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delicious recipes [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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for telling a friend [Music] this week in the fridge we have an interesting one this is called Shadows
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out to Stephanie and Berlin Germany next up we have Marty and fluger Texas old fluger
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on while you're there get a good look at the big neck the extra crispy konel all right
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that's enough of the business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:58
crime [Music] about 3 weeks before eie disappeared her behavior changed drastically she would
00:04:26
tell us she was going someplace or with someone and we would find out that's not
00:04:32
where she was Abie was provoking arguments and wanted to move out she left and eventually ended up with my son
00:04:42
Trevor a couple days before eie was reported missing she went to a party eie text me on Saturday October 24th that
00:04:51
she needed to speak to me about something important she indicated that an individual at this house had sexually
00:04:58
assaulted her in videotaped there were four boys at the party she told me she was assaulted by one eie was
00:05:07
hysterical and wanted my husband to go to the police station with her I told eie that I would meet her after dinner
00:05:14
to sit tight and I'd let her know when I was on my way the last question I asked
00:05:19
her was if she wanted to go file her police report and she stated yes I'm certain the next afternoon my stepson
00:05:26
Trevor came by he contacted eie about an hour l later and she told him that she was outside his house so Trevor went out
00:05:34
didn't see her asked her where she was she didn't know where she was but she knew she was with her car at that point
00:05:42
Trevor told me what had happened told me that Abby sounded really messed up disoriented he never heard her sound
00:05:50
like that before to my knowledge Trevor is the last person in our family to speak to Abby I would like the four
00:05:56
individuals that were at that party that evening with my daughter to come forward
00:06:00
and give a formal interview with lck Police Department to either help them move forward in the investigation clear
00:06:07
their name for help determine what happened to [Music] e some cases we approach the story by
00:06:28
starting off with the main event which may be a murder an abduction or a disappearance but in this case the
00:06:35
events unfold in such a pecul way we will just roll with the chronological approach much of the biographical
00:06:44
information we are about to relay comes from a series of articles in ay magazine
00:06:50
dedicated to this strange case now the trailer you just heard was taken from the Dr Phil show who has done some
00:06:59
extensive coverage on this case eie Jane Steck was born March 31st 1997 to Lori and Peter Steck Abbie's
00:07:11
name which Lori laughingly says she borrowed from a church friend whose daughter's name was eie her unusual name
00:07:18
signified how special and unique her mother felt her child was Abby's middle name is Jane which is also her mother's
00:07:26
middle name as well Lori hoped her little girl would embody a combination of her mother's traditional religious
00:07:33
values and a free-spirited one-of-a-kind Persona EB's family consisted of an older brother older half-brother
00:07:41
actually named Trevor and a younger sister named Harris Lori says she and ebbie's father split when eie was just a
00:07:49
first grader Lori says that the marriage was a quote bad situation but when it ended it was still abrupt and shocking
00:07:58
to her and her daughters Lori went on to marry Michael Jernigan who helped bring
00:08:05
some stability to this broken family teenaged eie was known as eer to her family she loved Hot Pockets her dog
00:08:14
furball music the beach and The Color Purple when she graduated from high school eie wanted to go to cosmetology
00:08:24
school and later get her real estate license she was also interested in languages she studied Spanish Turkish
00:08:32
and Hebrew Lorie says eie was always stubborn and independent when she was young she did
00:08:40
not like her name and she went through phases where she would insist on being called something else Lori says eie was
00:08:48
a homey person she liked to stay home she had friends over to her house more than she would go to their homes as she
00:08:56
got older she developed into a fiercely loyal person while she was hard to get to know her friends say that once you
00:09:05
broke down her walls she was selfless and generous and passionately stuck by her friends sides and EB's friend
00:09:13
Danielle Westbrook describes her as kind loyal loving courageous strong and perseverant one story that captures this
00:09:23
is when her classmate this was a boy named Caleb Boyd he was apparently wrongfully incarcerated for having a gun
00:09:32
on school grounds the way that this story works is instead of turning her back on him like so many of his other
00:09:40
friends did right eie took the lead in mobilizing students in support of Caleb she initiated a letter writing campaign
00:09:48
and petitioned the court and it worked getting Caleb released although these characteristics
00:09:55
of aby's were largely positives her mom says there were some downsides to her loyal and trusting nature eie got hurt a
00:10:04
lot because her strong feelings weren't always returned in her early high school
00:10:10
