Catherine tries to figure out why there are inconsistencies in the security guard's stories.
School of Humans. Okay, let me show you something. Sure. This is Debbie, Ebbie's grandmother on her dad's side. We're at her home in Little Rock and she's about to show me something she doesn't show a lot of people. When Ebbie disappeared, law enforcement asked Debbie not to talk to the media. The police said, please be quiet, let us be the folks people, I mean, let us handle this. I usually was the fixer in our family, and so normally I would have been the one down with the police. I would have been the one making statements. I would have been the one judging what goes out, and I couldn't do that, so I sat back. Debbie says that for several years she's been silent, but now she's convinced that the only way to get justice for Ebbie is to make the story as public as possible. I don't show this to everybody, but this is what I did. That's amazing. Yeah, you're one of the few people that have seen it. Debbie has built her own very detailed murder board with lots of photos of people who were in Ebbie's life. Her murder board, like ours, has a big question mark around Saturday night October twenty fourth, when Tommy took over the case, she went to talk to him. When I sat with Tommy that day, of course, he took pictures and things. He went, well, I can't tell you much, but you don't know where she was here. I know exactly where she was here. You don't know where she was there. I know exactly where she was there. You can forget him. You can forget him. You can this, you can that. Like Laurie and so many other people close to Ebbie, Debbie has been investigating Ebbie's death for years, collecting information that could potentially get us closer to the truth. And Debbie has connections that could get us closer to understanding the inconsistencies in the secure guard stories. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is hell and Gone. No one I talked to seems to know much about the security guard Guy Hooper. What we do know is that he used to run his own security company called ASSI. He now appears to be retired, and during the time that he worked at Chelmont Park, he was also working security at other places, including a women's health center. We know that the pool didn't immediately speak with Guy after Ebbie disappeared. Because Monny was shocked when he found guy five months after Ebbie went missing, and according to Grandma Debbie, Monny was not the first person to find the security guard a few months in. It was very it was very frustrating because you know, so many mistakes were made in the beginning. And my husband even at one point Collins said, have you talked to that guard? Because my husband owns a landscaping company and one of the neighborhoods he had their security guard. They've done that neighborhood for years, a big housing condition, and he said something to one of the on the board that he says, you know, I was over there and I saw her in Chalamote Park and he said I ran her off a couple of times, and my husband called during that time. I said, I think that if you would do nothing. Ebbie's step dad, Michael, has also talked a guy a few times. He used to patrol up in this neighborhood and I knew who he was. I don't know if he knew who I was, but I'd seen him drive through and he's an odd individual, and so I've talked to him. After a while, I think he figured out who I was. And so I've talked to him out here when he's patrolling through a couple of times. I've seen him up at the park a couple of times. Trevor and I ran into him up there. But I can tell you that, you know, it's I just never have been I don't know if he did anything wrong or not. He may be just a weird guy. Grandma Debbie puts me in touch with an old friend of hers, someone he worked with the homeowners association in Saint Charles, the neighborhood that is very near Chalmont Park. This source tells me that Guy Hooper was the security guard for that area for several years until twenty eighteen when the Little Rock Police Department officers began patrolling there. He tells me that Chalmont Park was a safe neighborhood, so the main things that the residents were worried about were things like copper wire theft or people swiping stuff from one of the min construction sites around. So the security guard was really there to deter thieves or to clear kids out of the park who may have been drinking or hooking up. Most of the things that Guy reported were things that were not high priorities. For the police, but things that might concern residents in the neighborhood. When we talked to Eric, he said he doesn't remember there ever being security at Shalamant Park. All the times that we've been today, I've never seen the security, not even like in a truck or that's why the neighbors haying the security guys out time. Like what I've talked to Monty several times about Guy Hooper, But what Monty's telling us that guy told him and what Guys told other people, these stories just aren't matching up. First, there's the incident report. Guy said to Monny that Ebbie's car was at the park on Sunday night, Monday night, and Tuesday, so he called the police multiple times to report that it had been abandoned there. He said that he checked the car and found the ignition running in Ebbie's purse and personal items inside the car, but he said that even though he waited several hours, the police never showed up. Guys said that he was there at the park on Wednesday night and Thursday night and the car was there, But he said that when he came back on Friday night, which would have been October thirtieth, the car was gone. If he did call the police multiple times, why isn't he anywhere on the incident report. Guy appeared on an episode about Ebbie on a show called Crime Watch Daily. The name has now been changed to True Crime Daily. That True Crime Daily story came out before Ebbie's body was found in that drain. That's back when they were investigating every possibility, including the possibility that Ebbie could have been kidnapped and sex trafficked. In the interview, Guy clearly said he had seen Ebbie in the park on at least three different occasions, and he said she was not alone. In the interview, he said, it was late evening. I advised them all everybody to leave the park, which