19-year-old Suzanne ‘Suzie’ Streeter was an outgoing, fun girl who wished to be a hairdresser like her mother was. She was a “creature of habit” and always had to do things in her ific way, especially parking her car the same way every time. Her mother, 47-year-old Sherrill Levitt was a cosmetologist, a fierce woman, and had just bought her dream home in a nice, friendly neighborhood in Springfield, Missouri. 18-year-old Stacy McCall was funny and hung out with the “goofy crowd”. She was known as “Spacey Stacy” because of all the “Space-cadet” things she would come out with. Both Suzie and Stacy were graduating from Kickapoo High School.
On June 6th,1992, Stacy and Suzie attended a graduation party with their classmates and friends. After the party, the pair went to a sleepover at a friend, Janelle Kirby’s house, where they all scheduled to go to a White Water, Branson Amusement park the next morning. Around 2 am when it became too overcrowded at Kirby’s house, Suzie and Stacy decided to leave and go to Suzie’s house for the sleepover instead. Stacy called her mother Janis and told her she was staying out and would call her in the morning before they headed to the water park. This was the last time Janis heard her daughter’s voice. Sherrill was last heard from at around 11.15 pm when she spoke to a friend on the phone about painting an armoire.
It is thought that the girls walked into Suzie and Sherrill’s house around shortly after 2 am The next morning when neither Suzie nor Stacy made contact with anyone, concern grew. Janis and friends of the girls made their way to Suzie’s house, where they saw Stacy’s, Suzie’s, and Sherrill’s cars parked outside still. Suzie’s car was parked differently than usual; she would always park right up into the carport, however this time she had parked out on the circular driveway, leading everyone to wonder if someone else had probably been parked there that night. There was also glass on the porch, left from the broken lampshade off the porch light. Two friends swept up the glass as a favor to to to Sherrill, which police later told destroyed any potential proof.
When they all knocked, shouted for the women, and received no answer, they tried the door handle. It was unlocked. After walking into the home, they noticed the television was on and the lights were off. Suzie and Sherrill’s dog, Cinnamon, was inside the home and seemed distressed and agitated. Stacy’s concerned mother Janis saw the house was “immaculate” and there were no signs of struggle. She also found all three women’s purses containing their money and keys laid on the floor of the living room, neatly lined up beside each other, as well as Stacy’s clothes from the night before neatly folded along with her jewelry and makeup. Sherrill’s cigarettes were also left in the house, which was unique as she was a chain smoker and wouldn’t go anywhere without them.
Believing Sherrill, Suzie and Stacy would show up soon, Janis and the friends began tidying up the home while they waited. While waiting, the house phone rang. They waited for it to go to the answerphone. It was a message from an unknown male making sexual comments, and at some point somehow, the message was deleted. Later, with still no sign of any of the women, they were reported missing to police.
Police shortly sensed something was wrong, suspected foul play, and treated the house as a crime scene. However, after family and friends had cleaned the house as well as deleted the voicemail, there was no evidence to be found. The scene had been compromised beyond repair. Police began to look into Suzie’s ex-boyfriend who she had broken up with after he was charged for taking part in grave robberies. Suzie had agreed to testify against the ex-boyfriend, which would be happening just a few months later. The boy and his friends denied any involvement, and without any proof to tie them to the disappearance, the police could do nothing.
After a couple of weeks and still no sign of the women, someone called a tip-in to the police. They claimed that they saw Suzie driving an avocado-green panel van on the morning they disappeared. It was noticeable, they told police because Suzie looked frightened and had a man in the back seat yelling at her. After several appeals, however, no more information came in about the van. Friends interviewed how someone stormed the house with ‘military precision’ and subdued three strong young women.
Eventually, in 1996, a tip is called in about Robert Craig Cox, a trained army ranger who was believed to have been involved in the m*urder of a 19-year-old girl in Florida. There had not been enough evidence to convict him, however. Cox had also served 9 years for kidnapping two women in California. What linked him to the Springfield three was that he had moved to Springfield just weeks before the disappearances and also worked at the same dealership Stacy’s father worked. Cox’s girlfriend told police he was with her at church at the time of the disappearance, so police were at a standstill. Later, after Cox was imprisoned for aggravated robbery, his girlfriend retracted her previous alibi and told police that she didn’t know where he was the night the women vanished.
A reporter who visited Cox in prison was eligible to record their conversation, in which Cox said, “I know that they’re dead, I’ll say that. I know that… That’s not my theory, I just know that.” While he wouldn’t admit he was credible, Cox then stated that he would not tell any more details until his mother passed away. Without definitive information to point police in any direction, the case stalled again. Then, freelance journalist Kathee Baird received a tip saying the women were buried underneath a hospital parking structure, which was a dirt lot at the time. She told police, who “laughed at her”. But still, she hired a man who used sonar equipment able of finding graves under concrete. She told how he got “two images over here and one over there” and that it looks like what he sees when he goes over old graves. Police, however, say that the timeline isn’t right. The construction for the parking structure had begun a year after the disappearance and that excavation of the site during construction should have unearthed the bodies if they were there. Among other persons of interest looked into was Suzie’s estranged older brother BaBartwho had been struggling with alcohol addiction. He thereafter passed his polygraph test.
There has been no sign of the women since 7th June 1992 and their families are left searching for answers and closure. Police have said they still receive tips in the case but have not found the women or their possible mur*derer.
