The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large

by Nigel Cawthorne

  Some other I–45 murders have been solved. In late January 1999, drifter William Ray Mathews walked into the office of Country Time Mobile homes in Shenandoah, Texas, some 30 miles north of Houston on the I–45. He was carrying a briefcase and sat down and wrote sales assistant Tracy Vickery a note. It said he had a gun and, if she did not do what he said, he would kill her. He forced Vickery into his truck, then he drove off down I–45. But she leapt from his speeding truck. He tried to pull her back in by her hair but he could not hold her. She got away and ran to the Gulf Coast Trades Center to save herself.

  Just weeks earlier, on 17 January, 18-year-old blonde Wanda May Pitts had disappeared from the Lodge Motel on the other side of the I–45. She had worked there for about two months and did not have a car. She was on duty in the lobby when Mathews abducted her. He took her to one of the motel rooms and sexually assaulted her, later boasting that she had been a virgin. Within hours of abducting Wanda Pitts he strangled her. After he was arrested for the attempted abduction of Tracey Vickery, Mathews said that he could not remember where he had put Wanda Pitts’ body, but about a year later her remains were found off an abandoned gated driveway.

  A plea bargain prevented him from being charged with Pitts’ murder, but he was convicted of attempting to abduct Tracy Vickery.

  In the 21st century the I–45 killings continued. On 12 July 2001, 57-year-old Tot Tran Harriman, a brown-eyed Oriental with black hair streaked with grey, left her son’s home League City at around 5 a.m. to drive to Corpus Christi, Texas. She has not been seen since. Weighing 130 pounds and 4 foot 11 inches tall, she was driving a 1996 maroon Lincoln Continental with personalized Florida licence plate on the back, saying “TOTSY”. As Florida only requires a rear plate, she had a Navy Seal emblem where the front plate would normally be. Circumstances of her disappearance led police to suspect foul play.

  At around 10.15 p.m. on 10 March 2002, 13-year-old Laura Ayala went to a convenience store in a Conoco gas station behind the apartment complex where she lived in southeast Houston to pick up a Sunday newspaper to complete a school project. When she did not return after several minutes, her mother went to the gas station to look for her. The clerk at the store told her that Laura had been there and left after buying the newspaper, alone. Laura’s family began a search and found the newspaper and Laura’s sandals lying on the ground on her route home. They called the Houston Police Department.

  “The girl was gone for about five minutes,” said Houston Police Department Sergeant Mike Peters.

  The police made an extensive search on foot and horseback throughout the Houston area. They questioned relatives, neighbours, friends, acquaintances and all registered sex offenders. Volunteer groups circulated fliers. The FBI joined the search. An Amber Alert was issued. Laura’s photograph was shown on the national television show America’s Most Wanted. She had braces on her teeth and was last seen wearing jeans and a blue and white checked dress.

  Investigators then learned that a girl answering Laura’s description left Houston on a bus belonging to the El Expresso Bus Company bus between 10.30 and 11 p.m., three days after Laura Ayala disappeared. The bus company’s records showed that a ticket had been bought in the name Laura A. She was accompanied by a woman named Virginia Ramirez and a man named Julio Barrios. A second bus line may have taken the three passengers on to Reynosa, in Mexico.

  In February 2003, the police linked Laura Ayala’s abduction to Walter Sorto, Edgardo Cubas and 15-year-old Eduardo Navarro, who had gone on a crime spree of robberies, murders and rapes in the Houston area where Laura lived. Sorto has since been convicted in the murders of 24-year-old Roxana Capulin and 39-year-old Teresa Rangel, who were abducted from the restaurant where they worked on 1 June 2002. DNA in drops of blood found in an SUV belonging to Cubas’ father matched Laura’s, but they will not discuss their involvement and have not been charged in the case.

  Despite this, family and friends still believe Laura is alive and the police have her case listed as an endangered abduction and are continuing with the search. There is a $20,000 reward offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the people who kidnapped Laura Ayala.

