AP

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

June 14, 1992

Edition: L5

Section: NEWS

Page: 1A

Disappearance Of 3 Women Baffles Police

No Clues: Abduction Suspected

Author: By Tom Uhlenbrock

Of the Post-Dispatch Staff

Article Text:

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Police Capt. Tony Glenn says he has slept with a notebook by his bed for the past week. ''Every 30 minutes, you wake up and write down something else you need to check,'' he said.

Many of the town's residents have been spending restless nights because of the baffling disappearance of three women June 7 from a home in Springfield.

The women - a mother, her daughter, and the daughter's friend - left behind their cars, purses, medication and the family Yorkshire terrier. The lights and television were on in the house, the beds looked slept-in, and the front door was unlocked.

Police found nothing missing and no sign of blood or violence. Neighbors reported hearing or seeing nothing unusual.

A weeklong search has found no trace of Sherrill Levitt, 47, her daughter, Suzanne E. Streeter, 19, and Streeter's friend, Stacy McCall, 18. Levitt missed a doctor's appointment on Monday, and none of the three showed up for work.

''This case has gone beyond a missing-persons case,'' police Chief Terry Knowles said late last week. ''I think there has been some form of abduction.''

In an interview in his office, Glenn pieced together the events that led up to and followed the women's disappearance and described what he called the Police Department's ''full-court press'' to find them.

Streeter, Levitt's daughter by the first of two marriages that ended in divorce, and McCall were seniors at Kickapoo High School. They attended graduation ceremonies the night before they disappeared.

Levitt also attended the ceremonies and then returned to her modest home at 1717 East Delmar Street, saying she planned to hang wallpaper. A friend talked with her on the telephone at 9:15 p.m., the last time police can pinpoint her whereabouts.

The younger women attended two parties and then returned to the Levitt house, where McCall was to spend the night. Their cars were parked on the circular drive in front.

''If they went directly from the parties, they would have arrived at the house at about 2:30 a.m.,'' said Glenn.

At 7:30 that morning, friends went to the house after Streeter and McCall failed to show up for a trip to a water amusement park in nearby Branson, Mo. They found no one home.

''Their purses, makeup - all the things you need - were found in the home,'' the police captain said. He said that the shorts McCall had been wearing were found also.

''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."

''Medication that McCall's family said she needed for migraines was found in the residence.''

Because of the confusion caused by the busy schedule of events of the graduation weekend, Glenn said missing person reports were not filed with police by McCall's parents until 2:50 a.m. Monday, nearly 20 hours after friends found the house empty.

During that time, 18 people - friends and relatives - went into the house, Glenn said, obscuring any clues that might have been left. ''We're still trying to piece together the degree of disturbance,'' he said.

More than 30 police officers - including agents from the Springfield FBI office - have been working on the case. They are questioning hundreds of friends, relatives and business associates and following up the slimmest of leads.

A smashed porch light at the house was found to have been broken previously. An auto theft in the neighborhood was determined to be unrelated. A multiple kidnapping in Oklahoma City was ruled out as a link when it was discovered that a child custody battle was involved in that case.

A conference room on the second floor of police headquarters is being used as a command post for the search. Poster-size sheets of paper are taped to the four walls and scrawled with notes as a ''time line'' recording the work on the case.

One reads: ''12:50: returned to HQ after search of Pearson Creek from Catalpa to junction of Jones River. Both banks and access area. Negative results.''

Another says: ''Cults?''

''It's one of those things that we've checked into,'' said Glenn. ''What we're doing is eliminating things.

''We've questioned over 200 people, some more than once. Levitt works as a hair stylist; she has a good following. There's approximately 250 people in her client book, and we're interviewing every one of them.

''Yesterday, we searched the creek and a waste-water treatment plant on another of those 'you-need-to-look-at' tips.''

Both girls dated, and their male friends and those who attended the graduation parties have been questioned. ''We're trying to reconstruct their lives, their social activities, their normal ways of doing things,'' he said.

Police talked with Levitt's first husband but have been unable to find the second. A friend told police that Levitt had had no contact with her second husband, whom she divorced in 1989, and had not dated.

''We've broadcast the women's pictures nationally, and yesterday we got a call from Atlantic City, N.J.,'' Glenn said. ''Someone thought they had seen the Levitt woman board a plane. We never turn down anything.''

But when asked whether police had any solid clues or suspects in the case, Glenn shook his head and said, ''None.''

Glenn, a 23-year veteran of the department who has a young daughter himself, said the officers working the case remained optimistic.

''There's no reason not to be,'' he said. ''But later on, as time goes by and leads dwindle down. . . .''

Officers have remained at Levitt's neatly kept, one-story house 24 hours a day. Streeter's shiny red Ford Escort with ''SWEETR'' plates sits in front, with McCall's red Toyota close behind. Levitt's blue Mitsubishi is in the carport, which is decorated with a hanging basket of red impatiens.

In Streeter's bedroom, a gym bag of clothes sits unzipped on the floor. The room, including the ceiling, is plastered with pictures of Marilyn Monroe; Streeter, a blonde, has a job taking tickets at a local theater.

