Gone in the night, p.1
Gone in the Night, page 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
World Castle Publishing, LLC
Pensacola, Florida
Copyright © 2023 Alan Brown & Brian Brown
Hardback ISBN: 9798397786676
Paperback ISBN: 9781960076922
eBook ISBN: 9781960076939
First Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC, June 26, 2023
http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com
Licensing Notes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.
Cover: Karen Fuller
Editor: Karen Fuller
CHAPTER 1: The Disappearance
Springfield, Missouri, is Hometown USA. From the most populated Springfield, Massachusetts, to the home of Lincoln in Illinois, 35 states in the U.S. have a “Springfield” or a related name, such as Springfield Township, Michigan. The one in Missouri is the third largest city in the Show-Me State, with a population of about 150,000. It rests comfortably on the Ozarks Plateau in the southwest corner of the state, where nothing changes quickly but the weather. Springfieldians have been known to say that one can experience all four seasons in a week. The “Queen City of the Ozarks” is a family stop on Route 66 between St. Louis and Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was the boyhood home of Brad Pitt. Bob Barker went to college at Drury. “Oh, oh, oh, O’Reilly’s!” was born here. Fast food is at every major intersection.
Crime is low, and neighbors are friendly in Springfield. Parents rarely worry about their children riding their bicycles around the block. People look out for each other. Most have either grown up here or choose to stay here, having escaped the fast pace and headaches of larger communities. The cost of living is low. Church and family are the priorities. Springfield is a slice of the American Pie, a little piece of the American Dream with a white picket fence. It’s a community where people feel safe.
Or they used to be.
This wasn’t supposed to happen here. The Springfield Three.
But on a warm day in June, it did.
June 7, 1992, is the day Springfield changed forever. It is the scar that forever altered its psyche. It marks a day of lost innocence. Nearly 30 years later, if one just mentions the “Springfield Three” to any longtime area residents, chances are they will recall in great detail what they were doing and how they reacted when they heard the news.
The day before was graduation day at Kickapoo High School. Nineteen-year-old Suzie Streeter and her friend Stacy McCall along with nearly 700 other graduates, walked down the aisle. Janis McCall and her husband, Stu, were in attendance, along with siblings and other relatives, to watch their daughter Stacy graduate. Stacy, a good student, had plans to attend the hometown university, what was then still called Southwest Missouri State. Her best friend, Suzie Streeter, was considering following her mother’s career path as a cosmetologist. Both were looking forward to a relaxing and fun summer before beginning their new journeys in life.
Sherrill Levitt, Suzie’s mother, was in the audience that day to watch her only daughter graduate. She was both enthusiastic and a little melancholy about her daughter’s rite of passage, according to a friend she spoke with that night. From all accounts, Sherrill and Suzie were very close. Raising her daughter had not been easy after her divorce, but she never complained. Suzie meant everything to her, especially after she and her twenty-eight-year-old son Bartt had a falling out years earlier. He had a drinking problem. He was volatile at times, and Sherrill and her son often got into loud arguments. That led her to finally throwing her son out of the house.
Graduation night would be an evening of celebration, parties, and drinking. Suzie and Stacy had plans to attend one or two parties with their friend Janelle Kirby. They even talked about going to White Water in Branson, some 30 miles away, the next day. Perhaps they would drive to Branson later that night and get a motel room close to the water park, so they could be there as soon as it opened the next day. That was the plan all three had told their mothers, anyway.
Janis McCall remembered giving her daughter a goodbye kiss and telling Stacy to call her if her plans changed. She was apprehensive about her daughter driving to Branson late that night, particularly after attending a party or two. It wasn’t so much that she was concerned about her daughter drinking. Stacy was a responsible person. She trusted her daughter would not drink and drive. But her fear was that Stacy would not be driving, and Suzie would.
Suzie wasn’t a bad kid, but she reportedly hung out with a rowdier crowd and was prone to making bad choices – particularly boyfriends. One of those boyfriends and two of his friends had been accused of vandalizing mausoleums at a local cemetery. Suzie, it was said, had information about the crime and was considering testifying against the three boys, Dustin Recla, Michael Clay and Joseph Riedel.
Suzie and Stacy had been childhood friends who had drifted apart in high school. They appeared to have little in common and were going in different directions in life. But the end of high school had a way of reuniting old friends, and on the night of graduation, the two were hanging out again. They made plans together, and that included spending time with another friend, Janelle Kirby. Janelle and her boyfriend, Mike Henson, had planned to drive to Branson later that night along with Suzie and Stacie, rent a motel room and go to a water park early the next day.
But they decided against the drive later that evening, so Stacy called her mother to tell her she’d most likely spend the night at Janelle’s house. That made her mother happy. She wasn’t in favor of driving to Branson that late at night. She told her daughter she loved her and to have fun. She would have never guessed that would be the last time she talked to Stacy.
