Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 488 - The Phantom Killer and the Texarkana Moonlight Murders

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

In the spring of 1946, a masked serial killer stalked the lovers’ lanes and quiet homes of Texarkana, leaving behind brutal murders, traumatized survivors, and a small city gripped by fear. This episode dives deep into the true story of the Phantom Killer and the flawed investigation that failed to stop him. Some monsters truly only come out at night. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the spring of 1946, for most of their inhabitants, the twin towns of Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas, were two halves of the same quiet American dream. Two small cities pressed up against one another across a painted line in the middle of the aptly named State Line Avenue, where teenagers cruised in their parents' cars, where neighbors still left, the front doors unlocked, and where the biggest local scandal usually involved who was cheating on who, or who'd had too much to drink after the high school football game. This was a railroad town, a church town, a post-World War II boom town, now that the war was finally over after nearly 200 young men from Texarkana had died overseas. The ones who came back were trying to build something normal again. New jobs, new families, new lives, but maybe something else came back with them or had been waiting for them, something they didn't want peace, something they didn't want normal, something that wanted to dish out terror, pain, and death.

On February 22nd, 1946, masked man, with only his eyes visible, stepped out of the darkness on a lonely dirt road near midnight and shattered the illusion that Texarkana was safe. He approached a young couple getting hot and steamy along a known lover's lane and a borrowed car, and after making his presence known, he beat the young man nearly to death. Then he let the woman run, not because he wanted her to get away, but because he wanted to chase her down. And he did. and then he beat and tortured and raped her. Finally, after never taking off his crude mask, after the man was unconscious and the woman was allowed to race off for help into the night, he disappeared.

At first, the town tried to pretend it was a one-off, a freak crime, some drifter passing through, except it wasn't. Over the next ten weeks, the killer called the Phantom, returned again and again. His attacks came without warning. He showed no mercy, and he always attacked at night. The papers called him the Phantom.

killer, not just because he'd worn a mask during that first attack, but because he seemed to melt away after every attack, leaving nothing behind but more terror. Before it was all over, Texarkana would be one of the most heavily armed, heavily patrolled cities in all of America. Today, we will examine the Texarkana Moonlight Murders on another true crime, murder mystery, some monsters really do only come out at night edition of TimeSuck. This is Michael McDonald, and you're listening to TimeSuck. You're listening to TimeSuck. Well, happy Monday, and welcome or welcome back to the Cult of the Curious.

I'm Dan Cummins, suck nasty. A bell ringer, guy who really is, like all of us in some form, I imagine, living continually in the pursuit of happiness, right, the best pursuit. A guy who was also still captivated by a dark and terrible story. like this week's, and you are listening to TimeSuck. Hail Nimrod, Hail Lucifina, praise be to Good Boybo-Jangles, and Glory B to Triple M. No announcements again.

So let's just get started. Another pretty straightforward episode, structure-wise. We're going to get to know our setting where today's terror took place first, and then we will jump into a timeline, starting with the Phantom's first brutal fear-inducing attack. Long before the terrible summer of 1946 etched itself into the landscape of American true crime, Texarkana, two cities, mirroring each other across the state line, stood as a modest but thriving example of mid-America promise and peace for most of its residents, the kind who would become victims of the phantom killer. The story of Texarkana begins in the early 1870s in the forests and fields of the Arklatex region.

The name is a portmanteau, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. named for a combination of three states because, well, somebody fucked up. Because according to at least one version of local legend, Colonel Gus Noble, the surveyor for the St. Louis Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad, or railroad, there's one railroad, just a long name, initially thought its location sat at the border of not just Texas and Arkansas, but Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. It doesn't. He was close, so.

He was about 30 miles off when it came to Louisiana, you know, and to be fair to him, It was a lot harder to get shit like that right back then in the days before Google Maps and highways with clear signs indicating that you were heading into Louisiana or whatever. In December of 1873, the first town lots were sold on what would become Texarkana's Texas side by the Texas and Pacific Railroad, turning patches of dust-covered prairie into streets and storefronts practically overnight, built by people looking for a fresh start and the chance to be part of a brand-new town. That's something hard to relate to now, isn't it? getting in on the ground floor of an actual town. I bet that was exciting. You know, when it worked, when you got in early, you got to watch this prosperous community shoot up around you,

you're a part of that growth, you're checking out all the new restaurants and other businesses, you're opening some of them. You know, as soon as these places are open, you're part of the first crowd heading in, but I bet it sucked when the town faltered before it really took off and now you have a worthless house and a dusty shithole full of boarded up buildings.

But this one worked. Just blocks away. across an invisible line that had suddenly become very real. The Arkansas side soon sprouted up its own buildings, markets, and neighborhoods, just a few years after Texas. And by 1880, the Twin Cities were firmly established as the commercial heart of a region recently criss-crossed by rail lines. A place where locally harvested cotton, timber, and some other crops could be distributed

regionally and then beyond, and an important railroad hub for people passing through on trains bound for St. Louis, New Orleans, and elsewhere. Texarkent's founding had everything. to do with the railroad. Back when railroads had everything to do with the success of a city that wasn't nestled near an ocean, lake, canal, or river shipping port. The Cairo and Fulton Railroad intersect with the Texas and Pacific, less than two years after that first line was built through the area and established a town. The January 2nd, 1875 edition of a local paper, the Gate City News, would proclaim the following. Texarkana, the Gate City of Texas,

situated at the junction of the Cairo and Fulton and the Texas and Pacific Railway on the northeastern boundary of Texas at the southwest corner of Arkansas and near the northwest corner of Louisiana on the great trunk line into Texas direct from St. Louis, Memphis, and Little Rock. This being the shortest route from the north and east into Texas. Texarkana is the natural inlet for trade and commerce and offers inducements that are unsurpassed for business houses of all branches and trade. located here with facilities for shipments to all points of Texas and Louisiana,

merchants will control the trade of a very large section of country. So basically, that was probably just an advertisement from the railroad, you know, who needed to help settle this area. And they're like, get the fuck over here. It's great. It's going to be awesome. Come on in. And just like that, a regional business distribution hub was built.

The Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Gulf, later KCS, and the St. Louis Southwestern, aka Cotton Belt Railroad, would soon intersect with the town as well. in the coming years and further fuel its growth. So much training. God, some people love the sound of the train. Right, they're loud, disruptive. I like that sound at a manageable distance. Shortly after I was out of college,

I lived a dinky little second floor apartment, Millwood, Washington. And about a half dozen times a day, sometimes in the middle of the night, I would hear those sounds. and it would feel like the train was passing just through my fucking apartment I mean those again those

those horns can be so loud I did not care for that I didn't care for being very close to the horns and didn't care for like not knowing if I was going to be stuck for an extra 20 minutes if a train passed by when I was trying to get somewhere I kind of killed the romanticism of trains for me

never need to live excuse me close to tracks like that again but I do think they're cool right when i when i when i see or hear them out there in the distance i'm guessing most in texarkana made their peace with trains or we're just you know happy to hear those sounds i guess it's you know symbolized opportunity you know grateful to be connected to the outside world by those trains back then railroads were not just meddle and ties i mean they truly were lifelines soon after the first two major lines crossed local newspapers churches schools and civic institutions proliferated

on both sides of state line avenue creating a shared community identity despite a jurisdictional split. By the early 20th century, broad commercial streets full of big, beautiful, Italianate brick buildings, hummed with business, and residential neighborhoods grew outward from the downtown grid. For decades, this was the rhythm of life in Texarkana. Progress and productivity, community, and comfort, right, for most residents. The population grew strong and steady from the city's founding until the crimes I will cover took place, and actually continued to grow for several decades. Still grown today, just not as fast. By 1880, just over 1,800 people called the area home on the larger Texas side.

That nearly doubled to almost 3,000 people in 1890. Then over 5,000 by 1900, nearly 10,000 by 1910. Slowed down a little bit, nearly 11,500 by 1920, and then shot up a bunch, over 16,600 by 1930. And just a tick over 17,000 by 1940. By 1946, the town benefiting from a post-World War II boom had over 21,000 residents. and another 13,000-ish people were living on the Arkansas side by the mid-1940s. Despite being a regional hub, it was actually still a pretty small, you know, tight-knit community of only a little over 40,000 people and isolated. Interstate 30 would not be

punched through Texarkana until the mid-1950s. Interstate 49 would come decades after that. Back in the 1940s outside of the trains, it was just some small highways running through the area outside of the railways again, and the nearest major cities were streets. Strieveport, Louisiana, and Dallas, Texas. Shreveport, about 75 miles south, Dallas, just under 180 miles west. Shreveport had barely grown to over 100,000 people by the mid-40s. The point I'm making is Texarkana in the 1940s was, while important commercially, also still the sleepy hub of a pretty sleepy area. Crime, of course, existed, as it does everywhere, but nothing like it did and does in major cities. Murder was in general a rarity, and when it did happen,

It was sadly damn near always in the form of either a brutal, you know, race, racial-induced lynching or racism-induced or a shootout between outlaws and the cops. Didn't intend for this episode to link back to the vigilante episode from two weeks ago, but it does. A lot of the violence the town saw before the phantom killings was the kind of violence typical for the Jim Crow South. Crimes brought on by racial tension and injustice that flared occasionally in brutal ways that are now, you know, a part of a painful regional history. Street. Still, what was unheard of was a masked predator, stalking lovers' lanes and backroads, killing and maiming with no known motive. In 1940s, Texarkana was, for the most part, especially for the white residents who would become the victims of the phantom killer, you know, something like a place that I'll leave it to Beaver or the Andy Griffith show, some kind of

Mayberry. Texarkana had weathered the Great Depression a lot better than most American cities, while businesses had shuttered elsewhere, the city's diversified role as a trading center, cushioned the economic blow and clean bustling sidewalks full of local shoppers and mostly all knew each other you know they kept local businesses alive places where it felt like everybody knew your name where you grown up with everybody just a lot of how's Hank doing i heard his wife edna was pretty sick is his boy arnie still working with him at the butcher shop i heard johnny howard's taking over the miller's hardware shop damn that boy could run when he was running back for the hogs i'll never forget watch him score three touchdowns in the state

title game in 42. Do you see what Sharon Trimble was wearing a church? Woo! He! She clearly trying to find a new man after she and Bill Rogers split. It's like small town gossip. Kind of shit I grew up with. That kind of place. Place where, you know, gossip reign that usually wasn't focused on much of consequence, because very little of consequence actually ever, you know, really occurred. Prior to the killings in 1946, much of the gossip, you know, was pretty positive. Local economy, again, booming. When the U.S. had entered World War II in 1941, One, Texarkana's strategic location, straddling state borders and rail lines, had drawn new investment.

Military facilities like the Red River Army Depot brought new good-paying jobs, infrastructure spending, and influx of new workers and servicemen. The war had transformed many American towns. In Texarkana's case, it greatly strengthened its economy while adding a new layer to its social fabric. The years leading up to 1946, Texarkana was, by almost any measure, a stable, thriving, peaceful place for the majority of those who lived there. Families gathered at church picnics and school events. Teenagers drove out to Spring Lake Park to make out or make babies on weekend nights. Little diners and cafes, there was a bunch of them buzzing with conversation after high school football games and the like. The presence of new military personnel was, of course, notable, but it was a good thing.

It meant boom times and local pride more than tension. Crime was largely discussed in the abstract, not feared. Parents told stories of stolen bikes, you know, small domestic disputes, not shadowy murderous figures, lurking on lonely roads at night. This normalcy, that's this sense of that your community was a place where neighbors knew one another and the streets were safe after sundown would make what came next all the more shocking. When the first attack occurred on February 22nd, 1946, it did more than wound two young locals. You know, it started to rupture a communal belief that nothing like that could happen here.

The couple attacked that night, Jimmy Hollis and Mary Jean Larry, were assaulted while parked on an isolated county road. Their assailant's face was hidden under a crude and terrifying mask, a burlap sack with, you know, eye holes, and the violence was both physical and sexual. Those details alone would have been enough to horrify an already anxious post-war nation, but in Texarkana, town untested by random violence of that nature, it would become part of a larger story that absolutely terrified the town. Again, there had been, you know, other murders there had been lynchings. Yes, there was a horrific lynching in 1892, many years earlier, when a 32-year-old black man named Edward Coy, had been tied to a tree beaten and burned alive. There was another horrific lynching in 1922.

When another black man, Hullen Owens, had been dragged through town behind a car by a rope around his neck, also burned. There was even a brutal fatal lynching just a few years before the phantom killings that I'll mention the timeline. But there had not been anyone targeting random lovers, making out in their cars at night.

There had been a number of shootouts between Prohibition-era bootlegging related gangsters in the 20s and the 20s in the 30s, but by the 1940s, that was over. And so if you hadn't been accused of assaulting a white woman, essentially, or you, you know, weren't making or transporting moonshine, if you were white like all the phantoms' victims were, you probably didn't fear being randomly attacked or murdered.

There had never been, from what I've been able to find, an attack in the area like the attacks on Jimmy Hollis or Mary Jean-Larry, not even close, where nobody knew who did it, where the perpetrator, after the fact, was still at large. The psychological impact must have been seismic When their attacker struck again and more brutally and was still on the loose These incidents probably didn't feel just like crimes They probably felt like a fucking break in reality

You know, through the 1930s into the 1940s Residents had seen national violence play out on faraway stages Gangland executions in Chicago Battles against fascism overseas But now there was a terrorizing type of violence Arriving on their own backroads Under the indifferent Texarkana night sky And directly on the heels of so many young Americans dying in World War II,

196 young men from Texarkana had died during the war, affecting nearly every family in town. I imagine the attacks carry with them a certain element of unfairness, right? We just made it through so much death. Why can't we have some peace? These attacks also brought a new sense of paranoia. You know, people new to town were no longer welcome. They were, you know, seen suspiciously had they brought.

the violence with them. In post-World War II America, millions of servicemen were returning home and traditional social structures were rapidly shifting. In small towns like Texarkana, the war years had brought economic opportunity, but also an accelerated pace of life, an influx of transient workers. These changes were barely being integrated into the local fabric when the phantom killer's spree began. This context is important for understanding how the community reacted.

It wasn't just fear of death. It was fear that the safe world they had known, a world where couples could park without worry, farmers could sleep with their doors unlocked, was suddenly gone, maybe forever. Local newspapers after the phantom struck again and then again stoked public concern with headlines about shootings on lovers' lanes and unexplained violence under the cover of night. Law enforcement from local sheriff's departments to the Texas Rangers mobilized in a multi-jurisdictional manhunt that drew attention far beyond the two states. For a town built on trust and daily routine, the phantom killer attacks were a rupture, an event that punctured the illusion of safety and created a collective unease that would echo for generations. And now, let's examine these crimes in detail. And the investigation ensued around them in today's time-suck timeline. Shrap on those boots, soldier, we're marching down a time-suck timeline.

Friday, February 22nd, 1946, was a night that changed Texarkana forever. These first attacks on their own didn't envelop the area in terror, but they became part of the story that would. Just before midnight, 24-year-old James Jimmy Hollis was parked in his car with his 19-year-old girlfriend, Mary Jean Larry, along a secluded lover's lane just past the edge of town. They'd made the short drive from downtown Texarkana out to a quiet stretch of rural road on the Texas side of the city where young couples often parked after Friday night movies or other dates. They'd begun their evening hours earlier as part of a double date accompanied by Jimmy's brother Bob and his girlfriend unnamed in sources, visiting the Strand Theater in downtown Texarkana for a showing of Universal's latest monster flick, The House of Dracula. released 11 weeks earlier the film provided chills a plenty for the time starring john caridine as the bloodthirsty romanian count lon chaney junior as the wolfman and future gun smoke bartender glen strange as frankenstein's monster obviously they had thought they had left the horror behind them at the theater after the movie jimmy had made good time driving his backseat companions his brother and his brother's girlfriend home uh then he had aimed his father's new plymouth north from town toward richmond road pushing the gas pedal down further and further, not with his right foot,

but with his boner maybe. Sources don't say. But I doubt that Plymouth was the only thing that had its engine revving. He promised to return the car by midnight, more or less. But now he's more focused on getting hot and bothered than making sure he'd be home by the time he had told his dad, and his dad was asleep anyway.

Meanwhile, little Jimmy wide awake. Jimmy, the man, not the boner, was employed at the time along with his brother at a local insurance agency. And his girlfriend Mary Jean was a 19-year-old divorcee described in newspaper accounts as a lovely brunette. Her first marriage was one of the many unspoken casualties of the Second World War.

