Crime Immemorial

The next day, Saturday the 24th, Ebby visited her parents’ house and told them that four men had gang-raped her at the party, and had recorded it on at least one of their cell phones. Ebby informed her parents that she was planning to go to the police and report the attack. She then presumably went to do just that.

However, when her parents attempted to call her later that day to check on her, she didn’t answer or return their call. Ebby’s stepfather would later tell authorities that he thought she might have gone to retrieve the cell phone video evidence from her assailants.

Subsequent investigation would show that Ebby’s cell phone had made two short calls to the Little Rock Police Department on the evening of the 24th, though officers claimed that they had no record of either call. Ebby’s phone also held texts she had sent to the men she accused of raping her, in which she threatened to report them to the police.

The last time anyone heard from Ebby was on Sunday, October 25th, at around two in the afternoon. She called her brother Trevor and told him she was parked outside his house, but when Trevor went out to look for her, he saw no one. He would later tell authorities that his sister sounded very disoriented on the phone call, saying she was in her car but wasn’t sure where she was, and that she was “fucked up.” She hung up after making this pronouncement and was never heard from again.

Two days later, a security guard found Ebby’s car abandoned in a parking lot near Chalamont Park. The key was still in the ignition, but the battery was dead and the gas tank was empty. The security guard called the police, but they never showed up. The following day, seeing that the car was still there, the security guard phoned the police again, who finally sent an officer out an hour later.

Though authorities did search the park and surrounding areas for any sign of Ebby, they found nothing of note, and it must be said that the investigation into Ebby’s disappearance allegedly left much to be desired. Officers did speak with the four men Ebby had accused of rape, but police didn’t search their cell phones for the video Ebby claimed they took, and it seems that any connection they might have had with her disappearance was not thoroughly looked into. Ebby’s parents offered a large reward and went on national television in order to draw attention to Ebby’s case, and were highly critical of the way it was handled by law enforcement.

Nearly three years later, in May of 2018, police discovered a set of skeletal remains stuffed in a drainage pipe in Chalamont Park while they were undergoing a separate investigation. Upon forensic examination, the remains were found to be those of Ebby Steppach, who had been dead since the time her vehicle was first discovered in October of 2015. The body was found only about fifty yards from where the car had been abandoned.

Once the identity of the victim was confirmed, a family friend of the Steppachs, Margie Foley, came forward and asserted that she had smelled decomposition in the park shortly after Ebby disappeared in 2015 and had called 911 to inform police of this, but had been dismissed. She claimed that the officers told her the smell was just sewage or a dead animal.

The tragic case of Ebby Steppach remains frustratingly unsolved, and there doesn’t appear to have been any movement on her allegations of rape as of this writing.