Texarkana Moonlight Murders

Texarkana Moonlight Murders

The Moonlight Murders is a term used by the news media referring to violent crimes committed in and around Texarkana in the spring of 1946 by a serial killer known as the Phantom Killer or Phantom Slayer. The killer, who was never apprehended, is credited with attacking eight people, killing five. Contrary to popular belief, the killer did not attack during a full moon but did strike late at night. The murders were reported nationally by the Associated Press, International News Service, Dallas Morning News, the Mutual Broadcasting System, Dallas Times Herald, The Denver Post, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Kansas City Star, Life Magazine, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Shreveport Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Washington Times-Herald, and internationally by The Times. The 1976 film The Town That Dreaded Sundown is loosely based on the events, despite its claim that "only the names have been changed".

Read more about Texarkana Moonlight Murders:  Consternation & Panic, Tradition, External Links

Famous quotes containing the words moonlight and/or murders:

    In the moonlight the shepherds,
    Soft lull’d by the rills,
    Lie wrapt in their blankets
    Asleep on the hills.
    Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

    Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969, ended at the exact moment when word of the murders on Cielo Drive traveled like brushfire through the community, and in a sense this is true. The tension broke that day. The paranoia was fulfilled.
    Joan Didion (b. 1935)