‘God hasn’t taken the fight out of me yet’: Family’s push in cold-case murder gives them new hope to find the truth
Ten years after her daughter disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and was later found dead, Laurie Jernigan says she finally feels a new sense of hope.
Ebby Jane Steppach was 18 years old when she vanished in Arkansas on October 25, 2015, after telling her stepfather she wanted to report a sexual assault. Her body was found nearly three years later and her death ruled a homicide.
But what followed was a decade defined by unanswered questions, investigative missteps, and a mother’s relentless determination to ensure her daughter’s story was neither forgotten nor misunderstood.
This fall, on the 10th anniversary of Ebby’s death, her family made a renewed plea for answers – as investigators with the Arkansas Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit has come together with the Little Rock Police Department – a collaboration launched in 2024 – to re-examine the case.
Between a surge of tips from the public and transparency with law enforcement, the picture of Ebby’s last known movements has grown clearer – even as critical questions remain.
“We are getting responses – a lot of responses,” Jernigan told The Independent. “It’s leading investigators to new places, or back to people with new questions. It’s a kind of hope I haven’t felt in a very long time.”
Ebby’s final hours
One of the most recent developments is that investigators can now confirm where Ebby spent much of the night before she disappeared – a mystery that had haunted her family for nearly a decade.
Between 7 p.m. on October 24, 2015, and 3 a.m. on Sunday, October 25, Ebby was in the area of 53rd Street and University Avenue in Little Rock. But what still remains unknown is what happened after 3 a.m. Jernigan said the area doesn’t explain everything, but helps put them on the right path.
“Until we did this, I never knew where Ebby went when she left my parents’ house,” Jernigan said, referring to the family’s new push for answers.
“And now I know,” she said. “And that even makes it more of a mystery. So many new questions have come up for me.”
She added that this specific piece of information came from the pressure she put on investigators – and their willingness to be transparent, something she said she had not experienced in the past.
Ebby, who had been wanting independence from her parents at the time of her disappearance, had moved out of the family home at the beginning of the school year and was mostly staying with her grandparents and friends. She was last seen leaving her grandparents’ house on Saturday, October 24, 2015.
Earlier that same day, Ebby had sent an alarming text message to her stepfather, Michael Jernigan. She claimed she had been assaulted at a friend’s house and wanted him to meet her at the police station to file a report. But Ebby never showed up.
Later that day, around 5:30 p.m., Ebby made her final phone call – to her brother, Trevor, and told him she was lost and didn’t know where she was. It was the last time anyone heard her voice.
Jernigan said she knew something was wrong. The family tried calling everyone who might be in contact with Ebby. When they tried calling the police, they were told to wait at least 12 hours before filing a missing persons report.
Days later, on October 29, Ebby’s Volkswagen Passat was found abandoned at Chalamont Park. Inside were her phone and personal belongings – evidence her family says did not support the idea that she had run away. Her makeup, which was broken and strewn all over the car, was especially alarming to her mother, who said she had saved her money to buy nice products.
After police searched the park for Ebby and came up empty-handed, the case stalled. Her family said they believed the police were taking the case seriously and that mistakes had been made.
The missteps were confirmed by now-retired Little Rock Police homicide detective Tommy Hudson, who came back from retirement to take over Ebby’s case in 2017.
“When I got the case, there were things that weren’t done that should’ve been done on the front end,” Hudson told Dateline in 2021, explaining that interviewing key witnesses and checking surveillance footage had not been done.
“Why this wasn’t done, I don’t know,” Hudson added. “It was up to us to clean up the mess and basically start from the beginning.”
It was Hudson’s investigation that led to the discovery of Ebby’s body. In May 2018, nearly three years after Ebby disappeared, her family got an answer about their daughter, but it wasn’t the one they wanted.
Her skeletal remains were discovered inside a drainage pipe in Chalamont Park, just feet from where her car had been found.
“I think I knew in my heart she was gone – long before she was found,” Jernigan said. “But now I knew I had a mission to find out what happened to her.”
A decade later – a renewed push for answers
For years, Jernigan pushed for answers. When she was able to tell her story on the Dr. Phil show and Nancy Grace, the pressure to solve the case escalated. But still, nothing moved it forward.
In October, Jernigan, along with true crime producer Michael Mazzella, who is also now the family spokesperson, launched a new social media campaign under the name Justice for Ebby Jane.
Jernigan said while she has maintained social media accounts about her daughter all along, most notably on Facebook, the goal of the new campaign is to centralize accurate information, correct long-standing misinformation, and encourage new tips.
“It’s always been important for me to share what I learn,” Jernigan said. “That’s still just as important. This is the only place you will get current information, current updates, and all your questions answered about the case.”
The response has been immediate. Since the launch, the pages have drawn hundreds of followers and generated thousands of tips, many of which have already been forwarded to law enforcement.
“They need social media’s help because they really need these younger crime-obsessed people to get involved and see what, you know, to kind of help dig through this,” she said.
People can now also submit anonymous tips or questions directly to [email protected], a channel Jernigan says is closely monitored and shared with investigators.
“Law enforcement will see questions coming in,” she said. “If you specifically want something to go straight to them, we’ll get it there. We will provide them with everything that we have.”
As renewed interest in the case has surged, Mazzella says one purpose of releasing verified information is to address long-standing rumors – including speculation surrounding a security guard at the park.
“We know that the security guard has been cooperative with the current investigation, and it does not appear that he participated in the death or disappearance of Ebby,” Mazzella said in an update on the Facebook page.
Together, the Arkansas Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit and the Little Rock Police Department are reviewing the full case file and re-interviewing witnesses, and re-evaluating prior testimony. Advances in DNA testing have also opened the door to new forensic analysis.
Attorney General Griffin told KARK in October that they are looking at the case with fresh eyes.
“I can’t get into the details, as you can imagine,” Griffin said in October. “But I would emphasize again that we are looking at the file with fresh eyes. We are re-interviewing some of the witnesses, some of the individuals who were interviewed prior.”
A mother who refuses to give up
For Jernigan, the involvement has brought something she hasn’t felt in years – cautious hope.
“If this doesn’t work, I’m not sure what else I can do,” she said defeatedly. “But I’m still trudging that road trying to get answers.”
Jernigan said she feels depleted of all hope, but then hears a podcast about new DNA techniques or about a case that’s been solved and she’s on the phone with the investigators.
“When I hear of new ways to test evidence, I’m calling,” she said, referring to alerting the investigators and discussing new ideas, something she said they are open to.
“I mean, I can’t not react. I can’t not follow through,” she added. “I just have to do this. God hasn’t taken the fight out of me yet.”
In turn, she hopes that by sharing Ebby’s story, she is helping others.
“It’s not a club you want to be in,” she said. “It’s very emotional and I feel for them (other families) like I feel for myself.” She added that if Ebby’s story helps others in any way, that would mean everything.
Jernigan, who has recently moved out of Arkansas, now plans on spending the holidays with her family, but said the memory of Ebby is always right there with them – and now, with a renewed hope that one day, the truth will finally be revealed.
She hopes that the ongoing release of new information, combined with the Attorney General’s involvement, will prompt new leads and refocus public attention in the right direction.
“I really believe that there’s more than one person who knows what happened,” she said. “I just hope they have the courage to come forward.”
Anyone with information about Ebby Steppach’s case is encouraged to contact the Arkansas Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit, Little Rock Police Department, or submit tips through the Justice for Ebby Jane social media pages or by email: [email protected].
