Speaker 1: School of Humans. On May twenty fourth, twenty eighteen, police
Speaker 1: went back and did another search of Shalamont Park. That's
Speaker 1: when they found Ebby's body. Now, for the first time,
Speaker 1: there was a crime scene. I remember back in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: I was driving between Little Rock and the Ozarks and
Speaker 1: I was deep into my investigation of Rebecca Gould's case,
Speaker 1: the case we covered in the first season of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Like everyone else in the state of Arkansas, I had
Speaker 1: heard about Ebbie's case when it happened. When I saw
Speaker 1: in the news that her remains were found, I remember
Speaker 1: feeling not exactly happy, but I definitely felt hopeful for
Speaker 1: her family. I thought, maybe now the investigation can stop
Speaker 1: being such a wild goose chase and they can finally
Speaker 1: get some answers and some justice. But since Ebbie's body
Speaker 1: was found, there have been major developments. It's twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two now. Officially this is still an open and active investigation. Unofficially,
Speaker 1: the case appears to have gone stone cold. We're still
Speaker 1: stuck in the same cycle, hearing the same rumors and
Speaker 1: the same narrative that we were hearing back in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: that there are multiple people of interest that no one
Speaker 1: has been ruled out and no one has been ruled in.
Speaker 1: This has been extremely frustrating for Ebby's family. Why are
Speaker 1: they on the radar? Don't just say on the radar?
Speaker 1: Why are they still on there? Once again, I have
Speaker 1: some people telling me to leave things up to law enforcement,
Speaker 1: and I know from experience that once you start digging
Speaker 1: up dark secrets, life can get messy and complicated for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. But I also know from experience
Speaker 1: that sometimes digging is the only way to get answers
Speaker 1: and justice. It's time to stir things up. I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 1: This is hell and Gone. Mike and I have been
Speaker 1: a Little Rock for a couple of days, and we're
Speaker 1: trying to get information about an open case. I've talked
Speaker 1: to Detective Tommy Hudson several times. Tommy is the detective
Speaker 1: who's responsible for organizing the search inside the drain pipes
Speaker 1: in the park where Abby's body was discovered in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: But it's pretty clear that police will not release any
Speaker 1: information about the evidence they have so far, about any
Speaker 1: potential suspects, or really anything else. Tommy retired from the
Speaker 1: Little Rock Police Department in September twenty twenty one, and
Speaker 1: when that happened, Ebby's case went to a new detective.
Speaker 1: His name is Bruce Maxwell. Record your message at the
Speaker 1: tone when you were finished, hang up or press pound
Speaker 1: for more options. Hi, Bruce, this is Katherine Townsend. I've
Speaker 1: been working on a podcast about Ebbie steps. We're waiting
Speaker 1: on a callback from Bruce to touch base and let
Speaker 1: him know what we're doing, and also to see if
Speaker 1: we can find out anything from him. But first we
Speaker 1: agree we need to take a more detailed look at
Speaker 1: the crime scene. Mike and I head back to Chalamont Park.
Speaker 1: The drain where Ebby was found is a storm drain.
Speaker 1: It's used to drain water when it rains so the
Speaker 1: part doesn't flood. It looks pretty normal. There's an opening
Speaker 1: at the curb about five feet long for the water
Speaker 1: to fall through, and then there's a manhole cover at
Speaker 1: the top. Laurie meets us there are you. Thank you
Speaker 1: to me for you to have to rush over. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Oh no, I wasn't very far away. She gets her husband,
Speaker 1: Ebbie's stepdad Michael, on the phone. He's helping direct us.
Speaker 1: Crawling down here and there's not it's it's sort of
Speaker 1: a you got to figure out how to grab that.
Speaker 1: You gotta lower yourself in it, push your feet on
Speaker 1: the little things. I see the little thing. I climbed
Speaker 1: down the rungs on the side of the drain and
Speaker 1: I get to the bottom about eighteen feet down. Who
Speaker 1: all right, Hey, we're down. The floor of the drain
Speaker 1: is covered in leaves. And once you're down here, you
Speaker 1: can see the opening to another pipe. But you can't
Speaker 1: see this from the top. What does it look great?
