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

[pittsburghgirl]

I still don't get going to the house, letting themselves in--with all the cars in the driveway, looking through the house, answering the phone--and then concluding the girls went to Branson and left the freakin' house wide open and their purses there. Cars, too. Were the girls teleported Branson? Somebody knows something they aren't saying. At the very least, that should have triggered a call to STACY'S mom, who might have TAKEN the GIRLS to the water park, to other friends and even to Bartt.

You are bold enoigh to go in a house of someone described as no longer a close friend but not bold enough to call the home of the other friend's family? You don't see that the purses and the cars add up to something being wrong? Or does Janelle's boyfriend pressure her to leave while she feels or knows something is wrong, hence the crying? Something is not right in this story. And certainly this case might be further along had people just been ordinarily polite and left the house undisturbed or ordinarily responsible to check on Stacy's whereabouts with her mother.

ETA: Just wondering if Janelle called her own mother to tell her what they found at the house. If so, that should have triggered an ADULT response. Once anyone hears that the cars are there,
ithe purses are there, the house is open and there is broken glass on the porch--well. Do the math. I think both the outgoing and incoming phone calls from that house would be illuminating.

And 8 am after a night of graduation parties? That is the crack of dawn for teenagers. What time did the water park open?

 

[Missouri Mule]

Some thoughts:

1) I did not (and do not) believe the grave robbers killed the girls although there was motive as was made evident in the "48 Hours" piece and from what is known about certain officers who worked the case. I believe we can file that under "fact." (motive)

2) Could the grave robbers have had the opportunity to have committed the crime if they were so inclined? If we are to believe the head honcho, they didn't or they shouldn't have been eliminated as viable suspects.

My conclusion, is IF this was related to the grave robbing, and I'm not claiming that as proven there very well could be someone higher up the food chain who had a vested interest in seeing that Suzie didn't open a further can of worms if she testified and was cross-examined ESPECIALLY if the grave robbers had no knowledge that the girls would be eliminated as witnesses. (and she survived) Would they have rolled over and given up bigger fish in return for lighter sentences? Methinks so.

If, for example, there were drugs being disseminated in the youth community and if someone had a lot riding on keeping a lid on this, just remove the threat. The boys didn't have to know anything; and as has been pointed out, it would have been preferable that they not know anything. If they know nothing they cannot turn on someone they "theoretically" worked for or in consort in the drug trade no matter how innocuous. Let me suggest a clear possibility. If drugs such as weight control drugs, or amphetamines, popular for students to use for cramming for finals were being peddled out of someone's student locker in high school those "hypothetical" drugs (if discovered) would likely be traced back to the "wholesaler." If I am not mistaken, no drugs could be sold or transacted within 1,000 feet of any school in Springfield, (or anywhere so far as I know).

So I would ask this. Does anyone who attended school where the girls were at have any knowledge of such a drug trade; no matter how innocuous it might have seemed? I have "forever" heard allegations of drugs being involved in this crime. Is there any substance to these rumors? Anyone know?

Penalties for illegal distribution of amphetamines:

"Simple possession (without a prescription) of amphetamines can result in penalties of up to five years in jail and fines, depending on the amount in possession. Distribution of amphetamines warrants penalties of fourteen years in jail and a hefty fine."...

(Snip)

http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.co...se/drug-charges/distribution-amphetamines.htm

 

[wfgodot]

Yes, it's long been my theory (a flimsy one, but my own!) that the key to the case involved events surrounding the graverobbers - not perhaps, as MM well states above, as active participants or even ones who were privy at all to later actions, but nevertheless links to what did happen. Things don't exist in a vacuum, nor did they: there are always a chain of friendships and associations with any particular group, drugs always originate from somewhere up a chain, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing when dealing with morally repugnant characters, and even when knowledge might have been attained from those on a lower strata, if it in any way might indict higher-ups, well, the decision might have been made, Why take chances?

 

[Trooogrit]

I still don't get going to the house, letting themselves in--with all the cars in the driveway, looking through the house, answering the phone--and then concluding the girls went to Branson and left the freakin' house wide open and their purses there. Cars, too. Were the girls teleported Branson? Somebody knows something they aren't saying. At the very least, that should have triggered a call to STACY'S mom, who might have TAKEN the GIRLS to the water park, to other friends and even to Bartt.

