The Texarkana Moonlight Murders: The Unsolved Case of the 1946 Phantom Killer

by Michael Newton

  Texarkansans mourned the deaths of Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore in their various ways, some fuming when the case was not swiftly resolved. Few suffered personally from the incident, however; fewer still saw any reason to suspect that it would be repeated. As high school senior Jerry Atkins later said, “It made no impact at all.”31

  That was about to change.

  Chapter 4

  Last Dance

  April 14, 1946

  At 6:00 A.M. on Palm Sunday, April 14, G. H. Weaver left his home on Summerhill Road, driving with his wife and son toward Prescott, forty miles northeast of Texarkana in Nevada County, Arkansas. They had not traveled far when they were startled by the sight of a man’s body lying on the north shoulder of North Park Road, in the 6700 block. A quick look at the body and its bloody clothes convinced the Weavers that the man was dead. They raced two hundred yards farther along, to the home of Harvey Word, who telephoned the Bowie County sheriff’s office.1

  The first responding officers confirmed the fact of homicide. The victim—soon identified as James Paul Martin, seventeen, of Kilgore, Texas—had been shot four times. One slug had drilled his face, to the left of his nose. Another had entered the back of his neck and emerged from the front-right part of his head, near the ear. A third had pierced Martin’s left shoulder from behind, and his right hand also bore a wound. As police reconstructed the scene, Martin had first been shot in the face, perhaps raising his hand in defense, then tried to run and had been cut down from behind. Some distance from the corpse, more blood was found, across North Park and near a roadside fence.2

  Investigators soon discovered that Martin—formerly a Texarkana resident, until his parents moved—had returned to town on Friday, April 12, spending the night with friend Tom Albritton at Albritton’s home on Locust Street. He visited a longtime friend, fifteen-year-old Betty Jo Booker, at her home in the Sussex Downs development on Saturday afternoon—a “date,” according to Albritton—and arranged to pick her up that night, after a dance at the Veterans of Foreign Wars building, downtown at Fourth and Oak. Betty Jo played saxophone at the dance with a local band, the Rhythmaires. Friends saw the couple leave together, afterward, but Betty never made it home, and so the search expanded, joined by scores of local volunteers.3

  At noon, three friends of Betty Jo—George Boyd, his brother James, and Ted Schoppey—found the missing girl behind a tree near Morris (now Moores) Lane, connecting Summerhill and Richmond Roads, roughly a mile and three-quarters from Martin’s death scene. She was dead, shot twice: through her chest to the heart and, like Martin, in the face to the left of her nose. Published reports say she was fully dressed, including an overcoat buttoned up, with her right hand tucked into its pocket. No attempt was made to hide the body, and police could only guess which victim had been executed first.4

  Martin’s missing car was found at last, three miles from Betty Jo’s body, a mile and a quarter from Martin’s, some four hundred yards from the main entrance to Spring Lake Park, with the key still in its ignition.5 The separate locations of the car and corpses posed another mystery for law enforcement, fueling speculation as to whether Martin and Booker had driven to Spring Lake Park on their own, or were kidnapped en route to some other destination, perhaps conveyed to their deaths in the slayer’s own vehicle.

  * * *

  Author Brownson Malsch maintains that hundreds of Texarkansans flocked to the crime scene as word spread through town, “blotting out every possible clue that might have been of value.”6 In fact, however, the official record proves that detectives had a substantial body of evidence in hand. For starters, they knew that Martin and Booker were last seen alive at 2:00 A.M. on Sunday, as they left the VFW hall, while Tom Moore—a resident of Morris Lane—reported hearing a gunshot around 5:30, from the area where Booker’s corpse was found.7 That fixed a time frame for the slayings, though it told investigators little else.

