WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.200 Before we start, three people vanished from one 00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:07.500 house in one night. No bodies, no struggle, no 00:00:07.500 --> 00:00:11.119 trace in over 30 years. And nothing they left 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:15.339 behind explains it. Not one thing. Absence of 00:00:15.339 --> 00:00:18.079 an explanation isn't evidence of a specific one, 00:00:18.460 --> 00:00:22.140 Simone. Three women. Gone. And the only thing 00:00:22.140 --> 00:00:24.679 broken in that entire house was a porch light. 00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:28.480 Tell me that's nothing, Eli. The Springfield 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:34.159 Three. There it is. June 6, 1992. Kickapoo High 00:00:34.159 --> 00:00:36.820 School in Springfield, Missouri holds its graduation. 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:40.020 Two friends, 19 -year -old Susie Streeter and 00:00:40.020 --> 00:00:42.479 18 -year -old Stacey McCall, spend the evening 00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:45.340 at parties. They'd originally planned to crash 00:00:45.340 --> 00:00:47.259 at a friend's place, but it was too crowded. 00:00:47.719 --> 00:00:49.679 So late that night, they went back to Susie's 00:00:49.679 --> 00:00:52.479 house instead. The home of her mother, Cheryl 00:00:52.479 --> 00:00:56.460 Levitt. Cheryl was a 47 -year -old cosmetologist. 00:00:56.840 --> 00:00:59.219 Around 11 .15 that night, she's on the phone 00:00:59.219 --> 00:01:01.679 with a friend, talking about something completely 00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:05.180 mundane, painting a chest of drawers. That's 00:01:05.180 --> 00:01:08.140 the detail that gets me every time. There's no 00:01:08.140 --> 00:01:11.060 fear in that call, no hint anything's wrong. 00:01:11.780 --> 00:01:14.640 Whatever happened, happened after that, fast 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:17.959 and without warning any of them. By morning, 00:01:18.200 --> 00:01:20.799 all three were gone. Cars still in the driveway, 00:01:21.180 --> 00:01:24.519 purses, keys, personal belongings, all left behind. 00:01:25.480 --> 00:01:28.200 And the front porch light was broken. Not burnt 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:32.060 out. Broken. Before we go further, I want to 00:01:32.060 --> 00:01:35.040 give Stacey equal weight here. Because most retellings 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:37.680 center Susie and her mother and let Stacey become 00:01:37.680 --> 00:01:40.700 the friend who happened to be there. Stacey's 00:01:40.700 --> 00:01:43.019 mother, Janice McCall, was the one who first 00:01:43.019 --> 00:01:45.599 realized something was wrong. Stacey always called 00:01:45.599 --> 00:01:48.140 to check in. That was routine for her, without 00:01:48.140 --> 00:01:50.519 exception. When Janice couldn't reach her, she 00:01:50.519 --> 00:01:52.939 called around, found out Stacey hadn't stayed 00:01:52.939 --> 00:01:55.239 where she was supposed to, and by the evening 00:01:55.239 --> 00:01:58.060 of June 7th, drove to the Streeter house herself, 00:01:58.239 --> 00:02:01.060 rather than wait. Which means the actual first 00:02:01.060 --> 00:02:03.459 response to this disappearance wasn't police. 00:02:03.879 --> 00:02:05.900 It was a mother who knew her daughter's habits 00:02:05.900 --> 00:02:08.120 well enough to know something had already gone 00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:11.400 wrong. That's worth sitting with. Three families, 00:02:11.500 --> 00:02:13.620 and it was Stacey's mother's instinct that got 00:02:13.620 --> 00:02:19.569 this case moving at all. Here's what actually 00:02:19.569 --> 00:02:22.229 matters forensically. There was no sign of a 00:02:22.229 --> 00:02:25.430 struggle inside that house. No blood, no overturned 00:02:25.430 --> 00:02:27.870 furniture beyond what's been described. Nothing 00:02:27.870 --> 00:02:30.789 consistent with a violent confrontation. Except 00:02:30.789 --> 00:02:32.990 a shattered porch light and a house where three 00:02:32.990 --> 00:02:35.330 separate people all somehow left without their 00:02:35.330 --> 00:02:38.909 cars, purses, or shoes. Which is genuinely strange, 00:02:39.069 --> 00:02:41.370 I'll grant you. But the absence of a struggle 00:02:41.370 --> 00:02:43.830 actually cuts against a violent home invasion. 