true crime

The haunting story of Sherrill, Suzie and Stacy, who 'disappeared into thin air'.

What started out as a night of celebration quickly turned into a mystery which has haunted the Springfield, Missouri community for 25 years.

Suzie Streeter, 19, and Stacy McCall, 18, had just graduated from high school when they – along with Streeter’s 47-year-old mum Sherrill Levitt – disappeared in the early hours of June 7, 1992.

On the night before they vanished, Streeter and McCall had attended their Kickapoo High School graduation, and they were last seen around 2:00 am the following morning.

Suzie, Sherrill and Stacy disappeared in the middle of the night.

The teenagers had planned to spend the night at their friend's house, but they decided it was too crowded and instead headed to Streeter's place, where she lived with Levitt.

Sometime between 2:00 am and 8:00 am the three women disappeared - leaving their cars, wallets, keys, and the family Yorkshire Terrier behind.

When a friend of Streeter and McCall's, along with her boyfriend, came to the house the next morning, they found the front door unlocked and a broken light fixture on the front porch. They quickly swept up the broken glass - and as there were no other signs of foul play - the teenagers walked into the house to look for the three women.

They couldn't find Streeter, McCall and Levitt, but noticed that all three women had left their handbags and personal items, including Levitt's cigarettes, behind. The TV had been left on a channel that showed only static - and as they were about to leave the house - the phone rang.

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The friend answered the call - believing it may have been one of the missing women - but instead she heard the voice of a man making lewd, sexual comments. She hung up the phone and the pair left, assuming the women had just headed out of the house for some reason.

Janice McCall, Stacy's mum, became worried later day when she hadn't heard from or laid eyes on her daughter. She headed over to Levitt and Streeter's home and was confronted by the same eerie scene - the open front door, the static TV, the women's personal items left untouched.

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When she couldn't locate the three women, McCall decided to check the messages on the answering machine. She too heard the voice of a man making weird, sexual remarks. Unfortunately McCall accidentally deleted the message when she tried to save it, and the police never had the chance to listen to it.

McCall then reported her daughter as missing, but the police didn't submit an official missing persons report until the following day, after up to 20 of Sherrill's, Suzie's and Stacy's friends, had already walked through the crime scene.

They couldn't find Streeter, McCall and Levitt, but noticed that all three women had left their handbags and personal items, including Levitt's cigarettes, behind.

Over the years police have received over 5000 tips from the public regarding the disappearance of The Springfield Three. One local woman claimed she saw a distressed Suzie Streeter driving a Volkswagon van on the morning of her disappearance. The police painted a van to resemble the one the witness said she saw and placed it on a busy street to help jog people's memory, but no credible leads came from it.

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Others believe Streeter's ex-boyfriend and his two friends could be responsible for the women's disappearance, as Streeter was set to testify against them in court in relation to grave-robbing charges.

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In 2007 police received a tip that the women's bodies were buried in the foundations of a car park at a local hospital. A crime reporter invited Rick Norland, a mechanical engineer, to Springfield to scan a corner of the parking lot with ground-penetrating radar (GPR). Norland found three anomalies "roughly the same size" that he said were consistent with a "grave site location"; two of the anomalies were parallel, and the other was perpendicular. However, local police didn't believe there was enough evidence to tear up the concrete.

Although there have been many theories about what happened to The Springfield Three, the women and their remains have never been found, and the town of Springfield is still searching for answers to this day.