Criminology - The Texarkana Moonlight Murders

Episode Date: March 26, 2023

In 1946, an unidentified person dubbed "The Phantom of Texarkana" committed a series of murders and attacks. They began in Texarkana, Texas, and culminated in Texarkana, Arkansas. These murders terrified the area and caused residents to buy guns and begin locking their doors. Were all of these murders committed by the same person or were there multiple killers roaming the area? Join Mike and Morf for the 250th episode of Criminology as they discuss the Texarkana moonlight murders. The police left no stone unturned in trying to identify the murderer. Over the years, many different people have been suspected. Some even believe that these murders were the early work of the Zodiac killer. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 250 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Hey, Morph. How you doing, man? I'm doing good. I'm excited. This is episode 250. That's a big milestone. And I didn't realize it until we started getting ready for this episode that it was a big one. Yeah, you know, we do this weekend. We can. out and I don't know for me I don't really sit back and think about you know how many episodes we've

done how many years we've been doing it until we kind of get to one of these big milestone numbers and then that's when it kind of hits me yeah you see those numbers and you realize the time that you put in the effort you put in and the results and we have a lot of good listeners and loyal listeners so you know to everyone that's listened to the first two hundred 150 episodes, we can't thank you enough for that. And speaking up, thanking people, we had some Patreon shoutouts, Victoria Olson, and Janie Adams contributed on Patreon. We really appreciate that.

Yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to support the show. For anyone else that would like to support criminology, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. So over 250 episodes, we've covered a lot of different types of cases on criminology, from smaller, lesser known ones to huge cases or cases that are currently breaking. We've covered both solved and unsolved, missing persons cases, bizarre deaths, serial killers, and everything in between. For episode 250, we wanted to kind of go back to our roots a bit all the way back to season one, episode one of criminology. We began a deep dive into the mystery of

the Zodiac killer, and we thought what better way to mark episode 250 than going with a case that mirrors the Zodiac case in many ways. This is a series of murders dubbed the Texarkana Moonlight Murders by a killer known as the Phantom of Texarkana. Xarkana is, as the name implies, an area on the border of Texas and Arkansas. The end of the name, the Anna, is for nearby Louisiana. There's a town named Texarkana. There's a town named Texarkana, Texarkana in Texas, as well as Texarkana, Arkansas. Texarkana, Texas is the larger of the two Twin Cities, with about 37,000 residents. The total population is currently just under 150,000 people. In 1946, there were under 40,000 people living in the area on both sides of the border. It was a time

of innocence in America when people trusted each other. They knew their neighbors, they didn't lock their doors. The area was a buzz because many of the men from that community were returning home from World War II, which had just ended. But that innocence was shattered for residents along the border there in February of that year. On Friday, February 22nd, 25-year-old Jimmy Hollis and his girlfriend, 19-year-old Mary Jean Larry, went out on a date. They went to a movie together and then decided to head to a lover's lane in that area. It was a quiet, secluded area, but not completely isolated. It was several hundred feet from the nearest house. They arrived and parked at around 11.45 p.m.

They were talking and holding hands, enjoying the quiet, peaceful night. They were only alone there for about 10 minutes when they were startled by someone outside of their car. A man wearing some sort of mask was suddenly at the driver's side door, shining a flashlight in the window. The mask was made out of white cloth, almost like he had cut holes in a pillowcase so he could see with it on his head, the man somewhat politely told Jimmy that he didn't want to kill him and warned him to follow orders. Both Jimmy and Mary were ordered to exit the car using the driver's side door. The man then ordered Jimmy to strip, commanding him to take off his pants. As soon as he did,

Jimmy was attacked by the man who had a pistol. There was a terrible cracking sound. Mary was terrified thinking that Jimmy had just been shot in the head, but Jimmy had been pistol whipped twice. and was incapacitated. His skull had been fractured. Mary frantically reached for Jimmy's wallet showing the masked man that there was nothing for him to steal, but the masked man wasn't interested in money. The hooded attacker then hit Mary on the head with the pistol and told her to stand up. Once standing, the dark figure told Mary to run. She saw a car parked down the road and ran to it for help, but there was no one inside. The man caught up and attacked her, forcing her to the ground and using the barrel of his gun to sexually assault her. During the assault, she could hear him

excitedly breathing, sucking in and exhaling the cloth from his mask. Once Mary was able to break free, she hysterically ran half a mile and pounded on the door of the nearest home she came to, waking up the resident inside. Jimmy back at his car had managed to wake up and flag someone down for help, four officers, including Bowie County Sheriff W.H. Presley, were on the scene within 30 minutes of Jimmy's call for help. They searched the area, but there was no sign of the masked man. Jimmy and Mary were both taken to the hospital. Mary was treated for a minor head wound and released the next morning.

