The Grave Robbing Boogeymen
I will start this post by conceding that the grave robbers, of all of the known suspects or persons of interest, are the only ones who (on paper) have a somewhat plausible motive to want the women to disappear. But if you actually dig deeper, you will see that the grave robbers are a giant red herring in this case, and the focus on them for the last 34 years has led to lies, exaggerations, outright falsehoods, and myths when discussing this case online.
The grave robbery occurred on the same day that Dustin Recla was having a birthday party. It was at this party that Joseph Riedel ran his mouth about what he, Recla, and Michael Clay did at the mausoleum, with stealing the gold teeth from the skull of a corpse. A few days later, an anonymous caller called in to Crime Stoppers and said (per the incident report on the grave robbery):
> On 03-02-92 at 1015 hours, a call was received through Crime Stoppers Hotline. Officer Bruce Waterman received the call. The caller, who wished to remain anonymous, told Waterman that they had overheard a conversation about the people involved in the Maple Park Mausoleum vandalism. The caller took notes and never saw the subjects involved. The caller stated that there were three males involved between 17 and 20 years of age. The caller heard that one subject did not have gloves but two did, and they all were on LSD at the time of the incident. The caller stated that the subjects had burnt the hair on a skull to see inside the mausoleum due to the darkness. The caller heard that the subjects took gold teeth out of the skull and sold the gold from the teeth at the Gold Exchange. The caller did not know which one. The caller only heard that one subject's name as Mike, and Mike and a guy from Chicago are living together.
Whoever this caller was, was clearly in attendance at Recla's birthday party. Could it have been Suzie? Nope. Remember, this Crime Stoppers tip came in on March 2nd. The pawn shop where the gold teeth was pawned called the cops the next day and gave them Recla's name. Recla was the one who pawned the teeth and gave the shop his ID. When Recla was called into the police station for questioning on March 4th, he initially denied any involvement, but then quickly broke down and confessed to everything. Later that evening, the police tried to question Riedel about the robbery, but he was uncooperative. Then on March 5th, according to the incident report:
> When Dustin was arrested at Town and County Theater, his girlfriend, Suzanne E. Streeter, DOB 03-09-73, was with him. Streeter indicated that she has known Dustin approximately one and one-half months. Suzanne told me that after she had picked Dustin up from the Police Department after he and I first spoke on 03-04-92, Dustin had told her about the vandalism and the theft of tools from the Arts Center. Suzanne gave a written statement as to what Dustin had told her. In her statement, she indicated that Dustin had told her about the Subway Shop being robbed by Joe and Mike and that the next morning, Joe and Mike called Dustin and told him that they had a bunch of money. Then they went shopping at the mall (unknown which mall). They then went back to Chicago where Joe is from and Mike has stayed in the past. Suzanne's statement indicates Dustin told her that he went to the cemetery to look at head stones and dates.
^ That is the only mention of Suzie in the incident report about the grave robbery. She did not know about it prior to Recla confessing to her on March 4th, so Suzie could not have been the person who called in the tip to Crime Stoppers. Also in the incident report, Riedel was re-interviewed by the cops on March 5th, and he too confessed to everything and agreed to cooperate with law enforcement. Riedel and Recla were questioned together on the 5th:
> I confronted Joe and Dustin at the same time. I asked Dustin if he wished to talk to me again about the vandalism and burglaries. Dustin wished to speak with an attorney at that time; therefore, I asked no further questions of Dustin. Joe wished to continue to be interviewed. I asked Joe about the tools from the Performing Arts Center. Joe indicated that all three (Joe, Dustin, and Michael) had taken the tools and that all three had pawned the tools and they had to use Dustin’s identification being that Michael and Joe did not have any picture identification. At one point, Joe stated that they had been caught and that he was going to cooperate. Dustin then spoke to Joe and told Joe, “If you hadn’t been bragging at the party, we wouldn’t of been caught." Joe then continued to tell me that the three of them were in the cemetery and that the three of them went to Gold Exchange and that Dustin's identification had to again be used. I discontinued asking any more questions of Joe and had not asked any more questions of Dustin once he requested an attorney.
