00:00:00
foreign [Music] foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host
00:00:46
Nick and with me as always as a man that pointed out hey it's October did anybody
00:00:51
wake up Green Day yet he is the captain Oh yeah dookie dookie dookie it's good to be seen and it's good to see you
00:00:59
thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] an excellent selection for this week we
00:01:10
are drinking Shadows of their eyes which is a dark sour aged in Oak barrels by the fine sour beer company known as Rare
00:01:18
Barrel ABV 6.8 garage grade 4 out of five bottle caps and here are the fine folks that contributed to this week's
00:01:27
beer run first up out of Sparta New Jersey we got Gary B listening in the car in New Jersey you'd think maybe uh
00:01:36
Gary Vee like Gary vanderchuck maybe he's listening to True Crime garage while he's going on his garage sales
00:01:42
next up we have Suzanne in Sacramento California and next a long distance cheers to Vanessa from Cologne Germany
00:01:51
and the big shout to Aaron in Bloomington Indiana next we have Jane and Crownsville Maryland and last but
00:01:59
certainly not least we have Suzanne and Junction City Kansas wait oh I want to give a shout out out to Stephanie at
00:02:07
pastimes up in North Columbus she's a long time listener listening at work so to everyone out there wherever you
00:02:14
choose to listen to TCG we thank you and for our old episodes download the Stitcher app they are free
00:02:21
and you can check out our weekly show called off the record on Stitcher premium also go to truecrimegarage.com
00:02:28
and click on the store Page we have new skull logo baseball tees and we also have zodiac logo teas and we have them
00:02:37
in double XL and triple XL so get those before they're gone and that is enough of the beers now that's right that's
00:02:45
enough of you Captain that's enough of me everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
00:02:52
foreign [Music] woman has a traumatic experience at a party she decided to go to the police about
00:03:09
what happened to her but before she does she vanishes the only contact with her a
00:03:15
mysterious phone call to her brother in which she says she doesn't know where she is then she disappears her car is
00:03:24
found as for our missing 18 year old Ebbie stebic no sign of her nothing let's dive back in shall we now remember
00:03:32
we talked about phone data and social media and episode one and how the investigator was confused about ebby's
00:03:40
phone and about her social media Abby's family once again tries to get involved they even offered to pay for an
00:03:48
I.T expert to help to access and analyze all of this data and then all of this only to be told that the department
00:03:57
would not accept outside help detectives also failed to obtain surveillance footage from the Walmart
00:04:03
Supercenter on Chanel Drive which could have captured Ebby and a final insult for eight months the
00:04:12
Little Rock Police Department treated the case essentially as a runaway and the case sat in the Major Crimes
00:04:19
division with virtually no movement even as late as November 2nd when Abby's family reiterated that she would not
00:04:28
have been out of contact for so long Channel 7 News in Little Rock reported that quote police tell Channel 7 they
00:04:36
believe Abby is still alive and in the area and as Michael Jernigan put it to k-a-r-k-tv quote the whole first 30 days
00:04:45
was just the cops counting on Ebby showing back up Lori echoed this sentiment saying for
00:04:53
the first part of the investigation no one was looking for her now Lori is not the type to take this
00:05:00
lying down the family hired Monty Vickers a retired 22-year Little Rock Police Department
00:05:07
detective turned private investigator to help them someone needed to care about ebby's case
00:05:15
as ex-police himself at first Vickers was hesitant to get involved in such a recent
00:05:22
active case being handled by the force he had once been a part of right but he decided he could perhaps act as a
00:05:30
go-between he doesn't want to take over the investigation he doesn't want to get
00:05:35
in the way of the investigators he thinks that they need a go-between for the parties involved to help with what
00:05:41
seemed to be a poor relationship between the police department and the jernigans
00:05:46
but when the Little Rock Police Department would not return his calls and he caught wind of the botched
00:05:53
investigation he says that was enough for him that he was now going to actively get involved
00:06:00
in the investigation yeah because a lot of these departments they hold a lot of respect for former employees so when
00:06:09
they call 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
00:06:16
record as saying such he says quote I found out pretty quickly they didn't give a damn what I had to say they
00:06:24
wouldn't call me back they basically just wouldn't talk to us to the family or to him
00:06:29
he said he charged the family one single dollar to get to work on this investigation
00:06:35
Vickers discovered that none of Abby's bank cards or accounts had been accessed in any way since she disappeared
00:06:43
that plus the fact that she would never have left without her car and all of her
00:06:48
