Family Creates Stephanie Parze Foundation To Honor Her Life

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP, NJ — Stephanie Parze was equal parts spitfire and giving soul, fiercely loving and protective of her family and independent, all at once.

As her family prepares to lay her to rest, they also are preparing to create a permanent legacy to honor who she was by helping other women escape domestic violence and helping other families searching for missing loved ones.

Funeral services for Stephanie Parze have been scheduled for Thursday and Friday, her father, Ed, announced. The viewing will be held from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday at the St. Rose of Lima chapel at 51 Lincoln Place, Freehold. The funeral service will be at 10 a.m. Friday at the St. Rose of Lima old church at 16 McLean St., Freehold, and she will be interred at the St. Rose of Lima Cemetery, 299 Freehold-Englishtown Road (Route 522) in Freehold.

The 25-year-old Freehold Township woman had been missing since Oct. 30, when she headed back to her grandmother's home after a night out with her family. Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said her ex-boyfriend, John Ozbilgen, killed her, and later admitted it in a note he left for his parents when he hung himself in their home. Read more: Suicide Note Confirmed Killing Of Stephanie Parze: Prosecutor

After 87 days and more than 60 searches by both volunteers and law enforcement, Stephanie's body was found Sunday in a wooded area just off Route 9 in Old Bridge, spotted by a pair or teenage boys walking along the side of the road, authorities said Monday.

Acting Middlesex County Prosecutor Christopher Kuberiet declined Monday to release details surrounding the exact conditions of how she was found, and authorities refused to speculate on whether her body had been there the entire time since she was killed.

Her parents, Ed and Sharlene Parze, who attended Monday's news conference, announced they are creating the Stephanie Parze Foundation to raise awareneness and help women caught up in domestic violence situations find a way out.

Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control show 1 in 4 women will experience physical violence by their intimate partner at some point during their lifetimes. A report on domestic violence published by the National Institute for Health estimates more than 10 million people, women and men, are subjected to some form of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and stalking each year.

"It's an epidemic," Ed Parze said Monday.

And anyone can get caught up in it. In an interview with Patch two weeks ago, Ed and Sharlene said Stephanie was feisty and kind and independent.

As a child, she had an impish grin that left her parents guessing as to what she could be up to. She was a gifted artist, equally capable of producing beautiful landscapes and creative Halloween makeup; so gifted, it got her out of trouble when she, as so many kids do, had drawn on the wall.

"We had just had the house painted," Sharlene Parze said, recalling the memory. Stephanie called down to her parents and told them to come see her drawing. The anger that any parent would have felt was quickly replaced when they saw it, however. "It was so beautiful we couldn't be mad," Sharlene said.

"She would call me all the time and say 'I'm sending a photo,' and it was always something amazing," Ed Parze said.

For a family trip to Disney World, Stephanie created Disney character hats for each member of the family that they all wore to the park. "We became the grand marshals of the parade," Sharlene said.

"She was strong-willed," Ed said, calling her a "4-foot-11 firecracker." He recounted a time where Stephanie had painted one of her sisters with body paint, and sent him a photo of it. The artwork was incredible, he said, but, as any father would be, he was uncomfortable with the fact that his daughter was naked.

"I told her 'Don't post that online,' and the next minute it was on Facebook," Ed said, shaking his head with a slight smile. He and Sharlene scrolled through photos on their phones, sharing ones that showed different sides of their daughter — devoted to her parents and her sisters, Brittany, Karissa and Hailey, and her nephew, Mason; unafraid, holding a 4-foot alligator, baseball cap on backward, a sly smile; trips to baseball games and other family outings.

It was her generous nature, however, that Ozbilgen took advantage of, Ed Parze said.

The Parzes did not like Ozbilgen from the start. The first time they met him was when Stephanie brought him along on a family rafting trip during the summer. It was a large group, and at the time, Stephanie and Ozbilgen were just friends, she told her parents.

The entire trip, Ozbilgen "just was not sociable at all," Ed Parze said. "I didn't like the way the guy looked at people."

It wasn't until Ozbilgen was arrested in September that Stephanie's parents learned of the domestic violence.

"We went with her to court" after he was arrested, Sharlene said. But Stephanie continued to allow him to contact her, a common issue in domestic vioolence cases.

"He was a typical manipulator," Ed said. "He kept worming his way back in."

The irony, he said, is "if this had happened to her sisters, she would have been all over the guy," protecting her younger sisters.

"She was 25 and looking for something serious," Ed said. "Everything he (Ozbilgen) said, he just lied."

At the time of Stephanie's disappearance, Ozbilgen was awaiting trial on the domestic violence complaint she had signed against him. In addition the to complaint she filed there were two other women who had filed complaints against him, Gramiccioni said Monday.

Gramiccioni said the prosecutor's office had launched both a missing person's investigation and a homicide investigation from the start, and by mid-November had come to the conclusion that Ozbilgen had killed Stephanie. He said they had kept the Parzes informed of their investigation and their conclusion that Ozbilgen had killed her — which was reaffirmed by the note Ozbilgen left for his parents — fairly early on.

During the multitude of searches for Stephanie, Ed said he and Sharlene always stayed at the headquarters of the search.

"With my luck, I'd be the one to find her," he said Jan. 16, as he discussed what was then plans for the 45th search, at Turkey Swamp Park. Though neither he nor Sharlene spoke the words "her body," it was clear at the time they had accepted the likelihood that she had been killed.

"But you still hold onto that 2 percent piece, that hope that she's still alive," Sharlene said.

Gramiccioni acknowledged authorities had held out hope, too, that she might be alive, even though all of the evidence they had — gathered as a result of more than 50 search warrants, including five executed at Ozbilgen's home — pointed to the worst possible outcome.

"We don't want this to be the end of her book," Sharlene said that afternoon two weeks ago. "She has many, many more chapters to fill."

The next chapter now will be creating a place to help other women dealing with domestic violence, and helping other families searching for missing loved ones. The Parzes said the outpouring of support, not only from their immediate circle of friends but from strangers all over the country had been what got them through every day.

People coming to the house every day, bringing dinners, sitting to talk with them, helped pass the hours during the day. The evenings, when things got quiet and they were waiting for an answer, were the worst.

"I've never seen such a devoted group of people in my life," Ed Parze said Monday. They had dubbed the helpers — from the searchers to the groups who raised funds to the people who brought all manner of donations or just sent prayers — "Steph's Angels."

"We thank you all for everything you've done," he said.

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