The Springfield Three
Part Three: Steven Garrison and the Galloping Goose
In 1995, authorities decided to suspend the investigation into the disappearance of three women from Springfield, Missouri. This decision followed years of sporadic progress, including a grand jury review in 1994 that ultimately concluded without issuing any indictments. However, later that year, Steven Garrison - a suspect with tenuous ties to the case - stood trial for a seemingly-unrelated crime…
Over the past three decades, many questions have been asked about the case typically referred to as the "Springfield Three." Many of these questions are asked by those who want to know what went so wrong? Why has this case seemed almost insurmountable to investigators from the very beginning? Some of those that have worked the case (investigators and other police officials) believe that the investigation was botched from the very beginning, with police at the time not really knowing the proper procedures for how to carry out an investigation of this scope.
Police Chief Terry Knowles in particular has received a lot of flack from these critics, who believe that he gave away too much information in the earliest days of the case, to the point that it made prosecution of potential suspects almost impossible. Since so many details of the crime scene had been disclosed to the public, it was hard to verify what someone may have gathered from simple news coverage.
Knowles was also described as a micromanager, who made it hard for his investigators to follow through on certain leads as they normally would have. He was also criticized for turning down assistance at times from other agencies and organizations, choosing to handle everything internally. These decisions in the earliest days of the case may have ultimately stymied it, per experts and other officials that have since reviewed the case.
Whether or not this is the truth of the matter, what we do know is that investigators with the Springfield Police Department focused heavily on the case in those early months. But over time, their attention waned. The hands-on involvement of multiple investigators faded. But meanwhile, answers remained elusive. As detectives struggled to allocate time and resources for the frustratingly-meandering investigation, their overseers would ultimately decide to suspend the investigation. Making it, in essence, a cold case.
In the first half of 1994, police in Springfield decided to take the Springfield Three investigation back to its roots, returning to their original case notes. Having found no trace of Sherrill Levitt, Suzie Streeter, or Stacy McCall in nearly two years, investigators went back to the tips and leads they had received over the first 30 days of the women's disappearance. Springfield P.D. Captain Todd Whitson told reporters at the time:
"If you reach a point in an investigation where things slow down, you want to go back and look again."
At this point, there were still regular weekly reminders about the case in local newspapers, but the daily coverage had long since faded. Yet the story wasn't nearly forgotten in the minds of Springfield residents, with the missing women's faces still a constant sight for many. Their likenesses were displayed on flyers and billboards erected all across the region, and speculation about who may have been involved in their case was still a hot topic of conversation... although the type of conversation had since changed. Now there was uneasy sense of tension mixed in, as residents worried about whether or not their coworker, their neighbor, or maybe even someone closer to them may have been involved.
While Springfield police had once tasked dozens of investigators to work the case in-tandem, it had since been relegated to just a single investigator, Doug Thomas, who worked on it full-time. By January 1994, he'd been in that same position for more than a year, focusing almost all of his professional time on this single case. Ultimately, to no avail.
Later that year, in August, there was hope that resolution may be close at hand. The case was sent to an empaneled grand jury in Greene County, Missouri, and the grand jury would hear testimony from many of the people involved: not just police and other experts, but from friends and other acquaintances of the victims. This included some of Suzie's and Stacy's friends, who'd been in their orbit during their final hours alive.
The grand jury also obtained testimony from a couple of names you first heard in the last episode: Suzie's ex-boyfriend Dustin Recla, and one of his friends, Michael Clay. Both had been arrested following a graverobbing incident in February of 1992, and were suspected of involvement in the disappearance, having been in Springfield at the time.
Another summoned to appear in front of the grand jury was a man named Steven Garrison. He, along with two others, Ricky West and Michael Rader, were called in to give testimony. All three had long criminal records, with the crimes ranging from theft to rape, and were incarcerated at the time but had been free when the Springfield Three had gone missing.
