The Springfield Three--missing since June 1992 - #4

[Indianagirl]

I think I've got a pretty good grasp on how the AP works. However, when it comes to the article I posted above, I'm under the impression that was an interview by a local reporter in Oklahoma where Stacy and her family were from. I could be wrong.

 

[Indianagirl]

Here is the link for the weather on Springfield, MO, June 8, 1992.

http://http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KSGF/1992/6/8/DailyHistory.html?req_city=Springfield&req_state=MO&req_statename=Missouri

This is airport data and shows fog starting at 5 am. There's no way to know exactly what conditions were at the Streeter house. Perhaps some LE or reporters may recall.

Yea I noticed on the 7th it was actually much foggier, the visibility was less than a mile at 6:00 a.m and 6:15 very close to the time that the porchlady said she saw them.

 

[Hurricane]

I think I've got a pretty good grasp on how the AP works. However, when it comes to the article I posted above, I'm under the impression that was an interview by a local reporter in Oklahoma where Stacy and her family were from. I could be wrong.

I would agree with you that the Daily Oklahoman is interviewing Stacy's aunt because she is a local resident. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. So in this case it is most likely the aunt who had the details that she gave in the interview wrong.

 

[Bartt Streeter]

I have changed my blogg address for anyone who has looked for it.

Bartt

http://streeterfamilyblogg.blogspot.com/

 

[infolowers]

I have changed my blogg address for anyone who has looked for it.

Bartt

http://streeterfamilyblogg.blogspot.com/

I am very sorry for your loss. I appreciate your blog, I understand this case a lot better. I use them as well!


I don't know if you will answer because of all the back and forth on this case but I would like to know these:

1. Were your fingerprints ever found in your mom's house?

2. Did you and your sister both have a difficult relationship with your mother?

3. What are your thoughts? Did the police miss something or are we missing something?

4. Because of everything that was going on, is it possible that they just walk away?

 

[Bartt Streeter]

I am very sorry for your loss. I appreciate your blog, I understand this case a lot better. I use them as well!


I don't know if you will answer because of all the back and forth on this case but I would like to know these:

1. Were your fingerprints ever found in your mom's house?

2. Did you and your sister both have a difficult relationship with your mother?

3. What are your thoughts? Did the police miss something or are we missing something?

4. Because of everything that was going on, is it possible that they just walk away?

Thanks, for the kind words.

 

[pittsburghgirl]

Bartt, thanks for posting the link to your blog. These articles are valuable resources. We have posted links to them here and then of course, the host site moves them around and we lose things. I am very glad you are reading and posting here and will tolerate our occasional attempts to get you to talk about things. We understand your reluctance to put anything other than sources out there, given how vicious cyberspace can be. But it is good to know that you are doing something that allows you to help keep the case alive and in the public eye.

I am not at all, in any way, speaking for Bartt, but infolower's 1st and 4th questions interest me. It likely would not matter if any family member's prints (or any close friend's prints) were found at the house since family and friends are likely to have been in the house or to have handled items that were in the house. For example, a friend's fingerprints might be on a picture that he or she had helped Sherrill pack for the move or on a photo in a frame that had been picked up and handled before the move. And of course, friends were all over the place,
playing the answering machine, using the phone, drinking coffee and what-all. A veritable mess for a crime scene.

As to the 4th question, no one would take off for a new life leaving $800 in a wallet, taking with her someone else's teenage daughter with all that consternation that would follow. And then, why would Stacy agree to go? To my knowledge, no credible source thinks this case involves a voluntary disappearance.

 

[Missouri Mule]

I believe if there is one certainty about this case is that this was not a voluntary departure.

I have looked very carefully at the blog site and it is required reading (for me) on a daily basis. Very well done and I do appreciate it. This is an interesting quote in reading through it.

"Sometime early June 7, the three apparently were abducted from the home "quickly and without a struggle," police Sgt. David Asher said. McCall hadn't planned to spend the night at the home, leading authorities to believe she wasn't the target of an abduction."

That's true, but neither was Suzie expected to be there. Which begs the question, if Sherrill was the intended target why the late hour?

And this:

"One of Levitt's former neighbors told police this week that a dirty white van had cruised the neighborhood for up to three weeks before the disappearances, Detective David Asher said. When the women vanished, so did the van."

