Texakana Phantom - Zodiac: A Connection?

[sdreid]

This video mentions that the first couple were both married to another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SirmXhpGg0

[sdreid]

Regarding the three Phantom survivors:

Mary Larey died in 1965
James Hollis died in 1975
Katherine Starks died in 1994

[RivkahChaya]

Regarding the three Phantom survivors:

Mary Larey died in 1965
James Hollis died in 1975
Katherine Starks died in 1994

In that case, Hollis and Starks may have been interviewed and shown sketches during the Zodiac murders. If they weren't, that itself suggests that the police didn't connect the Zodiac with the Texarkana phantom. If they were interviewed, aside from suggesting the opposite, those interviews may still exist in transcript somewhere, and are probably quite interesting, as much for the questions as for the responses. We could find out what the police at the time were thinking regarding the Zodiac.

What I mean is, if they pressed the victims for a re-evaluation of the phantom's age as younger, then maybe they were thinking he was the same person, while if they asked if he made references to the occult or astrology, they may have been thinking in terms of a cult whose members killed for some reason known only to them, but maybe connected to the Zodiac, or positions of the planets.

[sdreid]

Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the murders of Richard Griffin and Polly Ann Moore or at least of the last time they were seen alive.

[ChrisGeorge]

"Murder spree in Texas at hands of ‘Phantom Killer’ remains a mystery," by Mara Bovsun, New York Daily News, March 6, 2016.

"Phantom Killer Brings Terror to Texarkana 69 Years ago Tonight," by Field Walsh, TXK Today, April 13, 2015.

[ChrisGeorge]

Whoever the Zodiac was, if he was the Texarkana killer, he had to be, at the very least, I would say, 17 in 1946, and the confidence and physical strength he exhibited suggest he wasn't that young, plus witness descriptions make him older: "under 30." So, if we say that a bottom age for him would be 21 in 1946, then he would have been 43 when the attacks started, but aside from the fact that I think 21 is too young an estimate, descriptions of the Texarkana killer put him at 6 feet tall, while the Zodiac was estimated at around 5'8. That's a pretty big difference, especially when witness descriptions in each case were consistent.

But more important, I think, was the fact that the Zodiac was a huge braggart, and always posted his kill number, which police suspected he inflated by crediting himself with some unsolved crimes that took place in the Vallajo area after the first Zodiac murder.

If the Zodiac really had 5 previous victims in Texarkana, or anywhere, in that were unsolved, and had baffled police, it's hard to believe he wouldn't have referenced them, at least obliquely....

I agree that Zodiac would have somehow referened the Texarkana murders in this voluminous correspondence. As Rivkah states, Zodiac was a braggart.

Chris

[Shaggyrand]

I agree that Zodiac would have somehow referened the Texarkana murders in this voluminous correspondence. As Rivkah states, Zodiac was a braggart.

Chris

He would have included them in his kill count at the end of most letters at the very least. That count kept growing long after Zodiac stopped killing (that we know of anyway, find it difficult to believe he wouldn't have gloated explicitly about one after the attention dried up if he was actively killing) and gloating over a past like that would have been too much to resist for him after awhile, I think, when he wasn't getting any new victims to his credit publically. Too big a sensation for him to pass up.

[sdreid]

Tomorrow night, after midnight, will be the 70th anniversary of the murders of Betty Jo Booker and Paul Martin in Spring Lake Park.

[sdreid]

Tomorrow evening, May 3, is the 70th anniversary of the inferential attack by the Phantom at the Arkansas home of Virgil and Katie Starks. Both were shot in a sniper like fashion and Virgil was killed. Mrs. Starks escaped and survived but she did not get a good look at him; only seeing him in shadow outside a screen and his leg as he began to enter through a window while shouting obscenities. This may have been the killer's last attack or it might not have been him at all. Regardless, it's an unsolved murder.

[sdreid]

Tomorrow, May 5, is the 70th anniversary of the McSpadden mystery. Earl Clifton McSpadden was found on the railroad tracks near Ogden, Arkansas after being run over by a train. It was said for years that McSpadden may have been the Phantom Killer who'd capped off his spree with a suicide. However, stab wounds were found on his body so others thought he was actually a victim of the murderer. Other possibilities are that MsSpadden was the Phantom and was killed by someone he was attacking or that his death had nothing to do with case at all. At this stage, in the Texarkana area, the murders stopped, that is, unless you count the 1948 disappearance of Virginia Carpenter.