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Speaker 1: On October two fifteen, the Little Rock Police Department searched

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Speaker 1: an abandoned car in a small residential part. The keys

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Speaker 1: were in the ignition and the car was out of

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Speaker 1: gas as if it had been left running. The car

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Speaker 1: belonged to eighteen year old Ebbie Steppa. And then the

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Speaker 1: fact that they found her makeup in her car, her

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Speaker 1: phone in her car, her wallet, her keys in her car,

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Speaker 1: and that right there tells me someone planned this. Ebbie

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Speaker 1: had vanished without a trace. I'm Catherine Townsend, journalist, private investigator,

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Speaker 1: and host of the true crime podcast Hell and Gone,

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Speaker 1: and I'm back in Arkansas trying to find out what

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Speaker 1: really happened to Ebby Steppa. It seems like every one

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Speaker 1: in Arkansas knows about Ebby. They know she disappeared in

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Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen, and that her body was found in

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Speaker 1: a storm drain three years later. They know that there

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Speaker 1: have been multiple investigations that have led nowhere. And even

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Speaker 1: though Ebbie's case has been one of the most extensively

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Speaker 1: covered cold cases in Arkansas, so much of her life

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Speaker 1: and what really happened to her remain a mystery. We

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Speaker 1: didn't know anything that was going on with her, Where

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Speaker 1: she was going. None of her friends knew any of

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Speaker 1: the people she was hanging out with or where she

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Speaker 1: met him. I didn't know any of the people she

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Speaker 1: was hanging out with at the time. I mean, there's

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Speaker 1: a million scenarios that played through my head every day.

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Speaker 1: After all this time, no one has been ruled out

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Speaker 1: or in. Everybody's on the radar. Why are they on

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Speaker 1: the radar? They've been on the radar for years. I

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Speaker 1: feel for these people too, because like they're not cleared,

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Speaker 1: but they're not prosecuted. I didn't want to get involved,

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Speaker 1: and they're saying at all I said, I don't need

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Speaker 1: to interfere with a BRACE part. I regret that. Now

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Speaker 1: I'm falling up on old leads, chasing new leads, and

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Speaker 1: doing anything that can get us closer to the truth.

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Speaker 1: No one would be able to see what I was

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Speaker 1: doing from the street side. If I was putting the

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Speaker 1: body in here, no one would see that happen. Did

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Speaker 1: she take somebody there with her? Did somebody kill her

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Speaker 1: or put her down there? Did something else happen? And

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Speaker 1: then somebody panic and they put her down there. All

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Speaker 1: those things are on the table. We're going to get close.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna figure out if he's home or not. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna go knock on the door, and we're gonna try

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Speaker 1: to just talk to him. I just started shaking. It's

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Speaker 1: like this, I'm never gonna I'm never gonna win. Nothing's

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Speaker 1: ever gonna happen. Some people tell me to just leave

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Speaker 1: things to law enforcement. I know from experience that once

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Speaker 1: you start digging up dark secrets, life can get messy

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Speaker 1: and things can get complicated. But I also know that

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Speaker 1: sometimes digging is the only way to get answers and justice.

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Speaker 1: From School of Humans and I Heart Radio, I'm Catherine Townsend.

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Speaker 1: This is Helen Gone. Listen to Helen Gone on the

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts or wherever you

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Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Season four is out March