Crime Weekly - S2 Ep87: The Springfield Three: Gone Without A Trace (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

It was the 90’s in Springfield, Missouri. A time when teenagers would spend their weekends gliding around to pop music at Skateport, the local roller rink, or browsing the stores at the Battlefield Mall. On June 6th, 1992, two high school seniors graduated with the rest of their Kickapoo High School class and then spent an evening celebrating the start of the rest of their lives. The last time anyone saw 19 year old Suzie Streeter and 18 year old Stacy McCall, they were heading to Suzie’s house to spend the night. But the next morning, Suzie and Stacy were gone, along with Suzie’s mother, Sherrill Levitt. The three women had vanished without a trace, and to this day no one knows what happened to them. Some speculated that they had run away, many felt they had been abducted, and one local law enforcement official claimed it looked as if they had been raptured, lifted up to the heavens, there one second and gone the next. This is the case of the Springfield Three people who disappeared from a house in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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It was the 90s in Springfield, Missouri, a time when teenagers would spend their weekends gliding around to pop music at Skateport, the local roller rink, or browsing the stores at the Battlefield Mall. On June 6, 1992, two high school seniors graduated with the rest of their Kickapoo High School class and then spent an evening celebrating the start of the rest of their lives. The last time anyone saw 19-year-old Susie Streeter and 18-year-old Stacey McCall, they were heading to Susie's house to spend the night. But the next morning, Susie and Stacey were gone, along with Susie's mother, Cheryl Levitt. The three women had vanished

without a trace, and to this day no one knows what happened to them. Some speculated that they had run away, many felt that they had been abducted, and one local law enforcement official claimed it looked as if they had been raptured, lifted up to the heavens. They're one second, and gone the next. This is the case of the Springfield Three, three people who disappeared from a house in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we are starting a new case. We just wrapped up a whole series that was three parts,

and we are launching into a new one today. Before we dive in, I know that Derek wanted to address something about YouTube. Yeah, super quick, actually. I was looking at our analytics. I don't look at it a ton, but I noticed a lot of you were saying like, hey, we weren't notified when your video came out. I think YouTube is unsubscribing me. What I noticed was that only about 18% of you are currently have notifications on. So yes, you're subscribed, but there's actually, if you see in the bottom right hand corner of the screen where you're, where the video is, it says subscribed. You're probably going to say, see that it says subscribed, but there's also a little

bell right next to that. And in order to get notified when we release new content or we go live, you have to click that bell as well. So right now about 80% of you are, do not have bell as well. So right now, about 80% of you do not have bell notifications on. So more than likely, you're one of them, eight out of 10 chance. So I just want to give you guys a heads up to address that problem. Like I said, a lot of you were complaining. You weren't being notified when we went live or when we released a new video or when we commented on our feed. If you turn that bell on, you should get the notifications going

forward. And if you're not subscribed to us on YouTube or you're not watching us on YouTube, then do that as well. Go to YouTube, look up Crime Weekly, subscribe to us, watch us there. Some people like to listen to the audio and then watch on YouTube. We love that. Thank you guys so much for that. So go ahead and check us out on YouTube if you haven't done that already. There's going to be added visuals, things like that. So go ahead and check us out on YouTube. If you haven't done that already, there's going to be added visuals, things like that. You'll actually be able to see the videos that are being played when you're listening on audio. A lot of great benefits. I think you should

listen and watch, you know, a little quick refresher on the case, but anything else before we dive in? Nope. That was it. Just wanted to address. I know a lot of people were saying, and there's probably some truth to people being unsubscribed. I'm not doubting that one bit, but I think a lot of you are subscribed, but you do not have notifications on, which is, it seems like a common problem across YouTube. And yeah, our analytics prove it by only being, I was surprised to see 18%. And it's an actual fact that YouTube unsubscribes people, especially from true crime channels. Okay. This is not subjective. It happens to me all the time and

i have people who in my comments are like i didn't know why i wasn't seeing your videos youtube unsubscribe me they be doing that all right they let you watch logan paul but they don't want you to watch us so or is it jake paul jake paul is the one i don't like i don't really like either of them i know you kind of like logan i don't mind either of them i know they're doing it for entertainment purposes all right all right it is what it is. We're going to agree to disagree there and launch into. I'm not fanboying over them. No, you're not.

They're not Tom Brady. They go away. I'm not going to be upset about it. Yeah. They're not Tom Brady. But I mean, listen, I just, I saw Jake Paul made $45 million boxing this year. I mean, that's just crazy because he's not even a boxer, but I digress. Yeah.

That's kind of why I hate him, but. Okay. Now it makes more sense. All right. So we are diving into this case, the Springfield three, highly requested both on YouTube and, you know, for Stephanie Harlow and for Crime Weekly. In fact, once again, I didn't even tell you what case we were starting this week. And when I sent you the script today, you were like, oh, isn't this like a big case that people are interested in? And I was like, yeah, people have been asking us to do it. Yeah. And it's one of those things where not to get too far ahead, but we're off in three weeks. So we're here this week that you're watching this. We're here next week and then we're off

for a week. I'm going to be on vacation. So I was like, hey, Stephanie, maybe we go with a smaller case that we can do in two parts. And she was like, yeah, yeah, that sounds good. And I saw this one come across my desk today. I'm like, this doesn't look like a two-part series to me, but shocker. To be fair, I tried. I went through a couple of cases and I was like, not a two-parter, not a two-parter. I just honestly don't think that, you know, by the time you're deep enough into a case to figure out whether it's a two-parter or a three-parter, you're already interested. And that's what happened here. Like I went in and I was like, I could do this in two parts. And then I'm like,

no, I can't, but it doesn't matter because I'm hooked. I have to like keep going with it. So you guys are just going to have to bear with us. And I think that they'll be okay. Yeah, we'll be all right. I'll just come on here the week you're gone and do it by myself. Do it, I have no problem with that, roll with it. You're the one that gets all upset when I say things like that.

Like, hey, we can still do it. You're like, no, Derek, we're only Crime Weekly when we're together. That's what I said. If you're not with me, yep, we're not Crime Weekly. I was like, ma, that's serious, that's awful dramatic, but okay. So weigh in in the comment section.

Is Stephanie Harlow alone or Derek Levasseur alone Crime Weekly? Or is it Stephanie and Derek together that makes Crime Weekly Crime Weekly? Weigh in because I think that there's going to be everybody on my side. Well, to add context, we weren't discussing the actual episode. I was saying that if by chance we were going to something like a crime con or an event where we were going to promote the show, if only one of us was able to make it, if we went there and we're representing Crime Weekly, it's still Crime Weekly. And she was like, no, if we're not both there, it's not Crime Weekly. And I was like, okay, noted. Yeah, man, I'm ride or die. So just weigh in.

Like that's loyal. You should be happy. That's loyalty. Like I'm not Crime Weekly. I'm so glad you said that. Oh, weekly. I'm so glad you said that. Oh, really? I'm so glad you said that because that makes no sense. And that's why I'm glad you just said it again.

Because you said like, it's not about loyalty. If you're like, hey, Derek, I can't make it because I have an obligation. I think loyalty is me going and representing you even when you're not there. No. So weigh in in the comments. Go ahead. I'm really interested. No, Derek, if you're going down with the ship and you can't make it, I'm jumping off the ship too. Yeah, I would. Okay. Absolutely. Because I

wouldn't be able to go on without you because if you jumped off the ship and died because the ship hit the iceberg, why am I going to stay and go on the lifeboat when I can't do crime weekly? If you died in the Atlantic ocean? No, I'm absolutely right. Let us know. I think you guys will agree with me except for those of you who just hate me and love derek and then you'll be like a hundred million percent derek and i see what she did to you guys right there it's like hey if you agree with me then you're brilliant and you're right but if you don't then you're just a hater you're just a hater so you can't win you can't win i get it guys i see it i see it she's doing to you what she does to me

i think even the people who love you will agree that without you, it's not Crime Weekly. So to be fair, the question is, if I went to an event or Stephanie went to an event and the other person couldn't be there for fair family obligations, whatever, is it still Crime Weekly or is it not? That's the question. That's the question. Is it Crime Weekly without Derek and Stephanie? Answer it. And I think you guys, you're gonna be stunned good luck with that stephanie you're gonna be stunned that everybody thinks like me all right so let's dive in um okay because i'm

right so uh as of the year that we're recording this which in case you're listening in the future hello future people but this is 2022 and as of, this case has been unsolved for 30 years, even after thousands of leads and tips, different law enforcement experts from all over the country trying to solve it. It's just like one of those enduring mysteries that people keep coming back to. And I understand why, because the way these three women disappeared, it was so strange, like just vanished without a trace. And the place they went missing from, it was considered to be a very tight-knit, very safe community. Springfield is the third largest city in Missouri, and it's located at the foot of the Ozark Mountains. And because of its location, it's known for having a ton of like outdoor

recreation from parks to bike trails, lakes, caves, forests, you name it, they got it. So let's talk about these three women who, you know, we want to understand who they were, their relationship to each other, and kind of their positions in the following timeline. And giving us some background, it's going to help us understand possible theories of what may have happened to them. First, let's talk about the two young women, Susie and Stacey. They were friends, and I've seen them described as best friends in a lot of articles and things. They weren't best friends. Stacey McCall's best friend was a girl named Janelle Kirby, who Stacy had known all of her life. And she'd actually grown up next door to Janelle in Battlefield, which is about seven miles away from Springfield, but it's still considered to be like in Springfield. It's like Springfield, the city, and then Springfield, like the suburb and Battlefield's part of the suburb area.

Susie's best friend, so Susie Streeter's best friend was a girl named Nigel Kenny. And Nigel worked with Susie at the Town and Country 6 movie theater in North Springfield. Stacey McCall, she was 18, so she's a year younger than Susie because Susie had gotten held back, I believe in like third grade. But Stacey, she was described by her parents as being the typical teenager. She liked to eat pizza. She listened to all kinds of music from country to metal. She was very concerned about her appearance. She wore her dark blonde hair long to her waist. The closet in the room that she shared with her sister was jam-packed with clothes and shoes, and her favorite style of earrings were the dangly kind, which were very

in in the 90s. Stacey was described as being very beautiful. She worked part-time modeling wedding gowns for a local bridal shop, and she also worked as a receptionist at Springfield Gymnastics. Her father said that Stacey was smart, but her nickname was Spacey Stacey because she could sometimes be slow in getting jokes and she could get all silly and giggly at times. Besides that, though, Stacey was known for being responsible and organized, and right before she disappeared, she had received an acceptance letter from Missouri State University, a college she had hoped to attend with her best friend Janelle, where they were both going to pledge a sorority.

