Did Virginia Carpenter Run Away, Or Was She The Victim Of The Texarkana Phantom Killer?

🥼Mary Virginia "Jimmie" Carpenter🥼

She was likable, beautiful, radiant and happy. Even though her first name was Mary, people called her Virginia or "Jimmie". She had beautiful dark brown hair and brown eyes.

Virginia was born January 25th, 1927 in Texarkana, Texas.  Texarkana is close to the state lines of Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. Virginia was Hazel E. and Floyd Carpenter's only child.

She began walking at a young age and she "inherited a bad streak from me of wanting to walk a little too far from home," said her mother. Her mother would scare Virginia into staying close to home by telling her that big dogs roamed the streets.

Throughout her life, Virginia went through a lot of debilitating events. When she was three, she rolled down the back steps at her home and hit a tree, but she had no injuries. Three months afterward, she caught a bad case of influenza and could not walk.  She got better for a while but then a severe attack left her badly crippled. One day in Memphis, Tennessee, a surgeon found an infection in Virginia's right hip bone. It left perforations in it similar to tiny pinholes. For a few months, Virginia was placed in a device that pulled her leg back into proper position. 

Later, Virginia was able to walk better with the use of a steel brace that fitted into the heel of her shoe which then came up to a leather-rolled "saddle" around her hip. Virginia was put in kindergarten and soon became self-conscious and lost weight due to a loss of appetite. She was taken out of school but returned a year later when the brace was removed. 

When she was 12, a specialist said that she was completely cured. 

Virginia attended Arkansas High School. Her teachers described her as a child with an unusual amount of common sense and loyalty. She was a quiet girl and rarely participated in activities because she tired easily and had a limp in her right leg. She joined the band and became a majorette. She joined a sorority after receiving a bid from each one. 

Not long after starting high school, Virginia's father became seriously ill. He died two years later when she was 15.

After graduating from Arkansas High in 1944, she went to the University of Arkansas to study journalism. After a year, she came home and told her mother that she wanted to go into laboratory technician training but it required science, which she had never taken. She went to Texas State College for Women from September 1945 until February 1946 when she had to quit and take care of her mother who became ill. She planned on finishing her schooling within a year.

After her mother became ill, she underwent major surgery. A week later, Virginia was struck with appendicitis and was also operated on. A month later, they were both taken home by a student from Texas A&M University named Mac. Virginia fell in love with Mac, became engaged, and set a date for their wedding. Her grandparents did not approve of the engagement. Three weeks before their wedding date, Virginia broke it off. 

Ten days before school was out, Virginia went to the annual picnic from Texarkana Junior College at a lake near Daingerfield. About 5 p.m. that evening, Virginia came home with a terrible sun burn and not feeling well. It turned out that she had sun stroke and kept passing out. A doctor was called and he prescribed her with rest and quiet for a few days. After the third day, Virginia made an effort to take her final exams at school. While there, she told her teachers about her love affair that did not work out and that she fell in love again but the boy did not love her.

In 1948, she took up sketching and became quite good. Mrs. Carpenter said that a portrait Virginia did from memory of her father was one of the best likeness she had ever seen. Virginia, who was still recovering from her sunburn, packed her brown steamer trunk, a matching makeup case a black pasteboard hatbox and red purse, which contained no more than 20 dollars. She was looking forward to her new adventure as a lab technician student at TSCW in Denton, which was six hours away.

On June 1st, 21-year-old Virginia was wearing a light white chambray dress with brown and green stripes or red. Her dress had silver buttons down the front. She was wearing a small white straw hat with the brim flipped up and a white feather stuck in the back, red leather platform high-heeled shoes, and a gold Wittnauer watch. Virginia and her mother ran to the Texarkana Union Station and caught the Texas & Pacific Texas Special #31 train moments before it left. 

"I was so in hopes we would find the train gone so that I could drive her down the next morning. There was a tinge of disappointment when I saw the train had not left, but she refused to get on until she kissed me goodbye; and as she stood on the rear platform of the train waving goodbye, I wondered if there was anyone more radiant and beautiful. In my heart I offered a silent prayer because she was mine," said Virginia's mother.

It was 3 p.m. when the train left the station. 

While on the train, Virginia met Marjorie Webster, a middle-aged school teacher who was from also Texarkana and enrolling at TSCW .

After arriving in Denton, both women hired a taxi to take them to the college dormitories. Their cab driver was a man named Edgar Ray "Jack" Zachary. As Webster was being dropped off at the Fitzgerald dormitories, Virginia realized that she forgot to check on her trunk at the Denton train station. Webster asked if she needed to ride back with her, but Virginia said that she'd be alright. After arriving again at the station, Virginia went inside to get her trunk but came back a few minutes later claiming that she could not get it. She spoke to a railroad employee named Mr. Butrill, who told her the trunk would not arrive until later. Zachary told Virginia to sign the back of her claim check and that he would pick it up and deliver it to her in the morning. She agreed and gave him her luggage receipt after writing "Virginia Carpenter, Room 200--Brackenridge", and a dollar for the extra trip.

It was 9 p.m. when Zachary delivered Virginia to Brackenridge Hall. There was no moon, and the street lights were out due to repair work on a cable. Upon getting out of his taxi, Zachary observed Virginia walk up to a light-colored convertible, with two men standing by it, parked just outside the dorm. One of the men was tall and the other was short and stocky. Zachary said that it seemed as thought Virginia seemed surprised to see them.

