One of the rounds ripped through the skin beside her nose and exited by her ear while the other entered her lower jaw. As a woman struggles to come to grips with her past in the wake of her mother's death and the disappearance of her sister, an unsettling presence emerges in her childhood home. In this installment, April will be revisiting the infamous Tekarkana murders which inspired the feature film The Town that Dreaded Sundown. Texarkana, the border town straddling Texas and Arkansas, was having a typically quiet night for law enforcement, so Sheriff Presley and three patrolmen went out to investigate the site of the alleged attack. Later examination suggested that the murderer had faced her when he shot her at point blank range. The potential seller replied that he did not have the title at that time but he could get it. Even though Youell was the youngest, his low birth order garnered no sympathy from his parents and he was often forgotten and set aside in favor of his siblings. Griffin was found on his knees behind the front seat, his pants pulled down to his ankles with the pockets turned out and his head resting on his hands, as if he were asleep. Upon arriving to Texarkana and making his outlandish promise to the citizens, Lone Wolf Gonzaullas released a special notice which read that they were looking for the Phantom. The rise in public transportation resulted in population growth and a subsequent increase in crime. As soon as they saw the blood in the car and the bodies of a young couple slumped in the seats, they phoned the police. What's cool about the '76 original is that it takes the basic slasher movie story and adds a … As an adult, Youell Swinney was described as a Caucasian man, 5′ 11″, weighing 166 pounds with a tattoo of a heart and skull that spelled the word revenge on his arm. Upon finding the car, Boyd decided to begin a stakeout on the parking lot. Texarkana residents also turned on the Texas Rangers and the FBI, claiming that they were ten thousand dollars worth of cowboy boots and big, white hats and fifteen cents worth of brains.. What do you think? After securing the scene with techniques taught to them by the Texas Rangers and the FBI agent, Sheriff Presley recruited Texarkana residents to search for Betty Jo Booker. Her daughter from her first marriage, her beloved Betty Jo Booker, had not returned from her Saturday night gig playing saxophone at the VFW. Appearing before the Court without an attorney, the defendant advised the judge that he wanted to represent himself. Realtor and Phantom investigator Mark Bledsoe and Texarkana Museum librarian Sammy Wacasey have researched the killings. His long history of theft earned Youell several stints in both jails and prisons, but by 1940, Youell had changed his M.O. How do you feel knowing a little more about the murders that inspired The Town that Dreaded Sundown? It was initially met with resistance towards some of the imagery depicted of the town, while the language of the promotional posters was met with defiance since it stated that the Phantom Killer was still lurking. Use the HTML below. On April 20th, after the FBI examined Booker’s body, they found that she tested positive for semen and her vagina had marked bruising which reportedly could have been from either penile penetration or penetration from a pistol grip. You want me for more than stealing cars! The Phanto… His wife immediately ran to the telephone, but before she could use it the assailant fired two more shots, both entering her face. So begins The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Charles B. Pierce’s 1976 film that attempts to tell the story of the Texarkana Moonlight Murders, as they have since become known. Further to this, she had not been heard from all night. Martin must have dropped it after abandoning the vehicle. When the Davison family comes under attack during their wedding anniversary getaway, the gang of mysterious killers soon learns that one of the victims harbors a secret talent for fighting back. The killer had dipped his hands in Virgil’s blood and made a pretty vile scene. Horror. There have been numerous unique cases throughout history, some of which remain unsolved to this day, such as the Jack the Ripper killings, the Zodiac murders, and the Black Dahlia slaying. Both bullets tearing through her teeth, the bullet to the front of her lower law had actually lodged itself under her tongue. Martin and Booker were both laid to rest on April 16th, 1946 and although their funerals were supposed to be private affairs, many showed up for the young couple. On September 15, 1994, Youell Lee Swinney died a free man in a Dallas nursing home. CLICK HERE FOR MORE! Loosely based on a true story. Pierce. Later that morning he placed a formal request to the resident FBI agent in Texarkana to help process the crime scene. