“We went to the ocean all the time,” Debra Schwartz told Dateline. “We did a lot of stuff as a family.”
Debra and her older sister, Sherrill, were raised in Bellevue, Washington. “My dad loved it out there,” Debra said. “Our family did a lot of camping.” Bellevue was packed with outdoor adventures, and Debra told Dateline her family enjoyed outdoor life to its fullest.
Debra said that she and Sherrill were eight years apart. “I was the annoying little sister,” Debra told Dateline with a laugh. “I tormented her.”
Despite that, Debra said Sherrill was always there to take care of her. “She was usually the one to cook me dinner,” Debra recalled. “She was definitely always looking out for me.”
Debra told Dateline that Sherrill got married to her first husband, Brentt Streeter in 1964. The next year, the couple had a son, Bartt. And in 1973, Sherrill gave birth to their daughter, Suzie. That was around the same time Debra gave birth to her daughter, Sarah. “We were both pregnant at the same time,” Debra said. “We were very close then.”
Debra told Dateline that not long after Suzie was born, Sherrill and Brentt divorced. In 1980, Sherrill married her second husband, Don Levitt. Like Sherrill, Don had children from his previous marriage. “They were kind of like the Brady Bunch,” Debra said.
That same year, Debra and her family moved to Springfield, Missouri for her husband’s job. Sherrill and Don followed with their family. “She moved to Springfield because we moved down there,” Debra told Dateline.
But in 1983, the plant where Debra’s husband worked shut down and they made the decision to return to Washington. “To leave her was very upsetting to everybody,” Debra said, but by then Sherrill had settled into life in Springfield. “She was making good money,” Debra told Dateline. She said that Sherrill was a cosmetologist and had built up a loyal clientele and did not want to go back to Washington.
Six years later, Sherrill and Don divorced. Following the divorce, Sherrill struggled, initially. “They had lost this really great house,” Debra said. But before long, she was able to get a home of her own. “She got this house in a great area,” Debra said. Bartt was older and had already moved out, so the house was a fresh start for Sherrill and Suzie.
Debra’s daughter, Sarah Beeson, who was the same age as Suzie, always admired her cousin. “She was always really fashionable and, like, cool,” Sarah told Dateline. “She was independent, tough.”
And beautiful, too. “They were all babes,” Sarah said, describing her cousin and aunt. “They were very attractive people.”
Sarah told Dateline that Sherrill and Suzie were extremely close, and Suzie wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps. “She wanted to do cosmetology like Sherrill,” Sarah said. “She would always have the trendy haircuts and the trendy clothes.”
Debra told Dateline that in May of 1992 she celebrated a milestone birthday and the whole family went to Springfield to see her sister. “Sherrill was just making a big deal over the fact that her baby sister was turning 40,” Debra recalled. “It was a wonderful time.”
Debra told Dateline that although they wanted to stay in Springfield to be there for Suzie’s graduation a few weeks later, Sarah had recently joined the Navy and had to return to base. They headed home. It was the last time Debra’s family saw Sherrill and Suzie.
On June 6, 1992, Suzie Streeter graduated high school. “They graduated high school with their families and then the girls went to graduation parties,” Sarah told Dateline. According to Sarah, Suzie and her friend Stacy McCall went to multiple parties together that night. After the parties, Sarah said, “They made a last-minute decision to go spend the night at my cousin's house.”
Sarah told Dateline the teens were supposed to meet some friends the next morning to go to a water park, but they never showed. “They weren’t answering the phone and they didn’t show up,” she said. So the friends headed to Suzie’s house to check up on them. Suzie, Stacy, and Sherrill were nowhere to be found. “At some point in that night, they went missing,” Debra said.
Dateline spoke with the Springfield Police Department Public Affairs Officer, Cris Swaters. Swaters directed Dateline to the latest media release on the case, posted in May 2022. It states that “Stacy McCall and Suzanne Streeter had graduated from high school the day before their disappearance and were last seen at approximately 2:15 a.m., on June 7, 1992, when they left a graduation party in a nearby community and traveled to the home of Levitt/Streeter.” It adds that “it appeared they had arrived at the residence because their clothing, jewelry, purses, and vehicles were still at this location.”
According to the release, “on officers' arrival, the house showed no signs of a struggle, but rather the appearance of the missing women being abducted. All personal property was left behind including purses, money, clothing, cars, keys, cigarettes, and the family dog.” It goes on to say that, “Suzanne's mother, Sherrill Levitt, was last heard from at approximately 11:15 p.m., on June 6, 1992, when she talked with a friend about painting a chest of drawers. Levitt's car, purse, keys, etc., were left at the residence and it appeared as though her bed had been slept in when friends and police arrived to check the residence.” The release noted that it was Stacy’s parents who alerted police to their daughter’s disappearance.
