The Phantom Killer: Unlocking the Mystery of the Texarkana Serial Murders: The Story of a Town in Terror (9 page)

Betty Jo Booker was one of four girls in the band. Although the atmosphere at times was rowdy, as customers avidly consumed beer, parental ground rules and Atkins’s guidelines made it safe for the girls. Atkins and
Ernest Holcomb, the first saxophonist, alternated in escorting the girls home, with emphasis on their arriving soon after closing time.

Because it wasn’t his night to collect the girls, Atkins and his fifteen-year-old drummer, Bailor Willson “Sonny” Atchley, arrived early at the VFW Club to set up the music stands and check out the equipment. Modeled to some extent on Duke Ellington’s orchestra with prominent saxophone sounds, the Rhythmaires aimed at echoing the big band sound. With the talented Sophie Anne White joining them with her trumpet, it was a special occasion. Cora Ann Hunt, as usual, accompanied the band on the piano, and Betty Jo on the alto saxophone, Betty Ann Roberts also on the trumpet, with Haskell Walker playing the tenor saxophone, and Sonny Atchley, drums. Most were seniors poised to graduate. Betty Jo and Sonny Atchley had another year of school ahead.

The band began at nine o’clock. The musicians played, the customers drank beer and danced, and never the twain did meet, as if an invisible but impenetrable barrier separated them. Usually the evenings passed without incident; this one was no exception. They played for four hours, with breaks, and nothing much happened.

They played their usual repertoire of melodies, strongly influenced by Glenn Miller’s band, featuring such tunes as the standby “Tuxedo Junction,” as well as “Along the Santa Fe Train,” “At Last,” and “String of Pearls,” blending nostalgic wartime songs with current popular ones.

Soon after one o’clock the band wound up its gig with the last melody, “Good Night, Sweetheart,” followed by the lights-out signal, “Show Me the Way to Go Home.” It was well after one o’clock. The musicians began putting away their sheet music and instruments. Getting paid took longer; Atkins had to find the manager and extract the money due the musicians. When Atkins got the money, it was already divided out, cash on the spot; he only had to hand over each one’s share. He and Atchley put their instruments in Atkins’s car and drove off. It was just another “normal” Saturday night: no beer bottles thrown, the usual wait for the money. Atkins was unaware that Paul Martin had waited outside for Betty Jo. He had assumed Holcomb would take her home.

Atchley was spending the night at Atkins’s parents’ house. The youths drove to the all-night Goodwin’s Cafe to eat breakfast and unwind. At
Goodwin’s they talked about the night’s work. They were teenagers in a town that never closed, but all-night restaurants were safe, the lights bright and the establishments respectable. They picked up a Sunday paper, browsed through it, and headed to Atkins’s home at 2617 North State Line, on the Texas side. Although they’d never paid any attention to it, the house was a half dozen blocks from the room Jimmy Hollis had shared with his brother on the Arkansas side at 3502 State Line, and slightly over a dozen blocks from where Polly Ann Moore had roomed with her older cousin. More than anything else, the proximity of the addresses reflected the city’s small size.

Tired from the evening’s work, their stomachs filled, pleasantly exhausted, Atkins and Atchley turned in around four o’clock. It was Sunday. They could sleep as long as they wished.

Just as Betty Jo had adjusted her plans to accommodate Paul’s arrival, his double-dating plans had to be scrapped. Early in the evening a group of friends that included Martin, his buddy Tom Albritton, and Tom’s date Ramona Putman went to a movie, then ate a snack at a café. Later they intended to make the midnight movie at the Paramount. Paul left the group to pick up Betty Jo, not realizing she wouldn’t be able to take off early from her VFW gig. Ramona, knowing her mother didn’t want her to stay out after midnight, called for permission to go to the late movie. Her mother said No. Tom and Ramona waited at the Albritton front porch for Paul to return with Betty Jo. When he hadn’t made it by half-past eleven, Tom walked Ramona home several blocks away. When he returned home, Paul still hadn’t shown up. Perhaps Betty Jo hadn’t been able to leave the VFW in time; perhaps they had dropped in on the slumber party afterward. It had been a long day. Tom went to bed.