Now, Stacey and Janelle met Susie Streeter when they were all in the second grade. Susie had just moved to Springfield in 1980 from the Seattle, Washington area with her mother, Cheryl, and her stepfather, Don, as well as her brother Bart. The three girls became close and they would spend a lot of time together until Stacey moved out of state when she was 11. She returned to Springfield a few years later, but by that time, the friend group dynamics had changed. Janelle Kirby said that after Stacey moved back, the three of them didn't spend a lot of time together. And Stacey and Susie had sort of grown apart and gravitated to different friend groups in school. So it kind of seemed like Janelle would hang out with Stacey, Janelle would hang out with Susie.

And she was kind of the one thing that bonded them together. But they weren't really all hanging out together. And Janelle said that it was kind of very strange because they had been, you know, very close before Stacey moved away. But when Stacey came back, Stacey was sort of like gravitating towards the popular crowd, the more mainstream kids. And Susie was drawn to like the more edgy kids. And this was kind of reflected in the way she dressed. She chose to wear like ripped jeans and funky hats. And she had just this kind of what her cousin Sarah described as being this fashionable, cool style, kind of wanting to look independent and tough. Susie was also a teenage girl, though, you know, a typical teenage girl despite her edgy appearance. She enjoyed hanging out with friends, flirting with boys, and bowling. And she was also known to be very sensitive, and her feelings could be easily hurt by those she cared about, especially her peers. But the person Susie seemed to care for more than anyone in the world was her mother, Cheryl Leavitt. Susie and her mother, Cheryl Cheryl were very close. The two would make each other

mixtapes of their favorite songs with special messages of love to each other before the music, and every night before going to bed, Susie would go into her mother's room and kiss her goodnight. And it was kind of their habit that if Susie was out for the night, she would go in and wake Cheryl up to let her know she was home, no matter how late it was. Susie and Cheryl lived alone together with a little Yorkie named Cinnamon at 1717 East Del Mar Street in Springfield, less than a block from the city's busiest streets. But they hadn't always lived in this house. In fact, they moved in just two months before they all went missing. So Cheryl Levitt had faced some roadblocks in life before she vanished into thin air in 1992, but she had tackled these roadblocks with persistence and grace. She had been born and raised in Bellevue,

Washington, which is, I believe, in like the Seattle area. And in 1964, she married her first husband, a man named Brent Streeter. In 1965, Cheryl gave birth to her first child, a son named Bart. And in 1973, she welcomed her daughter Suzanne into the world. And this would be Susie. But Susie had been born with a small tumor on the left corner of her mouth. And, you know, it wasn't like harmful or anything, but cosmetically it was kind of there. And what happened is Cheryl and her husband, Brent, they kind of got into an argument because Cheryl told friends that her husband had suggested that they sort of like get divorced, but continue to live together and stay together so they could collect welfare benefits because this would help pay for Susie's medical care and their bills and things. And Cheryl was disgusted by this suggestion. And as soon as she was discharged from the maternity ward, she took her two children, she left the family home, she moved into a small apartment in Seattle, and she and Brent Streeter would never live together

again. They would be divorced shortly after this, and Susie would never know her biological father. Having a newborn to care for on her own meant that Cheryl would be unable to work a full-time job, which would make paying the rent difficult. So, she made a deal with the apartment complex manager that she would do maintenance and repairs at the complex in exchange for rent. Cheryl had no idea how to do any of this maintenance and repair work, but she obviously needed to provide for her children and put a roof over their heads, so she taught herself and she figured it out. In 1980, Cheryl married her second husband, Don Levitt,

and Don had children from a previous marriage as well. And for a long time, it seemed that Cheryl and Don had a really good relationship. They were described as being like the Brady Bunch, this really happy, blended family. The same year that Cheryl and Don got married, Cheryl's younger sister, Deborah, moved to Springfield, Missouri, when Deborah's husband got a job in a plant there. Now Cheryl decided to follow her sister and her sister's family to Springfield, and this would be a fresh start for Cheryl and Don and their kids, and she wanted to make the most of it. So she got a job as a stylist at New Attitudes Hair Salon, where she would go on to build a large and loyal clientele of over 250 people.

That's a lot of clients for a hairstylist. And, you know, you kind of wonder, like, how did she build this huge clientele? Like, how did she even have time to get them all in? But it looks like she kind of worked nonstop. And according to the owner of the salon and Cheryl's close friend, Joe Tate, Cheryl built this impressive client list by not only being good at her job, but being a kind and considerate person. The kind of person who would send cards to her clients for their birthdays, or if they were sick, or they had a death in the family or something, you know, she sent Christmas cards. And Cheryl was also known to accept checks from her clients if they didn't have the money to pay for their services right away. So she kind of got this reputation for

being understanding, being there when she was needed, being good, and also just being a friend. So we still have a lot to cover. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. When they arrived in Springfield, Cheryl and Don purchased a really nice house with a swimming pool in the backyard, and they did most of the work on this house themselves. They laid the brick sidewalks and the patio around the pool together, and they turned this new house into a home that Cheryl could be proud of. But in 1986, Don Levitt took off, leaving his wife with a lot of debt. Cheryl eventually hired a lawyer to look for Don when his creditors began calling to collect on these debts, but no one could find him. And eventually, she stopped looking when her lawyer advised her to just inform the creditors that she wouldn't be paying.

Can you do that? Like if you're married and aren't your husband's debts your debts? And can you just tell the creditors like, I'm not paying you? How does that work? Without going too far off the rails here, I think it would depend on what the debt's for. Like were they credit cards that he opened without her? Were they before their marriage? Were they after the marriage? I'm sure there's a lot of

specifics that go into it, but I would think that if the card's solely in Don's name, if she says, hey, listen, can't get blood from a stone. I don't have the money. I didn't open the card. I didn't know he had the card, even she did What are they really gonna do? Yeah, they could take her to court, but she's telling you up front I don't have any money and even if I did i'm not paying you So I guess the creditors would look at it Like is this really worth going after when there's a chance a judge gonna look at us and say single mom multiple kids This guy took off and you're trying to collect credit card debt for something he did and he's still out there someplace, right? It's not like he's dead. He's out there,

but he can't be found. Exactly. Exactly. So I think it's one of those things where, unless it's a huge amount of debt and there's something where they can prove that she knew about it, like a mortgage or something like that, I don't think they have much they can go off of. It's a car payment or something like that, good luck getting her to pay for that. So when Don left, obviously Cheryl now has to take on all of these expenses on her own. And she did this by sort of being creative. She actually took in a boarder, a woman named Janet Olivares. And Janet would become very close friends with Cheryl.

She lived with her, I think, for like a couple of years. But according to Janet, Cheryl wasn't bitter about what had happened with Don. And Sammy Special, a neighbor of the Levitts for years, said, quote, she told me after their divorce that his business had put them in debt, but she did not seem angry. She was trying to put her life back in order, end quote. Like I said, Cheryl's trying to keep afloat, so she takes in the border. Janet Olivares, she also made deals with neighbors to cut their hair for money or to cut their hair for free in exchange for yard work and home repairs and little things that she needed

help with. But in the end, Cheryl did end up losing the house that she had put so much time and effort into. Two months before she disappeared, Cheryl and her daughter Susie moved into a smaller and more modest home located at 1717 East Dalmar Street, and Cheryl began spending time making this home beautiful. According to everyone who knew her, Cheryl wasn't the type of woman who would go out on dates or even hang out with friends. She was very private. She preferred to spend a quiet night at home alone or with her daughter rather than go out. And by this time, Susie's older brother, Bart, was 27 years old. He no longer lived with his mother and sister. that there had been some sort of falling out between Bart and Cheryl and Susie that had caused

Bart not to speak to his mother or sister for months. Now, from what I can tell and from a quote in a news article, Bart says, we had some complications over one of Suzanne's boyfriends. So it seemed like he kind of made it out to be that the falling out had been over one of Susie's boyfriends. And it appears that this boyfriend in question was 17-year-old Mike Kovacs. So Susie and Mike had dated two years prior. And some friends and family had claimed that the two would fight all the time and sometimes it got physical. And in this news article, I saw a quote from Mike himself where he said, quote, sure, we hit each other before back when we were first going out when I was just 15, end quote.

I guess that makes it okay, Mike, because you were just 15. But it looks like Susie had broken up with Mike in September of 1991. And in October of 1991, Susie was granted a restraining order against Mike Kovacs after she claimed that he had beaten her up, slashed her tires, threatened her by phone, and harassed her at home, school, and work. Susie and her mother, Cheryl, had also filed a complaint with the police against Mike Kovacs and another unnamed woman for threatening Susie and slashing her tires. And friends of Susie's claimed that she was so afraid of Mike that she would make sure someone walked her to her car at night when she left work. Now, it looks like Bart and Susie had gotten in an argument even before Cheryl and Susie had moved into this new house, and it also seems that Bart had never even visited the home on East Delmar Street. However, in another article, Bart, which is Susie's brother, he claims the argument was not necessarily about a boyfriend, but about the volume of a stereo being too loud. He says, quote, we had a little shoving match. Susie and I had moved into a house

together, and there was a bunch of extenuating circumstances why it didn't work out. There was some boyfriend problems. There was some partying problems on my part. There was a situation of me being 28 and Susie being 18. We jumped into it too fast and it didn't work out. And my mom expected me to be the protector and to bend my life. End quote.

So it seems like for a short period, about two weeks, Bart and Susie had lived alone together, but they'd butted heads, so she moved back in with her mother. In a June 1992 article of the News Leader, it states that this arrangement, like I said, lasted for just two weeks, and this argument between brother and sister reportedly happened the previous spring. So this would be

the spring of 1991, the spring before Susie went missing. And this fight caused problems between Bart and his mother. Bart said, quote, Mom chose at that time not to have a relationship with me. Well, that had happened quite a few times in the past. If we had times where we did not get along, we just did not see each other for a while. Then when one of us wanted to talk to the other one, we called and we talked over our problem. We always gave each other the space we needed during the time that we felt either person stepped on the other person, end quote. So this is actually, it seemed like a pretty big falling out. But according to Bart, this had kind of happened before. But during this specific argument that he'd had with his sister Susie, it looks like his mother Cheryl had like mailed his birth certificate back to him.

