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Nancy Grace

Nancy Grace Mysteries -- Lisa Stebic

Aired December 28, 2012 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the Chicago suburbs of Plainfield, Illinois, 37-year-old mom Lisa Stebic reportedly heads out for a routine jog and hasn`t been seen since.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Plainfield woman, who worked as a lunch lady at her children`s school, was last seen at about 6:00 PM On April 30th by her husband, Craig. She was in the home they share, though the two were in the process of a divorce.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Friends and family believe something is very wrong, saying the devoted mother of two, popular in the community, would not leave her 10-year-old and 12-year-old behind.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Family and friends numbering close to 100 gathered at a prayer vigil. Husband Craig attended the vigil with the couple`s son and daughter. However, some of Lisa`s family members are expressing frustration with Craig because he`s refusing to submit to a lie detector test on the advice of his attorney.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A multi-law enforcement team, including Plainfield police, forest preserve officers and the fire department search nearby Lake Brunwick (ph) and the shoreline for crew.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stebic`s estranged husband, the last person to reportedly see her before she vanishes, not only refusing a polygraph but files an emergency motion for custody of the two kids. And it`s all just 10 days after their mother goes missing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Family members say Craig filed for exclusive custody of the couple`s two children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stebic`s attorney, Dion Davi (ph), did file that emergency petition in Will County court today -- actually, yesterday. He`s seeking temporary sole custody of their two children. Craig`s attorney, Dion Davi, has claimed that if Lisa is out there alive and well that she may try to sneak back home and leave with the kids.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The police would like to do additional questioning, and Craig is -- you know, he`s listening to a lawyer who is saying, you know, Don`t speak, which I suppose is understandable. But you know, we`re trying to find Lisa. Lisa has been missing for 10 days. If there`s any additional information that he might have, we would urge him to talk to the Plainfield police and cooperate with them in any way that he can.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`re very, very concerned about Lisa`s whereabouts. We miss her. We`re longing for her, and we need her back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY GRACE, HOST: When I first began investigating the disappearance of 37-year-old mother of two Lisa Stebic, what jumped out at me was behavioral evidence.

Behavioral evidence, as I define it, is the demeanor of either the victim or the possible perpetrator -- the timeline, habits, quirks, routine, and how all of those things did not fit neatly together in the disappearance of Lisa Stebic. Lisa is a lovely young mother of two children, Zach (ph), 10, Lexi (ph), 12, at the time she went missing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lisa is a devoted mother of two children, 12 and 10. Lisa worked at a cafeteria at a school so that she could be home for her children every day after school. These children have been without their mother now for over a week. And the entire family is anguished and we`re asking for your help. We`re asking for the public`s help in bringing Lisa home safe to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: For one thing, Lisa Stebic had totally turned her life around. She had just lost between 30 and 40 pounds. She had completely reinvigorated herself, devoted herself to healthy living for her and her family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lisa was getting her life together. She was moving on through this divorce. She talked about her children and the -- just the positive strides that she was making and that she was -- she was just getting on, and we had wonderful, wonderful conversations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VINNIE POLITAN, HLN HOST AND ANCHOR: On April 30th, 2007, around 6:00 o`clock -- that`s the last time that Lisa Stebic is seen. Now, she`s at the time living in the same home with her husband, but they`re in the midst of a divorce.

And at that time, 6:00 o`clock, the husband says he was in the back yard doing some work. The two children had left the house to go down to the candy store down at the corner to buy some candy.

Now, the husband says he hears Lisa inside the house, and he thinks that she`s leaving because it`s about the time she usually goes to work out. So investigators find no keys, no purse, but her car is still in the garage.

GRACE: Yet her husband says at the time she went missing, his children had just left the home to walk to the store to buy candy. And according to all of Lisa Stebic`s friends, she would not allow her children to eat candy and processed sweets. That was absolutely disallowed. Yet according to him, his two children left the home to walk to a store to buy candy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She worked her normal shift at Lincoln Elementary School in Plainfield and left there sometime between 2:00 and 2:30 PM last Monday afternoon, April 30th. I believe the children came home and saw her there after school. Her husband, Craig, says he saw her leave at 6:00 to 6:30 PM.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We always knew how much Lisa was loved, but to see -- see it here like this today really means a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is full of light and her willingness to help others truly makes her one of God`s angels.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STACEY NEWMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: The day that Lisa Stebic disappeared, it was a usual day for her. She worked in the school cafeteria, and she prepared the school lunches as usual. Co-workers report that she`d been in a good mood, was cracking jokes, as she normally would.

