June 7, 2017 was 25 years without our loved ones. Below are the articles about the disappearance released in 2017.
All links to the direct articles will be active if they remain uncorrupted on the hosting site. SFB does not own these articles and is only archiving them for public and private use.
All links to the direct articles will be active if they remain uncorrupted on the hosting site. SFB does not own these articles and is only archiving them for public and private use.
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May 30, 2017
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How did the three
missing women case impact Springfield's psyche?
Gregory J. Holman , GHOLMAN@NEWS-LEADER.COM
Published 5:11 p.m. CT May 29, 2017 | Updated Approx
10 am May 30, 2017
Link on 5.30.17 - http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2017/05/29/how-did-three-missing-women-case-impact-springfields-psyche/102117002/
Video - http://sgfnow.co/2rgYn6l
Janis McCall talks about her daughter Stacy, who disappeared 25 years
ago along with two other women. Andrew Jansen/News-Leader
The 1992 disappearance of Sherrill (sp.) Levitt, Suzanne Streeter and
Stacy McCall prompted a mixed psychological impact on Springfield and its
community parenting culture, psychologists and longtime residents told the
News-Leader.
Kay Logsdon, a longtime Springfield resident who served as city
spokeswoman when the three women went missing, said that the disappearance
was felt as a "community crisis."
"My overwhelming memories are of the concern for the women,
concern for their families," Logsdon said. "And the hope that we
carried for them."
"I think everybody in Springfield put themselves in their
place," she added. "It was one of the first times when an abduction
hit home."
Springfield psychologist Deborah Cox said an unexplained
disappearance can create "collective anxiety" in the community.
"It's different from individual anxiety because it's something
shared," said Cox, a specialist in family therapy and trauma recovery
who was at Missouri State University from 1998 to 2009 before turning to
private practice.
The sense of threat induced by an event like the disappearance of the
"three missing women" is akin to the effects of a terror attack,
she said.
"Because it is terrorist activity," she added.
Cox said that it's common for people to react by saying, "Oh
boy, we better be locking our doors now, we better have a tighter rein on our
kids."
Meanwhile, collective anxiety may crop up when we least expect it.
"It might be invisible to us," Cox said. "We may not
know why we have a feeling of unease."
The emotions of every individual are affected by a planetary network
of human relationship ties, Cox said.
The flyer for the three missing women, Sherrill Levitt, Suzie
Streeter and Stacy McCall. (Photo: News-Leader File Photo)
As such, collective anxiety can affect things like traffic patterns,
the atmosphere at schools, family life and relationships among next-door
neighbors.
Grant Jones, a psychologist with Evangel University who specializes
in PTSD and trauma disorders, posited a somewhat different view.
"A one-time event will have a novelty effect, but then it will
go away," he said.
He likened the case of the missing women to news cycles.
"It's a sensational thing, and there may be some effects like
9/11," he said. "People change a little bit, but within a year
they're back doing what they did before."
Jones believes there was not much impact from the 1992 case because
at that time the public was less aware of issues such as human trafficking or
instances of ex-spouses abducting children from schools.
In his view, most people could not relate to the situation, so were
less affected by it.
Stuart McCall takes a phone call as Janis sits near on June 9,
1992. (Photo: News-Leader File Photo)
Today, the public hears multiple story lines to the effect that
"the world is not safe for children," Jones said, citing awareness
of sexual predators and child abduction.
Jones cited the 2014 Hailey Owens case, in which a child was abducted
from near her northwest Springfield home before being sexually assaulted and
killed, as having a greater impact than the case of the three missing women.
"So many people could identify with it," he said.
"It's a child doing normal outdoor stuff, and then she's gone. That's
scary."
"Any parent, grandparent can say, 'Yes, I've let my kids play
outside.'"
Still, Jones, who has been at Evangel 33 years, has memories of the
events of 1992.
Police detectives and a former prosecutor reflect on the 25th
anniversary of the Three Missing Women case. Andrew Jansen/News-Leader
"For me, it was like okay, where's the police in this?" he
said.
"There wasn't a sense that this was part of a larger narrative.
It was like, this is weird. This happens maybe in Texas or New York or
somewhere, but in Springfield, Missouri, that's bizarre."
Springfield native Mary Guccione remembers
her family and friends were abuzz about the case.
"(The case) affected everybody," she said.
She remembers when a Springfield friend called to ask her to put up
missing-person posters around Joplin.
Some of the more than 30 officers investigating the disappearance of
three women gather for an afternoon police briefing by police chief Terry
Knowles on June 10, 1992. (Photo: News-Leader File Photo)
Her church offered prayers for Levitt, Streeter, McCall and their
families.
She and her fellow parents began to wonder about how best to look out
for their children.
"Everybody's kids were graduating" when the women
disappeared, Guccione said. "Everyone was
concerned about their teenage daughters because they didn't understand what
was going on."
Guccione said that despite this, she felt
her friends and neighbors reacted reasonably to the disappearance. She never
had the impression that "overinflated" stories were coming out.
"But the eyebrow was always raised."
Guccione added that she raised her children
as she had been raised: free-rein.
"I told them not to stray too far, always let me know where they
were going," she said. "The minute the streetlights came on, they
were to be home."
"It was very much a small-town type of childhood, and we knew
our neighbors."
Twenty-five years later, Cox, the psychologist in private practice,
believes the community continues to see effects of the case.
File photo of the second investigation at the Levitt house on east
Delmar. File Photo In the photo are Janis McCall, center, Terry Knowles, then
police chief, and Meredith McCall. (Photo: News-Leader File Photo)
"Time doesn't cause anything to happen on its own," she
said. " But over time, other processes do morph the information."
People already prone to fear and paranoia "will be even more
stirred up," apt to "dig around" and make up stories to
explain mysterious events.
"On some level, we're all trying to make sense of it," she
said.
Jones, the Evangel psychologist, concurred.
"When you're creating a memory and you don't have all the
details, you do memory reconstruction," he said. People add details
where none exist.
"You start to create something that might not be accurate
because every human being needs closure," he said.
"The longer it goes on, the more weird
it may become, because the traditional explanations don't work, yet we still
want something to explain it."
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25 years after three
Springfield women went missing, the tips still trickle in
Thomas Gounley, TGOUNLEY@NEWS-LEADER.COM
4:41 p.m. CT May 30, 2017
Link on 5.30.17 - http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2017/05/30/25-years-after-three-springfield-women-went-missing-tips-still-trickle/101753510/
Video - http://sgfnow.co/2rgSZ3j
Janis McCall talks about her daughter Stacy, who disappeared 25 years
ago along with two other women. Andrew Jansen/News-Leader
Where do tips come from? Darrell Moore — who was Greene
County's chief assistant prosecutor in 1992, and later led the office for
more than a decade — told the News-Leader that prisoners have been one
common source.
"As people went to prison, they would try and find ways to maybe
leverage themselves out of trouble and out of prison," said Moore, who
now works for the Missouri Attorney Generals' Office. "So they would hear stories so they would call a lawyer who
would call the police department. It got to the point where we could
say, 'We’ve looked at that, we’ve already done that.'"
The case's public profile has waxed and waned over the years. By
the late 1990s, developments were few. In the early 2000s, tips prompted
several digging operations. The past decade, however, has been largely quiet.
King said that a lot of information was shared in the case's early
days. However, at some point, he said, telling the public everything
"to a point can hinder an investigation, because when we do look at a
potential person of interest or something of that nature, they have just as
much information as everyone else on the street."
"So we don't have anything held back to
judge whether or not they're being honest with us," King said.
Those who followed the case in the 1990s will remember the name
Robert Craig Cox, a convicted kidnapper known to be in Springfield when the
women went missing, who proceeded to tell the authorities the three were
dead and he knew where they were buried. His status hasn't changed in recent
years. He remains a person of interest.
A stubborn theory in some corners of the internet is that the women
are buried underneath a south Springfield parking garage owned by Cox Health.
Police spokeswoman Lisa Cox said the department first received that tip in
2006, but that the original tipster "provided no evidence or logical
reasoning behind this theory at that time or since then."
25th anniversary of the Three Missing Women case
Police detectives and a former prosecutor reflect on the 25th
anniversary of the Three Missing Women case. Andrew Jansen/News-Leader
The tips still trickle in.
"They've leveled off," said Springfield police Sgt.
Todd King. "We tend to get, I would say, a couple a month."
It's been 25 years since three Springfield women vanished without a
trace. On June 6, 1992, 19-year-old Suzie Streeter and her friend
Suzie McCall, 18, graduated from Parkview High School. They spent the
evening at graduation parties.
In the early morning hours of June 7, the two retired to a home
in the 1700 block of East Delmar Street, where Streeter lived with her
mother, 47-year-old Sherrill Levitt.
That's where the mystery begins. Levitt, Streeter and McCall were
never seen again.
When a friend called the home around 8 a.m., there was no
answer. Over the course of the day, friends and family members made the
rounds and made calls, checking out places they thought the women might
have gone. Assumptions that the three women would return any minute
gradually gave way to worry. On the evening of June 7, McCall's mother called
police.
The scene was concerning. Each of the women had a car, and all three
were parked outside the unlocked house. Their purses were at the
top of the stairs. Levitt and Streeter, both smokers, had left their
cigarettes behind. McCall had left without her migraine medication.
