A Graduation Night That Should Have Been Ordinary
On June 6, 1992, Springfield, Missouri, was in full celebration mode.
Kickapoo High School seniors Suzanne “Suzie” Streeter, 19, and her friend Stacy McCall, 18, graduated that day and spent the evening party‑hopping with classmates.
The plan was simple: end the night at a friend’s house, then head to the White Water water park in Branson the next morning with a group of friends.
But after one party was broken up by police and another house felt too crowded, Suzie and Stacy decided around 2 a.m. to do something that felt safer and more comfortable — go back to Suzie’s home, where she lived with her 47‑year‑old mother, Sherrill Levitt.
By sunrise, all three — the mother, her daughter, and her daughter’s best friend — were gone.
Their cars, purses, and even the family dog were still there.
Case Snapshot
- Location: 1717 East Delmar Street, central Springfield, Missouri
- Date: Vanished overnight between approximately 2:15 a.m. and 8–9 a.m. on June 7, 1992
Missing: The Springfield Three
- Sherrill Elizabeth Levitt, 47
- Single mother, cosmetologist, homeowner at 1717 E. Delmar
- Suzanne Elizabeth “Suzie” Streeter, 19
- Sherrill’s daughter, recent high‑school graduate
- Stacy Kathleen McCall, 18
- Suzie’s close friend and classmate, also a new graduate
Scene inside the house
- All three women’s purses were found neatly together inside the house.
- Their cars were parked outside.
- Cigarettes, makeup, medicine, jewelry, and money were left behind.
- Sherrill’s bed looked slept in, and the TV was on with static when family arrived.
- A glass lampshade on the front porch light was shattered, and a window blind in a bedroom was oddly bent.
- The family dog, Cinnamon, was inside the house and unharmed.
Status
- No bodies have ever been found.
- No one has ever been charged with their disappearance.
- Officially classified as a missing persons case; Sherrill and Suzie were declared legally dead in 1997, but the files remain under “missing.”
The Morning After: A House That Felt Wrong
The next morning, June 7, friends expected to see Suzie and Stacy.
They were supposed to meet at a friend’s house around 9 a.m. to carpool to the water park.
When they didn’t show up, their friend Janelle Kirby and her boyfriend drove over to Sherrill’s house on East Delmar Street.
They found all three cars parked outside — Sherrill’s Corsica, Suzie’s red Ford Escort, and Stacy’s Toyota Corolla.
The front door was unlocked.
Inside, Janelle saw:
- Purses lined up together, including Stacy’s, with her money and IDs still inside.
- Used makeup wipes in the bathroom trash can, suggesting Suzie and Stacy had removed their makeup after getting home.
- An unfinished drink (often described as a half‑empty or open can of soda) and personal items lying around as if the women had settled in for the night.
There were no obvious signs of a violent struggle — no blood, overturned furniture, or damage beyond the shattered porch light fixture outside.
Still, the house felt off.
More people arrived, including Stacy’s mother, Janis McCall, who had been trying to reach her daughter by phone.
She and others came and went through the morning, tidying up in small ways, even sweeping up the broken porch light glass, not realizing they were disturbing what might be a crime scene.
Janis later reported hearing a strange message on the answering machine — possibly a lewd or disturbing call — which she accidentally deleted while trying to replay it.
Police later said they couldn’t be sure whether it was connected to the disappearance.
By midday, with no sign of the women and no explanation, Janis contacted police.
When officers arrived around 2 p.m., they found a house full of worried friends and family — and a scene whose original condition had already been compromised.
A “Clean” Disappearance
Springfield police quickly realized they had a highly unusual case.
Three women from different generations had vanished from the same small home, leaving nearly everything behind.
Key points that made investigators’ skin crawl:
- No obvious struggle inside. Aside from the smashed porch light and bent blind, the interior showed no clear violence.
- All personal effects left behind. Purses, IDs, cash, cigarettes, keys, and cars — all the things they would have taken if they’d left voluntarily — were still there.
