The Phantom Killer

The salacious and scandalous murders of a series of couples on Texarkana's "lovers lanes" in seemingly idyllic post-WWII America created a media maelstrom and cast a pall of fear over an entire region. What is even more surprising is that the case has remained cold for decades. Combining archival research and investigative journalism, historian James Presley reveals evidence that provides keys to unlocking this decades-old puzzle. Dubbed "the Phantom Murders" or "the Texarkana Moonlight Murders" by the press, these grisly crimes took place in an America before dial telephones, DNA science, and criminal profiling. Even pre-television, print and radio media stirred emotions to a fever pitch. The Phantom Killer includes details from an unpublished account by a survivor, and rare, never-before-published photographs. Although the case lives on today on television, the Internet, a revived fictional movie, and even an off-Broadway play, with so much of the investigation shrouded in mystery since 1946, rumors and fractured facts have distorted the reality.