The Springfield Three | The House on Delmar Street
On June 7th, 1992, three women vanished from a quiet home in Springfield without a trace.
Their cars remained in the driveway.
Their purses sat untouched inside the house.
The television was still on.
A small dog wandered nervously through the home.
And somewhere in the middle of it all… there was reportedly a strange message left on the answering machine.
A message that was accidentally erased before investigators ever heard it.
More than thirty years later, the disappearance of Sherrill Levitt, Suzie Streeter, and Stacy McCall remains one of the most haunting unsolved mysteries in the Midwest.
Tonight, we explore the timeline, the theories, the strange details, and why this case continues to linger in the American imagination decades later.
In This Episode
- The final known movements of the three women
- The eerie discovery at the Delmar Street home
- The infamous erased voicemail message
- Conflicting witness accounts and timeline gaps
- Crime scene contamination concerns
- Theories surrounding the disappearance
- Why cases involving “absence” affect us differently psychologically
- The lasting legacy of one of America’s most unsettling unsolved mysteries
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Sources & Further Reading
- Contemporary newspaper archives from Springfield-area publications
- FBI case summaries and public statements
- Interviews with family members and investigators
- Historical reporting surrounding the disappearance
- Regional reporting on unsolved Midwest disappearances
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And as always…
Stay curious. Stay skeptical.
And don’t wander too far into the dark.
00:02 --> 00:07 [SPEAKER_00]: from the darkest reaches of space to the deepest corners of your mind.
00:09 --> 00:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to From the Void.
00:18 --> 00:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Hey from the Void listeners, before we jump into tonight's episode, I just want to say a huge thank you to everybody who came out to the Columbus HorrorCon this past weekend.
00:27 --> 00:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Seriously, conventions are always one of my absolute favorite things to do, because basically it's an excuse to spend an entire weekend talking with interesting people who always end up sharing incredible stories with me.
00:39 --> 00:42 [SPEAKER_00]: and honestly some of the best stories I've ever heard.
00:42 --> 00:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Never made the stage or the panels, they happen to random conversations at booths and hallways, or while somebody is flipping through shirts and suddenly says, hey, if I ever told you about what happened to me, so thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth, grabbed merch, shared stories, or just came over to say hi.
01:00 --> 01:01 [SPEAKER_00]: It genuinely means a lot.
01:02 --> 01:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Also a quick reminder,
01:03 --> 01:10 [SPEAKER_00]: We now have a full podcast inspired merch lineup over on Etsy featuring designs inspired by from the void and other shows.
01:11 --> 01:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Shirts, stickers, mugs, magnets, all kinds of weird stuff.
01:15 --> 01:17 [SPEAKER_00]: The link is waiting for you in the show notes.
01:18 --> 01:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And now, tonight's story.
01:20 --> 01:23 [SPEAKER_00]: A quiet neighborhood, three women, one house.
01:24 --> 01:30 [SPEAKER_00]: At a disappearance so strange that more than 30 years later, it still feels impossible.
01:31 --> 01:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Springfield Missouri sits in the southwest corner of the state, tucked into the Ozarks.
01:37 --> 01:49 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1992, it was a kind of place people described as safe, comfortable, familiar, a mid-sized Midwest city where routines mattered and neighborhoods felt predictable.
01:50 --> 01:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Families mowed their lawns on weekends, high school football games filled the bleachers.
01:55 --> 02:05 [SPEAKER_00]: A graduation season was one of those moments where the entire city seemed to slow down just long enough to celebrate its kids before they disappeared into adulthood.
02:06 --> 02:08 [SPEAKER_00]: It was the beginning of summer.
02:08 --> 02:10 [SPEAKER_00]: June and Missouri.
02:10 --> 02:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Humid air, porch lights glowing against the darkness, the sound of crickets drifting through open windows.
02:18 --> 02:26 [SPEAKER_00]: and on the night of June 6, 1992, most people in Springfield were thinking about parties, not disappearances.