I guess it was how you were raised. I remember being primp and promper and mannered and knocking and never going into anyones house without being asked. Then later on meeting people who were the exact opposite. Knocking and walking in, walking in and waiting, people even going to the refrigerator, make yourself at home was the standard line. In the small town I grew up in we didnt lock our doors. There is no usual or unusual way, that is specific to how your family raised you. So in my opinion this is a mute point because it varies.

You are bold enoigh to go in a house of someone described as no longer a close friend but not bold enough to call the home of the other friend's family? You don't see that the purses and the cars add up to something being wrong? Or does Janelle's boyfriend pressure her to leave while she feels or knows something is wrong, hence the crying? Something is not right in this story. And certainly this case might be further along had people just been ordinarily polite and left the house undisturbed or ordinarily responsible to check on Stacy's whereabouts with her mother.

I believe that somewhere along the line with this recent show the things have been distorted. The friendships were not failing that is fact. Janelle was friends with Suzie, and Janelle was friends with Stacy, but the three did not do things together as a group. THey had been friends since childhood.

ETA: Just wondering if Janelle called her own mother to tell her what they found at the house. If so, that should have triggered an ADULT response. Once anyone hears that the cars are there,
ithe purses are there, the house is open and there is broken glass on the porch--well. Do the math. I think both the outgoing and incoming phone calls from that house would be illuminating.

And 8 am after a night of graduation parties? That is the crack of dawn for teenagers. What time did the water park open?

Well what was the plan for the day? How many people had planned to go, were they going to breakfast, who was riding with who? This all unknown. A lot of the actions could be explained if we knew more of that. I will have to find the article but Janelle did talk to Janice in the afternoon, but did not tell her the details of the vehicles being there. AS far as an adult response, I do not know about you but on graduation day I was an adult, and how many times in your life were you told not to upset your mother. My point being, most people would not come to the conclusion something was drastically wrong right away, they would mentally stay in a mode of there has to be a logical explanation.

 

[Indianagirl]

Some thoughts:

1) I did not (and do not) believe the grave robbers killed the girls although there was motive as was made evident in the "48 Hours" piece and from what is known about certain officers who worked the case. I believe we can file that under "fact." (motive)

2) Could the grave robbers have had the opportunity to have committed the crime if they were so inclined? If we are to believe the head honcho, they didn't or they shouldn't have been eliminated as viable suspects.

My conclusion, is IF this was related to the grave robbing, and I'm not claiming that as proven there very well could be someone higher up the food chain who had a vested interest in seeing that Suzie didn't open a further can of worms if she testified and was cross-examined ESPECIALLY if the grave robbers had no knowledge that the girls would be eliminated as witnesses. (and she survived) Would they have rolled over and given up bigger fish in return for lighter sentences? Methinks so.

If, for example, there were drugs being disseminated in the youth community and if someone had a lot riding on keeping a lid on this, just remove the threat. The boys didn't have to know anything; and as has been pointed out, it would have been preferable that they not know anything. If they know nothing they cannot turn on someone they "theoretically" worked for or in consort in the drug trade no matter how innocuous. Let me suggest a clear possibility. If drugs such as weight control drugs, or amphetamines, popular for students to use for cramming for finals were being peddled out of someone's student locker in high school those "hypothetical" drugs (if discovered) would likely be traced back to the "wholesaler." If I am not mistaken, no drugs could be sold or transacted within 1,000 feet of any school in Springfield, (or anywhere so far as I know).

So I would ask this. Does anyone who attended school where the girls were at have any knowledge of such a drug trade; no matter how innocuous it might have seemed? I have "forever" heard allegations of drugs being involved in this crime. Is there any substance to these rumors? Anyone know?

Penalties for illegal distribution of amphetamines:

"Simple possession (without a prescription) of amphetamines can result in penalties of up to five years in jail and fines, depending on the amount in possession. Distribution of amphetamines warrants penalties of fourteen years in jail and a hefty fine."...

(Snip)

http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.co...se/drug-charges/distribution-amphetamines.htm

How does robbing a grave of gold teeth for less than a hundred dollars, even begin to equate to a serious drug dealing problem? This theory involves an almost mob like mentaility, which is hard to believe based on what was stolen and the profit.