possessions the family feared the worst even more alarming Vickers uncovered that Ebbie sent several text messages to
00:06:56
the young men she had had the encounter with at the party on the Friday before she vanished threatening to go to the
00:07:03
police and have them arrested it seems that Michael's concerns that Abby might have confronted
00:07:11
one of these boys or all of them alone might be correct right or they could have said oh she's going to go to the
00:07:19
cops and there's and she could say I have a copy of the video Let's just say she said that
00:07:26
then that gives us motive even if she's not going to confront them that gives them a reason to find her
00:07:34
right well Vickers found out who these boys were and searched the areas near their
00:07:41
homes this is for any clues as to Abby's whereabouts he came up with nothing to his dismay he discovered that the
00:07:50
police had in fact talked to these guys at some point but never looked at their phones despite the family telling the
00:07:57
police department about the rape allegations and that there may be a video what right and it's not clear if
00:08:04
they asked for the phones but we know that they didn't look at them well what we do know is the detectives on the case
00:08:11
told the family and they told Vickers the private investigator that they did not have probable cause to search the
00:08:20
phone so basically they're stating we could have asked these boys to see their phones and they said no and we
00:08:27
don't have probable cause to to search the phones Beyond them allowing us or not allowing us
00:08:34
now five months after Ebbie was last seen Vickers made arrangements to meet with guy Hooper remember he's the
00:08:41
security guard who called the police when he found a vehicle in shalomont park yeah Little Rock Police assured
00:08:51
Vickers that they had spoke to this man to the security officer so he assumed this would be just like a quick
00:08:58
confirmation that Hooper didn't know anything more than what was relayed to him from police
00:09:04
instead the meeting resulted in a 45-minute taped interview to Vicar's shock he was told by Hooper that he had
00:09:13
never been contacted by police further he told Vickers he had made a report to the police about the abandoned
00:09:20
car on Tuesday night after it had been sitting there for three days he waited for the police by the car for two to
00:09:27
three hours but the police never came the police didn't show up to take a look until two days later and even more
00:09:36
startling Hooper told Vickers that he had dash cam video of Abby and a man that she had met
00:09:45
at the park on multiple occasions Hooper had gotten fairly close to the pair in some words I guess right
00:09:54
apparently he had quote run them off several times the guard saved all of the dash cam video on his hard drive at his
00:10:03
home he finished his shift he had this dash cam and he would put this video at the
00:10:09
end of every shift on his computer at home unfortunately his computer had died and
00:10:16
this took place in January of 2016 and the computer could not be fixed so it was thrown out
00:10:22
all of this potential dash cam surveillance footage went with the computer it's gone
00:10:31
it's gone because nobody nobody thought to reach out to this guy and in fact the
00:10:37
private investigator working for the family he was a little slow to reach out to him too because he had already been
00:10:42
told by his old buddies at the police department that they they spoke to this guy while Vickers was trying to dig up
00:10:49
any evidence and clues Lori and Michael receive some assistance from an organization called Halos investigations
00:10:57
this is a private Mississippi firm that looks into cases of missing or trafficked kids
00:11:04
Halos volunteers scoured the internet for photos of Abby in the event that she was trafficked
00:11:10
they also conducted a search of the Charlemont Park Woods assisted by the Little Rock Police Department
00:11:17
this is four months after Abby vanished the organization also helped with publishing the case sending ebby's
00:11:25
missing persons poster to hospitals and police stations all over the country in case she turned up somewhere
00:11:33
the case manager for Halos Tina stores said her form often sees cases of missing kids that police have dismissed
00:11:41
as runaways as they seem to have here to her it didn't look like Abby left voluntarily meanwhile the jernigans were
00:11:50
being inundated with all sorts of hoax messages false alarms and Facebook pranks where people claim to be Ebbie
00:11:58
but some of these were enough to point them in the direction of sex trafficking some emails were sent to the family
00:12:06
showing that Abby was sold for twenty five thousand dollars people claim to have seen her on
00:12:12
Backpage and Craigslist Lori began to realize that this threat was very real right Sergeant Alan Hamby
00:12:20
with the vice unit told Little Rock's THV 11 that his detectives handle reports of human and sex trafficking
00:12:28
every single day but he still didn't seem to feel a sense of urgency about ebby's case despite her parents real
00:12:36
concerns he said quote we're going to try everything we can to help them find her and locate her and see if she wants
00:12:43