Sadly, though, the grand jury disbanded in early 1995 without resolving anything. After eight months of hearing testimony, no indictments were handed down. Yet Thomas Holst, a member of the grand jury, later told the Springfield News-Leader that many of the things he heard, some of which involved crimes against children, had been enlightening. And not at all in a good way. He later said about the wide-ranging scope of the grand jury:
"It would really open a lot of people's eyes. I don't think people realize the sort of things that happen in a community. I'm sure they'd be outraged if they were familiar with the details."
At this point, in early 1995, police were already considering suspending the investigation into the Springfield Three. This wouldn't close the case file, but rather, would put it into cold case status, meaning that the full-time investigator (Doug Thomas) would get pulled to work on other cases. Police would revisit it should new information, whether it be new leads or tips, surfaced.
The decision to suspend the investigation finally came down the pike in March 1995, with Springfield Police Chief Lynn Rowe telling the victims' families that:
"... we've run out of leads to work... There's just nothing coming in."
In the wake of Stacy McCall's disappearance in 1992, her parents had struggled as they tried to navigate the uncertain world that awaits the loved ones of missing people. They learned firsthand how many family members of crime victims often don't know what to do, or in many cases, who to even turn to for help.
In 1994, Stuart and Janis McCall established the One Missing Link organization, which aimed to connect grieving families with that very thing: the missing link that families could turn to when looking for their missing loved ones, regardless of age or jurisdiction. Stuart McCall told Greene County police officials at the time:
"One thing we found is that missing-persons cases are not at the top of the list (for law enforcement) until 24 or 36 hours later, when you find you have a felony. By then, your evidence is gone. Your suspects are gone."
While this is common sense for many of us that are fully immersed in the world of true crime, this was quite a revelation in the mid-1990s, before shows like *Law & Order* had displayed the bureaucracy that unfurls in police agencies and prosecutor's offices every day. This organization also hoped to change the age limits for missing persons organizations, which - until then - focused almost primarily on finding children, but not adults. The McCall's daughter, Stacy, had just recently turned eighteen years old at the time of her disappearance, aging her out of such programs.
Over time, Janis and Stuart McCall would continue advocating for multiple causes in the area, not just their own daughter's disappearance. They focused primarily on cases involving young women - particularly those in the same demographic as Stacy, who had gone missing - but also campaigned against domestic violence, things of that nature, in the hopes of preventing others from becoming victims. They would also appear on every TV program they were offered, telling the Springfield News-Leader in 1995, as they prepared to go on Maury Povich's talk show:
"We've done Oprah, Inside Edition, Good Morning America, America's Most Wanted."
They knew that doing so would most likely result in disappointment, but per Janis McCall:
"There have been letdowns. And it can happen again and again and again. But if there's any chance we might get that right phone call we've gotta take the chance."
Amidst their advocacy, the McCalls would speak to various publications about the grief that had stricken them for the past few years. They spoke about how they had been stuck in a weird type of stasis since Stacy's disappearance, something that had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. Janis would tell the Springfield News-Leader that same year, 1995:
"We exist, but you can't ever go forward. I don't know that even if we found her dead, that I'd ever be the way I was. Nothing will ever be the same. There's no way when you take a thousand days out of someone's life that you can replace those and put them back in."
Meanwhile, the family of Suzie Streeter and Sherrill Levitt also continued to suffer themselves, having lost both women in one fell swoop. However, most of them lived far outside of the Springfield area - many in the Pacific Northwest, where Sherrill had grown up and Suzie had been born - so their family were in a bit of an "out of sight, out of mind" scenario. They would still occasionally appear or speak with journalists from the area, however, but were less of a regular presence.
Debbie Schwartz, Sherrill's sister, told the Springfield News-Leader in June 1995, the three-year mark of the strange disappearance:
"It doesn't get a lot easier. When things hit you, they hit you in the gut. It's as intense as it was three years ago."
Like the McCall family, these loved ones continued to hold out hope that they'd one day see Sherrill and Suzie alive again. But as the years continued to pass, that hope became tougher to grasp.