If this van was connected it surely indicates that this was a planned event.

And this:

"Jan. 2 An anonymous New Year's Eve caller to a switchboard operator of "America's Most Wanted" is cut off when the operator tries to link up with Springfield investigators.. Police still seek contact with the man, whom they consider to have prime knowledge of the abductions.

Feb. 14 For the first time, police announce that they are considering the possibility that the disappearances are the work of one or more serial killers."

So two somewhat unclear ambiguities are cleared up. The caller from Florida was male and the other noteworthy thing is that the disappearances are conceivably the work of one or more serial killers. If true, then we obviously have to consider Cox.

This:

"Then he returned to his boyhood home of Springfield, Mo., where he came under suspicion — but was never charged — in the 1992 disappearance of a mother and two teenage girls. Texas police also questioned him about an abduction in Plano. In 1995, Cox was arrested for holding a gun on a 12-year-old girl during a robbery in Decatur, Texas. He is serving a life sentence for that robbery and is not eligible for parole until 2025."

So he was a suspect in these abductions, another in Plano Texas (circumstances unknown) and convicted of the robbery in Decatur, Texas which was deemed so serious he received a life sentence at a "maximum" facility in Texas.

This (from Air Alex):

Kathee BairdWednesday, 2/9/11, 8:42 PM

"I have talked to the Warden at Lovelady many times. Cox is in ad-seg because they consider him a flight risk and a risk to other inmates with his military training in hand to hand combat as well as being a suspect in this case. He told me, "Cox WANTS to be in segregation." Garrison also got some threatening messages out to someone who has been talking with us that was called before the grand jury in our girls case while he was awaiting trial in Greene County for the rape case. I have requested to interview Garrison four times now. He has denied my request every time."

Finally:

from dallas
Guest
Re: Sherrill Levitt, Stacy McCall, & Suzanne Stree
« Reply #15 on Aug 7, 2010, 11:50am

"I dated Robert Cox in Dallas. He went to Springfield often. He liked to travel at night. I did not know about his past. We would go to Shreveport to gamble and he would make sure others thought he was in Dallas at work. He covered himself very well. He once told me I should get away from him because he was bad for me. When I asked what he was talking about, he would only compare himself to Ted Bundy. Once I tried to take his picture and he grabbed me and twisted me around and had me unable to move before I even knew what hit me. He is very capable of doing the crimes he is suspected of."

http://arttracker.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=343&action=display&thread=553&page=2

If we can take anything away from this we have to necessarily conclude that Cox is physically capable of carrying out this crime. He is so dangerous that he is in Ad Seg because of his martial arts training and we have an unidentified woman from Dallas who states categorically he could have carried out this crime.

Personally I believe he is a serial killer. The police have entertained the serial killer theory. He has no alibi, he refuses to deny any involvement or take a polygraph. He names Garrison in one of his letters who also refuses interviews. Garrison is in the slammer for rape. He claimed he was going to take the police to where the bodies were secreted but evidently reneged for reasons not entirely clear. Is there a connection? Impossible to say. We have a third unidentified male from Florida who had "prime knowledge" of the abductions. "Hurricane" has claimed there is a blood connection which prevents information sharing with the police. He has demurred when asked to elaborate. Perhaps he would reconsider and allow us to know how this relationship was established.

In conclusion, it appears we have two people; Cox and Garrison, who want to stay off death row and a third person who has clammed up. While there are many novel theories as to what happened, it seems to me that until these two subjects are eliminated they have to be #1 and #2 on the suspect list (at least my list).

While the grave robbers should be considered as well, although for reasons unclear the police chief evidently personally eliminated them as suspects there is no clear motive that I can see on their part. With Cox I can see a motive if he is in fact a serial killer and Garrison is a convicted rapist. There I see motive; the long sought missing element.

In any event, the compilation of articles by Bartt was quite helpful in looking at what has been said and done with the case. For that I am most appreciative.

 

[Hurricane]

MM, you are making great leaps in logic that you can not substantiate. I am only going to point out one:

"One of Levitt's former neighbors told police this week that a dirty white van had cruised the neighborhood for up to three weeks before the disappearances, Detective David Asher said. When the women vanished, so did the van."

If this van was connected it surely indicates that this was a planned event.

