I (Stephanie Lurz) want to share this information with you just because I want you to know how I became involved in this (situation involving Tracie's disappearance).

Suzanne was Tracie's best friend. They were like sisters.  Tracie actually supported Suzanne while she (Suzanne) finished high school.  It is very difficult for her even today to deal with what has happened to Tracie, and it has had a big impact (on) her own life.   She is a very successful women's rights activist, partly because of this tragedy -- although I suspect many people may not know that about her. Part of the reason I lost touch with Suzanne is because I don't want to cause her any more pain by reminding her about it. I know she probably thinks about it every day, as it is, but Tracie would want her to be okay.

I actually was friends with Tracie only briefly -- a year, I guess.  We met doing summer stock theater. ( I actually do have a video of Tracie and me in the play we were in together.) Tracie dedicated her performance in that play to her mom (Mary Peltzer, a/k/a Patty). I knew that Patty did not have custody of her, but I didn't know why.  The last time I saw Tracie was at an audition.  She confided in me then about her mother's problem, and that she was deeply concerned about her.  I don't know why she told me then.  We really never talked about our lives outside of theater before.  We had been in such a close cast and it was sort of like our own little world where nothing on the outside mattered. I wasn't cast in the play we were auditioning for that day, but Tracie was (she gave a brilliant, hilarious, unforgettable audition).  However, a few weeks before the show was to go up, she told the director she had to deal with a family emergency and was going to New York. (I found this out from the director later when I was trying to track down her family to see if she was okay.)

I found out about Tracie's disappearance when I found a missing person's poster at the mall near my home.  I immediately called the police department -- but they couldn't tell me anything. I tried to call her grandmother (Loretta), but the number was disconnected.  At the time, I didn't know Loretta's name. She was just "Tracie's grandmother" -- so I had no idea how to find Tracie's family. I kept looking for news, but she disappeared 2 days before the Oklahoma City bombings. So, as you can imagine, it didn't make the news much.  Not long after she disappeared I met several people who went to the high school she went to. She never told me she dropped out, so I assumed she had just graduated from there.  I asked if they had heard anything, and they told me she had come home and was fine.  I wish I could remember where I met these people. Some party or college orientation, I assume.  Unfortunately, I believed that they knew what they were talking about, so I moved on.  I wish I hadn't.  It just seemed to make sense, since the director told me she had split to help her mother. So I assumed she had done the same thing this time.  If I had known the truth, I would have done something more.  I had even talked to my principal about doing a fundraiser for her but I gave it up when I thought she had left on her own.

I can still hear Tracie's voice in my head every bit as clearly as if I saw her yesterday.  I think maybe she, Tracie, was memorable in very much the way her mother clearly was.