Pod Insights Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén The Hook Man About this episode The Hook Man is an urban legend dating back to the 1950s. The terrifying story tells of a killer with a hook for a hand who preys on young couples parked in lovers’ lanes. The legend found new life in the 1997 slasher film, I Know What You Did Last Summer, which is being rebooted in 2025. But this story is more than just campfire fuel. The legend was possibly inspired by the Texarkana Moonlight Murders of 1946 – a string of unsolved attacks by a masked assailant known only as The Phantom Killer.
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Transcript 0:04 Speaker 00 It's hopelessly romantic. A moonlit night, the perfect view, a ballad on the radio. Your skirt swishes as you cuddle closer to the love of your life. Then it's punctured. A bulletin on the radio, a killer on the loose. "Maybe we should go home," you suggest. You don't want to ruin the evening, but it is frightening. He reassures you, "You'll head home right now." He puts the car in reverse, turns his head to back up. Then a hook bursts through the driver's side window. Welcome to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. Every Monday, we bring you the true crime stories that stand out. I'm Janice Morgan. We'd love to hear from you.
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2:46 Speaker 00 On November 8, 1960, Abigail Van Buren printed a rather strange letter in her advice column, Dear Abby. Dear Abby, if you are interested in teenagers, you will print this story. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it doesn't matter because it served its purpose for me. A fellow and his date pulled into their favorite lover's lane to listen to the radio and do a little necking. The music was interrupted by an announcer who said there was an escaped convict in the area who had served time for rape and robbery. He was described as having a hook instead of a right hand. The couple became frightened and drove away. When the boy took his girl home, he went around to open the car door for her.
3:30 Speaker 00 Then he saw a hook in the door handle. I don't think I will ever park to make out as long as I live. I hope this does the same for other kids. Jeanette. It's a version of an urban legend that likely has its origins in the 1950s, according to folklorist Jan-Herald Brunnvandt. The story takes different shapes. Sometimes, as in the case of the Dear Abby letter, the couple gets away from the hook man. In others, the boyfriend is decapitated. Whatever the version, the hook man legend keeps its place at the top of the narrative food chain for a reason. It has everything you could want in a scary story: sex, romantic tension, and blood,
4:13 Speaker 00 not to mention a terrifying villain, an escaped convict with a hook for a hand. And that's why it has staying power. The legend partially inspired the 1997 film I Know What You Did Last Summer, a slasher in which four teens are hunted by a vicious, hook-handed serial killer. The franchise was rebooted in summer 2025, bringing the villain back to the silver screen.
4:38 Speaker 00 In the opening scene of the original movie, four friends recount different versions of the Hookman legend. When one character, Julie, claims the legend is just a ghost story intended to scare teens from premarital sex, her friend Ray insists it's true. He says every legend is based on real life. In a way, they're both right. Jan-Herald Brunvan says that many of the urban legends from the 50s, when the Hookman originated, were designed to have a moral message. The Hookman and others like it were spread to discourage teens from parking on lovers' lanes. But sometimes, there's a true story behind the tale. And while there are no known serial killers who used a hook to murder their victims, there have been a few who stalk lovers' lanes.
5:23 Speaker 00 In fact, just a few years before the legend spread its way through teenagers across the country, a killer known only as "The Phantom" terrorized the teens of a small city in Texas.
5:36 Speaker 00 It's 1946, and 19-year-old Mary Jean Larry is separated from her husband and ready for a fresh start. So when Jimmy Hollis asks her on a date, she eagerly agrees. On February 22nd, the pair go out in the town of Texarkana, Texas. The four see a movie, followed by soft drinks at a late-night cafe. Around 10:00 PM, Jimmy drives Bob and Virginia home. Then, he and Mary Jean head to a quiet dirt road known for being a lover's lane. The two chat for a while, still getting to know one another. At one point, Jimmy gets out of the car to look at the stars, only to discover that he and Mary Jean are not alone. A beam of light flashes Jimmy in the eyes.
