Crime Weekly - S2 Ep88: The Springfield Three: The Man In The Van (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

It was the 90’s in Springfield, Missouri. A time when teenagers would spend their weekends gliding around to pop music at Skateport, the local roller rink, or browsing the stores at the Battlefield Mall. On June 6th, 1992, two high school seniors graduated with the rest of their Kickapoo High School class and then spent an evening celebrating the start of the rest of their lives. The last time anyone saw 19 year old Suzie Streeter and 18 year old Stacy McCall, they were heading to Suzie’s house to spend the night. But the next morning, Suzie and Stacy were gone, along with Suzie’s mother, Sherrill Levitt. The three women had vanished without a trace, and to this day no one knows what happened to them. Some speculated that they had run away, many felt they had been abducted, and one local law enforcement official claimed it looked as if they had been raptured, lifted up to the heavens, there one second and gone the next. This is the case of the Springfield Three people who disappeared from a house in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we are picking up with the Springfield 3 case. We had part one last week. This is part two. If you haven't seen or heard part one yet, you should probably watch slash listen to that first, depending on if you're listening in an audio or watching on YouTube, because a lot of this will not make sense otherwise. So make sure that you're listening slash watching these in order. One quick kind of housekeeping thing before we dive in, we're not going to take a lot of your time because we had

that big issue last week with the video and we talked about that for a little bit, but we do have shipping to Canada now for Criminal Coffee Company. So if you are a Canadian person who has wanted to try the criminal coffee company coffee then you can order now and it will get shipped to you the one issue is because it's you know I think it's considered international shipping even though for me Canada is like an hour away but it's considered international shipping and it's super expensive all shipping is expensive international shipping is even more so there's nothing that we can do about it. We've

tried. Derek's, you know, bent over backwards trying to get the best shipping possible, the cheapest shipping possible. I don't know who to blame, but it's not us. We tried to do what we could. So you have the option. If you live in Canada, you can go and calculate the shipping and see how much it would cost. But as a heads up, it's probably going to be a little bit more expensive than you thought. Yeah. I can even tell you guys, because I've lived it now for the last month. If you want one to two bags, it's around $25 to $27, I think. If you want three to six bags, it's about 50 bucks, just for shipping, by the way. And if you want seven plus bags,

it's about $70, seven to 10 bags is usually I think what that box will do. It's essentially because we have to do priority. We need the packages to get there within a certain amount of time because it's coffee. We want it to be fresh. Yeah, we want you to try it, but we want you to try it when it's good because it reflects us and we're very proud of it and we want you to get the full experience. So like Stephanie said, not to beat a dead horse, super expensive. We're not making any money off of it. There's nothing we can do about it. You're just taking over the cost and we're a small business. So we can't absorb the shipping costs right now by offering free shipping like an Amazon or some of these bigger companies can do. We just couldn't swing it, especially when we're donating

to the criminal coffee fund to fight crime. So we just can't do it especially when we're donating to the criminal coffee fund you know to fight crime so we just can't do it but we appreciate it if you guys want to purchase it you can um you're going to be the guinea pigs for it we're going to try our first uh round of it where we have to do custom orders with each package which is going to add to our process but we'll see how it works we want to give it a shot we're doing it hopefully it works out but we appreciate it either way we totally understand if if it's not in the budget for you, I've already had a couple of people email us, um, completely understand. It just, it's completely out of our control. Yeah. We're not going to be mad if you don't do it. We understand. Um, but we wanted you to have the option is all we want you to have the option that way you can make that decision

for yourself. So if there's nothing else, like you said, you know, don't want to beat a dead horse. What can't be beat? A dead horse. Do you know what that's from? Probably not. No. I'm sure some of you guys do. I'm sure some of you guys do. Let me know in the comments. Let me know. I know you guys know. Anyways, let's dive into the episode today. So we are at the point in the case where everyone realized that Cheryl Levitt, her daughter Susie Streeter, and Susie's friend Stacey McCall were gone. They'd been gone for an entire day and night. They left behind their cars, their purses, their money, their identification. No one had heard from them or seen them, and it didn't appear that they were going to be coming

back anytime soon. The morning after they were reported missing on Monday, June 8th, Stacey's parents, Janice and Stu McCall, brought Stacey's picture to local hospitals to see if she resembled anyone who may have been admitted without an ID. And Janice remembered the Adam Walsh case, so she immediately declared that they needed to get missing persons posters made up. And Janice and Stu McCall were very hands-on with the search for Stacey, Susie, and Cheryl. They made a ton of posters. And I was seeing in the comments section, some people who live in Springfield said that a lot of the businesses and things who had initially put those posters up, they still have them in the windows,

even though it's been like 30 years at this point, which is crazy. This is a very big case for Springfield. This is a huge loss for the people. They consider it like their mission to keep those posters up until these three women come back home. Real quick too, I was seeing in the comments, I don't know how accurate it is, but it sounds like where this happened is about an hour from the Ozarks. So just, we made it seem like it was a little closer, but I think we had some people from that area that were saying, Hey, it's about an hour from there. So I know we referred to the Netflix special, whatever, apologize if we're off on the geography. I don't know about the Netflix special. I didn't know there was a Netflix special. Oh, you mean Ozarks, like the Netflix show. Um, it's considered like, Oh, it's the Ozarks. Yeah. That was just aflix show um it's considered like oh it's the ozarks yeah

that was just a joke but it's considered part of the ozarks region um if you look up like on the springfield website it says like visit the ozarks so i don't know it's considered like the part of the ozarks region um definitely for sure yeah there was a couple comments from people who might be from the area or whatever i don't know know. But for that clarification, so we're not saying like anything inaccurate. We try to always be right on the bubble here. So I don't think it's like Ozarks like the show, like they're deep in the Ozarks, you know, like in the mountains. No, but I do believe it's considered part of the Ozarks as far as tourism goes. OK, so Sergeant Mark Webb of the Springfield Police Department got the report on his desk Monday morning, and he said, quote, In the beginning, I had every hope we would solve this in a few days that we'd find them know what happened.

I thought we'd get to the bottom of it, end quote. And that really seemed to be the general consensus among the people of Springfield and their police department. It was really bizarre that three people could vanish and leave behind no sign of what had happened. The only evidence really was that broken globe light, and it had been swept up and discarded. And the police department would dust for fingerprints, but like we mentioned in the previous episode, there'd been between like 18 and 21 people in and out of the house at 1717 East Delmar. So it was really going to be a needle in a haystack situation.

I was thinking about that last episode and you are right. It does make things more difficult, but something like this happens on many cases. But I remember when I investigated OJ, that was something they had to do with the shoe prints right because they had the bloody shoe the shoe prints there on the on the cole's walkway so although there were like 18 to 20 people that had gone through that house before law you know even including some law enforcement personnel i would think and they probably did this i would hope they did if they know most of the people that were in there, what they should be doing is taking fingerprints from all of those known individuals, including officers, and comparing them to the prints that are found at the scene to cancel them out. So if you have officers who've been through there, you find their prints, okay, we can cancel those out. If you have parents or friends or anybody who's acknowledging that they've been there, okay Cancel those prints out. And hopefully out of the, you know, 15 to 20 prints

that you may find in the house when dusting, hopefully a couple sets of prints don't belong to any known people who were supposed to be there. So I'm assuming a couple of things happened here. One, they did that. And ultimately the prints all matched up to someone that they knew and that had an alibi or two, just like, just like a lot of things, television and movies can really make, uh, law enforcement's job difficult. I can tell you from doing a lot of prints over the years, it's not like you see on TV where if the person takes their fingers and just moves them up like half an inch, it'll smudge the ridges. If the print is not placed on a surface where the oils from your fingers can sit level, that could screw up the print. And they're very specific. It's very difficult to get a good print.

And then you have some people who have more oily fingers than others where the assailant's wearing gloves. There's a lot of things that could have happened to make it harder to find a print but not only find that print but process it in a way where it can be compared to others so i would think with the publicity that this case has had over the years if not done initially done later where they've taken prints enhance those prints through photographs to try to make them identifiable and compare them into systems that they have and unfortunately based on the fact that we're sitting here today i'm assuming one of those scenarios is what happened but just so you guys know the fact that there's 18 that just means there's more work for them to do i really do hope that they took those prints and took the prints of everybody they knew

to have entered that apartment, that building, that house was ruled out if they did find any prints that were usable. Yeah, they definitely did rule out the people who were there, like the people that had gone in and out of the house after the three women went missing. But it would take a lot of time, I feel like, right? With that many prints to work with and that many people to initially rule out before you even get to the fingerprints that are left over, which you now focus on as like the potential suspect's fingerprints. Yeah.

Feels like it would take a lot of time because you have to do those things by like the eye, I think, right? When you're comparing them? Yeah. So it's done by the eye, but we use like some severe magnification equipment where you can take the prints, you dust them, you, you preserve them with like lifting tape or whatever.

So you'll lift them with a piece of tape. You'll put them onto a card, a white background usually, and then you'll put them on some type of microscope or just a high res macro lens. You'll take photos of those prints. You can enhance them. You can use Photoshop to bring out the ridge lines a little bit more. And then, yeah, you're doing physical comparisons. It's not a system like CODIS where you're using like DNA. So yeah, it has to be done by a fingerprint expert

or just a detective that's certified in fingerprint identification. In my department, which was smaller, we all were certified in fingerprint identification. You had to go to the University of Rhode Island and get approval, your certifications in order to be a detective. So it can be done. And I will say that 18 prints to 20 prints of people that are known where you can get good prints for them, it honestly shouldn't take longer than a week. Now, that's what I'm saying. My guess is that they didn't have any good prints that weren't identified to someone else. It was either smudged or for all we know, they didn't find any additional prints because the offenders were prepared and had something on their hands. Well, I don't want to get too far ahead with the

fingerprints, but they did find additional prints. And I will say that something that is, I think, a hallmark of this case at this point is how much the police have kept to themselves even after this long. So it's kind of one of those things where maybe they could have found a fingerprint that led them to somebody, but maybe they couldn't find anything else, you know, so there really wasn't enough. Like maybe that person had a reason or claimed to be in the house at a different time or this, this or that. You know, they'd only been there two months. So there could still be, honestly, I think fingerprints left over from the previous resident too. Do you think like after only being there for two months? It's possible. I can't rule it out completely yet. I mean, it definitely could be depending

on the oils, depending on the area of the house, how well it was preserved. Yeah. And one more wrinkle to add to it. Here's the thing. Yes, there is a fingerprint identification system. It's called APHIS. So if the person that had committed this crime or who was involved has been arrested before their prints are in aphos but if this individual has never been arrested before there is a potential where law enforcement found a fingerprint wasn't able to match it to anyone but still doesn't know who the offender is and unless they know who that person is they can't take his or her prints and then compare it to the print they have. So it could be a situation where, like you're saying, they're holding everything so close to the chest, they may have a fingerprint that they're holding onto right now and just waiting for a good lead or a potential person

of interest that they can bring them in, print them, and all of a sudden they might have a match and that person has no reason for being in that house at any point in time. Yeah. And I think that they could have a fingerprint that they did have a tie to or they did know who it belonged to, but at the same time, they may not have anything else. And they're not going to release that person's name to the public unless they have verifiable proof that they can say this person absolutely had something to do with these three women disappearing because they don't want everybody to go on a witch hunt. And we've seen that before

where the police will kind of know who they're looking for or have an idea, but they're not telling everybody because they don't want it to turn into, you know, what so many of these cases turn into as soon as the police name a person of interest. It's just a wild kind of goose chase and then everybody gets involved. So it could be a lot of things, but we'll talk about the fingerprints a little later on. The police started by contacting friends and associates of Cheryl, Susie, and Stacey, and they assigned 30 Springfield police officers and detectives to work on the case around the clock. On Tuesday, June 9th, the FBI got involved. And this is very quickly into the investigation. Usually you'll see that a lot of local departments wait a little bit longer

to get the FBI involved. They kind of want to show that they can do it themselves. But I will give the Springfield Police Department credit here. They brought them in right away. And this would give law enforcement the ability to interview out-of-state relatives and to also have access to the federal government's lab and expertise, which will probably help with the forensics and the fingerprinting and things. 100%. On Wednesday, June 10th, Cheryl's mother and father, Jim and Beulah Williams, arrived in town from Bellevue, Washington to help with the search. And the next day, Thursday, June 11th, Susie's 27-year-old brother, Bart Streeter, took and passed a polygraph exam, and the police announced that they would be giving polygraphs to two of Susie's ex-boyfriends as well. But the

police also said that none of the men were being considered suspects. They were just trying to verify their whereabouts at the time the three women went missing on late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. Now, Bart's alibi apparently was that he had been home, he had been drinking heavily on that night, Saturday, June 6th, and he'd passed out. We looked at her brother because there'd been some problems there somewhere that I don't know if it's true or false. Worsham is talking about Bart Streeter, Susie's brother. His alibi at the time of the disappearance apparently checked out. So apparently because Bart had been estranged from his mother and sister

and he was also struggling with alcoholism, he was known to kind of drink a lot. He was a big partier. He was a big focus initially, more for the public than the police, I would say. Captain Tony Glenn said that he felt it was important to talk to Bart because Bart would know his mother and sister best. And Glenn, Captain Tony Glenn, he also said, quote, he and the McCall family have bent over backwards. He's been here every day, every evening. He comes here on his lunch hour. I see absolutely nothing suspicious about his behavior. He's like the

McCalls, very concerned." But on this same day, the television program 48 Hours began filming the investigation, and they painted a somewhat different picture of Bart, his mother Cheryl, and his sister Susie. Stacey's parents, Janice and Stu McCall, had been very active in the days after the three women went missing. They were talking to the media, putting up posters, and they worked closely with the 48 Hours crew. 48 Hours was apparently already in the area because they were doing a feature on Route 66 and they had heard about the disappearances. Producer John Klein told the Springfield Newsleader, quote, We were looking for interesting stories in towns along Route 66, and this seemed pretty interesting, end quote.

