The Phantom Killer: Unlocking the Mystery of the Texarkana Serial Murders: The Story of a Town in Terror

by James Presley

  When Katie entered the room, the killer made no attempt to do anything until she turned and went to the wall phone and started to use it. This caught him by surprise, indicating he was not aware of the phone; else he would have cut the line or would have shot her as she stood in horror before her husband’s body, a much closer target than when she was at the phone. Seeing he hadn’t killed her, he panicked, forgot the flashlight he’d set down while he braced his weapon, and dashed to the back of the house to force his way in. At that point he exhibited a touch of disorganization. When he got into the house and realized his quarry was no longer inside, he panicked again, and raced to his car to escape.

  He shot Katie two times. The pattern in all the shootings, almost like a signature, was the firing in two-shot bursts in every instance beginning with the first double murders. It was as if the killer believed that two shots were all that were needed to ensure death. Every murder victim in the series was shot twice except Paul Martin. The same pattern continued at the Starks home.

  If, as some believed, Virgil Starks was the target of someone he had angered, his killer would hardly have stopped at two shots. Nor would he have lingered outside till Katie entered the room. And if he knew Starks well enough to want to kill him, he would have known of the phone lines and cut them.

  It has been tempting for many to discredit the single-villain argument simply because a different weapon was used in the Starks case and the locale had changed from a lovers’ lane. These objections deserve consideration and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. But a careful analysis tilts the argument in favor of the same gunman in all four incidents.

  The MO at the Starks home—intruding at a home instead of a parked car, using a .22 automatic instead of a .32 automatic—does constitute a shift from the previous pattern in the Texas-side crimes, but the differences are superficial. The killer already knew lawmen were looking for his .32 automatic; any half-savvy criminal would know a change of weapons was necessary. By then, as officers patrolled nightly and set traps, the killer knew better than to scout out parked cars. He would have encountered officers on a stakeout or armed lovers just waiting to shoot anyone who showed up. Vulnerable couples were hard to find. As a further indication that the killer was an experienced criminal, he had broken into the Starks home with a speed and skill no novice was likely to match. Swinney had experience as a burglar. A lot of experience, dating back to childhood.

  A belief in a copycat perpetrator enters into serial murders because many can’t believe one person could kill so many. In the Starks case, this belief was supported by the slightly different MO. Instead of killing couples in lovers’ lanes, the killer struck at a home using a different caliber gun, but still an automatic. There should be no surprise. Serial killers intentionally change their MO after a time to confound police and hope someone else will be blamed. But in the Starks case, other features remained consistent—the shooting pattern, an automatic weapon, and the hunting of vulnerable couples under cover of darkness.

  The Starks killer arrived armed, prepared to kill, equipped with a flashlight as had the February attacker. A flashlight was part of his planning for those two crimes, if not for all of them.

  Furthermore, the Starks case fits snugly within the three-week intervals of the Texas-side murders.

  If the same hand committed all the crimes, whose hand was it?

  Evidence in the Phantom case fulfills the FBI requirements for clearing the cases. There was a suspect—Swinney—and a variety of evidence in all the cases, but an arrest couldn’t be made and the suspect prosecuted because he was dead and witnesses were dead. But statements implicating Swinney are extant, as well as physical and circumstantial evidence. The rules are not as strict as in a formal trial. The process is more like an inquest with a presentation of evidence zeroing in on the perpetrator.

  “We have the evidence to prove this person, Youell Swinney, committed these crimes,” Owen said. “When you close a case by exception, you’re going to be able to lay it out and show that this guy was the killer.”

  Owen had worked out a profile of the killer based on evidence he knew, his crime-scene studies, and his personal experience.

  Classifying the killer as a mixed offender—displaying mostly organized but some disorganized features—Owen linked all of the Texas-side crimes to the same MO: the same .32 Colt automatic, attacking couples in lovers’ lanes. He connected Swinney through Peggy Swinney’s signed statement given at DPS offices in Austin. He concluded that her minute details of the Spring Lake Park crime scene could not have been imagined. Nor were they known to the public or released to the press. She had to have been there to know exactly where the bodies were left, where the saxophone was thrown. Additionally, Bill Presley’s finding Paul Martin’s date book, and Peggy’s description of where Swinney tossed it, definitely proved she was there.

  A psychological profile of the Phantom killer fits Swinney.

  An FBI report contained the medical assessment of his psychopathic personality, which coincides with observations of others.

  “The Phantom killer was a sociopath,” agreed Glenn Owen, “which means he didn’t care about anybody but himself. He was just a cold-blooded killer, and he probably also suffered from other mental disorders.

  “The organized offender usually comes from a family that is not broken. The father is usually a dominant figure, and the organized offender is usually skilled labor, or he may be educated. But the disorganized offender, in this day and time, usually comes from a broken family. May live with an aunt or an uncle or a grandmother. Was physically abused, whereas the organized offender who had a dominant father figure may have been mentally abused but not physically. He’s average or below average in intelligence.

