Latest / The conspiracy / The UNSOLVED Texarkana Moonlight Massacre

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The UNSOLVED Texarkana Moonlight Massacre · The conspiracy

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Nightfall once meant safety in tex Sarcana, the cool air
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: after a long day and the comfort of a routine.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: But in nineteen forty six, darkness became something else entirely,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and from the edges of Lover's Lane to the windows
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: of farmhouses, a faceless predator stocked the innocent. And he
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: didn't leave a name or a trace, only bodies and fear.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: But the town gave him a name, the Phantom, and
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: what began as a single strange attack soon grew into
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a reign of terror that pushed an entire community into hysteria,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and his shadow still hangs over tech Sarcana today. Cry conspiracy, cults,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: serial killers, and murder all things that I love to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: consume and I know you do. Do you sick, twisted, beautiful,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: intellectually minded for me? Yeah? Yeah, yea yeah. I put
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: a little sauce on it today for you. How'd you
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: like that? Also, I'm sick, sorry in advance for my
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: if I sound nasal, I will try to mitigate any
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: coughing and sniffling for this. But yes, we are talking
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: about a case that is just haunting overall. So without
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go mock five down
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: the highway, slam on the breaks, and must through the
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: swimshield into this Texarcana case together. Texarcana in nineteen forty
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: six was actually two cities bound together by name and
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: culture Texarcanada Texas and Texarkana Arkansas or Arkansas. Why is
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Arkansas called Arkansas and Kansas called Kansas. Shouldn't it be Kansas? Then?
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Why make it make sense? People? All right? But anyway,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: together they had around a little more than forty thousand
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: residents and the population was majority white, around sixty six
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: percent in fact, but with a very large African American minority,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: which was about thirty one percent. And they were living
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: under the harsh restrictions of Jim Crow segregation. And this
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: was a community where the racial divides of the South
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: were firmly in place, dictating everything from schools to social spaces.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Yet on the surface, Texarcana was a typical friendly Southern
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: town because World War II had just ended, bringing an
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: economic boom, and massive military installations like the Red River
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Army Depot and the Lone Star Ammunition Plant had sprung
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: up nearby during the war, pumping money and jobs into
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that area. So the wars end meant thousands of young
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: men and hometown soldiers were returning, and many of these
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: veterans carried invisible wounds what we know now as PTSD,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: but in those days there was little, if any recognition
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: or treatment for combat fatigue. It was basically suck it
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: up and go to the luny bin back then. So
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: they came back to a community that still felt safe
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: and innocent, the kind of place where people left doors
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: unlocked and spent warm evenings on their front porches sipping
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: iced tea, and a location in time would suggest Texarkana
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: residents considered their town peaceful and god fearing. So in
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty six, Texarkana's social life was vibrant in its
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: own wholesome way. On weekends, young people flocked to community dances,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: especially those hosted by local VFW veterans of Foreign Wars
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Hall and a popular attraction was a band called Jerry
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Atkins and His Rhythmary's, which played swing music for returning
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: soldiers and their sweethearts. And movies were another big draw,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and downtown theaters screamed the latest films and a recent
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: horror flick like House of Dracula might have been the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: scariest thing on anyone's mind before nineteen forty six, and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: maybe the war that just happened. Also, and teenagers also
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: enjoyed cruising, drive in restaurants, and spending time that secluded
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: lovers lanes on the edge of town where couples could
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: park under the moonlight and do the Devil's Tango if
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: you Will or play checkers. I don't know what they
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: were doing, all right. And for those seeking and even
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: spicier nightlife, there were a few rough nightclubs slash roadhouses
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: with girly floor shows, but those were on the fringes.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: But overall, tech Sarkana's entertainment scene was likely typical of
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: a small southern town. It's a modest besides the fringes
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of town, community, orientated and very safe, and people felt
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: comfortable just going out at night. But no one could
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: imagine that within months their town would be gripped by terror,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: with nightfall bringing fear instead of music and laughter. So
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: on Friday night, February twenty second, nineteen forty six, twenty
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: five year old Jimmy Hollis and his nineteen year old
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: girlfriend Mary Jean Larry parked on a lonely dirt lane
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: off Richmond Road on the Texas side of town, and
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: it was nearly midnight, and the area was known as
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: a lover's Lane, and it was about three hundred feet
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: from the nearest house, and the young couple had just
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: seen a movie downtown and just wanted a little privacy.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: So in the still darkness, their car's headlights were off
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: and the two were likely lost in conversation or embrace,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: so they did not notice when a car pulled up
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: and parked nearby, and suddenly a blinding flashlight beam pierced
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the driver's side window and a figure stood there, a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: man wearing a white cloth mask that looked like a
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: pillowcase with eye holes, and he was also armed with
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: a pistol. So Jimmy and Mary Jean would freeze since
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: shock as the mask intruder barked commands at them, saying
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: I don't want to kill you, so do what I say,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and he would order them out of the car, and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Jimmy fumbled to comply, and that's when the attacker gave
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: a bizarre demand and he would tell Jimmy to take
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: off your goddamn butches, and confused but terrified Jimmy removed
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: his pants, and without warning, the man slammed the butt
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: of his gun into Jimmy's skull two absolutely savage blows,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: and the impact was so loud that Mary Jean later
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: said she thought it was a gunshot, but it would
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: be the sound of Jimmy's skull fracturing, just absolutely brutal.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: So Jimmy would naturally collapse to the ground with a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: cracked skull, stunned but still alive, and the assailant would
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: then turn on to Mary Jean, and Mary Jean frantically
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: showed him a wallet, com pleading that they had no money,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: assuming that this was a robbery of some sort, but
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the man wasn't interested in cash. Instead, he struck Mary
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Jean with a pistol, knocking her down, and the attacker
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: then told Mary Jean to stand up and he would
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: say one so Mary Jean would stumble away in a
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: blind panic down the road, but the man chased her
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and caught up to her, angrily accusing her of trying
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: to escape when he had told her to run in
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the first place. I can't even imagine the terror that
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: was going through Mary Jean's head at this point, and
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: in that eerie moment, it became clear he was toying
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: with her or tormenting her for sport, and he would
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: be her again, and then, in an act of pure cruelty,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: would ask her with the barrel of the gun, and
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Mary Jean's pain and terror was unimaginable at this point.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: But then suddenly headlights appeared in the distance, and the
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: assailant would realize he was about to be caught, and
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: he would vanish into the darkness, slipping away as quickly
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: as he appeared, and Mary Jean eventually managed to get
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: help by reaching a nearby house, and Jimmy, despite his
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: severe head injuries, had regained consciousness and flagged down a
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: passerby on the road, and by twelve thirty am Bowie
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: County Sheriff Bill Presley and several officers arrived on the scene,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: so both victims were rushed to the hospital, and Jimmy
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: in critical condition with multiple skull fractures and Mary Jean
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: with head wounds profound trauma. But incredibly and luckily both
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: people survived the attack, so they had looked their attacker
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: in the face, or at least in the face of
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: his mask, and lived to tell the tale, and in
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the days that followed, Sheriff Presley tried to get detailed
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: descriptions of the assailant from the victims, but even this
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: turned strange because Jimmy Hollis and Mary Jean Larry gave
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: conflicting accounts of their attacker's race and appearance. Mary Jean
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: insisted the man was African American, saying she glimpsed dark
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: skin through the eyeholes of the mask. But Jimmy, however,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: was convinced the man was white, perhaps a tanned white
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: man around thirty years old, and he wasn't even certain
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the guy wore a mask at all. But both agreed
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: on one point, and that is that the attacker was
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: about six feet tall. So these discrepancies unsettled investigators. Some
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: officers wondered if the young couple might actually know their
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: attacker and were covering before him in some weird way,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: which is, why would you cover for a guy that
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: literally almost killed both of them? But they were just
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: perplexed on how different the descriptions were. But I mean,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: you're looking at one guy got his skull beat in
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: with the butt of a gun, like he's not he's
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: you can't trust somebody who's just had their skull beaten
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: in with a gun, and also Mary Jean also had
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: her skull hit with the gun. I feel like it's
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: you know, obviously you have to get these descriptions, but
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's not that far fetched to believe
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: that they're both like completely out of their wits on
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: what actually happened, given you know that their skulls were
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: beat in with the butt of a gun different times, though,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: what do I know? But overall it did appear that
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: the two had been re attacked at random, you know,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: if it wasn't one of their buddies. Again, weird theory.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I don't like it. And before Jimmy Hollis was even
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: out of the hospital, he made a prophetic statement to
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Shareff Presley, saying, if you don't find him, he's going
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to kill someone. So Jimmy feared the crazed man who
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: nearly him to death would strike again, and this time
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: the victims might not be so lucky. So Sheriff Bill
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Presley faced an immediate challenge investigating the Hollis Larry attack,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and in nineteen forty six, criminal forensics was rudimentary by
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: modern standards and Presley's small town department was not equipped
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: with advanced labs, and forensic work mostly meant taking eyewitness
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: statements and maybe comparing bullet casings or fingerprints by visual inspection.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: There was no computers or DNA back then, as you know.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: But still the sheriff took the case very, very seriously,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and he publicly warned citizens to be cautious, but initially
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: he stopped short of linking this incident to anything bigger.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: In fact, local newspapers and police at first treated it
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: as an isolated, if bizarre and the media began to
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: report the incident with headlines such as shag girl not
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: lonely road. However, Presley did not forget Jimmy Hollis's ominous warning,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and unbeknownst to everyone, the nightmare was only beginning, and
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: the hooded man in the shadows was still out there,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and as Jimmy feared, he was about to kill. I
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: think this is a good spot to take a pause,
• 11:19
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• 11:23
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• 11:32
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• 13:20
  Speaker 1: back to it. So, only one month after the Hollis
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Larry attack, the man struck again and on Sunday morning,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: March twenty fourth, nineteen forty six, the night of Saturday
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: March twenty third, leading into early March twenty fourth, to
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: be specific, text Arcana would awake to the grim news