But there was no sign of a struggle. The only thing amiss was
a porch light cover that had been busted. Friends of the women, however,
had cleaned up the broken glass long before the cops were called,
thinking they were being helpful.
It was a highly-publicized case from the start. The FBI was called.
Search parties were organized. Within a week, the faces of Springfield's
three missing women were broadcast on the television show "America's
Most Wanted." Tips poured in.
The flyer for the three missing women, Sherrill Levitt, Suzie
Streeter and Stacy McCall. (Photo: News-Leader File Photo)
A case that everyone expected to be quickly solved, however, turned
into the city's most well-known cold case.
"It's always been open," King said in a recent interview
late last month. "It's an active investigation."
The Springfield Police Department has turned over. There are no sworn
officers left that were on the force back in 1992. Over the years, the case
of the Springfield Three, or 3MW, has been assigned to numerous
investigators. Whenever one has retired, or been promoted, the
case has been handed off to someone new. Fresh eyes.
For the last year and a half, the eyes have been those
of Detective Scott Hill. King, as his direct supervisor, helps him
respond to the tips that come in.
There have been thousands over the years, although fewer as time has
gone on. The majority that come in these days are identical, or similar,
to previous ones. That's not to say they are unwelcome. After 25 years, the department's
plea hasn't changed: Keep them coming.
"Somebody out there knows something and has not come forward,
with a piece of information to put this thing together," Lt. Culley
Wilson said.
"We wish they would come forward, because it's awful to lose a
child for those families," Wilson continued. "But to lose a
child and not know where they're at, or to not know what's happening, it's
tragic."
Darrell Moore was an assistant prosecutor at the time three
Springfield women went missing in 1992. (Photo: Andrew
Jansen/News-Leader)
Cox said police have spoken with the woman who made the tip, as
well as individuals she hired to scan a portion of the parking garage.
In some cases, Cox said, the individuals denied making statements the woman
attributed to them. A professor told police he was unaware of technology that
could scan the area in the way the tipster described, according to police.
Construction of the parking garage began in September 1993, Cox
said — some 15 months after the women went missing.
"Digging up the area and subsequently reconstructing this
structure would be extremely costly, and without any reasonable belief that
the bodies could be located here, it is illogical to do so, and for those
reasons SPD does not intend to," Cox said. "Investigators have
determined this lead to not be credible."
King said Springfield police "keep very close contact with
the McCalls." Contact with the extended
Streeter family is more occasional.
The causes of cold cases breakthroughs can generally be divided
into two categories. First, someone can talk, either in the form of a
confession or just another tip, one that leads police to the
perpetrator(s). Second, there can be a scientific breakthrough that makes
existing evidence more valuable. Some cold cases, for instance, have
been solved with DNA technology that didn't exist when the crime first
occurred.
Moore said the first option is likely the only one here. He said he's
unaware of "any evidence found at the scene that could ever implicate
anybody."
Wilson and King, of Springfield police, said they both remain
optimistic.
"We're going to solve it," Wilson said. "I don't
know when. It may not be within our time left here (at the department), but
we're going to solve it."
Springfield Police Sgt. Todd King talks about the current state of
the investigation into the three missing women 25 years after they
disappeared. (Photo: Nathan Papes/News-Leader)
Moore said he finds hope in the fact that, during his time as
prosecutor, people were brought to justice in two cases more than 20 years
after the fact.
The first was the 1982 murder of 15-year-old Tammy Smith, whose body
was found two months after she disappeared after returning a
shopping cart to a Ramey's grocery store; Joel
"Jody" Moore was sentenced in 2005. The second was the prosecution
of Gerald Carnahan for the 1985 murder of 20-year-old Nixa
resident Jackie Johns; a jury found Carnahan guilty in 2010.
“So, at times I think it’ll never be resolved, but then I remind
myself of at least those two cases where eventually there was
resolution," he said.
Twenty-five years later, the Springfield Three still resonates as a
case it seems everyone local knows. Wilson, however, said that if you went
back 30 years, it's likely most people could rattle off the details of the
Young Brothers Massacre. But now there are plenty of locals unaware
of the 1932-gun battle that killed six law enforcement officers in
present-day Republic.
"That's kind of the fear," Wilson said. "As more
time goes by, this case gets colder and colder."
Still, he said, "we're both optimistic.”
How did the three-missing women case impact Springfield's psyche?
Here's a timeline of the case:
— 1992 —
June 6: Suzie Streeter and Stacy (sp.) McCall graduate from
Kickapoo High School, later attending two graduation parties together. The
pair wind up at Streeter’s house at 1717 E. Delmar St. about 2 a.m. June 7.
June 7: A friend calls the house at 8 or 9 a.m. and gets no
answer. She stops by a little after noon, but there is no sign of the girls
or Suzie’s mother, Sherrill Levitt. Police are called late that evening.
June 8: Police begin investigating the case. The unlocked house
appears as if the women simply vanished while getting ready for bed.
June 9: The FBI is called in.
June 14: Authorities begin a sweep of wooded areas and streams
in the Springfield area and search an apartment building after a letter
containing a rough drawing of the apartment complex and the phrase, “use Ruse
of Gas Man checking for Leak,” is found in a News-Leader rack at a grocery
store. Also on this day, pictures of the women air on the television show
“America's Most Wanted.”
June 15: Police begin working a fresh tip about a transient who
neighbors reported seeing near the home in the days before the women
disappeared. A sketch is released, showing a man with long hair and a full
beard.
June 16: Police release a photo of a retouched Dodge van, similar to one seen near Levitt and Streeter's home early
on June 7.
June 24: Police work on a new tip. A waitress at George’s
Steakhouse, one of Levitt’s favorite restaurants, says she saw the three
women at the diner between 1 and 3 a.m. June 7. The women arrived and left
together. The waitress said Suzie appeared giddy, perhaps intoxicated, and
her mom tried to calm her down.
June 28: Police end their 24-hour command post at Levitt’s home.
— 1993 —
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 having 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.
Aug. 28: Information from an informant leads police to search
farmland in Webster County looking for bodies. Police say they find items at
the scene, but will not elaborate. The results of the search warrant were
sealed.
— 1994 —
A lead prompts authorities to search a section of Bull Shoals Lake,
where they find animal remains and pieces of clothing. The clothing
does not match the description of what the women were wearing.
— 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 —
Former 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.
— 2001 —
Maj. Steve Ijames takes command of the
Criminal Investigations Section and reopens several cold cases, including
that of the three missing women.
— 2002 —
Springfield police write Cox a letter, requesting an interview. He
declines. Also, this year, Webster County authorities dig near an abandoned
slaughterhouse south of Marshfield. They find teeth and bone fragments
estimated to be about 100 years old.
—2003 —
Following new tips, investigators check an old farm about five miles
south of Cassville. Cadaver-seeking dogs show interest in various areas.
Tires, trash, a motorcycle and sections of a green vehicle are dug up from
the surrounding farmland. DNA samples taken from an abandoned house on the
property are sent to a lab for testing, but no match is found.
— 2006 —
A group of amateur detectives go to Springfield police and Greene
County Prosecutor Darrell Moore with their theory that the three women are
buried under a parking garage near Cox South hospital. Authorities decide not
to dig under the garage, saying there isn’t enough evidence to warrant the
cost of digging.
— 2010 —
Paul Williams, Springfield's new police chief, initiates a review of
the case, which extends into 2012.
— 2012 —
Springfield police investigators travel to Virginia and present their
review of the case to a panel of 25 criminal-justice investigators
assembled by the National
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May 31, 2017
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Mother of missing woman: Don't
call it an anniversary
Giacomo Bologna, GBOLOGNA@NEWS-LEADER.COM
Published 11:15 p.m. CT May 31, 2017 | Updated 11:17 p.m. CT May 31,
2017
Standing in that bedroom on June 7, 1992, Janis McCall had
no way of knowing her daughter would become part of Springfield's
most puzzling unsolved disappearance.
Instead, McCall was angry.
Her daughter Stacy had just graduated from Kickapoo and was spending
the night at a friend's home, but when Stacy didn't call her the
next day, McCall went over to the central Springfield home.
The doors were unlocked. And inside a room were Stacy McCall's
shorts, shoes and bra in a neat pile on the floor next to the bed. Nearby
were her keys, her bathing suit, her purse and her make-up kit.
"I thought, 'This is absolutely stupid'
— that she left her stuff here and she left her car and she didn't
have any sense to call me," McCall said.
Stacy was a beautiful, vibrant girl, McCall said. She used to model
wedding dresses, and her long hair reached past her waist.
Even now, when McCall sees a girl with hair that long, she has to get a glimpse of the girl's face just to see that
it's not Stacy.
Why didn't she call? And why was her car still parked outside?
"Her shirt and her panties were all that she had," McCall
said.
The TV in the bedroom was turned on, but only static was on the
screen.
McCall went outside to her daughter's car and realized — this
doesn't make sense.
In the ensuing days, one of the largest missing-person searches ever
began in southwest Missouri.
They were looking for Stacy McCall, 18, Suzanne "Suzie"
Streeter, 19, and Streeter's mother, Sherrill Levitt, 47.