Jimmy stayed for days as he had multiple fractures in his skull, giving a description of their attacker to police. Mary and Jimmy only agreed on two things. The man had been wearing a mask, and he was around six feet tall. The rest of their recollections of the man differed. Mary described him as a light-skinned black man, while Jimmy said that though they had been blinded by the man's flashlight,

he could tell it was a white man with a tan, maybe in his 30s, rather than believe that their descriptions differed because the two both had a flashlight shined into their eyes in the pitch dark, before being hit in the head with a blunt object, a pistol. Investigators figured that the assailant must actually be someone known to Mary and that she didn't want to give up the name to them. They theorized that she made up a false description to cover for the real attacker. News of the attack began to spread through the Texarkana area and people were alarmed.

That kind of thing just didn't happen there. They hoped that it was an isolated incident. they would soon find out that it wasn't. Just over a month later, on the morning of Sunday, March 24, 1946, someone saw what they thought was a couple sleeping in a car parked at a lover's lane near U.S. Highway 67 West. Getting closer to the car, it was clear that the couple weren't sleeping. 29-year-old Richard L. Griffin and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Polly Ann Moore, were dead. The couple had been dating for just six weeks.

Police were summoned to the scene. They found that Polly was in the back seat face down. She had been shot once in the back of the head. Richard was on his knees between the two front seats. His hands were crossed underneath his head, and the pockets of his pants were inside out, like someone had emptied them, or maybe he had tried to prove they were empty. He had been shot three times, once in the back of the head. It seemed the police that they had been killed outside the car and placed or posed inside of it. Unfortunately, it had been raining all night, watching away any fingerprints or shoe impressions at the scene. A single 32-caliber bullet casing was collected.

It was thought to have been fired from a cult semi-automatic pistol. As far as we can tell, neither Richard Griffin or Polly Moore had an autopsy, and it's unknown. Whether Polly was sexually assaulted, like other victims were, because her body was not examined properly before being buried. Now, maybe we could say this is a small town in 1946 and they weren't used to this type of crime, but it was an obvious double homicide and the lack of an autopsy is just frustrating. Now, being 1946, it's not like police knew anything about DNA or could have identified the killer if they had even taken the proper steps, but it seems like a huge oversight not to do a full exam. Police were stumped with this second attack on a couple in a month.

Before long, they would be faced with another shocking crime to investigate. Three weeks later, at around 6.30 a.m. on Sunday, April 14th, 17-year-old Paul Martin was found dead on the side of North Park Road. He had been shot four times, once in the right hand, once in the nose, once in the back of the neck, and in his ribs. There was blood on the opposite side of the road near a fence. He had been running away from his killer, but he didn't make it very far. Paul had last been seen around 1.30 a.m. picking up 15-year-old Betty Joe Booker from the VFW Club after she performed in a concert there. Her parents were concerned because she had never made it home. After Paul was found, a search was launched for Betty Joe. At 11.30 a.m.

Five hours after he had been found on North Park Road, and two miles away, the body of Betty Joe Booker was found behind a tree in a wooded area. She had been sexually assaulted and shot once in the chest and once in the face. She was fully clothed lying on her back with one hand in her coat pocket and another on her stomach. Investigators fanned out, searching the area for clues. Paul Martin's car was found about a mile and a half away from his body and almost three miles away from Betty Joe's body. The keys were still in the ignition. Inside the car, a black cord. possibly the cord for a man's hat was found.

Investigators couldn't tell who it belonged to. Multiple hat manufacturers were contacted in an effort to match the cord to a hat. An unknown print was found on the steering wheel but was never connected to anyone. Betty Joe's saxophone, a gold-plated Bundy E-flat alto, which she kept in its black imitation leather case was missing. Police had to face the fact that there was a serial predator roaming the text. Arcana area, preying on its young people. The murders of Betty Joe Booker, Paul Martin, Richard Al Griffin, and Pauley Moore were linked by ballistic analysis confirming to police that a madman was on the loose. By this point, local residents in the press were well aware

that a killer was moving amongst them. On April 16th, the Texarkana Daily News ran a front-page story giving the unknown suspect a moniker. Phantom Killer alludes officers as investigation of slaying pressed. On April 27th, the man was arrested in Corpus Christi, Texas after he attempted to sell a saxophone to a music store. During the encounter, he became suspicious and ended up running away from the store, saxophone in hand. Investigators later caught up with the man, thinking it could have been Betty Joe's missing saxophone that he was trying to sell when they searched his hotel room. They didn't find any saxophone, but they reportedly found bloody clothes. We don't know the source of the bloody clothes or what his explanation to police was about them. We also don't know

what happened to the saxophone he had been trying to sell, but investigators were able to somehow clear the man in the Texarkana attacks. A May 1946 FBI memo noted that there was no definite a proof that the subject of murders number one and two committed murder number three. The FBI felt it was possible that there was more than one killer roaming Texarkana. As time went on with no arrest, the community began to take proactive measures in hopes of preventing more attacks. In May 1946, liquor stores in the Texarkana area began a voluntary curfew, closing at 9.30 p.m. and not selling any alcohol to people who had already been drinking. Residents began to lock their doors, even though the killer hadn't attacked anyone in