years she was bullied and she changed schools switching to the little Scholars of Arkansas Academy from another small
00:10:19
private school later ebbie's loyalty and stubbornness reared its head when her mom tried to get her to see that a few
00:10:27
of her boyfriends and other friends were less than she deserved as high school progressed her independence morphed into
00:10:34
full-blown rebelliousness Abby started breaking her parents rules and hanging out with a new
00:10:41
crowd a group that she met at her job at Foot Locker at the McCain Mall she had worked hard to land this job this was
00:10:51
the summer before her senior year Abby spent most of her money on makeup and clothes and she started to work more and
00:10:59
and more to be around these other kids her parents didn't know things were exacerbated by the car that eie got from
00:11:08
her father Peter Lori said it gave her daughter the feeling that she could go wherever she wanted to whenever she
00:11:16
wanted to right that's a typical feeling for teens hey I got a car I'm out of here man mhm uh Abby who was a very
00:11:24
pretty girl 5'2 110 lb with blonde hair and little eyes she is acting out in ways her
00:11:34
parents do not like did not like and we all know this is we don't mean to give eie a bad name this is a phase most kids
00:11:46
go through a lot of kids go through they want to not be around their parents not
00:11:51
listen to their parents and they're hanging out with these these other people that her parents are calling kids
00:11:57
but let's keep in mind these are people that she's working with so as we go through this we are uncertain and the
00:12:03
captain and I talked about this last week we are uncertain if these are in fact actually kids right because it's a
00:12:10
job so at the youngest we're probably looking at what 17 or 18 but very likely 19 20 maybe even 21y old young
00:12:19
adults now Abby as we said she's acting out she's lying to her parents you know not going where she says she's going
00:12:28
hanging out with people that she says she will not hang out with she and her mom and stepdad continued to butt heads
00:12:35
and things escalated Abby would periodically storm out to stay at her friend's home at Danielle's home but
00:12:42
would always return home the next day now when Abby started her senior year in the fall of
00:12:49
2015 she made a decision that her mother would not support she switched schools this was from the Lisa Academy to little
00:12:59
Rock Central High which is a very big school she went from a small school to a very large school this was a major
00:13:06
change for Abie who had been in a sheltered private school her whole life sure enough new kids she was hanging out
00:13:15
with introduced her to marijuana her parents did not approve and in a heated argument in September eie and her mom
00:13:22
agreed that she should move out Lori was determined to stand firm her house her room rules and if eie moved out she
00:13:31
couldn't come back Lori agreed to pay for certain things but eie would largely be on her own and she would have to work
00:13:40
quite a bit of this situation reminds us of Brianna Matlin case we covered episode 254 and 255 Brianna switched
00:13:49
schools as well and remember she started hanging out with the wrong crowd right eventually moving out of her parents
00:13:56
house and working a lot Vanishing in 2004 for and unfortunately not seen since Abie didn't have much of a plan in
00:14:04
fact she rotated between houses quite a bit she crashed at her older brother Trevor's home she stayed with her
00:14:11
biological father Peter and with a friend Kaylee Foley so she's bouncing around from all of these three homes for
00:14:20
a time and Lori and Michael began receiving calls from Central High Abby was missing school they decided not to
00:14:30
confront her about this she is still in school but technically she is an adult at this time right sometime around mid
00:14:39
October eie showed up at Danielle's Place asking to stay there for a while the two shared Danielle's room listening
00:14:47
to music and they went out on long drives but since they went to different schools Danielle was never really sure
00:14:56
what eie was doing if she was not at the home home yeah it seems like she had to
00:15:00
do a lot of work to figure out where she was going to stay so it'd be a lot more
00:15:04
work on top of that to figure out how you're going to get from this random spot that you're staying at to school on
00:15:11
the morning of Wednesday October 21st Abby was supposed to drive Danielle to school on her way to school after
00:15:18
Danielle's doctor's appointment Danielle text Abby that her appointment was running late telling Abby to go on
00:15:25
without her Abby texts back saying no it's not a big deal at all I swear I didn't want to go to school today anyway
00:15:34
because of all that drama Danielle does not know what drama eie was referring to eie never ended up
00:15:43
going to school that day it's unclear how many days she missed but she and Danielle went to services at the
00:15:52
Assembly of God Church in Little Rock that evening Thursday and Friday I don't know if eie went to school I could not
00:16:00
find anything that stated that she did so we can only guess that what the drama was and if she was still avoiding school
00:16:07
because of it but on Friday night October 23rd we do know that eie went to a party Danielle did not go with her
00:16:16
because she did not know the other people attending this party right we don't know if these were kids from
00:16:22
Central High School or people that eie was working with at Foot Locker or others but it was some group that she