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. However, in spite of this, there was some evidence found at the scene of the crime that came in handy. A slender man dressed in a white shirt spotted Lee and abruptly fled the scene. Mays was able to provide State Trooper Tackett with a license plate number from a car that he had seen his tenant driving. The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014) is good slasher; not great, but good. Pierce, as cop "Sparkplug" Benson, serial killer still … Upon inspection, Partain asked the apparent owner if he had the title for the car. It was at this point that Sheriff Presley decided to call on the help of the Texas Rangers in order to identify the type of gun used in the murder from the casings that were left at the scene. Is it a copycat or something even more sinister? Leads on the location of the stolen automobile were followed to no avail. At the scene, .32 caliber shell casings were found near Martin’s car, the same that had been used in Griffin and Moore’s murders the previous month. It was then that Tackett knew then that he had found his suspect. His suspicions were confirmed when a complaint was called in from a Murfreesboro, Arkansas farmer Jim Mays, who was also a landlord. 65 years after a masked serial killer terrorized the small town of Texarkana, the so-called "moonlight murders" begin again. Green for all their help! A hooded killer terrorized citizens in rural areas surrounding the border between Texas and Kansas. Although the Rangers did not have specific educational requirements, they were trained in the latest techniques of navigating a crime scene, which included analyzing ballistics and fingerprints, communicating, and record keeping. Please enter your username or email address. Even though they both agreed that the person who attacked them was tall, approximately six feet, and male, they disagreed on the suspect’s race. They also had access to a crime lab in Austin, that could handle evidence collected at the crime scene. He had grown up rough and looked it, with a scar on the left side of his upper lip and another near one of his eyebrows. This masked killer terrorized a small Southern city over a six month period in 1946. On the date in question, Virgil was sat in the front room of their house, the curtains still wide open, reading with a heating pad resting on his lower back. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Trails of blood crossing the street indicated that after Martin had been shot he had crawled across the unpaved road before finally succumbing to his injuries. The following day, the Texarkana Gazette ran the headline, Couple Shot Dead in Auto. They arrested locals, even a local African-American man named Sammy, who was known to the community as a gentle soul. had changed from attacking couples on Lover’s Lane to brazenly attacking people in their own home. Then, for unknown reasons, after Hollis collapsed from his injuries, the stranger told Larey to run. Upon arriving in Texarkana, Carter, along with Hibbett Lee, who could identify the vehicle, learned that it was, in fact, stolen. Make them remember." Future analysis by the FBI and the Rangers suggested that Moore could have possibly been raped that night, but there were conflicting reports and this information was never released to the public. However, The Town That Dreaded Sundown did upset many of the residents and even resulted in an (unsuccessful) lawsuit from one a brother of one of the victims. THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN is, if nothing else, a perfect example of how NOT to tell this particular story cinematically…or, better yet, proof that the material should have been left in the hands of documentarians. A lonely high school girl, with dark secrets of her own, may be the key to catching him. Town That Dreaded Sundown, The The Town That Dreaded Sundown is a 1976 horror film by producer/director Charles B. The phone call not only gave legitimacy to Bessie’s suspicions, but also alarmed Clark when he learned that Betty Jo had never made it to the slumber party. Does Your Horror Feature or Short Need Worldwide Distribution? Convinced that Virgil had dropped something and broken it, Katie left the bedroom to attend to her husband, but found that Virgil was slumped dead in his armchair, blood seeping down his neck. The Town That Dreaded Sundown is a surprising Slasher film that is very different than the standard Slash and dice formula of so many others in the genre. News of the bizarre and horrific killings transfixed an entire nation on the small town of Texarkana, Texas in early 1946, and the case remains one of the most notorious unsolved crimes in U.S. history. After her husband, and Booker’s stepfather, Clark Brown, dismissed Bessie’s anxiety as over-exaggeration, Bessie insisted that Clark start making phone calls in order to find her daughter. As both Martin and Booker’s families buried their children, six more Texas Rangers arrived on the scene to help catch the elusive murderer who was newly named by the Texarkana Gazette. Upon running the plates, Tackett learned they belonged to a car that had been stolen on the night of March 24, the same night Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore were murdered. The Phantom suddenly attacks them, kills Corey, and tells Jami, "This is for Mary. On February 22nd, 1946, Sheriff Bill Presley received a late night call that a young couple had been attacked on an unpaved road, known as Lover’s Lane. Nor had she left the instrument behind, which would usually indicate that she would be staying with friends. He was never caught. The Town That Dreaded Sundown was a 1976 docudrama that was based on actual crimes committed in Texarkana in 1946. On January 13, 1947, Youell Swinney was indicted for felony theft as his previous convictions were also recognized by the Bowie County Grand Jury, making him a habitual criminal, a charge that could result in a life sentence.
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