their homes. They purchased guns and guard dogs, and few people ventured out after dark. Residents felt that they would be safe in their homes. They were wrong. And I think I read somewhere morph where, you know, there were so many people buying guns that local gun stores ran out. Now, this was 1946. This is Texas. You would have thought that everybody would have already had a gun or multiple guns. But it sounds like people were so scared that they were just running out to buy guns. And the thing that struck me is we see that happen today after certain incidents. There are a run on gun stores. People feel as though they need a gun. Yeah, I think they were just trying to reassure themselves that, hey, I've got some protection if something happens and I'm safe in my

home, I've got my gun for protection, but as we're about to find out, that wasn't the case. On Friday, May 3rd, just before 9 p.m., two bullets came flying through the window of a home northeast of Texarkana, Arkansas, 37-year-old Virgil Starks, a farmer and deputy sheriff who'd been sitting in a chair, reading the newspaper and listening to the radio, was shot twice in the back of the head. The bullet shattered the glass window, alerting his wife, 36-year-old Katie Starks that something was wrong in the living room. She entered the room in time to see Virgil stand up before falling back into the chair. She ran to the phone mounted on the wall, trying to call for help.

Two more bullets came through the window, hitting her in the face. She fell to the ground, but stayed conscious. She tried to make it to a different room where there was a pistol. But she couldn't see anything because there was so much blood in her eyes. She could hear someone behind the house, moving on the Porsche, so she ran out the front door. She first ran to her sister's house just across the street, but neither she nor her husband were home. Katie was able to make it to a neighbor's home where she told A.V. Prater, Vergie's dead before passing out. Prater shot his rifle into the air, alerting another neighbor, Elmer Taylor,

who fetched his car and transported everyone to the high. hospital. Police descended on the Stark's property as they feverishly searched for clues. Footprints were found on a nearby road and in a nearby cotton patch. These matched footprints seen in and around the Stark's home. Some of the prints were left in blood inside the Stark's home, showing that the suspect had crawled through the kitchen window and walked through the house. Police theorized that the attacker entered the home trying to get to Katie, not realizing she had already fled. Since it was dark out, investigators placed baskets over the prints in the field so they could find them in the morning. After the sun came up,

plaster cast were made of the prince. A black and red flashlight that didn't belong to the Starks was also found at the scene. It was determined that a 22 caliber gun had been used to shoot the Starks, unlike in previous attacks where a 32 caliber was used. However, Tire Prince were found nearby that matched ones found close to other phantom crime scenes. On May 7th, just days after the Starks were attacked, the body of 60-year-old Earl Cliff McSpadden was found on the railroad track in Ogden about 16 miles north of Texarkana. He had been hit by the train around 5.30 that morning during the impact, his left leg and arm had been severed. The coroner ruled that he had been killed by another person and left on the tracks before he was hit by the freight train. Some suspected that

the phantom had killed mc spadden but as the murder stopped following his death some people believed that mc spadden was the phantom there were theories that he had taken his own life over guilt for the murders he had committed there was nothing to really confirm one way or another just how and why mc spadden came to be dead at the train tracks if he was the phantom being 60 years old seems like it would be an outlier, as far as the ages go for these kinds of killers. Following McSpadden's death, the phantom murders seemed to end. But crimes in the area were looked at closely to see if the phantom could still be around. On June 1, 1948, 21-year-old Texarkana resident Mary Virginia Carpenter disappeared in Denton, Texas.

She had gone to the Texas State College for Women campus via train. She'd got some of her luggage, so later that day she had to return. return to the train station by taxi. She was unable to get her luggage for some reason, so the taxi driver offered to pick it up for her the next morning. At 9.30 p.m. on June 1st, he dropped her back off at the college dorms. According to the cab driver, she seemed to recognize a few men standing outside and even told the taxi driver that they would carry her luggage. After he drove off, she was never seen or heard from again. It's said that Mary knew three other phantom victims, but it's not stated in any.

reports which three victims they were. Some believe that she knew too much, or maybe knew who the suspect was, but investigators never found any evidence to support this theory. In 1946, during the height of the phantom attacks, police in the area really did look into almost anyone and everyone in the area in their search for the phantom. It really seems as though they tried to leave no stones unturned. on May 20th, Jess Quillan was the subject of a memo.

Agent Morley of Little Rock stated that Quillan was a definite suspect in this case and that definite evidence had been developed that he was a queer. Now, obviously this is a direct quote. The language used to describe Quillan is clearly a sign of the times and that due to him being homosexual,

they felt he may be prone to. violence. Quillan worked at the alcohol tax unit and had been a prohibition agent. There is a definite trend in the files of looking into minorities. The FBI files included, and I quote here, a list of former Negro servicemen who are possible suspects in this case. There are other specific people mentioned in the files with no reason for suspicion of them with the only given information, being their name and skin color, worded the same way as the list of former servicemen. So one thing that jumps out to me more in researching older cases is obviously

some of the wording used, the terminology, not just by people of the day, but by the newspapers. Now, I get it. They're using quotes as well. but what I really want to hone in on, and it seems to be pretty obvious, is that what they're saying is that, you know, the authorities were targeting people based on, you know, in one case, the fact that a man was homosexual, in other cases, the fact that people were minorities. And really, not much other than that.