Paul Martin, unaware that Betty Jo would not be able to leave the dance in time to attend the midnight show, waited in his car. He was standing outside when she emerged from the building. Betty Ann Roberts walked to the car with her. It was the first time Paul and Betty Jo had seen each other that weekend. He took her saxophone case and set it on the back floorboard of the coupe. As late as it was, the night was far from over. There remained the slumber party-in-progress of Betty Jo’s
friends that they could drop in on for a while. Then perhaps they would have a snack at one of the all-night restaurants. But first, before they did anything else, Betty Jo had to drop off her saxophone at home. It was an unvarying routine, whatever else she did after any performance, for her to take her expensive musical instrument home first. On the way to her Sussex Downs home, however, Paul suggested they drive to Spring Lake Park, only a few minutes away from Anthony Drive, and
then
deposit the saxophone. Later they could visit Betty Jo’s girl friends at the slumber party. With the weekend slipping away, Paul would be returning to Kilgore in a matter of hours.

He drove the coupe north past the city limits to Spring Lake Park, crossed the Kansas City Southern tracks leading north from the city, and entered the park area. For most teenagers, it was familiar ground. Paul parked. The darkened sky ensured them absolute privacy.

It was a cool evening after warming into the 70s that afternoon. By eleven
P.M.
while the band still played, the thermometer had dipped to 58. By two
A.M.
the reading was headed to the middle 40s. People were already talking about the traditional “Easter cold snap.” Betty Jo had worn a full-length coat that was comfortable in the chilly night.

After they had been parked for a short while, a car drove up. A man got out and strolled to the driver’s side of their car. He spoke in a casual but authoritative tone. He held a pistol in his hand.

W
hen Betty Jo first played the VFW gig, her mother would wait up for her, regardless of the hour. Betty Jo always gave a full report on the evening, down to what she’d eaten and done. In due time, however, Bessie saw no reason to wait up so late and went on to bed before her daughter arrived in the wee hours.

On this Saturday night, Betty Jo still not in, Bessie went on to bed and fell asleep. She hadn’t been asleep long when she got up. Betty Jo wasn’t in, and her saxophone wasn’t where she always left it when she went back out after playing for the dance.

Bessie woke her husband.

“Clark, Betty Jo isn’t here. Her saxophone’s not here. Something is wrong.”

Drowsily, Clark Brown said, “Well, don’t get upset. You’ll hear from her.”

“No,” she said, “I’m going to call the police. I’m going to call the hospitals.”

“Bessie, don’t do that. It will embarrass Betty Jo, and it will embarrass you, if there’s nothing wrong. She’ll show up after a while and explain.”

Bessie couldn’t go back to sleep. She turned the matter over and over in her mind. Betty Jo had
never
gone anywhere without letting her know she was going back out. She
always
told her. The break in the pattern troubled her. She imagined all sorts of scenarios. Had she been in an accident and unable to notify her family? The worried mother could find no satisfying explanation for her daughter’s not being home or not having called to tell her why. Betty Jo was so dear to her that she didn’t know what she’d do if something happened to her. She persisted in asking her husband to make calls.

“Bessie,” he said, “something unexpected may have happened and she didn’t want to call this late. There is always a first time.”

Finally he agreed to call Janann Gleason, who was holding the slumber party. Perhaps Betty Jo and Paul had dropped in there; maybe Betty Jo had decided to stay and had forgotten to call. It would have clashed with her past behavior but was a possibility. But no, they hadn’t seen or heard from Betty Jo.

Bessie Brown’s alarm heightened. Now Clark Brown joined in her concern. Unknown possibilities invaded their imaginations.

Bessie called Betty Ann Roberts. She was sleeping. Did she know where Betty Jo had gone after the dance? No, she had seen Betty Jo put her saxophone in Paul Martin’s car and saw them leave together. That was the last she’d seen or heard from them. She didn’t know what they’d intended to do next.

Dawn that Palm Sunday ushered in a wave of troubling uncertainty to Bessie and Clark Brown.

Tom Moores, a prominent farmer who lived on Moores Lane in the Pleasant Grove community north of town, arose as usual at five o’clock. He turned on the radio and dressed. By five-thirty, he was brushing his hair when he heard an unusual sound for that time of morning. It was a gunshot, definitely a gunshot. He listened carefully, but didn’t hear anything else. One gunshot. He wondered why anyone would be firing a gun for any purpose at that time of day, on a Sunday morning. He didn’t
think any more about it. He got ready to check on his large farm in the Red River bottoms.