02:28 --> 02:38 [SPEAKER_00]: At the center of this story, we're three women whose lives overlapped in ordinary ways, which somehow makes what happened to them feel even more disturbing.
02:39 --> 02:43 [SPEAKER_00]: 47-year-old Cheryl Levitt lived in a modest home on East Del Mar Street.
02:44 --> 02:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Friends described her as independent, outgoing, and deeply caring.
02:49 --> 02:53 [SPEAKER_00]: She worked as a cosmatologist and had built a life for herself after divorce.
02:54 --> 02:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Her home had become a gathering place for her daughter and her daughter's friends.
02:58 --> 03:01 [SPEAKER_00]: The kind of house teenagers naturally gravitated toward.
03:02 --> 03:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Comfortable.
03:03 --> 03:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcoming.
03:04 --> 03:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Safe.
03:06 --> 03:16 [SPEAKER_00]: 19-year-old Susie Streeter had just graduated from Kikupu High School, like a lot of teenagers standing on the edge of adulthood, her future still felt open-ended.
03:17 --> 03:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Friends described her as social, funny, and strong willed.
03:22 --> 03:25 [SPEAKER_00]: She was close with her mother despite the normal tensions that come with growing up.
03:26 --> 03:31 [SPEAKER_00]: And on that June night, she should have been celebrating the beginning of the rest of her life.
03:33 --> 03:39 [SPEAKER_00]: 18-year-old Stacy McCall was Susie's close friend, thoughtful, responsible.
03:40 --> 03:43 [SPEAKER_00]: The kind of person whose parents usually knew exactly where she was.
03:44 --> 03:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Earlier that evening, she had attended graduation events alongside friends and classmates.
03:50 --> 03:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Her mother would later say something that would haunt this case for decades.
03:55 --> 03:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Stacy would never have disappeared willingly.
03:59 --> 04:00 [SPEAKER_00]: None of them would have.
04:03 --> 04:09 [SPEAKER_00]: What makes the Springfield 3 case so unsettling isn't just that these women vanished.
04:09 --> 04:12 [SPEAKER_00]: It's how completely normal everything seemed right before they did.
04:13 --> 04:21 [SPEAKER_00]: There were no screams reported, no signs of panic, no obvious warnings, no violent storm rolling into town.
04:22 --> 04:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Just three people, moving through what should have been an ordinary summer night, which
04:33 --> 04:36 [SPEAKER_00]: because it forces you to confront a deeply uncomfortable possibility.
04:37 --> 04:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes terrible things don't announce themselves.
04:41 --> 04:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes, they arrive quietly.
04:45 --> 04:51 [SPEAKER_00]: By the early hours of June 7th, all three women would be inside the house on Delmar Street.
04:51 --> 04:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And by sunrise, they would be gone.
04:56 --> 05:00 [SPEAKER_00]: June 6, 1992 was graduation night in Springfield.
05:01 --> 05:04 [SPEAKER_00]: For hundreds of students, it was the beginning of summer freedom.
05:05 --> 05:09 [SPEAKER_00]: The kind of night that stretches later and later, because nobody wants it to end.
05:10 --> 05:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Parties moved from house to house.
05:13 --> 05:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Teenagers piled into cars.
05:15 --> 05:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Music echoed through neighborhoods long after midnight.
05:19 --> 05:22 [SPEAKER_00]: And somewhere, in the middle of all of it.
05:22 --> 05:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Suzy Streeter and Stacey McCall were doing exactly what countless other graduates were doing that night.
05:29 --> 05:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Trying to figure out where everyone was going next.
05:33 --> 05:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Throughout the evening, Suzy and Stacey attended multiple gatherings around Springfield.
05:39 --> 05:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Witnesses would later place them at different homes packed with classmates celebrating graduation.
05:45 --> 05:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing about the night appeared unusual.
05:48 --> 05:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Friends describe the atmosphere as normal.
05:51 --> 05:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Loud, chaotic, typical teenage celebration.