That was all it took back then to put you on. police radar. That's a very scary thought. And I know it's a different time. It's still a scary thought. Yeah, because imagine how many good suspects that they didn't look at because they didn't fall into those categories. And there may have been some people that really were worthy of consideration of being suspects that slipped through the cracks. Yeah, I mean, I think anytime the authorities follow leads without merit. Well, obviously, they're wasting resource. that could be used other places. Now, they may not know even today whether, you know, those leads have merit or not until

they're checked into. But this is something completely different. This is just looking at people based on skin color, you know, race and other factors. It's sad. We know it happened and still does to an extent today. Doesn't make it right. Texas Ranger Manuel Gonzalez decided to conduct an operation to lure the phantom. During the weekend of May 24, 1946,

undercover officers parked on Lover's lanes with mannequins in their car to look like a couple, hoping to catch the phantom as he tried to attack them. He had put a lot of thought into this specific trap to catch the killer. He had figured out that the phantom had attacked on weekends three weeks apart, but with this trap in place, the phantom didn't strike. On June 2, 1946, the Kansas City Star ran the headline, The Phantom Murders that terrified Texarkana. On June 28th, an FBI memo states that there were no definite suspects at present, and that all logical suspects to date have been eliminated. On October 24, 1946, six months after she was killed, Betty Joe's saxophone was found in its case near where her body had been found.

it had been obscured by foliage and was presumably there all along. And I get it. That is possible. But, you know, to me, it doesn't really give me the warm feeling that this was a very thorough investigation. If it really was there from the very beginning, you know, six months later they find it, how hard did they look in the beginning? Investigators even looked through every single fingerprint on file

in both Texarkana, Texas, and Arkansas, almost 15,000 sets of fingerprints were painstakingly analyzed one at a time for the possibility of a match to unknown fingerprints left on Paul Martin's car. But the suspect was someone who wasn't already on file, based on prints, the killer had managed to commit his series of attacks.

and then somehow slipped through the cracks and remain unidentified. Most people do think that the same person was responsible for all four attacks in Texarkana, but some have their doubts about the last attack on Katie and Virgil Stark's in relation to the other tax. This was the only attack to happen near Texarkana, Arkansas, as opposed to Texarkana, Texas. Not only did the ammo change, but so did the weapon. The phantom usually struck on secluded roads, but K. and Virgil were shot through the window of their own home. As we mentioned, in the first attacks, a 32-caliber weapon was used.

But the weapon believed to have been used to attack Katie and Virgil Starks was a 22 caliber, and was thought to have been a rifle and not a pistol as in the previous attacks. All in all, the general belief is that all the attacks were the work of one person. And for residents of that area at the time, to consider any other possibility, was to admit that not one, but two killers were prowling there. It was a troubling prospect for the community. And I get that more if, you know, I think it's hard for people to believe that there are multiple killers out there. It's hard enough to believe that one person is doing all of this, but to think that it's more than one.

But could you not also theorize that someone had seen the news of these attacks and maybe had used it? to try to commit murders that they were already planning to commit. You know, like in this last attack on Katie and Virgil Starks, there are some differences. And could that account for the differences? In January 1947, James Allen, the nephew of Katie Starks, was suspected after it was revealed that his wife, Marie Allen, had died from poisoning,

not Bright's disease, as had been earlier thought. In the FBI case file, agents put forth a theory that Virgil Starks and Marie Allen had an affair and she had an abortion after becoming pregnant by Starks and that James Allen had killed them both because of it. In February, 1946, James Allen returned home from service in the Navy. Days later, his wife, Marie, was dead. In the end, I'm just not sure how much of this theory could be proven. During the hunt for the phantom, multiple firearms were collected and tested for a possible ballistic match. In 1949, a weapon found wrapped in a handkerchief on the Missouri Pacific Railroad Bridge in Fulton, Arkansas,

was tested to see if it could be the murder weapon, perhaps discarded by the suspect on a secluded rail bridge. No match was ever found, however. Police kept searching for the identity of the Phantom, even though he had an attack in almost four years. In 1950, a further 88 suspects were fingerprinted. A local guy named Buster Rathburn was arrested for making Lou telephone calls, and he was fingerprinted. Police were really grasping at straws trying to figure out who the Phantom was, and any locals from the area that were the least bit sketchy fell under suspicion. The FBI eventually released their case files on the Texarkana Moonlight Murders,

and the records show that for varying reasons, Many specific people were looked into, but no connection could be found. These are just a few of the names we saw in the files. Cleo Smith was arrested for the April 30th, 1948 sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl. He was suspected. No evidence, including fingerprints, tied him to the crimes. The fingerprints of Philip Duckett, who died in 1948, didn't match.

Unlike others in the files, There is no information on why he was even looked into. L.B. Farquhar, whose files noted that he was a sexual pervert was looked into, but his fingerprints didn't match. Ralph Barney Balman, a 21-year-old Army veteran, turned himself into the Los Angeles Police Department on May 23rd. He believed he could be the Phantom. Bauman claimed that he had been in a fugue state for weeks and had come back to reality only to find his rifle missing. and reports of a murder suspect that sounded like him on the radio. He immediately hitchhiked to California, paranoid the whole time.

