's like do that but also if they would have had any social media contact or
00:19:29
or any of the information from her phone I guarantee you there was text messages
00:19:33
back and forth and if you could if you could have got that information that would have gave you the probable cause
00:19:40
mhm yeah and remember I I do want to Circle back to the idea that police were or at least these
00:19:49
investigators were insinuating that Michael that The Stepfather perhaps was responsible for EB's disappearance again
00:19:58
this is a situation where you only see them putting forth a different Theory they keep reminding the media and
00:20:05
everybody in the general public this is just a runaway she just took off and if we find her we'll ask her if she wants
00:20:11
to come back or she'll probably turn up on her own but then when when pressured and pushed again here now we have to
00:20:18
come up with a different Theory and oh we want to remind you family who's now breathing down our necks and writing
00:20:24
letters to the higher ups maybe Michael is the one responsible for her disappearance yeah oh okay which one is
00:20:34
it which one is it do you think that there was Foul Play involved in this thing or do you think that she just
00:20:39
walked off on her own it seems weird now they did push the jernigans to take a lie detector test you have to wonder if
00:20:47
part of this is actual investigation or if it's more of a interrogation yeah let's let's scare them to leave us alone
00:20:57
y they were not willing to take these tests which the investigator is going to point out that that makes them look to
00:21:05
be guilty they are going to point out the jernigans are going to point out and say we don't know what these what this
00:21:12
officer is doing we don't know what this investigator is up to we we don't feel like comfortable
00:21:20
doing a lie detector test again again we don't know their connection if there is
00:21:26
a connection to any of the guys this party and if there is and that and there is a cover up then what better thing to
00:21:33
do to go well they failed the lie detector MH and you can't prove that in the court of law so you can't charge the
00:21:40
family but it gives enough suspicion in the media where they go well we shouldn't be looking at these guys
00:21:46
anymore we should be looking at the family right and and with their point people with their contacts there at the
00:21:52
police department being what they deemed what the jernigans deemed untrustworthy
00:21:59
they're not in trade going to trust the department itself and you're not going to take a test with with the Department
00:22:06
you do not trust and this is when you Pony up and hire an attorney you've already got the private investigator but
00:22:14
now you got to start watching out for your own back oh well at this point I'm hiring another private investigator also
00:22:20
one that's not connected to that department but I like lie detector test I I don't you know lean on them too much
00:22:30
I like them but in their case there's no win because even if you pass well lie detectors don't mean anything that's
00:22:41
yeah it only means something if the person fails so there's really no win on taking one well and if they fail we've
00:22:49
talked about the false false positives that can come about when a parent is interrogated when a parent is is
00:22:57
questioned and and right and the reason why is because there's so much stress so
00:23:01
they even say after a you know event of a kid going missing or a murder that's close to you that it's takes months for
00:23:12
that stress to come down enough for you to be able to take a test where it possibly will read correctly and I know
00:23:19
it doesn't seem like we were heading in this direction Captain but let me tell you as far as this story in this case
00:23:25
goes better times are ahead and it's right around this time after the family retained an attorney
00:23:34
that to everyone's surpris the FBI voluntarily joined the case although there was no federal jurisdiction or
00:23:42
Interstate crime alleged well here's what happened somebody probably read about the case and went there's some
00:23:48
morons down there and we needed to investigate this well but keep in mind she's by this time wrote letters to the
00:23:55
governor right to the mayor she's gotten other people involved in this thing so who knows who called who made that phone
00:24:03
call and put the FBI there what we do have is Little Rock Police Department their public affairs division refused to
00:24:11
comment on whether this was an indication that the case had been badly mishandled from the start vicker's the
00:24:18
private investigator he gave the feds his files but of course possible crucial evidence like the dash cam videos cell
00:24:26
phone tower pings social media post forensic evidence in the Pat in the vehicle and who knows what
00:24:33
else this stuff's already lost and gone right all of this seems to have gave the
00:24:41
police department a nice swift kick in the pants right a much needed kick in the pants right in the grundle eight
00:24:48
months after eie was last seen the case was reassigned to the homicide unit under detective Tommy Hudson this showed
00:24:57
