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

by Michael Newton

  Rumors, indeed—but did any reflect the ranger captain’s personal take on the case?

  It is a fact that rangers pursued other suspects over a fourteen-year period following Swinney’s arrest. Files of correspondence, many quoted in subsequent chapters, prove beyond doubt that Captain Gonzaullas was still on the hunt for the Phantom as late as 1960. One item rescued from the files and placed on microfilm is a thirty-nine page handwritten, alphabetized list of what police today would call “persons of interest” in the case. That list included 1,047 names, from Albritton to Young, with brief descriptions, while two additional pages list sketchy descriptions of sixty unidentified suspects. Swinney does appear on the alphabetized master list, the last subject whose surname began with “S.” His entry reads, in its entirety: “Swinney, Youell: ‘police character—7-29-46.’”92

  Hardly indicative that Texas Rangers thought Max Tackett’s suspect was “The One.” Others who never accepted the Swinney solution were Sheriff Bill Presley and J. Q. Mahaffey, at the Texarkana Gazette.93

  The most obvious hole in the case against Swinney involves fingerprints. For all of their attempts to make him talk, with marathon interrogations and with drugs, neither Max Tackett nor Tillman Johnson ever described any attempts to match Swinney’s prints with latents collected from the Starks or Martin-Booker crime scenes. It seems literally inconceivable that no one took a moment to perform that relatively simple task—or, if they lacked the skill, to palm it off on Hoover’s FBI. And yet, if even one print from their suspect had been found at either scene, he would have been sewn up beyond the help of any lawyer in that day and age, dispatched to the electric chair at Huntsville.

  Today, thanks to release of the FBI’s file in 2006—and despite excision of Swinney’s name from the relevant memos—we know that his prints matched none recovered from any of the Phantom’s crime scenes.

  As an aside, we should recall, no document available today reports a match between the latents found at Spring Lake Park and those recovered from the home of Virgil Starks. From the surviving record, one might think that very basic step of linking the two scenes was never contemplated, much less carried out.

  If Youell Lee Swinney was the Phantom, he apparently left no prints at any of the murder sites, while someone else must have deposited the fingerprints still unidentified today.

  At least that much of Texarkana’s mystery remains unsolved.

  Chapter 9

  Poison Pens

  A strange interlude in the Phantom case began on May 3, 1946, hours before the Starks attack. Sometime that afternoon, an anonymous handwritten letter arrived at police headquarters in Texarkana, Texas. Addressed to Captain Gonzaullas, it read:

  Soon as read no time to lose for lives are in danger [one-half line deleted by FBI censors before release to public scrutiny].

  The writer would like to meet you personally, but every movement is being watched, on account thinking writer overheard conversation or least portion of it. Wish you would never give me away ever if you knew as my life would not be worth any more to these parties than was of those lately murdered.

  Please believe this, gun of German make, using .45 or 38 caliber, was borrowed recently for more trouble, so watch this week for something or later. They said that had gotten by with so much.

  [Name deleted] is carrier of gun, gotten from [two lines deleted] they said had 40 or 50 to cover up for alibis if ever questioned. [Deleted] said like first girl murdered, well enought no one else not to have her did not mention last couple. [Deleted] is clever and cunning gotten by with stealing and rapping and has plenty to help him, as he did is law on Ark side.

  Said [deleted] was carrying gun for own protection and would have good alibi of March 24. This is true and hope you will see into this as are getting braver please burn this, even tho true, writer would be killed if ever known, this is valuable to you. Shake him down. But please burn. Writer will not sign name as want to live.1

  Gonzaullas received another letter, this one typewritten, on June 25, 1946. Postmarked in Texarkana the previous day, it read:

  Some time ago you were written a letter, concerning three different parties, addressed to you at Texas Police Station, and whether you got it or not, is not known.

  Sometimes letters written like this seem to be maybe to you people not too much importance, but to others possibly would mean their life. This letter referred to was written in time before the Starks’ murder and you were given three names and this is another note or letter written in behalf of lives of people who care to live, but cannot come to you. Trusting you are not favoring a certain Ark. Law man or his friend, which is not written in any way, shape or manner, as an accusation of any kind with reference to our laws or you. If you will do some questiong think you will have something, as as what we need in this town is co-operation and no pay off. Talk getting might big and brave and time getting ripe, so get busy and watch these people.