McCall has a job at a health club. She has long chestnut hair, which creates a striking contrast to the wedding gowns she modeled as a part-time job.

The aluminum screen door to the house is covered with the dark dust that police use to collect fingerprints. Inside, an officer was vacuuming in another search for evidence.

Tom Cowens, a forensic technician with the police department, walked out carrying the tools of his trade. He glanced at a newspaper photographer recording his exit and said: ''What we're hoping is they come home and b**ch at us for messing up the house.''

Author: James Hart
Article Text:
In 1992, three women -- Stacy McCall, Sherrill Levitt and Suzie Streeter -- disappeared in Springfield, and there's been no sign of them since. Dave Lohr at AOL News is writing about the case of the Springfield Three and gives a good summary of the investigation and quotes Kathee Baird, a Crime Scene blogger covering southwest Missouri.
McCall and Streeter had just graduated from high school and were staying at the home of Levitt, Streeter's mother, when they vanished. A former investigator tells Lohr that he thinks the original investigation was mismanaged.



Author: By Tom Uhlenbrock
Of the Post-Dispatch Staff

Article Text:
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Police Capt. Tony Glenn says he has slept with a notebook by his bed for the past week. ''Every 30 minutes, you wake up and write down something else you need to check,'' he said.
Many of the town's residents have been spending restless nights because of the baffling disappearance of three women June 7 from a home in Springfield.
The women - a mother, her daughter, and the daughter's friend - left behind their cars, purses, medication and the family Yorkshire terrier. The lights and television were on in the house, the beds looked slept-in, and the front door was unlocked.
Police found nothing missing and no sign of blood or violence. Neighbors reported hearing or seeing nothing unusual.
A weeklong search has found no trace of Sherrill Levitt, 47, her daughter, Suzanne E. Streeter, 19, and Streeter's friend, Stacy McCall, 18. Levitt missed a doctor's appointment on Monday, and none of the three showed up for work.
''This case has gone beyond a missing-persons case,'' police Chief Terry Knowles said late last week. ''I think there has been some form of abduction.''
In an interview in his office, Glenn pieced together the events that led up to and followed the women's disappearance and described what he called the Police Department's ''full-court press'' to find them.
Streeter, Levitt's daughter by the first of two marriages that ended in divorce, and McCall were seniors at Kickapoo High School. They attended graduation ceremonies the night before they disappeared.
Levitt also attended the ceremonies and then returned to her modest home at 1717 East Delmar Street, saying she planned to hang wallpaper. A friend talked with her on the telephone at 9:15 p.m., the last time police can pinpoint her whereabouts.
The younger women attended two parties and then returned to the Levitt house, where McCall was to spend the night. Their cars were parked on the circular drive in front.
''If they went directly from the parties, they would have arrived at the house at about 2:30 a.m.,'' said Glenn.
At 7:30 that morning, friends went to the house after Streeter and McCall failed to show up for a trip to a water amusement park in nearby Branson, Mo. They found no one home.
''Their purses, makeup - all the things you need - were found in the home,'' the police captain said. He said that the shorts McCall had been wearing were found also.
''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.
''Medication that McCall's family said she needed for migraines was found in the residence.''
Because of the confusion caused by the busy schedule of events of the graduation weekend, Glenn said missing person reports were not filed with police by McCall's parents until 2:50 a.m. Monday, nearly 20 hours after friends found the house empty.
During that time, 18 people - friends and relatives - went into the house, Glenn said, obscuring any clues that might have been left. ''We're still trying to piece together the degree of disturbance,'' he said.
More than 30 police officers - including agents from the Springfield FBI office - have been working on the case. They are questioning hundreds of friends, relatives and business associates and following up the slimmest of leads.
A smashed porch light at the house was found to have been broken previously. An auto theft in the neighborhood was determined to be unrelated. A multiple kidnapping in Oklahoma City was ruled out as a link when it was discovered that a child custody battle was involved in that case.
A conference room on the second floor of police headquarters is being used as a command post for the search. Poster-size sheets of paper are taped to the four walls and scrawled with notes as a ''time line'' recording the work on the case.
One reads: ''12:50: returned to HQ after search of Pearson Creek from Catalpa to junction of Jones River. Both banks and access area. Negative results.''
Another says: ''Cults?''
''It's one of those things that we've checked into,'' said Glenn. ''What we're doing is eliminating things.
''We've questioned over 200 people, some more than once. Levitt works as a hair stylist; she has a good following. There's approximately 250 people in her client book, and we're interviewing every one of them.
''Yesterday, we searched the creek and a waste-water treatment plant on another of those 'you-need-to-look-at' tips.''
Both girls dated, and their male friends and those who attended the graduation parties have been questioned. ''We're trying to reconstruct their lives, their social activities, their normal ways of doing things,'' he said.
Police talked with Levitt's first husband but have been unable to find the second. A friend told police that Levitt had had no contact with her second husband, whom she divorced in 1989, and had not dated.
''We've broadcast the women's pictures nationally, and yesterday we got a call from Atlantic City, N.J.,'' Glenn said. ''Someone thought they had seen the Levitt woman board a plane. We never turn down anything.''
But when asked whether police had any solid clues or suspects in the case, Glenn shook his head and said, ''None.''
Glenn, a 23-year veteran of the department who has a young daughter himself, said the officers working the case remained optimistic.
''There's no reason not to be,'' he said. ''But later on, as time goes by and leads dwindle down. . . .''
Officers have remained at Levitt's neatly kept, one-story house 24 hours a day. Streeter's shiny red Ford Escort with ''SWEETR'' plates sits in front, with McCall's red Toyota close behind. Levitt's blue Mitsubishi is in the carport, which is decorated with a hanging basket of red impatiens.
In Streeter's bedroom, a gym bag of clothes sits unzipped on the floor. The room, including the ceiling, is plastered with pictures of Marilyn Monroe; Streeter, a blonde, has a job taking tickets at a local theater.
McCall has a job at a health club. She has long chestnut hair, which creates a striking contrast to the wedding gowns she modeled as a part-time job.
The aluminum screen door to the house is covered with the dark dust that police use to collect fingerprints. Inside, an officer was vacuuming in another search for evidence.
Tom Cowens, a forensic technician with the police department, walked out carrying the tools of his trade.
He glanced at a newspaper photographer recording his exit and said: ''What we're hoping is they come home and bitch at us for messing up the house.''