In September of 1995, one of the primary figures circled as a potential suspect would stand trial. Not for the disappearance of the three women from Springfield, mind you, but for a separate crime committed more than a year later. However, the two events were directly linked, and to get into that, we'll have to backtrack just a bit.
In 1990, 31-year-old Steven Garrison was serving a two-to-ten year sentence for burglary, theft, and criminal damage to property in Kansas. He'd been sent to the minimum-security Toronto Honor Camp in Greenwood County, Kansas, and was set to be released in May of that year, after serving just a few months. But in April, just two weeks away from his release date, Garrison escaped alongside another inmate, Michael Rader, and was helped out by his girlfriend, who became his accomplice during the escape. Afterward, Garrison fled to Springfield, where he tried to hide out at his sister's home. When police finally tracked him down, he refused to come out of the home, and a multi-hour standoff ensued, which ended with Garrison being taken back into police custody without shots being fired.
This act of rebellion extended his stay in prison until May 15th, 1992, roughly three weeks before the disappearance of the Springfield Three. Having been involved with the Galloping Goose Motorcycle Club beforehand, it's believed that Garrison went right back into his outlaw ways after leaving prison - and lived in the Springfield area.
Steven Garrison wasn't on investigators radar for the early months of the case, but he would become a primary suspect the next year, 1993, when he put himself on the map, so to speak. In January of 1993, Garrison was arrested for having a gun and narcotics on him, which as a felon, meant that he was facing additional charges. While the drug charges were later dropped, the weapons violation meant that he was facing multiple years in prison. With that hanging over his head, he decided to begin talking to police.
According to Garrison, he had knowledge about the three missing women from Springfield, telling police that he'd overheard a friend of his confess to their involvement during a party. Those of you may remember that I mentioned this in the last episode. Garrison was the inmate whose information led police to search a pig farm in rural Webster County, where they discovered evidence that they've yet to unseal in the decades since. While rumors circulate about what this may have been, it is worth noting that the farm itself was owned by the Robb family, who had a familial connection to Garrison. The Robb family patriarch had also been linked to two murders from a few years beforehand, where were themselves linked to the drug trade.
I know that this is a lot of information, but these shadowy figures in Webster and Greene Counties share some unique ties. Some are tied together through family - like Steven Garrison and the Robb family - while others are more speculative and harder to tie down. Some share involvement in the drug trade, while others are believed to have involvement with the Galloping Goose Motorcycle Club... but more on them in a bit. Regardless, you just need to know right now that Steven Garrison was the inmate who led police to this farm, and reportedly told police what had happened to the three missing women from Springfield. This was followed up by two additional searches in the region, during which, police found evidence that they've kept sealed under gag orders for nearly three decades.
This leads many to believe that this wasn't just a wild goose chase... this was real, and resulted in information that may not have been incriminating for any one person, but was tangible to the point of keeping private after all these years. One investigator, when speaking to reporters, said that "...the thinking at the time was that Garrison's information could be critical" when it came to the disappearance of the three missing women, since he had offered up information that had never been disclosed to the public. That info, like the evidence recovered during these three searches, is still unknown to the public.
So while awaiting trial for his weapons violation, Steven Garrison's information led authorities to fight for leniency on his behalf. As a result, he had his bond reduced from $10,000 to $2,500, as investigators wanted to keep chatting with him. Ultimately, he was put up at a local hotel so that police could keep gleaning information from him, but during one of these conversations, Garrison did as he had done before... he escaped. He ran away and the lone detective with him at the time quickly lost him. For nearly three weeks, he remained in the wind.
Roughly a week-and-a-half, in August of 1993, a man climbed through the window of a woman's apartment on East Walnut Street in Springfield, near the city center. Using a knife, the man then sexually assaulted her multiple times, then stole $552 from her before fleeing - money that her parents had given her to pay rent and utilities. At one point, the man held a knife between the women's legs while threatening her, giving her specific instructions on how to clean herself off in the shower to rid herself of any evidence. He said he might still be there when she got out, so she'd better do as he said.
