When Stephanie Parze’s father found out his daughter was missing, he immediately thought of one suspect: her ex-boyfriend.
“I didn’t like this guy from the day I met him,” Ed Parze told Fox News Digital. “I never made eye contact with this guy. He was in and out. I even told my daughter, ‘I’m not going to like this guy. You need to be careful with him.’ He was weird. I had a gut feeling from day one. … I just said, ‘This is the guy.'”
The New Jersey makeup artist’s case is the subject of Investigation Discovery’s true crime docuseries “Deadly Influence,” which delves beneath the surface of social media and explores the dark realities of toxic online communities.
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Stephanie Parze was a New Jersey-based social media influencer and makeup artist. (Research and discovery)
“I’m speaking out because we need to spread awareness so this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Ed said. “It could save Stephanie’s life.”
Ed described his daughter as a 4ft 11in “firecracker” woman with a passion for the arts, who was quickly gaining a following on social media.
“I had no idea how influential she was on social media until this happened,” Ed admitted. “I knew she was active on social media and put out art. She would always send me her work and I thought it was great, but I didn’t realize how quickly she’d built up a following.”
Stephanie Parze’s father, Ed Parze, spoke out on ID’s true crime documentary series “Deadly Influence.” (Research and discovery)
It was on an online dating site that Parze met John Osbilgen, a stockbroker from New Jersey who worked on Staten Island, Ed said. The two interacted on social media and hit it off before meeting in person.
“It was so fast,” Ed recalled.
But the marriage was turbulent, and according to the show, Parze accused Ozbilgen of assault and wanted to end the relationship.
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According to the show, Stephanie Parze met John Osbilgen on a dating website. (Research and discovery)
Ed said he initially tried to warn his daughter not to get involved with Ozbilgen, 29.
“My mom said, ‘Give him a chance. He’s shy. Once you get to know him, you’ll like him,'” Ed said. “How do you respond? You have a strong, independent daughter who’s 25 years old. She knows what she’s doing. You hope you’ll be proven wrong, but I still had that instinct. And my instinct was right.”
Parze was last seen on October 30, 2019, leaving her parents’ house after a night out with relatives. She then drove back to the neighborhood near her late grandmother’s home, but did not show up for a babysitting job the next day. Her car and cell phone were found on the property, but there were no signs of forced entry.
According to the series, Stephanie Parze was murdered on October 31, 2019. (Research and discovery)
“Stephanie lived about six minutes from here,” Ed said. “She would always call or text when she got home, but when 25 minutes passed and we hadn’t heard anything, we immediately knew something was wrong.”
Parze’s mother frantically called her daughter but there was no answer. Ed hoped that perhaps her daughter had been tired from partying that night and had put her phone on silent and gone to sleep. But he was still worried.
“Even if we blew up her phone, she would call us right away,” Ed said. “We went to bed that night not knowing what had happened. The next morning, she still hadn’t called. So we went over to the house. … We never found her. No one had seen her. And that’s when the search began.”
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The Parze family continued their “Bring Steph Home” campaign by holding a rally at Freehold Township High School, where several volunteers stepped up to help search for her. (image)
Parze’s family organized a search party to find the influencer, with more than 100 volunteers, many of whom were their online followers.
“I would go on Facebook every night and start posting,” Ed said. “More and more people were saying they wanted to help. It was heartbreaking. … I had no idea how many people these posts reached. … A lot of people recognized Stephanie by her face and by the fact that she was always online.”
Ozbilgen had been identified as a suspect by investigators, who discovered that he had sent Parze 10 angry messages to her the night before she disappeared, without receiving a reply, according to the show.
Stephanie Parze’s ex-boyfriend, John Osbilgen, arrives at state Superior Court in Freehold on Nov. 19, 2019. (Thomas P. Costello/Asbury Park Press/Immergun)
On November 8, 2019, Ozbilgen was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child and possession of child pornography, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office announced. In a statementThe images were found on Parze’s mobile phone as authorities investigated his disappearance. He was held in custody until his release on November 19.
On November 22, 2019, Ozbilgen committed suicide. Although he was never charged in Parze’s disappearance, he left behind a note indicating he was responsible for her murder.
Ed said he received an anonymous phone call that day, simply saying, “He’s dead. He hung himself.” The mysterious caller then hung up.
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Ed Parze said he was “mad” after learning that John Osbilgen, a suspect in the disappearance of his daughter, Stephanie Parze, had committed suicide. (image)
“I was going crazy,” Ed said. “I was losing my mind. I was punching walls, throwing things, screaming. I was going crazy because in my mind, I thought he was the only person who knew where she was. I got in my car and drove to his house, which was only about three minutes away.
“I met with detectives there and they took me out. … But I resisted. I said, ‘I want to know. Is this true? Is there anything left? Is there a note? … Someone has to know something.'” [The detective] “Yes, it’s true. He’s dead. It’s true that he hanged himself, but I can’t tell you anything more than that.”
A memorial to Stephanie Parze outside her family home. (image)
“There were two notes,” Ed said, “but no one knew where she was. We were going to keep searching until we found her.”
“Enough is enough, I can’t handle a life sentence,” Ozbilgen wrote to his parents, according to Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni, and that everything they were hearing on the news “was true except for the child pornography charges.” Ozbilgen also wrote that he had “digged his own hole,” and that “this was the only option.”
Investigators near the scene in Old Bridge where Stephanie Parze’s body was found. (image)
In January 2020, two teenagers walking south on Highway 9 in Old Bridge discovered human remains, which authorities confirmed were those of Stephanie. The state of decomposition of the body reportedly prevented authorities from determining how Parze was killed.
Ed’s work didn’t end after Stephanie died. On his daughter’s birthday that year, he Stephanie Nicole Parze FoundationIts mission is to “provide education, intervention and support to families and individuals affected by domestic violence, sexual abuse and missing loved ones.”
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Stephanie Parze’s casket is carried out of St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Jan. 31, 2020, in Freehold. (image)
“We want to save lives and stop this from happening to others,” Ed says. “We’ve grown from six members to 128, and we now cover the entire state of New Jersey. … We offer about 13 different programs to the public, from self-defense classes to alarm systems. We’re working to get Stephanie’s Law passed, which would create a domestic violence registry that the public can access.”
Ed Parze established the Stephanie Nicole Parze Foundation to carry on his late daughter’s legacy. (Research and discovery)
Now Ed hopes Parze’s story will inspire other parents to be as careful as possible with their children.
“I always tell my students, ‘love is blind,'” Ed says. “It’s an old cliché, but it’s true. You don’t know what’s happening to you because you can’t see it. You don’t know that you’re being manipulated. You don’t know that this person is controlling you and isolating you from your friends and family. But your friends will know. Your siblings will know. Your parents will know.”
“Love is blind,” Stephanie Parze’s father, Ed, told Fox News Digital. (Research and discovery)
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“If you’re having problems, don’t hide from your loved ones,” Ed says. “Tell someone what’s going on in your life, especially if you’ve broken up with someone. Make sure you tell someone you’ve broken up with them, because you don’t know what they’re thinking at that point. The most dangerous time is the breakup, when people are most vulnerable. That’s when most murders happen.”
“Deadly Influence” airs July 1 at 9 p.m. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