He was taken into custody, but none of his information matched the cases, and investigators noted that his discharge from the Army was due to mental issues like neurosis. Even before the fugue state, he had confessed to murdering three people in the Texarkana area, but claimed that the murders had taken place over just three days, which didn't match any of the attacks. Albert Adams, an AWOL soldier who was arrested in New York City for the murder of police officers in Los Angeles, was looked at his fingerprints were not a match to the prints on Paul Martin's car. But his palm print was not available to test against the palm print found at the Stark's home. Charles Healy, a mail carrier from Texarkana, Texas was suspected. A memo was sent asking the FBI to compare, Healy's Prince to the unknown prince from Paul Martin's car. But Healy's prints weren't on file.

Army veterans, Orville Soyke, Paul Dudley, and R.H. Batten were specifically looked into for unknown reasons, but their fingerprints were not a match. There are many more names in the file that specifically didn't pan out when their prints were compared, and even more names just thrown on the long list, with check marks and lines crossing out entries rather than the single name memos. So it does seem to me more if that they looked into a lot of people. Now, the reasons for looking into these people, I think in a lot of instances were either unknown or they were really sketchy.

You know, we mentioned it earlier. At least one man was homosexual. They looked into quite a few people who were minorities. that to me was really sketchy. I get it. They're going to look at all different types of individuals and check prints and and all of that. I'm not saying it wasn't good police work as far as checking into suspects.

What I am saying is that you could see some of the prejudices of the day coming through. I think that was quite evident. Yeah. And I think it was definitely a better step to us. at least check out people who had records who were known to be criminals, who had histories of perverted stuff, whatever that meant at the time. But as opposed to just looking at someone based on their sexuality or their skin color, I think they did a better job looking at those kinds of people. But unfortunately, you know, everybody that they looked at just didn't match

fingerprint-wise to the evidence they had. Or their fingerprints weren't on file. And, and And I think you have that situation, you know, even still today. Now, a lot more people have their fingerprints on file. And obviously, the technology has come leaps and bounds. You can do quick searches through electronic databases, but not everybody has been fingerprinted. And so you can have a great suspect. You can have a person who you believe may have. have been responsible for a crime.

But if you don't have their prints, and let's say you have some great fingerprint evidence, pretty hard to get a match. You've got a missing piece to the puzzle. Yeah. And we called the police out for their, you know, searching of people that were homosexual or were minorities. But I also have to give them credit because back in the day, they didn't have computer systems comparing all these fingerprints. They were literally taking a magnifying glass one of the time

and painstakingly comparing each person's print to the suspect print. So, I mean, there's a lot of work and without the benefit of technology, very time-consuming and, you know, a dawning task. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door, There's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey, guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. It's every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true-crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodontes, where you're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a motherly touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. The most promising suspect in the eyes of many back then and still today is Yule Swinney.

Yule Lee Swinney and his wife Peggy Lois Swinney were both fingerprinted. but they weren't a match to the phantom prince. Due to other information regarding the couple, a memo was sent out specifically requesting that their prints be re-analyzed. On June 28, 1946, 21-year-old Peggy Swinney was arrested after being caught driving a stolen car.

She and Yule had been married for just two hours. Two weeks later, Yule was taken into custody. When he was arrested for car theft, he made statements to police alluding to the fact that he would be behind bars for a very long time, and that police were really after him for something far worse than car theft. He was reportedly heard to ask out loud to himself if he'd be getting the electric chair. Peggy Swinney claimed that on the night of April 13th, 1946,

she was taken by Yule to Springdale Park and that he tried to rob Paul Martin. Instead, he ended up killing both Paul and Betty Joe Booker. She admitted to participating. after they had some beer together, they ended up at the same lover's lane as Paul Martin and Betty Joe Booker. Swinney parked just 200 feet from their car. Together, Yule armed with a pistol and Peggy walked to their car and forced them out and into their own car. After driving for a quarter of a mile, they forced Paul out of the car. After he jumped a fence, Swinney shot him twice while Peggy restrained Betty Joe.

Yule then got back in the car and they drove a bit before making a U-turn only to see Paul, badly injured, walking down the road for help. Swinney hopped out of the car and shot him again before driving Peggy and Betty Joe down multiple side roads. You'll then made Peggy get out of the car for half an hour. During that time, he sexually assaulted Betty Joe, an act which Peggy said she could hear. After she got back in the car, Swinney drove down yet another side road before taking Betty Joe down into a wooded area. Peggy said that she heard two gunshots before Swinney returned with bloody clothes. Peggy Swinney said that she saw her husband take a black case from Paul's car and put it in his own car, but she never saw it again.