that that there was going to be a fresh start although the case was still technically classified a missing
00:25:04
person's case Lori also received a personal telephone apology from assistant chief Wayne
00:25:12
bullan he pledged to work better with the family Lori said he was a man with Integrity whom she felt she could trust
00:25:21
finally she could feel confident that someone with authority was on her side at the end of
00:25:28
2016 an official 3-day search was conducted for clues in The Disappearance of eie Steck this search was in addition
00:25:36
to those conducted by Halos and Volunteers in the past the search which lasted from November 29th to December
00:25:44
1st involved family members the Little Rock Police Department volunteers from the national Center for missing an
00:25:51
exploited children and cadav dogs the area searched included the wooded areas of shalom Park where EB's car was
00:25:59
located nothing was [Music] found this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays
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[Music] Freedom all right we're back everybody uh sniff your seats cheers by mid2 17 private investigator
00:28:29
Vickers was in poor health so the family hired TJ Ward a private investigator based in Atlanta who worked on
00:28:38
high-profile cases like Natalie Halloway Ward came on in October of 2017 this is
00:28:45
2 years after eie vanished the Jernigan's hopes were bolstered by occasional leads in the case that did
00:28:53
lead somewhere although always leading to other missing girls detective Hudson's perseverance following up on
00:29:00
leads led to finding two other women who were sold as sex slaves these women were
00:29:07
drugged to the point where they had lost all sense of themselves Lori told an interviewer that if that is the choice
00:29:15
she was facing she would rather eie be dead than living like that well and you wonder because when she talked to her
00:29:23
brother we know that he he said that she sounded intoxicated M on some level so that you wonder is that because she's
00:29:31
dealing with this assault from a couple nights before and or or did somebody drug her yeah and the the fears that eie
00:29:42
had been trafficked did persist this especially after True Crime daily covered the case in May of
00:29:49
2017 the show sat down with guy Hooper he was the security guard who when talking to True Crime daily he made made
00:29:57
some questionable allegations regarding what he claims he saw while he was working at the
00:30:04
park on June 27th 2017 Little Rock PD held a press conference about new developments in
00:30:12
Ebby steck's case there wasn't anything to report as far as findings but the announcement was that EB's case was
00:30:19
going to be taken over by an elite unit of semi-retired detectives who worked on
00:30:25
only a few select older cold cases the detective in charge of EB's case was still going to be Tommy Hudson now
00:30:34
retired he would be able to dedicate almost all of his time to finding Abby he said that not All Leads had yet been
00:30:42
exhausted and detectives were still receiving the assistance of the FBI Hudson acknowledged to Kar KTV that
00:30:52
quote when I got the case there were things that weren't done that should have been done on the front end these
00:30:58
included asking for the surveillance footage from Walmart by then the tapes had already been erased also some key
00:31:07
people were never interviewed he said quote I believe there's somebody out there that's in her Circle in her social
00:31:14
media Circle that may know what happened to her and hasn't come forward for whatever reason it didn't help that
00:31:21
Hudson says the original detective skipped parts of the social media search Hudson also Al acknowledged that the
00:31:28
case had the potential of being a homicide at this press conference the jernigans announced a $50,000 reward for
00:31:37
information leading to EB's location and eie was to be featured on billboards all
00:31:43
over Central Arkansas the case also received publicity on Dr Phil and Nancy Grace yeah in March of 2018 the family
00:31:52
is going to celebrate her 21st birthday at the celebration they well for the celebration Captain they held a
00:32:00
fundraiser party selling items commemorating eie they donated the proceeds to Partners against trafficking
00:32:07
humans this is a Little Rock organization that supports victims Lori Jernigan went through hell
00:32:15
in the nearly 3 years since her daughter vanished Without a Trace M there were false sightings false alarms fruitless
00:32:22
searches baseless tips poor investigative work there was the time police showed her a shoe taken off of a
00:32:31
severed leg of a female corpse found in the Arkansas River she said it did look like abb's
00:32:38
pink Nike tennis shoe but the leg didn't belong to Abby then there was the time that the volunteer Searchers looking for
00:32:45
Ebie in 2016 searched a wooded area in Little Rock and found a skeleton and a bag containing women's
00:32:53
clothes and a pair of handcuffs but again it wasn't EBY then Tommy Hudson his Cold Case unit issued a media
00:33:02
release in May of 2018 and it said that since June of 2017 the unit resubmitted unspecified
00:33:10
evidence to the Arkansas State Crime Lab these tests produced quote some positive