00:02:44.210 --> 00:02:46.289 It's more consistent with something that happened 00:02:46.289 --> 00:02:49.219 quickly. possibly with a weapon, possibly with 00:02:49.219 --> 00:02:51.539 more than one person controlling three others. 00:02:51.879 --> 00:02:53.900 There was also a message on the answering machine 00:02:53.900 --> 00:02:56.620 that friends and family later described as deeply 00:02:56.620 --> 00:02:59.120 unsettling. And here's the part that actually 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:01.780 makes me angry every time I read about this case. 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:04.879 It was inadvertently erased. Whatever was on 00:03:04.879 --> 00:03:08.020 it is just gone. Which means we're building theory 00:03:08.020 --> 00:03:10.699 around a piece of evidence nobody alive has actually 00:03:10.699 --> 00:03:13.319 heard in over 30 years. That should make us more 00:03:13.319 --> 00:03:16.819 careful, not less. Fair. But even sticking strictly 00:03:16.819 --> 00:03:19.900 to what's confirmed, three adults, one house, 00:03:20.340 --> 00:03:23.039 zero signs any of them left on their own, and 00:03:23.039 --> 00:03:25.340 physical belongings that say nobody planned to 00:03:25.340 --> 00:03:28.379 go anywhere. That's not nothing, Eli. That's 00:03:28.379 --> 00:03:31.580 the shape of an abduction. Before the searches, 00:03:31.780 --> 00:03:33.919 there's the people close to Susie worth naming 00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:37.419 specifically, not just gesturing at. She had 00:03:37.419 --> 00:03:40.219 two former boyfriends who came up in the investigation. 00:03:45.180 --> 00:03:47.159 enough that she'd gotten a restraining order 00:03:47.159 --> 00:03:49.780 against him the previous autumn. A restraining 00:03:49.780 --> 00:03:52.340 order is a paper record of someone being afraid 00:03:52.340 --> 00:03:55.500 of a specific person. That's not a vague family 00:03:55.500 --> 00:03:58.979 tension. That's documented. It is. He was looked 00:03:58.979 --> 00:04:02.120 at. Nothing evidentiary ever tied him to the 00:04:02.120 --> 00:04:04.979 disappearance specifically. Being looked at isn't 00:04:04.979 --> 00:04:07.539 the same as being cleared. Then there's Dustin 00:04:07.539 --> 00:04:10.300 Reckla, another ex -boyfriend. And this is one 00:04:10.300 --> 00:04:12.439 of the stranger footnotes in the whole case. 00:04:12.650 --> 00:04:15.270 A few months before the disappearance, he and 00:04:15.270 --> 00:04:17.850 two friends broke into a Springfield mausoleum 00:04:17.850 --> 00:04:21.170 and stole gold fillings out of a skull. I still 00:04:21.170 --> 00:04:23.610 can't get over that detail every time I read 00:04:23.610 --> 00:04:26.209 it. Police looked at him partly because Susie 00:04:26.209 --> 00:04:28.350 herself had given a statement about that break 00:04:28.350 --> 00:04:32.089 -in. He took a polygraph in June 1992, denied 00:04:32.089 --> 00:04:34.149 any involvement in the women's disappearance, 00:04:34.470 --> 00:04:37.430 and passed. Later testified before a grand jury, 00:04:37.689 --> 00:04:39.689 too. Which clears some of the disappearance. 