to be found we don't know that finally about six months after Abby was last heard from the relationship between
00:12:52
the jernigans and the Little Rock Police Department it became toxic this is as stated by ay magazine
00:13:00
they continue to treat Ebby as a runaway Major Crimes detectives refused to get warrants for the phones of the young men
00:13:08
allegedly involved in the incident involving Abby at the party the Little Rock PD did not seem to
00:13:16
appreciate the involvement of the private investigator or of halos or of anyone else and wouldn't budge on
00:13:23
investigating the case as a possible abduction or something worse well basically what they were saying is we're
00:13:29
going to sit on our fat asses right and unless the case gets solved by somebody else or the information comes
00:13:37
to us we're not going to do anything yeah and you know what I think we have here captain and I can't say this with
00:13:44
100 certainty but I feel very confident saying this I feel like in this situation we
00:13:50
probably have two detectives that are sitting as you put it sitting on their fat asses and choosing not to do
00:13:58
anything yeah sitting on their thumbs and spinning and I feel like when we when we talk about this case when we
00:14:04
tell this story we cannot tell it without telling these mishandlings of the case however I think that these two
00:14:11
detectives make the whole department have a bad name and probably undeservingly so you
00:14:18
know there's probably a lot of good officers with inside of this department and for whatever reason the jernigans
00:14:24
just got extremely unlucky that when the phone rang that day and the call came in
00:14:30
it went to this detective's desk and him and this guy worked it and they didn't really work it you can't say they worked
00:14:39
I guess I shouldn't and like I said like and here's what they refuse to work yeah
00:14:43
yeah here's what is funny though is because when we're talking about the case last week
00:14:48
I kept on trying to come up with reasons and and try to go well maybe they're going through a divorce maybe there's
00:14:55
bad things in their life happening maybe uh maybe they knew people at the party maybe they didn't want you know I mean
00:15:02
like I was trying to come up with all these reasons but after a week and the constant neglect it's like these
00:15:09
are the guys that sit in their office all day farting in their chair and then when they get up to get coffee come back
00:15:15
they 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
00:15:21
and that's not out of bounds that wouldn't be out of bounds are you talking about there's a
00:15:26
potential here for some type of cover-up that maybe we have people that should be
00:15:32
looked into that was at this party but it it almost seems like these investigators are choosing not to look
00:15:39
in that direction for whatever reason right like they're connected to somebody at that party but then at the end of the
00:15:44
day when you really look at this thing you see that they're choosing not to look in any direction at all and so it
00:15:51
to me it doesn't feel so much like a cover-up it feels more like hold on here here's the reason why there's a couple
00:15:56
guys that are bad at their job yeah seat sniffers but here's where it makes it feel like a cover-up
00:16:03
because the what do we know that the lead seems so obvious right because yes the motive
00:16:09
seems obvious and then we go we got these individuals yes we talked to them uh but there's no probable cause so we
00:16:18
can't get this information well they're not looking anywhere else right okay so the first place you looked you stopped
00:16:24
looking after that so do you know what happened do you know somebody at that party that makes it seem more likely to
00:16:31
me that it's a cover-up well right and when they are pressured when they are pushed and pressured to give some kind
00:16:38
of theory or some kind of answer to somebody look they feel like they need to give an answer to the media he says
00:16:45
we're going to try everything we can to help find her to help locate her and see
00:16:51
if she wants to be found they're still pointing to the idea that she just took off on her own
00:16:58
yeah and if I was the family I'd be going not only did she want to be found she actually wanted to go to the police
00:17:04
department to press charges against these these douche nozzles you know right well
00:17:10
around this time Lori lost it and she started writing letters to the chief of police the the head of the major crimes
00:17:19
division the mayor of Little Rock the governor of Arkansas and anyone else that she could think of so she's not
00:17:26
going to let it be the the buck stops with this guy that's not helping our case at all I'm going to your bosses I'm
00:17:33
going to the higher ups and I'm going to get some people involved and see what they think of this situation
00:17:39
A Little Rock Police Department their representatives agreed to meet with the family and at this meeting Major Crimes
00:17:48
division head Captain Mike Davis again denied that they had probable cause to search the young men's phones telling
00:17:55
Lori that quote there's probable cause when we say there's probable cause yeah when she's pushing for them to look into
00:18:04