  “With our suspect we’re seeing that mix, a combination of both. You had a broken family. You had a dominant father figure. And then you get to the disorganized killer; they usually work low-paying jobs. They’re not skilled laborers. They usually live with relatives. They usually do not have transportation. I think the reason the suspect in the Phantom killings was an organized offender, he showed that he had been schooled in prison, to know police tactics and to know what they were looking for, and that’s why he was organized; but he was disorganized too.”

  Swinney telegraphed his anger with body art that was concealed most of the time by his shirts. He wore his feelings not on his sleeves but literally on his arm with tattoos: revenge, a heart, and mother. It was symptomatic, if not intimately revealing, of Swinney’s inner turmoil. The beatings and the murders all pointed toward acting out of vengeful emotions. (Told of the tattoos, Glenn Owen said, “That tells me that he may have had a real shady relationship with his mother and disliked her, and in his mind, that may have played a part in his revenge.”)

  Criminal profiling narrows a search to a type or pool of suspects. Though it may lead to the villain, it is used to identify, not convict. In Swinney’s case it makes the argument that he was capable of the acts, which may become strongly suggestive.

  While the highly complex process leading to the making of a serial killer may never be fully understood, Swinney fit the general profile of a serial killer. He was a career criminal. He came from a broken family at a critical age. Early trouble and contact with other problem youths engendered more law-breaking. “Trained” in prison by other felons, he learned his “trade.” He was classified as a sociopath, suggesting his moral development was short-circuited early in life. But most sociopaths are not murderers. To kill and to kill repeatedly is a step beyond common killing. Swinney’s record documented steps in that direction, beginning with burglary and robbery by assault. By 1946, Swinney’s background contained the ingredients that would produce violence ahead.

  There is a possibility—even probability—that Swinney was involved in some of the robberies in Texarkana from December 22, 1945, forward. He’d served time for robbery by assault. Some early 1946 robberies were by assault, some with a gun. According to Peggy, Swinne
y would leave her at the movies, be gone for a half-hour or hours. He would return with money. Where did he get it? Assuredly not from the Salvation Army, nor on the sidewalk where a negligent citizen had dropped it. More likely he robbed someone. Repeatedly he raised funds without working.

  In the February beatings, Owen cited Swinney’s conviction for robbery by assault and the same MO that would appear in the murders later on. The February assailant left witnesses, hadn’t controlled the crime scene, the sign of a disorganized offender. But he had displayed organized behavior, arriving prepared with flashlight and gun. He subsequently improved his technique, as serial killers do, leaving only bodies.

  “He was organized enough to keep himself out of the electric chair,” said Owen.

  Moving to the Starks case, Owen cited the boot or shoe impression as “roughly” the same as Swinney’s and the shirt with the laundry mark STARK with slag metal in its pocket matching that found in Virgil Starks’s shop. He explained the different MO as the killer’s adjusting to a changed situation—finding victims in a house and using a different caliber gun at a time lovers’ lanes were well populated—one might say clogged—with lawmen.

  Swinney, released from prison in December 1945, returned to Texarkana shortly before the crimes began. The homicides ended following Swinney’s arrest.

  Owen compiled a strong case. Yet additional evidence, much of which he hadn’t seen, dovetails with his to build the case even tighter. Owen had not seen material gained by Freedom of Information requests for this book nor interviews from many of the officers already dead.

  The reader of this book already knows more of the evidence than, probably, any single investigator knew in 1946. The Arkansas State Police files, as one example, have produced statements not seen by Texas lawmen or by many Arkansans. Building upon Owen’s case, a prosecutor or sheriff would be able to present convincing evidence—much of it circumstantial but damning—that Swinney committed all of the crimes.

  Taken together, the preponderance of evidence weaves a web of guilt around Swinney that cannot be discounted. What stands out is that Swinney had no proven alibi for any of the incidents, the beatings or the three murder nights. Peggy never provided him cover for sensitive time periods and, in fact, could not document her own alibis. She went out of her way to ensure that Swinney had no solid alibi for the Starks incident, even telling officers he’d gone to Texarkana that night, thereby practically shouting that he had the opportunity to commit the crime.

  An important matter generally overlooked in the February case locks Youell Swinney in. There is proof that Youell Swinney possessed a .32 automatic pistol at the time, according to witnesses, including Peggy Swinney. This is the same caliber that took the lives of four victims. It is not known to a certainty the caliber of the pistol brandished by the February bandit, but there is other evidence that Swinney attacked Hollis and Larey.

  There apparently was a triggering event in February, involving Swinney, and it suggests revenge, not simple robbery, was a motive. Swinney’s tattoo, revenge, would prove to be significant.

  One statement reveals that Peggy, Swinney, and another man had an argument in a beer joint. The upshot was that the other man took Peggy away from Swinney, leaving Swinney humiliated and angry. Swinney had no transportation of his own but rarely went without a car. He could steal one in a matter of minutes and usually did when he needed a vehicle.

  Dr. Shervert Frazier said the way the couples were killed indicated the killer was reacting criminally to a disturbed relationship. The beer-joint dispute could have been the event that set Swinney off on the series of attacks. Afraid to confront the competitor, he took out his anger on surrogates, although the revenge tattoo, already on Swinney’s arm, suggests there were precursors to that triggering experience which reminded him of them.