Which I feel like in modern terms is almost like disowning somebody. You know, kind of like, you're not my son anymore. I don't need this. Here's your birth certificate. So there's a lot of talk about Bart and kind of his involvement. We're going to get to that more in the theory section, but what do you think of this so far? It's really interesting. I want to talk about Bart, but I also want to talk about this Michael Kovacs, because just based on what I know we're going to be talking about tonight and over the next couple episodes, where I'm always looking for persons of interest, suspects, things of that nature.

We may get down the road and you may have a way of showing me some evidence that is exculpatory in nature and therefore rules him out but just based on what i know right now what you're telling us so far this is someone who's i think going to be a prime person of interest depending on the circumstances surrounding uh the disappearance and or death we're going to talk about uh this type of behavior what he was doing the abuse prior to the to the separation then the fact that she was so afraid of him she wouldn't walk anywhere alone thinking that he could hurt her obviously someone that law enforcement is going to want to look into and then also when you talk about bart and you talk about the fact that he has an issue with her boyfriends and things like that you have to ask yourself is it because he's a protective brother is he someone who's jealous and i know that might sound weird because he's a brother but i've heard these stories before where the brother

could have a little bit of an obsession maybe not romantically with the sister but not wanting any other men to touch her trust me there's a lot of cases like that where the brother will come out of the woodwork and end up hurting the boyfriend and or husband and the sister. So I'm looking at that as well. You've already mentioned that Bart is going to become someone even more relevant in this story. So I'm interested to see how that plays out. And I'm interested to see how all these people start to tie in together because we're not just talking about Susie Streeter. We're also talking about two other individuals, obviously one of them being Stacey McCall. So I know that they had a little bit of a relationship beforehand, but it kind of fell out. So I really want to see how they all end up in a similar area, similar place where they go

missing. Let me ask you just to get ahead a little bit. Were their bodies ever recovered? No, they've never been seen again. Nothing has ever been recovered. That's why it's so mysterious. So they're presumed dead right i suppose yeah i'm saying as far as like law enforcement is concerned have they ever declared them dead no um but i would i would expect after 30 years probably they they they could presume right i just didn't know if there's any official where this is okay so that being the case we for the sake of this and we don't know i won't say

that they're dead i'll say you know they're missing still and the fact that they all went missing under the same circumstances all right that's the case we're going to talk about here they were all a group again i don't want to get too far ahead here but i want to see how it all ties together and how all of these individuals these victims here how they all have individuals in their lives that are persons of interest. And this person like Bart or Mike, although they know Susie, they could still be responsible for the disappearance of the two other victims. So this is going to be something that as you're listening, as you're watching, you want to make notes. But when you make your notes, also tie them to what I'm doing on my notepad is tying them to the specific victim they're

involved in because we may be able to rule them out. They may become a stronger person of interest because of the information. We could find out later that Bart or Mike had relationships with one of the other two victims. So it could all become very relevant. So that's kind of why I'm not talking a lot so far. We're almost a half hour into the episode and I haven't said much because I'm gathering information just like you guys. And it's pretty well said right now by Stephanie. So I don't have a lot of questions yet, but I can tell you that as we get into the timeline, all this information that we're taking down now will become relevant as we start to ask specific questions about certain things. And we want to make sure we're using the right names and the right people and the right

dates and times, et cetera. Yeah. And I mean, we also have two other unknowns too, right? We've got Cheryl's two husbands who kind of have just dropped off the face of the earth at this point. Like Bart Streeter was saying, you know, we haven't seen my dad, nobody's seen or talked to him in years. And as as um the other dude what was his name i forget don levitt as far as don levitt he's got creditors on his ass so he's hiding out somewhere and no one can find him and no one you know cheryl's been looking for him and she couldn't find him so we have these other two unknowns that are kind of like where are they and these are also

two people that police are going to have to track down and question. Of course, we don't know at this point, we don't know their backgrounds. We don't know their criminal history. Yeah. Don's on the run because he owes money, but does he have a violent past where he's been arrested multiple times for assaults, things of that nature, which would make him a stronger person? Of course, that could be the case. So yeah, everybody that we've spoken about so far, all of their names have been written down. I'm trying to organize it, make sure I have kind of my little case file going here as we're breaking it down, because I know this is a case that's unsolved and I know it sounds crazy, but Stephanie goes so in depth with the researcher, you're really getting most of the facts. And so who knows, maybe one of

us or one of you guys out there don't necessarily have an exact answer, but come up with an idea that's new and innovative and creative. And it's something that may help law enforcement. You don't know who's watching these episodes or listening to them. You may have a cold case investigator from Springfield who's recently been assigned this case and he or she may be listening to some podcasts that have more information in them to hear what people think about it. And maybe sometimes the best information, the best suggestions come from non-law enforcement personnel. So you never know. So I'm kind of treating it that way. And I hope you guys are

as well. That's why we're doing this to learn for ourselves, but also to maybe help the families that are directly impacted by it. Absolutely. And I mean, what's important to know is Susie and Stacey, like I had said, they did drift apart, right? And you're wondering how they come back together. It was sort of like senior year when they started hanging out again. They were all kind of like getting away from the high school clique thing, thinking about going to college where there's not so many little groups and you're more just like open. And they were kind of reconnecting. And they were friends again, but they weren't best friends, not like Stacey and Janelle, not like Susie and Nigel. And Stacey was planning to go to school with her best friend Janelle, and Susie was actually planning to follow in her

mother's footsteps and attend a cosmetology school after high school. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. The Kickapoo High School graduation ceremony took place on June 6, 1992 at the Hammonds Student Center. Susie Streeter, Stacey McCall, Janelle Kirby, and all of their friends walked the stage and graduated, and they had big plans for that night, the next day, and the rest of their lives. Cheryl Levitt, Susie's mother, was present during the graduation ceremony, and the McCalls invited Susie and Cheryl to join them for a dinner at Ryan's Steakhouse to celebrate the girls' graduation,

but Cheryl and Susie opted instead to grab a pizza and bring it back to their house to eat. Stacey went with her family to the steakhouse for dinner, and then afterwards they went back to their house for pictures and cake. Stacey had plans that night to attend some graduation parties with her friends, including Janelle and Susie. But when, you know, she got home, she started like getting changed out of her graduation dress and heels. And her mother, Janice, begged her to not get changed just yet because she wanted to take some pictures of the new graduate. Stacey quickly grew tired of the pictures. And when her mother reminded her that they still had to cut the cake,

Stacey asked if they could do it the next day as she was already running late. Stacey got changed into a pair of floral shorts and a yellow shirt. She gave her new cocker spaniel puppy Bubba, who'd been a graduation present, a few cuddles, and then she walked out the door. The plan was for Stacey and Susie to meet at Janelle Kirby's house. From there, they were going to drop in on a few graduation parties and then drive an hour to Branson, where they would spend the night in a motel before having a fun day at White Water Park, which apparently this is like a water park. It's an amusement park. It's like a special occasion kind of thing that the kids in the Ozarks would do because they didn't really have anything in Springfield, you know, besides like outdoor activities. So the girls started at a party next door to Janelle's house, and around 10 p.m., the plans for that night seemed to suddenly change. Stacey called her mother Janice to let her know that they would not be driving into Branson that night, they were having too much fun, and the new plan was that she and Susie were going to crash at Janelle's that night and leave for the water park in the morning.

And this was a huge relief for Janice, as she'd been worried about the girls driving in the dark, so she told Stacey to call her before they left the next morning, and then Janice went to bed. According to other teenagers who were with Stacy and Susie that night, there were no suspicious strangers or incidents at the graduation parties, and both girls seemed to be happy and acting normally. There are some reports that Susie was complaining of having a stomach ache, and she'd been complaining about that at graduation and kind of throughout the night that she had a stomach ache. But it's kind of hit or miss where you see this report.

And so it seems to be kind of like secondhand information. Question for you. You said graduation parties, as in plural. Just to clarify, it looks like they went to a party next to Janelle's house. Is there another party that they attended before or after that, that you're going to fill us in on? Yes. After that. Okay. So we're going to learn, even though, even though Susie calls Cheryl and says, Hey mom, we're not going to go to the water park tonight. We're going to go to a, we're staying at the party next to Janelle's house. She's not telling her that they're

actually leaving that party and going to another one. So Cheryl is under the assumption they're basically. No, it's, it's Janice. Janice is Stacy's mom. Cheryl is Susie's mom. However, yeah, no. What happened is the parents all knew that the girls were going to go to multiple parties. And then after they went to the parties, they were going to drive to the water park. But basically Stacy's like, Hey, we're having so much fun at these parties. So we're not going tonight. So it's not as if Janice was, yeah, it's not as if Janice was under the impression that they were going to be at this one party for the whole night. She knew they were going to be party hopping. She was just happy. They weren't making the drive. So there are, when you say graduation parties,

there are multiple parties where they attend that night, different people at different parties, obviously, I'm assuming. So that is important. But I just wanted to clarify that there's going to be multiple parties. And again, all of those individuals are persons of interest as we're getting into this. So that expands the pool of possible suspects, which doesn't make the case easier, I'll say that much. Right. Persons of interest. And not only that, when you think about like the investigation and manpower and time, these are all people the police have to talk to now, right? Like they have to interview every one of them. Right. And what's the other wrinkle?

You have teenagers. Well, they're kids, yeah. Young adults. And what are they all doing? They're probably drinking. There you go. Yeah. Doesn't make the investigation because they may tell you something that they truly believe. And it goes back to what you were just saying as far as remembering the condition of the victims that night, what they said, how they felt. You're going off someone whose judgment may have been clouded as they're retelling you these stories and are trying to help, but they genuinely could be wrong in what they remember. So that's also something that as an investigator, you have to filter through, which sucks. It's not easy. And here's the weird thing, because like, listen, you and I both know what happens at graduation parties. Like there's definitely alcohol. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Like 100% there's alcohol at graduation parties. I don't know what parties you were about. Yeah. Like 100% there's alcohol at graduation parties. I don't know what parties you were attending, Stephanie.