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of a double homicide and the victims were Richard L. Griffin,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: who was twenty nine, and his girlfriend, Polly Ann Moore,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: who's seventeen. So Richard Griffin was a war veteran from
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the Navy who had served his country and recently come home,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: and Polly Moore was a local high school girl, vivacious
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and just seventeen years old, with her whole life ahead
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of her, and they had been dating for only six weeks.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: And on Saturday night the couple went out on a
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: typical date dinner or perhaps a midnight movie at Texarkana's
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Paramount Theater, then a late night stop at a diner
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: for coffee, and sometime after one am in the early
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: hours of March twenty fourth, they drove to a secluded
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: lover's lane and Richard parked in a wooded area about
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: half a mile outside the city limits, and it was
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: dark and damp and quiet, and there in the pre
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: dawned stillness, the masked man found them. And at around
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: nine am that Sunday, a passing motorist noticed a vehicle
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: pulled off the road in an odd spot, and out
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: of curiosity, he stopped to check if the car was
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: broken down or if anyone inside needed help, but what
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: he discovered made his blood run cold, and Richard Griffin
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: and Polly Moore were dead, specifically to death inside of
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the car, and the motorists went off to find a
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: phone and call the authorities immediately, and when officers arrived,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: they found a horrifying scene. Was in the front between
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the seats on his knees, head resting on his crossed
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: hands and pockets turned inside out, and Polly was sprawled
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: face down in the back seat and both had been
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: shot in the back of the execution style and blood
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: soaked the ground nearby, and a thirty two caliber cartridge
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: casing was found, suggesting the murder weapon was a thirty
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: two handgun, and investigators deduced that the killer likely ambushed
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the couple while they sat in the car or just
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: after they exited, and there were signs of struggle as well,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: because on one of the car's running boards congealed blood indicated
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: someone had bled heavily while climbing in or out, and
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: a large patch of blood on the ground nearby, along
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: with a blood trail, showed that Richard and Polly were
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: probably shot outside the vehicle on a blanket and then
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: dragged or positioned back in the car afterward. So this
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: eerie staging positioning the bodies as if peacefully resting, suggested
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the killer took his time after the murders, and the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: town obviously was horrified and shocked from this news, and
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: rumors swirled that Polly had been espied amongst the brutal
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: crime because of the brutality scene in the Hollis Larry case. However,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: later reports indicated there was no sign of SPA or
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: any sort of torque in this double murder specifically, but
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: still the sheer, viciousness and seeming randomness terrified everyone, and unfortunately,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: critical evidence from the Griffin War crime scene was lost
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: or compromised before it could be properly collected. Just classic
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: in those days, it seems to happen just all the time.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: But news of the double murder spread like wildfire on
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: that Sunday, and in the hours before police secured the site,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: curious locals and onlookers had tramped through the area like
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: a bunch of the idiots. I could say that now
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: they didn't know anything about DNA, but it's it's just frustrating.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: It's just frustrating. I feel like, you know, though not
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: to go into a crime scene, I don't know, what
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: do I know? And even worse is that in overnight
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: rain had fallen so that potentially washed away footprints or
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: tire tracks that the killer could have potentially left. And
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: by the time investigators combed the scene, they found only
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: a few useful clues, namely the blood soaked blanket and
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the trail of blood. No fingerprints were recovered on the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: car or the casing that could be traced to a suspect,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and the killer had left virtually nothing behind except bullets
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and blood. So it was just a very dark foreshadowing
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: because he could strike and vanish without a trace, like
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: a phantom, hence the name. In fact, the local press
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: soon seized on that very word, but at this point
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: in late March, the newspapers had not yet dubbed him
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the phantom that would after the next killings. So with
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: two people dead in cold blood, the Texarcana police forces
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: realized that they had a killer on the loose and
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: urgently needed help. So the investigation immediately became a multi
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: agency effort, and law enforcement from both Texas and Arkansas
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I mean Arkansas. Sorry, I actually didn't say that ironically anyway,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: coordinated since Texarcanas straddled the state line and the killer
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: clearly wasn't respecting any sort of jurisdiction, so the Texas
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: sides Bowie County Sheriff Bill Presley teamed up with Miller County,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Arkansas officials, and the Texas Rangers sent to their top men,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: including the famed Captain Manuel Lone Wolf Gonzuelas to Texas
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Arcana what a sick name, and the Arkansas State Police
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: dispatched detectives like Max Tackett to assist, and even the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: FBI eventually became involved, helping with ballistics and fingerprint checks
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: across state lines. But within days and there were dozens
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: of officers working around the clock, and twenty additional state
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: troopers from Arkansas were also brought in to bolster the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: local ranks, and investigators had their work cut out for
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: them because in nineteen forty six, there were no surveillance
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: cameras and no DNA tests, and detectives relied on shoe
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: leather and interviews, and by the end of the case,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: over four hundred suspects would be questioned or arrested in
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: connection with the murder, as they chased every single lead
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: and forensic limitations meant they focused on ballistic matches, specifically,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: like the thirty two caliber bullets from the Griffin Moore
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: scene were compared under a microscope to see if they
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: came from the same gun as any other known crime,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: but at this point they didn't yet have another shooting
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: to compare it to because Hollis and Larry hadn't been shot,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: so they held onto the casings and investigators also explored
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: latent fingerprint evidence, and references in the FBI's vault materials
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: suggest that fingerprints and bio metrics were indeed part of
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: the case file, but none of those prints matched any
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: no criminals in their local files, so the phantom had
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: no record that they could find. He had never been
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: imprisoned at this point, and he was still out there.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: But leeds would pour in and some well meaning citizens
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: flooded police with tips and accusations, and in those first
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: frantic weeks, false confessions also began, and at least one
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: man and ultimately nine individuals over the whole investigation, claimed
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: to be the murderer. But these stories didn't check out,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and local jails briefly held men picked up for questioning
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: when they couldn't immediately explain their whereabouts, and as the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: case escalated, the press was getting more involved and the
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: public just grew more fearful because after the first double murder,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: tech Sarcana realized with dread that Jimmy Hollis's warning had
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: been right. A predator was stalking the town's lover's lanes
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: and he was far from finished. So Bowie County Sheriff
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: William Bill Presley was the chief lawman on the Texas
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: side of Texarcana and found himself thrust into the biggest
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: case of his life. And Presley was a solid, methodical lawman,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: a small town sheriff who was suddenly faced with a
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: potential serial killer, and he, as we know, was the
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: first on the scene and was the first to coordinate
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: any sort of response to the attacks, starting with Hollis
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: and Larry, and Presley did his best to preserve evidence.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: He personally pocketed a key piece of evidence from one scene,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: keeping it secret until a suspect mentioned it, which is
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: just like high class detective work. But he was also
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: extremely overwhelmed. This was unprecedented terror for a town like Texarcana,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: and his office had limited manpower and resources, so recognizing this,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Presley readily welcomed outside help, as we know, but as
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: a killer eluded capture week after week, Presley voiced the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: town's frustration, saying, this killer is the luckiest person I
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: have ever known. No one sees him, here's him in time,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: or can identify him in any way. He would tell
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: reporters the phantom just seemed to disappear like smoke after
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: each crime, and Sheriff Presley's name would later become part
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: of the legend. But no figure cuts a more flamboyant
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: image than Texas Ranger Captain Manuel T. Lone Wolf Gonzales.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Let's take a little moment from the video to talk
• 22:27
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• 24:47
  Speaker 1: So in nineteen forty six, Gonzalaz was already a legend.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: He was a veteran ranger known for his white hat
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: and dramatic flare, and he arrived in tech Sarcana after
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: the first double murder, and the Lone Wolf quickly made
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: a striking impression and the media would quickly gravitate to him,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: because we know the media loved drama, but here was
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: a hollywood esque lawmen to match the sensational story that
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: they were getting. And Gonzalez did not shy away from
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the limelight, and he gave colorful quotes to reporters vowing
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: that the killer would be caught and boasting of the
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: rangers prowess, and the local newspapers ate that shit up
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes. However, some colleagues felt Gonzalez was something
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: of a publicity seeker, more interested in looking good for
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the press than in collaborative detective work, but he was
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: often photographed on the case, and some local officers also
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: grumbled that Lone Wolf spent more time escorting reporters, especially
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: attractive female reporters, around than actually chasing any leads. But
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: despite the criticism, Gonzalez was an experienced investigator and did
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: contribute to the case with things like decoy operations, which
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: we'll discuss in a bit, and Gonzalez would patrol back
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: roads night after night as well, and he was also
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the one to publicly urge residents to arm themselves for protection,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and famously advising people to oil up their guns and
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: see if they're loaded, and to not hesitate to shoot
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: if they felt threatened. So this emboldened already anxious citizens,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: perhaps more than was wise, but reflected Gonzalez's bold, take
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: no prisoner's persona. So by April nineteen forty six, fear
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: had started to take hold in tech Sarcana, but more
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: was yet to come. And on the night of April thirteenth,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty six, a Saturday, fifteen year old Betty Joe
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Booker was playing her saxophone at the local VFW club
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: dance with the Jerry Atkins band The Rhythmary's, and Betty
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Joe was something of a local darling, an outgoing, talented
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: high school junior and formerly little Miss tech Sarcana, known
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: for her musical skills and bright personnelity. And at around
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: one thirty am, after the dance ended in the early
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: hours of April fourteenth, which was Sunday morning, Betty Joe's
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: friend Paul Martin, aged sixteen, arrived to pick her up
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and Paul was a popular boy, a high school junior
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: and an old friend of Betty Joe's, and he had
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: been out with other friends earlier that night and then
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: swung by to give Betty Joe a ride home. So
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: the two of them left in Paul's coop, but instead
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: of going straight home, they decided to take a little detour,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: and it was common for teens to go to Spring
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Lake Park, a lover's lane type area on the north
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: edge of Texark, Canada, Texas, and Paul and Betty Joe
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: headed in the direction. At unknownst to them, they were
