They had missed their major quarry, but they had the next best, his wife (of a few hours) and the hot car he had been driving. The dragnet had tightened. Tackett and Boyd felt it was now only a matter of time before they also had him in custody.
The arrest of Peggy Swinney paid dividends, even if she had no idea where her husband was by then. They had been together when he sent her for the car, she said, but now she had no idea where he might be. She could tell officers about his habits. She had no picture of him but could describe at least some of his behavior. For one thing, he hid—or at least spent a lot of time—in theaters during the afternoons. When he stepped out to smoke, he always stood where he could watch all the other people, presumably to make a getaway if he needed to do so.
They didn’t know what Swinney looked like, but other officers knew the name. He was a “police character,” a man with a record who had been in various kinds of trouble over the years. It wasn’t an unusual profile for a car thief. A period of watchful waiting—and searching—ensued. It was the afternoon of Friday, June 28.
Peggy Lois Stevens Tresnick Swinney was born May 17, 1925, in Breckenridge, Texas, an oilfield boomtown. According to the 1930 census, the Stevens family lived in Stephens County, Texas. Breckenridge is approximately seventy miles west of Fort Worth. She had two older sisters, an older brother, and a younger brother. Other siblings were born in the 1930s.
In 1944, when she was nineteen, she had married Stanley Tresnick, a twenty-one-year-old soldier from Pennsylvania. A justice of the peace performed the ceremony in the Miller County courthouse. It was a fragile marriage, at best. Less than three months later, Tresnick shipped out for overseas. She never saw him again, and apparently neither expressed a need to resume the relationship after the war. In early 1946, while she was in the Texas-side city jail for a minor charge of public drunkenness, she met Youell Swinney, who had gone there to get another woman out of jail but instead encountered Peggy.
She had been together with Swinney since soon after that. In May she filed suit in Bowie County to dissolve the matrimonial bond with Tresnick, charging desertion. The final decree came on June 27, 1946. She was twenty-one.
The next day, June 28, Swinney drove Peggy seventy-five miles south to Shreveport, Louisiana. On the marriage license issued in Caddo Parish, Swinney gave his birthplace as Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and his age as twenty-nine. Both parents—Mrs. Myrtle Chaffin of Texarkana, Arkansas, and Stanley C. Swinney of Montgomery City, Missouri—were listed as living. He gave his occupation as “bookkeeper.”
Apparently the clerk misheard or Swinney gave the wrong information, citing Breckenridge, Kansas, rather than Texas, as Peggy’s birthplace. Her occupation: “none,” her parents, both of Texarkana, Texas. She acknowledged that she had been previously married, to Stanley Tresnick, but was now divorced.
Legally they were man and wife. Their honeymoon trip was a short one back to Texarkana, their married bliss lasting no more than a few hours.
Atlanta, Texas, a town of about 5,000, approximately twenty-three miles south of Texarkana in neighboring Cass County, was a quiet little town in the pine tree belt amid rolling green hills. It lay on U.S. Highway 59 that goes to Houston—or if you turn east at Atlanta onto Highway 77, you are about fifty miles from Shreveport, if you choose the Texas, instead of Arkansas, route.
On Monday afternoon, July 15, oilfield worker Hibbett Lee had the day off and, as was his custom, was hanging around Atlanta, shooting the breeze with anybody he might find. He especially liked to chat with Homer Carter, the town marshal who was The Law in Atlanta, a “tush hog” who had earned respect over the years with his no-nonsense approach to order in his town. White-haired, stocky Carter always kept a Roi Tan Perfecto cigar in his mouth, chewing on it between words. He took it out to eat and at bedtime. If you didn’t see the cigar, well, maybe you’d better take another look to be sure it was Carter you thought you were seeing.
His visit with Mr. Homer finished, Hibbett Lee sauntered over to Ed Hammock’s car lot just a block away. Cleon Partain was helping out there and had his own cars, and Lee thought he’d check on what was going on. The lot was only one block off Highway 77, the route coming from Shreveport into Atlanta. If you went through Atlanta you’d see the lot.
Lee had barely stepped onto the car lot when a new Plymouth drove up. He stopped to take a look. New cars were something to behold. Everybody wanted one.