  Ballistics evidence was plentiful. Initial reports referred to “a handful of .32 caliber shells” found scattered around Martin’s car, while an FBI memo listed the total as six cartridge cases and four projectiles—all with microscopic markings matching the weapon used to kill Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore in March.8 Homer Garrison, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, sent one bullet and one cartridge case to the FBI laboratory on April 19, with a letter explaining that the slug was found near Martin’s body, while the casing was located “near a pool of blood about 156 feet” distant from his corpse.9 The lab received them on April 23 and confirmed that microscopic markings on both were “most similar” to those found on bullets and brass fired through Colt .32-caliber semiautomatic pistols. At the same time, however, bureau technicians noted that there existed “some foreign made weapons having the same general type rifling characteristics as the Colt.”10 Washington shipped the evidence back to Garrison on April 25, but a letter from the DPS informed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that the items had not been received in Austin by May 21.11

  Official documents report discovery of several unidentified fingerprints from Paul Martin’s car. The first mention of prints, in an April 20 memo from the FBI’s Dallas field office, says that “[a] latent print developed on the steering wheel of the car was not the print of the owner [Martin’s father] nor either of the victims,” then adds that “photographs of three inexplicable latent prints” were en route from Texas “to be searched against [the FBI’s] single fingerprint file.”12 A memorandum of April 24 confirms receipt of the photos, noting that news of their discovery had been withheld from the press.13 The end result was disappointing. On May 15, Hoover wrote to Garrison that “[t]he photographs were examined, but none of the latent impressions appearing therein contains sufficient detail to permit classification and search through the Bureau’s single fingerprint file. However, three latent fingerprints appearing in the photographs contain a sufficient number of characteristic points to permit identification by comparison.”14

  Translation: the FBI could not tell if they had the killer’s fingerprints on file, but if officers caught him, comparison of the Martin-Booker latents with a living suspect’s prints could nail the gunman.

  Needless controversy still surrounds the various injuries suffered by Martin and Booker. Sheriff Presley initially told the Texarkana Gazette that, aside from being shot repeatedly, “the bodies of the victims had not been abused.”15 The Arkansas Gazette, meanwhile, told readers that “[t]he bodies indicated, officers said, that the couple had put up terrific struggles before death.”16 The Dallas Morning News was more specific, reporting that police found Betty Booker’s body “bruised and lacerated.”17

  There is little doubt that when Sheriff Presley denied any signs of “abuse,” he referred obliquely to sexual assault. That denial, however, was disingenuous at best. A teletype to Washington from the FBI’s Dallas field office, dated April 20, reports “swab test of the vaginal passage of Betty Jo Booker positive in test for male seminal secretion. Saline solution wash of penis of James Paul Martin negative. No foreign pubic hairs present among pubic hairs of Betty Jo Booker. However they did contain male seminal secretion. Not definitely known if victim [Polly Ann] Moore had been raped.” Despite its previous uncertainty, the same document closed with a notation that “[n]o publicity [was] being given ... [to] the fact that victim Booker had been raped.”18

  Four days later, an FBI office memorandum repeated those findings. It read: “Tests conducted revealed that Betty Joe [sic] Booker had been criminally assaulted by the unknown murderer. It was not known definitely if victim Moore was raped.”19

  Texas Rangers did not share the FBI’s confusion over what had happened to the killer’s female victims. Five separate letters from their files, written between August 1946 and January 1951, refer explicitly to “the murder and rape of Polly Ann Moore” and “the murder and rape of Betty Jo Booker.” One letter also cites “the assault and attempt to rape Mary Jean Larey” in February.20 Sam Wacasey, researching the case for the East
Texas Historical Association, was probably referring to those documents in 2003, when he told the Dallas Morning News that “[o]fficial reports would say Miss Booker was raped in the same manner as Miss Moore.”21 Indeed, the Arkansas Democrat had gone further still, in May 1954, reporting that the Phantom’s female victims were “tortured and mutilated.”22

  And yet, denial of the facts persists. The Texarkana Gazette, in its twenty-five-year anniversary series on the slayings, still denied that victims Moore and Booker suffered any sexual assault.23 Modern researcher Glenn Ferguson, based on conversations with retired investigators, recalled that “there’s always been some question as to whether Betty Jo Booker was raped.” Her state of dress—coat buttoned, one hand in a pocket—contributed to that confusion, as did police claims that “she died quick without knowing it was coming.”24 Those doubts should be laid to rest by the discovery of semen on and inside her body, while the tests performed on Martin’s corpse refuted claims of consensual sex.