Author: Associated Press
Article Text:
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - A woman and two Springfield teen-agers vanished on graduation night, leaving their cars, purses, money and some clothes behind, investigators and family members said Monday.
''Some things just aren't adding up,'' said Sgt. Mark Webb, adding that police consider foul play a possibility.
Police said Stacy Kathleen McCall, 18, and Suzanne E. Streeter, 19, were last seen about 2 a.m. Sunday leaving a graduation party in Battlefield, eight miles southwest of Springfield.
Streeter's mother, Sherrill Elizabeth Levitt, 47, was last seen about eight hours earlier at the students' commencement.
Police have asked the public for any information on their whereabouts.
Friends told police that the teen-agers left the party in separate cars for Levitt's house.
Their cars and Levitt's car were found at the house.
''I feel terrible, really, because I just don't know what's going on,'' said McCall's father, Stuart McCall, who filed the missing persons report. ''She's been very prompt all her life about telling us where she is.''
McCall said his daughter's friends told him early Sunday that she had gone to Streeter's house.
McCall went to the house, finding it unlocked with the teen-agers' purses, keys, money and other belongings inside, he said.
The television was on, and the dog was inside.
The shoes and shorts that McCall wore to the party also were in the house, along with the swimsuit she planned to wear Sunday to a water park in Branson, her father said.
Police found no signs of forced entry, other than a broken porch light.
The teens were students at Kickapoo High School. They went to the party in Battlefield after the graduation ceremony at Hammons Student Center at Southwest Missouri State University.
McCall said his daughter had permission to spend the night with a friend in Battlefield but not at Streeter's house in Springfield. McCall said that his daughter and Streeter had been friends years ago but that they had not been close recently.


Associated Press Writer
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- It was graduation night, a night of anticipation and excitement. Friends gathered later for parties, making plans to continue the celebration the next day.