Speaker 1: Down there? It is a I would say about half
Speaker 1: of me's three foot opening. Sorry, my voice is shaking.
Speaker 1: It's because I actually am scared. But I'll be fineful,
Speaker 1: I'll come down there with you. I'll want to go
Speaker 1: look at something. Okay, just once that, Mike, let me
Speaker 1: try to get the light on. Mike and I look
Speaker 1: into the pipe. The opening is only about thirteen inches across.
Speaker 1: It's about one and a half my body length that
Speaker 1: I was thinking if I was to try to go
Speaker 1: in there two which is that's gonna be right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's close to eight nine feet before before that turn.
Speaker 1: I would say it's about like I could definitely crawl
Speaker 1: in here. But I'm not sure. I couldn't turn around
Speaker 1: to come back out. Yeah, you don't have to get
Speaker 1: pulled out, and I could slide, and then what are
Speaker 1: we gonna do. You're gonna buy me a lot of therapy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll be out of there. And even though I really
Speaker 1: don't want to, I crawl into the pipe, I squeeze
Speaker 1: my shoulders into the pipe. But then after that, once
Speaker 1: my shoulders cleared, I can't move my arms down here.
Speaker 1: You can really tell that the pipe ankles down and
Speaker 1: even on a dry day it's slippery. Mike has to
Speaker 1: grab my ankles to pull me out. I also try
Speaker 1: going in feet first in the pipe. I can't. My
Speaker 1: arms are out. If I put my arms like Superman
Speaker 1: like forward, I don't know if I'm gonna be able
Speaker 1: to pull myself out of here. In fact, I'm sure
Speaker 1: that I can't. If I was on my own down here,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid that I could have slid farther down. When
Speaker 1: it's slick with water analogy and stow. It's just like
Speaker 1: a little it's like a slid, a slide. It's downward sloping.
Speaker 1: It If you pushed me down there and there was
Speaker 1: water and stuff, it would be easy to do despite
Speaker 1: my claustrophobia. It was super important to come down here
Speaker 1: because one thing becomes clear. There is no way that
Speaker 1: Ebbie could have accidentally fallen into this pipe from the top.
Speaker 1: But also if someone had just dropped something here. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna be so like if someone dropped something here,
Speaker 1: it's not going to naturally go in there. It would
Speaker 1: be like just what I just did. Before we leave
Speaker 1: Schalamont Park, Laurie makes another call to try and get
Speaker 1: in touch with the detective Bruce Maxwell. Hey, Bruce, please
Speaker 1: call me back as soon as you can. I have
Speaker 1: some stuff I really need to tell you about. Thank you, Tiding.
Speaker 1: The police believe that Ebby's body was in the pipe
Speaker 1: the entire time since she went missing in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: That means two and a half years of water and
Speaker 1: rain coming through that drain, pushing her body further down.
Speaker 1: Forensics on a case like this, where a body has
Speaker 1: been exposed to the elements for years, can make determining
Speaker 1: manner of death more complicated. I called up a forensics expert,
Speaker 1: Vadal Herrera. We are the rogie dangerous field of medicine.
Speaker 1: We didn't get any respect. This is a thankless profession.
Speaker 1: It never stops. Vadal has been working in the death
Speaker 1: care industry for almost fifty years. He was a deputy
Speaker 1: medical investigator in LA and in nineteen eighty eight he
Speaker 1: founded the company one eight hundred Autopsy. The company provides
Speaker 1: access to a network of professionals you can perform autopsies
Speaker 1: and offer second opinions in cases where families are dealing
Speaker 1: with a mysterious death. Its motto is the deceased must
Speaker 1: be protected and given a voice. Every death has its
Speaker 1: unique story and circumstances. So we're only concerned about the
Speaker 1: body because you've get so many different stories from different ages,
Speaker 1: is different witnesses, and a lot of times they only
Speaker 1: want to tell you what they want you to hear.
