The Horrifying Texarkana Phantom Killer

this week on buzzfeed unsolved we take a look into the texarkana phantom killer a case that has been referred to as quote the number one unsolved murder case in texas history end quote number one baby yeah i love it i don't think they have like a big board in the texas police station where they are so you think they vote oh it seems all relative right yeah i guess so but they seem pretty resolute about this guy being at the top of the heat and it's a rowdy town you'll see that is it really it's a rarity town you've been there no i haven't been there but i read it's a rowdy town fun to read about a rowdy town a rowdy town with two rowdy boys let's get into it on february 22nd 1946 in the texas arkansas border town appropriately named texarkana jimmy hall is 25 and mary jane larry 19 went on a date to the movies and began driving back to mary jean's home on the way they stopped their car on a quiet unpaved road about 100 yards away from some houses in a residential neighborhood that's what i like there you go yeah you know what they're doing how many here we go wait yeah but wait in this scenario funny area it's 2019. when did this bit start like god this had to be like caveman times you think like a neanderthal looked into this other neanderthal pals win probably it's one of the world's greatest bits i feel like people don't do it enough nowadays because we take it for granted spread that around this year you know if you see your two friends and you you think maybe they've been smooching behind your back be like i know what you guys are up to a little i actually don't think your angle is catching and i think we can still see your face a little bit so you might have to turn is this like that if i turn it's like we're both making out after about 10 minutes a man walked up as mary jean would later relate quote he wore a white mask over his head with cut out places for his eyes and mouth he pointed a flashlight and pistol at us he came up on the driver's side of the car and told jimmy something like this i don't want to kill you fellow so do what i say end quote both jimmy and mary jane got out of the car the assailant made jimmy take off his pants then hit him twice over the head cracking jimmy's skull and knocking him unconscious the attacker then tried to sexually assault and rob mary jean oh okay i did yeah it was good it got a little rough yeah it's a little rough interesting that he would go through the theatrics of wearing a mask yeah anytime someone wears a mask and it's a serial killer situation you wonder did they intend to maybe let them go because the only reason why you're wearing a mask is so that they can't then identify you later yeah oh that's true if a killer approached me and he had a mask on i would feel a little bit better about my chances of surviving because if he walks up with a gun in his like you could just see his face like i could see it's your face i know that's probably the last thing i'm going to see and right now i actually thought of staring into those dead cold eyes and if that's the last thing i see on this earth i made some mistakes along the way yeah i'd say so mary jean pleaded with the attacker telling him they didn't have any money the attacker hit mary jean knocking her to the ground when she got up the man told her to run mary jean took off down the road but was wearing high heels the assailant quickly overtook her and hit her again knocking her to the ground where he began to abuse her at this point jimmy struggled to his feet and managed to stop a passing car it's thought the assailant saw the car lights and fled from mary jean both jimmy and mary jean received medical treatment jimmy spent over 12 days recovering in the hospital this guy did literally get his skull cracked and still was able to get up and flag down another car which then saved their lives um yeah good for jimmy i mean it could just be like a fracture right i don't know how skulls really work from what i read it was pretty bad pretty severe crack from the description she thought that he had shot him that's how loud the cracking noise was oh which is not good so oh for two yeah over two but this as you'll see would be just the first of his attacks in the mid 40s texarkano was a relatively violent place killings robberies and other crimes were very common it might make sense then while the attack on jimmy and mary jean was brutal the community didn't pay it much attention until another attack occurred a month later this one fatal yeah i mean it must be an upsetting place if a masked man trying to assault two people is just passing news yeah it's like oh did you hear about that uh the masked phantom who tried to murder two people oh yeah hey let's go get a soda pop on the morning of march 24th authorities found the bodies of 29 year old richard l griffin and 17 year old paulie ann moore in a 1941 oldsmobile on what was then known as a lover's lane both had been shot in the back of the head 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 paulian was discovered face down in the back seat of the car though there was evidence that suggested she may have been murdered on a blanket outside the car and placed there later the couple had last been seen around 10 pm the night before eating dinner with richard's sister they had been shot with what was thought to have been a cold 32 caliber pistol and any footprints that would have been around the car had been washed away throughout the day we gotta give kids places to make out that's unfortunately most of these serial killer cases happen in the lovers lane scenario that's what i'm saying we gotta give them a well-lit area that is central to a town's location maybe some water vending machines nearby oh some soda pops some sprees whatever you know yeah just a place with a bunch well i probably don't want to bring hammocks into the equation because smooching might elevate but um that is true also a hammock would be really hard to escape if a serial killer did come up to you while you were smooching in a hammock it's impossible you're interested it's just a murder battle you're trapped in a little knit yeah like in a little a little spider net though there weren't many clues for authorities to go off of three days after the killings at least 50 people had been asked about the murder and over 100 false leads had been investigated while this attack ending in the murder of a young couple turned more heads than the first assault the community still believed these events to be isolated incidents three weeks later their indifference would change into a frenzy of fear on april 14th authorities found the bodies of 15 year old betty jo booker and 16 year old paul martin the previous night the two teens had attended a band performance at the veterans of foreign wars club where betty jo played alto saxophone they were also seen leaving the dance around 1 30 in the morning paul had been shot four times and was discovered in a rural area on north park road betty jo had been raped and shot twice her body was found up in the woods about a mile away so escalating getting worse getting worse he's getting a little more bold one thing you can note though because you always see the trends of these serial killers all of these were couples interesting both had been shot with a 32 caliber colt the same weapon thought to be used in the previous attack this being the third attack in less than two months now with four young people dead the community was finally paying attention and they were panicked when their husbands and fathers were away for work women and children would move into the aptly named hotel