00:16:30
was hanging out with at this time this will be easy to understand why we don't know who this is in just a quick bit on
00:16:39
Saturday October 24th eie told Danielle that her brother Trevor was worried because she hadn't been to his place all
00:16:47
week long so she needed to go over there and see him the friends agreed to see each other on Sunday at the church ice
00:16:55
cream social so Abby went to her brother Trevor's place and then she went to her
00:17:01
grandparents house this is Peggy and Bill Holman Abby was close with them and loved staying at their house Abby spent
00:17:11
the day sleeping and watching her favorite show SpongeBob she had dinner with her grandparents and they went out
00:17:18
for TCBY around 700 p.m. and around 8:00 p.m. she's going to be leaving her grandparents telling them that she's
00:17:26
going to go hang out with her stepfather she tells her grandparents that she does
00:17:31
plan to return to their home for that night and asking them not to lock the doors the homans never saw her again and
00:17:40
when they tried calling her later that evening before going to bed there was no answer it turns out that that same night
00:17:48
around 7:50 p.m. Abby had begun texting her stepfather that she wanted him to bring her to the police station so she
00:17:57
could report an incident that happened at the party the night before she told him that she was the victim of a sexual
00:18:06
assault and four males were involved one guy had sexually assaulted her and he also videotaped the whole event it's
00:18:16
unclear what the role of the other three boys was but it was implied that they were also complicit
00:18:24
somehow EB's story is backed up by some text that she sent on the morning of Saturday October 24th this is to a
00:18:32
friend named Gage Folton here's the conversation that Gage later had with Monty Vickers a private investigator on
00:18:41
the case describing the text between him and eie he says eie says I was hanging out with some dudes last night and we
00:18:50
smoked and I had sex with one of them and he effing recorded me mhm she says this was was when she wasn't looking
00:19:00
Vickers asked Gage did she tell you that she was raped to which Gage replies says
00:19:07
she said she felt forced into it her last text message to me is saying I am going to kill myself well it seems like
00:19:15
they were drinking at this party possibly these guys are older we don't know uh I think we both kind of assume
00:19:22
that that that these are probably more likely people from Foot Locker than her High School yeah or friends of Foot
00:19:31
Locker friends yeah so it seems to me that maybe she felt pressured or or whatever but anyway she ends up having
00:19:38
sex with this individual then he tapes it or films it without her knowledge right and he's probably sharing this
00:19:45
with the other guys at the party and that's probably why she is saying that they're involved in some way yeah and
00:19:52
and we say the word sex but we're using that very V well those are also her words yeah but
00:20:00
but we have her telling Gage that she said she felt forced into so now we do know that eie did not kill herself
00:20:10
instead she began texting her stepfather while he was eating dinner that night Abby requested that Michael not tell her
00:20:17
mother she had already called the police but didn't feel that she had received any good advice on what to do right so
00:20:26
Abby felt it would be better if she went to the police station in person and she wanted her stepfather to
00:20:34
go with her the two agreed to meet around 8:00 p.m. at the Holman's and head down to the station together but we
00:20:42
do know that eie left the homan's house before Michael arrived and the grandparents told Michael that they were
00:20:48
under the impression that she had gone to meet him she was never seen again now Michael
00:20:54
fears that she may have decided to try to confront one one of the boys or all of the boys at the party about this
00:21:02
incident by herself right and he says probably to try to get a hold of the video according to Lori EB's cell phone
00:21:12
records indicate that eie made two calls to the Little Rock Police Department that night around 7:30 p.m. and each
00:21:20
only lasted about a minute but the Little Rock Police Department has said they have no record of those calls
00:21:29
okay right right so the but EB's mom does so we know that they happened right EB's phone records also show that she
00:21:38
continued to open and read text messages until the night of Sunday October 25th unfortunately well wait wait wait say
00:21:48
that again well the phone records show that and I I have here in my notes that she indicating Abby but I think what we
00:21:56
should be clear on is we don't know who was opening and reading text messages but somebody was until Sunday of October
00:22:06
25th right it's clear to me that that we have Lori her mother believes it to be eie but as as we just
00:22:15
stated we don't know for sure no I think what happen is she goes missing and somebody is going through
00:22:22
her phone to try to clear some evidence I think that's what it is well and nobody knows where she spent that
00:22:30
Saturday night right I mean she could already be in danger as you just said now the family started to be worried
00:22:38
when no one heard from her by the next morning right we got to keep some things in mind here there's a lot going on and
00:22:46
there's a lot going on in this phase of EB's Life As We already stated she's not
00:22:52