Years later, Bart Streeter wrote about this episode of 48 Hours, saying, quote, I've only watched this show a few times. I was horrified the first time I saw it in 1992. As I watched it today, 20 plus years later, I have a clearer understanding as to the challenges we faced back then. This TV show was filmed during the first couple of days and into the next three weeks of the abductions of my mother, sister, and Stacey McCall. What you see is one family being treated as co-victims of a horrible crime. They are given support, respect, sympathy, and inside access to law enforcement.

You will also see another family, mine, being treated in a disparaging, derogatory, and suspicious way. The blatant insinuations made by Detective David Asher towards my mother and sister's lifestyles and choices are hard to miss. I, of all people, understand media spin and would be more than willing to excuse it as such. However, I was right in the middle of this investigation. Being considered an early suspect was logical at the time, and I was willing to do whatever was needed to clear myself and have them move on and find my family. I was suspected, investigated, and dismissed. I then allowed myself to be marginalized by the shame of being a shitty son and brother, that part I own. However,

why was there a need to choose sides in the situation? And it was done, no spin needed by the media." So I located this episode on YouTube online. It's really poor quality. It's like blurry. It looks like somebody recorded it on their phone from the TV. But it really is very much leaning towards the whole like Susie and her mother Cheryl were the targets and focusing a lot on like their background and how they could be connected and making a lot of claims about drugs and things and just kind of making like wild speculations, which I was a little disappointed about as far as like 48 hours goes, because they're usually supposed to be considered like reputable, I believe. But they really focus that the disappearance has happened because of Cheryl Levitt and Susie Streeter. Nå er det en stort skam, men det er en stort skam. Takk for at du så med. Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag. Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag. Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag.

Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag. Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag. Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag. Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag. Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag. Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag. Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag. Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag.

Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag. Det er en av de fleste som har vært med i dag. Det er en av de flestere utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Vi har sett at det er visskålige å ta ut av seg det kvar som sko, men det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag.

Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag.

Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Det er en av de større utfordringer som vi har sett i dag. Okay, so in that clip, you heard them say that they tracked down two of three of Cheryl's ex-husbands. So she was actually married before Brent Streeter. And they found that out when they were looking into her background. But I suppose it was like really brief. And they already said they don't think that that guy had anything to do with it.

But you saw kind of a clip of Brent Streeter or heard, if you're just listening, a clip of Brent Streeter telling them to basically go away. And the detective says, oh, he told me, look into Bart. Look into Bart. What do you think about that? I mean, I think the tech guys are already doing that. It doesn't seem like he was part of their lives. So there's definitely some substance to it, but why? Why look into him? Okay. Look into Bart. Why? Do you think Bart had something directly to do with it? Or do you think because the people that Bart was associated with

and maybe the dealings he was, whether it was narcotics or whatever he was into, maybe that could be the connection. Sure. But that's a really general statement to make. Yeah, of course, we're going to look into the brother. I mean, it's part of our investigation. Give us the why. How are we going to connect Bart to it if he is involved? That's what we need to know. And I don't, based on what I'm hearing, doesn't sound like this guy would have that connection because he hasn't been around. Do you think it's a little weird that the detective in there, he's like, oh yeah, he told me to like, look at Bart, you know, like, is it, that's kind of unprofessional, isn't it? You know, especially since this kid has already taken and passed like a polygraph exam because

48 hours comes into town the day that Bart Streeter passes his polygraph test. They say he's not a suspect. You got the police chief, Tony Glenn, saying nothing he's doing is suspicious. He's very upset. And then you got this guy, I think it's Detective Asher over there, saying like, oh, well, the father said we needed to look into, you know, Bart. Yeah, not the most professional thing. Not the most professional. I mean, it's an open investigation. Why are you sharing anything that the father said with media? So no,

I didn't love it. Yeah, because there's going to be a big back and forth and kind of a rift that forms between a few of the police officers, a few of the detectives and Bart Streeter. And you can hear, you know, that at the end of the clip, Detective Asher says they're just grasping at straws by this point because there wasn't a lot to go on. But before we continue, let's take a quick break. Susie's ex-boyfriend, Mike Kovacs, was also given a polygraph exam, and he also passed. Now, if you remember from the first part, Mike was the boy that Susie had been dating a few years prior who had admitted to, you know, having some physical violence in the relationship.

Susie had filed a restraining order against Mike, claiming, quote, I am afraid of respondent, and there is an immediate and present danger of abuse to me, end quote. Mike Kovacs claimed that these allegations were not true. He said he didn't threaten her or stalk her. He didn't slash her tires. And he said, quote, after we broke up, I never spoke to her again. I couldn't have done those things because I didn't talk to her, end quote. I mean, you don't have to talk to her to like stalk her and slash her tires. But OK, after he passed his polygraph test, the police announced that he had been eliminated as a primary suspect. But there was definitely a restraining order on file. There's

proof of this. And at the North Park Fitness Center, where Susie worked part time, co-workers claimed she often talked about being afraid of Mike Kovacs. However, Susie got that restraining order at the end of October, and it was a 10-day restraining order, and she was supposed to appear in court on November 5th to extend the 10-day restraining order, and she never showed up. Even though Mike passed the polygraph, police did claim he had no substantial alibi for the time of the disappearance, and he had claimed he was home alone. Now, Mike's grandmother, who had lived with Susie and Mike for a few months the previous summer, she told the Springfield Newsleader, quote, Susie just wanted a place to get away from her mother.

Sometimes when you're a teenager, the apron strings are just too tight. He never really hurt her. They would scuffle around a bit. It was sort of like him just pushing her around and physically shoving her away from him. End quote. Mike's grandmother also said that the fights would usually start because Susie would try to slap Mike. And she said, quote, you know, naturally when that happens, your natural impulse is to strike back. He was a growing boy and maybe sometimes he'd shove her too hard and she'd go into the furniture or something. Mike's still a kid, remember? You've got to be pretty grown up to know you just don't hit a woman, end quote.

Oh man, when I was reading these quotes, I was stunned. I was like, I know it's not that like long ago. This is 1992. Have things really changed that drastically from the early 90s till now where a woman can literally just go in the newspaper and say, no, you have to be a grown up to know that you don't hit women. Isn't that something you're supposed to teach children early so that they grow up to know that you don't do that? By the time he's 15, 16, 17, I feel like Mike Kovacs should be pretty well aware that you're not supposed to hit your girlfriend. I don't think

that's a reach. I think you're right. And then later, a couple of months later, I saw another because I went through all the news articles for this. I saw another one and there was this columnist like, I take a big issue with Mike Kovacs' grandmother's comments. But regardless, you know, police captain Tony Glenn made sure to specify to the media that Susie had problems with a few of her past boyfriends, not just one of them. I still think, and I don't think it's talked about enough, I would still personally consider Mike Kovacs a potential suspect. And on a lot of the suspect lists that come out, he's not really mentioned, but I would still consider him a potential suspect.

They don't have an alibi for him at that time. He clearly has some anger issues. He's like, no, I never did any of that stuff. But Susie went to the police station with her mother to take out a restraining order on him. So I don't understand why they would do that if he wasn't actually threatening her and slashing her tires and harassing her at home and school and work. It doesn't really make sense. And for him to just completely deny it happened seems more suspicious to me than anything. So I'm not quite sure why he's not considered higher on suspect lists. But like Captain Tony Glenn said, there were other boyfriends they were looking into, and it was announced that the police were questioning another ex-boyfriend of Susie's, a 29-year-old man named Dustin Reckla, who had broken into a

mausoleum at Springfield's Maple Park Cemetery on February 1st, 1992. He had then stolen the gold fillings from the teeth of a skull, along with his two friends, Michael Clay and Joseph Rydell. Reportedly, they were then paid $30 for the fillings at a local pawn shop. Apparently, Susie had broken up with Dustin after she found out he had done this, and she gave a statement to the police who were investigating the vandalism on March 5th, 1992. Now, that's when she gave the statement to the police, March 5, 1992. At the time of her disappearance, Susie had been preparing to testify against Dustin and his friends, and Dustin and Michael had been released so that they could wait for their trial. Susie was telling friends she was nervous about having to testify against them.

After Susie vanished, people who knew Dustin and Michael told police that both men had expressed their wish that Susie would die, and when she went missing along with her mother and her friend, they reportedly said that they hoped all three women were dead. They were brought in for questioning, but eventually they were released after it was discovered that they had alibis. But here's the weird thing that I really can't seem to figure out. I've actually been trying to contact someone who's familiar with the case, hoping it can be cleared up for me. But current law enforcement, like I said, they're very tight

lipped on it. I can't find any contact information for Susie's brother, Bart Streeter, because he seems very active on like the web sleuth threads and stuff. Bart, he's in there answering questions and stuff. But Michael Clay, who was at the cemetery with Dustin when they broke into that mausoleum, he's also been active on some web sleuth threads. And he claims that Dustin didn't even really take part in the grave robbing. He simply stood outside while Mike and Joseph Riddell went inside. And his only real involvement was using his ID to pawn the gold. Mike claims they didn't go out in the night planning

to rob graves. He said, quote, we were walking through the cemetery and I pointed out the window in the crypt is unbreakable plexiglass. Joe took it as a challenge, picked up a big rock and smashed it against the plexiglass until it fell in the crypt. Then he climbed in. End quote. Mike says that both he and Dustin were at the Cyanide Rainbow show that night. Apparently Cyanide Rainbow, it took me forever to figure this out because they're not a band anymore. And they stopped going by that name in 1994, just two years later, but they were a band.

So there was a show that night. Dustin and Mike were at the show. And when it let out at 2 a.m., they both went to Mike's sister's house for the rest of the night. However, that's what Mike says on Web Sleuths. But in that documentary, there's a documentary on the case. I think Investigation Discovery did it. Detective David Asher claims that Dustin Reckla was passed out on Commercial Street for his alibi, which is on the other side of town from Mike's sister's house. So that's kind of why I'm trying to get in contact with somebody and see which alibi is the real alibi or if there really is an alibi. And it looks like Mike's wife is also on Web Sleuth

threads. She's often on the same ones as Mike. And she said that Dustin would have no motive to hurt Susie and no reason to be angry with her. It was Joe Rydell who talked too much at a party and that led them to being caught in the first place. And it was Joe who took a plea deal to testify against Mike and Dustin in order to avoid jail time. Now, it looks like while Michael Clay and Joseph Rydell were out on bail, they left town shortly after the disappearances. Michael Clay hitchhiked to California and Rydell went home to Illinois. And that's when he was, you know, telling friends at a party what he and Clay and Rekla had done. Dustin was the only one who stayed in town. He

apparently went to like memorial services and remembrances for the three women. And the three men were eventually cleared of being involved with the disappearances. But it kind of seems as if this was done as if. Many people were witnesses or had heard about it and were talked to by the police. And Susie was just one of them. And he said that her involvement with it had nothing to do with her disappearance. But a lot of people have a hard time believing that, especially when you have three women who've disappeared and you don't have a motive and you don't know why and you don't really know what happened. What do you make of that? Well, I think it's a couple of things. I understand where he's coming from, where if she wasn't a pivotal part of the case where their possible incarceration hinged on her testimony, I could see how people might have a hard time with it because as humans, whenever it's an unsolved case, we have a hard time with it because as humans, whenever it's an unsolved case, we have a hard

time accepting just, we don't know when it comes to the disappearance or death of another human being. So I don't necessarily disagree with the detective as far as this being the motive to capture and potentially kill three women because this individual Susie was one of many witnesses that resulted in their arrest. However, there was another motive that I was thinking about, and this is speculative on my part because I don't know the nature of their relationship with Susie while they were together, or what their relationship was like afterwards. Were they possessive? Were they jealous? Were there any conversations where they were violent or aggressive towards Susie because they had heard she was dating or talking to another person?

