Springfield Three

Case background and investigation

On the night of June 6-7, 1992, three women vanished from a home in central Springfield, Missouri, in a case that has become known as "the Springfield Three." Suzanne "Suzie" Streeter, 19, and her friend Stacy McCall, 18, had graduated from Kickapoo High School that afternoon and spent the evening at graduation parties. Around 2 a.m. the two returned to the home Streeter shared with her mother, Sherrill Levitt, 47, a cosmetologist, at 1717 East Delmar Street. Levitt had last been heard from by a friend around 11:15 p.m. When friends stopped by the house the next morning, all three women were gone.

According to the Springfield Police Department and widely published accounts, the women left behind their cars, purses, keys, jewelry, cigarettes and nearly $900 in cash. There were no clear signs of a struggle or forced entry. The only notable physical anomaly reported at the scene was a shattered porch-light globe. A message left on the home's answering machine, which investigators considered potentially significant, was accidentally erased before police could preserve it. The scene was also compromised early on: reports indicate that a number of friends and relatives entered the house and tidied up before officers fully secured it, which police have said may have destroyed evidence.

The disappearance triggered one of the largest investigations in the region's history. The Springfield Police Department, aided by the FBI and the Missouri State Highway Patrol, has said it processed more than 5,000 tips and conducted numerous searches, yet no bodies, no confirmed sightings and no conclusive physical evidence have been found. A reward fund was established, and the case has been featured on programs such as "America's Most Wanted" and "48 Hours." Over the years several people have been publicly discussed as persons of interest, but no one has ever been charged.

The most widely reported person of interest is Robert Craig Cox, a convicted kidnapper and armed robber who was living in Springfield in 1992 and is serving a life sentence in Texas for a 1995 robbery. According to Wikipedia and news accounts, Cox told journalists in 1997 that he believed the three women were dead and that their bodies would never be found; investigators have publicly stated they do not regard his claims as credible, and he has never been charged in the case. His original 1992 alibi was reportedly later undercut when a girlfriend said she had been asked to corroborate it. Other individuals discussed in media coverage as persons of interest include Dustin Recla, a former boyfriend of Streeter, though he has never been charged. These individuals are described here only as publicly reported persons of interest; none has been convicted or charged in connection with the disappearances.

As of 2026, the Springfield Three case remains unsolved. Streeter and Levitt were legally declared dead in 1997, but the matter is still classified and investigated as a missing-persons case. Springfield police continue to describe the investigation as open and periodically renew appeals for information, while the families have marked each anniversary without answers. More than three decades on, what happened to Sherrill Levitt, Suzie Streeter and Stacy McCall is still unknown.