I can think of at least three reasons why this van might have been seen in the neighborhood leading up to the abduction of the women: the driver of what many would call an old cargo or work van was actually working somewhere in the neighborhood (remember the missing concrete workers with a cargo van?); the driver was living with someone temporarily in the neighborhood; or the driver was going back and forth between Grand and Glenstone simply cutting thru the neighborhood to avoid the traffic light with turn arrows in all four directions. You lived there; you know how every traffic light causes a backup for that very reason. Have you accounted for any of these possibilities before deciding that this van had 1717 under surveillance in planning this abduction? There is no evidence to support that.

 

[Missouri Mule]

MM, you are making great leaps in logic that you can not substantiate. I am only going to point out one:


I can think of at least three reasons why this van might have been seen in the neighborhood leading up to the abduction of the women: the driver of what many would call an old cargo or work van was actually working somewhere in the neighborhood (remember the missing concrete workers with a cargo van?); the driver was living with someone temporarily in the neighborhood; or the driver was going back and forth between Grand and Glenstone simply cutting thru the neighborhood to avoid the traffic light with turn arrows in all four directions. You lived there; you know how every traffic light causes a backup for that very reason. Have you accounted for any of these possibilities before deciding that this van had 1717 under surveillance in planning this abduction? There is no evidence to support that.

You are certainly correct. But I said "if" the van was connected, then it was surely planned. I don't know that it was in fact connected; only if it was connected. The implication of Asher's statement was that there was a strong possibility that there was a connection because (as I read it) it was in the neighborhood for "up" to three weeks. I take it from that phrasing that it was seen more than once and perhaps nearly every day.

That it could be merely a coincidence is by no means out of the question. That is entirely possible and I'm perfectly willing to concede that possibility. However, and I use this word advisedly, if it were there to surveil the neighborhood then I can't see any other way around the logic of assuming that it was there for a purpose to gather information on the comings and goings of the people living in the home or perhaps others going into the home as well. If it were doing that, and the women disappeared as a result of this groundwork of gaining information it seems we would have to conclude that it was a planned operation. We simply don't know.

Conversely, if the event was a random event, I'm not understanding why the van would have been in the area more than a time or two to simply take the "lay of the land" to see if it was a good place to commit, say a burglary. (And of course it may be completely unconnected.) If we have a burglary we have the problem of the money left behind which argues against the burglary scenario don't we? And we also have to ask ourselves why this particular house was chosen because by any reasonable measure it was not indicative of great wealth. On the other hand, next door, a judge's home was there and to my knowledge no one was there at all. One could reasonably assume that much greater wealth would be found in that unoccupied house than in the Levitt house. It would be logically a perfect house to commit burglary. I should know as my own home was hit by the "pillow bandits" in the 1980s while we were gone.

We also have to give weight to the conclusions of the various police departments which according to the newspapers that this crime was a "sexual assault." If this was true, and I have no way to prove or disprove this theory, we could have either a planned event where one particular person was targeted or it could have been the alternative which was a serial killer operating who saw an opportunity and took it.

But as you say, the dirty white van may have had nothing to do with the crime. I'm agnostic personally. The implication of the statement (as I read it) is that it more likely than not did play a part in the crime. That was the thrust of my statement.

 

[Missouri Mule]

Kathee has posted on Air Alex that the program "Disappeared" will air a program on this case on "Investigation Discovery" channel (Dish 192) on March 7 at 8 PM. Thanks Kathee!

This program has been eagerly awaited and perhaps it will break the logjam that has enveloped this case for going on 19 years now. I'm sure we all want to put this case to bed and finally get to the bottom of this very divisive, and very sad mystery that seemingly has no end. In the past "48 Hours", "Unsolved Mysteries" and "America's Most Wanted" have devoted much time to this case.

Set your DVR's so you don't miss it.

 

[Bartt Streeter]

The episode of Disappeared, which will be titled "The Springfield 3".
will air March 7th on Discovery ID at 9pm.

http://investigation.discovery.com/tv/disappeared/

 

[wfgodot]

The Kansas City Star published quite a long article today:

Springfield’s new police chief brings new emphasis to case of women missing since 1992

SPRINGFIELD | Before this city’s new police chief took the job last summer, he pulled up the department’s website to find out more about the place.