So I think about motive from that sense. And I think about what happened that night. And what we know is that Susie had been at a party for a little while or multiple parties for a little while that evening. And I wonder what event a lot of that evening. And I wonder what event, a lot of people were drinking. I wonder what took place at those parties. Was she talking to another man? Did someone at the party see Susie who knew Mike Kovacs or knew Dustin and maybe told them, you know, over the phone or in person or text or whatever. And so could that have

heightened their awareness and aggravated them and caused them to go over to where Susie was staying that night to confront her? Maybe. It still seems like a far fetch to me, but that motive seems more plausible than the idea that she was a witness in a case like this. And that would be the reason to to take her. So here's another thing, right? This happened. So Susie is talking to the police about this on in March and she goes missing in June. So it's really not that long between, you know, when they broke up, when she's kind of going to the police and when she's graduating and goes missing. Yeah, it's three months. I had to count on my fingers because I'm a child, but it's it's three months. That's not a long time. So you could be on to and threatening her and stalking her and flashing her tires and things like that allegedly allegedly right that's what she claims

in the police report and and she got a restraining order against him so i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that i believe it happened allegedly but then you have this and the point is that's really thin still because what a what a complete that's why i brought up the theory is that's really thin still because what a, what a complete, that's why I brought up the theory, but it's like, even that is a big escalation from, okay, you're jealous of her being out at a party and it leads to you kidnapping three women. It just seems like that's a, that's, that's really escalating a situation. I could see him going over there and confronting them and maybe there being an argument and police being called, but this is serious stuff all for her being at a party. So I just want to put it out there that although I gave it as a theory, I also don't think that's very likely. Of course, it's a big escalation, but I feel like abducting three people is a big escalation from anything. So I kind of just, I guess, take issue with Toni Glenn saying

that her involvement with whatever was going on with Dustin Reckla had nothing to do with her disappearance. Because at this point, it's like, you don't know why she disappeared. So for you to make this blanket generalized statement that A has nothing to do with B is not really something you can make so wholeheartedly, I guess. Like, I guess you want to keep your options open and keep your mind open. Because like you said, we don't know what kind of relationship Dustin and Susie had. We don't know how their breakup was. We don't know how they were after the breakup. We're not sure of any of that. So it could be connected even to the point, which we'll discuss in the next episode when we talk about suspects,

that maybe Dustin knew somebody and had mentioned, you know, Susie's doing this. I hate her. I can't believe she's testifying against me. And then here, especially because you might not have a super good alibi. And according to the sources I've read with one person saying the alibi was this and another person saying the alibi was this, what is the real alibi? Yeah. My takeaway so far is I can see why this case isn't solved because they really, at this point, don't have anything substantial. They have a couple people who, yeah, maybes, but nothing that's really like popping off the page to me. Exactly. And that's because there was really no evidence left behind. So even if you had strong suspicions, you don't have anything physical to tie anybody to. To connect them. You need a confession or like a witness of some sort to even do anything with it. Yeah. Yeah, you're not wrong. On Friday,

June 12th, the police conducted a search at the Boulevard Road apartments. They were led to this address after an anonymous call directed police to a newsstand where they found a hand-drawn map of the apartment complex. And on the map, the words, use ruse of gas man checking for leaks were written. Now, afterwards, law enforcement announced that they'd found nothing at the apartment complex. The map had been a bogus tip. That same day, six divers searched the shores of Springfield Lake, as well as portions of the James River, and police asked the public to help locate two vehicles, a burgundy Toyota Supra and a dark blue 19-foot Dodge van that had been converted into a motorhome. And both of these vehicles had been stolen in Springfield the same night that Cheryl,

Susie, and Stacey had disappeared. Now, I'm going to make a long story short. It turned out that these two vehicles were not connected. They found them. They figured out why they'd been stolen, etc., etc. Not connected to the disappearances, but there are some vehicles we're going to talk about in a moment that may be connected. And I'm really not going to get too in-depth on the search. Just know that everyone was searching, right? The police, the FBI, volunteers, everyone for a long time. They searched everywhere. They went out on horseback, all terrain vehicles. They had people looking through wooded areas by areas of water. They were on top of it. And in a few months when hunting season started, they let everyone know, like all the hunters that were out there, because you've got people now who are kind of going into areas of the wilderness that mostly wouldn't be traveled during non-hunting season.

So they told the hunters, you know, keep a lookout for, unfortunately, bodies because as the months went on, they think they're looking for the remains of these women. They're not really looking for them alive anymore. And there have been cases where hunters would stumble upon remains because they're out in the wilderness. They're out in these isolated areas that somebody might drop a body thinking nobody's going to find it it at least for not a long time and as they were searching clues were coming in and leads were coming in and claims that one or all three of the women had been seen were also coming in one lead the police focused heavily on for a while were sightings of a man who had been seen three times in the space of two days around cheryl levitt's. He was described as a transient

man who was about 5 feet 9 inches tall, 145 pounds, with shoulder-length reddish-brown hair, and a freckled tan complexion. He'd been reportedly seen standing near Cheryl's house on Friday, June 6th, from 8.45 to 9 a.m. He was seen again that same day sitting on a grassy area near the house from 3 p.m. to 3.15 p.m. and again sitting on that same grassy area on Saturday, June 7th, around 11 a.m. Police released a composite sketch of what the man looked like, and they got hundreds of calls from people claiming to have seen him, but they never really located this guy or were able to talk to him. And I remember a lot of the articles, they kept talking about it. And one of the police officers is like, well,

we just can't figure out why he was in this area for such an extended period of time. But I don't know if that's really an extended period of time. It's more concerning to me that he's repeatedly in the same area because it seems like he's just in the area for about 15 minutes each time. But they also received a call from a woman who had lived at 1717 East Delmar Street right before Cheryl and Susie moved in. 63-year-old Sadie Roff had been renting the house from Dan Roff, her son and the owner of the property. She had lived there for roughly five years, and she said that the neighborhood was generally safe,

but she had noticed an increase in alarming activity. Sadie claimed that three years prior, a strange man had been peeping through the window of the carport while she and her sister had been inside. It had scared the two women, but the man had run away before anyone could apprehend him. Sadie also said that a year and a half after that, she'd been home alone when she heard the screen door that led from the carport into her house open. She had yelled out and asked if someone was there, and she'd heard a man's voice ask if anyone was home. Sadie went to the door and found a man standing in her carport, stating, quote, it was an awful looking guy too,

he was just a dirty old looking guy, end quote. According to Sadie, this man asked her if he could mow her lawn, and Sadie told him no, and then she asked him why he had tried to get into her house. He told her he had thought that no one was home, and she told him that it didn't give him the right to try and get into her house. She said the man left quickly after this, but the incident left Sadie shaken because she lived all alone. Sadie also stated that a parking lot of a small shopping center, which was located behind 1717 East Del Mar, had become a regular weekend hangout for what she called transients and partiers. Sadie Roth said, quote, It was not only summer, it was all the time,

all the time, almost every Friday and Saturday nights. I'd see cars back there and pickups passing things from car to car, you know, partying. I don't know if they were passing drugs or booze or what. I'm suspicious, so I always assumed it was drugs. But as long as they didn't bother me, I didn't bother them, end quote. Sadie also said that a few years before she had moved out, she had looked out her window at 2 a.m. and she'd seen a dark car parked in the grass behind the dentist's office next door. So if you remember, 1717 East Delmar, there's a fence right there. And then next to it is a little parking lot in a dentist's office.

So Sadie sees a car parked there at 2 a.m. And she believed that it was parked in that specific area because it couldn't be seen from the street. She called the police, and they arrived within 10 minutes. They examined the car and the surrounding area, but they found no one. Sadie claims that at noon the next day, she saw a 20-year-old blonde man walk up and drive the car away. Additionally, a neighbor of Sadie's and a former police officer, Kurt Nagel, who had lived at 1705 East Delmar for 10 years, claimed that he too had ended up selling his house because of a change in the area. He said, quote, it was a nice neighborhood, but over the past

couple of years, the area behind our houses had really become a place for transients, end quote. Nagel said that strange people and prowlers had even been lurking around in his yard on occasion, but he also said he believed they were just homeless types, stating, quote, "...not the type of person who would be capable of abducting three people at once, not even one, much less three. If you think about it, it takes some doing to get three people out of a house." Yeah, I have a lot to say on this. And we talked about it a little bit earlier today, but before we do, let's take a quick break. So we're back from break. This is a really fascinating section that we're getting into

because I do think there might be some truth to this, but not necessarily these characters that we're talking about, which is kind of what you ended that segment on right before break where you can have these transients going around, individuals who are in the area. I even saw some comments where there was supposedly a peeping Tom in the area that people called the police on right before this disappearance. That being the case, if it were someone, and I did say in episode one, I do believe there's a strong potential that the reason they haven't found out what happened to these three women yet is because the person who did it is not directly connected to them. And that's kind of where the theory of

whatever happened between the ride from the initial house, Janelle's house over to Cheryl's house, there might've been an encounter or someone who observed the two girls on their way home. And that may be a reason why we don't know who the person is. It also could have been someone who was just lurking in the area at the time. But to the point that was made by Kurt, Kurt right before break there, I find it hard to believe, not impossible, nothing's impossible, right? But I find it hard to believe that some transient who happened to see two young women walking into a home would carry out an abduction like this, a kidnapping like this without leaving behind evidence or having there be more signs of a struggle in the house itself. Also, I believe

that it was probably more than one person who carried out this attack because to control three women at once would be very difficult. You and I were talking off the record, not even off the record, but earlier today, there were other points of egress in that house. And I could see how one person hears some struggle going on in the other room and they exit through a side door or the door that was in the bedroom and they can go run for help or run into the woods, whatever. There's none of that. It seems like whatever happened, these women just voluntarily went because again, if they were subdued or they had been hurt before leaving and rendered unconscious or something, there would be signs of that.

There would be indications of that, or at least indications of someone cleaning it up to try to cover their tracks. There is nothing. It looks like these three women walked out on their own two feet. And so, yes, it could be multiple people. On the other hand, it could be one person who was in possession of a gun or a knife. But that goes back to the possibility of this being like a homeless person or something. In my experience, not saying it's impossible, they may have a knife on them for protection, you know, when they're living on

the streets, but they usually don't have guns in their possession. If they have a gun, they're selling it for money to buy whatever they need, whether that's food or drugs or whatever the situation might be. So I do believe there's a strong possibility that it was someone not directly connected to these girls, but I also don't believe it was just some transient who happened to be walking by the house and saw the girls entering the house, decided to wait, knocked out the light, and then entered and carried out this kidnapping without any trace of evidence left behind. It sounds almost professional to me. So here's the way I was thinking about it. First of all, I, for some reason, was this many years old when I found out that transient meant homeless.

I had never heard that term used before. And like an idiot, I had to look it up. I was like, what's transient mean? I'm not sure why we don't use it anymore or if there's some specific reason. But what I kind of saw first when I was thinking of homeless people was like people who don't have homes and probably also don't have vehicles. So when she was talking about them being in the back parking lot, being in trucks and cars, passing drugs and booze, I was kind of like, are those the same people? Like, are they just partying people like local teens or are they also the transients? And it turns out

after reading like multiple articles about this, those were the transients. These homeless people sometimes have vehicles apparently in this area and they kind of live out of their vehicles. And it also seemed like there was a lot of guns around. One of the benefits of going through all of these news articles at this time, it kind of allowed me to see what else was going on in Springfield at the time of these disappearances. And there was a lot of stuff going on. I couldn't believe how much crime was happening in Springfield, Missouri at that time. I was a little stunned because I did kind of see it like a small town. And, you know, we had some comments say, no, it's not a small town. It's actually a big city. So I guess like a big city with a small town feel where everybody is very tight knit. But at the same time, like there's

a lot of crime happening here. And there was a lot of guns floating around at this time. So a gun could have been stolen by one of these people from another home invasion. There was a lot of robberies happening around this time. Every single time I pulled up an article, there was another robbery being reported so that's possible so maybe one person with a gun like you said that's exactly where my mind went and he would have had to have had the gun on one of the girls in order for cheryl to cooperate and go without a struggle right right um i agree with that and we were also talking about what other things could have potentially happened that there was either multiple people who were involved in this that the women may not have

known, but enough there to kind of scare them into not trying to run away or not trying to fight back. Or it was somebody that they did know who they were not threatened by, who came in maybe and said, oh, something happened. There's a fire at this house. We got to go real quick, get in the car. And they all ran out, leaving the TV on, leaving everything as it was, and just got in this person's car and drove away, not knowing that the person had

nefarious intentions. Those are really the three options I think could be possible, because I don't even think someone having a knife would be enough. With a knife, at least, you think I can throw something at his head. I can do this. I can do that. There's less threat there, I think, with a knife. But either way, I don't know how plausible the homeless person thing is. But once again, when we were talking on the phone, we don't really know what motive a homeless person would have to take three women. You'd think they'd want to take the money or stuff they could pawn, stuff that they could get money from. What do they have to gain by taking three women and not even asking for a ransom or anything? What's the point in that?