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: being hunted, and by dawn, the young couple had not
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: returned home and their families got extremely worried, and at
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: approximately six thirty am on April fourteenth, a horrifying discovery
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: was made. A family out for an early Sunday drive
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: came upon Paul Martin's body lying by North Park Road
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: just outside of Spring Lake Park, and Paul was deceased
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and shipped four times, and investigators later noted he was
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: shipped through the nose, his ribs, right hand and the
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: back of his neck, and his car was nowhere in sight.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: So a search party immediately formed to look for Betty Joe,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and it took hours of combing through the woods and
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: fields in the vicinity, but at around eleven thirty a m.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Two searchers found Betty Joe Booker's body behind a tree
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: in a wooded area almost two miles away from where
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Paul was found, and she was lying on her back,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: fully clothed, with her hand in the pocket of her overcoat,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: as if she might have been trying to shield herself
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: or even keep her coat closed. And Betty Joe had
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: been twice, once in the chest and once in her face,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: and the positioning suggested she may have been shot where
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: she was found, or possibly moved a very short distance,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: but it was clear that this attack had unfolded in
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: a very chaotic way, and the two teenagers ended up
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: a considerable distance apart, and Paul's car had been driven
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: off completely separately. But Paul's car would eventually be located
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: about three miles away from Booker's body and about a
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: mile and a half away from his own body, near
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the edge of Spring Lake Park, with the keys still
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: in the ignition, and it had been left parked and
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: presumably ran out of gas, and this indicated the killer
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: likely commandeered the vehicle at some point, perhaps to confuse
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: investigators or to make his own escape, then just abandoned it,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: and investigators pieced together the events as best they could,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: so it appeared Paul Martin's car was parked at Spring
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Lake Park when the attack began, so likely the killer
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: approached them just as he had the other victims by
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: surprise under the cover of darkness, and there was evidence
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: of a struggle. Paul Martin courageous kid, may have fought
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: or fled, and blood on the opposite side of the
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: road from his body indicated Paul was moving while bleeding,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: which supports the idea he was shot and still tried
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: to escape or possibly draw fire away from Betty Joe Booker.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And Betty Joe Booker's body suggested the killer had taken
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: time with her, because the fact that her coat was
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: buttoned and hand in pocket could mean she was made
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to button it or she did it in a desperate
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: attempt at modesty or warmth before being killed. There was
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: also evidence of possible s because reports note that Betty
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Joe's body did have some bruising in those parts and
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: there was presence of sp and this indicated she likely
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: suffered S or attempted S four or after death, and
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: forensic analysis in nineteen forty six could confirm, but not DNA,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: so it told them about the crime, but there's nothing
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: they could do with that. Evan and her saxophone was
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: also missing, and only her saxophone case was found at
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the crime scene initially, and even that wasn't found until
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: much later in the search. So had the phantom taken
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: it as a trophy? Potentially the absence of the saxophone
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: would later prove to be a key clue. For now,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: it was just one more bizarre facet of this double murder,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: But one consistency emerged, and that is that ballistic tests
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: showed that the thirty two caliber bullets that killed Betty, Joe,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and Paul matched the same weapon that killed Richard and Paully,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: So it was the same gun linking all four murders,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: a thirty two caliber pistol, So that was definitive proof
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: that the crimes were connected. So the killer, the serial killer,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: now had now murdered four people with the same firearm
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: and the brutality of these killings sent Texarkana into even
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: more shock, and the local newspapers ran sensational headline, and
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: this was now a second double homicide in three weeks,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: and the pattern was undeniable. A killer was targeting young
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: couples at night, and the use of the car and
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the separation of the victims showed an escalation in audacity,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: because the phantom felt confident enough to take control of
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: a vehicle and drive around after committing to murders. Just
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: a sick sick so this was a frightening development. He
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: was growing bold and just more unpredictable, and the community's
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: sense of security was completely shattered at this point. And
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: it was after the second double murder that the press
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: gave the unknown perpetrator the famous name, the Phantom Killer.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: And on April sixteenth, nineteen forty six, the Texarcana Daily
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: News and Gazette ran banner headlines about a phantom killer
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: who was on a spree. And the name Phantom was
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: coined by Texarkana Gazette editor Calvin Sutton, who later admitted
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: he chose it or dramatic effect, big shocker and because
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: it captured how the killer seemed to strike and disappear
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: like a ghost. But Sutton's sensational moniker stuck immediately and
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: The newspapers realized that fear sold papers, and they leaned
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: into it, and one gazette article infamously warned sixmaniac hunted,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: terrifying residents with the idea that a crazed predator was loose.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Just scumb media is just scum, and another screamed that
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the phantom killer eludes officers as investigation of slayings pressed
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: as the officers and rangers failed to catch the phantom
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and journalists from outside the region descended on tech Sarcana
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: as well, and the story went national and even international,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: and many correspondents came to the small town to cover
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: what they dubbed the Texarcana Moonlight urders. The case had
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: all the elements of a lurid true crime, young lovers
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: of hysteria, this masked killer incompetence of powerlessness of police
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: and a catchy nickname. Nobody's thinking about the actual people
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: that lost their lives, the children that lost their lives,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: and the people that are still alive and that were
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: severely affected by this killer. There's just no thought. It's
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: just all about money and selling stuff. It's disgusting, it
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: makes me sick. In radio news broadcasts further spread the alarm,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and since radio was the primary home entertainment in nineteen
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: forty six, families across the Southwest listened intently to updates
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: about the Phantom, and in Texar Canada itself, rumors became
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: even more wild and pervasive thanks to radio and newspaper
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: coverage feeding the frenzy, and Gazette's managing editor JQ. Mahaffi
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: would later reflect years afterward that the paper may have
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: contributed to hysteria more than it should have. God shit,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: But at the time, the imperative to inform the public
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: and frantically to sell newspapers drove the coverage, and the
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: result was a kind of mass hysteria that modern techs
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: arcana had never experienced. And the Phantom killer dominated conversation
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: in churches, barber shops and dinner tables. So with the
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Phantom nickname, he became almost a supernatural boogeyman in people's minds,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: an invincible, unseen force that could be anywhere in the
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: dark at any time. And as April turned into May,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: the community braced itself wondering when and where the Phantom
• 35:31
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• 35:34
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  Speaker 1: get back to it. So by late April nineteen forty six,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Tech Sarcano was in the grip of mass hysteria, as
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: we know, and after the brutal murders of Betty Joe
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Booker and Paul Martin in unprecedented fear swept the Twin
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Cities and people who once left doors unlocked were now
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: barricading themselves inside their own homes at night, and gun
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: stores and hardware shops had shelves cleared within days, and
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: citizens bought every firearm and box of ammunition that was available,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: and stores also sold out of window shades, blinds, and
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: padlocks and guard dogs were in high demand as families
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: sought any form of protection, and at dusk, Tech Sarcana
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: turned into a ghost town, and businesses that used to
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: stay open late, like movie theaters or cafes, began closing
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: earlier and earlier, some by six or seven PM, and
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: the downtown midnight movie showings were canceled altogether, and curfews
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: were informally imposed by parents on their children and by
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: business owners on their establishments, and the infamous phrase the
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: town that Head and Sundown, which would later title an
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: actual movie, was already true in spirit because when the
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: sun set, everyone went home, locked their doors and prayed
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: for morning, and commerce suffered in surrounding areas as well,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: and one report even noted that even businesses in nearby
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: towns felt the impact of texarcanispear driven shutdowns because the
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: normally robust social life with dances and picnics and dates
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: and drive ins, was utterly paralyzed by fear, and with
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: police stretched thin and no culprit cot, many townsfolk decided
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: to take matters into their own hands, and teenagers especially
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: responded in a mix of fear and bravado, and groups
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: of high school boys armed themselves with deer rifles and
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: formed vigilanti patrols, driving around at night hoping to confront
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: the phantom. And this was extremely dangerous and not to
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: mention illegal, but it just showed the level of panic
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: that even kids were hunting in the hunter and homeowners too,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: sat on their porches and rocking chairs, cradling shotguns, eyes
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: just scanning the darkness. And it got to the point
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: where police responding to calls had to be extremely careful
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: approaching houses because officers would pull into a driveway at night,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: then stand up in the patrol's car headlights and shout, hey,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: it's the fuzz to avoid getting shot by a jumpy resident.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: And the police even adopted a protocol of using their
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: siren briefly when arriving to worn homeowners, which is smart
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: because Texarcanada just became a trigger happy town and the
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: local police had to caution citizens about this over zealous
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: armed vigilance and Texas Ranger Gonzala's Lone Wolf himself publicly
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: warned against vigilantism, saying it's a good way to get killed,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: and officers knew the last thing they needed was in
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: accidental shooting or some teenager mistakingly killing an innocent person
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: in the dark. Yet in truth, officials quietly admitted that
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: heavily armed populace was a double edged sword because on
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: one hand, the phantom would have a hard time breaking
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: into any home without facing a hail of bullets, but
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, the extreme fear could cause tragic
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: and deadly mistakes, so it was chaos born of fear,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: So the entire community was literally on a hair trigger.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: But thankfully, despite some close calls, there were no known
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: fatality vigilante accidents, thank goodness. But the tension was palpable,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: and Texarcana was effectively a town under siege by an
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: unknown assailant and everyone was armed and sleep deprived. So
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: the frenzied media coverage not only documented the fear fueled it,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: and Texarkana's newspapers, especially the Gazette and Daily News, milked
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the story for all it was worth, running huge front
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: page headlines and sometimes speculative articles in this case arguably
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: set a template for how America media handles serial killer
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: panics even to this day, with bold nicknames, lurid details,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: and constant warnings that no one was safe, and shitty
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: remakes and romanticizations of these horrible monsters. I'm looking at you, Netflix.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: What the was that the new ed Geen Show was shit?