Not at mine. You're doing that weird like sarcastic thing. That's just too much. It's too extra, man. Okay. I'm saying we were, we kept it. You were so good. We kept it, you know.

So well behaved. We abided by the laws. But at most graduation parties, there's alcohol, right? This is the weird thing. There's no talk about alcohol. Like usually if you've got kids at parties and then the two of the kids go missing, there's talk like, oh, there was drinking,

this person was drinking, was Stacy drinking, was Susie drinking? There's only very like small talk about alcohol and it's not even about that night. It's about, I think Stacy's parents you know she didn't really drink alcohol like if she was with her friends and they were drinking she would hold a beer in her hand just to like fit in but she wasn't you know big on on drinking and you know I'm not trying to be an asshole here but I kind of don't believe that I kind of don't believe that. I kind of don't believe

that. And I know for a fact, you've just graduated. Your whole life's ahead of you. High school's a bitch. It's terrible. It's finally over. And you want to celebrate. And it's the Ozarks, man. They ain't got nothing to do. They don't even have a water park, okay? There's nothing to do there besides bike and hike and then go to the roller skate rink, go to the mall, or get drunk at house parties with their friends. Like I definitely think that everyone was drinking that night and that may have been the reason they decided not to drive to Branson that evening, right? No, I definitely believe it. And Ozarks, shout out to one of the best shows on Netflix.

Ozarks is kind of, there's not a lot going on there. So really people are drinking, you're boredom. There's not a lot of, like you said, entertainment there. So I know Ozarks the show, by the way, for anyone to come for me, I know it's not an exact representation, but a lot of it is similar where you go out there and they got the water and they have a lot of free time. Yeah, exactly. And that does usually involve drinking to try to heighten the situation because conversation just ain't going to do it. I agree. So I definitely think there's other factors here that maybe we don't know about because like you said, the teenagers, they're

going to be all kind of out of it, but also they may have some things to hide. So they might not want to tell exactly what happened that night at these parties. Right. Could drugs be being used as well? I mean, it's the Ozarks, right? You know what happens on the show. And I was joking. I mean, listen, high school, I don't care. There's young kids drinking and using drugs at these parties. Not everyone.

It's not just out in the open, but you definitely have individuals who disappear into certain rooms, certain corners of the house, and they have some extracurricular activities going on to try to elevate the situation in some cases, because they're in high school, just trying to look cool. So to say that that couldn't be the case here, I think would be wrong on our parts because it may not have been everyone, but there probably were some people indulging in things that they shouldn't have been, which would give them a reason to want to maybe skirt the truth a little. Yeah. I'm not going to completely take away the possibility that there was drugs and alcohol at these parties because they're graduation parties.

Fair assumption. So here's another weird thing with the timeline. You'd think it'd be pretty straightforward, especially considering there's not much going on here, but it's reported differently. So Cheryl Levitt, who's Susie's mom, she spoke to a friend on the phone that evening. Now, a lot of sources, a lot of articles say that she talked to this friend at 11.15 p.m., but the official police, when they're talking about it in the newspapers, especially the early newspapers, they say 9.15 p.m. So I don't really know what time it was.

I'm trying to kind of figure this out, and I don't think it matters at the end of the day, whether it was 9.15 or 11.15 p.m. Sherry spoke to a friend on the phone, and she told this friend she was doing some home improvements, which is what she was usually doing when she stayed home by herself at night. She was hanging wallpaper and she was stripping a piece of furniture. So when you're stripping a piece of furniture, you're taking off whatever paint or sort of like polish or varnish is on it and so that you can repaint it and make it something new and repurpose it.

At 12.15 a.m. on June 7th, which is now going into early Saturday morning, Susie and Stacey were seen at a party on East Hanover Street at the home of Michelle Elder. But the police broke up this party at around 1.50 a.m. after some neighbors had called with noise complaints. Yeah, these kids are definitely not drinking. They're just being loud and obvious about it at 1.50 in the morning. They're just, they're completely sober. Because if you're having a party and you're sober, you're not going to be that loud because you know that the neighbors are going to call the police. That's just my take on it.

So once the party gets broken up, Susie, Stacey, and Janelle, they all headed back to Janelle's house where they were planning to spend the night. Now, the girls hadn't been there long before Susie and Stacey decided to leave and go to Susie's house to spend the night because apparently there was a lot of out-of-town relatives at Janelle's who were in for her graduation and Susie and Stacey felt they would be more comfortable at Susie's who had just gotten a new king-sized waterbed from her mother as a graduation gift. Remember waterbeds, man? They don't have them anymore. What happened to waterbeds? Those were fun. They were fun, but they weren't that comfortable. I don't know how you feel, but I felt like it was very unsettling, literally and figuratively. Like, laying there and you're just constantly moving. You could never get comfortable. I like a firm mattress. I like a Helix mattress personally.

No. It's a free plug for your Helix. I agree. They were not comfortable to sleep in, but when you were just like hanging out and kind of like whooshing around, it was fun. I mean, I got to keep my head out of the gutter here, but we're mostly adults listening to this. I also think the waterbed, people can see my face. I think that would be difficult. It's not. I've never done it. It's not. Okay. I stand corrected. I'm not experiencing that, but I feel like it would throw off the rhythm. No. See, that's why people need waterbeds

back because they need to experience that at least once. See, you's why people need waterbeds back, because they need to experience that at least once, you know? Like, see, you don't even know. Bring the waterbed back. Just for that. You don't even know what it's like. Just for that. You've never experienced that. Like, I'm sad for you.

No. I'm missing out. Yeah, you are missing out. Anyways, let's keep going. So they want to go back to Susie's house. They want to sleep on the waterbed. And they're still planning to go to the water park the next morning though, right? To Branson. So Stacey and Susie, they're like,

okay, Janelle, we're going to go to Stacey's house, but we'll come back tomorrow morning and then we can all drive to the water park together. And it's not just Janelle, Stacey and Susie going to the water park. It's like a bunch of friends from their class and they're all going to go as this big group and at around 2 15 a.m janelle heard susie tell stacy follow me in your car to my house and then stacy replied okay i will and they left janelle's house and this was the last time anyone saw the two girls however police believe that stacy and susie did make it to 1717 East Del Mar Street at around 2.30 a.m. because both of their cars were found parked at the house along with Cheryl's vehicle. And Cheryl is Susie's mother who lives at the house because there's a lot of S names and I

know it's probably confusing. I know Susie, Stacey, Cheryl, it's all probably very confusing. It was confusing for me when I was researching it. So I keep trying to like illustrate for you who these people are as we're going through. So let me ask you this. I know where they're coming from and they say, hey, we believe that they at least made it to Del Mar Street. I think that's a fair assumption because both their vehicles are there. But I wonder how are they coming up with the timeframe? How are they coming up with the fact, is it because it would take 15 minutes to drive from Janelle's to Susie's house? Or do they have more to say? No, definitively, we know they arrived at two 30. No, that's pretty much it. Like how long it would take to get from

Janelle's to Susie's house. They don't have cell phones at this time right so like now every move we make is tracked like we already figured that out from the last video that we did where these iPhones be known when you charge your phone when you open your phone what you're looking at they did not have cell phones at that point so there was no way to track them but yeah they they knew they got home which i'll explain to you later why they knew that they knew that they had left janelle's around 2 15 so they kind of gave the 2 30 as an estimated time of arrival okay so here's my problem with that it's not even so much a problem but here's where i see a hole and this is probably a hole that they they're already aware of and maybe you'll say something later that will discredit this notion but I think that's

very important what time they arrived back at, because I know that they took two different vehicles and yeah, if they drove directly from Janelle's house to Susie's house, it would take approximately 15 minutes, especially at that time, not a lot of traffic and they are in the Ozarks. Right. So I can see that. However, who's to say they didn't stop somewhere to grab a snack or to grab something to drink or get gas? I don't know.

Things happen. They get in the car and then Susie realizes my tank's on empty or Stacy realizes that her tank is on empty and they stop to get gas. And when they do, they meet someone at the gas station. Maybe they know this person. Maybe it's someone completely new that they've never seen before. And who's to say that person doesn't follow them back to the house, whether it's by being invited or involuntarily where they just happen to follow him for nefarious reasons. So if we had proof that they left Janelle's house at 2.15 and they didn't show back up to Susie's house until 2.45. Well, we know based on distance, it shouldn't take that long. So something happened along that

path where they either met someone or stopped somewhere, which opens up another door to explore. So that's just something that I want to keep in mind as we're going forward. Again, you may find something or tell me something that changes that, but I don't want to just assume based on what police are telling us that they arrived around 2.30 because it doesn't at this point appear there's anything to substantiate that. And I think that's important. Yeah, absolutely. We have to assume though, because there's no security cameras on every house or every business. I mean, it is kind of like also the middle of the night. It's dark. We can maybe rely on like eyewitness statements. If they stop for a gas somewhere, somebody would

know it is a small town. Everybody would know they were missing. So you'd get somebody saying, oh, I saw them here. I saw them there. And you'll find that there are eyewitnesses who claim they saw Susie and Stacey. But we don't know what time they got back. We just know that they did. And here's my question. Why would they take both cars from Janelle's to Susie's if they were already going to come back to Janelle's the next morning to go to the water park? Why wouldn't they just both drive over in Susie's car and then both drive over the next morning in Susie's car? Well, my thought on that one was Susie would have brought her car back home. And then the next morning they would have taken Stacy's car over to Janelle.

So it's one less car that they have to get. Susie's car is already home. That was kind of my thought on it. But yeah, I guess it could go either way. But my thought was, hey, it's one less car that we have to move around. One less car sitting at Janelle's house for an extra day while we're not there. It's at my home. You just pick me up and we'll go together.

Yeah, that's possible. That's possible. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. So at 7.30 a.m. on Saturday, June 7th, so early in the morning, Janelle claims this is when she started to call Susie's house to see like, when are you guys getting up? When are you going to get here? When are we leaving for Branson? But she kept getting the answering machine. Now, this is something I just have to be upfront that I don't really understand about this morning. And I'm going to tell you what's kind of like known and then tell you why it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So at 9 a.m., Janelle and her boyfriend Mike drove over to Susie's house. They knocked on the door, but once again, there was no answer.

