Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / The Springfield Three

Transcript

The Springfield Three · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: On a warm June morning in nineteen ninety two, a
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: quiet Springfield neighborhood awoke to find three women missing, without
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: a trace, without a sound, and without a single clue.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Inside their home sat untouched purses, sleeping beds, and a
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: flickering TV playing static as if time had paused mid moment.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: What began as a simple missed call would unravel into
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: one of the most haunting and enduring mysteries in American
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: true crime history. This is the baffling mystery of the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Springfield Three.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: The following podcast and material intended for a mature audience listener.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: You might be listening to Wicked and Graham, but you're
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: also listening to Nicole being really sick.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I said that intro so quick. I think I was
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: trying to hide the fact that my voice didn't sound
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: quite proper.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: You know, just get it out there.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: You're listening to Wicked and Grip like that. It was
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: really quick, quick.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, today's episode is delayed to day so
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: you could get a little bit more rest timing. You
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: napped for like three hours. This afternoon.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like amazing. That was one of the
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: best naps I've ever had. But we were traveling too,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: and when you're under the weather weather, I don't think
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: flying and stuff does anything good.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: For you, you know, No, I don't think so so
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: so I think that little extra time did you some good.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's why we're a little bit late on
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: uploading this episode. Got to take care of ourselves sometimes.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Right, totally. And I do apologize. My voice always gets
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: so affected any sickness I have, so sorry about that.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: It's all good. Just just let me do the heavy lifting.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I can do a little more talking and you can
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: just sit back and relax and drink your tea.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right, And if you don't get like your immune
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: system is unbelievable. It is so good. The fact that
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: you haven't gotten this set is like remarkable, very impressed.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I had a tickle in my throat yesterday, but I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: coughed and then it was gone.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean I guess you still could time
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: could tell.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll find out. Maybe next time we go to
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: upload an episode. We'll be putting a thing out on
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: our stories on Instagram, Facebook. Yeah, another delay because Ben's
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: sick now and he needs some time.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Fingers crossed the knock on wood that doesn't happen.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Well, we'll take it day by day. Whether it's your
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: recovery or mine, we'll we'll take it and we'll keep
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the balls balls.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: The ball rolling is rolling. Yeah, day by day. I
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: feel like that's just how you have to take life. Sometimes.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Ah too, Chet, It's actually funny. We had an Instagram
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: post go I don't want to say viral. It's at
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: like fifty thousand views right now. Well, one of the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: cases you know where it was like, oh, the true
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: crime person you know, obsessive and goes in and kills someone,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and then right the irony of the post, it's the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: discussion is going wild on people being like, oh my god,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: like true Crime's not that bad, and people just like
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: on both sides of the fence and they're arguing, like
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: it's not bad. Do you not see it? This is
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: exactly the breakdown of what we're talking about. Why it's
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: like controversial. Sometimes you guys are literally doing what the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: post is saying. It's anyways, my point was, yeah, we'll
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: take it, roll by the take it with the punches
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and sometimes in a situation where you kind of just
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, because true crimes like that.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, life is like that, you know.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I feel like I really over explained that very simple.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Thing I think you did. I was trying to see
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: you at some point, but I'm like, you're in a
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: way too deep. I can't I don't even know what
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: to take you out of it.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: So how don't we just move on to patrons? How
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: about we do that? Just shut up except that I'll
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: thank our patrons. Shout out to Jaden Jones, Britney Stapleton,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Tara Banks, d Cindy, Deborah Missey, Brenda w Aaron or
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: not Aaron, Sorry, Airvin, there's a v in there, and
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Amanda Woolsey. Thank you so much for signing up over
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: on Patreon this week.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Nice, yeah, thank you.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We appreciate you, guys, we sure do. But are
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: you ready for this story? The Springfield three?
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I think this is like a more known one,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: right a little bit.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: It is it is, and it's it is a mystery.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you guys this right now.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, real nice?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean I even said it in the beginning.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: This is the baffling mystery of the Springfield three. But
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I just want to clarify. This is a mystery. It's unsolved.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: So I don't love that, of.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Course you don't. I love mysteries though personally because it
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: gets the mind thinking it when it's just here's the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: information and the story told for you. I don't know,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: it seems like it's an easy ride if you have
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: to do some thinking, you know, it puts your brain
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: to work, and I like that sometimes.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's nice. I mean, I don't know how
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: this one ends. I know I've heard of it, but
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: to know that people are still working on things too, right,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: So like there's also the optimism. Is that the right
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: word that you know it maybe could get solved still
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: or something right exactly?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: So let's dive into it before your voice breaks on
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: us and you can't talk for the rest of the episode.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: How does that sound?
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Sounds good? Midea?
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: It's all good. My bad for throwing back to you
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: when you're having a sip. Okay, let's get going. In
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties, Springfield, Missouri, was a growing community
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: nestled in the heart of the Ozarks, a place where
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: people raised families, open small businesses, and left their doors unlocked.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: At night. Known as the Queen City of the Ozarks,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Springfield balanced to charm of a small town with the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: infrastructure of a regional hub. With a population nearing one
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty thousand at the time, it was a
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: large enough place to support universities, medical centers, and a
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: lively town, but small enough that most residents felt like
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: they knew like their neighbor's sort of situation, right, you
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: know who's living next to you, and you're comfortable with
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: your surroundings.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: See, I still feel like that's a fairly large city.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: One hundred and forty thousand. That's like not small in
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: my opinion.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: It's not, but you still get that there's still pockets
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: of that, you know, that small town feel in it.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I guess like we're we're not in a city that large.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: We're in a city of eighty thousand, ninety thousand somewhere
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: in there. And there's a lot of small town vibes here.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: True. Okay, yeah, true, But I mean that's like double
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: the size, but still.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Still you can imagine there would be some small town
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: vibes and that's it's not going to be everywhere for sure,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: but there's going to be places like that.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Crime existed, of course, but violent incidents we're seen as
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: rare and isolated occurrence. The city had a reputation for
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: being a relatively safe place to live, particularly in its
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: more residential and suburban areas like the Southeast Corridor, where
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: there were modest homes, quiet streets, and community pride painted
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: a picture of everyday normalcy. In the spring of nineteen
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: ninety two, the city was busy with high school graduations,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: weekend outings, and the anticipation of summer now. For Suzanne
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: or Susie Streeter and Stacy McCall, June sixth, nineteen ninety
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: two was meant to be one of the most memorable days,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: memorable days of their lives. Both had just graduated from
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Kickapoo High School, a major milestone, you know, marking the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: end of their teenage years and beginning of their adult independence.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: The ceremony was held at the hem and Student Center
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: in the Missouri State University campus, drawing hundreds of family members, friends,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: and classmates alike. There was an air of celebration, pride,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: and relief emotions typical of of course, any graduation. Susie
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: was nineteen and had long been known for her bright,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: bold personality. She had a creative streak, a love of fashion,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: and a rebellious edge that led her to explore independence
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: at quite a young age. Had five foot two and
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: one hundred and two pounds, her shoulder length, bleach blonde hair,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: and a scar in her right forearm. She stood out
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: rather easily when you were looking for her. Though she
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: had had some turbulent moments in her late teens, including
