Severely injured, Mrs. Starks dropped to the floor and struggled to survive by crawling back to the bedroom to avoid the gunman's line of fire. The gunman, meanwhile, had run around to the Starks' back porch and attempted to break in through the kitchen window. Struggling to her feet, Mrs. Starks went to the kitchen just in time to hear the killer attempting to break through the kitchen window. Dazed and bleeding badly, she struggled back to her bedroom through a passageway and to another bedroom before making her way through the living room and out the front door, trailing blood all the way.

She fled in her bloody nightgown across the highway to her sister's house, only to find no one at home. She eventually made her way to the A.V. Prater farmhouse about 50 yards down the road, where she was able to summon help and a ride to Michael Meagher Hospital (now St. Michael Hospital). The bullet that pierced her right cheek emerged from the back of her left ear, while the bullet that struck her lower jaw got lodged under her tongue.

It looked like the Phantom struck again and local, state and even federal officers soon converged in droves on the Starks' home. They arrived in time to find the living room filled with smoke caused by an electrical heating pad burning in Starks' chair. Starks himself had already fallen to the floor. The killer tracked footprints through the living room and exited through the front door and across the highway. Police canine units followed his trail on the highway for about 200 yards before they crossed back to the other side and then lost the scent about a half-mile later. Police found two small bullet holes shot through the front porch window, which led them to believe the gunman used an automatic weapon, because four shots were fired altogether.

A few days after being brought to the Michael Meagher Hospital, Mrs. Starks told police she never saw the killer's face. Miller County farmer Jack Starks, Virgil's father, offered a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for his son's murder. Mrs. Starks survived and did not wind up being the Phantom Killer's sixth victim. As a matter of fact, her husband may not have even been the fifth. The bullets extracted from Starks' body were fired from a .22-caliber semiautomatic weapon, possibly a rifle. Ballistics tests showed a .32 caliber pistol was used in the Betty Jo Booker and Paul Martin murders on April 14 near Spring Lake Park and in the Polly Ann Moore and Richard L. Griffin slayings March 24 near U.S. Highway 67 on the Texas-side.