The Phantom Killer: Unlocking the Mystery of the Texarkana Serial Murders: The Story of a Town in Terror (22 page)

Calm and aloof, Pichushkin said he had first killed a classmate in 1992 when he was eighteen. Though questioned in that case, he was never charged. The Bittsa Park murders began about a decade later.

When sentenced to life in prison—the first fifteen years to be in solitary confinement—Pichushkin’s words to the court, as quoted by the McClatchy News Service out of Moscow, documented the heights of grandiosity he had ascended as a result of his crimes.

“I have now been detained for 500 days. All this time, my fate has been decided by a huge number of people—cops, lawyers, prosecutors, judges, jurors,” he said. “In my time I myself have decided the fate of sixty people. I was an executioner. I decided myself who would live, and who would not. I was almost a god.

“For me, a life without murder is like a life without food for you. I felt like the father of all these people, since it was I who opened the door for them to another world.”

He emphasized that he never robbed his victims. “I don’t need junk, even if it’s very valuable. I’m only interested in human life. That’s more precious than anything. I took the most valuable thing.”

No one would argue his point on the value of what he’d taken. His grandiose assertions offer little insight into
why
he had killed so many or why he would have taken more lives had he not been apprehended. His words do tell us how at least one serial killer felt about his “accomplishments.” By indirection we may gain a glimpse into the inner workings of a mind that
needed
this feeling of god-like power.

The granting of life or death is a basic, primitive expression of power. In the lives of serial killers, the delivery of death affords a sense of power they don’t publicly or legally have. This, in turn, suggests a perceived need for control or power that comes forth in extralegal means on a one-on-one basis. Whether an individual death stands as a symbol for revenge or anger upon a larger segment of society, or as a surrogate for other individuals, may not be readily determined. But in any instance, the killings are likely to continue until some event—arrest, accident, death, institutionalization, intensive surveillance, retreat to a new location—intervenes.

Compared to Pichushkin’s numbers, the Phantom’s toll was paltry—only five known dead, three injured. To each victim’s family and friends, however, the pain was as great, as deep, as anything experienced by survivors of Pichushkin’s murderous impulses. Just as important, in comparing the tolls in Moscow and Texarkana, the small American twin city was relatively harder hit. Moscow, an industrial center and the Russian capital, with a population of well over 10 million, was at least 200 times larger, even though the Moscow killer restricted his malefaction to a portion of the city that was in his “comfort zone.”

Did the Phantom, like Pichushkin, also feel god-like as he shot his innocent victims? Probably. He demonstrated his power. He made headlines (or vice versa). An entire community feared him. He was known, albeit by his moniker, nationwide, even abroad. His name, as “the Phantom,” was on everyone’s lips. Policemen sought him futilely. He had committed perfect crimes, attesting to his skills and brilliance. He had outsmarted the smartest. He was “almost god-like.” In 1946 he must have felt what Pichushkin, thousands of miles away, did sixty years later.

If Pichushkin gave us a quick glance inside his mind, he left vast areas yet to be explored when it comes to trying to understand the psychology of a serial killer. Fortunately we don’t have to rely solely on a Russian serial killer’s courtroom outbursts for a peek into the inner workings of this peculiarly perverse pathology. The past several decades have generated a vast amount of data that dispels much, but far from all, of the mystery.

What, exactly, is a serial killer? Clearly Pichushkin qualified. So did the Texarkana Phantom. How do they differ from other killers of multiple victims—the spree killer and the mass murderer?

These questions were addressed in a three-day symposium sponsored by the FBI in San Antonio in 2005. Participants included 135 subject-matter experts from ten different countries on five continents. Serial killers may be found anywhere in the world, in many guises in many cultures.

For purposes of law enforcement, a definition was adopted.

“The unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events.”

An older description, cited by FBI agent John Douglas and others, classified such a killer as “someone who has murdered on at least three occasions, with what we call an emotional cooling-off period between each incident. This cooling-off period can be days, weeks, months, even years. Occasionally, it is only hours. But the important consideration is that each event is emotionally distinct and separate.”