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: a few strained relationships and move ins in and out
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: of her mother's house. She had plans she was set
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to attend cosmetology cosmetology school and the fall following in
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: her mother's footsteps.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Stacy McCall eighteen was more reserved than Susie, often described
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: as sweet, funny, and little spacey, earning her the affectionate
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: nickname Spacey Stacy.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, almost feel like that's kind of mean.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I think it was a little bit more on the
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: affectionate end when like, I bug you about being a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: little ditzy blonde sometimes, right, and it's the same sort
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: of thing. It's done with love.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I guess she's like, yeah, that's me.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly own your flaws, right, nobody's perfect, with long,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: dark blonde hair, blue eyes in a sunny smile. She
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: had recently started modeling, modeling wedding gowns, be more more specific,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: at a local bridle shop. She was planning to start
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: college in Southwest Missouri State University in the fall, rooming
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: with her longtime friend Janelle Kirby and pledging to a
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: sorority now. She and Susie had once been close in
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: grade school, but they had drifted in their different social
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: circle sort of thing, but they'd recently reconnected in their
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: final year of high school. Susie's mother, Cheryl Levitt, was
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: forty seven years old and attended her daughter's graduation with
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: quite a bit of pride. She was a petite, hard
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: working woman at five foot tall and one hundred and
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: ten pounds, with bleached blonde hair and an eye for detail.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Cheryl worked as a hairdresser at a local salon. She
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: recently purchased a small home on East Delmer Street, a modest,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: cozy place that she was fixing up all on her own.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Enjoying a sense of independency after divorce and raising her
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: children largely by herself, Cheryl and Susie had a close
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: bond despite the occasional tension you know, common between mother
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and daughter sort of thing, navigating, you know that onset
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: from a teenage years into adulthood.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it happens.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: After the excitement of graduation, Susie and Stacy headed into
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the night with plans typical of any teen marking the
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: end of high school. You know, parties, laughter, the comfort
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: of close friends, whether it's bonfires or whatever you find
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: yourself heading to. Right. Initially, the girls intended to spend
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the night at their friend Janelle Kirby's house in Battlefield.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Not an actual battlefield, the place is called Battlefield. It's
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: a quiet suburb southwest of Springfield. Janelle was part of
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Stacy's close circle, and her home had become a gathering
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: place for classmates celebrating their final moments together before summer,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and the looming changes.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Came on such a time that I don't know, it's
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: so precious, really, it really is. It's like just a
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: moment in time that stands still for like a brief moment,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: but and then yeah, literally everything changes after that, pretty much.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I remember, and luckily enough you and I
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: got to experience that together, going to to graduation parties
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and prom together and everything. And I remember packing like
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: air mattresses and like sleeping bags and sleeping the back
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: of the vehicle after a bonfire party and that sort
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of stuff. Like it was a good time and memories
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: made for sure.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Because I don't know high school and stuff, I feel
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: like is kind of shitty, but from my experience anyway,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: grade twelve was was more was more entertaining or fun
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: or whatever than previous grades. And because everyone sort of
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: it gets the end, and everyone, I feel like came
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: together a little bit more than they did in previous grades,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: so it was kind of nice.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that just shows our Canadian citizenship right there, because
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: grade twelve in the States its senior year, right, you know, Okay,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: yeah yeah, grade twelve senior year whatever, your final year
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: in high school before graduation.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Now. Susie arrived at Janelle's house at around eight fifteen PM,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: and Stacy followed shortly after. At eight thirty, The girls
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and headed out to a series of parties, including one
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: hosted by a classmate named Brian Joy. Spirits were, of
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: course high. There was music, there was drinks, chatter and
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: lightness of you know, the whole situation. Though Susie reportedly
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: complained of a mild stomach ache during the night, possibly
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: from pizza she'd eaten earlier, she didn't let this dampen
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: her mood, though. By ten thirty PM, Stacy phoned her mother,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Janis McCall to let her know that the plans had changed.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: See instead of driving to Branson as originally planned, they
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: were going to stay the night in Springfield instead. Stacy
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: promised to call again in the morning before heading to
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Whitewater Water Park. Janis, who had been concerned about the
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: idea of her daughter driving late at night after the party,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: was quite relieved at this idea and this new plan.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Around that same time, Susie also called home to update
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: her mother, Cheryl, about the changes. Cheryl herself had spoken
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: to a friend that evening at eleven fifteen PM, chatting
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: casually about her ongoing and ongoing improvements in her new
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: home and her projects. Nothing unusual was noted in her demeanor.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: She seemed relaxed and at ease, spending the evening varnishing
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: some furniture and winding down with her day. At around
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: one thirty in the morning, Susie and Stacy, along with
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Janelle and others arrived at another party on East Hanover Street. However,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: this one was a bit short lived. Apparently Springfield police
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: broke it up quite early on, shortly after the group arrived,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: due to a noise complaint.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's getting real pretty late at that point.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I guess I shouldn't say early on, because yeah,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: one thirty, but early on for them, as they just
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: recently arrived. Now, with the night winding down and options limited,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the girls returned back to Janelle's house, but it was
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: packed with out of town relatives who had come for
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the graduation celebrations. Despite Janelle's mother setting out the betting
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: for them, Susie and Stacy decided they would rather sleep
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: somewhere a little quieter. That decision would prove fateful. Oh no,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Susie invited Stacy to spend the night at her house,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a suggestion sweetened by the recent arrival of a graduation gift,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: a brand new king sized waterbed that she was eager
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to show off. Yeah.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's amazing, right.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: It was some time around two am when they left
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Janelle's house, each in their own car. According to Janelle's mother,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Kathy Kirby, she heard the girl say goodbye and walk
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: out the front door. That was the last time anyone
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: would hear their voices. On the morning of June seventh,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, it started like any other early summer morning.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: It was a Sunday in Springfield. The skies were mostly cloudy,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the air was cool and breezy. Across town, graduations party
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: had faded intil late night, and they were now quiet.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there was a few with hangovers as well
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: stumbling around yep. But for those expecting to meet Susie
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: and Stacey in the morning, something that felt off. By
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: nine am, Janelle Kirby and her boyfriend Mike Henson, they
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: had grown concerned Susie and Stacy hadn't called or arrived
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: at her house as planned, because they were supposed to arrive,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: give us a call and let her let them know, Hey,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: we got here safe, right. That never happened. Now, As
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I had mentioned, there were plans to go to a
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: water park the next day, and the trio were supposed
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to drive over to the water park in Branson for
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: that post graduation tradition meant to cap off the weekend
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: sort of thing. Now, at first, Janelle assumed that they
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: were simply just running late, maybe you know, sleeping in
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: after a long night, But when repeated phone calls to
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Susie's home when unanswered, she and Mike decided to check
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: in in person. They arrived at one seven one seven
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: East Delmer Street, the home Susie shared with her mother,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Cheryl Levitt. As soon as they pulled into the driveway,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: nothing appeared out of place. Nothing was immediately a miss.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: All three vehicles were parked outside, Cheryl's blue Mitsubishi Eclipse,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Susie's red Ford Escort with personalized license plates to go
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: with it That's say Susie on the back, and Stacy's
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: read Toyota Corolla. The presence of all three cars suggested
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the women were home, but the sense of normalcy was
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: short lived. As they approached the front door, Janelle and
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Mike noticed broken glass sitting there on the front porch,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the globe covering the porch light. It was broken. The
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: bulb itself remained intact and still burning, but this glass
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: globe that was the cover it was shattered. Without thinking twice,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Mike swept up the glass and threw it away in