That victim, a twenty-year-old student at Missouri State University, described her attacker as a heavily-tattooed man with a beer belly that used a knife throughout the attack. Police quickly identified Steven Garrison as their potential suspect, apprehending him nine days later.
In September of 1995, Garrison would finally stand trial for the rape and theft of the young woman in Springfield. During his trial, he accused prosecutors of targeting him in exchange for information regarding the Springfield Three case, claiming that they were hoping to squeeze him so that he'd be incentivized to make a deal. At the time, he told reporters that he'd been questioned as a possible suspect in the disappearance, having been released from prison just weeks before they went missing, but he denied any involvement. However, he also denied involvement in the rape case he'd been accused of, which showed him for the liar that he was.
During the trial, Garrison and his attorney alleged that the victim, a 20-year-old college student that didn't know him, willing let him inside her apartment at 3:00 in the morning, had sex with him multiple times, and then gave him the $552... a claim the prosecution rightfully condemned as sounding "illogical and irrational," which it was.
Ultimately, Steven Garrison was convicted of the charges filed against him: forcible rape with a weapon, forcible sodomy with a weapon, first-degree robbery, and first-degree burglary. The jury took just ninety minutes to convict him based on the evidence presented in court, and that time included the picking of the jury foreman and a lunch break. He was later sentenced to three 30-year prison terms, which were set to run concurrently. He was also ordered to spend another 10 years in prison for the break-in, which would be served consecutively, bringing his total prison time up to 40 years.
Steven Garrison is still in prison to this day, although the end of his sentence is quickly approaching. As of this episode's recording, his involvement remains a matter of uncertain speculation, with most of the information he provided to police remaining sealed under gag order by the Greene County courts. For that reason, it's hard to ascertain whether he provided them anything truly incriminating, but based on what it led to - multiple searches in the region, which resulted in evidence also sealed under the gag order - it's hard to believe it's nothing. And based off of the early insistence by police that he'd given them information not known to the general public, it's believed by many that Steven Garrison does indeed know something... although what that something is, nobody knows for certain.
Some online commenters have corresponded with Garrison in prison and posted the contents of their messages online via various websites and social media sites (some have appeared on Websleuths, some on Reddit, others still on Facebook groups dedicated to the Springfield Three case). There's a lot of these messages out there, and the information there is almost impossible to verify, so I don't quite want to dive into the specifics. After all, the last thing I want to do is get sued over publishing unverified information from a sketchy source. But if you look up Steven Garrison on any of these sites or in these groups, you'll find that a lot of people find him and his information to be incredibly suspicious. Some believe him of direct involvement in the disappearance of the Springfield Three, while others feel inclined to take him at his word, that he is the purveyor of the information that he stumbled upon.
Regardless, it remains likely that Steven Garrison knows something about this case, as his information led to one of the most promising developments in the case. But considering that happened three entire decades ago, it's hard to say what exactly his involvement may have been.
During Steven Garrison's trial, it would come to light that his court-appointed attorney, Dean Price, had received death threats at the very onset of his trial by persons unknown. It has been theorized by some that these threats may have come from an organization known as the Galloping Goose M.C., a 1% outlaw motorcycle club that has been involved in multiple criminal enterprises over the years. This includes, but is not limited to, the meth trade throughout the Midwest; in particular, throughout Missouri.
Despite their innocuous-sounding name, the Galloping Goose M.C. had grown in notoriety throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, with the area around Springfield becoming a hotbed for their activity at the time this story unfolds, becoming friendly with other M.C.s like the Hell's Angels.
In case you're unfamiliar with M.C.s, the 1% patch that many of the Galloping Goose and Hell's Angels members wear comes from a statement made by the American Motorcycle Association decades ago that 99% of motorcyclists are law-abiding citizens; the implicit understanding being that the remaining 1% are not. Rather, they embrace their identity as outlaws, which sounds cool in theory, but usually just means the person involved likes to use and/or deal in meth, which is objectively not cool (hot take, I know).
