Crime Weekly - S2 Ep89: The Springfield Three: Theories and Suspects (Part 3)

Episode Date: August 5, 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

History's masterpieces wouldn't be the same without their most notable accents. Neither would the Kia Sportage without its multiple drive modes. The Kia Sorento without its expansive 12.3-inch panoramic display. Or the Kia Telluride without its three rows of spacious seating. The 2025 Kia SUVs. Kia. Movement that inspires. Call 800-333-4KIA for details. Always drive safely. Limited inventory available. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow.

And I'm Derek Levasseur. We've been gone for a week. It's almost like I've kind of forgot what I should say going into this new episode. It was weird. It was weird not recording last week. I felt like, I'm like, I'm forgetting something. Kind of nice for me. It was like a nice little break. You were in Hawaii, so I'm sure you did not feel, I'm forgetting something. Kind of nice for me. It was like a nice little break. You were in Hawaii, so I'm sure you did not feel you were forgetting something. I really, you know, we've been doing it for over a year straight now where it's like every week it's been pretty consistent Monday nights, but it was nice. It was nice,

but I'm happy to be back. Finish out this, finish out this series. I would have been so many like coconut drinks in, I would have forgot everything like my name. I think it's one of those things too, though, after, after a while, you're like, you're ready to get back. You get to a point and you're like, all right, I need, I need some stimulation in my life. I need to be doing something. I, at least me, I almost get depressed when I don't have anything to do. Oh, I get that. I get that. I'm sure you do get depressed. You are not a person who relaxes. I can't even imagine. Guys, I can't imagine Derek in Hawaii because I've never seen him like relax. So I just get this like impression that he'd just be like the super tense, like pacing person in Hawaii and everybody's relaxing. Like, what's that guy's problem? Well, just think though, if, and I hope it never happens. If I was working your case, that's the guy you want. The person who doesn't sleep. Was that like a subtle threat? To the criminal? Yeah. If I was working your case, that's the guy you want. The person who doesn't sleep. Was that like a subtle threat?

To the criminal, yeah. If I was working your case, Stephanie. Oh, not your case. Okay. I'm saying in general. Your guys' case, a subtle threat to you. Yeah. If I'm working your case, you're gonna be happy. I'll get your results you want.

Well, today- I'll die trying. We are back now. I know you guys had to wait a week, but we are here with our finale to the series on the Springfield Three with an overview and discussion of the many theories that could have explained what happened to Cheryl Levitt, her daughter Susie Streeter, and Susie's friend Stacy McCall, who were legally declared dead in 1997, even though their bodies have never been found. And it's more like suspects, right? Because we've gone kind of over theories as we were going through this, like what could have possibly happened? Was there somebody already in the house? Was there somebody who followed the girls home?

Who was the main target? Were they there for Cheryl? Were they there for the younger girls? Where did they bring them? And because we don't really know anything about what happened that night, there's not a lot of theories that we could come up with that could be really grounded in anything. So it's more about suspects. And initially I was like, well, how many suspects could there possibly be? And then come to find there was a lot of sketchy people in the Springfield area at this time. I was kind of stunned. It made me nervous. I was like, are these kinds of people just hanging around in

every town? I want to say a quick shout out and thank you to the podcast, The Prosecutors. I don't even think I told you this yet, Stephanie, but they gave us a shout out. Most people know The Prosecutors, a pretty big podcast. They're covering Casey Anthony right now. And they gave us a shout out. And out of nowhere, we don't know them personally. I believe it's two lawyers that do it. And they just gave a shout out as far as like how in depth we go with the research. And they actually said, hey, listen, if you really want to get deep with this, go check out Crime Weekly. So a bunch of you guys tagged me in it. You DM'd us and let us know. So I want to return the favor. So thank you to the prosecutors and they are, it really is a great podcast. So go check them out as well. That is so nice. Thank you guys so much. Yes. I love that podcast actually. That's a great, because they know,

they know what they're talking about because I think they're attorneys, right? Still like active. Yeah. I believe they're still doing it. They definitely know what they're talking about. And maybe they're not Jose Baez fans either. I don't know. I don't know. What a nice shout out. That's awesome. Yeah. Go check them out. If they're covering Casey Anthony's case as attorneys, I would really be interested in listening to that coverage. Let's dive into our suspects, I guess, for the Springfield 3 case. And there's a couple of theories I sort of want to touch on at the end, theories that our viewers and our listeners came up with and were kind of writing in the comments because, you know,

sometimes I'm scrolling through the comments and I'm like, oh, that's a good point. Or, yeah, I never thought of that. So I did want to bring up a couple of those and I did screenshot some things just so I wouldn't forget. But the first main suspect we're going to talk about is a man named Robert Craig Cox. And Robert Cox was a former Army lieutenant. He had risen quickly in the ranks of the military. I think he was in the Army Rangers, and he was known to be a skilled combat specialist who loved weapons. Now, Robert Cox was actually born and raised in Springfield, Missouri, but in 1978, when he was 19 years old, Cox was stationed at Fort Benning in Georgia. However, he and his parents were on vacation in Orlando, Florida in December of 1978 when 19-year-old Sharon Zellers disappeared. Now, Sharon never made it to her Pine Hills home the night of December 30, 1978, and four days later, on January 3, 1978, her car was found abandoned in an orange grove in Orange

County. The next day, Sharon's body was found fully submerged in a sewage lift station. She was so decomposed that they had to identify her through dental records, and it was concluded that Sharon had died from 14 separate blows to the head. On the evening of December 30, 1978, a woman staying at the Days Inn in Orlando called motel security, saying her 19-year-old son, Robert Cox, had returned to their room with blood around his face and mouth before he had passed out and had to be rushed to the hospital, where it was discovered that a portion of his tongue had been bitten off. Cox was unable to speak and had to communicate through writing

when explaining what had happened to him. He said he had been in a. Cox was unable to speak and had to communicate through writing when explaining what had happened to him. He said he had been in a fight with eight people at a local roller skating business called Skate World. During the fight, he'd been hit in the face, causing him to bite off his own tongue. However, there were a lot of inconsistencies with this story, and police began looking at Cox as a suspect in the death of Sharon Zellers. Because as it turns out, the Days Inn where he and his parents were staying was only 340 feet from the sewage lift where Sharon's body had been found, and he'd returned to the motel all bloody and with his tongue bitten off

on the same night that she'd gone missing. Additionally, two off-duty Orlando police officers who'd been working security at Skate World the night Cox claimed to have gotten into a fight, they said there had been no fight. Additionally, a doctor and a surgical technician would testify that the wound on Robert Cox's tongue was not consistent with him biting his own tongue off. It was a wound that would have come from someone else biting his tongue. He had been bleeding profusely from his mouth, and there was a trail of blood leading from the second floor to the third floor of the Days Inn where he and his

parents were staying, but there was no blood found in his own vehicle. However, there was blood found in Sharon Zeller's vehicle, and the blood was type O, the same blood type as Robert Cox. There was also three hairs found in Sharon's car that when looked at under a microscope were found to be indistinguishable from Cox's chest hair, and there was a boot print found near the scene that was consistent with the military boots Cox was wearing when he checked into the hospital the night of Sharon's disappearance. Wow. I mean, a lot there. And as far as the bite marks, I was thinking it as well. Obviously, the natural curvature of your teeth, if you're to bite off your own tongue as opposed to someone else doing it, the curvature would be opposite, almost like a U-shape, the same way you

would see if you bit into a fruit or something like that. And also, if anybody's ever been in a fight or anything, naturally, you brace for impact when you're about to get hit. And usually your tongue isn't outside your mouth or past your teeth when you're in a fight. Usually your jaw is clenched and your tongue's further back. So it wouldn't seem like a natural thing to have your tongue hanging out of your mouth when you're in the middle of a fight. So those two things right there, when you said it, as far as the biting of his own tongue, didn't really add it up. and it seems like the the experts agree with it as well and that's just before the inconsistency of his story then you added all this evidence that actually links him to sharon's disappearance and uh he's definitely looking good for it that's for sure yeah i mean what what what story do you

come up with right when you come home and like half your tongue's bitten off and you got to come up with something. You can't say, oh, I just kidnapped a girl and forced myself on her and she bit my tongue off. So I guess that's the only thing. What other plausible story could you come up with for what happened to your tongue, right? Not anyone that doesn't end you in jail, that's for sure.

I mean, definitely, that's a tough one to explain how you bit off your own tongue. Yeah. Or how your tongue's bitten off to begin with. It doesn't have to do with you attacking somebody and shoving your tongue into their mouth. I feel like that's the only way your tongue gets bitten off to that extent, to the point where you can't speak. I'd love to see pictures of the injury because I bet you'd probably see, that's probably how they concluded it is the curvature of the bite mark in his tongue to say, hey, listen, naturally, if his teeth bit down on his tongue, it wouldn't look like that. The two corners would be rounded and the middle would be the furthest part out as opposed to what

it probably was, which it looked like whoever bit him, it was the U-shape the opposite way. Yeah, it would have been inverted. I think it would be pretty easy to distinguish. Now, at the time, law enforcement said they didn't have enough to hold Robert Cox and he was allowed to leave and return to his life, and then he proceeded to kidnap two women in 1985 while he was stationed at Fort Ord in California. In August of 1985, he followed Kathleen Boyce to her home in Crestview, California, and when she exited her vehicle, he got out of his own car and placed a seven-inch knife to her throat, telling her not to scream and to do what he said or he would kill her. The following December, Robert Cox asked Gidget Wickham, who was also stationed at Fort Ord, for a ride from the airport to the base. On the drive back, Cox pulled out a

gun and told Gidget that they were not going to be driving back to the base. He told her to drive into the mountains. By the time he was finally indicted for the murder of Sharon Zeller, Cox was already serving a nine-year sentence in California for the kidnappings of Kathleen Boyce and Gidget Wickham. He was charged with first-degree murder for the murder of Sharon Zeller, and he was sentenced to the death penalty in 1988, but his sentence was overturned on appeal. Cox's lawyers said that 45% of the population had type O blood, so it could not be proven that their client was responsible for the blood left in the victim's car. Additionally, the bitten-off portion of Cox's tongue had never been

located, and if the prosecution's allegations were true, that Sharon, the victim, had bitten off the tongue, it would follow that the tongue would have been found with her body, but it wasn't. The state argued that Sharon's body had been so badly decomposed from being submerged for so long in human waste that the tongue could have been lost, but the Florida State Supreme Court agreed with Cox's lawyers that the state had insufficient evidence and Cox was sent back to California to serve out the remainder of his sentence for the two kidnappings. What more evidence do you think they possibly could have had? I mean, this is like the 80s. What more evidence did they need? His chest hairs were in her car. His blood was in her car. So with the chest hairs, I'm with you, but I'm thinking with the chest hairs, because there was no flesh attached to it, they weren't able to definitively say it was his. It was consistent with his chest hair. Indistinguishable.