Two days later, on the way to Dallas, Texas, Yule Swinney stopped on a side road and burned the clothes. he had been wearing that night. Searching a motel room that the Swinneys were believed to have stayed in, Arkansas authorities found a shirt with the name Stark inside of it. It had magnetic metal slag balls found in welding operations inside the pockets. Virgil Starks had a welding shop on his property. Police thought that maybe this was a shirt from the Starks home, but then again, the shirt said Stark, or possibly even Starr, not Starks. Katie Starks was shown the shirt, and at first she thought it did belong to her husband Virgil. But soon after, she told police she couldn't actually be sure.

There was also a bloody towel found in the motel room where the work shirt was found. It was later revealed that it couldn't be proven that the Swinney's were ever even in that room. When confronted by police, Yule Swinney denied any connection to the Texarkana Moonlight murders. According to FBI documents, he told investigators that his wife was a complete moron and that nothing she said was true or right. Because Peggy was interviewed so many times, investigators were concerned that she could have been fed any accurate information accidentally during those interviews

by those questioning her. But according to the case file, it was not believed that she was mentally capable of remembering all of that information unless she was actually there on the scene. On November 22nd, 1946, Peggy was given, and passed a polygraph exam. When questioned, she claimed that she had gone on a date in January with a man named Virgil

Starks, but that Yule had gotten upset when he found out months later and told her that he was going to take care of the Starks. He left the house, later returning with muddy shoes. He soon dropped those shoes in a river on the way to Little Rock, Arkansas. The stolen Plymouth, they had been driving, had two All-Stateau. tires, which was part of the description of a suspect car. The Ford sedan was believed to have been seen near the Stark's home. It was found parked at the Red River Arsenal with a blood-like substance on its fender. This car had four Allstate tires, though, not two. To some people,

this story from Peggy explained just why the last attacks on the Starks felt different from the first three attacks, and that Yule had a personal vendetta against Virgil Starks and attacked him in his home, whereas the first three attacks were on random people outside. Peggy retracted her statements multiple times, making it hard for investigators to take her at her word. Perhaps she was afraid of her husband, or was pressured by investigators trying to solve the case, but whatever the reason, Peggy simply wasn't reliable. Regardless, as his spouse, Peggy couldn't be made to testify against Ewell Swinney. And some people have asked the question, is this why they were married in the first place? As compelling as Yul Swinney is to many as a phantom suspect, there are many people

that do not believe that Swinney was the phantom. Arkansas state trooper Max Tackett, who for a time believed Swinney was the phantom, claimed to see a pattern in the murders. On the night of each attack, a car had been stolen in the area. After the first attack, A stolen car was found abandoned near the murder scene. To him, this proved Swinney's involvement since he was a prolific carthee. However, there are no reports of an abandoned stolen car near the Stark's home or near Paul Martin and Betty Joe Booker. Swinney also had a history of selling the cars he stole to unwitting people, not just abandoning

them. Also, Swinney stole the Plymouth on March 24th. a night when no murders occurred. Many people who doubt Yule Swinney was the killer point to the fact that some of his wife, Peggy's statements don't match the known facts. For example, the black saxophone case, taken from Paul Martin's car containing Betty Joe Booker's saxophone,

was found near where her body had been discarded. It was never stolen or taken away. It had simply been tossed into the foliage and missed. She did in one statement claim that Swinney threw the case over the fence near Paul's body, but that can't be true because of how far apart their bodies were found. The area that she said Paul Martin was shot in was incorrect. She also had the timing wrong on the night that Paul and Betty Joe were murdered,

claiming they had seen the couple parked at 1 a.m. Betty Joe, though, was at the BFW until at least 1.30 a.m. Peggy gave differing accounts of her involvement in the attacks and multiple stories about where Yule had changed his clothes that night. While Peggy Yule was in jail, she wrote a letter to her family that authorities intercepted. It described cooperating with authorities because they didn't believe that Yule didn't kill anyone. She was wrought with guilt about possibly sending him to the electric chair with lies that she felt the authorities wanted to hear. There are some people that think the phantom was not Yule Swinney, but instead was a man named Henry Booker Tennyson from Fayetteville, Arkansas, who took his own life at the age of 18 on November 5, 1948.

Bowie County Sheriff W.H. Presley wrote a letter to the FBI asking that Tennyson's fingerprints be compared to the fingerprints believed to be from the Phantom. He and Betty Joe Booker had been in the same school band, but were not friends, though he left a note before his death, confessing to the murders of Betty Joe Booker, Paul Martin, and Virgil Starks. A friend of his claim that this was impossible because the two had been playing cards together. on one of the nights that the murders occurred. The note he left was found hidden inside a lockbox. If Tennyson was the killer, it would mean that he committed the phantom crimes when he was just 16 years old. While it's possible, it doesn't seem all that likely.

It's widely believed that Henry Booker Tennyson was ruled out by police. But according to John Tennyson, Henry's first cousin once removed, he wasn't. The note he left confessing to the murders wasn't given to the police. and it wasn't left out for his family to easily find. In fact, he left it in a lockbox that his family only figured out how to open due to him leaving them a riddle. The riddle ended with, Two Bs mean a lot when they are together. These clues should lead you to it.