00:04:40.009 --> 00:04:42.529 It doesn't erase how strange it is that a man 00:04:42.529 --> 00:04:45.529 robbing graves for gold teeth was already inside 00:04:45.529 --> 00:04:48.209 this story before anyone went missing. Over the 00:04:48.209 --> 00:04:51.009 following decades, police conducted major searches 00:04:51.009 --> 00:04:54.009 based on tips, including at least one dig using 00:04:54.009 --> 00:04:56.889 backhoes, which recovered two things — a trace 00:04:56.889 --> 00:04:59.889 of blood and a piece of a green vehicle, possibly 00:04:59.889 --> 00:05:02.389 matching a green van witnesses reported seeing 00:05:02.389 --> 00:05:04.709 in the area that night. That van tip was taken 00:05:04.709 --> 00:05:07.230 seriously enough that police searched thousands 00:05:07.230 --> 00:05:10.389 of vans across the region. and at one point actually 00:05:10.389 --> 00:05:13.189 painted a van green themselves and kept it parked 00:05:13.189 --> 00:05:15.589 outside the police department, hoping it would 00:05:15.589 --> 00:05:18.430 jog someone's memory. The blood was sent for 00:05:18.430 --> 00:05:22.329 testing and came back inconclusive, not confirmed 00:05:22.329 --> 00:05:25.790 as belonging to any of the three women. In 2007, 00:05:26.009 --> 00:05:28.029 there was also a theory that the bodies were 00:05:28.029 --> 00:05:31.050 buried under a hospital parking garage. Ground 00:05:31.050 --> 00:05:33.550 -penetrating radar picked up what looked like 00:05:33.550 --> 00:05:36.449 three distinct objects. And police investigated 00:05:36.449 --> 00:05:39.370 it and ultimately called it not credible enough 00:05:39.370 --> 00:05:42.529 to warrant tearing up a parking structure. Which, 00:05:42.629 --> 00:05:45.329 for the families, must have been its own kind 00:05:45.329 --> 00:05:49.430 of agony. A real lead that just stops. There's 00:05:49.430 --> 00:05:51.750 also a detail worth correcting on the record, 00:05:51.910 --> 00:05:54.990 since it gets repeated inaccurately. Suzie's 00:05:54.990 --> 00:05:57.790 older brother was looked at early in the investigation. 00:05:58.170 --> 00:06:01.379 He had an alibi and was cleared. That's not the 00:06:01.379 --> 00:06:04.399 same as the family tension some retellings imply. 00:06:04.879 --> 00:06:07.379 There. I've heard that told wrong before, too. 00:06:08.399 --> 00:06:10.779 Now the suspect who actually matters most in 00:06:10.779 --> 00:06:15.180 this case, Robert Craig Cox. A former Army Ranger. 00:06:15.819 --> 00:06:19.680 In 1988, a Florida jury convicted him of murdering 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:22.439 a young woman named Sharon Zellers near Walt 00:06:22.439 --> 00:06:25.589 Disney World a decade earlier. The state Supreme 00:06:25.589 --> 00:06:29.170 Court overturned that conviction in 1990, citing 00:06:29.170 --> 00:06:31.790 insufficient evidence, and released him. And 00:06:31.790 --> 00:06:34.709 he came back to Springfield, his hometown, where 00:06:34.709 --> 00:06:38.069 he was living in June 1992, when the three women 00:06:38.069 --> 00:06:41.050 vanished. He also worked at the same car lot 00:06:41.050 --> 00:06:44.509 as Stacey McCall's father. A direct, documented 00:06:44.509 --> 00:06:47.370 connection to one of the three victims. Not a 00:06:47.370 --> 00:06:50.949 coincidence of geography. In 1996, a local reporter 00:06:50.949 --> 00:06:53.069 interviewed him in prison. He'd been arrested 00:06:53.069 --> 00:06:55.800 again by then. for holding a gun on a child during 00:06:55.800 --> 00:06:59.120 a robbery in Texas. He told the reporter he knew 00:06:59.120 --> 00:07:01.519 the women were dead and buried in Springfield. 00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:04.279 When asked directly if he'd abducted them, he 00:07:04.279 --> 00:07:07.220 called the question frivolous and said, obviously 00:07:07.220 --> 00:07:10.339 no. That's not a denial, Eli. That's a man enjoying 00:07:10.339 --> 00:07:13.920 being asked. It might be. It's also exactly the 00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:16.259 kind of thing a certain type of person says for 00:07:16.259 --> 00:07:19.160 attention, with zero actual knowledge behind 00:07:19.160 --> 00:07:22.300 it. No investigator on this case has ever said 00:07:22.300 --> 00:07:24.839 they find him credible. No investigator has ever 00:07:24.839 --> 00:07:27.540 cleared him either. He was eligible for parole 00:07:27.540 --> 00:07:31.100 in 2025, and as far as anyone knows, he's never 00:07:31.100 --> 00:07:33.879 said one true, verifiable word about where those 00:07:33.879 --> 00:07:36.920 women are. I want to slow down on the porch light 00:07:36.920 --> 00:07:39.420 specifically because it gets mentioned