they did. Then a few days later I run into her again with another young black gentleman. This time they were in the backseat of the car, and the third time she was back with another couple of gentlemen. He said that all three times he saw her there she was with a black mail medium hike about five foot six to five foot seven, with long dreadlocks. The anchor of the show then showed Guy mugshots of two men who were arrested as part of a sex trafficking ring, and Guy said that two of the people in the pictures looked like the young men he had seen with Ebbie. Now, those same men were arrested and they were charged with sex trafficking, but police were able to determine that they were out of state at the time, and I had nothing to do with Ebbie's case. And then there's Guy's dash cam footage. Remember Monty told us this. He had seen her there before in this vehicle with a black male. And he told us that he had he had a dash cam in his car and he had recorded this, and I said, oh great. He said, well, no, it's not great. He said, one day, I come in to download video from that night's work and the computer said it would not read this device. Sometime in the months after Ebbie disappeared and before Monty got on the case, guy's computer broke. Well aster was a computer away in the trash. They took his computer into Warrior's wife works to their it. Guy and a guy told him Bash, the computer was tried. It was no good. The best saying you could do is get another computer. Inst When we talked about this incident earlier, we kind of skated by it, But the fact that he threw his computer away really bothered Mike and me. If you knew that crucial footage was on there, surely like what else was on the dash cam footage? Did he like, at what point did he throw the computer away? I guess Monty was saying that at the time that he he the computer was already thrown away. But it's like, yeah, because otherwise the police could have even if they didn't think there was anything on it, they still could have taken it and forensically processed it. As our week and Little Rock progressed, I got more and more frustrated. You don't throw data away like that. You don't throw a computer away with stuff that can be used in a murder investigation, Like even if even if you don't think it's it's usable, surely you give it to law enforcement and go, hey, I've got a computer here that has dash camera footage on it. Can somebody pull it? Yeah? Absolutely, If you were as trying to be as helpful as you say you are, you would have turned over that information right away or at least kept it, you know, like not, you don't throw especially I mean, I just don't believe that at all, and even as we were driving over to See's house, right before we talked to his mom, the security guard was still the main thing on my mind. The questions about the security guard that I have right now that just need to be clarified are what was the exact order of events regarding who reported that car missing? What does the security guard tell people about Ebby and the guys he said he saw with. What were the exact details of that interaction. I'd like to know that also. I would like him to tell us the story about what happened to that data. We'll be right back while we're unraveling all this. I talked to ebbie stepdad, Michael again, Remember when I was down in the manhole and you said something about ask her if the security guard, Ask the security guard if he like ran kids off from down there? Do you remember where you heard that I'd had a conversation. I'm trying to remember if that came Torectley from Guy or if it came through Monty Monty Vickers. It'd either be from Guy or Money Vickers. And I hadn't had to be honest, I didn't raise a bunch of red flags about that early on in the deal of the investigation. This seems very strange to me. There are woods everywhere. If kids want to go somewhere for privacy, or they could just hang out in their cars, why would they crawl down into a dirty, slimy manhole. And also, when we talked to Eric, we specifically asked about this, and he said that no one goes down into that manhole. You said that when y'all were hanging out, I mean, people would like hang out and drink and things like that, but you never saw anyone like in the manhole doing stuff like who was disgusting. Is not something that you know people want to do. It strikes me as odd that this entire time we've been warned about bad people from across town, when more and more the evidence is pointing to someone who was very familiar with Shalmant Park, who was either from there or who went there regularly. I've been doing a deep dive into crime scene staging into investigating the crime scene and seeing what it can tell us about the perpetrator of the crime and their motives, since I believe that it played a crucial role in this case. Whoever hid Ebbie's body in that pipe had a reason for doing it. If it had been a friend who was there when she accidentally overdosed, I believe that they would have run away at to Mike about this. Usually if somebody overdoses and somebody else overdoses, people just leave, you know, at least they run away, you know, unless unless you've done something to someone where you don't want to get caught. Yeah. And I mean, well, if it was a person she'd been doing drugs with two things, One they wouldn't have known where that pipe was in that park and being able to like drag her down there like that, and it was someone on drugs, I feel like they would have stolen her money and the rest of her drugs. Yeah, I agree. There is a massive amount of risk involved in getting rid of a body to take the time to remove her body from her car and then either open the manhole cover or push her body down into the storm drain, because either way, the perpetrator would then have to crawl down into the dark and shove her body into the thirteen inch wide concrete drain pipe. There are two factors to consider when an offender decides to hide a body or stage a crime scene. Familiarity and risk level. Moving the body to the pipe would have to benefit the person who did it, And we need to understand why I keep thinking about Ebbie's car again. We don't know what work was done on the car with the police. We've heard that the trunk was left open, that it rained, and that evidence was lost, but that's