Speaker 1: The body will tell you what happens. I told Vidal
Speaker 1: about Ebby, And in a case like this, where it's
Speaker 1: been years, the body will likely have very little helpful
Speaker 1: forensic evidence because it's going to be washed away. It's
Speaker 1: going to be eaten away. I don't know how much
Speaker 1: clothing in there work. And yet to take me into consideration,
Speaker 1: the climates under storms, tornadoes, you have rain, you have snow,
Speaker 1: and then you have carnivorous creatures, the razorbacks, the wild animals, rodents, maggots.
Speaker 1: What about toxicology, I mean, is there any toxicology you
Speaker 1: can do after that long? The only toxicology could do
Speaker 1: is is in her bone marrow. If she has some
Speaker 1: hair left, you can also do the toxicology and the hair.
Speaker 1: When you do toxicology, it's a history of drugs. Just
Speaker 1: now what she ingested. You know, twenty fours before that,
Speaker 1: she may have injecting her inhaling or something. It would
Speaker 1: be in her hair and in her in her bone marrow.
Speaker 1: Because there's nose, there's no viable tissue left after that time.
Speaker 1: Mostly like that, the creatures ate and ate it off.
Speaker 1: And when someone calls you, if this was a call
Speaker 1: right and her family calls you for a second opinion,
Speaker 1: what steps would you recommend that someone takes. Usually what
Speaker 1: we do is are asking, why do you want a
Speaker 1: second opinion? Well, I can't sleep, I can't rest. So
Speaker 1: then when they go over the details of the informa
Speaker 1: like this, just say, if the mother would have called me,
Speaker 1: I would have said, honestly, ma'am, there's really nothing we
Speaker 1: can do. Thank god that she was identified but right
Speaker 1: now there's really no tissue remaining. It's going to answer
Speaker 1: your question as to why she died, her circumstances, where
Speaker 1: her body was located. That Morris was going to say
Speaker 1: a lot in itself, but in pashysicality of something viable
Speaker 1: to collect, it's not there. Since we don't have access
Speaker 1: to Ebbie's case file, we can't see her autopsy report
Speaker 1: or any information about the state of the body and
Speaker 1: the crime scene where she was found. Officially, we don't
Speaker 1: have any forensic information or any determination on the manner
Speaker 1: or cause of death. Videll says he's run across plenty
Speaker 1: of cases like this before that transparency. After six months,
Speaker 1: every record should be available for them to say it's
Speaker 1: under investigation. That's fucking bullshit. That's unacceptable. During one of
Speaker 1: our interviews at Laurie's house, Mike and I asked about
Speaker 1: what she and Ebbie's stepdad, Michael knew about the forensics
Speaker 1: of the case. I went down with Tommy Hudson and Peter,
Speaker 1: her dad, and met with the corner. They gave us
Speaker 1: some information that wouldn't give us everything. They won't. They
Speaker 1: won't tell us all the specifics. They did tell us.
Speaker 1: There were certain things ruled out, and then there were
Speaker 1: things that they wouldn't disclose Tommy, and then wouldn't tell us,
Speaker 1: wouldn't tell me the position of the body, you know,
Speaker 1: head first, she's first up down, none of that. He
Speaker 1: said also that that's for the killer to know. And
Speaker 1: did they tell you if they ruled they said the
Speaker 1: manner of death was homicide. I believe that's what's on
Speaker 1: the death certificate, is homicide, but I think it's also
Speaker 1: listened as undetermined. Manner of death has a few options
Speaker 1: natural accidental suicide or homicide. There's also undetermined, meaning that
Speaker 1: everything could still be on the table, including the possibility
Speaker 1: that Ebby crawled down in that pipe herself. But if
Speaker 1: we believe that Ebby crawled down the drain herself, she
Speaker 1: would also have to close that very heavy manhole cover
Speaker 1: over her. When we were at Chalmont Park, Michael told
Speaker 1: us about a re enactment that the FBI did at
Speaker 1: the scene. The girl that did the reenactment part for
Speaker 1: the MPI got down in there in all the different
Speaker 1: ways that we're talking about, but they also put the
Speaker 1: cover back on it. During this FBI recreation, they had
Speaker 1: a female agent who was about Ebby's height and weight
Speaker 1: try to get down into that pipe. The agent and
Speaker 1: the recreation was able to close the manhole cover, but
Speaker 1: it was tough, and this was in broad daylight. But
Speaker 1: from the phone call with Trevor, we know that Ebby
Speaker 1: was extremely disoriented, and it was after five pm. Sundown
Speaker 1: was at six twenty three pm that day, so it
Speaker 1: would have been getting dark or pitch black. And even
Speaker 1: if Ebbie could have crawled down and covered the manhole somehow,
Speaker 1: why would she. Was she trying to hide from someone
Speaker 1: or was she there alone. One part of this case
Speaker 1: that's never been fully covered in the public is Ebby's
Speaker 1: mental health issues. Her family tells us that she was
Speaker 1: diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that she had gone off
Speaker 1: her medication in the past. She was also prescribed two
Speaker 1: other drugs which she was taking for medical conditions that
Speaker 1: were unrelated to bipolar disorder. Because Ebby's brother Trevor said
Speaker 1: that she was slurring her words and appeared to be
Speaker 1: really intoxicated during their last phone conversation, we do have
Speaker 1: to consider the possibility that she could have been affected
Speaker 1: by mixing her medication with possibly another drug or drinking alcohol.