always honest about where she is who she's hanging out with and there were times even before moving out that she
00:22:59
would leave in a in an argument and go stay somewhere and then come back the next morning well the difficult thing is
00:23:05
that she is 18 so technically she doesn't have to be honest about where she's going yeah so you have like really
00:23:11
mixed emotions and thoughts and feelings by her family right now where she didn't
00:23:17
show up to meet her stepdad she tells her grandparents that she left to see the stepdad he shows up at their door
00:23:23
and they're like what are you doing here right uh but at the same time you you got these concerns but you also have a
00:23:29
history of somebody running out for the night right and not being where they're supposed to
00:23:35
be they say that they tried calling and texting eie and all of those texts were it's according to her phone records
00:23:44
state that they were read by somebody mhm they weren't responded to finally around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday the 25th
00:23:53
ebbie's brother Trevor got a phone call from her she did not sound like herself he said she sounded panicked and
00:24:02
disoriented eie told him that she was in her car parked outside of his house so he hangs up the phone he goes outside to
00:24:11
meet her but she is not there there's no sign of her or her car mhm he calls her
00:24:18
back and asks you know where are you she said she was in her car but did not know
00:24:24
where she was and she could not tell him who she was with the last thing she said
00:24:31
was I'm [ __ ] up after 4 minutes of back and forth with eie not making any sense at all and not giving him any
00:24:40
information she hung up the phone and no one has ever heard from her again her phone started going to
00:24:50
voicemail on Sunday night when eie hadn't turned up at her grandparents home and after that worrisome phone
00:24:56
conversation with forever her family started actively looking for her searching the neighborhood and calling
00:25:02
around to her friends EB's sister texted Danielle asking if Abie was at her place
00:25:09
Danielle who was at the ice cream social said she had planned to attend with eie
00:25:15
right but obviously EB's not there correct and now Danielle is joining in the hunt as well she starts calling and
00:25:23
texting EB's phone she starts calling other friends to see if if anyone knew where she could be when she got no
00:25:31
response from eie Danielle started driving around looking for eie and places she knew her friend would
00:25:37
frequent mhm but all of this effort nobody would find [Music] anything this show is sponsored by
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[Music] 2023 [Music] all right we're back cheers mates we are back after that strange
00:28:06
phone call M Abbie's brother called the police to report her missing but he received the typical runaround that
00:28:14
we've seen in so many other cases it's all it almost seems just in in a in a terrible way it almost
00:28:22
seems funny to even say it because we've repeated it so many times right throughout these different cases now
00:28:29
this one is a little different this response is a little different than we've heard in the past and maybe it's
00:28:34
some form of progress I don't know Captain you be the the decider there but she he's told that they need to wait
00:28:41
12 hours before filing a report nope there there's no there's nothing it's a little bit of a shorter time period most
00:28:49
of the time we hear less of a piece4 we've heard 36 hours here they want 12 so Lori her mother says the second that
00:28:59
the clock hit the 12-hour Mark she called the police she called back to the Little Rock Police Department right a
00:29:08
police officer came to the house on Monday to speak with the family and fill out a missing person's report but the
00:29:15
Little Rock Police Department did not seem too interested in the missing person's case they seem to give Lor's
00:29:22
concern about her daughter very little weight and took a perun report without much follow up at all
00:29:31
yeah now in the cops defense I I really want to know how many times do they get calls where they're getting call backs
00:29:38
within minutes hey we can't find my son can't find my daughter and then five minutes later they're going oh sorry we
00:29:45
found them well we do know that that is the case most of the time and the other thing
00:29:54
too look we'll go down this road be because you you started us down the road in this particular situation I can kind
00:30:02
of see it from that perspective of oh we just have some people that are overreacting and they want to file a
00:30:10
report but yet the person that they're trying to report missing they've already told me she's hanging out with the wrong
00:30:15
crowd she leaves and doesn't come home some nights she's an adult she's an adult she's living elsewhere and we
00:30:22
don't really know where she's living so I I I the go ahead yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
00:30:30
yeah yeah uh the thing that I always drives me nuts though is when they go well there are adult and they have the
00:30:36
right to go missing and I would just say that that look I understand people have
00:30:42
the right to go missing but the person that is you know the person that has the right to go missing that normally goes
00:30:49
missing there probably is some conflict with the family so the family is not going to be calling for a while right
00:30:56
you I mean but when a family is calling going hey uh we can't find our son or daughter and the cops go well they're
00:31:04