Paul Williams could see where officers had busted meth labs and which businesses had been robbed. Next, he clicked on “Unsolved Cases.” You can learn a lot about a town by its unsolved crime.

Just one case popped up. Grainy photos of three women filled his screen, and his eyes fell on three words that have echoed through this community and region for 18 years.

Three Missing Women.

“I thought, ‘Wow, that’s unusual to have just this one thing on the website, just one unsolved case,’ ” says Williams, who spent nearly 29 years with the Tulsa (Okla.) Police Department before landing in Springfield in July. “ ‘It must be a big deal.’ 

Since then, and since he announced the department would put more focus and energy into the mystery that has haunted this city, he has learned just how big.

much, much more at link above

 

[Hurricane]

The Kansas City Star published quite a long article today:

Springfield’s new police chief brings new emphasis to case of women missing since 1992

much, much more at link above

More pictures here:

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/02/19/2668388/three-springfield-women-missing.html

 

[Missouri Mule]

Thanks to both Hurricane and wfgodot for posting these valuable links. I've read the article several times and I have a couple of questions.

First one is how to interpret Jannelle's statement. The article says:

Jannelle talks about her relationship with the girls... well here it is..."I did stuff with Suzie. I did stuff with Stacy and we did things together." Janelle says NOW. "It was the VERY FIRST time the two (Suzie and Stacy) had done something together, without me or other without other friends." (How would she know that?) I interpret this to mean Jannelle is saying that the three did things together but that Suzie and Stacy had never before done something together (just the two of them)... What is that supposed to mean?

Second thing is the statement by Stacy's mother. The article says:

Stacy's mom showed up at the Levitt home around 9 that night... (About 19 hours after the girls had last been seen, at 2 AM that morning) Janis didn't call 911. That's for emergencies, she thought. She instead dialed 411 to get the number for the Police Department's front desk. "This WASN'T an emergency. Not then," Janis says. "I was expecting them to walk in at any time. JUST WITHIN SECONDS." Pardon me, but I'm don't understand that statement. Why would she expect them to walk in within "seconds" even though they had not been seen by another known human being on the planet for some long 19 hours nearly one full day? Why WOULDN'T she think this was an emergency???

I had never seen the statement by Jannelle before today. I'm not entirely sure when and to whom that statement was made.

I had seen the statement by Mrs. McCall but have puzzled over her conclusion that this wasn't a true emergency. It may be perfectly innocent not wanting to appear to be hysterical but speaking for myself, as a male, I would have become hysterical after 19 hours out of contact with my daughter. But that's just me. Perhaps others would disagree.

 

[former central time]

Second thing is the statement by Stacy's mother. The article says:

Stacy's mom showed up at the Levitt home around 9 that night... (About 19 hours after the girls had last been seen, at 2 AM that morning) Janis didn't call 911. That's for emergencies, she thought. She instead dialed 411 to get the number for the Police Department's front desk. "This WASN'T an emergency. Not then," Janis says. "I was expecting them to walk in at any time. JUST WITHIN SECONDS." Pardon me, but I'm don't understand that statement. Why would she expect them to walk in within "seconds" even though they had not been seen by another known human being on the planet for some long 19 hours nearly one full day? Why WOULDN'T she think this was an emergency???

-----snip------

I had seen the statement by Mrs. McCall but have puzzled over her conclusion that this wasn't a true emergency. It may be perfectly innocent not wanting to appear to be hysterical but speaking for myself, as a male, I would have become hysterical after 19 hours out of contact with my daughter. But that's just me. Perhaps others would disagree.

Mule, I think you’re too kind. From the first reading of this case, giant flashing sirens went off, not to mention a bit of the baloney detector.

This is in step with the entire ‘First Responders’ period. Nothing that unusual was a foot, by those who knew these people best. As if Ms. McCall thought Stacy must be with Suzie and they were somewhere, no big deal. Oh really ? Was this typical by the 18 year old Stacy ? The conventional wisdom of her personality is this would appear WAAAAY out of character. Either there is a lot of mythology about Ms. Stacy or there is a LOT more to this part of the story than has been elaborated.

In law the terms are the ‘reasonable person’s standard, and attorneys work their magic to persuade the jury to their point of view. I’m sure there are lawyers out there who could have a field day with this, whether for the State or Defense. This part of the story has been engrained in the DNA of this case like wallpaper. To many, it just blends into the scenery, but not for everyone.