Speaker 1: People experiencing bi polar disorder can experience paranoia and audio
Speaker 1: and visual hallucinations, but Laurie says that to her knowledge,
Speaker 1: Ebbie never experienced that. Ebbie had been dealing with bipolar
Speaker 1: disorder and exhibiting erratic behavior for a long time, but
Speaker 1: she did have certain patterns. For example, Ebbie always had
Speaker 1: her phone with her, so why would she leave it behind?
Speaker 1: And even with her nomadic lifestyle, she was always with
Speaker 1: people like Danielle, or with her grandparents or Trevor or
Speaker 1: other friends. She was in constant contact with people, So
Speaker 1: why would she go to Chalamont Park alone? Here's Danielle.
Speaker 1: There was no reason for her to go sit in
Speaker 1: a park by herself at night. Ebbie wasn't the type
Speaker 1: of person, Hey let me just go sit in this
Speaker 1: park for a little bit. The way that I think
Speaker 1: she went there with intentions of meeting someone she knew. Listen, Ei,
Speaker 1: he had a strong personality. But she wasn't stupid. She
Speaker 1: she is very very smart. And for her to just think, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: let me go sit in a park at night, no
Speaker 1: like that, that's just that's so out of the ordinary
Speaker 1: for me to even I couldn't even process that through
Speaker 1: my head. Even if she would have told me I'm
Speaker 1: going to go sit in a park at night by myself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, no're you're too smart for that, Like I
Speaker 1: know you would I do at Almost everyone we've talked
Speaker 1: to thinks it's extremely unlikely that Ebbie could have gone
Speaker 1: down in that pipe herself. Even Tommy Hudson, the detective
Speaker 1: who investigated the case for years. I asked him point
Speaker 1: blank about the manner of death, and I know you're
Speaker 1: not releasing the cause of death, but did you is it?
Speaker 1: Is it manner of death homicide or manner of death undetermined?
Speaker 1: I will say, okay, uh and and and there's just
Speaker 1: there there's a reason for that, is you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's my standard answer on the cause of death is
Speaker 1: you know, we investigate everything is a homicide until proven otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, on the people that know that as they're
Speaker 1: being a killer. And you know, so I think that
Speaker 1: needs to remain that way. People disagree with me about
Speaker 1: some people that have the police department, but then again,
Speaker 1: these are the people that have the investigation on the
Speaker 1: front end, and I don't give them that much weight.
Speaker 1: Is she didn't crawl down there by ourselves. Somebody put
Speaker 1: her down there. While we wait to see if we
Speaker 1: can get any more information from the new detective Bruce Maxwell,
Speaker 1: We're going to see if there's anything we can do
Speaker 1: to eliminate some of the suspects, because what Laurie said
Speaker 1: sticks with me. There can be twenty five people on
Speaker 1: the radar, why are they still on there? And when
Speaker 1: we talk to Tommy Hudson, he confirmed that no one
Speaker 1: has been officially ruled out. Everybody's on the radar still.