00:33:16
results that led us to believe that we need to search the area of shalat park again this was combined with the fact
00:33:23
that investigators in the unit had quote run through some scenarios about what could have happened to eie and they
00:33:30
arrived at the conclusion that they really needed to revisit the area where her car was
00:33:36
found they decided to conduct a search of the piping and drainage systems close to where her car was found EB's car was
00:33:45
found parked in a paved lot in the park within feet of a storm sewer and they wanted to search this so police Enlisted
00:33:54
the assistance of the Public's works department to to send robots equipped with video cameras down the drain
00:34:00
located right near EB's car this is a storm drain the kind that is rectangular in shape opening between
00:34:08
the sidewalk and the street that led to underground pipes a manhole on the sidewalk provided access to the pipe the
00:34:18
pipe had two openings not far apart in the park one opening was in one side of the parking lot near EB's car then it
00:34:27
ran underneath a landscaped area of plantings and trees and the other end emerged in a different part of what is a
00:34:35
U-shaped parking lot so this other opening is opposite where EB's car was parked so they're sending robots down
00:34:43
the drain with camera equipment on them correct and they first go down the drain
00:34:50
that was nearest EB's car now at this location they hit an obstruction about 70 ft ft down when they ran the robots
00:34:59
down the other end of the drain they hit an obstruction 130 ft down investigators
00:35:06
decided to excavate to see what was inside the pipe on May 22nd 2018 the diggers were called it and they
00:35:15
dug up the pipe in the area between the obstructions human remains were found the excavation was halted the family
00:35:24
notified a new crime scene area was designated and the FBI evidence recovery team was brought in according to the
00:35:32
media release new evidence was also found inside the piping system The Remains were found not 50 ft from a
00:35:40
memorial for Abby and just feet from where her car was found EBY steck's remains were identified as hers within
00:35:48
24 hours the palaski County coroner's office has made a determination as to the cause of death but that information
00:35:56
has has not been released the case is considered an open homicide investigation and once they find her
00:36:04
remains there's going to be several people that come forward and say hey we actually tried to report this to the
00:36:10
detectives yeah so I mean really truly it was mindboggling that eie wasn't found prior to this final search right
00:36:20
because every time that anyone was there looking searching the park even with cab
00:36:26
dogs she had been right there and there were several times her mom speaking to TV cameras in connection with searches
00:36:34
memorials and vigils for her daughter she's standing right in front of that very storm drain leading to the pipe
00:36:42
where EBY was found the thing is you sit there and in hindsight you wonder how could no one have thought to investigate
00:36:49
the storm drain which was literally right under the front bumper of her car right especially if there's claims that
00:36:57
it was there was a smell coming from there as well right right and you say there was a smell well we know that
00:37:03
there was a smell that permeated the area because in fact the Little Rock Police Department had been on notice the
00:37:11
whole time that Ebie was probably in that storm drain now let's let's break this down this is because on November
00:37:18
3rd 2015 uh this is just days after eie was last heard from her friend Kaylee Foley
00:37:26
she one of EB's best friends and we've mentioned her already Kaylee Foley and her mother
00:37:32
Margie went to shamont park this was after they met with the major crimes detectives who were following up on some
00:37:43
missing persons reports right meaning abb's case right right frustrated by abb's disappearance and the lack of
00:37:52
information this mother and daughter team decided that they were going to go and see the park for themselves they
00:37:59
wanted to go and just look around the place where EB's car was found they parked in the same parking lot where
00:38:07
EB's car was located and they started just looking around and then Margie says as they walked by the drainage pipe area
00:38:17
they both smelled something terrible so she called 911 to report the smell and she doesn't call 911 and Report like a
00:38:25
terrible smell she calls 911 and says I smell decomposition in an article appearing in
00:38:34
May of 2018 thv11 printed the contents of that 911 call to the plasy County Sheriff's
00:38:45
Office it says and this is Margie talking says I just came out of a meeting with Detective Williams in
00:38:53
regards to a missing person named eie Steck I brought my daughter who's a friend of
00:38:59
hers we just started walking around here and I smelled decomposition I just called his phone
00:39:06
meaning Detective Williams right he didn't call me back could you send somebody here to
00:39:12
investigate the sheriff's office then called Little Rock Police Department they needed to relay this information
00:39:21