IMO, big/small time drug dealers don't need teenagers to steal gold teeth from graves to make a profit. What hierarchy would they have been protecting? It just doesn't make any sense.

I try to take every theory and apply it to the situation and this theory I just don't understand. I think there needs to be more info about their drug activities to make it a plausible theory.

For the record, I know you're just proposing this theory and not claiming it as fact or your belief.

 

[Hurricane]

Some thoughts:

1) I did not (and do not) believe the grave robbers killed the girls although there was motive as was made evident in the "48 Hours" piece and from what is known about certain officers who worked the case. I believe we can file that under "fact." (motive)

2) Could the grave robbers have had the opportunity to have committed the crime if they were so inclined? If we are to believe the head honcho, they didn't or they shouldn't have been eliminated as viable suspects.

My conclusion, is IF this was related to the grave robbing, and I'm not claiming that as proven there very well could be someone higher up the food chain who had a vested interest in seeing that Suzie didn't open a further can of worms if she testified and was cross-examined ESPECIALLY if the grave robbers had no knowledge that the girls would be eliminated as witnesses. (and she survived) Would they have rolled over and given up bigger fish in return for lighter sentences? Methinks so.

If, for example, there were drugs being disseminated in the youth community and if someone had a lot riding on keeping a lid on this, just remove the threat. The boys didn't have to know anything; and as has been pointed out, it would have been preferable that they not know anything. If they know nothing they cannot turn on someone they "theoretically" worked for or in consort in the drug trade no matter how innocuous. Let me suggest a clear possibility. If drugs such as weight control drugs, or amphetamines, popular for students to use for cramming for finals were being peddled out of someone's student locker in high school those "hypothetical" drugs (if discovered) would likely be traced back to the "wholesaler." If I am not mistaken, no drugs could be sold or transacted within 1,000 feet of any school in Springfield, (or anywhere so far as I know).

So I would ask this. Does anyone who attended school where the girls were at have any knowledge of such a drug trade; no matter how innocuous it might have seemed? I have "forever" heard allegations of drugs being involved in this crime. Is there any substance to these rumors? Anyone know?

Penalties for illegal distribution of amphetamines:

"Simple possession (without a prescription) of amphetamines can result in penalties of up to five years in jail and fines, depending on the amount in possession. Distribution of amphetamines warrants penalties of fourteen years in jail and a hefty fine."...

(Snip)

http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.co...se/drug-charges/distribution-amphetamines.htm

Until someone puts up evidence to the contrary I will believe what multiple witnesses who knew these three girls intimately have said, and what the Greene County Juvenile Officer assigned to Kickapoo High School found from her investigation, and that is that there is not an ounce of truth that these girls were involved in any such activities. If anything like that was going on their friends would know. SPD determined that Suzie had experimented with pot, nothing further.

If the boys were dealing drugs and higher ups were worried that the boys could have shared information with Suzie about their business then why are the boys alive today?

 

[Hurricane]

Yes, it's long been my theory (a flimsy one, but my own!) that the key to the case involved events surrounding the graverobbers - not perhaps, as MM well states above, as active participants or even ones who were privy at all to later actions, but nevertheless links to what did happen. Things don't exist in a vacuum, nor did they: there are always a chain of friendships and associations with any particular group, drugs always originate from somewhere up a chain, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing when dealing with morally repugnant characters, and even when knowledge might have been attained from those on a lower strata, if it in any way might indict higher-ups, well, the decision might have been made, Why take chances?

I would ask you the same question: Why are the boys still alive today? As you pointed out, why take chances?

 

[Missouri Mule]

I would ask you the same question: Why are the boys still alive today? As you pointed out, why take chances?

The old saying "let sleeping dogs lie" applies in my opinion. The "storm" blew over and there is no proof (or bodies) to regenerate the investigation. If the grave robbers suddenly started turning up dead, I would think this would raise a number of red flags that would start it all over again.