They said they were going to the other girl's house and they were going to be spending the night there and they called me in the morning so we could go to Whitewater. And they never called me in the morning, so I called them and I called them, I called them, I called them, and I got no answer. So I went over there and they weren't there. So that clip you heard was Janelle sort of explaining what happened. Now, I don't really get this because they say

they kind of went to the house and then left and then went back and then left and then went back and then left and then went back and left. And they did this like several times. But what I will say is the first trip that they took, they noticed something odd as soon as they got out of the car. There was broken glass on the front steps. And this glass was from the porch light globe, which had been broken. Now, as far as I can tell, it wasn't the light that was broken because the light bulb was still there. It was the globe that was over the light.

Now, Janelle's boyfriend, Mike, who I guess was trying to be helpful because Janelle had left the house with bare feet, he swept up the glass and then he dumped it over the fence onto the neighboring property, which wasn't a residence, but it was the property of a dental office. I don't know why Mike did this. Apparently there was a broom kind of sitting outside, which is pretty common. Like I have a

broom outside so I can sweep off my porch and stuff. So there's a broom outside. He swept up the glass and then he dumped it over the fence into like somebody else's yard. All right. I got to ask, I was trying to hold off, but I can't. And I'm sure other people in the comments or people who are listening, watching are probably like, Derek, ask, are we going to have information from anybody? I'm assuming Susie's mom and that's Janice, right? I want to make sure I'm getting the names right. Stacey's mom is Janice. Stacey's mom's Janice, but they went to Susie's house. So that would be Cheryl, correct? Cheryl's house is Susie's house. Yeah. Got it. And that's the house. That's the 1717. East Delmar, yeah. Okay. Are you going to give us information that shows beyond just the vehicles being there

that anyone can confirm that Susie and Stacy entered that home? Yes. Okay. All right. I want, all right. I can, I can relax again. Cause I'm like, how do we know they even got into the house? Right. How do we know? Well. I feel better. Thank you. And that's another thing too, is we have this broken glass, but then later when the police

finally get there, which isn't until 9 PM that night, Mike's like, oh yeah, there was glass. I swept it up. I tossed it over the, you know, this is like a crime scene, but they don't know it at this point, but this is like a crime scene that they're cleaning up as they go along. So it's just a mess right from the beginning. And by the way, super important because here's the thing that glass at first, you're thinking, Ooh, sign of struggle. That's my first thought before I asked that question. But now my gears have already changed where I'm like, okay, maybe not a sign of

struggle, but if someone were to follow them and that light was on, well, you'd want to knock out that light before you enter the house or whatever. So my thought process has already changed just by knowing that we know they entered the home and it doesn't appear that when they entered the home, they were under duress. Maybe, I don't know. You're going to give me the details in a little bit, but that was Cheryl's home. I'm assuming you're going to have something from Cheryl. I'll wait, but I feel better. I agree. The first time I heard that that porch globe light was broken, it seemed to me like somebody trying to put the light out so that no one from the road or neighbors can see what's going on. Yeah. Right. So like I said, Janelle and Mike would

return later that afternoon. A bunch of Susie and Stacey's friends came by, along with Susie's best friend, Nigel, who would notice something that she found very out of place. So Nigel had spent a lot of time at Susie's house. She's nightly habit of saying goodnight to each other, even if Susie came home late. She was also aware of where Susie and Cheryl usually parked at the house. Now, 1717 East Del Mar Street, it had a covered carport where you could park inside, but it also had a semicircle driveway in the front of the house that led to that straighter driveway, which held the carport. So that's interesting right there because we were just talking about the idea of why would they both take their vehicles back? Well, if I'm right and Susie took her vehicle because she was going to leave it there, you would think she would park it in her normal spot. She wouldn't just

leave it in the semicircle where she's going to take it and leave in the next morning because that would make even less sense for them both to drive back to the house, Janelle's house the next day, just to go to the same place. If they're leaving Susie's house in the morning, they're probably taking one vehicle. That would make sense unless Susie was like, hey, when we get back from Whitewater Park, when they get back from there, I'll just go to Janelle's house and I'll drive my car home. But I think the reasonable explanation would be they were planning to drive back to Janelle's together. So based on what you're showing on that Google map right there, you would expect her to park

where she normally would, which would be under the carport, I would presume. Well, on this morning, Cheryl's car was parked in the carport and Susie and Stacy's cars were parked in that semicircle driveway. Nigel Kenny claimed that Susie was a creature of habit. And Nigel said, quote, she parked her car two places. If everything was good, she would pull it up right behind her mom in the carport area. And if her mom wasn't home, she would never block her mom out of the carport. So she would park in the circle drive. Or if somebody else was parked in the driveway in her spot, she would park in the circle drive. The fact that she parked in the circle drive where her

car was, either her mom wasn't home or there was somebody parked in the driveway, end quote. So that's a lot there. And I think that's important and it could mean everything or it could mean nothing. And here's my theory on why it could mean nothing. We know that Cheryl was refinishing a piece of furniture that night. She may have been doing that in the garage

because if you're using varnish and stuff, it's not something you wanna do inside. She may have been doing it in the garage because if you're using varnish and stuff it's not something you want to do inside she may have been doing it in the garage she may have pulled her car out and when um suzy and stacy got home maybe her car was still out but it was moved back into the garage later after they got home which means that everybody's awake you know what i mean everybody's awake everybody's there at that time suzy and st Stacey get home. Susie's like, hey, I parked in the circle because your car is not in the garage. And Cheryl's like, oh, yeah, I got to move that stuff and get my car back in the garage. She goes out, moves some things around, pulls the car into the carport. But Susie and

Stacey are still in the semicircle. That is possible. The other possibility is exactly what Nigel was saying. Either Cheryl wasn't home, which we're pretty sure she was because her car eventually gets there. Susie and Stacey don't get home until 2.30, allegedly, as far as we know. So she's most likely home. She's not somebody who spends time out at night. She doesn't have boyfriends. She doesn't have friends. She's usually home. And was there somebody else there? Was Nigel's other theory? That could be something that's important. If somebody else was there when Susie and Stacey got home, they would have parked in the circle driveway. They would have walked inside. It would have been somebody that they knew. And that leads to a whole other bunch of questions. Right. It really does. And based on what you're telling me now, I've seen B-roll of Janelle. I'm under the assumption that the third person missing is Cheryl. Yes. Am I right in saying that? So I think because you're not going into the details of, oh yeah, we know for certain that they arrived at the home and they weren't

with anybody else. Well, that's because the only other person there that would be able to confirm or discredit that is missing as well. And I think what Nigel says here is so important now, because for those reasons, she knows Susie better than we do. Why would she park in the circle if she was not planning on taking her vehicle the next morning back to Janelle's? And I think a reasonable explanation would be the fact that in addition to Cheryl's car, there might've been another vehicle there, but you also bring up a great point as far as the stripper, the stripper is extremely toxic. It's it'll make you lightheaded really fast. If you're in a contained area, you usually should use it outside or in a garage, or in this case, a carport. so it's very possible that the simple explanation

is just the the one that you gave which is she backed the vehicle up to do that you know to strip the furniture but great observation by nigel and very important from an investigative perspective because you may not know these victims personally but the people that were close to them do and you have to take what they're telling you very seriously because it may be that little piece of the puzzle that can you know know, puts everything else together. I agree. And that kind of sticks out in my head because even if that means that whatever furniture was in the garage would have had to have been moved out before anything happened to these three women. And it's just still very complicated. That is a theory that would show there was nothing nefarious going on.

There was no other person there when Stacey and Susie got home, but I don't know how plausible it is. Well, I also think it's important to talk about the glass again. Cheryl was a handy person. She seems like she kept her house pretty clean. And I would think that if this broken glass had been there a day or two or had happened on Cheryl's watch, she would have cleaned it up immediately. So that that's a red flag for me. That definitely shows something's going on there where Cheryl nor Susie noticed this broken glass and didn't have time to clean it up. And then I have all these other questions in my head that you don't have to get into

right now. But was there furniture in the carport? Was there not? Because if you're stripping that furniture at night You're probably gonna leave it out there overnight To let it kind of cure and to let it kind of air out so that when you bring it back into the home It's not stinking up your house So if you're to tell me that the furniture that was being stripped

Was actually stripped based on evidence was found that was found later and it was already back in the house That to me would suggest that it may have never been in the carport when suzy and stacy arrived home but those are just the things kind of going around in my head right now i got a lot of thoughts that i'm trying to connect and i don't have all the information to connect it yet yeah for the record cheryl would absolutely not have left that glass there everybody said like oh anytime they drove by her house she was outside you know working on it trying to make it look. She took a lot of pride in it. She knew she had been downgraded to this more modest home, but it was kind of like in a nice part of town. And she wanted to keep it up and basically make it look like the quality that she expected.

So she was very cognizant of keeping her house inside and outside, you know, pretty neat and orderly. So they would not have left it. That glass was broken that night that these women went missing. It's absolutely connected. We just don't know how. And think about who we're talking about here. We don't know her personally, but Cheryl's the same woman who's taken the time to strip down furniture just to repaint it. You don't think she's going to pick up broken glass on a porch? The two don't go hand in hand. I agree. So it definitely happened when they weren't around to clean it up. That's right. Yeah, that's right. So after a few hours had passed,

the teenagers still hadn't heard from Stacy or Susie. So they returned to the house and this was around noon. They knocked again. There was still no answer, but this time they tried to the door and they found it unlocked. So the house is not locked. Inside, they found a somewhat odd scene, especially considering that all three cars were at the house, but no one was inside besides the little Yorkie Cinnamon, who apparently was going crazy and immediately ran to Janelle when she walked in. The television was left on, but it was showing only static,

and that seemed to be because there'd been a tape left in the VCR which had finished playing. I know a lot of people probably don't remember the days of the VCR, but when you played a VCR tape, I think they were called VHS tapes, and the movie finished, it would immediately go to static, and I remember falling asleep on the couch sometimes watching a VHS tape finished, it would immediately go to static. And I remember falling asleep on the couch sometimes, like watching a VHS tape. And it would stop and the static would hit and it would scare the shit out of me every time. And it was so creepy. So that was back in the day. But that's what would happen when the VCR stops playing the tape.