Janis McCall, the mother of Stacy McCall, looks at an old newspaper
from the days after her daughter and two other women went
missing. (Photo: Nathan Papes/News-Leader)
Stacy McCall and Streeter had left the graduation party in
Battlefield together. They went to the central Springfield home of Streeter's
mother, Levitt. That's the last known place the three missing women were
believed to have been.
Within a week, divers from the fire department had scoured Lake
Springfield, police officers on horseback had searched fields, and more than
20,000 flyers had been distributed across the area.
The day after their disappearance, a captain with the Springfield
Police Department said: "We think we're heading in the right direction
... Our hopes remain high to get that one clue or that one phone call
that really gives you a break in the case."
Police detectives and a former prosecutor reflect on the 25th
anniversary of the Three Missing Women case. Andrew Jansen/News-Leader
Nearly 25 years have passed, and that clue or phone call still
hasn't come.
McCall said she's felt as though the case was on the brink of being
solved countless times, calling those feelings an "emotional roller
coaster."
"You're at the lowest low and then you go up and you're at the
highest high and you think 'I'm gonna have her home
tonight. I'm gonna have my baby home,'" she
said. "Then within a few hours or a few days, you're back to the lowest
low again."
How many times has she ridden that roller coaster? "I can't even
begin to tell you," McCall said. "Truly, I don't believe that
they're alive; I think they're probably gone. I don't know why or when
or how long they were kept alive. ... I would love to find them in white
slavery somewhere or sold to a sheik over in Iraq."
Next Wednesday will be the 25th marker — not anniversary,
she said — of their disappearance.
"Anniversaries are something people celebrate," she said,
"and we don't celebrate when the three missing women disappeared."
The last time McCall said she saw her daughter was June 6,
1992, around 8:30 p.m.
The family had just eaten and was taking
pictures outside before cutting Stacy's graduation cake, McCall said.
Stacy wanted to go to a party and then head to a water park in
Branson later that night, McCall said, but McCall had a "horrible
feeling" her daughter would get into an accident if they drove to
Branson at night.
Stacy hugged her mom and told her she would call.
"She didn't cut her cake that night," McCall
said. "She was going to cut it the next day."
Just two hours later, Stacy called. They weren't going to Branson.
Instead, she would be staying the night at a friend's house and she would
call her mother in the morning.
However, a little after 2 a.m., Stacy and Suzie left the party and
went to Suzie's home.
"I didn't ever get that call in the morning," McCall
said.
McCall would get thousands of phone calls about her daughter — tips,
crank calls, cruel jokes and more — but no call from her daughter.
McCall said she still gets calls about the missing women.
"We had people call us and tell us they put them in a vat, and
some people said they'd all been frozen and cut up into pieces and put into a
kiln."
It has been 25 years since the disappearance of three women in
Springfield, a cold case that remains under investigation. (Photo:
News-Leader file photo)
Even the most unlikely tip gets forwarded on to police, McCall said.
For a while, she said, she and her husband paid an "ex-con"
to search for their daughter.
"He said he could get in places that the police couldn't,"
McCall said. "He led us up and down the garden path and took our money."
McCall said she had even arranged through friends to have a
helicopter ready in case her daughter needed to be immediately picked up
somewhere.
"I had a lot of people who were willing to help us," she
said. "I think people would have done anything to help us find
them."
Sometimes people still recognize McCall as the mother of Stacy,
McCall said, especially when she's out with one of her other two daughters.
Often people tell her they're praying for her and her missing daughter, she
said.
"I love the community. I love Springfield," McCall said.
"The people have been friendly."
Looking back at the initial investigation, McCall said she is
thankful for all the officers, sheriff's deputies, state troopers, law
enforcement agents, firefighters and volunteers who helped search.
The flyer for the three missing women, Sherrill Levitt, Suzie
Streeter and Stacy McCall. (Photo: News-Leader File Photo)
However, McCall said law enforcement officials didn't always
work well together.
There were weekly conferences on Wednesday afternoons where
representatives from Springfield police, the Greene County Sheriff's Office,
the highway patrol and more would sit around a table.
"I think sometimes they came and they didn't check their egos at
the door," McCall said.
She said she still believes the organizations haven't shared all
their information about the three missing women with each other.
McCall recalled how early in the investigation, the highway patrol
volunteered to bring a "whole truckload of computers" down to help
with the investigation, but the Springfield Police Department declined.
Computers would have been much more effective at tracking information
than the 3x5-inch note cards used by police, McCall said.
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A Quarter Century of
Questions: The Disappearance of the 3 Missing Women
Ozarks First KOLR 10 News
By: David Oliver
Posted: May 31, 2017 10:07 PM CDT | Updated: May 31, 2017 10:20 PM
CDT
SPRINGFIELD,Mo. -- Twenty-five years ago a missing persons case would
unravel in Springfield that remains a mystery, prompting a quarter century of
questions.
It was June 7, 1992, when Stacy McCall, Sherrill Levitt and Suzie
Streeter would vanish without a trace. The three-missing women case has
perplexed people for years. It's perhaps Springfield's coldest case.
We're going to revisit many aspects of this story over the next
several nights as we hit the quarter century mark of the women's
disappearance. Up first, a look back at what happened that night
through the memories of a mother.
"Stacy this is your mom. Please call me at home.
Bye," says Janis McCall in a 1992 phone message.
Phone messages of concern that would grow into fear on the night of
June 7, 1992. That night 18-year-old Stacy McCall and 19-year-old Suzie
Streeter graduated from Kickapoo High School.
"After all the graduation stuff we went
out to eat. And, then Stacy went home with us and she immediately started
changing clothes and I said, wait, you can't change clothes yet, we've got
pictures out back" recalls Janis McCall, Stacy's mother.
Stacy would oblige her mother's photo request, then met up with
Streeter so the two could attend planned parties to celebrate
graduation. After making several stops, the girls returned to
Streeter's home that she shared with her mother, Sherrill Levitt. But
from that night on, Levitt, Streeter and McCall would never be heard from
again.
"We had no idea there was a crime scene there, you know that you
don't expect it you're looking for your daughter and trying to find out what
happened" says McCall.
Janis McCall recalls going to Levitt's home 25 years ago and finding
the purses of all three women. There was no sign of a struggle, only a broken
glass bulb over the front porch light. Police believe the three women went
missing sometime between 2:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m.
"I remember when the police department came up and two officers
came in. And I explained what was going on. And I walked them through the
house. So, the officers said we're going to go outside and discuss this and
look around a little bit. And they looked all around the house and kind of
down the street a little bit. And when they came back in they said we're
going to file this as a missing persons case, foul play suspected" says
McCall.
Janis McCall immediately began calling radio and tv stations to
spread word about the missing women. She made posters with pleas to help
bring the women home.
"I don't remember if it was that day or night that the crime
scene van was pulled in front of Suzie and Sherrill's house and that yellow
tape was put up saying crime scene. And not to enter," says McCall.
From that day on Janis McCall and her family were in constant contact
with police, tracking down leads and fielding phone calls with tips that
would most often lead nowhere.
"I remember the different calls that they would say they had
seen them. They said they had seen Stacy driving a little red sports car down
Battlefield. Well it wasn't Stacy it was our oldest daughter. I remember
calls that said they were cut up into pieces. I remember one that said
they were fed to the hogs. You know horrifying things for a mom to
hear," says McCall.
McCall went on to establish a network called One Missing Link. It
aimed to help other families with a missing loved one. It's not as active
today and she doesn't visit the police station as much anymore either.
But just as she's done all these years, Janis McCall still holds out
hope that one day we might learn the truth about what really happened to
Springfield's three missing women.
"If the police still follow every lead that comes in and follow it
to ends end one of these days we are going to find out because somebody
knows. The only thing my gut can say is that three women are missing. They
disappeared without a trace, I have no idea where they went, who took them.
You know I would absolutely love it if one of them called me" says
McCall.
Janis McCall says at one time all 32 detectives employed by the
Springfield Police Department were in some way dedicated to the case of the
three missing women.
We have several reports coming up over the next several nights as we
mark a quarter century of this cold case. We'll hear from some of the
original investigators, we'll look at false leads over the years, and we'll
hear from journalists about what it was like to cover the case of the three
missing women.
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June 1, 2017
|
A Quarter Century of
Questions: Detectives Consumed by the 3 Missing Women
By: Grant Sloan
Posted: Jun 01, 2017 10:04 PM CDT | Updated: Jun 01, 2017 10:04 PM
CDT
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- The case of the three missing women not only
captured the attention of community members, it consumed many of the men and
women working the case.
Even 25 years later, some of them still think about the women
daily.
We sat down with men who were on the ground from the beginning and
one officer who picked up the torch ten years into the investigation.
"I wish we had solved that case back then, but I pray daily that
this case is solved before I leave this world. I won't have to get up to
glory to see the girls to see what happened," Retired Sgt. David Asher
with the Springfield Police Department said.
Asher helped lead the investigation into the disappearance of
Sherrill Levitt, her daughter, Suzie Streeter and Streeter's friend, Stacy
McCall (SP.).
Just days into their disappearance, Asher's team was tasked with finding
answers many detectives are still searching for today.
"My team and I worked days and nights and many, many hours. We
were overwhelmed, we were confronted with issues we had never been confronted
with before," Asher said.
Some of those challenges are well known.
