Texarkana Moonlight Murders

Between February 22 and May 3, 1946, a series of violent attacks on young couples near Texarkana, Texas and Arkansas were attributed by contemporary press to an unidentified assailant nicknamed the "Phantom Killer," "Phantom of Texarkana," or "Phantom Slayer." Investigators attributed eight attacks, five of them fatal, to this hypothetical single perpetrator over a ten-week period, though the connection between the first and final attacks was later disputed by some officials.

The first attack occurred February 22, when Jimmy Hollis and Mary Jeanne Larey were assaulted at a lovers' lane outside Texarkana, Texas, by a masked man who beat Hollis and sexually assaulted Larey with a gun barrel; both survived. On March 24, Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore were found shot to death in Griffin's car at another lovers' lane. On April 14, Paul Martin and Betty Jo Booker were found shot dead in separate wooded locations after Martin picked Booker up from a musical performance; ballistics tied the same .32 caliber pistol to both double-murders. On May 3, Virgil Starks was shot to death through a window at his farmhouse, and his wife Katie Starks was wounded but survived after fleeing to a neighbor's home.

Investigations spanned city, county, state, and federal law enforcement, including the Bowie County Sheriff's Office, Texarkana Police, Miller County Sheriff's Office, Arkansas State Police, Texas Rangers, and the FBI. Nearly 400 suspects were investigated over the course of the inquiry, including a German prisoner of war on the run, an unknown armed hitchhiker, a man attempting to sell a saxophone matching Booker's missing instrument, and a University of Arkansas student, Henry Booker "Doodie" Tennison, who left a suicide note in 1948 confessing to three of the murders but for whom no corroborating evidence was found.

The most substantial suspect identified was Youell Swinney, a 29-year-old car thief and counterfeiter arrested in July 1946 by Arkansas State Police investigator Max Tackett during a car-theft inquiry. Swinney's wife, Peggy, gave a detailed confession implicating her husband in the Martin-Booker killings, and some details were independently corroborated by police; however, she later recanted and could not be compelled to testify against her husband under law at the time. Investigators could not otherwise tie Swinney conclusively to the murders — records showed the couple sleeping in their car near San Antonio on the night of the Martin-Booker killings — and prosecutors decided against pursuing murder charges. Swinney was instead tried and imprisoned as a habitual offender on the car-theft charges. Two lead investigators reportedly believed Swinney was guilty, and a 2014 book by James Presley, nephew of Sheriff William Hardy "Bill" Presley, concluded that Swinney was the culprit, though this remains a published theory rather than a legal adjudication.

The murders caused significant public panic in Texarkana throughout the summer of 1946, prompting residents to arm themselves, install new locks, and observe curfews. No one was ever formally charged with any of the murders, and the case remains officially unsolved. The events later inspired the 1976 film "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" and its 2014 remake, among other media.