Then she left the school at about 2:30 that afternoon to run errands, including mailing a birthday card to her grandfather, picking up a sandwich at Jimmy John`s (ph), and she managed to make it home in time before her two children arrived home from school.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, it seemed to be a pretty much normal day for Lisa. She went to work. She worked as a cafeteria worker in a local elementary school. And Craig was actually at work that day. Her two children were home at the time.

They actually -- what Craig says is they went out to go get some candy, and when they returned, Craig was apparently working in the back yard, suddenly Lisa was gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: He also says that he was in the back yard and he heard her leave, he presumed to go exercise. Now, how do you hear such a thing from the back yard? Her car was still parked in the garage. Missing were her purse and her cell phone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Both Jamie (ph) and I talked to her in great lengths the end of the week before she went missing, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday before the 30th. We both had exceptionally positive conversations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Now, unless you`re going to step out the door and go jogging or for a walk, that doesn`t make sense because if she were driving to the workout club, she would have taken her cell phone and her pocketbook with her driver`s license and her credit cards and money in it. But she -- that didn`t make sense.

If she stepped out of the house to go jogging or walking, would she have done that with her pocketbook draped on her shoulder? No. So why was her pocketbook and her cell phone missing? And if she were going to the workout club, she would have driven her car. So all of this is completely inconsistent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was Monday. She left home here, supposedly to go work out. And as far as I know, somebody picked her up, and come Tuesday morning to go to work, she wasn`t here. And out of all her friends, nobody`s seen her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLITAN: What we understand is that the last time she is seen, it`s about 6:00 o`clock at night. But this comes from her husband, who says that his wife is inside, the kids had gone to the candy store, and he was in the back doing some work at night. And then he thought that she got up and went to go work out or go do something. Her purse was gone. Her keys were gone. But her car was still there.

GRACE: Also inconsistent with Lisa Stebic`s routine, her quirks, her behavior, her patterns in the past, she would never have voluntarily left behind her two children, a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old, a boy and a girl. She would never have left them behind to go take off with some lover or start a new life somewhere else. She was absolutely devoted single- mindedly to her children. That would not have happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we`re looking for is anything that could possibly link us to Lisa -- a cell phone, her purse that has been reported as being with Lisa when she left, or Lisa herself. Again, we have no indication at all that Lisa is out there. We`re just trying to eliminate spots where Lisa`s at.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Now, there were other times that she would work out at a local high school, North Plain High School. Not that evening. She did not go and work out that evening. So none of this is fitting together in my mind.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: In the beginning, when Lisa Stebic first went missing -- and that was in April, the very end of April -- police were pursuing four different avenues of investigation. Number one, that Lisa Stebic left on her own, that she left willingly on her own, by her own volition. Two, that she was kidnapped. Three, that she had met with some type of accident. And four, foul play.

NEWMAN: Stebic was seen -- this timeline is all according to her husband, Craig Stebic, and he says between the hours of 6:00 PM and 7:00 PM that evening, he was in the back yard doing some work. The two children, ages 10 and 12, had taken a walk to a local Walgreen`s to buy candy.

Craig Stebic, the husband, says when he was in the back yard, he heard Lisa leaving the home. He assumed she was running down to the local high school, where she worked out, to do her usual workout, like she did three, four times a week. But people at the gym report they never saw Lisa in the gym that evening, and that was unusual.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over the last 10 weeks, our agency has spent thousands of hours investigating this case and looking at all of the evidence and all of the interviews and things that were there. And we basically have narrowed it down, in the sense that the last we are made aware of is that Mr. Stebic was the only person in the house when -- to see Lisa.

And with this what we`ve done is elevated that based upon our, really, 10 months of investigation. It`s not something that just popped up. It`s something where we tried to meticulously eliminate the fact that she didn`t simply walk away. She`s had no contact on her cell phone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLITAN: Craig Stebic`s vehicle, a 2004 Saturn, was seized by investigators, but it was ultimately returned. But everything that was inside that Saturn was not returned. There was a blanket in there that investigators wanted sent to the crime lab, so that is being taken a look at.

