| The Phantom Killer | |
|---|---|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Unknown |
| Also known as | Texarkana Phantom Moonlight Murderer Phantom Slayer |
| Killings | |
| Number of victims: | 5 killed, 3 attacked |
| Span of killings | March 24, 1946–May 3, 1946 |
| Country | United States |
| State(s) | Arkansas, Texas |
| Date apprehended | N/A |
The Phantom Killer is an unidentified serial killer thought to be responsible for a series of slayings between February 22 and May 3, 1946. which became known as the Texarkana Moonlight Murders, which inspired the 1976 movie The Town That Dreaded Sundown. The murders occurred in and around the city of Texarkana, which sits astride the border between Texas and Arkansas. As such, there is both a city of Texarkana, TX and a city of Texarkana, AR. Most of the murders occurred in rural areas near both sides of the Texarkana area and also in rural areas of Bowie County, TX and Miller County, AR. He is Texarkana's only known serial killer and is credited with a number of attacks. The attacks took place at approximately three-week intervals. The Phantom Killer was also known as The Texarkana Phantom or simply The Phantom, The Phantom Slayer and The Moonlight Murderer because he often killed late at night. Despite the name and rumors, he did not attack when the moon was full. The Phantom Killer was never identified by law enforcement and was consequently never apprehended, similar to the more well known serial killers Jack the Ripper,who operated in the Whitechapel area of London, England between the late 1880s and early 1890s and the Zodiac Killer in who operated in the Northern California area during the late 1960s and early 1970s, both of whom also were never apprehended for their deeds.
The "Phantom Killer" title was not associated with the killer until the April 16, 1946, issue of the now defunct Texarkana Daily News, an evening companion to the Texarkana Gazette morning paper. He was described by two of the surviving victims as a six-foot-tall man wearing a white mask over his head with holes cut out for his eyes and mouth, although neither could agree as to whether the assailant was a light-skinned black man or a dark-tanned white man.
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The first attack happened on February 22, 1946, close to midnight. The Phantom attacked James B. "Jimmy" Hollis, 24, and Mary Jeanne Larey, 19. Jimmy Hollis received three fractures to his skull after being hit twice with a heavy blunt object.[1] Mary Jeanne Larey was sexually assaulted with the perpetrator's pistol. Jimmy made his way to Richmond road where he flagged down a passing motorist who then contacted help. Mary ran off to get help when the attacker saw headlights and was scared off. Jimmy stayed in the hospital for several months. Mary did not stay in the hospital but received stitches to her head. The attack happened somewhere near Stevenson street off Richmond.
A month later, on the evening of March 23, Richard Griffin, 29, and his girlfriend, Polly Ann Moore, 17, were murdered. Both were found the next morning in Griffin’s car on a rural Bowie County road, outside Texarkana. Both had been shot in the back of the head, by a .32 revolver. A bloodstained patch of earth found 20 feet (6.1 m) away suggested that both victims were killed outside the car and put back in it.
The third attack happened early Sunday morning, April 14, between 2:00 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., resulting as the second double murder. The victims were Betty Jo Booker, 15, and her friend Paul Martin, 16. Paul's body was found first at 6 a.m. lying beside the north side of North Park Road. Blood was found on the other side of the road a short distance up the street from his body. His body was found somewhere around the 6700 block of North Park road. He was shot to death, receiving four shots. His car was found about a mile and a half away, about 400 yards from the entrance to Spring Lake Park. Betty's body was found later around 11:30 a.m. behind a tree a few yards off the north side of Morris Lane (now Moores Lane) about a mile away from Paul. She was also shot to death, having received two shots.
By this time, the citizens of Texarkana had entered a state of panic. Many residents bought firearms, barricaded their residences, and stayed in at night. The police, meanwhile, began patrolling Texarkana’s secluded streets and lovers' lanes, apparently prompting the Phantom to change tactics.
On May 3, a man attacked a farmhouse in Miller County, Arkansas, around 10 miles outside Texarkana. The prowler, standing outside the house, shot Virgil Starks, 36, twice through a parlor window, killing him. Virgil’s wife, Katy, 35, upon hearing breaking glass, left her bedroom and entered the parlor. The assailant, still outside the house, shot her twice, hitting her in the face and mouth, but Mrs. Starks managed to escape from the house and get help from a neighbor. While Mrs. Starks sought aid, the killer searched the house, leaving muddy footprints on the floor. By the time the police reached the house, the killer had gone. Although ballistics tests would later reveal that the bullets removed from the Starks had been fired from a .22 semi-automatic pistol, not a .32 revolver, the murder of Virgil Starks is generally believed to have been committed by the Phantom.
Two days later, a man’s body was found on train tracks north of Texarkana. Some reporters speculated that the man, Earl McSpadden, was the Phantom and that he had committed suicide. However, following the coroner’s report of May 7 it was revealed that McSpadden had been stabbed to death before his body was put on the tracks, leading some to believe that McSpadden was another victim of the Phantom.
The killer has been described only by the first two victims. Many of the killer's other victims wouldn't live to give a description. The only other survivor was Kate Starks, but she never saw the killer and was unable to provide a description of him. The first two victims, Jimmy Hollis and Mary Jeanne Larey, described him as being six feet tall with a white hood mask over his head with holes cut for his eyes and mouth. The mask was described as being similar to a sugar sack with jagged holes cut into the material. When asked, neither Hollis or Larey could agree as to whether their assailant was a dark-toned white man or a light-skinned black man.
Bowie County Sheriff Bill Presley said "This killer is the luckiest person I have ever known. No one sees him, hears him in time, or can identify him in any way."[2] The headlines on May 5, two days after the Starks' murder, read "SEX MANIAC HUNTED IN MURDERS." An unnamed officer once said "I believe that a sex pervert is responsible."
The prime suspect in the Phantom case was Youell Swinney, a 29-year-old car thief with a record of counterfeiting, burglary, and assault who was arrested in Texarkana in July 1946. Swinney’s wife, who was also arrested, told police that Swinney was the Phantom and that she had been with her husband when he committed the murders. Swinney’s wife kept changing the details about the killings, however, and police came to view her as an unreliable witness. After being questioned by the police in Texarkana, Swinney was questioned in Little Rock. Swinney was eventually convicted of car theft in Texas and, as a repeat offender, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1947.
In 1970, Swinney petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that he should be released because he had not been represented by counsel in a 1941 felony conviction that was used to enhance his sentence in 1947. Swinney’s life sentence was overturned on appeal and he was set free in 1973.[3] He died in 1994.[4] The case of the Phantom has never been solved and remains open, although as of 2006 it is considered cold.
In May 2002, Dallas, Texas-based television station KDFW aired a lengthy report about the Phantom Killer. It names Swinney as the enduring primary suspect but also offers a complication in the case: Over the years, relatives of murder victims have received anonymous calls from a woman apologizing for what she said her father had done. As far as anyone can determine, Youell Swinney never had a daughter.
William T. Rasmussen, author of Corroborating Evidence II (2006), presents similarities between the Phantom Killer of Texarkana and the Zodiac Killer who terrorized California (and has also never been caught) in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In 1976, American International Pictures released The Town That Dreaded Sundown,[5] a film about the Phantom killings.
Jan Buttram's play Phantom Killer, based on the Texarkana incidents, opened at the Abingdon Theatre in New York City in January 2010.