Today, the site where they were attacked lies buried under the asphalt of the parking lot of Texarkana Central Mall. But back then, before J.C. Pennies and Journey, it was a stretch of open, mostly isolated countryside. The night they parked there was made for neckin, for getting sweaty and hard. hard and wet, with clear skies and a half-moon visible with a temperature holding at a brisk 50

degrees. Hollis checked his wristwatch as he parked to Plymouth. It was just past 11.30. He had plenty of time to fool around. The next 10 or 15 minutes were divine, full of saliva, loosened braclasps, unbuttoned pants, and locked lips. But then a beam of light, shout to the driver's window of the Plymouth, startled Hollis turned to find a hooded figure stoop beside the car. Whoever it was wore a white mask. resembling a pillowcase with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth. The prowler aimed his flashlight with one hand, held a pistol with the other. His voice was deep and gruff, as he said,

I don't want to kill you, fellow, so do what I say. Fuck, I bet his boner went away in record time. That is genuinely terrifying, especially because of the mask. I mean, having any dude pop out of the darkness along some lover's lane would be terrifying, you know, just without question. But I think it's worse with it, with that mask. I'm thinking, you know, if that's me, In the car, I'm thinking this guy does not want me to know who he is for a very good reason.

This might not just be a robbery. Jimmy and Mary Jean now proceeded to follow the masked man's orders, which started with Jimmy stepping out from the Plymouth on the driver's side, followed by Mary Jean crawling across the seat and doing the same. Then the gunman eyed them both over for a quiet, tense moment through his mask, before barking at Hollis to, quote, take off your goddamn britches. Not good.

Jimmy protested briefly before Mary Jean. begged him just to do what the man said. Jimmy then took off his slacks, standing, embarrassed in his boxer shorts, and now the real horror began. As soon as Jimmy got his pants off, the gunman lunged forward, slammed his pistol into the side of the young man's head.

The noise was so loud, Mary Jean would later tell reporter Lucille Holland of the Texarkana Gazette regarding this first hit, I thought Jimmy had been shot. I learned later that the sound was his skull cracking. And the guy hit him twice like that, pistol whipped him twice.

Fuck, feeling very fortunate. I've never been pistol whipped. Never had anybody beat me in the head quite like that. Terrified in thinking or maybe just desperately hoping that the man's motivation was financial. Mary Jean now quickly picked up Jimmy's discarded pants, removed his wallet, showed the masked man that he was carrying hardly any cash.

The masked gunman now accused her of lying insisting that she had a purse in the car with cash in it, but again, he was wrong. She didn't have any cash. Enraged, maybe part of his motivation had actually been money, at least to start with, he now struck her in the head as well. Although he had a gun in one hand and a flashlight

and the other, Mary Jean imagined that he had clubbed her with a piece of metal pipe, guessing that maybe the flashlight he held was a metal one, or she just got hit in the head with the gun as well, but it happened so fast and it was so dark, you know, she didn't realize what she was hit with. When Mary Jean struggled to her feet, the masked man creepily told her, run.

That is like out of a fucking horror movie. That's some psycho killer shit. like a slasher flick. You know, this is a game to this guy now. He wants her to run and tear, wants to chase her down. She started off running towards a roadside ditch, then she heard him shout for her to run down lover's lane instead, towards the adjacent Richmond Road.

This is definitely a game for this guy. Mike clearly had a vision for how he wanted this all to play out now. Complying, Mary Jean, here's grunts and groans from behind her as the gunman turns on Jimmy, who is still conscious despite the crack skull. the masked bastard is kicking him repeatedly now. Meanwhile, Mary Gina's struggling to run. She told Holland that reporter,

it was hard for me to run because I had on high-heeled shoes. I saw an old model car parked on the road facing our car. I stopped and looked inside hoping that someone could help me, but there was no one in it. Just after I got past the car, the man overtook me and asked me why I was running. I told him it was because he had told me to run. He called me a liar again,

and then I knew he was going to kill me. if you're wondering why she didn't kick off her shoes to run yeah me too i mean i'm guessing she just didn't think of it in her shock you know pain and panic also the ground there you know might have been covered in sharp gravel thorny weeds who knows she was mistaken about the murder part the phantom that's what the press will call him soon didn't seem to want to kill her he wanted to torture her he slugged her again with the pipe the flashlight the gun whatever then threw himself on top of her she fell mary jean's statements of what happened next will come conflict in various interviews. I imagine this all happened so fast, was so traumatic and terrifying and, you know, and shameful to her because of, you know, stigmas of the day that it was hard to recall exactly what happened later or she didn't want to tell exactly what happened later. She said that the man attempted to sexually assault her and that, quote, he did not rape her, but that he abused her terribly.

She couldn't remember how long the attack lasted, only that she had fought. Eventually her captor finally stood up and backed away. And then somehow, dazed and bleeding from a head wound, Mary Jean struggled to her feet and faced the gunman, speaking through tears, she said she told him, go ahead and kill me. Later, she would say she spoke those words because she would rather he did that than to touch and abuse her. Four separate documents in Texas Ranger files about all this later will describe Mary Jean's assault as an attempted rape. Multiple sources now agree that Mary Jean's initial statement to police described an act broadly defined by law as, object rape though uh in this case penetration of the victim's genitals by her attacker's gun barrel my god so he had raped her she just didn't understand uh you know at the time due to different

interpretations of the word rape's exact meaning what had happened you know he hadn't penetrated her with his penis but he had with his pistol uh instead of shooting mary jean the phantom turn to walk back towards her date jimmy uh when he was done doing whatever he was doing to her leaving Mary Jean to herself on Lovers Lane now, so she bolted, running for over a half mile until she reached a house and hammered on his door screaming for help while waiting desperately for an answer. Mary Jean saw a car pass by, yelled out to its driver, but the driver kept on driving towards Richmond Road. It was a strange car, Mary Jean later said, you know, whatever that means, but not the same car she had seen parked on the road a short time earlier. Guessing one of those cars, if not both, belonged to the Phantom. And the cops would later guess that as well. Maybe she just didn't think it was the same car, but it was. Frustrated at the front door of the dark and silent house, she ran around one side, pounded on the back door,

finally waking up the people inside. They made their slow way to the door, looked Mary Jean over in the porch lights glare, then let her in before placing a call to the county sheriff. Meanwhile, back at Lover's Lane, the phantom had now departed with killing, without killing, excuse me, Mary Jean's date either. Jimmy Hollis will regain consciousness,

stagger around in his underwear, over to Richmond Road, where he flags down a passing car The unnamed driver will not drive The man in his underwear with blood all over him Into town too scared to let him in the car Looking like that, I'm guessing But they did promise to go get help

And they did They sped off to the Texarkana funeral home At 6 at Main Streets Founded less than a decade earlier In 1937, the mortuary had a brand new ambulance That served the local hospital And within 15 minutes that new ambulance Was racing back to Lovers Lane

Got there just minutes after the sheriff did first to arrive at the scene was Bowie County Sheriff W.H. Presley, carrying three Texarkana patrolmen as backup. Presley questioned Mary Jean. Tried his best with Jimmy, but that poor bastard with the fractured skull kept fading in and out of consciousness. Presley then placed both victims in the mortuary's ambulance, and they were quickly transported back to the Texarkana Hospital on Pine Street. Jimmy arrived unconscious, was diagnosed with multiple skull fractures. Various reports say he had either two or three. and he was placed on the hospital's critical care list. Mary Jean was more fortunate, cleared for release after some stitches closed up a scalp wound. Back at Lover's Lane, police found Jimmy's discarded pants. His father's Plymouth was the only car remaining at the crime scene. The older vehicle that Mary Jean reported passing while on foot would never be identified.

As for the other car, which she saw driving past the house, that ultimately gave her shelter, Sheriff Presley speculated that his driver was the gunman, fleeing north to Richmond Road, then west to Summerhill Road. Where he went from there, nobody knew. Jimmy will spend the next three months in the hospital being treated for his injuries, with doctors' orders to remain off work for another three months once he was released. He was very lucky to have lived.

Mary Jean Larry will suffer recurring brutal nightmares for years, will ultimately leave the state to go live with relatives in Oklahoma. Both Jimmy and Mary Jean will be interviewed by the police and journalists, of course, on numerous occasions. Their memories of the incident, well, generally consistent, will offer one peculiar difference. Both victims said their attacker had been roughly six feet tall and masked. But Jimmy said he was a young white man under 30,

whereas Mary Jean claimed he was African American. Over the next two months, investigating officers rejected Mary Jean's statement. Some of them badgered her, as Mary Jean told Lucille Holland, stubbornly insisting that she knew the gunman's name and was protecting him for some reason, an allegation she will deny for the rest of her life. In terms of motive, the authorities discounted robbery

and made no public mention of a sexual assault during the early phase of their investigation. They had no suspects, although one published report claims that six people were arrested, but then all six quickly released after questioning. It would have been convenient to assign a motive, such as jealousy or personal revenge, more comforting by far than to imagine just some random stalker at large out there.

But to their credit, the authorities did no substance. such thing. They didn't pretend to have a damn clue who did this, and they definitely did not want to mention it might have been a black man. A probable reason for downplane, Mary Jean Larry's report of a black assailant and a sexual assault was very practical. Intense racial segregation and racial tension still the daily fact of life in Texarkana in the 1940s. Still spawned a lot of paranoia and sporadic incidents of racially motivated violence. Most recently, during World War II, a black resident named Willie Vincent had been accused of assaulting a white woman. And when they said assault, they usually meant sexual assault in this context.

And a lynch mob seized him July 13th, 1942, dragged him through Texarkana behind a car, then hanged him from a cotton gin winch. So very glad they didn't scapegoat a black man now and add to that fucking terrible legacy. Multiple agencies, including local sheriff's deputies, city police, and state law enforcement will be drawn into this case over the coming weeks. Back when coordination across city and state lines was challenging in an era before computerized databases and rapid communication. Despite the rapid response, investigators will find no suspect,

no clear-cut suspects' footprints that led beyond the scene, no obvious motive or pattern at the moment because, you know, this attack had not been publicly connected to any other crimes. Law enforcement's first priority would be victim welfare and basic containment

of the immediate area while attempting to establish whether it's been primarily a robbery, personal dispute, or something worse. In the earliest press reports, including the Texarkana Gazette's brief coverage on February 25, 1946. The assault was framed as a shocking but isolated crime. The short article read,

Victim of Attack remains in serious condition. Jimmy Hollis, 24-year-old insurance agent, who was seriously injured early Saturday morning by an unidentified attacker, remained in a serious condition Sunday night at Texarkana Hospital. Hollis, who was attacked as he and his 19-year-old girl companion, sat in a parked car on a lonely dirt road one mile north of Beverly, had not regained consciousness late Sunday and was unable to verify or deny the story

of the attack as told county authorities by the girl. The Bowie County Sheriff's Department is conducting an investigation. And that was it. That was the initial coverage. There were more articles following that first attack, but like this one, they weren't front-page news. Not yet.

Journalists and laws enforcement here in Texarkana certainly knew one another, you know, likely had grown up together. There was a lot of social pressure to not sensationalize this. And I imagine after the first attack, they really did hope it was an isolated event, maybe some psychopathic drifter passing through the area who, you know, wouldn't try his luck in the same town twice.

So following this first attack, while the gossip mill surely spread this story all throughout the community. And while I'm guessing Lovers Lane didn't get quite the same amount of traffic, as it did before the attack, fear and paranoia had not quite yet spread through the area. And now before we move on to the second attack, time for today's first to two mid-show sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads ever again, please sign up to be a space editor on Patreon. Help us make monthly charitable contributions, get the catalog ad-free episodes three days early and more. Thanks for listening to our sponsors. Hope you heard a deal that made sense for you. And now let's head to March 23rd, 1946, the night of the second

attack of that fateful spring. Within weeks, by late March, the shock of the February 22nd attack had already begun to fade in Texarkana, not disappear entirely, of course. but soften. Jimmy Hollis was still in the hospital with his skull still fractured. Mary Jean Larry was still trying to sleep through nightmares. But for most residents, life had cautiously resumed its pre-attack rhythm. After a full month had passed without another attack despite no arrest, most residents, I imagine, believed that whoever did it wasn't around anymore. More than either Jimmy or Mary Jean or both weren't telling the police the full story that the attack had been personal, a jilted former lover of Mary Jean's, perhaps. Some guy Jimmy

he had pissed off, you know, maybe it wasn't random, but then came the next attack. On the evening of Saturday, March 23rd, 1946, 29-year-old Richard Griffin, old Dick Griff. And 17-year-old Polly Ann Moore went out for what should have been a sweet, forgettable date between a dude about to turn 30 and a teenager, not yet a legal adult. Fuck yeah, bro, right? The good old days. It was a different time. It was a better time. A time when grown-ass men, men who might have kids about to start junior.

High could openly romance high school girls without fear or prejudice when the dismissive pejorative term pito didn't get tossed around so indiscriminately right so recklessly when the term lover was often used in his place when society didn't judge a red-blooded man for openly enjoying some teen titties and newly minted lady puss a time when the victims of the Epstein list and I'm talking about the men when I say victims could have enjoyed their lives as God intended right fucking some young new front butts Hail Nimrod Come on

kidding kidding Satire Everybody knows that's satire Right sarcasm come on now Really hoping Somebody got Cummins lot So fucking hard With that passage

I hope some stranger Just overheard just that part And saw someone laughing And thought like fuck This country really has just gone Doing the fucking toilet Nearly fucked myself over Writing that out

When I put this episode together I was working at the Starbucks here in Cordillane, the one by the crock and wind go for any locals who listen, when two high school girls came in, picked up their online orders and then sat right behind me as I was laughing, kind of laughing to myself and putting that together, I scrolled so fast away from that nonsense, so afraid that they would be able to read my giant font on my computer screen, and then I would have to tell Lindsay that we needed to move to a different town immediately. Anyway, it was a different time, and apparently that particular 12-year age gap just

It wasn't scandalous. Richard was a World War II veteran who had been discharged from the U.S. Navy Seabees, a construction battalion in November of 1945. He was working as a fireman at the Lone Star Ammunition Plant and resided with his mom at Robeson Courts on Texarkana's Walnut Street. Polly Ann Moore was a 17-year-old graduate of Atlanta, Texas High School. She was actually graduated from high school at 16. She's a fucking go-go-getter, employed as a checker at Texarkana's Red River Arsenal since July of 9. 1945. She was living with her cousin, Ardella Campbell, at a boarding house on Magnolia Street. The couple's been dating for about six weeks. Multiple witnesses had seen them grabbing lunch at a

cafe on West 7th Street around 2 p.m. that Saturday. And then they were spotted at another cafe on the same street that evening, dining until 10 p.m., along with Dick's sister Eleanor, and her date some local guy named J.R. J. A. Proctor. Then they went out dancing with some friends, lasting alive at around 11.45 p.m. Their dead bodies found the following day. On Sunday morning, March 25th, around 8.30 a.m. A passing unnamed motorist noticed something strange on a rural road near the Spring Lake area of Bowie County, about three miles northeast of the Texas side of Texarkana, another known makeout spot. A car, a 1941 Oldsmobile sedan sat parked at an odd angle. So the guy pulled over, got out in the rain, inspected it, saw their windows were shattered, blood stained the seats. and inside were the bodies of Richard Griffin and Polly and Moore. Both have been shot in the back of their heads, execution style.

The sight of blood sent the would-be rescuers scuffling back to his own car, racing to town, where he alerted city police. They in turn called sheriff W.H. Presley, since the Oldsmobile was parked on county turf roughly a mile out of the city limits at that time. Presley must have dreaded what he found at the scene or what he's about to find. He was 50 years old, nine months away from the end of his statutory, two-year term as sheriff. Prior to being sheriff, his previous role of public service was when he had been the commissioner of Bowie County Precinct No. 1 from 1940 to 1942. And other than that,

he hadn't worked in law enforcement, hadn't received any formal training in law enforcement like most rural sheriffs in the mid-20th century. Very likely out of his depth when it came to what he would be tasked with investigating. Presley made the drive to Rich Road with Jackson Neely-Runnels, a man two years, his junior, the chief of police on the Texas side of Texarkana, like Presley, Runnels, Jack, to everybody who knew him, was a Bowie County native, but he had a lot more time on the job. Arriving on the rich road scene, the two found a man and woman in the bloodstained Oldmobile's rear compartment. The man knelt on the floorboard between the front and back seats, his forehead resting on crossed hands, his pockets turned inside out and a gesture suggesting robbery,

his companionly faced down in the backseat atop a blanket with an open purse beside her. Both were fully clothed and both had been, as I said, shot in the back of the head. Despite the rain, Presley and Runnels noted more bloodstains outside the car on some sandy loam, some 20 feet away.

Its quantity suggested the victims had been slain there, then returned to the old's by their killer or killers. More blood had flowed from one of the sedan's rear doors and stained the running board. Griffin's body was slumped over the steering wheel. Polly Ann lay on her side, her legs still inside the car.

The phantom investigators at the time and modern analysts seemed to believe the phantom was behind these killings, even though there was no eyewitnesses. He had not panicked, it seems. He'd taken his time just like he had when he'd attack young Jimmy Hollis and Mary Jean Larry. Confusion still surrounds forensic evidence recovered from the Griffin Moore murder scene. Both victims were shot with a 32-caliber pistol, and since no weapon remained to the scene, authorities ruled out a murder suicide.