It goes to static. So I have to describe a little bit about the house before moving on because it will help make sense of everything. So Susie's bedroom was located at the back of the house and from these pictures that John is going to insert these this time from these pictures you can see that her room it was sort of like sunken in so it was lower than the rest of the house and you would get into Susie's room by walking down a small set of stairs inside Susie's room there was two a small set of stairs. Inside Susie's room, there was two windows and a set of doors that led to the backyard. Janelle found the purses of all three women lined up on the stairs that were going down into Susie's bedroom. So I believe Cheryl's purse was on the

front and then behind that was Susie's purse and then behind that was Susie's purse, and then behind that was Susie's overnight bag, and then on top of Susie's overnight bag was Stacey's purse. Now, inside of Cheryl's purse, Janelle found $900 in cash. All three sets of car keys were there, as well as Cheryl's cigarettes and lighter. So, what do you think about this so far? Before I go on, do you have something to add? Oh my God, so many thoughts running through my brain. I mean, first thing is you see the money in there, the purses, doesn't sound like a robbery that maybe went wrong. You would think that if someone went in there with the intention on stealing money or items that those would have been one of the first things missing the fact that it's all lined up it's almost as if staged yeah stage or they may

we're gonna go somewhere i don't i don't know i i don't know i don't even want to speculate at this point it's such a it's interesting to have it all lined up like that you wouldn't expect all their purses to be in that specific area, especially if someone like Nigel or someone else, Janelle even, are going to tell us that's not normally where they would keep it. I know in my house, I keep my keys or my wallet in a certain area of the house, but I can tell you that that's usually where I keep my stuff. We don't all keep our stuff in the same location. And that doesn't seem like the place where you're describing would be a natural place to keep those items. Yeah. Maybe like Stacy and Susie's purse, right? Because they're going to sleep in Susie's room,

but why would Cheryl's purse be there? This was going into Susie's bedroom. It's not like a main area of the house or a common area. It's Susie's bedroom. Yeah. I will also say just to be devil's advocate, this could be nothing. This could be something that you're like, oh, three purses lined up there. If they were still here, it might be something that they would explain it to us and we'd go, oh, okay. So I'm not like, oh, my God, this isn't grabbed me as much as the broken light outside does. I'll say that just to put it in some kind of relationship to what I've heard so far. The light is definitely more indicative of something as opposed to the purses being maybe staged. I don't know. Yeah, but the purses being there

when they're not there would mean something, right? Yeah, it rules out something for me. But it also could suggest there are some times where it's initially a home invasion or breaking and entering. And after it escalates and there's a murder that takes place, they decide not to take what they initially came there for because they don't want to be more tied to that house. So what does it rule out for you then? The first reaction is that it rules out a breaking and entering or a home invasion or a robbery, but that also could be because even if that was the initial intent, the offenders didn't follow through with that action because maybe Stacy or Susie defended themselves and it escalated into something else. It became a kidnapping or a murder. But you haven't told me enough about the crime scene yet, right?

Were there signs of struggle? Are there signs of blood? All these other things that we don't know yet. What else do the purses being there rule out for you? Well, it rules out the fact that they left on their own accord. But that's kind of for me, that's like, okay, I'm not working under the impression they left willingly because all three of their cars are there. Although I guess you could say that they left with someone else that they trusted at the

time maybe, but it still doesn't suggest they didn't leave. It could be a situation where someone else had them line up their stuff and then decided to leave it there and say, hey, you're coming with us. There's so many possibilities right now. Everything's still available on the board for me. Okay. So get this now, as Janelle's in the house, like checking everything out, the phone rings. So Janelle picks up the phone and on the other end, she claims she heard a man's voice making lewd comments. So she hangs up the phone. The phone rang again and again, Janelle picked it up only to hear the same man making the same like rude

sexual comments. So she hung up. The phone rang again, and this time Janelle let the answering machine pick up, and she claims that this same man left a message once again saying these lewd things. Now Janelle has never specified what was being said or if the man was calling for anyone in particular, like if he was calling for Cheryl or if he was calling for Susie. And that answering machine message would be deleted later as it was assumed to have been a prank call. Who deleted it? That's kind of like unknown. It's kind of said that Janice, Stacey's mother, deleted it when she's there later because she's trying to figure out where they are. It seems like she did play it for the police because they said they heard it they may have

deleted it I think it's more than likely that like one of either Stacy and Susie's friends or one of their parents who were there probably deleted it you know it's like the early 90s they're like oh we don't want anyone to hear this these sexual comments from this prank caller and apparently like from what I can tell prank calls were super common um this was the old day when you had a home phone once again small town people ain't got shit to do maybe calling people and pranking them and hanging up and doing crazy things like that i did it back in the day you know i guess that makes sense i would still say i would

hope that it would never be an investigator because for all you know it could be the offender on the other end who's pretending to make a prank call, but just trying to hear if anybody's there, right? That the police already there. So I mean, the fact that you're getting this prank call from a guy who's making it sound like a prank call, that means absolutely nothing to me. You should never have deleted it because we may find out down the road that they're interviewing a suspect who connects a lot of the dots. And then you go back and play that voice message again, and it's this guy's voice. So I would probably keep the message. The fact that it's not there, I hope it was on accident, but damn, that's a really demoralizing piece of information because for all we know, that's our guy. Right. Well, I mean, it feels like it has to be connected somehow, right?

Why would he call three times in a row? Yeah. Yeah. And we don't know the context of what he said. What was he actually saying? That he just randomly called? Usually with a prank call, it's funny. They'll make a joke or whatever.

Is your refrigerator running? You better go catch it. Yeah, you better go catch it. Yeah. But to just call and start making these sexual comments, that's odd to me. So yeah, sucks that it was deleted. I would hope it wasn't law enforcement. And I would even think back then with those answer machines, a lot of times it's a cassette tape. So you would really have to go and manually delete it. It's not even like hitting a button. So I would love must know something. I think it's suspicious that the call happened and it's frustrating and infuriating that that message

is gone and nobody can even really say what he said. Yeah. That's what's odd to me. What was the actual words? You would think by 30 years now, we would know. You'd think at least an outline. Right. We got to find Janelle and say, hey, Janelle, what's the deal? I guess they asked Janelle and she said she couldn't really remember that. Just that it was like weird and sexual and it was a guy. So. OK. All right.

Let's take our last break for the whole entire episode and we'll be right back. So this same morning at 11 a.m., Stacey's mother Janice, she's calling Janelle's house looking for her daughter because she's still under the impression that Stacey had spent the night there. Janelle's sister Courtney told Janice that Stacey wasn't there. And when Janice talked to Janelle's mother, Kathy, Kathy explained that Stacy had decided to spend the night at Susie's house. Janice asked to speak to Janelle, but Janelle and her boyfriend Mike had already left because they were looking for Stacy and Susie. Even though, once again, it seems like they were out of the house. If their first visit was at 9 and they entered the house around noon, they stayed out of the house for that entire three hours. So I don't know what they were doing between going back to Susie's house and knocking on the door and looking for

them. That's not really clear. Now, initially, Janice assumed that the girls were still sleeping and that's why she hadn't heard from Stacey. So she went about her day. But as the hours progressed and she didn't hear from her daughter, Janice began calling Susie's house and leaving messages on the answering machine, messages that got progressively more worried and panicked as the afternoon turned into the evening. At 5.30 p.m., Janice McCall found out from the parents of another girl who was supposed to be going to the water park with Stacey and Susie that day that Stacey's car was at Susie's house, but Susie, her mother, and Stacey were nowhere to be found. So this girl found out from Janelle, and then this girl told her parents, and then the parents told Stacey's mother, Janice. So Janice then tracked down Janelle,

who had decided not to drive to Branson that day. Instead, she decided to stay in town and spend the day at the Hydro Slide on Campbell Street. So like the amusement park in Branson, it's got a whole bunch of water slides, a wave pool, rides, all of that. But Hydro Slide, that was Springfield's first ever water slide, which was built in the 70s. It's basically just like four simple water slides ending in a small pool. So that's where Janelle and her friends had decided to hang out that day. So Janice went to Hydroslide and she got Janelle's attention because it's just like four slides. You just stand there and wave and they see you and they come out. And that's when Janelle told Janice that she'd been calling all

morning and she'd gone to the house on East Delmar, but no one was there and she didn't know where they were. Janelle gave Janice Susie's address and Janice went there herself to investigate. Once again, Janice found the door unlocked and she entered. And she saw the same things that Janelle had seen when she'd been there earlier that day, but she also noticed that Stacey's migraine medication was in her purse. And this worried Janice because Stacey got really bad migraines. She needed her medication every day. She never left the house without it. In Susie's bedroom, Janice found the shorts that Stacey had been wearing the day before, neatly folded on the end of Susie's bed. And inside the pockets of

these shorts, it looked like somebody most likely stacy had talked her jewelry inside those pockets underneath the shorts were stacy's flip-flops and her new victoria's secret bra and nearby there was a bikini which i believe belonged to susie so it kind of looked as if um the girls had like gone to bed and they were getting ready to go to the water park in the morning because they got the bathing suit out you know they're they're getting changed for bed and we don't really know if it was the night before or the morning of but both beds in the house Cheryl's and Susie's they were unmade they looked as if they'd been slept in and there were makeup covered washcloths in the clothes hampers. So like I said, it looks like Susie and Stacey got home,

took off their makeup, got ready for bed. Maybe Stacey took off her shorts, took off her bra because she's just gonna sleep in like her underwear and her t-shirt. And Susie's over here like pulling out her bikini so that they're ready to go for the next morning. They take off their makeup and something happened at that point. And the only articles of clothing of Stacey's that

Janice did not find were her underwear and that yellow shirt she'd put on with her floral shorts before leaving the house the day before. At this point, a lot of people were showing up, including friends of Stacey's and Susie's, as well as their parents, you know, just concerned people. And Janice and another mother began going through Cheryl's address book, just calling people in there to see if they knew where Cheryl was, which might lead them to where, you know, Susie and Stacey were, but no one had seen or heard from Cheryl. So Janice McCall began to panic, and she decided it was time to call someone, but she said she didn't want to call 911 because she explained that 911 had just been installed in Springfield a few months prior. And they had sort of like stressed to everybody and made it

very clear that it was for emergencies only. And Janice wasn't sure if this was an emergency just yet. She was kind of hoping that like any minute, you know, Stacey was going to walk through the door and be like, oh, sorry, I couldn't get to a phone, couldn't call you. So instead, Janice called 411, which is information for those of you who don't know. And she asked for the phone number of the local police station. When she got the dispatcher at the police station, the dispatcher said, hey, do you just want to call 911? But Janice said, no, she wasn't sure what was going on yet. And she was just like an officer to be sent over. Hi, can I stop you for a second? Because I can

see you got a lot more going on here as far as the officer and all that. Just to go back to kind of dissect Janice's observations when she arrives at the home, because she seems like her recollection of what she saw is a little bit more detailed than what we have from Janelle. I think it's really important to kind of just reiterate what we have there and what we can maybe take away from it. And we have to preface it by saying what we're seeing could be staged. So working under that assumption, let's just assume for the sake of this conversation that what we're seeing was organically placed that way. Naturally, no outside influences. This goes back to what we initially said when I asked you about how do we know what time they arrived at the home at? Because we don't know if they stopped somewhere or who they encountered on their way home.