That's the crazy thing about this. And I actually went back and I looked at the photo of Cheryl's house because I was hoping the driveway was dirt. And again, something they would have done, especially the FBI, but look for tire tread marks, something that doesn't match the vehicles that are in the driveway, maybe a fourth vehicle that's not identified. But back to what you just said, I've been kind of trying to wrap my brain around that because we're getting a little sidetracked, but it is relevant here, right? Let's do this. Let's speculate a little bit as we're trying to think about scenarios. As bad as this is going to sound, it's kind of an optimistic way of looking at it if anybody's family who's connected to this

is looking at this or listening to this. I do think it creates a lot of hope that they could still be alive, honestly. And I'll tell you why. Because one reason you would take them is if you had a place to take them where you planned on. I'm not saying they're in a good situation, but this was something that was going to be reoccurring.

Something where you wanted to keep them around for an extended period of time. Because to what you were just saying, you take them out of the house, you run so much risk, you don't steal anything from the house. And let's just be, we're all adults here. So let's play this out. If you want to go in there and it's for sexual reasons, the rape could have occurred at the house.

It could have happened right there. You do it, you're out, a la Golden State Killer, all these cases where they're not taking them to another location, which increases the chances of being caught. But the fact that they took the three of them, to me, could suggest the idea that they were taking them somewhere because they had a place to take them. And yes, there's obviously the worst case scenario is that they took them somewhere and they were unfortunately killed, but there's also a real possibility that they were taken up to a cabin somewhere that this person owned that's way off the beaten path where they could still be alive today, which I know is a long shot, but it'd be

foolish of us not to acknowledge that that's a possibility And that's why they were taken. Yeah, I think that they may have been kept alive for a little while But I don't think that there's any possibility they'd be kept alive this long because there's too much risk there of one of them Escaping of somebody stumbling. I mean it's been 30 years So yeah, cheryl would be like in her 70s. I know cheryl would be older but The girls would be what in their 40s. I know Cheryl would be older, but the girls would be what in their forties. Yeah. Unless we have some sort of like, you know, like, um, what do they call it? Stockholm syndrome situation where you eventually just start to identify with your captor, but.

Or they might be so far off the beaten path that they just like, there's no way to even find out there where they are, their orientation. And I know it's a long shot. I know it's not likely, but I just wanted to throw it out there because I can't remember where it was. I only remember the fact that I think it was like 10 years where these women were captured. It was like national news. What was that case where they found three women who had been, you know what I'm talking

about? Where the one man, he was on national TV. Oh, his name's like Ariel Castro, right? Yes. It was like a funny interview almost like he was, but that case, those women, I can't remember how long they were in, they were captured for, but it was like a long time. Yes. And these women were presumed dead. So although it's not likely situations like that prove that anything's possible and it may be impossible until it's done.

So who knows? Maybe you and I are talking a year from now and one of these women or more than one of them are still alive somewhere. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, that would be, I suppose, I don't know if it's the best case scenario or the worst case scenario. Exactly.

Such a weird thing to say, right? I don't even know. I would probably not want to be. I'd rather be dead, I think, in that situation. But I was also thinking, let's say that Cheryl was the target, right? And whoever went to that house thought that Stacy and Susie were going to be spending the night at someplace else because they had a graduation party. So Cheryl would have told this person like, oh, my daughter's going to be out of the house.

So he went there thinking she was alone. Maybe he brought some other people. He walks in and he's like, oh, crap, these two girls are here. Well, let's just take them to we can't. Wouldn't you see the cars? Wouldn't you see all the cars in the driveway, you think? Yeah, but he might think graduation parties, they might be drinking. They got a ride from their friend. I was told they weren't going to be here, you know, and then you figure out they are there. And now you got to do something and make a decision and you take all three. Cause I don't see what the motive is to take all three because you wouldn't have known that Stacey was going to be there. Susie and Stacey weren't supposed to be there.

Yeah. It's, that's, what's really crazy about this case. I think that's why people are so fascinated with it because the start of the crime just happened at the house. Whatever the motive was, it wasn't in that home. You know, as far as the women might have been what they were there for, but they didn't go there to rob the place. They didn't go there to inflict harm immediately to send a message to someone because all they did as far as this point of what we know is take them. So let's say they were trying to send a message to Bart or something like that. Right. What message did you send? It wasn't a clear message if you intended on sending a message to Bart or something like that. Right. What message did you send?

We don't, it wasn't a clear message if you intended on sending a message. No one even knows it's you. Exactly. Exactly. So that's like, if you want to leave a message, if we're being real here, you leave a message that's messy and clear and evident that you're upset and this is going to happen to you if you don't give us what we want. This is something different.

There's something more here. There's a piece of this puzzle that would probably connect the whole thing. Not only the person who did it, but the reason why they did it. And if we could figure it out just from talking about it, it wouldn't be just a podcast, would it? You know, it's, that's why people, including the FBI are stumped at this point. This is the reason why. Well, you know, we always say like they vanished without a trace and like, I guess, I guess that's true. They vanished without a reliable trace. Cause there's several sightings of Cheryl, Stacy and Susie, um, from after they went

missing. No, no, Here we go. Exactly. This is Lacey Peterson all over again. Yeah. And there's some sightings that I think are more valuable than others. So, for instance, this first sighting was by a guy named Steve Thompson. He was a clerk at the APCO A-Mart at 4140 South Fremont Avenue.

And he told the police that he believed he had seen both Susie and Stacey in the convenience store around 10.30 p.m. on the evening of Saturday, June 6th. So this would have been the evening of the graduation and the graduation parties. He said that they both bought some items and then they left in separate cars driving away in opposite directions. Later, Steve's going to sort of like elaborate on this and say, oh, one of them was with a man, this, this, and that. Now, Steve also said that he saw Cheryl Levitt early the next morning. He said she rushed into the mini mart at 2.15 a.m. on Sunday, June 7th, and asked if her daughter Susie and Susie's two friends had been there. When Steve said no,

Cheryl quickly rushed out. Now, there's a lot wrong with Steve Thompson's alleged sightings. First of all, if both Susie and Stacey had been in his store just hours before Cheryl came rushing in, why would he tell her that he hadn't seen them? I don't get that, right? Well, maybe he didn't know that there were, maybe after seeing photos of them later, after Cheryl came in, he realized that the two girls that been been in there around 10 30 were the women he was looking for maybe he said that she had suzy's picture and wouldn't you have been like oh yeah

there was a couple girls in here earlier you know you just want to look at this one to be like nope nope like yeah can't help you okay so so first have that, which it doesn't make sense. And then Janelle, Kirby, and many of Stacey and Susie's friends who had been with them that night, they said it was impossible for the two girls to have been at the A-Mart at 1030 that evening because they'd been at parties all night and they had never left Janelle's site from 830 p.m. until 2 a.m. Thirdly, friends of Cheryl's said she was not the type of person who would go running off into the middle of the night to look for her daughter without, you know, calling around first. Cheryl knew that Susie was supposedly sleeping at Janelle's house, yet she didn't call the Kirby home to find out if Susie had left. So I guess if we're thinking that this sighting has any validity to it, it would be after Susie and Stacey had gotten to Cheryl's house and

then something had happened to them and then Cheryl ran out looking for them. But it doesn't make any sense. And spoiler alert, the police would later say like, oh, there's nothing to these sightings, but no one ever says like, why, Steve Thompson? Why did you make this up? Because you clearly made it all up. And this is early on in the investigation. And I think that's absolutely disgusting that somebody would make up these specific sightings so early on in the investigation because as we'll find out later this took a lot of time and effort and resources for the police to like track this down and follow this lead that ended up being nothing a nothing burger as you call it a nothing burger that's definitely gonna go on a t-shirt by the way it's gotta um yeah and it what makes it more difficult is the fact that the second sighting would be in line with the potential that there's some validity to it, right? Because we know that Stacey and Susie left around that time. So that could actually line up and explain some things. So I don't want to go.

At first, I was going to say maybe this guy was just mistaken. But it feels like you know more that's going to prove that he was basically blatantly lying. How are you mistaken about that? Some woman who he said, like, oh, no, it was Cheryl Levitt because she comes in here all the time and buy cigarettes. So he wasn't just like someone a woman came in looking for kids. He was like Cheryl Levitt came in. She was freaking out. She had a picture like this is all so specific that you definitely made that up.

Steve Thompson. I'm not even going to say allegedly because I really believe he's just trying to interject himself in the story. Trying to be part of it. his reasoning was man at this point I'm about to add Steve Thompson to the list because that's that's horrible man yeah and again I'm assuming because of 1992 no cameras of course even if they're low quality no cameras at that time anymore okay had to ask so there was another sighting that was reported by a waitress at George's Steakhouse and this was reportedly one of, you know, Cheryl's favorite places to eat. I'm not sure why it's called a steakhouse because that gives me the wrong impression.

It was more like a diner, like a late night diner. It looked like it was open till 2 a.m. And, you know, I'm sure they should serve steak there, but so does, you know, Denny's. So I wouldn't call Denny's a steakhouse. But anyways, the waitress claimed that Cheryl and Susie had been there before, but they hadn't been there for several months, and she'd seen them come in with another young woman between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. on June 7th. The waitress said that she wasn't the only one who had seen them.

A man who was a regular had also spotted them, and he had talked to Cheryl for a few minutes. Allegedly, the three women came in together, they ate, they stayed for about 45 minutes before leaving together. The waitress said that Susie appeared to be giddy, possibly drunk, and Cheryl had been trying to calm her down. Now later it was discovered that the man who had been seen talking to the three women, who had reportedly been seen talking to them, he had not been there that night at all. And the police began to doubt that the waitress had seen Cheryl, Susie and Stacey that night.

Maybe she'd seen three other women, maybe it had been a different night, but the timeline just didn't add up and there was really no one else who could confirm it. And once again, yes, no cameras. but the timeline just didn't add up and there was really no one else who could confirm it and once again yes no cameras and you know the waitress says she wasn't the one who served them I'm not sure if the police asked the server who did have them for a table or if they checked like credit card receipts or anything like that or checked bank records to see if they'd been there that

night I'm not sure but it took a couple months for them to rule this out as an actual sighting. Now, another strange report that I don't often hear talked about when people cover this case, it concerns Cheryl's little dog, Cinnamon. So in articles about this case, Cinnamon's whereabouts and behaviors are described differently. Some say that the little dog was going wild when Janelle walked in. Some say that the dog was locked in a bathroom or a closet when Janelle arrived. I guess we'll never really know the true story of where Cinnamon was when Janelle and Susie and Stacey's friends got there. That would be important. You think, right? Right? Yeah. Incredibly important. The difference in that, those two statements that you just made

are tremendous, right? Was the dog freely walking around or was it locked in a bathroom or just even put in the bathroom? Just a little important. For obvious reasons, if the dog's locked in the bathroom, somebody put him or her, the cinnamon's a boy or a girl? Cinnamon's a girl. Okay. What up, girl? Cinnamon's locked in the Okay. What up, girl? Cinnamon's locked in the bathroom, maybe to keep her from barking or whatever the case may be, to keep her from maybe attacking a stranger, whatever's going on. Big difference there. So that is something, though, that police have to know the truth about. I know we don't. I know that you've said it numerous times that the police have kept this case very close to the chest, but I can promise you that they've interviewed Janelle. And I would like to think that Janelle would be able to remember, especially if she was interviewed at the time of the event. Hey, listen, when you walked in, did the dog run up to you or did you have to go into a room or into the bathroom and let the dog out? I would think that'd be something she'd be able to remember. They just haven't released it to us. So that's what sucks for us. But I

guarantee you, I guarantee it. The police know the answer to that question. So I'm like 95% sure that Cinnamon was not locked in a closet or a bathroom. I'm going to go ahead and say that because I also think that would be something important. I mean, the police have released details about the way the crime scene looked. I feel like they would have said like Cinnamon was locked in a closet or a bathroom. And I found a news report from early July 1992 where neighbors of Cheryl's claimed that they had seen Cinnamon twice, the very same night that the three women had vanished. A tiny black and tan terrier, matching Cinnamon's description, wearing no collar, showed up about a block from 1717 East Delmar Street around 10 p.m. on the evening of June 6th. It approached four

people who were sitting outside a house. The resident of the home said, quote, We pretty well know the people who have dogs in the area. We just didn't recognize it at all. It seemed very frightened. It wanted to climb up in our laps and be petted, end quote. According to this person, the four people showed the little dog some love and then placed it back on the street so it could find its way home. But several hours later, at around 3 a.m. on Sunday, July 7th, the homeowners were woken up when their own dog started barking. They went downstairs and found the same little dog from earlier that night. Apparently, the dog had managed to squeeze through the fence of their backyard, and it was sitting outside their back door.