05:56 --> 05:59 [SPEAKER_00]: But one detail would be coming incredibly important later.
06:00 --> 06:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Their overnight plans kept changing.
06:04 --> 06:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Originally, Stacey and Susie planned to stay at a friend's house after the party's ended, but the home was reportedly overcrowded.
06:16 --> 06:22 [SPEAKER_00]: So sometime after midnight, the decision was made to head back to Susie's house on East Elmar Street instead.
06:23 --> 06:26 [SPEAKER_00]: It seemed insignificant at the time.
06:27 --> 06:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Alas minute adjustment at the end of a long night.
06:30 --> 06:41 [SPEAKER_00]: But investigators would later wonder, did someone over here those plans, did someone follow them, or was whoever responsible already waiting?
06:42 --> 06:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometime around 2 to 2.30 in the morning, Susie and Stacey arrived at the house.
06:48 --> 06:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Cheryl Levitt was already home.
06:51 --> 06:53 [SPEAKER_00]: By all accounts, everything appeared peaceful.
06:54 --> 07:00 [SPEAKER_00]: There were no reports of disturbances from neighbors, no screams, no sounds of violence.
07:01 --> 07:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing to suggest that within a few hours, one of the most haunting missing persons
07:11 --> 07:15 [SPEAKER_00]: What investigators discovered later suggested something deeply unsettling.
07:16 --> 07:19 [SPEAKER_00]: The women had made it inside safely.
07:19 --> 07:25 [SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't a case where someone vanished from a parking lot, or disappeared on the side of the road.
07:26 --> 07:26 [SPEAKER_00]: They were home.
07:27 --> 07:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Their shoes were inside.
07:30 --> 07:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Makeup had reportedly been removed.
07:33 --> 07:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Clothing and personal belongings were left behind.
07:40 --> 07:45 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the most chilling aspects of the Springfield 3 case is this simple fact.
07:46 --> 07:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever happened, appears to have happened after the night was already over.
07:54 --> 07:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And that changes the psychological feeling of the case entirely.
07:58 --> 08:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Because home, it's supposed to be the safe part of the story.
08:02 --> 08:05 [SPEAKER_00]: The danger is supposed to happen somewhere else.
08:06 --> 08:15 [SPEAKER_00]: on a dark highway, in an alley, in the woods, but not after you've already made it home and started getting ready for bed.
08:17 --> 08:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Investigators believe the three women were alive inside the house sometime after 2am.
08:23 --> 08:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And then, the timeline simply stops.
08:27 --> 08:34 [SPEAKER_00]: No confirmed sightings after that point, no verified phone calls, no activity on bank accounts.
08:34 --> 08:37 [SPEAKER_00]: No evidence any of them plan to leave voluntarily.
08:38 --> 08:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Just an ordinary suburban house sitting quietly in the darkness.
08:43 --> 08:47 [SPEAKER_00]: While something unfolded inside, that nobody would fully understand.
08:49 --> 08:56 [SPEAKER_00]: By morning, friends would begin arriving at the house, expecting to pick the girls up for another day of graduation activities.
08:57 --> 09:05 [SPEAKER_00]: What they found instead would become one of the strangest and most controversial crime scenes in modern American history.
09:06 --> 09:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Morning came quietly to East El Mar Street.
09:09 --> 09:12 [SPEAKER_00]: The Sun Rose, neighbors went about their routines.
09:12 --> 09:16 [SPEAKER_00]: And at first, nothing about the house looked unusual.
09:17 --> 09:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Later that morning, friends of Susie and Stacey arrived at the home, expecting to continue
09:25 --> 09:30 [SPEAKER_00]: but almost immediately, small details began to feel wrong.
09:32 --> 09:40 [SPEAKER_00]: The cars were still there, both Susie's vehicle and Stacey's vehicle remained parked outside the house, which didn't make sense.
09:41 --> 09:45 [SPEAKER_00]: If the girls had gone somewhere, they almost certainly would have taken a car.
