Hollis said he was a young dark-tanned man under 30-years-old while Larey said he was a light-skinned African-American. As is the case with high profile murder cases, there were numerous false confessors, one of which was University of Arkansas freshman, 18-year-old H.B. “Doodie” Tennison, who committed suicide in November of 1948.
Out of the darkness, a man wearing a white cloth mask – presumably a pillowcase with eye holes – appeared at the car window and shone a flashlight into their eyes. Swinney’s wife was seen driving a stolen car, and the husband and wife were arrested. Swinney’s wife confessed that her husband was the killer, but her story was inconsistent, changing details each time she was subject to questioning. Katie Starks survived her injuries and fully recovered.
Speculation as to why the killings ended as suddenly as they began would include the possibilites that the killer slipped away and quietly relocated to another part of the state or the country. The killer could have also been arrested and jailed for another crime. Also, the killer could have become a victim himself of a different crime or accident. Then, the attacks stopped as abruptly as they had started.
As a child, Virgil met a girl named Catherine Ila Strickland , born in 1909, and the two remained friends throughout their childhood. As they began to grow into teenagers, their friendship became more romantic. On March 2, 1932, when both were 22 years old, they decided to marry and became Mr. and Mrs. Murder mysteries Virgil Starks, and soon moved into a modern ranch-style home in northeast Texas. Virgil worked as a farmer, but occasionally did welding work on neighboring farms. The house they lived in was across the street from Katie’s sister’s house, which was two miles away from Virgil’s brother’s and father’s.
Prater shot a rifle in the air to summon another neighbor, Elmer Taylor. Prater called to Taylor to bring his car because Mr. and Mrs. Starks had been shot. Taylor, along with Mr. and Mrs. Prater and their baby, rode with Mrs. Starks to Michael Meagher Hospital at 503 Walnut Street.
This Thursday, October 29th, The Town That Dreaded Sundown will be shown at Spring Lake Park for Free. Peggy was imprisoned for her own involvement in the car theft, but eventually released. On the morning of March 24, authorities found the bodies of 29-year-old Richard L. Griffin and 17-year-old Polly Ann Moore in a 1941 Oldsmobile on what was then known as a lovers’ lane. Richard was found between the two front seats on his knees, with his head in his hands. His pants pockets were inside out, thought to be the result of someone trying to rob him. In this episode, we examine some the victims that were murdered.
Although she lost a considerable amount of blood, she showed no signs of going into shock and her heart rate remained normal. Miller County Sheriff W. E. Davis, who became head of the investigation, questioned Mrs. Starks in the operating room at Michael Meagher Hospital. The news was printed the next morning on Saturday May 4 on the front page reading "MURDER ROCKS CITY AGAIN; FARMER SLAIN, WIFE WOUNDED". She rang the wall-crank phone twice before being shot two times in the face from the same window.
That being said this lost a lot of likability with its death scenes, there are several characters with less then five minutes of screen time, yet they leave us thanking the killer for offing them. You'll notice the mpaa rating says it has strong sexual content, I'm not one to really complain about unneeded sex and nudity that being said the sex scenes were really used to degrade the characters. Much like the first, the second incident involved a pair of sweethearts. The first victims, Jimmy Hollis, 25, and Mary Jeanne Larey, 19, were attacked while parked at a local lovers’ lane. In the spring and summer of 1946, a serial killer, who would later be dubbed the Phantom Killer, terrorized the residents of Texarkana, a town that straddles the state line between Arkansas and Texas.
The killer, described by witnesses as wearing a white mask or sack with holes cut for eyes, was dubbed the Phantom Killer or Phantom Slayer—a name that, like so much about the case, seemed ready-made for drive-in theaters. This image shows the handprint of a suspect in the 1946 Texarkana Phantom Killer serial murder case. Amy Robinson was a young woman with mental disabilities. In 1998, she was abducted & murdered in her hometown of Arlington, Texas, by two men she believed were her friends. Blake Leibel lived a life of luxury, living off his wealthy parents in Los Angeles. In a case of life imitating art, Leibel murdered his girlfriend, Iana Kasian, in a crime which followed a script from his graphic novel, Syndrome.
I have already completed the copy and paste to a Word document. I have had an interest in the Phantom Killer ever since I heard the story of a neighborhood boy shooting my grandmother's front door with his BB gun. It was only a shadow from a tree that the boy saw, but it cost a new window for the door.
Paul Martin and Betty Jo Booker were the second double murder three weeks later in April. Virgil Starks was killed and his wife Katie was shot twice at the beginning of May 1946. Join Gina and Amber in the discussion about the Texarkana Moonlight Murders on social media or email us your thoughts on the case. For example, the New York Daily News reports that he used the barrel of his gun to sexually assault one of his first victims, a 19-year-old woman named Mary Jeanne Larey. She was one of the few to survive the attacks, but most were not so fortunate.
Also, read 15 Most famous murders in the United States. Mary believed that he was a light-skinned African American, while Hollis thought he was a youthful, dark-tanned, white male who was under 30. Investigators and people believed that it was the same perpetrator who committed the acts even though there was no detailed description from others. Jimmy Hollis and Mary Jeanne, the first victims of the Phantom Killer, were able to describe their perpetrators. He was described as being six feet (1.8 m) tall and having holes carved out for his eyes and mouth in a white mask covering his face. Martin had been shot four times through the ribs from behind, through the nose, through the back of his neck, and in the right hand.
When Amber's body was eventually recovered from the bottom of a creek, it was revealed that her throat had been slit and she was naked except for a single sock. All of the evidence had been washed away by the stream and the killer was never found. Because of the sheer brutality seen in Hagerman's case, the Amber Alert system for missing children was created.
During the investigation, residents reported anything they thought was the ‘phantom killer’ to the police. This included noises, logs breaking at night, and everything. But the police stated that all these horses were fictitious and there was no substance to any of them. In one house, a cat jumped into an upstairs trash can among the frighteningly reported cases. Runnels was a long-time friend of Bowie County Sheriff Presley.