the dispatcher waited for more than 2 minutes for a supervisor to come to the phone before the launch goes dead the
00:39:28
dispatcher called again and spoke to a different dispatcher before speaking with an unidentified woman that's when
00:39:37
the information was relayed she says she smelled something terrible she says she smelled decomposition and she's
00:39:45
worried that this might be related to the case that she just spoke to you about Margie Foley claims she called
00:39:51
police at least three times leaving phone messages for the investigator in charge of the case
00:39:57
she says more than an hour passed before the police department officers showed up
00:40:02
at the scene and she says I was kind of dismissed by them she told this to a reporter when she explained what
00:40:10
officers said to her at the scene she said they told me this park has gone through with some it's been gone through
00:40:16
with some dogs and they would have picked up on that scent they would have picked up on that if it was important to
00:40:22
our case right what you're smelling lady must be a dead an animal or something she said that the officers did
00:40:30
look into the storm drain with flashlights but then they told her you're smelling sewage
00:40:37
right later she would say it just makes me physically ill thinking that the girl
00:40:42
that I had in my home had taken in was decaying down there and that's what she said she smelled and nobody did anything
00:40:52
for three years they just left her there Margie Foley says she also reported her
00:40:57
story about the odor wafting up from the storm drain to officers conducting the search of the park in late November of
00:41:07
2016 and again nothing came of her reports Lor Jernigan in response to learning she's just now learning after
00:41:16
her daughter's remains are found right she's just now learning about these 911 calls she says in response to these
00:41:25
calls that she could have had closure within days not years of what went on in her daughter's
00:41:33
case well not to mention that one of the leads or one of the Avenues rabbit holes
00:41:38
that you have to go down is that possibly she that she's abducted and put into SE sex trafficking and so she's
00:41:46
thinking that possibly that her daughter is being tortured for years mhm it's it's unbelievable it's
00:41:55
unforgivable yeah and here's the thing the reason why I mean I kind of went through the long version of parts of
00:42:02
that story and that you might not find in that detail elsewhere but the thing that
00:42:08
I really wanted to hone in on and reiterate very strongly was this was not a case of where a woman says she found a
00:42:17
came across a strange smell right and just simply called 911 and left it at that no she called and left a message
00:42:25
for the detective that she just spoke to she went and spoke to that detective in
00:42:29
person and I believe it was at his request and so afterwards she leaves his office with her daughter they go to the
00:42:37
park and she's saying look I I believe this might be in relationship to the case that we just spoke about right and
00:42:46
this is I don't know it just it just seems like there was so much opportunity to not miss this step and somehow they
00:42:56
still managed to do so yeah it's it's pathetic it's absolutely pathetic and it's law enforcement and detectives like
00:43:09
this that give the good guys a bad name right and the thing too um is the Walmart the possible footage that they
00:43:19
could have come up with from that Walmart Super Center yeah the one of the routes that somebody would have to take
00:43:27
to that park or to leave that Park they don't have to go by the Walmart but one of a chosen route could Lead You past
00:43:38
that Walmart right either on your way in or your way out of the park or both now
00:43:43
they could have come across surveillance footage that could have been extremely helpful to this
00:43:50
investigation there's I don't know the distance between the cameras and the road but we know that her car was found
00:43:57
in that Park and we know look this is not this is not hard man this is not rocket
00:44:05
science the officers the investigators would know there's a Walmart down the street maybe we should go over there and
00:44:11
check their footage they could have seen a vehicle following hers or leading hers
00:44:17
or you could even go all right well we we saw 10 vehicles at this time through through the next hour or two right
00:44:26
uh maybe we should look into those Vehicles you know there there was all kinds of leads that weren't followed up
00:44:32
upon that were just missed in the beginning and then the case essentially it ends up with the Cold Case detectives
00:44:38
because it went cold because it was not worked and that's really the sad sick truth of of this and and what's what's
00:44:47
even terrible maybe even more terrible we we we're sitting here today analyzing the case and the story and the
00:44:53
investigation and the investigation and the early stages was so bad it it almost
00:44:59
overshadows the this young woman got murdered right and it's not solved it's not solved there's some very good leads
00:45:07
there I do want to I do want to throw out a possible Silver Lining it seems to me I couldn't find