Among them, one of the most important pieces of any case, the
condition of the crime scene.
In the hours leading up to police being contacted, family members and
friends were inside the home trying to make sense of the situation.
"I'm not blaming anybody. A family is concerned is going to do
everything they can do," Asher said.
"Anytime you walk into a crime scene, you take something in.
Anytime you leave the crime scene you take something out," Ron Worsham
said.
Worsham was the assistant police chief in 1992.
He says early on the department threw everyone and everything at the
case.
In those days DNA evidence wasn't used, but detectives did use a
fumigating technique to pull fingerprints from the home.
"And of course, we had thousands of prints at that point and
time...we didn't have the automatic print system at that time. So really the
only way prints did you any good back then is if you had a suspect to compare
them too," Worsham said.
There were also thousands of tips that poured in from the community.
"Every tip that came in, you couldn't afford not to check it
out. Because any tip could have been credible," Worsham said.
Investigators went to great, and at times, unconventional lengths
following some of those leads.
A person was called in who claimed to be able to communicate
with the dog that was left behind.
A woman who provided information about a green van seen in the area
was hypnotized.
Investigators managed to track a phone call from the show America's
Most Wanted to a store in Louisiana.
"That person actually fit the description of some of the
information we had that could of been involved in
the abduction. That person was going to call back and never did."
Going to the public for help may have been a doubled-edged sword
though, as many of those interviewed by police were aware of the latest
information.
"It just gets a lot out there to where detectives might be
hindered in their attempts to solve it or follow up on leads property,"
Greg Higdon of the SPD said.
Springfield Police Captain Higdon brought a fresh set of eyes to the
case in 2001.
"It's very intimidating, I mean there were at that time 5,000
plus leads, going in a variety of different directions," Higdon said.
Higdon re-interviewed family members and friends and combed through
evidence.
Before his promotion in 2006, he had filed more than 400 new reports
on the case.
"There were some that came in that were good leads, other leads
were maybe not a lot of information: Maybe a sighting or, 'I think this
person did it' or that person, but not much to go on," Higdon said.
"I think we did everything we probably could, but you never know
what you might have missed. That's always in the back of your mind,"
Worsham said.
Worsham says in later years as sheriff of Webster County he still
followed leads on the missing women.
And, even in his retirement, as he hears of other missing persons
cases, many of the memories come back.
"I think about this case every day, today. Back in June the 7th,
1992 is when it started," Asher said.
Each investigator has their own theories, only parts of which they
are willing to share.
"I firmly believe one of them was being stalked for some time
before the crime was ever committed," Worsham said.
"I personally believe we have talked to that person or persons
responsible," Asher said.
While the answers are still unknown, the investigators agree someone
out there has the missing pieces.
"I will tell ya, that every person on
the department when I was there, I retired in 95, will be thrilled, and
everyone involved in this case since then will be ecstatic, that it would be
resolved," Asher said.
As we continue this in-depth look at the case leading up to June 7,
we will spend time Friday night examining the numerous false leads that
frustrated investigators.
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June 2, 2017
|
A Quarter Century of
Questions: A Number of False Leads
By: Melanie Chapman
Link: http://www.ozarksfirst.com/news/a-quarter-century-of-questions-a-number-of-false-leads/730448727
Posted: Jun 02, 2017 10:21 PM CDT | Updated: Jun 02, 2017 11:30 PM
CDT
A Quarter Century of Questions...
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- It was a case that shocked the community, three
women go missing nearly 25 years ago.
Dozens of investigators, hundreds of tip calls, even some from around
the world.
This week, we've been reexamining the case of Springfield's missing
women as we lead up to the June 7th "missing date."
Reporter Melanie Chapman discusses the false leads that made this
crime so confounding.
What happened to these three missing Springfield women? Stacy McCall,
Suzie Streeter (SP) and Sherrill Levitt. It’s a case that received national
attention.
A mystery, that even decades later people are still talking about.
Former Prosecuting Attorney Darrell Moore says, "Everybody on
this case wanted it resolved."
Moore was one of dozens of investigators who spent days, sleepless
nights and hundreds of hours trying to solve this case. Today he still has
hope the answer, so many have worked and prayed for, will come.
"Through the years there have been various leads but it got to
the point where even today I still get calls from people." Moore said.
Moore acknowledges, it has been frustrating. There wasn't one rock
they didn't overturn. They had to take every tip seriously. Many leads, none
were solid.
Moore says, "There was a dig up over in Webster Co. because
there was a rumor they had been taken by a certain person. Abused, chopped up
and spread a creek or spread in a cave there were searches over
there."
Early on, there were tips about a green van. This is a vehicle that
was seen around 1717 East Delmar in Springfield.
Police received a tip from a woman who claims she saw a van, being
driven by who she thought was Suzie Streeter the morning of the
disappearance. Yelling at the driver telling her to get out of there. Police
searched thousands of vans, they posted the model all over the media. Even
painted one green and kept it outside the police department. Tips about the van
and the missing women kept flooding in.
"I was appointed special prosecutor in Barry co because of a
lead by the Highway Patrol we had received and there was a dig down there on
a property but at the time it seemed promising. It seemed to fit certain facts
that we thought we knew at the time." Moore said.
That fateful night, Stacy and Suzie graduated. They went to numerous
parties and Stacy ended up spending the night at Suzie's home. The next
morning Stacy's family went to the house after not hearing from their
daughter. They found the girl's purses and no sign of a struggle. The pet dog
was the only sign of life in the house.
Retired Springfield Police Sergeant David Asher says, "I just
felt like when we were given the case, when we actually got it late, we
didn't start from the very beginning."
Asher was one of the lead investigators. He worked alongside Ron
Worsham also with Springfield Police.
Worsham says, "Well we looked at her brother cause
there had been some problems there they were I don't know if it was true or
false."
Worsham is talking about Bartt (SP) Streeter, Suzie's Brother. His
alibi at the time of the disappearance apparently checked out. Then there was
a tip that the women were buried under the south parking lot of Cox Hospital.
It was under construction soon after the disappearance. A theory, Moore says
with no credible evidence.
That was bulldozed to prepare the parking garage for the cement
that's at the bottom of the garage. Well part of the debris left out there is
remains of trees and stumps and so we were told the anomalies out there were
not bodies out but were probably debris.
Then there's Robert Craig Cox. A man released from a Florida prison
on a trial technicality. He had been convicted of killing a woman in Florida
but was free and in Springfield at the time the women disappeared.
Moore says, "He stirred up a lot of interest and there was some
concern that he may have been playing people so he could get transported back
here and get out of prison for a bit."
Dustin Reckla was a former acquaintance of
Suzie (SP) Streeter. She was about to testify against him on charges he broke
into a mausoleum to steal gold from the deceased. Police were very
interested in Reckla and two accomplices but hope
there quickly faded.
Worsham says, "If you can clear those three people who were
persons of interest, we were kind of left with no suspects"
While many of the leads turned up false they still hold out hope the
right tip could be developed even 25 years later.
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June 3, 2017
|
A Quarter Century of
Questions: Journalists Recall Missing Women Case from 25 Years Ago
By: Jennifer Kielman
Posted: Jun 03, 2017 09:34 PM CDT | Updated: Jun 03, 2017 09:34 PM
CDT
A Quarter Century of Questions
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- It'll be 25 years on Wednesday when three women,
Suzanne Streeter, Stacy McCall and Sherrill Levitt, went missing in
Springfield.
The three went missing from Levitt's home. Even through extensive
investigations and searches, to this day, they are still nowhere to be found.
Most people who lived in the Queen City during that time, remember it
well.
That also holds true for the journalists who covered it.
KOLR10's Assistant Director Lissa Hamblen
says, "I think most journalists who were here, working and have worked
throughout the years on this story, they probably have spent time thinking
about it at night, ya know, at 3 o'clock in
the morning. And, you're like -- where are they?"
"That was a Monday Morning. And, I was working at KTTS as a
traffic reporter." KOLR10's Managing Editor Karen Libby said.
Lissa Hamblen says, "I worked here
(KOLR). I was producing. I must've been dayside cause the memory that sticks
out is the morning meeting."
KOLR10's Assignment Editor Bil Tatum says,
"I was in the newsroom at the News Leader."
Karen Libby says, "As I was driving around that morning, I heard
one of the officers say, the porch light is broken out."
Bil Tatum says, "Something wasn't
right. We heard on the scanner that indicated there was something going on at
that location on Delmar."
"I was there shortly after 8 and started getting this
information together. And, I think we went on the air with it at 8:30."
Karen Libby said.
Lissa Hamblen says, "Our news director
at the time, Steve Snyder, immediately brought this up as one of our
potential stories for that day. And said, what is going on? I'm hearing
something about 3 women who haven't shown up. They're missing from a house in
Springfield and they're just gone."
Bil Tatum says, "They were gone in
such unusual circumstances. You wouldn't expect, I mean having the mom be one
of the people who disappeared was part of the unusualness about the
story. And the girls had just come off on what was one of the happiest
nights of their life probably. They graduated. They had been partying, been
enjoying the evening with their friends. They had plans for the next day.
They were expected to be some place the next day. And, it just didn't look
good. It didn't look good that there was no explanation for why they would
have left behind their purses, their keys, their cigarettes. Smokers don't do
that."