not confirmed. That was ninety percent of their connection to the perpetrator was was the car? Yeah, it was the car. We could have pulled hair from the car. You could have pulled Prince from the car. You could have at least been able to identify what people based on Prince had been in the car exactly, and especially if she had been, you know, in that car with guys meeting here, that would be crucial. Yeah, even if more than one person you know you, then that's when you start finding out when was the last time you s her and blah blah blah blah blah, and the questioning happens, and then you know, methodically build your list of suspects based off of time. But also we need a better understanding of why the car was parked in the place it was. We've heard that it was backed into a space in the back of Shawmont Park, we're there with Laurie and Mike's going to use Gabby's car to recreate the car's position. Ebby step dad. Michael is on the phone, and he explains where the car was based on what he knows from the neighbor who called the abandoned car into the police. Think or the edge of the opening edge. Lee told me it was backed in that the back right tier was there. He needs to come over a spot. The car was not parked in front of the drainage thing. If you're looking at the drainage opening, it was to the right of it, so he needs to move it over a full parking space. Mike, the car in a little bit closer to it, and it was backed all the way up against the curb. So the car is backed in all the way with the tire close to the curb. There's a spot right in front of the drain We're in the spot just to the right of that. While we're at the park, we get a few more details about the state of the car. We've heard that the car was kind of a wreck inside with all of Ebie's belongings strown out everywhere. Michael tells us something else. When Lee saw the car, there was a towel and the towel was behind the car. I don't know. I don't know if the cow was on the ground. I think the cow was on the ground right by the wheels and I understanding behind the car. No, behind the side of the wheel, on the concrete, on the asphalt. Okay, why was this towel outside the car? We need to get more information about how it was positioned. Laurie says that the driver's seat was pushed back. We can't confirm this with the police, and again, we don't know how the car was processed. But if that is true, it points to someone moving the car to that spot. Because Ebby was tiny, Eric told us that she never drove with a seat pushback. She used to say, also, what were the odds of someone in Ebby's impaired condition being able to back perfectly into a parking spot like that? After we backed the car in, Mike and I walked to the entrance to the park. Shalmant Park is small, but once we reached the street, you can barely see the top of Gabby's car, especially as it's getting dark. It's getting dark. If all you can see is barely the top of this from over there. You know, if I'm if I'm down here doing stuff, you're not going to see anything to me. Also, as you just did that, I'm thinking, like, okay, the car being backed right there, you're very close to the entrance. You're also concealed by the car because this is about the same side, like close to the sides of her car. Even though you're a big guy, like you're still totally concealed. Yeah, So it's like it's just you know, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I almost bet you if you rode with Laurie and just you know, if you did a circle around a loop and you just kind of drove drove by, you probably either would just see the top or you wouldn't even see the top of this car. Yeah. Whoever parked this car was familiar with the area and they knew this parking spot gave them cover from the street. Mike and I decide to talk to Monty again. This time we asked him specifically about any information he got from guy about the position of the car, and what he says next shocks us. What about do you remember what he told you about the car, like where it was it was backed? In. As you pull in there, there's a kind of a ferry there, and the car was sitting right here. If you go in there, it would have been on your right. That's the way gud described it to us. As Monty is showing us where the car was parked, I look at Mike, and even though we both keep our expressions neutral, I'm positive that he's thinking the same thing that I am. What because Monty is showing us that the car was parked at the front of the parking lot. Now, we've always heard that the car was found in the back of the parking lot, So why would guy tell Monny that it was parked in the front. Maybe Monty isn't remembering correctly. Mike asked him to draw him out. He's very clearing. Where's the parking area. That's the parking area, okay, yeah, and then there's the manhole cover. Okay, right there, right right there where that car he is there I drain pipes. It's right on the yes tree, right down there. Again, he's saying that Ebby's car was in the front part of the lot, in an area where it would have been visible from the street. Okay, thank you, Yeah, of course we were parked right here because I was waiting on him when he came in and I did interview on the hood of my vehicle right here. So what happened to the car? Did guys see it before Ebbie moved it while she was still there and still alive? And if not, why was this discrepancy never mentioned before? Again, this is money talking about this from memory. We need the original diagram he had from twenty sixteen. Fine, do you have do you remember? I mean, I know in your boxes of stuff. Do you know if you still have that diagram? It's all my file. I've kind of cleaned my office out and my files upstairs and show I thought her file were Sarah. Could we need to get our hands on Monty's files to confirm all this? But at this point, I feel like I have enough information and a lot of questions that need answering. It's time to talk to Guy Hooper. I give him a call and he picks up. We'll be right back. Hi. Is this guy Guy Hooper just picked up my phone call? Hi? This is Catherine Townsend. I am actually reaching out to you because I've been talking to Laurie Journe again and I've been working. After I explained to him what we're doing. The first thing that guy says to me is that he's retired. Now, I said, I