I added the right hand print also.

Hypothesis: Left hand wedding band removed? What do you think? Yay or neigh?

It isn’t as big a read as I thought. 3/4 of these two documents are dedicated to fingerprinting what seems like the population of Texarkana and anyone and everyone else. I am surprised they didn’t fingerprint the family dogs while they were at. This was a massive undertaking.

The case was also derailed for a long time searching for the person who sent communications which involved extortion and claims to inside knowledge about the case. A money drop off point was located 200 yards from a crime scene. Turns out it was some women who had issues with her neighbors. Thousands of typewriters were examined but they got there in the end and found the typewriter in some insurance office she was working in. Judge decided she was not mentally competent to stand trial.

They seem to have fingerprinted black men in the military by the hundreds as a whole undertaking unto itself. They also fingerprinted other people too though but they seem to have done a mass fingerprinting of whole groups associated with something in one way or another. They also obtained all the local fingerprint cards taken around the area and whatever else they had which went into the tens of thousands.

This is one of the biggest dragnets I have ever read for a case this old. Straight up knocking on doors detective work and mass data analysis.

Peggy Swinney was interviewed by 12 officers. A Sheriff thought she wasn’t smart enough to remember everything which is why they think she had inside knowledge. Yoell Swinney never matched the prints. Neither did Tennison. My guess is that she was led on a bit. However they recovered a shirt with the name Stark on it (Stark not Starks; the surname of the victims). The FBI were asked how old the writing was. The FBI said they couldn’t make a determination. I think going by today’s standards obviously there is a big possibility that some wanted Swinney to be the Phantom and pushed hard on that bias. However the pressures for the investigators to solve this was monumental.

Prints found on a car from a crime were eventually found to have been left by the brother of the victim I think. Need to check that again but it seems this explains why they never matched the prints found at the Starks with them. So that got resolved and explains the focus on the Starks prints.

That’s a bit of what I can gather so far.