Once again, the homeowners put the little dog outside of their property back on the street and they went back to bed and they didn't see the dog again. First of all, I do want to say that this is horrible. This is a little tiny dog. Keep it in your house till you find out who it belongs to. Why are you putting that dog in the street where it's going to get hit by a car? This dog is tiny. Okay. It's like, it's a little Yorkie, man.

They are babies. I have a Morkie and she's tiny she fits in my hand why do they keep putting this dog on the street man would you put the dog on the street derrick or would you take the dog inside and wait for its owner to come find it i would probably take the dog inside and well now we post it in my area we'll post it on facebook say anybody but you know not to get too off the track here i want to ask you some questions because i think you're going to be able to rule this out pretty quick sorry i'm not talking about the dog more i'm like i'm focused here so the dog was running around at 10 p.m it might have been something that was normal for cheryl but just refresh my memory what was the last time cheryl

was uh was heard from that was that she was texting or talking to someone on the phone saying she was doing some furniture stuff, right? What time was that? So that's the thing. Remember, we kind of went back and forth on that because different sources say different things. Some say 9.15 p.m., some say 11.15 p.m. Okay. So let's, for the sake of this conversation, go with 9.15, okay?

Because that would line up with the fact that the dog was let outside by someone else or ran out, whatever the case may be. We're starting to develop a timeline. So I know what you're going to say as far as, well, there's evidence that the girls went into the house and that they got dressed, they got changed, they might've got into their PJs, they looked like they were kind of ready for the next morning. So I know that that evidence suggests that when they entered the house, everything was fine. But just for the sake of saying, maybe we just can't explain why that looked like that.

Maybe that was placed that way by someone else. Is there a possibility that whatever happened in that home happened before Susie and Stacey arrived? Just play out the scenario where the last time Cheryl's heard from is at 915. Someone comes to the house for Cheryl or multiple people come to the house for Cheryl and they're inside the home. And while they're in the home, they might've already broken the light bulb or whatever. They enter the home. They have Cheryl subdued. And while they're there, they see a car pull into the driveway. They see two cars

pull into the driveway. So now they hide. I'm assuming there's a basement. I don't think so. No basement, nowhere to kind of disappear from. I know some houses, like my house, doesn't have a basement. It's a concrete slab. But while I can see you typing, but while you're typing, let's say there's a place for them to kind of disappear into, maybe Cheryl's room, something like that. And these women come in and either A, they're immediately confronted and the place is staged to look like they had been there and this was just a disappearance, or they're in the house for a period of time where they think Cheryl's just in her room sleeping because maybe her bedroom door is closed, not realizing that there's somebody in there with her. And then while they're getting ready for bed, because it is two o'clock in the morning, this person reemerges and now gets them

while they're at their least expecting moment because they're already in bed. And now instead of Cheryl opening the door like they think it could be, it's this person or multiple individuals. So just to put it out there, this individual may not have seen Susie and Stacey driving home. They may have already been there. Just something to throw out there. But wouldn't they have seen this person's car there unless that person parked somewhere else, like maybe the dentist's office and walked over? So that's very viable. He or they could have even waited for the girls to fall asleep in bed and then really take them. That's exactly. By surprise. And,

you know, there may be even a more innocent reason that we've got cinnamon out there, right? Friends and neighbors of Cheryl's confirmed that cinnamon was known to be spotted sometimes running the streets. Carol Johnson, she lived in a townhouse nearby. She said, quote, Cinnamon would scoot out the door the minute the door was opened. It would run over to our house every once in a while, end quote. Now, the same article reports that when friends went looking for Susie and Stacey in the morning of June 7th, Cinnamon was in the fenced-in backyard of 1717 East Delmar. So now we got a third location for Cinnamon. Cinnamon's not in a closet. Cinnamon's not in a bathroom. Cinnamon's not in the house running up to Janelle. Cinnamon's in the backyard. But I did find out that Cheryl had installed a doggy door so that Cinnamon could go

in and out as she pleased. But the doggy door led to the backyard, which was fenced in. So if Cinnamon was small enough to have squeezed through the fence of Cheryl's backyard and roamed the neighborhood, you know, like she was able to squeeze in through the fence of the neighbors so she could probably squeeze through the fence in Cheryl's backyard. Cinnamon was tiny. You know, it makes sense. So this could have been why she was always seen running the streets. I was thinking maybe Cinnamon was outside with Cheryl when Cheryl was like, you know, doing whatever she was doing to the piece of furniture in the carport, if that's what she was doing. And then while Cheryl was doing that, Cinnamon was kind of exploring, went over to the

neighbor's house. Then Cinnamon goes back. Cheryl gets the dog. They go inside. And then whatever happens to the three women at around 2.30 or 3, Cinnamon's alone in the house. So Cinnamon exits through the doggy door again, trying to figure out what the heck's going on. Where's my people? Squeezes through the fence again and ends up at the neighbor's house again. So what do you think?

Yeah, that's possible. And you have to add to the fact that Cheryl was outside working on furniture. So she's going in and out of the house. So there's a lot of potential there. And I'm not saying we discovered something here, but when you're trying to figure out what happened, you got to consider all options because sometimes the reason you're not able to get to the answer is because you're only thinking one dimensional where you almost got to go completely against what you might believe, which is, oh, the crime scene looks like they were all here and they were unsuspecting and they were in for the night.

And then, you know, it looks like someone just came in. Well, how about if the person was already there and they can change your whole thought process? I do want to say something. And John, you may have to clean this up, but what's interesting is I'm on this site and it's public. You guys can go look at it. Movoto.com.

I'm literally looking at it while we're on YouTube and while you're listening. And it looks like the house was recently up for sale or is up for sale right now. Actually, it's not for sale, but it's public record. And there are a ton of photos. So I'm looking at the whole house right now. And you can see the whole layout internally, all the rooms. Stephanie's looking at me. She might've already seen this, but basically why I'm going through it right now is I just want to see if there's a basement. I'm seeing the bedrooms. It looks like, doesn't look like there's a basement or if it's, there is a basement, they're not showing it because it's not finished, but it does appear if I had to guess.

That's what I was saying. I don't think there's a basement because I saw the pictures and usually it'll say like basement unfinished or finished it would it would make sense if we could find out where like the water heater was located things like that it says nice size laundry room extra storage room off main living area that's been used as an office in the past right um it doesn't say anything about a basement it doesn't even really say where the the utilities like the water heater and stuff would be kept. No, it doesn't. And that's why I'm thinking it could be in a utility closet on the main floor, but that does suggest that there might be a basement where that's where the

utilities are. However, regardless, we'll post this one picture up right here. I'm going to send John the link for this, but there is a photo it's the literally the second to last photo where you get to see the backyard kind of and you see like there's one door to kind of entrance up a little set of stairs and then there's like the double french doors which i would assume are the doors that you've been referring to as far as being susie's room so there's just there's multiple points of entry but there's also multiple points of egress which suggests that if they had a chance to flee they had multiple op they wouldn't be stuck in a bedroom right if they heard commotion out in the living room they could get out of there if they wanted to so whatever it was it appears to

be unsuspecting and and like i said it might have happened as soon as they walked in the house if this person was already there there's so many there's so many theories that are all equally plausible, but we'll throw up that one photo. But if you want to go check it out, you can get the whole layout that photos consider are actually pretty clear. So they must've been recent. They might've done some work to the interior a little bit, but it pretty much looks like the same. Yeah. They really haven't done any work. I listened to a podcast about this where she, the podcaster was actually from Springfield and she went and talked to the current owner and he said, no, this is pretty much exactly how it looked when we bought it.

We haven't done anything to it. This is what you see is what you get. But I want to say something more about cinnamon. One more thing about cinnamon. I don't find it super... Cinnamon. Oh my God, cinnamon. Cinnamon. I don't find it super suspicious that cinnamon was out and about around like 10, 15, but I'm a dog person. I've got three little dogs. I find it suspicious that cinnamon was out at 3am. Um, if everything was good with his owners at home, because when in my house, when I go to bed, my dogs go to bed with me. They aren't wandering around the house or going through the doggy door. They're coming to bed with me. They're getting in the bed. They're falling asleep. They can't wait for the time when I finally get into bed because they

won't go to bed without me. So I feel like at 3 a.m., if everything was good, if Cheryl was in bed sleeping, Cinnamon would have been with her. So that tells me that whatever happened, happened very shortly after the girls got home. Right. Or could have already been in the, they could have walked in on something. Right. But I agree with you when you're talking about a timeline, we know that whatever happened to the girls, whether it was walking in on something they weren't supposed to be there for or walking into the house, getting ready for bed. And then the suspect who's already inside approaches them. I agree with you. We're talking two to 3 AM. Maybe they get home around 2 15, whatever the case may be. Yeah. You're talking about a, which to me being a 45 minute to an hour window would suggest that this person might've already been there because if there

was someone that was outside and happened to be following them home, you would think they might wait a little bit longer if they had followed them home, maybe make sure they're asleep and in bed. 45 minutes isn't that long of a time. So a lot of scenarios. But yeah, I think cinnamon in that context is very important because it does give you a window of when the attack occurred or when this whole thing was carried out. Yeah, I agree. That's a very short time. If they left Janelle's at 2.15, they're home by 2.30, that's half an hour. And I think you're right. It does suggest that somebody

was already there. And yeah, which isn't really something that's talked about a lot. So as long as we have our timeline correct. Well, what does that tell us to? If we're right there, right right let's go down that path right if if that is the case and this person's already there one it could mean that maybe it was a homeless person or a transient who saw this woman by herself outside working on furniture nobody else around and decided to attack her or as some have suggested, which I think you're not on board with, maybe Cheryl had some enemies or was involved in something or Bart was involved in something where this person went there for Cheryl and Cheryl alone. I think both scenarios are equally

plausible. I mean, it's not that I'm not on board with it. It's just that they didn't find anything to suggest that, you know, as we're going to find out, they went very in depth into all three of these women's backgrounds and they couldn't find anything like that. And like we said, if there's somebody that's, you know, mad at Bart, then wouldn't they like kill Cheryl instead of just take her? Because now nobody knows. I do think it's interesting that just coincidentally, Cheryl happened to be outside that night working on a piece of furniture, which if someone's in the area with nefarious intentions, if they're watching her for a while, it would be a pretty good indicator to them that she's home alone. For sure. But that wouldn't be anybody who's connected to her background or anything she could help, right? It could have been that same guy who was seen two, three times around the

house and yeah, watching her. Exactly. Maybe getting obsessed with her, something like that, for sure. Goes in, attacks Cheryl unsuspectedly, attacks her, gets her when she's not looking for it, right? Gets her from behind or something. Once the girls come home, this person who's in there realizes Cheryl might already be in a position where she can't defend herself. They wait. They wait in her bedroom. They're probably not going to go into Cheryl's bedroom. Hey, we're home. It's 2.15 in the morning. It's plausible. Yeah, but wouldn't there be a sign of that? Like blood, signs of a struggle, something like that? If some kind of altercation went down or if he had like, you know, had to render, right? She's in there. And then they come in and then he or she escorts, I'm assuming it would have been a he, but it could be anyone.