09:46 --> 09:50 [SPEAKER_00]: But maybe they were still asleep, maybe they'd gone out with someone else.
09:51 --> 09:54 [SPEAKER_00]: At first, nobody was thinking about abduction.
09:54 --> 09:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody was thinking about murder.
09:57 --> 10:02 [SPEAKER_00]: They were thinking, this is weird, not this is a crime scene.
10:04 --> 10:07 [SPEAKER_00]: When they entered the home, the feeling became stranger.
10:07 --> 10:14 [SPEAKER_00]: The family dog, a small Yorkshire Terrier named Cinnamon, was inside the house, anxious, but unharmed.
10:15 --> 10:17 [SPEAKER_00]: The television was reportedly odd.
10:18 --> 10:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Personal belongings remained exactly where they should have been.
10:22 --> 10:25 [SPEAKER_00]: and then came the detail investigators would never stop talking about.
10:26 --> 10:29 [SPEAKER_00]: All three women's purses were still there.
10:30 --> 10:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Sheryl's Purse, Susie's Purse, Stacey's Purse, all left behind.
10:36 --> 10:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Along with keys, cigarettes, make-up, and money.
10:42 --> 10:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Everything people normally take with them, especially late at night,
10:53 --> 11:05 [SPEAKER_00]: There were no obvious signs of violence, no blood, no overturned furniture, no shattered windows, just a house that somehow looked both completely normal and deeply wrong.
11:07 --> 11:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Outside, another strange detail stood out.
11:10 --> 11:14 [SPEAKER_00]: The glass globe covering the front porch light had been shattered.
11:15 --> 11:19 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the friends reportedly swept up the broken glass before police arrived.
11:20 --> 11:23 [SPEAKER_00]: At the time, it felt harmless, helpful even.
11:24 --> 11:30 [SPEAKER_00]: But later, investigators would wonder whether crucial evidence had just been accidentally destroyed.
11:32 --> 11:38 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is where the Springfield 3K starts to become uniquely frustrating for investigators.
11:39 --> 11:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Because before authorities secured the home, people moved through it.
11:43 --> 11:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Friends entered, family members arrived, objects were handled, surfaces were touched.
11:50 --> 12:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Potential evidence was unknowingly contaminated, which means investigators would spend the next three decades trying to reconstruct a moment that may have already been partially erased before they even got there.
12:08 --> 12:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Then there was the message.
12:10 --> 12:15 [SPEAKER_00]: The message that has become one of the most haunting details in the entire case.
12:16 --> 12:23 [SPEAKER_00]: According to multiple accounts, an incoming voicemail on the home answering machine sounded strange.
12:24 --> 12:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Some described it as obscene.
12:27 --> 12:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Others described it as unsettling.
12:31 --> 12:39 [SPEAKER_00]: There are conflicting reports about whether it sounded threatening, familiar, drunken, or intentional.
12:39 --> 12:44 [SPEAKER_00]: But before investigators could properly examine it, it was erased.
12:47 --> 12:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Depending on the version of the events, the message may have been accidentally deleted by one of the friends or family members checking messages inside the house.
12:57 --> 13:05 [SPEAKER_00]: And just like that, one of the last possible pieces of direct contact connected to the disappearance was gone forever.
13:08 --> 13:13 [SPEAKER_00]: The erase voicemail matters, because it creates the feeling that the truth was almost within reach.
13:14 --> 13:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the message was meaningless.
13:16 --> 13:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it had nothing to do with the disappearance at all, or maybe someone heard something they weren't supposed to hear.
13:25 --> 13:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And now, we'll never know.
13:30 --> 13:37 [SPEAKER_00]: By the time police fully understood that three women had vanished from the House on Delmar
13:38 --> 13:42 [SPEAKER_00]: and investigators were now facing a case with almost no physical evidence.
13:43 --> 13:53 [SPEAKER_00]: No witnesses, and no clear explanation for how three people could disappear from a suburban home without leaving behind a trace.