Early reports said that each was shot once, later accounts often add a second wound for Griffin, and one published decades later, marred by frequent errors, claims that both have been shot twice. Accounts of the ballistics evidence include mention of either one, two, or several cartridge cases found in or around the Oldsmobile, while an FBI memo says only one slug and two shell casings were recovered. Most sources, including an FBI memo dated May 15, 1946, say that no useful finger, were retrieved from the car, yet another FBI document filed seven months later request comparison of a suspect's fingerprints with unidentified latence found at the scene. The worst and possibly deliberate confusion around this involves a matter of sexual assault against Pollyann Moore.

Her body was, as I've mentioned, found fully closed according to numerous newspaper reports from the time, and an FBI memo states that Moore's corpse was delivered to morticians for embalming without any test performed for evidence of sexual assault. Also, an early report in the Texarkana Gazette stated that, quote, examination of the girl's body by a local physician revealed that she had not been criminally assaulted. Criminally assaulted was a common euphemism for rape in those days.

Nonetheless, four documents from Texas Ranger files state categorically that Moore had been raped. And further injuries are alluded to in later newspaper reports. Articles from May 1946 describe a sex maniacal killer claiming that Moore had been horribly mutilated, yet another euphemism for sexual assault at the time. Eight years later, reporter John Scudder wrote that Moore had been, quote, horribly mistreated for what is believed to have been about two hours before she had been shot.

Another way of saying she had been sexually tortured, right, for about two hours in this case. While some today still dispute this allegation, the sources I found that I trust the most that seemed to be the most thoroughly investigated and professional, do believe Moore had been violently sexually assaulted. And the authorities impressed both possibly to quell hysteria, possibly to spare the victim's families of the shame of a sexual assault that it carried back then concealed this fact from the public, which would not have been unusual. Such discretion was routine in the 1940s, especially in rural areas in America, when newspapers commonly lumped rape and other forms of sexual violence under the generic label of criminal assault, taking great pains to conceal the identity of victims as well. as the Texarkana Gazette editor at the time of these attacks John Quincy Mahafee later explained it wasn't reported

you guarded the person who was raped with little else to go on investigators focused on determining what exact kind of weapon was used in these killings today published accounts of ballistics evidence vary as do descriptions of the weapon used to kill Griffin and Moore

this investigation was all over the place it was a pistol all sources agree but what kind nobody knows some reports refers specifically to a revolver, which would not eject shell casings at a shooting scene unless the gunman took time to manually remove and discard them, thus deliberately leaving evidence for authorities, which seems a bit unlikely. A semi-automatic pistols, in their hand, eject a shell for each shot fired, which a distracted killer might not bother to have collected. One published source says the pistol was a revolver, another identifies a suspect weapon as a 32-caliber cult semi-automatic.

If authorities were able to obtain a weapon, they could match the rifling from its barrel to the markings on the death slugs, and compare extractor marks found on the casings to the pistol's inner mechanism, but without a gun to study, they had jack shit to go on. With two dead bodies in their hands now, and one of the victims of a previous attack, they believe was carried out by the same perpetrator still in the hospital. Sheriff Presley and Chief Runnels knew they needed some additional help. Texarkana's two mayors at the time, William V. Brown, on the Texas side, S.H. Atkinson on the Arkansas side, both pressing for a swift,

resolution to the mystery that the uh you know no one had shit to go on as far as solving uh still presley and reynolds of course immediately launched a full scale investigation uh they'd collaborate with miller county sheriff w e davis who've been in office since 1939 police chief richard marlin giles dick giles gets some extra dick on this investigation on the arkansas side uh he'd been appointed 1938 uh the arkansas state police and the texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers, former suck subjects, also brought in. Texas Ranger Jimmy Gear arrived March 25th to augment the investigation. So there was no shortage of people now investigating these killings, not at all. Within four days of the murders,

by March 27th, authorities in Texarkana had questioned 50 to 60 potential witnesses in the Griffin Moore murder case, including patrons and employees of Club Dallas, a dance and live music venue located near the murder scene on Highway 67 West. There was a bunch of dance clubs in this area at the time. People were, they went dancing all the time back then. Seriously, back in the mid and late 1940s, America was just fucking littered with dance clubs. Maybe just because I'm old, but I don't hear much about people going out dancing a lot anymore. I mean, there's still clubs, but not like even when there was when I was in my late teens

in early 20s. It must have been so much fun, right, to have dancing just be a regular thing like that, right? a cool way to meet somebody back before Tinder and the like. Sadly, no one interviewed at Club Dallas, remembered seeing the victims at night. A $500 reward was offered for useful information, but it would backfire and work against

investigators generating more than a hundred false leads that just wasted everybody's time. Rain in the trampling feet of the morbidly curious locals, anxious to view the crime scene, obliterated any useful tracks for other evidence if existed. Justice of the Peace, Oval Cooper,

convened a brief inquest on Monday March 25th, declaring that Griffin and more, quote, came to death at the hands of a party or parties unknown for reasons unknown. Sadly, there was a failure to perform full autopsies on either victim, not uncommon for the time in place, law enforcement in an attempt to do the decent thing and protect the families of the victims from further harm would frequently discharge the victim's bodies into the care of the families before a thorough examination had been done. Aside from one newspaper reference to a physician's examination, refuting claims that had been raped. A statement likely either misinformed or deliberately fabricated again, people so

fucking worried about that back then, the shame that that carried. No evidence exists that either body was ever seen by a qualified pathologist. Therefore, we don't have any documents, confirming or refuting claims that Moore had been tortured and or mutilated. More crucial yet, despite recognition that both victims died from gunshot wounds to their heads, no other information is available beyond the fact that the one slug recovered bore, quote, six lands and grooves with a left-hand twist. Regrettably, we don't know exactly what kind of ammunition was used to murder

Griffin and Moore either. Following this double homicide, authorities did not publicly draw a link between those killings and the Hollis-Larry attack back on February 22nd. Locals who recalled the first attack from coverage in the Gazette, they would go on to voice criticism

of the way in which the prior incident had been greatly downplayed. Would Griffin and Moore have ventured out onto the lover's lane? They spent their final moments on the night that they had died, if wider coverage have been given to the first attack people wonder. Interestingly, this double murder that actually did score a bunch of headlines in the press would still not keep young local lovers from heading out late at night to the lonely roads outside of Texarkana. Panic had still not quite gripped the city yet. Texarkana mourned

the deaths of Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore in their various ways, and then life quickly returned normal for most locals. As high school senior, Jerry Atkins would later say it made no impact at all. But more deaths soon would. By mid-April, Texarkana was still trying to pretend that what happened to Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore was just another freak event, right? Two people murdered in a parked car was horrifying, but people told themselves it was something you could explain away.

A jealous ex-boyfriend, a robbery gone wrong, a drunken argument that spiraled because as the alternative that someone was stalking random park couples at night and waiting to kill them, that was too frightening. And so, despite everything, young people kept going out. Couples like local kids. Forty-year-old Paul Martin and 15-year-old Betty Joe Booker. And I don't know. I know. I know. That's a crazy age gap now. But back then it was normal. People didn't seem to mind that Paul was 33 years older than his 15-year-old lover, you know, who was said to be quite mature for her age, I should add. Again, it was a different time, a better time a time when love was what mattered not age back when people weren't so judgy

and peacey and woke about everything i'm fucking i'm kidding again no that would be wildly disturbing if he was 48 and she was less than a fucking third of her age or his age sorry only 15 no he was just one year older uh the local teenagers were 16 year old that's better paul martin and 15 year old betty joe booker both of them so young both of them truly kids uh paula had been born in the little town a smackover Arkansas, it's a funny name, roughly 90 miles east where his family had run an ice business May 8th, 1929. The youngest of four brothers, he worked at the family plant until his mom grew tired of life in Smackover, a rough and rumble oil town. She was done fucking making ice in that shit hole. And she convinced her husband to relocate to Texarkana, then later to

Kilgore, though they also kept their Texarkana home. Brother R.S. Martin Jr. remembered Paul as a kind of quiet kid. hard worker. In Texarkana, he had known Betty Booker, Betty Joe, since kindergarten. Both had attended the Beach Street Baptist Church on Sunday for years. After completing ninth grade at Arkansas Junior High School, Paul had transferred to Gulfport, Mississippi's Gulf Coast Military Academy in 1945, excuse me, then enrolled in high school in Kilgord. Classmate there called him one of the sweetest people, I believe I've ever known. If anyone had wished to do Martin harm they had seemingly kept their animosity a secret. Betty Joe Booker, another good kid.

Ernie Holcomb, classmate and saxophonist who played with her in his band, knew her as a friendly, outgoing girl, while another classmate said, I remember she was popular, very popular. Everybody liked her. She was real cute. Born on June 5, 1930, she was a junior, Texas high school, a member of the Delta Beta Sigma sorority, when I guess sororities had high school members. Despite her youth, she was an accomplice. accomplished saxophonist encouraged by Jerry Atkins, a senior in high school and leader of the band Betty Joe Pladen, Jerry Atkins and the rhythm airs. He encouraged her to consider a full-time career in music. But she didn't want that. She was very, very academically gifted. She was a straight-A student. Instead of music, she was hoping to train to be a medical technician. Her widowed mother had remarried happily to Betty's stepdad, Clark Brown, and had moved with him from the Arkansas side of State Line Ave to the Texas side around the time Paul Martin had left for Gulfport. Friends and family alike and that Betty had no romantic interest in Martin, a fact that left their one-way trip to Spring Lake Park, a mysterious. On the evening of Saturday, April 13th, 1946, Betty Joe was performing with Jerry and his rhythm airs.

Jerry Atkins had organized the band during the war and then just kept it going after it ended. He served as the conductor, doubling on tenor saxophone for some tunes, and had convinced four young female classmates to join the band when male musicians were in short supply. When I recruited the girls for the band, he later said, we were playing rooms

and other events, but we were offered steady Saturday nights at the VFW Club. People still wanted that big band sound. Though all the rhythm airs were minors, local law enforcement overlooked them playing in establishments where alcohol was served to adult customers. Parents of the female players trusted Atkins for his sterling reputation

on the condition that he personally drive their daughters to and from their weekend gigs. Occasionally, he was spelled by fellow saxophonist Ernie Holcomb in that regard. There have been no mishaps prior to April 13th with his little system. Holcomb was supposed to drive the four female musicians home after the dance that night, but Betty Joe Booker told him she was waiting for a friend. Paul Martin, who would take her to a slumber party at a girlfriend's house?

Hardly qualified as a date, she said. Betty Joe had seemed uneasy about it telling classmates earlier that Saturday that she did not want to, quote, go out with Barton but felt obligated to because they've been friends since kindergarten. That's fucking crazy that she would be. killed while on a date she didn't even want to be on. The dance was over around 1.30 a.m. Sunday, April 14th, Holcomb departed with his three remaining passengers. Betty Joe left the VFW Hall with Martin.

Neither would be seen alive again by any of their friends. And before we find out exactly what happened in this attack, time for today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors. Hope you heard some deals you liked. And now let's head to the morning after this particular phantom attack. At 6 a.m. on Palm Sunday, April 14th, local man G.H. Weaver left his home on Summer Hill Road, driving with his wife and son towards Prescott 40 miles northeast at Texarkana in Nevada County, Arkansas.

They had not traveled very far when they were startled by the sight of a young man's body lying on the north shoulder of North Park Road in the 6,700 block. A quiet look at the body in his bloody clothes convinced the weavers that the man was definitely dead. They raised 200 yards further along to the home of Harvey Word, who then telephoned the Bowie County Sheriff's Office. The first responding officers confirmed that the man had been the victim of a homicide, and he was soon identified as James Paul Martin. He had been shot four times. One slug had drilled his face to the left of his nose.

Another had entered the back of his neck and emerged from the front right part of his head, near the ear. A third had pierced Martin's left shoulder from behind, and his right hand also had a bullet hole in it. As police reconstructed the scene, Martin had first been shot in the face, perhaps raising his hand in defense, probably doing that,

then tried to run and then was cut down from behind. Man. Some distance from the corpse, more blood was found across North Park and near a roadside fence. Several hours later at noon, after a search party, had formed to find Betty Joe.

Three friends of Betty Joe, George Boyd, his brother James, and Ted Shoppy, found the missing teen behind a tree near Morris, now Moore's Lane. Connecting Summer Hill and Richmond Roads were roughly a mile and three quarters from Martin's death scene. She was also dead, having been shot twice, through her chest,

basically got shot directly in the heart, and like Martin, also shot in the face to the left of her nose. Published reports say she was found fully dressed, including wearing an overcoat buttoned up with her right hand tucked into its pocket. No attempt to have been made to hide her body, and police could only guess which victim had been executed first. Martin's missing car was found later that day,

three miles from Betty Joe's body, a mile and a quarter from Martin's, some 400 yards from the main entrance to Spring Lake Park with the key still in its ignition. The separate locations of the car and the corpses posed another mystery for law enforcement, fueling speculation as to whether Martin and Booker had driven to Spring Lake Park on their own

or were kidnapped en route to some other destination, perhaps driven to their deaths in the Slayer's own vehicle. How exactly had Martin and Booker been diverted from the slumber party to Spring Lake Park where they died, some low. speculated that the killer lay in wait for them outside the VFW Hall, took them hostage at gunpoint, but no witnesses from the dance could confirm that.

Another theory, likewise unsubstantiated, speculated that Martin had stopped to pick up a lethal hitchhiker. Jerry Atkins was privately convinced that the killer had attended the dance, had stalked Betty Joe afterwards, but he could suggest no plausible suspects. The latest double murder would also kill his band The Rhythm Ayers. A years later, Jerry said,

what happened was so tragic, and for many of us who lived through it, the frustration and sadness will always be there. Fifty years after the fact, another bandmate said, we were all extremely frightened and extremely upset, and in a way we still are. The band dissolved immediately after the homicides, never played another gig again. So what happened? Tom Moore, a resident of Morris Lane, reported a hearing a gunshot around 5.30 a.m. from the area where Booker's corpse was found, which fixed a time for the slains, hours after they had left the dance, which means that they had likely suffered for quite some time, or at least one of them had.

Again, the killer seemed to have taken his time. Ballistics evidence was plentiful. Initial reports referred to a handful of 32 caliber shells found scattered around Martin's car, while an FBI memo listed the total as six cartridge cases and four projectiles, all with microscopic markings matching the weapon used to kill Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore in March, exactly.

Whoever killed these two teens had almost certainly killed the previous two victims. victims. They'd at least use the exact same gun. And authorities thought that whoever that was was probably the person who had also assaulted Jimmy Hollis and Mary Jean Larry. Official documents also report the discovery of several unidentified fingerprints from Paul Martin's car. The first mention of prints in an April 20th memo from the FBI's Dallas field office says that a latent print developed on the steering wheel of the car was not the print of the owner, Martin's father, nor either of the victims. The FBI could not tell

if they had the killer's fingerprints on file, though, due to the poor quality of the fingerprint. But if officers were to catch him, comparison of the Martin Booker latent print with a living suspect's print could possibly nail the gunman. More controversy against surrounds the various possible injuries

suffered by Martin and Booker. Sheriff Presley initially told the Texarkana Gazette that aside from being shot repeatedly, quote, the bodies of the victims had not been abused. The Arkansas Gazette, meanwhile, told readers that, quote, the bodies indicated officers said that the couple of, that the couple of, that the couple had put up terrific struggles before death.

The Dallas Morning News was more specific reporting that police found Betty Booker's body bruised and lacerated. Somebody had beat and cut her. Most familiar with the case now seemed convinced that when Sheriff Presley denied any signs of abuse, he referred obliquely to sexual assault and that he was lying. For starters, a teletype to Washington from the FBI's Dallas field office

dated April 20th reports, quote, Swab test of the vaginal passage of Betty Joe Booker Positive in test for male seminal secretion Saline solution wash of penis of James Paul Martin negative No form pubic hairs present among the pubic hairs of Betty Joe Booker However, they did contain male seminal secretion Not definitely known if victim Polly Ann Moore had been raped Despite its previous uncertainty

That same document would close with the notation that quote No publicity was being given to the fact that victim Booker had been raped. Four days later, an FBI office memorandum repeated those findings. It read, test conduct revealed that Betty Joe Booker had been criminally assaulted

by the unknown murderer. It was not known definitively if victim Moore was raped. So they both may have been sexually assaulted. The Texas Rangers would not share the FBI's confusion over what happened to the killer's female victims, or at least, you know, hesitation.

Five separate letters from their files written between August 1946, in January of 1951 refer explicitly to the murder and rape of Polly Ann Moore and to the murder and rape of Betty Joe Booker. One letter also cites the assault and attempt to rape Mary Jean Larry in February. Sam O'Casey researching the case for the East Texas Historical Association was probably referring to those documents in 2003 when he told the Dallas Morning News that official reports would say Ms. Booker was raped

in the same manner as Ms. Moore. Indeed, the Arkansas Democrat went further still in May of 1950. before reporting that the phantoms female victims were tortured and mutilated. So in all likelihood, all three young women in these three separate attacks on couples in their cars had been badly sexually assaulted, adding further credence to the possibility that this was all the work of the same man. And that that man was the masked phantom killer. Yeah, they were just so hesitant to publish details that somebody had been sexually assaulted. Being murdered?

