Eileen pulled out of Fort Stockton in the Buick Super Estate early on a Saturday morning, the back end of the wagon containing everything she owned.  There was still plenty of room to be had.  

It was warm for a February, not unusual for west Texas, and it made the drive easier.  Traveling with the windows open and the radio on when it could get a signal, Eileen wondered if she was crazy to pick up and move. Especially to someplace she’d never been to write a book about murders that had taken place a quarter century before.  Having never written a book, nor ever been to Texarkana, she had no idea what to expect on either front.  She didn’t completely discount the possibility of driving back in two or three weeks and chucking the whole idea.  But then, she figured she had nothing to lose, anyway.

The straight-8 under the hood purred like a kitten the whole way.  She had to hand it to ol’ Manny at Manny’s Motor Mart, he was right when he guided her and Judith to the Buick for the transportation they needed.  New tires, wipers, and regular maintenance had kept the old beast on the road and it never let her down.  A year or so before Perry had helped her sand down the exposed woodwork on the wagon and apply two fresh coats of marine grade varnish.  A coat of Simoniz paste wax made the Allendale Green Metallic paint shine better than she ever thought it would again.

The wind coming in the windows was crisp, not cold, and smelled like mesquite, sage, and smoke from distant piles of brush being burned.  Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, and Glen Campbell seemed to compete for attention on the airwaves as the Buick made its way through Odessa, Midland, and Big Spring.  Eileen had decided to make the trip a two day event, partly so she could take the time to make a slow drive through Fort Worth on Day Two, and so she’d arrive in Texarkana early enough to get a lay of the land and find someplace to check into for a few days.  While the big old woody had never let her down, Eileen didn’t want to push her too hard.

To conserve funds Eileen Eileen considered simply finding a place to pull over and bed down in the back of the Buick for the night somewhere outside Abilene.  However, as she thought about the fact that she was traveling to Texarkana to write a book about people who had been murdered while parked in their cars in remote areas, she elected to go the more quotidian route.  She pulled into the Western Motel and got a room for the night.  The clerk behind the desk was a bit put off by a nearly thirty year old attractive woman driving a nearly twenty year old Buick woody, traveling the countryside by herself.  “Starting a new job in Texarkana,” she explained.  “Need to be there tomorrow.”  That was about all the information she allowed.  And that was mainly just to secure a recommendation for some place to grab dinner.

Showered and out the door before the sun rose, Eileen pushed the Buick to get to Fort Worth early.  She wanted to beat the crowd at the Ol’ South Pancake House.  That and the Ford Sunliner were her favorite memories from her days at TCU.  A belly full of pancakes and a Thermos full of Folgers and she had just enough time to take a swing up University Drive and through the heart of the college she’d spent three years attending.  “I really ought to finish that degree,” she noted to herself as she made her way out of town.

Texarkana is a tale of two cities.  Literally.  Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Arkansas are two cities in one, the border of Texas and Arkansas splitting the town right down the middle.  Originally a railroad town, the Texas and Pacific Railroad was the first to sell lots for what would become the future town a dozen years after the conclusion of the Civil War.  The town that developed afterwards wasn’t all that different from Fort Stockton, or any other small Texas town, other than the fact that it sat smack dab on the border.  A crude comparison has been made of a woman riding a bicycle down a sidewalk, legs high in the air, a foot in each state.

Eileen made her way to the Sahara Motel.  She checked in, noting the almost exact same reaction to her and the Buick as she filled out the registration card.  “How long you stayin’?” the overweight, upper-middle aged woman at the counter asked.

“Two days.  Maybe three.”  Eileen didn’t want to be rude, but was in no mood to offer any more information than needed.  “Till I find a place more permanent.”

There was no reaction from the motel clerk.

Upon further consideration, Eileen felt like it may pay dividends to nurture the relationship a bit.  “That is a lovely shade.  Your hair, I mean.  What do they call it?”

Glancing to see her reflection in the window, the clerk patted the sides of the coiffure atop her head like it was a pet.  “Evening Ambrosia.  Clairol.”

“It becomes you.”  Eileen made a mental note to find other tidbits to toss when she needed information.  The clerk was obviously not used to being noticed, much less complimented.  And she vowed to work ‘Evening Ambrosia’ into the story somewhere.  “Maybe you could point me to the library and police station.”

The clerk raised her eyebrows.

“Just needing to do some research.  Will need to visit each of those while I’m here.”

Locations of each, as well as directions to both, and a recommendation for the best burger joints and bars, Eileen made her way back out to the Buick, key to Room 12 in hand.  “Furthest from the highway.  Quiet as a church inside.  You’ll sleep like a rock.”  The clerk told her.  Eileen had made a friend for life.

Four days later Eileen had rented a small one bedroom studio at the Westridge  Apartments, a modern version of the Alamo Arms back in Fort Stockton.  She still stopped by the Sahara Motel to see Maybell in the office every so often.  A map and phone book was nothing in comparison to the information a life-long local could provide.  A local who was willing to help, anyway.

Most folks had either forgotten about the murders that took place in 1946, or chose not to discuss them with an outsider.  Police were no more cooperative.  Rarely does a police department like to pull back the curtain of a failure, especially one that left five people dead, more wounded, and a community terrorized and in shock.

By early spring Eileen had the first several of the chapters completed, typed up on her black and chrome portable typewriter.  Some of the pages were smudged when Perry Silverman took them out of the envelope as he sat in his office at the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch.  Eileen was sending him carbon copies, keeping the original pages in her apartment at the Westridge.  He liked what he was reading, and felt like she had something that would be sellable when she was done.