Is there any microscopic forensic evidence on that blanket that might lead investigators to what happened to Lisa Stebic? That`s a question that may be answered somewhere down the road. But right now, we`re just not sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was not unusual for her to leave and go work out in the evening. However, he says he was in the back yard and did not see if she left or was picked up. What`s hard to understand is that her car is still in the family garage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Four months into the investigation, after looking for her across five different states -- looking for her by land, by air, in the water, on foot, with dogs, on bicycles -- they finally said after four months of intense searching and investigating that they had ruled out three of the alternatives.

They ruled out accident. They ruled out that Lisa had left on her own. They ruled out a kidnap, and that they were convinced that foul play was responsible for Lisa`s disappearance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many of the people detectives have interviewed have stressed Lisa`s love for her children, and they have insisted that Lisa would not have left home without them. In the last several months, there have been no activity on her cell phone, credit cards or her checking account.

As a result, everything learned in this investigation, detectives are now focusing on the scenario that she most likely is a victim of foul play.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How would any child do when they`re used to seeing their mother every day after school and she hasn`t been home now for 12 days? I mean, it`s -- you know, you just can`t even comprehend of how that would feel to a child. It`s very hard this Mother`s Day. It`s a very hard Mother`s Day this year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: The search for missing mom Lisa Stebic was extensive. It covered five different states. It involved police searching, volunteers searching, divers diving into retention ponds and searching, people on foot and on bikes looking in open areas in jogging paths. A very detailed search was done in the park across the street from the Stebic home, where Lisa Stebic would often jog.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were told by the Plainfield Police Department just looking for any type of item, any types of clothing, possibly purses, any of that, cell phones, any type of anything. We`re looking for anything that would be out of the ordinary (INAUDIBLE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWMAN: Her husband, Craig, called her co-workers to find out if any of them had seen Lisa. He had not seen her that day, he says. He left a message with them. Then he calls a neighbor and asks her if she knew where Lisa was. The neighbor did not.

The neighbor had a funny feeling, though, and she went across the street to the home to look around and just see what she could see, and said the blinds were pulled down. Things just didn`t look right. She was the one, that neighbor, not the husband, Craig, to report Lisa missing at about 10:00 AM that morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Going to be conducting a full-scale search of the entire community and even areas outlying the community. It`s going to involve ground forces, ground search and rescue teams. it`s going to involve public safety officials. And it`s also going to involve any volunteers that may show up tomorrow to assist in the search.

We`re going to be utilizing ATVs. We`re going to be utilizing dogs, if the situation dictates. And basically, what we`re going to try to do is cover any area that may be heavily covered in brush, open field areas, any ditches, waterways that haven`t been searched already, and basically, just trying to cover as much area as we can with the amount of people we have show up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: It was a very, very intense and extensive search by land by air, in water, on foot, on bike, on ATV -- you name it, it was done -- and never revealed a clue about the disappearance of Lisa Stebic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With some of the ponds, we had some good sight in there. (INAUDIBLE) once you do the bank searches, it gets stirred up a little bit. Then we had to just go by feel. And so we went three to four to five abreast wide and just did quick search patterns on the bottom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Interestingly, the husband, Craig Stebic, refused to participate in any of the searches that were organized by the family and supported by police, as well. He did not participate in a single search. He never went out by foot, by bike. He never rode on an ATV, nothing.

NEWMAN: Over 700 people turned out to volunteer to search by ATVs, horseback, on foot, looking for Lisa. They even searched ponds, jogging trails, a park. No sign of her, no hard evidence. Interestingly enough, police say Craig Stebic, the husband, never joined any of these searches. And this search expanded to almost over five states.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something with this much manpower with divers (INAUDIBLE) this the first time we`ve had this many divers in one area. And actually, when you start looking at it, and there`s actually -- you break it down, and you`ve had four separate incidents (ph). And we had command structures set up at each of those incidents (ph).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: He actually complained about the flyers that were posted around town in the search to find his wife, Lisa Stebic, saying they upset his family to see the flyers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: I would note that after a preliminary conversation with police, husband Craig Stebic has refused to speak to police at all. He also has disallowed his two children to speak to police.