I guess that was, that was fine to say. but you know they just i don't know they're fucking local culture at the time local social norms they just didn't want to say that there was a sexual element of the crimes maybe that was to help you know prevent just fucking mayhem in the town and just people losing their minds and again like you know worried about vigilante attacks breaking out or something an unusual piece of evidence emerged from these latest killings a thin black cord found in the car paul martin drove to death. Sheriff Press, they identified it as a wind court from a man's black hat, worn underneath the chin, right, just to keep the hat from blowing away. Sent him to the FBI with a notation that

we have been unable to identify this cord as being the property of either of the victims or the owner of the car the victims were using. Bureau headquarters received the court May 10th, immediately shipped it off to the New York City Field Office with instructions to contact two firms identified as the principal supplier of cords, ribbons, and other hat bindings to hat manufacturers in the U.S. New York complied, but the search proved fruitless. One final item from the Martin Booker murder scene withheld from reporters at the time,

and it seems for nearly half a century thereafter, was a small address book, Paul Martin Carrey, found by police, quote, in a washed out area not too far from his body. Multiple sources claim that Sheriff Presley found the book himself, kept it secret, even from other investigators. Why? Nobody fucking knows. It didn't name the killer.

It's unclear. yeah, just why it was ever hidden. One of the many weird details around this case. Aside from what was found at or around the murder scene, one item was conspicuously missing, and that was Betty Joe Booker's alto saxophone, a Bundy model, serial number 52535, wasn't found in Martin's car or anywhere in Spring Lake Park

as far as searchers could discover. Its description and serial number were broadcast to music stores and pawnbrokers throughout the tri-state area in hopes it would surface when the killer needed cash. This saxophone will be found six months later in October, in its case, by an area man working on a fence, hidden in some brush on the south side of Morris Lane, not far from the killings. Nothing will conclusively come from its discovery, but it will point to a strong suspect in these killings. More on that later.

While the prior two murders and additional two attacks hadn't freaked Texarkana residents out, these killings sure did. A serial killer was on the hunt in the area. Nobody had a fucking clue who it was. That's a good recipe for terror. An Arkansas State trooper Milton Mosier later recalled, after Spring Lake Park, everything mushroom from there. Young bandleader, Jerry Atkins, who we've met, would say, as I was questioned about possibly identifying anyone who was at the VFW Club on that fatal night, I began to think about the Moore Griffin murders as well. Their car and bodies were found not too far from Highway 67 spot called Club Dallas. Could someone have stalked them from there?

Maybe there was someone at the VFW who saw Betty Joe with Paul. Panic set in, clearing the streets of residents who normally enjoyed the city's nightlife now. Neighbors looked suspiciously at one another, while overt hostility awaited strangers passing through the previously hospitable community. Although the killer only seemed to hunt on lover's lanes, the frightened residents of Texarkana barricaded homes against the prospect of intruders. Hardware stores sold out of guns and ammunition, deadbolt locks, and screen door braces. Some homeowners Rigged makeshift alarms From pots and pans

Like some shit out of fucking home alone An early warning system If the gunmen came to call Years later W.E. Acheson, a 16-year-old On the Texas side of State Line Avenue in 1946 Told the Gazette If you wanted to go to someone's house after dark

You had to call them first And let them know you were coming The alternative was being shot Imogene West Later Miller County's treasurer described one heroin incident to reporter Greg Bischoff. I was a country girl

who came to the big city of Texarkana from Nevada County, she said. And one night during the terror, her husband Harold spied a prowler peeping through a window

of their home at the corner of East Third and Walnut Streets. He grabbed a gun, rushed to the kitchen door, but while he struggled with the latch, his weapon fired

accidentally, and he escaped shooting himself for his wife. No one was hit and the still unknown prowler escaped. Texarkana's second double murder within three weeks' time

brought law enforcement officers galore into the border city on the lone star side those catalogued in various reports included seven additional texas rangers four technical experts from the texas department of public safety's bureau of identification and records and eight highway patrolmen all would play a part in the investigation but the uncontested new star of the show was ranger captain manuel tarazza's lone wolf gonzalez i love randomly coming across colorful characters like this fucking little-known legend. Let's get to know him just real quick. It is worth it. Gonzalez was born in Cadiz, Spain, July 4th, 1891, to a Spanish father and Canadian mother

of German descent. Both were also naturalized American citizens living in Texas, but visiting Spain at the time of Manuel's birth. Growing up in Texas at the turn of the century, Gonzalez experienced tragedy. Bandits killed both of his brothers, wounded both of his parents when he was 15. Fucking crazy. To have your parents wounded and your brother's killed by bandits? We're a different time. Right? Not that long ago. You could just be going about your day

and a bunch of fucking bandits on a horseback. Could show up just right up to your house and start shooting. Gonzalez idolized the Rangers, the guys that hunted down and killed the bandits, nearly wiped out his entire family. But he tried other pass before joining their ranks. At the age of 20 in 1911, he earned an appointment as a major in the Mexican army.

Sadly, no record of survived detailing what Gonzalez did during the Revolution, which battles, if any, he may have witnessed. We do know that he made it back to the U.S. alive and well by 1915, when at some point never specified. He joined the U.S. Treasury Department as a special agent, intimately involved in investigative work. One source says,

10 months after America went dry on October 1st, 1920, Gonzalez joined the Texas Rangers in El Paso when he was 29 years old and soon earned the nickname of El Lobos Solo, the lone wolf. because as he explained I went into a lot of fights by myself and I came out by myself too that's a pretty fucking sick quote

some accounts credited him with personally killing 75 outlaws Jesus Christ a figure Gonzales dismissed as a gross exaggeration but he didn't push back when some others pegged his body count at 31 he only said I don't like to dwell on it I did it only to protect my own life

or property and only to enforce the law one shooting of a Jefferson County elected official dude gunned down a politician I like it in July of 1922 it resulted in the murder charge against Gonzalez being brought

but the court accepted his self-defense plea and directed a verdict of acquittal when the Texas Department of Public Safety was established in August of 1935 Gonzalez was tapped to serve as superintendent of its Bureau of Intelligence he left the Bureau of Intelligence

not long after on February 14th 1940 returned a service with the Rangers as captain of company B with headquarters in Dallas at the time company be patrolled 42 East Texas counties A lot of counties In that post, a lone wolf Further enhances reputation with more thrilling exploits

Such as a shootout with escaped convicts Cleo Andrews and Robert Lacey at New Boston Another railroad town in the area In January of 1943 Just a few years before the Phantom Killings Lacey died at the wheel of their bullet-riddled getaway car Trying to run a Ranger roadblock While Andrews huddled on the floorboard

playing possum as Gonzales approached the car. Andrews fired a shot that drilled the lone wolf's left shoulder. Gonzalez returned fire at point-blank range, pumping five slugs into Andrews for an instant kill. Afterward, his main complaint was that his bloody shirt could never be restored to its original condition. This dude was like a real-life rambo. Nothing is over!

Nothing! You just don't turn it off! The FBI now also got involved in the case. We'll hear more from a lone wolf. as we go forward. Texarkana was now crawling with law enforcement and what quickly became one of the biggest most extensive criminal investigations in Texas

history. Local native Wayne Beck would later describe Texarkana in the spring of 1946 as, quote, the most guarded city in the United States. However, it doesn't seem that all that manpower actually helped that much. And in fact, it might have hurt the investigation, right? Too many cooks in the

proverbial kitchen, which is part of why we have so many conflicting reports with evidence and everything else around this case. Many of the leads chased were false ones, offered up from fear, spite, or with the prospect of a reward. As their ranks grew, author Joseph Garenger, who also covered this case, stated, The Organizational Mixed Resumbled that familiar case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Investigations were often redundant, and the once lineal chain of communications went zigzag. Many blamed organizational confusion primarily on Captain Gonzalez.

How dare they blame the lone wolf? decades after the fact, former Texarkhanic Gazette editor, JQ Mahaffee, I might have said Mahafi earlier. I don't fucking know if he pronounced his name as Mahaphy or Mahapy.

And he's long dead, so I can't ask him. He told Dallas reporter Kent Biffle, my principal headache was Captain M.T. Lone Wolf Gonzalez of the Texas Rangers.

Lone Wolf was without a doubt the best-looking man I've ever seen. He was of Spanish extraction and wore a spotless khaki suit and a white 10-gallon hat. He packed two pearl handled revolvers and brought with him all the legends of the Texas Rangers. For instance,

he didn't deny that he was the ranger who sat in the cashier's office of the crazy hotel in mineral wells and Palo Pinto County and gunned down two unlucky ex-convicts who sought to rob the place. He was so good-looking that the girl reporters couldn't leave him alone. He didn't have time to hunt for the phantom. He was too busy giving out interviews and trying to run the Gazette. All the other officers on the case became rather jealous of lone wolf and complained bitterly every time his picture appeared in the paper. Who the fuck was this guy? And what a funny thing to write.

What a funny thing to complain about. And another thing about lone wolf. And how much of a mess he made of things. God damn, that son of a bitch was the most handsome man the good Lord ever made. His jaw looked like some ancient Greek sculptor had chiseled it. His biceps. God, leaded, they pop. Like he was a real-life Popeye or something.

He wore shirts tight enough for you to see the ripple of his abs. You could do laundry on those abs. No fooling. And that ass. Mm, my lord, that ass was high and tight. So firm you could bounce a quarter off it, hard enough to put your damn eye out. I used to call lone wolf stone boner. Because heavens to betts out's all his rock hard around that man.

Hard as a stone within seconds of seeing his delightful shape. As soon as I would smell those Spanish fly pheromones, He has got me Not that long After leaving Texarkana The handsome wolf Well moved to Hollywood Showbiz

Where he will become a technical consultant For radio, television, and motion pictures In particular, the long-running 1950s radio show Tales of the Texas Rangers He'll die in 1977 At the age of 85 in Dallas Tragically he died suffocated He suffocated in the bountiful

cleavage of one of the many beautiful women he was having his third or of the day with. Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! Now, he died of cancer. But that other death feels more fitting

for the glorious lone wolf. The Texarkhanic Gazette editor, J. Q. Mahafee, did not care for lone wolf's advice to frighten locals, which was shared over local AM radio station, KCMC. When asked, what advice would you give the people to quiet their fears?

Gonzalez replied, homily. It's time to nut up or die, you silly Hicks. These times ain't for the weak, a heart of mind, a slow shot. If you ain't ready to kill quick, phantom's going to tear your candy ass apart. He'll gut you. He'll cut you from asshole to pahole. He'll carve out your eyes, set him on a table, make you watch them fuck your skull. No, that's insane. No, he didn't say that. Uh, he said, I wish he fucking said that. That'd be incredible. No, he said, uh, I'd tell, I wish he said that in the 1940s, especially on the radio so many people would have literally died of heart attacks oh my lord and just like killed over

and just died how could someone say that he said i'd tell them to check the locks and bolts on their doors and get a double-barreled shotgun to take care of any intruder who tried to get in while that message hit home with a lot of tex arcansans resident ed malcolm later said the town was like a tinderbox waiting for something to go off despite the onset of a heat wave barricaded homes were locked up tight. Dan Young recalled, the thing that sticks in my mind and me and my family in a house that summer, or I guess is me in my family, excuse me, in a house that summer, with the doors shut and the windows shut. We only had a four-inch fixed fan to cool the house. It was hot. Proximity, the lover's lane, made matters worse. Ida Lou Ames, residing with her parents

to the state line where police found Betty Joe Booker's Corp said, we were scared to death. We spent the night in the same house for six weeks, right? They just didn't go out. Charles Kennedy, first cousin of Gazette editor Mahafee moved his family to Texarkana a year before the murders and kept them updated during the reign of terror with late breaking news. His daughter later told the Dallas morning news, we were as terrorized as the other people. We had window bars installed. My dad kept his pistol handle. Jesus Christ. My dad kept his pistol handy. Nor was the fear confined to Texarkana proper. A future trust firm CEO, John Norman, remembered I was a teenager living in a new Boston, which is about 20 miles away.

at the time that summer we were afraid to sleep with windows open rumors were rife about sightings and near misses James Grigson later a forensic psychologist was 14 when the killer began his rampage a half century later he told the Dallas Observer there was a kind of a mass fear that I have not seen since the murders were all the adults talked about and while the kids didn't read the paper much or listen to the news on the radio

we heard what our parents were saying not all of them were frightened into staying home however as researcher Wayne Beck reported many students who were especially incensed by the killing of two fellow students were conducting their own searches armed young couples were parking on lonely roads hoping the mad killer would try and attack them fucking wild atmosphere right a whole town a whole area living under such a dark blanket of fear truly deeply afraid to be out anywhere after dark only feeling somewhat safe barricaded in their own homes a loaded gun nearby and ready to be fired or you know feeling like they needed to get out there and perform some vigilante justice of their own. Pretty quiet with the previous attacks, the press now fueled the flames of fear around town. On April 16th, 1946, the now defunct Texarkana Daily News

was the first to christen the city's elusive gunman as the phantom killer, a name given partially because of the mask worn during at least the first attack, also due to the killer quietly slipping away since that first attack, leaving no witnesses and the police with no suspects. It was like an actual murderous phantom terrorized the town.

Local newspaper man, again, J. Q. Mahafee, now faced stiff competition when it came to cover in the story. Recalling that, quote, all of the news agencies, including the Associated Press, United Press, and the International News service sent reporters, as did individual papers ranging from the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas News, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Times of London. Everybody's, this is a huge fucking story. Columnist Kenneth Dixon may have captured the city's mood best when he wrote, I have arrived in Texark. Cana the home of the phantom killer. I've just talked to a newspaper man named Graves. I'm quartered at the Grimm Hotel and the hair is rising on my neck. Authorities meanwhile were working around the clock to catch the killer. Patrols were being conducted in cars on foot, on horseback, well-armed decoys were parked on rural lovers lanes hoping to draw the phantom within range. Some would stumble over teenagers on the same mission and send them home. In the weeks after the Martin Booker killings, some 300 people were detained for questioning. ex-convicts, drifters, hermits, anybody considered strange by neighbors mainly,

but no one could be linked to the crimes. Captain Gonzalez, the fucking lone wolf. Sheriff Presley reported definite progress on April 15th, quote, made to the process of elimination both as regards to suspects and motives, but nothing came from this progress. Gonzalez's biographer, Brownson Malsh, later summarized their conclusions, saying it had become recognized that they were up against a psychopathic killer who was sexually aroused by the sight of a crime.

couple in a secluded spot. It could not be determined whether the letting of blood was a part of his gratification or whether the murders were committed solely to remove any possible witness of his deeds. It was also obvious to the investigators that they were dealing with a man of above-average intelligence. Paul Martin and Betty Joe Booker were laid to rest April 16th following a memorial service at the Beach Street Baptist Church, an estimated 1,000 mourners, many of them teenagers,

released from school for the day, braved the rain to a rest. attend the service and the graveside ceremony. Jerry Atkins, again, that bandleader, served as one of Booker's pallbear's. By this point, the investigation of the murders was proceeding on two fronts. The public side was mobilized when Captain Gonzalez invited citizen participation of a sort, telling the Texarkana Gazette, I think a reward offered to any citizen for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the slayer or slayers will help the case considerably. I can think of nothing better than citizens that citizens might do to help our cause. A committee swiftly organized, chaired by John Holman, and they broadcast an appeal for pledges over

radio station KCMC. The Otis Henry VFW post, seen to the Rhythm Air's last performance, was the first to respond with an offer of $250.50. The local Lions Club matched that pledge, and then a bunch more offers followed, totaling $4,280 by April 20th. But it was all in vain. On April 20th, the Gazette reported that news from the investigation had, quote, simmered down to nothing. Lone Wolf Gonzalez held a press conference on the same day, telling reporters, we're up against a clever, intelligent killer. We have information, but I can't give it to the public. We're working every day and night on every possible lead.

Despite that assurance, rumors ran rampant. One claim the phantom had been captured, his arrest concealed. Another claim to local minister had surrendered his son as a suspect. Gonzalez dismissed each tail in turn saying, we do not. not have the murderer now, we have filed no complaints against anyone. These wild rumors are a hindrance to the investigation and harmful to innocent persons. Approaching Easter Sunday, April 21st, Texarkana was tense in anticipation of another attack. On the preceding Saturday, 19 local clergymen signed a petition to both Texarkana City councils demanding imposition of a midnight curfew. But the curfew,

the lone wolf, all the additional law enforcement power, local vigilante groups, thousands of armed citizens that would not stop the phantom from attacking yet again in just a few weeks on the night of friday may 3rd nineteen 46 two very young lovers sixty three year old virgil starks and his girlfriend of three years 12 year old katie johnson were making out in virgil's 42 ford near spring lake it was a different sorry i can't even fucking pull that one off that's that's fucking gross no of course not uh no virgil starks i just wanted someone just to like miss the previous two jokes and Like, what? 63 and what? 12? What the fuck? Uh, no, Virgil Starks was 36. I'm an idiot. His wife, Katie, just 35. And they weren't at some makeout spot. They were at home. They were in their small farmhouse at Miller County, Arkansas, or in Miller County, Arkansas, about nine or ten miles northeast of Texarkana, house that sat all by itself, surrounded by a 500-acre spread. The new moon was invisible that night, obscured by its monthly conjunction with the sun. It was very dark out. Pitch black. The weather was warm, a high of 76 degrees that afternoon.

