Missing
Lisa Michelle Stebic
Lisa, approximately 2007
Date and time person was reported missing : 04/30/2007
Missing location (approx) :
Plainfield, Illinois
Missing classification : Endangered Missing
Gender : Female
Ethnicity :
White
DOB : 05/19/1969 (52)
Age at the time of disappearance: 37 years old
Height / Weight : 5'2, 125 pounds
Distinguishing characteristics, birthmarks, tattoos
: Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Lisa has the following tattoos: a rose on her ankle, a pink heart on her abdomen, and a butterfly with the names "Zach" and "Lexi" on the middle of the back. Her maiden name is Ruttenberg.
Information on the case from local sources, may or may not be correct : Lisa was reported missing by a neighbor on May 1, 2007. She was last seen on April 30 at her home in the 13200 block of Red Star Drive in Plainfield, Illinois. At the time of her disappearance she resided with her two children and her husband, Craig Stebic. He stated he last saw her at 6:00 p.m.
She normally worked out each evening at Plainfield North High School, and he believed she had gotten a ride there. Lisa took her purse and cellular phone with her when she went missing, but there has been no activity on the phone or on her credit cards since her disappearance. She left her vehicle behind in her garAge at the time of disappearance: . She has never been heard from again.
Craig had filed for divorce several months before Lisa's disappearance, but the couple continued to live together. Lisa's friends said she was looking forward to starting a new life without her husband. Craig stated that although they lived in the same house, he and Lisa led separate lives and rarely spoke to one another.
On the day of her disappearance, she mailed her attorney a petition asking for Craig to be ordered out of their residence; she called him "unnecessarily relentless, cruel, inconsiderate, domineering and verbally abusive" and said his behavior was detrimental to their children.
The couple may have also been having financial problems; their home was mortgAge at the time of disappearance: d for more than it was worth, and Craig had just been laid off from his job. Lisa's friends said she was afraid of her husband, and she was attending counseling sessions at a center for battered women.
They had been married for fourteen years prior to her disappearance. The police were called to their home in 2006 because of a verbal dispute between Lisa and Craig, but apparently no violence had occurred, and no arrests were made. Craig had been convicted of felony weapons charges in the 1990s, but no violent offenses.
In the days following Lisa's disappearance, investigators searched the Stebic residence multiple times, and also confiscated the couple's two vehicles and a tarp found inside one of them. Some media outlets reported Lisa's blood was found on the tarp, but police have not confirmed this.
Two months after Lisa's disappearance, Craig was officially named as a person of interest in her case. Authorities stated he refused to cooperate with the investigation or allow his children to be interviewed. The day after he was named as a person of interest, Craig asked the court to dismiss his divorce petition against Lisa.
Police stated they do not believe Lisa left of her own accord, had an accident or was forcibly abducted, but they do believe she came to harm. A grand jury convened to investigate Lisa's disappearance in November 2007. Her two children, who were ten and twelve years old at the time of her disappearance, were called to testify.
No charges have been filed against Craig in relation to his wife's disappearance, but he was arrested for assault in an unrelated case in November 2009. He allegedly threatened a neighbor.
Lisa graduated Libertyville High School and attended Southern Illinois University before transferring to Kendall College, where she obtained a degree in hotel and restaurant manAge at the time of disappearance: ment. She was employed as a food assistant at Lincoln Elementary School at the time of her disappearance.
It is uncharacteristic of her to abandon her children or to leave without warning, and she did not have any health issues or mental problems at the time she went missing. Foul play is suspected in her case, which remains unsolved.
Other information and links : ncy
Plainfield Police Department
Interactive Missing Person Search Map
