Alarming Female

Perhaps you’ve heard about this woman’s disappearance:

“The day she disappeared, Lisa Stebic mailed a petition to oust her husband from their home while their divorce was pending so she and her children could “live in peace.” Signed on the last page in neat cursive, Lisa Stebic’s petition for temporary eviction of her spouse, Craig, states he was being “unnecessarily relentless, cruel, inconsiderate, domineering and verbally abusive.” His behavior was “jeopardizing the mental well-being” of their children, she said.

She felt his verbal abuse was affecting her mental and physical well-being, according to her petition. . .Lisa Stebic, 37, was last seen about 6 p.m. April 30 at her Red Star Drive home. She was reported missing May 1 by a neighbor.” From the Herald News; full article here.

• Though a divorce petition had been filed, the couple were living together. She worked in a school lunch room and had an annual salary of $10,000, certainly not enough to support herself, let alone her two children.
• She’d told her friends that if anything happened to her, look to her husband.
• She didn’t report physical abuse, but sought his eviction due to verbal and emotional abuse.
• Co-workers reported they witnessed her distress but she was reticent to discuss her personal life.
• She had sought family counseling for herself and her children.
• Police were called to the home in 2006 for a domestic disturbance. Husband said his wife had come home late; wife claimed her husband had locked her out of the house.
• DNA tests show her blood on a tarp in her husband’s pick-up truck.
• He is no longer cooperating with police, and has refused a polygraph test, as well.
• Cadaver dogs searching their house on a warrant zeroed in on an “unspecified article.”
• On the day of her disappearance, husband sent the children to the store with money for candy; when they returned, their mother was gone.
• Despite her children’s fears, husband never called police to report wife missing; he asked a neighbor if the neighbor had seen her (the next morning) and the neighbor called police.
• Neither her cell phone nor her credit cards have been used since her disappearance.
• Her husband refuses to let their children, ages 10 and 12, be interviewed by police.

People magazine has an article on this disappearance in the June 18 issue, on sale now. Lisa Stebic’s family has created a website devoted to finding her.

In many states, including Utah, verbal and emotional abuse are not considered grounds for a restraining order. Yet nearly all physical violence is preceded by verbal and emotional abuse, and emotional abuse is reported by victims to be more damaging and difficult from which to recover.