Let's assume that the girls went missing in order to cover up a drug operation. That's three bodies. Then the three grave robbers turned up dead. Well, they're off the hook. Six bodies in Springfield is certainly going to blow the lid off of everything and answers are going to come out of someone's hide. The pressure to solve the case would have been insurmountable. It is to the one(s) behind the curtain who have everything to gain by not doing anything. If the boys suddenly assumed room temperature, he/they are taking an unnecessary risks. After all, it has worked for nearly two decades. Why fix something that isn't broken?

 

[wfgodot]

I would ask you the same question: Why are the boys still alive today? As you pointed out, why take chances?

As MM wrote, "The boys didn't have to know anything; and as has been pointed out, it would have been preferable that they not know anything."

Also, eliminating those who might have been in a position to know might also have drawn unwelcome attention to the perpetrators. 3MW has proven unsolvable over many years; not so, necessarily, if the body count had continued to rise.

 

[Missouri Mule]

How does robbing a grave of gold teeth for less than a hundred dollars, even begin to equate to a serious drug dealing problem? This theory involves an almost mob like mentaility, which is hard to believe based on what was stolen and the profit.

IMO, big/small time drug dealers don't need teenagers to steal gold teeth from graves to make a profit. What hierarchy would they have been protecting? It just doesn't make any sense.

I try to take every theory and apply it to the situation and this theory I just don't understand. I think there needs to be more info about their drug activities to make it a plausible theory.

For the record, I know you're just proposing this theory and not claiming it as fact or your belief.

Absolutely, it is a theory. But I will say this. Several months ago I received information that was shared with (a member of the LE community familiar with this case) about such a possibility and the reply I received back was that this was altogether a very real possibility. How and if the grave robbers fit in with this was not made clear to me but it certainly raised the specter of a very viable theory that had "legs." The story as I got it was that someone with "old money" was into weight control pills. Such a person would have had a lot to lose if this became public knowledge. (if the story was true)

I don't think for a second that the stealing of the gold teeth or the grave robbing was motive for this crime. But if these kids (and if they were involved) could have been squeezed to give up bigger fish who got nervous about them rolling on them, that is more than enough motive to eliminate the threat. Fifteen years in the slammer is not exactly chopped liver.

I think I made this point before. Let me make it again. Let us suppose any one of these three kids started bawling and squalling about going to the big house with all of its associated horrors and this information worked its way back to the distributor he/they had more than sufficient reason to want to head this problem off at the pass. When the girls went missing, the grave robbers wiped the sweat from their foreheads away and their blood pressure dropped about 50 points. And the "best part" is that they didn't even know what happened to the girls. So what was the prosecution left with? Three missing women and a penny ante grave robbing case that ultimately dissolved into a non-story.

I remember this from living there at the time. After the women went missing, the interest in the grave robbing trial dropped off the radar of most people. It was no longer a big story. One grave robber was represented by a well known criminal lawyer and the other had a court appointed attorney and the net result was a slap on the wrist. And then we didn't hear much more until 1994 when the GJ convened. One can only imagine what would have happened if the girls had not gone missing and testimony came out about a bigger drug operation in Springfield. I think it would have been a much bigger story.

 

[Hurricane]

The old saying "let sleeping dogs lie" applies in my opinion. The "storm" blew over and there is no proof (or bodies) to regenerate the investigation. If the grave robbers suddenly started turning up dead, I would think this would raise a number of red flags that would start it all over again.

Let's assume that the girls went missing in order to cover up a drug operation. That's three bodies. Then the three grave robbers turned up dead. Well, they're off the hook. Six bodies in Springfield is certainly going to blow the lid off of everything and answers are going to come out of someone's hide. The pressure to solve the case would have been insurmountable. It is to the one(s) behind the curtain who have everything to gain by not doing anything. If the boys suddenly assumed room temperature, he/they are taking an unnecessary risks. After all, it has worked for nearly two decades. Why fix something that isn't broken?

The only way for higher ups to insulate themselves and remain concealed would have been to kill the boys too. For the higher ups to depend on fear to keep the boys in line once they were questioned about the 3MW makes no sense at all. If the boys had really been in serious trouble they would have traded their knowledge of their business in a second.

 

[Hurricane]

As MM wrote, "The boys didn't have to know anything; and as has been pointed out, it would have been preferable that they not know anything."

