Maxie Lott was to be tried as part of a $150,000 stolen-car ring in Bowie County. The previous week, Johnny Orr, Sr., had been sentenced in Upshur County to five years in the pen for car theft. Swinney’s name didn’t appear until the sixth paragraph of the eight-paragraph story, a tiny recognition in a dim spotlight.
“Cases besides Lott’s scheduled for trial this week include: Youell Swinney, Texarkana, felony theft; Harry Spahler, Gregg county, forgery and attempt to pass forged instruments.”
The object of the nationwide manhunt had been reduced to a brief, obscure sentence shared with another alleged felon.
The jury list for Swinney’s trial consisted of twenty-three potential jurors. Twelve of the first thirteen were chosen. Gus Looney was elected foreman. Coincidentally, Looney had the same surname as Swinney’s mother’s maiden name. They were not related.
Under state law at the time, theft of property valued at fifty dollars or more constituted a felony.
FBI agent Buzz Hallett watched the proceedings closely, from beginning to end. He had a special interest in the case. Not only had he investigated the series of murders, he and his wife Frances lived at 3104 Anthony Drive in the Sussex Downs subdivision of Texarkana. Betty Jo Booker’s mother and stepfather Clark Brown lived at 3105 Anthony Drive, directly across the street. He committed to memory every detail as he sat quietly in the courtroom.
The defendant appeared without an attorney. Judge Robert S. Vance, a highly competent jurist, asked him if he had an attorney and then if he wished to have an attorney appointed by the court. Swinney replied that he did not and wished to represent himself. The judge again asked if he wished to have an attorney appointed. Again Swinney said he wished to represent himself. This tends to confirm the unofficial story, that he had agreed to plead guilty, whether he had a lawyer or not. It also coincided with one, out of many, advisories from his father to let them proceed without his having a lawyer. His father’s various strategies had included pleading not guilty on the basis of insanity but hadn’t advised him to refuse court-appointed counsel, only to let them convict him without a lawyer.
The judge next asked the prisoner, “How do you plead to the charge as read?”
“Guilty, your honor.”
Judge Vance rejected the plea, explaining that in a proceeding under the habitual criminal act, the defendant was not allowed to plead guilty.
“I am entering a plea of not guilty in your behalf,” the judge said.
That exchange was to remain burned into Agent Hallett’s memory the rest of his life. He didn’t think it mattered who represented Swinney, for the evidence of the stolen car made for a cut-and-dried case. Luther McClure testified to having the car stolen.
Prosecutor Welch introduced Swinney’s signed statement to the FBI, in which he said that he and his wife drove the Chevrolet the day of the theft, March 3, 1946, to Hope, Arkansas, and then to Wichita Falls, Texas, and from there on to Lubbock, Texas. He admitted picking up three hitchhikers on the trip. At Lubbock he gave a note to one of the hitchhikers, asking him to drive to car to Beaumont, Texas, and deliver it there to a man who turned out to be nonexistent. As evidence, the deputy from Beaumont, J. B. Como, testified to recovering the car and finding a wartime tire-ration card in the glove compartment that bore the name Luther McClure. Como identified Swinney from a description given by the hitchhiker. Prosecutor Welch had no difficulty sealing the case for the State. He then introduced previous convictions that included a three-year sentence for felony car theft in Arkansas and the five-year term for robbery in Texas, for which he was paroled after eleven months.
Welch indicated that Swinney was implicated in the theft of at least five automobiles; he was being tried for only one.
Swinney attempted to cross-examine witnesses with unimpressive results. The clincher was his criminal record, which was extensive enough to prove the prior convictions quite readily. The term “three-time loser” was made to order for Swinney. The prosecutor felt he had an airtight case.
As his own attorney, Swinney chose not to put himself on the witness stand, certainly a prudent move. Judge Vance’s charge to the jury underscored very strongly that his failure to take the witness stand should not be considered in deliberations. The judge also emphasized that the burden of proof was on the State, that the defendant was presumed innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; and if any doubt remained, he should be acquitted.