  On the evening of 12 July 2002, 23-year-old blonde Sara Trusty, who used to work at the Gulf Greyhound Park, left her home of Avenue E in Algoa, Texas, six miles from the I–45, to go bicycle riding. She was last seen alive at around 11 p.m. near the Baptist church on Orange Avenue in Algoa. The following morning, the bike was found in the foyer of the church but there was no sign of her. On 28 July 2002, her body was discovered in a dike in Texas City, the other side of the I–45. She had been dead for over a week.

  Some escape. On 29 July 2004 an unidentified teenage girl from northwest Houston was stranded with a flat tyre on the West Loop of the southwest Houston freeway near Interstate 10. A man with a tow-truck driver stopped to help. He changed the tyre, but then tried to sexually assault her. The girl managed to escape by stabbing the man in the shoulder and abdomen with a pocket knife. She described her attacker as tall, bald and clean-shaven with a tattoo of a spider web on his left shoulder. His vehicle was a faded black, older model Chevrolet pick-up with “Super Tow” in white letters on the side.

  Others are not so fortunate. Soon after 11 a.m. on 23 February 2006 a sister and brother were walking their dog on the beach near the Flagship Hotel in the 2400 block of Seawall Boulevard close to where I–45 ends on Galveston Island. A woman began shouting at them about something floating in the surf which, at first, they thought was a mannequin. On closer investigation, they found a woman’s body clad in black sweatpants, a red, hooded sweatshirt and light-blue Asics running shoes with white ankle socks. She still had her sunglasses on. Her body had only been in the water for a short time as it was still warm and rigor mortis had not set in. A post mortem showed that she had died from a single gunshot to the chest. She carried no ID, but her body bore a distinguishing mark in the form of a tattooed ring of flowers around her navel. She was identified as 30-year-old Natasha Nicole Solidum, an elementary school teacher in the Alief Independent School District.

  There are striking similarities between many of the I–45 murders. Culprits already arrested may be responsible for more of the killings than they have been charged with. However, it seems clear that others have been at work. It is unlikely that any of the cases from the 1970s will be solved. Notorious serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, who claimed to have committed over a thousand murders, roamed the Gulf Coast when some of the early I–45 murders took place, but he has not been linked definitively to any of the unsolved cases. Lucas said he picked up most of his victims along the interstates by offering them a ride, a drink or dinner.

  The police say they are following a suspect who remains at large on the I–45 corridor, but who never has been publicly identified.

  “We know a guy, we know him very well, a guy who has killed before and who had some kind of contact with five of the girls, but all the evidence is circumstantial,” said Lieutenant Gary D. Ratliff of the League City police.

  The unnamed suspect suffered physical injuries in an automobile accident a few years ago and seems to have remained dormant since then, Ratliff said.

  And a task force has been studying the murder of prostitutes in the Houston district of Montrose. In all there are about 200 unsolved murders of women and girls in Houston and the surrounding areas since 1971.

  The Texarkana Phantom

  An unidentified serial killer stalked Texarkana between 23 February and 4 May 1946. He was variously known as “The Phantom”, the “Texarkana Phantom” and the “Moonlight Murderer”, as he often struck when the moon was full.

  The first attack took place near the intersection of Richmond and Robison Roads, near the site of the current site of the parking lot of the Central Mall. Back in 1946, this was still open country where young couples would park to kiss, cuddle, pet and, possibly, make out.

  On the evening of 22 February 1946, 24-year-old Jimmy Hollis and his girlfr
iend 19-year-old Mary Jeanne Larey double-dated with Jimmy’s brother and his girlfriend. They went to a movie together. Then Jimmy and Mary Jeanne dropped his brother and girlfriend off, and, on the way to Mary Larey’s house, they stopped off at a secluded lane just off Richmond Road.

  It was nearly 11.45 p.m. and Jimmy had promised his father that he would have the Plymouth home by midnight. But then, with Mary Jeanne beside him in her Lana Turner sweater, time did not seem so important any more.