But somewhere between the parties and the next day, things fell apart for two high school classmates and one of their mothers. They vanished without a trace -- and the mystery is no closer to solution today than it was a decade ago.
There are no solid clues and no suspects in the disappearance of Sherrill Levitt, her 19-year-old daughter Suzanne "Suzie" Streeter and her daughter's friend, Stacy McCall. Investigators and those who track missing adults recall no similar case.
"In my 10 years, the case of the three women missing from Springfield is very uncommon," says Kym Pasqualini, president of the Nation's Missing Children Organization and Center for Missing Adults in Phoenix. "It's very unique to have multiple adults disappear together, especially under those circumstances."
Streeter and McCall graduated from Kickapoo High School on June 6, 1992. After attending two parties, the girls decided to get a few hours' sleep before heading to a Branson amusement park with friends. They arrived in the early morning hours of June 7 at Levitt's home and prepared for bed.
When friends arrived later that morning, the three women were gone.
Their purses, containing cigarettes, money and medication, were left behind. Their cars were still in the driveway.
Except for a broken porch light, nothing seemed askew, although a neighbor reported having seen a nervous woman matching Streeter's description pull a van into her driveway early that morning and turn around. Investigators found no fingerprints, fibers or DNA in the tidy one-story home that sits a few hundred feet from a busy thoroughfare.
Soon after the apparent abductions, more than 100,000 fliers with the women's pictures were hung on trees, utility poles and in storefront windows. There were prayer vigils and yellow ribbons.
Searches were conducted by horseback, on foot and by all-terrain vehicles. Divers went into murky lakes. Fields were dug. Woods canvassed.
"America's Most Wanted" aired the story. So did "48 Hours," Maury Povich and Oprah Winfrey.
Springfield police have followed more than 5,200 leads that have taken them to more than 20 states, Sgt. Mike Owen says. They have listened to numerous psychics -- one even attempted to elicit clues from Levitt's dog -- and called in a team of retired investigators to review the case. There are no suspects, but about a half-dozen individuals remain under suspicion.
Local speculation focused on Robert Cox, a former Army Ranger serving 30 years for robbery in Texas who lived in Springfield when the women disappeared. He was convicted in the 1978 murder of a young Walt Disney World worker, but the Florida Supreme Court later acquitted him of all charges. Cox also has not been cleared in a series of 1992 killings along Interstate 70.
Police admit they're interested in Cox. But they also call him a "manipulator" and an "opportunist" who loves media attention.
Police speculate sexual assault may have been the motive, with Levitt the intended victim.
Most agree the best chance for the case to be solved is for an informant to come forward. The reward stands at $100,000.
A new detective has been assigned to the case, and police hope the fresh attention surrounding the anniversary will bring new leads.
The family did not plan to mark the somber milestone.
It was hard enough when they disappeared. As day 3,650 approached, it was clear the grieving had not stopped.
"I guess I'm surprised people still remember after 10 years," Janis McCall says softly, as she recalls the last time she saw her daughter, Stacy. "For me, it's been 10 years of Hell," she said. A stubborn instinct kindles the faint hope that Stacy is still alive.
"I'll never give up -- I can't," she says. "I have two choices. I can completely disappear and become a vegetable, or I can go out and try to help."
Questions from reporters are probing and painful for McCall. She tells endearing stories. And she laughs about the teen-ager her sisters teasingly nicknamed "Spacey Stacy" after she locked her keys in her car -- and how she loved to transform her appearance with hats, makeup or a simple hair braid.
McCall has blocked out some events surrounding her daughter's disappearance. But she shares what she does remember on the chance it will move someone to report the tip that brings Stacy home.
McCall admits that at first she was angry -- convinced her 18-year-old daughter was invoking a new independence by not telling her parents of her plans. She recalls arriving at Levitt's house and seeing Stacy's shorts and shirt in Streeter's room. Also there was her purse with the migraine medication needed to control painful headaches.
"That first night after she disappeared, I remember thinking that she doesn't have her toothbrush. She doesn't have any clothes," McCall says.
As time passed, regrets mounted: If only she hadn't begged her daughter to wait until morning to make the 35-mile drive south to Branson.
"I have to remind myself that I did not do this," she says. "I am not to blame. Some horrible person is to blame."
Hope has faded for Levitt's uncle, Cliff Williams.
"I guess even if they found them now, it wouldn't mean much because her father is gone," Williams says. "He's the one who deserved to know."
Levitt's father pondered the case until his death in 1997. The rest of the family went to court a few months later and had Levitt and her daughter declared dead.
Levitt moved to Springfield in 1980 from Seattle, Wash., intent on starting a new life. She worked as a beautician and loved fixing up homes, he recalls.
Levitt, then 47, had divorced her daughter's father shortly after she was born. He had never been active in her life.
Williams pauses as he recalls packing up Streeter's room -- which was filled with clothes, stuffed animals and had numerous posters on the wall.
"I have no suggestions for police or complaints about what they've done," Williams says. "They just don't have much to go on."
Janelle Kirby was the link that brought the two girls together.
"It was just a freak situation that they were even together that night," Kirby says.
While the faces of her classmates are frozen in time, Kirby is now 28 -- a wife and mother.
"We were having so much fun," she says. "We had celebrated our birthdays. We had gone to prom and graduation. We were looking forward to summer."
She and McCall were making plans to attend Southwest Missouri State. They planned to join a sorority.
Streeter was going to cosmetology school. She wanted to be a beautician, like her mom.
Kirby still searches strangers' faces, hoping to find her friends.
The case continues to trouble David Asher, who retired from the Springfield Police Department in 1995.
Everyone was puzzled by the pristine crime scene, says Asher, who headed the investigation in the early days. "Mom's glasses were next to the bed. There was a book turned over, as if she had been reading. It just did not look like a crime scene."
He has his own theory: Someone plucked Levitt's small dog from her backyard, then knocked on the door, using the ruse of wanting to return it.
"I wish more than anything that this case would be solved," he says. "I personally think they have the information, but it just hasn't been all put together yet. They need the piece that makes it all make sense."
Restaurant manager Matt Marquart insists he is not on a crusade, but he refuses to remove the poster of the three missing women from the window of Coyote's Adobe Cafe and Bar.
"After 10 years, I just can't take it down," he says. "I won't until this thing is over."
Marquart remembers when the women's faces were everywhere he looked.
What Marquart remembers most is how it changed Springfield. Suddenly people started locking their doors, scrutinizing strangers, trying to jar their memory of the tiniest detail that might help police, he says.
"That poster is tattered and torn -- it has a lot of tape on it," Marquart says. "But it stands for something. It's a reminder that those women are still missing. Who knows, maybe someone will see it and think of something that will help."