Suzie also called her mother that night to tell her she planned to stay over at Janelle’s house, too. The three girls left their last graduation party close to 2 a.m. and headed back to Janelle’s, but with relatives from out of town staying overnight, there really wasn’t room for her two friends. That’s when the girls decided to spend the night at Suzie’s house. Suzie had received a king-size waterbed as a graduation present from her mother, and the girls agreed they’d probably be more comfortable there. Janelle was invited too but declined. She thought it would be impolite to spend the night somewhere else when she had relatives at her house. No big deal, they all thought. They’d meet up with her in the morning.
Suzie and Stacy had driven separate cars to Janelle’s house. Therefore, Stacy followed Suzie to her house when they left.
Suzie’s mother, Sherrill, had spent the evening at home, watching television and talking to a good friend on the phone about varnishing furniture and hanging wallpaper. She and her daughter had moved into the house at 1717 E. Delmar Street only two months earlier. It was a modest home, just off the busy Glenstone Ave., on the edge of the old-money section of the Rountree Neighborhood. The home needed some upgrades, and Sherill was focused on the task. Her friend said Sherrill sounded normal, even upbeat and never indicated anything seemed amiss. Their conversation ended around 11:30 p.m.
It is unknown exactly when the girls arrived at Sherrill Levitt’s house, but it is assumed they went straight there after leaving Janelle’s. Whether they went right to bed or went out again is a matter of controversy.
A server at George’s Steak House, a popular 24-hour diner on Glenstone about a mile north from Sherrill’s home, told police the three women ate breakfast at the restaurant during the early morning hours of June 7. She claimed Suzie was intoxicated, slurring her words and walking erratically. She said Sherrill Levitt was trying to settle her daughter down. Sherrill, it was reported, was a regular customer at George’s, and the server recognized her.
No one else at the restaurant collaborated the server’s story. The server also said when the three women left, they were talking to three men outside the restaurant.
Later that morning, Janelle began calling Suzie’s house around 8 a.m. She was up and ready to drive to Branson for their day at White Water. No one answered the phone.
They were sleeping in after a late night of partying, Janelle assumed. But when she hadn’t heard from her friend by noon, she and her boyfriend, Mike Henson, decided to drive over to Suzie’s.
It was a clear, sunny morning, temperatures hovering around 80 degrees, a perfect day for the water park. Janelle was a little upset that the girls were sleeping in so late. She even wondered if they had taken off without her.
But when she arrived at the Levitt home, all three cars were in the circle driveway. “That is odd,” she said to Mike. “They must be home.”
Janelle got out of the car barefoot and approached the house. Something shiny on the front porch caught her eye. It was broken glass. She walked carefully around it, not wanting to cut her bare feet. Mike spotted the light fixture to the right of the door. The glass cover had been broken. That was what was shattered on the porch.
Mike looked up at the light fixture and frowned. “That’s odd,” Mike said. “Babe, look, the bulb’s not broken. Watch your feet.”
“They better answer the door,” Janelle said. “I’m ready to go.”
Janelle knocked on the door. There was no response. She rang the doorbell. Again, nothing. She and Mike looked through a window on the porch with a view into the living room. The curtain was mostly closed, but a small opening gave the couple a tunneled view of the living room. They did not see anyone, although they could hear the television on in the background.
“Someone’s gotta be home,” Janelle said. “The TV’s on.”
“Try the door,” Mike said.
Janelle tried the front door knob. The door was unlocked. This she found to be particularly strange since Suzie had mentioned on several occasions how concerned her mother was about security ever since the trouble with Bartt. “That’s strange. She always locks all the doors and windows,” Janelle told him. “She is constantly bugging me to do the same.”
Janelle pushed the door open and stepped back. She and Mike both yelled Suzie and Stacy’s names, hoping to wake them up if they were still asleep. There was no answer. After a few minutes, they decided to go inside. Janelle walked in first.
Sherrill’s Yorkie Cinnamon lunged at her, barking and anxious. She petted him for a few seconds to calm him down. In the living room, the television set and a table light were on. The room was a bit cluttered but looked undisturbed.
They continued walking through the house, calling their friends. There was no response. The three women’s purses were piled on the steps of Suzie’s sunken bedroom. Car keys and a pack of cigarettes were out. That made Janelle uneasy. Suzie and Sherrill were both chain smokers. She could understand walking someplace or going with someone else and leaving their purses and car keys. However, neither Sherrill nor her daughter went anywhere without those cigarettes.
The door to Suzie’s room was open. They walked inside. It appeared the two girls had gotten ready for bed. Sheets on the waterbed were messed up. Evidence of washed-off makeup was in the bathroom. Stacy had folded her shorts and placed them on her shoes beside Suzie’s waterbed. The clothes Suzie had worn the night before were on her dresser, folded.
Janelle and Mike went into Sherrill’s bedroom. The door was open. Cigarette butts were in an ashtray, reading glasses, and a half-empty pack of Pall Malls was on the nightstand. The covers on the bed were rolled down, and an open book was lying on the bed.
“It looked as if they had just been there.” Janelle would say later. “There was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that looked like it was out of place.”
There was one small thing that Janelle found to be odd. The curtain in Suzie’s bedroom was partially open. “It wasn’t a big deal,” she would later say, but all the other curtains in the house were closed.”
