3 – The Springfield Three (1992)
The disappearance of Stacy McCall, Suzanne Streeter, and her mother, Sherrill Levitt, on June 7, 1992, still baffles police and would-be detectives. The Springfield Three vanished from Levitt’s home in Springfield, Missouri and no trace of the trio has ever been found. They were probably abducted sometime between 2 a.m., and 8 a.m. because McCall and Streeter were seen at 2 a.m. when they left a graduation party, and a high school friend stopped by the house at 8 a.m. only to find it empty.
The friend was alarmed to find the front door wide open, and the front porch light was broken. This is the only evidence of foul play; the women’s purses and cigarettes were in the house, and the beds were slept in. This suggests a kidnap time significantly later than 2 a.m. The teenage girl heard the phone ring while in the house and answered it. On the other end was a man who made lewd comments. The girl hung up, but the man called again. For some reason, the girl didn’t call the police, and they only arrived on the scene when McCall’s mother, Janis, contacted them after coming to the empty house in the afternoon. Unfortunately, Janis accidentally deleted a message from the male caller that could have been vital evidence.
One of the biggest issues with this case is the enormous amount of crime scene contamination. The last house the two girls left on the night of their disappearance was that of Janelle Kirby. Along with her boyfriend, she cleaned the broken glass on the porch and threw it away; police recovered it later on. Friends of the girls came the following morning to search for them, so the crime scene was contaminated by anywhere between 6 and 20 people.
Police have made little progress on the case in almost 25 years despite receiving over 5,000 tips from the public. One witness claimed she saw a van on her street containing a very distressed-looking Streeter on the morning of the disappearance; she also heard a male voice telling the driver not to do anything stupid. Streeter’s ex-boyfriend, Dustin Recla, was a suspect as he had a criminal record. He fell out with Streeter after she gave a statement to police regarding some of Recla’s petty crimes.
A bank robber and kidnapper named Robert Craig Cox claims to know the killer, but will only disclose the information once his mother dies. One theory suggests the women are buried beneath Cox Hospital; it was being built when they disappeared. A mechanical engineer searched the area and confirmed ‘three anomalies’ in the ground similar to what he would find in a graveyard. Even though the engineer offered to pay for a core sample of the concrete, police rejected the idea.
Another theory states that the Springfield Three were kidnapped and murdered by a cop, or someone pretending to be one. How else could he lure three women outside and take them away without any struggle and with no witnesses? With this in mind, it is possible that the abductor posed as a utility worker and claimed the house had a gas leak. There is little chance that the three women will ever be found What happened to the Springfield Three?