Author: AP

A year of anguish, fears and anger has passed for the families and friends of three women who disappeared after a graduation party. Even the investigators have shed tears.
The waiting continues.
A year ago Monday, the three women - Sherill (sp. Sherrill) Levitt; her daughter, Suzie Streeter; and Suzie's high school classmate Stacy McCall - vanished from Levitt's home.
After 5,000 leads, investigators have no suspects and few clues. They acknowledge that they are no closer to solving the case than they were the night of June 7, 1992.
"I couldn't even begin to tell you how awful it's been," said Janis McCall, Stacy's mother.
The women disappeared hours after McCall, then 18, and Streeter, then 19, graduated from Kickapoo High School. Police suspect that the three were kidnapped and murdered.
But like the families, investigators say it's possible the women could turn up alive.
Detective Gerald Dove has shed tears of frustration.
"Knowing I have a job to do, knowing that there are people depending on me has kept me and others going," Dove said.
Deb Schwartz of Seattle wants to establish a memorial of some type - a gravestone or red roses - for her half-sister, Levitt, and her niece. But there's no gravesite to visit.
"Where do you go?" she asked. "I think it's one of the most cruel things someone could do, to take lives like this and watch people - the survivors - dangle on a wire."
Levitt, a divorced hair stylist, was last seen alive at 4 p.m. June 6, 1992. McCall left a graduation party with Streeter around 2 a.m. June 7 and decided to spend the night with her friend.
Sometime early June 7, the three apparently were abducted from the home "quickly and without a struggle," police Sgt. David Asher said.
McCall hadn't planned to spend the night at the home, leading authorities to believe she wasn't the target of an abduction.
Police later found each woman's car parked outside Levitt's home. Inside the unlocked and orderly home was everything the women likely would have taken had they left willingly: purses, cash, makeup, keys, identification, cigarettes, medication.
Police in this city of about 140,000 initially put 30 investigators on the case. Now, one full-time and two part-time investigators remain. The case has been profiled on television crime shows, but tips have dwindled.
On Monday, about 200 people gathered in a park to pay tribute to the women and to release yellow balloons. They were inscribed with messages that included "Come home soon."
Police will investigate "until we resolve the case," police Capt. Todd Whitson said.

Author: The Associated Press

An FBI violent crime specialist theorizes that three missing women were abducted by someone at least one of them trusted, and the abductor probably had help from one or more others.
Authorities want to talk with people who may unwillingly have become involved in a possibly unplanned abduction, said James Wright of the bureau's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.
"I think they (other people) were brought into this not knowing what was going to happen. It's quite possible that the primary person did not know what was going to happen," Wright said.
"There are people that have knowledge who don't feel good about the knowledge they have. They may not be the primary person. " Wright spoke after a call-in television show about the case that aired Sunday night on KOZK-Ozarks Public Television.
Wright has been following the case since Sherrill Levitt, 47; her daughter, Suzie Streeter, 19, and Streeter's friend, Stacy McCall, 18, disappeared June 7. Authorities think the women were abducted because many things they would have taken out of town were left at Levitt's home in Springfield.
Wright said his theory came from "the totality of information," but he avoided specifics about the number or type of people he suspects are involved.
The abduction leader probably was an acquaintance "who may have known their comings and goings," he said.
Secondary players may fear going to police because they think the primary culprit would retaliate, he said.
But anyone withholding information probably is feeling strong anxiety, he added.
"If you think you don't feel good about it now, don't think it's going to get any better. Don't think it's going to go away," Wright said.
Springfield Police Chief Terry Knowles said the department could protect those who provide information.
Police Capt. Tony Glenn said the program received 118 calls, all but four of which were handled off the air.
"Those people who have contacted us anonymously, we'd like to hear from them again and develop some type of dialogue with them," Glenn said.
Wright, whose unit handles 1,000 cases a year, said the disappearance was an unusual, puzzling case.
"If you look into the records of missing persons every year, you would not come across many cases like this," he said.

Author: The Associated Press

"America's Most Wanted" has aired the case. So have "48 Hours," Maury Povich and Oprah Winfrey.
But three years after three Springfield women seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth, their families and the community continue to ask: Where are they?
"It doesn't get a lot easier," said Debbie Schwartz, sister of Sherill (sp. Sherrill) Levitt. Levitt; her daughter Suzie Streeter; and Suzie's friend Stacy McCall were last seen June 7, 1992.
Police believe the women were kidnapped and killed. A $100,000 reward goes unclaimed.
The pain, Schwartz said, is "as intense as it was three years ago."
She prays that police find her sister's and niece's bodies so their family can have closure.
"We would like to bury them decently," she said. "I don't think it is asking that much."
Police continue to investigate the case. Detective Doug Thomas sifts through information and follows up leads when they come in.
"They've put their hopes in us to solve this, and three years have gone by and we haven't been able to deliver," Thomas said, referring to the women's families. "They are frustrated. They have reason to be frustrated."
Stacy and Suzie graduated from Kickapoo High School on June 6, 1992. After attending a graduation party, they went to Levitt's home in the early morning hours of June 7. They had prepared for bed when their captors came.
Janis and Stu McCall refuse to give up hope that their daughter wis alive.
"Everything in our lives still revolves around Stacy coming home," Janis McCall said. "We want her home. Father's Day is coming up, we just had Mother's Day. Everything we do, there's something missing, a big hole that's just empty."