6:21 Speaker 00 When he adjusts, he sees a man approaching him, carrying a flashlight and a gun.
6:28 Speaker 00 The man orders Jimmy to drop his pants. At first Jimmy thinks it's some kind of twisted prank. He tries to laugh it off, but when the man yells at him again, he realizes it's no joke, so he obeys. At the same time, the figure runs forward and hits him on the head with a heavy object. Mary Jean runs out of the car and tries to give the attacker Jim's wallet to leave them alone, but instead, he turns his fury onto her. In one swift moment, the assailant hits her in the head. She falls to the ground, dazed but still conscious. When she tries to stand, the man tells her chillingly, "To run." Mary Jean stumbles away toward the road.
7:10 Speaker 00 She starts running but hears footsteps approaching from behind. The man catches up with her quickly. He strikes Mary Jean on the head again, and she falls to the ground. Then he attempts to sexually assault her, before he's scared off by headlights and vanishes into the night. Mary Jean runs to the nearby houses and bangs on their doors, calling out desperately for help. Eventually, someone answers and calls the police, who send an ambulance looking for Jim. The paramedics find him alive, but barely. He spends the next two weeks in critical condition, but eventually recovers. Police question Mary Jean first, while Jimmy is still in a coma. She says she didn't recognize the attacker, but he was tall and stocky.
7:55 Speaker 00 He wore a mask, and she believes he may have been a black man. Authorities don't believe that Mary Jean didn't recognize the assailant. They think it was a targeted attack. That belief strengthens when they learn Mary Jean and Jimmy were both separated, but not yet divorced from their spouses. Maybe the attack was an act of revenge, and Mary Jean is protecting someone. Police hope Jimmy's testimony will help, but when he finally wakes up, his version of events only adds to the confusion. Jimmy agrees the assailant was tall and stocky, but thinks that it was a white man who was not wearing a mask. The conflicting witness statements puzzle law enforcement, but there's a possible explanation for the two different narratives.
8:40 Speaker 00 Both Jimmy and Mary Jean had suffered head trauma, and it's possible their injuries impacted their memories. Plus, the assailant shined his flashlight directly in Jimmy's eyes, making it hard for him to see clearly. But for some reason, the differing accounts solidify one thing in the minds of the investigators. Mary Jean is lying.
9:04 Speaker 00 The authorities decide that the attacker must have been an enemy of Mary Jean's. They still assume the assault was personal, even after they clear her ex-husband and they're left with no other suspects. After they reach this conclusion, the investigation loses all sense of urgency. Police don't think whoever attacked the couple is a threat to the general public. With no evidence and few leads, the case quickly grows cold. And Texarkana has other things that need attention. World War II ended a few months prior to the attack, so veterans are coming home, reuniting with their families and looking for work. Plus, crime is pretty common in the town at this time. The police department has their hands full investigating several robberies, assaults, and even murders.
9:50 Speaker 00 Mary Jean and Jimmy's case gets lost in all of the chaos. The community accepts the police's theory about the attack. Even with the crime around town, they still view Texarkana as safe. Kids play outside until dark. Teens go out to movie theaters and lovers' lanes. Parents tell their children that as long as they stay out of trouble, trouble won't find them.
10:14 Speaker 00 But Mary Jean and Jimmy don't forget. The incident scares them enough that they both separately move out of state. They insist the man who attacked them will strike again. And unfortunately, they're right. He's just getting started.
10:36 Speaker 00 On March 23rd, 1946, Richard Griffin and Pollyann Moore go out to dinner, catch a movie, then head to a local café for a snack. Late that night, they drive about half a mile out of town and park in a secluded area. They're not there long before a man approaches the car with a gun. The attacker approaches the couple and forces Richard to drop his pants. He shoots Richard in the back of the head, then drags Polly out of the car before he turns the gun on her and kills her. Strangely, he moves Polly's body back to the car and places her in one of the seats. This may have been a half-hearted attempt to clean the scene. Then, he takes off into the night, leaving no physical evidence behind.
