The SHOCKING case that baffled detectives
And some went out to look for the killer, and not all of them working for the law. They hung around after concerts at diners and at the movies. And they had furtive sex where they could, including on piney back roads in the pitch-black darkness. Larey staggered away from her attacker, and the man turned his attention to stomping Hollis’s body. In heels, Larey ran half-blind through the dark, desperate to find help. Eventually, the man in the mask caught up to her, and struck her again, before brutally sexually assaulting her with his weapon.
At that time – April 1946 – the term ‘serial killer’ did not exist. But the second double murder, and the third attack in as many months, tipped off police that someone was specifically targeting the young couple in lovers’ alleys. Bowie County handled the investigation into the double murder of Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore, as the crime occurred again on the Texas side of Texas. Virgil and Katie Sparks, aged 37 and 36 respectively, were home on the evening of May 5, 1946 when they were both shot.
Every shot has brilliant angle, the camera moves about any room with stylish deliberate pace. It gives the entirety of human interaction effortlessly as information is presented with poise and without frantic rushing. There are not many environments that can be this believably livable and not appears as just a setting for movie.
Each municipality has its own police and fire departments and city council. As well, because the area takes in two separate counties — Bowie County and Miller County — the surrounding suburbs are patrolled by separate county sheriff's offices. The reward fund now exceeded $1,700 and rumors circulated with one even suggesting a local minister had turned Murder mysteries in his own son as a suspect. On 18 April, police Captain Gonzuallas issued a statement assuring the public that the murderer had not been caught and that the rumors were "a hindrance to the investigation and harmful to innocent persons". I am deeply passionate about history and am constantly fascinated by the rich and complex stories of the past.
Women of means packed up their clothes and children and checked into downtown’s Hotel Grim when their husbands were away on business. Others rigged Rube Goldbergesque security systems, attaching pots and pans to wire that was strung around their property. People who had never owned guns slept with loaded pistols on both sides of the bed and made pallets on the floor so their children could sleep beside them. Lawmen from Arkansas and Texas and members of the national press overwhelmed the town in pursuit of the assailant, who was dubbed the Phantom Killer by the Texarkana Gazette. Texarkana is a sleepy town that is split between both Texas and Arkansas.
Swinney’s wife, Peggy, would subsequently implicate him in the Texarkana Moonlight Murders and described the murder of Betty Jo Booker and Paul Martin in great detail. Following the confession, however, Peggy made conflicting statements and changed her story. With no physical evidence against him and with Peggy claiming her lawful right to refuse to testify against her husband, Swinney was never prosecuted for the murders. In 1947, Swinney was sentenced to life imprisonment for repeated auto-theft but was released in 1978.
To be fair though the film itself didn't really make me care anyway. The juxtaposition of the new movie and the "old movie" only makes my point -- putting this film alongside Whedon's Cabin in the Woods for cleverly deconstructing a tale from within the story arc itself. This film is really intelligently shot, it mixes in several scenes from the original film while also creating some copycat scenes with different characters, I really enjoyed it. But they also had the ambition to not just redo the same horror as every other thing on the shelf but to layer that stage where horror unfolds so that we get the mechanisms that give rise to it.
Even though Mary Jeanne Larey had been violated in a perverted manner and Miss Moore had been seemingly "assaulted," no one at the time thought to tie the two incidences together. On the rainy morning of March 24, one month after the Larey-Hollis attack, a driver on rural Bowie County Highway 67 noticed something strange. A 1941 Oldsmobile was parked about 100 yards off the highway in a grove off adjacent Robison Road; a man seemed to be asleep behind the wheel.
She ran to him and lifted up his head, which was covered in blood. He was already dead, shot twice in the back of his head. Hollis, meanwhile, had come to and flagged down a passing car for help as well. He had suffered multiple skull fractures and was in the hospital for several days.In spite of the savagery of their attacks, both Hollis and Larrey survived. The film was shot in four weeks during June and July 1976. Locations are primarily around Texarkana, with a number of local residents cast as actors and extras.
