Strange Disappearances

By Karen Blackstone

An anthology of unsolved and unexplained disappearances which have plagued law enforcement for decades.
The case of Leah Robert's is but one example of a missing person's case turned cold, with no new leads despite national attention and multiple re-dramatizations on shows like Unsolved Mysteries and Investigation Discovery. Her older sister and brother, Kara and Heath Roberts, are still searching for her although nearly seventeen years have gone by since her disappearance...also featured are Britannee Drexel and others...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jul 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201307745

Book preview

KAREN BLACKSTONE

In June of 1992, two teenage girls who have just graduated from high school, Suzie Streeter and Stacy McCall went to Suzie’s house to spend the night after a really long day of celebration and parties. They were looking forward to moving to the next stage of their life. Suzie’s mother, Sherrill Levitt was at the house as well. All three of them mysteriously vanished in the middle of the night and they have never been seen again.

Decades later, the investigators are still working on this case, trying to put the pieces back together in order to discover what happened to them. It is one of the longest missing persons case in Missouri and even though the police received thousands of tips from the public, they are still unable to lock in on a single suspect or find any traces of the Springfield Three. This disappearance was extensively covered by the media in the years that followed. Each and every documentary that was aired did generate even more leads but it remains a cold case even to this day.

The background

Sherrill Levitt was a cosmetologist who worked at a local beauty salon and absolutely loved her job. She was born on November 1st, 1944 which makes her forty-seven years old at the time of her disappearance. Sherrill was divorced and had two children – one boy and one girl. She moved into the house on 1717 E. Delmar Street with her daughter Suzanne Elizabeth Suzie Streeter in 1992 but planned to renovate the residence and sell it for a higher price in a couple of months. The location was quite attractive and Sherrill knew that she would make some extra money if she put in the work. She would usually stay in after finishing her day job and spend her time refurbishing and improving various parts of the home. Sherrill was very close to her daughter but had a troubled relationship with her son Bartt Streeter. Sherrill didn’t date anyone at the time of her disappearance but she did have a couple of ex-boyfriends who did not take the breakups really well.

Suzie was a bright and bubbly teenager who was excited to graduate from high school and follow her mother’s steps in becoming a cosmetologist. She was born on March 9th in 1973 and was only nineteen years old at the time of the disappearance. Suzie used to live with her brother but decided to move back to her mother’s place after a heated argument she had with him regarding his alcoholism. Stacy Kathleen McCall was Suzie’s friend and they attended the same high school. Stacy had big plans ahead of her because she wanted to go to college once she graduates. She was born on April 23rd in 1974 and was almost one year younger than Suzie. The two used to be inseparable and would hang out with each other every single day when they were younger but they slowly drifted apart. However, they became close once again just a couple of months before the graduation. 

The night of the disappearance

Suzie and Stacy graduated on June 6th, 1992 and Sherrill attended the ceremony. Later that evening, Suzie and Stacy were out, attending smaller graduation parties in Springfield, and hanging out with their classmates. They were joined by a third friend, Janelle Kirby and planned to have a sleepover at Janelle’s house because they wanted to visit the water park in Branson, Missouri next morning. It was the perfect way to celebrate the end of high school and three girls were stoked to spend an entire day with their closest friends before going their separate ways.

However, the sleepover was canceled because when the girls arrived at the Kirby residence, they realized that the house is very crowded. Janelle’s relatives were staying over and the girls didn’t want to impose. Luckily, they had a good alternative. Suzie and Stacy made a decision to go to Suzie’s house and then meet up with Janelle and her boyfriend on the following morning in order to go to the waterpark together. Each girl had her own car so they packed their belongings and drove to the house on 1717 E. Delmar Street sometime around 02:00 a.m. on June 7th. This was the last time anyone saw them. Since the change of plans was unexpected, Stacy didn’t call her mother in order to inform her that they were going to Suzie’s place.

In the meantime, Sherrill arrived home from the graduation ceremony and decided to spend her evening working on a dresser. She was trying to redecorate the house in order to get a higher price from the prospective buyers in the future. Sherrill talked to a friend over the phone until 11:15 p.m. and that was the last known contact anyone had with her before the disappearance.

We know that the girls did arrive at the Sherrill’s house because their cars were parked in the driveway. The graduation gowns and clothes they had on that day were later found in Suzie’s room and it appeared that they have taken off their make-up. Two used towels were located in the bathroom afterward which suggested that the girls washed their faces before going to bed. The beds were unmade so it looks like the girls did sleep there at some point but the investigators couldn’t confirm it because teenagers sometimes leave their beds unmade and it wasn’t a solid proof.

The aftermath

The girls were supposed to show up at Janelle Kirby’s house sometime around 08:00 a.m. Janelle and her boyfriend Mike waited patiently but when they didn’t show up, the couple thought that Suzie and Stacy overslept and they drove straight to Suzie’s house in order to wake them up. When they arrived, they noticed the cars in the driveway which meant that the girls were still in the house. The couple didn’t see anything out of the ordinary as they walked towards the front door. However, they saw a broken porch light and the glass was scattered all over the floor. The lightbulb was intact and it was on so they though that it was some kind of an accident. Mike swept up the glass pieces from the porch, threw them in a garbage bin as a favor, and didn’t think twice about it.