The rest was up to the jury, and the decision wasn’t prolonged. No mention was made at any point about murder or the Phantom case. The focus remained strictly on the lesser, but multiple, felonies.
Within an hour, the foreman, Gus Looney, orally and in handwriting delivered the verdict:
“We the Jury find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment.”
The jury also found the defendant Swinney’s conviction to be the third felony conviction as pursuant to Article 63 of the Texas Penal Code, thereby enhancing the punishment. The jury recommended life in prison. The habitual criminal act was a threat held over repeat offenders at the time. A violent crime such as murder was more likely to net death or perhaps ninety-nine years, amounting to longer even than “life.”
The following morning, the Gazette reported the proceedings in a modest one-column story on page 1, surrounded by larger headlines on other events.
YOUELL SWINNEY, EX-CONVICT, GIVEN LIFE IN PRISON
HABITUAL CRIMINAL ACT INVOKED
AFTER CONVICTION FOR AUTO THEFT
For the first time, Swinney’s name made its way to a front-page headline. His continued stealing of automobiles during the few months following his release from the Texas penitentiary made the “habitual” tag seem perfectly logical.
FBI agent Hallett walked out of the old courtroom feeling justice had been served, more or less. He felt Swinney had gotten off light but had been taken out of society’s circulation, the objective.
Four days after the jury verdict, Judge Vance formally sentenced Swinney to life imprisonment in the state penitentiary.
The case ended so quietly that only a few in law enforcement on either side of the state line knew of it. It was legal, supposedly with the cooperation of Swinney himself, some of his family, and his attorneys. Officers and prosecutors believed he had been put away for the remainder of his years, and thus would never kill again, as they believed he had. If for some reason he managed to leave the penitentiary alive, the murder charges could be resurrected, possibly with stronger evidence.
It was the final act of the season of terror. Youell Lee Swinney had been taken off the streets in as effective and fast a way as could be designed.
The sentence came just less than a week after Swinney marked his thirtieth birthday.
Learning of the trial results, McVey wrote Cleo, saying that the Reverend Swinney had told him Cleo had made arrangements that Youell would get parole or a suspended sentence and would not be convicted under the habitual criminal act. McVey chastised Cleo for not confiding fully; if he had, Youell would not be under a life sentence. “This thing is not over yet. I intend to break this case . . . and that I am backed up by the ‘Biggest Guy’ in the world.”
Slightly over a week later, Parson Swinney reacted with optimism. “They have done exactly the thing we hoped they would do,” he wrote Cleo. “Convicted him without Counsel.”
The manner in which the habitual criminal act was used to take Swinney out of society was strictly legal and, according to others, acceptable to Swinney as well as to his captors. Based on his previous record of early release on each of his falls, he probably expected to pull no more than ten or fifteen years. Hallett’s memory was clear that Swinney attempted to plead guilty but was advised by the judge that he could not do so under the habitual criminal act.
Was the habitual criminal act a fair law? That was an issue the prosecutors in the 1940s had not created, nor Swinney’s lawyers challenged. It existed. It was the law. It had been used with others. Whatever argument might be r
aised against its use, on the other side was Swinney’s record of not only two previous convictions but of a multitude. Had the law required five prior jolts, they could have been documented. Additionally he could have been tried, and probably convicted, on a number of other crimes, in Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The two cases used for enhancement were representative of his criminal career at that stage. If he’d been convicted of the other crimes in which he was implicated and the sentences had been stacked, or served consecutively, he might have been assured of dying in prison.
In balancing the need for public safety against the prisoner’s civil rights, the prosecutors appear to have served justice in the understanding of the law. Swinney’s life was spared, as it might or might not have been with the filing of a murder charge, his major concern. And he was kept off the street, the guiding motivation of his prosecutors.
It was as effective a trade as could be achieved at the time. It did not “solve” the Phantom murders, but it resolved the salient concern.
Swinney remained in the county’s custody for two months before he was transported to the state penitentiary at Huntsville. Following his conviction and sentence on February 15, he gave notice of appeal. On April 15, however, he withdrew it.
