Stephanie Parze’s dad makes heartbreaking pledge to missing daughter: ‘Daddy is trying everything’
The distraught dad of a missing New Jersey woman — whose ex-boyfriend killed himself after being named a person of interest in the case — made a heartbreaking pledge to his vanished daughter Saturday.
“Stephanie, Daddy is trying everything he can. We are not going to stop till we find you,” Edward Parze told The Post from the search area near the Freehold firehouse, where about 200 hundred volunteers gathered to look for the 25-year-old.
Hopeful searchers scoured for signs of Stephanie — or indications of her demise — as a creepy, violent Facebook post by her ex came to light.
John Ozbilgen posted an image of the cartoon character “Arthur” digging a hole in the ground.
It was accompanied by the caption, “When she says ‘choke me daddy’ and you get carried away and now she’s dead.”
“You win some, you lose some,” Ozbilgen added to the July 5 post.
Ozbilgen — a former Staten Islander who was also facing child pornography charges — sent Stephanie Parze menacing text messages the night she disappeared, police said.
He had been arrested in September for allegedly assaulting Stephanie, and was cuffed in June for a different assault on another woman, according to the Asbury Park Press, which first reported the Facebook post.
Ozbilgen was found dead of an apparent suicide Friday in his parents Freehold home.
Authorities said they were investigating the meme at the time of his death, the Asbury Park Press reported.
Edward Parze said he had only briefly met Ozbilgen, 29.
“It was like a five-minute hi, bye,” he said. “I would imagine she was just dating him on and off. It was nothing serious or I would have known something about that.”
Authorities have refused to say if Ozbilgen left a suicide note.
“They [law enforcement] are not telling us much of anything,” Parze said.
He voiced sympathy for Ozbilgen’s family.
“Loss of life is a tragedy, so we feel for them,” Parze said.
Parze kept the focus on his daughter, who disappeared Oct. 31.
“Just keep fighting. You know that we are all out there looking for you. We are not stopping. We will keep turning over every rock and stone ’til we find you,” he said.