A tall, slender man, dressed neatly and wearing a white shirt and tie, stepped out of the car and walked toward Lee. Wiry, lean, and tanned, Lee dressed casually, with a big hat, cowboy boots, khaki shirt and trousers, good Texas garb for a man used to working outside.
The stranger approached Lee. “You buying cars, Mister?”
“I don’t work here,” said Lee, hooking his head toward the nearby little office; “somebody there can help you. Mr. Partain.”
By then Cleon Partain was headed their way.
The newcomer glanced about the lot. He was interested in selling his car.
Partain knew the car business and was a shrewd trader. You didn’t get many chances to buy a slightly used car. He sized up the man.
“It’s a good car, drives real good, low mileage. I haven’t had it long, just broke in good, but I can’t afford to keep it. Lost my job and I need the money.”
“It’s a good looking car, all right,” agreed Partain. “It got a lien on it?”
“No, it’s all clear.”
Partain looked it over, inside and out. It was clean looking inside with some dust outside but still shiny. A car like this would sell fast. He could find a buyer almost immediately.
Partain was wary. He didn’t find many people willing to sell a new model like this. As he inspected the car carefully, he realized it had been on the road. There was a thin veneer of dust on its exterior. In the car business you came to know the type: a smooth, assured-talking fellow whose story didn’t quite satisfy. The man wasn’t from Atlanta, not even Cass County. Partain knew every face in his area.
“You got your title?” Partain asked as he studied the man’s face.
The question didn’t faze the man. “Sure. I didn’t bring it with me, but I can take care of that. I’ll get it to you.”
Partain looked at the car again, this time memorizing the Texas license number. The number wasn’t one normally seen in eastern Texas.
“I better not make an offer on it today,” Partain said. “Tell you what. Find the title and maybe we can work out something.”
The stranger eyed Partain coolly, without emotion, and nodded.
“I was just driving by and thought I’d see if we might do business.”
The man got back into the Plymouth and headed toward Texarkana.
“Hibbett, we’re not going to see that guy again,” Partain said. “Run over and tell Homer I had a suspicious fellow tried to sell me a new Plymouth. Didn’t have a title to it. Never saw him before. I got a feeling he’s got a hot car.”
Lee jogged over to Homer Carter’s office to relay the message, with the license number on the piece of paper Partain had handed him. Carter radioed the Texarkana police to be on the lookout for a suspected car thief driving in from Atlanta. The Atlanta police station maintained radio contact with the one local patrol car and with stations in Texarkana and Shreveport.
“I’m coming to Texarkana and I’m bringing a man with me who was there when this joker tried to pull this stunt.”
As Carter and Lee motored toward Texarkana, they speculated on their suspect. A man trying to sell a car without a title would alert a legitimate dealer, which is what had happened. Hibbett Lee might not remember the features of the man, but he would recognize the car if they found it parked along the road or at a filling station en route to Texarkana.
By time they reached Texarkana, Carter had his answer. The car had been stolen in Pampa, in the far-off Texas Panhandle. Partain’s hunch was validated. By then, patrol cars circled all around downtown Texarkana and on the main th
oroughfares, searching for the car. Officers felt they could at least keep the man inside the small city, then narrow the search to a few areas. As one officer said, “We could bottle this town up with five cars.”
Carter drove to the Miller County sheriff’s office where Tackett maintained a small office. Carter’s old friend Johnson was out on a whiskey-still bust in the county. Tackett, in uniform, listened as Carter and Lee described the situation. Carter hadn’t seen the man and Lee wasn’t sure how to describe him, beyond the fact that he wore a neat dress shirt and a tie and was tall. Not enough, really, to go on.
Tackett’s mind flashed back to the man he’d sought for the unpaid rent which, in turn, had become a stolen car case.
“I think I know who you’re after,” Tackett told them. The fugitive was still around, he believed, driving yet another stolen car. What he knew of the man’s behavior fit the man who had appeared in Atlanta. If they caught him now they would solve two car-theft cases, instead of one.
Tackett had never seen the man, and Hibbett Lee didn’t remember exactly what the man looked like. Tackett observed how distinctively Lee was dressed: cowboy boots, big Western hat, thick belt buckle—easy to remember.
