Tips still come in for missing Missouri women after 25 years

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) -- Police in Springfield, Missouri, said that officers are still receiving tips in the case of three women who went missing 25 years ago.

Springfield police Sgt. Todd King told the Springfield News-Leader that the investigation remains active in the June 1992 disappearance of Suzie Streeter, 19; friend Stacy McCall, 18; and mother Sherrill Levitt, 47. Streeter and McCall went to Levitt's home to sleep after spending the evening at graduation parties. All three have not been seen since.

Soon after the disappearance, the FBI was called and search parties organized. Within a week, the women's faces were broadcast on the television show, "America's Most Wanted," followed by tips pouring in.

King said the department still receives a couple of tips every month. But he said the majority that in come recently are identical or at least similar to previous ones.

"Somebody out there knows something and has not come forward, with a piece of information to put this thing together," Lt. Culley Wilson said. "We wish they would come forward, because it's awful to lose a child for those families. But to lose a child and not know where they're at, or to not know what's happening, it's tragic."

According to police, most reasons behind cold case breakthroughs are divided into two categories. The first is that someone can talk in the form of either a confession or just another tip that leads police to perpetrators. The second is that there can be a scientific breakthrough that increases the value of existing evidence.

Darrell Moore, the Greene County chief assistant prosecutor in 1992, said the first option is most likely the only one in this case, adding that he's unaware of "any evidence found at the scene that could ever implicate anybody."

Wilson said he's still optimistic.

"We're going to solve it," he said. "I don't know when. It may not be within our time left here (at the department), but we're going to solve it."