11:21 Speaker 00 A motorist discovers the horrific scene the next morning and calls the police. But with the authorities comes a crowd of curious onlookers. Word spreads quickly in Texarkana, and it seems that everyone in town wants to get a glimpse of the double homicide. Unfortunately, the police fail to close the crime scene to the public. People trample over any footprints and even help push the car toward the road once it's ready to be towed, smudging any fingerprints left behind by the killer. But that isn't the only botched part of the investigation. Authorities allow Polly to be embalmed and buried before an autopsy is conducted. According to an FBI memo, that means she wasn't officially tested for sexual assault. To add to the confusion,
12:05 Speaker 00 a physician claimed the body was examined and Polly was not raped, while rumors swirl around Texarkana that she was. In many ways, the murders of Polly and Richard parallel the assault on Mary Jean and Jimmy. Both men were forced to pull down their pants, the assailant used a gun, and the lovers' lanes were only about a mile from each other. But crucially, law enforcement doesn't make the same connection. Still, a double homicide is a serious enough crime to involve the state's police department, the Texas Rangers, and the FBI. Experts determined that the killer had likely used a .32 automatic Colt pistol to kill Polly and Richard. And while this was a helpful development,
12:48 Speaker 00 it was nowhere near enough information to catch their guy. In a matter of days, the authorities question more than 50 people and follow hundreds of leads. They're desperate for more clues, but they find nothing. Eventually, investigators determined that the murder was likely another isolated incident, and again, was not a random attack. And just like the first time, the vast majority of Texarkana residents believe that, contrary to all evidence, their town is safe. But there's one person who knows the true danger ahead. Mary Jean Larry.
13:26 Speaker 00 Up in her new Oklahoma home, Mary Jean catches wind of the recent double murder. As she pours over the stories in the newspaper, she recognizes the signs of her own attacker. She still hears his snarling voice in her nightmares. Determined to put a stop to the criminal who ruined her life, Mary Jean travels to Texarkana to tell authorities it was the same man. But when she arrives, the police refuse to hear her out. Within weeks, they'll wish they'd listened. On April 13th, high schooler Betty Jo Booker has an exciting evening planned. She plays saxophone in a local band called The Rhythmers, and they have a gig that night at a dance hall.
14:09 Speaker 00 Afterwards, she'll head to a slumber party with some friends. A little after 1:00 a.m., Betty Jo's friend Paul Martin picks her up to take her to the party. But first, they head to Spring Lake Park, a lover's lane popular amongst local teens. Paul and Betty Jo park the car and get comfortable, enjoying what they think is a moment alone. Little do they know, someone is watching them. Around 6:00 the next morning, Paul's body is discovered near a road about a mile from where he and Betty Jo parked. He'd been shot four times. Meanwhile, Betty Jo's mother realizes she still hasn't come home from the slumber party.
14:52 Speaker 00 More worrisome, she never dropped off her saxophone after her gig, which she always did. Concerned, she starts calling around and learns that Betty Jo never made it to the slumber party. As news of her disappearance races down phone lines, Betty Jo's friends and family pile into their cars and drive around looking for her. Around noon, Betty Jo's body is discovered about a mile from where Paul's had been found. She'd been shot twice. Police theorize she may have been killed more than two hours after Paul. At this point, the killer's MO is rapidly evolving. He killed his victims separately, miles from where he'd found them.
15:34 Speaker 00 He also stopped cleaning up after himself, which could suggest he was growing more confident in his ability to evade the police. Once again, there were conflicting reports on whether or not Betty Jo had been raped. While the Texarkana sheriff swore that the teen wasn't sexually assaulted, the FBI's examination found that she was. Ballistics testing showed the killer used a .32 automatic pistol. It's the same type of gun that was used in the attack on Richard and Polly. Investigators now have no doubts that the same man committed both murders. They're chasing one person. Now that it's clear a serial killer is targeting the lovers' lanes of Texarkana, local journalists decide they need to give him a name.