Lissa Hamblen says, "I can't
imagine if it's like one person who took them-- how did they take three
people without leaving anything that connected them?"
"Cars in the driveway. Their belongings. Their clothes. That's
what was really so scary.", Bil
Tatum said.
Karen Libby says, "And, it just took off from there."
Bil Tatum says, "In the days that
followed, it became a much bigger story as things kept going on and on.
And there was no, nothing to explain this bizarre, mysterious
disappearance."
Lissa Hamblen says, "The first week or
so, you really thought, it was just going to resolve. It was going to have an
ending of some sort. And, it didn't."
"It's the craziest story. And, it went on forever.' Karen Libby
said.
Lissa Hamblen says, "Weeks went by.
And, eventually years. And, every anniversary since that time, we do the
one year, the five year, the ten year. And it just
keeps going."
Karen Libby says, "The thing that's just boggling even now
is that, we don't have any answers at all. I mean, they had 24, 25 thousand
documents in the case file."
Bil Tatum says, "They had so many
leads, thousands of leads, thousands of tips. All those people working on
them."
Karen Libby says, "They had FBI experts. Some very smart people
all over the country examine that case."
Bil Tatum says, "And we had all the
tips about the van, the tips about every disturbed pile of dirt in Missouri
became suspicious to somebody."
Karen Libby says, "And, it's gone nowhere. They vanished. How do
three people vanish? And, that's what continues to keep people's
attention on this. Who would ever think I would still be talking about a
crime like this, a case like this, a quarter of a century later. It's just
crazy."
"Watching that family agonize and grasp for whatever they can,
just to get some resolution. That's with every story I think. I
think, all of us watch families hurt. And, journalists feel that. We
feel their pain and watching her hurt has not been easy. It has not been easy
for anybody. I want something to end on this so she can breathe. And, her
husband can breathe. I want their family to know something. That would be the
ending, regardless of what it is. Just to know would help.", Lissa Hamblen said.
Karen Libby says, "We all want to know what happened.
Those women have become our women."
Libby, Hamblen, and Tatum are current employees of KOLR10.
When Karen Libby worked for KTTS 25 years ago, she says, they were
the first to report the incident.
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June 4, 2017
|
A Quarter Century of
Questions: Community Can't Forget the 3 Missing Women
By: Collin Lingo
Posted: Jun 04, 2017 10:01 PM CDT | Updated: Jun 04, 2017 10:01 PM
CDT
SPRINGFIELD,
Mo. -- As KOLR10 continues its look back into the disapearance
of Springfield's three missing women, we're left asking - who else is
struggling to come to terms with the event 25 years later?
A reporter sought to find those in the Ozarks who have yet to call
the event one of the past, those who take some part of the 25
year old case with them every day, or in other words, those who refuse
to forget.
The faces of Sherrill (SP) Levitt, her daughter Suzie Streeter and
Streeter's high school friend Stacy McCall have been preserved in photographs
and videos for the past 25 years.
Whether it's through a blog dedicated to their return, or an article
in a magazine recounting their disappearance - like this one, recently
published by Kickapoo High School Streeter and McCall's alma mater.
It's clear, these photographs are still penetrating the community's
memory.
Another spot those faces can be found today is at Coyote Adobe's Bar
and Cafe in Springfield.
"Years and years and years," David Bauer, Coyote Adobe's
owner, said. "It's hung right there in that spot for 25 years."
Bauer knows the poster hanging in his front window has seen better
days.
"We got it laminated," Bauer said. "It's an ugly piece
of paper but it's an ugly deal."
But, taking it down would mean breaking a promise.
"It was maybe the second day after it happened," Bauer
said.
He made a call a quarter century ago to Stacy McCall's mom, Janis.
"Janis came by and she dropped off a flyer and she asked me if
I'd hang it in the window. And I said 'I'll leave it
up until they come back,'" Bauer said.
As it turns out, Bauer isn't alone. There are still so many people
across the state perplexed by this case. As for why, one former prosecutor
says it's hard not to fixate on a problem with such a frustrating lack of
answers.
"With no idea of who did it, how it was done, or where they were
taken, I mean, it's totally an exceptional event," Darrell Moore, former
prosecutor, said.
At the time of the women's disappearance, Moore was a chief assistant
prosecutor in Greene County.
"Since then it's disturbed, and rightly disturbed people for the
last quarter century," Moore said.
These days, he travels the state as a special prosecutor, finding one
commonality in every place he goes.
"When I go to other counties, judges, lawyers, defense lawyers,
prosecutors or even people still ask me, what's the inside scoop and I have to tell them 'I don't have any kind of scoop,"
Moore said.
While sheer curiosity and shock play a role here, Moore says another
factor is certainly fear.
"I think in the back of a lot of people's minds is 'could it
happen to me?'. The randomness of it. I think it scared people then and it
scares people today," Moore said.
It's not just the fear related to what happened.
"Even 25 years later, it's hard. And I don't even know
them," Bauer said.
But also the fear of what could happen.
"I wouldn't get rid of it. If it saved one girl, coming in here,
seeing that picture and thinking 'I better be safe tonight," Bauer said.
And, maybe worst of all, fear that we'll never see more of these
women than just their photographs.
"Hopefully it'll be gone," Bauer said.
Now you heard there, the bar owner mentioned his contact with Janis
McCall (SP), Stacy's mom. Coming up tomorrow, we'll hear more from Janis
McCall (SP) about how she has done her best to heal over the past 25 years.
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June 5, 2017
|
A Quarter Century of Questions:
Families Of 3 Missing Women Try to Cope
By: Melanie Chapman
Posted: Jun 05, 2017 10:32 PM CDT | Updated: Jun 05, 2017 10:32 PM
CDT
Springfield, Mo. -- They vanished without a trace - Stacy McCall,
Suzie Streeter and Sherrill Levitt.
Through the years there were many leads, some appeared strong but
investigators say they never turned up any credible evidence.
"We were on a roller coaster that would go up and down and up
and down and that roller coaster would say, we think we have them," said
Janis McCall, Stacy's mother.
Twenty-five years later there is no sign of the women and no known
suspect. For the families of the missing women, coping with the disappearance
over the years has changed them. Janis and her husband, Stuart, have
grandchildren today.
"We became even more protective of our family. I still don't
want my daughters going shopping, even if it’s at the mall or Walmart or
wherever by themselves," Janis said.
From the beginning, Janis stayed in constant contact with
investigators, posted fliers, received phone calls at her home some
hateful, others seemingly helpful. Sherrill's (SP.) sister and Suzie's aunt,
Deb Schwartz, lives in Arizona.
"It was hard for us, it was very hard for us because we weren't
there and we felt like gosh, we aren't doing like what Janis could do,"
Deb said.
Schwartz said she still has a lot of anger. Living with no answers
and no sign of their loved ones has taken its toll on the family. Her mother
and father have since passed.
"He was 75 when he died and I think he would have had a much
longer life without that stress. I think it ate at him, being a father and
knowing that in his mind he failed to protect his daughter or to bring it to
any conclusion was very hard. It is very hard for all of us, we can't do
anything," Deb said.
Deb and Janis both are aware of the many possibilities as to what may
have happened and who could have done it. Both come back to one man as a
likely suspect: Robert Craig Cox. He was convicted of killing a woman in
Florida but was released on a trial technicality. He was in Springfield at
the time of the disappearance.
"He was fully capable of doing it. He had, he actually had
worked with the same place that my husband worked Reliable Chevrolet."
Janis said.
Cox would have very well seen Stacy, her sisters and her friends when
they would visit her father at work," Janis said.
"Cox is probably the most logical choice. There are so many ways
that he fit. and he's pretty much a sociopath from the interviews I've
seen," said Deb.
With all the emotional suffering, the families have endured the past
25 years, it's their faith that has helped guide them through.
"I take comfort in believing that my dad is with Sherrill and
Suzie and knows what happened now. You know happened and know that they're in
heaven and they're in a happy place and a better place than this world and my
mom's there too," Deb said.
Janis said she still struggles with depression at times.
"I turned this over to God probably three or four weeks after
she disappeared. I said I just can't handle anymore you've got to do it
because I can't and I do think that's a part of it. I do have a good
relationship with God and I know that in his own time, he'll let me know. It
might be long after I've gone and can be a blink of an eye and it’s been 25
years, so maybe he's only blinked once and may take that second blink,"
Janis said.
The families still hold out hope, someone will do the right thing,
and come forward with solid information on this case. They know it’s
highly unlikely the women are alive - they just want to bring them home.
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June 6, 2017
|
A Quarter Century of
Questions: Escaping A Digital Fingerprint
By: Daniel Shedd
Posted: Jun 06, 2017 09:10 PM CDT | Updated: Jun 06, 2017 09:49 PM
CDT
3 Missing Women Stories
A Quarter Century of Questions...
A Quarter Century of Questions: The...
SPRINGFIELD, Mo -- It's been 10 years since the first iPhone came
out. That was in 2007.
Facebook and Myspace came on the scene around three years before
that, in 2004.
It's hard to believe, but you would have to venture 12 more years in
times past to get a glimpse of technology in 1992.
Tracking crimes was much different back then. They didn't have what
detectives now call a 'Digital Fingerprint'.