these phones and they're they're not budging yeah but obviously that's not the way the law works but start with the
00:18:11
idea that you ask these individuals and they denied it and I don't think that has been reported
00:18:18
and so it's like do that but also if they would have had any social media contact or
00:18:26
or any of the information from her phone I guarantee you there was text messages
00:18:31
back and forth and if you could if you could have got that information that would have gave you the probable cause
00:18:39
yeah and remember I do want to Circle back to the idea that police were or at least these investigators
00:18:48
were insinuating that Michael that The Stepfather perhaps was responsible for ebby's disappearance again this is a
00:18:58
situation where you only see them putting forth a different Theory they keep reminding the media and everybody
00:19:03
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 to come
00:19:10
back or she'll probably turn up on her own but then when when pressured and pushed again here now we have to come up
00:19:17
with a different Theory and oh we want to remind you family who's now breathing down our necks and writing letters to
00:19:23
the higher ups maybe Michael is the one responsible for her disappearance yeah oh okay which one is it which one is it
00:19:33
do you think that there is Foul Play involved in this thing or do you think that she just walked off on her own it
00:19:38
seems weird now they did push the jernigans to take a lie detector test you have to wonder if part of this is
00:19:45
actual investigation or if it's more of a interrogation yeah let's let's scare them to leave us alone
00:19:54
yeah they were not willing to take these tests which the investigator is going to point out
00:20:01
that that makes them look to be guilty they are going to point out the jernigans are going to point out and say
00:20:07
we don't know what these what this officer is doing we don't know what this investigator is up to
00:20:14
we we don't feel like comfortable doing a lie detector test right again again we
00:20:22
don't know their connection if there is a connection to any of the guys at this party and if there is and that and there
00:20:29
is a cover-up then what better thing to do to go well they failed the lie detector and you can't prove that in the
00:20:36
court of law so you can't charge the family no but it gives enough suspicion in the media where they go well we
00:20:43
shouldn't be looking at these guys anymore we should be looking at the family right and and with their point
00:20:47
people with their contacts there at the police department being what they deemed
00:20:53
what the jernigans deemed untrustworthy they're not in trade going to trust the department itself and you're not going
00:21:02
to take a test with with the Department you do not trust yeah and this is when you
00:21:07
Pony up and hire an attorney you've already got the private investigator but now you got to start watching out for
00:21:13
your own back oh well at this point I'm hiring another private investigator also
00:21:18
one that's not connected to that department but I like lie detector tests I I don't
00:21:25
you know lean on them too much I like them but in their case there's no win because even if you pass well lie
00:21:36
detectors don't mean anything that's yeah it only means something if the person fails so there's really no win on
00:21:43
taking one well and if they fail we've talked about the false false positives that can come about when a parent
00:21:52
is interrogated when a parent is is questioned and the and right and the reason why is because there's so much
00:21:58
stress so they even say after uh you know event of a kid going missing or a murder that's close to you that it takes
00:22:08
months for that stress to come down enough for you to be able to take a test where it
00:22:14
possibly will read correctly and I know it doesn't seem like we were heading in this direction Captain but let me tell
00:22:21
you as far as this story in this case goes better times are ahead and it's right around this time after
00:22:29
the family retained an attorney that to everyone surprised the FBI voluntarily joined the case although
00:22:37
there was no federal jurisdiction or Interstate crime alleged well here's what happened somebody probably read
00:22:43
about the case and went uh there's some morons down there and we needed to investigate this well but keep in mind
00:22:50
she's by this time wrote letters to the governor right to the mayor she's gotten
00:22:56
other people involved in this thing so who knows who called who made that phone call and put the FBI there what we do
00:23:04
have is Little Rock Police Department their public affairs division refused to comment on whether this was an
00:23:11
indication that the case had been badly mishandled from the start Vickers the private investigator he gave the feds
00:23:18
his files but of course possible crucial evidence like the dash cam videos cell phone tower pings social
00:23:26
media posts forensic evidence in the Passat in the vehicle and who knows what else
00:23:32
this stuff's already lost and gone right all of this seems to have gave the police department a nice swift
00:23:40
kick in the pants right a much needed kick in the pants right in the grundle eight months after Ebby was last seen