Riedel was cooperating with law enforcement. He was singing like a bird about not only the grave robbery, but also the theft of some tools from the Performing Arts Center. Shortly after this interview, Riedel and Clay fled from Springfield back to Illinois (where Riedel was from). When Clay found out that Riedel was the one who snitched on he and Recla, Clay left him and headed to California before eventually returning to Springfield. It was not until after the women went missing that the police issued warrants for their arrests for the grave robbery, which was on June 22nd. Riedel was found in Illinois, and there is no evidence that he was in or had ever returned to Springfield after March when he and Clay fled to Illinois (despite reports from the News Leader that Riedel "is believed to have" left Springfield after the disappearances, according to Clay he and Riedel fled to Illinois in March and he left him there shortly afterwards). IMO, the cops arrested them thinking that they could get at lest one of them to roll on the others and confess if they actually had any involvement with the disappearances. But that didn't happen. We know that by September, the cops had polygraphed 21 people (including Bartt Streeter and Mike Kovacs, Suzie's ex-boyfriend) and that of those 21, Recla and Clay passed. The police would not comment on whether or not Riedel had taken a polygraph at that point. But that's because Riedel was in Illinois, and he wasn't polygraphed until October. He passed.
So where is there any motivation for Riedel to have been involved with the women's disappearances? He was the one fully cooperating with law enforcement. He was openly confessing to not only the grave robbery, but other crimes as well. And if Riedel was the one cooperating with law enforcement, why would Recla and Clay have any motivation to make the three women disappear, when their biggest obstacle in the grave robbery case was Riedel? If they had the motivation to make someone disappear it would've been Riedel, not Suzie, Sherrill, and Stacy. Suzie was not set to testify against any of them. She was not on some secret witness list. They didn't need Suzie's statement. They already had Riedel and Recla confessing to their involvement with the grave robbery. Riedel went further than Recla and confessed to other robberies they committed.
Now there is a mention of a Subway being robbed for about $3,000 that happened in January of 1992. Recla told the cops:
> I asked Dustin if he knew about the Subway burglary that had occurred on 01-20-92. Dustin agreed to write a statement reference what he knew about the Subway burglary. Dustin stated that he was not involved with that burglary. During his written statement, he indicated that he was contacted by Joe about the time of this burglary. When Joe contacted him, he wanted him to go to the mall, (unknown which Mall), where they went on a shopping spree. Dustin indicated that Joe told him how they went into the back door of Subway and took a few thousand dollars. Dustin indicated he knew nothing more about the Subway burglary.
This statement backs up with what Suzie told law enforcement...but she learned this information from Recla. Riedel denied involvement in the Subway robbery, but admitted to stealing tools with Recla and Clay and pawning them off for cash to go shopping at the mall. Either way, Recla and Riedel were the ones confessing to the cops about various crimes and admitting culpability in some and denying it in others. So I ask again: where is the motivation for any of the three grave robbers to be involved with making the women disappear? Assuming that they were involved somehow, it only took them two days to break down and confess to stealing gold teeth from a skull, do you really think they would have been able to remain completely silent about it for the last 34 years? No shot. The grave robbers are a red herring in this case. The police chief at the time saw this, which is why he publicly cleared them. I know other members of the Springfield Police Department thought they shouldn't have been fully cleared like that, but I still agree that on the list of suspects or persons of interest, they should be near the bottom.
What I would love to know is that of the 21 people who had been polygraphed by September of 1992, all but one of these people passed. I know polygraphs aren't 100% capable of telling whether someone is lying or telling the truth, but I would love to know who that person was who failed the test. Because all 3 grave robbers passed, as well as Bartt Streeter and Mike Kovacs.