Murder case of 'Phantom Killer' in Texas remains unsolved 70 years later

May 1946: Southern city is panicked by killer who shoots according to schedule. May 1946: Southern city is panicked by killer who shoots according to schedule. Photo: Ed Clark, Ed Clark/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Photo: Ed Clark, Ed Clark/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Image 1 of / 159 Caption Close Murder case of 'Phantom Killer' in Texas remains unsolved 70 years later 1 / 159 Back to Gallery

Law enforcement officers believed they once caught the hooded killer behind a murder spree in Texarkana that left five people dead in 1946, but the suspect got off on a technicality.

70 years later, the case remains unsolved.

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A total of five people were killed in a series of seemingly random attacks in 1946 dubbed the "Texarkana Moonlight Murders" by the press. Another three were injured.

Investigators in Texarkana believed the attacks were all perpetrated by the same person, apparently wearing some kind of hood with holes cut out of it.

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On Feb. 22, 1946, a man assaulted Jimmy Hollis and Mary Jeanne Larey, sending Hollis into a coma and sexually assaulting Larey with a gun barrel.

The New York Daily News reported that Larey and Hollis, however, had discrepancies in how they described their attacker, leading to confusion for law enforcement.

Roughly one month later, Richard Griffin, 29, and Polly Ann Moore, 17, were found dead with bullet wounds in the back of their heads.

In April 1946, police found the bodies of Paul Martin, 16, and Betty Jo Booker, 15 — Martin with four bullet wounds and Booker with bullet wounds in her head and heart, according to The New York Daily News.

Then, on May 3, Virgil Starks, 37, was killed in his living room when he was shot twice in the head through the window. His wife Katie Starks was shot twice in the face, but survived.

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The killings caused a frenzy in the town bordering Texas and Arkansas: Getty Images archives show that citizens in the town kept lights on and weapons at the ready in case they encountered the so-called "Phantom Killer."

The Texarkana Gazette even published its first spot-colored photograph to print a color rendering of a flashlight found at the scene of the Starks shooting.

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It has long been speculated that Youell Lee Swinney, then a 29-year-old man from Arkansas, was behind the killings.

Police caught Youell Lee Swinney about two weeks after they arrested his wife Peggy Stevens Swinney for driving a stolen car on June 28, 1946, according to The New York Daily News.

The newly married couple made a habit of stealing cars, the newspaper reported.

When police arrested him on a car theft charge, Youell Lee Swinney apparently asked, "Will they give me the chair?"

Peggy Swinney had told police that she witnessed one of the killings, but later did not testify in court because she would've been compelled to testify against her husband.

The suspect was never charged in any of the murders, as his wife refused to testify and evidence was otherwise too thin.

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James Presley told Texas Monthly that his uncle Bowie County Sheriff Bill Presley and other investigators on the case never stopped believing that Youell Swinney, who died in 1994, committed the killings.

"I recall my father saying during that summer of 1946, 'I saw Bill today, and he said we could relax now. They've caught the guy who did it. He's an ex-convict. But don't say anything about it to anyone,' " James Presley told Texas Monthly.

James Presley penned the 2014 book "The Phantom Killer: Unlocking the Mystery of the Texarkana Serial Murders: A Story of a Town in Terror," which detailed the case.

"He died before I started writing this book," Presley told Texas Monthly. "But I daresay he and every lawman who worked this case never quit mulling the story over and over in hopes of turning up the hard evidence that could have convicted Swinney of the murders."

jfechter@mySA.com

Twitter: @JFreports