  They had been there about ten minutes when a man walked up and pointed a flashlight at the couple. They had half expected to be interrupted by a cop. This was in an age when premarital sex still attracted public approbation. But as their eyes adjusted to the light they could see that this man was not wearing a policeman’s uniform. Instead he wore a white mask over his head with holes cut out for his eyes and mouth.

  He came up on the driver’s side of the car and tapped on the window.

  “Come out of the car now!” he said.

  The couple recoiled, but Jimmy could see he was carrying a gun.

  “I don’t want to kill you, fellow,” the masked man said, “so do what I say.”

  Jimmy and Mary Jeanne got out of the car on the driver’s side. The man then said to Jimmy: “Take off your britches.”

  Jimmy protested, but Mary Jeanne told Jimmy to take them off so they wouldn’t be hurt. As he took off his trousers, the man hit him over the head twice with the butt of his pistol with such force that Jimmy’s skull was fractured in two places.

  The man then told Mary Jeanne to run and while she fled down the road she heard him kicking and stomping Jimmy. Then the masked man ran after her and knocked her to the ground. Mary Jeanne said later that he did not rape but did sexually abuse her, apparently with the barrel of the gun.

  Her ordeal was curtailed by the lights of an approaching car. The masked man punched Mary Jeanne in the face and upper body several times, then disappeared into the darkness.

  Mary Jeanne’s head wounds were stitched up at the local hospital, but Hollis’ injuries left him hospitalized for several months. They did not know it at the time, but they were lucky to be alive. They had seen the attacker and survived. But the description they could give of the masked man was vague. All they knew was that he was about six feet tall. His face was obscured by a rough-looking hood of white material that appeared to be homemade, with holes punched for the eyes and mouth. This was not enough for the police to go on. For now, they supposed – and hoped – the attack on Jimmy Hollis and Mary Jeanne Larey was an isolated incident.

  The attack had a lasting effect on the lives of Jimmy and Mary Jeanne. They split. Her ordeal left her unsettled. She suffered many sleepless nights and eventually she left to live with relatives in Oklahoma. She did not return. Even so, she would always remember the attacker’s voice.

  “I would know it anywhere,” she said years later. “It rings always in my ears.”

  The attack began a long nightmare for Texarkana, an otherwise optimistic town that took as its motto: “Twice as nice.” This was because it is comprised of two separate municipalities, Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas. The city is divided by the state line that runs down State Line Avenue. The two halves of the city have their own city council and their own police and fire departments and city council. The two municipalities fall in two separate counties – Bowie County in Texas to the west and Miller County in Arkansas to the east – so the surrounding areas are patrolled by two separate county sheriffs’ offices.

  Despite this, the city and its people work together as one entity. It was a centre for woodworking, furniture production, tyre making and engineering. It also boasted a university and an Army depot. Every October the city holds a Fair and Rodeo and it attracts visitors from Oklahoma and Louisiana, which are both only 30 miles away.

  In February 1946, like the rest of America, the 44,000-strong population of Texarkana was just beginning to return to normal after World War II. Many of its young men were returning from action overseas. They were settling back into civilian life, looking for work. But there were also many grieving families who would not see their sons again.

  Lyn Blackmon of the Texarkana Gazette painted a picture of the town back then: “In good weather, families in nice residential sections sat on their front porches after supper, sipping iced tea. They swung on porch swings, rocked in rockers and spoke to neighbours walking home from a movie or from church . . . Few people locked their doors or their windows. The only shades pulled down were in bathrooms or bedrooms.”

  But then people began bolting doors that had never been bolted before.

  Despite its white-picket-fence image, the city did have its seamy side. With so many GIs passing through, there were bars and nightclubs with girlie shows. There were drunken brawls that had to be broken up by the police and even murders were not uncommon. However, the attack on two clean-cut kids like Jimmy Hollis and Mary Jeanne Larey was an unprecedented event. The story made the papers, but most readers assumed that the attack must be the work of a transient. Even the police thought the mysterious hooded man had jumped a freight car and was long gone. However, they were about to be proved most tragically wrong.