  Trust you will keep this confidential as you said you would in the newspaper, is not written with spirit of ralling things up, but with all good intention to help protect the lives of not only one person, but possibly many.

  If you will check Blue two door Sedan, without top, you, of it had been the findings no doubt would of been an advantage to you. This Sedan belongs to boy not over 24, North of Texarkana, Arkansas. Has been washed and rewashed, and had two friends to help him, and gun was returned to one of them. Keep that confidential, confidential as it means the lives of more than one.2

  A third letter, handwritten, reached Gonzaullas before year’s end, with the date of its postmark missing. The final note read (with original spelling and emphasis):

  As some people have hobbies I have one looking at different license number, especially State licenses and have tried to find you in or on the phone and am told you were out and wish you would keep this confidential. While travelling out highway toward Little Rock noticed car parked near railroad track and it backed out, since then learned car the night Mr. Stark’s was murdered was parked close to railroad tracks, road where told [deleted] went across to sisters house and this car number [deleted] and saw it since on trips to Texarkana, but just recently learned the car man or woman eused was parked there reason for not letting you know sooner. Man and only one man occupied car and this car turned in road close to Martindale farm. Hope this will help you some.3

  Whether the Lone Wolf followed those leads or not is anyone’s guess.

  On December 13, 1946, as fear of the Phantom was fading, a typewritten letter arrived at the home of Clark Brown, stepfather of Betty Jo Booker. Typed all in capitals, it read:

  MR. BROWN:

  THIS IS ADDRESSED TO YOU PERSONALLY AND IS ONLY TO HELP YOU AND MRS. BROWN. THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS CONFIDENTIAL AND IF YOU DO NOT HAVE USE FOR IT BURN IT UP IMMEDIATELY. CANNOT COME TO EITHER OF YOU PERSONALLY. THIS CAR NUMBER AND PARTIES WAS SEEN BY YOUNG GIRL WHO DOES NOT AND WILL NOT COME TO YOU ON ACCOUNT OF FEAR AND FOR HER SAKE IF NOT USED PLEASE BURN. INFORMATION WAS GIVEN TO BOTH LAWS HERE AND ANOTHER AUTHORITY SO BE CAREFUL AND FOR YOUR BENEFIT AND SUCCESS IN THIS USE HIGHER AUTHORITIES. [Two lines deleted] AND THAT IS WHY PROTECTED. KEEP THIS INFORMATION CLOSE AND SORRY CANNOT SIGN AND SEE YOU PLEASE BURN IF OF NO VALUE BUT IT IS IF YOU ONLY KNEW IT. BE CAREFUL AND IF USED TRY HIGHER AUTHORITIES AND PLEASE DO NOT QUESTION THIS AT ALL. THIS IS ONLY GIVEN FOR YOUR SAKES AND NOTHING WANTED OR ASKED ONLY SUCCESS IF USED. MANY KIND THOUGHTS FOR BOTH OF YOU AND USE CONFIDENTIAL.4

  Clark Brown delivered the note to Sheriff Presley, who in turn mailed it to FBI headquarters on December 19. Presley included a copy of Brown’s fingerprints, with a request that the bureau identify any other latent prints found on the letter or its envelope, and also attempt to identify the make and model of the anonymous scribe’s typewriter. On January 3, 1947, headquarters returned the letter and envelope to Sheriff Presley with a short note from J. Edgar Hoover. Six latent prints, all Brown’s, had been developed on the items. Both the letter and the address
on its envelope had been typed on a common Underwood with Pica type spaced ten letters to the inch, found on various models.5

  Dead end.