For the record: I know that there are many, many good people involved in clubs, so I'm not trying to paint with a broad brush. After all, the statement that 99% of motorcyclists are good people, that's pretty true from what I've found. But the Galloping Goose are definitely part of the 1%, and over the decades, have become one of the biggest clubs operating in the state of Missouri. Some theorize that they, or at least some of their members, may have been involved in the disappearance of the three women from Springfield in 1992, a time of rapid expansion for this M.C.
The Galloping Goose had several members involved in the early days of the investigation, including Steven Garrison, who you've learned about in this episode. Garrison's own involvement put him on investigators' radar, and he purportedly offered up information to police that was not known to the public at that point. But this potential Galloping Goose connection is not limited to just him.
The young men that I mentioned in the last episode - Dustin Recla, Michael Clay, and Joseph Riedel - also had direct connections to the Galloping Goose. If you recall, the three had gotten in trouble for disturbing a pair of graves in February 1992, and Suzie, having been romantically involved with Dustin Recla at the time, later gave police testimony against him. It is believed that Sherrill Levitt, Suzie's mom, was also set to give testimony against the trio, claiming that they'd driven her vehicle the day of the graverobbing incident.
Is it possible that, fearing this testimony, the three had acted against Sherrill and potentially Suzie, as well? With Stacy proving to be an unexpected witness to the crime that also happened to be disappeared at the same time? As I briefly touched on in the last episode, this doesn't seem like the most outlandish idea, especially considering the possible drug angle. Even if we factor in the light sentences all three eventually got, which basically amounted to probation with extra steps, would their possible connection to dealers with the Galloping Goose Motorcycle Club and the usage of drugs (likely meth) have impacted their thinking in any way? Possibly clouding their thoughts and making them more impulsive and/or rash?
Would the Galloping Goose M.C., possible worried about a few young dipshits being squeeze by police and forced to talk about their own drug dealing, have taken matters into their own hands and tried to "disappear" a potential witness or two? Or could they have maybe encouraged the other three to take action against a potential witness or two?
We'll touch some more on the Galloping Goose later in this series, but they would have strange connections to even more individuals linked to this case. That is on the next episode of Unresolved.
Episode Information
Episode Information
Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan
Published on December 8th, 2024
Sources and Other Reading
Newspapers.com Entries
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/207809395/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/418466470/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/207819617/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/207926735/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/207910186/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/208196779/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/208401703/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/939073913/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/207783576/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/207810421/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/208851028/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/208871367/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/208788589/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/208898641/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/207681204/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/207755607/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/207672408/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/207748117/
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Springfield Three case. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/207673648/?fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjIwNzY3MzY0OCwiaWF0IjoxNzMzMzY1MzA3LCJleHAiOjE3MzM0NTE3MDd9.OTO3c2Vbc_qKeulcdJJJwwS7OfSUpXyHjbD4K48y3wg
Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Steven Garrison’s sentence. Retrieved from https://www.newspapers.com/image/636283276/?match=1&terms=steven%20garrison%20sentence
Reddit Discussions
Reddit. (n.d.). One More Oddity—Discussion on Springfield Three. Retrieved from https://old.reddit.com/r/springfieldthree/comments/vpowxe/one_more_oddity/
Reddit. (n.d.). Why doesn’t Steven Garrison just say who he heard from?. Retrieved from https://old.reddit.com/r/springfieldthree/comments/1gvodx6/why_doesnt_steven_garrison_just_say_who_he_heard/
Reddit. (n.d.). Steven Garrison is behind this in some way. Retrieved from https://old.reddit.com/r/springfieldthree/comments/1eqmqc7/steven_garrison_is_behind_this_in_some_way_shape/
Case Law and Archived Articles
VLex. (n.d.). State v. Garrison: Case analysis. Retrieved from https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/state-v-garrison-no-899829839
KFVS12. (2011). Kathy Sweeney investigates: The gangs of Cape County. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20111005161601/http://www.kfvs.com/story/13480395/kathy-sweeney-investigates-the-gangs-of-cape-county?clienttype=printable