“They left the party at Battlefield, somewhere around 2 a.m., and
their vehicle was found around 12 p.m. at the Delmar address,” said David
Millsap. “We would have been able to get an idea of their route just
based on their cell phone.”
Current Laclede County Sherriff, David Millsap, started with the
Springfield Police Department a year and a half after that fateful day in
1992.
“I really, truly believe that it’s the case that haunts the
Springfield Police Department,” said Millsap.
He led a comprehensive review of the case, including over 25,000
documents just three years ago. The conclusion, is one that still runs cold.
“This is one of those tragic tales where the case just hasn’t been
solved, and you hope for the best because the family certainly deserves
that,” said Millsap.
Millsap is not one to make excuses as to why the case wasn’t solved,
although he cited numerous holes he saw within the investigation. Of course,
hindsight is 20/20.
He said that it’s often a fallacy that a big task force can get the
job done. While sometimes successful, this sometimes opens the door to a
botched crime scene.
There’s too many hands to stir the pot.
He also sited technological restrictions. They didn’t have cell
phones or social media, like Facebook. The technological age was just an
infant.
Which begs the question, how would have this case been different if
it would have happened today?
“If the event happened today, the first thing investigators would
start looking for are those digital footprints,” explained David Millsap.
We’ve all heard privacy concerns in recent years. Things like IP
addresses and cell phone towers. They’re traceable by detectives, but Dr.
Shannon McMurtrey with Drury University explains
that it’s accessible to everyone.
“If you post on social media, take a picture and share that on the
internet, or do anything involved with an IP address, we can deduce where
you’ve been,” said Dr. Shannon McMurtrey.
He pointed out a quick search on a free website, www.socialbearing.com.
With a few clicks of the mouse, here’s a view of all the twitter
activity within downtown Springfield over the last 3 days.
Each of those triangles represent a different tweet, and can be
filtered down to individual users.
“When you ask people if they care about privacy, they will tell you
that they really are not, especially younger generations. They really don’t
care," said Dr. McMurtrey.
"It’s only when you start to show them how much of their privacy
that they are giving up, without realizing it, that they start to care."
It's an advantage they didn’t have back in 1992.
“Back then you couldn’t even track local telephone calls,” said
Millsap. “You had to have a trap on the phone. Someone could make that call
locally, but there was no way to trace that call.”
In today’s day and age, it’s nearly impossible to escape a digital
fingerprint.
Have you ever walked out of work, only for your phone to say it will
take 20 minutes to drive home?
Or maybe you were downtown, and your phone beeps, reminding you how
to get to your parked car.
That’s because our smart phones have been following us: Tracking
every step we have taken in our journey together.
It’s not some rogue software that was downloaded in the background,
or a new fancy app that you need to uninstall. It comes standard on most
devices.
And the best part?
Most of us accept those terms when we turn on our phones for the
first time.
“It really drove the way we handled major cases, and the way we
thought about things," said Sheriff Millsap.
"I can remember many times with a missing persons case, and
thinking that back I needed to do things right, right from the
beginning."
"The ending starts with the beginning of the case. The things we
do at the beginning of case often determine how the case will turn out,” said
Millsap.
Your Digital Fingerprint (iPhone Users)
For iPhone users, there is a simple way to find out where your iPhone
has been following you. This will be available if you accepted and enabled
'location services' when you first received the phone.
1. Click on Settings
2. Scroll down to Privacy
3. Click on Location Services
4. Scroll down to the bottom and tap on System Services
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the first section of services (just
above 'Product Improvement'), and find Frequent Locations
If enabled (green), you will be able to click into your history of
recent locations, (i.e 'Springfield, Missouri' or
'Branson, Missouri') and then on individual addresses that you have
visited.
Each 'location' will tell you when you visited, how many times you
visited, and for how long.
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June 7, 2017
|
Public Invited to Observance for
Three Missing Women Tonight
The three vanished on this date, 25 years ago
By: Brennon Gurley
Posted: Jun 07, 2017 05:17 AM CDT | Updated: Jun 07, 2017 07:21 AM
CDT
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Today marks 25 years since three women vanished
from a home in Springfield. Tonight, the community will come together
to remember the lives of Stacy McCall, Suzanne Streeter, and her mother,
Sherrill Levitt.
The Victim's Memorial Garden in Phelps Grove Park in Springfield Is a
somber place where families can pause and remember those lost to violence.
Hailey Owens is remembered here, as are the area victims of 9-11.
But tonight, the community will celebrate the lives of three women whose
final story is still unwritten.
"She had $50 in cash and she had her swimming suit and she had
her little bitty makeup thing that was just a little makeup pouch and I said,
aren't you going to take a towel and she said, 'No, I'll just use one of theirs.
I don't want to get mine dirty,'" remembers Janis McCall, whose
daughter, Stacy, vanished on June 7, 1992.
Janis says June 7, 1992 changed her and the community forever.
"She headed off and we said our goodbyes and kissed good bye."
It's then that two high school graduates and a mother would disappear
without a trace, only to leave investigators and family members looking for
answers.
"Had no idea that, that would be the last time we would see our
daughter," McCall says.
Janis McCall can't believe the case is at the 25-year mark.
"Would love to know where she was. I'd love to bring her back and
be able to have a service for them."
She still holds up hope that she gets the answers to her daughter’s
disappearance. "I have no idea where they went, who took them, you
know I would love it. Absolutely love it. If they called me. If one of them
call me."
McCall and Sherrill Levitt's sister, Deb Schwartz, say few understand
their nightmare. "But, you know what. That doesn't matter because
I know that God's got this. He's the one that I put my faith in and I know
that he's not going to let harm come to her anymore."
"The most important thing is that this person is caught and
punished. And that this person doesn't do this ever again to anybody,"
Schwartz says.
Neither woman believes their loved ones are still alive. "When
you're dealing with no answers it seems like the worst thing," Schwartz
says. But no one knows exactly what happened.
"If you know something say something absolutely that would be my
biggest hope for this."
The families have never given up hope the three will be found.
"Hopefully people are watching or looking at this will say you
know, that they have someone they love," says Schwartz.
"Whoever it is. Wife, mother, sister and put themselves in the
place of losing them like this and come forward."
Everyone is invited to join and share in celebrating the lives of the
three missing women at the Victims Memorial Garden, starting at 7:30 p.m.
You're asked to bring a battery-operated candle for the
observance.
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25 years and no trace of 3
Missouri women: ‘People aren’t supposed to just disappear’
By Max Londberg
| jlondberg@kcstar.com And Laura Bauer | lbauer@kcstar.com
Date: June 07, 2017 7:00 AM
Springfield
In the entryway of a southside bar hangs a tattered missing persons
flyer, preserved in its torn and yellowed state by laminate.
Back in the summer of 1992, this flyer was one of thousands that
blanketed the Ozarks. They hung in barbershops and grocery stores, gas
stations and rest areas, any place where people could see them. Many were a
bright yellow then with the word “Missing,” and they implored everyone to
help bring home Sherrill Levitt, her daughter Suzie Streeter and friend Stacy
McCall.
Today, on what marks a quarter century since the Springfield women
disappeared, this flyer inside Coyote’s Adobe Cafe & Bar is one of the
few that remain, its faded print proof that this southwest Missouri city
hasn’t forgotten.
And Stacy’s mother says she can feel it.
“There are still so many people who know about it,” Janis McCall told
The Star. “They come up to me, they talk about them. And it makes me feel
good when I know people are still caring.”
It was June 7, 1992, when the three women vanished. The three haven’t
been heard from since that day when friends showed up at Levitt’s home on
East Delmar Street and found a broken porch light. Little else seemed out of
place.
All three of the women’s cars were parked out front. Their purses and
keys were inside the small white home. A smoker, Sherrill, 47, had left her
cigarettes behind. And Stacy, 18, who battled migraines, hadn’t taken along
her medication.
The young women, friends who had graduated from Kickapoo High School
the day before, had already gotten ready for bed. Then they, along with
Levitt, just disappeared.
A lack of evidence or any real sign of foul play has frustrated a
long line of detectives who have taken their turn at trying to solve the
mystery.
“How do you wrap your head around three people literally
disappearing? With no idea where they went?” said Sgt. Todd King, who started
at the police department in 1994 and remembers as a rookie taking reports
from people who had information they thought would be helpful. “In a lot of
cold cases, you can look back and say this is probably what occurred, you
just can’t prove it. With this case, it’s anything goes. Anything could have
happened.
“You don’t have anything that says they were abducted, they were
harmed. … It’s this big mystery.”
A bench in the Victims Memorial Garden at Phelps Grove Park is
dedicated to the three missing women. The women’s names and the date of their
disappearance are etched in its surface.
The sergeant now oversees the open investigation, which is assigned
to Detective Scott Hill. Hill works the case and follows up on leads as they
come in. And they still do, about one or two a month. But anymore, many of
them are just rehashes of what came in years ago.
The mystery, too, has worn on the community and residents who back in
the 1990s lived through the anxiety and months of constant headlines and
newscasts about the case.
Nigel Holderby, now a 44-year-old mother
living in Colorado, was Suzie’s best friend at the time of her disappearance.
“We all who love them would love to have answers, would love to know
what happened, would love to have them here with us today,” Holderby said. “All over this period of
time we have wondered every day and every year. It is mind-blowing to
think about, something like that happening.