The Phantom case fits either definition.

With the spree killer, there is no cooling-off period.

The mass murderer kills four or more at one time and place.

Douglas, known to millions via television, has called serial killers “the most bewildering, personally disturbing, and most difficult to catch of all violent criminals.” Because they’re motivated by more complex factors than other criminals, their patterns are more confusing. But they have three intentions in common: manipulation, domination, and control.

Douglas and others categorize the killers by how they behave at the crime scene—whether they are organized, disorganized, or a mixture of the two types.

The
organized offender
takes measures to protect himself from suspicion and arrest. He is careful. He often moves the body from the death scene, postponing its discovery and giving him time to distance himself. He often has an uneven work history. Though sexually inadequate, he is socially adept, which may help him catch his victim unawares. His intelligence is average or above average.

The
disorganized offender
, on the other hand, may become impulsive under stress and leave the murder weapon or other evidence at the scene. He is, in a word, sloppy—disorganized. He also tends to be sexually incompetent. He claims to be heterosexual but seems to be ignorant of sex and may have sexual aversions. (A psychiatrist in another analysis has ascribed a fluid sexuality to serial killers, enabling them to function as either heterosexuals or homosexuals.)

The
mixed offender
exhibits characteristics of both types, blending organized and disorganized behavior.

The Texarkana killer demonstrated both organized and disorganized features. He moved the bodies of Richard Griffin and Polly Moore into the car so they would not be discovered for hours; Betty Jo Booker’s body also was left in a wooded area. He left no fingerprints. He was prepared, taking a gun and, at least twice, a flashlight to the scene. These fit into the organized category. But he also exhibited spells of disorganization: he left Paul Martin’s body in plain sight, and he left the flashlight outside the Starks home.

These patterns would earn him a
mixed
label, tending toward
organized
.

Though categories tell us the
types
of serial killers, they do not offer much of a profile fitting a certain perpetrator.

The first profile of the Phantom killer came in early 1946—from his first victim, Jimmy Hollis, who from his up-close encounter pictured the assailant as a young white man, not over thirty, and desperate. It wasn’t much to go on and officers ignored it, but in time other analyses supported his view, as professional insights contributed additional patterns. The government psychiatrist Dr. Anthony Lapalla made valid points months later that are hard to fault. Unfortunately, he confirmed the public’s worst fears by suggesting that the killer could be virtually
anyone
.

Twenty-five years later, in 1971, three Texarkana psychiatrists provided comments based on public information then known. Dr. James H. Thomas, the only one who’d lived in the area during the murders, believed the Phantom was a psychopathic personality or sexual deviate or both. He doubted the killer was a war veteran, because his warped personality would have been detected and rejected. Dr. Russell Walling, another psychiatrist, agreed that the man probably was a psychopathic personality, devoid of conscience. “They don’t have feelings of anxiety, except when they are apprehended. Then they become very anxious,” he said.

A third psychiatrist agreed with the psychopathic, or sociopathic, designation. Dr. Luther White, who’d taken his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, cited the criminal’s rage as probably mostly directed against women, that he was angry at his mother and fearful he’d be punished severely by his father if he didn’t live up to expectations. He doubted the killer had raped his victims or, if he had, he thought he had done it only once. “When women become manifestations of the person’s mother, sex becomes incest, in a sense, and therefore forbidden,” he said.

Dr. White established the killer’s age as well into his twenties or older—“old enough to have experienced failure vocationally and in his masculine role. He felt inadequate as a man. I think he had failed a lot up to that. A successful person would be less likely to commit such a crime.” Dr. White also concluded that the killer was insecure in confronting people and needed a weapon, with his victim at a disadvantage, as happened.

He estimated the killer’s intelligence as low average, even a bit below average. “It doesn’t take much of an IQ to get in trouble.” He believed the killer had had prior criminal experience, possibly had learned police tactics in jail, and also took pride in being tough.