Also, eliminating those who might have been in a position to know might also have drawn unwelcome attention to the perpetrators. 3MW has proven unsolvable over many years; not so, necessarily, if the body count had continued to rise.

I'm not claiming that the boys knew anything about the abduction/murder of the 3MW. But it makes no sense to believe that the boys didn't know anything about the higher ups but Suzie did. If higher ups were worried that something the boys might have told Suzie about their business might come out during her statement/testimony in the institutional vandalism it makes absolutely no sense to me that they would not take care of the boys. They were really the ones who could bring trouble to them and their business, not Suzie.

 

[Missouri Mule]

The only way for higher ups to insulate themselves and remain concealed would have been to kill the boys too. For the higher ups to depend on fear to keep the boys in line once they were questioned about the 3MW makes no sense at all. If the boys had really been in serious trouble they would have traded their knowledge of their business in a second.

If they were involved as distributors on the campus, they were probably supplied by a middle-man; a "buffer", who may not have been connected to the one or more who actually had the distribution network. Now, I can see plenty of motive to eliminate the "buffer" if she testifies. I see none if she doesn't. There is no direct link if the "buffer" goes missing.

Let us suppose that Suzie testifies and implicates the grave robbers. They sing like canaries and in turn tell the court that "Joe Blow" gave the pills to them to distribute on the school premises. At that point "Joe Blow" turns up dead or missing. He's a nobody that can be connected to anyone higher up the line. If the grave robbers turn up dead, the heat gets turned up real fast. Six bodies is six bodies too many. One more body of a drug pusher decomposing in the brush of the Ozarks backwaters is not likely to raise any eyebrows.

Not to put too fine a point on this but how many "Dons" from the day of the Mafia heyday dealt directly with the street goons. As Joseph Valachi who blew the cover off La Costa Nostra (Mafia) in the 1950s, even the FBI didn't admit, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, that the Mafia even existed although the U.S. government did business with them during WWII to bring down Hitler in Europe. The government looked the other way.

 

[Trooogrit]

Some thoughts:

1) I did not (and do not) believe the grave robbers killed the girls although there was motive as was made evident in the "48 Hours" piece and from what is known about certain officers who worked the case. I believe we can file that under "fact." (motive)What we know from the 48 hours, and from the disappeared show is that this angle appears to be a motive. We know that this angle has impact and impression on viewers and we also know that it has never been proven in 19 years. We know these guys were convicted of the crime they were charged without Suzies testimony having any bearing, which in itself makes it a weak motive.




2) Could the grave robbers have had the opportunity to have committed the crime if they were so inclined? If we are to believe the head honcho, they didn't or they shouldn't have been eliminated as viable suspects.
Well one of the graverobbers worked with Suzie all the way up to when she disappeared so did they have opportunity from February until June 6 to get to her alone? yes. It makes no sense to go into a full house to do it when you ample chances in the previous months. Was their any harassment? Why did none of these sort of facts come out? Is their any threatening remarks or testimony from friends of the graverobbers indicating they wanted to retaliate? There is more to the chiefs decision than meets the eye here. Probably part of the reason the police did not believe they were responsible.

My conclusion, is IF this was related to the grave robbing, and I'm not claiming that as proven there very well could be someone higher up the food chain who had a vested interest in seeing that Suzie didn't open a further can of worms if she testified and was cross-examined ESPECIALLY if the grave robbers had no knowledge that the girls would be eliminated as witnesses. (and she survived) Would they have rolled over and given up bigger fish in return for lighter sentences? Methinks so. They were high on LSD when they committed this crime. They got less than 40 bucks worth of gold. The pawn shop turned them in, why would bigger fish mess with this stupidity? In the history of Springfield Missouri how many times have the "bigger fish" intervened in a penny anny case like this??????