Indistinguishable, as you said, but someone could make the argument that there may be other people with similar chest hair. And then, as you mentioned, 1988. So DNA kind of not really a thing at that point where it's being used in the court of law because that would have been extremely convenient in that situation, whether it was for mitochondrial DNA from the hairs or possibly, you know, we know there was a bunch of blood on his face. But was any of that blood preserved? Could it have belonged to Sharon? So those are all things that would have been convenient. Now. I always try to go both sides with it because yeah, do I think he killed Sharon? Of course. But I don't know. There's a lot of people that will talk about it when we're, when we're looking at the comments where more than likely it's him,

but you have to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And that comes down to the judge, which is sucks because it's subjective, right right you could have seven judges look at it six of them can say yeah I believe he did it but if he gets the seventh person they could overturn the whole thing I had something similar happen in Seattle with a case that I did that went to court recently you know about this and I'm still infuriated by the judge's opinion on the case and and I feel like in a different place with a different judge, it would have been a different outcome,

but that's the flaw in the court systems right now. It can come down to one person's opinion, which is ridiculous. Yeah, a million percent he killed her. A million percent he killed Sharon Zellers. I mean, just the proximity, the fact that his alibi for the night, he was talking about this huge fight at Skate World

and it never happened. He's like less than 400 feet in the motel away from where her body was found. Like a million percent he did it. But, you know, our justice system. Right. Totality of evidence. Yeah. It's broken.

But I mean, like now, if you found blood, you could match it specifically to a person's DNA. You'd have more than just a blood type. Right. Yeah. That's right. That's DNA. You'd have more than just a blood type, right? Yeah, that's right. That's right. You definitely would. And it's something where I think if it was today, there'd be no doubt about it.

He would have got pinned for it with just the DNA alone. But I can't wait to see what type of technology we have available 20 years from now that'll make it even better. We think about 88. It seems like a long time ago. It really wasn't that long ago. and yet this guy's case was overturned just because at the time they didn't have the technology to utilize the evidence that had been collected

yeah or the technology makes it worse you know you see like these deep fakes and stuff now where it can make it seem like somebody is in a place where they aren't like it freaks me out oh no do you not believe in deep fakes i believe in it but like you're definitely i don't believe as like i don't think like with most cases they're like planting dna i think in this high like you know high profile assassinations and stuff you could have it but i don't think the normal joe is having his fingerprints lifted and put into a crime scene to have him framed for a crime he didn't commit. Deep fakes, man. They make your face look like someone else. I just saw a TikTok where- Oh, you're talking about the facial, yeah.

Yeah, where Paris Hilton looked like she was dancing with Tom Cruise. It wasn't Tom Cruise. He looked exactly like Tom Cruise, man. It's creepy. So I'm saying progress isn't always good because you might be progressing to something that's very like black mirror okay so i think that the have you seen minority report of course is that what you're saying going that way yeah like they're they're like they're like oh we're anticipating the crimes before you even do them right what do they call that pre-crime or something pre-crime great movie it was okay he's your favorite guy Cruise. Don't even say his name, man. All right.

So we got Robert Cox, man. He's free. He definitely killed this woman. He definitely killed Sharon Zellers. Then he kidnaps two other women. And they're still like, nah, you're probably not responsible for this. So after he was released from, you know, serving his sentence for the two kidnappings, he moved back to his hometown of Springfield, Missouri in 1990, where he worked as a utility

locator and where he also worked at Reliable Chevrolet in 1991. And this is the same exact place at the same exact time that Stacey McCall's father, Stu, worked. So both Stu McCall and Robert Cox are working at Reliable Chevrolet in 1991. And later, Robert Cox would be like, oh, this is just a weird coincidence. He sold cars, I sold trucks, we never met. but I've worked at car dealerships before. It's not like the truck guys and the car guys have their own separate areas. You all have morning meetings. You meet. You know everybody who works in your place. Some people think then maybe Robert Cox working with Stu. Maybe Stacey comes in to see Stu. Maybe Robert Cox becomes fixated on her. He starts following her, things like that. Can't say it's not possible, right? I mean,

when you think about his history, he doesn't know these women well. He's just seen them once or twice, becomes fixated on them and carries out these acts. So it's absolutely possible. And these are the types of scenarios where you think, well, why hasn't this case been solved yet? And it could be because the connection is so thin that unless you're really going outside the spectrum of what is possible, you wouldn't pick up on a Robert Cox. Because again, there's not a direct connection to our victims, but indirectly through another family another family member a friend that's where it is and and that's where these cases can get really difficult and even if you pick up on the connection to robert cox that's nothing else but just a connection you know right

yeah right where's the where's the actual proof that connects them to the crime yeah you can say like oh robert cox definitely attacks women and he definitely worked with stacy's father and he most definitely probably saw her however we can't prove Right. You got to start going after his alibi. And so that's why you would have to make that connection pretty quickly. And then you'd have to start by going after his alibi. You know, where were you that night and start to pick that apart. And if you can pick that apart, then maybe you have something. If he says, I was at a bar, there was 30 people there and you go in and sure enough, that's where he was, well, then you can cancel it off.

But if you say, hey, where were you? And he tells you like he did in the first case, and you can dispute that and you can discredit it. Well, then you got to ask yourself, why is he lying? And maybe that gives you something to go off of where you can try to pinpoint where he was that evening. Well, they did pick up on it pretty quickly because, right, you know, Robert Cox comes back to Springfield, but like people know what happened in his past. They know what he was in prison for. They know that he was a suspect and, you know, actually got, you know, convicted of this murder of this young girl. So now he's back in Springfield. And after Stacey, Susie and Cheryl disappeared in June of 1992, just two years after he gets back, Robert Cox was

brought in for questioning several times due to his history of kidnapping young women and attacking young women. And people began calling the police with what Captain Daryl Crick called, quote, insightful and real interesting information about Cox. Daryl Crick said, quote, he's not a suspect, but he certainly has not been eliminated. I think he's more interesting the more you find out about him, end quote. And Robert Cox's alibi was shaky at best. He said that at the time of the abductions, he was at his parents' house in South Springfield asleep. And his parents agreed that he had been home that night, like he'd been home when they'd gone to bed, but they'd also gone to bed, so they couldn't be sure if he'd left

the house at any point that evening. And the following day on Sunday, when Susie and Stacey's friends were trying to find the girls, Robert Cox said he couldn't remember what he was doing, but his girlfriend at the time claimed they were together at church. However, when Robert Cox was arrested again in 1995 after holding a 12-year-old girl at gunpoint while he robbed a Decatur, Texas hair salon, his girlfriend retracted his alibi and said she actually had no idea where he was or what he was doing the weekend of the disappearances. In March of 1996, investigative reporter Dennis Graves traveled to Texas where Cox was serving time in prison, and he asked Robert Cox about the Springfield Three case now that his alibi was even shakier than it had initially been. Cox said that he had been following the case very closely from the moment the abductions had happened, and he knew he would be an early suspect. Cox said that he knew exactly where Cheryl Levitt's

house was, and his job with SM&P Underground Utility Company could have put him in the vicinity of that house around the times of their abductions. When he was asked if he had known any of the three missing women, he wouldn't answer directly yes or no. He simply said, quote, I had no personal friendship with any of the ladies, end quote. Cox admitted to visiting Del Mar Avenue in the early days of the investigation and watching the mobile police headquarters van parked outside Cheryl's house. He said, why would he watch it on television when he could watch it in person? We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. So we're back. Really fascinating stuff. Even when you said it initially about him working

for the utility company and locating things, that's a natural position where you would be in the area that maybe you don't necessarily live, but you start to become familiar with it because you're working out there. So you're really getting a detailed layout and seeing the people that live there who lives with multiple people, who lives alone, what's their kind of their schedule, what time they leave for work at, what time they get home, is anybody else around when they do. So you would be able to develop a pattern about someone's behavior as far as when they're home and when they're not just by working in the area. And it wouldn't be something that would raise a flag because you have an authority, you have a reason for being there. So just that in and of itself, without the fact that he worked with Stacy's father, you said, right? Yeah.

You know, other than that, that could be a coincidence, but just the line of work that he was in and based on what we know about him from his past, he would look for victims of opportunity. This would allow him to discover those people without raising concern to the victims themselves. So that's really interesting that the quotes that he had given to the detective, I've seen it go both ways. Sometimes when they're being kind of vague, ambiguous, it's like they just want the attention. And then sometimes it could mean more. And without actually interviewing him myself, looking for those verbal and nonverbal, those physical and non-physical cues and the verbal weight, the way they say things, the intonation in which they say it, it's tough just by listening to you say it. But it feels to me like law enforcement really had some reasoning

to believe he was involved or they wouldn't have spent this much time on him. Or it could be that they had no clue. So they were just going back to what they already knew because they didn't want to be accused of not doing anything. It could go either way. I mean, I think it could be a little bit of both, right? Because we know that with this case, the police kept saying like they disappeared without a trace. They disappeared without a trace. We don't have any leads. We're following this whole van thing. But that also could be nothing. But it's all we have. So when you have somebody like Robert Cox, who is born and raised in Springfield, goes back there after committing various crimes against women and then other crimes against women happen within a year or so after he gets home, that's going to be something that you can grab onto, a little string that you can follow since there's really nothing else to follow. So it could be a little bit of both,

but he's definitely a sketchy dude. And if he did do it because he wanted attention, it doesn't necessarily mean that he's not responsible for it because some guys who commit these crimes want attention because they are responsible for it. That's right. Well, you know what my next question is going to be for you, right? What is it? And I don't know if you're going to get to it, so I might be stealing some of your thunder, but I'm going for it. What kind of vehicle did he drive? I don't know. Oh, it's a great question, right? It'd be a great question to know if he drove a van, right?

You know what would be a million great questions that i would like answered um did the police go to this church before his girlfriend like retracted her alibi did they go to the church and ask the people at the church if robert cox and his girlfriend were there on sunday like did they follow up with this stuff at all did they go to to his utility company and see if he was in that area or if he'd been, you know, sent to that area for work? Like, did they do any of this stuff? If they did, they never really told us, you know. They keep saying he's not a suspect, but I guarantee you he was a suspect for sure. He was a suspect and a person of interest, but it doesn't look like, from what I can tell, that they sort of

followed up on a lot of these things. It would be interesting to see the file they have on him, as far as it relates to this case, what they did, what they didn't do, like you said. But I can tell you one thing, I would hope they would run him and see what vehicles were registered to him, what vehicles were registered to his family members, his friends, significant others. Anybody comes up during that search that has a van similar to the description of the one we might be looking for, you need to go get that van immediately. Yes, I would love to see that file on him. And I'm sure they have one that's pretty thick. But once again, because they couldn't ever hold anything to him, even if he had a van, that was

the exact same description. If there's no physical evidence in the van or there's no other physical evidence to tie him to it, it doesn't mean anything. It still doesn't mean anything. It just makes him a stronger suspect for us and for the police, but it doesn't lead to an arrest necessarily. No, especially considering some of the past cases. But I would find it very hard to believe three women in the van, there would be either DNA from the women or there would be evidence suggesting a cleanup and we've talked about this before with bleach or whatever it might be so there would hopefully be something there um it would definitely make it stronger and it would allow you to kind of pick apart his alibi even

more but hopefully one day we get access to that because i would i agree with you i think the full the case files on him are probably lengthy because it seems like they really did believe and they never came out and said definitively it's not him. So to this day, I'm assuming you're going to tell me he's still a suspect or a person of interest, I guess we should say. Yeah. And I mean, this is still 1992. So DNA evidence is even really like blowing it out of the park at that point either. And even if you had, you know, good DNA evidence later, you still don't have the vehicle that Robert Cox drove back in 1992. That's long gone. So it doesn't really matter.

