Unsolved cases

Texarkana Moonlight Murders

The Texarkana Moonlight Murders, a term coined by the contemporary press, was a series of four unsolved serial murders and related violent crimes committed in and around the Texarkana region of Arkansas and Texas in the late winter and spring of 1946. They were attributed to an alleged unidentified serial killer known as the Phantom of Texarkana or simply the Phantom Killer or Phantom Slayer.

The first attack was on February 22, 1946, at around 11:45 pm, immy Hollis, age 25, and his girlfriend, Mary Jeanne Larey, age 19, parked on a secluded road known as a lovers' lane after having seen a movie together. The area was approximately 300 feet (91 m) from the last row of city homes. Around ten minutes later, a man wearing a white cloth mask–which resembled a pillowcase with eye holes cut out–appeared at Hollis's driver-side door, and shone a flashlight in the window. Hollis told him he had the wrong person, to which the man responded: "I don't want to kill you, fellow, so do what I say."

Both Hollis and Larey were ordered out the driver-side door, and the man ordered Hollis to "take off [his] goddamn britches." After he complied, the man struck him in the head twice with a pistol. Larey later told investigators that the noise was so loud she had initially thought Hollis had been shot, but it was his skull fracturing. thinking the assailant wanted to rob them, Larey showed him Hollis's wallet to prove he had no money, after which she was struck with a blunt object. The assailant ordered her to stand, and when she did, told her to run. Initially, she tried to flee toward a ditch, but the assailant ordered her to run up the road.

Larey spotted an old car parked off the road but found it empty, and was again confronted by the attacker, who asked her why she was running. When she said that he had told her to do so, he called her a liar before knocking her down and sexually assaulting her with the barrel of his gun. After the assault, Larey fled on foot, running a half-mile (800 m) to a nearby house; she woke the residents of the house and phoned the police.

Meanwhile, Hollis had regained consciousness and alerted a passing motorist who also called the police. Within thirty minutes, Bowie County Sheriff W. H. "Bill" Presley and three other officers arrived at the scene of the attack, but the assailant had already left. Larey was hospitalized overnight for a minor head wound. Hollis was hospitalized for several days to recover from multiple skull fractures.

Hollis and Larey gave conflicting reports of their attacker: Larey claimed that she could see under the mask that he was a light-skinned African American. Hollis alternately claimed it was a tanned white man, and around 30 years old, but conceded he could not distinguish his features as he had been blinded by a flashlight. Both agreed that the assailant was around 6 feet (1.8 m) tall. Law enforcement repeatedly challenged Larey's account and believed that she and Hollis knew the identity of their attacker and were covering for him.

On March 24, 1946, Richard L. Griffin, age 29, and his girlfriend of six weeks, Polly Ann Moore, age 17, were found dead in Griffin's car. The motorist saw the parked car on a lovers' lane 100 yards (91 m) south of US Highway 67 West in Texas. The motorist at first thought that both were asleep. Griffin was found between the front seats on his knees with his head resting on his crossed hands and his pockets turned inside out; Moore was found sprawled face-down in the back seat. There is evidence that suggests she was placed there after being killed on a blanket outside the car.

Griffin had been shot twice while in the car; both had been shot once in the back of the head, and both were fully clothed. A blood-soaked patch of earth near the car suggested to police that they had been killed outside the car and placed back inside. Congealed blood was found covering the running board, and it had flowed through the bottom of the car door. A .32 cartridge casing was also found, possibly ejected from a pistol wrapped in a blanket.

Contemporaneous local rumors said that Moore had been sexually assaulted, but modern reports refute this claim.

On April 14, 1946, at around 1:30 a.m., Paul Martin, age 17, picked up Betty Jo Booker, age 15, from a musical performance at the VFW Club at West Fourth and Oak Street. Martin's body was found at around 6:30 a.m. later that morning, lying on its left side by the northern edge of North Park Road. Blood was found on the other side of the road by a fence. He had been shot four times: through the nose, through the ribs from behind, in the right hand, and through the back of the neck.