  Another piece of evidence—unmentioned heretofore in published accounts of the case—was a thin black cord found in the car Paul Martin drove to his death. Sheriff Presley identified it as the wind cord from a man’s black hat, worn underneath the chin to keep a hat from blowing off, and sent it to the FBI with a notation that “we have been unable to identify this cord as being the property of either of the victims or the owner of the car the victims were using.”25 Bureau headquarters received the cord on May 10 and immediately shipped it off to the New York City field office, with instructions to contact two firms identified as “the principal suppliers of cords, ribbons and other hat findings to hat manufacturers in the United States.”26

  New York complied, and in fact exceeded their instructions, but the search proved fruitless. Spokesmen for the J. B. Mast Company and its chief competitor, Roberts, Cushman & Company, told agents “that it would not be possible to determine the manufacturer inasmuch as there are many who manufacture this item nor could its sale be traced to any retail outlet or any particular manufacturer of hats. Officials of both firms were in agreement on the fact that the cord would be used only on a grey or black felt hat with a black hatband.” A clerk at the Adam Hats store, on Broadway, agreed with that color scheme and “carefully arranged the cord around the crowns of a number of hats,” determining the subject’s likely hat size to be 7⅜ or 7½. A salesman at the Brooklyn Braid Company suggested that the cord was three or four years old, while the Defiance Button Machine Company reported that the cord’s button would be untraceable to any specific manufacturer. Agent E. E. Conroy concluded that, “Since further investigation does not appear to be warranted at this time, the hat cord is being returned to the laboratory under separate cover.”27

  Lab analysts had no better luck with the hat cord. Examination proved it to be a plain black, braided cord, with a metal, cloth-covered button .4 inches in diameter. A search of hat stores in Washington, D.C., proved no more productive than the New York canvass, noting that while several hats were similar, “none proved identical.”28 Stymied, FBI headquarters sent the cord back to Sheriff Presley on May 23.29 The hat presumed to match it never surfaced, nor do any files surviving to the present day discuss the seeming anomaly of a hooded prowler also donning a hat.

  One final item from the Martin-Booker murder scene, withheld from reporters at the time—and, it seems, for nearly half a century thereafter—was a small address book Paul Martin carried, found by police “in a washed-out area not too far from his body.”30 Multiple sources claim that Sheriff Presley found the book himself and kept it secret even from other investigators.31 It did not name the killer, but would surface, after a fashion, in a suspect’s statement subsequently given to authorities.

  Aside from what was found at or around the murder scene, one item was conspicuously missing. Betty Booker’s E-flat alto sax, a Bundy model—serial number 52535—as not in Martin’s car or anywhere in Spring Lake Park, as far as searchers could discover. Its description and serial number were broadcast to music stores and pawnbrokers throughout the tri-state area, in hopes that it would surface when the killer needed cash.32

  * * *

  Police had evidence enough to hang the killer if they found him—or, rather, to put him in “Old Sparky,” the electric chair—but nothing in their files would point them to a suspect. Failing that, they tried another angle of attack, reconstructing known events from the night of April 13–14, 1946.

  They started with the VFW dance, where Betty Booker had performed with Jerry Atkins and his Rhythmaires. Atkins, a high school senior at the time, had organized the band during the war, and kept it going after V-J Day. He served as the conductor, doubling on tenor saxophone for some tunes, and convinced four young female classmates to join the band since male musicians were currently in short supply. “When I recruited the girls for the band,” he later said, “we were playing proms and other events, but we were offered steady Saturday nights at the VFW Club. People still wanted the big band sound.” Though all the Rhythmaires were minors, local law enforcement overlooked their playing in establishments where alcohol was served to adult customers. Parents of the female players trusted Atkins for his sterling reputation, on condition that he personally drove their daughters to and from their weekend gigs, occasionally spelled by fellow saxophonist Ernie Holcomb. There had been no mishaps prior to April 13, when disaster struck.33