adult they have the right yeah we know that they have the right but this is add a
00:31:09
character and and and I think the cops need to take that more serious it's out of character and then here's the other
00:31:17
thing too that that yes and I'm going to be my own devil's advocate here where I
00:31:23
say that I understand this from the cops perspective where they're saying here's
00:31:27
the this this 18-year-old who doesn't come home some nights lives elsewhere couch surfing basically right but then
00:31:36
here's the other time the other thing you got to consider that's all been going on for a while and they've never
00:31:41
called the police before right so very likely this is very different than any of those other times and and maybe they
00:31:48
are not overreacting at all maybe they are reacting appropriately and we need to step in and get involved in this
00:31:55
thing well again this is also so in a day and age where we're very connected mhm so if you're not getting a hold of
00:32:03
somebody it it becomes spooky pretty quickly now to put it in its shortest form possible the jernigans did not feel
00:32:12
that the police were treating their missing daughter's case with an appropriate sense of urgency on October
00:32:19
30th the Little Rock Police Department this is Lieutenant Steve mallahan he's the media spokesperson for
00:32:27
the police department he told the media that there was no immediate danger in EB's case and she was likely missing
00:32:34
because she wanted to be then little rocks Channel 7 News reported that police found surveillance
00:32:42
footage showing EB's car traveling on cantrail Road in West Little Rock sometime shortly after she went missing
00:32:52
while this report aired at the end of the week when eie disappeared there was no indication of when the
00:32:59
footage of the car had been taken right so it's on TV but we don't know exactly when that footage was taken it turned
00:33:08
out it was most likely sometime that weekend The crucial time period in which eie did
00:33:15
vanish sham Mount Park is a neighborhood park there's a pool there and a playground it's maintained and operated
00:33:23
by the large Chanel Valley homeowners association a sign at the entrance of the park reads
00:33:29
private for residents only it is in a very upscale area of West Little Rock near Joe Robinson High School another
00:33:40
large High School in the city on Route 10 in order to get to the private neighborhood park drivers have to take
00:33:49
one of two access roads one of these is shamont Drive which becomes Northfield drive and takes Drive out to Chanel
00:33:58
Parkway by the Walmart Super Center the other way takes drivers on shomont drive
00:34:05
to canant Trail Road which is Route 10 a security guard named guy Hooper who was
00:34:12
employed by the neighborhood association to patrol the park he called The Little
00:34:18
Rock Police Department on the night of October 28th he was calling to report an abandoned vehicle parked in the parking
00:34:26
lot of the Park police took a report but didn't make it over to the park until October 30th two days later
00:34:37
wow so I I want you to keep in mind how this whole thing went down this this man
00:34:44
guy Hooper he's a security officer he calls in this abandoned vehicle and then he waits for police for a couple of
00:34:52
hours and they don't show up they don't respond the entire time to which he's like all right I'll be back again
00:34:58
tomorrow to patrol again right I believe he actually called the following day as
00:35:03
well and then again waited another hour or two but as said it was two days later
00:35:09
before anyone showed up to take a look at this vehicle well and just to go back to the the whole we we don't believe
00:35:17
that she's in danger we think that she went missing on her own like we have a couple points of
00:35:24
evidence to make him believe not that one she's basically saying that there was this sexual assault that happened to me
00:35:31
and I want to report it I called your police station multiple times I'm making arrangements to go down there so we
00:35:38
should take that serious and then the remarks that she made to her friend saying well I'll kill myself now maybe
00:35:44
that is just you know it was just a figure of speech and it wasn't something that she was actually going to do but
00:35:51
just that in itself means that she's in possibly in danger of harming herself mhm and so we should take this more
00:35:59
serious it seems just like a load of horseshit well once they finally went down there to investigate this abandoned
00:36:09
vehicle what they found was EB's silver 2003 Volkswagen Pat Arkansas plate 137 UFM parked in the parking lot and it had
00:36:22
been there since the night of October 25th this is according to the security office okay so the 25th that's the
00:36:29
Sunday that's the same night that that she spoke with Trevor on the phone yes that Sunday okay the car keys were still
00:36:38
in the ignition the vehicle was out of gas and the battery was dead even more disturbing were the contents of the
00:36:46
vehicle which included her contact lenses her wallet and her cell phone all of which were sitting on the front seat
00:36:54
now really truly what they find there keep in mind she's moving around from house to house at that time staying a
00:37:01
little bit with her brother a little bit with her biological father and then a friend or two they're going to find not
00:37:08
only just these items but they're going to find basically all of her possessions
00:37:13
that travel along with her from house to house in this car yeah her car becomes basically her storage unit yeah now