The man then ordered Larey to get up and run, which she did. The man quickly caught her and bewildered Larey by asking her why she was running. Larey was again knocked to the ground and this time was sexually assaulted.
Five years after the murders, Gonzaullas left the Rangers to become a technical consultant to the entertainment industry. Jackson Neely "Jack" Runnels (1897–1966), the Texarkana chief of police who was among the first called to the scenes of the two double-murders. Griffin had been shot twice while inside 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.
Both of these victims eventually recovered from their wounds. Police called for the public to report anyone who owned a flashlight like the one above, found at the Starks murder scene. This was the first spot-colored photograph published by the Texarkana Gazette.In the aftermath of the Starks murder, officers from the entire area were called upon to help in the investigation. Those who had been driving in the area at the time of the slaying, along with several men found in the vicinity, were detained for questioning. By May 5, forty-seven officers were working to solve the murder. On May 9, a mobile radio station arrived with twenty Arkansas State Police officers and a fleet of ten prowl cars equipped with two-way radios, to help coordinate the growing investigation.
The Phantom Killer, if the four attacks are to be attributed to the same person, had hit Texarkana once a month since the first beating of Mary Jeanne Larey and Jimmy Hollis. He’d become more and more brazen with each attack — and now, he was gone. Spotting the car tailing him, the high schooler abandoned his surveillance of the bus. A three mile chase followed, ending when someone in the pursuing vehicle shot out the tires on Lauderdale’s car. The pursuant car ended up being an unmarked police vehicle, and the man who had shot his tires, an officer investigating his suspicious behavior. Afterwards, Lauderdale said he had failed to stop because he had no idea who was trying to chase him down.
Severed heads break windows, blood coats sedan windows, and bullets penetrate eye sockets that look like rotten raw meat. We know what’s coming because the Phantom Killer retraces steps rewatched year after year by Texarkana residents — that’s why there’s such a spiteful aesthetic upgrade. Sidney Prescott references Woodsboro, California as being "the town that dreaded sundown" in the original Scream . The fourth film also pays homage to Texarkana, Arkansas, which has a screening of The Town That Dreaded Sundown around Halloween every year, with Stab-a-thon.
At that time – April 1946 – the term ‘serial killer’ did not exist. But the second double murder, and the third attack in as many months, tipped off police that someone was specifically targeting the young couple in lovers’ alleys. Bowie County handled the investigation into the double murder of Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore, as the crime occurred again on the Texas side of Texas. Virgil and Katie Sparks, aged 37 and 36 respectively, were home on the evening of May 5, 1946 when they were both shot.
Every shot has brilliant angle, the camera moves about any room with stylish deliberate pace. It gives the entirety of human interaction effortlessly as information is presented with poise and without frantic rushing. There are not many environments that can be this believably livable and not appears as just a setting for movie.
Each municipality has its own police and fire departments and city council. As well, because the area takes in two separate counties — Bowie County and Miller County — the surrounding suburbs are patrolled by separate county sheriff's offices. The reward fund now exceeded $1,700 and rumors circulated with one even suggesting a local minister had turned Murder mysteries in his own son as a suspect. On 18 April, police Captain Gonzuallas issued a statement assuring the public that the murderer had not been caught and that the rumors were "a hindrance to the investigation and harmful to innocent persons". I am deeply passionate about history and am constantly fascinated by the rich and complex stories of the past.
Women of means packed up their clothes and children and checked into downtown’s Hotel Grim when their husbands were away on business. Others rigged Rube Goldbergesque security systems, attaching pots and pans to wire that was strung around their property. People who had never owned guns slept with loaded pistols on both sides of the bed and made pallets on the floor so their children could sleep beside them. Lawmen from Arkansas and Texas and members of the national press overwhelmed the town in pursuit of the assailant, who was dubbed the Phantom Killer by the Texarkana Gazette. Texarkana is a sleepy town that is split between both Texas and Arkansas.
