The Famous Movie Inspired By The Texarkana Murder Mystery

Because the murder is unsolved, locals have speculated that McSpadden was the Phantom's sixth victim. A prominent rumor exists claiming that McSpadden was the Phantom, and had committed suicide by jumping in front of a train, taking his secrets with him in death. A friend had stated that Katie and Virgil were two of the best people he had ever known. After discovering her husband had died, she ran to telephone the police.
” The young man sitting in the front seat carelessly looked at him when  he heard the woman’s voice from the back seat. “It’s good that you said who you are in the first place, if you hadn’t…” The policeman turned around and saw a pistol pointed at him in the hand of the young woman. There was a theory that the killer was a sex addict, which seemed popular among investigators. After all, the first three attacks contained evidence of sexual assault. In a radio interview, Texas Ranger Captain Manuel Gonzalez described gossip in the area as harmful. It’s been more than a month since the young couple was attacked on the quiet lovers lane in Richmond Road.

James Freeman, a 16-year-old friend of Tennison from Texarkana, came forward and talked to a deputy prosecutor after hearing that Tennison confessed to being the Phantom. Freeman explained that on the night of Virgil Starks' death, they were together at Tennison's house playing cards or checkers between 7 p.m. That night, they both heard the news of Starks' death. D., Jr. and Craig, said the confession and suicide were "fantastic things" induced by reading too many comic books. They both stated that he did not know guns, and did not care for weapons, hunting, or shooting.
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. 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 Missing persons where the girl's bruises were tended to. Jimmy had been hit with such ferocity that his skull had been fractured in two places. After the longest 45 minutes of my life, headlights appeared. My date had returned, and I, who had scarcely driven a car before that evening, steered his grandmother’s Buick out of the park as he pushed it with his truck all the way to the Rose Oil service station.

The other went in her lower jaw just below the lip, breaking it and several teeth before lodging under her tongue. She ran for a pistol in the living room, but was blinded by her own blood. She could hear the killer tearing loose the rusted screen wire on the back porch. She stumbled for her bedroom near the front of the house to leave a note. The killer ran to the back of the house and made his way up the steps and into a side-screened porch through the back screen door.
This Thursday, October 29th, The Town That Dreaded Sundown will be shown at Spring Lake Park for Free. Peggy was imprisoned for her own involvement in the car theft, but eventually released. On the morning of March 24, authorities found the bodies of 29-year-old Richard L. Griffin and 17-year-old Polly Ann Moore in a 1941 Oldsmobile on what was then known as a lovers’ lane. Richard was found between the two front seats on his knees, with his head in his hands. His pants pockets were inside out, thought to be the result of someone trying to rob him. In this episode, we examine some the victims that were murdered.

John Holman, chairman of the reward fund, asked people to send their donations in check form made out to either Texarkana National Bank or the State National Bank. He said that the reward monies will be kept in deposit slips and that  it would make it easier to return the money back to the donators, if ever needed. Immediately after reports of the slaying spread, blockades were put up several miles northeast and southwest on Highway 67 East. In the house, investigators found a trail of blood with scattered teeth.
Still, a paraphrase of one false statement yields another false statement. I hope the Texarkana Gazette will set the record straight on this matter some day, and acknowledge that unwarranted interpretive leaps have been made with regard to the meaning of what Doodie wrote. See you sometime, if I make the grade which will be hard for me to make. They are not the reason for this incident, there’s a much larger point to it all…Happiness.
He said that a person who would commit such crimes is intelligent, clever, shrewd and often not apprehended. According to Lapalla's theories, the killer knew at all times what was being done in the investigation and knew that the lonesome roads were being patrolled, which is why he chose the house on the farmland. He pointed out that his statements were surmised theories that were based on a large number of people who have committed similar crimes. Larey spotted an old car parked off the road but found it empty, and was again confronted by the attacker, who asked her why she was running.

The first time the Phantom Killer struck, he attacked two victims at once, Jimmy Hollis and Mary Larey. Both survived but suffered severe injuries like skull fractures, and Larey was also sexually assaulted, but unfortunately neither could help identify the criminal. They were attacked on the city’s “lovers’ lane”, making them relatively easy targets for more than just a single victim.
When it is evident a serial killer is once again threatening the people of Texarkana the Texas Rangers once again join the search for the identity of the perpetrator. Apart from this, the police could find nothing to connect Tennyson to the other victims. Over time they began to suspect the suicide note Tennyson had left behind. Police found other notes in the lockbox that suggested his suicide was caused by lifelong depression and made Tennyson appear to have an overactive imagination.

Then you clinch with Joshua Leonard playing sour and unhinged like a champ? The Town That Dreaded Sundown is a feast of “that guy” character actors who embolden the mystery afoot. You cannot watch The Town That Dreaded Sundown without first indulging The Town That Dreaded Sundown , given the call-and-repeat act pulled into question. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon might ultimately champion Charles B. Pierce’s morbid addition to Texarkana’s history, but 2000s slasher finishes are a better look for The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Everything from the Phantom Killer’s inescapable glare to passionate hotel sex interruptions impact with a furiousness that Pierce never even scratches.
A mysterious footprint found by a local woman in her flower bed merited investigation. Mysterious gunshots and sirens in town were later confirmed to be car backfires and sound effects from a carnival. After some cows got loose in the dark one night, the police spent the evening fielding calls about white-faced intruders lurking in the dark. Anything and everything became a possible narrative in the murders. Given little to go on by the police, the public made up theories of their own to fill the vacuum. The killer had already been caught, some reasoned, and they just hadn’t announced  it.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown is a 1976 horror film by producer/director Charles B. Pierce. Based very loosely on true incidents that took place just after World War II around Texarkana , it was one of the first movies in the “slasher” genre. The film starred 1971 Academy Award winner Ben Johnson along with television stars Andrew Prine and Dawn Wells. The movie, considered a cult classic, made a huge profit over production costs.