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Turning the key in the ignition, Jimmy snuffed the engine of his auto and
glanced at his wristwatch; time was nearing 11:45 p.m. He scowled, for he had
promised his dad to have the Plymouth home not much after midnight. But, he
quickly forgot his father's imminent anger under the lure of the prospect beside
him in her Lana Turner sweater and white pearl beads. His pulse raced; Mary
Jeanne looked so lovely, the moonlight punctuating her lovely features,
glistening her eyes that spoke of a little reticence yet urged the right amount
of wickedness. Her sweet perfume filled the shell of the car. When he leaned
over to peck his girl's cheek, reassuring her that he meant no harm -- after
all, what's a kiss between two people who, let's face it, weren't kids anymore?
-- the only sounds he could hear were her anxious breathing and the squeak of
the seat springs beneath them.
Then, the shadow fell over them to obliterate the moonlight.
Jimmy glanced up, expecting to see the uniform of a policeman come at an
inopportune moment. He startled, however, to see the thing just beyond
his window, bent to peer inside. Frankly, he didn't know what the hell it was.
Some thing in a hood of what appeared to be canvas, motioning to them
with two bare hands from beyond the car window, from the darkness of the grove.
As Jimmy's eyes accustomed to the darkness, he realized that one of those hands
held something in it. It gripped a pistol. And as the pistol barrel came to rest
against, then tap, the window, Jimmy recoiled into the recess of the car,
shoving Mary Jeanne across the seat.
"Come out of the car now!" the Thing directed, voice muffled
under the mask. It was, muffled or not, a deep voice, a masculine voice. Muffled
or not, it demanded authority.
Fearing the intruder would shoot through the pane if he did not comply, Jimmy
obliged, pushing the door outward and stepping into the night. Gravel crushed
under heel. Mary Jeanne, her hand in her boyfriend's, followed suit and stood
beside him. "You can have all the money we have, mister," the girl
warbled. "Just don't hurt us."
Try as they may, the couple could not detect eyes through the slits where
eyes should be. Only blackness, a hollowness, like that within an unlit window
sill pumpkin at Halloween. As if he noticed their inquisitive stares, the
stranger flicked on a flashlight into their faces to blind their perceptions.
Behind the sudden and bright beam, Jimmy heard the Thing's voice: "Do as I
say and I won't hurt you."
Jimmy's lips quivered. "What do you want? My wallet? The car?"
"Your britches." The Voice chuckled this time. "Remove your
britches."
"I will not!" the boy responded. He wondered for a moment if
this was some kind of gag proffered by his buddies.
"Do it or I'll kill you!" insisted the Voice.
Mary Jeanne pleaded, tugging at her date's shirtsleeve. "Please, Jim, do
what he says."
Jimmy hesitated, wondering why this absurdity. He glanced at the gun barrel,
for the first time noticing it leveled within inches of his abdomen, and lost
all male inhibition. Unbuckling his belt, he let the corduroy trousers drop
below his kneecaps. In that same moment, he watched the Thing's hand raise
overhead, the one holding the pistol, and with first a flashing light then a
blistering pain he realized that the man had belted him - twice he sensed in
quick succession - with the butt of the gun. Dizzy, his legs crumpled beneath
him. Time and space faded.
The creature now turned to face the girl. She ducked beneath his reach and
dashed in her desperation toward a dark connecting lane of overhanging cypress.
She sensed him strike forth again and this time felt his fist tug the back of
her sweater to pull her into him; like fodder, she was tossed to the ground. Now
triumphant, the animal sat on top of her; it coughed, then wheezed, then snorted
like a bull who had made a rag doll from a matador. His hands crept up
the inside of her skirt; she could feel the cold of the gun metal against her
thighs. Despite her pleas, his abuse continued, for the barrel of the gun was
resting now against her panties, phallic like. Even though his face was hidden
behind the dirty cover of canvas, the girl knew he was grinning. She could see
the glint of debauchery in his eyes - those dark eyes that now glimmered through
the peep holes. They shone now, almost iridescently, in the full glow of evil,
in the full of the moon...
...But, no, it was not the moon. Too bright for the moon, for the ray of
white light illumined the beast's full form, froze his macabre presence like a
waxen dummy, forever twisted and clenched in nature in a house of horrors. The
light caught his attention; he groaned and cursed and by his cussing Mary
Jeanne, under him, knew it was the light of an approaching automobile.
But, as he eased up on her, obviously to run, he intended to have the last
word. Walloping her across her face and shoulders several times with his fists,
he at last retreated into the darkness from whence he came.
* * * * *
The darkness would not hold him long. He would return. His first two victims
had been lucky to have been alive, even though they did not - and Texarkana did
not -- realize their fortune at the time. Mary Jeanne and her boyfriend were
rushed to the hospital where the girl's bruises were tended to. Jimmy had been
hit with such ferocity that his skull had been fractured in two places. But, he
too survived to tell the story.
They had escaped from what would become over the ensuing months a deadly rush
of murders brought on by this same Thing that crept in from the silence where
lovers should have been left alone to spoon.
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| Texas Rangers, Texas' top lawmen, were assigned to
Texarkana to take on the Phantom. Courtesy Wayne Beck
|
Between February and May, 1946, the city of Texarkana would endure one of the
most sanguine, most frightening episodes in its long and colorful history. It
was The Season of the Phantom, of his Moonlight Murders, of his dangerous
ghostlike elusive ambushes that crawled under the skin of man, woman and child
who couldn't sleep at night, who suddenly began locking their doors in a town
that didn't need bolting before. |
|
He was never caught. Who he was, where he came from, where he went is still
much of a mystery; at best, there is a central suspect, no more. Evidence
remains minimal.
In the end, Jimmy and Mary Jeanne would be the only two victims who could
describe him, and their descriptions were hazy. They described him as standing
about six feet tall, wearing a rough-looking homemade hood of white, with holes
punched out for the eyes and mouth.
"It is an image most commonly associated today with the Phantom
Killer," writes Carmen Jones, one of the staff writers of the Texarkana
Gazette, which in 1996 produced a half-century retrospective of the murders.
"It is the image of record because no one else who saw the killer at work
lived to give a description." And it is that image that haunted movie
screens when Hollywood filmed a semi-documentary of the event called The Town
That Dreaded Sundown.
Mary Jeanne Larey herself dreaded many sundowns to come after that night. She
spent months of scarred dreams and restless afternoons, eventually leaving town
to live with relatives in Oklahoma. But, she would always remember his
voice.
"I would know that it anywhere," she later said. "It rings
always in my ears."
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