When Stephanie Parze’s father learned his daughter was missing, he immediately had one suspect in mind — her ex-boyfriend.

“I didn’t like this person from the day I met him,” Ed Parze told Fox News Digital. “There wasn’t ever any eye contact with this guy. He was in and out. I even said to my daughter, ‘I’m not liking this. You’ve got to be careful with him.’ He was strange. I had a gut feeling from day one. … I just said, ‘It’s him.’”

The case of the New Jersey-based makeup artist is being explored in Investigation Discovery’s (ID) true-crime series, “Deadly Influence.” It delves into the underbelly of social media, exploring the dark reality of toxic online communities.

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“I’m speaking out because we need to get the awareness out so that this doesn’t happen to anybody else,”  Ed said. “It also keeps Stephanie alive.”

Ed described his daughter as a 4-foot-11 “firecracker” who had a passion for artistry. She quickly developed a following on social media.

“I didn’t realize that she had an influence on social media like she did until after the incident,” Ed admitted. “I knew she was doing things on social media and putting some art out there. She would always send me stuff, and I thought it was amazing. But I didn’t realize how fast it took for her to build a following.”

Ed Parze, the father of Stephanie Parze, spoke out in the ID true-crime series “Deadly Influence.” (Investigation Discovery)

It was on an online dating site where Parze met John Ozbilgen, a stockbroker from New Jersey who worked on Staten Island, said Ed. The pair interacted on social media before hitting it off in person.

“It was very quick,” Ed recalled.

But the union was tumultuous. According to the series, Parze accused Ozbilgen of assault. She wanted to end the relationship.

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According to the series, Stephanie Parze met John Ozbilgen on a dating site. (Investigation Discovery)

Ed said he initially tried to warn his daughter about getting involved with Ozbilgen, 29.

“She would say, ‘Give him a chance, he’s shy. Once you get to know him, you’ll like him,’” said Ed. “What do you say to that? You have my 25-year-old independent, strong daughter. She knows what she’s doing. You would hope that you’re proven wrong. But I still had that gut feeling. And then my gut feeling was right.”

Parze was last seen Oct. 30, 2019. She left her parents’ home after a night out with relatives. She then drove back to her late grandmother’s nearby home but then failed to show up for a nanny job the next day. Her car and phone were discovered at the property, but there was no sign of forced entry.

According to the series, Stephanie Parze was killed Oct. 31, 2019. (Investigation Discovery)

“Stephanie only lived about six minutes from here,” said Ed. “She always called and texted whenever she got home. But when 25 minutes went by, and we didn’t hear anything, we immediately knew something was wrong.”

Parze’s mother called her daughter frantically but got no answer. Ed had hoped that his daughter, likely tired from the evening’s festivities, put her phone on silent and went to bed. But still, he felt uneasy.

“If you blew her phone up, she would call you immediately,” said Ed. “We went to bed that night not knowing what happened. The next morning, we still didn’t get that phone call. We then went over to the house. … We couldn’t find her at all. Nobody had seen her. And that started the search.”

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The Parze family holds a rally at Freehold Township High School to keep the “Bring Steph Home” effort going. Several volunteers stepped in to search for her. (Imagn)

Parze’s family organized a search party to find the influencer. More than 100 volunteers, many of them online followers, stepped in to help.

“I used to go on Facebook every night and just start putting posts out there,” said Ed. “More and more people came forward wanting to help. It pulled at my heartstrings. … I didn’t realize how far these posts had reached out to people. … Many people just recognized Stephanie from her face and being online all the time.”

Ozbilgen was eyed by investigators as a person of interest. According to the series, they discovered he sent Parze 10 angry, unanswered text messages the night before she vanished. 

John Ozbilgen, the ex-boyfriend of Stephanie Parze, arrives at State Superior Court in Freehold Nov. 19, 2019.  (Thomas P. Costello/Asbury Park Press/Imagn)

On Nov. 8, 2019, Ozbilgen was arrested and charged with one count of third-degree endangering the welfare of a child — possession of child pornography, the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office said in a statement. Images were found on his phone as authorities investigated Parze’s disappearance. He remained in custody until Nov. 19, when he was released.

On Nov. 22, 2019, Ozbilgen died by suicide. While he was never charged in Parze’s disappearance, he left behind a note indicating he was responsible for killing her.

Ed said he received an anonymous phone call that day. All he heard was, “He’s dead. He hung himself.” The mysterious caller hung up.

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Ed Parze said he “went nuts” after learning John Ozbilgen, a person of interest in the disappearance of his daughter Stephanie Parze, died by suicide. (Imagn)

“I went nuts,” said Ed. “I lost myself. I was punching walls. I was throwing stuff. I was screaming. I was going crazy because, in my mind, he’s the only one who knows where she is. I got in my car. I went to his house, which was only about three minutes away. 

“I was met there by a detective who took me out of there. … But I put up a fight. I said, ‘I gotta know. Is this true? Is there anything left behind? Are there any notes? … Somebody has to know something.’ [The detective] said, ‘Yes, it’s true. He’s gone. He did hang himself, but we can’t tell you anything else.’”

A tribute to Stephanie Parze outside her family’s home.  (Imagn)

“There were two notes,” Ed said. “But nobody still didn’t know where she was. We were going to continue the search until we found her.”

