Ebby Jane Steppach

Ebby Jane Steppach was an 18-year-old high school senior with a creative and independent spirit, navigating the final months before graduation at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Her friends and family remember her as bright and full of life. In the fall of 2015, seeking more independence, she had moved out of her family's home and was staying with her grandparents and friends while finishing her senior year. But in the days before she vanished, a shadow fell over her life. She confided in her family that she had been sexually assaulted by four men at a party and intended to report the crime to the police.

On October 24, 2015, Ebby told her stepfather about the assault, which she said had been recorded on a cell phone. She planned to meet him at the police station to file a report, but she never arrived. That evening, her cell phone records showed she sent text messages to the men she accused, threatening to go to the authorities. The last time her family ever heard her voice was around 2 p.m. the next day, October 25. She placed a strange, disoriented phone call to her older brother, Trevor. She told him she was in her car but didn't know where she was, saying, "I'm fucked up," before the call ended abruptly.

Two days later, on October 27, Ebby’s 2003 Volkswagen Passat was found abandoned in a parking lot at Chalamont Park in west Little Rock. The discovery was ominous. The keys were still in the ignition, the gas tank was empty, and the battery was dead. Her phone and other personal belongings were inside, including makeup that was broken and scattered throughout the car, a detail her mother found particularly alarming. Police initially treated her disappearance as a missing person case, and searches of the wooded parkland surrounding the car’s location yielded no clues.

For nearly three years, Ebby's family lived in agonizing uncertainty, relentlessly pushing for answers and offering a $50,000 reward for information. The initial investigation faced criticism for missteps, including failures to promptly interview key witnesses or check for surveillance footage. In 2017, a retired Little Rock Police homicide detective, Tommy Hudson, took over the case and essentially started from the beginning. His renewed investigation led to a devastating discovery. On May 22, 2018, police found skeletal remains inside a drainage pipe in Chalamont Park, just a short distance from where Ebby’s car had been found three years earlier.

The Arkansas State Crime Lab confirmed the remains were those of Ebby Steppach. Authorities officially classified her death as a homicide. A family friend later revealed she had told police she smelled decomposition in that same area during a private search shortly after the disappearance but felt she was dismissed by the officers on the scene. The discovery confirmed the family's worst fears but also hardened their resolve to find justice for Ebby.

As of January 2026, Ebby Steppach’s murder remains an active and unsolved cold case. In 2024, a new collaboration was launched, bringing together the Little Rock Police Department and the Arkansas Attorney General's Cold Case Unit to re-examine the file. This renewed effort has brought a new sense of hope to Ebby's mother, Laurie Jernigan, who has been a tireless advocate for her daughter. Investigators have been able to confirm Ebby's location in the hours before her final phone call, but critical questions about what happened to her in Chalamont Park persist. The family continues to plead for anyone with information to come forward.

Anyone with information regarding the death of Ebby Steppach is urged to contact the Little Rock Police Department’s cold case unit at (501) 404-3128.