The lockbox combination was on a piece of paper rolled up inside of a pen with the letters B.B. etched into it. The confession note supposedly included details confirming that he did kill Betty Joe Booker and Paul Morton and killed Mr. Starks and tried to get Mrs. Starks. There seems to be no reason to write this letter if it isn't true. In the locked box, after all, who was his audience? There was no mention of other potential phantom victims Richard Griffin, Polly Moore, Jimmy Hollis, or Mary Larry, in any of his writings.

In the end, Henry Booker Tennyson is just an interesting possible suspect, just like Yule Swinney was. Some people believe that the Phantom could also be the Zodiac. killer. Like the Zodiac killer, the Texarkana phantom wore a cloth mask or hood over his head, at least in one case. There were no witnesses left to describe the killer after the first attack on Mary Larry and Jimmy Hollis. Also like the Phantom, the Zodiac changed methods, sometimes shooting his victims and stabbing others. The first phantom attack on Mary Larry and Jimmy Hollis is reminiscent of the first Zodiac murder. 17-year-old David Faraday and 16-year-old Betty Lou Jensen were on their first date

when they were attacked in their parked car on a gravel turnout used as a lover's lane. David was shot in the head as he tried to exit the car and Betty Lou was shot multiple times in the back as she ran away. In Texarkana, Jimmy was hit in the head and incapacitated at the car. while Mary was made to run. The second confirmed Zodiac attack had survivors that were able to give a description of the attacker and details over the ordeal.

The suspect had parked next to them for just seconds before driving away. About 10 minutes later, the car returned and parked behind them. Someone walked up to the passenger side window, shining a flashlight and holding a pistol. They fired into the car multiple times. 22-year-old Darlene Fern was killed,

but 19-year-old Michael Mijou survived. He described as attacker as a white man in his late 20s, about 5 foot 8, sort of stocky, at around 200 pounds or more with curly brown hair. Survivors of the Zodiac's third attack, this time of stabbing, described the Zodiac as a white man around 5 foot 11 and at least 170 pounds. This time he was wearing a black fabric hood over his head, sort of like an executioner's mask. There were eye holes in the mask, which the man had covered,

with clip-on sunglasses. Fabric extended down over his chest like a bib, which had a white design of a cross inside of a circle on it. The suspect approached the victims with a pistol and pre-cut pieces of clothesline rope and ordered 22-year-old Cecilia and Shepard to tie up 20-year-old Brian Hartnell. After tying Cecilia up himself,

the suspect stabbed them both multiple times. The fourth Zodiac attack differs from the others. This time the Zodiac held a cab driven by 29-year-old Paul Stein. After driving one block past his intended destination, Paul pulled over and was shot in the head with a 9-millimeter handgun. Three teens across the street witnessed the incident and the suspect fleeing the scene. Paul's wallet and car keys were taken, and a piece of his bloody shirt was torn off as some kind of trophy.

The teens witnessed the suspect wiping down the car. and heading north on foot. They described the man as white, 5'8 to 5 foot 9, between 25 and 30 years old. For reasons still unknown, today, the dispatcher that took the teen's call alerted officers to a blackmail suspect, causing nearby officers to drive right past a white man walking away from the scene. A composite sketch of the suspect was later amended to deflect a white male between 35 and 45, who was about 5 foot 8 with a heavy build. He had glasses in a crew cut style haircut. In short, the Zodiac's description in 1969 placed him between his 20s and 40s

with 22 years in between the last Phantom attack and the first Zodiac attack, there is certainly time for a suspect to have traveled from Texarkana to California, but for them to have been the same person. The offender would have had to have been in his early 20s in 1946 when he committed to Texarkana murders. And the Zodiac would have had to have been in his 40s for any of it to make sense. The height is off with the Zodiac being described as shorter than the Phantom. Also, the Phantom sexually assaulted victims, something that the Zodiac never did.

It seems a long shot that these two killers were one in the same. The moonlight murders made waves in the press at the time, and they were featured in many detective magazines. It's also very possible that the Zodiac killer was inspired by the Texarkana Phantom. There could be a connection in that the Zodiac took ideas from the Phantom, even if they weren't the same person. I also think more of that, you know, trolling dark, quiet, lovers lane areas was probably a very common practice for predators, especially back then, seeking unsuspecting victims. It's been 77 years since the Texarkana Moonlight murders,

and it seems that the case is no closer to being solved today than it ever has been. The only pieces of evidence that can be analyzed are the fingerprint found on the steering wheel Paul Martin's car, the palm print from the Stark's home, and the shell casings collected from the scenes. Unfortunately, the FBI case files include a request to locate the shell casings, and multiple memos note that their location is unknown, and there's no indication that the shells were ever located, so the murder weapon may never be able to be confirmed. It's safe to assume that anything that possibly contained the phantom's DNA likely wasn't preserved properly, and would

probably not help ID him today. Due to it being degraded. Katie Starks, who managed to recover from her injuries, died in 1994. Yule Swinney also died in 1994 from cancer. Phantom or not? He spent many years in prison for car theft. Peggy Swinney died in 2014. Jimmy Hollis, who survived the first Phantom attack. Live to be at least 86 years old.

