The Springfield Three: The Mysterious Disappearance That Left a Town Asking Questions for Over 30 Years
This image is an AI-generated neutral scene reconstruction, not an authentic photograph of the home, victims, or crime scene.
On the morning of June 7, 1992, three women disappeared from a house in Springfield, Missouri. Their cars remained outside. Their purses were still inside. Personal belongings had been left behind, and the family dog was at the home.
There was no clear sign that anyone had packed to leave.
More than three decades later, Sherrill Levitt, her daughter Suzanne “Suzie” Streeter, and Suzie’s friend Stacy McCall have never been found. The case, known as the Springfield Three, remains one of America’s most troubling mysterious disappearances.
The investigation has produced thousands of tips, disputed theories, and statements from a convicted criminal who claimed to know what happened. But no body has been recovered, no one has been charged, and one potentially important answering-machine message was erased before police could hear it.
Who Were the Springfield Three?
Sherrill Elizabeth Levitt was 47 years old. She was a single mother and worked as a cosmetologist at New Attitudes Hair Salon.
Her daughter, Suzanne Elizabeth “Suzie” Streeter, was 19. She had recently graduated from Kickapoo High School and worked at a local movie theater.
Stacy Kathleen McCall, 18, was also a recent Kickapoo graduate. She worked at Springfield Gymnastics Center and was a friend of Suzie’s.
The three women were connected by family and friendship, but their plans that night were ordinary. Suzie and Stacy were celebrating graduation. Sherrill was at home, speaking with a friend about painting an armoire.
Nothing publicly documented about their evening suggested that they were preparing to vanish.
Graduation Night: June 6–7, 1992
At approximately 4:00 p.m. on June 6, Suzie Streeter and Stacy McCall attended their graduation ceremony at Hammons Student Center on the Southwest Missouri State University campus, now Missouri State University.
They later attended several graduation parties.
At around 10:00 p.m., Stacy called her mother, Janis McCall, to explain that the girls had changed their plans. They were no longer going to Branson that night. Instead, they planned to meet at approximately 8:00 or 8:30 the next morning and go to the White Water water park.
Sherrill Levitt was last heard from at approximately 11:15 p.m. She spoke with a friend about painting an armoire.
Later, the final party attended by Suzie and Stacy, at Michelle Elder’s house, was broken up by Springfield Police at approximately 1:50 a.m. The two young women then returned to Janelle Kirby’s home in Battlefield at around 2:00 a.m.
It was there that Suzie and Stacy decided to spend the night at Sherrill’s home on East Delmar Street.
According to witness reports, Kathy Kirby overheard Suzie tell Stacy, “follow me to my house.”
The women were assumed to have arrived at the house because their vehicles, clothing, jewelry, and purses were found there the next day. Used makeup wipes were also found in the bathroom trash.
The last reported sighting of Suzie and Stacy was as they left the party and headed toward 1717 E. Delmar Street.
At some point between their arrival and the following morning, all three women disappeared.
This image is an AI-generated illustrative reconstruction. It does not show authentic case evidence.
The Morning Discovery
At approximately 9:00 a.m. on June 7, Janelle Kirby and her boyfriend, Mike Henson, went to the Delmar Street home after Suzie and Stacy failed to appear as planned.
The front door was unlocked.
Inside, there was no obvious sign of a struggle. All three vehicles were parked outside. The women’s purses remained in the house, and Sherrill’s still contained a cash deposit of almost $900.
The family’s Yorkshire Terrier, Cinnamon, appeared agitated.
A shattered glass globe from the porch light lay outside. The light bulb itself was intact. Mike Henson swept up the broken glass before police arrived, an action investigators later said may have destroyed potential evidence.
Later, Stacy’s mother, Janis, came to the house. She found the dog frantic and observed that the three purses were sitting on the floor of Suzie’s bedroom.
Stacy’s clothes were neatly folded, but her shirt and underwear were missing. An unfinished can of Coke remained in the home. Cigarettes had also been left behind, an unusual detail because Sherrill was known to be a chain smoker.