00:23:48
the case was reassigned to the homicide unit under detective Tommy Hudson this showed that there was going to be a
00:23:57
fresh start although the case was still technically classified a missing person's case
00:24:03
Laurie also received a personal telephone apology from assistant chief Wayne bullion
00:24:10
he pledged to work better with the family Lori said he was a man with Integrity whom she felt she could trust
00:24:19
finally she could feel confident that someone with authority was on her side at the end of 2016 an official three-day
00:24:28
search was conducted for clues in The Disappearance of Evy stebic this search was in addition to those conducted by
00:24:35
Halos and Volunteers in the past the search which lasted from November 29th to December 1st involved family members
00:24:44
the Little Rock Police Department volunteers from the national Center for missing and exploited children and
00:24:50
cadaver dogs the area searched included the wooded areas of Shalimar Park where ebby's car was located nothing was found
00:25:01
foreign [Music] [Music] we're back everybody uh sniff your seats cheers by mid 2017 private investigator Vickers
00:25:29
was in poor health so the family hired TJ Ward a private investigator based in Atlanta who worked on high profile cases
00:25:38
like Natalie Holloway Ward came on in October of 2017. this is two years after Ebby vanished the
00:25:47
jernigans hopes were bolstered by occasional leads in the case that did lead somewhere although always leading
00:25:55
to other missing girls detective Hudson's perseverance following up on leads led to finding two other women who
00:26:03
were sold as sex slaves these women were drugged to the point where they had lost all sense of
00:26:09
themselves Lori told an interviewer that if that is the choice she was facing she would
00:26:17
rather Emmy be dead than living like that one you wonder because when she talked to her brother
00:26:23
we know that he he said that she sounded intoxicated on some level so that you wonder is that because she's dealing
00:26:31
with this assault from a couple nights before and or or did somebody drug her yeah in the the fears that Abby had been
00:26:42
trafficked did persist this especially after True Crime daily covered the case in May of 2017 the show sat down with
00:26:51
guy Hooper he was the security guard who went talking to True Crime daily he made
00:26:56
some questionable allegations regarding what he claims he saw while he was working at the park
00:27:04
on June 27 2017 Little Rock PD held a press conference about new developments in
00:27:12
Ebbie stevic's case there wasn't anything to report as far as findings but the announcement was that ebby's
00:27:18
case was going to be taken over by an elite unit of semi-retired detectives who worked on only a few select older
00:27:26
cold cases the detective in charge of Abby's case was still going to be Tommy Hudson
00:27:33
now retired he would be able to dedicate almost all of his time to finding Abby he said that not All Leads had yet been
00:27:41
exhausted and detectives were still receiving the assistance of the FBI Hudson acknowledged to KARK TV that
00:27:51
quote when I got the case there were things that weren't done that should have been done on the front end
00:27:57
these included asking for the surveillance footage from Walmart by then the tapes had already been erased
00:28:05
also some key people were never interviewed he said quote I believe there's somebody out there that's in her
00:28:11
Circle in her social media Circle that may know what happened to her and hasn't come forward for whatever reason
00:28:19
it didn't help that Hudson says the original detective skipped parts of the social media search
00:28:25
Hudson also acknowledged that the case had the potential of being a homicide at this press conference the jernigans
00:28:34
announced a 50 000 reward for information leading to ebbie's location and Abby was to be featured on
00:28:41
Billboard's all over Central Arkansas the case also received publicity on Dr Phil and Nancy Grace yeah in March of
00:28:50
2018 the family is going to celebrate her 21st birthday at the celebration they well for the
00:28:57
celebration Captain they held a fundraiser party selling items commemorating Evie
00:29:03
they donated the proceeds to Partners against trafficking humans this is a Little Rock organization that supports
00:29:10
victims Laurie Jernigan went through hell in the nearly three years since her daughter
00:29:16
vanished Without a Trace there were false sightings false alarms fruitless searches baseless tips poor
00:29:24
investigative work there was the time police showed her a shoe taken off of a severed leg of a
00:29:31
female corpse found in the Arkansas River she said it did look like Evie's pink Nike tennis shoe but the leg didn't
00:29:40
belong to Abby then there was the time that the volunteer Searchers are looking for Ebby
00:29:45
in 2016 searched a wooded area in Little Rock and found a skeleton and a bag containing women's clothes and
00:29:53
a pair of handcuffs but again it wasn't heavy then Tommy Hudson his Cold Case unit issued a media release in
00:30:02
May of 2018 and it said that since June of 2017 the unit resubmitted unspecified
00:30:09