Speaker 1: So who are these multiple people of interest? First, there
Speaker 1: are the four guys she was with at the small
Speaker 1: party on Friday night. The friend who drove Ebby to
Speaker 1: the party has never been publicly identified, but we know
Speaker 1: who he is. Let's call him by his first initial C.
Speaker 1: We've also been able to identify the other guys at
Speaker 1: the party. El is the guy that Ebbie is accusing
Speaker 1: of sexual assault. L also attended Central High with Ebbie
Speaker 1: and was a talented football player. And we know that
Speaker 1: on Saturday, Ebbie was at her grandparents' house during the day.
Speaker 1: While she was there, Ebbie texted C. In that text message,
Speaker 1: Ebbie told C that she believed that El had been
Speaker 1: filming her during that sexual encounter. At that party, she
Speaker 1: asked for Elle's number. C texted her that phone number.
Speaker 1: He also texted that he had spoken to L and
Speaker 1: LL denied having a video. After Ebbie went missing, police
Speaker 1: did talk to C and L, but according to Laurie,
Speaker 1: the police only interviewed them once and their phones were
Speaker 1: not subpoena And ever since that weekend, no one else
Speaker 1: has been able to talk to them, not the web slues,
Speaker 1: not the private investigators, not the FBI, not even Tommy.
Speaker 1: When I got the case, I was never able to
Speaker 1: interviewed these guys because they'd all retained counsel. Because between
Speaker 1: the detectives that had the case prior to me getting
Speaker 1: the case, and then all the private investigators that were
Speaker 1: involved in pursuing the case at that time, along with
Speaker 1: the people that were sitting in there underwear at three
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and trying to investigate the case,
Speaker 1: it shot all those all those good interviews that you
Speaker 1: could have done with those guys on the front end
Speaker 1: to help eliminate them. Since I've left, I don't think
Speaker 1: they've still been interviewed or swab Because number one, you're
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able get to search more to
Speaker 1: get a swab. No one has been able to talk
Speaker 1: to these guys since Ebbie went missing in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: so that's what we're going to try to do. We're
Speaker 1: going to go track down See. You're going to take
Speaker 1: exit one nine. Hey, Mike, my producer, Gabby and I
Speaker 1: are all heading to See's house. We're going to get close.
Speaker 1: We're going to figure out if he's home or not.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go knock on the door and we're going
Speaker 1: to try to just talk to him. If you look
Speaker 1: at any articles about Ebbie's death, these guys, while they
Speaker 1: haven't been referred to you by name, remains suspects in
Speaker 1: the eyes of the public because their names have never
Speaker 1: publicly been cleared. Shortly after Ebbie went missing, we're told
Speaker 1: that all of the guys got lawyers, so it's impossible
Speaker 1: to get them on the phone. We're being careful because
Speaker 1: we've been warned that See and his friends could be dangerous.
Speaker 1: I've heard this before, but I take everything out here
Speaker 1: with a grain of salt, and in any case, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna let it stop me. Plus this time, I
Speaker 1: have Mike with me. When we pull up near the
Speaker 1: address we have for sea. We see a woman outside,
Speaker 1: We drive past and then turn around, and finally Mike
Speaker 1: and I get out of the car and walk over
Speaker 1: seeing anywhere. Sure. Ye, So I do a podcast called
Speaker 1: Helen Gone. We're doing every stuffic case, and so we
Speaker 1: just really just wanted to. As soon as we mentioned
Speaker 1: Ebbie's name and told her what we were working on,
Speaker 1: she knew exactly why we were there. She says she
Speaker 1: sees mom, and while she didn't want to do an
Speaker 1: official interview, she did spend around twenty minutes talking to us. No.
Speaker 1: Two great tooth grade. He could It's it's hard. You
Speaker 1: could tell she really wanted to talk but wasn't supposed to.
Speaker 1: He could feel the like pin up resentment. I was
Speaker 1: actually kind of hoping we'd run into one of his parents.