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: a trash can across the street. An act of helpfulness
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that would later actually be seen as a critical camp
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: contamination of a crime.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing Damn.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: The front door was unlocked, and Janelle cautiously stepped inside.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: The house was quiet and dark. The television in the
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: living room was on, but only static flickered across the screen.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: She called out, Susie, Stacy, Cheryl, but there was no answer.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Then from the shadows, Cinnamon, the family's dog, a small
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: little Yorky terrier, came rushing forward. The dog was quite
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: happy to see them, in fact, a little bit frantic
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: barking and even a little bit of whimpering. Allegedly a
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: little bundle of anxiety, Let's put it that way. Janelle
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: would later recall how strange it was. Cinnamon had clearly
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: been left alone, and she was distressed in a way
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that felt out of place. They looked through the home,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: nothing appeared to be disturbed. Beds had been slept in,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: but made or left only slightly rumpled from being slept in.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Cheryl's glasses and book were still in her nightstand. In
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the bathroom, there were makeup wipes in the trash, and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: signs that the women had gotten ready for bed. Stacy's
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: close from the night before had been neatly folded on
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: a chair, and inside Susie's room, their purses sat lined
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: up on the floor. Everything, money, cigarettes, car keys, jewelry.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: It was all there, all the little items someone might
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: take with them if they were leaving, even just for
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: a short errand but still here they are, sitting inside
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the house. Then the phone rang. Janelle picked it up,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: hopefully it was going to be one of them, but
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: instead on the other end of the line was an
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: unknown male voice that responded. The caller immediately launched into
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: sexual innuendos and crude language, using profane and explicit terms,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: including repeated use of the F words, saying fuck or whatever.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: It's unsure exactly what was said because there was no
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: quotes I could find, only saying the type of language
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: and type of things that were being said well.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Pretty alarming and pretty unexpected, probably from her answering the phone.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Exactly, and Janelle was quite unsettled by the call. She
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: immediately hung up, thinking that this was just some sort
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: of weird prank, possibly left over from hey, graduation parties
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and stuff, the big weekend that was going on, right,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: But the phone rang again.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, she picked up.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: And the same man continued with more obscene language, offering
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: no name, no context, just straight vulgarity. In the context
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: of the empty house, it added an intense uneasy feeling
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: that was growing in the sense that something was wrong.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, everything aligned right, Maybe just one thing isn't off,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: but all of these it's like, oh gosh, yeah.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Now. By late afternoon that day on June seventh, Janice
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: McCall was growing uneasy too. Her daughter Stacy had promised
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to call that morning before leaving for the water park,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: and Janis hadn't heard a single word. At first, she
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: chalked it up to a bu morning dead phone battery,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: you know, common teenage oversight, whatever it may be. But
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: after checking in which Nell Kirby and learning that the
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: girls hadn't spent the night there as planned and hadn't
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: shown up for the trip to the water park, her
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: concern turned to dread. With a growing sense of something
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: being wrong, Janice also drove to the house at East
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Delmer Street herself. What she found inside was the tidy home,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: you know, it was quiet. Their Cinnamon the dog, still alone,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: greeted her anxiously, and Janis noticed the strange details that
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: had unsettled Janelle earlier that morning. The lined up purses,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the cash still in Cheryl's wallet, keys in the counter,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: cigarettes left untouched, which for both Cheryl and Susie, who
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: were heavy smokers, leaving without their cigarettes was something they
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: would not do. In Stacy's case, there was an even
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: more telling sign. The only clothes she had with her
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: were still there, neatly folded.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Oh okay.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Stacy was known to be contentious about her appearance, often
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: modeling wedding dresses. As I mentioned at that local bridle shop,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: if she left the house voluntarily, she wouldn't have gone
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: out without getting dressed. She would have made sure that
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: she was looking maybe not her best, but she was
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: going to ensure that she did something to ensure she
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: looked and felt good.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Like she wasn't going out in her pajamas kind of
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: thing exactly.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: And I don't even know she had pajamas.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Well, she's probably borrowing her friends or something.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Potentially, Hey, she might have just taken off her jeans
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and T shirt and went to bed, you know, like
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: people sleep in their underwear all the time. That might
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: have been the case. Then the morning wake up throw
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: these on go about your day again. I can't count
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: how many times I've gone to parties and woke up
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: in the morning rather hungover and still wearing the party
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: clothes in the night before.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: It's our partial of them.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, so she I don't know if she had pj's,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: but her clothes that she had were still there now
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: in the bathroom. Damp washed clots and cloths, and recently
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: discarded makeup wipe suggested the girls washed up before bed.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Jewelry was taken off. It was left behind. In Susie's bedroom,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: an unfinished can of coke sat next to a cigarette.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Her TV was still on broadcasting nothing but that white static,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and most haunting of all, there was no sign of
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: a struggle. In a situation like this, you know what
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: you might be thinking, Hey, someone could break in, someone
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: you know, forced them out, whatever the situation, But there
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: was no sign of any of this. Everything seemed like
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: it was in its place as it should be.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: It like it did, just seem like they went out
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: for an errand but then they didn't because all their
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: vehicles and purses and stuff were there.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Janice moved instinctively to the answering machine in the home,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: hoping it might contain a message that would explain what happened.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: What she heard was reported as a strange message, something
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: unsettling enough to alarm her, but as she replayed it
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to try and really listen to what was said in it,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the message was accidentally erased.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, what I see.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: In the nineteen nineties, many answering machines auto deleted messages
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: after you played them, and if you didn't like save
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: them a specific way, right, they were just gone.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Right, because you think, you kind of think about our technology,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: even if it was erased, you could probably still go
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: about finding it, but back then not so much.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that sucks.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that does suck. It's like these two people now
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: have gone in there, they're trying to help, but then
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: they have you know, made things a bit more difficult,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I guess for investigators later, which is not their intention whatsoever.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: So it kind of sucks.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And you mentioned two people.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Well, the boyfriend in cleaning up the glass and shit.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: So you have Janelle and her boyfriend, and now you
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: have a mother. Maybe she's potentially with someone too, who knows. So, right,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: there's a minimum of four right there already yeah, but
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I have an approximate number for you, which i'll get
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to you in just a moment.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Oh no, so I'm assuming it's more than that.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Despite her raising panic, Jennie hesitated to call nine on
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: one right away. Part of her still hope the girls
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: would walk through the door, brushing off the worry yet
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: any moment things being nonchalant. It was just a misunderstanding,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: right But by eight forty eight pm, that hope had
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: begun to fade, and she picked up the phone and
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: finally made the call to Springfield Police Department, reporting all
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: three of the women, her daughter, Susie, and Cheryl, as missing.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Officer Rick book Out was the first to arrive. The
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: scene was unusual but gave no obvious sign of foul play. Still,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: it was immediately clear that something was very wrong when
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: additional officers arrived, including Officer Brian. I'm going to get
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: this name so wrong. We're going to truma my my
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: best at reading names here, so I'm going to put
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: my name reading hat on Officer Brian Geting Hegen.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, that sounds like a good last name.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I think that's how you say Geting Hegen. Officer Brian
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Geting hegen, they began to treat the home as a
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: potential crime scene. However, it was already too late. Over
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the course of the day, as many as eighteen people
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: had entered the house.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: What the shit? Why?