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: I hated it. Don't make up stuff about a guy
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: who actually murdered people. Makeing it documentary, at least at
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: the very least. Don't make it this weird intermixed show
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: about stuff that didn't happen. I hated it. Anyway, I
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: could do a whole video on that that pissed me off. Anyway,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: The term phantom killer itself became a marketing tool for
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: the news, and while it certainly made residents vigilant, it
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: also granted the murderer a kind of dark celebrity status,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: which can be a very dangerous thing, especially if they
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: like it. That just makes them want to do it
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: more So, people started attributing any strange event or unsolved
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: crime in the region to the phantom and one unfortunate
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: side effect of the breathless media focus on the killer
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: was the eclipse of the victims in public consciousness. His
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: newspapers were so busy printing scare stories and phantom theories
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: that little was written by comparison in memoriam of the
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: young lives lost, and there were funerals for Richard, Polly Paul,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: and Betty Joe and heart wrenching community gatherings, but their
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: names were often drowned out in print by the next
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: big phantom headline. And this kind of coverage prioritizing fear
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: over compassion has been critiqued in later times. Hi it's me,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: I'm critiquing it, and sociologically, Texarcana nineteen forty six became
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: a case study in mass paranoia and rumor propagation, and
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: at one point, so many wild rumors were swirling that
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: the Phantom had been caught, that he was being hidden
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: in jail, etc. Just absolute crap that the Texas Rangers
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: held a press conference pleading with the public to stop
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: spreading unverified information because it was hindering the investigation, and
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Godzalas went on radio admonishing that rumors were a hindrance
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: to the investigation and harmful to innocent persons, as some
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: townsfolk began suspecting or accusing neighbors with absolutely zero proof.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: So Texarkana's summer of nineteen forty six would be remembered
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: as a textbook example of communal panic, with newspapers and
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: radios stoking a level of fear that became almost its
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: own character in this horrible dark time. So, on the
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: night of May third, nineteen forty six, the Phantom deviated
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: from his previous pattern of targeting lover's lane couples. This
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: time the killer struck at a farmhouse on the Arkansas
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: side community called homan A few miles northeast of Texarcana,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: and the victims were Virgil Starks, who was thirty seven
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: years old, and his wife, Katie Starks, who was thirty six,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: and they were a respected farming couple in a rural area.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: And at around nine pm, Virgil Starks was sitting comfortably
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: in his living room reading the Texarcana newspaper while his
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: wife Katie was in another room lying down, and their
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: house sat along a highway somewhat isolated by farmland, and
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: that night, as Virgil relaxed in his armchair by a window,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: two shots blasted through the glass behind him without warning,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: and both bullets struck Virgil in the back of the
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: head and he stood up reflexively then crumpled back into
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: the chair, mortally wounded and hearing the shattering window and
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: her husband's sudden movement, Katie rushed from the bedroom to
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: the living room, not understanding what had happened, and she
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: saw Virgil slumped over in blood everywhere and ran to
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: the crank telephone to call the police, but after two rings,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: she was twice in the face through the same window. Incredibly,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: despite the grievous wounds, Katie did not flee lapse, and
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: she dropped to the floor initially out of shock, but
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: remained conscious, and Katie realized in a flash that the
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: shooter was outside the window and likely coming inside for her.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: So bleeding and in excruciating pain, she made a split
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: second decision escape or die, and summoning astonishing courage, Katie
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: Starks fought through her injuries. Because Katie now had no choice,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: she had to flee, so she turned and ran toward
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: the kitchen and back of the house, intending to exit
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the back door, and as she got to the kitchen,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: she glimpsed the killer coming through the backscreen porch, and
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Katie didn't hesitate. She turned and bolted out the front
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: door instead, leaving a trail of blood behind her. So barefoot.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Absolutely terrified and seriously wounded, Katie ran from her house
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: across the dark highway to her sister's farmhouse across the way,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: but nobody would be home, so Katie kept running and
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: finally finding neighbors a bit farther down who took her
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: in and called for help, and she reportedly gasped out
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Virgil's dead before collapsing, and Katie Starks miraculously survived her wounds.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness, like talk about strong women, my God, and
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Virgil Starks sadly died from his wounds almost immediately, and
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Katie Stark's survival was nothing short of heroic, and despite
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: ghastly facial wounds, Katie remained conscious and alert through her escape,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: likely due to just pure adrenaline, and the blood trail
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: she left could later be followed by investigators and it
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: clearly marked her path from the living room to the phone,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: then back through the house out of the front door
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: or with splashes where she likely stumbled, and this blood
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: evidence allowed police to reconstruct how the attack unfolded and
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: where the killer had been positioned. Outside and at the
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: crime scene, investigators found a flashlight on the ground just
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: outside a window, and it was a red flashlight determined
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: to likely have been left by the assailant. Unfortunately, like
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: other evidence, it yielded no fingerprints. The phantom may have
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: worn gloves, but it was a tangible piece left behind,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: and Katie's survival also put a face of bravery on
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: the tragedy because in a way, she became the final
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: girl of this horror story, a term in slasher films
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: for the woman who survives when others don't, and Katie
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: was allegedly the phantom's last intended victim and she lived
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: because after May third, the Phantom Killer did not strike
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: again as far as we know. But the Stark's attack
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: raised immediate puzzles for invest stigators, and the biggest was
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: that was this the same Phantom Killer or a copycat,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: because on the one hand, the mo had Stark differences
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: a farmhouse attack on an older, married couple at home,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: not young lovers in a parked car, and a twenty
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: two rifle was used, not the thirty two pistol tied
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: to the earlier murders, and the killer also didn't attempt
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: any s on Katie. So these departures led some lawmen,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: including some from the FBI, to suspect it might be
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: a different perpetrator who coincidentally attacked in the same area,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: and by late nineteen forty eight, there were even officials
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: that publicly leaned towards considering the Stark's case separate due
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: to the different weapon and circumstances. But on the other hand,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: there were compelling reasons to think it was the Phantom
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: just evolving his tactics and psychological profilers in a primitive form,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: as formal profiling didn't exist yet, like doctor Anthony Lapala,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: coologist at tex Sarcana's Federal Prison believed the Phantom was
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: one man who simply changed his approach due to the
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: intense police pressure on Lover's lanes, and Lalpalla argued the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: killer knew the lonesome roads were being patrolled and that's
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: why he chose the Starks house. So essentially, the Phantom
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: was smart enough to vary his pattern once the usual
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: targets became too risky, and indeed, by late April, every
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: secluded road in Texarcana had troopers and armed teens crawling around,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: and the Starks lived in a relatively isolated spot, making
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: them a target of opportunity for someone who wanted to
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: strike where no one expected. So it could have been
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: the Phantom's attempt at a new type of kill, and
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: it would have been an escalation from lovers to simply
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: any vulnerable person, perhaps driven by the need to maintain
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: his thrill despite increased patrols, and perhaps he also intended
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: to aet Katie, but his initial gunshots forced a change
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: of plan. And geographically, the Stark's home was just across
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: the state line in Arkansas, where the prior attacks were
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: on the Texas side, and it showed the killer was
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: not beholden to one jurisdiction, and law enforcement had to
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: accept that nowhere was off limits, and the phantom also
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: just might have been attempting to show he could get
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: to people even in their homes, a thought that sent
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Texarkana's fear through the roof if that was even more possible.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: So after the Stark's attack, investigators redoubled efforts, but also
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: felt a peculiar pause because this crime was so different
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: and made them question their assumptions If it was the
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: same killer, he had just brazenly attacked a household where
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: the victims were not teenagers and had no romantic context,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: and the presence of a separate twenty two firearm in
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: this case meant ballistics could not link it to the
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: other crimes. They just had to rely on mo and
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence. So in hindsight, many people still do believe
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: it was the same phantom that did this cry because
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: the tithing, the general area, and the fleeing pattern. He
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: vanished as he usually does, but officially doubt remained, and
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: the Starks case technically stayed unsolved and opened as a
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: standalone just like the others. But what was clear is
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: that after May third, nineteen forty six, the attacks stopped,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: just like out of nowhere, and the phantom killer, if
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: it was him at the Starks farm, had reached a
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: climax of violence and then nothing more and Texarkana's immediate
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: nightmare was over. But the investigation was about to turn
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: into one of the largest manhunts in regional history. So
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: as noted, as many as forty seven officers from various
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: agencies were actively working the case following the Starks attack,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: and this included local city police, both county sheriff departments,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Texas Rangers, Arkansas State Police, and even FBI agents, and
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: they set up a makeshift coordination center to share information,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: though communication was still tricky as different police radios weren't
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: all on the same frequencies and long distance calls were
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: very slow. So to improve coordination, authorities brought in a