Now, there was also an initial brief interview with the children that seemed to support Stebic`s story, but they were never allowed to speak to police in depth by Stebic. Of course, he says that`s advice of his lawyer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has refused requests by the Plainfield police and the Will County state`s attorney`s office to talk with the children to determine whether they have information regarding their mother`s disappearance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Ultimately, there had to be a grand jury subpoena of the two children. They, along with other neighbors, went to testify in front of a grand jury.

As you know, a grand jury can be a charging arm of the district attorney`s office, handing down indictments, or an investigative arm. And they investigated the disappearance of Lisa Stebic and actually had to subpoena the two children to come and testify under oath because the father would not let them continue speaking voluntarily to the police, he says under advice of a lawyer.

POLITAN: The children were called and testified in front of the grand jury, and one of the reasons to do that was to lock in the testimony, get it on the record so investigators have it, so in case there`s ever an arrest, a trial, or future testimony needed down the road, you get the story of the kids much closer in time to when events transpired, rather than waiting years later.

NEWMAN: Many witnesses were called before a secret grand jury in the search for Lisa Stebic. Friends, family, co-workers, even her two children appeared before that secret grand jury. Now, of course, everything they said has remained sealed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We would encourage Craig to cooperate fully with the police. And if they have any further questions, you know, we would hope that he would change his mind and that he would go in to the police and please give them any information that they need to bring Lisa home safe to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: What else did police do to investigate her disappearance? A lot. They seized the family computers that both she and her husband used. They went to all sorts of Internet sites where people meet workout partners to see if she had met somebody to work out that evening. No, absolutely not.

POLITAN: Lisa goes missing in April of 2007. And she`s living with Craig Stebic. They`re in the midst of this divorce. They`re not talking to each other. As a matter of fact, they`d really stopped communicating since the end of the prior summer. So for eight months before she vanishes, Craig and Lisa Stebic living together but not talking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Stebic`s refusal to allow access to his children has clearly hampered our investigation. In the 10 weeks since Lisa Stebic`s disappearance, no leads have surfaced that indicate she left her house on April 30th of her own free will. Lisa was last seen at her home the night when her children went to the local drug store. Upon their return, Mr. Stebic was the only one in the house, and he remains the last known person to see Lisa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWMAN: Since Lisa`s disappearance, her parents have tried desperately to get more visitation with the two children. They have gone to court and filed a petition claiming that Craig is an unfit parent. They allege that he`s been drunk in front of the children, he`s left guns unsecured all over the house, he has made death threats against Lisa, against the family, even against the two children. And they say he`s unfit to be a parent. They want more visitation.

POLITAN: When Lisa went missing, they were in the midst of a divorce. And what was happening was they were living together, but Lisa was trying to get him out of the house. And this wasn`t the first time that divorce proceedings had been instigated in this case. This couple had a rocky marriage, according to investigators, dating back to the mid-`90s. So this wasn`t something new. But at this point, it looked like the pressure was on, as Lisa Stebic was filing papers to get Craig Stebic out of the marital home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police have logged thousands of hours in this investigation and have pursued every viable lead. Unfortunately, Mr. Stebic has denied investigators the crucial opportunity to conduct a thorough in-person interview with his children, whom were among the last people to see Lisa Stebic before her disappearance on the evening of April 30th.

It`s the belief of the Plainfield Police Department and the Will County state`s attorney that the children have viable information that will assist the investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLITAN: In the divorce proceedings, there`s a claim made by Lisa Stebic that Craig, her husband, is an unfit parent, and she cites one instance where she claims that one of the children was allowed to handle one of his loaded guns. She also says that he was very, very lackluster in the way he cared for these guns, keeping them around the house.

NEWMAN: Investigators describe husband Craig Stebic`s cooperation as limited at best. Other than a very early preliminary interview, Craig has not made himself available to police. He has lawyered up. And he has also kept the couple`s two children away from speaking to cops.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Time for any family -- and you know (INAUDIBLE) reading the press reports, just as we are. This is a very challenging time for all of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLITAN: Lisa Stebic and her husband Craig, were in the midst of a divorce, and on the day -- the day -- that she vanished, she had sent some papers over to her attorney. And inside those papers was -- she was trying to get her husband kicked out of the house that they were living in because, yes, they`re breaking up, but they`re living together. So she does the paperwork, sends it off to the lawyer to get him out of the house, and that`s the day she disappears.

