On a rainy Sunday night, 3 March 1946, outside the Arkansas-Texas border town of Texarkana, a man wearing a cloth sack over his head attacks young Sammy Fuller and Linda Mae Jenkins in an area called “Lovers Lane.” Both victims are found barely alive the next morning, and though Linda Mae has not been raped, her body is covered with bite marks. Deputy Norman Ramsey, one of the first officers on the scene, works the case but gets nowhere. Twenty-one days later, on a rainy 24 March 1946, Norman gets a hunch the attacker may strike again. Driving out to Lovers Lane, Norman hears shots, and by the time he arrives, a car sits empty. Hearing more shots nearby, Norman calls the sheriff’s office, then ventures into the woods to find Howard “Buddy” Turner lying on the ground and Emma Lou Cook tied to a tree, both dead. He chases a hooded figure, but the man escapes in a car. Fear grips the citizens of Texarkana. Gun shops and locksmiths stay busy, and police warn residents to stay home at night and avoid Lovers Lane. Famed Texas Ranger Captain J. D. Morales arrives from Austin, the state capital, to take charge of the case. J. D. informs local law officers that the investigation will be done his way, and nobody but he will talk to reporters. Other Texas Rangers arrive to assist the manhunt. Norman tells J. D. he suspects the killer has a time table of twenty-one days and may strike again on 14 April 1946. The police set up decoys in Lovers Lane, but the killer strikes in a wooded area inside Texarkana city limits, where two high school seniors, Roy Allen and Peggy Loomis, park after leaving their junior-senior prom. Beating and shooting Roy to death, the killer ties Peggy to a tree and stabs her repeatedly. National media arrive in town, the attacker is dubbed the “Phantom Killer,” and J. D. consults a prison psychologist, Dr. Kress, to discern the phantom’s personality. Sitting with the ranger and other peace officers in a restaurant, Dr. Kress describes the killer as a “sadist” in his late thirties, highly intelligent, and normal in everyday life. He may never be caught, the doctor speculates. Near their table, a man with dark shoes gets up, pays his bill, and leaves. Police later nab a robber and car thief who confesses to being the Phantom Killer, but J. D. knows the man is lying and keeps him away from the press to avoid complications. On Friday, 3 May 1946, twenty-one days after the previous murders, the phantom, armed with a silencer, guns down Floyd Reed through his living room window, smashes through the door, and shoots his wife, Helen Reed, as she tries to telephone the police. While the phantom makes sure her husband is dead, Helen stumbles out the back door and reaches a neighbor’s house before the killer can reach her. Again, the investigation goes nowhere. Twenty-one days later, when nobody is attacked, J. D. suspects the killer may be in jail for another crime. Several days later, a police call comes in about a car parked in the woods. Norman notes that the make and year match the car he saw the night the phantom got away from him. He and J. D. drive to the car and walk into the nearby woods to a sand pit. J. D. sees a man wearing a cloth sack over his face standing with a pistol on a hillside, but before J. D. can get off a good shot, the phantom sees Norman and flees. They chase him to a railroad track, where the man eludes them by getting on the other side of a passing train, but J. D. shoots him in the leg before he escapes into the bayou. The Phantom Killer is never seen again, though many residents of Texarkana are certain he will turn up eventually and resume his spree. Meanwhile, a man in dark shoes limps in a crowd of people on a busy street.