know, but we really want to talk to you. He then tells me he just got out of surgery, but he asked when would be a good time to talk. Well, I mean we could. We could come to you if that would work for you, and I mean you tell us. Guy says he can meet on Saturday. We're supposed to head out of Little Rock by then, but I know how important this interview is. This might be our only chance to talk face to face. Yeah, that could work for me. I could do it on Saturday. We could meet really pretty much anywhere in Little Rock, West Little Rock. Where are you? He's located in North Little Rock, but he doesn't want to meet at his home. He suggests the Eyehop near McCain Mall. We confirm to meet at two pm on Saturday. All right, thank you. The call with guy was short, only three minutes long. Yeah, I'm probably just going to come back and do that myself. I gotta talk to that guy. Yeah, it could be totally I mean, look, I can't like, no, we should we should talk to him. The next day, I reach back out to Guy to confirm our meeting. I'll leave a message and then another one, and he doesn't get back to me. I then reach out to Monty to see if he can get in contact with Guy. No luck. The next day, I call Guy again. Nothing. It's Wednesday, the day before our flights go out. We have a meeting with Monty and at the end he shows us a text that he just got from Guy. In that text, Guy says he's planning to cancel the meeting with us. I immediately call him, but he doesn't respond, and ever since then, he has never picked up any of my calls or responded to any of my texts. All this happened in December, and since then he seems to have completely ghosted this investigation. But then in March, Laurie called me. She told me she had spoken to produce her she knows on the Doctor Phil show. Laurie and Michael had been on Doctor Phil twice, once in twenty seventeen when Ebbie was still missing, and once in twenty eighteen after her body was found. Laurie can't make another trip to la right now, so she asked me if I would go to Los Angeles and do the show. I immediately said yes, and I started working with the Doctor Phil producers. I told the producers everything I knew and said that I would do anything to help this investigation, so included in that, of course, with my questions about Guy Hooper. I gave the producers his phone number, so I gave the producer the security guards information. They called him, and it was very similar to what happened with us. Actually, at first, according to the producer, he was cooperative. It seemed like he was going to help, maybe participate, perhaps give them a statement. But then he just stopped returning their calls and the last I heard, he had blocked the phone number. So yeah, I mean, very interesting, very very interesting. We should have just went by his house that day, rolled up on him. We should have just rolled up on him to move this investigation forward. I feel like we have to talk to Guy Hooper, but we're still figuring out the best way to do it. Even if he has absolutely nothing to do with Ebbie's disappearance and death, He's provided so much conflicting information to different people and we just need to get the fact straight. I mean, not calling it in bad enough if you're the security garbage to lie, to tell people that you have called it in, to tell the neighbor when she keeps bringing it up, Oh yeah, I've called the cops about it, and then turns out you haven't. I mean, there's a reason for that, and we need to figure out what it is. And as we were talking about the security guard, something else came up. There were two other people working for Guy. I talked to Ebbie's stepdad, Michael again calm and I went out there were we were at the park talking about our stuff. These two guys, these two guys in the little security car came through and he sort of stopped, came up at sort of asking us who we were, what we were doing, and don't I want to say one of the guys name was last name was brown, but two young black guys that were patrolling together and they worked for him. They worked for Guy, and they were doing patrolling when they patrol when he doesn't. And they seemed to indicate that they they acted like they knew who he was. But it could be just from me. It had been on the news. They want to say they do or whatever. I don't have any proof, but it's something that I think's critical of that week is did guy patrol every night that Saturday night, Sunday night, all the way through to when her car was found on Friday? Was he did he patrol every night? Did these somebody else patrol for him? If they did, who were they? Did he even patrol that Sunday? No one seems to know anything about these guys. So I go back to Grandma Debbie. She's been doing her own detective work. Her sources tell her the same thing that Michael told me. There were two guys who would regularly take over from Guy Hooper. According to this source, they tended to work the night shifts, which would have been around ten pm to two am. I go back to my source with the homeowners Association, who confirms that there were a couple of guys who patrolled for the security guard. Basically, the source said that guy Whoper had free reign, he could pretty much set his own hours. But the source said that he would often patrol starting at dusk, which is right around the time when Ebbie hung up with Trevor right before she disappeared. But incredibly, he says that the housing association has no information about these guys. The Homeowners Association dealt with ASSI security Guy Hooper's company directly, so there were no background checks. They don't even know these guys names. Whoever they are, they could be crucial to getting the answers that we need. We have to find them. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone. Helen Gone is a production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It's written and hosted by me Katherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts and Mike Doubt. Our executive producers are Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley, and Virginia Prescott. Mix and Master is by Ryan Peoples and our music is by Ben Sale. If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Ebie Stepic, you can call our tip one at six seven eight six three two six one five nine. School of Humans. School of Humans