 

[Missouri Mule]

Mule, I think you’re too kind. From the first reading of this case, giant flashing sirens went off, not to mention a bit of the baloney detector.

This is in step with the entire ‘First Responders’ period. Nothing that unusual was a foot, by those who knew these people best. As if Ms. McCall thought Stacy must be with Suzie and they were somewhere, no big deal. Oh really ? Was this typical by the 18 year old Stacy ? The conventional wisdom of her personality is this would appear WAAAAY out of character. Either there is a lot of mythology about Ms. Stacy or there is a LOT more to this part of the story than has been elaborated.

In law the terms are the ‘reasonable person’s standard, and attorneys work their magic to persuade the jury to their point of view. I’m sure there are lawyers out there who could have a field day with this, whether for the State or Defense. This part of the story has been engrained in the DNA of this case like wallpaper. To many, it just blends into the scenery, but not for everyone.

I don't have any disagreement with your view. I just wanted to give the benefit of the doubt as one can never be sure if everything we read is factually based although in this case, the reporter was (in my view) the most widely read and informed news reporter who covered this case. Since I can't get into the minds of the police officers I don't know why they left this dichotomy hanging out there to be puzzled over the past 18 years. As some might say, it doesn't pass the smell test. Yet, it might mean nothing.

As an aside, on the other site which covers this case, the unknown caller to AMW may have been revealed. I think this assertion is quite plausible and would explain why this caller was said to have "prime knowledge" of the case. If the account is true, in my opinion then this was a second source who fingered the same suspect who was named very early into the investigation.

 

[Trooogrit]

I don't have any disagreement with your view. I just wanted to give the benefit of the doubt as one can never be sure if everything we read is factually based although in this case, the reporter was (in my view) the most widely read and informed news reporter who covered this case. Since I can't get into the minds of the police officers I don't know why they left this dichotomy hanging out there to be puzzled over the past 18 years. As some might say, it doesn't pass the smell test. Yet, it might mean nothing.

As an aside, on the other site which covers this case, the unknown caller to AMW may have been revealed. I think this assertion is quite plausible and would explain why this caller was said to have "prime knowledge" of the case. If the account is true, in my opinion then this was a second source who fingered the same suspect who was named very early into the investigation.

Not sure what you are talking about here. Cox was questioned early but then left alone for four years. Garrison wasnt named for almost a year.

Are you speaking of Laura Bauer? Most of the original articles were written by Tracy Bauer and Robert Keyes, I didnt find anything from her until the anniversary.

 

[Missouri Mule]

Not sure what you are talking about here. Cox was questioned early but then left alone for four years. Garrison wasn't named for almost a year.

Are you speaking of Laura Bauer? Most of the original articles were written by Tracy Bauer and Robert Keyes, I didnt find anything from her until the anniversary.

Time flies and I can't recall with specificity when Cox first surfaced. But it seems that Moore went to the grand jury in 1994 when Cox was looked at. That would have been two years I think.

We know that Zellers contacted the SPD almost immediately after the abductions. What I was saying was that whoever the caller was if he implicated Cox that would be a second source. We know the police went to Jacksonville but we don't know who they interviewed but they obviously had to have known who to see. Perhaps they didn't come away with a convincing impression that he was a solid suspect or didn't learn new information they didn't already have. For all we know the caller was repeating hearsay that he was told (it was a male) and it might not have been based on facts. So it died on the vine. If the caller had information about someone else it has remained a well guarded secret. I know of no other suspect as high up on the totem pole as Cox. Garrison received a lot of attention but it appears that nothing he has said proved to have legs so far as I know.

What we can logically deduce is that of all of the possible suspects, only Cox has received the scrutiny that he has. We have his two letters published on the internet; we have KY3, the leading television station giving considerable time to the interview which Moore the prosecutor wanted to use to apparently build a case against Cox.

If there is another person or group of people who have received such scrutiny I'm unaware of their presence.

It has always been my impression that Laura Bauer had the best handle on this case based on the amount of print space she has given this case. I also think Ron Davis has been on top of this case as well. I don't know that much about the other reporters to make a personal assessment although I do have some opinions.