In the note to his parents, Ozbilgen “said he had enough and that he could not do life in prison” and that what his parents would hear in the news “was true except for the charges of child pornography,” said Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni. Ozbilgen also wrote that he had “dug himself a deep hole” and that “this was the only choice.”

Investigators near the site in Old Bridge, where the body of Stephanie Parze was found. (Imagn)

In January 2020, human remains were discovered in Old Bridge by two teenagers walking south along Route 9. Authorities confirmed it was Stephanie. Due to the state of decomposition, authorities were unable to determine how Parze was killed, according to reports.

Ed’s work wasn’t over even after Stephanie was laid to rest. On his daughter’s birthday that year, he founded The Stephanie Nicole Parze Foundation. It aims to “provide education, intervention and support to families and individuals dealing with domestic violence, sexual abuse and missing loved ones.”

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Stephanie Parze’s casket is carried from St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Freehold Jan. 31, 2020. (Imagn)

“We want to save lives and prevent this from happening to other people,” said Ed. “We’ve gone from six members to 128. Right now, we cover the whole state of New Jersey. … We have about 13 different programs that we offer to the public … from self-defense classes to alarm systems. We’re trying to get legislation passed for Stephanie’s Law, which would establish a publicly accessible domestic violence registry.”

Ed Parze founded The Stephanie Nicole Parze Foundation to keep his late daughter’s legacy alive. (Investigation Discovery)

Today, Ed hopes Parze’s story will encourage other parents to be as vigilant as possible with their children.

“I always tell students, ‘Love is blind,’” said Ed. “It’s an old cliché, but there’s truth to it. You don’t know what’s happening to you because you’re blind to it. You don’t realize you’re being manipulated. You don’t realize that the person’s controlling you, and they’re isolating you from your friends and family. But your friends will see it. Your siblings will see it. Your parents will know it.

“Love is blind,” Stephanie Parze’s father Ed told Fox News Digital. (Investigation Discovery)

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“If you’re going through something, don’t hide from your loved ones,” said Ed. “Tell somebody what’s going on in your life, especially if you break up with someone. Make sure you tell somebody that you’ve broken up with somebody because you don’t know what’s in the other person’s head at that point. The most dangerous part is during the breakup. That’s when people are the most vulnerable. That’s when most of the murders happen.”

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State officials have yanked funding for a planned French art museum in the heart of Jersey City after determining the project is no longer viable, according to letters obtained by the New Jersey Monitor. 

The state Economic Development Authority sent a letter Saturday to the president of The Centre Pompidou museum in Paris telling him the North American location Pompidou wants to open in Jersey City’s Journal Square section will not receive the tens of millions in aid New Jersey has promised. Lawmakers have reallocated state funds previously set aside for the Jersey City Pompidou outpost, a state official wrote in a separate letter to the head of the Jersey City agency overseeing the project.

“Due to the ongoing impact of COVID and multiple global conflicts on the supply chain, rising costs, an irreconcilable operating gap, and the corresponding financial burdens it will create for New Jersey’s taxpayers, the Legislature has rescinded financial support, leaving us to determine that this project is unfortunately no longer feasible,” Economic Development Authority chief Tim Sullivan wrote in a Saturday letter to Laurent Le Bon, the Pompidou’s president. 

In the other letter, sent Saturday from Michael Greco, deputy executive director of the Department of State, to Jersey City Redevelopment Agency chief Diana Jeffrey, Greco asked the agency to return $6 million the state department has given for the project but has not been spent yet. The $24 million lawmakers had allocated in the 2024 budget and the $18 million the was part of the 2022 budget has been returned to the state’s general fund, the letter says.

“Based on the Legislature’s actions, there is no longer any State support available for this project,” Greco wrote.

The state’s decision to reassign funds meant for the museum, called the Centre Pompidou x Jersey City, is not a surprise. The city’s mayor, Steve Fulop, went public in April with claims that New Jersey officials were taking funding away from the Pompidou to retaliate against him for retracting his endorsement of first lady Tammy Murphy’s now-scuttled bid for the U.S. Senate.

Fulop is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor next year. 

Jersey City and Pompidou officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

The Economic Development Authority has acknowledged it had doubts about the financial viability of the Jersey City Pompidou project, citing a $19 million hole in the museum’s operating budget. Jersey City had been hoping for a $2 million annual subsidy for the museum, but that will not happen, Greco’s letter says.

Jersey City has until Aug. 1 to return the $6 million provided by the Department of State, the letter adds.

The Centre Pompidou x Jersey City plan has long been criticized by Republicans, who opposed using state funds for it. As Sullivan and Fulop traded barbs over the funding last month, Republican lawmakers wrote a letter to the state urging the funding to go toward a “more responsible purpose.”

The museum was originally slated to open in early 2024, but that was pushed to as late as 2027. When city officials announced plans for the museum in 2021, they said it would reinvigorate Journal Square and transform it into an arts, entertainment, and tourism hub.

In the letter to Pompidou’s president, Sullivan commends its staff for their collaborative work and says he hopes to continue strengthening the “economic and cultural bond” between France and New Jersey. He added he is disappointed by the outcome. 

“While the door on this particular project has now been closed, we are eager to explore possibilities of opening new doors, with our partners in France, in the years to come,” he said.