It had been a beautiful day, dropped to about 60 overnight. Aside from working his farm, which bumped up against Highway 67, Virgil had a welding shop at home. Neighbors would bring their broken farm equipment. He had the reputation of being a very competent auto mechanic as well. Working a large farm, doing a bunch of auto and equipment repairs on the side proved grueling sometimes. And at 8.30 p.m. on that Friday night, Virgil was about to go to sleep. he was relaxing in his living room armchair with a heating pad

you know placed under his aching back while he read the text Arcana Gazette and listened to some music coming from a radio Katie already in her nightgown was lying in the adjacent bedroom when a sound outside the house disturbed her as she later told the Gazette I heard a noise in the backyard

and asked Virgil to turn the radio down a bit the next thing I heard sounded like the breaking of glass I thought he dropped something so I got up and went into the room where he was when I reached the doorway he was standing up Suddenly he slumped in the chair and I saw the blood. I ran over to him and then I ran to the telephone. Virgil Starks had been shot twice through a window behind him

by a gunman standing on the front porch of his house. Katie had not seen the shooter. Somehow it seems she hadn't actually heard the sounds of gunfire either. The telephone she ran to was a hand cranked model, mounted on the kitchen wall, she lifted the receiver, cranked the handle twice, then staggered back. When two bullets struck the left side of her face,

scattering several of her splintered teeth across the kitchen floor, floor. Days she dropped to all fours actually managed to retrieve one tooth with its gold filling intact. Right? She's in complete shock. Despite her head wounds, half-blinded by blood, Katie still had the strength and presence of mind to escape from the house while her would-be assassin tried to batter his way in through a kitchen window. Leaving what the press would describe later as a virtual river of gore and tooth fragments, she lurched to the master bedroom, lurched down a hallway, through a second bedroom, and the living room across the front porch out through its door to the yard. From there, she sprinted to Highway 67, across it, ran across it, then ran to the home of her sister and brother-in-law.

The house was dark and silent. She hammered on the door, so she ran another 50 yards, leaving more blood behind her to the home of a neighbor, A.V. Prater answered the weakening knocks at his door with the rifle in hand, then fired it into the air when he saw Katie summoning yet another neighbor, Elmer Taylor, from another nearby farm. Love that we have an Elmer sliding into the story now. Bummer, his last name was not Fudd. together these two men transported Katie to the Michael Migger Memorial Hospital in town, quote, in a semi-conscious condition slumped over in the front seat of Taylor Sedan. Physicians found one bullet lodge beneath her tongue, another had pierced Katie's cheek and exited behind her ear.

Fuck, she would luckily survive her wounds. Pretty much make a full recovery, it sounds like, despite being shot twice in the fucking face, but she had not seen the gunman and therefore could not describe him to police. The best surviving description of law enforcement's response to the Stark's home invasion comes from a three-page FBI memo written on January 24, 1948. The agent slash author's name has been deleted along with the names of various other lawmen, but most of the details remain intact. Reds unedited, this is to advise that on May 3, 1946, at approximately 9.15 p.m., Sheriff W.E. Davis, Texarkana, Miller County, Arkansas, telephonically communicated with the writer and advised that a farmer had just been murdered. murdered on the outskirts of Texarkana and requested that the writer and special agent, named deleted, of the Dallas Field Division, come to his office to afford him assistance

in the investigation of this murder. The writer was special agent, named deleted, arrived at the sheriff's office on the Arkansas side at approximately 9.40 p.m. At that time, Sheriff Davis requested the two of us to proceed to the home of Starks and to take charge of the home and to examine the home for any evidence that might be used to assist in solving this murder. Name deleted, and I then proceeded to the Stark's home, which is located approximately nine miles northeast of Texarkana on U.S. Highway 67. We arrived there a few minutes before 10 p.m. after surveying the situation and making certain that no unauthorized persons were allowed to the house, the two of us returned to Texarkana to the resident agent's office where we secured our photographic equipment, namely fingerprinting camera, dusting kits and lifting tapes, and speed graphic camera. We then returned to the Stark's home when we arrived there,

name deleted of the Texas Rangers, maybe Lone Wolf, had arrived at the scene of the murder and was there with Sheriff W.E. Davis. At the request of Sheriff Davis, Texas Rangers' names deleted were assigned by name deleted to assist in collection of evidence in the Stark's home. With the assistance of these two Rangers, photographs were made of the interior of the Stark's home

and one 22 slug was located. Portions of linoleum were removed from the kitchen floor which contained impressions of footprints, then the kitchen window through which entrance the house had been gained by the intruder, the kitchen, dining room, bedroom, and sitting porch were dusted for latent fingerprints. The above-mentioned procedure took from the time of arrival until approximately 9 a.m., May 4th, 1946. All these officers are just working through the night. Names deleted of the Arkansas State Police arrived at the Stark's home at approximately daybreak,

which was around 5 a.m. The entire situation was explained to them and what had been done, and they began to measure the distance from the bullet holes in the window pane to the ground, and made a mathematical chart of the distance from where. the victim's body was found to the window and the distance of the bullet hole in the pain to the ground and the approximate distance from the window to where the murderer was standing at the time the shots were fired into the room. They also photographed this area. I do love getting like to a peek behind the curtain and to see how they go about this. Or went about it, you know, back in the 40s.

Previously during the night, the report continues, foot impressions had been located on a wagon road leading to the Stark's home and in a cotton patch which were similar to the foot impressions observed in the Stark's home. Approximately eight of these foot impressions were covered with baskets to preserve them until daylight. Name deleted, then made plaster casts of these foot impressions. These impressions were also photographed by name deleted, as well as by the writer and the special agent named deleted. Around noon on May 4, 1946, special agent named deleted, and the writer returned to the sheriff's office at Texarkana, with the evidence which had been collected. Upon arrival of the sheriff's office, names deleted were there.

After the plaster cast dried sufficiently, they were washed by these two gentlemen, and turned over to Sheriff Davis. Upon the specific request of Sheriff W.E. Davis, the entire collection of evidence was packed by the writer and forwarded to the Bureau under cover letter over the signature of Sheriff W.E. Davis requesting that the evidence be examined by the Bureau Laboratory.

This evidence was shipped via American Railway Express on the afternoon of May 4, 1946, by the sheriff's office. It is not recalled by the writer when name deleted and name deleted left Texarkana to return to Little Rock, but it is believed to be in the afternoon. For your information, Sheriff Davis, had requested assistance from the following law enforcement officials.

1. Resident agent, Texarkana. 2. Sheriff W.H. Presley, Texarkana. Bowie County, Texas. 3. Captain M.T. Gonzalez. Fuck yeah, lone wolf. I added that, Texas Rangers. And any rangers he might have had in town with him. 4. The Texarkana, Arkansas City Police.

5. The Hope, Arkansas City Police. 6. The sheriff's office at Hope, Arkansas. And, of course, 7. named deleted of the Arkansas State Police with headquarters at Hope, Arkansas. Sheriff Davis also called Captain Scrogan and named deleted of Little Rock, Sheriff Jim Sanderson of Little River County, Arkansas,

and Sheriff O'S Griffin, now deceased of Lafayette County, Arkansas. Chief of Police, Finos Haney of Hope Arkansas, also brought with him his two bloodhounds. And they wanted fucking everybody. Just call everybody. Get everybody within 500 miles over here. As it can be seen,

the report continues from the assistance requested by Sheriff Davis, it would appear that he requested assistance from all the law enforcement agencies in that district. For your further information, the vicinity of Texarkana had had a series of phantom murders. On March 23 and 24, 1946, a couple were killed while parked to the city limits. On April 14, 1946, two juveniles, Paul Martin and Betty Joe Booker were killed while parked near the city limits. Both murders were on the Texas side, and therefore it can be assumed that Sheriff Davis was afraid that the phantom had struck in his County. Sounds like they were doing a pretty thorough job, right? They were doing the best

they could, it sounds like. The interior of the Stark's home presented a grisly sight. When Virgil was shot, his heating pad shorted out, burst into flames, scorching his chair, filling the death room with a bunch of smoke. Aside from Katie's trail of blood and shattered teeth, muddled by the gunman's footprints, police also found bloody handprints on the walls and furniture, suggesting the killer had dipped his hand in Virgil's blood and left the macabreations deliberately. Just wipe the man's blood all over the place. Whether that action represented a fit of rage over Katie's escape, as one author has suggested, or some more bizarre pathology remains unexplained.

Police ruled out robbery as a motive, after finding a considerable amount of money untouched in the house, was still more plus jewelry in Katie's handbag. Some possible fingerprints were found, bullet casings were examined, footprints and tire prints found plaster moldings again made of those, prints sent off to labs and all that, and that would all lead absolutely nowhere. Virgil Starks were laid to rest at 2.30 p.m. Monday, May 6th,

his widow still recovering at Michael Meagher Memorial Hospital did not attend the service. That evening, JQ. Mahafee interviewed Dr. Anthony Lapella, a psychiatrist employed at Texarkana's federal correction institution to obtain a profile of the phantom killer. As Mahafie explained in the next day's Gazette, If one and the same man is responsible for the five murders that have been committed here since March 24th, the Gazette feels that the public should know the type of man with which the community is dealing. This interview was sought and was given in the interest of the public,

and the intent is not to alarm unduly anyone, but to give everyone the benefit of what is considered an expert opinion as to the mental behavior of the man sought in these crimes. Ignoring the first attack in February, for some reason, this never explained, when Mary Jean Larry and Jimmy Hollis both saw the masked man who attacked him, Dr. La Pala opined that one person was responsible for all three of the shootings, profiling the gunman as a white man about middle age between the middle 30s and 50 years old. The Phantom was a sadist, said La Pala, motivated by a strong sex drive. Such criminals in his experience were generally intelligent, clever, and shrewd,

often avoiding apprehension forever. Dr. LaPala theorized that the Phantom knows at all times, what is being done in the investigation of the crimes, and that he had changed his modus operandi for the Stark's attack because he knew outlying areas were being heavily patrolled. The murder, La Pala said, probably is planning, or the murderer, La Pala said, probably is planning something unexpected like the last crime. He probably will continue to operate in the outskirts of town.

He may lay low for a while, but eventually he probably will commit another crime. Such offenders, the doctor declared, are able to hold themselves under control until their cold and deliberate plans are worked out, which is usually done over a period of days. Based on his opinions on, quote, the activities of a large number of people who have committed crimes similar to the five recent killings here, La Pala also suggested that the phantom might change their hunting grounds to some distant community where it is believed the crimes are committed by a different individual, or else he overcomes a desire to kill and assault women.

Dr. La Pala dismissed military veterans as likely suspects on the grounds that, if the man had served in the armed forces for as much as a year the maniacal tendencies would have been observed he made no allowance for the possibility that combat had inspired those impulses or given the phantom an approved outlet for homicidal violence though

the phantom was not necessarily a Texarkana resident he declared despite his thorough knowledge of the area since the slayer quote could have come from some other community and acquainted himself with the local situation before he struck if dwelling locally however he may appear

to be a good citizen and he may be a good citizen in some respects. An interesting observation in light of later events is La Pala surmised that the phantom, quote, works alone, and no one knows what he is doing because he tells no one. If certain officers involved in investigation are correct, the doctor added the killer actually traveled with a witness, though, who observed at least one of the crimes. That seems a little contradictory. La Pala recommended contacting mental hospitals nationwide to see if anyone matching the phantoms presumed pathology had lately been released.

but then contradictorily cautioned that the man probably never had been confined to such an institution Okay The phantom was not a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Yet could lead a seemingly normal life, he said The apparent contradictions then continued As La Pala said,

He did not believe the slayer would find it necessary To kill a man every time he killed a woman But that the man may be so insane That he is obliged to kill a man also So in short, Dr. Lopala's profile fucking did not help at all. The killer could be almost anybody, which meant that the fear in the community

just, you know, ratcheted up further thanks to this profile and that profile did not help law enforcement. The phantom had shown that no one was safe, not even inside their own home now. He could strike anyone, anywhere, at any time. A few nights after Virgil Starks was buried, one of his neighbors noted lights resembling muzzle flashes from a gun inside the victim's now abandoned farmhouse.

He wondered how the killer come back, right? Not uncommon, that happens. The killer coming back to the scene of their crime, The neighbor called the Arkansas side police station and caught Gazette editor, JQ Mahafee, killing time with state trooper Max Tackett and some other lawmen. As Mahafee later described the event to a Dallas reporter long after the fact, we sped to the place and while I hid behind the police car. Tackett and other police officers approached the house with drawn guns.

They announced that the house was surrounded and whoever was in there better come out with their hands up. Who should come out of that house? But lone Wolf Gonzalez of the Texas Rangers and a girl photographer, from Time Life. Fuck yeah, bro. Love that the lone wolf shone back up in this story.

Mahefie added, he explained rather sheepishly that he had been reenacting the crime for the young lady who was taking pictures of him. Her flashbulbs accounted for the strange light seen in the house.

This guy kills me. Disgusted, Tackett turned to Mahafee, raising his voice to his shout and bellowing, Mahafi, you can and quote me as saying that the phantom murders will never be solved until Texarkana gets rid of the big city press and the Texas Rangers. Jack Stark's, Virgil's father, would now offer a $500 reward for information

leading to the capture and conviction of whoever killed his son and wounded his daughter-in-law. Like the other money that had been pledged towards a solution of the phantom's crimes, it would remain unclaimed. If anybody had knowledge, they could break the case. They kept it to themselves. In the aftermath, the Stark's murder, even more officers from the area were called upon to help in the investigation. blockades were affected on Highway 67 east.

Those who had been driving the area at the time of the slain, along with several men found in the vicinity, were detained for questioning. By May 5th, a full 47 officers were working full-time to solve the murders. On May 9th, a mobile radio station arrived with 20 additional Arkansas State police officers and a fleet of 10 prowl cars equipped with two-way radios to help coordinate the growing investigation. On May 11th, a teletype machine was installed in the Bowie County Sheriff's Office to better connect with other law enforcement offices in Texas. The main unofficial theory for a motive amongst the majority of officers now was that of sex mania,

as large amounts of money in the home were not taken nor were Katie's purse. It was believed by many that the killer had intended to sexually assault Katie, but she'd gotten away. A previously set up reward fund for the phantom killer now exceeded $10,000, equivalent to over $160,000 today. There was, I should add, definitely some hesitation in linking to Stark's murder to other crimes within law. enforcement because the weapon used was a 22. The attack had not occurred in any lover's lane areas and the killer had quickly fired on both people, not taking time to toy with them. Personally, I would guess that this most recent crime was the work of somebody else. There was a lot of speculation that

Virgil's killer was somebody he knew, somebody who had an axe to grind with either him, Katie, or them both, maybe some part of like a lover's quarrel and that they use the unsolved phantom killings as an excuse to hide the carnage that they were committed, to have it be blamed on somebody else right that last attack is just a very different from the rest in so many ways nevertheless most in tex arcana at the time sure seemed to think that the phantom killer struck again and uh you know it showed them all that they were not safe in their homes so hysteria grows further in the days following the murder of virgil starks there was constant media coverage of the increased police activity in the uh of the case now you know the investigation uh the tex arcana

gazette stated on may 5th that the killer might strike again at any moment any place at any one for a week, police were inundated with reports of prowlers. One officer stated that nearly all of the alarm was the result of excitement, wild imagination, and near hysteria. The day after Starks' death, stores once again sold out of locks, guns, and ammunition, and they sold out of window shades and Venetian blinds. Additional items of which sales greatly increased included window, sash locks, screen door hooks, night latches, and other protective devices. Because citizens were substantially nervous and armed with guns,

Texas Arcana became a very dangerous place for everybody. When calling on an address, law enforcement officers would turn on their sirens, stand in their headlights, loudly announced themselves to keep from being shot by a nervous homeowner. Although most of the town was in fear of the phantom, some youth continued to park on deserted roads, hoping to apprehend the perpetrator, right, armed the teeth. Miller County Sheriff's Deputy Tillman Johnson and an unarmed Arkansas State Trooper were patrolling a vacant road one night when they came upon a parked car. When Johnson approached the car and noticed a couple,

He introduced himself loudly, asked if they were scared. The girl replied, it's a good thing you told me who you are. And then she revealed she was holding a 25 ACP pistol and pointing it at him. On the night of May 10th, Texark City police officers were alerted to a car that had been following a bus. They chased it for three miles before shooting out the tires and then arresting C.J. Lauderdale Jr., a high school athlete there in town. When questioned at the station, CJ explained he was unaware of they were police officers because they were driving and unmarked. car. He wasn't going to stop for some random car. And he said he was following the bus because he was suspicious of a passenger that had entered it from a private car. So he's waiting to possibly

kill that guy. Everyone's paranoid. How could they not be? On May 12th, Gonzalez, the lone wolf gave a warning to teenage sleuths in the Gazette saying that was a good way to get killed. Backing up, on May 7th, just four days after the Stark's murder at 6 a.m., a workman in Little River County, Arkansas, not very far away, found another dead mangled body. The sixth murder victim, since all this madness began, right, just two and a half months earlier. The body was found line on the Kansas City Southern Railroad's tracks approximately 16 miles of north, or 16 miles north of Texarkana. The corpse's left arm in Lake had been severed by a passing train a half hour earlier, unnoticed by the engineering crew. Sheriff's deputies responded to the scene, and a hearse removed the corpse, what was left of it, to the nearby town of Ashdown, Arkansas, where it was examined at the Philip Funeral Home, a little river.