13:55 --> 14:03 [SPEAKER_00]: But as detectives began digging deeper into the lives of Cheryl, Susie, and Stacey, rumors started emerging.
14:04 --> 14:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Rumors about dangerous acquaintances, criminal connections, possible stalkers, and people who may have known far more about that night than they ever admitted.
14:18 --> 14:24 [SPEAKER_00]: As investigators began processing the house on Delmar Street, one fact immediately stood out.
14:25 --> 14:33 [SPEAKER_00]: There were no obvious signs of forced entry, no kicked in door, no smash window, no evidence
14:33 --> 14:40 [SPEAKER_00]: which raised a terrifying possibility, maybe whoever entered that house was allowed inside.
14:42 --> 14:54 [SPEAKER_00]: That single detail would shape the entire investigation, because if the women knew the person responsible, or at least didn't immediately perceive them as a threat, it changed everything.
14:56 --> 15:01 [SPEAKER_00]: For many investigators, the simplest explanation was that the women encountered someone they knew.
15:02 --> 15:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a friend.
15:03 --> 15:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe an acquaintance.
15:05 --> 15:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe someone connected to the graduation parties earlier that night.
15:09 --> 15:11 [SPEAKER_00]: The logic was straightforward.
15:12 --> 15:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Three people are difficult to control, especially inside a house, especially without noise, without signs of a struggle.
15:21 --> 15:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Without neighbors hearing screams.
15:24 --> 15:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Some investigators believed the women may have complied initially because they thought the situation was temporary.
15:31 --> 15:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe someone claimed to be law enforcement.
15:34 --> 15:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe there was a weapon involved.
15:36 --> 15:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the threat escalated too quickly for resistance.
15:40 --> 15:47 [SPEAKER_00]: But without physical evidence, investigators were forced into a world of possibilities instead of conclusions.
15:49 --> 15:52 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the biggest obstacles in the case was the narrow timeline.
15:53 --> 15:56 [SPEAKER_00]: The women likely arrived home sometime around 2am.
15:57 --> 15:59 [SPEAKER_00]: By morning, they were gone.
15:59 --> 16:04 [SPEAKER_00]: That left investigators with only a small window in which the disappearance could have occurred.
16:05 --> 16:09 [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, nobody reported seeing anything unusual.
16:09 --> 16:11 [SPEAKER_00]: No neighbors reported screams.
16:12 --> 16:14 [SPEAKER_00]: No confirmed witnesses saw suspicious vehicles.
16:15 --> 16:18 [SPEAKER_00]: No one came forward describing a struggle outside the home.
16:19 --> 16:25 [SPEAKER_00]: It was as if the women had simply vanished into the darkness, without disturbing the neighborhood, around them.
16:28 --> 16:33 [SPEAKER_00]: As often happens in high-profile disappearances, rumors quickly spread through Springfield.
16:34 --> 16:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Some focused on people connected to the victim's socially.
16:38 --> 16:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Others centered on alleged criminal activity in the area.
16:42 --> 16:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And over time, certain theories began taking on a life of their own.
16:47 --> 16:56 [SPEAKER_00]: One persistent rumor involved local criminal circles and grave robbing operations that investigators reportedly examined early in the case.
16:57 --> 17:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Another, centered around individuals with violent histories who were known in the Springfield area at the time.
17:05 --> 17:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Some name surface repeatedly and local speculation.
17:09 --> 17:20 [SPEAKER_00]: but despite decades of theories, interviews, and investigative leads, no suspect was ever definitively tied to the disappearance.
17:20 --> 17:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is where cases like the Springfield III becoming incredibly difficult to separate from folklore.
17:27 --> 17:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Because when a mystery goes unsolved long enough, the gaps begin filling themselves.
17:33 --> 17:35 [SPEAKER_00]: People remember things differently.
17:36 --> 17:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Rumors become facts.
17:38 --> 17:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Facts become distorted.
17:40 --> 17:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Entire narratives emerge from speculation.
