The week leading up to Halloween in 2019 was supposed to be a time of eerie fun for 25-year-old Stephanie Parris, a New Jersey native with a passion for special effects makeup. Instead, it became a descent into a real-life nightmare, beginning with a life-threatening illness and culminating in a brutal murder that would leave a family shattered and a community searching for answers in the dark.
The young woman, a talented artist who dreamed of owning her own cosmetics brand, had been living alone in her late grandmother’s house, a sprawling home she had inherited just a year prior. In the days before her disappearance, Stephanie had grown increasingly terrified, telling her mother that the house felt haunted. She discovered smeared handprints on her bathroom mirror that looked like the long, thin fingers of a fictional monster, and she found one of her pet parrots dead at the bottom of its cage with no apparent cause.
Fearing for her safety, she had even begun sleeping with a large kitchen knife on her nightstand, a detail that would later chill investigators to the bone
Stephanie’s life had been a tapestry of vibrant ambition woven with threads of personal struggle. The eldest of four daughters born to Edward and Charlene Parris, she was a self-described firework, a bold and independent spirit who channeled her creativity into a burgeoning career as a makeup artist. Her work had taken her to New York Fashion Week, and she had built a loyal following on YouTube with her glamorous, horror-inspired looks.
But her personal life was more turbulent. A relationship with a man named John Ozbilen, a stockbroker she met on a dating app, had devolved into a cycle of emotional manipulation and physical 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮, culminating in a violent incident in late September where he grabbed her by the throat and pinned her against a wall, leaving her bleeding. She had ended the relationship, but her ex-boyfriend refused to accept the breakup, bombarding her with messages and showing up uninvited
On the evening of October 30th, 2019, Stephanie attended a psychic show with her mother and younger sister, Carissa. The medium pulled Carissa aside and predicted a heavy grief in the near future, a loss that would change her life forever. The family dismissed it as entertainment, but the words would haunt them within hours.
After the show, Stephanie kissed her mother goodbye, promising to text when she got home, a promise she never kept. Her car was found in her driveway the next morning, but she was gone, her phone left behind between the couch cushions, her coat and shoes discarded nearby, and the lights left on in every room of the house, as if she had been searching for something, or someone
Her parents, knowing their daughter never went anywhere without her phone, immediately feared the worst. Edward Parris, who worked for the sheriff’s department, knew the grim statistics about missing adults, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that his eldest daughter was in grave danger. The investigation quickly zeroed in on John Ozbilen, the last person known to have seen her alive.
He admitted to spending the night at her house, leaving at 7 a. m. the next morning when she was rushing to a babysitting job.
But detectives found his story riddled with red flags. His phone records showed he had driven to a remote, marshy nature preserve on Staten Island the morning of her disappearance, spending six hours there before returning home. A search of his phone revealed a disturbing pattern of possessive, aggressive messages to Stephanie, along with a single photo of child sexual 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 material, leading to his arrest on an unrelated charge
While Ozbilen was held in jail, the Parris family organized a massive search effort, combing through nearby woods and riverbanks with over 200 volunteers. But it was John Ozbilen’s own actions that would provide the most damning evidence. Just three days after being released on bail, he was found dead in his parents’ garage, having taken his own life.
He left behind two handwritten notes. In one, addressed to his parents, he apologized and admitted that most of what they would hear about him on TV was true. In another, addressed to a former girlfriend, he blamed Stephanie for causing chaos in his life.
The notes did not confess to murder, but investigators were convinced they had found their killer, a man who had chosen to escape justice rather than face the consequences of his rage
For nearly three months, the Parris family lived in a state of agonizing limbo, not knowing what had happened to their daughter. Then, on January 26th, 2020, two teenagers walking along a highway shoulder in Freehold made a gruesome discovery. Behind a guardrail, partially hidden by a tree, they found what they initially thought was a mannequin, but it was the body of Stephanie Parris, dumped like trash just a few miles from her home.
The location was a known dumping ground, eerily close to the banquet hall where her parents had been married and where she had attended her own prom. The autopsy confirmed their worst fears. The body was too decomposed to determine an exact cause of death, but investigators believed she had been asphyxiated, a conclusion supported by Ozbilen’s history of violence against her
The case was officially closed with the conclusion that John Ozbilen had murdered Stephanie in a fit of jealous rage after she ignored his messages on Halloween Eve. He had likely let himself into her house, attacked her, and then spent hours trying to cover his tracks, moving her car, turning on lights to search for her keys, and ultimately disposing of her body in a remote location before attempting to mislead police by driving to Staten Island. The Parris family, though devastated, found a measure of closure in knowing the truth.
They established the Stephanie Nicole Parris Foundation to combat domestic violence and support families of missing persons, determined to ensure that their daughter’s bright light, though extinguished far too soon, would continue to illuminate the path for others trapped in the shadows of abusive relationships.
