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Robin Stevens and Sherry Seymour

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Seymour and lowe

Sherry Seymour and Robin Stevens

Real Names: Robin Elizabeth Stevens and Sharon Lynn Seymour
Aliases: Tracy Donald (Stevens); Sherry, Penny Donald (Seymour)
Wanted For: Theft, Fraud, Forgery
Missing Since: February 1989

Case[]

Details: In January 1989, a Korean-born American woman named Yong-Son Kim placed an ad in a local newspaper in Panama City, Florida, looking for roommates to live with her in her house. At the time, she was going through a terrible divorce and desired companionship to help ease the pain of her ordeal. She had no idea her search for roommates would place her in the center of an unsolved mystery.
Four days after the ad appeared in the paper, two women who introduced themselves as “Penny and Tracy Donald” came by to see Yong-Son’s house. Penny told Yong-Son that Tracy was her daughter, and that they both worked at a local gift shop. Yong-Son was immediately impressed by their friendly and easy-going manner. The next day, they moved in.
Penny and Tracy seemed to be the perfect roommates, offering Yong-Son comfort when the pressures of her divorce became too much to bear. She says that at that time, she was emotional and crying constantly. She felt that Penny was like a mother to her, and Tracy like a daughter. She became attached to them and liked them very much. She felt like there was nothing she would not do for them.
One month after moving in, Penny and Tracy persuaded Yong-Son to visit friends in the Midwest. They convinced her the trip would do her good, and even paid for her plane ticket. She never saw Penny or Tracy again. During the first eighteen days she was away, she called and talked to them about once or twice each day. However, when she called home on the nineteenth day of her vacation, there was no answer. Concerned, she contacted Penny and Tracy’s employer and was surprised to learn that the women had not been to work in over two weeks.
Yong-Son’s surprise turned to horror when Penny and Tracy's employer told her about rumors of satanic rituals being performed in her home. At that point, she knew something was wrong. She feared that Penny and Tracy had been murdered. She immediately called the airport and arranged for a flight back home. She also requested to have a police officer escort her into her home. Upon entering, she noticed that things seemed oddly out of place. Penny and Tracy were nowhere to be found. She feared for their lives.
Yong-Son’s bedroom was completely ransacked. Nearly all of her expensive jewelry was missing. In another room, the police officer found blood on the wall, which had dripped down it and onto a pillow. Authorities suspect that the blood had come from an animal. On the wall of another room, the numbers “6 6 6” had been written with lipstick. Detective Sam Slay of the Panama City Police Department believes that the message was a ploy. He is not sure exactly what the motive was behind it, but he does not believe that it was satanic.
Detective Slay determined that Yong-Son had not been victimized by a satanic cult, but rather had been conned by her roommates, who had disappeared with an estimated $50,000 in jewelry and other valuables. In reality, Penny and Tracy are not mother and daughter. They are Sherry Lynn Seymour, thirty-five, and Robin Elizabeth Stevens, a ruthless con artist team, who, during a four-year period, have used a variety of scams to bilk victims across the United States out of more than $100,000. One other type of scam they have done involves finding divorced men, marrying them, and then stealing from them. They are believed to be traveling with truckers. The FBI has since joined the search for them.
Yong-Son was angry and upset when she learned the truth. She wonders why they did this to her. She feels that they stole her life and hurt her deeply. She says that "they took the whole inside of me, and just cut into so many pieces."
Seymour has been known to use as many as twenty-two aliases. She wears designer-style eyeglasses and is fond of expensive jewelry. She has a record of frauds dating back to 1983. She and Stevens are wanted on charges of grand theft and forgery. Police believe that they may be responsible for dozens of unreported fraud crimes throughout the United States.
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired on the November 13, 1991 episode. It was updated on the December 4, 1991 and February 12, 1992 episodes.
  • It was excluded from the FilmRise release of the Robert Stack episodes.
  • It is not to be confused with another con-woman team, Rose Turford and Carolyn Stevens.
  • Some sources spell Seymour's last name as "Sizemore" or "Seymore".
  • It was also featured on Prime Suspect.
Robin stevens cheri sizemore

Seymour and Lowe after their 1991 arrests

Results: Captured. Within minutes of the broadcast, Sheri Lowe, a viewer in Wagner, Oklahoma, called the tele-center and identified “Robin Stevens” as her twenty-eight-year-old sister-in-law, Robin Elizabeth Lowe. Lowe had disappeared in 1987 after telling Sheri she was embarking on a cross-country trip with a truck driver. She was never heard from again and her family suspected foul play. During the Unsolved Mysteries progress report, Sheri made an appeal for Lowe to turn herself in and come back home. She said that their family has forgiven her for anything she has done in the past few years, and that they are there for her and want to help her.
Several viewers also called the tele-center and gave other information about Seymour and Lowe, including: additional aliases they used, information about their possible whereabouts, and a vehicle description. These tips led the FBI to Pennsylvania, where they located a person who had befriended and been victimized by Seymour and Lowe. Tips also placed them in Bakersfield, California. However, they fled that area after they contacted relatives who informed them that the FBI was looking for them.
Based on the information provided by viewers, the FBI determined Seymour and Lowe were headed to Texas. On December 14, 1991, FBI agents spotted their car at the Sunscape Apartments in Del Valle, Texas, just outside Austin. The agents then located them inside and arrested them. At the time, they were making arrangements to purchase a home in the Austin area. They also had a twenty-month-old child with them. They were returned to Florida to face grand theft and forgery charges.
Lowe was convicted of grand theft and sentenced to ten years in prison. In April 2001, she was released. Seymour was also convicted of grand theft. She was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison. However, the sentence was commuted to probation and she was released in August 1992. She was then returned to Anderson, South Carolina, where she was charged with second-degree arson and criminal conspiracy. She had allegedly set a fire in 1988 that destroyed a home. Her parents posted her bond and she was released on August 4. She disappeared shortly afterwards. She was later located; however, it is not known if she was convicted on the arson charges. In March 2006, she was returned to prison in Florida. She was released again in May.
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