  Early on the morning of 24 March, a driver on Highway 67 out in Bowie County noticed a 1941 Oldsmobile was parked about 100 yards off the highway in a copse next to South Robison Road. A man appeared to be asleep at the wheel. This was an odd place for someone to pull off the road for a sleep as there were a number of cut-price motels in the area. The driver went to investigate. Peering into the car, he saw two dead bodies. Both had been shot in the head.

  Officers from Bowie County Sheriffs Office were summoned. They found 29-year-old Richard L. Griffin at the wheel. He was a US Navy Seabee – a member of the construction battalion – who had been discharged in November 1945. Lying face down on the backseat was his 17-year-old girlfriend, Polly Ann Moore, who worked at the Red River Arsenal on the outskirts of town. She had graduated from high school earlier that year and was living with a cousin on Magnolia Street. The couple had last been seen alive at about 10 p.m. the previous evening after dining with Eleanor Griffin, Richard’s sister, at a West Seventh Street café.

  Both had been killed by bullets from a .32 calibre pistol, possibly a Colt revolver. While Richard Griffin had been killed where he sat, bloodstains and drag marks indicated that Polly Moore had been killed outside. She had been sexually abused. There were few fingerprints or footprints. A heavy downpour during the night had washed away most of the evidence.

  Within three days after the murder Bowie County sheriff’s office questioned between 50 and 60 people and tracked down 100 false leads. Eventually they posted a $500 reward for information. None came.

  As the investigation stalled, they joined forces with the sheriff’s offices of adjacent Cass County and Miller County, the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texarkana city police departments from both sides of the state line. Eventually the FBI were called in, but they too were stumped.

  On the night of 13 April, the Rhythmaires were playing at the VFW Hall on Fourth and Oak Streets. The band had originally been formed by saxophonist Jerry Atkins to entertain the GIs. But they had lost none of their popularity since the war was over and Texarkana teenagers flocked their Saturday night dances.

  With the men away at the war, Atkins had recruited female musicians for his band. One of them was 15-year-old Betty Jo Booker, who played the saxophone. As she was underage and the band often played venues that served liquor, Betty’s mother – like the mothers of the other girls in the band – insisted that bandleader Jerry Atkins drive the girls to and from the gigs. He had an impeccable reputation. But that night, when the dance ended at around 1 a.m., Betty told her boss that she would not be needing a ride home. Paul Martin, a former school friend, had come by. Paul and Betty Jo had both been at school on the Arkansas side of town. Later Betty Jo had moved to the Texas side where she was a Junior at Texas High School, while Paul moved away
to Kilgore, Texas and was a Senior at Kilgore High School. He had come to town that Saturday night to visit her and volunteered to give her a lift to the slumber party she was going to held by her girl friends. Atkins checked out Martin. He seemed to be a clean-cut, sober-looking 17-year-old. Atkins gave his permission for her to go with him and told her to have a nice time.

  The following morning Paul Martin’s coupe was found abandoned at the entrance of Spring Lake Park, miles from the slumber party Betty Jo had been invited to. Paul’s body was found near what is now Cork Lane, north of Interstate 30, a mile from his car. Betty Jo’s body was found one and a half miles from the car on Morris Lane by a patch of woods near Fernwood. Both had died from multiple gunshot wounds. She had also been raped.

  Forensic examination confirmed that the bullets that had killed Betty Jo Booker and Paul Martin were .32 calibre and matched those that had killed Polly Ann Moore and Richard Griffin three weeks before. Curiously Betty Jo’s saxophone was missing.

  The police put two and two together and realized Betty Jo Booker and Paul Martin, and Polly Ann Moore and Richard Griffin had probably been attacked by the same hooded assailant who had attacked Mary Jeanne Larey and Jimmy Hollis in February. Up until this point the authorities had been reticent about mentioning the sexual aspects of the attacks. Now they announced that the female victims had been raped. This did not take them any further forward, but might prove an additional incentive of young couples to stay away from secluded areas.