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Friends, relatives, neighbors, all concerned, all searching, all well intentioned,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: but had unknowingly compromised a possible crime scene.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: That seems like so many people. Yeah, I thought that
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: there would be the Maxill's, you know, four at the most.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know if the if the one mom came
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: with anyone, but that seems crazy.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe a neighbor was out in there watering their
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: flowers or something, and then it's like, oh seese, you know,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: like the mom sitting in there, panckicing. Oh is everything
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: all right?
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I'm just worried. And then come on in and we'll
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: make you tea real quick and we'll talk about what's
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: going on, Like you know, he knows, right, yeah, because
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: there was even ashtrays that had been emptied, dishes were washed,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: there was a bent window blind that was straightened.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Out, oh gosh.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: And it was to the point where any physical evidence
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: like fingerprints, hair, footprints, they were likely gone or just contaminated.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Beyond being usable.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Oh that's so shitty right there. It's kind of just okay, Well,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I guess this is why this is a mystery.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Possibly, So there were no signs of forced entry. As
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I mentioned, There's no blood, no scrawled message, no overturned furniture,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: no obvious struggle whatsoever. The only anominally anomaly aside from
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the missing women themselves was the shattered porch light, which
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: had already been swept away. So when Springfield Police officially
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: launched their investigation into the disappearance of Cheryl Levitt, Susie Streeter,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: and Stacy McCall, they were all already at a disadvantage.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: The initial response to the missing person's report had been
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: so or not been so slow, but it been slow,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: and by the time the detectives began examining the home,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the crime scene was basically just compromised beyond repair. So
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: it's kind of in a situation of good luck.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Well, and honestly, one of those eighteen people who came
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: in and like looked around or whatever could have like
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: known more, but they made themselves just look like they were,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: you know, just trying to be helpful.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: That's true. Maybe the neighbor was involved. Maybe the uhbor
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: came in on purpose, you know, cover tracks. Who knows.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Because the fact that there wasn't any signs of what's
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: it called, like struggle distress or whatever struggle, it kind
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: of shows that they might have known the person.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's true, unless they had a way of
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: accessing the home. I mean, if you think about it
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: this way, this home was just recently purchased. What if
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: it's a previous homeowner if locks weren't changed. Yeah, what
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: if it's not a previous homeowner. But maybe it's like
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: the homeowner who had someone babysit or home or watched
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: their home five years ago. Who knows at that point?
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Honestly, Yeah, I know they do say every time you
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: buy a house to change the locks. But you wonder
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: how many people should do that.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's just pure speculation on my point, but hey,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I mean it, honestly, I wonder if it's worth even
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: looking into. Really. Now, the officers we were now left
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: to try and find anything they could in the home
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: that was honestly just too neat and too tidy. There
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: was Yeah, where do you start? Is basically what I'm
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: trying to get out there's no broken locks, no visible blood,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: no sin of struggle. Nothing is just where do you
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: start with a clean, almost too clean of a home.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: So what they did note was that Cheryl's bed had
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: appeared to be slept in reading glasses, we're resting in
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: the nightstand book open, she'd been interrupted mid page. Susie
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and Stave Stacey had makeup wipes and bathing routines, suggested
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: that they had returned home, gotten ready for bed, and
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: settled in. Stacy's clothes were neatly folded, jewelry placed in pockets,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: and Susie's room was largely untouched and outside from the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: two bent slats on the window blines that were previously fixed,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: that was about it. But those window blines almost look
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: like someone had peeked through the window.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, from like the inside or the outside, the inside
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: them looking out, Yes, someone looking out.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: So, despite the absence of the struggle, police immediately suspected
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: foul play. The sheer improbability of three women voluntarily disappearing
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: without taking a single item with them, even items of
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: importance purse, keys, cigarettes, nothing like that. It made them
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: running off or the idea of it just implausible. So
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: called to Janie McCall had heard the call Janie McCall
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: had heard on the answering machine, The one that was
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: accellententally erased, was a particular interest to detectctives. They believed
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: it might have contained a possible clue, possibly even a
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: message from someone involved, but the message unfortunately lost. It
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: became just one of those more frustrating details on a
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: growing list of what ifs now. The obscene phone calls
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: received by Janelle Kirby earlier that morning were also noted,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: though authorities were uncertain if they were actually even connected
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: at all. Susie had reported complaints of about prank calls
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: in the week prior, though no one knew if it
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: was an escalating pattern or simply just high school harassment regardless.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Within days, the Springfield Police Department assigned thirty officers to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the case, dividing them into two twelve hour shifts to
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: maintain a round the clock effort. On June ninth, just
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: two days after the women's disappearance, the FBI joined the investigation,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: signaling how serious the case was being taken and how
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: unusual it are already was. Investigators began to build a timeline,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: narrowing the window of disappearance to somewhere between two teen
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: am and eight am on June seventh. That six hour
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: gap became the focal point. During that time, no neighbor
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: reported screams, strange vehicles, or any sounds of a disturbance.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: It was as if within those hours someone had entered
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: the house, coerced or forced all three women out, and
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: vanished into the early morning darkness, leaving behind nothing but
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: silence and a whole lot of questions. As news of
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the disappearance spread, Springfield changed overnight. The tight knit Ozark
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: city had just been celebrating high school graduations, and it
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: was now suddenly just pushed into a missing persons situation.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: There's flyers, press conferences, and a growing unease all across town.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: For a place that rarely dealt with violent crimes, let
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: alone when involving three missing persons, the community was stunned.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Within days, thousands of flyers were distributed across the city