00:37:21
these items are of importance because Lori later said that eie couldn't see without her contacts and she would never
00:37:29
ever not take her phone somewhere with her she Lori says this was E's life line to her family and now keep in mind she's
00:37:37
not living with she's not living with her family but she's still close with them mhm and the fact that all of EB's
00:37:44
makeup was still sitting in the vehicle as well that Lori says was the Clincher for her she immediately knew that
00:37:52
something was wrong something bad had happened now let's take our own little investigation into this vehicle
00:38:01
too Captain what did we say here we got the the car keys still in the ignition bad sign we got the automobile out of
00:38:08
gas and the battery was dead that to me suggests that somebody left the vehicle running right in that parking spot and
00:38:18
we do know that it was there since that what did we say Sunday the 25th mhm and they're not there looking at it until
00:38:25
October 30th that's it I get abandoned vehicles I don't get having these types of
00:38:33
possessions being found inside the vehicle in plain sight one two vehicle out of gas and the battery's dead keys
00:38:41
in it somebody left that vehicle running this is very strange stuff yeah now upon
00:38:46
finding the car Little Rock Police called ebbie's Father Peter this is her biological
00:38:53
father his name is on the car registration it was he who notified his ex-wife Lori that EB's car had turned up
00:39:03
mhm police apparently failed to notice that the name of a missing young woman was also on that registration and her
00:39:12
license was in the vehicle while they were searching the car they left the trunk open oh makes
00:39:20
you wonder did they fail to notice this or are they're choosing you know because
00:39:26
they they're choosing not to look for somebody that we know possibly is in danger or we know they're choosing not
00:39:33
to show up and and take this report we know they're choosing not to go investigate this car for two days it's
00:39:42
ridiculous well and keep in mind a couple things if the security officer had called multiple times to report an
00:39:49
abandoned vehicle yeah the responding officer does not know I mean they may know that somebody is missing or has
00:39:58
been but but very likely not because like we said the the missing person's report is filed it's probably handed off
00:40:07
to a detective by then and if they are not showing an actual concern for this missing individual the responding
00:40:13
officer to this abandoned vehicle can't put two and two together right because he doesn't have enough information to do
00:40:19
so so it's not until he calls the father that's on the registration father calls
00:40:26
Mom hey they found her vehicle they're it's going to take EB's family to bring it back around to police and say look
00:40:33
our daughter is missing and now you found her vehicle yeah with all her stuff in it right I mean look we all
00:40:39
know that teenagers are connected to their phones that to that to me is a huge red flag and again like you said
00:40:46
the battery being dead no gas and the keys in the ignition mhm while they were searching the car
00:40:54
the officers left the trunk open and a rainstorm soaked many of EB's belongings Channel 7 News reported that
00:41:03
there appeared to be no sign of a struggle inside or outside of the vehicle and it was found
00:41:10
abandoned since EB's disappearance her mother has worked non-stop to keep her daughter's case in the public eye and in
00:41:18
the active Case Files on detective's desk but it hasn't been easy in fact at times it has been almost impossible this
00:41:27
is because the people who were supposed to help her and help her family who made
00:41:33
a pledge to protect and serve they failed on this investigation for months the Jernigan family says that EB's car
00:41:42
was the subject of phone calls to the Little Rock Police Department not only from guy Hooper but several Neighbors in
00:41:51
the area who called about the car that week well before police off officers finally acted on the tip if the
00:41:59
department had not ignored these calls the trail would have been a lot fresher and even after they finally pieced
00:42:07
together that the car and the missing young woman were connected the police department dropped the ball the family
00:42:14
got the runaround as to who was in charge of this investigation police never contacted people that were
00:42:22
suspected of being at the party Danielle or any of EB's other friends were not contacted the security guard who found
00:42:31
the vehicle was not contacted yeah it took them weeks to getting around to pinging EB's phone to see where it had
00:42:39
been and when they did they initially pinged the wrong phone number so oh God yeah let me take you
00:42:47
through this Horror Story well I mean let's just reiterate the fact that they open they left the trunk open right what
00:42:56
are you a [ __ ] I I mean come on it's like and what's the number one thing that we've
00:43:02
seen time and time again one of the worst things for evidence is water yeah and you just leave the trunk open right
00:43:10
this is a crime scene or possibly a crime scene mhm and you don't know either way so you should protect it but
00:43:21
you're too lazy or stupid or both or B I guess there's I guess there's another option nobody's ever wearing a
00:43:32
shirt that says I'm lazy and stupid we're going to make we're going to make a shirt like that for those of
00:43:38
you who are proud yeah of yourself leave that trunk open here's I'm going to put