17:43 --> 17:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And eventually, investigators are forced to sort through not just evidence, but decades of accumulated myth.
17:54 --> 17:58 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the strangest theories connected to the Springfield 3 emerged years later.
17:59 --> 18:09 [SPEAKER_00]: According the local legend, a tip from a psychic led investigators to believe the women's bodies might be buried beneath a parking garage near a hospital in Springfield.
18:10 --> 18:11 [SPEAKER_00]: The story spread rapidly.
18:11 --> 18:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Over time, many people began treating it as a established fact.
18:18 --> 18:23 [SPEAKER_00]: But despite public fascination, authorities never uncovered evidence confirming the claim.
18:24 --> 18:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Still, the theory endured, because people desperately want resolution, especially in cases where there's almost nothing tangible to hold on to.
18:38 --> 18:41 [SPEAKER_00]: The Springfield 3 case unsettles people for a reason.
18:42 --> 18:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Most true crime stories eventually give you something concrete, a suspect, a motive, a body, a confession, something, but this case offers almost none of that.
18:56 --> 19:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, it leaves behind an area collection of fragments, a broken porch light, untouched
19:13 --> 19:18 [SPEAKER_00]: and maybe that's why people still obsess over this story more than 30 years later.
19:19 --> 19:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Because deep down, the human brain hates unfinished patterns.
19:23 --> 19:24 [SPEAKER_00]: We want endings.
19:25 --> 19:26 [SPEAKER_00]: We want answers.
19:26 --> 19:28 [SPEAKER_00]: We want the missing pieces.
19:29 --> 19:31 [SPEAKER_00]: But some mysteries refuse to become complete.
19:34 --> 19:40 [SPEAKER_00]: There's something psychologically different about disappearance cases, especially the ones that never resolve.
19:41 --> 19:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Murder investigations as horrific as they are, at least usually provide a narrative.
19:47 --> 19:50 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a beginning, an event, a conclusion.
19:51 --> 19:54 [SPEAKER_00]: But disappearances leave behind something far more unsettling.
19:55 --> 19:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Absence.
19:58 --> 20:05 [SPEAKER_00]: No final moment, no confirmed ending, just a person shaped void where certainty used to be.
20:06 --> 20:13 [SPEAKER_00]: The Springfield 3 case lingers in people's minds, because it violates something fundamental about how we believe the world works.
20:14 --> 20:19 [SPEAKER_00]: The women weren't hiking through wilderness, they weren't traveling through dangerous territory.
20:20 --> 20:30 [SPEAKER_00]: They weren't alone on some isolated highway, they were home, inside a suburban house, and a neighborhood filled with other homes, on a quiet summer night.
20:32 --> 20:34 [SPEAKER_00]: That's what makes the case feel so invasive.
20:35 --> 20:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Because if three people can disappear from a house without noise, without witnesses, without evidence, then suddenly the ordinary world doesn't feel quite as safe anymore.
20:48 --> 20:53 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the strangest things about this story is how normal the house itself sounded afterward.
20:54 --> 21:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Investigators describe no catastrophic scene, no blood soap walls, no overturned furniture, no obvious violence.
21:03 --> 21:04 [SPEAKER_00]: which somehow makes it worse.
21:06 --> 21:09 [SPEAKER_00]: The home on Delmar Street transformed into something psychologically uncanny.
21:10 --> 21:14 [SPEAKER_00]: A place frozen between ordinary life and unexplained disappearance.
21:15 --> 21:21 [SPEAKER_00]: The person's remained, the beds remained, the dog remained, but the people were gone.
21:24 --> 21:29 [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's the voicemail, the message you raised before our investigators could hear it.
21:30 --> 21:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Over time, it became more than just a lost piece of evidence.
21:34 --> 21:37 [SPEAKER_00]: It became symbolic of the entire case itself.
21:38 --> 21:42 [SPEAKER_00]: A truth that was almost recovered, a clue that slipped away.