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: and the surrounding county. They bore the names of the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: end faces of Sheryl Levitt, Susie Streeter, and Stacy McCall,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: now collectively referred to by both police and media as
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the Springfield Three. Local news stations ran daily updates. National
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: outlets began picking up the story, and people locked their
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: doors for the first time in years. Springfield PD, bolstered
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: by FBI agents, ramped up their efforts. Detectives and volunteers
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: conducted extensive searches of the surrounding areas. They combed through
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: wooded trails, creeks, abandoned building, sewer systems, and rural farms.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Divers explored parts of Lake Springfield and the James River,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: hoping for any clue, any item, any trace. Yet nothing
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: was found. The lack of physical evidence at the home
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: made things worse. With no crime scene, no witness, and
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: no real directions, investigators were left with little more than
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: tips to go on, and the tips came in by
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the hundreds. By mid June, police were chasing down every
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: single possible lead, no matter how far fetched they seemed.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Some tips appeared more promising than others. Of course, Several
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: people across Being Springfield reported seeing a strange van, specifically
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: a green Dodge panel van, older model with no rear
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: or side windows. One witness said that they saw Susie
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Streeter driving such a van around six thirty am on
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: the morning of June seventh, over a mile from her home.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: What the According to her, Susie looked distressed and a
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: man in the back seat was yelling at her, warning
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: her not to do anything stupid.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Another witness, a store clerk, said he saw a young
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: blonde girl resembling Susie or Stacy in a similar van
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: parked in a lot where the driver appeared nervous and
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: out of place. The man jotted down part of the
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: license plate, but later threw it away. Yeah dang realized
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: its importance only after the news broke and searching for
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: it and being like, oh shit, it's in the trash.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: It's like they're having no luck at all.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Police talked with this individual and even attempted hypnosis to
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: try and recover those digits from the license plate, but
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the trail went cold. Another sighting came from a waitress
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: at George George's Steakhouse, one of Cheryl's favorite late night spots.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: She claimed that between two and three am on the
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: night of the disappearance, she saw the three women at
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the diner, visibly intoxicated and accompanied by three unknown men.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: According to her, Cheryl was trying to calm Susie down,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: but no other diner employee or patron could confirm the story,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: and police were a bit skeptical. Other calls described screeching
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: tires and faint screams heard in the early hours near
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Delmar Street, but no hard details ever emerged from them.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Some of the leads came from anonymous callers who claimed
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: insider knowledge, only to vanish just as quickly, including one
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: tip that came into America's Most Wanted that was disconnected
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: mid transfer, which I'll talk about that later. As the
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: days turned into weeks, aniaes gave way to fear. Parents
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: kept tighter watch on their children. Women in Springfield began
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: carrying pepper spray and locking their doors once they left.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Rumors spread fast, some believable, others not so much. Police
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: were inundated with theories, even from serial killers to human
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: trafficking to occult rituals, especially after it was discovered that
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Susie had books on the occult in her room, though
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: friends said she never showed serious interest in them, And regardless, honestly,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: if you have serious interest in the occult, that doesn't
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: mean you're going to go and perform massachist type rituals.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Honestly, well and I think too, if you did, like
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: have serious interest, you would bring it up in conversation
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: at times they want to talk about it, right, or
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: something you read or whatever exactly.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Now, the investigation ballooned, and by the end of the summer,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: over five thousand tips had been submitted. I AM investigators
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: pursued leads in twenty one different states. But despite the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: national attention, the door to door searches, the media coverage,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: and a reward that eventually grew to forty two thousand dollars,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: the women remained missing, and with each passing day, the
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: chances of finding them alive or otherwise seemed to shrink. Now,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: as the investigation dragged into the summer of nineteen ninety two,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: police began to look beyond the timeline and the physical searches,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: focusing their attention on people those close to the victims.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Of course, you know, we always look at hey, if
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: it's a wife, go to the husband. If it's a husband,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: it's that sort of thing, right, yep. But they also
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: looked into whoever they could find a connection to, those
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: with personal grudges and those with criminal pass that could
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: fit the bill for someone that orchestrated something this clean.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: At the top of this early suspect list was an
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: individual by the name of Barrett. Streeter recognized that last name.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, is that the dad.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: That's Susie's older brother and Cheryl's son.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, so.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: At twenty seven years old. Barrett was living in Springfield
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: at the time of the disappearance, and his relationship with
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: his mother and sister were reportedly strained and the spring
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety two, just weeks before the disappearance, Susie
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: had moved in briefly with Barrett after an argument with
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: her mother, but that arrangement hadn't lasted. Susie moved back
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: home after a fight over Barrett's drinking and partying habits.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: The family had a complicated dynamic, and investigators initially wondered
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: whether some kind of confrontation had spiraled out of control,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: but Barrett had a confirmed alibi. Both his girlfriend and
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a neighbor backed up his whereabouts the night of the
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: women when the women went missing, and he also passed
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: a polygraph, though as we know, those not the most reliable.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: But still that kind of seems far fetch like he
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have known that all the girls were gonna be
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: there and stuff unless whoever, someone was like attacking the
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: mom or there for the mom and then the girls
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: you know, came.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Home and it caught in the crossway.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Regardless, he had two solid alibis, passed the polygraph, and
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: eventually he was cleared and ruled out by police. Another
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: set of names that came and quickly rose up in
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: suspicion were Dustin Recla, Susie's ex boyfriend, and his friend
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Michael Clay. A few months before the disappearance, the two
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: had been charged with vandalism at a mausoleum. You know,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: they basically they into a tomb and stole gold fittings
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: from human skulls.
