The Hook: The Truth Behind the Urban Legend

You see you guys, it's raining boles. Michelle's wearing a blanket right now. Yeah, and nothing else. Just I mean, I've been recording in the nude this whole time. Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about scary things that surprised us around the Internet. I'm Edwin and I'm Michelle. It's the nineteen fifties. You are a teenage girl on a date with your steady boyfriend, the high school quarterback, Dwight trut Nice. First, you went and got milkshakes slash beat shakes at the burger stand. Oh, Dwight. Now it's off to Lake Drive, a well known teenage lover's lane. You park in a secluded spot. There's no one around. Makeout. Music is slowly playing on the radio. Hormones are raging. All of a sudden, the music is interrupted by a breaking news bulletin be on the lookout for a serial killer with a hook for a hat. He's just escaped the institution nearby. Then the music starts up again, but the news has kind of killed the mood always does, and you both decide it's time to call it a night. Dwight goes to start the engine, It whirs and then it dies out of gas. God damn it, Dwight. You're both stuck out there in the dark. Now, Edwin, choose your story ending pick a number between one and six. Do you live? Do you die? It all depends on what you choose, because this is the story of the hook, and there's several outcomes, because there's several different versions of this story. So what will you choose as well? Okay? Number four? Number four? Oh? Okay, So number four. Dwight leaves for help. He saw a gas station a mile or two down from the road. He leaves you with the car. This sounds safer than going with them. He makes it to the gas station and comes back with a tow truck. There he finds you murdered with a hook embedded in your chest. Do you want to pick again? Yes? Number two? Number two? Okay. Dwight leaves for help he saw a gas station a mile or two down the road. While waiting for him to return, you turn on the radio and hear the report again about the escaped serial killer slash mental patients, and you are then disturbed by a thumping on the roof of the car. You eventually can't stand it anymore, and you're just like, what is that? So you get out of the car. Ah, no, I knew that. I know it's dumb. And on the roof of the car you see the escaped mental patient sitting on the roof banging dwight severed head. So the escaped mental patient with a hook for a hand is such a standard urban legend. There's so many different because you know, like sometimes the girl lives, sometimes she dies, sometimes the boyfriend. Like, there's so many different versions which I love, and one of my favorites, well, there's two that I really like. So here pick again, pick another one. Three, Okay, Dwight leaves for help he saw a gas station a mile or two down the road. While waiting for him to return, you turn on the radio and you hear about the escape mental patient again. You are then disturbed by scratching on the roof of your car, and while you just can't take it anymore after a while, and when you get out of the car, there's Dwight's butchered body suspended upside down from a tree with his fingernails scraping against the roof. You panic and you run into the maniac and are also killed, Oh no, to get that length of rope for Dwight to be able to scratch the roof well, and also to hang the body upside down while you're in the car and not notice like you would have to be on the tree and which I love. And you have a hook for a hand, so like also you're like, oh yeah, there's a lot that goes into it. One of my favorites is Dwight leaves for help. We go to the gas station. You're listening to the radio again. Suddenly there starts to be rhythmic tapping on the car roof, like rain. The doors are locked. There's no way you were going out there until Dwight comes back. Good thinking yeah, no no, this time you're like no, no, no, no. At some point you fall asleep to the rhythmic tapping on the roof. In the morning, your car is discovered by the police, just like whatever. Dwight never came back. But the police are here now. They escort you over to one of the squad cars, but they insist that you not turn around and look back. So you turn it around. Yeah, of course, curiosity gets the better of you, though, what have been that tapping on the car kept you company all night. It hadn't rained. There is Dwight's butchered body suspended upside down from a tree, with blood from his slit throat dripping against the car roof. It had been dripping there all night. Oh okay, that one's creepy. Plus when you said the rhythmic tapping, I was like, maybe she did that too. You know, Adhd kicked in and she just started making a sick fee bump about bump bump bump. Although you know that one's one of my favorites, but this one got me. This is number six, which Edwin didn't pick, but I'm picking for him. Dwight decides to head off on foot to find someone to help with the car while you stay behind. You fall asleep while waiting. Then all of a sudden, you hear a tap on the glass. Let's wait you You see a hideous person looking at you through the window. Luckily, the car is locked so this person can't get inside. But to your horror, the person raises one of their arms to reveal Dwhite's decapitated head resting on a hook. In the other hand. The car keys jingle, jingle, jingle. The hook is a delicious urban legend, and the origins of the hook are not entirely known, but the story began to circulate in the nineteen fifties, and the first known publication of the story was in November eighth, nineteen sixty, when a reader when a reader letter telling the story was reprinted in Dear Abbey, which is a popular advice column. Obviously, Dear Abbey is just the name of it. There's no more Abby. But here's what was first, the first time this was ever in print. Dear Abby. If you're interested in teenagers, you will print this story. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it doesn't matter, because it served its purpose for me. A fellow and his date pulled into their favorite lover's lane to listen to the radio and do a little necking. The music was interrupted by an announcer who said there was an escape convict in the area who'd served time for rape and robbery. He was described as having a hook instead of a right hand. The couple became frightened and drove away. When the boy took his girl home, he went around to open the door, for then he saw a hook on the handle of the door. I will never park to make out. As long as I live, I hope this does the same for other kids. Jeannette. I think that's a pretty common one. It's like that where like the hook is embedded in the side of the car, or you know, sometimes the killer's riding on the roof of the car, which is weird. Yeah, he's like on there and they like drive away and he falls off. You know, they get away. You know. There's a bunch of different versions of it, which I think is hilarious. There's so many different versions to try and keep horny teenagers from necking quote unquote, because obviously this is like a moral tale. It's everyone's premarital sex warning, like, don't there's gonna be a murderer if you go and you sleep with someone, if you have sex in your car. What if it was actually started by the auto industry. I was thinking of the Abstinence Coalition or something. Well, oh, it's definitely that. There's definitely the moral brigade that's trying to control people, especially teenagers. Well, if it sounded defective, I would have been creeped out. Yeah, it would make you go to a lover's lane where there's a bunch of people, which is weird too. Tells a weird when there's a bunch of cars that are steamy. Yeah, but you know, once those car windows get steamy, no one can see in, so you know, it all works out. But I like this interpretation that this American folklorus Bill Ellis. He interprets the maniac and the hook as a moral custodian who interrupts sexual experimenttion of a young couple. He sees the hookman's disability as his own lack of sexuality. And then the threat of the hook man is not the normal sex drive of teenagers, but the abnormal drive of adults trying to keep them apart, which I kind of like that. I like that, like twist, But this beg is a question of the story started circulating in the fifties, where did it come from? Is there any truth to it? And so? Snokes writer David Mickelson has speculated that the legend might have roots in the real life Lover's Lane murder that took place in nineteen forty six, which has become known as the Texarcana Moonlight Murders. OO in nineteen forty six in the town of Texarcana, which sits nestled between Texas and Arkansas, which I just I don't know why. It's funny. You look at the word Arkansas looks like our Kansas, so like it's not that it's Arkansas. I used to say like that all the time until soccerty Kansas ar Kansas. I also used to say accessories like accessories, tear it it, don't forget tear it. It embarrassing anyway. A young couple were enjoying their night. They had just been to watch a movie together, and they had just taken a drive to what was locally known as a lover's lane, where they were sitting in the car enjoying each other's company. Jimmy Hollis was sitting in the driver's seat. It was dark out, but the lane was only a couple one hundred yards from the last row of houses, so it wasn't too secluded for him to be like nervous as the night went on. But at eleven forty five pm, there was a tap on the driver's side window and he was blinded for a moment by a flashlight. Outside of the car, a man wearing what looked like a pillowcase with two round holes cut out in the eyes and another around the mouth. Jimmy, not afraid, was sure it was just a prank, you know, with all the nineteen forties bravado and sweetness of like, how could this be anything else other than a prank? But then the guy pulled a gun and it was clear that this was not a prank. The man ordered Jimmy and his girlfriend Mary Jean Larry out of the car. Mary Jean was only nineteen at the time, so that's pretty fucking scary. Then the man ordered Jimmy to quote take off his goddamn bridges, which is his pants, which Jimmy did. Then the man whipped his gun and hit Jimmy twice in the head. The sound of him hitting Jimmy was so loud that Mary Jean thought Jimmy had been shot, but it was actually the sound of Jimmy's skull fracturing. So when Jimmy hit the ground, she kicked into overdrive and was like trying to do anything to not get them both killed. So she reached for Jimmy's wallet, grabbed the wallet and showed them that they didn't have any money. It would just leave us alone. We don't have any money, but the man hit her and she went down, but then he ordered her to stand up and start running, so Mary Jean tried to make it to a nearby ditch, but he shouted at her and she started running down the road. She didn't know what else to do until she saw a parked car, and she started racing towards it, thinking it would be someone she could ask for help. But she got there and no one was in that car, and that was when the man caught up to her and he hit her in the head, speculation that there might have been like a sexual assault as well, but she was able to get free from him, and then she got up and ran to the row of houses, which were now eight hundred yards away because she'd run the opposite direction before. But she got to a house, banged on the door, woke up the people inside, and they called the police. The police showed up about a half an hour later, and the guy in the wearing the pillowcase was go on. Jimmy and Mary Jean were both taken to the hospital and gave their statements. They both could agree that man was about six foot tall, but they couldn't agree on his appearance. Mary Jean during her assault, said that she'd seen under the pillowcase and that it was like a light skinned African American, but Jimmy said that it had been a white tan Yeah, white tan pull No, a white tan man in his thirties. And so with the differing statements, the police started to doubt Mary Jean's description of the perpetrate her because of course, and actually began pressuring Mary Jean and Jimmy for more information, thinking they've known the identity of the man keeping it from the police, why would you make better Like that's terrifying. But then the pillowcase guy struck again on and on the twenty fourth of March nineteen forty six, just a month after the first attack, the bodies of Richard Griffith, who was twenty nine, and his girlfriend of just six weeks, a seventeen year old. There's a lot of