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: mobile radio station and teletype machine to Texarcana, allowing faster
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: sharing of info between Texas and Arkansas officers. And this
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: was cutting edge for the time and indicates how seriously
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: the government took this case, and the Texas Department of
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Public Safety committed dozens of troopers as well, and the
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Arkansas governor reportedly offered state resources freely as well, and
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: a reward fund kept growing, contributed by both states and
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: local civic groups, reaching about seven thousand dollars in total,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: which was a huge sum equivalent to about one hundred
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: and fifteen thousand dollars shortly after the Starks case and
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: was climbing to about ten thousand dollars, which is about
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty six thousand dollars today. And tips
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: and leads continued to pour in, not just from Texarcana
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: but from around the country as newspap papers everywhere ran
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: the story of the phantom killer. The detectives had to
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: check leads by calling or visiting other towns, looking through
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: paper records and fingerprint cards by hand, and the FBI
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: helped by checking fingerprints nationally, with analysts visually comparing to
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: their files and prints for any matches to prints found
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: at the scenes, but none of those panned out, and
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: police held roadblocks on highways leaving Texarcana immediately after the
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: start shooting, stopping and questioning motorists randomly, hoping perhaps the
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: killer might be trying to slip away. In the exodus
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: of frightened people, an officers interrogated traveling salesmen, ex cons
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: known in the area, drifters, and any stranger who aroused suspicion,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: and many of those people were cleared through alibis or
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: lack of evidence, but the sheer volume is telling. Essentially,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: if you lived in or around Texarcana and weren't a
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: bedridden invalid, chances are that cops talked to you in
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: that span of weeks. But despite the scale, there were
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: significant challenges and records were all on paper, and coordinating
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: between Texas and Arkansas law enforcement was sometimes hindered by
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: bureaucracy or simple logistics. For example, when a suspect would
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: flee across the state line, they would cause delay due
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: to jurisdiction issues. And there was also the problem of
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: false information clogging the pipeline every single day. And like
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: we said before, at least nine individuals came forward to
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: police at various times claiming to be the phantom killer themselves,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: and each of these confessions had to be checked thoroughly, obviously,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: but some confessors were just very mentally disturbed or attention seekers,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: and others might have felt guilty about something else or
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: sought the glory of being the infamous Phantom killer, so
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: police would just chase down every single lead, even if
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: it involved other states. So this massive manhunt just put
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: tremendous pressure on law enforcement, and the lead investigators, Sheriff
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Presley and Ranger Gunz and Detective Tacket and others were
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: running on little sleep and constant strain. And they knew
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: the killer could be a local, someone who might even
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: be chatting with them, or someone they had interviewed, potentially
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: hiding in plain sight, and that paranoia seeped into the
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: force two and in such an atmosphere, they were primed
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: to leap on any promising suspect, And in the thick
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: of the hunt for the Phantom law enforcement tried some
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: clever tactics to catch the killer in the act. Knowing
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: that the murderer favored targeting couples and parked cars, they
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: organized decoy operations using both real people and dummies. And
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: teenagers had been acting as self appointed bait out of bravado,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: but the police formalized the idea and brave young people
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: volunteer to sit in cars at night in various lovers
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: lane spots, pretending to be a couple, which is crazy
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: to just get locals to volunteer to do that. It's
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: just that's nineteen forty six. And they'd park in a
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: dark spot, engine off, lights off, and exactly the scenario
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: the phantom found enticing, and then other armed officers would
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: hide nearby, perhaps behind trees or in other cars up
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: the road, ready to ambush the killer if they took
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: the bait. And in Spring Lake Park, officers reportedly hidden
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: trees to surveil the area from above, hoping to spot
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: anything suspicious. And these operations continued night after night for weeks,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: and there were some heart pounding moments, but ultimately the
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: phantom did not reappear to attack any decoys. I'm assuming
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: because he's not a wild animal looking at a steak
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the forest. Like I get, I
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: get what the cops were doing, but I mean, you know,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: this guy's got a level of planning that's involved. He hunts,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: he prowls, he make sures everything's clear, he's he's making
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: sure that they're a couple. You know. It's it was
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: a stretch. Not saying it's bad that the cops tried it.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: I think it is good, but it just yeah, just
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: see far fetched, but better than it actually happening to
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: someone who's innocent in the car. So as the weeks
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: passed on, none of the decoys lured in the fandoms, obviously,
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: and this lent credence to the idea that maybe the
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: phantom had left the area or gone dormant. Perhaps the
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: heavy police presence itself just deterred him, and the small
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: city was literally crawling with patrol calls and plane clothed
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: detectives lurking in the shadows. So if the killer had
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: any sense, he might have realized any further attempt would
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: be high risk, or he may have simply gotten scared off.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: But it's quite possible that the decoy strategy did at
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: least prevent another murder by making the environment too dangerous
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: for the perpetrator to strike. So ten points to the
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: police for that, and officers would remain on high alert
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: through the summer of nineteen forty six, running decoys and
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: checking tips. But by the fall, as no new incidences happened,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: the frenzy did die down, but officially the search stayed
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: alive because Lawman did not want to pack up and
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: declare victory without a capture, so criminal profiling wasn't formalized
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: yet at this time, but Tech Sarkana authorities did seek
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: expert opinions on the killer psychology like doctor l'alpala's analysis,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: and it was primitive profiling like we were talking about before,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: but he surmised that the phantom was likely a white
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: male with a disturbingly prejudiced rationale, dismissing African American suspects
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: as quote not that clever unquote, which just reflected the
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: ignorance of the era and of this doctor. But if
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: we do look at other crimes that have happened, to
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: other serial killings that have happened, it's more often that
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: serial killers do not kill outside of their race. But
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: it's not not a thing that happens, but it's more
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: often that they kill within their own race. So you
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: can kind of assume based off that that the person
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: was white, not that the person wasn't smart and was
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: African American like this dipshit said. But also lil Palla
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: guessed the killer had a strong sensual drive and sadistic tendencies,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: and he also predicted the killer could alter his behavior
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: or move locations to avoid capture. But one of the
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: biggest investigative problems was simply information overload without modern analysis tools,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: because they had thousands of pages of reports, witness statements,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: and tips all on paper, so just organizing and cross
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: referencing them was a nightmare by hand, and sifting insight
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: from that volume with no computer is like finding needles
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: in a haystack. And lastly, crime scene security and evidence
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: preservation was not as tight back then. Obviously in crowds
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: of the car murder scenes undoubtedly trampled things, and the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: concept of preserving a pristine scene was in infancy. And
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: there was even an incident at the Stark's home where Gonzala,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: you know, the phlamboyant lone wolf detective, went into the
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Starks home before other investigators got there and was taking
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: photos with a photographer at the scene so he would
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: look like he was the first one there. It was
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: just a giant shit show and certainly didn't help with
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: forensic integrity. But among the investigators there was Max Packett,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: who was in the Arkansas State Police, a detective. Tacket
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: was not as flashy as Gonzalas, but he was sharp
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: and very analytical, and he was the one that noticed
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: a pattern in the case that no one else noticed
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: because Packett noticed that in the days leading up to
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: each major attack, a car had been reported stolen in
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: the area, and then after each attack, there was an
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: abandoned stolen car found around the same area in Techsarcana.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: So it was an oddly specific pattern, but this insight
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: planted a seed in Tacket's mind that this could be
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: connected to the Phantom. And it was a hunch, but
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: it was a crucial one because while others were chasing
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: leads of suspects with violent pasts, Tackett started tracking reports
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: of missing vehicles. And Tackett's diligent work would pay off
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: in July of nineteen forty six when he set out
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: a stakeout for a recently stolen vehicle, and sure enough,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: a young woman would come to retrieve the car, and
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: her name was Peggy Lois Stevens, and she had happened
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: to be the wife of a local petty criminal named
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: Yule Swinney. So Tackett would arrest Peggy on site and
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: take her into custody, and he would suspect Swiney to
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: be the Phantom, but he didn't have him in custody
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: at this point, but in a dramatic turn. A couple
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: weeks later, Tackett himself spotted Yule Swinny stepping into a
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: bus station in Texarcana after receiving a tip about a
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: possibly stolen vehicle. So Tackett would give chase and he
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: would arrest Swiney on the spot. So Tackett was steadfast
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: that's Swinney had to be the phantom killer based off
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: of his car theft, putting the dots together, But others
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: were not so sure. So with a main suspect in
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: custody now, which is Yule Swiney, prosecutors would look into
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: him and they would see it was a largely circumstantial
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: case and they would hesitate. So let's get to know
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Yu'll Swinny. So Sweeney was a twenty nine year old
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: man at the time of the murders, and he was
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: no stranger to the police because Sweney had a long