16:18 Speaker 00 Calvin Sutton, an editor for the Texarkana Gazette, says the murderer is elusive, like a phantom. On the morning of Betty Jo and Paul's funerals, a headline on the front page of the Gazette reads, "Phantom Slayer Still at Large As Probe Continues." Though the details of the investigation are murky, the impact on the community is clear. Not only do the people of Texarkana feel that they aren't safe, in fact, they're being hunted. Within three days of Betty Jo and Paul's deaths, one hardware warehouse is sold out of handguns and rifles. Soon, much of the town implements a curfew, and nobody even considers sneaking away for
17:02 Speaker 00 some privacy. Law enforcement started setting traps to catch the Phantom. In one attempt, a Texas Ranger brought a female mannequin with him in his patrol car. He'd drive down to a lovers' lane, hoping to lure the Phantom into believing he'd found the next couple to target. The town is tense, waiting for the next double homicide, and they have a good guess at when it might come. The Phantom murdered Richard and Polly on March 23rd. Then Paul Martin and Betty Jo Booker were killed on April 13th, exactly three weeks later. If the Phantom stuck to this schedule, the next attack would come on May 4th. The police increased patrols around lovers' lanes, hoping to catch the Phantom before
17:47 Speaker 00 he strikes again.
17:50 Speaker 00 On the evening of May 3rd, 1946, Virgil Stark sits in his favorite armchair in his living room, reading the paper and listening to the radio. His wife Katie is already in bed. As Virgil flips through the pages of his newspaper, a figure creeps onto the front porch and watches him through the window. After a few moments, the man raises a gun and fires it into the back of Virgil's head, killing him. Katie hears the commotion and hurries to the living room to investigate. At the sight of her husband's body, Katie screams and runs for the phone. But before she can get there, the Phantom takes aim and fires, hitting her twice. Still, Katie manages to sprint out the front door.
18:34 Speaker 00 She runs to a neighbor's house and calls the police. Right away, authorities believe that this is the work of the Phantom, even though the crime hasn't taken place on the back roads of some lover's lane. He also used a different gun, leaving some to speculate that this was a copycat. It's hard to say why the Phantom might have changed his MO, but perhaps it's because there were no couples daring enough to break curfew. Or maybe he caught wind of the police setting traps on lover's lanes. He might have known the police are looking for a killer with a .32 caliber pistol, so he switched out his weapon. The aftermath of his attack is chaotic. Police try to isolate the crime scene in the Starks' farmhouse,
19:17 Speaker 00 but too many officers respond to the scene and trample over potential evidence. Although there is a track of footprints outside, they can't be sure the prints didn't belong to their own officers. But in his rush to escape, the Phantom got sloppy. Finally, he'd left two clues behind: bloody footprints in the living room and a red flashlight left outside.
19:42 Speaker 00 The police dust the flashlight for fingerprints but find nothing. The Phantom had been careful. Still, there was a chance someone in Texarkana knew who the flashlight belonged to. The Texarkana Gazette runs a photo of the flashlight on the front page. It's the first time a color photo has appeared in an American newspaper. But despite all this effort and hope, nobody comes forward with information about the flashlight.
20:09 Speaker 00 The Texas Rangers and Texarkana Police Department look into over 1,300 potential suspects. They work through the night, then show up the next day in the same clothes, eyes bleary from lack of sleep. As the search stretches on, one officer decides to get creative. Arkansas State Police Officer Max Tackett spends days going through all the arrests and reports made when the Phantom was in town, trying to find a link between petty crime and the attacks. He discovers a pattern while going through stolen car reports. On the nights the Phantom attacked in Texarkana, a vehicle that had been reported missing earlier would reappear somewhere in town, then another car would go missing. Even though auto theft is common in Texarkana,
20:55 Speaker 00 Max has a theory that the Phantom is behind these particular incidents. He believes that before the killer struck again, he would steal a new car and abandon the one he stole after his previous attack. But the correlation is too loose to follow up. Max can't prove the person who abandoned the stolen cars also took the new one, nor can he prove that this person is the Phantom. Still, the suspicion sticks with him. He can't shake the theory, but with no way to prove it, he has to move on and look at other possibilities. Besides, he needs to focus. Following the pattern, he expects the Phantom to attack in late May, three weeks after the break-in at the Starks' home.