  On the same day, January 3, a second letter was mailed to Clark Brown in Texarkana. It read:

  AS A FOLLOW UP OF LETTER WRITTEN TO YOU SOME FEW DAYS AGO. THE CAR LICENSE NUMBER GIVEN YOU WAS RIGHT AND THIS CAR HAS RECENTLY BEEN SOLD. ALSO ASK HOW COME FBI TO CHECK BLOCK AT [deleted] SOME TIME AGO AND WHO WITHIN THIS WAS RELATED IN A MANNER TO THESE PEOPLE AT FARM. ALSO HOW WAS GUN TRANSFERRED TO NOT BE IN JUST ONE HAND AND IS STILL KEPT GOING FROM [deleted] WITH VIRGIL STARKS JUST ONE OR TWO HOURS BEFORE HIS DEATH. ALSO HIGHER AUTHORITIES THAN THESE HERE WOULD BE THE ONES FOR YOU TO GO FOR HELP. ALSO BOTH LETTERS HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BECAUSE WAS TOLD YOU HAD INFLUENCE WITH RIGHT AUTHORITIES AND PLEASE IF NOT USED WOULD YOU BE KIND ENOUGH TO BURN WHEN READ [deleted].6

  On January 7, Sheriff Presley sent that letter and its envelope to FBI headquarters, along with the items just returned from Washington. An FBI report dated January 23 informed Presley that the second letter and its envelope were typed on a different machine: an Underwood elite, with letters spaced twelve to the inch. No useful fingerprints were found.7

  Clark Brown received a third letter on March 22, postmarked in Texarkana the previous day. It read:

  SORRY YOU DID NOT BELIEVE IN LETTERS SENT YOU LAST YEAR AS EITHER YOU DID NOT OR ELSE LONG TIME USING SAME. SEEMS IT WOULD BE SO EASY BY GIVEN GOOD INFORMATION AS GIVEN. THESE SAME PARTIES ARE STILL MOLESTING AND IF YOU HAD OF THOUGHT INFORMATION GIVEN TO YOU AS BENEFICIAL YOU WOULD HAVE CAUSED OTHER GIRLS LESS SUFFERING. BUT CANNOT BLAME YOU AND ONLY WISHED YOU HAD. OF COURSE IT IS BETTER TO GO FACE TO FACE, BUT IN THIS CASE THAT COULD NOT BE DONE AND SORRY HEARTACHE AS WELL AS YOURS CANNOT BE EASED. RIGHT PARTIES COULD RUN THIS DOWN. [Four lines deleted.] THIS IS NOT MADE UP. WHY IS THIS WRITTEN? WELL IF YOU ONLY COULD OR HAD RIGHT PARTIES TO LOOKED INTO THIS A BODY OF A YOUNG GIRL WHO IS STILL LIVING BARELY THOUGH WOULD CEASE CRYING AND HURTING. NOT FOR A MINUTE WOULD I APPEAL TO YOUR SYMPATHY ONLY SORRY YOU CANNOT USE THE INFORMATION GIVEN. PLEASE DO IF YOU CAN.8

  The reference to ongoing sex crimes produced no more victims, nor did FBI headquarters evince any interest in the repeated suggestion that local authorities might be involved in a cover-up. Brown would receive one last letter, postmarked in Texarkana on May 2, reading:

  SOMETIME AGO YOU WERE WRITTEN AND GIVEN VALUABLE INFORMATION AND NOTHING SEES TO COME OF IT. THE NAMES GIVEN YOU AND ALL WAS CONFIDENTIAL AND DO NOT MEAN TO SORRY OR REMIND YOU. MUST BE IF YOU TRIED TO FIND OUT THEY PLAYED INNOCENT. JUST A LITTLE WHILE BACK THERE WAS A DEATH OF A GIRL AND YOU NO DOUBT READ ABOUT IT THERE POSSIBLY WILL BE ANOTHER IF YOU HAVE ANY INFLUENCE WOULD BE SO GLAD YOU USE IT. MAYBE YOU DID NOT RECEIVE LETTER WILL REPEAT NAMES GO TO HIGHER OFFICIALS AS THESE PEOPLE ARE HELPED BY THE LAW. [Four lines deleted.] DO NOT BE MISLEAD ABOUT ANY OF THIS. ALL OF THIS WAS HEARD NEAR STARKS ALSO BLOOD NEAR MARTINDALE FARM THE NIGHT YOUR STEP FATHER KILLED THEY MET THERE LATER. NOT ALL THIS AT MURDERS BUT PLAYED THEIR PARTS AND ACCORDING TO ANY LAW WILL BE GUILTY DO NOT BE MISLEAD. KEEP THIS CONFIDENTIAL. BURN THIS JOT NAMES DOWN. [Two lines deleted.] PLEASE IF YOU HAVE ANY INFLUENCE CARRY THIS TO HIGHER AUTHORITIES. DO NOT GIVE TO THESE HERE FOR THEY WILL TELL YOU NOTHING TO IT. YOU CAN SEE WHY CAN’T YOU. HURRY. MAYBE YOU DID NOT GET FORMER LETTERS THIS WILL BE LAST WRITTEN. WISH YOU COULD DO SOMETHING AS THAT WILL BE MORE. SYMPATHY WITH YOU AND YOURS BY MANY BE ASSURED OF THAT AND ONLY TOO GLAD TO HELP TO BRING JUSTICE DON’T THINK FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE. KEEP THIS CONFIDENTIAL AND MANY THANKS IF YOU CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS.9