So this investigative reporter, he goes to the prison. He talks to Robert Cox and he kind of does this like, you know, like Clarice Hannibal thing, you know, like, well, what do you think happened to them? You know, you've been involved in crimes and things before. So what do you think happened? What's your theory? And Robert Cox said, quote, I just know that they are dead.

That's not my theory. There's no doubt about that. End quote. He also said that he believed their bodies would be buried in Springfield or close by. And Robert Cox was asked about his earlier crimes, and he kind of like spoke fondly of them. He said, you know, he loved the rush that he would feel while committing the kidnappings. It was exciting for him. He said that an addiction to alcohol and gambling had been responsible for his

earlier bad behavior, and these were issues that he was still struggling with when he got out of prison and moved back to Springfield in 1990. He was asked if he had ever committed any crimes in Springfield, and he didn't. Well, once again, he didn't say yes or no. He simply said, quote, there were things going on at that time, but they were very closely monitored and kept private between myself and God. That, too, was a rush because I knew if I got caught, I was going back to prison, end quote. Field 3, saying that there were several ruses a person could have used to get into Cheryl's house, such as pretending to be a utility worker and knocking on her door early in the morning. As for Susie and Stacey, Robert Cox said, quote, I think they just happened to get caught up. They weren't supposed to be there. Situations change. It's very easy to control three people.

When somebody comes into the room with a gun, the common person will follow whatever direction they are led, end quote. He went on to say that the three women could have easily been tied up and laid in the back of a vehicle and transported without anyone ever seeing them or knowing what had happened. And since being sent to prison, Robert Cox claims he's become a Christian with a degree in pastoral studies. He's read the Bible eight times, and he believes the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy or denying that Christ died for us sins. Police believe that Robert Cox is responsible for the murder of Sharon Zellers, but they feel that Cox might be just trying to get attention in the Springfield Three case since he's never given them any information that's led to anything credible.

However, they have not ruled him out completely to this day. I tend to agree with that. It does feel like from the quotes you're reading that he wanted the attention. So he wanted to give them something that sounded like he knew more than he actually did. And even though he's saying, oh, I know they're dead or, you know, this is how I would have done it, a lot of that can be kind of gathered from the information that has been said publicly. We talk about it, guilt knowledge. Again, you can give guilt knowledge without confessing to something. And anything he's kind of said there is really nothing different than you and I have said in past episodes regarding this case, as far as what we think could have happened. And we're

only going off the research that you've done. So nothing he's saying is like, oh, wow, you really shook my mind with that information, Robert. Like, oh my God, couldn't, didn't put that one together. You were a utility worker. You could have, yeah, we get it. So I tend to agree with them that it might've been something where he didn't really know much, but he would like the attention. He liked the idea, especially how popular the case was of possibly being connected to it. He wasn't someone who was ashamed of what he had done in the past. At least that's the impression that I get here. So being tied to a prolific case like this involving three women, I could see how a person of his profile would like the idea of being connected to that, even if they really weren't.

Yeah. And think about it. He doesn't want to be in prison, right? Like he clearly said like, oh, it was kind of a rush because I knew I could go back to prison. So that's probably not a like a preferable sort of situation for him. But if he knows he wasn't involved with this and he knows they're never going to find evidence to like hold against him. Yeah, he can play cat and mouse and get some attention and have some fun while he's behind bars. So our next person that I want to talk about is Bart Streeter. That's Susie's brother. So we kind of talked about this in the first episode. And law enforcement has said several times that Bart Streeter has been fully cooperative, that he didn't give off any red flags, you know, that led them to believe he could have

been responsible for what happened to his mother, his sister, and Stacey McCall. But many people do feel that Bart was never looked into deeply enough. And in the years that followed, Bart continued to struggle with his own demons, and he found himself in trouble with the law a few times. So just to have a thorough overview of this, because I know if I didn't talk about it, people would be like, what about Bart? Because there is a huge contingent of people out there that still think Bart Streeter was involved with this somehow. So we're going to discuss it. And I am actually interested to know what you think about it. But in 2000, Bart was charged with attempted kidnapping by force or coercion

in Las Vegas. And I can't actually find out anything about what happened there. So I don't know if it's been sealed. I don't know if the person that was involved is a minor, but I've looked everywhere and I can't really find out any specifics about what this case involved. But in 2019, it was reported that a then 54-year-old Bart Streeter had been arrested and charged with public intoxication, disorderly conduct, and attempted false imprisonment in Smyrna, Tennessee. The report states that around 5 p.m., Bart entered VIP Nail Salon and pointed at a 15-year-old girl, claiming to be her grandfather, who was there to take her home after her appointment. But this girl had never seen Bart before, and no one in the salon knew who he was,

so when he left the nail place, they locked the door behind him and called the police. Bart's family later released a statement claiming that the actions leading to Bart's arrest had been exaggerated by witnesses and the media. That statement said, quote, Recently, it has been publicized that Bart Streeter, son of Cheryl and brother of Susie, was arrested on unrelated charges. Bart has had a long history with alcohol abuse and has spoken publicly on this matter in the past. It is evident in the video that he, at no time, tried to forcibly remove anyone from the establishment. The charges were exaggerated, as is plainly evident in the video. Bart's interaction. Just inside the door of the establishment was an adult. He shook the

adult's hand and spoke only with the adult. Bart stood, pointed, and asked the person if that was their granddaughter. Bart's lift was arriving, and he the person if that was their granddaughter. Bart's Lyft was arriving and he left the establishment on his own and unaccompanied. It is unsure how the story got so corrupted when it was told to the media and the police, or why the media ignored the obvious video evidence in its reporting." So I actually have this clip of the nail salon video that will play now for you guys if you're watching. And I want Derek to watch it and kind of give his opinion of what's going down here. Yeah.

And if you're watching it, we had this happen before. Make sure you have both headphones in or both speakers on. I know sometimes these videos, when they come out to you guys, they're in mono. So if you only have one headphone in, which by the way, a good thing if you're out in public to only have one headphone in. But if you're not hearing it, I know some of you had legitimate audio issues with specifically Spotify. Can't explain why that was, but there are cases where it might be playing in the other headphones. So while you're watching, just make sure you have your headphones in if you're going

to check it out. First, see him peering through the front door of Smyrna, Tennessee's VIP nail salon. The shop surveillance cameras keep rolling as he walks in and points to a girl in the back of the shop. He claims to be her grandfather, there to pick her up. But no one in the shop had ever seen this man, including the girl he said he was there for. For us here in the Ozarks, the booking photo that followed the scene should ring a bell. It's Bart Streeter.

Your role throughout this whole thing has just been one a victim, one a suspect at times. Who 26 years ago said goodbye to his mother, Cheryl Leavitt, and his sister, Susie Streeter, two of Springfield's three missing women. I want people to realize that this is not solved. Smyrna police arrested Streeter after the nail salon scene. He was eventually charged with attempted false imprisonment, public intoxication, and disorderly conduct.

Police say he was placed on a $4,000 bail. For Smyrna, it's another arrest, but what about the Ozarks? Janice McCall, mother of Stacey, said about Streeter's arrest, quote, I hope the police are working on it. So we turned to Springfield police to find out if they were, but SPD refused to comment. All right, so watch the video. Not a ton to see there. I absolutely see why it would raise red flags for people. It's something you want to look into just seeing what I saw there and hearing what you've said and what was said in the video,

horrific, what he did without knowing all the specifics does appear that he was intoxicated. I don't think you can see that though, and connect it to what happened to the Springfield three, the ones we're talking about. I don't think there's enough to go. Oh, I see a similar MO. I can see how it happened. I'm not saying he's not involved. I'm just saying that to me wouldn't say, you know what? This is a sign that

he had more to do with their disappearance than we initially thought. Yeah. So I was going to say the same thing. I think he has an alcohol addiction. I think he's always had that. And sometimes, a lot of the times when someone is very drunk, they're not clear. They're not communicating clearly. He clearly did not try to take this girl and leave with her. I think that much can be said in the video. He doesn't grab her. He doesn't sit there and wait for her to finish. If he was attempting to kidnap her from the nail salon, he did a pretty shoddy job of it. He was in and out in a minute. So it may have been this thing where he just came in and pointed at a girl and said, is that your granddaughter? I'm not sure why he would do that, but he was probably outside waiting for his lift. He's drunk. He maybe just goes in and starts talking I've worked at bars and nightclubs for a long time and sometimes drunk people just get chatty and they ask you the most bizarre things and it does feel sometimes very socially like

Intrusive and you're like why is this random stranger talking to me and asking me personal questions and they don't realize that it's Weird or bizarre because they're on a different plane than you are so I'm just gonna say I don't think Bart Streeter had anything to do with what happened to his sister and his mother I think family dynamics can be complicated but there was nothing in those family dynamics that would say I'm gonna you know make off with my sister and my mother and my sister's friend and nobody's ever going to see them again. I don't think that Bart Streeter would have the know-how to pull off a crime like that and leave nothing behind, especially if he's drunk at the time. There's going to be something left behind of the scene. And I do want to say that, you know, I'd mentioned

they pulled several fingerprints from Cheryl's house after all those people had been in there, and they have to go through and eliminate people. And I have to feel that if Bart's fingerprints had been in that house, there would have been some questions asked because he'd been estranged from his mother and sister for quite a while. They had just moved into that house a few months prior, so his fingerprints shouldn't have been in that house on dalmar avenue if they were estranged for as long as they were so if his fingerprints were there i think he probably would have been a deeper person of interest to the police and he was um you know kind of removed from the person of interest list very very early on so if the police don't think that there's anything there to follow up on i don't i think that this is a person who struggled with his own demons before he lost his mother and sister, and it probably only got worse after. Yeah, I'm with you. And just to add

to the fingerprint conversation, same thing for Robert Cox, right? If his prints were in that house, big issue. And someone who would be, I would think, would go from a person of interest to a suspect immediately. But back to Bart, I agree with you. I think the one thing that Bart has going against him is the idea that he would be allowed in the home more readily because he's a family member. But as you just said, he didn't have a close relationship with Cheryl. They were kind of on bad terms at that point. So him going over there late at night, unexpected, would probably raise some suspicion for Cheryl. And based on what we know about the scene,

it does appear that there was a small sign of struggle from what we know from what has been released as far as the light on the outside of the house. I think it's more likely that if Bart has anything to do with this case, it's not necessarily him, but maybe the people he hung around with. He might not even know that he's somehow indirectly connected to this case based on someone that

was in his life who learned about his sister or his mother or both and took advantage of a situation because he did have some skeletons in his closet. He was going through some things. So I think it's reasonable to assume that he may have been hanging out with individuals who were not of the highest character. And one of those individuals could have been involved. And I think that theme ties out to this whole thing. And it ties with Robert Cox. If it had been directly connected to someone immediately in the lives of one of these three women, I do believe we'd have a better chance of solving it. I think the reason that

it's been like it has been for so long is because the person who did this we'd have a better chance of solving it i think the reason that it's been like it has been for so long is because the person who did this doesn't have a direct connection and then we talk about the van there's so many things here the van same thing as robert same thing with bart if we believe this van is somehow connected which it appears from the outside law enforcement definitely does they brought a freaking van painted the same color and threw it on the lawn so they clearly think there's some significance to it. And I don't think it would be difficult even back then to find out very quickly if Bart owned that type of van or had anyone in his immediate life who owned that type of van. And based on what we know now and based on what the police have said about Bart, that doesn't appear to be the case.