Author: AP
Authorities searched property in southwestern Missouri on Saturday - apparently for three missing women - but said a gag order issued in Webster County prohibited them from saying what they were looking for.
The search ended just before 10 p.m. The property is farmland near Northview, Mo., which is east of Springfield. Officers apparently did not find what they were looking for.
Another law enforcement official who is not from Webster County told the Springfield News-Leader that the search was connected to the disappearances in June 1992 of Sherrill Levitt, Suzanne Streeter and Stacy McCall.
One official also said they were looking for a 50-year-old man. No information was known on the man.
Springfield Police Capt. Todd Whitson said, "We can neither confirm nor deny" that the search was for the missing women.
Whitson could not say why the gag order had been issued.
The only Springfield detective currently assigned full time to the missing women's case also was at the scene. He works only on that case.
McCall, 19, Streeter, 20, and her mother, Levitt, 48, were last seen early in the morning of June 7, 1992, after a graduation party.
Authorities believe the three women were taken from Levitt's home in the early hours of June 7.
Sources told the News-Leader that police recently got a tip on where the women's bodies were. The tip came from a man awaiting sentencing on an unrelated charge in Greene County. He told police a friend had confessed to killing the three women during a drunken party, the sources said.
However, the sources said the information was supposed to lead police south of Springfield, not east where authorities searched.
Authorities searched the property in 1990 for two of three missing people from Springfield in a different case.
Whitson, the police captain, confirmed that federal agents also had been called to the scene Saturday, but he would not say why. Numerous law enforcement vehicles were on the property, including the Springfield police command post, commonly set up for long-term operations.
From the road, it was impossible to determine the officers' activities.
Sherrill Levitt's uncle, Cliff Williams, arrived at 6:40 p.m., wanting to speak to officers and "see if there's anything that's happened to my niece."

Author: The Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD - Springfield investigators looking into the disappearance of three women have gone back to the place they were last seen.
The women disappeared June 7 from a Springfield home. This week, investigators returned to the neighborhood to question employees in a nearby office building and neighbors.
They are backtracking and double-checking for clues into the disappearances of Sherrill Levitt, 47; her daughter, Suzie Streeter, 19; and Streeter's classmate, Stacy McCall, 18.
At least one fresh tip has rekindled suspicion that the vehicle used to take the women from Levitt's home was a van, and the suspect may be a local resident.
One of Levitt's former neighbors told police this week that a dirty white van had cruised the neighborhood for up to three weeks before the disappearances, Detective David Asher said. When the women vanished, so did the van.

Author: The Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD - Authorities in Indiana have recovered a van that disappeared about the same time last year as three Springfield women.
But police say they don't believe it is linked to the unsolved abduction case.
"It's important because it was stolen around the same time as the women disappeared, and criminals sometimes like to use stolen vehicles," Capt. Todd Whitson said Saturday.
"But that's the only connection to this case. It is not a major break. " Sherrill Levitt, her daughter, Suzanne Streeter, and Streeter's high school classmate, Stacy McCall, disappeared from Levitt's home on June 7, 1992.
The dark blue 1985 Dodge conversion van was stolen from a home more than 20 blocks from Levitt's home sometime between June 4 and 9 of last year.
The van was found Thursday in a recreational vehicle park in Ripley County in southeast Indiana, Whitson said. The driver of the van was not located, another official said.
Indianapolis police will check the van for evidence and forward their findings to Springfield police.
Though Whitson does not fully discount the importance of the van's discovery, police remain more interested in locating an early 1960s metallic green Dodge van believed used in the abduction.
Meanwhile, no word has been given on an apparently more promising lead that resulted in three Webster County search warrants in late August. Investigators are awaiting lab test results from evidence apparently found during the searches.
An informant told police the women's bodies and the green van could be found in separate rural locations of southwest Webster County. But a daylong search of those properties failed to locate them, it appeared.
Citing a potential to jeopardize the case, a Webster County judge slapped a gag order on evidence and search warrant affidavits. Police will not say how promising that lead now appears, but it continues to be the focus of their investigation.

The Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD - A moss-green 1964 Dodge van was parked outside police headquarters Tuesday as authorities urged residents to examine the replica of a vehicle that may have been used June 7 to abduct three women.
Police said the panel van, with no license plates, a white front grill and its back windows painted over, matched a witness's description of a van seen early on the morning the women disappeared.
The replica was fashioned from a van found at an auto salvage yard. Authorities said the actual van could range from a 1964 model to a 1970 model.
Lt. Mike Brazeal said the van would be on display at police headquarters for a couple of weeks and would then be moved to shopping malls around town.
"This appears to be the best lead that we have at the present time," Brazeal said.
Officials said they hoped someone else would remember seeing the actual van and provide new information on what happened to the women - Sherrill Levitt, 47, her daughter Suzie Streeter, 19, and Streeter's friend, Stacy McCall, 18.
A witness told police she saw the van in eastern Springfield about 6:30 a.m. on June 7 - the morning the women disappeared.
The women vanished from Levitt's home, leaving their cars, keys, purses, makeup and cigarettes behind. The case has baffled investigators, who received thousands of leads but said they didn't have any solid clues.
The witness told investigators the van's driver looked like Streeter.
"We're comfortable enough that what (the witness) saw and what she described could have been Suzie Streeter, so we've got to find that van," said Sue Schofield, the department's supervisor of crime analysis.
"It may be disposed of. It may be in a junk yard or a lake," Schofield said. "But somebody has seen a van that looked like that van. " The witness told police she heard a male voice from inside the vehicle telling the driver to turn around and warning her against any "silly or stupid" moves. The witness said she didn't see the man.