Tackett said to Lee, “You wouldn’t recognize him, but he’d recognize you! He doesn’t want to see you again. Tell you what we can do. You go into a number of public places we’ll pick out. I’ll follow at a respectable distance. We may be able to find our man, because he’ll do all he can to avoid you.”
Tackett rushed home, pulled off his uniform, put on a truck driver’s garb, work khakis and an old floppy hat, ordinary work clothes he wore when he wanted to blend in, and hurried back to join the pair from Atlanta. By the time he returned, Tillman Johnson had arrived from his rural assignment. He drove the men downtown where they could initiate their plan. Then he would patrol around, looking for the stolen car or any sign of action.
The plan was simple. Lee would saunter into the places they selected. Tackett, so as not to be associated with him, would keep a respectable interval but close enough to observe any reactions Lee’s entrance might cause. He would look for a man to make a fast move when Western-bedecked Lee and his flashy cowboy boots strode in.
It was a hot July afternoon. A steady flow of traffic and pedestrians gave the downtown area a lively picture. They entered a couple of businesses. Lee went in, trailed discreetly by Tackett, slouching along. After making sure nobody had reacted, Lee went back out, Tackett well behind.
Next they headed for the Arkansas Motor Coach station just off Front Street, by the popular Jefferson Coffee Shop and across from always-busy Union Station and the rail yards.
As Lee went through the door and stepped forward as if going to the rest room, Tackett scanned the waiting room.
Most of the people hardly noticed the colorfully dressed Lee, but suddenly a man in a white shirt standing by the wall turned on his heels and dashed toward the back of the station. That’s our man! Tackett told himself. He gave chase, running as hard as he could. The passengers, startled, peered questioningly about. Some stood up, to see what was going on.
The stairwell was empty as Tackett lost sight of the man. Tackett pulled his concealed pistol and climbed the stairs two steps at a time. There was but one place left for him to go—the fire escape. Tackett slipped through the opening and found the man crouched there. Tackett pointed his pistol meaningfully.
“Please don’t shoot me!” the tall young man said, his anxiety level soaring. He held up his hands. His eyes showed a touch of terror.
“I’m not going to shoot you for stealing cars,” Tackett replied as he frisked his prisoner. He found no weapon.
“Mister, don’t play games with me. You want me for more than stealing cars!” And then he added, “I will spend the rest of my life behind bars this time.”
Slightly winded, his adrenaline still pumping from the chase, Tackett registered the remark without comment. He marched the man back to the waiting room, where Lee and Carter stood. Meanwhile, Johnson was driving about the Union Station area. As Tackett came out of the building with his prisoner, Johnson was parked in the street. Tackett hustled the man into the car, with the Atlanta pair in the back.
The prisoner settled in the front seat, between Johnson and Tackett. By then he appeared calm, as you’d expect a veteran thief to be. They hadn’t driven two blocks when he suddenly turned to Johnson and blurted out, “Mr. Johnson, what do you think they’ll do to me for this? Will they give me the chair?”
“They don’t give you the electric chair for stealing cars,” said Johnson.
“Hell, I know what you want me for. It’s for more than stealing cars! You don’t electrocute someone for stealing cars.”
Nobody had mentioned anything about the electric chair. Johnson frowned. What brought all that out of him?
The captive persisted. “Do you think I could be lucky enough to get out in twenty-five years?”
“Oh, you won’t get much,” Johnson said. “Maybe five or ten years.”
Puzzling as it was, the comment didn’t mean much to Johnson and the other men. Though they couldn’t forget what he’d said, they hadn’t questioned that he was more than a garden-variety hot-car artist. The unusual replies came so unexpectedly, so reflexively, that the words wedged in their minds. They had a prisoner to hustle to jail, then get to their other duties. They knew they had a car thief, but what, exactly, did he mean? When one of the men asked what he’d meant, he clammed up. Within minutes, he was a different man, giving nothing but perfunctory answers. He was cool, even cold, with no affect. He became a textbook exhibit of noncooperation.