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: criminal history of petty crimes like car theft, burglary, forgery,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: and other nonviolent offenses. In fact, he was what they
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: called a habitual criminal, and he'd been in and out
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: of jail repeatedly in his teenage years. And importantly, Sweeney
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: was not a teenager early rumors in town had speculated
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: that the phantom might be a high school kid or soldier,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: but Sweeney was a grown man and he did come
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: from a troubled background. His father was a locally well
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: known Baptist minister, which in a southern community made the
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: situation all that more scandalous, and one can imagine the
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: shock of a minister's son being linked to such heinous acts.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: But by nineteen forty six, Swinney's reputation in Texarcana was
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: already poor, and physically Swinny roughly matched the sparse descriptions.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: He was around six feet tall and of medium to
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: stocky build, aligning with what survivors like Mary Jean Larry
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: had noted. And if we consider Mary Jean's initial claim
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: that the attacker was a light skinned black man, Swenny
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: was a tanned white man that could fit the confusion
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: she had in the dark, and Jimmy Hollis had thought
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: the guy was white, so Sweeney didn't contradict those aspects.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: And he also often wore work clothes and sometimes overalls
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: at tire that wouldn't stand out if someone saw a
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: figure lurking at night, and some speculated he had a
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: kind of inferiority complex or latent vio tendencies. However, it's
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: worth noting he had no record of violent crimes prior
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: to nineteen forty six, and that was one reason some
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: investigators were initially skeptical that a two bit car thief
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: could suddenly escalate to being a vicious serial killer. But
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: some people argued that some serial killers have prior records
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: of lesser crimes or simply hadn't been caught for violence yet.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: But Sweeney certainly had the stealing car parts down, and
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: as we know that, detective Tacket observed a string of
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: stolen cars that corresponded with the murder nights. And Sweeney's
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: personal life was turbulent, to say the least, as in
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty six he was dating a new woman named Peggy,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: the woman that got arrested earlier by Max. As she
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: was young, she was twenty one years old, and she
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: came from a troubled background herself, but I'm gonnoest to
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: law enforcement until later. Swinny and Peggy Stevens had gotten
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: married in the summer of nineteen forty six, right before
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: Sweeney was arrested for car theft, become a key issue
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: in the case because Yu'll Swinny was a plausible suspect
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: and the prime one, and he moved in the same
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: circles as the crime scenes, with the stolen cars found
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: in the same town as the crime scenes, and he
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: had the right physical attributes, and he had a shady reputation,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: and crucially, as soon as he was locked up in
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty six, the phantom murders stopped for good, and
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: investigators later remarked that of all the people that they
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: looked at, Swinny fit the bill better than anyone else,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: so means opportunity and perhaps twisted motive. Some of his
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: acquaintances allegedly hinted he had a cruel streak, and the community,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: upon hearing whispers of his arrest, breathed a tentative sigh
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: of relief. But proving he was the killer would be
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: a whole other matter entirely because the break in the
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: case came not from a smoking gun or a fingerprint,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: but from good old fashioned detective work on an unrelated crime,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: which was stolen cars. As we know, and as we know,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Peggy got arrested in and soon after Swinny got arrested
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: and it would be at this point that they would
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: find out that they had gotten married only a few
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: days before, and that itself seemed suspiciously convenient, as if
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: Swinney anticipated trouble and married Peggy so she couldn't testify
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: against him, because under Texas law, a spouse could not
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: be compelled to testify against her husband, the so called
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: marital privilege. And when Swinny got arrested, he also said
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: something interesting in the car on the way to jail,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: and that was something he said to the deputy and
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: he said, mister Johnson, what do you think they'll do
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: to me for this? Will they give me the chair?
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: And this was very telling because car theft wouldn't carry
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: the death penalty, and the chair refers to the electric
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: chair for capital crimes, and it implied Swinny thought or
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: knew that they were after him for much more than
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: just stealing cars. And Johnson later recalled being struck by
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: the fear in Sweeney's querry, potentially an accidental slip up
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: indicating consciousness of the guilt in the Mars, and this
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: quote is often cited as an indirect confession of sorts
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: with Swinney in custody the intensive investigation turned toward building
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: a case that he was the phantom, and detective searched
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: the places that Swenny had been living. In a rooming
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: house where he stayed, they found a shirt with the
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: name Stark written on it spattered with welding slag, likely
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: stolen from Virgil Stark's welding shop, and to police, this
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: was a smoking clue tying Swinney to the Stark's crime
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: because Virgil's welding shop had some shirts with his name
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: and one was allegedly missing. And they also found items
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: possibly belonging to other victims, but the record is unclear,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: and they interrogated Swenny for hours, but initially he denied
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: everything except the cartheffs of course because he got caught
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: in the act, but he did not confess to the
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: murders at that point, and investigators then turned to Peggy,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: hoping she might talk, but since she was now married,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: they couldn't force her to testify against him, but she
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: could choose to speak voluntarily, and speak she would, and
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: multiple times with stories that gradually painted Swinny as phantom.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: But the evidence against Swinny, other than Peggy's statements, was
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: mostly circumstantial but compelling when combined because he owned a
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: thirty two cult automatic pistol in the past, the same
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: caliber that the phantom used, and Sweny claimed he had
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: sold or pawned that gun months before the murders began
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: in late nineteen forty five, alleging that he needed money,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: so that would put a big hole in the case
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: if that was the case. So they never recovered that
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: pistol to test it, but still the fact that he
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: had owned the same type of gun was noted, and
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: perhaps most crucial, Tackett's hunch about stolen cars proved dead on,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: and records showed Sweny was tied to every auto theft
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: around the time of each phantom attack. For example, a
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: car stolen on March twenty fourth was found abandoned near
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: where Richard Griffin had lived, and a car stolen April
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: thirteenth was found abandoned close to Spring Lake Park where
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: Betty and Paul were killed, and a car stolen on
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: May third was found not far from the Stark's farm,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: So all those thefts now looked likely to be Swinny's work,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: So essentially he had a pattern of stealing a car
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: using it then ditching it, which fits exactly how the
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: phantom could roam without using his own identifiable vehicle. So
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: with these puzzle pieces, law enforcement privately felt they had
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: their phantom killer, but public proof was another matter, and
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: they needed Peggy to come through with details only the
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: killer or accomplice would know. And in the days following
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: Yule's Sweney's arrest, his twenty one year old bride, Peggy Swinty,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: gave a series of damning statements to police, and though
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: her story shifted each time, Initially Peggy was scared and
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: somewhat protective of Yule, but under pressure she began to crack,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: and in her first statement, Peggy was hesitant and she
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: stopped short of amitting Sweeny was the killer, but she
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: placed him at some scenes and provided no alibis, and crucially,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: she did not incriminate herself. So after some hours, and
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: possibly after being confronted with evidence like the stolen items,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: Peggy gave a second statement that was far more incriminating,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: and in this version she directly implicated Eule Swiney in
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: at least the murder of Betty Joe Booker and Paul Martin,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: and Peggy claimed that on the night of April thirteenth
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: to fourteenth, nineteen forty six, she was with Yule when
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: he left her in a car near Spring Lake Park
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: and she heard gunshots in the distance, and when he
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: returned he had a black saxophone case with him, which
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: he put in their car trunk, and a few days
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: later he told her he had gotten rid of the saxophone.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: And this detail was crucial for investigators because Betty Joe's
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: missing saxophone had been big news and here was Peggy
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: mentioning it unprompted, So if true, it put Swiney at
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: the scene of a double murder with knowledge only the
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: killer could have. But the saxophone's disappearance was public knowledge,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: but only the killer would know what he did with it,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: so Peggy said. Yule later sold the saxophone in Corpus Christy,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: which matched an earlier incident where a man had tried
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: to sell a Bundy sax to a music store and fled,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: And police had indeed nabbed a suspect back in April
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: who tried to pawn a sax in Corpus Christy but
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: released him when his alibi checked out, So maybe Swinney
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: had an intermediary do it but acually, or Peggy's recollection
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: was off, but actually the sax was found months later
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: hidden in the woods near where Betty Joe's body lay,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: suggesting maybe Yule stashed it rather than sold it. So
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: as Peggy kept talking, she eventually gave a third statement,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: which essentially placed her at the scenes as an unwilling accomplice,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: and she confessed that she was with Yule during the
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: Martin Booker murders, sitting in the car while he went
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: and did the crime. And by this account, she made
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: herself an access and perhaps she felt compelled to unburden
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: herself of the full truth, or perhaps investigators coach some details.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: But accounts differ, and Ranger, Gonzales and others considered her
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: third statement very credible because it included specifics not released
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: to the public, like the location of certain evidence, and
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: several accounts assert that in her confessions, Peggy Sweeney indicated