If, for example, there were drugs being disseminated in the youth community and if someone had a lot riding on keeping a lid on this, just remove the threat. The boys didn't have to know anything; and as has been pointed out, it would have been preferable that they not know anything. If they know nothing they cannot turn on someone they "theoretically" worked for or in consort in the drug trade no matter how innocuous. Let me suggest a clear possibility. If drugs such as weight control drugs, or amphetamines, popular for students to use for cramming for finals were being peddled out of someone's student locker in high school those "hypothetical" drugs (if discovered) would likely be traced back to the "wholesaler." If I am not mistaken, no drugs could be sold or transacted within 1,000 feet of any school in Springfield, (or anywhere so far as I know). Drugs are in ever single high school community in the country. I know people in that class that have told of their own usage. This angle is weak on the high school level because of the fact it is everywhere. How can you tie this statement Suzie made to eliminate her when she was not part of the crime? Webb said in the video, in her testimony it was clear that she didnt even know what was happening until it was over, she could not be cross examined to give up information that would hurt them because she had nothing to gain by doing so. They would not ask her question that would put her at risk.

So I would ask this. Does anyone who attended school where the girls were at have any knowledge of such a drug trade; no matter how innocuous it might have seemed? I have "forever" heard allegations of drugs being involved in this crime. Is there any substance to these rumors? Anyone know? Well I am sure that their was some drug trade, since 18.8% of all high school seniors have smoked marijuana. All one has to do is follow any unsolved case right here on webslueths and you find suspicions of drug use, cult activity and various other thing that are common to crimes people cannot figure out.


My name's Wyatt Earp... it all ends *now*!

 

[Missouri Mule]

There is a distinction to be made between having motive and actually committing a crime. That's why I said that the grave robbers had motive; however small but it was a motive. I did not then, nor do I believe now that they committed this crime. However, I believe it is highly plausible that others up the food chain had substantial motive to want to snuff this out in the cradle. With the girls gone, the trail ended if the grave robbers didn't know what happened. If the grave robbers were also killed that, as I said, would have resulted in six bodies and that would have blown the lid off this case back in 1992. There is no way that Springfield would have tolerated a mass murder involving six people even if it originated as a result of grave robbing and other minor offenses.

Motive means nothing beyond the fact that it is usually is a necessary component of such crimes. Nevertheless, it is not necessary for the prosecution to prove motive; only that the perp(s) committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.

I was being forthcoming in my earlier post. I had been in contact with LE over this matter and who has looked at this case. (not SPD) It was given substantial credence and the original source of this information requested anonymity in fear of his life which I acquiesced. The body count is already high enough without adding to the total.

 

[Trooogrit]

In 1995 a review of this case concluded that sexual assault and not drug activity was likely the cause. WHY? That I think is the question that needs answering. This came from SPD, SLPD,KCPD MHP reviewing the case.

 

[Missouri Mule]

In 1995 a review of this case concluded that sexual assault and not drug activity was likely the cause. WHY? That I think is the question that needs answering. This came from SPD, SLPD,KCPD MHP reviewing the case.

I see no reason why it couldn't have included two motives. Even Cox felt it necessary to have extra alibis. Criminals who have extra alibis always concern me. In any event, it is a theory and not provable. I can tell you however that one or more of the officers who worked this case reportedly believed it involved the grave robbers in some capacity or as a motive to be dealt with.

As I have said, I do not believe they did it. I don't think they had the ability to have done it. But I do believe there were people who did. Namely a person by the name of Robert Craig Cox comes to mind. There is no question whatsoever that he possessed the necessary ability to carry out this crime himself; perhaps with the assistance of one Steve Garrison. Both will likely die in prison and have clammed up. They could have been employed to disappear these women and in the process decided to make the experience more fulfilling in you get my drift.

Now we can discuss this until he cows come home. I believe he could and I believe you are on record as saying he always got caught or something to that effect. Yet, we know as a matter of historical record, that had Sharon Zellers not bitten off part of his tongue he probably never would have been charged with her death. So that was a successful "sexual" assault was it not? We also know he was suspected in other crimes in Texas and elsewhere and when caught had a "kill kit" in his possession.

Bottom line is that there is no mutually exclusive argument to be made that it couldn't be both a sexual assault and a contract arrangement to remove a problem. I can't imagine someone employing such a person to instruct him not to touch a hair on their heads and only to make them "go away." In any event, once the wheels of whatever plan went down, the originator didn't control events anyway unless it were someone like Carnahan who did both. That I could believe.

