Little Rock investigators gathered Tuesday morning at Chalamont Park to search for Ebby Steppach, a teenager who was reported missing more than a year ago.
With help from searchers with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the investigators searched the wooded areas around the west Little Rock park Tuesday for answers and evidence in the disappearance of Steppach.
"The main reason we're out here is to look for any evidence, anything that can tell us what happened to Ebby and where she's at," said Lt. Dana Jackson with the Little Rock Police Department.
Steps away from a memorial to Steppach at the park, her mother, Laurie Jernigan, described her daughter, who was 18 when she disappeared.
"She's a strong, strong girl," Jernigan said. "And she would never stop fighting. She always fought for causes she believed in."
No new evidence prompted investigators to search the area, Jackson said. Investigators will continue to search the area today and Thursday, he added.
Steppach's car was found in the parking lot of Chalamont Park, 20600 Chalamont Drive, about a week after she was reported missing in late October 2015, Jackson said.
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According to the initial police report Jernigan told police she had last seen Steppach on Oct. 24, 2015, two days before she reported her daughter missing.
Steppach had talked with her brother the day before she was reported missing, but she refused to give her location and hung up the phone before turning it off, according to the report.
Jernigan told police that her son said Steppach "sounded like she was high on drugs," according to the Oct. 26, 2015, report.
Jernigan told police that Steppach had moved out approximately three weeks before she was reported missing, the report said.
Jackson said a total of 17 people helped with the search efforts Tuesday. Investigators will be searching about a mile into the wooded areas around the park, Jackson said.
Steppach's disappearance is being investigated as a missing person case and not as a homicide, he said.
Two bloodhounds along with their handlers, provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, were at the park Tuesday to help with the search for evidence, Jackson said.
The hounds are often used by law enforcement agencies to track and look for evidence, he said.
The Grant County sheriff's office previously searched the area last year after Steppach's disappearance, Jackson said.
Jackson said the FBI was standing by to give area investigators any additional resources they might need.
Little Rock police have received 162 missing person reports this year as of midday Tuesday, according to Lt. Steve McClanahan, a Little Rock police spokesman.
As police investigate Steppach's case, Jernigan said her family continues to grieve the teen's disappearance.
"We cry every day," she said.
She said Steppach was never afraid of showing her affection toward those she loved and that she was a person of strong faith.
"I know that if she was killed here, I know the first eyes she saw were Jesus'," she said. "We have strong, strong faith, and so did Ebby."
Jernigan said she was beyond grateful that Little Rock police were conducting a search in the wooded area.
Jackson said there are other avenues investigators will have to explore if the three-day search does not yield any evidence.
"We never forget this case," he said. "We're not going to give up on it."
Metro on 11/30/2016