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: exactly where Betty Joe Berker's saxophone had been discarded, and
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: investigators later found the instrument six months after the murder,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: buried under leaves and under brush near where her body
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: had lain, and she also knew about Paul Martin's date
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: book being thrown in the bushes, and Sheriff Presley had
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: privately found Paul Martin's pocket notebook in the brush at
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: the scene, which he kept secret, and that's the piece
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: of evidence he kept secret that he didn't want to
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: give to the public to see who actually knew about it.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: So when Peggy mentioned u'l tossing papers or stuff, it wasn't.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: Actually she didn't say notebook, he said papers or stuff
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: from Paul's pockets into the bushes. Presley nearly fell out
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: of his chair because that was a detail never made public.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: So to him, this was the smoking gun of veracity.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: But Peggy's confessions had a glaring problem because by the
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: third one, she had implicated herself as an accomplice, and
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: now as the suspect's wife, her testimony could be seen
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: as coerced or biased, and legally she could not be
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: compelled to testify against Yule because of marital privilege. And
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: once she fully realized that, she recanted everything and refused
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: to repeat the stories in court, So this put prosecutors
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: in a bind. Without Peggy's testimony, the case against Swiney
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: was mostly circumstantial because there was no forensic proof tying
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: him to the murders, and the circumstantial evidence was strong
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: ar theft pattern and his suspicious statements stolen items from
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: the starks Peggy's prior detailed confession, but could a jury
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: convict on that w without a confession or eyewitness, and
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: the DA doubted it, especially since the defense could claim
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: Peggy's tales were fantasies of a pressured young woman, possibly
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: abused by her husband, And indeed, Peggy, after recanting, claimed
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: she had made it all up because she was afraid
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: of ule and just told police what she thought they
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: wanted to hear, which is a crime. By the way,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: that's obstruction of justice if true objectively, though Peggy's knowledge
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: of those unpublished details strongly suggests she was telling the
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: truth when implicating him. An investigator certainly believed her initially,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: and Tilman Johnson said later Peggy's bread wasn't baked, the
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: elevator didn't go to the top, crudely suggesting she wasn't
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: bright enough to concoct such consistent lies. I'm not gonna lie.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: I like the way he said that. That was kind
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: of funny, not nice, very misogynistic, but it is a
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: little bit funny. I'd like to say the same thing
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: about the doctor that made that horrendously racial remark about
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: who the phantom was in their ethnicity and stuff. That's
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna yeah, his bread wasn't fully baked and the
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: elevator didn't go all the way at the top. I'm
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: gonna use that only all people to deserve it. But anyway,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: they felt she couldn't have given those accurate details unless
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: she was there or privy to them, and the law
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: enforcement and much of Texarkana were convinced Swinny was the
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: phantom killer. Legally, he never faced trial for the murders,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: despite having what they believed was the killer and confession
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: from his wife. The authorities were forced to drop plans
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: to charge Swinny with murder, and they feared an acquittal
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: that would forever bar retrial or double jeopardy, so instead
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: they hit him with the heaviest charge they confidently could,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: and that was habitual car theft, which under new repeat
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: offender laws, could carry a life sentence. So in nineteen
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: forty seven, Ull Swinny was convicted of being a habitual
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: criminal for car theft and sentenced to life in prison,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: so this was a way to ensure he never walked free,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: a kind of de facto justice for the murders without
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: actually trying him for them, and lawman called it a
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: back door way of getting the phantom off the streets
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: for good, and Swinney was sent to the Texas State Penitentiary.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: Some accounts say it was the East Ham unit to
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: serve his life term and tex Sarcana breathed easier and
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: Peggy was not charged with anything, possibly as part of
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: an arrangement. She was let go, perhaps due to her cooperation,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: albeit later withdrawn, and she returned to normal life, staying
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: married to Yule for a while, then divorcing him years later.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: But investigators liked Tackett and Johnson went to their graves
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: convinced that Peggy had essentially given them the truth and
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: that Yule Swiney was definitely the phantom, and Sheriff Presley
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: publicly said he was not one hundred percent certain, but
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: personally believed they'd caught the right man, and indeed, no
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: more Phantom like murders occurred after Swiney's incarceration. However, the
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: story didn't quite aend there, and in a twist, Sweeney
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: did not spend the rest of his life behind bars,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: and in nineteen seventy three, after twenty six years, he
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: managed to get his conviction overturned on appeal via a
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: hobbyist corpus proceeding, and the courts found that back in
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven during his car theft trial, he hadn't
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: had proper legal representation or was improperly sentenced under the
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: habitual offender statue. Thus he was released. Some sources indicate
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: the prison records simply show released in nineteen seventy three,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: possibly due to a technicality, and this understandably caused a
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: stir among those who remembered nineteen forty six. But by
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, Swinny was an older man, reportedly in
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: very poor health, and he had remarried, not to Peggy.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: She was long gone and attempted to live quietly, but
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: old habits die hard, and within a year or two
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: he was arrested yet again for counterfeiting and car theft.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: The sky doesn't stop. Didn't learn anything behind bars. He
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: was just incapable of staying out of trouble, and he
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: would be in and out of prison in the late
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: seventies for these minor crimes, and yu'll Swiney died in
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four at the age of seventy seven of cancer,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: so with him died any secrets he hadn't spilled, and
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: he never publicly confessed to the tech sarcanic killings. But
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: the consensus of those closest to the case was that justice,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: however imperfect, was served in a backhanded way, and yu'll
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: Swinny lost thirty some years of freedom, which, if he
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: was truly guilty of five murders and multiple assaults, is
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: a lighter penalty than he deserved, but far heavier than
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: nothing at all. But the Phantom case stands as a
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: haunting example of a near miss in the justice system
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: or a complete miss. And they caught the supposed right man,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: but could not convict him in court, and instead they
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: utilized a workaround to protect the public, leaving the official
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: record unsatisfyingly inconclusive, and to this day, Sweeney remains the
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: prime suspect, with no serious alternative ever discovered by law enforcement.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: But one of the most bizarre turns in the Phantom
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: case came in nineteen forty eight, two years after the
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: murders when an eighteen year old college student named Henry
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: Booker Doody Tennyson died from unsubscribing from life behind a
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: confession note claiming to be the Phantom Killer. Tennyson was
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: a former tex Sarcana High School band member and he
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: played trombone in the same band as Betty Joe Booker,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: though they were not close friends. And on November fourth,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he was attending university,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: Tennyson took a fatal dose of mercury cyanide, and in
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: his personal effects police found ENCRYPTID directions leading to a
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: sealed envelope, and when deciphered and opened, the letter inside
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: was a shocker and Tennyson wrote, why did I take
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: my own? Well, when you committed to double murders, you
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: would too. Yes, I did kill Betty Joe Booker and
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: Paul Martin in the city park that night, and killed
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: mister Starks and tried to get missus Starks. So this
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: was effectively a written confession to the April fourteenth, nineteen
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: forty six murders and the May third farmhouse attack, and
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: the authorities were stunt because was it possible that all
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: along the phantom was actually a teenager and one who
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: had been known in the community. Could they have actually
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: jailed the wrong man Swinny while the real killer lived
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: quietly and went off to college. So they took the
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: Tennyson note very seriously at first. However, upon deeper investigation,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: several problems and inconsistencies emerged that cast doubt on duty
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: Tennyson's claim. And first was physical evidence, because investigators compared
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: Tennyson's fingerprints to those at the crime scenes and there
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: was no match. And they also looked at his known
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: habits and capabilities, and Tennyson was described by peers as shy,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: introverted kids, socially awkward and often bullied, and it's been
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: suggested he might have been gay as well, as he
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: was teased for being quote unquote strange. So while shy
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: people can definitely harbor darkness, nothing in his background hinted
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: at violent tendencies, and he had no criminal record, And importantly,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: some of his family provided what seemed to be a
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: solid alibi, like on May third, nineteen forty six, the
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: night of the Stark shooting, Tennyson was at home playing
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: cards or checkers, with a friend, James Freeman, at the
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: very time of the attack. And you'd be able to
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: note this because you remember in town when something happens,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: like if a couple in town that everybody knows gets killed,
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: you remember what you're doing, you know. And Freeman did
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: confirm this, saying he and Duty were together when they
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: heard the news about the Starks on the radio, and
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: if true, Tennison could not have been out at the
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: Stark farmhouse. Additionally, Tennison didn't know how to drive a
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: car in nineteen forty six, and his brother later stated
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: he taught Henry to drive only in the summer of
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven, so he couldn't have driven, and it's
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: unlikely he could steal cars or easily get to a
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: distant lover's lane at night. And he also, as far
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: as anyone knew, had no proficiency with firearms and didn't
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: own any either, and his brothers testified that Henry didn't
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: know how to use weapons and indeed was not the
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: type to even handle guns, So why would Tennyson claim credit?