21:43 --> 21:45 [SPEAKER_00]: A voice from the edge of understanding.
21:46 --> 21:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Erased before anyone could fully process it.
21:50 --> 21:58 [SPEAKER_00]: As years passed, the Springfield 3 evolved from a missing person's investigation
21:59 --> 22:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The rumor spread, suspects came and went, psychic theories emerged.
22:04 --> 22:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Internet forums dissected every tiny detail.
22:07 --> 22:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Witness memories shifted, and like all unsolved mysteries, the case slowly became layered with stories built on top of stories.
22:17 --> 22:20 [SPEAKER_00]: But underneath all the speculation are still three real people.
22:21 --> 22:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Cheryl Levitt, Susie Strider, and Stacey McCall.
22:25 --> 22:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Three women whose family's never received answers, never received closure, never even received certainty.
22:35 --> 22:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that's why this case still resonates decades later, because at its core the Springfield 3 isn't just about crime.
22:43 --> 22:44 [SPEAKER_00]: It's about uncertainty.
22:45 --> 22:54 [SPEAKER_00]: About the terrifying possibility that sometimes people can simply vanish from the middle of ordinary life, and the world keeps moving anyway.
22:56 --> 22:59 [SPEAKER_00]: The sun still rose over Springfield the next morning.
22:59 --> 23:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Lawns still got moat.
23:01 --> 23:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Cars still filled parking lots.
23:04 --> 23:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Graduation parties faded into memory.
23:07 --> 23:15 [SPEAKER_00]: But somewhere inside one quiet house on Delmar Street, something happened that nobody has ever fully explained.
23:17 --> 23:25 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the strangest aspects of the Springfield 3 case is how little concrete progress has been made despite decades of investigation.
23:25 --> 23:40 [SPEAKER_00]: No confirmed suspect, no verified confession, no recovered remains, no definitive forensic breakthrough tying anyone directly to the disappearances, which is almost difficult to imagine in a modern context.
23:41 --> 23:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Over time, investigators began speaking more openly about how compromise the original scene may have become.
23:48 --> 23:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Friends entered the home before police arrived.
23:51 --> 23:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Objects were moved, surfaces were touched.
23:55 --> 23:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Glass from the shattered porch light was cleaned up.
23:58 --> 24:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And perhaps most famously, a strange voicemail message on the answering machine was a race before investigators could hear it.
24:06 --> 24:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Today, crime scene preservation is treated very differently.
24:11 --> 24:20 [SPEAKER_00]: But in 1992, nobody initially believed they were walking into one of the most infamous missing persons cases in American history.
24:22 --> 24:26 [SPEAKER_00]: One especially eerie development emerged shortly after the case gained national attention.
24:27 --> 24:35 [SPEAKER_00]: During a broadcast of America's most wanted, a man called the show's tipline, claiming
24:35 --> 24:42 [SPEAKER_00]: According to reports, investigators believe the caller may have had significant knowledge about the case.
24:43 --> 24:49 [SPEAKER_00]: But before the call could be fully traced or transferred, the connection was lost.
24:49 --> 24:52 [SPEAKER_00]: The caller never contacted authorities again.
24:53 --> 25:04 [SPEAKER_00]: And like so many elements of this case, it feels suspended permanently between possibility and uncertainty.
25:06 --> 25:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Years later, another theory captured public attention.
25:10 --> 25:17 [SPEAKER_00]: The possibility that the women's bodies had been buried beneath a hospital parking garage, as I mentioned before, in Springfield.
25:18 --> 25:26 [SPEAKER_00]: The rumors spread widely after reports surfaced that ground penetrating radar had identified anomalies beneath the concrete structure.
25:27 --> 25:31 [SPEAKER_00]: To some people, it sounded like the breakthrough the case had been waiting for.
25:32 --> 25:33 [SPEAKER_00]: but the site was never excavated.
25:34 --> 25:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Authorities never publicly confirm the anomalies represented graves.
25:39 --> 25:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And over time, the theory drifted into the strange space between investigation and urban legend.