So don't come for me for that. But then that person takes Cheryl with him or her to the other room while the girls are in bed. And now they're half asleep. Cheryl's got a gun to her back. I could see two young girls seeing a man in the room with a gun to their mother being frozen and not being able to run I couldn't imagine being in that situation and waking up to something like that so as the more you talk Stephanie I'm going to be honest with you the I'm sure you can feel it I'm leaning towards the idea that the broken bulb the window you know the light bulb on the outside, all this stuff, Cheryl being outside. If you made me choose right now, I would lean more towards whatever happened had already been underway when the girls got home.

Honestly, that's where I'm at right now. It's definitely possible. And I agree with you there that if the two girls were approached when Cheryl was not in play, they wouldn't have really done anything. They would have been shocked. They would have been not knowing what to do. Ieryl would have had to have been unconscious at that point because if she heard her daughter and stacy come home and the guy was like don't make a move or i'll stab you or shoot you i think she would have still screamed out to alert her daughter

that that someone was there she would have done whatever it took even sacrificed her own life to save her daughter i have a 20 year old daughter and would not, I don't care what you say to me. I'm going to let her know so she can run. I would say, Susie, run. Like I would scream it. And if I get shot or stabbed, then at least I know she's safe, but I'm not going to let this guy keep me hostage and not know what he's going to do to my daughter, which is, I'm assuming nothing good. What if he's got her taped up? What if he's got her taped up, bound? I mean, she could still make noises. Yeah, I think she would have had to been gagged or unconscious or something at that point yeah but that's very possible but to your point like oh well there's no sign of struggle or uh or an

assault or blood well maybe she hadn't been maybe she was tied up but that would kind of contradict what i'm saying though because i'm under the impression that this person didn't expect these girls to show up so this was an audible so he So he wouldn't have been tying Cheryl up unless he was planning on just taking her. I mean, that's possible. But if he was planning on doing something in the house and then had to call an audible because other people came home, then he wouldn't have, you know, he could have just covered her mouth with his hand. Yeah. So I don't know. Yeah. And maybe Cheryl doesn't scream. Yeah, that's possible. That's possible. But I still am leaning towards the idea based on the cinnamon thing. She does scream and they don't hear her.

Maybe the TV is still on when they come in. Maybe the movie is still playing when they come in. Well, you said it was right. That static is playing afterwards. TV definitely could have been on. The TV or whatever movie was in there was definitely playing before they left. So maybe she does try to scream when his hands over her mouth, but they don't hear her because they're talking, they're chatting, you know, they're coming off a high of graduation parties.

They're talking about going to the water park and next day they don't hear her maybe. Yeah. It's crazy to think like that, huh? Cause I came into this thinking, oh, they were all sound asleep, but that wouldn't make sense either. Cause like you had said in episode one, the TV was running. So whatever happened, happened unexpectedly. I don't think Cheryl or any of them are watching TV.

And when the movie ends, they're not shutting off the VCR, the TV, it stopped on it. It was still running. So whatever happened, happened abruptly. So I don't think, I think it's more likely that Cheryl at that point, she wasn't in bed when they got home. And then the reason I believe that is because of the VCR, whatever happened to her happened before she had a chance to get settled for the night. And I don't know if she still would have been up at two 15 watching a movie when they got home. Like, Hey girls. Yeah. Cause she doesn't know they're coming there. She doesn't know they're coming. I think it's more reasonable that something happened to her. TV was running when it happened. And then the girls come home, they might see that the TV is

running. And at that point they could have been attacked like before they even do it. And then the house could be set up to look like they were in bed. There might've been some clothes put out. Who knows? There's so many scenarios as far as what happened in that house. But I do think we can take a couple of things from this. Whatever happened, happened abruptly happened while Cheryl was probably still awake because the

TV. And as you pointed out with the, with cinnamon, with the girls, we know, we know that they left around 2.15 when they were still alive. And cinnamon being outside is the only real indicator that we have that maybe a door was left open or the dog was let out during the attack or whatever, so it wouldn't cause as

much noise. So that does give us a possibility of the window in which the attack occurred, which would suggest that more than likely when they came into the house, the attack happened almost immediately. Yeah. There's so many questions. There's so many questions. We could honestly talk about this one part for the next two hours. Because as you were talking, I came up with a bunch of other things. Well, what if this? Well, what if this? I know we're scrambling right now. Oh, man. It's like I don't even want to move on from it. Apologize. I know. But we're going off on a tangent here here i know we still got something to go and you're right we could do it but there's so much here in this one part that's i was like oh we got to get

to it and actually before you continue we probably should take our last break because we're getting we got one section to go we want to take a break again so real quick let's take our last break and then we'll finish the episode. So a sightingled Susie, and the witness also heard a male voice saying, okay, don't make any silly moves, back up and turn around, end quote. This voice was apparently coming from a man in the back seat. He was threatening the young woman in the driver's seat who appeared to be distressed. The witness said she hesitated and looked scared. The eyewitness also described the woman as having

a birthmark on her cheek. So along with that tumor on her lip, Susie also had a mark on her cheek, and it's hard to see in pictures you really don't see it in pictures because she usually had it covered up with makeup the police interviewed this eyewitness and they even had her hypnotized and the information seemed legitimate enough you know to the police at least to the point where they retrieved a similar looking white van from like the junkyard. They painted it green and they placed it in front of the police station so that everyone could see what it looked like in case, you know, someone had seen it driving around or would see it driving around. This is a vehicle that was seen

in the area of 1717 East Del Mar. Police received a tip from a woman who claims she saw a van being driven by a woman she thought was Susie Streeter the morning of the disappearance and heard a man yelling at the driver telling her to get out of there. Police searched thousands of vans. They posted the model all over the media, even painted one green and kept it outside the police department. Tips about the van and missing women kept flooding in. All right, I got to weigh in on this quick. This totally sounds believable to me and it lines up with what we're saying where the girls come into the house and this person

has a gun and that's why they're unable to, that's why they're cooperating. Because if he's in the backseat of the van, yeah, he probably has, he has Cheryl and he has Stacy, but how is he controlling them? Well, he's got a gun to him. So that's why she's cooperating. That's why she's not jumping out of the van and running to go get help or draw attention. So that lines up with everything we're saying as far as this guy goes there for one person, two others show up, he calls an audible and now he's taking them with him. He doesn't want to be the one driving

because they might see him and he can't control the women in the back. So he has to go into the van with the women in the back while keeping the driver, one of the other victims at gunpoint. The other thing about this is the fact that it doesn't sound like this was planned. Again, I don't think he would go into it saying, I'm going to have one of the victims drive my van. That wouldn't make a lot of sense. So this lines up to me.

It doesn't seem like this witness has any incentive. It all lines up with the limited amount of information we have about this case, as far as the timeline when the girls were last seen and when they were seen by this. And then also something you said, episode one, it does appear that when the girls came into the house, they kind of got ready for bed. Didn't you say something about makeup being removed? Yeah, there were two washcloths with makeup on them in the hamper. There you go. And so that you would see that mark a little bit more, it would be a little bit more prominent if she had to leave the house abruptly and didn't have time to put makeup back on, even though when she was out that night, earlier that night,

she did have makeup on. So she comes home, takes the makeup off. Then this happens. Obviously she didn't put makeup back on. so the fact that this witness pointed this out and yeah they could have gotten some information and saw some things but most of the photos that are out there about stacy at this point are probably showing her with makeup on so you're not really seeing that mark so for the fact the fact that this witness pointed that out is extremely significant and that's why law enforcement took it so seriously. Yeah. What do you mean when you say he calls an audible? Audible is a football term. I apologize. So a lot of times when a quarterback goes to the line to hike the ball, they have a play in mind when they go to the line and they're

up there and they're standing there and they're getting ready to hike the ball and do the play. But if they look across at the defense and the defense is in a position where it could stop the play immediately, they can call an audible, which changes the play while they're at the line. So he'll step back and say, okay, red flag, red flag. And all the other players know that that means play number two. So that's an audible. I apologize. Thank you for saying that. Cause I just assumed everyone knew, but yeah, that's basically changing the plan at the last minute. It's a very convoluted way of saying he changed his plan at the last minute. Well, I wanted to give you this. You know, you try to explain it to her, guys, and she gives you shit for it.

No, I appreciate it because you said it several times. And I said, oh, I think I didn't hear him correctly. And then you kept saying, I'm like, is it a police term? Like, if it is, I should know what it means. It's a football term. I'm going to start saying it though. Cause it sounds cool. Calls an audible.

I'm going to call an audible here and change everything. I'm actually surprised with how much you read and all that stuff that you haven't, but it is a sports term. So I guess you wouldn't, but have I heard audible is a very common term. So from now on, whenever we have plans to do something, I'm just going to be like audible and you'll know it's different. Well, that would be weird.

But if you say, hey, I'm calling an audible here, I'll actually appreciate it. So I agree with you as far as the birthmark goes or I think that's absolutely possible because we know Susie took off her makeup. This woman doesn't know

that she has this mark on her face. She was sure that, she was sure that you know she was sure of what she saw I should say so um she said that you know there was no one else that she could see in the van besides Susie and this man but that doesn't mean there was no nobody else in the van by the way I just want to say that like they could have been laid down they could have been tied up it doesn't mean there was nobody else in the van or he could have been telling them like stay out of sight or I'm going to stab Susie or shoot Susie. You know. And she was so insistent that this was Susie and this was her abductor that she actually didn't want to be identified due to safety concerns. Additionally, police reported that a Dodge van with no side or back windows was seen parked near 1717 East Del Mar around 430 a.m. on June 7th. And this van was also dusty, but it was reported as

being brown. In both sightings, the van was reported as being an older model, mid-60s or early 70s, possibly Dodge. But law enforcement, they said they weren't going to rule out Chevy or GM. Springfield police felt that they could be the same van that was seen at 4.30 a.m. and then a couple of hours later at 7.30. And, you know, there could be a color discrepancy because one witness saw the van during the day and one saw it while it was still dark. So the person who saw it at 4.30 may have said it looked brown because it was dark. And this was supposed to be like a sort of like muddy green color that the person who saw it during the day described it as. The police seemed to believe that the true color of the van they were looking for was celery or gray-green tones. And many people wondered why

police had been so slow in responding to, you know, this very promising lead, which you've admitted this does seem like a very promising lead, more promising than Georgia's Steakhouse and the convenience store. Right. The eyewitness, she claims that she saw Susie driving the van on the 7th, but she didn't report it until June 24th.

And she doesn't really give a good reason for that. She kind of just said she was scared. She didn't want to get involved. Who was going to believe her anyways? Maybe she hadn't seen what she saw, but she finally did report it. And at that point, it took months for police to even get to the report because it was obviously, you know, buried amongst other leads and tips. And like I said, the police were kept very busy in these early days of the investigation, chasing after that convenience store and steakhouse leads. If you read the papers, you'll know for the first two weeks, this is all they're talking about is the steakhouse. And they reported it several times in the convenience store. And you've even got Stacey

and Susie's friends continuing to say in all of these articles like there's no way they were at the convenience store like they were with us the entire time we were at parties we would know but it seemed like they kind of still wanted to rule it out the following october a neighbor in cheryl's neighborhood called police to report that a dirty white van had been seen in the area three weeks before the disappearances. He said that sometimes it was seen parked, sometimes it was seen slowly driving past 1717 East Dalmar twice a day. And this driver was described as being a white man in his mid-20s to mid-30s with noticeable sideburns and a mane of brown hair that he kept

pulled away from his face. He was usually wearing sleeveless t-shirts and it seemed as if he was looking for something. Detective Diana Carrington claimed that police had reason to believe it was the same style and type of van as the June 7th sightings, and the man may have painted it green between the time he was cruising the neighborhood and the time of the abductions. So very similar to the way the police had found like a white van in the junkyard, and then they painted it to the color they thought the van in the sightings was. This guy could have had a white van. He's driving it around, casing the neighborhood out, And then before he goes to perform the abductions, he paints the van a different color so that people don't notice that

he's there a lot. And the sightings of this van were basically all the same, where people in the neighborhood were saying, yeah, this van was around a lot. We definitely know it was nobody's van who lived around here. This was not somebody who lived in the neighborhood. The neighbor told the police that this had been happening for three weeks, like I said, until the three women disappeared. And then that van was never seen again. Yeah, that van also, if it was painted for the abduction, it could have been repainted after the abduction to be completely different. So if that's the scenario we're dealing with, this person, if they're that savvy, they're probably not going to drive the van anymore at all. But if they are,

it's going to look completely different. I will say it's too bad, this witness, and this happens a lot. They see something, it's suspicious. And if you can, grab some digits of that plate. Even a partial plate is better than nothing, just something, because it can give them an idea of what to look for and they can through process of elimination run all the plates that are similar to that with that description of the vehicle and start ruling them out by actually going to these addresses and checking for all these vehicles and crossing them off the list slowly but it might be a very tedious and long process but at least it's something. But without any type of plate information, where do you start? It's hard. You'd have to go to the registry, run all plates that

match that description, but also match that age range of that vehicle. Still something they could do. Maybe they did. I don't know. But it could be, I don't know how many of those vans were in circulation at that time. I'm assuming a lot. I mean, they did, right? So they did all that. And they, as soon as they put this van information out to the public, they were getting hundreds of calls, people saying like, I saw this van. I know someone who drives this van. So they're checking in there, pulling people over. But I mean, Mingya, think about it. Such a common vehicle. Yeah. And it's three weeks before she even reports it and months before the police even see this report. So they're like months behind by the time they start even looking for this van. And if this dude kidnapped three women, he's not hanging

around Springfield no more. He's not just like going to the Apeco convenience store in Georgia's steakhouse and his panel van, the same exact color. No, he's not there anymore. So it was almost like a great lead. That would have been a great lead in the first day or so. But months in, it's like a wild goose chase at this point. The van could have gotten. Yeah, it does lose a little bit. Yeah, it could have been gotten rid of, sold, broken down for parts, repainted. And he's not in the area anymore. And what I did find was interesting was this is the summer that they go missing.