The television in Suzie’s bedroom was showing static.
There were also two obscene phone calls. Janelle Kirby answered both calls from an unidentified male caller, who made sexual innuendos. Police did not believe those calls were connected to the disappearance.
The most discussed communication from that morning was different.
While checking the answering machine, Janis McCall heard what she described as a “strange message.” Before police could hear it, the message was inadvertently erased.
Investigators were reportedly very interested in the recording and believed it might have contained a clue. However, because it no longer existed, the exact words, identity of the caller, and significance of the message could never be confirmed.
That distinction matters. The message is part of the documented history of the case, but its content is unknown. Any more detailed versions repeated elsewhere are speculation.
A Crime Scene Changed Before Police Arrived
The investigation was complicated from the beginning.
Between 10 and 20 people visited the home and tidied up before police arrived. Ashtrays were emptied, coffee cups were cleaned, and other normal household activity took place inside the residence.
That meant investigators were working with a scene that had already been altered.
The broken porch light globe might have been significant, or it might have been unrelated. The missing clothing could have had an innocent explanation, or it could have reflected what happened that night. The static television, the unfinished drink, the abandoned cigarettes, and the dog’s behavior all became part of a mystery with no definitive interpretation.
There was no confirmed forced entry and no publicly established physical evidence proving how the women left the house.
Plans That Were Never Kept
All three women had plans in the days following the disappearance.
Sherrill had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for June 8 and was expected to work later that week.
Stacy was due to work on June 8.
Suzie was scheduled to work at the movie theater on June 9 at 4:00 p.m.
None of them appeared.
Their absence quickly became impossible to explain as a missed appointment or an impulsive overnight trip. Their cars, purses, money, and many personal belongings remained at the house. No confirmed sighting of the women followed.
The Springfield Police Department’s case information continues to identify the women as missing. The FBI has also included the case in its ViCAP missing-persons records.
Leads, Tips, and Dead Ends
On December 31, 1992, a man called the hotline for America’s Most Wanted with information about the case.
The call was disconnected when the operator attempted to connect him with Springfield investigators. Police said the caller appeared to have “prime knowledge of the abductions” and publicly appealed for him to contact them.
He never did.
Over the years, investigators received upward of 5,000 tips. Some were investigated, while others could not be verified.
One later tip claimed that the women had been buried in the foundations of the south parking garage at Cox Hospital. In 2007, an engineer used ground-penetrating radar in the area and identified three anomalies described as being roughly the same size and potentially consistent with a grave site.
However, Springfield Police deemed the lead not credible.
The construction of the parking garage began in September 1993, more than a year after the women disappeared. The tipster reportedly claimed to be psychic or to have received the information through a dream or vision. The radar findings did not prove that human remains were present, and the women have never been confirmed to be beneath the garage.
The parking-garage theory remains an unverified lead, not established evidence.
This image is an AI-generated illustration of an ordinary porch light, not an authentic image from the Springfield Three investigation.
Robert Craig Cox: Claims Without Proof
The person most often discussed in connection with the Springfield Three is Robert Craig Cox.
Cox was a convicted kidnapper and robber who was imprisoned in Texas. In 1992, he lived in Springfield. He later told journalists that he knew the three women had been murdered and buried, and that their bodies would never be recovered.
Cox said he would reveal what happened after his mother died.
His statements attracted attention because of his criminal background and his presence in Springfield at the time of the disappearance. He initially told investigators that he had been with his girlfriend at church on the morning after the women vanished. She first corroborated that account, then later recanted and said Cox had asked her to provide it. Cox’s parents confirmed that he had been at their home on the night of the disappearance.
Even so, there is no publicly verified evidence proving that Cox was involved.
Authorities have remained uncertain whether he was describing information he genuinely possessed or making false statements to attract attention. Investigators do not regard Cox as credible, and he has never been charged in connection with the disappearance.
His statements must therefore be treated as allegations and claims: not as a confession or established fact.