grim in downtown texarkana sort of like a staycation no it's not like a staycation it's more like a people around us are getting murdered let's all huddle together under the roof of a place named the hotel grim well clearly it's a popular establishment and if everybody trusts them they're going there as a place of refuge i suppose maybe stop being so uh uh judgey of these the thing is maybe i just don't have the insight that you have because this town as i said was a rowdy town they even called it little chicago and as we all know that's where you hail from i know from big chicago murder murder town usa okay well you know there's some uh big big issues there others bought guns and crafted homemade security systems from kitchenware and wire around their homes typically bustling streets went quiet the texarkana gazette named the attacker the phantom killer it doesn't help that the the press named him the phantom killer they gave him a nickname if you give someone a nickname it's a compliment it shouldn't we shouldn't never be doing that for this year because he probably read that in the paper next name was like that's got a ring to it i'm going to get some business cards printed yeah tillman johnson one of the lead investigators said quote we were constantly getting calls mostly at night about prowlers people would call about any noise they heard at all end quote everyone was afraid they would be the next victim of the phantom killer seems like a little bit of a stretch for really any texan in the 1940s to say uh you know what i i think i might need to buy a gun it is also fun that they're setting little kevin mcallister booby traps i think people perhaps undervalue booby traps i don't think they're that practical in real life they could be if you do it well who are you trying to booby trap on a regular basis your cat your sweet obie he's a sweet boy you're trying to booby trap that cat no i don't want to do the opposite i want to booby hug him booby hug him i don't know what the term is that what's the trap lay down a path of rose petals you know come this way sir i tell you what you're a sweet boy with a fuzzy face i'll give you a little hug on may 3rd 37 year old farmer virgil starks was listening to the radio when a 22 caliber round tore through his front porch window and hit him his wife katie left their bedroom to find virgil bleeding in the living room katie went to call for help when the attacker shot her twice in the face the bullets knocked some of her teeth out but she survived ducking to avoid more shots she made her way back to the bedroom as the attacker tried to break in through the kitchen window katie escaped out the front door with a bullet stuck under her tongue and trailing blood behind her katie made it to a nearby farmhouse where she was taken to the hospital and survived virgil however died i don't like i don't like any mouth teeth stuff don't like it no you know like when people get in fights and you can kind of see like the teeth coming like hold on they're falling out of their mouth i've got big issues with teeth even if i'm sitting with someone who is taking a fork and eating and it scrapes against their teeth oh yeah i don't like to either a drill we're also kind of lightly glossing over the fact that she got shot in the face twice yeah that's worse than a fork scraping an indication of the fear the phantom killer had instilled in the community 20 to 30 police officers converged on the stark's farmhouse police tried to gather evidence and interview possible suspects and witnesses according to johnson quote people would stand out near the front of their homes and yell at you to identify yourself before you got too close you had to identify yourself or you would get shot end quote fair so yeah i mean we're on high alert here yeah if this was me i'd have a double barrel shotgun pointed directly at the door at all times you'd probably have to have shifts because i'd want someone out there at night too i'm staying up day and night i don't sleep well then now now you're setting yourself up for that's vulnerable because you're going to fall asleep maybe i'll take a nap yeah take a nap they'll take a nap and then okay let's do shifts you're right yeah shifts are right shifts are good i wanted to be i've never even shot a gun so you've never shot a gun no you don't have to i don't think i have to authorities followed bloody footprints left by the killer that went from the house across the highway where they eventually lost the trail while this incident exacerbated the fear of the phantom killer it's possible this killing was done by someone else the other attacks had targeted people younger than the starks and had taken place in cars not homes in addition virgil was shot with a 22 caliber semi-automatic pistol a different weapon than the 32 caliber used in the previous murders of betty joe and paul still this incident was included in the phantom investigation as panic swept the area authorities took to dressing as young couples in an effort to lure the murderer but it appeared the phantom was done two months later with no more phantom murders the community's fear began to decrease and life started to get back to normal no one was ever found guilty of the murders backtrack just a bit about the dressing up exactly right yeah i thought so i'm imagining an old texan man with a large bushy mustache it's like a chubby sam elliott a cop hat on a white t-shirt pack of cigarettes rolled up in it you're imagining a clearly adult burly police officer trying to look like a 16 year old boy 100 and it's hilarious yes and next to him also an adult male with a big old mustache yes maybe pretending to make out or maybe actually make an hour or pre-recorded noises of smooching noises [Music] like a ferris bueller's situation that's like cartoon kissing no one sounds like that one [Music] with that it's time to look into possible theories behind the texarkana phantom murders of which there are basically only two the first theory is hb duty tennyson a college student who confessed to some of the killings in a note left behind after he killed himself according to a newspaper from the day of his death a sheriff reportedly said the note read quote why did i take my own life well when you committed two double murders you would too yes i did kill betty jo booker and paul martin in the city park that night and killed mr stark and tried to get mrs stark end quote according to duty's cousin forensic psychiatrist dr john tennyson duty had connections to all of the victims he was allegedly an usher at the theater where some victims of the attacks had seen movies before their deaths and had been in the same high school band as betty jo according to dr tennyson one of duty's friends lived under the same roof as the sister of katie starks all right so he had some connections to some of the victims but i will note that the sources when it came to that note in particular were shaky at best it was just him what do they say these things why is this hearsay people want to answer me it's like that people people when the public want answers there's this horrible thing happening in their town they look to the authorities for answers and if they don't have them there's outrage so you need to have something to say interesting so as a result some uh maybe some shoddy reporting but it is fairly convenient that he has all these connections to them and it is he's a he's a very interesting suspect for sure but for me because there's that note and these connections and yet he still wasn't indicted for the crimes there must have been something that ruled him out outright no our other theory is 