He was still writing letters about the case in 2007. This case has earned its spot in true crime lore. As one of those legendary cases, it inspired the 1976 cult classic film, the town that dreaded Sundown, made by filmmaker Charles Pierce, who also filmed another cult classic in that area, The Legend of Boggy Creek, which was about a Bigfoot-like creature, said to roam that area of Texarkana. Both of those are great films.

the town that dreaded sundown closely followed the real events of this case. It was later remade in 2014, but much of that version was purely fictional. So if you're going to check out one of the two, definitely check out the original 1976 film. So morph as we wrap up this episode, you know, this is one of those cases that stands out in the minds of many who find out. follow true crime. It's a baffling case. You know, you have some people who try to make connections to the Zodiac. Is it possible? I guess technically it is, but to me it seems, you know, unlikely.

Many years past between the two incidents, the killer in the tax arcana murders would have had to have been very young. And the Zodiac would have had to have had to have been very young. And the Zodiac would have had to have been at the older range of all the estimates given. So it's not impossible, but to me, highly unlikely. One thing that really jumped out of me is how quickly these attacks occurred and then stopped. I mean, we weren't, we're not talking about years and years and years. Yeah, we're only talking a span of about three or four months total that these attacks happened over. So it was sort of a spree killer. And it was so out of the norm. You know, we talked about it. People weren't locking their doors. It caused so much fear and panic that

people were, you know, running out to local gun stores, buying up all the guns they had. It really kind of put everybody on lockdown. And I go back to the uphill battle that the police faced in trying to catch this person because always comparing everything to today, you know, we have surveillance video, we have cell phone towers pinging, things like that, which could really help a case like this if it happened today. And police would probably easily be able to solve a case or a lot more easily than they could in this older case where they just didn't have anything like that to go on. You know, they're always getting called out to the scene after the killers fled and, you there's nothing technology-wise that really was able to help them ID this person.

So it was really a sign of the times as far as the limits of what police were able to do and catching this guy that was terrorizing this area. And really a sign of the times when we talked about police profiling individuals of certain races, certain, you know, sexual orientations. is it going to surprise many that that happened? No, I don't think it is. It doesn't make it any less appalling, though, even though you know you're talking about like 1946. It just leaves a really bad, you know, taste in your mouth to hear something like that going on. Yeah, and what's scary about it is while they were focusing on rounding up known homosexuals or minorities, did they let the real

killer somehow slipped through the cracks when they should have been looking elsewhere. And did he escape because they were focused on, you know, people based on their race or their sexuality? Yeah, you know, I go back to police doubting one of the victim's statements. You know, it came out that police theorized that she made up a fake description to cover up for the real attacker because they thought that she knew who it was, but wanted to throw them off. this person's trail. Yeah, not believing the victim is, is not a good look for, for police. No, I get it. The, the, the two people in the same event gave different descriptions, but to kind of jump to this conclusion that the reason for the inconsistency is something other than, you know,

just having a flashlight, maybe shined in your eyes and not seeing correctly to this person. is covering up, seems a little harsh when you're talking about the victim of a serious, serious crime. My takeaway with this case is it's frightening that this person got away and it makes me wonder what happened to them. You know, was he the person that took his own life on the railroad tracks or did he escape to go someplace else and keep committing these crimes? If you look at any old newspaper archives during the 20th century, there were

countless attacks of people on lovers lanes all across the country. It was frightening how many there were. So it makes me wonder could this guy have moved on to another area and done these kinds of crimes, either before the phantom murders or sometime after, which I think is why some people think of Zodiac, because it was a high-profile case just like these moonlight murders. But then again, it was just very common all across the country. Well, I think you have that in many unsolved cases, right? This idea. And it's a very scary idea that a person got away with murders, sexual assaults.

They were never caught. And then they moved on maybe to another area to continue doing this same sort of thing. But the crimes were never connected to the same person. You know, that is a scary thing. thought. I feel like one day, you know, one of these cases is going to be solved. And it's going to be solved in a way that we find out that the perpetrator of, let's say, one series or one case actually went on to commit all of these other crimes. And let's say they were given other names and other monikers. And we're going to find out that, you know, three, four, five, six, seven of

of these kind of well-known unsolved cases were actually committed by the same person. I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility. At some point, that's going to happen. I hope you're right because it would just be really fascinating to see who some of these people and these older cases were and if any of them are connected to each other. But that's it for our episode on the Texarkana Moonlight Murders. If you love the show but haven't done so yet, go out, give us a rating, you can leave a review, but keep telling your friends. A word of mouth about the podcast really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with a handle at Criminology Pod.

You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast, discussion and fans. So that's it for our 250th episode. more if we've got 250 more in us? I think so. I think so too. But can we outdo the first 250 is what I'm wondering? Hopefully we can. Well, that's the key.

That's the key to getting to 500. You know, you got to keep it up. You got to outdo. So that's what we'll focus on. But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode of criminology. So for Mike and Morf. We'll talk to you next week.

Take care, everyone.