  The still-unknown writer was true to his (or her) word. There would be no more letters to Brown. In Washington, FBI experts determined that the second and third letters were typed on the same machine as the first, from December 1946. Comparison of the Texarkana documents to others in the FBI Laboratory’s anonymous letter files produced no matches. Latent fingerprints developed on the last two letters failed to match those of Clark Brown or his wife Bessie. Neither did they match any prints collected from the Starks of Martin-Booker crime scenes. None of the persons named in any of the letters had been previously viewed as suspects by authorities in Texarkana.10

  While investigating the letters, FBI agents discovered that Clark and Bessie Brown had moved to their present address, at 1419 Locust Street, in October 1946, receiving the first anonymous letter two months later. Three days before they got their final note, on April 30, a more sinister letter arrived at the home of Elmer Edward Feagins, residing two blocks distant from the Browns at 3119 Locust Street.11 It read:

  WHEN YOU HAVE BEEN A RAIL ROADER YOUR SELF YOU NO DOUBT UNDERSTAND RAILROADING. SINCE YOU HAVE DONE THIS THEN YOU UNDERSTAND THE GAME. SINCE THIS IS THE CASE YOU DID IT IN THE PAST WILL ASK FOR RETURN WITH INTEREST. AT THE SPRING LAKE PARK VAULT AFTER ENTERING GATE AT HEAD OF SPRING AT VAULT ON EAST SIDE PUT THIS SPONDULUX. IN AN OILCLOTH OF DARK COLOR AND THEN TIED WITH DARK STRING CAN’T FIND PAINT OILCLOTH THIS AMOUNT OF MONEY IN AS SMALL BUNDLE AS POSSIBLE IN AS LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY AS POSSIBLE. LARGE BUNDLE SO AS TO NOT MAKE POSSIBLE. PUT THIS ON FRIDAY OF THIS WEEK BETWEEN EIGHT AND EIGHT FIFTEEN [Deleted] THEN LEAVE GO HOME STAY QUIET. WITHOUT ALLOWING ANYONE TO KNOW ABOUT THIS IN ANY WAY YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. THE AMOUNT IS THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS THIS IS ONLY FIRST REQUEST TO GET BACK YOUR REQUEST OR RAILROADING? REMEMBER?? YES YOU DO. DON’T HAVE ANY WATCH DOG OR PROWLERS. KEEP QUITE ABOUT THIS OR ELSE. YOUR RAILROADING OTHER PEOPLE IS OVER. REMEMBER YOUR FAMILY AND KEEP RULES MUM OR??????12

  Feagins—a fireman working the graveyard shift at Texarkana’s Missouri Pacific Railroad yard—did not report the extortion demand until the day of the scheduled payoff, May 2, telling police that he did not have the money to spare, but still desired to make the drop, shadowed by an officer in an unmarked car. Since the letter had not specified payment in the morning or evening, Feagins deposited a worthless parcel as directed, at 8:10 P.M. The law was out in force, with two FBI agents watching the drop site, while a sheriff’s deputy and two officers of the Arkansas State Police staked out the entrance to Spring Lake Park. They sat and watched in vain from 7:45 to 11 P.M., then gave up and went home.13

