Now, police in Plainfield are getting additional help in solving the case. Both police and family members say the case is not a cold case. They say the investigation is ongoing, and they are, in fact, recruiting new help in the form of the major crimes task force.
"People don't go missing. You miss appointments. You're running late. Lisa, or some evidence that will lead us to her remains, is out there. We will find it. We'll never give up," Lisa Stebic's cousin Don Zimmerman told ABC7 Chicago.
Family members and friends gathered at the Plainfield Police Department, three years after Stebic disappeared from the Plainfield home she shared with her two children and her estranged husband, the only person named as a person of interest in the case.
"None of us knows exactly what happened that day, but Lisa was trying to break free and trying to divorce her husband and make a new life for herself, and she vanished," said Melanie Greenberg, a family spokesperson.
No arrests have been made, and despite weeks of searching through the fields, a body was never found. So, Friday, the Plainfield police chief announced that he has asked for the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force to take another look at the investigation.
"It never hurts to have fresh eyes look at the investigation. I have concluded that we have done a thorough investigation, but an investigation this voluminous, you don't know what we might have missed over the time," said Chief William Doster of the Plainfield Police Department.
The task force includes 80 investigators with extensive homicide investigation experience.
Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow was also attended Friday's press conference.
"We're leaving no stone unturned. We're going to sit down, and we're going to go from start to finish and assign out additional duties," said Glasgow.
At the time of the disappearance, Lisa Stebic's purse and cell phone went missing, but no activity on either her credit cards or phone has ever been registered, leading police and family to believe that she is dead.
Still, Friday's news has given her loved ones renewed hope they will some day be able to put her to rest.
Lisa Stebic would have celebrated her 41st birthday May 19. Her family is asking people to send in birthday cards and other memories they might have of her. They say they will read them at a vigil in Lisa Stebic's honor scheduled for two weeks from now.