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: Ah the kind of d bags just saying that, Yeah,
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: that is like super assholes.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Yep. Susie had provided a statement to police about this
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: incident and was expected to testify in court. She was
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: reportedly disgusted by what her ex boyfriend had done and
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: it cut ties with them completely. The theory was straightforward,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: had Dustin or his friend targeted Susie for you know,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: keeping her silent, and that others are involved because of
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: collateral damage? Right, Yeah, go there for Susie, friends there,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: moms there, like, and so be it. We got to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: kill or take whoever is all in this room right
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: now or in this house.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Huh okay.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: But he and his accomplice had alibis. They claimed that
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: they were at a concert the night of the disappearance,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: and the nature of the grave robbing case seemed pretty
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: how do you say, pretty small in compared to persons disappearing. Yeah,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: douchebag for sure, But it's it's harmless to the living,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: I'll put it that way.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Like, Yeah, they would have got a slap on the
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: hand for sure, But I don't think it's not enough
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: to like go about murdering or something three individuals.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: No, Because I mean, if you look at it on
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the legal level, you're basically going for a misdemeanor charge
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: to kidnapping and or murder.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So that it would have escalated things real bad
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: for them extremely.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Still, they remained persons of interest for a time, especially
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: when one of their associates, Steve Garrison, came forward in
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three facing his own criminal charges. Garrison told
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: police that he overheard a confession at a party about
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: the women's disappearance. He led authorities to two properties in
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Webster County, including one linked to Francis Robbs Senior, a
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: convicted double murderer. Searches were conducted, but nothing was found.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Dang yeah. Now.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Around the time time of the disappearance, several neighbors recalled
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: seeing a strange man described as transient, disheveled with shoulder
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: length brown hair and a beard, lurking in the neighborhood
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: in the days prior. He was never identified, but despite
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: police's police circulating a sketch, it just seemed to go nowhere.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: No one could confirm whether he had any connection to
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the women, and eventually the lead on that one just evaporated.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Of all the suspects considered, the one by the name
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: of Robert Craig Cox was the one with the most focus.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Robert was a highly trained army ranger, once named Soldier
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: of the Year, but his military discipline masked something much darker.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy eight, he was arrested and eventually convicted
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: for the murder of nineteen year old Sharon Zellers in Florida,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: a brutal killing that left the young woman raped and beaten.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: The conviction was overturned years later due to insufficient evidence,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and he walked free in nineteen ninety two. At the
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: time of the Springfield three's disappearance, guests who was living
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: in Springfield, Oh, Robert Cox. However, not only that was
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: he just living in Springfield, but he was working as
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: a mechanic at a car dealership, the very same one
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: where Stacy McCall's father was employed. This guy had a
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: history of abduction, assault and murder.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: But also, I feel like you'd be kind of hard
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: for like one individual to go about doing this to three.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Well, if you threaten one with the life.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: Of another, yeah, I guess it's possible. Yeah, So one question.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: Robert said that he spent the night of June sixth
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: at home with his parents, and the next morning attended
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: church with his girlfriend and her child. At first, the
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: girlfriend corroborated this ally, but years later she recanted it,
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: stating that Robert had asked her.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: To lie hmmm, and she was probably also a little.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Bit afraid of him, potentially. In nineteen ninety seven, now
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: incarcerated in Texas for a separate aggravated robbery, Robert gave
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: a chilling interview with a journalist. In it he claimed
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: that he knew the three women had been murdered and
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: that their bodies would never.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Be found, and how did he know this? Well.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: He also said that he wouldn't provide details until after
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: his mother passed away.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, what a disgusting piece of shit.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: So to quote him, I just know that they're dead.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: That's not a theory, that's just what I know. Okay,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: he refused to elaborate. He wouldn't say who did it, why,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: and to this day he has never been officially charged
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: in connection with the case.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, did his mom like not die?
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming his brothers he died before her. Well, he's
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: in prison right now. Oh still, Well, I'm assuming. I
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: mean I didn't look up exactly if he was still
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: but I mean at the time in nineteen ninety seven
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: he was in charge. By then, I guess he's probably
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: still probably out walking. I guess at the time in
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven he was aggravated robbery, so he would
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: be out by then.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, and yeah, so then if he's admitted to
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: something like this, like yeah, he's knocketting out of jail,
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: So why the fuck would he admit to it? Exactly
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: there's Yeah, there's no reason for him too. I guess
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: if he's gotten away with it this long.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, some investigators believe that he was simply seeking attention.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Others felt that he might have firsthand knowledge or even
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: involvement in it. But what's certain is that all of
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: the people police interviewed, out of all of them, Robert
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Craig Cox came the closest to sounding like an actual confession.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: You know, that's so gross, just to play with people
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: It is. It's disgusting. So with no crime scene, no bodies,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: and no clear suspect, investigators and the public were left
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: to construct possibilities from what little there was. A broken
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: porch light, three untouched cars, and an eerie absence of
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: three women who seemingly vanished mid routine, leaving everything behind.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Over time, a handful of theories theories began to form.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: One theory came to light early in the investigation, and
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: it's the idea that the perpetrator was posing as a
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: utility worker, perhaps claiming to check for a gas leak
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. The thought was chilling in its simplicity,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: So all it would take is, you know, a knock
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: the door in the early morning, a uniform, a bad,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: calm voice assuring that that's just a routine check. Cheryl,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: being cautious but hospitable, lets him in, especially considering, hey,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: she's doing some work in renovations in her house. She
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: might even be concerned that she caused a problem herself,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: or who knows what right.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: But still, that's such an odd time.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: It is. If that man was armed, it would have
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: taken little effort to gain control, and if Susie and
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Stacy were already in their pajamas their night clothes, they
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: may have been startled to wake or caught off guard
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: unable to react. This theory grew incredibility when it was
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: discovered that Robert Craig Cox as I mentioned that most
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: important individual, had worked for a utility location company in
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Springfield at the time of the disappearance. In a letter
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: sent years later, Robert claimed he had performed jobs near
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the area of East Delmer Street. Still, police could never
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: place him at the house, and there was no physical
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: evidence to support that idea, but it remained a very
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: compelling scenario, especially given how clean the scene was and
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: how unlikely it would be for three women to just
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: be overpowered without any sign of a struggle. Now a
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: small detail, but one investigators kept coming back to was
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Susie's car. It was not parked in its usual spot.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: According to her close friend and coworker Nigel Kenny, Susie
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: was meticulous, almost obsessive about where she parked in the
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: driveway that morning. Her car was slightly askew, not in
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: its usual place. To Nigel, this suggested that someone else
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: may have arrived first, possibly blocking her in her spot,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: prompting her to maybe park somewhere else. If that someone
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: was already in the house or waiting for them to arrive,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: it would lend weight to the theory that this wasn't
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: a random crime but something planned entirely Outside of that, though,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: there's nothing else to really go on for that theory.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, but then would they have They wouldn't have gone
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: about like taken their makeup off.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: And shit, unless the individual wanted to stage a scene.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: It is far fetched, but it is a possibility.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Another theory involves a grim line of thought amongst some investigators,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: and it's that Cheryl Levitt may have been the target.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Perhaps someone had a grudge something from her personal life,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: her past relationships, even a client from the salon for
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: whatever reason. If that were true, Susie and Stacy could
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: have simply been at the wrong place at.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: The wrong time, yeah, like if they would have stayed
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: at their friends.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But there's little evidence to support this beyond speculation.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Cheryl led a quiet, focused life. She was close to
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: her daughter. There were no known romantic entanglements or disputes
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: that pointed to motives. But still the idea has persisted,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: especially considering that Susie and Stacy weren't even supposed to
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: be at the house that night. They only changed plans
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: at the last moment, hey being caught the crossfires.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's more likely though, that they would
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: have brought, you know, a follower of sorts home with them.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: Though what do you mean, sorry, someone might have been
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: following the girls something, right, So I feel like it's
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: more likely in my thoughts, that it would have been
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: like the girls kind of it. Well, it's not caused this,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: like I don't mean that, but you know, rather than
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: like the mom, you know, bringing this in or well,
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: if you.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Look at it in the light that the mom is
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: supposed to be home alone when she always has her
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: daughter with her. She's the one who generally had raised
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: the kids right, like the father wasn't as much in
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: the picture. So she has her daughter with her like
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: all the time. So this night she's supposed to be
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: home alone, this is a good night to target her.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I guess.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: And then the girls show up at home and are
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: caught in the crossfires. But you are right, it's just
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: as easy that someone saw these girls and followed them home,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: and now the mother's caught in the cross crossairs.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: So either way, like, so are you almost thinking that
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: the girls could have walked in and the mom was