GRACE: They performed search warrants on the Stebic home, intense searches of the home. They seized the two Stebic vehicles, a Saturn and a Chevy F10 pickup. They also, interestingly, seized 24 weapons, 24 guns belonging to Craig Stebic as part of the investigation into Lisa`s disappearance. As of tonight, all of the guns and the two vehicles have been returned to Craig Stebic.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: As I often say, there are no coincidences in criminal law. The very day that 37-year-old Lisa Stebic goes missing, she mails a complaint to her divorce lawyer. And in that complaint she tells the lawyer that her husband, Craig Stebic, was cruel, domineering, abusive, jeopardizing the wellbeing of their children, and also states, quote, "They need a divorce so she can live in peace with her children."

Now, Craig Stebic insists he knew nothing about the letter.

NEWMAN: The day Lisa was last seen, she sent a petition to her attorney because she wanted Craig out of the house. They were in the middle of this contentious divorce. She wanted him out of the home. And as part of this petition, she said that he was cruel, he was verbally abusive, and she wanted her and her children to live in the home in peace.

POLITAN: In December of 2006, there was an incident where police were called to the Stebic home. Apparently, Lisa Stebic came home late one night. Craig Stebic meets her before she gets inside the house, throws the clothes at her. She locks herself in the car.

Police arrive. They try to figure out what is going on, get everyone to settle down. The children are home at the time, but we believe that they`re asleep in the house so they`re not subjected to all this. And Lisa Stebic says she basically went into her bedroom, locked the door, and waited for Craig Stebic to cool down.

Let me tell you about the friends. Lisa Stebic`s apparently telling her friends that she`s suffering verbal abuse at the hands of her husband, Craig. And she also told her friends, If anything happens to me, look at Craig.

NEWMAN: Many friends of Lisa came forward and said she was the victim of verbal abuse. She came forward and told them that Craig would call her names in front of the children, belittle her. He also made death threats against her.

POLITAN: Investigators do not believe Craig Stebic has been cooperative in this investigation. He has an attorney and has not allowed himself or his children to be interviewed without the attorney present, number one.

Number two, Stebic said he`s concerned about the welfare of his children early on because they were traumatized by one of the searches that was done at the home. He didn`t want his children further traumatized. But ultimately, authorities did get the children`s testimony in front of the grand jury.

Now, Stebic, not really considered cooperating in this investigation, blocking attempts to come down and answer questions, and that has investigators, you know, asking more questions about what, if any, involvement did Craig Stebic have in all of this?

NEWMAN: Just a few months before Lisa Stebic went missing, friends say that she came home late one night. Craig came out of the house, threw a bag of clothes in her face and told her to get out of the house. Police were called out, and they were separated, cooled down. And interestingly, the cops say they do have a police report on this, but they`re not releasing that because it is part of this investigation.

GRACE: Well, when you don`t know a horse, look at its track record. Let`s take a look at the Stebic relationship. Describing it as rocky is euphemistic. The couple had problems from the very start. And we can confirm in court documents that this was the second time that they had filed for divorce or instituted divorce proceedings. In the past, divorce proceedings were under way, and Lisa Stebic had her child, the girl, and called off the divorce.

NEWMAN: Lisa and Craig Stebic had a very strained marriage. They had a rocky relationship dating back to the `90s. Everybody knew that there was trouble in paradise. They were in the middle of their second divorce proceeding. They were barely speaking to each other. And friends describe Lisa as doing everything she could to not have to have any communication with Craig. She would leave the house when he got home. She would go for jogs. She would go to work out. It was a very strained marriage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Craig Stebic`s attorney, Dion Davi, did file that emergency petition in Will County court. He is seeking temporary custody of their two children, who are 10 and 12 years old. Craig`s attorney, Dion Davi, has claimed that if Lisa is out there alive and well, that she may try to sneak back home and leave with the kids.

Now, we did obtain a copy of that petition, and I will read from it right now. Quote, "Craig Stebic is the fit and proper person to have the temporary sole physical and legal custody of the minor children of the parties."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Well, needless to say, Lisa Stebic`s parents are not taking this laying down. They have repeatedly fought for grandparents` visitation with the children, even claiming that Craig Stebic is an unfit parent. And to support those claims, they say that he was abusive throughout his relationship with his wife, Lisa, that he would be drunk around the children, that he made homemade moonshine and fed it to the children, that he had all of these weapons, even having them unsecured and laying around, particularly in their Michigan vacation home, while the children were present.