County's corner, Dr. Frank Engler found a social security card in the body identifying its holder as 59-year-old Earl Cliff McSpadden. Or McSpadden probably. McSpadden also carried a registration card from the U.S. Employment Service in Shreveport, Louisiana. At first glance, McSpadden's death appeared to be an unfortunate accident, but Dr. Engler found, quote, no bruises as there would have been had the man fallen under the train. Instead, he reported a deep wound two inches long on the left temple, which was serious enough to have caused death. Due to been stabbed in the head. cuts on McSpadden's hands. Furthermore, quote, indicated that the victim had struggled with an assailant arm with a knife. A coroner's jury impanled by Angler ruled that McSpadden had been slain by persons unknown and afterward placed on the tracks. Bloodstains on the highway near the spot where he was found supported that opinion. Immediately despite the victim's age, despite not being with a woman, despite being stabbed and instead of being shot, Tex-Arcansans, worried that McSpadden might be yet another victim of the Phantom killer. Why the slayer might resort to stabbing and in Little River County was a matter of debate. Some locals thought the phantom may have wished to fake his own death, thereby

getting a lawman off his case. Lacking any proof of that scenario, other surmised that McSpadden might have been killed for knowing too much. I don't know if any of that first one doesn't really make much sense to me, whatever. Some of course thought his death was a coincidence, entirely unrelated to the phantom's other crimes. But for everybody else, the local fear and paranoia ratchets up even further. But then Lone Wolf Gonzalez takes credit for this kill. Apparently, he had sought McSpadden out for question, who agreed to talk only if he could meet out by the train tracks away from town at night.

And when they met, McSpadden tried to stab the wolf, who easily disarmed him. Then the wolf cut McSpadden's fingers a few times real quick. After the man resisted having handcuffs placed on him, then McSpadden ran towards the tracks. The wolf warmed him, warned him to stop, warned him a few times, and when he finally wouldn't, he threw the knife, hit McSpadden in the temple from 200 yards out.

Nothing is over. Nothing. You just don't turn it off. No, we don't know who killed McSpatten. His murder would remain unsolved, like all the rest. A couple days later, lone Wolf Gonzalez himself does almost become an unintended casualty of this investigation, though. This is ridiculous.

And of course, this would happen to him. As he left the Hotel McCartney, a 10-story structure at the corner of Maine and Fond Street, excuse me Front Street Font is probably a much rare street name than front I live on Font Street Maybe some people do

But anyway As he left his hotel A 10-story hotel A cry from above Saved his life As a suicidal jumper plummeted from the hotel's top floor smashing into the sidewalk

Just a few feet before him If the man falling had not yelled He would have very likely landed on top of the lone wolf And probably broken his neck This is the damnedest town I've ever seen Gonzales later told J. Q. Mahafi. Just bodies falling everywhere.

What in the actual fuck? How does one dude compile so many crazy stories in his life? We probably don't even know like 2% of all the crazy shit that happened to the wolf. Over the summer of 1946, the phantom killer murders would make international news. Reports of possible suspects would come in from all across the U.S. and even abroad. Coverage of the case would make the front pages of papers nationwide. A number of suspects will be arrested, brought in for questioning, all but one will be quickly released. A number of locals

Will nearly kill their neighbors So afraid and paranoid One man will actually shoot off One of his own toes When startled by some animal Outside the house Numerous farm animals Will be shot in the dark at night

By trigger happy people's Just stress the fuck out Finally on June 28th An arrest will lead To an actual suspect Somebody who could have been behind most If not all of the phantom killings Texarkana citizens

Needed a break In Arkansas State policeman Max Andrew Tackett a dude who had yelled about the wolf, you know, earlier in our story here today, yelled at the wolf, thought he might have caught one. At the age of 33, barely a year out of military uniform. Tackett regarded himself as a very minor player in the Phantom Manhunt. I was one of the littlest policeman there.

He later told the Texarkana Gazette, I was still a rookie with a little bit of experience. Not one of my ideas was accepted. But he had ideas, some good ones. He'd figured out that every time the Phantom struck, a car had been stolen and then abandoned. For example, the night of young Betty Joe Booker's death, a car had been stolen from a friend of her parents and a witness had come forward with the name of the local man who had driven it away.

The vehicle belonged to Wayne O'Donald of Texarkana. It had been stolen outside Texarkana Hospital. And then the police found the car abandoned on a parking lot, June 28, 1946, and an ensuing stakeout of the car resulted in the arrest of 21-year-old Peggy Lois Swinney born in Breckenridge, Texas in Stevens County. She's one of nine children born to Henry Lee Stevens

and Jenny Myrtle Stevens Stevens and her surname was brand spanking new On the very day of her arrest in Texarkana Peggy had married career criminal Local man Ewell Lee Sweeney Down in Shreveport, Louisiana Peggy was a sex worker who had been working at a Texarkana brothel when she took up with Swinney

on some unknown date Peggy told police she met Swinney while she was in jail and when he came to visit some other female inmate. She liked his looks, flirted with him a little bit, then moved in with him upon her release until she said, me and him had a fuss. A week after the breakup, Peggy claimed, friends alerted her that Swinney was looking for her,

armed with a 32-caliber pistol. He found her with another man at Texarkana's busy bee cafe, and he beat the shit out of her date in front of anybody present. He meant to have me, Peggy said, even if he had to kill someone to do it. Impressed with his passion. Okay, that's one way to react to that. Peggy left the restaurant with Swinney,

embarking on a cross-country spree of stealing cars and picking up hitchhiker, she said. And it is rumors that he killed those hitchhikers, but authorities could never prove it. Peggy's groom was not in Texarkana at the time of her arrest, but the police there knew him very well. Let's take a brief detour. To learn more about the man, most people who have done a lot of research into these murders believe was, in all likelihood, the phantom killer. Born on February 9, 1917, U.L. Swinney,

was the fifth child of Hellfire and Brimstone Baptist minister, Stanley C. Swinney, and Myrtle Looney, both born in 1888. Stanley was a native of Arkansas, while Myrtle hailed from Georgia. They married May 4th, 1907 in Nevada County, Arkansas. Stanley and Myrtle divorced in Miller County, Arkansas, November 6, 1926 when UL was 9. Myrtle remained in Texarkana, marrying John Rudolph, Travis, two years for senior, August 28th, 1930 when U.L. was 13.

And sometime during that year, you will uh you will or uel kind of a weird name locked his first arrest in pine bluff for burglary in grand larceny he was released without having to serve any time incarcerated less than two years later on february 19th 1932 police in texarkana arkansas jailed swinney on identical charges of burglary and grand larceny again served no time according to records uh uel seemed to avoid any further trouble for the next three years but then was arrested in texarkana

Texas on January 4th, 1935 for possessing and attempting to pass counterfeit nickels. Now, that is a crime you don't hear about much. Law enforcement, probably not too worried about anybody out there making fake nickels these days. I'm pretty sure it would cost way more than five cents a nickel to make fake nickels. How sad to get arrested for counterfeiting after losing thousands of thousands of dollars making fake nickels? I don't know. Apparently making nickels was worth it back then, though. Free on bond from that charge, UL was detained for investigation into something not specified in San Antonio, Texas, April 3rd, 1935, then released without charges.

Just a few months later, July 24th of that year, Texarkana police caught U.S. with more counterfeit coins. At least there were half dollars this time, referred his case to the U.S. Secret Service, lodged in the Lamar County Jail at Paris, Texas, July 28th. He subsequently faced trial on federal counterfeiting charges at Fort Smith, Arkansas. A conviction on September 26th of 1935 earned him a two-year stint at the medium security federal correctional institution in El Reno, Oklahoma. While UL was locked up at El Reno, his mom divorced from John Travis on some unknown date, married her third husband, James Henry Tackett and Texarkana, March 28, 1936. And I think I already mentioned she was divorced, sorry about was redundant, and James was a distant cousin of future state trooper Max Tackett, who will find himself. pursuing U.L. Swinney, 10 years down the road during the Phantom's reign of terror. Paroled from El Reno, July 8th, 1937, Swinney enjoyed a whopping 11 days of freedom

before police in Shreveport, Louisiana, nabbed him on yet another counterfeiting charge. July 19th, at least it was, again, half dollars. He's staying away from the Nichols. A violation of parole plus the new offense sent him to the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, for another three-year term. authorities parole him once again on July 21st, 1940, but he wouldn't remain free for even a single year. Excuse me. He missed an appointment with his Shreveport parole officer, November 5th, 1940, fleeing to Texarkana, where he stole a Chevrolet coop from someone named Dr. Burnett on December 29th. U.S. Bureau of Parole issued a warrant for Swinney's arrest, February 6, 1941. By which time he was already in custody again in Texarkana.

The feds let Arkansas prosecutors have first crack at Swinney. On February 11th, 1941, he pled guilty to auto theft in Miller County and got another three-year sentence. On February 19th, he arrived at the Cummins State Farm, a rural prison outside Gould, Arkansas, where officials listed his occupation as typist and file clerk. They noted his ruddy complexion and logged a half-inch scar on the bridge of his nose. I don't think he was working as a type is too much, but okay. The prison farms are Arkansas, including the Cummins State Farm, now known as the Cummins Unit, have a long and sorted history. I don't think I'm related to whatever Cummins it was named after. Who knows? Maybe I am.

I do have relatives back in that area. It got its name because most of the land was once the Cummins Plantation. In 1838, Governor James Conway had signed legislation establishing the state's first prison, built during 1939 and 1940 on a 92-8. acre tracked in Little Rock. From 1849 to 1913, the state leaves convicts out to private individuals as virtual slave labor and a system popular throughout the South, a system rife with physical abuse. Thrifty state legislators envision the prison farms as self-supporting facilities run with minimal complement or a minimal complement of free world personnel.

And to that end, inmates raise crops and livestock for sale. Supervised in many cases by trustees bearing firearms. Discipline enforced by means of corporal punishment. including some weird shit there was a lot of flogging there was something called a Tucker telephone an antique hand-cranked phone at the Cummins Farm

whose wires delivered agonizing jolts of electricity to inmates fucking nuts and dicks you can imagine some wardens getting their kicks off using that years later judge four years later judge Jay Smith Henley ruled several aspects

of the state's penal system unconstitutional dictating reform some steps for reform in 1970 he ruled the entire operation unconstitutional, ordered the state correction board to prepare a new plan of action for remediation. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that ruling in 1978, said the whole state's penal system was fucked. All those reforms came too late to help U.L. Swinney or any inmates allegedly murdered

at Cummins by guards and trustees. His time at the Cummins farm was probably full of abuse. Probably hardened, the man, may have turned him from a thief into a killer. The feds did not lose interest in UL Swinney when Arkansas sent him away for three years, just 16 days after we reached the Cummins Farm as inmate number 39066, Walter Eurek, parole executive for the Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., addressed a letter to the warden at Cummins, and it read, Dear Sir, we have received information that the above-named man has been sentenced to your institution

on a charge of grand larceny. Swinney is wanted by this office as a conditional release violator. The violator warrant is being forwarded to the United States Marshal at Little Rock, Arkansas. Please place our detainer and notify this office with a copy of your notice to the marshal approximately 30 days prior to date set for release so that arrangements may be made for custody. In order to bring our records up to date, we should like to be advised now of the probable date of release. A dude was fucked. As soon as he was to be released from prison, the feds wanted to be right there to greet him and put him back in a different prison.

On July 17th, 1943, Superintendent Cogbill wrote to the Little Rock Marshal's office, advising that Swinney would be released from the Tucker Farm on August 1st, two weeks notice instead of the promised 30 days. The letter also advised, we have a detainer request in favor of the U.S. Marshal, Shreveport, Louisiana, but yours is a prior request, and your warrant will be delivered to the proper deputy that calls for this man. So the U.S. Marshals, the FBI, everybody wanted to fucking keep this guy locked up. Marshall V.C. Petty replied to Cogbill from Little Rock on July 20th, confirming that a deputy U.S. Marshal would take custody of Swinny at Tucker on August 1st. The deputy in question, V.O. Purvis, duly retrieved this man on the appointed Sunday and transported him to Little Rock. No further record of his passage through the federal prison system has survived the test of time. But we know that Swinney still did not go straight. Because the following year, November 24th, 1944, he received now a five-year sentence. for robbery in Bowie County, Texas, but was favored with a conditional pardon. It's getting so, getting off easy, so many fucking times.

On December 22nd, 1945, when caught again for his latest auto theft, he could be jailed for violating his parole, and if convicted on a third felony charge, he might receive life imprisonment as a habitual criminal, but first authorities had to find him. And they found him July 13, 1946.

His cousin by marriage, Officer Max Tackett, perspiring in his khaki Arkansas State Police uniform, according to one source, was one of several dozen lawmen, fanning out through downtown Texarkana searching for a tall, slender, good-looking fellow suspected of car theft the day they got him. Tackett entered the bus station alone where they found him and searched for a face in the crowd, which by his own account he had never seen before, right? They were technically family, but had never met. Evidently, Sheriff's deputy Tillman Johnson later said,

the suspect spotted Max about the same time Max spotted him. because he made a break for the back door, and Max trapped him on the firewalk of the old Jefferson coffee shop. Cornered on this fire escape, U.L. Swinney said, please don't shoot me. And Tackett replied, I'm not going to shoot you for stealing cars. And Swinney supposedly yelled back, Mr. Don't play games with me. You want me for more than stealing cars. So indication of guilt or just acknowledgment that he knew they suspected him of being the Phantom Killer. Johnson soon joined Tackett and marched their prisoner to Johnson's patrol car. inside the cruiser, Swinney allegedly asked, What do you think they'll do to me for this?

Will they give me the electric chair? And Johnson replied, you won't get much, maybe five or ten years. You don't get the electric chair for stealing cars. And once again, both officers agreed. Swinney answered, you know you want me for more than stealing cars. Indeed, they did want him for more than that, but could they make a case? If so, they would need his new wife, Peggy's help. Detained in lieu of bond, Peggy had offered nothing further to police while UL was still at

large, but once he was arrested, she started to talk. Tillman Johnson later said, when we told his wife, falsely, that we were holding him for murder, she asked, how did you know? Right, that looks pretty fucking guilty. She then decided, Tillman later said, to make a statement and took us over the scenes of the crimes, telling us things only a person was there could know, things we had held back from the press. As Max Tackett later told the story 25 years later, quote, she started us by giving a minute

detailed statement for the past several months. From this information, we formulated a calendar that gave their location in Texarkana on the nights of these killings, even though they had in the intervening days been as far as way as New York State. We verified this information. Peggy also said that U.L. had driven

from Dallas to Texarkana on April 13th, the night of the second double murder, that he had bought 12 bottles of beer on the wet Texas side of the state line, and she'd helped him drink them, getting drunk before they went to Spring Lake Park with the intent, quote, to rob someone. And Spring Lake Park is where the murdered bodies of teenagers

Paul Martin and Betty Joe Booker would be found. Tackett claimed that Peggy led officers to the park then, quote, walked directly to the point where Paul Martin's car had been discovered on April 14th, further admitting that she had walked into a nearby clump of woods where a heel print of a woman's shoe had been found by investigators searching the crime scene. You know, the effort happened.