Apparently, there's thousands of like tourists and visitors to the area at this time because it is the Ozarks area and people come from all over to, you know, have this outdoor recreation. There was like thousands of people there that weren't usually there. So it could have even been somebody from out of town or somebody who just left with the rush of visitors leaving. I don't know. It could have been somebody that didn't even live in Springfield. I would lead and say the person probably didn't. Because if they did, and they were someone that frequented the area, they would be known by individuals who live in that area.

And I think that's part of the reason this case is unsolved. Because this individual wasn't someone who was in the area often or lived in the area. Because if that were the case, I don't think we'd still be talking about this whole incident. I think it'd already be solved. But police still say to this day, like they believe it was somebody who's familiar with the area, who's from the area, this, this, and that. But especially if that van is an essential part of the investigation, like they say it is, everybody in Springfield would have been like, oh, Donnie down the street has that

van. Let's check into Donnie down the street. Oh, my dad has that van. All the vans in Springfield would have been already checked into and you would have known if somebody had lived there who had a van like that, who, you know, just quickly moved away after three women went missing. It just makes sense, right? I think police, I think it's easy for police to say, yeah, it's someone who knew the area. Yeah, of course it is. They're not going to this one specific street and and casing the place for multiple months if so multiple weeks whatever it might have been they're not just choosing this random street on that night they obviously were in the area for something and were you know knew the area to some

extent what i'm saying i don't think it's an immediate relative or associate like an ex-boy i don't think it's that because if it were i think we would have something i mean think it's an immediate relative or associate like an ex-boy. I don't think it's that because if it were, I think we would have something. I mean, yes, it's possible. Even the dumbest people on the planet sometimes commit the perfect crime by accident. I just don't think that's the case here. I think it's someone that's not on the radar because it's not someone who's directly or maybe even indirectly connected to them through someone else. It's these women, specifically Cheryl, I believe, was a victim of opportunity.

And I don't think it's a coincidence, just to reiterate, that she was outside a lot that night working on furniture alone. And anybody could have passed by, including this person you just mentioned who had been casing the place for possibly months, who might've seen her alone that night and realized, oh, her daughter's not, I usually see her other people there. She's alone tonight. I don't think that's a coincidence. Dude. And just imagine like, let's say Cheryl's outside when she's talking to that friend at either 9.15 or 11.15 PM and sketchy dudes hanging around, like creeping around, stalking her. And she's talking on the phone and she's like, yeah,

my daughter's gone for the night. And he like perfect time like i've been hanging around here for three weeks waiting for a perfect time and now that's it like just so many possibilities i mean you know unbelievable but um on july 3rd a letter from cheryl's parents was printed in the springfield newsleader and it said quote i do feel we owe to our daughter's reputation the statement that the printed rumors subtle innuendos and not so subtle implications relating to some dark shady past involvement for or by Cheryl are totally false and totally unwarranted end quote so basically when the police had run out of leads to follow they began digging into each woman's background trying to find something that would explain what had happened to them.

Police had interviewed most friends and acquaintances of Susie's and Stacey's, and this did not take long as their investigation into Cheryl Levitt, simply because, you know, she had been alive longer, she lived in different places, she had more associates, there was more to go through. Now, there was an allegation made from what police called an anonymous source claiming Cheryl was involved with drugs. So that's interesting. I'm not going to rule it out. Well, you should i mean it doesn't well i'm not going to rule it out based on what i'm just hearing now i don't know the case like you do i'm not telling the story after reading about it so just seeing that as an investigator i'm going to follow

up every lead until it becomes invalid or unsustainable and doesn't make sense but even if i believe this as of right now to think that this person who's a drug dealer would go to this extent, we can't be talking more than a couple hundred bucks, maybe at most a thousand to go from being out a couple thousand dollars cash to kidnapping and potentially murdering three women. It seems like, again, it'd be a lot to undertake for just that amount of money and also it does contradict the idea that this was more methodical and planned out and if this individual had went in there for drugs or went in there

for money there would have been some sign of rummaging going through drawers because this this drug dealer would have went in there and said hey where you storing your cash where you keeping your money where your valuables where your jewelry and you would have seen rummaging you would have went in there and said hey where you storing your cash where you're keeping your money where your valuables where your jewelry and you would have seen rummaging you would have seen drawers being pulled out things being looked through to try to find where Cheryl might be holding some cash there's no signs of that from what it looks like doesn't look like there was any type of robbery that may have taken place even if the scenario that I played

out earlier where it was a potential robbery at first looking for money and then the two girls come home and that stopped abruptly. You would still see signs of that. It doesn't appear to be any indication of it. So on the surface, I don't know the case that well enough to say like, oh, absolutely not true. But I will say based on what you've told us so far about the crime scene, it's not suggestive that someone went there with a motive of collecting a debt, whether that was through money or through value, valuable items that she had at the residence. Yeah. So I don't, um, I don't believe this theory. I'm just going to say what other people were saying, um, because there's a ton of rumors

going around at this point. I mean, as you could see from even this clip, some young kid like, oh, I think Cheryl Leavitt was in into drugs. You know, there's like all these rumors going around enough rumors where her parents felt they had to like put an open letter in the paper to try to humanize people and say like, listen, our daughter is missing. Our granddaughter is missing. Like an innocent girl is missing. Can you guys stop? Because you're not helping. So what people are saying is there's this drug dealer in Japlin, Missouri, and it was alleged that Cheryl owed this drug dealer, who's like this 50-year-old man, a large sum of money, like a large sum of money to the point where she

must have been like a dealer of his. You know what I mean? Like not that she's necessarily doing the drugs, but she's like selling them. So maybe she took the drugs and didn't sell them and didn't give her the money. Either way, she owes a lot of money. And people were saying that he had kidnapped her and the girls to like sell them to get his money back, you know, like some sort of taken Liam Neeson thing. Yeah, no, it seems like a lot, especially for that area, just based on what we're seeing.

It's not like a, I don't know how to put this, but it doesn't seem like that's the type of activities that would be going on. It would be more low level drug dealing, things of that nature. It's not really at the level where- You've seen Ozark, right? Yeah, I've seen Ozark a few times, but it's not that... And I was in narcotics for four years. We had some instances with cartel members, things like that, but they weren't really kidnapping people and selling them on the black market to recollect

their drug money. It doesn't happen often. I guess it's not impossible. You have to have a connect in that area, right? Before you make the decision to kidnap three women, you'd have to have a buyer. You'd have to have something lined up, right? You can't just say, I'm going to kidnap them and then figure out how to sell them. I'll tell you something else. Based on my experience in the drug game, if Cheryl was pushing that much weight, making that much money,

she wouldn't be living where she was living, struggling, refinishing her own furniture. She would be living a different lifestyle. Put it that way. Exactly. And I feel like more people would know about it, right? She'd be like the person to go to. There would be a lot of traffic coming and going from her house, things of that nature. There would be clear indications that she's involved in something that's transactional. It would be

very obvious. That's how the drug game, that's how we find out things is from neighbors who say, listen, random vehicles showing up, only being here for a minute or two. Someone goes in, someone comes out, nothing really on their possession when they do. Yeah, it's pretty obvious if you see it happening. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So the police, they go to Joplin, Missouri. They find this guy. They question him. They gave him a polygraph exam. He claimed he didn't know any of the three women who had gone missing. He said he wasn't a drug dealer. He doesn't know what this dude's talking about. And law enforcement would later say, quote, we finished up the lead in Joplin and basically concluded that the lead is of no value to this investigation, end quote. Now, the police would

say that they had found out there was a bit of experimentation with drugs on behalf of the younger women, Stacey and Susie, nothing substantial, just like typical high school stuff. And even one of the guys who was with Dustin Reckla when he robbed the mausoleum and stuff, Mike, he said on Web Sleuths, he was like, we smoked weed all the time, but Susie never did. Like, I never saw her smoke weed. So it doesn't look like there was a ton of drug use. But Cheryl Levitt was found to have no connection with drugs at all in her background. In fact, the police would locate her ex-husband, Don Levitt, who had since moved and remarried, and he said, quote, I haven't seen her in four years, but unless she changed utterly in her morals and scruples, there's no way she could have done anything illegal. When I was married

to her, she wouldn't even drive one mile over the speed limit. She was deadly against drugs and deadly against breaking laws. Cheryl was a law-abiding citizen, end quote. The police would also clear all three of Cheryl's ex-husbands, and they stated that, you know, none of them had any involvement in her disappearance. But still, the police did put a great deal of focus on Cheryl Levitt being the catalyst for what had happened at her house that night. They focused on the possibility that she was living beyond her means. She was using a lot of checks, not paying with things with cash. She may have known someone or been known by someone who would wish her harm. And this was basically due to the fact for all the things we've talked about,

like there was no signs of forced entry at the home and no signs of struggle. So police kind of took these signs to mean that it was somebody that was known to her, that she knew. Whereas you and I were kind of looking at it as like she was sort of like followed and watched and a victim of opportunity. Yeah. And she might've been followed. It could have been someone like people have said before, a transient drive mightn't happen to see her at that moment alone and decided to capitalize on it for one reason or another. I don't even know, but I don't think as the more you talk that it's still possible. I shouldn't say I don't believe, but that, that it's likely that whatever happened was the result of Susie and stacy driving home and someone following them because the more i think about it that wouldn't really explain the tv being left on

unless cheryl was someone who was known to stay up really late at night and watch movies and then that case it would be within her behavior i would have to have hands on the case and talk to family members and friends and say hey was cheryl someone who stayed up till two three in the morning watching a movie or was she someone who went to bed early and was an early riser? I would have to know that. Don't you wish you did have hands on this case, though? Don't you wish you could question people? Of course. You should bring Breaking Homicide back and do this case, man. Go to Springfield. Well, according to our guests, our listeners and our viewers, if I leave to go do Breaking Homicide, we're not Crime Weekly anymore, so I can't.

I'll go with you. We'll do it for Crime Weekly. Oh, there we go. It'll be a Crime Weekly episode of Breaking Homicide. I'll be in there investigating the case, pulling prints, processing DNA. I'm gonna be playing with Cinnamon. And you'll be in the backyard talking to Cinnamon.

Cinnamon, what'd you see, girl? Cinnamon, tell me. Talk to me. Talk to me, Cinnamon cinnamon why did those people leave you out there like that cinnamon you poor baby and then i then you come inside i'd be like hey i gotta print you like good i got cinnamon told me everything that went down oh my god that would be a show jesus would that be a show it would be i think we should do it and that's funny that we just said that because they they did uh they did actually have a ton of people who wanted the police to bring in dog psychics to interview Cinnamon, who was considered to be the only witness to what happened that night.

Key witness. I'm assuming R.I.P. Cinnamon at this point. Oh, I don't know. Probably. 30 years later, Stephanie, I can assume. Cinnamon's looking over us right now. That's sad. You just realized that now? Yes. You're like, maybe.

I'm like, no, Steph. Dust in the wind. Unless she's in the Guinness Book of World Records. All we are is dust in the wind. You're my girl, Cinnamon. Just that people are going to hate us. I know, okay. People are going to hate us in this episode. We're finishing. We're wrapping up, guys. All that people are going to hate us. I know. OK, people are going to hate us.