Stacy’s mother, Janis McCall, recently suffered a heart attack and had to cancel a planned interview with Dateline about her daughter. She is recovering at home. Debra told Dateline she knows exactly what Janis would have said about her daughter. It’s what everyone says about Stacy: “She was a sweetheart of a girl,” Debra said. “Beautiful girl, very talented.”
Debra recounted how she felt when she learned her sister and niece were missing. “I didn’t find out until the next day,” Debra said. “I was literally not panicked at all... I said, ‘She’s fine, it’s Sherrill. She left her purse and her car there. Of course, she’s gonna be back.’”
Debra told Dateline it wasn’t until her father said he was flying out to Springfield that she started to get worried. “My dad started freaking out,” she remembered. She said her father was normally “very, very calm,” so when he got upset – she knew something was wrong.
Debra said Springfield was a tight-knit community and the abduction left everyone shaken. “They were living a really normal life,” Debra said. “And someone comes and takes you out of your home. Nobody wants to believe that can happen.”
The community rallied together to try to help find Sherrill, Suzie, and Stacy. “They had search parties going,” Debra told Dateline. “I mean, it was surreal.” She told Dateline her family was shocked when they arrived in Springfield to help with the search, “There were posters everywhere, billboards.”
About five years later, in 1997, Debra and Sherrill’s father died. Thirteen years after that, their mother died, too. Neither of them would live to find out what happened to their daughter and granddaughter.
To this day, Sherrill, Suzie, and Stacy have not been found. They became known as “The Springfield Three.”
Over the years, many tips have come in regarding their disappearance. Debra told Dateline that someone reportedly saw a van near the home the morning the women went missing. “They went on this really extensive search for a green van,” Debra recalled. “Supposedly Suzie was driving it.” But nothing ever came of it, she said.
According to Debra, out of all the tips and theories, the biggest lead was about a man named Robert Cox. In 1988, Cox was convicted of killing a Walt Disney World employee while on vacation in Florida with his family. In 1989, Cox appealed his conviction citing insufficient evidence. The appeal was granted, and Cox was released.
According to NBC affiliate KY3, Cox was living in Springfield, Missouri at the same time The Springfield Three disappeared in 1992. In 1995, he was arrested in Texas, and later convicted, for holding a child at gunpoint.
In 1996, KY3 reporter Dennis Graves interviewed Cox in prison about the missing women. “I just know that they are dead,” Cox said in the interview. “That’s not my theory. I just know that. There’s no doubt about that.” Cox also told Graves he was at home in bed the night of the abduction.
According to KY3, “Graves’ interview was subpoenaed by authorities and presented before a grand jury called on the case in 1996,” but charges were never filed.
Still, Debra believes he’s the one who did it. “He doesn’t deny it,” she said. “It’s just question mark after question mark.” Cox, 62, is currently serving a life sentence in Texas for armed robbery.
According to the Springfield Police Department, they have leaned on every agency to assist with the case of The Springfield Three. Their website states, “With the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Missouri State Highway Patrol, and numerous other law enforcement agencies, an extensive investigation into the lives of the missing women has been conducted with no positive leads.”
It has now been 30 years since Stacy, Suzie and Sherrill went missing. Sarah says despite the lack of leads, the city has never forgotten about them and will never give up trying to find them. “They have had – almost every year – like, a nice, big vigil,” Sarah told Dateline. “Which is pretty cool.”
At the time of the disappearance, Sherrill Levitt was 47 years old, 5'0”, 110 lbs., with short, bleached-blonde naturally curly hair and freckles on her neck and upper chest area. Her daughter, Suzie Streeter was 19 years old, 5'2', 102 lbs., with brown eyes and straight bleached-blonde hair. She had a 3-1/2'' scar on top of her right forearm and a small tumor in the left corner of her mouth. Stacy McCall was 18 years old, 5'3", 120 lbs., with blue eyes, and dark blonde hair. She had freckles on her face and a dimple in the middle of her chin.
Sherrill would be 77 years old today. Suzie would be 49, two years older than her mother was when they disappeared. Stacy would be 48 years old.
According to the Springfield Police Department’s website, a “reward fund of $42,000 has been established for the location and prosecution of the persons responsible for the abduction of the three women.”
Anyone with information about the disappearance of Sherrill Levitt, Suzie Streeter, and Stacy McCall is asked to contact the Springfield Police Department at (417) 864-1810 or Crime Stoppers at (417) 869-TIPS.
Kyani Reid