After he reflected on it, Johnson realized that the prisoner hadn’t reacted as an ordinary, innocent person would have. Based on his own experience, Johnson had found that if the arrested person was not guilty, he would have demanded, in outrage, “What have you got me for?” The prisoner hadn’t. Instead, to Tackett upon his capture and later in the car, the man had made his statements impulsively, displaying a high degree of anxiety.
By sheer coincidence, the event was recorded for posterity. When they arrived at the Miller County sheriff’s office on the first floor of the Miller County Courthouse, a photographer just happened to drop by. Within minutes of the arrest, Ted Dougan with a click of his lens recorded a lasting impression. The photo can be found in the photo section of this book. Dougan often dropped by the office; this day he had no real reason to do so or for taking the picture. He just lined up six men and took their picture. Dougan mostly took school pictures, and sometimes pictures for the sheriff’s office. Five in the picture are hard-looking men. One is in a state trooper’s uniform; that’s Charley Boyd. Chief Deputy Johnson, in khakis, stands next to him at the edge of the photo; he also wears a badge and has a pistol strapped on his hip. Three others are in khakis, tough guys who might have been rounded up in a raid. The tall, neatly dressed man in a white shirt with delicate stripes and tie, with a cigarette in his hand, could have passed for a plainclothes detective who had designed the raid. Few persons unaware of the circumstances would have picked out the prisoner.
The khaki-clad men were Tackett, Carter, and Hibbett Lee.
The well-dressed young man in the middle, standing between Boyd and Tackett, was the freshly nabbed fugitive and alleged car thief, Youell Lee Swinney.
Minutes later, Johnson booked Swinney and guided him, via the elevator, upstairs to the jail on the fourth floor of the massive old concrete block building. The county kept cells on both the fourth and fifth floors, depending on the number of prisoners at a time. Women’s cells were separate from the men’s. Peggy Swinney was in one. If the fourth floor became crowded, deputies would walk the women up to the fifth floor. Sometimes a trusty assisted the jailer in feeding or checking the prisoners.
The newlyweds resumed their interrupted honeymoon behind bars, in separate cells, in a town hardly noted as a resort center.
CHAPTER 16
INCRIMINATING REVELATION
S
As Tackett, Johnson, and Boyd discussed Youell Lee Swinney’s intriguing arrest reactions with Miller County Sheriff Elvie Davis, their questions rapidly congealed into firm suspicions. Had they apprehended someone other than a common car thief? Obviously their prisoner thought so. “You know you want me for more than stealing cars!” He had impulsively tipped them off, believing they knew more about him than they did. And why would he ask if he might get the electric chair? Or ask if Johnson thought he might be lucky enough to get out in twenty-five years? These were questions even a novice thief would not have asked. Inexperienced youths knew a stolen car wouldn’t land them on Death Row or even close to a quarter-century in lockup. This man, approaching thirty, was no beginner.
Most of all, he was asking these questions of authorities in Arkansas, as if he were concerned about a matter related to their jurisdiction. But this concept did not readily come to mind as the officers wrestled with the larger picture.
Tackett wasted no time applying his observations about the spring’s car-theft pattern to Swinney. Was he the one who had stolen, then abandoned, those cars on the murder weekends? Swinney was barely in his fourth-floor cell before officers began avidly expounding theories. Swinney had placed himself high on the lengthy list of suspects.
Was this the lucky break they had hoped for?
Soon, though, Swinney started to talk, sparingly and guardedly, but never again about the topics he had blurted out to his captors that afternoon. No, he told them, the only thing he had ever done was drive a car he didn’t realize was stolen. That was all he meant, he said, if he said anything at all.
Any stolen car in Texarkana automatically interested the FBI because of the likelihood it had crossed the state line in violation of the federal Dyer Act. The FBI was notified of the arrest and entered the case almost immediately. Three days later FBI Special Agent J. C. Calhoun sat down with Swinney in the sheriff’s office and questioned him about the cars he may have stolen. By then Swinney had had time to think over what he intended to say. He readily, almost eagerly, incriminated himself in felony theft, documenting that he’d violated the Dyer Act as well as state laws. He admitted having possession of stolen cars.
The Phantom Killer: Unlocking the Mystery of the Texarkana Serial Murders: The Story of a Town in Terror Page 19