Yeah, absolutely. And there's so many more people on this list that make me feel like, oh yeah, that definitely could have been it. It definitely does seem like a crime of opportunity. It doesn't feel like anybody was sitting here planning this for a long time, like I'm going to go after these women. It feels like a crime of opportunity, which I think means it's not somebody who knows them or sees them on a day-to-day basis. It may be somebody who sees them on a day-to-day basis from afar and is kind of trying to get close to them, but not somebody who would have an ax to grind or had been wronged by these three women in some way. Yeah, and everyone said it. Nobody knew.

I don't care who you were, utility worker, policeman. I don't care what line were, utility worker, policeman. I don't care what line of work you're in. Nobody knew that Susie and Stacey were going to be back at that house that night. So if anybody was the target, it was Cheryl. It was only her because nobody would have known outside of Susie and Stacey that they were going to be coming back to that residence that evening. Well, Janelle. That is true. I stand corrected. Janelle would know that they're on their way there and therefore maybe Janelle's boyfriend as well. So I stand corrected. You're right on that. And so that is something that has to be considered. But as far as these other

suspects that we're considering, these other persons of interest, nobody outside of Janelle and her boyfriend would have known in that timeframe that they were heading back to that location. So if we do have a target here, it would have been Cheryl. And I do think there's significance. I said it last episode. I do think there's, I don't think it's a coincidence that Cheryl was spending a lot of time outside that evening working on furniture. And a lot of people say, do you guys know for a fact? Because I've seen the comments, do you guys know for a fact that she was outside working on furniture? Of course, we don't know for a fact. If we knew that for a fact, it would be very helpful. But we do know she was speaking to a friend on the phone

that evening, probably just a couple of hours before something happened to her. She said she was working on refinishing a piece of furniture. Even the first detective on scene said he walked in and could smell a strong scent of varnish. So just by putting those together, we know she probably was. And we know that that's not something you would typically do like inside your house because of the fumes and things. So that's why we keep saying it as if it's a fact. We don't know it's a fact, but we think it's as pretty close to a fact as it can be possible in a case where we don't know any of the facts. That's right. I'm with you. We're speculating we don't know any of the facts that's right i'm with you we're speculating here if we knew all the facts we wouldn't be discussing this case it'd already

be solved so you got to just sometimes use common sense and we're not ruling out the idea that she worked on the furniture inside but we're trying to understand how someone could have known that she was alone and and put themselves in a position to attack her without her being ready for it. And this would be something where if she's carrying things in, carrying things out, maybe more focused on what she's working on as opposed to the people around her, this would create an opportunity to approach her when she's maybe not at her highest level of defense. So yeah, there's speculation there for sure, but that's what we're here to do to take what we know and see if we can put the puzzle together. Yeah. And another thing I want to say about Robert Craig Cox, you

just said something before we started talking about Cheryl in the Furniture that made me think of this, but when I was looking at him online and I was kind of going through some of the like web sleuth, you know, threads about it, somebody said like, oh, he knew that Susie and Stacey weren't supposed to be there that night. Like, how would he knew that Susie and Stacey weren't supposed to be there that night. Like, how would he know that if he wasn't involved? And I just kind of want to like circle back to that and say he would know that because as he said himself, he followed this case closely from the beginning. And right in the first weeks of the investigation, they were putting it in the paper like, oh, you know, Susie and Stacey were supposed to spend the night at Janelle's.

But then they decided to go home around this time and they put the timeline and everything and they put interviews with Janelle and the friends and stuff in the paper. So that's how he would know that they weren't supposed to be there. So, yeah, he was kind of good at making it sound like he knew inside information, but he was just regurgitating information that he already heard from the paper like the rest of us in like a mysterious sort of creepy way. Robert didn't crack in any codes. But this is why it's important to try to keep some information in-house at the deepest level because you will have opportunists like this who come forward and give you just enough to keep you interested but never really give you anything that you don't already know. And those are the people that you kind of have to say yeah more likely than not they're just looking for attention they just like the cat and mouse game as you said earlier and so that's why that guilt knowledge where you're like i just wish we had all the facts this is part of the

reason you got to keep some stuff in house because there is information i guarantee it that we don't know about that is significant to that house that only a select group of people know. And if anyone ever comes forward with that information, I promise you they're going to be someone who's immediately brought in, maybe even arrested based on what they, depending on how significant it is as far as what they provide. And that's actually a great segue into our next suspect, which we're going to get into after our next and last break. All right, so the third suspect we're going to talk about today is a man named Stephen Eugene Garrison. And I mean, like, I went to newspaper.com for this guy, and I just was stunned. He has a long history of problems and run-ins with the law.

He pretty much had been in and out of prisons, jails, juvenile facilities from the time he was 13 or so. But it was only in 1993, when he was arrested on an unrelated gun charge, that people began connecting him to the Springfield Three. So he gets arrested for this gun charge in Springfield. And when he's in custody for this, Stephen Garrison told detectives that he had information about Cheryl, Susie, and Stacey. He claimed that a friend of his had confessed to killing the three women while the two were drunk together at a party. And I mean like Steve Garrison and his friend are drunk together at a party and the friend starts running in his mouth saying, oh yeah, I did these three women in, it was me, here's where they are, etc., etc. And reportedly,

Garrison did have some information that had not been released to the public, which led investigators to feel that he might be a legitimate lead. Because of the help that he could be able to provide in the case, the police had the prosecutor lower Garrison's bail to $2,500. It was originally $10,000. They had it lowered to $2,500, which means I think he only has to put up 10% of that, which I'm not great at math, but I think that's $250. And so they lowered it to that so he could bond out. And they said that the reasoning behind this was that Garrison might be more open to talking outside of the police station and in a different environment. So Garrison's released. The police brought him to a motel room in Springfield. But as he was being interviewed by the police

officers, Garrison somehow managed to like run out of the hotel room and escape. I'm not sure how this happened, but he was able to do that. And he did the most horrendous thing. So he's in custody for a gun charge. He says he has information about this very big case in Springfield. And then he escapes custody and he does such a horrific thing that can only lead me to believe that this person is psychotic and absolutely unstable in every way. So what he does is he finds the apartment of a 20-year-old college student, and this young woman lived alone. He entered her bedroom through her window between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. Garrison told this woman that he had a gun and he only wanted to use her phone. Terrified, the woman ran into her bathroom.

She closed and locked the door, but after 10 minutes had passed and she didn't hear anything from outside the bathroom door, she opened the door thinking that her intruder had left. But Steven Garrison was standing directly outside the bathroom door. He grabbed this woman. He ordered her to turn off all the lights, remove all her clothes, and lay on the bed. Garrison also removed his own clothes with the exception of his socks, and for the next several hours, he proceeded to rape the woman, sodomize her, and torture her. At one point, Garrison placed his hands around her neck as if he was going to strangle her. He left bruises on her neck and her body from biting and sucking on her skin,

and he also forced her to urinate in his mouth. And then he stole her rent money and left her apartment around 10 a.m. Absolutely terrible. And I don't know the specifics, as you mentioned, how he escaped, but that can't happen. It cannot happen at all. Although I will say, you're saying he was bailed out. So technically he was no longer in custody. So did he escape or did he just take off? Because he wasn't released while still in police custody, correct? I want to make sure I get that right. He was bailed out. Yeah. So he was technically not in police custody, but he was with the police and he was sort of like released on this lowered bail with the understanding that he would then go with them to the secondary location and give them this

information. Right. So I'm not defending police here at all. I'm just saying to make sure we know he wasn't in police custody where he's in handcuffs. There's a situation here where he bails out. There's an understanding that he's going to cooperate. He gets out. He might say, hey, I'm going to go smoke a cigarette or whatever. They still should have been near him. But if he does decide to run or take off, legally, they can't stop him. They can't

detain him at that point. He's violating the agreement they made, but if that's not part of his bail, a condition of his bail, then they technically can't do anything about it. However, I can't imagine being part of the law enforcement unit that was responsible for the lowering of this bail. And to have this happen, it's a terrible thing. It's an absolutely terrible thing. And you know how I feel about it. I think you feel the same way as far as he's concerned. Death. That's it. There's no other option here for him. But does that help us with the Springfield three? I don't know. I don't know about this one. The fact that he had possible guilt knowledge is significant. Listen, I don't think he did have guilt knowledge and I'm going to tell you,

but I don't think he freaking did. I think they made that shit up to make it seem like they had this huge reason for lowering the bail because this guy should have never had that low of a bail. He was a multi-time felon. This was not the first time he had attacked women. He should have been in jail or in prison with a high bond so that he couldn't get out because he was like a danger to other people. Clearly, you know, you escape from law enforcement so you can go and commit like a horrendous crime. You're not stable. You're not right in the head if you're doing that kind of stuff so he should never have been out and they knew that so i think they were like oh yeah he definitely told us stuff like that there's a huge justification because they made a big deal of big yeah it's a big problem yeah they made a big deal

of saying that like after because everybody was like why the hell was he on they're like well he knew stuff i don't think he knew shit to be be completely honest. And here's why. So he's rearrested nine days after this attack, and then he's put in jail without bond, which he should have been from the beginning. And on August 28th, Stephen Garrison led police to the farm of Francis Robb Sr. in Webster County, where Garrison claimed the bodies of the Springfield three would be found along with a moss green van that had driven the woman to the farm. This was the same property that Springfield police had investigated three years prior in relation to the disappearance of three other Springfield residents, John David Davison,

Daniel Davison, and Mary Susan Thomas. So this is what I'm thinking here. I don't think that Stephen Garrison knew anything. I don't think he knew anything crazy. I think he led them to this place because he knew that these two men, who are Francis Robb Sr. and Francis Robb Jr. were already involved with these other disappearances. They were actually arrested in 1990 after police searched the 60-acre tract of land for the bodies of the three missing people. They didn't find the bodies, but they found several items connected to robberies, including a motorcycle stolen from Springfield on April 1st, several thousand dollars worth of saddles and other horseback

riding equipment that had been taken during a March burglary. And a quarter of a mile away, police also discovered evidence at the home of a relative of the Robbs, including seven guns, two bows, ammo, and arrows. And two of these weapons were traced back to a burglary that had occurred two weeks prior. Now, the bodies of the missing men and the woman were never found, but Francis Robb Sr. would later plead guilty to their murders, which authorities believed had been a drug deal gone wrong. And so this is the location

that Stephen Garrison sent police in 1993. But the bodies of Cheryl, Susie, and Stacey were not found there. No Moss Green van was found. And police claim they did find some evidence there, but they wouldn't say what. And this information that was discovered during the search has been sealed by a court order ever since. Like you can't even find out anything about it now. So I literally believe Steven Garrison was like, oh, let me send them here because this guy was already

like responsible for making three other people disappear. And this is some huge thing that they don't know about. The police realized that he sent them on a wild goose chase, that he never had guilt knowledge, that he never had any real information that they didn't already know. But they had to make it seem like it was serious, and there was something found that they couldn't compromise by releasing in order to justify that they basically let this psychopath run around Springfield and commit more crimes.