21:39 Speaker 00 As the end of the month approaches, the authorities increase their patrols. But to everyone's surprise and relief, June arrives without an attack. And then weeks go by with no murders. It feels like the threat to their community is finally over. And for whatever reason, it was. The Phantom never struck the town of Texarkana again. Still, it would be months before the residents truly felt safe. After sundown, people still stayed indoors and shops closed up early. Nobody could forget the fear that had made their community feel like a ghost town. Even a half a century later, the people of Texarkana still wonder who was responsible for raining terror on their community.
22:23 Speaker 00 Criminologists, authors, and psychologists have all tried to uncover the murderer's identity to no avail. And while there still is no definitive answer, the investigators who chased the Phantom for years uncovered some suspects who still face scrutiny today. In one instance, there was even a confession.
22:51 Speaker 00 In November 1948, two years after the Phantom disappeared from Texarkana, an 18-year-old student named Henry Booker Tennyson dies by suicide in his University of Arkansas dorm room. Henry, better known as HB, leaves behind a letter confessing to the murders of Betty Jo Booker and Paul Martin and the attack against Virgil and Katie Starks. The note comes as a shock to both the police and the general public. Not only does the confession come out of nowhere, but HB was only 16 at the time of the Phantom's killing spree. Authorities couldn't find anything in HB's background to suggest he may have been violent. Reportedly, he was shy and had few friends, but that's not enough to label him a serial killer.
23:36 Speaker 00 "There are, however, some strange connections between HB and some of the victims," says John T. Tennyson, HB's first cousin once removed. He is a forensic psychiatrist who has studied the Phantom killer for much of his career. In high school, HB worked as an usher at Texarkana's movie theater. Jimmy Hollis, Mary Jean Larry, Richard Griffin, Pollyann Moore, and Paul Martin had all gone to see films at the theater the night they were attacked. HB was also in marching band with Betty Jo Booker in high school. Ultimately, all of this is circumstantial. There's no hard evidence tying the teen to the murders. Fingerprints taken at one of the Phantom Killer's crime scenes did not match HB's.
24:19 Speaker 00 Plus, he had an alibi on the night the Starks were attacked. After seeing the confession in the paper, HB's friend James came forward to claim the two were together that evening. Lastly, HB didn't even learn to drive until a year after the Phantom disappeared.
24:35 Speaker 00 Eventually, HB is ruled out as a suspect. Investigators chalk up the confession to HB's mental health at the time of his death. And besides, by this time, Texarkana police are convinced they already know who the real Phantom is. And it's not HB Tennyson.
24:53 Speaker 00 Back in June of 1946, more than a month after the Phantom's final attack, Officer Max Tackett received a call from a farmer about a tenant who had fled without paying rent. The man's name is Yul Swinney. He drove a light green Plymouth sedan, and the farmer had written down the license plate. When Tackett dug into Yul's history, he found more than just parking tickets. He discovered that the Plymouth had been stolen in Texarkana on March 24, 1946. That was the same weekend the Phantom killed Richard Griffin and Pollyann Moore. Careful to not get too ahead of himself, he questioned Yul's family. Yul's relatives also hadn't seen him in a while. But one family member remembered a parking lot where Yul often left his car,
25:38 Speaker 00 so Officer Tackett staked it out, waiting for his suspect to show his face. On June 28, the police finally caught a break. Someone approached the sedan and got in. But it wasn't Yul. It was a young woman. Her name was Peggy Swinney, and she had just married Yul earlier that day. Since Peggy had gotten into a stolen car, the police arrested her and held her in a cell in the Miller County Jail. They hoped Yul would learn of his wife's arrest and show up to bail her out.