  The statements do not clearly establish that the dispute occurred before the beatings, but it can be argued that it did. This would account for the violence toward Hollis, who was left almost dead, and a special type of violence toward Hollis’s teenaged companion.

  In his statement, Swinney gives a different date—February 23—when the argument happened, and probably did so to deceive or confuse his captors. His interrogators seemed to believe February 23, not February 22, was the crucial date of the Hollis-Larey attack. His version went uncontested. But the incendiary spat left Swinney bested by the other man and lusting for revenge. Swinney did not risk confrontations unless he clearly had the upper hand. A man in the dark with a lethal weapon almost always has the upper hand.

  That triggering event, it seems likely, led to the attack on Hollis and Larey and their close brush with death. Though the man—Swinney—sought money, his actions spell out a deadlier motive—revenge.

  The beating of a man who made advances toward Peggy in Waynoka, Oklahoma, later in the year also ties in with the February attack. The burden of proof leans toward Peggy holding the gun on the man, at Swinney’s order, while a jealous Swinney beat the man with a chain. An angry Swinney derived pleasure in the beating, just as did the enraged intruder back in February north of Texarkana. In both cases, the victims were at a distinct disadvantage, held defenseless by a person wielding a gun. In Waynoka, no surrogate was sought, but the technique was similar, and Swinney had the means at hand to enforce the punishment.

  The Swinney couple bought beer at the café in the vicinity of the Griffin-Moore murders. If they’d done so that night, it would have been but a short drive or stroll to where the couple was parked. There is a possibility—no more than that—Peggy was with Swinney. By then she accompanied him almost everywhere, though not necessarily that night. Her alibi was unsupported for that time period, when she claimed to be in a motel. At best they were each other’s alibi, likely to raise, rather than satisfy, suspicions. Officers did not probe beyond the surface when she gave her account of the weekend.

  There is also the statement by a brother-in-law that Swinney appeared that morning in a highly nervous state and went to bed and pulled the sheets over his head and slept all day. This would fit the time and emotional state of the late-night killer in the March murders.

  Three weeks later, the Spring Lake Park murders gave a clearer pattern of the series of crimes. The bullets matched those taken from Richard Griffin’s body, thereby linking the two double murders. Again, the killer shot the male first. Once Swinney was apprehended that summer and Peggy gave her first statements, Swinney’s guilt was established, from her eyewitness account. His .32 automatic had killed four persons.

  Her statements are crucial to identifying Swinney as the culprit. She may have modified her position from one statement to the next, causing officers to believe she might be an unreliable witness, but her presence at the Spring Lake Park crime scene is undeniable. The overall picture didn’t change. Two points firmly establish her presence.

  As Owen said, her descriptions of the crime scenes coincided with the facts. She had to have been there. He also pointed out how she had described where Swinney had thrown Betty Jo Booker’s saxophone, at a time when the precise facts were not known by the public.

  Another fact, never released to the public, proved that she was there and strengthened her statement. Sheriff Presley asked her during a Spring Lake Park visit, Did Swinney take anything from Paul Martin and if so what did he do with it? Without hesitation she replied that Swinney took a small item—she wasn’t sure what it was—which he tossed toward some bushes. Presley had found Martin’s datebook exactly where she said Swinney threw it. The existence of the datebook was known only to Presley and a very few others on the Texas side. He’d presented the datebook for the first time—after she’d described where Swinney had thrown it. This linked her to the scene, as an eyewitness, more than anything else, strongly supporting her other memories.

  The exact role, if any, she played in the teenagers’ deaths may never be known. What is certain is that Swinney shot both of them with a .32 automatic pistol—the same one that killed the couple
three weeks earlier—and that Peggy saw him shoot Paul Martin on two occasions in two-shot bursts, fatally wounding him the second time. Her accounts of Paul Martin’s shooting remain consistent in all tellings, further supporting her version. Although she denied seeing Betty Jo Booker die, she reported hearing Swinney’s gunshots.

  The bullets that snuffed out the lives of Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore matched those in the Spring Lake Park murders, thus connecting all four murders. Peggy documented Swinney’s actions at Spring Lake Park.

  Other statements coincided as to time and place in support of her account. Tom Moores heard the gunshots that killed Betty Jo Booker at about the time Peggy reported. Ernest Browning saw the car that had to have been driven by Swinney in the early dawn but was unable to see the license number. Thus unrelated, objective witnesses backed her up on the time and place. Coupled with her description of the crime scene, she had to be believed. Additionally, Mark McClish’s analysis of her statements supports her version.

  Peggy told of Swinney’s washing blood off of his clothes at the spring at the park. This indicated how he dealt with possibly incriminating evidence, which resurfaced in the Starks case. According to her, Swinney took care to leave no fingerprints, wearing a glove; he also instructed her not to touch surfaces where she might leave her prints. He fit the organized offender category in this respect. Yet he left Martin’s body in plain view, though on a little-traveled dirt road or path. As an ex-convict, Swinney, as Owen pointed out, had learned police tactics from other criminals and knew what to do to avoid detection. The results showed a mixture of offender traits.