Texas Rangers correspondence files were kept from 1946 until 1960 including many letters from Capt. Gonzaullas and the following notes were taken from some of those files.

1. Youell Swinney is only noted one time. There is a handwritten "index of names" containing hundreds of names - presumably every name that ever came up in connection with the case. It just says "police character 7-29-46" and has a DPS Bureau #203120 beside it.
2. The Rangers certainly did not close their case when Swinney went to prison. There are perhaps 100 persons named in letters whose fingerprints were checked against the latent prints recovered from the Booker scene. None of them matched. (Obviously Swinney's did not match, either?)
3. Many "concerned citizens" and outright nuts wrote letters to Gonzaullas saying that they either suspected who the killer was or that they themselves were in fact the killer! Gonzaullas kept all the letters but never responded to them.
4. The Rangers were in contact with every law enforcement agency in the country where someone attacked people parking and either killed them or raped the girl. Surprisingly, there were many such incidents - even as far away as Wisconsin and New York. They checked out virtually everyone who was arrested for rape or robbery in Texas where the M.O. was similar to the Texarkana crimes. It's obvious they spent many hours over a period of many years investigating leads.
5. There was even a link with the "Black Dahlia" murder in 1947. A soldier who was a good suspect in that murder was interviewed by the Rangers about the Phantom case.
6. There were several very good leads - some of them local people who are named in the reports. It seems that the Rangers would go no further with any of them when the fingerprints did not match. It's mysterious that there are no letters about them checking Swinney's fingerprints. They kept very good records and wrote professional reports about every lead they chased. Whenever they submitted fingerprints to the DPS lab in Austin, they wrote a transmittal letter and then the lab chief in Austin would respond with a letter of the results. But nothing on Swinney!

1. There are numerous newspaper articles - mostly just the ones that mention Rangers. But there are news clippings of other murders where the M.O. is the same as in the case of the Black Dahlia suspect.
2. One of the articles quotes Gonzaullas as saying "the Rangers will be here until the killer is caught or killed". By October 1946, though, reality set in. There is a letter from Gonzaullas to all the Rangers who were sent to Texarkana. It is marked "confidential". It informs them that they can't continue to devote all the Ranger personnel to Texarkana anymore and the Rangers are to return to their regular posts, but to keep it a secret lest the killer find out and resume killing! It seems that Gonzaullas felt that the killings stopped because of him and his Rangers. Who knows?
3. Captain Gonzaullas reduced the number of Rangers on duty in Texarkana in August of 1946 with Ranger Stewart Stanley in charge. 3 other Rangers: Daniel, Seay and Thompson would also remain with Stanley until October. After this time a Ranger would drop in at pre-determined intervals to help with the investigation if they were needed.
4. Gonzaullas did keep a high level of interest in the case. He would assign Rangers to follow up on leads for years afterwards. It seems very unusual that Swinney was obviously not "their man." Even though he was never charged with the crime, it was a small comfort to think that they knew he was the killer and they got him sentenced for a long period. Could it be that Swinney was not the killer. Maybe his girlfriend was crazy or just telling the police what they wanted to hear.

more to follow......

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