NEWMAN: Well, in the middle of this mysterious disappearance and the search for Lisa Stebic, this scandal erupts where a local TV reporter was busted on video at Craig and Lisa`s home in a bikini at some kind of get- together. Apparently, she had access to Craig. She was trying to get some interviews with him until she was caught on camera in this bathing suit.

Well, not only did this video cost her her job, but she ended up having to talk to police and she also ended up having to appear before that secret grand jury.

POLITAN: Local news has been covering this story from the beginning, and one of the local news agencies caught one of the reporters for another one of the stations at Stebic`s house. But she wasn`t necessarily dressed like a reporter. She had a bikini top on and a towel wrapped around her bottom, and she was seen on camera in the back yard.

Well, that reporter is no longer working for that station, but she was apparently cooperating with investigators and giving police information and telling them about things she had seen in the house. And she testified before the grand jury, the reporter with the bikini top.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For nearly 11 years, Amy Jacobson has been a star reporter for the local NBC station in Chicago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her reputation is, do what it takes to get the story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last Friday, Jacobson went to the home of Craig Stebic, the estranged husband of Lisa Stebic, a suburban mom who`s been missing for more than two months.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And when I`m on a story, I don`t want to get beat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: As of today, there is still in place a $75,000 reward to help find missing mom Lisa Stebic. And I might add that her two children, Zach and Lexi, are being raised by their father, Craig Stebic.

POLITAN: At this point, the Will County prosecutor has put this case on the front burner when it comes to investigation and trying to figure out what happened here and pushing this case forward. Craig Stebic, still not named as a suspect, denies any wrongdoing in the case, but it looks like prosecutors may be getting ready to do something and take some action on this one.

MICHAEL CARDOZA, DEFENSE ATTORNEY, FMR. PROSECUTOR: The law does afford him the right not to speak. You know, he can invoke that privilege to remain silent. He can invoke the privilege that the law gives him to say, No, you`re not going to talk to my children, and it`s all on the advice of the attorney.

A good attorney, when they`re engaged, has to give the advice that his attorney is giving him. You`re not going to talk to the police because a lot of times, what happens -- and a lot of people don`t realize this, and I`m not saying all police officers do this -- but you say the most innocent thing, and sometimes it`s misinterpreted and sometimes it`s applied to show that they`re guilty later on in a trial because of something innocent that they said.

So as an attorney, you are hired to protect his interests and the interests of his children, and that`s exactly what`s happening here. A lot of people don`t like it. Even as I sit here, I think, you know, Come on, let the kids talk.

But as an attorney, could I do that? No, I`d have to do exactly what he`s doing. Everybody be quiet. Let the police investigate. We`ll step out there. We`ll make an offer to them. They refuse it, that`s the best we`re going to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This investigation has hit a dead end, that the investigation is being severely hampered by Craig Stebic, that he refuses to answer even the most basic of questions. He refuses to let the kids talk to the cops. He is hiding behind the attorney. And basically, everything has come to a dead end. He has refused to take a polygraph test.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We appreciate the public`s support. There`s been over 15,000 visits to the Web site. Many people have left prayers and messages of support for the family, and we appreciate all of this.

POLITAN: It`s been five years and Lisa Stebic still has not been found. Investigators have kept it as an open case, but at this point, becoming much more difficult, you know, in this search for her. Now, they haven`t found her. There were several false alarms where bodies were recovered in the general area but turned out to not be Lisa Stebic. So at this point, this is an open investigation and the search continues.

NEWMAN: He is adamant he had absolutely nothing to do with Lisa`s disappearance. As a matter of fact, he has not been named a suspect, and to this day, he has not been charged. The state`s attorney says now that some other high-profile cases are over, they are pulling this case back to the front burner, and they have some significant evidence in this case.

GRACE: The husband, Craig Stebic, has repeatedly denied any involvement in his wife`s unusual disappearance. He has never been named a suspect by police. However, now the Will County attorney, state`s attorney, James Glasgow (ph), says that he will put the Stebic case on a front burner.

Now, Glasgow is the same lawyer that prosecuted the Drew Peterson murder trial in the case of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, found dead in her bathtub. He now says the Drew Peterson case is over for the moment, that he will devote his energies toward investigating the Lisa Stebic Disappearance.

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