Because why would it still be sealed today if they found something that was important enough to be sealed that we can't even see what it is? So you had me all the way up till that. So to go back what you were saying as far as him taking him on a wild goose chase, I completely agree with you as far as the parameters in which they set. He shouldn't have been let out because he was a dangerous person. And what should have been done is, hey, listen, we're not giving you anything until you give us something. So while you're in custody, you're going to take us to where this might be.

And if it pans out the way you say it is, then we'll work on something for your bail. Possibly if you're a cooperating witness, if you weren't directly involved. But by giving him everything beforehand, it was a mistake. Clearly, as far as what made him want to bring them to this farm, I get what you're saying. Like this individual had already been connected to other disappearances. So that's fine. I do think there might have been something significant found. Now, there's two ways here. One, the police officers who found it would have to be involved in this you know the hiding of this evidence the judges you know attorneys etc

so i am under the impression that whatever they found may have been something that is somewhat connected to the to the information that they haven't released publicly so they were able to kind of put it under that umbrella and when they wrote up the report to the judge, the judge agreed with them, which is why they sealed it. But there is a scenario, to be fair, where they put the evidence there and that's why the judge was willing to give it to them. But if they didn't do that, I think that last part could be true. So you're saying that they couldn't have everything sealed if they found nothing. Yeah. Unless it was a huge conspiracy where the judge who lowered the bail, et cetera, was all tied to the ceiling. And if you showed me that, I'd go, okay.

That would be interesting, right? Right? Right. Yeah. So there'd be other people involved that would have to cover up for the cops as well, because they would have to have a justification for wanting it sealed. And they would have to provide something to that judge in an affidavit or whatever it might be to say, hey, we know this about the case. And if we release this information, it's going to also

expose the knowledge that we have about the crime scene that nobody knows. All right. So you're telling me if the same judge who lowered Steven Garrison's bond is the same judge who had this whatever they found evidence-wise who had it sealed you would believe there might be some sort of conspiracy not necessarily like oh we're covering up for a murderer but like we don't want people to know how inconsequential this dude actually was because then we have this girl's life and i mean she didn't die but after all the shit he did to her she might as well have been it was horrendous so like they don't want that to get out that they really just let him you know go wild well the judge the judge has

qualified him you know i mean they can't be charged with anything but yeah it's not a good look for them so they could i could see their incentive to be like, oh yeah, see, this did lead to something positive. So that's why we're doing it. I could see that. Yeah, I would raise an eyebrow. You're going to tell me that it was the same judge? Man, I don't know, but I'm going to look it up now. Okay. I thought you were going to hit me with that and go, yes, Derek, it was. But that would raise some eyebrows because if all the people who are indirectly responsible for what happened, would they have an incentive to show that this individual did provide something that may help eventually solve the Springfield three?

Yeah, they would definitely have incentive to do so, right? I mean, they're protecting their own asses at that point. Well, I'm going to look it up and we'll let you guys know. All right. And I saw the judge's name too in the newspaper articles for both the lowering of the bail and the sealing it. And I should have wrote in it, wrote in it, wrote in it. I should have written it down, but I didn't think it was going to be important. But who knew? Everything's important. I should know that more

than anybody. I'm going to look into this now. I'm going to get back to you and I'm going to let you guys know next week. Done. All right. So many believe that Francis Robb Sr. and his son were responsible for killing the women and that they were the ones who had bragged to Garrison about it. Personally, I don't see that there's a lot besides rumor and speculation from like locals who are like, oh, yeah, these guys were bad news. It seemed more like Francis Robb Sr. and his son were like into drugs and weapons and kind of like weird, you know, guy gang stuff where they would just run around. They were always getting into fights with other men, but it didn't seem like they would be the type necessarily to just drive to Springfield and kidnap three women out of their house. But like I said, there's no concrete evidence of this. There are some things in the

past of Francis Robb and his son that seem like they kind of were on the wrong side of the law always. But I mean, Stephen Garrison was definitely on the wrong side of the law always. And many people believe Garrison himself was responsible for what happened to the Springfield Three since he was clearly very disturbed and off balance. And he had broken into this other woman's house while he was on the run from the law. And he'd actually been in 30 different jails and prisons by the time he was 36 years old. I found an article of Stephen Garrison, and it was like, I think, all the way into like the late 90s where he was being interviewed on a totally different thing about like the state of prisons in Missouri. And he was like, oh, I've been in 60 different prisons in my life. And this is the worst one I've ever been in. Like

the food's terrible. And he was just complaining about the prison he was in. So yeah, he definitely had a long, long record. He also broke out of prison in 1990. And he involved law enforcement in like a 21 hour standoff outside the home of his sister, where he was allegedly holding a hostage, and he was calling his ex-girlfriend, Veronica Wallen, and repeatedly demanding to see their son and threatening to kill her and things like that. But I just don't see somebody like Steven Garrison being able to restrain three women. Although I suppose if he had a knife when he broke into this college student's house, maybe, but I don't know.

He just doesn't seem organized or like with it enough. I mean, gun can change things. I forgot who just said it earlier. I think it was our first suspect. Who was that? The first guy you mentioned. What was his name? Oh, Cox. Yeah, Cox. Robert Cox. That's someone, you know, he even said, our first suspect who was that the first guy you mentioned uh what was his name oh cox yeah cox

robert that's someone you know he even said oh the person could have had a gun and easily controlled three women yeah i agree with that so anybody with a gun it changes the game because whether they're 10 feet away from you or right up next to you they can still shoot you from that distance so it's and it does if you're not someone who's been exposed to it before, if you have a gun pointed at you, it's, it's a different type of feeling. And so it's something where I could see how someone who's not expecting it could freeze instantly and be completely taken over by fear. As far as Garrison's concerned, it's so hard without knowing what information he provided or what information he said before his bail was lowered. That was so significant. If I, if we knew the crime scene and we knew what was providing and how

specific it was depending on his specificity about what he said that would change my opinion because it would tell me right out like there's no way there's no way unless he was directly involved or knew the person who was directly involved, that he would be able to guess that. Like, what was it? What was it that he knew, if anything at all, right? Because as you said, this could have been used as a justification for the bail in the first place. They might have just been desperate and lowered his bail on a guess.

But if he provided something that you and I looked at and said, just for an example, you know, there was something left behind that wasn't supposed to be there. A calling card, if you will, from the offender. I don't think that's the case, but something that undoubtedly would not have been known by anybody other than the person who committed the crime. Then, yeah, OK, I see it. He's somehow involved. But what was it?

What was it that he provided? It couldn't have been that specific. As far as there being something found at the at the at the property let's assume for the sake of this conversation it was something that could be tied directly to the springfield three well then the question becomes how did he know how did he know that would be the right is he that just that lucky that he just guessed because of this guy's previous history yeah maybe or as you mentioned he either did it himself and was tying it to them or like people have speculated, the Robs had said something to him during a drunken night and he remembered it.

But if that were the case, why not just get a really good deal and say, I know exactly who did it. And I'll tell you guys if I get this, this and this. He seems like the type of person that's an opportunist that would definitely do that to benefit himself. I don't know. He seems like he's not all there. So I don't know. I mean, yeah. You don't think he'd be like, hey, I know who did it. I give you them if you give me this.

Yeah, he could have done that. I mean, maybe that's what his deal was. Like, let me out and I'll tell you who did it. Maybe all he wanted to do was get out. He wasn't thinking about like further down the road when he'd have to go back to court and actually go on trial for this charge. He was just thinking about getting out in that moment. So I think that's pretty much all he wanted to do was get out in that moment.

I don't think he gave them valid information at all. But if you asked me, Stephanie, all these guys we're talking about today, which one would you bet on to be the one who did it? It would be this next person for me. The next person we're going to talk about is Gerald Carnahan, a Springfield resident who was remembered by classmates at Kickapoo High School as a guy with money who liked to party. Now, Carnahan's family owned Springfield Aluminum and Brass Company. He worked there from the time he was out of high school. Basically, he's rich. His family's rich,

he's rich. His financial situation was never something he had to worry about. He married his wife, Pat Collins, in the mid-80s, and in 1992, he and his family, including Pat and her daughter, his stepdaughter, they were living at 1356 South Devon Road, just five miles from Cheryl Levitt's Delmar Avenue home. Now, after Cheryl, Susie, and Stacey went missing, Springfield looked into Gerald Carnahan, who had been involved in many legal issues recently and many issues with the law. And he was also the suspect in the murder of a young woman named Jackie Johns, who had disappeared in Nixa in 1985. And Nixa is just 12 miles away from Springfield. Jackie Johns was well known in her small Missouri town. She was a former prom queen and everyone's favorite waitress at the local cafe where she worked, and she drove a very unique black Camaro whose license plate read Jackie 1. Jackie had last been seen leaving work

on the evening of June 7, 1985, and the next day her Camaro was found in a 7-Eleven parking lot on U.S. Highway 60. Large amounts of blood were found inside the vehicle, and Jackie's blouse, jeans, underwear, and bra were found in the back seat, soaked in blood. On June 22, Jackie's nude body was recovered from Lake Springfield by two fishermen, and an anonymous caller claimed to have seen Gerald Carnahan, a local and well-known businessman, at the 7-Eleven where Jackie's vehicle was found. On June 24th, Gerald was interviewed by police and he admitted that he did know Jackie, but at the time of her disappearance and murder, he had been

with his stepdaughter at a bar. He was also questioned about a scrape that he had on his knuckles, which he claimed had come from a volleyball injury. Several witnesses came forward claiming they had seen Gerald's truck and Gerald himself at that 7-Eleven on the day that Jackie vanished, and one woman even claimed that she'd asked Gerald about what he was doing there that day, and he told her he was never there, but then after he approached her several times, and he was like, hey, you know, don't tell the police about you thinking you saw me that day. Like, just don't tell police about that. Now, when the police found out that Gerald had lied to them about his alibi, they flew to Los Angeles and arrested him as he was preparing to board a flight to Taiwan. His lawyers claimed that Gerald was going to Taiwan for business dealings on behalf of his family company.