26:10 Speaker 00 But as the days stretched into weeks, Yule never came. With no other way of locating him, the cops just had to bide their time until he slipped up. Thankfully, that didn't take too long. On July 15th, Yule attempted to sell a stolen car to a dealer just outside of Tax Arcana. Suspicious, the man reported the incident to police. Noticing that the description of the man matched Yule, Officer Tackett went undercover and began a desperate search through the town. A few hours after Yule had tried to sell the stolen car, Tackett spotted him in an Arkansas bus station. The officer chased him down and arrested him. But that's when Swinney said something strange.
26:52 Speaker 00 He said that he knew he was wanted for more than just stealing cars. On the way to the station, Yule asks officers if he'll get the death penalty. The punishment for auto theft was only five to 10 years, but Yule seemed to think he'd be lucky if he got a life sentence. Investigators pulled Yule's criminal record, which told a long and troubled story. He was born in Arkansas in 1917 and was one of five children. His mother was a housewife and his father was a Baptist minister. Though on the outside, the Swinneys seemed like an idyllic American family, the reality of life in their home was darker. Yule's father struggled with alcohol and had to be sobered up before his Sunday sermons.
27:36 Speaker 00 Neither parent gave him much attention at all. As a result, Yule was mostly raised by his older siblings. It didn't take long for Yule to start misbehaving. When he was 12, Yule made headlines after he convinced a crew of boys to help him sell stolen property to a junk shop. Yule spent part of his teenage years in and out of reform schools and penitentiaries. In his twenties, he transitioned from petty theft to more serious felonies. In 1941, he was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison for auto theft. He was released early, but spent the next few years in and out of jail for parole violations, robbery, and assault. He got out of prison in late 1945, just two months before the Phantom first struck in Tax Arcana.
28:22 Speaker 00 A few weeks after his release, Yule found himself back in a jail. But this time, he was in the lobby, trying to bail out his then-girlfriend. While waiting, he struck up a conversation with another woman behind bars. It was Peggy. She was locked up for public intoxication, and the two got to talking and headed off. And thus began an intense whirlwind romance. However, their passionate affair was far from healthy. From the start, their relationship was extremely volatile. Yule was in complete control, determining where they went, what they did, and when they did it. And anything could set him off. On one occasion, Peggy told Yule that a man had tried to sleep with her.
29:06 Speaker 00 Furious, Yule kidnapped the man and dragged him into the Oklahoma woods. He forced the man to his knees, then made Peggy whip him with a chain. On June 28, 1946, just a few months after meeting, Peggy and Yule got married. And later that day, Peggy was arrested for car theft. To the police, it seemed like awfully convenient timing. In Texas, a person can't be forced to testify against their spouse. They thought that maybe Yule married Peggy for the security, then sent her to pick up the car just in case the cops were waiting for him. The more information Texarkana police gathered on Yule, the more suspicious they became.
29:47 Speaker 00 He wasn't in his cell for more than a couple hours before the officers started to whisper amongst themselves, "Was it possible this car thief was connected to the Phantom murders?"
29:59 Speaker 00 While behind bars, Yule confessed to stealing cars and taking them across borders, a federal crime, but he remained tight-lipped about the Phantom murders. Peggy, on the other hand, wasn't as reticent. Within days of her husband's incarceration, a lawyer told her he was being held on murder charges. Peggy gasped and asked how they found out. To the police's surprise, Peggy decided to make a statement, walking officers through her and Yule's activities on the night of the Phantom attacks. She told them that on February 21, 1946, the couple had stayed with Yule's sister in Texarkana. But at some point that weekend, Yule became upset with Peggy. He didn't stay with her the night of the 22nd,
30:43 Speaker 00 when the Phantom attacked Jim Hollis and Mary Jean Larry. For the next attack against Richard Griffin on March 23rd, Peggy said they were staying with his mother in Texarkana. Though he was home for most of the night, Yule had disappeared for a couple of hours. As for the final May 3rd attacks against the Starks, Yule had apparently gotten into a heated argument with Peggy's sister about paying rent. He stormed out, claiming he was headed for Texarkana. But it was Peggy's retelling of the night of April 13, 1946, that was the most damning. That was the night Betty Jo Booker and Paul Martin were killed near Spring Lake Park. According to Peggy, the couple were drinking all night before they drove to the park.