evidence to the Arkansas State Crime Lab these tests produced quote some positive
00:30:15
results that led us to believe that we need to search the area of Charlemont park again
00:30:21
this was combined with the fact that investigators in the unit had quote run through some scenarios about what could
00:30:28
have happened to Ebby and they arrived at the conclusion that they really needed to revisit the area where her car
00:30:34
was found they decided to conduct a search of the piping and drainage systems close to
00:30:42
where her car was found ebby's car was found parked in a paved lot in the park within feet of a storm sewer and they
00:30:50
wanted to search this so police Enlisted the assistance of the Public's works department to send robots
00:30:57
equipped with video cameras down the drain located right near Evie's car this is a storm drain the kind that is
00:31:05
rectangular in shape opening between the sidewalk and the street that led to underground pipes
00:31:12
a manhole on the sidewalk provided access to the pipe the pipe had two openings not far apart in the park one
00:31:21
opening was in one side of the parking lot near ebby's car then it ran underneath a landscaped area
00:31:28
of plantings and trees and the other end emerged in a different part of what is a U-shaped parking lot
00:31:36
so this other opening is opposite where ebby's car was parked so they're sending
00:31:42
robots down the drain with camera equipment on them correct and they first go down the drain that was nearest
00:31:50
ebbie's car now at this location they hit an obstruction about 70 feet down when they ran the robots down the other
00:31:59
end of the drain they hit an obstruction 130 feet down investigators decided to excavate to see
00:32:07
what was inside the pipe on May 22nd 2018 the diggers were called in and they dug up the pipe
00:32:16
in the area between the obstructions human remains were found the excavation was halted the family
00:32:23
notified a new crime scene area was designated and the FBI evidence recovery team was brought in
00:32:30
according to the media release new evidence was also found inside the piping system
00:32:36
The Remains were found not 50 feet from a memorial for Abby and just feet from where her car was found
00:32:43
Ebbie stebic's remains were identified as hers within 24 hours the Pulaski County coroner's office has
00:32:52
made a determination as to the cause of death but that information has not been released the case is considered an open
00:32:59
homicide investigation and once they find her remains there's gonna be several people that come forward and say
00:33:07
hey we actually tried to report this to the detectives yeah so I mean really truly it was
00:33:13
mind-boggling that Abby wasn't found prior to this final search right because every time that anyone was there looking
00:33:23
searching the park even with cadaver dogs she had been right there and there were several times her mom
00:33:30
speaking to TV cameras in connection with searches memorials and vigils for her daughter
00:33:36
she's standing right in front of that very storm drain leading to the pipe where Abby was found
00:33:42
the thing is you sit there and in hindsight you wonder how could no one have thought to investigate the storm
00:33:49
drain which was literally right under the front bumper of her car right especially if there's claims that it was
00:33:57
there was a smell coming from there as well right right and you say there was a smell well we know that there was a
00:34:03
smell that permeated the area because in fact the Little Rock Police Department had been on notice the whole time that
00:34:11
Ebby was probably in that storm drain now let's let's break this down this is because on November 3rd 2015. this is
00:34:20
just days after Abby was last heard from her friend Kaylee Foley she's one of ebby's best friends and
00:34:27
we've mentioned her already Kaylee Foley and her mother Margie went to shalamonte park this was after they
00:34:37
met with the major crimes detectives who were following up on some missing persons reports right
00:34:45
meaning Abby's right right frustrated by Abby's disappearance and the lack of information this mother and
00:34:53
daughter team decided that they were going to go and see the park for themselves they wanted to go and just
00:35:00
look around the place where Evie's car was found they parked in the same parking lot
00:35:06
where Evie's car was located and they started just looking around and then Margie says as they walked by the
00:35:14
drainage pipe area they both smelled something terrible so she called 9-1-1 to report the smell
00:35:22
and she doesn't call 9-1-1 and Report like a terrible smell she calls 9-1-1 and says I smell decomposition
00:35:31
and an article appearing in May of 2018 thv11 printed the contents of that 911 call to the Pulaski County Sheriff's
00:35:45
Office it says and this is Margie talking says I just came out of a meeting with
00:35:51
Detective Williams in regards to a missing person named Ebbie stevik I brought my daughter who's a friend of
00:35:58
hers we just started walking around here and I smelled decomposition I just called his phone meaning
00:36:05
Detective Williams right he didn't call me back could you send somebody here to investigate
00:36:12