Speaker 1: Here's what happened. She let us know that he will
Speaker 1: not be talking. She said, this is something that's basically
Speaker 1: tortured them for years. There's a lot of anger toward
Speaker 1: Ebbie's family because she feels like her son was kind
Speaker 1: of thrown under the you know, thrown under the bus,
Speaker 1: and she you know, she just says, like he didn't
Speaker 1: have anything to do with it. He saw her on
Speaker 1: Friday night. He was really cooperative with her when I
Speaker 1: guess she meant probably those texts we saw where it
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I need this guy's number, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And he gave her the number, and she says he
Speaker 1: didn't talk to her at all after that Friday. Even
Speaker 1: though their names haven't been published in the media. See's
Speaker 1: mom said this has followed her son around and haunted
Speaker 1: him for years. This is clearly something that has had
Speaker 1: a massive impact on his life. His mom says he
Speaker 1: has a good job now and is on a good path.
Speaker 1: When Ebbie went missing, she said that police checked out
Speaker 1: his alibi and verified that he was either at his
Speaker 1: job or somewhere else all weekend. She said she doesn't
Speaker 1: understand why her son and his friends haven't been publicly cleared.
Speaker 1: I feel for people who are put in positions where
Speaker 1: they might not have done anything and their name gets
Speaker 1: brought up. I really do, and I've spent a lot
Speaker 1: of my time trying to get those people cleared. At
Speaker 1: the same time, you know, the reality is there's someone
Speaker 1: there's someone dead, and there's a killer out there, and
Speaker 1: it's like it sucks that people who were around at
Speaker 1: the near the time of death do have to be underscrutiny,
Speaker 1: but that's just the nature of how it is. I
Speaker 1: think it went really well. Honestly, it could have. I
Speaker 1: think it was fine. I think it was like, in
Speaker 1: a way better than talking to him, because I have
Speaker 1: a feeling he might have just shut the door in
Speaker 1: her face, and she was much more alike, yeah, sincere, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she understood why we were there. You know what else
Speaker 1: that told me though, that conversation, Like, is that so
Speaker 1: she's like, no one's coming here? Does that mean no
Speaker 1: journalist nobody has gone there? Ye talk to them, which
Speaker 1: is crazy. We can't officially clear CNL right now, but
Speaker 1: it's a step in the right direction. I keep thinking
Speaker 1: about something Tommy said that there are other people who
Speaker 1: he's even more suspicious of than the guys that Ebbie
Speaker 1: was with on Friday night. But you know, the one
Speaker 1: thing I would say in their defense is it's like
Speaker 1: I said earlier, there's there's other people that were with
Speaker 1: her way after the point that all that allegedly happened
Speaker 1: that Friday night that I'm even more suspicious of than
Speaker 1: those guys. I will say that in their defense right
Speaker 1: and uh, And we have found those people that were
Speaker 1: with her after the Friday night incident. I can track
Speaker 1: her all the way to early Sunday morning, in study
Speaker 1: afternoon when she talked to Trevor, which was the last
Speaker 1: person she talked to. You know, these guys that I
Speaker 1: talked to over night, I mean, I mean, I've told Laurie,
Speaker 1: I mean, they are some shady guys for me. Those guys,
Speaker 1: A couple of those guys, one of particulars really on
Speaker 1: my radar. Who were these other guys? We need to
Speaker 1: find out where Ebbie was on Saturday night after she
Speaker 1: left her grandparents. Something happened to her, something that meant
Speaker 1: that by Sunday afternoon, when Ebbie called her brother Trevor
Speaker 1: for what would be her family's last ever conversation with her,
Speaker 1: she was in serious trouble. A lot can happen in
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. We just got a call back from
Speaker 1: Bruce Maxwell. We're going to see him in the morning.
Speaker 1: I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone. Helen Gone is
Speaker 1: a production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It's written
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Katherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
Speaker 1: And Michael dowd Our Executive producers are Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley,
Speaker 1: and Virginia Prescott. Mix and Master is by Ryan Peoples
Speaker 1: and our music is by Bensley. If you have any
Speaker 1: information regarding the disappearance of Ebie Steppock, you can call
Speaker 1: our tipline at six seven eight six three two six
Speaker 1: one five nine. School of Humans, School of Humans,