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: like already in danger.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Of sorts potentially, or the perpetrator goes there at like
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: three in the morning or something when everyone's sleep, yeah,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: and is like, shit, well now I got to deal
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: with more people.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: But he's still going to do it.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, then there's the Dodge panel van, the green
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: van reported in multiple tips across town. One witness sitting
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: on her porch at around six thirty am on June seventh,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: claimed to see a distressed blonde woman driving such a
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: van with a man in the backseat shouting threats. Another
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: man said he saw a suspicious van parked at a
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: grocery store, jotted down the license plate the one that
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: threw it out. Unfortunately, the descriptions varied, but the van
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: itself became symbolic, a rolling ghost, kind of down the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: highway sort of thing, possibly carrying the last known location
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: of the Springfield three. Police even parked a similar van
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: outside the station for weeks, hoping to trigger someone's memory,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: but the lead went nowhere. But still that is a
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: highlight that many people associate with this case.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well that does seem something that you know, you
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: can kind of understand that they were kidnapped.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Right well for sure. And finally the parking garage theory.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: Years later, a reporter named Kathy Baird received multiple anonymous
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: tips pointing to an unlikely burial site beneath the South
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: parking garage at Cox Hospital, roughly four miles from the house.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, she brought a medical engineer
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: with ground penetrating radar. They checked the spot. The scan
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: revealed three anomalies, shaped and spaced in a way very
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: consistent with grave sites, two parallel and one perpendicular. It
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: was intriguing, but the hospital parking structure wasn't built until
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: over a year after the disappearance, and police argued that
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: if the women had been buried there beforehand, the construction
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: would have unearthed the remains, and unfortunately, the cost of
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: exit excavation was deemed unjustifiable without stronger evidence.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, honestly, that one makes so much sense, but
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: the timing is way off. Like if it was being
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: constructed or whatever at the time, I'd be like, holy shit, yeaheah.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: But if the fact that it wasn't really built for
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: a year later doesn't I don't know that one. I
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: don't know. I have trouble believing that one.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Then I feel you too. But it's like, okay, it's
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: it depends on how deep these footings are, right, Like
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: how deep are we going? Did this person really do
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: their job and they're like, I'm going to bury these
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: these bodies ten feet down and the footings and you know,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: the concrete perimeter poor. Did it only go eight feet down.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: To dig three graves that deep in a fricking couple hours?
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: Touchet? I mean, who knows what was on that that
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: site beforehand?
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was easy. Maybe hey, maybe there was a
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: cont ptruction worker who had these bodies in their backyard
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: and were like, I'm going to just do a double
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: shift tonight and bury these bodies under the concrete of
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: this slab. Important right now?
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Huh huh, I don't know.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: By the end of the first year, investigators had received
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: over five thousand tips from across the country. Some were
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: well meaning, others were bizarre. Many came from psychics offering
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: visions and dreams. Others led to dig sites and surrounding countries.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: A set of bones pulled from Lake Springfield turned out
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: to be animal remains. A pair of large women's underwear
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: floating in the lake, so big that all three women
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: could have fit inside, was examined and dismissed. Every tip
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: was logged, every call was followed up, but nothing led
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: to the missing three women. One of the most maddening
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: missed opportunities, though, came on December thirty first, nineteen ninety two,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: when an anonymous man called the hotline for America's Most Wanted,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: shortly after the show featured the Springfield three. He claimed
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: to have vital information quote vital information. The operator attempted
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: to transfer him to investigators. However, the line was disconnected
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: mid transfer. The man never called back. Police publicly pleaded
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: for him to come forward, stating that if he had
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: prime knowledge for the case, please let us know. But
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: the man never called back.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Well that's just like a hope, though, like who knows.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: It could have been completely shit or something like really
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: not that vital.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: I believe it was either a someone who did know
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: something and was just fucking with police, or b it
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: was a hoax, because if someone truly knew something like
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: that and they were attempting to call, they would call back.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Well not necessarily because what if they were, you know,
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: really stewing on if they were gonna phone, So then
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: they finally are like, fuck, I'm going to just phone,
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: and then it disconnects, and it's like, okay, well that's
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: my sign. Yeah maybe, I mean right, true true for
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: some people that are kind of like superstitious or whatever.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, you got a point. In nineteen ninety three,
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: police followed tips from an inmate named Steve Garrison. They
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: searched a farm in Northview, Missouri, as well as a
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: forty acre property in Webster County connected to convicted killer
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: Francis rob Senior. Garrison hid claimed to overhear a confession
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: involving the Springfield three and a green van allegedly tied
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: to a party involving Dustin Recla, that same boyfriend who
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: broke into the grave sites and others as well. Search
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: teams descended on the area. At least one search involved
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: digging and using cadaver dogs, and what they found, though
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: was never revealed to the public. You just gave me
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: the biggest squinty eyes, narrowed stare I've ever seen you do.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: If it wasn't revealed to the public, I don't think
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: it would be these three, right, because they would reveal
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: the shit.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Well, let me go on a little, just a little
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: bit further here. The search records remain sealed under court order,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: which have of course sparked decades of speculation. However, no
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: arrests were followed up on, no suspects emerged. If leeds
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: did turn up or anything, it was clearly not enough.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, but doesn't say that there's it wasn't anything.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: Whatever it was is protected by.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Authorities, okay.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Over the years, strange story surfaced online, usually anonymously. One
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: such post detailed to terrifying encounter in the wood in
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the woods near Camp Winoka, where a teenager claimed he
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: and his friend had witnessed three women being pulled from
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: a van and attacked. It read like fiction, honestly, and
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: there's no confirm about it or anything like that. But
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: even more chilling, there were reports of threats received by
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: those investigating the case. Kathy Baird, the reporter who pursued
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: the parking garage theory. She claimed that she was once
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: boxed in by cars and they warned her, quote people
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: I work for make people like you disappear.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, yeah, okay, it.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Seems a deeper anyone, Doug the murcier things got, and unfortunately,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: to this day, the case has yet to been solved.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Some of the most heartbreaking evidence that we have of
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: the women's the women vanishing, lies in what was left behind,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: indicating that they never really intended to disappear. Cheryl had
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: a doctor's appointment scheduled for Monday after she had vanished.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Susie was due to start cosmetology school that fall. Stacy
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: planned to attend Missouri State and join a sorority with
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: their childhood best friend. They all left money, makeup, cigarettes, IDs, cars,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: They were untouched. The house was clean, too clean. Even
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: the family dog Cinnamon had been left behind. To those
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: who knew the women, that alone ruled out the idea
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: of them leaving well.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: And they all had like stuff that they like, they
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: had their lives were good, Like the one, you know,
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: she had just kind of had this house and was
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: renovating it. And the other ones had school and they
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: just finished high school and stuff.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Right, and they just celebrated graduation.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's like they all had things that were
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: good and they were looking forward to and stuff.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: So exactly. Now, more than three decades have passed since
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Cheryl Levitt, Susie Streeter, and Stacy McCall vanished from the
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: quiet home on East Elmer Street, get their absence still
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: looms large over Springfield. The city may have grown, evolved
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: and moved on, but the space they once occupied has
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: never been filled. In nineteen ninety seven, five years after
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: the disappearance, Cheryl and Susie were declared legally deceased, and
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: June of the same year, a bench was dedicated to Cheryl,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Susie and Stacey and Phelps Grove Park within the Victim
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Memorial go Garden. It stands as a quiet reminder of
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: place to sit, reflect and remember the women who should
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: have grown old here, who should have seen grandchildren, careers,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: weddings and life. Stacy's family, however, refused to take that
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: step as far as Janice and Stu McCall are concerned,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: until there is proof their daughter remains missing, not gone.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Despite the years the Springfield the Police Department maintained that
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: the case has never gone cold, not officially. A detective
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: has always been assigned to monitor the flow of tips,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: which still trickle in. As of the last public update,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: the department has amassed over twenty seven thousand documents, thousands
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: of leads, and still files around one hundred tips per year.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Yet with no bodies, no arrests, no verification, verified confessions,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: the case remains one of the most haunting unsolved disappearances
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: in American history. And that's the story of the Springfield three.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's some shit right there. Yeah, the fact that
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: that is not solved, it's it's just gonna fuck with me.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: There's nothing, honestly, like, I just read a lot, We
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: just went over a lot. It's almost all theories. Yeah,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: it's almost all just dead ends. There's no evidence. There
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: is nothing, at least nothing that's been released to the public.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: Well, and honestly, I'm not even certain because lots of people, Oh,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: there are so many people going through the house and stuff,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: but like, who knows if there was would have even
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: been anything left exactly, Like there's it's I'm sure that
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: there would have been evidence. Like these people who did this,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: you know, they might have been real good at their jobs.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: I guess potentially, But then that begs a question, why
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: would people who are real good at their jobs like
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: this target them? Yeah, what's their motive?