“People aren’t supposed to just disappear.”
That’s how David Bauer feels. He had owned Coyote’s Adobe Cafe just six
months when he promised Janis McCall he wouldn’t take down the missing poster
until her daughter came home.
His own daughter was just 3 years old that summer. And he couldn’t
help but think then what would happen if he had lost her like McCall had lost
Stacy.
“She was in such anguish,” Bauer said. “I kind of felt how she was
feeling in her eyes. … It’s burnt into my soul.”
Purses left behind
Stacy’s mother can still see the image of the women’s purses in her
mind. They were at the bottom of the steps leading down to Suzie’s room.
So many who lived this case, who have been haunted by it since, have
something about the home or that day that replays in their mind. For some
it’s the busted porch globe or the fact that the two friends had already
gotten ready for bed with their makeup-smeared washcloths in the hamper.
For McCall, it’s the purses.
They were all lined up: First there was Sherrill’s, then Suzie’s and
Stacy’s was next, sitting on top of Suzie’s overnight bag.
McCall remembers how things were rolling out of the purses. And
inside Suzie’s room — where the TV was left on — Stacy’s flowered shorts were
folded and put on top of her sandals. Stacy’s jewelry had been tucked inside
the pocket of her shorts.
Looking around the house in the night hours of June 7, McCall and her
husband, Stu, knew something wasn’t adding up.
The recent graduates weren’t supposed to spend the night there. They
had planned to go to parties that June 6 evening and then, with others, head
to Branson and stay in a hotel. The next morning they’d go to a water park.
On graduation night, Stacy called her mom at 10:30 and said she
planned to stay with another friend and the group would go to Branson in the
morning. But plans changed again, and Stacy decided to go home with Suzie and
sleep on her new, king-sized waterbed.
Suzie led the way to Delmar Street and Stacy followed in her car.
When a friend of the two came looking for them the next afternoon to
go to Branson, no one was home. The door was unlocked, and Cinnamon the
family’s Yorkie yapped at the friend’s ankles.
The last known location of Stacy McCall, Suzie Streeter and Sherrill
Levitt is this home on East Delmar Street.
Initially, no one thought anything bad had happened, they just
wondered where in the world the women had gone.
Officers weren’t called to the home until some 10 hours after friends
had discovered the three were gone, King said. By then, a friend of the girls
had swept up the broken glass on the porch as a favor to Levitt. And nearly a
dozen people had been in the home, all walking on carpet and sitting on
chairs and couches.
All of that hindered police as they began to investigate.
For months, officers searched parks and lakes, woods and
subdivisions. They were told to watch for circling buzzards and to check foul-smelling
trash cans. They followed up when people swore they’d seen the women at a
restaurant or the airport.
“We followed leads, we followed tips — some of them that were a
little extreme,” said Terry Knowles, the Springfield police chief when the
women disappeared. “But we did everything we felt was needed to be done. We
committed untold resources to this case.”
But many through the years have criticized Knowles for what they
called his micromanaging of the case. They said he ran the investigation out
of his office rather than allowing his detectives to do their jobs.
Knowles, now living out retirement in Kansas, defended his leadership
and the early investigation.
“We worked as a unit, as a team at the time,” he said. “Everyone was
committed to this case and we did the best we could.”
In the first days, information surfaced about an old Dodge van. One
woman said she saw a young woman driving the van who looked like Suzie, her
face frightened, and heard a man’s voice saying, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
At one point, police parked a similar van outside headquarters,
asking for help.
Today, investigators aren’t sure if the van was actually
a true clue or a distraction that was never part of the case.
“I want to say we’re kind of in the same place we were 10 years ago,”
King said. “We have those persons of interest, people we can’t rule out.
We’re still looking for those handful of pieces to put in the puzzle that
will help us solve the case.
“It may not be while I’m here, but I do think it will be solved.”
‘It changes how you view the world’
After Suzie disappeared, Holderby, then 19,
had recurring nightmares where she frantically searched for her best
friend.
The two had met while working at the Town & Country movie theater
in town. Holderby said their bond was immediate,
the pair connecting during their very first shift together in the box office.
“You know those people you just meet and it’s like you’ve known them
forever? This is how it was,” she said.
For months after the disappearance, some memory would surface from
their time together, some detail Holderby hadn’t
yet shared with investigators. She’d contact them, desperate to provide the
clue that led to more clues, to a resolution.
“As human beings, I feel like we look at all these things and think,
‘That is the one weird thing, that’s the clue.’ We want to be helpful and
share every little thing,” Holderby said.
But clues never materialized. Suzie never returned. Two years passed,
and Holderby had her first child — a daughter that
she named Elizabeth, Suzie’s middle name.
Another two years went by, and Holderby had
a second daughter and named her Suzann, again in memory of her friend.
She later had a third daughter and raised her children in Springfield
before moving to Colorado nine months ago. The vigilance with which she
parented is because of Suzie, and Stacy, and Sherrill, and how they all
simply vanished.
“My kids will probably say I’m crazy overprotective and overbearing.
I never let them have any fun. But when you lose something like that, it
changes how you view the world,” she said.
Holderby keeps two photos of Suzie, placed
on a bookshelf in her dining room. One is Suzie’s senior photo, placed in
front of another picture of Holderby’s three
children.
The other was taken June 6, 1992, hours before the women disappeared
and the last time Holderby saw Suzie and Sherrill.
“I took her a (graduation) cake, and her mom took a picture of us
together,” she said.
Suzie Streeter (left) and Nigel Holderby
(right) celebrated Suzie’s graduation with James Cornelison
on June 6, 1972, hours before Suzie disappeared.
Others in the community may be less familiar with the case, but still
it creeps into their minds on occasion.
“It kind of looms over,” said Kaitlin Baker, 24, a mother of two
young children.
“I wish they would solve it. … You think about it sometimes. You’re
like, ‘Wow, there were three girls — three of them and they still got
taken.’”
‘They deserve to be remembered’
Before students at Springfield’s Kickapoo High headed into summer
this year, their school’s magazine, KHQ Today, ran a lengthy piece about
those who have simply become known as The Three Missing Women.
Student Tony Madden, who wrote the article with Magdelaine
Mueller, grew up knowing about the case.
But too many students and teachers, he discovered, didn’t know what
had happened in the summer of 1992. It’s why he wanted to write the story,
which has been shared on social media 2,000 times.
“As so many years go by we kind of forget it’s a big deal,” said
Madden, whose journalism adviser graduated with Stacy and Suzie. “I wanted
the students at Kickapoo High School to know we hadn’t forgotten. … I think
we forget that each is a person not just a missing person.”
It’s one reason McCall wants people to gather Wednesday night inside
Springfield’s Victims Memorial Garden. She plans to have people share stories
about each of the women and talk about who they were not what happened to
them.
“They deserve to be remembered,” McCall said. “But let’s remember the
fun things, not the dark and dreary. Let’s not remember how I felt back then,
not remember that I used to get in the shower and cry.”
She plans to share a few stories about her daughter. Maybe the one
where the family went out to eat the night before her graduation and instead
of filling a bowl full of ice cream, she loaded it with gummy bears. Or maybe
the one when she was a toddler and continued to say she was sick so she could
go see the doctor she liked so much.
For years, McCall insisted she had hope that her daughter would come
home. She’d be different, but she’d be home.
This year, a quarter century after she last saw her daughter, she
admits that “facing reality has become more prominent.”
“It’s been 25 years and I know the chances of finding her are slim to
none,” McCall said. “It’s not good to keep going on, thinking she’s going to
come home every day.”
Max Londberg: 816-234-4378, @MaxLondberg
Laura Bauer: 816-234-4944, @kclaurab
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Mom of 1 of 3 missing women
from Springfield won't give up hope
Springfield's 25-year mystery: 3 missing women
By reporter Paula Morehouse and videographer Justin Haase, KY3 News |
Posted: Wed 1:25 PM, Jun 07, 2017
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - It was a crime that shook Springfield to its
core and made national headlines. June 7 marks 25 years since Sherrill (SP)
Levitt, Suzie Streeter and Stacy McCall vanished without a trace from a home
in central Springfield.
Their disappearance still haunts those closest to the investigation.
The most visible relative of the three women, Stacy McCall's mother, says
she'll never give up on finding her daughter.
The three women vanished into the night but Sherrill (SP) Levitt, her
daughter Suzie Streeter, and her friend Stacy McCall, never left our lives.
Fresh flowers adorn a bench built in their honor in Phelps Grove Park and
their images, frozen from 1992, still hang in a few storefronts.
"There's no way I can picture her other then as she went out the
door at 18,” said Janis McCall, Stacy’s mother.
McCall has never given up hope. Since the beginning, she's worked
tirelessly, telling anyone and everyone about the three missing women.
The day that changed so many lives started with a celebration:
Graduation Day for Stacy and Suzie. After a few parties, the two friends went
to Suzie's house. That was the last time anyone reports seeing them and
Levitt.
The mystery has fueled thousands of leads, theories, and rumors over
the years.
In 2007, after speculation that the women were buried under a Cox
South Hospital parking garage, a local writer hired a consulting engineer who
used ground penetrating radar to scan the garage. The man running it said his
machine picked up three distinct objects. McCall, though, isn't convinced.