Shortly before six o’clock, Mr. and Mrs. G. H. Weaver and their young son left their home on Summerhill Road north of town, on their way to Prescott, Arkansas, a day trip to visit relatives. As they cut through along North Park Road skirting the park, they saw a form lying at the edge of the unpaved road. It looked like a human body. As Weaver drew closer, their fears were confirmed. It was the body of a boy, lying on his left side, his head and the trunk of his body on the leaves and grass. His feet and legs jutted onto the dirt road. He was wearing a light-colored long-sleeved shirt, with his arms and hands in front of him, crumpled in death.

Weaver didn’t get out to investigate. He drove two hundred yards to the nearest home and told them what they had found, asking that they notify the sheriff’s office.

Sheriff Bill Presley and Texas-side Chief of Police Jack N. Runnels, old friends, were together, meeting for breakfast and pre-church coffee, when the call came. They sped out together in Presley’s car. They were the first lawmen to arrive on the scene.

Carefully they checked the boy’s body, this time protecting the tracks and other possible clues at the scene. They immediately verified that the boy was dead. He could be identified by contents of his wallet: Paul Martin. He had been shot four times. One bullet had entered the back of the neck and emerged through the front of the skull. Another entered through the left shoulder, fired from the back, with the third bullet going into his right hand. The fourth bullet went into his face. Blood was seen on the other side of the road, by a fence, indicating that he might have been shot on one side of the road and crawled across.

Soon other officers, city and county, arrived and with a systematic search combed the area for clues. Not much to find.

Martin’s coupe was located abandoned alongside the road parallel to the Kansas City Southern tracks and crossing. The keys were in the ignition. The automobile was about a mile from where his body had been discovered. The car was near the lake and a short walk, across the KCS tracks, to the Spring Lake Park School.

Presley, careful to avoid tracks, studied bushes and brush around the park. At one point he scrutinized a spot in the parking area flanked by bushes. He looked for anything out of the ordinary. He saw a small black object on the ground around the bushes. Gingerly he stepped over and picked it up. It was a date book. He examined it. It had belonged to Paul Martin. He didn’t say anything. He unobtrusively slipped it into his suit coat pocket, keeping it to himself for the time being. He also found a used condom not far away but did not bother to retrieve it. Had it been decades later, in the time of DNA testing, he might have done differently, but as it was there was no way to determine who had used it and when or with whom. It was not uncommon to find condoms in lovers’ lanes like that one. The date book definitely had belonged to the dead boy. There was no point in alerting the public—or the killer—of his finding it.

None of the officers, and few others in town, even knew that Betty Jo Booker had been with young Martin that night or, for that matter, if
anyone
had been with him. Her status would not be raised until the news of Martin’s murder had spread over town and had reached the small group of teenagers who had known that she’d left with Martin.

As the news of the murder moved by radio and word of mouth, lawmen streamed toward Spring Lake Park. Officers soon learned that a girl had been with Martin—her name: Betty Jo Booker. She was missing. Those not searching for clues to Martin’s murder were seeking any sign of the girl.

Jerry Atkins was sleeping soundly when the telephone woke him at six o’clock. The family had one phone, and it was closer to Jerry than to his parents. He reluctantly slipped out of bed and stumbled to the phone.

A troubled female voice responded to his drowsy hello.

“Jerry, did you take Betty Jo home last night?”

The wakeup irritated Atkins, still half asleep.

“No, it wasn’t my turn. Ernie took her home,” he snapped, wondering why anyone would bother him, and risk waking his parents, at that hour.

“Do you know where she went after she left the VFW?” the girl persisted.

“Well, no. Why are you asking me?”

“She was supposed to come to our slumber party, and she never did.”

He hadn’t known about the slumber party and couldn’t fit the facts together in his sleepy state. He seriously doubted that Betty Jo had gone anywhere but home.

“I’m sure she’s at home,” he grumbled. “Why call me, this early? I’m trying to sleep!”

Atkins dragged himself back to bed.

He seemed to have just dozed off when, two hours later, the telephone rang again.

Even more irked, he stumbled back to the hallway.