00:43:44
my bike in it let me take you through this Horror Story this is about the pinging the her phone but it ends up
00:43:52
being the wrong phone number all right so they ping her phone what is believed to be EB's phone yeah and police tell
00:44:02
her mother and stepfather we've pinged the phone it's it's coming from a location out about 45 minute drive from
00:44:12
your home so kind of out away from the city and it's coming from a field out there listen to this I mean this is not
00:44:23
sounding good right your daughters is pinging from a a field kind of out in the middle of the country you start
00:44:32
thinking that's possibly where her body is that's where we're going to find her mhm but then you're going well how did
00:44:39
her phone get back to the car right right and that's I guess I'm a little unclear on that Captain what they're
00:44:45
saying is that when they trace these pings around the time that she went missing they had the phone pinging out
00:44:53
in this other location now as you said though that's when the parents are like oh my God we
00:44:59
might find her body out in that field right and this is awful look if I'm the investigator even if I ping the wrong
00:45:09
phone right mm even if I'm a freaking [ __ ] Captain [ __ ] pants right and I'm pinging the wrong phone and then I know
00:45:20
that the phone ended up at the car before I tell anybody I am going and searching that field
00:45:28
myself or double-checking the Ping information right but I'm starting I'm starting with I'm a dumbass right I I I
00:45:37
ping the wrong phone but either way I made a mistake right but I'm going to be a good uh detective good investigator
00:45:46
and before I tell the parents and freak them the freak out I am going to go check that field and then I'm going to
00:45:55
present them information but might Maybe by checking the field and finding nothing MH I would then double check did
00:46:02
I get the number right M yeah they're looking for Ping information that would have taken place around the time that
00:46:10
she was trying to call her brother that she spoke to Trevor right right so unfortunately they figure out law
00:46:19
enforcement figures out that they were pinging the wrong number I bet they didn't even figure that out I bet
00:46:25
somebody in our family figured that out well they I believe it was a couple of days before they told the family oh we
00:46:32
were pinging the wrong number when they finally pinged the correct number it did
00:46:38
turn out that eie was or the phone was in shomont park when she did in fact call Trevor right now the Little Rock
00:46:47
Police Department also claimed to be unable to access EB's social media this is a part of the story that I
00:46:56
really you know we're we're talking about things that that law enforcement screwed up on that they messed up on
00:47:03
that they dropped the ball right this one is is just a small part of the story but truly I feel like this is where they
00:47:10
missed the bus the most because we we have rumor of this video that might have been on somebody's phone we have talks
00:47:20
and gauge coming forward saying that I trade text messages with her we know that she or somebody was opening and
00:47:28
reading text messages on her phone on that Sunday right so I really feel like and especially given her age that this
00:47:37
Social Media stuff could have really helped the investigation especially in the early stages of the investigation
00:47:44
what's going on here is they're telling the family we don't know how to access these social media accounts we do not
00:47:52
know how to get in there do a little spy work and figure out what was was going on who she was talking to cuz we're too
00:47:59
stupid well and then on top of that what would be really key here is to figure out where in fact she was going when she
00:48:06
says that she was going to meet her stepfather because we know from the stepfather right that's not the case he
00:48:12
says I was going to meet her here and now she's gone right so that could have really helped the early stages of the
00:48:19
investigation why is she at the park well at the very least let's say she communicated with four or five other
00:48:25
people after she left her grandparents house you need that trail of breadcrumbs you need to follow the breadcrumbs to
00:48:33
get you from person a to person B to C and D until you get to the actual last person that spoke with her or had
00:48:39
interaction with her so you can figure out her location yeah but I could just see the
00:48:45
detectives the whole time on this case all right well we checked her we checked her phone this is the the
00:48:53
detectives talking to the family we checked her phone what's her name again you know I mean that's that's kind
00:49:01
of the work they're doing where yeah we we saw her car what's her name again you
00:49:07
know have you heard from her like no do some work here now Lori did try to assist the investigators as much as she
00:49:16
possibly could regarding her missing daughter's case she was the one that spent the the man hours putting together
00:49:23
EB's phone records she got as much as she could from her social media accounts and she passed all of this on to the
00:49:32
detectives and unfortunately she says at one point in this investigation when she is in there
00:49:39
answering questions and talking with detectives she's saying the detective seemed proud to tell her we have we've
00:49:48
collected all this information we have tons of evidence we have all this information regarding your missing
00:49:54