Author: AP

A judge refused Friday to quash a grand jury subpoena for a tape of a television reporter's interview with a prison inmate suspected in the disappearance of three women.
The Greene County grand jury had ordered KYTV reporter Dennis Graves to turn over the tape of his hour-long talk with Robert Craig Cox, only 15 percent of which was aired.
Cox has not been charged but has been interviewed by police in the 1992 disappearances of Sherrill Levitt, Suzie Streeter and Stacy McCall, all of Springfield. He is serving a 20-year sentence in Texas for a federal weapons conviction.
KYTV was willing to show the grand jury what aired but refused to turn over the entire tape. Arthur Hudkins, a lawyer for the NBC affiliate, said Cox was available to investigators for their own interviews and accused the grand jury of abuse of power.
Greene County Circuit Judge J. Miles Sweeney stayed the subpoena for seven days to give the station time to appeal.
Prosecutor Ron Carrier said the media should not be allowed to decide what may be relevant to a grand jury investigation.

Author: By Bill Bryan
Of the Post-Dispatch Staff

A Dodge Ram van found abandoned in a campground in Indiana might be involved in the baffling disappearance in June 1992 of three women from Springfield, Mo., authorities said Saturday.
The 1985 blue van with a camper top will be processed by the Indiana State Police to retrieve possible evidence, authorities said.
The van, without its license plates, was discovered Thursday in a public campground off U.S. Highway 50 about eight miles east of Versailles, Ind. A computer check of the van's vehicle identification number by the Ripley County (Ind.) sheriff's office showed that the van was stolen from Springfield on the same day that the three women disappeared, said Sgt. Bill Davison of the sheriff's office.
Springfield police declined to give further details.
Davison said the van had been brought to the campground this summer by a couple who also drove a pickup. At some point, the couple left the campground, leaving the van behind, he said.
Three women - Sherrill Levitt, then 47, her daughter Suzanne Streeter, 19, and Streeter's friend, Stacy McCall, 18 - disappeared from Levitt's home on June 7, 1992. They left behind their cars, purses and medication. There was no evidence of violence.
Police grew to believe that the women had been abducted, but no solid clues were ever uncovered.
Springfield police have focused on separate sightings of suspicious vans. On the day the women disappeared, a witness reported seeing a gray-green van driven by a woman matching Streeter's description. The witness reported hearing a male voice inside the van tell the driver: "OK, don't make any silly moves. Back up slowly and turn around."


Author: The Associated Press

A "significant event" apparently prompted a woman to go looking for her daughter on the night they disappeared with one of the daughter's friends, police said Wednesday.
Capt. Tony Glenn said investigators did not know why Sherrill E. Levitt, 47, was concerned about her daughter's whereabouts in the early hours of June 7. "What would cause a mother to be out at 2:15 a.m. looking for her daughter? " he asked.
A witness told police that Levitt stopped at 2:15 a.m. at a convenience store to ask the clerk whether he had seen her daughter and two of her daughter's friends.
Levitt appeared hurried, entering the Apco A-Mart store only halfway and quickly leaving, Glenn said.
Police have known the information for a few days but waited to construct a precise timetable before releasing it, he said at a news conference on the 10th day of the investigation.
Glenn said investigators had not established which two of her daughter's friends Levitt asked the clerk about.
The 19-year-old daughter, Suzie Streeter, and Stacy McCall, 18, left a party in Battlefield for Levitt's home between 2 and 2:10 a.m., police said.
The teen-agers apparently drove separate cars, which were found at Levitt's home along with Levitt's car.
Friends who called the home at 7:30 a.m. got no answer. Police have received more than 500 leads but have found no traces of the three.