Swinney’s wife, Peggy, would subsequently implicate him in the Texarkana Moonlight Murders and described the murder of Betty Jo Booker and Paul Martin in great detail. Following the confession, however, Peggy made conflicting statements and changed her story. With no physical evidence against him and with Peggy claiming her lawful right to refuse to testify against her husband, Swinney was never prosecuted for the murders. In 1947, Swinney was sentenced to life imprisonment for repeated auto-theft but was released in 1978.
To be fair though the film itself didn't really make me care anyway. The juxtaposition of the new movie and the "old movie" only makes my point -- putting this film alongside Whedon's Cabin in the Woods for cleverly deconstructing a tale from within the story arc itself. This film is really intelligently shot, it mixes in several scenes from the original film while also creating some copycat scenes with different characters, I really enjoyed it. But they also had the ambition to not just redo the same horror as every other thing on the shelf but to layer that stage where horror unfolds so that we get the mechanisms that give rise to it.
Even though Mary Jeanne Larey had been violated in a perverted manner and Miss Moore had been seemingly "assaulted," no one at the time thought to tie the two incidences together. On the rainy morning of March 24, one month after the Larey-Hollis attack, a driver on rural Bowie County Highway 67 noticed something strange. A 1941 Oldsmobile was parked about 100 yards off the highway in a grove off adjacent Robison Road; a man seemed to be asleep behind the wheel.
She ran to him and lifted up his head, which was covered in blood. He was already dead, shot twice in the back of his head. Hollis, meanwhile, had come to and flagged down a passing car for help as well. He had suffered multiple skull fractures and was in the hospital for several days.In spite of the savagery of their attacks, both Hollis and Larrey survived. The film was shot in four weeks during June and July 1976. Locations are primarily around Texarkana, with a number of local residents cast as actors and extras.
The man then ordered Larey to get up and run, which she did. The man quickly caught her and bewildered Larey by asking her why she was running. Larey was again knocked to the ground and this time was sexually assaulted.
Five years after the murders, Gonzaullas left the Rangers to become a technical consultant to the entertainment industry. Jackson Neely "Jack" Runnels (1897–1966), the Texarkana chief of police who was among the first called to the scenes of the two double-murders. Griffin had been shot twice while inside 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.
Both of these victims eventually recovered from their wounds. Police called for the public to report anyone who owned a flashlight like the one above, found at the Starks murder scene. This was the first spot-colored photograph published by the Texarkana Gazette.In the aftermath of the Starks murder, officers from the entire area were called upon to help in the investigation. Those who had been driving in the area at the time of the slaying, along with several men found in the vicinity, were detained for questioning. By May 5, forty-seven officers were working to solve the murder. On May 9, a mobile radio station arrived with twenty Arkansas State Police officers and a fleet of ten prowl cars equipped with two-way radios, to help coordinate the growing investigation.
The Phantom Killer, if the four attacks are to be attributed to the same person, had hit Texarkana once a month since the first beating of Mary Jeanne Larey and Jimmy Hollis. He’d become more and more brazen with each attack — and now, he was gone. Spotting the car tailing him, the high schooler abandoned his surveillance of the bus. A three mile chase followed, ending when someone in the pursuing vehicle shot out the tires on Lauderdale’s car. The pursuant car ended up being an unmarked police vehicle, and the man who had shot his tires, an officer investigating his suspicious behavior. Afterwards, Lauderdale said he had failed to stop because he had no idea who was trying to chase him down.
Severed heads break windows, blood coats sedan windows, and bullets penetrate eye sockets that look like rotten raw meat. We know what’s coming because the Phantom Killer retraces steps rewatched year after year by Texarkana residents — that’s why there’s such a spiteful aesthetic upgrade. Sidney Prescott references Woodsboro, California as being "the town that dreaded sundown" in the original Scream . The fourth film also pays homage to Texarkana, Arkansas, which has a screening of The Town That Dreaded Sundown around Halloween every year, with Stab-a-thon.
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