And what's interesting, and I'm going out on a limb here, this may be completely off, but just a theory from what you've told me so far that I think kind of checks a lot of the boxes based on what we have. You have a situation where it looks like the girls arrived under their own power. Let's assume that because of what Cheryl had told her friend earlier in the night that she had been stripping furniture at the carport and maybe moved it back inside, but didn't move her vehicle back. And that's why they parked in the semicircle. They're all inside the house. Maybe they're laying out their purses and something like that. For all we know,

Cheryl said, Hey, maybe I'll go with you guys tomorrow. We don't know. They seem like they get ready for bed. They're laying out their bikinis. They're taking off their makeup, all these things. It sounds like they actually go to sleep. Maybe Cheryl is watching TV out in the living room, or maybe they all are. But it does seem like someone went to bed because their beds were unmade. And again, it doesn't seem like that's the style of Cheryl. So they're in their beds and maybe someone follows them home, follows Stacey and Susie back to the house, but they want the element of surprise. So they're not going to go in immediately. They're going to let them go in there, get comfortable, maybe go to sleep.

And the people on the outside are waiting for the lights to go off, right? They're waiting for it to look like they're going to bed. So they have that element of surprise when they enter. Maybe they're already sleeping. Maybe they're a little dizzy or they're a little half asleep. They're not going to be able to react as fast. That light being knocked out before this person or these people go in could be a sign of what actually happened. That light was knocked out so that, again, the people on the inside can't see them on the outside as they're walking around the house you also mentioned quickly about there being other doors or other windows and get this we're assuming that the lights knocked

out after susie and stacy go inside right that's the thing yeah right and that's my assumption i could be wrong but it seems like that stacy Susie, if they walked up that front porch, would have seen the broken light or at least step through it and maybe said something to Cheryl. And I think she would have cleaned it up. So it doesn't sound that they were under duress when they entered the home. Seems like they got ready for bed like any other normal person would. And so to me, that does raise some questions. The fact that the VCR was still running and the tape was still basically playing, it was just over. That's a cause for concern. That does suggest that maybe something interrupted Cheryl or whoever was watching a movie at the time, but there's really not much else. So what about this then? Cheryl goes to bed, the girls are out watching a movie,

and that gets interrupted because we also have to consider Susie's an 18-year-old girl or a 19-year-old girl. She might not be making her bed every day so her bed might be unmade from the night before or the day before and cheryl's the one in bed and that's why her bed looks slept in because i do think she'd be the person to wake up and make it every morning whereas susie probably wouldn't susie's bed still unmade because they never made it to bed they just got ready for bed watched a, and something interrupts them while they're watching the movie. And Cheryl's asleep, which I think makes a lot of sense given what we're going to find out even going forward, which is basically there's no struggle. There's no sign of a struggle in this house. There's no blood. And that's what you would expect to see.

There's no blood. Nothing's knocked over. So you'd think if Cheryl was awake, she would fight, she would do something. But if these two teenage girls are kind of taken by surprise, they're not going to know what happens, especially if somebody comes in with a gun and says, don't make a sound. Especially if that person might have somebody else with them who can go in and take care of Cheryl and get her kind of tied up or whatever, just get them out of the house. But there's no struggle. No one's running. No one's throwing things over. No one's getting attacked, I guess. Yeah. I think both scenarios based on what you told me so far, it's completely plausible as far as who's up, who's not up. I was working under the assumption that maybe the girls went to bed because they knew they had an early morning, but I don't have anything to prove that. So both scenarios are possible,

but I do like what you said there about the possibility of a weapon being used to kind of keep them under control, all three women for that matter, to keep them under control. And that's why there's no sign of struggle because whatever happened, those women left what appears to be based on what we see at the scene under their own power. There wasn't, like you said, a sign of struggle where there was a fight before gaining control of them. And you would expect to see some sign of injury or furniture being turned over. Yes, it could have been cleaned up. That's not highly likely when these offenders are going to want to get out of there as fast as possible if they're causing a disturbance that could be heard by other people. And from

the Google Maps, it's not like they're out in the middle of nowhere. It does look like there's other houses in the area. Yes, there are other houses in the neighborhood. Nobody heard anything. Nobody heard anything. Now, there will be some eyewitnesses who say, oh, I heard this or I heard that, and we'll get to that next episode. But none of the timeline really adds up with when they heard things and things like that. So the majority of the neighbors and mostly everybody in the area said they didn't hear anything. They didn't see anything. No screaming, no signs of like, you know, no gunshots, things like that. Nothing. Yeah. And that's interesting. And I know that we're missing the floral shorts are there with

the jewelry, but for all we know, she could have been wearing the yellow shirt to bed. Maybe she forgot to pack a shirt, but she had pajama pants or shorts. And that's another thing that suggests to me that whatever happened to them happened when they were, it didn't happen in the morning. They had already, I mean, I guess it still could have, they could still be in their, their PJs when they're up walking around. But I would think that we have to assume at this point, there was an attack. There was something maybe not physical in nature, but they were caught off guard. And so to me, if you're an offender, if you're putting your minds in the head of the monster here, they're not going to do that in the middle of the day or in the morning when everyone

can see them. It's going to happen at night, which is why you would knock out a light, which is why that light would have been on. And I know the bulb, we don't think the bulb was broken, but you can test it out for yourself or don't actually test it out. Take my word for it. You could knock a globe and just kind of maybe move the bulb to where it goes out, or it could have just shorted out the bulb. Good question. Do we know if the bulb still worked? They don't say. I will look more. I bet you that bulb didn't work anymore.

But yeah, it's very easy to knock a filament loose in a light bulb. That's it. I bet you that bulb was out and maybe it didn yeah, it's very easy to knock a filament loose in a light bulb. That's it. I bet you that bulb was out. And maybe it didn't shatter, but it still knocked it out. And I'd put money on it that that bulb was not... If detectives would have tested that bulb, it probably was no longer active. Which even further suggests that this happened under the cover of night, whatever happened. And that's why they were in their pajamas.

That's why the bulb was knocked out. So you have to ask yourself if Cheryl... And I i don't know if we're gonna get it was not hanging around with nefarious people i know we have don who has these credit issues things like that it to me it's even more so because we didn't know suzy and stacy were going to go back to that house that night that was kind of an audible so if you see these two young girls driving around by themselves and you're someone who's up to no good and you see that you, they might not even have stopped. They might've just been seen driving home by someone. You get people to a couple of people in another car that see that and start following them. So many possibilities there. Honestly, that's where my head's at right now.

Yeah, I agree. So now we have the police on the scene, whatever scene is left after they've been, I think they said between 18 and 20 people went in and out of the house that night. Problem. Sucks. As far as trace evidence, all those things, but yeah. Real bad. So at 9 p.m., officer Rick Bookout received a call for a possible missing person, and he headed to 1717 East Delmar Street to check it out. Now, there had been a handful of reported abductions in the area recently. They had all turned out to be hoaxes or runaways. In fact, just a few weeks prior, the police department had invested a lot of time and resources into the possible abduction of a young woman whose car was found abandoned on the Southwest Missouri State University campus. The woman's purse was inside the car.

That was signs of a struggle. The police had pulled out all the stops to try and locate her. But it turned out that this woman had staged her own abduction so that she could run off with her boyfriend to California. But when Rick Bookout arrived at the home of Susie Streeter and Cheryl Levitt, he kind of figured out that this was a different situation. As soon as he entered the house, Bookout noticed a strong smell of furniture varnish. This is important because I think that this proves Cheryl was doing something to a piece of furniture that night. Yeah, I agree. And it hangs around for a long time.

Like if you know what this stuff smells like, you could use it in the garage and you'll still smell it in your house. It drives me crazy. And then it'll stay for hours, that smell. You can really like notice it. So he noticed it even the next night, which we're going to assume, you know, is roughly 12, 16, 18 hours away from when these three women vanished. Right. Also, just to put a disclaimer out there because I've used it before, there's still a scenario here where Cheryl Levitt uses the stripper outside for the main part.

After she lets it do its thing for a few hours, she out you know not in the carport when the girls get home but later that evening she brings the the furniture in because she doesn't want it to be stolen or whatever whatever reason and that the remnants of that stripper could still be in the house so this doesn't rule out the fact that maybe her vehicle's in the carport at the time when stacy and susie get home and that explains why they parked in the circle. It doesn't necessarily suggest that there was another vehicle there. Even more so, I would say the fact that Cheryl didn't tell this friend, I don't know if she's going to have company over, especially someone romantically or anything when she's stripping furniture. That just doesn't make sense to me. But I just wanted to put that out there. But I mean, she could have been outside

in the garage doing this. I mean, whether it was 9.15 p or 11.15 PM when she had that call with her friend, it's still after dark. It's still like nighttime where she's doing this project. Somebody could have driven by and seen her and said, oh, a woman alone. I mean, she's doing her own furniture stripping. So there's not a man in the house. Maybe they know her. Maybe they know she's alone. And they're like, oh, I'm coming back tonight. A million things could have happened. Yeah. I also think not to go too far off the beaten path here, but who did Don owe money to? It said money for his business. How much?

What was his business? Yeah. Something to think about. And I know people are going to mention, I was going to wait until the next episode when we talk about theories, but there's $900 in Cheryl's purse, right? So some people are like, oh, were they into drugs? I don't think Cheryl was into drugs. Her boss or the guy who owned the salon where she worked at, he said that there was like deposit bags and things with the salon. I'll get into it more specifically when I have my notes in front of me. But as far as I can tell, this $900 in cash was not drug money. It looked like it was from the salon.