"And it came about from a psychic and I told him at the time
that was complete craziness,” she said on Tuesday.
Springfield police looked into the theory
and also find it is not credible. They never requested that the parking
garage concrete be destroyed to search under it.
Amid all the craziness, a number of paths
led to people who might be involved. Police had questioned convict Robert
Craig Cox, who was known to be in Springfield at the time of the
disappearance. In 1996, KY3 News reporter Dennis Graves interviewed Cox in a
Texas prison.
"I know that they are dead. I'll say that. And I know that,” Cox
said in the interview.
"That's not a theory?" Graves asked
“I just know that they are dead. That's not my theory. I just know
that. There's no doubt about that,” Cox said.
Cox refused to talk anymore.
No signs of the women have ever been found, no one was arrested, and
no one was charged.
"Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think that it would
be 25 years later and I would be saying, ‘Stacy is still missing,’” she said.
The public is invited to a celebration of the women's lives on
Wednesday at the Victim's Memorial Garden in Phelps Grove Park. It starts at
7:30 p.m.
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Mother talks about 25 years
with no answers in Stacy McCall's disappearance
By reporter Paula Morehouse and videographer Justin Haase, KY3 News |
Posted: Wed 10:31 PM, Jun 07, 2017 | Updated: Wed 11:53 PM, Jun
07, 2017
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - A quarter of a century is still not enough
time to heal wounds when there are no answers.
"All I want to know is where they are. If you sold them to
someone, let me know. If you have disposed of them in some horrendous manner,
please let me know," pleaded Janis McCall.
The unknown has tortured McCall since her daughter, Stacy McCall, graduated
from Kickapoo High School. After a few parties that night, Stacy and her
friend, Suzie Streeter, went to Suzie's house to sleep over. It would be the
last time anyone reported seeing them or Sherrill (SP) Levitt, Suzie's mom.
"I expected her home that night, the next day, maybe a couple of
days afterward," McCall said in an interview on Tuesday. "Never in
my wildest imagination did I ever think that it would be 25 years later and I
would be saying Stacy still missing."
Though her daughter has been gone longer than the time McCall had
with her, McCall's memories are crisp and comforting. Stacy, she said, was
hilarious.
McCall recalled a period when her daughter was expanding her
vocabulary.
"She'd say, 'much to my chagrin.'" Janis corrected her
pronunciation of the word to which Stacy replied " 'Chagrin, what is
that mom?' And I'd have to tell her it was chagrin. And she'd say, 'Do you
think that's why everybody was looking at me funny today?' We'd have these
talks over the dinner table, and we'd be hysterical," McCall said.
McCall holds onto those cherished moments from a time when she never
imagined she wouldn't see her daughter on her 19th birthday, or the
subsequent ones. The only new vision of Stacy arose when the family had to
guess what she would look like to make age progression pictures for missing
posters.
"You have to dream what she looks like now because I have no
idea," McCall said. "I still go up to people that I can't see the
front of them, if they have real long hair. I want to go to the front of them
and see who they are."
Her 25-year quest to find Stacy has come up empty, and the three
women's disappearance under suspicious circumstances remains a mystery.
McCall, though, vows never to give up believing her daughter could
still come home.
"Until I know a hundred percent that Stacy is deceased I will
never declare her dead," she said. "They're going to have to find
some remains somewhere before I call her legally dead. It's not for any
reason other than if I do and she's not dead, think of how mad she'd be when
she gets back."
McCall said she still talks about her daughter publicly because she
hopes that what she has to say will one day prompt
someone who knows something to step forward.
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Continuing the Investigation
25 Years Later
By: Jenifer Abreu
Posted: Jun 07, 2017 10:56 PM CDT | Updated: Jun 07, 2017 11:00 PM
CDT
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- June 7, 2017, marks 25 years of unanswered questions
empty theories and a mystery hanging over the City of Springfield.
Three women went missing and no evidence of what happened to them was
left behind. But a quarter of a century later police are still investigating.
For 25 years, thousands of tips have come in and many theories
considered, but police say there's simply not enough evidence that makes any
of those theories a viable one. At this point, it would take that one person
with that one piece of information to come forward.
"It's real, it happened in Springfield, Missouri," said
David Asher, a retired detective who worked on the case years ago.
Three women, Sherrill Levitt, her daughter Suzie Streeter, and
Suzie's friend Stacy McCall simply vanished from a Springfield home.
"It is a mystery," said Sgt. Todd King, with the
Springfield Police Department. "Nobody knows what really happened."
What's likely become the city's most perplexing case began on June 7,
1992. And since then, it's like the same story has been told. And even
25 years later, it's still under investigation.
Sgt. King says they still receive two or three tips a month.
"I think what it tells you is that the community cares about the
case," he said.
And every time the phone rings...
"You're always hopeful that that's the tip that's going to push
you in the right direction or lead you down the right trail," said
King.
He's currently working on the case and says it's always been an
active investigation.
"Most of the time it's reviewing all of the old information and
the old things that the other detectives that have come before them have
done," he said.
In hopes that with more technology and a fresh set of eyes some new
lead will come up.
"What you do is you have detectives that go back and you look at
those tips and see what was done on it before," said King. "And
with the new twist, they look into that angle on it.
Or they may go back and re-interview old witnesses to see if they remember
things from back then and things that they failed to talk to the officers
about."
Some are doing their part to make sure the community doesn't forget.
A missing person's poster with the women's photo has been taped to the door
at Coyote Adobe Bar and Cafe for as long as they've been missing.
"It's there and it's been there every day since 1992," said
David Bauer. "Through these reports in these milestones years, we hear
20 years, we hear 15, 10 and 25. People look at it and they comment
about it. Not so much anymore, a lot of people don't know and don't
understand because it was so long ago, many lives, I mean my cook wasn't even
born yet."
A case that now, a quarter of a century old is touching across
generations. And throughout the years... many theories have come across
detectives' desks.
"Anybody that truly wants that one theory over the other to be
the case, they can make it fit," said Sgt. King. "The reality is
when you start to look into putting evidence with
the theories and matching things up to make a person as a viable suspect as
people think, we just don't have that right now."
Investigators who worked on this case say they are honored to have
been trusted with a case that shook and still haunts a community.
"For me personally, I was proud to be able to work on that
case," said Captain Greg Higdon, with the Springfield Police Department.
"I was humbled that they wanted me to take a look
at it and kind of see from a different angle, a different set of eyes."
The memories of the three women are still very real among their
families, the police department and the entire community.
Everyone may have their own theories of what happened, but one thing
they all have in common is there's still hope that someday, what could be
described as the perfect crime, will be solved.
"I'm hopeful and very optimistic, that this case will be solved at
some point," said Sgt. King.
"Somebody out there hopefully says 'you know, it's time. I've gotta let this go'," said Bauer.
"It's time for us to have some results," said Janis McCall,
Stacy's mother.
"If you know anything, or if you think you know anything, call
the Springfield Police Department," said Asher. "If you've
done it in the past, and nobody is contacted you, do it again, and again.
Because one of you, someone, knows something. And we can't, no police
department can succeed without your involvement."
Janis McCall believes there will never really be closure but she,
like so many others, still hold on to hope that someone, someday, will speak
up.
"I don't have to know who it is, I just want the answers of
where the three missing women are. That's all," she said.
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Recalling the good times:
Friends, family of 3 missing women celebrate lives not forgotten
Gathering celebrates lives of three missing women
By Reporter Mike Landis and Photojournalist Lance Green |
Posted: Wed 11:04 PM, Jun 07, 2017 | Updated: Wed 11:06 PM,
Jun 07, 2017
Springfield, Mo It was a quarter century ago three women went missing
from a home in Springfield. On Tuesday, the community gathered to remember
the women and hope for closure once and for all.
The event was called a celebration of life and was a chance to
remember a different time before the families' hearts were so tragically
shattered, and the city lost part of its innocence. Those at the gathering
took part in a candlelight vigil and a release of Japanese lanterns in honor
of the three.
Suzanne and Stacy graduated from Kickapoo High School the night
before the three disappeared without a trace. Sherrill is Suzanne's mother.
Officers found all their personal belongings at home and no obvious sign of
foul play. Springfield Police have investigated thousands of leads over the
years, but no breaks.
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Celebration of Life for Women
Who Went Missing 25 Years Ago
By: Macy Marie
Link: http://www.ksgf.com/news/local-news/celebration-of-life-for-women-who-went-missing-25-years-ago
11:53 PM, Jun 7, 2017
Three women went missing in Springfield 25 years ago today.
Instead of a memorial, friends and family held a celebration of life
at Phelps Grove Park in Springfield.
It started at 7:30.
People told fun stories about Sherrill Levitt, Suzie Streeter,
and Stacy McCall.
"We went camping for spring break our senior year and it was
cold... lots of good memories," one friend recalled.
After people told stories, candles were lit and four lanterns were
let go for the women.
One lantern for each and the last was for all of them.
Stacy's mother, Janis McCall, had many stories about the group. She
says this was not a memorial.
"Thank all of you for coming out here for the celebration of the
lives of three women," she said to the crowd.
"We can't say they're gone," Stacy's father, Stuart McCall,
said.
"This is my last candle light vigil. This is all I can
handle...25 years," said Janis.
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