We're finishing. We're finishing. We're wrapping up, guys. All right. So by the end of June, this is the month they go missing. The police department had as many as 50 officers working on the case. They had spent over 7000 hours investigating. Over 1000 of those were overtime.

And that was a lot of articles I saw, too, because people were like, y'all spent too much money on this case. You spent too much resources. There was like rapes happening, all this crime happening. And the police had so much time and resources focused on these three missing women that it was kind of like everything else was starting to fall apart around it. They put Susie, Stacey and Cheryl's faces on billboards along the East Chestnut Expressway. They had questioned hundreds of people, printed over 20,000 posters. They went through the house on East Delmar Street several times, collecting clothing, financial records, and letters. They searched for hairs and fibers. They found 60 fingerprints. Investigators said that they did believe the three women had been abducted,

but they didn't have enough evidence to focus on a suspect, a motive, or a theory. Detective Doug Thomas said, quote, To me, that's the most disconcerting thing about this case. In most cases, we know what happened and why. We might not know who did it, but in this case, we don't even know why. Police were so desperate that they began working with psychics, but of the more than 50 psychics who had called in and offered their help, none of them knew anything more than had already been printed in the papers. And like I said, after that 48 hours episode aired, 100 people called in urging police to bring in a dog psychic to interview Cinnamon. Law enforcement, as they often do in cases like this, they turned to the public for help.

The investigation was featured on America's Most Wanted, which aired on New Year's Eve 1992, and from that episode, 29 calls with tips were received. One caller claimed he had information, but when the person who took the call attempted to connect him to police, he was cut off or the call was dropped and he never called back. Now, we aren't sure what he said or what information he had, but it seemed relevant enough for the police and Stacey McCall's family to desperately try to locate him and plead with him to call back. In a March 1993 article of the Springfield News Leader, it says, quote, Detective Asher will not say more about the caller or why police think the tip is

for real. We're not saying he said he participated in this, Asher said. He's like a third party, a witness. However, Asher added, the caller, if he's legitimate, may be hesitant to come forward for fear of arrest or retaliation. Police still think local people may know who took the women. It's important we reach out to this person, Asher said. To support what he said, we need to talk to him directly. The tip steers the investigation to an undisclosed area in the southeastern United States. Asher would not say if he knows where the call was made, but the caller gave specific information that makes investigators believe he may know of the

women's abductions. We were able to corroborate some of the information he provided as a result of our investigation, Asher said. There was a motive mentioned, and with the information provided, it's conceivable the crime occurred that way. End quote. Really interesting. So guilt knowledge, there's information that you or I, no one has that was found in that home that hasn't been revealed. Because by the way, there's definitely things that we don't know about that might have suggested the crime occurred for a specific reason or a specific way that they've just never released.

So we're all saying like, Oh, no trace of anything. There might be something, there might be something that happened in that home that they are aware of that they later found that maybe Janelle's family or anybody else for that matter, Janelle themselves didn't see, but police did. They never revealed it. This person calls it and says, okay, well, how about this? And they this and they go okay well we're not going to confirm or deny that but continue and that would give them some credibility because again we've talked about guilt knowledge before this is information that wouldn't be known to the public so only someone with direct knowledge of what happened that night whether it was them or someone they know would

have that when they when they give you that information your ears perk up and so yeah, there's probably without knowing the specifics Detective Asher saying this you have to just take him at his word and believe that there was some things Said in that conversation that leads him to believe this person was involved or knows who was in so basically that would have to be it He would have had to have said something that hadn't been released to the media that no one knew about Except for the police to lead them to believe that he actually had some inside knowledge. But the guy never called back, right? And they begged him to call back. They went on TV, they went on the radio, they went in the paper, begged him to call back. He never did. And I guarantee you, if he was like involved with the people or person who took these women,

that person found out he had called in and kind of maybe put two and two together of who had done it and so maybe there was some sort of like altercation because if he's one of the only people that knows you know like you know two can keep a secret if one of them is dead kind of thing like you know who knows and so you hear that they're calling in so really like they're trying to get this person to call back in but they blew up his spot, right? Yeah, that person might no longer be around Probably if they had just waited he would have found another opportunity to like contact them But they they blew up dude's spot or or he's the guy. Yeah, and he had a change of heart you know, he had a moment where he had been drinking or in a weird spot and was about to confess and turn himself in and

Because of the disconnect, he had time to rethink about it and went back into hiding. This happens all the time, by the way, I've seen it firsthand during my investigations, but even on breaking homicide, you watch the show, if you've watched it, and I really break down the details of these cases and you think, wow, Derek's really putting all the specifics out there. And why are the police departments willing to just publicize all this? I'll give one example because it's not going to ruin anything. We talked about Amber Jackson on Crime Weekly.

And if you watch that episode, you think like I'm putting everything out there. I can tell you there's one specific thing. And I kind of said this when we recorded this episode, but there's one specific thing about the crime scene that I know that if someone called in and mentioned this, the Kauai Police Department would be all hands on deck because no one besides the people who worked on the case and maybe a select few investigators who signed on disclosures like myself know about this piece of information. And I will tell you this, it's kind of insignificant when you really think about it, but very pivotal because no one where she was found would know this unless they were there at some point. So there's things like this that even when shows get publicized on first, you know, 48 hour, all these things where the police will still hold back certain things and keep them to themselves. So if an occasion like this happens, they know they can

verify or validate the person who's coming forward with the information. Yeah, absolutely. I completely get that. And it doesn't have to be something that even makes or breaks the case or really contributes to it being solved. It just has to be something that only someone who was there would know. Right. There was a rose in the middle of the floor, like something that wouldn't shouldn't be there. Hey, did you happen to find a rose in the middle of the floor? That was, you know, the stem was cut off. Means nothing to you and I, but someone walking in there policing going, this is odd.

What the hell? Where'd this come from? Maybe it was left behind by someone. And then this person calls in and says, hey, did you find a rose with no stem? That's not something you would expect to find. Yeah, that's a good point. And as this investigation went on, life went on in Springfield as best as it could. Janelle Kirby went off to Southwest Missouri State University. Bart Streeter continued working for a Springfield surveying company.

He got a new dog that he named Major, but he would eventually quit his job and leave town in an attempt to get away from public scrutiny. Janice and Stu McCall felt a rush of fear every time their two remaining daughters left the house. 1717 East Delmar was put up for sale. Susie's beloved Red Ford was put up for sale. And every single day, the Springfield News Leader posted a picture of the three women with the

words, Missing, Day 23. Missing, Day 51. Missing, Day 62. Missing, Day 134. But the in-depth articles, the detailed reportings dwindled until they were just short mentions or repeats of what had already been reported and what was already known. The amount of detectives assigned to the case also dwindled, and by December, there were only five left to actively work on new leads. As time went on, there would be a list of suspects developed, and that is where we will pick up in the next episode. Yeah, it's an unfortunate situation, and I will say that, at least from what we've talked about, it seems like the community was heavily involved, as you mentioned the paper, and also law enforcement was heavily involved. As you said, they had almost 50 detectives

working on this case at one point, including, I don't know if that included the FBI or that was in addition to the FBI, but they called them right away. It seems like they did everything they could. It seems like they were looking for leads for the most part. I'm sure there's always more you could do, but it doesn't seem like they were sitting on their hands just waiting for something to come to them. I know that people are always going to have issues with law enforcement, especially when a case isn't solved. They're always going to Monday morning quarterback the case. There's always things that can be done differently in hindsight. But at least from the outside, it does look like they were motivated. They were aggressively trying to solve it, even if at points they were misguided and maybe following

leads they shouldn't have been following. So overall, it just seems like a tragic set of circumstances where maybe either this was a professional or more than likely this was someone who just got very lucky. And with technology being what it was in 1992, it does make things more difficult. I don't think something like this could have been carried out as effectively today as it was then. But I am interested to hear about the other suspects because as far as the America's Most Wanted tip, that's the most promising thing we have so far. Yeah. I think without a doubt, whatever you want to say about, like you said, following wrong leads or whatever, the police officers on this case had a huge motivation to see it solved and they became personally connected to it as they normally

would when you have such a longstanding case that kind of gets passed down from detective to detective as people retire, leave and come. So they definitely wanted to solve it. And I think that they just didn't, they weren't given a lot to go on. You know, that's, that's the big problem. It wasn't like there was a ton of evidence to follow. So you kind of have to use the leads that come in as your main body for the investigation. And you want to, you know, follow each one to a complete, like, thorough end. And maybe they didn't realize or, you know, you don't want to be that cop who's like, oh, well, it ended up she was at the convenience store and we just wrote it off.

So they did what they could. And, no, I believe it was 50 Springfield police officers that did not include FBI. They all hands on deck to this thing, as they called it, you know, life doesn't stop when these cases come in. Literally, you can have a homicide, a triple homicide happen one day, and the next day have a couple breaking and entering, stolen vehicles, et cetera. And the people who are affected, the victims in those cases want their investigations done as well. And so you're trying to find this balance of working cases that are getting colder while also keeping up with your responsibility, which is to actively work the new cases that are coming in. And it is a balance. And that's why they sometimes in bigger departments have cold case units, et cetera. So it's not that they feel any less about it, but they do have a responsibility to everybody in the community, not just that one

specific case. And it is a tough balance to find sometimes. Yeah. And I'm looking forward to the next episode, which is our final episode, because you are going to hear a list of suspects and you're going to be able to use what we've learned so far in these first two episodes to kind of apply like almost a template over that person. Like, does this make sense that this person would do this in this situation? Oh this person worked for a car detail shop This makes sense why you know the van may have been repainted things like that You're gonna be able to really look at it like that and there are theories, you know That that the community has come up with one in specific that I saw mentioned many time in the comment sections

We're gonna talk about that. So stay tuned for that episode. Thank you guys so much for being here. Whoa Don't don't don't ring us out yet. Don't ring us out yet. I'll let you ring us out then. I can ring us out, but you, or you can just a reminder to everybody, we will not be here next week. That's important. We will not be here next week. Stephanie and I have two vacations in total per year. We can, we have to do 50 episodes, 50 weeks. So we each get one week off and I'm taking my week off this upcoming week. So we will not be here next week.

Don't expect an audio episode on Friday or a YouTube episode on Sunday. And with this case, it kind of worked out because there's not really, unfortunately, some resolution to it, solid resolution. So we felt like most people know this case and you're not really anticipating the end. So you can research it, look into it. Geez, really get them going and looking forward to the last part, man. Well, I mean, I think most people know at this point, we've been saying it right along how this case is unsolved. Yeah, but there's plenty to still talk about, guys. Of course, of course.

You're going to be devastated when you can't get this episode next week because it's a good one. Yes, it is, even though we haven't recorded yet. No, but that doesn't mean it's not a good one because I've already researched it. It's a good one. It's going to be great. So I just wanted to put that out there because we hadn't mentioned it this week, but we will be off next week. It'll be a no episode week.

And this has been the first time in a while, actually, for us. Is this the first time we haven't put out an episode since we started? I think we've done it once before, but that was in the beginning when nobody cared about us. And I almost feel like even though we've taken vacations, we've always recorded two episodes in one week or whatever. So they weren't really like vacations. They were like work vacations. Yeah. Like going to London or going to CrimeCon or whatever. But we are coming up on our 100th episode. I think we have 10 episodes left. So we're going to try to do something special for that as well. But yeah, I just want to put that out there. You can take us out. I just

want to make sure I mentioned that so people weren't expecting something next week. You just take us out because you know the social media handles. I got it. Well, listen, if you want to follow us on social media to see what we're up to, you can go to Crime Weekly Pod on Instagram and Twitter. If you want to follow our coffee company, Criminal Coffee, you you want to follow us on social media to see what we're up to, you can go to Crime Weekly Pod on Instagram and Twitter. If you want to follow our coffee company, Criminal Coffee, you can go to Drink Criminal on Instagram. And it's Drink – I'm sorry, Drink Criminal on Twitter, Drink Criminal Coffee on Instagram. Stay up to date with us. You can follow us on our personals as well.

We post more about our families on those, but we're available there. Mine's Derek Levasseur. Stephanie, what's yours? Stephanie Harlow. Stephanie Harlow. So pretty simple, pretty simple there. We appreciate you guys joining us. It's been a pleasure tonight. It's a really fascinating case. And those are the ones that stimulate my brain. I know some people were saying like, oh, you don't know this case. I've heard of it, but I haven't researched it. So hearing these details, it brings a different dimension for me. And I like that. It keeps it fresh,

keeps you enthused, keeps you passionate about it. So it's a good thing. Trust me that we're learning about it together for some of us. Appreciate you joining us. Be safe out there. We will see you in two weeks.

Bye.