MURDER, TOWN AGOG: THE HARDIN TRIBUNE-HERALD, MAY 30, 1946

In the spring of 1946 a weekly news-analysis page, printed in Hardin, Montana, on May 30, gave its readers a brief, vivid picture of a Texas town that no longer slept with its lights off. The item ran under the crosshead "MURDER:" with the sub-deck "Town Agog," and it is less about the Phantom Killer than about the people of Texarkana waiting for him. Porch lights burned all night. Bulbs hung twinkling in back yards. There were watchdogs all over town and nobody on the streets, and residents were "ready to pull a deadly trigger with any false move."

The tally it offers is brisk and only partly right. The killer, it says, had slain two young couples at night, and of a third pair, "elderly married people who had been fired upon through the window of their farm home," had killed one and wounded the other. "All were shot in the head." The authorities, the item reports, told Texarkanans to keep their guns at their side and "shoot to kill if assaulted," while the Texas Rangers, state highway patrolmen, sheriff's deputies, city police and the FBI threw out a dragnet.

Its last line is the one that stays. The professionals, it says, "were joined by thousands of amateur detectives in the search." The attacks had begun on February 22 on a lovers' lane outside Texarkana, Texas, and the last had come on May 3, when Virgil Starks was shot through a farmhouse window on the Arkansas side and his wife Katie, shot twice in the face, got away to find help. Five people were dead. No one was charged then, and no one ever would be.

These three paragraphs come from a syndicated round-up of the week's news written for a national readership, not from a reporter in Texarkana, and they are not a police record. The count leaves out the first attack, on February 22, in which a young couple were beaten and assaulted and both survived. The "elderly" couple were Virgil and Katie Starks, thirty-seven and thirty-six, and their farm lay outside Texarkana, Arkansas, not on the Texas side. Not every shot was to the head: Betty Jo Booker was shot in the chest as well as the face. The chief suspect, Youell Swinney, was never charged with any of the killings, and the case remains unsolved.

The Hardin Tribune-Herald for May 30, 1946, is less than 95 years old. The Library of Congress believes issues of that age in Chronicling America are in the public domain but warns that they may contain some copyrighted third-party material, and this item is exactly that kind of matter: it belongs to a syndicated "Weekly News Analysis" page, whose editor's note says the views are the analyst's, so it was supplied feature copy that may have carried its syndicate's copyright. The scan is the Library's Chronicling America copy; the citation and rights statement sit under it.

Only this item is transcribed. It begins at the "MURDER:" crosshead, just below a brief headed "LEND-LEASE: Make Returns," and ends before "U. S. TREASURY:" opens the next, unrelated piece. Within those lines the transcription is complete and word for word, with no illegible marks. The syndicate's wording is kept as printed, including "famed Texas rangers" with a lowercase r and the town given simply as "Texarkana, Texas."

Transcription

Transcribed word for word from the page scan. Original spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors have been kept exactly as printed. Unreadable words are marked [illegible]. Nothing has been modernised or corrected.

MURDER:

Town Agog

If traveling through Texarkana, Texas, one would have seen porch lights burning all night, twinkling bulbs hung out in back yards, watchdogs all over town, and the streets deserted. Further, one would have found residents ready to pull a deadly trigger with any false move.

All Texarkana was on the alert against the phantom killer who had slain two couples at night and killed one and wounded another of a pair. Four of the victims were young couples and the two others were elderly married people who had been fired upon through the window of their farm home. All were shot in the head.

While the authorities told Texarkanans to keep their guns at their side and shoot to kill if assaulted, the famed Texas rangers, state highway patrolmen, sheriff's deputies, city policemen and the FBI threw out a dragnet for the murderer. They were joined by thousands of amateur detectives in the search.