The Springfield Three Case Today
Sherrill Levitt and Suzie Streeter were declared legally dead in 1997. The case files, however, remain officially classified as missing-persons records.
In the same year, a bench was dedicated to the three women in the Victim’s Memorial Garden at Phelps Grove Park.
The case has received national attention through programs and publications including 48 Hours, America’s Most Wanted, Investigation Discovery’s Disappeared, and People Magazine Investigates in 2019. It was also the subject of the 2021 podcast The Springfield Three: A Small-Town Disappearance.
Despite this attention, the central questions remain unanswered.
What happened inside the Delmar Street home?
Why were the women’s belongings left behind?
Was the broken porch light connected to their disappearance?
Who left the erased answering-machine message?
Did someone enter the house voluntarily, or were the women taken by force? And if they were abducted, how did no confirmed physical evidence survive?
These questions have made the Springfield Three one of the most enduring true crime cases involving mysterious disappearances in the United States.
A Case Still Waiting for an Answer
The disappearance of Sherrill Levitt, Suzie Streeter, and Stacy McCall has remained unsolved for more than 30 years: not because there have been no theories, but because none has produced evidence strong enough to establish what happened.
The women were a mother, a daughter, and a friend. Their lives were not defined by the mystery that followed them. Sherrill had her work and family. Suzie and Stacy were beginning adulthood, celebrating graduation, and making plans for the next morning.
Those plans never happened.
The case remains open, and any credible information could still help investigators understand what took place during the early hours of June 7, 1992. Until then, the Springfield Three remain missing, and their families continue to live with the uncertainty of not knowing where they are or what happened to them.
What do you think is the most important unanswered question in the Springfield Three investigation?
Sources
- Springfield Police Department: Three Missing Women
- FBI ViCAP: The Springfield Three
- Newsweek: The Springfield Three case
- People: What happened to the Springfield Three?
- NBC News: Families still seek answers
Tags
Springfield Three · Unsolved Mysteries · Missing Persons · True Crime Cases · Cold Cases
Meta Description
The Springfield Three disappeared from a Springfield, Missouri home in 1992. Explore the verified timeline, erased answering-machine message, disputed leads, and unanswered questions.
Facebook Version
Three women vanished from a Springfield, Missouri home in the early hours of June 7, 1992.
Sherrill Levitt, her daughter Suzie Streeter, and Suzie’s friend Stacy McCall had spent the evening celebrating graduation. By morning, their cars and purses were still at the house. Sherrill’s money remained in her purse. The family dog was inside. Their plans for the next day were never kept.
A shattered porch light was found outside, and an answering-machine message that police believed might have contained a clue was accidentally erased before investigators could hear it.
More than 30 years later, the women have never been found.
One convicted criminal later claimed he knew they had been murdered, but investigators never found proof connecting him to the case. A separate theory about a hospital parking garage was also deemed not credible by police.
The Springfield Three remains unsolved.
What do you think happened that morning?
Facebook Hook
They left their cars, purses, money, and dog behind: but three women vanished from the same Springfield home without a confirmed trace.
Caption
The Springfield Three disappeared after graduation celebrations in June 1992. One strange answering-machine message was erased before police could hear it, and decades of investigation have produced no confirmed answer. Read the full case and share your thoughts respectfully.
Short Reel Concept
Length: 30–45 seconds
Opening shot: Quiet suburban street at dawn
On-screen text: “Three women vanished from this Springfield home.”Cut to: Graduation cap and map
Narration: “On June 7, 1992, Sherrill Levitt, Suzie Streeter, and Stacy McCall disappeared after a night of graduation celebrations.”Cut to: Cars and household objects left untouched
Narration: “Their cars and purses were still there. So was Sherrill’s money: and the family dog.”Cut to: Neutral porch-light reconstruction
Narration: “A shattered porch light was found outside.”Cut to: 1990s answering machine
Narration: “Then came the detail that still troubles investigators: an answering-machine message was erased before police could hear it.”Closing screen:
On-screen text: “The Springfield Three remain missing.”
Final prompt: “What happened on June 7, 1992?”