constantly 00:07:39.420 --> 00:07:42.259 and rarely examined. It was found broken the 00:07:42.259 --> 00:07:44.810 next morning. Glass on the ground beneath the 00:07:44.810 --> 00:07:47.610 fixture. Which reads to me like someone deliberately 00:07:47.610 --> 00:07:49.810 took out the one light that would have let anyone 00:07:49.810 --> 00:07:52.550 see what was happening on that porch. Or a bulb 00:07:52.550 --> 00:07:55.129 overheated and the glass fractured on its own. 00:07:55.589 --> 00:07:58.290 And the timing is a coincidence people only noticed 00:07:58.290 --> 00:08:00.230 because they were already looking for meaning 00:08:00.230 --> 00:08:03.750 in every detail of that house. Glass on the ground 00:08:03.750 --> 00:08:06.230 isn't how a bulb dies of natural causes, Eli. 00:08:06.790 --> 00:08:08.810 That's how glass ends up when something breaks 00:08:08.810 --> 00:08:12.879 it. That's fair. I don't have a clean natural 00:08:12.879 --> 00:08:15.399 explanation for glass on the ground specifically. 00:08:15.660 --> 00:08:18.259 It's a small thing, a two dollar porch light, 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:20.819 and it might be the single most important physical 00:08:20.819 --> 00:08:23.399 clue in the entire case, and we'll never know 00:08:23.399 --> 00:08:27.240 for certain either way. Worth giving Cheryl her 00:08:27.240 --> 00:08:30.639 own weight too, not just Suzie's mother. She 00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:33.720 was a cosmetologist, well liked by clients, five 00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:36.320 feet tall, and by all accounts the kind of parent 00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:38.580 whose house was the default place kids ended 00:08:38.580 --> 00:08:41.480 up crashing. Which is exactly why they were there 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:45.340 that night. Not recklessness, the opposite. It 00:08:45.340 --> 00:08:48.320 was the safe option. The backup plan that was 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:50.840 supposed to be the safe one. That's the detail 00:08:50.840 --> 00:08:53.200 that undercuts a lot of the, these girls made 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:55.860 a bad decision framing that circulated early 00:08:55.860 --> 00:08:58.639 on. They picked the responsible adult's house 00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:01.039 specifically because the other option was too 00:09:01.039 --> 00:09:04.259 crowded and less controlled. And it still wasn't 00:09:04.259 --> 00:09:07.159 enough. Whatever happened, happened in the one 00:09:07.159 --> 00:09:09.240 place that should have been safest for all three 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:11.860 of them. I want to go back to that answering 00:09:11.860 --> 00:09:14.000 machine message, because I don't think we can 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:23.620 just mention it and move on. I know. But friends 00:09:23.620 --> 00:09:25.919 and family who actually heard it before it was 00:09:25.919 --> 00:09:28.539 erased described it as strange enough that they 00:09:28.539 --> 00:09:30.759 felt they needed to report it to police at all. 00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:33.379 That's not nothing on its own, regardless of 00:09:33.379 --> 00:09:36.509 the specific content. Agreed. The existence of 00:09:36.509 --> 00:09:39.289 that reaction is confirmed. The content isn't. 00:09:39.450 --> 00:09:42.129 I think that's the honest line to hold. It's 00:09:42.129 --> 00:09:44.409 also the cruelest detail in the whole case to 00:09:44.409 --> 00:09:47.509 me. Whatever answer this family needed most may 00:09:47.509 --> 00:09:50.230 have already existed. On a physical tape. In 00:09:50.230 --> 00:09:53.509 their own house. And it's just gone. Not hidden. 