But the police felt that he was running, knowing that they were closing in on him. He was sent back to Missouri and charged with evidence tampering, and his stepdaughter Sarah was also charged with making false statements to the police during a grand jury hearing in February of 1986. So basically, Gerald Carnahan lied about his alibi. And then his stepdaughter, Sarah, also lied about his alibi. And so they both got in trouble for that. Once the police figured out that that wasn't his alibi at all, and they found out that, you know, none of the other people at these areas, they claimed they had been had seen them. And there was also like a receipt from 7-Eleven that showed he was there that night. And I don't know why they used evidence

tampering to sort of hold him, but because they used evidence tampering, he was able to get off because Gerald's lawyer claimed that lying to the police was not physical evidence, so he could not be charged with evidence tampering. A judge agreed and Carnahan was released and allowed to return to his life in Springfield. But he was viewed with a great deal of suspicion there because of his alleged connection to Jackie John's murder, and he was viewed with even more suspicion when his life appeared to become very dramatic in 1992, the same year that three women vanished from a house in Springfield. In November of 1992, neighbors heard yelling coming from the South Devon Road home of Gerald and his wife Pat, and Pat would get a restraining order against her husband, claiming that he was an alcoholic

who took a lot of pills and became violent. She dropped the order two weeks later, but at that point it was too late, Everyone already knew about it. Four months later, Carnahan was arrested and charged with the attempted kidnapping of 18-year-old Heather Starkey. Heather said that she was walking to a friend's house when a white two-door Chrysler LeBaron passed her and stopped in front of her. The driver, well-known businessman Gerald Carnahan, got out of the car and asked Heather if she was okay before grabbing her and trying to force her into his vehicle. Heather fought and was able to escape, and later Carnahan would claim that he hadn't been trying to kidnap her, he had simply slipped and grabbed

onto her by accident. Four months after that, while out on bail for the alleged kidnapping, Carnahan reportedly pointed a.22 caliber handgun at his own head before firing into his living room floor. He was taken to a mental health facility where he reportedly threw a cup of his own urine at police officers. Two months after that, Gerald Carnahan set fire to a competing aluminum foundry in Aurora. At his trial, Robert Moore, the president of the company, which was owned by Gerald's family, he claimed that he and Gerald had gone to the competing foundry just two days before the fire in hopes of purchasing some equipment, but the owners were not selling. Moore claimed that after the fire was set, Gerald Carnahan had confessed to breaking into the foundry and stealing $60,000 worth of casting

equipment before setting fire to a stack of cardboard boxes. Carnahan claimed that he had been instructed to do this by Moore and the company, saying, quote, I didn't do this on my own and you can print that, end quote. And a month after that, several witnesses saw Gerald Carnahan release the emergency brake of a geotracker parked in front of his house, sending it rolling down a hill. So while he was out on bail for, you know, the attempted kidnapping of Heather Starkey, Carnahan complained to the media about how he just couldn't get out from under the dark cloud of suspicion that had followed him ever since the murder of Jackie Johns. He said, quote, I love the Springfield area, but I don't think I'll ever beat the negative feelings some people have for me. This kidnapping conviction certainly hasn't helped any, but I'm not going to let it destroy my life, end quote. His wife, Pat, also came out in defense of her husband, saying, quote, he really tries to help everyone, to please everyone. He's one of the world's true

innocents. And because he's naive, people try to take advantage of him, end quote. But Pat and Gerald seemed to be the only ones who felt he was a good guy. A woman who knew the couple but preferred to remain anonymous said, quote, I mean, he's as creepy as they come. I thought it then, and that was before Jackie Johns. He's even creepier now." And the father of Jackie, Les Johns, always believed that Gerald Carnahan was responsible for his daughter's murder, saying, quote, "...I'm an old man, but I'll be damned if I die before I see that son of a bitch in prison." And Les Johns was actually in luck, because in 2007, after Gerald had been released from prison for Heather Starkey's

kidnapping, he was arrested again and charged with the murder of Jackie Johns after DNA evidence found in Jackie's body matched Carnahan's genetic profile. And they said that the likelihood that the DNA on the victim's body belonged to anyone besides Carnahan was one in 6.039 quadrillion. That's a lot. It's pretty good odds. It's pretty good odds. Yeah, it's very unlikely that it's somebody else. Yeah, there's not even that many people in the world. There's not a quadrillion people in the world. How many people are in the world, Stephanie? A couple billion, man. We're only doing that because we cut it all out, but we had to look it up. We didn't know. We're cutting it all out. But in case you're wondering, what is it?

7.9 billion? Yeah, 7.95 billion or something. But it was cute because when I was like, there's not even that many people in the world, are they? And Derek paused for a good 30 seconds and I could see him thinking. He was like, no, no, there's not. Yeah. Yeah.

We're like, John, cut it all out because we sound like morons sitting here looking it all up. You said that. We're going to pretend like we do. I am a moron in some cases and i want people to know that same that'll go in our blooper reel but regardless like it's definitely him because there's not even that many people in the world so right definitely him um and it's also very which pisses me off because he's over here like, oh, I just will never, you know, like people will never look at me in a good light anymore. And like this new kidnapping conviction certainly isn't going to help.

And then his wife's over here like, Gerald's one of the last great innocents in the world. Like, oh, my God, just so gross. definitely him. And it's very possible that Gerald Carnahan is also responsible for the murders of Kelly Workman, who disappeared near Dogwood, Missouri in 1989, and Debbie Sue Lewis, whose body was found eight months after she disappeared in 1987, five miles south of Joplin. Now, Debbie Sue Lewis was known for driving around in her Jeep CJ5 with the roof off and her cowboy hat on. And her sister-in-law, Linda Helton, claimed that Debbie and Gerald had dated for a while. Sadly, when her body was discovered, there was no soft tissue left and therefore no physical evidence to point to Carnahan. But something that struck me about these cases was the mention of a vehicle, a very specific vehicle.

So Debbie Lewis liked to drive around in her Jeep CJ5. Jackie Johns had a very distinctive Camaro with a vanity plate. And I don't know if this is coincidence, but Susie Streeter also had a car she was very proud of, and she had a vanity plate that read Sweeter, S-W-E-E-T-R. And so is it crazy? Does he maybe go after these women who drive around in these distinctive vehicles with vanity plates? Am I just finding connections that's not there? Because it really struck me as odd. I think it's completely reasonable to make that assumption. And it's not possible until you find evidence that it is, right? Like ultimately, we don't know what drives these monsters. It could be different things.

It's sometimes the color of their hair, sometimes the way they dress. It's sometimes what they do for work. It could be for any person out there, especially these people when you're trying to get into the minds of someone who doesn't think rationally, who knows what the initial attraction is to their victims? It could be anything. And to think that women drive around in flashy cars with vanity, maybe just the cars themselves is something that makes them someone who stands out to these people.

Yeah. So let's say, because I think Gerald Carnahan is very good for this. I'm just going to say that here. I think he could very good for this. I'm just going to say that here. I think he could potentially have done this. Let's say he's driving around that night. He sees Susie and Stacey drive by. Now Susie's driving her car with the vanity plate. Stacey's driving her car. They're following each other, but he just happens to be driving and he sees them driving from Janelle's house to Cheryl's house and he follows them.

Right. He sees them, goes in, he watches them from afar and then he knocks the light out, whether to draw them out or to make it so that nobody can see him. And then he goes in and he has a knife or a gun or something. I mean, the dude's loaded. He probably had, you know, any amount of things that he had done before that were just wiped off the record, as we see sometimes with people who are high profile or whose families are high profile. And, you know, they have these different interactions and then nothing ever comes of it. He may have been pulled over with a gun or a knife before, but we just don't know about it because someone paid someone to make sure it never stayed on the record. But he gives me like the vibes of somebody who definitely would feel untouchable in that regards, like somebody who would have the balls to go into somebody's house and take three women out and leave. Yeah, it makes sense, right? It goes back to what we said in episode one about Stacey and Susie and the police basically saying, how do

they how did they come to the conclusion that they got home around 12 15 well was because they just determined the time it would take to get from janelle's house to to home yeah that's not that's possible and it's still possible based on what you just said but it's also possible that they might have stopped somewhere to grab something or who knows and and and gerald could have seen them for the and for the reasons that you just laid out was drawn to the vehicle and followed them home. So that is completely possible. And I do think there's a couple of things in there that whoever did this are significant. And as I have said, like numerous times, the fact that Cheryl was outside possibly working on furniture, that could be the reason, or it could have been the fact that Susie and Stacey were driving home and someone who

had bad intentions happened to see them and followed them. And because there's not that direct connection, this was just something that happened on that evening. I think that is why this case is so difficult to solve. And he lived close to Cheryl's house. He was just five miles away. And if you look at the main street in Springfield, if he was going home at that time, like let's say he was leaving a bar around that time, which would make sense with that

like 1.32 a.m. kind of hour, they were leaving Janelle's house. They may have been driving in the same direction. And he's just like, oh, look at this car with this vanity plate. And these girls are driving in the same direction as me. And maybe he didn't even realize that Susie and Stacey were together because they were in separate vehicles, right? So he had never really attacked anybody when they were in a pair before. So he thinks he's following Susie. He sees Susie and Stacey both pull into the same house, but by this time he's already invested time and now he sees two cute girls and he's like, oh, two cute girls. Well, I can handle this. He goes in and Cheryl's inside. And so he takes all three because now Cheryl's seen his face and maybe Cheryl even knows him. Right. He can't leave anybody behind because he's a well-known businessman. He's Gerald Carnahan. Everybody knows Gerald Carnahan. And now any one of these three women can identify him. So he can't leave any of them behind. Yeah. All plausible.

Now the question becomes, you know, we can't prove that he was in the house based on what we know. But if his wife is cooperative, whoever did this, they weren't home most of the evening. So if they had a significant other or a friend that they lived with, it would be very memorable to that person that, that hey it's funny because around that time when those women disappeared so-and-so wasn't home all night cuz whoever did this was out before it happened saw them and then whatever happened that evening we know that it was very late at night so this

person wouldn't have been coming home till very late in the evening or early in the morning so for Gerald being a, I would think his wife would remember, especially knowing what happened around that time, the whole, everyone in the community knew about it. It would stand out to her that, you know what, Gerald didn't come home that evening and he didn't really have a good answer for where he was. And you would think after he was convicted on this late,

you know, the most recent crime, she would maybe be more cooperative. However, I have a feeling you're gonna tell me she probably wasn't. Well, you know know I don't even know once he went to prison for Heather Starkey and then when he gets out he gets arrested and put in prison for life for Jackie Johns doesn't really appear that they like had followed up but what was happening in 1992 with Gerald

Carnahan these these women go missing in the summer. And what's happening in the fall of 1992? He's off the rails, man. He's got police going to his house because he's fighting with his wife. His wife's taking an order of protection out against him or a restraining order against him because she says he's drinking too much and taking pills. He's trying to kidnap Heather Starkey. He's burning down foundries. All happening in the months after these three women were taking. So it does speak to maybe he wasn't in the best place. Maybe he was drinking a lot. Maybe he was out at all hours.

And that's why his wife had a problem with him. But then, you know, I'm sure she probably really clammed up after he was arrested for Jackie Johns because she doesn't want to be the wife of this dude who did all these horrible things. She doesn't want to talk or be in the spotlight anymore. And at this point, he's in prison for life. So why pour salt in the wounds? Yeah. I mean, I could tell you why we would do it, but yeah, I'm hearing you from her mindset. It doesn't have to make sense to us, right? Just to her. I would have hoped they followed up with her though to say, hey, now let's go back to the night in question. Do you remember that night at all? It was Gerald Holm. Were you with him? Was he in the house all night or did he go out? Maybe she's not truthful,

but it'd be a good question to ask. Yeah, it would be. I hope that they asked it. But as far as I'm concerned, he's pretty good for it. He's as close as I can get to somebody who could have done this based on MO, based on how he was kind of behaving. His MO definitely fits for sure. from the beginning. When he and his twin brother Gary were born on December 11, 1962, Larry had to be rushed to the ICU for oxygen because he was completely blue. And Larry and Gary grew up living in a cemetery in Wabash, Indiana with their parents because their father was the gravedigger of the cemetery, so they lived there, and he would often have his young sons help him dig graves. Both boys attended West Ward Elementary School, where Larry was very antisocial, and he had a low IQ of 85. He was often teased by the other kids for having a speech impediment and wetting the bed. And after

graduating from high school, Larry became very interested in military history, and he would spend his time traveling around the Midwest to watch civil war and Revolutionary War reenactments, sometimes alone, sometimes with his twin brother, Gary. Now, throughout the 70s and 80s, Larry was suspected of committing various acts of arson, vandalism, and petty crimes in his hometown. And then in the 80s, young girls and women began vanishing in areas where Larry happened to be traveling. Now, Larry Duane Hall is now known as the man with a van, and he came to the attention of law enforcement after several young women and girls claimed that a man in a brown and tan van was stalking them in early 1994.