  Feagins, meanwhile, had identified a suspect: Floyd Kilcrease, former owner of a Texarkana welding shop, from whom Feagins had purchased his Locust Street home one month before he received the extortion demand. Kilcrease had been in California when the sale was negotiated through a third party, but he returned in time to collect $2,000 for the property. Feagins also gave Kilcrease an IOU for $1,000 and financed another $2,000 through the local Jennings Real Estate Company. Feagins had no reason for suspecting Kilcrease beyond a claim that his home’s former owner had been “drinking considerably.”14

  On May 6, Elmer Feagins received another letter, postmarked May 5, and immediately contacted the FBI. The latest message read:

  MANY A SLIP HAS BEEN MADE BETWEEN THE CUP AND THE LIP. YOUR LIP DID IT TOGETHER WITH YOUR FAMILY. YOU ASKED FOR IT. YOUR VERSION WRONG ACCUSATION WRONG LIP TOO BIG YOU ASKED FOR IT TOGETHER WITH OTHERS LIP. YOU WERE TOLD TO DO SOMETHING. IT IS WHAT YOU HAVE DONE IN PAST NOT OTHERS. YOU AND YOUR LIPPERS WILL FIND THIS OUT IN TIME. YOU ASKED FOR IT.15

  Once again, Feagins named Floyd Kilcrease as the only logical suspect. He denied any involvement in “union trouble” at the railroad yard, had not “bumped” anyone out of a job in recent months, “knew of no one that he had offended or [who] could be suspected as writing” the letters. FBI agents announced their intent to find and question Kilcrease and to seek the typewriter that had produced the Feagins letters. On June 12, they reported that the Feagins letters were typed on the same Underwood as the first, third, and fourth letters addressed to Clark Brown, distinguished particularly by the overlapping letters “ST” in the addresses on five envelopes. No useful latent fingerprints were found on either of the Feagins letters. Comparison to other letters in the FBI’s extortion file led nowhere.16

  Beyond that, FBI technicians reported that five of the six
letters mailed to Locust Street—excluding the first to Clark Brown, in December 1946—had arrived in “large size stamped envelopes” available from any U.S. post office. Five of the letters were typed on standard white paper, 8½ inches wide, “but in each instance a portion of the paper had been torn and only part of the sheet sent each time.” The sole exception, mailed to Elmer Feagins on April 29, had been typed “on a scratch pad of some type, and the bottom of the sheet has also been torn as the other sheets.” Only one sheet of paper—the letter addressed to Clark Brown on March 21—bore a watermark, reading “Atlantic Bond.” G-men identified the manufacturer of that sheet as the Eastern Manufacturing Company in Bangor, Maine, and questioned its distributor for the Texas-Arkansas region, without identifying a specific purchaser.17

  Agents also visited the Ragland Office Equipment Company, located on the Texas side of Texarkana’s Main Street. The proprietor furnished a list of Underwood typewriter buyers, ultimately leading nowhere. In addition to individual sales, Ragland’s owner said thirty machines had been leased by Texarkana Junior College, for use in a veteran’s training program. In fact, there were only twenty-five, and specimens collected from them failed to match the anonymous letters. In passing, Texarkana’s postmaster was warned to be alert for any future letters whose addresses were typed all in capital letters. An average of twenty such letters per day were logged between June 12 and 20, 1947, but nothing from bureau files suggests that any of those other letters were examined, much less matched to the six anonymous notes.18

  Those details are the sort in which the FBI excels. One matter that escaped them, however, was the possible significance of letters typed on paper with a portion torn away in every case. With the 8½ × 11-inch sheets, it is impossible to say whether the part removed came from the top or bottom of a given sheet. On the page from “a scratch pad of some type,” analysts specified that the missing portion was torn from the bottom—where a name or company logo is often printed on commercial notepads. Removal of a portion from the other sheets, likewise, suggests detachment of a logo, letterhead, or other printed information that might have led manhunters back to the source.