29 year old yuel lee swinney around the time of the attacks arkansas state trooper max tackett observed that cars were reported stolen and later found abandoned whenever the phantom killer made an attack following this lead led police to stake out a downtown parking lot on june 28 1946 where a stolen car was abandoned this led to the arrest of 21 year old peggy swinney the new wife of one ul lee swinney while in custody peggy gave many detailed statements explaining how her husband committed the murders of betty jo and paul though descriptions of her own involvement varied from statement to statement on july 23rd piggy gave a statement saying that on april 13th the day before the bodies of betty jo booker and paul martin were found she and uel parked at spring lake park and drank some beers according to her statement uel left the car saying he had to quote take a leak end quote peggy said quote he was gone from the car about one hour when i heard something that sounded like two gunshots it was just getting daylight when he came back to the car and started driving out of the park at a rapid rate of speed when he came back to the car i saw that his clothes were wet up to his knees and damp on up to his waist end quote she says that her boyfriend steps out of the car to go go pee yep and then he takes a long time comes back and when he comes back he's very rushed she's driving shots she's heard gunshots he's driving very fast he's wet not because of the pee i imagine because he went through a creek or something it's near lake so it's near lake washing off the blood she does seem to have a fair amount of details she does and there's one detail that she has that is very interesting that she knows and we'll get to that in a second okay on july 24th peggy gave another statement in this one she said uel had said quote he was going out to the park to rob someone end quote peggy said she went with uel to paul martin's car where uel pointed a gun at the young couple and told them to get out of the car peggy said that she refused to search the teenagers which angered uel and he shot martin twice peggy then allegedly held betty joe in place while joel got his car he drove it back made both girls get into the car drove west turned around and shot paul two more times as he had apparently been able to get up and move after the first two shots he took betty jo into the woods while peggy waited in the car when uel returned he told peggy he had tried to quote get some end quote with a young girl and then shot her after she refused wait so this is the same attack but a different story so she gave multiple statements about this day that they were at the lake one version she says he left and came back this version she says she was well involved she was somewhat involved and she said that he was going to go rob these people i see well peggy's story shifted she crucially told police information that only someone who had been at the scene of the crime would have known for instance peggy mentioned how paul's date book was thrown into some bushes a fact that only bowie county sheriff w h bill presley knew at the time as he had been the one who'd found the book that sounds like she knows what she's talking about okay so there's two scenarios right she was there when the murder happened or she happened upon it she happened upon it while they were at the lake found these bodies saw that there was that in the bush and then ran away and then realized later maybe they'll find out i was there yeah but i will say that if scenario two was true it does not make a bit of sense for her to be like yeah we decided we were going to rob them oh they might find out i was there i know what i'll tell them we killed him i'll tell them he killed them and i thought about it and i just kind of went but i wasn't down uel was arrested at the arkansas motorcoach bus station as he arrived back from atlanta where he had attempted to sell a stolen car while his wife was willing to talk to investigators ul was not critically while peggy did give statements to investigators she could not be forced to testify against uel as they had gotten married mere hours before police arrested her i'm having a hard time taking a temperature on these two do they love each other clearly not because she's she's you know ratting him out but that also could be self-preservation she could have been involved did he get off that's what i was saying like a weird bonnie and clyde but bonnie and clyde stuck together bonnie wasn't like hey you gotta check out this clyde guy uel was taken to little rock for a truth serum shot but he was given too much which caused him to pass out investigator tillman johnson said quote i think that if we had just kept him here in texarkana and kept questioning him we would have gotten the truth out of him eventually end quote well the truth serum is not real yeah i mean we we we've come across this this very elusive truth serum we've looked it up and most of these cases i mean whatever it is apparently you could overdose on you could take too much true serum too much serum too much serum man yeah so you're bringing in this uh quack doctor who's like he's just he's not telling the truth give him more okay let me inject him with my lemon juice cocktail i'll tell him make him look pretty woozy doc peggy was imprisoned for her own involvement in the car theft but eventually released uel was sentenced to life in state prison for being a habitual criminal after the auto theft charge but was released on parole in 1973 when the texas court of criminal appeals decided that he didn't have adequate representation on a car theft charge from 1941. uel died in a nursing home in dallas in 1994. crazy to think you can kill five people in the 1940s and then live long enough to see jurassic park in theaters thank you for that some other things thank you for that colorful i'm just trying to put into perspective the fact that this man so long ago committed these crimes and then and he's so far into the future and he saw the rise of industrial light and magic hi ellen they're wizards yeah i don't really know how to wrap this one up because it's just kind of upsetting because i feel like this man got away with it or the other guy got to say that or the other guy but it does seem like this guy [Laughter] the texarkana phantom murder stand out as managing to stoke a frenzy of fear in a community that had been numbed to violent crime as w e atchison a resident of the area who was 16 at the time of the attack said quote the big wonder for everyone back then was whether the killings were being done by someone who lived among us and i still wonder who did it end quote across four attacks five people were shot to death and three others were severely injured as for who was responsible that remains unsolved i will say that since the the the time of the murders the town really has leaned into it the movie that was made about this was called the town that dreaded sundown i've heard of that i didn't realize that that was about that i've never seen it but yeah that's about that's about the texarkana phantom killer dang well that i don't really know how to wrap this one up because it's sad positive here's a positive let's do it what do you got this made the town rally together and they thought like maybe we gotta stop being so violent with each other that didn't happen but they certainly remembered the murders well then they said let's remember these murders forever and i'm sure it's a lovely town yeah i've never been uh we'll have to go sometime okay we can watch the movie too yeah i'll just watch the movie sundown we'll just watch the movie you