It is not difficult to reason why he appealed in the first place, once the significance of a sentence dawned upon him. It is less evident why he decided to withdraw his motion. It is possible that someone in authority, such as Sheriff Presley or District Attorney Welch, reminded him that should he succeed in overturning his conviction and sentence, he might face a charge in the Spring Lake Park murders, in which case the penalty likely would go beyond a life sentence.
Peggy’s statement in Austin was like money in the bank for the prosecution. Once she divorced Swinney, she could be subpoenaed as a witness. With him now locked up for life, she might choose to do so anyway.
Three days after his request, Swinney arrived in Huntsville.
CHAPTER 21
BEHIND WALLS AGAIN
Youell Lee Swinney’s mug shots as he reentered the Texas Prison System as Inmate # 108586 reflected the face of a man much aged from the one who had been processed less than three years earlier. He was still fairly good-looking with barbered and combed hair as he stared into the camera. But the boyish look was gone. The hard set of his mouth was grim. He was back in stir, beginning another chapter in his troubled life.
The data on his prison log, self-reported, provided a detailed accounting: five feet eleven inches tall, weight 154 pounds, with blue eyes, brown hair, and ruddy complexion. He wore size nine shoes.
The clerk recorded other features at check-in. A tattoo on his lower left arm included a heart with the word revenge spelled out. He used tobacco and considered himself “temperate” in his habits. He classified himself as a Baptist.
He told the processing clerk he’d attended school twelve years and had finished the twelfth grade. He could read and write, as he claimed, but he hadn’t gone nearly so far in school. The sixth grade was closer to the truth. He probably hoped to get an inside office job by exaggerating his education.
There were other inaccuracies. He claimed he’d been born in Texas, although his birthplace was Arkadelphia, Arkansas. His mother and father, he said, were born in Texas; actually she was born in Georgia, the father in Arkansas.
As for occupation, he first gave electrician as his answer. That was marked out; bookkeeper replaced it. (While in Arkansas custody he no doubt had focused frequently on electrical operations.) He knew he ran a better chance of an inside job as a bookkeeper. As for his residence, he first gave San Angelo, Texas; it was marked over, substituting Texarkana, Texas. On the line for Ex-Service status, Marines was written but then marked through and left blank. Swinney was not a native of Texas, his mother and father were not born in Texas. He was not an electrician (nor a bookkeeper), his residence was not San Angelo, and he was never in the Marines or any other branch of the armed services. In a penal population where most inmates were not high school graduates, some of the false answers might be attributed to seeking better treatment as an electrician or bookkeeper with a high school education and as a World War II veteran. Other inaccuracies—if caused by him rather than the clerk—seemed to serve no purpose. His responses seemed to be aimed at avoiding hard labor on the prison farm. He knew how prisons operated.
Swinney’d never had to complete a sentence, for one reason or another. Why would this fall be any different? He hadn’t been charged with murder, his greatest fear. Men with a murder rap sometimes got out in as little as ten or fifteen, even seven or eight, years. A life sentence for a stolen car? Unlikely! Swinney could convince himself that the more time passed, the farther he would be from having to stand trial for any killings, enabling him to gain release from a life sentence for a mere stolen car. He could do six or seven years, a good exchange.
Three entries reflected a bleaker future.
Offense: Theft and prior conviction.
Terms of Imprisonment: Life
Expiration of Sentence: Death
Outside, the world was in flux. A Cold War had emerged on the heels of the deadliest war in history. The Allies and the Soviet Union wrangled over arms control. Communists assumed power in Poland, with Hungary months behind. President Harry Truman dispatched aid to Turkey and Greece to thwart Soviet ambitions and contain Communism.
Great Britain endured turmoil. Her colonies in India, Pakistan, and Nigeria began breaking away. Beset by Middle Eastern strife, Britain signaled readiness to transfer her Palestinian woes to the fledgling United Nations, leading to the founding of Israel.