the sheriff's office then called Little Rock Police Department they needed to relay this information
00:36:20
the dispatcher waited for more than two minutes for a supervisor to come to the phone before the line goes dead
00:36:27
the dispatcher called again and spoke to a different dispatcher before speaking with an
00:36:33
unidentified woman that's when the information was relayed she says she smelled something terrible she says
00:36:42
she smelled decomposition and she's worried that this might be related to the case that she just spoke to you
00:36:47
about Margie Foley claims she called police at least three times leaving phone messages
00:36:53
for the investigator in charge of the case she says more than an hour passed before the police department officers
00:37:01
showed up at the scene and she says I was kind of dismissed by them she told this to a reporter when she
00:37:09
explained what officers said to her at the scene she said they told me this park has gone through with some it's
00:37:14
been gone through with some dogs and they would have picked up on that scent they would have picked up on that if it
00:37:21
was important to our case right what your smelling lady must be a dead animal or something
00:37:27
she said that the officers did look into the storm drain with flashlights but then they told her you're smelling
00:37:35
sewage right later she would say it just makes me physically ill thinking that the girl
00:37:42
that I had in my home had taken in was decaying down there and that's what she said she smelled and
00:37:50
nobody did anything for three years they just left her there Margie Foley says she also reported her
00:37:56
story about the odor wafting up from the storm drain to officers conducting the search of the park in late
00:38:05
November of 2016. and again nothing came of her reports Lori Jernigan in response to learning
00:38:13
she's just now learning after her daughter's remains are found right she's just now learning about these 9-1-1
00:38:20
calls she says in response to these calls that she could have had closure within
00:38:28
days not years of what went on in her daughter's case well not to mention that one of the
00:38:35
leads or one of the Avenues rabbit holes that you have to go down is that possibly shoot that she's abducted and
00:38:42
put into sex trafficking and so she's thinking that possibly that her daughter is being tortured for years
00:38:51
it's unbelievable it's Unforgivable yeah and here's the thing the reason why I mean I kind of went through the long
00:38:59
version of parts of that story and that you might not find in that detail elsewhere
00:39:07
but the thing that I really wanted to hone in on and reiterate very strongly was this was not a case of where a woman
00:39:15
says she found a came across a strange smell right and just simply called 9-1-1 and left it at that no she called and
00:39:24
left a message for the detective that she just spoke to she went and spoke to that detective in person and I believe
00:39:30
it was at his request and so afterwards she leaves his office with her daughter they go to the park
00:39:37
and she's saying look I I believe this might be in relationship to the case that we just spoke about right and this
00:39:46
is I don't know it's just it just seems like there was so much opportunity to not
00:39:52
miss this step and somehow they still managed to do so yeah it's it's pathetic it's absolutely pathetic and
00:40:04
it's law enforcement and detectives like this that give the good guys a bad name
00:40:12
right and the thing too um is the Walmart the possible footage that they could have come up with from
00:40:19
that Walmart Super Center yeah this one of the routes that somebody would have to take to that park or to leave
00:40:30
that Park they don't have to go by the Walmart but one of a chosen route could Lead You
00:40:37
past that Walmart right either on your way in or your way out of the park or both now they could have come across
00:40:44
surveillance footage that could have been extremely helpful to this investigation
00:40:50
there's I don't know the distance between the cameras and the road but we know that her car was found in
00:40:57
that Park and we know look this is not this is not hard man this is not rocket science
00:41:04
the officers the investigators would know there's a Walmart down the street maybe we should go over there and check
00:41:10
their footage they could have seen a vehicle following hers or leading hers or you could even go all right well we
00:41:19
we sold 10 vehicles at this time through through the next hour or two right uh maybe we should look into those
00:41:27
Vehicles you know there was all kinds of leads that weren't followed up upon that
00:41:32
were just missed in the beginning and then the case essentially it ends up with the Cold Case detectives because it
00:41:38
went cold because it was not worked and that's really the sad sick truth of of this and and what's what's even terrible
00:41:47
it may be even more terrible we we're sitting here today analyzing the case and the story and the investigation and
00:41:54
the investigation in the early stages was so bad it almost overshadows the this young
00:42:00
woman got murdered right and that's not solved it's not solved there's some very
00:42:06
good leads there I do want to I do want to throw out a possible silver lining it seems to me I couldn't find any