25:48 --> 25:53 [SPEAKER_00]: But perhaps the most fascinating modern perspective on the Springfield 3 case is this.
25:54 --> 25:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Would it disappearance like this even be possible today?
25:58 --> 26:13 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1992, there were no ring cameras, does smartphones, no GPS tracking, no location history, no social media timestamps, no neighborhood surveillance networks, quietly recording movement through suburban streets.
26:14 --> 26:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Today, disappearing three adults from a residential neighborhood would almost certainly leave behind a massive digital footprint.
26:23 --> 26:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Vehicle cameras, phone pings, traffic systems, doorbell footage, metadata, but the Springfield 3 vanished during a very specific moment in history.
26:35 --> 26:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Modern enough to feel familiar, yet just before the world became permanently recorded.
26:42 --> 26:46 [SPEAKER_00]: which means this case exists in a strange investigative blind spot.
26:47 --> 26:53 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the last American disappearance mysteries born right at the edge of the digital age.
26:55 --> 26:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Most investigations eventually become stories.
26:58 --> 27:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Detectives, gather evidence, prosecutors build timelines, journalists reconstruct events.
27:04 --> 27:07 [SPEAKER_00]: And over time, the unknown slowly becomes known.
27:08 --> 27:11 [SPEAKER_00]: But unresolved disappearances don't work that way.
27:11 --> 27:12 [SPEAKER_00]: They resist narrative.
27:13 --> 27:15 [SPEAKER_00]: They leave behind gaps that never fully close.
27:17 --> 27:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Psychologists sometimes refer to something called the Zignaric effect.
27:21 --> 27:28 [SPEAKER_00]: The tendency for unfinished experiences to remain more psychologically persistent than completed ones.
27:29 --> 27:33 [SPEAKER_00]: So in other words, our brains struggle to let go of open loops.
27:34 --> 27:41 [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe that explains whether Springfield 3 still occupies such a strange place in the American imagination.
27:41 --> 27:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Because this case never gave people the thing they instinctively wanted most, and ending.
27:47 --> 27:53 [SPEAKER_00]: No trial, no confession, no recovered truth that suddenly made everything understandable.
27:54 --> 27:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Just questions that remained suspended year after year after year.
27:59 --> 28:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Who came to the house that night?
28:01 --> 28:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Did the women know them?
28:03 --> 28:04 [SPEAKER_00]: were they targeted?
28:05 --> 28:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Was this planned or upper-tunistic?
28:08 --> 28:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Did neighbors unknowingly sleep through something horrific?
28:11 --> 28:13 [SPEAKER_00]: That happened just feet away.
28:14 --> 28:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Or is the truth somehow stranger than anyone imagined?
28:19 --> 28:23 [SPEAKER_00]: What's remarkable is that despite the lack of answers, people still return to the story.
28:24 --> 28:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Still analyze it, still debate it, still search for tiny overlooked
28:33 --> 28:37 [SPEAKER_00]: because unresolved mysteries create a different kind of fear.
28:38 --> 28:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Not the fear of what we know, but the fear of what remains unknowable.
28:44 --> 28:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Somewhere between the graduation parties, the humid streets of Springfield, and the sunrise that followed, three women disappeared from the known world.
28:55 --> 29:00 [SPEAKER_00]: And more than 30 years later, the silence they left behind still hasn't been filled.
29:02 --> 29:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks again to everyone who came out to Columbus Horkon this past weekend, beating all of you hearing your stories and getting to talk about the strange things that fascinated us is genuinely one of my favorite parts of doing the show.
29:15 --> 29:21 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you'd like to support from the void, check out the podcast inspired merch collection over on Etsy.
29:21 --> 29:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Shirts, mugs, stickers, magnets, and a bunch of weird designs inspired by the show are all linked in the show notes.
29:29 --> 29:36 [SPEAKER_00]: So until next time, stay curious, stay skeptical, and don't stare too long into the dark.