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: I have no idea.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like you can even say, Okay, the obvious one
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: to go to, because you have three women is you know,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: unfortunately sex trafficking. You have two of them who are
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: just coming out of high school. It's a good thought
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: that we can immediately put a red flag on. Well
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: not good thought, but you know, you know what I mean. Yeah,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: that still begs the question, Okay, why these women? Because
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: when you're talking about human trafficking, usually you're trying to
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: find someone in a vulnerable situation. Even if it's just hey,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: people traveling abroad and they don't know their surroundings, it's
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: a vulnerable situation. These three were in their home. That's
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: not a vulnerable situation.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, oh man, this one sucks the fact that, yeah,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: even thinking about is it going to get solved?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: You know, because just listening it's they don't have much.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: They don't I don't even have anything.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: So curious these hunter tips and shit that come in yearly,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: like what the heck are they?
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Most of them are probably bs.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: Huh.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: I thought I saw someone who looked like this girl.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: I thought I saw a van. It was green, like
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: you know, it's yeah, I mean, you're talking about a
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: van that was on the road in nineteen ninety two.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: If that was even a van at all, it ain't
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: the same van out there now, I guarantee you if
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: that one van was running and it is a true tip,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: by the time that tip was released to the public,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: we're looking for a green van. That van is long
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: gone now being burnt down in the woods, being sold,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: being repainted, being torn apart, being stored in a barn.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: We don't know, but it certainly isn't on the road.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: It's so odd that they just disappeared like with really
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: without a trace, like just gone gone.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Honestly, and this is going to be a very weird suggestion,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: but it's almost like an alien abduction, like they were
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: just plucked from their home.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: And gone, just gone, like they just.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: Poof, yeah, poof.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: I can only imagine like just being like a close
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: friend or family and just how that would just haunt
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: you for freaking ever really yeah, and like even the
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: mom of the one girl, like, oh, should i've I've
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: phoned earlier, Like you would just be going through things
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: so much in your head, how could I have changed
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: this or that? And like, I mean, it's just human
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: nature and you didn't do anything wrong, but it's just
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: like frick.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: Well, that brings up the the what IFFs, the what ifs, right,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: and hindsight is twenty twenty. Like when you go in
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: the boyfriend comes up and he sweeps up the broken glass.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: He was just being nice, right, Like.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: Honestly, if if a friend came up to my house
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: and was sweeping up the broken glass, but like, hell, yeah,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy you a beer if they step over
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: the broken glass, and the like, by the way, you
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: got broken glass, it'd be like cool, thanks, I'm gonna
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: go swep some shit now.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: Well not necessarily though, because well no, I wouldn't blame
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: that they wouldn't know where the broom and stuff.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: No, But it's like I'm just being like, okay, I
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: go sweep some broken glass now. So it's like a
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: good friend is like, hey, looking after you and taking
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: care of you. So it's not a bad thing, you
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? Sorry, when I say cool, thanks,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: I wasn't saying like, oh, you're a dick for not
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: cleaning my mask. That's not what I was meaning. I
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: was just like, oh, cool, Now I got a shitty
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: situation to deal with.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: Thanks, because you almost wonder if that got broken and
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: like the mom heard it while she was in bed
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: or whatever and then went out to investigate that, and
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: that's when they came in, right, because this is just
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: so bizarre, really fucks with you.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: It does. Now. What if that broken light had nothing
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: to do with with it?
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Though?
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Too?
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, what if a bird flew into it that morning?
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: Just saying it like you don't know?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the thing.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: The what ifs, And there are so many what ifs
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: with this. What if a bird flew in and broke
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: that glass, or what if alien subducted them? What if
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: they ran off on their own? Who's to say any
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: of those theories are more or less unlikely than the
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: other because there's zero evidence as far as released to public,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: to support any of the claims, which that is the
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: biggest and most frustrating part of this case. I love
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: the mysteries. I talked about that at the beginning of
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: this in other.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: Episodes, how do you love this?
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: This one? I don't love. This one bugs the shit
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: out of me because there's nothing to go on.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, and the fact too, like the investigators, it
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: probably just they would have just been pulling out their
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: hair right.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Oh definitely, And in all honesty, I could have covered
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: this case in a ten minute podcast. There's three women,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: they went missing, there's no evidence on there's a ten
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: second podcast. That's the story. That's it.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: H jeeze.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: So anyways, I'm frustrated because even for me, this case sucks.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: I like mysterious mystery cases. I didn't like this one.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this one is not fun. I mean not saying
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: mysteries are fun. Some I guess can be, but yeah,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: this is just a pol of shit.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Anyways, if you guys have thoughts theories, shoot us
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: a message. We'd love to hear it. All our links
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: are in the description of this podcast, if you want
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: to give us a review means the world. We are
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: an independent podcast, we're owned operated, all of that. On
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: our own reviews go a long way, so we really
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: appreciate that and hopefully Nicole feels better.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, well, this one I think is going to
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: keep me up at night. My brain is like going
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: wild right now. But anyway, yeah, until next episode, stay wicked.