00:42:16
anything printed with these four boys or men or whoever they were at this party [ __ ] bags or what what they may have
00:42:26
done to Abby what their level of involvement in that crime was right or what their level of involvement is with
00:42:34
her disappearance and murder I couldn't find that what what I do believe though is even
00:42:41
though that that's not out there based off of the private investigators we had two throughout the duration of of this
00:42:49
case and through some of the words that that are said and chosen to be chose to be
00:42:55
used in statements given to the media it seems to me Captain like those persons are probably known to the
00:43:04
investigators yeah that's good but because I mean we have them on record stating we spoke to
00:43:12
these guys they wouldn't let us see their phones we didn't have profitable calls to get a search warrant and we
00:43:17
have the family complaining you should have got a damn search warrant and searched their phone so it seems It's
00:43:22
not like these these men are Mystery Men they're they're known to to investigate
00:43:28
right but the things to connect the dots and build a case against them they're lost probably gone so now it just
00:43:33
becomes Dust in the Wind does one of these guys one day you know does he grow a pair of balls and say hey you know
00:43:40
what this thing happened and yes I saw the video and I also heard rumors or no for a fact that somebody's responsible
00:43:48
for her death but it'll take somebody that seems like a [ __ ] bag to step up to
00:43:54
the plate and be a man and what it comes down to is the the law enforcement didn't take the
00:44:02
initial claims of sexual assault serious at the beginning and then didn't take that a step further
00:44:09
once she went missing and it's and it's actually it's so it's pathetic and then the again the torture
00:44:16
that they put the family through that's pathetic yeah and it's like and then but
00:44:21
the question to me is it because you're lazy and stupid and you're a [ __ ] or or
00:44:27
did you start talking did you start doing some did you actually do some investigation and realize that somebody
00:44:33
you knew was involved in this so are you choosing to be stupid or or is this a cover-up and what's so sad is it seems
00:44:42
like these guys just got to keep their jobs and nothing happened to them and there's you know nothing done uh yeah we
00:44:49
apologized we put new people on the case but that doesn't uncover evidence that should have been
00:44:57
uncovered to begin with an apology doesn't do much it doesn't correct what the the past misdealings of What
00:45:07
What In the End will be looked upon as the misdealings of the entire police department right when I and what it does
00:45:15
do is I am happy that at some point they realize somebody realized yeah that this
00:45:23
isn't working out it's our fault even though they've not publicly claimed any any blame
00:45:30
we we have to take this in a different direction or or we're never going to get anywhere
00:45:37
with this so I I you know it's as angry as you get with them and as as pissed off as you get for the missteps early on
00:45:46
they did at some point recognize that there was a problem and they pivoted from that well and I hate to sound like
00:45:53
I'm on a soapbox but it just seems to me not just this law enforcement but Society in general if we took sexual
00:46:01
assault claims more serious than we'd have way more information and would know who was
00:46:07
responsible for the assault and we would know probably who's responsible for her
00:46:12
murder after ebby's remains were found Lori and Michael Jernigan released a public
00:46:17
statement which reads every story over the past 30 plus months has touched Many Lives Many have seen the beauty in her
00:46:25
eyes that revealed a deep passion and care for others so it is only fitting that the search to find Abby has sparked
00:46:32
open conversations and brought a heightened awareness to missing children and young adults the existence of sex
00:46:39
trafficking along with the need for improved policies and processes within the law enforcement community in these
00:46:46
areas her story has touched many in ways that she could not have ever imagined at
00:46:53
her funeral several speakers addressed the positives that have come out of her case before her funeral the family
00:47:00
requested that instead of sending flowers people who wanted to show support should send donations to Halo's
00:47:07
investigations or path instead one of the final family speakers was ebby's Father Peter stevik who read his last
00:47:16
letter to Ebbie and said quote as I close the last love letter from a dad to his daughter I need you to know it was
00:47:24
an honor to know you and to spend time with you and another tragic turn of events for the Jernigan family Abby's
00:47:32
brother Trevor passed away suddenly from a heart attack he died at the young age
00:47:36
of 35. thank you I want to thank everybody for joining us in the garage and thank you so much for
00:47:49
sharing our show on social media and thank you to you Captain all right thanks to everybody join us back here in
00:47:56
the garage next week until then be good be kind and don't live thank you [Music]