But I'll tell you specifically. Yeah, maybe she doesn't believe in banks. She kept the money on her. There's a lot of explanations for that. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, there's a lot of people who will say, oh, Cheryl was into drugs. And I just want to say right now, there's no evidence or proof of that. But Bookout goes into the house. He's like, I smell furniture

varnish. There's a ton of people in the house, including Janice and Stu McCall, who are Stacy's parents. And the McCalls walked Rick Bookout through the house so that he could take in the scene. He said he didn't feel like anything was out of the ordinary. In fact, he felt the house was very neat in general, you know, besides what he said were a few things out of place here and there. And he kind of alluded to the fact that he didn't think it had anything to do with the crime, but more to do with the people who had come into the scene after who were like trying to clean up or pick things up or, you know, move address books and things like that. And he said, for the most part, it just there was no sign of a struggle. And it didn't appear that anybody had cleaned up after a struggle.

He said he felt Susie's bedroom was a little messy, but he said that's normal for a teenage girl. He had a teenage daughter himself. It didn't look messy outside of what was to be expected for a teenage girl. He said he felt it looked as if the girls had gotten home, washed their faces, gotten ready for bed. And he asked Janice McCall, like, could the three women have just gone somewhere for the day and had fun? And Janice was like, well, if Stacey left this house, she did so in just her underwear and her yellow shirt because she didn't pack a bag for the night. She didn't have extra stuff. That was Susie's overnight bag because she was planning to stay at Janelle's. Stacey didn't have clothes.

And so Rick Bookout was like, well, could Stacey have borrowed some of Susie's clothes? And Janice was like, no, they were not the same size. Stacey wouldn't have fit into Susie's clothes. Now, Rick Bookout did notice that a few slats in the blinds of one of Susie's windows were pushed open as if someone had been you know peeking through them like from inside looking out and remember in Susie's room there is that like double door thing that leads out to the backyard sort of like a sliding patio door and I think that's very important because somebody could have gotten in through that like we have those doors in my house

and I even put like a metal bar in them to make sure that even if somebody's able to, because they're not super secure, even if somebody's able to unlock it or I forget to lock it or whatever, if you pull hard enough on those things, it'll break. And if you forget to lock it at all, it's just an open invitation. So I always put a metal bar in at night to make sure that even if somebody unlocks it or finds it unlocked, they can't get in. Yeah. That's something everyone should have. I strongly recommend it. My mom has it. I have it on my house. Guys, if you have sliding glass doors, that lock that just slides down, it's useless. Can pop it so easily. If you go on Amazon, there's a bar, it retracts, you just push a button, it slides in and slides back out. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm

physically showing it. But basically just type in sliding glass door bar you screw it in to the opposite side of the sliding door that doesn't move all you do is drop it down and it makes it physically impossible for the person to get into your house without breaking the window itself and then physically lifting the bar up with it which at at that point, you know, you hope that you guys would hear the glass breaking and it would give you time to react. So anybody, and a lot of you have it, that sliding glass door, and you're only using the little mechanism lock that it comes with, please don't rely on that. I've seen that thing popped so many times in breaking and enterings. It's not even funny. Yeah. And you've got one of these in Susie's room. She's 19 years old.

You know, she's not going to be super cognizant of making sure it's locked at night when she goes to bed. They could have just gone out, watched a movie in the living room and left that completely wide open. In fact, I guarantee you that it was not locked at all. But we don't know that for sure. Once again, this crime scene was not really processed correctly. And a lot of that has to do with a bunch of people being in. A lot of it has to do with they didn't necessarily think that there was like foul play like in the first couple of days. And I think by the time they started looking at it seriously, I mean, anybody could have unlocked that door. I'm sure people did unlock that door to go outside and see if they were in the backyard, things like that. You just don't know what the natural state of the house was before everybody came in. Yeah. Big, big issue as far as evidentiary value and now ruling out people who may not have ever been in that house before, but now because of these circumstances, their fingerprints,

their trace evidence, their DNA all over the place. Exactly. And I mean, they'd only lived there two months, right? So you could have done a lot with fingerprinting if there hadn't been like 18 to 20 people in that house. That's right. And it is 1992, but that fingerprinting is pretty good at that point. DNA, not so much, but yeah, definitely fingerprinting for sure. They didn't really have like a DNA ability for this case. They did fingerprint the hell out of that house though, and we'll get to that. definitely fingerprinting they didn't really have like a dna ability for this case they did

fingerprint the hell out of that house though and we'll get to that but it did but it didn't really matter because there were so many fingerprints um so janice who's stacy's mom she'd already gone through the answering machine messages hoping for like a clue uh to where they could be and she played the voicemail that Janelle had heard earlier for the police. And Janice referred to it as being a really rude message from a man calling with sexual innuendos. And I believe that it was at this point that message got deleted or erased. And other messages on the answering machine were basically just from Janice herself, you know, begging Stacey to call her.

So Officer Brian Galt was the next on the scene and he and Rick Booker, they like went outside, they talked everything over, they tried to figure out like what they could make of the situation. The cars were there, the car keys were there, the purses, wallets, identifications, all there. Stacey's migraine medicine was there. Most of her clothes were there, at least clothes that she would need to go out into the real world. The three women had been gone all day, and no one had heard from them. And what stuck out the most to Rick Bookout was the presence of the cigarettes. Both Cheryl and her daughter Susie were chain smokers, and Rick knew that someone who smoked that frequently, they might leave the house without a lot of things, but they would not leave without their cigarettes and lighter. And I know cigarettes aren't like a big thing these days,

but like back in the 90s, people were still smoking a lot. And I believe that's absolutely true. Like if you're a smoker, even if you're just going outside to like talk to a neighbor or take the garbage out, you're bringing your cigarettes with you. They're on your person at all times. So the cigarettes being there did stick out a lot to law enforcement and everybody who knew Susie and Cheryl. And at that point, law enforcement decided that this was a missing person's case. There might be foul play involved. So they removed everyone from the house. They

locked it up. Before driving away, Rick Bookout left a note on the front door. And the note basically said, you know, if Cheryl and the girls arrived home and they couldn't get into the house because he had locked it and their keys were inside, they should call the police station. But they never arrived home. And that call never came. No one really believed that Cheryl Levitt, Susie Streeter, or Stacey McCall would just up and leave without a word to anyone. When Cheryl didn't show up to work, her boss Joe Tate told the Springfield Newsleader, quote, everyone who knows Cheryl loves her. Cheryl is definitely not the type of person who would just leave. She would contact someone. Something is wrong, end quote. Now, Melinda Unger, she was Don Levitt's stepdaughter. So she's Cheryl's second

husband's stepdaughter. And she said she basically looked at Cheryl as her mother and Susie as her little sister. She loved Cheryl. She loved Susie. And Melinda said that Cheryl would have fought to protect Susie if Susie was in danger. Melinda said, quote, she would have kicked them. I can just see her. She knew how. If it involved Susie, my mom would have jumped right in there and done whatever she could to make sure that nothing happened to her, end quote. Yet there were no signs of struggle in the house, no overturned furniture, no blood. It was almost exactly as one detective noted. The three women had been raptured, just grabbed up and taken to heaven. Yeah. Fascinating case. I can tell why most of you are very interested in this case. I got three pages of notes, three pages of notes just on this first part. Quick takeaways, because there's so much more I'm sure we're going to have to go over, as you were kind of already alluding to, kind of what has already been said. And I think a lot of it's obvious i don't we don't know

exactly what time the girls got back to the house at but based on janelle's statement we know that it was after 2 15 in the morning so the places they could have gone to if you know we believe they got to the house their cars are there it seems that they unpacked and that they were getting ready for the morning so it's reasonable to assume they were in the house and at that point they were kind of going with their whatever normal routine was for the next morning something happened between the time they arrived and before the next morning because there's really not anything that you said so far that suggests they had breakfast or they were sitting in things that would suggest they woke up and were getting ready for the day it sounds like whatever happened happened under the cover

of night they were taken against their will although I don't know if they were restrained or had to fight before doing so. It doesn't appear to be the case, although that doesn't mean it didn't happen. But whatever happened, they left in another form of transportation and whoever took them clearly took them with the intentions on never bringing them back. And I don't think anything, the cigarettes, the wallets the the purses the money all of it to me is counterintuitive to the idea that they left on their own on their own accord and that they would have gone somewhere like even it was to just get another pack of cigarettes you're doing that at

three o'clock in the morning that doesn't make sense I think I think we're looking at like an Occam's razor here where the the simple explanation might be the right one. Someone either saw Cheryl, like you suggested, or someone saw those girls on the way home. But it's weird, isn't it? Like you usually, if you see something like this, you usually see something where when somebody comes to find them, they walk into like a bloody crime scene. The bodies are still there. If they were attacked, you know, I mean, let's be honest. What's somebody going to take these three women for? He's going to take them to rape them, right? So if it's something like that.

How do we know it was one guy? Well, yeah, one guy, two guys, that's what they want to do, right? You typically don't go to another location. You aren't driving around with three kidnapped people in your car. You're going to do whatever you got to do there and then leave for this bloody crime scene for people to find. This was far before DNA. Wasn't even a thing. So no one's going to be really concerned about that. It's just weird to take three women out of their house. It seems like they did go willingly, most likely because they didn't feel they had a choice. Yeah. So to take three people out of their house and then go where? I mean, they've never been found. It's a little crazy. I mean, it's very crazy. Super crazy.

I'll tell you this, and it's unfortunate, but you said it earlier. The mountains are right there. It's the Ozarks. There's a lot of places to go where you're not going to be seen or heard and you can do whatever you want to do. And that's probably why we haven't found these women yet. So then maybe it wasn't their first time doing this to somebody. I think that's absolutely possible. And not only possible, probably likely. Okay. That's all we got. Yeah.

All right, well, come back next week. We're going to go over kind of like the investigation, what they found, what they heard, what people told them, their theories, their first kind of round of suspects that they focused on. I mean, they're given polygraphs pretty early. They're focusing and lasering in on a certain group of people pretty early on. And we're going to talk about that next time. So take us out because I feel like I've talked so much tonight.

All right, listen, follow us. If you're following us, make sure to subscribe. Notifications are on. Make sure you're subscribed on the podcast if you listen on audio follow us on crime weekly pod on our socials everyone be safe out there have a good night and we will see you next week