00:09:53.769 --> 00:09:57.009 Not withheld. Erased by accident by someone who 00:09:57.009 --> 00:10:00.070 had no idea what they were destroying. That part 00:10:00.070 --> 00:10:02.830 I don't have a counter -argument for. A few more 00:10:02.830 --> 00:10:05.610 names before we close, since Cox isn't the only 00:10:05.610 --> 00:10:08.909 one who's claimed to know something. Go. One, 00:10:09.210 --> 00:10:11.450 Steven Garrison, a convicted rapist with ties 00:10:11.450 --> 00:10:14.409 to a motorcycle club, told a reporter in 1995 00:10:14.409 --> 00:10:16.649 that police had questioned him as a suspect. 00:10:16.830 --> 00:10:18.990 He later claimed knowledge of the case specifically 00:10:18.990 --> 00:10:21.389 to try to get himself released from prison. Which 00:10:21.389 --> 00:10:24.190 worked, briefly. And then he committed a violent 00:10:24.190 --> 00:10:26.649 rape almost immediately after, and went right 00:10:26.649 --> 00:10:30.240 back in. Not exactly a credible witness. 2. Larry 00:10:30.240 --> 00:10:32.899 DeWayne Hall, a convicted serial killer who traveled 00:10:32.899 --> 00:10:35.259 the Midwest attending historical reenactments, 00:10:35.639 --> 00:10:37.480 reportedly confessed at one point to killing 00:10:37.480 --> 00:10:40.220 the Springfield Three. Serial killers confessing 00:10:40.220 --> 00:10:42.679 to unsolved cases they had nothing to do with 00:10:42.679 --> 00:10:45.019 is common enough that investigators have a name 00:10:45.019 --> 00:10:47.240 for it. I wouldn't weight that one heavily at 00:10:47.240 --> 00:10:49.639 all. Neither would I, honestly. I include it 00:10:49.639 --> 00:10:51.740 because it shows how far this case's gravity 00:10:51.740 --> 00:10:54.340 pulls. Total strangers keep attaching themselves 00:10:54.340 --> 00:10:57.960 to it, guilty or not. 3. Both Cheryl and Susie 00:10:57.960 --> 00:11:01.519 were legally declared dead in 1997, five years 00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:04.220 after they vanished. Stacey was declared dead 00:11:04.220 --> 00:11:06.399 separately. Which is its own kind of ending, 00:11:06.519 --> 00:11:09.659 I guess. Not an answer. Just paperwork, finally 00:11:09.659 --> 00:11:11.700 catching up to what everyone already believed. 00:11:12.220 --> 00:11:14.600 One more thing before the close. Springfield 00:11:14.600 --> 00:11:17.500 PD still gets tips on this case. Over 30 years 00:11:17.500 --> 00:11:20.440 later, people still call. Amateur investigators, 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:23.340 true crime communities, and at least one long 00:11:23.340 --> 00:11:25.879 -running podcast series have kept active pressure 00:11:25.879 --> 00:11:28.620 on this case in a way most disappearances never 00:11:28.620 --> 00:11:31.480 get. Which says something, I think. Three ordinary 00:11:31.480 --> 00:11:34.419 women from one ordinary house and 30 plus years 00:11:34.419 --> 00:11:36.639 later, strangers are still trying to bring them 00:11:36.639 --> 00:11:39.639 home. Strangers can't close a case, though. Only 00:11:39.639 --> 00:11:41.909 evidence can, and there isn't any. Strangers 00:11:41.909 --> 00:11:44.789 are also the only reason this case never went 00:11:44.789 --> 00:11:47.889 fully quiet. Sometimes, that's what keeps a door 00:11:47.889 --> 00:11:50.149 open long enough for the right piece of evidence 00:11:50.149 --> 00:12:14.379 to actually show up. And my case is that unsolvable 00:12:14.379 --> 00:12:17.860 undersells what's actually there. A broken porch 00:12:17.860 --> 00:12:20.580 light, three sets of belongings nobody would 00:12:20.580 --> 00:12:23.799 leave behind voluntarily, a strange and never 00:12:23.799 --> 00:12:26.899 fully confirmed message, and people with real, 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:29.840 documented history close to this family in the 00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:32.860 exact window it happened. None of that proves 00:12:32.860 --> 00:12:35.779 anything in court, but if you asked me what I 00:12:35.779 --> 00:12:38.340 actually believe happened in that house, I don't 00:12:38.340 --> 00:12:40.600 think they walked out on their own. I don't think 00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:42.960 they did either. I just can't tell you who did 00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:46.200 it to them. No, neither can I.