problems here, a seventeen year old named Polly Anne Moore, were found dead in Richard's car. They were spotted on another lover's lane and they were lying in the inside the car, and the motorists at first that discovered them thought they were asleep, but they'd both been shot in the back of the head. But it was clear that they had been attacked outside of the car first and then put back in the car. And then only a few weeks later, on April fourteenth, the bodies of Betty Joe Butcher was only fifteen, Paul Martin was only seventeen, and their bodies were discovered. They found Paul's body at about six in the morning, and then they found Betty Joe's body about three and a half miles away from Paul's under a tree. Both have been shot by the same caliber of gun. And in the second attack, the police were very clear that they had put up fight like it had been an obvious like they had fought their attacker. And then the third and final attack attributed to this person. I don't know. This one's like a little off kilter, like it doesn't seem like it's the same, but they say it's the same person. It happened ten miles away from Texarkana, where it said that this same attack was committed by the same perpetrator. It's very different because it took place in a house. This guy named Virgil Starks was sitting at home reading the newspaper and was shot twice in the back of the head through the window. His wife, Katie came to see what was wrong. She saw that Virgil was slumped down, realized he was dead. She went to phone the cops and she was shot in the face, but she lived. She was able to get to a neighbor's house and call the police and was like getting surgery on her face at the hospital and giving her statement to the police at the same time. So which is crazy anyway, At this point, Texarcana is in a state of panic. Shops had run out of guns ammunition, people were afraid to go out after dark. Some people, especially teenagers, started setting up traps to try and catch the phantom killer. But these teenagers weren't the only ones setting up traps hoping to catch the phantom killer. Some policemen were using teenagers themselves, asking them to park cars and wait to see if the killer would approach them while police hid nearby. Some policemen actually would wait in their cars themselves with their wives or girlfriends, or sometimes just a mannequin. The single police officers like uh. But all of this just ended up with more chaos because, like approaching people's houses, the police would have to turn on their sirens and wait in people's driveways to avoid getting shot themselves. Visual anti teenagers shot at patrol shoot anybody. Yeah, this teenager shot at an Arkansas State trooper when he appro which the car. Another time, the police had to shoot out the tires of a car that had been following a bus because people thought it was suspicious, but it turned out to be a high school student who had just been tailing the bus because he saw someone suspicious get out of a private car and get on the bus. I mean. And also, teenagers taking this into their own hands is pretty good. I can't imagine that though, Like, hey, let's go catch them, and then it's like a activity. Yeah, it's definitely like, oh, we're gonna go drive around and look for the killer. You could just like picture them in their nineteen forties cars driving around, cruising around looking for this killer in a pillowcase, which is a terrifying image. But with all the panic all over town, the investigator's efforts to find what became known as the Phantom killer remained just that a phantom spoiler alert. They never arrested anybody for this, wow, but some investors believe it was a local car thief named Yule Sweeney, who was arrested for car theft or something like that. But in July of that year, Eule's wife admitted that he was the Phantom killer and was able to give in great detail stories about the murder. But then her story kept changing and she eventually recanted. But the police were actually able to verify some of her details, but they didn't have enough to prosecute him. But he went to jail for car theft and counterfeiting and other crimes. But many believe that his wife recanting was because she was afraid of him. It is widely presumed now that he was in stories about the case, but to this day, the case remains unsolved, which creates the perfect start to an epic urban legend. It makes sense. It happened a little bit before enough, like enough time for it to like to really get the gossip train going and to really like change it, you know, like just enough to change it. It's also inspired a film called The Town That Dreaded Sundown, which came out in nineteen seventy six, which sounds kind of good and I'd like to see it. The film actually might have become the basis for a lot of the subsequent myth and folklore around the murders later, But yeah, it's pretty crazy. Huh what if it was a woman? What if it was the wife? Might have been the wife, depending on your side, she could have been a big woman. We don't know. But taking on a couple is tough. It would be tough alone as a woman. But assassinating people through a window maybe that's the one tho where I'm just like, how did they attribute this to this? I don't understand. This is a terrible way to die, like you're watching TV. And then I understand why there might be some controversy about that one in particular, because it's like it really doesn't seem related at all. But maybe I'm not I'm not an investigator. I like urban legends and I think it's a cool thing to like try to find the source of them, and this would makes sense. This is like, oh, it's around that time period, yep, Lover's Lane. Hey, don't go do that. Something's gonna happen. Then all the craze kind of dies down, and then it's like, you know, I heard this story about this thing, and then you add the hook, you literally add the the hook to the story. Yeah, it just makes a story a lot better. And you were hooked, so I stayed to the end. It works, so did you guys? So it worked anyway. What are we going to talk about next week? Edwin? I don't know. I think it'll be a surprise. Scary Mystery. Surprise is hosted by Michelle Newman and Edwin Komarubies. This podcast was edited and sound designed by Sarah Borhe's Wendel, a VW sound