And these calls began shortly after the disappearance of 15-year-old Jessica Roach, who went missing from her Georgetown home in September of 1993. She was later found dead in a cornfield near Perrysville, Indiana, six weeks later. One of the girls who had been followed by this man in a van was able to get the license plate number, and it led to Larry D. Wayne Hall. And when police searched Hall's van, which he drove around and also lived in, they found many suspicious items, such as a knife, a cotton mask, a length of rope, a missing persons poster for a woman named Tricia Rettler, who was a freshman that had gone missing from Wesleyan University in Indiana in 1993. And they also found a piece of stationery from Wesleyan University with Tisha's name on it, and a journal that Larry Hall used to take notes about what he saw as he traveled,

notes that said things like, seen joggers and bikers, many alone, and seen some prospects, and cover all floors and sides of van, and no body contact, buy condoms. When he was apprehended, Hall confessed to killing Trisha Rettler, but he was later released and written off as an attention seeker when he was unable to lead police to where he had hidden her body. In 1995, Larry Hall was convicted of the

kidnapping and murder of Jessica Roach after it was discovered that he had attended a Revolutionary War reenactment at Forest Glen Park, five miles from Georgetown, where Jessica Roach lived. And he admitted to this. He confessed to it. He confessed to killing a couple different women. And, you know, he's now known as a serial killer. And another prisoner, Jimmy Keene, he ended up making a deal with investigators

to go undercover at the Springfield prison that Hall was being held at. Keene would befriend Hall and see if he could get more information about his victims and the locations of their bodies. Keene claimed that Hall had confessed to targeting Trisha Rettler and described how she had fought him off and how he had killed her. Additionally, Keene described a conversation that he'd had with Hall in the prison woodshop where Hall was carving some wooden falcons while he looked at a map that had several locations marked on it. And Hall told Keene that the falcons watched over the dead, leading Keene to believe the marks on the maps were locations of Hall's victims.

Keene contacted the FBI to tell them what he had discovered, but before they even got his message, Keene decided to confront Hall, and by the time the authorities got there, the wooden falcons and the map were long gone. In 2011, Hall confessed to his role in the disappearance of Lori Deppies from 2002 and shared details with investigators that had never been publicly released. Authorities believe that Larry Duane Hall is responsible for up to 40 disappearances of young women from at least a dozen states between 1980 and 1994, and Larry and his brother Gary were believed to have been in Battlefield, Missouri in the summer of 1991 for the 130th anniversary of the Battle of Wilson's Creek. Family members have claimed that the brothers returned to Battlefield the following summer, the summer of 1992, and Battlefield is less than 10 miles from Springfield, which puts them in the general vicinity of the Springfield

Three when they went missing. Now, author Christopher Hawley Martin grew up in the same town as Larry Duane Hall, and he wrote a book about the serial killer titled Urges, a Chronicle of Serial Killer Larry Hall. Martin also corresponded with Hall from prison, and he claims that Hall told him he had buried five bodies in Mark Twain Forest in Missouri. And I believe Mark Twain Forest, if I remember correctly, it's like 125 miles away from Springfield. And Hall said the three of the bodies buried there were from Springfield. Christopher Hawley Martin said, quote, there is a resemblance between Lori Deppies and Susie Streeter, but I believe Larry Hall was most attracted to Stacey McCall. She closely resembles many of the girls Larry is connected to, petite and athletic with shoulder-length dark hair.

Larry was known to stalk mall parking lots, plazas, and stores looking for women. Several of the women connected to Hall went missing from those places. Hall said he spotted Lori Deppies at a store and followed her to the apartment parking lot where she was abducted. I believe Larry Hall, either alone or with an accomplice, zeros Stacey McCall and Suzanne Streeter sometime on the night they graduated. I believe he followed them, invaded Streeter's home, and abducted the three women. A woman from Kokomo, Indiana was killed in her home. Indianapolis police believe Larry Hall invaded the home of Michelle Dewey on July 1, 1991, and murdered her.

Hall is known to have invaded homes, end quote. So there's a lot that we can unpack there. So first off, as far as it relates to Larry Hall, this goes back to what we were just talking about. And I think I asked you in part one too, I wonder what was along the stretch of road that Stacey and Susie had to take to get from Janelle's house to Cheryl's home. Because I don't believe anybody who did this had followed them from house to house that night. I know they were at a couple of parties. My belief would be that the offender, if it was Stacey and Susie, picked them up as they were driving from Janelle's home that night. And so I wonder, were there any convenience stores? Were there any public areas where they could have stopped or even just driven by that an offender could have spotted them?

Because I'm assuming I haven't been to the area. I don't know the topography exactly, but I wonder, I'm thinking sometimes I'm a city guy, Missouri, it's all woods. There's nothing really out there. When in fact, where this specific area is, it might have been very populated and might've had a lot of, they might've traveled down a main road. And so they might've been seen by individuals multiple times that night. But if that were the case, I find it hard to believe that we'd be sitting here in 2022 and there weren't sightings like legitimate sightings reported of Stacey and Susie that

night while they were driving home by innocent parties, by witnesses. So that's a little bit of an issue, but there's a bigger picture here. First off, Larry Hall, completely possible that he did this, right? But I think this brings up a bigger point, which is how discouraging investigations like this can be. Because what we talk about tonight? Eight, nine different people. And the argument could be made for all of them that they were involved somehow, right? And yet the reality is more than likely only one of them, if maybe even none of

them were directly involved. And these are only eight that we discussed tonight. How many more Larry Halls are there that we don't know about or that we didn't discuss tonight or that the police know about? And yeah, again, you made an argument based on your research for all of them, that they could all be good for this. So it's really disheartening when it comes to the case, because although these guys are all scumbags, more than likely they didn't all collaborate together on this one specific case. of these eight guys more than likely if not all of them didn't do this and yet they're still monsters in their own right so it does bring up a bigger picture of like why is this case so hard to solve this is part of the reason right here you could have someone who's directly connected to these women or someone who's just

a serial killer and happened to be the stacy and suzy and cheryl happened to be in the wrong place at the right time for this offender which that's that's really hard to prove i just i have a hard time going down the larry hall rabbit hole because like he like without a doubt he definitely was responsible for you know many women going missing. But the author says something like, oh, he thinks he was drawn to Stacey McCall because she was petite and athletic with shoulder length, dark hair. Like, I don't think that's how Stacey McCall was described at all. In fact, they said she wore her hair very long, like to her waist. That was specifically something that they said about her. So, you know, I think sometimes, especially not saying anything wrong about this author, but sometimes when authors kind of devote their lives to these serial killers or one specific suspect, they find a way to fit these like random cases into the profile and the MO of their killer that they've been following i saw it with uh i forget who he was but he he

said that this one serial killer was responsible for like the black dahlia um the west memphis three case like he put him in all the areas and there's no possible way but when you're studying somebody forever and you think you know everything about them you try to find ways to make these unsolved cases fit that person's mo foreclosure and, you know, to make it seem, you know, a bit more worse than it is. But I just don't see how it could possibly be. However, he did have a van. He was known as the man in the van. That was his like name when he was stalking all these women. Right, but you said it was brown though, right? Brown and tan. But remember they said like, oh, some eyewitnesses saw like a brown van and some saw a green van,

but they think because of the time of day that the witnesses were seeing it, the van was probably green, but it looked brown or darker like at night or something. So how sure are we that this green van and the blonde girl in the green van is even the same van or even connected at all?

And it could be the brown van and it could be a completely different van. We don't know. Well, to your point about making something fit, the whole reason I got my start in true crime was a case involving a PI who had connected Jason Simpson to the murder of Nicole Simpson. He wrote a book about it, a very lengthy book the entire book and this was before going out to california and i'll be honest after reading it i was pretty convinced that jason was involved until i went out there and did my own investigation but yeah if someone spends so much time on it they can find ways to connect it to what they're trying to connect it to and it may not even be something that's malicious in nature it may be how they truly feel i know that was the case for the for the oj simpson investigation um it's so crazy to kind of

to put a bow on this case because there's so much here and and you you just hit on it now like we're talking about the van but was that a nothing burger was that van even connected you don't want to get too focused on that because if you're looking for a guy who happens on a van, you could miss the actual killer. And then there's also the situation where I go back and forth as we've been, I was even thinking about it on vacation. It's, it's something where I really wonder, like as a criminal, putting myself in that mind, if I had the, the, the plan to do something this heinous, I would want to do it in the house and then leave. I wouldn't want to bring anything with me that could tie me back to it or create an opportunity where I could get caught. When you start bringing women with you, they could flee, they could run, you could be seen with them. So many opportunities to get caught. So I would want to isolate it to that home,

clean up the crime scene as best I can, and then remove myself from the situation. So I go back and forth on, was this planned? Was this planned by the offender or offenders where they went there with the intention on kidnapping these women in order to take them to a secondary location? Or was this something where they went there with the intention on doing something to one woman, something happened where the other women show up and now they have to change their plan. And this whole driving around with them with possibly a gun to someone's back, making one of the victims drive the van was just something that kind of evolved because they felt like, well, now I can't leave them here because this is going to expose me in this way or that way. So I go back and forth on it. And I guess

my final thought is either this was a really well thought out plan that was executed almost to perfection at this point, based on what we don't know about the case, or this was a really well thought out plan that was executed almost to perfection at this point based on what we don't know about the case, or this was a complete debacle and they just got extremely lucky. And left as soon as they realized it was a debacle, right? They're not hanging around. They're like, oh crap, there's three people here. I thought there was only going to be one person. We got to get out of here. And that's why you don't see a ton of evidence at the house because they went to that secondary location pretty early on. But I wanted to talk about a couple of theories from people in the comments and kind of run them past you. First of all, I want to talk about witness

protection. So some people were like, well, could these women have been involved in a witness protection plan and then been like swept away by the federal government. So in that scenario, would the federal government notify local law enforcement or would they not? I feel like they would not, right? Because they can't tell anybody where these people are. I'm not saying that I think this is what happened, but it's an interesting sort of avenue to go down. Would anybody in Springfield have been notified if Susie, Stacey and Cheryl were like in Whitney's protection? And maybe that was the reason that Susie and Stacey decided to go home because that was the plan the whole time to go to Cheryl's because they'd seen something, they wanted

to graduate. And then they were like, OK, we've graduated and we're ready to go. And they went. Nobody would have known. Right now, to answer your question directly, government agencies at that level, especially, they're not going to tell local law enforcement because it's widely known that local law enforcement could be corrupted and connected to individuals that they don't want knowing. It's not reasonable to assume that every single law enforcement officer is going to do things the right way. It's just not the way

it is, especially in these communities. And I know Springfield is a big, we've kind of talked about it like it's small. Springfield, Missouri, what do they have, like 160 cops or something? It was a huge department. I mean, there's a lot of people that could leak information. So by just telling one person in that agency, it could get out to the whole community very fast. So no, to answer your question directly, they would not tell local law enforcement. There's no incentive to tell local law enforcement. So technically, I suppose that that could have happened. But would the FBI have like helped Springfield in this search for these three women if they knew? No, this isn't.