  Holcomb was supposed to drive the four female musicians home after the dance that night, but Betty Booker told him she was waiting for a friend, Paul Martin, who would take her to a slumber party at a girlfriend’s home. It hardly qualified as a date, but Betty seemed uneasy, telling classmates earlier that Saturday that she did not want to “go out” with Martin, but felt obligated because they had been friends since childhood. The dance broke up around 1:30 A.M. on Sunday, April 14, and Holcomb departed with his three remaining passengers, while Betty left the VFW hall with Martin. Neither would be seen alive again by any of their friends.34

  A female classmate phoned Jerry Atkins at 6:00 A.M. on Sunday, asking if he knew where Betty was. Atkins replied, mistakenly, that Ernie Holcomb had driven her home. His confusion seemingly arose from Atkins joining fellow bandsman Sonny Atchley for an early breakfast, at an all-night diner, after the dance had shut down. A second girl called back at eight o’clock, alerting Atkins that Betty had left the dance with Paul Martin, but had never reached the slumber party. When news of the double murder broke in Texarkana, Atkins called Sheriff Presley, then went with Atchley and other classmates to see the sheriff in person, around 9:00 P.M. Ernie Holcomb spent that Sunday with his parents, at his sister’s home in Vivian, Louisiana, and returned to a rude surprise. “Texas Rangers showed up at my door,” he said, years later. “I remember that very well.”35

  How had Martin and Booker been diverted from the slumber party to Spring Lake Park, where they died? Some locals speculated that the killer lay in wait for them outside the VFW hall and took them hostage at gunpoint, but no witnesses from the dance could confirm it. Another theory, likewise unsubstantiated, speculated that Martin had stopped for a lethal hitchhiker. Jerry Atkins, privately convinced that the killer had attended the dance and stalked Betty Jo afterward, could suggest no plausible suspects.36

  Any murder prompts police to scrutinize the victim’s friends, acquaintances and relatives for likely suspects. In this case, however, the slain teenagers appeared to have no enemies. Martin had been born in Smackover, Arkansas, where his family ran an ice business, on May 8, 1929. The youngest of four brothers, he worked at the family plant until his mother tired of life in Smackover, a rough-and-tumble oil town, convincing her husband to relocate in Texarkana, then later in Kilgore, though they also kept the Texarkana home. Brother R. S. Martin, Jr. remembered Paul as “kind of a quiet kid” and “a hard worker.” In Texarkana, he knew Betty Booker from kindergarten onward, and both attended the Beech Street Baptist Church on Sundays. After completing ninth grade at Arkansas Junior High School, Paul trans
ferred to Gulfport, Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Military Academy in 1945, then enrolled in high school at Kilgore. A classmate there called him “one of the sweetest people I believe I have ever known.”37 If anyone wished Martin harm, they had kept their animosity a secret.

  Betty Booker was another exemplary teen. Ernie Holcomb knew her as “a friendly, outgoing girl,” while another classmate said, “I remember she was popular, very popular. Everybody liked her. She was real cute.” Born on June 5, 1930, she was a junior at Texas High School and a member of Delta Beta Sigma sorority. Despite her youth, she was an accomplished saxophonist, encouraged by Jerry Atkins and others to consider a full-time career in music. Betty, a straight-A student, had other plans however, hoping to train as a medical technician. Her widowed mother was remarried happily to Betty’s stepfather, Clark Brown, and had moved with him from the Arkansas side of State Line Avenue to the Texas side, around the time Paul Martin left for Gulfport. Friends and family alike confirmed that Betty had no romantic interest in Martin, a fact that left their one-way trip to Spring Lake Park mysterious.38

  The latest double murder also killed the Rhythmaires. Years later, Jerry Atkins said, “What happened was so tragic and for many of us who lived through it, the frustration and sadness will always be there.” Fifty years after the fact, another band mate said, “We were all extremely frightened and extremely upset. And in a way we still are.” The band dissolved after the homicides and never played again.39