These views, of course, were at best preliminary, delivered by professionals who did not specialize in forensic medicine, dealing with limited information about the case.

In recent decades, profiling, as well as explaining, such criminals has developed into a refined science. Experts can now delve much deeper into the behavior, patterns, and motives of serial killers as well as other murderers. From this reservoir of research we can draw a better likeness of such offenders, though still far from knowing the last word on the subject.

Serial murders are relatively rare, amounting to less than one percent of all murders in a given year. But while the number of serial killers is relatively small, the social impact of sheer terror in a large population is beyond measuring.

Overall, it is risky to generalize what type of person a serial killer could be. Some may be dysfunctional loners; not all are. As the 2005 FBI symposium put it, some
seem
to be normal, with families and jobs. They may blend in. “Many serial killers hide in plain sight within their communities.” Nor are they all white males; they come from all racial groups. (One expert, criminologist Jack Levin, has estimated that seventy-five percent of serial killers act alone, while one fourth have an accomplice.)

Not all serial killers are sexually motivated. Other motivations—anger, thrill, financial gain, attention seeking—may play strong roles. In serial murder, motive is difficult to isolate. The killer may have more than one motive or may develop other motives as he adds to his deadly toll. Focusing on a motive doesn’t necessarily lead to a prime suspect. Anger repeatedly turns up in psychological assessments.

“Regardless of the motive,” the 2005 consensus statement reminded, “serial murderers commit their crimes because they want to.”

In most homicides, the killer and victim know each other. This enables the police to round up suspects in a timely manner. But in serial murder, the killer and victim rarely know each other. The term once used, “stranger killings,” remains descriptive. The killer benefits by having strangers for victims, making it much more difficult for police to track him. It could be anyone. As Northeastern University professor of criminal justice Jack Levin observed in another setting, “Most serial killers—especially those who manage to stay on the loose—target strangers. The last thing they want is to be connected back to the people they victimize.” This also partially explains why serial killers don’t usually kill those they associate with, even if those people may already harbor vital information about them, may even have been witnesses or confederates. Harming their associates could directly draw attention and possibly lead to arrest.

“Most serial killers have very defined geographical areas of operation,” experts at the FBI symposium agreed. “They conduct their killings within comfort zones that are often defined by anchor points (e.g., place
of residence, employment, or residence of a relative).” Sometimes they go outside the comfort zone either to avoid arrest or when they’ve grown more confident and move to new territory.

In either case, according to John Douglas, driving around may become a habitual pattern. As the killer scouts out the territory, he familiarizes himself with landmarks and potential sites for his practices. (In Texarkana, that seemed to be lovers’ lanes.) When he drives at night, he considers himself hunting, a night hunter stalking human game—in this case, couples.

A serial killer may be compulsive when he decides to kill, even before he has selected or happened upon his victim, but his compulsion is obviously under his control and conscious decisions. Otherwise he might commit his crimes, night or day, with witnesses or in venues likely to attract attention. His crimes are usually carefully planned. Though he may be impulsive, he is ready when opportunity appears.

Even if he claims his victim in a moment of opportunity, the serial killer has spent time working out the crime in his mind, through fantasies and planning. He usually seeks a special category of victim (as did the Phantom), vulnerable individuals at a time and place when the killer can maintain control. After a cooling-off period of days, weeks, or months, he will strike again. As the FBI’s Robert K. Ressler and associates put it:

“He thinks he will never be caught, and sometimes he is right.”

Other findings seem to apply particularly to the Starks shootings. Specialists have concluded that some killers may change their
modus operandi
, or MO, thus confusing the police into believing a later crime is not related to the earlier series. The killer may use a different gun or switch to a knife or other weapon, anything to suggest a different person is to blame. James Alan Fox and Jack Levin point out a parallel possibility: “It is also commonplace for them to branch out to more respectable victims as they become convinced that they are smarter than the police and will never be apprehended.”