That's not the case. I appreciate us talking about it. This isn't this isn't what happened. OK, well, what would happen in that in that scenario of three women just went missing and the federal government were like like we know these people are in witness protection and then springfield's like we need your help fbi and the fbi are like okay we're coming like how would this go down i i think they would i think they would go if that was really the case i think they would go and they would put on a good show because they want people to think that those three women are gone if that's what they're trying to do they're trying to make

them disappear they want whoever they're protecting them from to think they're three women are gone. If that's what they're trying to do, they're trying to make them disappear. They want whoever they're protecting them from to think they're dead. It would actually be the perfect scenario. It would be the perfect plan. So not necessarily the worst theory. I think it's the best case scenario. No, but man, what an elaborate... I mean, listen, these three women

would have to be involved in some serious shit for the FBI to go to this length. That's what I'm saying. And I wonder what Susie and Stacey and Cheryl could have known that would have given them this level of protection for the FBI to go to this link. That's what I'm saying. And I wonder what Susie and Stacey and Cheryl could have known that would have given them this level of protection and this elaborate of a plan to fake their deaths.

Agreed, agreed. I can't, I was thinking that too, like what's the reason at the end of the path for this, but you never know, man, things happen, things happen. Anything's possible, Stephanie. That's what you want me to say. I do. Anything's possible.

Thank you. So another, well, actually a couple of commenters happen anything's possible Stephanie that's what you want me to say anything's boss thank you um so another well actually a couple commenters were like listen I've been a hairdresser before and I know that when your hairdresser your certificate is basically like plastered to your mirror and it says your name and your address and like basically all your personal information on this certificate and I go to the hairdresser often and I know that this is the case they usually have their their certificate and it shows their name their full name and their address so people were saying you know anybody like any guy who went in to get his hair cut by Cheryl could

have seen this information seen her name seen her address and you know been able to locate her at her house and And, you know, somebody like Gerald Carnahan or Robert Craig Cox or any one of these other suspects we talked about today could have at any point wandered into Cheryl's salon, gotten their hair cut by her or another one of the stylists and sort of become fixated on her and felt the need to find out where she lived. So that is another possible theory of how somebody could have targeted her and then found out where she lived through her hair certificate. Love this way of thinking. This is the innovative thinking that gets cases like these solved because it's not always the obvious answer of what happened. Yeah, Occam's razor sometimes,

but sometimes it's completely out of left field that there's no connection of how it could be tied to your victim or victims. And this could be a situation where you had a stalker who was in there or nearby and was gathering information over a period of time. This doesn't seem like a premeditated situation the way it went down the time of night, but yeah, anything's possible. And I like this theory a lot more than the witness protection theory. Sorry. The witness protection theory is a happy ending that I would like to believe in. Same. So, I mean, you know, it would have been nice if they brought cinnamon into witness protection.

That would have been great. I mean, they left cinnamon behind. That seems, yeah. That seems to be really callous and cruel. You know, cinnamon gets tossed out on the street by the neighbors. The federal government comes in, takes the three women, leaves Cinnamon. Is nobody here for Cinnamon? Does Cinnamon not deserve a fresh start? But the second or the third thing I wanted to talk about that I saw a lot in the comments is the discussion about Janelle and her boyfriend,

Mike, and how a lot of people felt like it really just didn't add up, especially the timeline of that Sunday. And I kind of agree. And I'm not saying that Janelle is suspicious or Janelle is guilty, but the way that it's been explained, how they kind of like went over there, like called and then went over there and then left and then came back and then left and then came back. And then all of these people are in the house and Janelle's going through purses and going inside and Mike's cleaning up like the only evidence of this crime it does seem to be a little like incongruent with with what makes sense I don't understand why they would have gone there and then left and then gone there and then left and why there's all these people coming over and tramping in and out, and nobody calls the police, and nobody really calls anybody. And then Janelle goes to a water park, and she's like, oh, they'll turn up, even though you went

in, and you said the house looked odd, and the TV was on, and the purses were there, and cinnamon was there. And it does seem to be something that really just doesn't fit comfortably into the puzzle. It's kind of just sticking out a little little bit and it kind of keeps getting my mind caught on it. So I kind of agree there. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the opposite of what we were just talking about, right? It's the easy answer. She was the last person to be seen with them.

She went over to the house. She definitely made some questionable decisions as far as the preservation of the evidence and the crime scene and things like that. And it could be just an honest mistake because she's not familiar with it. I think for me to find any meat on this bone, I would have to know a motive. I would have to know that there's a previous history or something to suggest why Janelle and

or her boyfriend would be incentivized to kill these three women. Because you don't normally, if you're someone who's a functioning member of society don't just go around killing people so why would they do this what would be the reason for it if it was something where they were out that night and something immediately happened it would be more a crime of passion where it happens in the moment it's sloppy it's it's right there and then when it when whatever disturbance happens it's not a premeditated situation that's carried out later that night at this level. So why would Janelle have a motive to kill or even capture these three women?

I haven't been told anything that would convince me of that. And that's why I don't think it's possible or plausible. Even though there are things about, I can acknowledge that there are things about that night and the next day that raise an eyebrow, but I think I'm going to cough it up to just not being smart about what they're doing and being a little ignorant to the situation. And then there was a lot of people who were talking about human trafficking, that this seemed

very much like human trafficking. These three women, they're not dead. There's no sign that there was violence. They were taken whole, healthy, and unharmed from the house to another location, and they've never been found after. And this is some sort of maybe trafficking situation. I don't believe that's the case, but I'd be remiss if I put myself out there and said, oh no, completely not possible. I really do think this is something where kind of like a utility worker or somebody in the area somebody who happened to be around that night just saw cheryl or saw us or saw susie

and stacy and decided to carry out this situation and it kind of just unfolded in front of them they were in possession of a gun or a knife already. They were out looking for someone and they found them. I personally, that was the last theory you had, right? Yes. I personally think, and this is purely a guess on my part, I think Cheryl was the target. That's what I think. I really do. I believe Cheryl was the target that night. I'm going under the assumption that Stacey and Susie drove directly home from Janelle's. I'm assuming that there's maybe more there we don't know about where police have confirmed that they went directly from Janelle's to Cheryl's and they didn more than likely Cheryl had already been captured, assaulted, whatever it may have been prior to Susie and Stacy arriving at the residence.

That's, that's where I'm at this point after hearing everything we do know about it. I think they were, I think they walked into something they didn't expect or shortly after getting home the offender re-emerged and they were unfortunately um incapable of doing anything about it because the offender or offenders were in possession of a gun or a knife and they didn't feel comfortable running because even something you said and you it was very passionate and i could see where you're coming from you said that cheryl if she was in room, a back room with this offender, she would have done anything she could to warn the two. And I believe I agree with you, but I, I thought about it again. I wasn't bullshitting you.

I was really thinking about this playing devil's advocate. And I'm like, well, if it were me, maybe I do make that. But the, but depending on how close in relation to the girls they are, he could have said, make a sound. I'm shooting you and shooting them before they get out the door. So maybe there's a thought where if I scream, he's going to kill them anyway. So I don't know in that moment what you're thinking, but that could have been a reason why she didn't alert them because she said, you know, we're in such close quarters to each other. There's no way they're going to be able to get out in time before he kills all three of us. So that's also possible too. That's really what I think went down that night. And I think this

person isn't someone who's directly connected to him and that's why he's not in custody or they're not in custody yet. Yeah. And I will say, I do understand that human trafficking is quite common in Missouri. It has something to do with the highway system and easy access and things like that. It absolutely is. But it's not really human trafficking like you see in Taken with Liam Neeson where his daughter is just like grabbed up and then shipped overseas. Human trafficking in the United States and in more modern times is more of a grooming process, right? It's somebody who reaches out to you and suddenly they're like, oh, you know, like you're my girlfriend now or here, I have this for you or I bought this for you or I've done this for you. They usually target people from low income families, people who have,

you know, bad families maybe who don't have a lot of support at home who are looking for an anchor to grab onto. And once they have trust in that person and once they have basically groomed this young person, then they start blackmailing them and threatening their family and threatening them. If you don't do this for me or if you don't go on this date with this man or if you don't take these naked pictures, then I'm going to hurt you, hurt your family or show these pictures that you've already taken to your friends and family and things like that. That's more like human trafficking and sex trafficking in modern times and in the United States. It's not really like a kidnapping situation where you're just sitting in your house and then some men bust in and steal you and secret you away to like Eastern Europe. It's not that at this point. And i'm sure it does happen you know but i just don't see how that happened here unless susie stacy or cheryl had some previous contact with these traffickers they wouldn't just

be like grabbing them because they saw them on the street um that's not really how it functions so yeah i kind of agree with you that somebody was the target most likely cheryl because it was her house and the two girls came home and surprised this person and then he had to just make a way with them which is why i think it was gerald carnahan because they would have recognized him and he wouldn't have wanted anybody to like say who he was if he was just some random person or some you know homeless person who came in to attack cheryl he wouldn't have cared if the girls said oh we saw this guy or he was in our house he would have have just gone off with Cheryl. He wouldn't have burdened himself with two other people. I think that those two girls were taken because they were

able to identify who was in their house. And that's what I think. That's my final thoughts. Yeah, I think you're right in that last sentence, especially that the reason he took all three of them was because he knew at that point he couldn't leave anybody behind. And it would make sense that he would take them because they knew who he was. Maybe not directly where they dealt with him every day, but he was recognizable. And at that point, as soon as they walk in, whether they saw him or not, immediately, he felt like, you know what? I'm not going to be able to leave this home now without them seeing me.

So they have to come to. And he may have even been able to convince them that he wasn't there for like a nefarious reason you know it's a Gerald Carnahan businessman hey girls come with me you know your mom's in trouble maybe Cheryl was already compromised yeah or in some vehicles like guys get in the car you know your mom's in trouble I'm gonna bring you to her and a million things could have happened unfortunately if nobody comes forward and and confesses and says what happened, I don't think we're ever going to know. And it's very sad because, you know, at least if

these three people are gone, we should have a way of knowing what happened to them so that we're not stuck here wondering and there's some sort of memory attached to them. Yeah. Well, for the family's sake, I hope you're wrong, but I can see where you're coming from. But really fascinating case. Glad we dove into it. I can understand the alert to it now and hope for the family's sake, if you guys know anything, obviously it's never too late, report it to the authorities and let them decide whether it's a good lead or not. Because again, guilt knowledge doesn't have to come directly from the source. You may know information that could piece together multiple pieces of the puzzle form the minute you say it.

So you never know what's valuable until you relate it to law enforcement. Absolutely. And I'm going to do some digging into that judge thing. I'll let you guys know next time we'll get Derek to admit there's a conspiracy and a cover up here, but we're starting a new case next week. So don't forget to join us, follow us on social media. Derek's going to tell you how. That's right. Crime Weekly Pod on Twitter and Instagram and our social media for our coffee company, Criminal Coffee is at Drink Criminal on Twitter and at Drink Criminal Coffee on Instagram. Appreciate you guys coming tonight. Glad to be back. Be safe and we will see you next week. Bye.