Peggy told police she had remained in UL's car drinking beer while he took, quote, the little boy and little girl off somewhere out of sight. She said she then fell asleep, was roused sometime later by four gunshots, then two more a bit later, Uel then returned, quote, highly excited and wet to the knees, reminding Officer Tackett of a marshy area located 100 to 150 yards from the site where Betty Joe Booker was slain. Peggy also had something to share concerning the subsequent Stark's home raid and killing. She said that on the night of May 3rd,

the night of Virgil's murder, Uel had returned to the motel where they were staying quote, with blood all over him. According to Officer Tackett, she said he wiped his blood on a towel and put it under the mattress in the room. Officer searched the room, allegedly recovered that towel

together with a khaki work shirt. According to Tackett, the laundry mark, read under a blacklight, said S-T-A-R-K. Uh, this shirt was taken to Mrs. Starks and she said, yes, that was her husband's shirt and pointed to a place on the front of the shirt where she had remembered personally repairing it. But on reflection the next day, she said you couldn't be sure. She knew now it would mean death for the suspect based on her identification of the shirt. And she said she could not positively identify it. The name was spelled Stark instead of Starks. And she said any woman could have repaired a damaged place such as that in her husband's shirt. Huh. That feels weird. Concerning U. Wells 30. two caliber cold automatic the type of gun used in two double murders possibly Peggy told the lawman that the gun is long gone according to Tackett quote it had been sold at a crap game by our suspect and a laborer had bought it he the buyer had got drunk

and had promiscuously shot it and gotten fired the man sold it to another man then working under a flag name an alias who went west and so the gun's gone while Peggy spun her tails for the lawman you well was playing dumb confronted with the statements from bride, Swinney continued to deny participation in the phantom's crimes. He's very worried about in the electorate chair, a professing his innocence. But then, according to Deputy Tillman Johnson, in a 2001 interview, quote, one night out of the blue, he says, okay, I'll tell you all about it. But by the time we had got ready to take his confection, he had changed his mind. At that point, the frustrated officers opted to do it the hard way with truth serum, he said. Various drugs

have worn the truth serum label since the late 1920s, when American psychiatrist William Jefferson Jefferson, Blequeen, or Bleckwen, I like Blackween more. You know what? Let's just say that his name was Blackween. Dr. Blackween. But it was Blackwinne. Back when he used intravenous interjections, injections, excuse me, my mouth is not cooperating today, of sodium amitol to produce lucid intervals of normal conversation

in patients suffering from catatonic mutism. Not clear what kind of truth serum they had in mind for U.L. in a 1977 interview deputy johnson said we took the suspect over to little rock to take the truth serum but when we got there he refused by this time his family had gotten him a lawyer he and the girl were looking at the electric chair and they swinney's relatives were doing their best to save them another bit of evidence that points to you well being the phantom killer is betty joe booker's saxophone in one account of the crime peggy swinney described her husband tossing the instrument out of their car over a roadside fence right over the same fence where it eventually would be found but she just couldn't pinpoint the exact location during the confession uh how the hell could she have known that right if he didn't do it on the morning of october 24th nineteen forty six three months after peggy's confessions workman p v ward and j f mack mcneef found the instrument while repairing a barbed wire fence near the side of april's double murder on the south side of morris lane i think i said one guy found it earlier it was actually two guys no idea why the authorities had not found it closer to peggy's confession but you're guessing you know maybe they just didn't believe her uh still because of a lack of DNA evidence testing back then uh because of possible problems with a fingerprint match or matches of his feet to the molds taken because the only witness implicating him in the crimes was a sex worker whose credibility would have been questioned back then far more than it even

would be now deputy tilman johnson still thought quote the only way we were going to close the case was with a confession but that wasn't going to happen also they didn't need to prove the U.L. was the phantom killer to put him away for decades, if not the rest of his life. They already had him dead to rights on violation of his 1945 parole for stealing cars. He'd been, you know, apprehended about a fucking million times before on various other crimes. And this new charge alone would send him back to the Huntsville prison to complete the 47 months remaining on his five-year sentence from November of 1944. And better still, conviction on a third felony count for the theft of Wayne O'Donnell's vehicle in March made Twini eligible for life imprisonment as a habitual offender, which he certainly was.

Wasn't the electric chair, but a lot better than nothing. At trial for that offense in April of 1947, UL's jurors did find Swinney guilty. The judge pronounced him a habitual offender and did impose a life sentence. Swinney returned to Huntsville, April 18th, 1947, with no immediate prospect of ever seeing the free world again. He was apparently so concerned about being sentenced to death for the Phantom Killer Murders. he had agreed to a no contest regarding the habitual offender charge in fact he tried to plead guilty

despite the charge requiring a jury trial and what became a Peggy one source claims she was convicted as an accomplice to auto theft but records from the Texas Department of Corrections refute that claim those records do confirm her divorce from UL in 1947 in Shreveport

Pecky will die decades later in Dallas January 8th, 1998 and be buried under her maiden name seems that she never remarried and never publicly commented on the phantom killings ever again. As guilty as UL looks, not all law enforcement tracking the phantom, were unanimous

in thinking that Swinney was the guy, while Max Tackett and Tillman Johnson will proclaim his guilt for the rest of their lives, there are problems with him being the phantom. The most obvious hole in the case against him involves fingerprints. For all of their attempts to make him talk with marathon interrogations and with drugs,

neither Max Tackett nor Tillman Johnson seemed to ever attempt to match when he's prints with late from the Starks or Martin Booker crime scenes. Why not? Well, thanks to the release of the FBI's files on this case in 2006, we know that his prints did not match any recovered from any of the phantom's crime scenes. The cops probably took a look at them and came to the same conclusion.

Also, no document available today reports a match between the latent prints found at the Spring Lake Park double murder site and those recovered from the home of Virgil Starks. So, if you will, Lee Swinney, was the Phantom. He apparently left no prints at any of the murder sites or they were never found and there's you know possible problems with the Virgil Stark's killing being connected to the other killings

following the Martin Booker homicides in the spring of 46 Captain Gonzalez lone wolf had vowed to stay in Texarkana until the phantom was captured or killed but by August the lone wolf was ready to go home Captain Gonzalez in his splendid finery would certainly be missed when he returned to Dallas

the other Rangers likewise with their fancy pistols boots and stets and hats would be conspicuous in their absence So after like UL, after they arrest him, the case seems to just kind of like fizzle out. A sudden scarcity of journalists around the Hotel Grimm by July also alerted locals to the fact that America was done with this case, pending some fresh atrocity, which will not happen. All of this doesn't mean the case had totally gone cold, though. Texas Rangers will continue checking suspects from across the nation, running fingerprints, test firing pistols, closely eyeing any robber rapist for miles and miles around to appear to emulate the phantom style to some degree. even after UL's, you know, long after his arrest.

Other Lovers Lane-type attacks around the country will be investigated for a possible connection to the Phantom. On the night of October 8th, 1946, an unknown gunman shot and killed a couple, Lawrence Hogan and Elaine Eldridge, while they were parked on a quiet lane in Dania Beach, Florida. Roward County Sheriff Walter Clark led the investigation, aided by police and sheriffs in surrounding jurisdictions.

Multiple suspects were detained, including a former member of the Detroit Police Department, but all were soon released. It was just another unsolved killing and one not connected to the phantom killings because a different weapon was used. September 25th, 1973, U.L. Swinney was released from prison. His life sentence lasted a little shy of 27 years. Once again, the criminal, this guy could not fucking stop. He would not live free for long.

After barely a year on the street, he was convicted in Dallas on a federal charge of counterfeiting quarters and half dollars. Which he passed off to their hapless buyers as collector's items. So it doesn't give more details. I'm guessing he, like, I don't know, got like a real quarter or a real half dollar and then just somehow figured out how to like put like a different date on it or something to make it seem older. I hope that's what was happening as opposed to just, I don't know what the fuck he was doing. It's so weird to counterfeit coins this way. This latest conviction, he's had so many earned him a two-year sentence only, served at the federal correctional institution, back in Texarkana, right? The phantom killer back in town.

Two years later, he escapes. at the 8 to 58, but is quickly recaptured, sent to a different prison for completion of a sentence. The breakout cost him a little extra time, but he's still free again by October 23rd, 1981, when jurors in Longview, Texas now convict him of theft at the age of 64. Fucking can't stop, won't stop. Received a six-year sentence in that case,

but served only 16 months. Parole to February 17, 1983, he either stayed clean or didn't get caught for several years and was discharged from supervision September 25th, 1987. Within weeks, takes another fall for theft this time in Dallas. Oh, that conviction earned the now 70-year-old man, seven more years in prison. But again, he gets an early release. Paroled January 5th, 1989, not even fucking two years later. And then he'll die to Dallas rest home at the age of 77 while still on parole. September 5th, 1994. Jesus Christ. Tex are kind of realtor

Texarkana realtor, Mark Bledsoe, researching a book of his own about the phantoms' crimes. Trey Swinney to the nursing home in 1993, the year before he died, found him wheelchair-bound, the victim of a crippling stroke. When I talked to him, Bledsoe later recalled, he was coherent to a certain degree. Time had definitely had its effect. I videotaped the interview, and it's hard to make out what is being said. You have to go more on expressions. He spent some time bragging about his counterfeiting days. I don't know why.

he wasn't very fucking good at it, and talking about being in and out of prison. But when I asked him about the phantom murders, he became angry and denied that he'd had anything to do with him. He said, I got off for that, and I was cleared. He even refused to admit that he had ever been married. It was spooky. He was in a wheelchair.

I'm getting goosebumps, just thinking about it, being in the room with that person who had people in Texarkana, so terrified. Yeah, despite his denial, Bledsoe was convinced that he was the phantom. Bledso, remained, quote, at least 99% convinced that he did the majority of the murders credited to the phantom.

Bledsoe interviewed other former inmates as well who spent time with Swinney and several of them allegedly told Swinney details of the killings that were unreported in the newspapers. In the spring of 1996, so yeah, he probably fucking did it. Spring of 1996, between March 31st and April 7th, the Texarkana Gazette published a retrospective series of articles on the area's most famous unsolved crimes

collectively titled The Phantom at 50. Reporter Rodney Burgess wrote, Yes, 50 years later, many who remember the scenario from living through it still harbor fears of the unknown. Some witnesses, some friends of the victims, some family of the victims are still too frightened within themselves to allow them to speak freely

about that impressionable time in their life. And too, many still fear retribution from that unknown source of their fear, even if the main suspect has been dead for a couple of years, that fear remains. Some would say that it is unrealistic, but reality to some was formed 50,000, years ago and has changed little since.

Later in 2003, an Italian film crew passed through Texarkana, adding the segment on the Phantom to its documentary on Small Town American Life. Former Deputy Tillman Johnson, then 92, and the last surviving member of the team that stalked the killer stood by his assessment of U.L. Swinney as the prime suspect in the first three attacks while reserving some judgment on the Stark's rate. And I think that will take us out of this timeline. Good job, soldier. You've made it back.

Barely. Well, they never caught the Phantom Killer. The terrorized a small city on the Arkansas and Texas border in the spring of 1946. I mean, they might have caught him, but no one was ever charged with the Phantom's crimes. The whole thing only lasted ten weeks. Ten crazy weeks that began with a savage beating of 25-year-old Jimmy Hollis that left him in the hospital for three full months. 10 weeks. It also began with beating and the rape of his girlfriend, 19-year-old Mary Jean Larry

by a mass man that literally told her, run, like a bad guy in a slasher flick. They were two young lovers out fooling around under the moonlight in Jimmy's dad's car after watching a horror movie together and then found themselves starring in a horror movie. Then the Phantom Spree ended less than three months later following the murder of a 36-year-old farmer and mechanic in his home and the near murder of his 35-year-old wife. after two other sets of double murders where two young couples were dragged from their cars and killed where both the young women

were raped where the phantom had again taken his time since the killer or killers targeted both men and women both in their vehicles or at home and always attacked at night since the only living witness saw a man or witnesses I guess sorry saw a man wearing a crude mask very few in Texarkana felt safe that spring and subsequent

summer right the phantom could be a drifter or their neighbor I imagine all kinds of locals were accused. Old grudges dragged back up. Neighbors turning on neighbors, friends, turning on friends. And for what? Why did the killer do it? Whether it is UL. Swinney or someone else will probably never know. Even if we did know, answer probably wouldn't be very satisfying. The Phantom might have just did what he did because he randomly decided to turn a robbery into something more and then got a taste for the brutality. He dished out in that first attack. The Phantom Killer slain's were unique to text Arcana, but they're certainly not the only examples of unsolved murders

involving couples fooling around in parked cars back on September 16th 1922 the bodies of two young lovers 86 year old episcopal minister Edward Wheeler Hall in six years so stupid in six-year-old I can't even fucking say it no he was 44 and she was 34 and uh she was the wife of a sexton at hall's church in new brunswick new jersey where she was a member of the choir scandalous they were found lying together in the woods of a neighboring county both had been shot in the head with a 32-caliber pistol. Hall once, Mills three times, and the female's victim's throat had been slashed

and her tongue cut out. My God, someone had some fucking rage. Rumors of their affair being the reason they were killed ran rampant, prompting the indictment of Hall's widow and her two brothers, but all three were acquitted, and the case was unsolved. June 11th and June 16th, 1930, a still unidentified gunman ambushed two Tristing couples on lover's lanes in New York City's borough of Queens.

In both cases, a young man was shot and killed. The first female victim was raped, while the second saved herself by showing her attacker a religious medal that convinced him not to go through with it. In each case, the gunman left cryptic notes at the murder scenes, including the male victim's names, and the indecipherable message, 3x3-X-097. A letter sent to local newspapers contained more code, referred to a death list, and demanded the return of unspecified documents stolen by the murdered men from a supposed anti-communist group called the Red Diamond of Russia. A final letter claimed the documents have been returned, declaring there is no further reason to worry. And with that, the crimes ended, and the case went unsolved. Former subject to Zodiac Killer remains one of America's most infamous unidentified serial slayers. The Zodiac attacked three couples and a cab driver in the San Francisco Bay Area of California between December of 1968 and October of 1969, killing five, wounding two others, never caught.

On May 11th, 1970, police in Norman, Oklahoma, found college students David Sloan and Cheryl Lynn Benham, dead in the trunk of Sloan's car, parked on a lover's lane called 10-mile flat. The couple have been missing since a Saturday frat party on May 9th, lasting alive around 11.30 p.m., both shot multiple times, defined by the state medical examiner as more than four or five times each. Sheryl was found nude, also suffered massive blunt force trauma to her head and face.

officers recovered 1622 caliber cartridge cases from the scene but they never found the weapon or the shooter and the case also remains unsolved August 22nd, 1990, a knife-wielding stalker killed young lovers Andy Atkinson and Cheryl Henry while they were parked on a lonely cul-de-sac outside of Houston, Texas. The attacker bound Atkinson to a nearby tree cut his throat before he raped Henry and slit her throat as well.

Unsolved and there's so many more of these crimes. What drew these killers towards these couples? I don't know different reasons Some version of the same kind of jealousy They just fucking hate That they didn't have what these people had They didn't have somebody to fool around with Under the Stars, I don't know

Crazy that so many of them have gotten away with it Refocusing on this case I do think that UL Swinney was almost certainly the phantom I don't think he killed Virgil Sparks And shot Virgil's wife Katie But I do think he probably attacked the other three couples in their cars Hoping for some money Also taking out his anger and lust on

Three Poor Girls in the form of rape but what if it wasn't him what if someone else from town was the phantom and then they just got it out of their system and decided to stop that's not unheard of fucking freaks me out when these killers do that almost more than it does when they keep killing like some killers like a golden state killer joseph james d'angelo another former suck subject right did just stop at some point former suck uh subject dennis raider the btk killer he hadn't killed in 14 years and he's finally caught too busy raising kids working being active in his church to bind torture and kill more women wild that that's a thing. And now I'll stop speculating. Let's head to the takeaways where we will go over what we just heard and learn something new about all of this. Time suck. Top five takeaways. Number one, across four attacks over 10 weeks from February 22nd to May 3, 1946, someone or maybe someone's turned a small city not known to many outside of Texas, Arkansas, or Louisiana, into a place crawling with more law enforcement per capita than any other place in

America. Numerous different city, county, state law enforcement agencies all worked to find the killer along with the FBI and the Texas Rangers. Number two, while the phantom killer was never charged for the killings, most of those who worked on the case who were convinced that they knew who did it believed that local career criminal UL Swinney was behind the killings. Thanks to the confessions of his brand new wife, 21-year-old Peggy Lois Swinney, she was able to reveal a lot of information about the killings that had never been made public. She knew what happened to poor young Betty Joe Booker's saxophone and so much more. But for some reason, very confusing,

her confession is not enough to bring charges up against Swinney. Number three, how would I never heard of a Texas Ranger captain, Manuel Tarazas, lone wolf Gonzalez? Apparently he was the most handsome man in the world and tougher than the love child of Chuck Norris and Stephen Seagal

if that child had been raised by Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali. Number four, people have gotten to prison for counterfeiting Nichols. Knuckles. I had never thought of somebody counterfeiting. fitting small change before this week. I want to hear about a penny counterfeiter. Seems like that crime was a high-risk, low-reward kind,

as you will as Switty learned over and over and over again. Number five, new info in late 1976, a horror movie based on the Phantom Killer Murders, premiered in Texarkana before being released nationwide. The town that dreaded sundown. That's a fucking great name for a horror movie. It received generally negative reviews from critics, but was also a minor box office hit at the time,

grossing between 4 and 5 million against a total production budget of just 400,000. The film's poster art was painted with acrylic by graphic illustrator Ralph McQuarrie, then an unknown. Shortly after the town that dreaded sundown, though, he would go on to create the official movie posters for 1977's Closer Encounters of the Third Kind, 1978's Battlestar Galactica, 1985's Back to the Future, and all the posters for the original Star Wars trilogy.