news leader

Timeline: 10 years of frustration
June 6 6 p.m. Graduation ends at Hammmons Student Center 7:30 p.m. A friend of Suzie's drops off a graduation cake for her. 8:30 p.m. suzie and Stacy show up at their first party of the night in Battlefield on Coach Drive 9:30 p.m. Sherrill's friend calls her at the house, where she's refinishing a chair 10:30 p.m. Stacy calls home and tells her mom that she won't be driving to Branson. They'll spend the night at Janelle's.
June 7 1:30 a.m. Suzie and Stacy appear at another party in the 1500 block of East Hanover Street in Springfield Just before 2 a.m. They go back to Janelle's house on their way to Suzie's, where they would sleep in her new king-size waterbed. 8 or 9 a.m. Janelle calls Suzie's house. No answer. She leaves a message. 12:30 p.m. Janelle and her boyfriend go to the house on East Delmar Street looking for Suzie and Stacy. 7 p.m. Janis shows up at the house prepared to take Stacy's belongings and her car home.
June 8 Police begin investigating the case. they go to the house and wait for a search warrant to go inside. By the end of the night, police know they have something serious on their hands. the media learn about the disappearance.
June 9 The FBI is called in to help. Every detective at the Springfield Police Department is working on the case.
June 13 The community is invited to help in the search. Dozens of people comb wooded areas.
June 14 Pictures of the three women air on "America's Most Wanted," starring John Walsh (left). Law officers' sweeping search of wooded areas and streams in the Springfield area begins. Officers also search the Bolivar road Apartments after someone leaves a letter in a News-Leader rack at Smitty's 218 S. Glenstone Ave. The letter contains a rough drawing of the apartment complex with the phrase: 'use Ruse of Gas Man checking for Leak."
June 15 Police go back to the house at 1717 E. Delmar St. Officers are working a fresh tip that neighbors saw a transient near the home the days prior to the disappearance. A picture of the man, with long hair and a full beard (right), is released. the Missouri Victim's Center schedules group counseling sessions for friends, family and community members struggling with the disappearance.
June 16 Police release a photo of a retouched dodge van, similar to one seen near Sherrill and Suzie's home early on June7.
June 18 Because of resources needed for the missing women case, the Springfield Police Department eliminates overtime in its traffic and DWI programs. the department has already logged 1,632 hours of overtime and has worked 3,147 hours on the case.
June 21 Police hammer out their theories. Deputy chief Ron Worsham says it appears to be an Abduction and it could go in two directions. 1. A drifting transient watched and waited, then kidnapped the women. 2. Or the answer was in Levitt's background. Police dig deeper into Levitt's past. The reward fund stands at $3,000.
June 24 Police work on a new tip: A waitress at George's Steakhouse, one of Levitt's favorite restaurant,says she saw the three women at the diner between 1 and 3 a.m.
June7. The women arrived and left together. The waitress said Suzie appeared giddy, perhaps intoxicated, and her mom tried to calm her down. the reward fund skyrockets to $40,000 after a secret gift.
June 28 Police end the 24-hour command post at Levitt's home. July 19 FBI Special Agent James Wright comes to Springfield, to gather information and perhaps develop a psychological profile of the abductor.
Sept. 15 Levitt's son, Bartt Streeter, considered an initial suspect, quits his job and leaves Springfield. He has not returned. It is the 100th day of the investigation. Janis McCall: "I'd hate to think of doing this another 100 days."
Jan. 2 An anonymous New Year's Eve caller to a switchboard operator of "America's Most Wanted" is cut off when the operator tries to link up with Springfield investigators.. Police still seek contact with the man, whom they consider to have prime knowledge of the abductions.
Feb. 14 For the first time, police announce that they are considering the possibility that the disappearances are the work of one or more serial killers March 9 Suzie Streeter's 20th birthday. Her grandparents offer several hundred dollars in additional reward money in a taped appeal played on local television.
April 22 McCall's 19th birthday. Aug. 28 Information from a police informant leads police to search farmland in Webster County looking for the bodies of the tree missing women. Police say they find items at the scene, but would not elaborate. The results of the search warrant were sealed.
1994: Another lead takes police nowhere as officers search a section of Bull Shoals Lake. Officers from the Missouri Highway Patrol, Springfield police and Ozark County find animal remains and pieces of clothing believed to be panties and T-shirts. the clothing did not match the description of what the women were wearing. Janis and Stu McCall, Stacy's parents, create One Missing Link, a not-for--profit organization, to help families with loved ones who are missing.
1995: A grand jury disbands in January without handing up indictments. Robert Craig Cox, whose name came up early in the investigation, is arrested in Texas for aggravated robbery. After information on Cox is presented to a grand jury, investigators interview him in a Texas prison. In the grand jury, Cox's ex-girlfriend tells jurors that she lied when she told police cox was with her at church the morning of June 7, 1992.
1996: News-Leader reporter Robert Keyes interviews Cox from prison. The inmate tells Keyes he knows the women were killed and buried somewhere in Springfield or close by. "And they'll never be found."
1997: The family of Sherrill Levitt and Suzie Streeter go through court proceedings to declare the two women dead. Stacy's parents vow that they will not declare their daughter dead until her body is found. On the fifth anniversary, families of the women dedicate a bench in their honor inside the Victim's Memorial Garden in Phelps Grove Park. Sherrill's father isn't at the dedication - he passed away a few months before.
2001: Police consider refocusing some effort on cold cases. The missing women case is high on that priority list. Cpl. Greg Higdon begins to read old reports and leads.
2002: Springfield police write Cox a letter, requesting an interview. The inmate declines, saying because of police influence he's been segregated from fellow inmates. Officers continue to work the case, rereading reports and searching areas.