The first attack took place on February 26 of 1946.  Jimmy Hollis, aged 25 at the time, found a secluded place to park his Chevy so he and his young girlfriend, Mary Jeanne Larey, could continue whatever amorous intentions may have started in the movie theater they’d just left.  Finding a secluded spot on the Texas side of town Jimmy parked the car.  He and Jeanne were only ten minutes into the process of exercising their hormonal flareup when there was a man on the driver’s side of the car, swinging a flashlight inside and ordering the couple out of the car.  

The stranger wore a white hood over his head, which they later determined was probably an old pillowcase with holes cut out for his eyes and mouth.  Larry initially thought it was a joke of some kind.  When he presented a pistol and pointed it into the car, the couple quickly realized the situation was much more serious than first thought.  They were ordered out of the car.  Jimmy was told to remove his pants.  As soon as he did, he was struck with the pistol in a blow that rendered him unconscious.  The butt of the pistol had cracked Hollis’ skull. 

Thinking the stranger was attempting to rob the couple, Jeanne picked the wallet out of the discarded pants and opened it up to show the attacker they had no money.  She was met with the same type of blow to the head.  The strike left her dazed, but still conscious. Seeing the desperate nature of the situation, Jeanne ran down the road as fast as she could, looking for someplace to hide or someone that could help her.  The attacker followed in pursuit.  When he caught up to her he knocked her down, sexually assaulted her, and probably would have killed her had there not been a pair of headlights that appeared on the road ahead.

Jeanne Larey got up and ran till she came to a home a half mile away.  The startled people inside called the police.  Meanwhile, Jimmy had regained consciousness and made his way to a nearby highway where he flagged down a passing motorist.  The motorist refused to pick him up, but went to a nearby funeral home a mile or two away and called the police for help.

Police picked up both Jimmy and Jeanne shortly thereafter and took them to the hospital for treatment.  Eventually they both provided statements that were very close in describing the events that had taken place, but differing in some of the details.  The police felt as though Jeanne was being less than honest in her account.  They felt that she and Hollis both knew whomever the attacker had been and were somehow covering for him.  The couple had narrowly dodged death on the dark road outside of town, Eileen discovered.

Eileen tracked down a number of people that may have known something about the crime.  Few wanted to dredge up the details, or discuss them from some broad from Fort Stockton.  Police records were helpful.  Folks remember seeing the Buick Super Estate parked out the police station for days at a time, whenever it wasn’t parked outside the library, or stopping off at the Sahara to confirm findings with Maybell behind the desk.

The big light brown envelopes of carbon copied typed pages that reached Perry’s office at the STD next contained the details of the first double murder.  The one involving a 1941 Oldsmobile.  And another couple that went looking for sex, but found Satan instead.

Although rumors of the first double assault had trickled through Texarkana, there didn’t seem to be a real threat to the community, Eileen learned.  “Nobody died.  The police weren’t convinced that Jimmy and Jeanne weren’t somehow involved with their own assaults, strange as that is to believe,” Maybell explained to Eileen over two styrofoam cups of coffee that was way past its BEST BY date.  “That all changed when they found Richard and Polly Ann less than a month later.  Didn’t help none that he was 29 and she was 17.  Folks tongues was waggin’ I tell ya.”

Eileen could barely keep up with the information that was flowing from Maybell over the desk at the Sahara Motel.  It was certainly more detailed than the police reports divulged.  

Richard Griffin, 29 and his girlfriend, Polly Ann Moore, 17 were found in Griffin’s 1941 Oldsmobile on March 25, 1946, less than a month after the assault on Jimmy Hollis and Jeanne Larey.  Richard and Polly Ann were also looking for love in all the wrong places, but did not fare as well as Jimmy and Jeanne at the hands of their assailant.

A motorist happened to pass by and saw the Oldsmobile parked about a hundred yards off Highway 67 West on what was described to be a well known ‘Lovers’ Lane’.  Driving down to see if whomever the Oldsmobile belonged to might need some assistance, the would-be good samaritan was met with a grizzly sight.  Griffin was found in the front seat.  He was behind the wheel, as if asleep.  The pockets of his trousers had been pulled out and his head was resting on his hands, still on the wheel.  He was fully clothed and had been shot twice in the head.

Moore was in the backseat.  She too had been shot in the head, although evidence would later suggest that she may have been killed outside the car and then placed in the backseat later.  A blanket was found nearby with the shell casing from a .32 caliber pistol, supporting the theory that her murder had taken place outside the car.

Maybell said most folks around town figured the female victim had been raped at some point during the crime.“But folks love to talk.  Make up their own facts if they can’t find enough of the ‘official’ ones.  ‘Specially if it’s somethin’ as salacious as rape and murder,” she whispered to Eileen as a young couple came in to get a room for the weekend, leaving their new Mustang out in front of the office.  Eileen couldn’t find anything in any of the public records to indicate a sexual assault had taken place, so she was careful to stick to the facts and leave that possibility out in the chapters she mailed off to Perry later that week.  The chapter that concluded with the first double murder closed with the fact that neither of the victims was ever examined by a pathologist.

In Fort Stockton, Perry was convinced the work Eileen was doing was going to be good enough that he started making calls to friends in the publishing world.  In Texarkana, Eileen was becoming consumed with crimes that most people had forgotten.  Or wanted to.

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