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: And in subsequent notes found in his belongings, Henry had
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: written contradictory messages. One explicitly said please disregard all other
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: messages I have written as possible reasons for taking money.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: But the tech Arcanic Gazette sensationally ran a headline saying
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: quote not canceling murder admission found, implying Tennyson recanted within
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: his own writings, and it appeared that Tennyson was deeply troubled,
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: possibly guilt, written about something else. Some suspected he was
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: grappling with personal issues like his orientation or simply depression,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: and he may have latched onto the Phantom crimes as
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: a dramatic scapegoat for his despair, and another of his
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: writings spoke of not being able to live with himself,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: but also vaguely mentioned reading too many comic books and
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: pulp stories, which could have planted ideas in his head.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: But interestingly, Tennyson's cousins, doctor John T. Tennyson, a forensic psychiatrist,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: has spent years researching whether Henry could have been involved,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: and he noted peculiar connections like the fact that Henry
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: worked as an usher at the Paramount Theater which all
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: the first victims had attended the knights that they were killed,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: suggesting he could have seen them on their dates and
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: followed them, and doctor Tennyson also pointed out Henry was tall,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: he was six' three and knew another oddball Teen James,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: freeman who lived near The starks relatives, home and Doctor
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: tennison's theory is that Perhaps Henry tennyson And James freeman
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: together could have been the, phantom acting as a duo
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: Like leopold and Leob, however no hard evidence ever emerged
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: to substantiate those, theories and law enforcement in nineteen forty
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: eight ultimately concluded That duty's confession was false and they
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: cleared him after the alibi and family input And Henry
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: tennyson's unsubscription. Note saga is a tragic side of this,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: chapter likely a case of a disturbed young man taking
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: on guilt that just wasn't, his and it just serves
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: as a reminder of how the phantoms cases notoriety seeped
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: into local culture and, psychees and even years later it
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: could spur someone to such dramatic. Gestures but virtually all
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: modern researchers Agreed tennyson was not the, phantom despite the
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: initial sensational, headlines and another false lead came literally from
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: across the country In may nineteen forty, six when twenty
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: one year Old Ralph, bowman an Ex Army Air force machine,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: gunner turned himself Into la, police claiming he might beat
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: The phantom. Killer But bowman's story was. Unusual he said
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: he had awoken from a sort of fugue state On may,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: third the very day of The starks attack In San,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: francisco with his rifle missing and a feeling that he'd
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: been running from, something and he heard descriptions of The
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: phantom over the radio that seemed to match, him and
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: troubled and confused hitchhike TO la to, surrender Saying i'm
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: my own, suspect he TOLD, lapd and he speculated that
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: perhaps he committed the Tex sarcana murders during a blackout
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: episode brought on by combat. Trauma because In World War,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: Two bowman had indeed been diagnosed as psychoneurotic and, discharged
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: so not exactly a reliable, source And texas Ranger gonzales
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: flew To Los angeles to Interview, bowman but after thorough,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: questioning they determined several parts of a storage didn't line
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: up with any. Facts just became more and more clear
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: That bowman was a deeply troubled, individual likely seeking an
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: explanation for his psychological. Troubles police ultimately concluded he was
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: not The, phantom and he was not charged with anything
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: related To. Texarcana but in another strange, twist early one
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: morning On may, seventh nineteen forty, six railway workers found
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: a grizzly scene about sixteen miles north Of texarcana Near, Ogden,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: arkansas and it was a man's body sprawled along The
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: Kansas City Southern railroad. Tracks and the man Was Earl
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: cliff mcspatten and a freight train had run him, over
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: severing an arm and a, leg and initially given the
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: timing days after the start shooting and the, proximity rumors
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: flared that the phantom killer had either claimed a new
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: victim or possibly unsubscribed by jumping in front of a,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: train and some locals whispered that maybe mcspatten was The
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: phantom and racked The, gilts or cornered by police, pressure
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: he unsubscribed on the, tracks just a way for The
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: phantom to vanish. Forever, however the coroner's inquest ruled it
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: death at the hands of persons, unknown declaring mcspatten's demise
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: a murder not in a, subscription and they believed he
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: was killed or placed on the tracks after death because
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: his head showed a puncture wound that might have been
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: a stab or, gunshot and that lack of significant bleeding
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: from the amputations suggested he wasn't live when the train hit,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: him so someone may have murdered mcspatten and then tried
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: to make it look like an accident by using the.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: Train so if that's, true was mcspatten A phantom? Victim
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: potentially perhaps an unrelated, homicide but the coincidence with The
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: phantom spree was irresistible to the, press and one theory
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: posited was that he was The phantom's sixth and final,
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: victim and maybe he'd been hitchhiking and the killer picked
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: him up and dispatched, him but this contradicts The phantom's
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: modus operante because he targets, couples not solo. Men and
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: another theory was that mcspatten himself was The phantom and
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: someone killed him effectively vigilantism or an associate silencing. Him
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: perhaps another criminal or an enraged citizen took him out
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: and staged the train, scene but there was zero evidence
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: ever of tying mcspatten to any, murders though because he
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: had no known connections to the earlier victims and was
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: older than descriptions given by, survivors and no firearm of
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: the appropriate caliber was associated with, him this idea is
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: largely considered, baseless and ultimately police found no link between
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: mcspadden And phantom case beyond, timing and he remains a peripheral.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: Curiosity and in a swirl of nineteen forty six, paranoia
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: some residents floated the, idea likely born Of World war two,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: xenophobia perhaps The phantom was an Escaped german prisoner of
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: war from one of the MANY pow camps in the
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: SOUTHERN us at the time it. Was On may, eighth
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty, six it was reported that A GERMAN pow
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: had indeed escaped from a camp In oklahoma and was
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: being sought in the, region and he was described as,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: stocky twenty four years, old with brown hair and blue,
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: eyes and the news fueled speculation that this fugitive could
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: be The, phantom a foreign killer roaming the, countryside feeding
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: into locals in grade fears from the recent, war so
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: the idea of a Rogue German phantom made for sensational,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: headlines to say the, least and law enforcement did briefly
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: consider an investigate this, angle and they noted that the
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: pow had a car In arkansas Near Mount, ida and
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: attempted to buy an ammunition in Some oklahoma. Towns, however
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: they found no evidence linking him To texar canap beyond circumstantial.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: Proximity but in all, truth the known pattern and familiarity
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: the killer had with local lovers lanes suggested a local,
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: person not a random escape To german, Foreigner and indeed
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: most of the law enforcement never put much stock into
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: The pow. Idea once more applausible leads Like swinny, emerged
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: it did remain a popular media, trope though shockingly. So
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: numerous suspects and leads were chased in The phantom, case
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: reflecting how desperate authorities were for a solid, answer and
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: essentially all were eliminated Beside swinney's just he was the
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: most compelling and they kind of backdoored. Him but even
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: then they weren't, certain and no one aside From, sweeney
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: had any compelling evidence against, them so all other avenues
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: just turned into. Footnotes in one Of america's strangest, unsolved
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: and to this day it is still, unsolved and even
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: thirty years after the terror In. Texarcana, hollywood of course
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: turned The phantom story into a semi legendary film that
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: would influence the horror, genre and in nineteen seventy, six
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: Tex sarcana born Filmmaker CHARLES. B pierce Produced The Town
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: That Dreaded sundown and it was part true crime docu drama,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: slash part horror, thriller and the movie was actually shot
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: in Tex sarcana as. Well So pierce's film undeniably cemented
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: The Phantom killer in pop, culture and many who watch
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: it assume that it's all, gospel but it's not. True
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: who would have Known hollywood romanticizing serial? Killers it was,
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: crazy what a crazy. Notion most of it is just
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: propaganda and myths and just stuff he took liberties. In
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: but it also kept the memory of the case alive
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: and directly influenced the next generation of horror creators and.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: Sleuths so, officially the Tex Sarcana moonlight murder case remains
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: open but unsolved to this day because there is no
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: statute of limitation on, murder so in, theory if any
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: new evidence did, emerge charges could still be, filed but,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: realistically nearly eighty years, on it is a cold. Case
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: so hopefully one day we can get some evidence and
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: GET dna and link it to. Somebody but as of right,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: now the phantom remains a phantom and a, monster and
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: instead of focusing on him and ending it on, HIM
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: i would like to focus on the. Victims and my
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: heart always goes out to the victims and to their,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: families regardless of it being eighty years. Ago that is the,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: true true cruelty of this whole, case and they are
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: the ones that deserve the spotlight and deserve to be.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: Remembered but that is it for The Texarcana moonlight. Murders
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: hopefully one day it'll get. Solved BUT i don't. Know
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: if you guys have any other cases you want me
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: to deep dive, into let me know down. BELOW i
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: always read the comments AND i will see you beautiful
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: face in the next. Video all, Right, bye