Texarkana Moonlight Murders

Case background and investigation

The Texarkana Moonlight Murders were four attacks carried out over about ten weeks in the spring of 1946 in and around Texarkana, a city divided between Bowie County, Texas, and Miller County, Arkansas. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, five people were killed and three were wounded. The attacks took place at night, on weekends, and the unidentified assailant became known in the press as the Phantom Killer.

The first attack came on February 22, 1946, when Jimmy Hollis, 25, and Mary Jeanne Larey, 19, were confronted by a masked man with a gun while parked on a secluded road on the Texas side. Hollis was beaten and suffered skull fractures, and Larey was assaulted. Both survived and gave descriptions of a man wearing a white cloth mask.

On March 24, 1946, Richard Griffin, 29, and Polly Ann Moore, 17, were found shot dead in a car on a lovers' lane in Bowie County. On April 14, Paul Martin, 16, and Betty Jo Booker, 15, were found shot to death in the area of Spring Lake Park; their bodies were discovered some distance apart. Both double murders were committed with a .32 caliber handgun.

The final attack took place on May 3, 1946, at a farmhouse in Miller County, Arkansas, about ten miles northeast of Texarkana. Virgil Starks, 37, was shot through a window and killed. His wife, Katie Starks, was shot twice in the face but managed to reach a neighbor's house and survived. A .22 caliber weapon was used, unlike the .32 caliber handgun of the earlier killings.

The investigation drew in local police, both county sheriffs, the Arkansas State Police and the Texas Rangers, led by Captain Manuel T. Gonzaullas. In July 1946, Arkansas state trooper Max Tackett arrested Youell Swinney, a man with a record for car theft and counterfeiting. According to published accounts, Swinney's wife told officers that he was responsible for the killings, but she later withdrew her statements and could not be compelled to testify against him. Swinney was never charged with any of the murders. He was convicted of car theft and imprisoned as a habitual offender, and was released in 1973 after a successful appeal. Some investigators said they believed he was responsible, but this was never tested in court.

No one has been charged with the attacks, and the case is regarded as an unsolved cold case. It was the basis for the 1976 film The Town That Dreaded Sundown.