Most Spooky with Jane Scratchaway: The Phantom Killer of Texarkana

The Phantom Killer of Texarkana

Greetings and meow, my fellow sleuthing enthusiasts, this is Sergeant Scratchaway reporting for – ooh – bug!

Ahem. Sorry about that. When bugs crawl around, I pretty much have to chase them. I can’t help myself. Same thing with cold cases – they turn up, and I gotta look at them, and see what happened.

I was gnawing on a shoelace the other day when I remembered an old serial killer case, out of Texarkana, back sometime in the ‘40s. Folks around there were pretty terrified, and the killer, a white-hood-with-eyeholes-cut-out type of number; well he predated good old Jason and Freddy by several decades, my pretties.

Purrhaps I will relate it to you. It might put you off your kibble for a while though, so beware. It started with a couple, Jimmy Hollis, age 24, and Mary Jeanne Larey, age 19. They were enjoying a quiet evening, when out of the blue they were assaulted from behind, and taken out with some sort of blunt force trauma to their noggins.

They both managed to survive, though poor Mary Jeanne was sexually assaulted with the perpetrator’s pistol. Thankfully, it seems that the bad guy was scared off when a pair of headlights swung around, and both kids were able to run off and get help.

And so began the case of the Texarkana Moonlight Murders, and the Phantom Slayer. There were several instances after this one, which sadly did end in murder. Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore were slain on a rural road – both receiving shots to the back of the head.

There were some who said that the Phantom Killer struck only on the night of  a full moon, but that, my friends, is apocryphal. Only those silly dogs howl at the moon, you know.

After a few more killings, people were getting really scared. There was one suspect, a car thief by the name of Youell Swinney, who also had a pretty long rap sheet for burglaries and other crimes. His wife ratted him out, claiming that he was "the Phantom Killer".

But good old Mrs. Swinney’s story kept changing, and there was no chance it would have held up in court. I think purrhaps she had other motives in mind.

Youell Swinney was eventually convicted on his other crimes and ended up getting a life sentence; though he was released many years later sue to a technicality.

The killings stopped after a while, and there were no new suspects. Things died down, but there is a strange little postscript to this story. Many of the victims’ living relatives received calls from a woman claiming to be the daughter of the killer. She apologized to them for the pain that her father had caused. This was strange because Swinney had no daughter.