 

[Trooogrit]

What I am saying is that the statement that Suzie made was so minor and what she knew so trivial, an the extent of the graverobbers actual knowledge of anything the "higher ups" had in motion so limited that it was not worth committing a crime like this. If what you are saying is true, it was a contract. Then that night was the worst of all nights to do something like this. Why go to the home to do this? Why not follow her at the late hour when she got off work from the movie theatre alone to abduct her? Why a triple abduction, why not just kill her on the spot? This is the thing, this line of thinking the elimination of this one person is a simple task. This case is long forgotten about if done that way. Instead we are left with the bigger mystery. Think it through, what is the result intended, and what is the simplest way to get there.

 

[pittsburghgirl]

Let me say that I am, most likely, of the mind that this abduction is essentially asexual assault/murder case. That does not rule out perpetrators who were also involved in other criminal activities including the use of controlled or illegal drugs. All three of the women had some sort of activity that put them in front of the public and therefore any of them could have been noticed by a very bad person or persons and not been aware of that notice--and so could have been stalked for a time by a stranger or mere acquaintance. Or it might have been someone with whom one or more of them had a more substantive connection and who might have a more personal motive for murder. I tend to discount that, at this point, because to someone who knew the house or Suzie or Sherill, the third car would have indicated someone else was at the house and might have been discouraged the whole business.

The notion that Cox isn't involved because he always gets caught makes no sense. We only know of those crimes for which he was caught; he may have gotten away with rape, assault, and multiple murder. It interests me that the FIRST THOUGHT of Sharon Zellers's family was that Cox abducted the women in Springfield. It's also interesting that a man who was (briefly) on death row because a body was found is suspected of this crime in which the bodies remain missing. What sort of stressers led Cox to getting caught again I can't say. But some of these guys get careless or we get lucky--and some kill on and
on.

For an example of what higher-ups will do if a teenage girl sees or hears too much, see the Kaitlyn Arquette case, which is too complex for me to summarize here. Kait was chased down in her car on an Albuquerque street and shot, execution style. Albuqueque police were almost certainly involved either in covering up this crime or in the murder itself. So it is possible that the grave robber thing might be linked to something else and we might not know it. But I am for the moment of the sexual assault persuasion, subject to further consideration.

 

[Missouri Mule]

What I am saying is that the statement that Suzie made was so minor and what she knew so trivial, an the extent of the graverobbers actual knowledge of anything the "higher ups" had in motion so limited that it was not worth committing a crime like this. If what you are saying is true, it was a contract. Then that night was the worst of all nights to do something like this. Why go to the home to do this? Why not follow her at the late hour when she got off work from the movie theatre alone to abduct her? Why a triple abduction, why not just kill her on the spot? This is the thing, this line of thinking the elimination of this one person is a simple task. This case is long forgotten about if done that way. Instead we are left with the bigger mystery. Think it through, what is the result intended, and what is the simplest way to get there.

For the sake of argument let me stipulate that what she was to testify was in fact "so trivial." That being the case it is true, is it not, that she was going to testify within the week. Let me suggest the following. The grave robbers were being close mouthed about their offenses but if Susie got on the witness stand and alluded to other matters it might be to the defense's interest to cut a deal which included giving up bigger fish in order to reduce the sentences to come. Their lives were on the line and they were looking at doing hard time with hardened criminals and one can only imagine how those creeps were licking their chops waiting for these guys to enter the general prison population. I can imagine a scenario where they would have done virtually anything to avoid that fate. Being in the Greene County jail is a fer piece from being in the state prisons with all of the sexual predators who inhabit those facilities. I suggest if they knew anything they would have sung like canaries on or off the witness stand. With the girls gone, the grave robbing trial had the air let out of the balloon and receded to the back pages as all the attention was given over to locating the women. The grave robbers were off the hook in that investigation. They got a slap on the wrist and the missing women's case has gone dormant. Offhand, I would say that if there were any connection to the grave robbing and the women gone missing, the criminals whoever they are made off like "bandits."

If the grave robbers had nothing to do with this crime we are left with three known criminals who may have been involved that have been publicly identified. They are Cox, Garrison and Carnahan. If the grave robbers and these three guys had nothing to do with this crime then we are looking at an unknown killer or killers and all kinds of rumors about other riff-raff in the area; none of which can be established as factual. But Cox, Garrison and Carnahan are all in prison for the rest of their natural lives and we are dealing with facts when we discuss them.