Three Women Vanished, Their Purses Still There | The Springfield Three

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Three women vanish from a house where nothing seems to be missing: not the handbags, not the keys, not even the dog. Nobody has ever been charged in the case, and the simplest question is still the one left open: what happened inside that house?

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- Unsolved true crime books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=unsolved+true+crime+books&tag=thecolddossie-20 (affiliate link)

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Chapters

• 0:00 Everything but Them
• 2:32 Tomorrow Was Branson
• 4:25 The Night, Hour by Hour
• 7:17 The Only Thing Broken
• 9:55 The Phone Kept Ringing
• 13:32 Not a Crime Scene Yet
• 17:07 The Caller Who Never Called Back
• 20:18 Three Men, No Charges
• 24:01 What the Ground Gave Back
• 26:30 The Man Who Says He Knows
• 30:29 Always Eighteen
• 33:16 Documented Failures
• 35:48 What Happened Next

Sources

• Springfield Police Department, "Three Missing Women" (case page, undated; accessed 27 September 2026). https://www.springfieldmo.gov/2498/Three-Missing-Women
• Springfield Police Department, "Three Springfield Women Missing for 30 Years", press release, 16 May 2022 (case no. 92-40169). https://www.springfieldmo.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/12423
• FBI, ViCAP, "The Springfield Three – Springfield, Missouri". https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/vicap/missing-persons/the-springfield-three---springfield-missouri (automated reading is blocked; only the search-engine excerpt was seen).
• Supreme Court of Florida, Cox v. State, 555 So. 2d 352, no. 73150, 21 December 1989 (rehearing denied 12 February 1990). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1816594/cox-v-state/
• Court of Appeals of Texas, Fort Worth, Cox v. State, no. 2-95-387-CR, 30 August 1996. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1777957/cox-v-state/
• Texas Department of Criminal Justice, inmate record of Robert Craig Cox (TDCJ 00738775) and parole review, accessed 27 September 2026. https://inmate.tdcj.texas.gov/InmateSearch/viewDetail.action?sid=05426118 · https://inmate.tdcj.texas.gov/InmateSearch/reviewDetail.action?sid=05426118&tdcj=00738775&fullName=COX%2CROBERT+CRAIG
• U.S. Naval Observatory, "Sun and Moon Data for One Day", 7 June 1992, 37.194 N 93.268 W, Central Daylight Time. https://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/RS_OneDay
• National Weather Service, hourly observations at Springfield airport (KSGF), 7 June 1992, archived by the Iowa Environmental Mesonet (Iowa State University). https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/request/download.phtml?network=MO_ASOS

Notes

• The illustrations, toy-figure dioramas, maps and 3D scenes in this video are recreations made for this documentary. They are not real footage, and the mannequins in the 3D scenes have no face.
• The narration uses a synthetic voice. None of the three women is given a voice, and the words of their families are read by the narrator or shown as text.
• Nobody has been charged in connection with the disappearance. The people mentioned as persons of interest were investigated and, in this case, never charged.
• Anyone with information about the case can contact the Springfield Police Department at 417-864-1810.

Credits

• "Ambient Documentary | Cinematic background" by tyops (CC BY 4.0) - https://freesound.org/people/tyops/sounds/463542/
• "Emotional Piano Background Music" by Migfus20 (CC BY 4.0) - https://freesound.org/people/Migfus20/sounds/564855/
• "Filmesque 01.wav" by Accorman (CC BY 4.0) - https://freesound.org/people/Accorman/sounds/577072/
• "Mysterious Background Music Orchestra" by Migfus20 (CC BY 4.0) - https://freesound.org/people/Migfus20/sounds/560444/
• "Serene Flute Ambience" by Matio888 (CC BY 4.0) - https://freesound.org/people/Matio888/sounds/789313/
• "mystery+puzzle music - piano version (no drums)" by ZHRØ (CC BY 4.0) - https://freesound.org/people/ZHR%C3%98/sounds/807894/
• Satellite imagery: Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 - https://s2maps.eu by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0
• Elevation: Terrain Tiles (Mapzen, AWS Open Data). SRTM and GMTED2010 data courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey; ETOPO1: NOAA NCEI; produced using Copernicus data and information funded by the European Union - EU-DEM layers
• Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, openstreetmap.org/copyright