The couple entered the house through the unlocked front door. They found Suzie’s and Sherrill’s dog, Cinnamon. The dog appeared to be slightly distressed. The home looked completely normal but they couldn’t find anyone inside. There were no signs of struggle and furniture was in its place. They did notice the girls’ purses, cigarettes, and other items inside but the house was empty, except for the dog. They stayed for a couple of minutes hoping that the girls went out to get some food. Janelle and Mike saw that the answering machine was blinking and that there were a couple of new messages on it. As Janelle and Mike were about to leave, the phone rang and Janelle answered it thinking that her friends were calling in. She heard a man’s voice from the other side and he was speaking obscenities. Janelle hung up but the phone rang once again. She brushed it off as a prank call and the couple left the house. They thought that the girls definitely went to the water park without them so they decided to visit a local pool instead.

Stacy’s mom, Janice McCall wasn’t informed that the girls were at Suzie’s house so she called the Kirby residence to talk to her daughter and make sure everything was alright. The Kirby’s told her that the girls didn’t spend the night there and that they went to Suzie’s house instead. Sherrill did move into a new house recently so Stacy’s mom had no idea where to call. Janice didn’t have their new address or phone number. She managed to find the address through mutual friends and drove straight to the house. She arrived at the same scene as Janelle and Mike, saw the cars parked in front, and immediately had the feeling that something was off. Janice entered the home and searched around. She saw that there was a message on the answering machine so she played it right away. She also heard a man’s voice who was saying very unpleasant things. The chances were that it was the same caller who spoke to Janelle earlier that day. Janice accidentally deleted the message which might have been a very important lead in this case. The origins of these anonymous calls were never discovered and the police were unable to trace them. Stacy’s mom also points out that the television was on when she was at the house while Janelle was uncertain about this detail which means that someone might have entered the house in the meantime.

The friends and family gathered in the house during the afternoon and they made an assumption that the women left the house together in order to celebrate the graduation. But suspicion was growing and everyone was starting to get worried. The police were called in the late afternoon because Suzie, Stacy, and Sherrill were clearly missing and no one could locate them. The girls didn’t go to the water park in Branson with any of their classmates and Sherrill was a no-show at her workplace. It is still unclear how many people entered the house before the investigators arrived at the scene so it was probably very contaminated.

The police talked to the people who were present at the scene and eventually left a note on the door for Sherrill asking her to call them back when she returns home. The call never came and the investigators returned to 1717 E. Delmar Street in order to take a closer look. The evidence inside the residence was quickly ruled out as unusable. They did discover a couple of clues that told them that the women probably left the house in the middle of the night under unknown circumstances. All three women’s purses were found grouped together in Suzie’s room alongside the car keys to three vehicles which were parked in front of the house.

The placement of these items was very odd. Police Chief Terry Knowles said: ''A pack of Marlboros was on the night stand next to Streeter's bed; she was said to be a chain smoker. The television set was on. We have been told that Streeter was an insomniac, and it was only normal for her to have turned the TV on, and the sound down, to sleep." As previously stated, Sherrill was an avid smoker and she wouldn’t leave the house without them. This piece of information was confirmed by Sherrill’s son when he was questioned about the disappearance.

After one week of the investigation, police Chief Knowles addressed the public and said: ''This case has gone beyond a missing-persons case. I think there has been some form of abduction.'' They knew they had to start looking for the suspects.

The list of suspects

The law enforcement faced a huge problem at the very beginning of the investigation because neither of the missing women had any ties to crime, drugs, or anything considered illegal. They were loved by everyone in their community and had no enemies. Kidnapping one person is incredibly hard but when three of them disappear at the same time, it is clear that something serious was going on. The police had to find the primary target but that was quite difficult.

The questions started to pile up because if Sherrill was the primary target, taking her from her home while there are two teenagers inside would be extremely risky. On the other hand, the girls weren’t supposed to be at the house at all so if an unknown suspect targeted them, they had to follow their movement throughout the entire night after the graduation party.

The local media started covering this story and the photos of the missing women appeared on the TV the next evening. The police got plenty of phone calls and leads but the most interesting one came from a woman who lived close to Sherrill. She told the investigators that she was out on the porch on the morning of the disappearance and saw Suzie driving a very old van. The girl was clearly upset and the tears were pouring down her face. The van used her driveway in order to turn around and she heard a voice from the back telling the girl: Don’t do anything stupid. The eye witness didn’t know any of the missing women but she recognized the crying girl as soon as she saw Suzie’s photo on the evening news.

The police took this information seriously because it gave them a rough time frame when the women disappeared. It was obvious that someone got them out of the house sometime between 02:00 a.m. and 06:00 a.m. They even managed to find the same van and parked it in front of the main police station in Springfield, encouraging everyone to call if they had any information about the vehicle.

The detectives were confused because there were no signs of a struggle inside the house and it was obvious that a robbery wasn’t a motive this time. The purses were intact and Sherrill’s $800 were still in her wallet. The police started digging deeper into the case and focused on the relationships all three girls had in the past as well as the family members.

They immediately talked to Bartt Streeter who was Sherrill’s son and Suzie’s brother. He had a serious drinking problem at the time of the disappearance and it was known that his relationship with Sherrill and Suzie was rocky. He was a violent drunk and Bartt got into a fight with his sister a couple of months prior. Suzie returned to her mother and the two women cut all ties with Bartt. However, they couldn’t find anything that would confirm that Bartt had anything to do with this case and he was quickly ruled out as a suspect.

They soon moved on to Dustin Recla who was Suzie’s ex-boyfriend. The couple dated until March of 1992. He was arrested in February of 1992 with his friends Michael Clay and Joseph Riedel. They broke into Maple Park Cemetery in Springfield, entered the mausoleum and stole skulls and bones. The owner of a pawn shop called the police after three of them brought in the stolen gold