31:27 Speaker 00 When they arrived, they passed by Paul's car. Yule pointed at it and told Peggy they were going to rob the couple inside. Yule and Peggy got out of their own vehicle and approached Paul and Betty Jo, armed with a gun. They forced them out of the car, and Yule held them at gunpoint and ordered Peggy to search through their belongings. Peggy refused, and Yule grew increasingly angry. He pointed the gun at Paul and fired twice. Peggy and Betty Jo screamed. That's when Yule turned the gun on them and ordered them to be quiet or he'd kill them. Peggy claimed that Yule placed Paul's body in the backseat of their own car and forced Betty Jo into the front seat. He told Peggy that he killed Betty Jo
32:10 Speaker 00 after she refused to have sex with him. Then, he disposed of both bodies. The police were shocked. For months, they had struggled to find a single shred of useful evidence. Now they had an eyewitness to the Phantom's crimes. Peggy even told them how Yule disposed of the evidence. Of course, the detectives couldn't just take Peggy at her word. To confirm her story, they drove Peggy to Spring Lake Park, asking her to point out where Betty Jo and Paul had been killed. Her answers aligned almost perfectly with how police found the crime scene. It seemed like they had finally nailed the Phantom. But there was a catch.
32:52 Speaker 00 Even with Peggy's help, there was still no hard evidence. All they had was her testimony. And as Yule's spouse, she couldn't be forced to testify against him. She held all the cards, and when the time came, she declared that she wouldn't testify against her husband. After coming so close, police were unable to convict Yule for the murders. But it wasn't completely hopeless. Using Texas's Habitual Criminal Act, prosecutors argued that auto theft charges and Yule's extensive record proved he was beyond rehabilitation and deserved a life sentence. In February of 1947, Yule was found guilty of felony theft and sentenced to life in prison.
33:34 Speaker 00 He served 26 years before being released on appeal in 1973. Yule moved to Marshall, Texas, just 70 miles south of Texarkana. He visited the city often, and once even walked into the Texarkana Gazette's building and asked reporters if anyone was interested in writing a book about his wrongful imprisonment. Whatever credibility Yule did have only diminished in 1975, just two years after his release, when he was arrested and imprisoned for counterfeiting.
34:07 Speaker 00 Yule spent the rest of his life in and out of jail. He denied being the Phantom Killer until the day he died in 1994 at 77 years old. To this day, we don't know if Yule Swinney was telling the truth. Perhaps he was the man responsible for Texarkana's Moonlight Murders, or maybe H.B. Tenison really was the infamous killer. Then again, what if it was someone else entirely? Someone who escaped detection and continued to wreak havoc elsewhere? The people of Texarkana will never know for certain who turned their community inside out for those four months in 1946. Some of the scars left on the town by the Phantom Killer will never fade, and the story is cemented in legend and lore.
35:03 Speaker 00 Thank you for listening to Serial Killers. We're here with an episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at SerialKillersPodcast. And if you're tuning in on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts. For more information on The Phantom Killer, amongst the many sources we used, we found The Phantom Killer: Unlocking the Mystery of the Texarkana Serial Murders, The Story of a Town in Terror by James Presley, extremely helpful to our research. Stay safe out there. This episode was written by Kit Fitzgerald and Chelsea Wood, edited by Chelsea Wood, researched by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood, fact-checked by Anya Bearley and Laurie Siegel, and sound designed by Alex Button. I'm your host, Janice Morgan.
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