Dude's a fucking legend now. uh the movie was pretty closely based on the real events a tagline on the original poster reads in nineteen forty six this man killed five people it's just like a drawing of a dude with a mask today he still lurks on the streets of texarkana well some locals really did not like that reference to the phantom still being out there hanging around town and in february of nineteen seventy seven texarkana city officials voted to file a lawsuit against the film's ad campaign mayor harvey Nelson explained the ad is too much. That's just not true.

There is objection that this whole thing will be spreading fear in the community. There are relatives of the victim still living here, and this is very unpleasant to them. Their lawsuit was not successful. It wasn't the only lawsuit. 1978, Mark Melton Moore, the brother

of real-life victim, Polly Ann Moore, took Charles B. Pierce, the film's director and producer, to court, for $1.3 million for invading his privacy. He claimed a sister who was portrayed as Emma Luke Cook in the film was depicted, quote, as a high school dropout and a woman with loose and low morals, when in fact none of such was true.

God, they're very fucking worried in this area back still in the 70s about women's, you know, fucking virginity or whatever. They were worried about, you know, reporting in the papers in the 40s that any of them had been sexually assaulted, worried about, you know, fucking being seen making out in the car or having sex is like a fucking terrible, just life-destroying depiction in the 70s. Anyway, he said in real life, Polly and Moore graduated high school at age of 16. well the court denied his claim in 1979

Mr. Moore filed again in 1980 the Texas Supreme Court the sixth court of civil appeals and Texarkana agreed again the film's producers did not invade his privacy he was not entitled to money the town would eventually make its peace with the movie and then begin to celebrate it in a sense

and Texarkana the film is now shown to the public at Spring Lake Parks near Halloween every year it's traditionally the last film shown for the annual fall movies in the park series which plays a film on each Thursday during October, the showing of the film, which has been a tradition since 2003, is a free event sponsored by the Texarkana, or Texarkana Department of Parks and Recreation, shown on October 23rd this past year.

Finally, a film of the same name was released in 2014, produced by Horror Masters, Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, and Ryan Murphy of American Horror Story fame. Referred to as a metaphysical sequel, it begins with a showing of the original movie at a drive-in movie theater in Texas Arcana, based on the movies in the Park Fall series, with the Phantom Killing two young lovers after they watched the 1976 movie. It's been compared to the Scream Movie franchise movies. If you're thinking about checking it out. Time suck.

Top five takeaways. The Phantom Killer and the Texarkana Moonlight Murders has been sucked. Killings that inspired two horror movies. I'm sorry if my voice is a little off today I could not drink enough water It gets so fucking dry here In the winter sometimes That I feels like I have drank

About 10 gallons of water today My body's like a little bit more A little bit more please A little bit more Thank you to the bad magic productions team For all their help in making time suck Thanks again to Queen of Bad Medic Lindsay Cummins for freeing up

My time to do things like this Taking care of everything else in our life Thanks to Logan Keith The Art Warlock Helping to publish this episode design and merch still for the store at bad magic productions.com. I did the research again myself this time. Felt good to dig in from the beginning after knocking the rust off

at doing that last week, but I will still lean on the researchers for most episodes. Also, thanks again to the all-seen eyes, moderating the cult of the curious private Facebook page, the Mod Squad, making sure Discord keeps running smooth, and everybody over at the TimeSucks subreddit and Bad Magic subreddit. And now let's head on over to this week's TimeSucker updates. updates get your time sucker updates uh i got a surprising amount of messages from either ultra marathoners

or people who are friends with ultramarathoners after the barclay marathons short sucked uh so i'll share one from smart sack alison schaefer who sent in a message to bojangles at timesuckpodcast.com with the subject line of my colleague dave a barclay finisher which is incredible and this dude is incredible uh dearest and wisest suckmaster. I've debated writing in many times over the last several years since I began listening to TimeSuck. And I even thought of writing in the other day when I attended a Christmas service with the Reverend Dr. Dick preaching. But when I saw the title of this week short suck, number 48, the Barclay Marathons, I knew that my time to email had officially come

because one of the finishers, because of one of the finishers you talked about. I'm a college professor in Virginia and was an undergraduate student at the university I now teach at. Our department had this zany professor who was a kind of famous around campus for his elective running class. This professor would run with and later bike with his beginning and advanced running classes twice a week, regardless of weather all across our campus, rain or shine, snow, ice, you name it. The running classes were out and about all over, zigzagging across sidewalks and open grassy areas, over the mountain trails, and sometimes around academic buildings. Unless you were part of the exercise science program or running class, students often had

absolutely no idea who the crazy guy yelling at his students and making them do laps around a single bush, yes, you read that right, was. As he got older, he didn't let his age stop him, even when he fell off his bike and came back to the classroom bleeding more than once. He inspired so many students to begin running, whether they were the next prodigy, or, like me, terrible at running. This wack-a-dittle professor was Dr. David Horton, my previous professor and colleague. He was a Barclay Marathon's finisher, the second ever. But to me, he was just Dave, my office neighbor. Dave has set many records in his running career after completing 160 and some Ultras.

The fuck. Completing the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail and crossing the country in so many ways on foot and on bike. He had a major cardiovascular surgery that limited his running, but that didn't stop him being an endurance athlete. And he continues biking to this day. He's had two movies made about him. One is available for free on YouTube. The other is available on DVD, which I'll mail you. you, if you're interested, is I have two copies.

Oh, thanks. Now, you don't need to mail me that, but that's so nice. I didn't know just how accomplished and popular he was until he and I got to talking one day about his ultra career over lunch. Dave Cassey tells me about all of his adventures, including this crazy race called the Barclay Marathons. He ran several times. He encouraged me to watch a documentary you talked about in the short stock this week, and wow, I couldn't believe he was one of 20 finishers.

He inspired me to begin trail running shortly after that, because if he could finish that race, I could get off my butt and just go enjoy. nature. One thing about Dave that I loved was that he was a bit like Las. He will shoot you straight about everything. He was no nonsense and loved to pick on people, but out of love. Dave told me I wasn't going to be a good runner, but he told me I would get better and kept encouraging me all throughout my journey. I would love to go to his office before classes began and tell him about my latest run or adventure, sitting there I would admire all his race bibs, his trophies through the years, and the artifacts he picked up along the way. Dave retired last spring, and although he and I disagreed on

a lot in terms of teaching. I miss seeing his face every day in the office. He directs several ultras to this day, including the Promised Land 50K, the mountain massacist 50K, and the Hellgate, 100K, 66.6.6 miles. He still bikes on his own and is around town, and I run into him from time to time. The last time I saw Dave, he was at Cece's Pizza, which I made fun of him for because he hates on junk food all the time. See the attached pick. No, that's great. I love that you ran into this guy at Cece's Pizza. Dave was at our university for 46 years. And to most, he was just a regular dude,

but to those in our department, he was a legend. Please see the post below about Dave being inducted into the American Ultra Running Hall of Fame by Facebook user Davey Crockett. I am pleased to announce that David Horton of Lynchburg, Virginia has been inducted into the American Ultra Running Hall of Fame as its 27th member.

David has contributed to the sport in so many ways as an elite roadrunner, elite mountain trail runner, FKT holder of extremely long trails model race director and above all an inspirational and driven teacher that has brought many hundreds of young people into the sport he has finished more than 160 ultras and won at least

40 of them that's wild including the first two hard rock 100s he was the second of only 20 people to have finished the Barclay Marathons and once held the fastest known times for the Appalachian Trail Pacific Crest Trail and the long trail in Vermont Jesus You could probably do a short suck

on Dave's life to be honest But I'll let you explore that Through the movies And stories told through them Thank you for all that you do And for the community that you and the team create I've enjoyed exploring new topics And learning about things

I would have never heard of otherwise I've had so many friends Or I've met Excuse me made so many friends Through the suck And I can't wait for the new year Of topics ahead Three out of five stars

Wouldn't change a thing Hail Nimrod, hail Lusufina Praise be to good boy Bo Jangels Your loyal meat sack Allison Man Allison I checked out just a bit of Dave's documentary, the runner David Horton's 2,700-mile run on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Jesus. Guys an endurance animal. Very inspiring. I love interviews with his wife and daughter in that doc, who clearly love him deeply, but also think he's fucking insane. They do not understand why he wants to fucking punish himself

in his body this way. 160 Ultras completed his un-rearing, and what, winning around 4,000. 40 of them? Oh my gosh. I would literally dread walking most of the races he has ran. I'm like, oh, this is going to fuck me up to walk this many miles. My feet are going to be destroyed.

One day when I have a little bit less weekly research and riding on my plate, I'm going to focus, you know, a lot more in self-care, you know, an anti-aging regimen, which will include some form of cardio, but I think I'm probably going to top out about three, four miles. I will be inspired by people like Dave Horton, who might not win against Father Time, but man, they certainly win more rounds than most, don't they? Thank you so much for sharing that. That guy's a beast. And now for one of the many messages that came in in response to the vigilante episode from a few weeks ago.

This one, sent him by an anonymous, truly badass boss bitch sack, with the subject line of vigilante thoughts and a personal story. Greetings, Bad Magic Family. I'd like to stay anonymous and four reasons you'll soon see. But I'm a young badass lady welder from North Dakota. this is my first time writing in the vigilantee suck got me fired up again about something I've been internally struggling with

for years my cousin is on the sex offender registry for some shit he definitely did as a rape survivor not by this cousin I've had to repeatedly re-examine my thoughts and feelings about him and the issues related to the registry

excuse me as a whole overall I am thankful that the registry exists as I think any act deplorable enough to land you on a sex crime to land you a sex crime conviction should be easily accessible information to the public. I've personally used it in the past to screen new hires at previous jobs after a situation

where a high-level sex offender tried to lure me to his house when I was younger and more naive. The biggest issue I hold in relation to the registry is the potential for familial collateral damage, for lack of a better term. My cousin is unable to rent from a lot of places in town because of his status, so after getting out of prison, he moved in with my grandma. She's less than 100 pounds, has survived three strokes over the past couple of decades, so suffice to say she's very frail. I often worry about somebody finding their address on the registry

and deciding to dole out some punishment on him only for my grandma to get involved and hurt in the process. Nobody in our family asked for him to do what he did, and we are all very ashamed of the choices he has made. Personally, I wouldn't really care if he got beat up, but the thought of my grandma's suffering harm in the process makes me sick to my stomach. That's what's so tough.

Most people who commit sex offenses have families waiting at home who could be put in harm's way because of the horrible actions a loved one has committed. I still don't really know what to do or think or what's best. Like all things in life, it's an issue that's messy and gray

instead of black and white. Now for a sort of funny story. It starts out dark. I was raped by my then boyfriend when I was 14. I was suicidal at that point. And the only thing I found valuable in myself was the fact

that it would make him happy every time he assaulted me. I didn't see it as assault when it happened even though I definitely resisted and told him no. I started going to an outpatient program after my parents discovered that I had been self-harming and he broke up with me at the same time saying I'd become too much to handle. Fast forward, almost a year later, I'd gotten some help, I was seeing somebody new who was nothing but wonderful to me.

I still hadn't told anyone about what happened to me, but I finally worked up the courage to tell my new boyfriend. After telling him, he said, why don't we teach him a lesson? His mom was into some weird diet stuff, so he had many cans of oysters in his house, and he knew that nobody would notice if one went missing. My rapist and I were both in band, and everyone kept their instruments in the storage room connected to the band room. The lockers were not secure. They were just open cubbies

that anybody could get to and there were no cameras. One day after school, I went into the band room, which was already part of my normal routine, so nobody would think anything of it if they saw me. I quickly grabbed his trumpet case from his locker, cracked open a can of oysters,

poured the juice all over the felt lining. The next day, he went to get his trumpet at the start of band class and shit hit the fan. He started freaking out, as the smell slowly permeated the entire room. Everybody thought it was hilarious as he was kind of a preppy jerk who constantly talked about his family's company and wealth. This happened at the end of the school year.

It apparently took the whole summer of airing it out for the smell to go away. After that, I just started bullying the fuck out of him for the rest of high school. It even ran into college. He went to the same school I did, was even in the same dorm as me, just one floor below. I had started to open up more and more about what he had put me through years earlier, and everybody turned against him. He got bullied out of the music.

program within the first year ended up graduating late to top it all off his grandpa recently liquidated the company so the business degree he spent five years and 250 plus thousand dollars on could no longer be used to carry on his family's precious legacy i hear that he's working part-time as a parts runner at an auto shop now in contrast i dropped out after my first semester event she went to welding school uh i've been debt free for a few years love what i do i'm in a loving relationship with my boyfriend of four years we live together with our three feline fur babies If you didn't know about the circumstances that got me where I am today, it would look like I was a high school bully who ruined the reputation of someone whose family is successful and

well respected in the community. In my eyes, however, I deliver justice to somebody who never got in any legal trouble for what he did to me. Vigilantism comes in many forms, and I hope the story of my version, albeit a watered down version, was entertaining for you guys. Hope the length and girth wasn't too much for you to take. Keep up the awesome work, three to five stars, anonymous. I love this message so much anonymous First off I've never really thought about how vigilante justice

even when delivered to the right person for the right reasons can still cause a lot of collateral damage to people like your grandma so thank you for giving me something to think about for raising that point and I wish you could just be like in movies

where like you just fucking kill this person and everybody's like yay you did the right thing and everybody's lives get better also I love your example of how vigilantism can come in many forms right sometimes not always but sometimes karma does swing back around and it just fucks the right person and i love that your abuser's life has seemingly just crumbled and fallen apart while your life has soared i wish every story could be like that very satisfying keep being a badass uh love that

you love your job and give those fur babies some pets for me and now let's close on uh giving somebody a shout out who really could use something to smile about right now sweet sucker thaddeus send in a message with the subject line of suck on this update and they wrote Salutation Suckmaster General Longtime listener but my wife Morgan is the longer time listener We've loved bonding over your episodes together Plus Scare to Death Hi Lindsay

And I have a request if possible or not annoying My wife's younger brother was murdered On December 29th of 2024 And it has been extremely hard on her He was only 19 and more like a son to her Because her dad didn't raise any of his kids And their mom also passed away in a cut coma years ago oh my god so background aside i would just want to request some sort of shout

to my wife morgan during a time sucker update she listens all the way through each episode so i know it'd be a fun surprise for her if not totally cool keep on sucking uh jeez first off that is you are so nice i love that you sent this message uh with a tone of you know if you can't do it no problem i mean imagine a world full of people as kind and reasonable as thadius sounds like heaven on earth And finally, holy shit, Morgan, I am so sorry that you experienced like what you did. I cannot imagine. I hope they caught who did it, but I imagine even if they did, you know, it doesn't make what happened hurt any less. So I hope that you are, thank you for listening.

Thanks for loving this show. I hope your 2025 was so much better than how your 2024 ended. And I hope that you have the fucking best 2026 of, you know what, of anybody. Just go win the lotto. Go win the fucking billion dollar lotto, whatever's right now. then email me that message saying like, hey, I now listen to TimeSuck from my fucking private jets, you know, Bluetooth's whatever, a million dollar speaker system. I don't know, something crazy.

I'm listening to, I now listen to TimeSuck from the top of my pile of gold coins that are not counterfeit, something like that. Thanks, everybody for the messages. Next time, suckers, I needed that. We all did. Well, thank you for listening to another Bad Magic Production. podcast i'll try and drink 75 gallons of water before my next episode hopefully i'll remember that so i uh my voice is a little better uh be sure and rate and review time suck if you haven't already

don't terrorize at town for 10 weeks this week please don't but if you do let me know how you fit 10 weeks into one week because that is very impressive and keep on sucking And now I'd like to leave you with an excerpt from an audiobook I came across. A audiobook made of an uncovered 1950s romance novel, allegedly written by former Texarkana Gazette editor, J.Q. Mahafee. It is called The Texas Love Ranger. The Tall Tan Rider. rode into town on his noble white steed. He stepped down as gracefully as a ballerina,

this gallant gun-slinging gentleman of Spanish extraction, and dusted off his spotless khaki suit, an immaculately white ten-gallon hat. His twin pearl-handled silver revolvers glinted in the day's fading light. My heart stopped beating. My breath froze in my chest. as he approached. It was as if all my hopes, all my dreams,

especially the wet ones, had taken human form and were walking towards me now. When he took my comparatively soft hand and as well manicured but calloused, firm but gentle counterpart, my knees went weak. My eyes locked with his two steel blue worlds within worlds.

I wanted to both run and hide from their probing intensity. and also jump into his muscled arms and never be let go of. Devour me, lone wolf, I thought. Make me your next meal. Ravage my body and conquer my soul. And hey, watch out, black barts drawing his weapon, I think! Before I could finish,

the wolf had vanquished his foe, who had dared to pop out from the shadows to silence him only to be silenced himself instead. I'd had a vagina it would have been wet enough to drown us both. Instead, my member became nearly as firm, nearly as tall and proud as the God on earth who now stood before me.