daughter and he had it in the room with them right and Lori says she looked at all of this information that he says he
00:50:04
has and that has collected and she says unfortunately this was everything this guy had she provided
00:50:14
to him she provided this information so why he seemed proud to have that information makes absolutely no sense at
00:50:22
all stupid or lazy what's going on behind the scenes yeah is the trouble of having eie and the family come forward
00:50:32
stating two things one EB's intention was to meet her stepfather at some point that evening her family saying The
00:50:39
Stepfather was going to meet eie some point that evening yeah those things are now working against EB's family in this
00:50:48
investigation because now the way that they're working this investigation they're suspicious of The Stepfather
00:50:56
of course they want to know if if in fact he was the last person to see her and what was really going on behind the
00:51:02
scenes they're yeah yeah basically they're basically believing that he is the murderer now mind you they wouldn't
00:51:13
state in the beginning that this was a real missing person's case to begin with now all of a sudden they're saying oh we
00:51:18
think that she disappeared because you made her disappear right and this whatever this theory is or they ever
00:51:25
came up with this Theory other than knowing that he might have been the last person that she intended to to meet with
00:51:33
they're now using this as a theory and they're what they're claiming when they speak with the family is you're lying to
00:51:40
us you're you're you are telling us a different story because you're trying to cover up what truly happened to your
00:51:47
daughter when in reality what we have is a family who's trying to be actively involved in an investigation that would
00:51:55
not be moving forward without them yeah it's very difficult because we were talking about this
00:52:03
before I think on off the Record where I do not like the idea when detectives say
00:52:10
it's not my job to come up with theories MH it's it's my job to collect the evidence and for the evidence to tell me
00:52:18
what's happening now now hold on a second I understand you're saying that cuz you want to seem like you're smart
00:52:25
and levelheaded but the truth of the matter is that you have to collect evidence and along the way you have to
00:52:32
create different theories multiple theories based off of the evidence you're seeing yeah based off the
00:52:37
evidence but also maybe based off evidence you don't have yet and you have to come up with multiple theories and
00:52:45
then you have to go down those rabbit holes and and let the evidence tell you if it if that theory is true or not in
00:52:52
this case they come up with this theory that makes makes zero sense because what we have what we have
00:52:59
evidence of is this young woman making calls to the police saying that she was sexually assaulted again
00:53:09
I'm sick and tired of let's just look the justice system doesn't take these claims serious enough
00:53:18
that's why she called the police department multiple times they should be saying you were sexually assaulted come
00:53:24
down to the station now we need to take this serious and then she's making claims to
00:53:30
her friends and now she's telling her stepfather now again we should take these claims serious because not only is
00:53:37
she stepping up to the plate which is so hard for these women to do but she's stepping up to the plate to talk to
00:53:45
police the police officers and law enforcement M and that's frightening and again she's a young woman and it's
00:53:53
frightening to have to tell your your stepfather frightening embarrassing whatever words you want to
00:54:02
use this is not somebody that um you know it it's just frustrating and well super frustrating for a multitude of
00:54:13
reasons but also frustrating in the sense that you're telling the family that we don't want to work with you
00:54:21
because we think you're covering something up but even if that is their Theory Captain it
00:54:28
doesn't appear that they were even investigating or working on building a case around that theory they just
00:54:34
weren't doing anything and having the excuse that The Stepfather is a suspect was just that an excuse to not do
00:54:42
anything to just sit on our hands and not have to do anything when we already know that you had this great lead of
00:54:50
there was something that went down at that party that might have been a major ordeal and it happened very shortly
00:54:58
before she went missing that's a freaking lead yeah now now I wouldn't I wouldn't blame him so much if
00:55:06
if the if the sexual assault charges were Against The Stepfather then you go okay well A to B we're looking into this
00:55:15
guy but that's not who the allegations were against it was about this party and I'm surprised these morons didn't turn
00:55:23
to the stepfather's wife EB's mother and say collect evidence against him cuz you
00:55:30
collected evidence on everything [Music] else all right I'm looking at my phone I'm looking at my device and on both I
00:55:46
have the very awesome Stitcher app it is free you can go out and get the Stitcher
00:55:51
app and we have all of our old episodes on on there for free for you to listen to also make sure you check out our
00:55:59
other show called off the record it is available on Stitcher premium stay tuned until tomorrow it's going to get pretty
00:56:06
heated in the garage until then be good be [Music] kind [Music] you can live out your Master Chef dreams
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