In the United States, President Truman faced a recalcitrant Congress. As if that was not enough, his aged mother broke her hip in a fall at home. In sports, Tony Zale held on to his middleweight boxing title, and Jackie Robinson broke the major league baseball color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. As a hint of things to come, Edwin Land demonstrated his “instant camera,” the Polaroid. Reports of unidentified flying objects (UFO) made the news from Washington state to Roswell, New Mexico. In mid-January, an unsolved brutal murder claimed the life of Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, in Los Angeles. In early April, tornadoes swept viciously over Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, killing 181 and injuring 970.
Texarkana’s crime and violence hardly slowed: six men indicted for attacking two policemen; Johnny Thompson, a local police character, in custody for automobile theft as part of a larger ring; a downtown fire ravaged Bryce’s Cafeteria, Four States Business College, and the Mayflower Cafe; and a teenager, just out of reform school and in a stolen car, wounded by an officer’s shotgun blast.
A new campaign to drive the “undesirable elements” out of town made headlines but no headway.
Swinney, untouched by the swirl of events outside, re-entered the prison population with a central idea in mind: to get out. His first assignment reinforced the intention. His keepers dispatched him to hard farm labor. After he thought it over, he decided someone from Bowie County was responsible. He settled on the sheriff, Bill Presley, as the culprit. But for the sheriff, Swinney concluded, he’d have an easier life. In early 1948, he wrote to Elmer Lincoln, the Texarkana criminal defense lawyer his father had written but never followed up on. In his letter, Swinney accused Sheriff Presley of giving him a negative report that consigned him to hard labor. He then brought up what he characterized as his unfair conviction. He hoped Lincoln would help him gain a better role in prison as well as find a way to liberate him.
Lincoln by return mail replied in a sympathetic tone, explaining why he couldn’t help him. Lincoln by then was a member of the Texas Prison Board and thus unable to ask officials to do anything for a person he knew.
Lincoln recalled that the elder Swinney had made contact with him regarding Youell’s case but that he’d heard nothing further from him. At the time, Lincoln wrote, he could have prevented Youell’s conviction as a habitual criminal, but by the time he was writing the letter it was too la
te, as well as his being in no position to help.
Lincoln added: “If Mr. Presley gave you a bad report your record will probably disclose that. However, I am sure you understand that repeaters are almost invariably sent to Darrington or Retrieve Farm and it is not necessary for anybody to give a bad report on a man to get him sent there, if he has been in prison before.”
As for the conviction, Lincoln continued, Swinney would need to have a lawyer explore the matter.
Whether Lincoln might have prevented Swinney’s conviction as a habitual offender, as he wrote, is problematical. His claim was never tested. He evidently did not have access to the evidence that officers had compiled. Whether he might have, indeed, succeeded in freeing Swinney or reducing the sentence, it also would have tested whether a new series of murders would have followed.
On April 14, 1947, exactly one year to the day after Betty Jo Booker died, Gloria Donaldson, a sixteen-year-old Texas High School student, committed suicide with a shotgun in the bathroom of her home on West Eighteenth Street. She left a rambling note suggesting knowledge of the circumstances of Betty Jo’s death. The girl’s note was discounted as having any connection with the case, beyond her admiration of Betty Jo and unresolved guilt over her death. The suicide inspired rumors that swept the city, some of them persisting for decades. The girl could not have had knowledge of the facts of the murders, despite her contentions. It added another bizarre dimension to the tragedies of the previous spring.
Nor was Miss Donaldson’s tragic act the only reminder of the murders. More than a year later, another young student’s suicide revived the case after he left self-incriminating notes. In November, 1948, H. B. “Doodle” Tennison, the eighteen-year-old son of a prominent Texarkana family, swallowed rat poison at Fayetteville where he attended the University of Arkansas. His death made headlines over the nation, none outdoing the blazing front-page banner of the New Orleans Item. In his note, he apparently confessed to the murders, and so the papers said that:
The Phantom Killer: Unlocking the Mystery of the Texarkana Serial Murders: The Story of a Town in Terror Page 30