Missouri - The Springfield Three - missing since 7 June 1992 - #16

[Betty P]

i dont see there actions cleaning up at levitt home as suspicious. they are not true crime nuts like we are on here. they were really gullible. not being street smart, but they did not think the house was a crime scene. JM deleted a message from levitt answer machine because it was rude. she did not realise it could be connected to the 3 women going missing including stacy mccall his daughter. hindsight is a wonderfull thing.

It helps to understand what Springfield was like back then. It was still a place where people were very prim and proper. They’re very judgmental of others, paid attention and commented on who went to church or who didn’t. They were likely to look down on a divorced working woman who had raised two children mostly on her own. (They also probably believed their kids weren’t having premarital sex or drinking and smoking pot, either).

So they were probably disgusted at obscene phone calls at Sherrill’s house. It was a sign of their assumed superiority to delete those obscene phone calls. They didn’t want to be judged by others for listening to them. It’s a very conservative town.

My old boss there once told me a story he heard when he first moved to town. You never wanted to be seen drinking alcohol by your neighbors. You would have to buy it at a liquor store during odd hours. You had to make sure to take it home in a brown paper bag. Your discarded empty beer cans or liquor bottles had to be disposed of wrapped up in bags in your trash cans lest your neighbors see them on trash pick up day.

It might explain people cleaning up the crime scene, making Sherrills bed, sweeping up broken glass and erasing obscene phone calls as “good” women do.