Aaron Mahnke

Some members of the community took to patrolling the streets and setting traps themselves for the Phantom Killer, as he'd come to be known.

People began trailing strangers, and even placed themselves as decoys to try to tempt the killer to attack another person.

And for the authorities, that string of murders kicked off a massive investigation with many branches of law enforcement working together to find the killer.

Local police and the Texas Rangers, even the FBI became involved.

But even with all that manpower, the investigation was plagued with mistakes, beginning with the very first attack.

Those victims, Hollis and Larry, had conflicting memories of the evening.

Larry said that the attacker was a black man wearing a pillowcase with slits cut out for the eyes, whereas Hollis, when he regained consciousness, described the man as white.

Police found this suspicious, believing at first that perhaps, given the brutality of the crime, Larry knew her attacker and was protecting him for unknown reasons.

And it was this assumption that convinced police that they should be looking for a respected member of society, and to use that as their working theory for the investigation.

They would only admit that the attacker was a stranger once it was too late.

After the second attack, the mistakes continued to pile on.

For one, police neglected to secure the crime scene, allowing it to be contaminated.

Further, both victims were given funerals and buried before a pathologist was able to lay eyes on their bodies.

Moore was even buried with bullets still inside her body.

To this day, we don't know why she was not given an autopsy.

We do know that, at the time, the first attack and the second attack were not viewed as even related.

It was largely believed that the original attack was from someone the couple had known, and so there was little real concern about future threats.

But Mary Jean Larry knew better.

She had moved to Oklahoma, and when she learned of the other victims, she couldn't help but connect it to her own traumatic experience.

She was so convinced that she returned to Texarkana to speak to the police in person.