Killer Legends Page #2

No evidence directly

correlating...

James:

No physical evidence.

They had his wife's statement,

but they could not use that

without her permission.

There had been a lot of

other suspects, hundreds.

People had theories

and all kinds of rumors

had been bouncing around,

but it's normal in any event,

especially when there's mystery

as there was always mystery

in this one.

Texarkana is nothing

like other towns.

It seems to be wallowing

in the notoriety.

Documentary team in town

to shoot a part

of texarkana history.

This week,

some texarkana residents

will have the chance

to appear onscreen

in a documentary film

of the phantom killer.

So what should we make

of all this?

The conclusion is simple...

texarkana will never

escape its past.

We should give up trying.

Joshua:
It was a half moon

on February 22

when Jimmy Hollis, age 24,

and Mary Jeanne larey, 19,

were attacked on a

secluded lover's Lane.

Both survived after a car

scared the assailant away.

Around midnight,

Mary Jeanne larey

and Jimmy Hollis

were making out

in the front seat of their car.

All of a sudden,

a guy appears with a gun,

wearing a mask over his head,

white,

two holes cut out

for eyes and mouth.

He tells her to run.

He chases her down

and then starts to attack her,

basically sexually assaults her

with the barrel of his gun.

She said she'd much rather

have been killed like the others

than to have been left

the way she was.

Joshua:
While the attacks

on lover's lanes in texarkana

didn't specifically

involve a hook,

the phantom's sickening crimes

created an equally horrifying

metaphor.

Stephen:
One of the victims

was actually sexually assaulted

with the barrel of a gun,

and so we have the idea

of a foreign metal object

being used in this way

which seems to be

psychologically

behind the idea of the hook.

In the hook story,

we have the hook

about to penetrate the car

when the boy drives away

and the hook is then ripped

from the hand of the murderer.

So we have the idea

of penetration

with a foreign metal object

as already part of that story,

and that in fact happened

in the texarkana cases.

Joshua:
But the sexual assault

was only part

of the phantom's

trademark signature.

These two people

are the only ones

who ever saw the phantom.

Both... wearing masks.

Joshua:
Right, they both said

the guy was wearing a mask.

where the whole white

mask thing came from.

The phantom's disguise

was another chilling detail

as it also helped to popularize

the most widely known

retelling of the murders

in the 1976 cult classic,

"the town that dreaded sundown. "

The movie was thought to be

one of the first slasher films,

having predated Halloween

by two years,

and its take on the phantom

would influence generations

of cinematic boogeymen.

The director,

Charles b. Pierce,

blurred the lines

between fact and fiction

by telling the film

in full documentary style.

Charles b. Pierce:

It was Sunday, march 3, 1946...

the beginning of

a reign of terror

for the people of texarkana,

a terror so indelibly imprinted

that today, people

still speak of it fearfully...

only the names

have been changed.

Casey Roberts:
Now I think

everybody in texarkana

knows about the story

of the phantom killer,

but there's a lot of

intermingling

of facts and legend

between the movie

and the actual

phantom killer case.

Joshua:

This is Casey Roberts,

media manager

at Texas a&m, texarkana.

He's done extensive research

on the crimes

and brought us

to one of the locations where

"the town that dreaded sundown"

was filmed.

A lot the... kind of landmarks

from both the original case

of the phantom killer

and the movie

the town that dreaded sundown

have gone away over the years,

and this particular house here

was used in one of

the big scenes.

when Virgil and Katie starks

were attacked in their farmhouse

just outside of town.

Virgil was shot

and killed in his armchair...

( Gunshot )

( Scream )

While Katie, shot in the face,

ran out of the house.

Everybody seems convinced

that youell swinney is the guy,

but you're saying...

Youell swinney would have

been easy to pin it on,

and they needed to

pin it on somebody.

The one person that...

I haven't been satisfied

he was cleared...

was a young man

that committed suicide

and left a note saying

that he was the phantom killer.

It's just part of the legend...

the son of a prominent family,

and it had the connections to,

you know,

cover up his dirty deed.

Joshua:
Hoping to dig up

more information,

we went searching

through the microfiche

of the texarkana gazette.

Promising lead proves dud.

So this is the mention

of that, youell swinney.

The officer had been

trying to validate

the story of a woman.

The woman's statement

followed so closely

that they are almost positive

that she was telling the truth,

and at one point,

they were almost to the point

of announcing a break

in the case.

Subsequently, however,

the woman said

that neither she nor her husband

had anything to do

with the slayings.

So they don't call him

the phantom at all in this,

but we just saw, literally,

the advertisement

in the newspaper

for the movie that is showing,

the phantom speaks.

This is the movie

that they theoretically

pulled the name from,

and right here at the newspaper,

we need to call him something,

let's call him the phantom.

We had just witnessed

an important step

in the creation

of any urban legend...

the naming of the boogeyman.

Bill Ellis:
One of the roles

that urban legends play...

and this is

an ancient function...

is that they will put

a name on something

that gives people

fears or anxieties.

That gives the person

some feeling of control.

So give the murderer a name...

he's the phantom murderer.

Joshua:
The mask,

the movie, the phantom.

These were the crucial elements

that would help create

texarkana's very own

urban legend...

a legend that would only

continue to grow

with screenings of

"the town that dreaded sundown"

held every year in

texarkana's spring lake park.

All of this area was part

of spring lake park...

At the time and this is where...

a couple of the places

where the murders happened.

That was where lover's Lane was.

You basically

set up the screening

that you have of

the town that dreaded sundown

at spring lake park.

Yes, we do it every October,

and because of the history,

we like the idea of having this

out at spring lake park

since that's where some of

the murders take place at.

We started getting

some phone calls saying

that they didn't think

it was right,

that there were

still families in town...

That, you know,

that were affected by this.

that it was going to

cause somebody else

to have the idea

to start doing it again.

A film crew was in town

last month...

And there's a new movie

being made?

What we've heard is

that it was actually a remake

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