Whatever Janelle and Mike saw did not bother them enough to contact the police. There was nothing in that house that made them think anything sinister had happened. They were concerned but figured there was a good explanation.
Mike went back to the porch and cleaned up the broken glass. He thought that he was doing his friend a favor.
Janelle decided to check the answering machine. The light was on, indicating there was at least one message. She figured the message might hold a clue to where her friends were, so she hit play. Instead, what sounded like an obscene message was heard on the answering machine. She deleted the message and walked out of the house.
Janelle and her boyfriend would make a couple calls, one going to Stacy’s mother, who, until that point, had assumed her daughter was at the water park in Branson with her friends.
***
When Janis McCall was told that the girls’ cars, car keys and purses were still in the unlocked house, she ran over to the Levitt’s home.
She noted that her daughter’s car was parked in the driveway, along with two other cars she assumed belonged to Suzie and her mother. Inside, she found the house undisturbed. Janelle and Mike had cleaned up some, and from accounts, several of Suzie and Stacy’s friends had also been in the house looking for them or for clues as to where they were.
In Suzie’s bedroom, Janis McCall found her daughter’s shorts and shoes. The sight of both must have worried her because it meant wherever her daughter was, she was likely in her t-shirt and underwear
She immediately called her husband, Stu, to come to the Levitt house. Her motherly instincts had kicked in. She felt something was wrong. Her daughter would not leave the house without her shorts and shoes.
When she saw Stacy’s purse on the floor, she looked inside. Perhaps, it held a clue to where was. Instead, she found her daughter’s wallet, money and driver’s license inside. Her car keys were there, too.
Suddenly the phone rang. “Oh, thank God,” Janis said as she ran to it, anxious that it might be her daughter or someone who knew where they were. Instead, it was what she described as an obscene phone call. She ran out of the house and waited for her husband to arrive. Late that evening, Janis McCall would call the police and report her daughter missing.
***
Why did it take so long for anyone to call the police? It appeared no one thought anything sinister had happened to the three women. Why should anyone assume the worst? It was the day after graduation, and this was Springfield. Disappearances like this simply didn’t happen here. There had to be a simple explanation for the whereabouts of the women. Their friends expected them to show up with some logical story to explain where they were all day.
But as the hours of that day piled up with no sign of them, a plausible explanation seemed more and more unlikely. From various accounts, at least ten people entered the Levitt house that day looking for the girls and disturbing potential evidence.
When the police were finally called, they found no clear signs of a struggle or a crime. It didn’t appear to be a robbery. Nothing in the house appeared to have been taken. Sherrill Levitt’s jewelry was on her dresser in plain sight. The television and stereo were not taken. Their purses were there, and Sherrill’s even contained $900 in cash.
Investigators had few clues to go on, and those they did find were contaminated by so many people coming into the house that day. People had cleaned up. Some moved things around. Everyone left fingerprints. One of the potentially obvious clues, the broken light cover on the front porch, was swept up and thrown away. The obscene message left on the answering machine was deleted. The open curtain in Suzie’s room had been touched and closed.
An uneaten graduation cake in the refrigerator with the words “Congrats, Suz!” was a reminder of the celebration just a day before. A reminder of how quickly things changed. It remained, but the women were gone.
No one wanted to believe a crime had been committed, not in this middle to upper-middle-class neighborhood. Three women disappearing from a home in the middle of the night – it couldn’t be. No one heard anything. The family dog was loose in the house. The home was set back from the road a bit, but the neighbors were close. Someone would have heard something. Wouldn’t they?
Panic swelled with friends and family, but everyone tried to remain optimistic. The girls had not been gone even a day. There was still a feeling the girls would come home, a singular hope to hold onto.
Police left a small blue note on the front door that read, “When you get in, please call 864-1810 and cancel the missing person report.”
But Stacy, Suzie and Sherrill never came home. The missing persons’ report was never canceled. Things changed that day in America’s hometown.
CHAPTER 2: Memories of Springfield
Brian had just finished his junior year at Parkview, and all was well in his world. He had been sports editor for his high school paper, which, among other perks such as covering key football and basketball games, had allowed him to write his own column: Brown’s Bag. In his senior year, he would be Editor-In-Chief. He had finished a spring soccer league, and the Vikings’ team looked like it would be good in the fall. “We might even beat Kickapoo this year,” he told me after he arrived in early June for his summer visit in St. Charles.
For years, I’d been meeting his mother in Rolla when he and his younger brother Justin came to stay. They’d usually stay with me and Marcia and the girls over the Christmas holiday and then for two months over the summer break. This year was different. It was 1992, and Brian was turning seventeen. He had a car now and did not want to spend the whole summer with his dad. Brian was my oldest, and he was growing up. The plan was for him to stay for a couple of weeks and then return to his job at Ryan’s Steakhouse. It would be years later before I’d know he’d already left Ryan’s. That was just an excuse to return early. I was working a lot, my second marriage was strained, and Brian didn’t want to be away from his friends for too long. I couldn’t blame him.