Channel: BuzzFeed Unsolved Network

Views: 8,249,129

Rating: 4.9540806 out of 5

Keywords: BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed Unsolved Network, Buzzfeed unsolved, SffZ, Texarkana Moonlight Murders, Texarkana Murders, buzzfeed ryan, buzzfeed shane, case, cold case, cold-case, creepy, crime, criminal, detective, detectives, eerie, investigate, investigation, investigative, love, lovers lane, mystery, ryan begara, scary, shane madej, spooky, strange, texarkana, theories, theory, true crime, unexplained, unsolved, unsolved mystery, weird

Id: 87y1_IbJRZE

Length: 22min 59sec (1379 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/haleyisahero]

He said February right!

[u/daesgatling]

Yay, my home state!

[u/bluebledthesea]

The Town that Dreaded Sundown isn't a bad slasher flick. There was an original and a remake, I think both are worth checking out if you're into the story and horror movies but don't take it too seriously.

[u/SadimirLenin]

Great episode!

[u/Utopia-27]

Another great episode!

[u/SadimirLenin]

The case where the couple was murdered in their house didn’t seem to be the work of the Phantom Killer, though. Why was it thought of as the Phantom Killer, then? I think Ryan mentioned it might’ve been because the existence of a serial killer there alone might’ve had people thinking it would’ve been connected. Does this case also sound kinda similar to the Zodiac? (Not saying they’re the same person, though)

[u/crazysquaregamer]

great episode with in my opinion the best case so far this season bar the watcher.

on thing that bugged be though is the way the dates during the narration appear to be added in after and are obviously worse quality than the rest of the narration