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This file concerns the 1946 Texarkana-area double murders of James Paul Martin and Betty Jo Booker, linked by investigators to the earlier killings of Richard L. Griffin and Polly Ann Moore. The FBI stated that it had no active murder investigation or apparent federal violation, but assisted local authorities and the Texas Rangers through police cooperation, crime-scene photography, tire-track and vehicle processing, laboratory services, and fingerprint work. April 1946 memoranda and telegrams report that bullets and cartridge cases from the two double murders were believed to have been fired from the same .32-caliber automatic weapon, and that three unexplained latent prints had been recovered in the Martin-Booker case. The records also document inquiries into suspect Claude Wesley Varble, a report of the May 1946 shooting of Virgil Stark and wounding of his wife, and 1949 fingerprint comparisons involving more than 100 possible suspects.

FBI file number: 62-80864 | Documents span: 1946-1949 | Released in 2 parts
Names in this file: James Paul Martin, Betty Jo Booker, Richard L. Griffin, Polly Ann Moore, Claude Wesley Varble, Virgil Stark, M. T. Gonzaullas
Subjects: Texarkana Phantom Killer, unsolved murders, Texas Rangers, ballistics, latent fingerprints, police cooperation