- The dog was fine. Cinnamon was nervous but unharmed, suggesting no prolonged disturbance that would have drawn attention with barking for hours.
Detective Rick Bookout later said the first thing he noticed was the number of people already in and out of the house.
By the time police treated it as a potential abduction scene, footprints, fingerprints, and other minor traces may have been accidentally wiped away.
The working theory quickly hardened into this:
- The three women made it home.
- They changed clothes, washed off makeup, and settled in.
- Sometime in the early morning, something — or someone — caused them to either open the door or step outside.
- From that point on, they simply vanished.
Leads That Went Nowhere
Over the years, several leads have generated headlines but no resolution.
America’s Most Wanted caller
On December 31, 1992, a man called the America’s Most Wanted tip line claiming he had information about the abduction.
The switchboard operator tried to connect him directly to Springfield investigators, but the call was accidentally disconnected.
Police later said the man appeared to have “prime knowledge” of the case and publicly begged him to call back — he never did.
Parking lot burial rumor
In 1993, a tip suggested that the women’s bodies might be buried under a hospital parking garage in Springfield.
Police sought permission to dig or use advanced ground‑penetrating radar, but the hospital required more proof; the lead stalled and has never been conclusively resolved.
Obscene phone calls
Friends and family reported that Suzie had received obscene phone calls at the house before the disappearance, and that Janelle received at least one disturbing call at the house the morning after.
Investigators have never confirmed a solid link between those calls and the disappearance.
Suspects and Theories
Despite the “clean” scene, there is no shortage of theories.
1. A stranger (or strangers) who followed them home
One of the earliest ideas was that someone from the graduation‑party circuit followed Suzie and Stacy back to East Delmar and either forced entry or used a ruse to get them to open the door — possibly posing as a police officer, a neighbor, or a utility worker.
Given that three adults disappeared without signs of a fight, many investigators believe more than one offender may have been involved.
2. A targeted attack that escalated
Another theory suggests that Sherrill may have been the primary target, possibly due to someone she knew through work or socially, and that Suzie and Stacy were unexpected “extra” victims who happened to be there.
If she let a familiar person into the house late at night, all three could have been overpowered quickly at gunpoint and removed with minimal noise.
3. Serial offender: Robert Craig Cox
In the mid‑1990s, attention focused on Robert Craig Cox, a convicted kidnapper and suspected serial offender who had lived in Springfield at the time of the disappearance.
Cox:
- Had a history of violence against women.
- Allegedly told reporters and others that he knew the Springfield Three were dead and that their bodies would never be found.
- Spoke about a possible ruse involving a “utility worker” at the door — mirroring ideas investigators had already considered.
Authorities have called him a strong person of interest but have never charged him, and some believe he was partly seeking notoriety by hinting at involvement.
4. Other local suspects
Investigators have explored various men linked to the women socially, romantically, or by proximity — including people from their social circle, neighbors, and known offenders in the area.
No theory has produced sufficient evidence to move beyond suspicion.
A Chillingly Empty Map Point
What makes the Springfield Three case so haunting is what’s missing:
- No crime scene with blood or obvious violence.
- No vehicle abandoned in a field or by a highway.
- No sightings, no confirmed ransom, no bodies.
The map for this case centers on a single, unremarkable suburban address:
- 1717 East Delmar Street, a modest home in central Springfield.
- The route back from graduation parties in the early hours, when Suzie and Stacy drove separately but ended up at the same doorstep.
- The places they never reached: the friend’s house where they were supposed to meet that morning, the water park in Branson they never saw.
On True Crime Maps, this pin isn’t crowded with secondary crime scenes or known burial sites.
It marks a house where three women were clearly present — makeup off, beds used, purses on the floor — and then were simply not there anymore.
It is, in many ways, the purest version of a clean‑scene mystery:
- no bodies,
- no confession,
- no confirmed suspect.
Just a front porch with broken glass, an answering‑machine message lost to time, and three names that still sit on Springfield’s missing‑persons rolls more than three decades later.