00:45:16
any anything printed with these four boys or men or whoever they were at this party [ __ ] bags or what what they may
00:45:26
have done to eie what their level of involvement in that crime was right or what their level of involvement is with
00:45:34
her disappearance and murder I couldn't find that what what I do believe though is
00:45:41
even though that that's not out there based off of the private investigators we had two throughout the duration of of
00:45:50
this case and through some of the words that that are said and chosen to be chose to be used in statements given to
00:45:58
the media it seems to me Captain like those persons are probably known to the investigators yeah that's good but
00:46:08
because I mean we have them on record stating we spoke to these guys they wouldn't let us see their phones we
00:46:15
didn't have profitable calls to get a search warrant and we have the family complaining you should have got a damn
00:46:20
search warrant and searched their phone so it see it's not like these these men are Mystery Men they're they're known to
00:46:27
to investigators right but the things to connect the dots and build a case against them they're probably gone so
00:46:34
now it just becomes Dust in the Wind does one of these guys one day you know does he grow a pair of balls and say hey
00:46:41
you know what this thing happened and yes I saw the video and I also heard rumors or know for a fact that
00:46:47
somebody's responsible for her death mhm but it take somebody that seems like a [ __ ] bag to step up to the plate and be
00:46:56
a man and what it comes down to is the the law enforcement didn't take the initial claims of sexual assault serious
00:47:06
at the beginning and then didn't take that a step further once she went missing and it's and it's act it's so
00:47:14
it's pathetic and then the again the torture that they put the family through that's pathetic yeah and it's like and
00:47:20
then but the question to me is it CU you're lazy and stupid and you're [ __ ] or or did you start talking did you
00:47:29
start doing some did you actually do some investigation and realize that somebody you knew was involved in this
00:47:36
MH so are you choosing to be stupid or or or is this a cover up and what's so sad is it seems like these guys just got
00:47:44
to keep their jobs and nothing happened to them and there's you know nothing done uh yeah we apologized we put new
00:47:52
people on the case well that doesn't uncover evidence that should have been uncovered to begin with that apology
00:48:01
doesn't do much it doesn't correct what the the past Mis dealings of What What In the End will be looked
00:48:10
upon as the Mis dealings of the entire police department well and I what what it does do is I am happy that at some
00:48:19
point they realize somebody realized yeah that this isn't working out it's our fault even though they've not
00:48:28
publicly claimed any any blame we we have to take this in a different direction or or we're never going to get
00:48:38
anywhere with this so I I you know it's as angry as you get with them and as as as pissed off as you get for the
00:48:45
missteps early on they did at some point recognize that they was a problem and they pivoted from that well and I hate
00:48:53
to sound like I'm on a soap box but it just seems to me not just this law enforcement but
00:49:00
Society in general if we took sexual assault claims more serious then we'd have way more information and we'd know
00:49:08
who was responsible for the assault and we would know probably who's responsible
00:49:12
for her murder after EB's remains were found Lori and Michael Jernigan released a public statement which reads Abby's
00:49:20
story over the past 30 plus months has touched Many Lives Many have seen the beauty in her eyes that revealed a deep
00:49:27
passion and care for others so it is only fitting that the search to find eie has sparked open conversations and
00:49:34
brought a heightened awareness to missing children and young adults the existence of sex trafficking along with
00:49:42
the need for improved policies and processes within the law enforcement community in these areas her story has
00:49:49
touched many in ways that she could not have ever imagined at her funeral several speakers ERS addressed the
00:49:56
positives that have come out of her case before her funeral the family requested
00:50:02
that instead of sending flowers people who wanted to show support should send donations to Halo's investigations or
00:50:09
path instead one of the final family speakers was ebbie's Father Peter Steck who read his last letter to eie and said
00:50:18
quote as I closed the last love letter from a dad to his daughter I need you to know it was an honor to know you and to
00:50:26
spend time with you in another tragic turn of events for the Jernigan family EB's brother Trevor passed away suddenly
00:50:34
from a heart attack he died at the young age of [Music] 35 want to thank everybody for joining
00:50:46
us in the garage and thank you so much for sharing our show on social media and thank you to you Captain mm all right
00:50:54
thanks to every everybody join us back here in the garage next week until then be good be kind and don't
00:51:01
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