 

[Missouri Mule]

I did some further research on this matter of Cox and the facts seem to be as follows:

1) Cox was almost immediately brought to the attention of the SPD within weeks or even days after the case first broke. That information came from the Zellers family. They had no doubt that he perpetrated this crime.

"Days after the women were reported missing, Dorothy Zellers was alone in her Dunnellon, Fla., home and decided to watch some television. She was captivated by pictures of three pretty women flashing on the screen, and she listened hard as commentators explained they had vanished from a home in Springfield, Mo.

Dorothy thought of her own daughter, Sharon, who at 19 was fun and full of life when she was raped and killed.

As she continued watching the program, all Dorothy Zellers could think about was the man who had been convicted of killing her daughter in late 1978. The Florida Supreme Court had released the man - Cox - from death row less than three years earlier, and after being paroled from a California prison for kidnapping, he had moved back home with his parents.

He lived in Missouri - Springfield, Mo.

"I just knew it was him. I just knew it," Zellers said more than a week ago, in a telephone interview from her Florida home. "I said to myself, `Cox did this.'"

As soon as her husband, Charles, and son, Steve, returned from a trip to Tallahassee, she told them about the missing women in Missouri.

"I remember her saying to me, `It's really coincidental Cox is there,'" son Steve recalls. "I called the Springfield Police Department and told them Cox is living there. They knew nothing about Cox."

What police didn't know, the Zellers did. That's why for 10 years they've often wondered if Sherrill and Suzie and Stacy were ever found.

"It's always been in the back of our minds, what happened to these women," Steve Zellers says is living there. They knew nothing about Cox." ...

(Snip)

http://www.news-leader.com/article/.../Three-Missing-Women-Ten-Years-Later-Part-1-5

2) Cox was in turn interviewed by the SPD soon thereafter and he produced an alibi witness; his girlfriend, who said he was with her at the time he would not have been available to carry out the crime.

"One lead that surfaced two weeks into the investigation is keeping detectives busy today - Robert Craig Cox. Though family members of the three women say authorities have a list of 10 people they haven't ruled out, Cox jumps to the top.

Police first interviewed Cox back in June 1992, but when he produced what cops thought was a rock-solid alibi - attending church with his girlfriend on the morning the women disappeared - they focused on other people and leads.

Then Cox - who was still free after walking away from death row - was arrested in Texas for robbery. He already had a history of burglary, kidnapping and murder.

Springfield officers interviewed him, and the game began. Like Ted Bundy - the infamous rapist and murderer Cox met in a Starke, Fla., prison - Cox told police enough for them to think he knew something, but not enough to incriminate himself.

He told them he knew the women were dead and that they were buried near Springfield. Smirking, he refused to say more.

In front of a Greene County grand jury, Cox's former girlfriend admitted she lied to police about his alibi on the morning of June 7, 1992. Cox really wasn't at church with her, she said; he had called her and asked her to lie to police for him.

Learning that, Springfield police twice returned to Texas to interview Cox, but did not obtain enough for an indictment."...

(Snip)

http://www.news-leader.com/article/20020603/NEWS01/60608049

3) When the case went to the grand jury, the three individuals identified with descriptive information in the newspaper. But Cox was also looked at his girlfriend was summoned before the grand jury where she recanted her alibi. His fallback alibi was that he was at his parent's home which I have argued is worthless unless they slept in the same bedroom, which obviously didn't happen.

4) We know that the SPD went to Jacksonville, Florida in 1993 (?) to interview a male individual; evidently the person who called to AMW. They must necessarily have identified this person to have seen him in person. The newspapers/media have never said that they didn't identify him so that leaves us with the logical inference they managed to identify this person. We cannot know but we can suggest that this person also fingered Cox. If this person identified another person or gave information relevant to the investigation, we have no information who it pertained to.

5) After the above matters took place, the attention turned to Cox, who is the ONLY subject who has been looked at this carefully. The other individual is Garrison but to my knowledge his relevance largely centered around the information that he was supposed to provide regarding the location of the remains of the women. The preponderance of information is that he produced nothing either because of intimidation to him and/or his attorney (which was discussed in the newspapers) or he simply was blowing smoke and never had anything but was trying to finagle something out of his possible bogus information. In any event, it didn't work and he's in prison for the duration of his days so far as I know and he is refusing interviews.