On June 7th, 1992, Sherill Levitt, Suzanne Streeter and Stacy McCall disappeared from a home in Springfield, Missouri. Nicknamed ‘The Springfield Three’, it’s been 31 years since the three women disappeared, and there are still no solid leads in the case.
The day before they disappeared, Susanne Streeter and Stacy McCall had graduated from Kickapoo High School in Springfield. The two friends spent the evening attending graduation parties to celebrate.
According to the Springfield police department, they were last seen at 2:15 am on the morning of June 7th. The two women drove to Susanne Streeters house in separate vehicles, with plans to spend the night there.
It appears that Susanne and Stacy had gotten ready for bed as their jewellery was left in the bathroom, along with damp cloths believed to be used to remove their makeup.
Sherill Levitt, Susanne’s mother, was last heard from around 11:15 pm on June 6th. Her bed looked as though it had been slept in.
Sherill and Susanne hadn’t lived at 1717 East Delmar Street for very long when they disappeared along with Stacy.
Suzanne and Stacy had made plans to go to a waterpark with a group of friends on the morning of June 7th. They had originally planned to spend the night at their friend Janelle Kirby’s house but ended up going to Susanne’s because Janelle’s house was too crowded that night.
When Stacy and Susanne didn’t turn up to Janelle’s house the next morning, Janelle tried multiple times to call them but got no answer. After more time had passed, Janelle decided to go to the house on East Delmar Street to make sure her friends were okay.
Janelle and her boyfriend Mike went to the house. When they got there no one was home but they found the front door unlocked. They also noticed that the porch light was broken, and swept the glass up for them to be helpful. All three cars belonging to each of the three women were still parked outside of the house. Assuming that they must have just missed them, Janelle and Mike left and headed to the waterpark.
When Janelle and Mike got to the waterpark and there was no sign of Susanne and Stacy, they decided to go back to the house to see if they had gone back there. When they arrived, the only person there was Stacy McCall’s mother, Janice.
They found the belongings of the three women still in the home, including their purses which had been lined up in the bedroom. Nothing seemed to be missing, and Sherill Levitt’s dog, Cinnamon, was still in the house. There was a message left on the answering machine from a male, making crude remarks. Janelle accidentally deleted the message after listening to it. She also decided to clean the house. Eventually, they called the police.
The Springfield police department declared the three women missing. The FBI soon turned up to investigate. Law enforcement and locals launched searches in the community to try and find any signs of the women. They even had divers look in Lake Springfield and The James River.
The case received a huge amount of media attention with the story appearing on ‘The Opera Winfrey Show’, ‘America’s Most Wanted’ and ‘48 Hours’.
There were a few suspects in the case. First, Susanne Streeter’s ex-boyfriend. He was allegedly part of a grave-robbing gang. Susanne had given a statement to the police implicating him in the crime and was due to testify against him. He didn’t have a rock-solid alibi for the night in question, but there wasn’t anything conclusive to link him to the disappearances. He also passed a polygraph test.
Bartt Streeter, Sherill’s son and Susanne’s brother, was also considered a suspect. He did not live at the home and had been estranged from the two women for some time. His alibi was that he had been drinking that night and passed out at his home, alone. He had a history of alcoholism and aggression but he too passed a polygraph test. In 2019, Bartt was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication, disorderly conduct, and attempted false imprisonment in an unrelated incident in Tennessee. Police took this opportunity to investigate him in The Springfield Three case, but eventually ruled him out as a suspect.
Robert Craig Cox lived across the street from 1717 East Delmar Street at the time of the women’s disappearance. Now a convicted murderer, he was interviewed multiple times by police over the years. In 1996, investigative reporter, Dennis Graves interviewed Cox in prison.
Cox: “I know that they are dead. I’ll say that. And I know that.”
Graves: “That’s not a theory?”
Cox: “I just know that they are dead. That’s not my theory. I just know that. There’s no doubt about that.”
Cox refused to provide more information. The Interview was subpoenaed and submitted to a Grand Jury later that year, but no charges have been handed down as of yet.
Two days after the three women went missing, a witness reported seeing a green van in the area. She claimed a blonde woman was driving and heard a male voice say ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’ The witness identified Susanne Streeter as the woman driving. In 2002, police investigated a group of men working at a concrete company in nearby Webster County. They owned a green van. Cadaver dogs recovered bones from the site but they were found to be too old to be connected to the case.
In 2007, a local writer got a tip-off. Because of the Tip-off, the writer ended up hiring an engineer to use ground-penetrating radar at a parking garage at Cox South Hospital. The engineer said he picked up three distinct shapes consistent with human remains, under the car park. The car park had been built a year after The Springfield Three disappeared so police felt it was unlikely that the excavation of the site at the time it was built would have turned up the bodies. A spokesperson for the Springfield Police Department said:
“Digging up the area and subsequently reconstructing this structure would be extremely costly, and without any reasonable belief that the bodies could be located here, it is illogical to do so, and for those reasons, SPD does not intend to. Investigators have determined this lead to not be credible.”
Susanne Streeter, Stacy McCall and Sherill Levitt have been missing for 31 years. With the lack of physical evidence to work with, there have been no developments in the case, and no credible leads for investigators to go off. This case is a haunting one; three women seemingly vanished leaving no trace.
Sources:
https://people.com/springfield-3-went-missing-decades-ago-everything-know-about-case-7508731
https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-the-springfield-three
https://www.springfieldmo.gov/2498/Three-Missing-Women
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/vicap/missing-persons/the-springfield-three—springfield-missouri