"Well, what are y'all doing here?" Zachary heard Virginia ask the men. The shorter boy talked to Virginia and lifted her on the curb. Virginia then told Zachary to place her luggage on the ground because the boys will get them for her and to leave her trunk there in the morning as well. After doing so, Zachary drove off.

Reports claimed that a nightwatchman saw Virginia get out of the cab and into the convertible.

The next morning, Zachary dropped the trunk off and set it on the front lawn of Brackenridge Hall. After being there for two days, it was taken to the office. The dean of the college, Mrs. Mattie Lloyd Wooten, later explained to Mrs. Carpenter that it was the first time someone did not deliver luggage to the room.

On June 4th, Virginia’s boyfriend, Kenny Branham of Dallas, called her mother because he had been unable to get a hold of her since she left for Denton. This worried Mrs. Carpenter, who then called TSCW and found out that Virginia had never check into her dorm. Virginia's mom then called friends and relatives that her daughter may have tried visiting, but they had not heard from her.

The next day, around 12:30 a.m., Virginia's mom called the local authorities and reported her missing. The Texarkana police told her to "just go to bed and we'll get on the case in the morning", but she could not sleep, so she and Mrs. Lucille Bailey, a friend who was living with her, left for Denton at 2:10 a.m. Virginia's uncle and friends also went to Denton to help assist the police in their search. 

Ponds and lakes were searched as well as the woods, tanks, storm drains, creeks, country roads and abandoned wells. The search went statewide as police checked out drivers of light-colored convertibles in Texarkana and Denton. Even the Texas ranger got involved in the search. There was no trace of Virginia found.

Some of Virginia's former boyfriends stated she became infatuated easily and speculated she ran away with a lover, but her family did not believe she would have left without telling them.

On June 6th, a gas station attendant in Aubrey, Texas, saw Virginia's picture in that morning's newspaper and called the police. He reported a yellow convertible with Arkansas license plates occupied by two boys and two girls stopped at his station two days after Virginia's disappearance. And the girl resembled her.

On Saturday, June 8th, a girl matching Virginia's description was see  riding in a car with two boys in Mena, Arkansas. 

Kenny Branham was interviewed and took a lie detector test and passed. Zachary was also interviewed. Police learned that Zachary had a record for petty crimes and a reputation for being abusive. On Friday, July 9th, Zachary took a polygraph test which concluded that he had no connection to her disappearance. Years later, Zachary’s wife told authorities that she had lied about her husband’s whereabouts the evening that Virginia disappeared. and that he didn’t return home until 2 or 3 a.m. the following morning. Although never charged in connection with Virginia's disappearance, Zachary later passed a second polygraph test.

On Friday, June 11th around 9:00 p.m., a ticket agent at a bus station in DeQueen, Arkansas, saw a girl who resembled Virginia getting off a bus from Texarkana. She was wearing a red dress and carrying a red purse. She waiting nervously in the lobby  and asked about local hotels. Ten minutes later, the girl departed with a young man about 25- or 26- years old, weighing about 135 pounds, with light brown hair, and wearing a white shirt with khaki trousers. A few moments after their departure, the ticket agent received a phone call from a woman asking if "Miss Virginia Carpenter" was there. The next morning, the ticket agent learned about Virginia's disappearance and reported her sighting to the police. When the ticket agent was later showed two groups of pictures, she pointed out Virginia as the girl she had seen. Police checked hotels and tourist camps but came up with nothing. 

By July 12th, Mrs. Carpenter said she had checked all leads in the case but was no closer to learning of her daughter's whereabouts.

The next year, on Friday, January 14th, the Houston Press received a letter written in pencil, signed by Mrs. Gladys Bass from Chireno, Texas, who claimed that she and her friends met a girl who was well-dressed and well-educated who had been hitchhiking. The girl told them she was hungry and had no money. "She called herself Virginia. She talked properly, had long brown curly hair that touched her shoulders, and wore a white hat with a feather in it, a striped dress and blue sweater," she wrote. She said while they were eating at a cafe, the girl claimed to have run away. They all departed thinking that she was telling a story. It was not until later they believed that the girl was Virginia.

On June 9th, 1955, seven years after her disappearance, Virginia was considered officially dead.

In 1957, Zachary was charged with attempted rape, but the charge was dropped after the victim asked authorities not to prosecute.

On October 18th, 1959, a three-by-one wooden box was discovered, containing female bones including a skull, in a smokehouse near an abandoned farmhouse 7.5 miles northeast of Jefferson, Texas. The bones, which the previous owners of the farmhouse admitted to digging up from a "Negro" cemetery, had a deformity in the right leg which made it shorter than the left, similar to Virgina's. However, the dental work did not match

Mrs. Carpenter died in 1980.

Zachary died in 1984.

In 1998, authorities received a tip that two men had raped and killed Virginia shortly after her disappearance and buried her body in a dam at a stock tank near the TSCW. The suspects were both deceased by 1998 and were not publicly identified. Authorities searched the dam after receiving the information, but uncovered no evidence.

Two winters before Virginia disappeared, five young people were murdered in lovers' lanes in Texarkana. The crimes are believed to have all been committed by the same person. The murderer was never caught and became known as the Texarkana Phantom Killer.

Virginia was actually acquainted with three of the killer's victims. Authorities investigated to see if there was a link between her disappearance and the Texarkana slayings, but they found no evidence to support this theory.

Even though Virginia was an only child and her parents aren't alive anymore, three of her cousins still hope to get answers in her case.

At the time of her disappearance Virginia was 5'3" tall, 120 pounds with brown hair, brown eyes. She walked with a slight limp. She was also recovering from a severe case of sunburn.