Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Casanova Killer” Pt. 2 – Paul John Knowles

Episode Date: July 31, 2017

A lust killer who dreamed to be known as an outlaw, Paul John Knowles sought infamy. He was so desperate to be remembered; he recorded his own confession to multiple murders while still a free man, and shared the tapes with his lawyer. Knowles killed indiscriminately, occasionally allowing writers to live—so they could chronicle his story. This week, Greg and Vanessa follow Knowles’ cross-country murder spree to its shoot-out conclusion.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This episode includes. the discussions of murder and assault that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. When authorities cleaned out Paul John Knoll's prison cell in Georgia, they found a letter to Angela Kovic, the fiancé who just a few months earlier had dumped him. In it, he compared himself to Bonnie and Clyde, claiming, quote, When this is over, I will be more famous, or even more so, unquote. On the wall, he wrote, quote,

Paul John Knowles, December 4th, 1974, till question mark. The authorities also found a picture of an electric chair that Knowles had ripped from a magazine. Knowles wasn't afraid of much. He'd stolen cars, kidnapped police officers, and murdered 18 people almost indiscriminately. John Huey, a writer for the Atlanta Constitution, called him, quote, unspeakably evil. But the electric chair? That scared him. Knowles told Sheldon Yavitz, one of his attorneys, that he didn't want to be electrocuted because that's a terrible way to die.

He asked Yovitz to find a way to keep him alive, despite the fact that he surely was looking at the death penalty for the murders he committed. However, in that letter to Kovic, one of the last things he wrote, he favorably drew a parallel between himself and Bonnie and Clyde. And you might remember from our last episode that Knowles idolized other famous outlaws like John Dillinger. And what did they all have in common? They all died in violent shootouts with police. In the end, Knowles got what he wanted. He never saw the electric chair. No, he was shot to death by police.

Hi, I'm Greg Polson, and welcome to serial killers. A podcast diving into the minds and motives of some of the most infamous and notorious serial killers. And I'm Vanessa Richardson. Vanessa will be answering questions I have about the mental makeup of a serial killer. It's important to note that she's not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but like me, she's fascinated by the psychology of serial killers and has done a lot of research for the show. This week, Vanessa and I return with our second episode on Paul John Knowles, the Casanova killer. We're examining the string of heinous murders Knowles committed in 1974. Knowles killed with no regard for age or gender and exhibited very little pattern in his killing style.

We'll try to understand how he chose his victims and his methods, who he chose to spare and why, and what those answers reveal about the person he became by the end of his life. If you want to listen to any previous episodes of serial killers, you can find them all on your favorite podcast directory. Don't forget to subscribe. You can also listen on our website, parcast.com. That's spelled P-A-R-C-C-A-S-T-com. A new episode comes out every Monday. Visit our Facebook page, Parcast.

to join the conversation. To refresh your memory, Paul John Knowles grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. From an early age, he exhibited a proficiency for petty theft. He spent his youth in and out of the Florida School for Boys, a notoriously awful reform school known for a history of abuse and murder of its juvenile inmates. Well, despite his time there, Knowles didn't reform. As an adult, he found himself in and out of prison. But in May of 1974, he received parole and planned to move.

to San Francisco and start a new life with Angela Kovic. Until Angela received a warning from a psychic about a dangerous man who was about to come into her life. So she dumped Knowles. Knowles returned to Jacksonville, got in a bar fight, stabbed the bouncer, was put in jail, and broke out. Then he embarked on his quest to become a famous outlaw. In our last episode, we left Paul Knowles on the road. July 26, 1974. He was speeding away from the home of Alice Curtis, a 65-year-old schoolteacher.

Following his jailbreak, he snuck into Curtis's home and bound and gagged her. At some point during the ordeal, the gag loosened her dentures, and she choked to death. He stole her yellow-dodge demon and fled. Did Knowles intend to kill her so she couldn't identify him? Or was it an accident? Knowles never told anyone. Regardless, she was his first murder. On the run, Knowles took his second victims on the night of August 1, 1974.

That evening, Elizabeth Anderson left two of her daughters at home for what she hoped would only be about an hour. After all, her husband Jack, was due home soon. But then Jack got tied up at work. When he returned to the house, his girls weren't there. They had disappeared. Jack and Elizabeth knew their daughters wouldn't have wandered far on their own. Mylet had asthma and Lillian had thyroid issues. Both needed medication.

For months, police searched for Lillian and Milette, but found no clues as to where they went or what happened to them. Neighbors saw a yellow car on the street the day the girls disappeared. But they never even suspected this could be Knowles and Alice Curtis Dodge Demon. A few months down the road, Knowles would steal a tape recorder from a victim's home. He would use it to record confessions of all of his murders. From those tapes, the police finally learned the fate of the Anderson sisters.

Here's how Knowles recounted it. He encountered the girls on a road where he'd intended to abandon Alice Curtis's car. This wouldn't have been suspicious activity if the girls had been strangers, but they weren't. Noel's mother, Bonnie, was friends with Lillian and Milet's mother, Elizabeth. Knowles feared that the girls would tell their parents that they had seen him with the yellow car and that their parents would tell the authorities. Essentially, he must have seen them as possible witnesses who would connect him to Alice Curtis. So he kidnapped the understatement.

sisters. He strangled them both and dumped their bodies in a swamp. Only decades later, after Jack Anderson died, would his wife Elizabeth purchase a tombstone for the girls and give them a grave? All his life, Jack Anderson refused to believe his daughters were murdered. For all he knew, Knowles exaggerated these two murders, as he had many others. Jack hoped that since police never found their bodies, his daughters could still be alive. He held on to that hope for the rest of his life. Now what's odd here is that Knowles tried to ditch the yellow dodge in Jacksonville, but then after he killed the Anderson sisters, he continued to drive that car for another month.

Right, while he initially viewed it as a risk, maybe that risk was now part of the fun for him. As we'll see, Knowles matches the profile of a thrill killer. He enjoyed outsmarting police. He loved media attention. He kept detailed records of his killings and his, quote, successes, as he referred to them, and he tore out newspaper clippings and recorded diaries. So driving around in a car that would likely implicate himself in a growing number of murders, that's the kind of thrill he wanted.

He didn't even travel very far to find his next victim. On August 2nd, 1974, he found Marjorie Howe in Atlantic Beach, Florida, a town on the east side of Jacksonville. One of Howe's neighbors told police that on the day Howe died, a six-foot-tall man with a light brown hair knocked on her own door looking for someone named Betty Johnson. But the neighbor didn't know anyone named Betty Johnson, and it doesn't seem that Howe did either.

It was probably just a fake name Knowles used to get people to open the door and let their guard down. It's interesting the neighbor reported light brown hair because Knowles actually had distinct red hair. Maybe we can chuck that up to his hair looking a different color in a certain light, or blame it on the sometimes unreliable nature of eyewitness testimony. Well, the neighbor wouldn't open the door for him,

and he left in a car with a peculiar decal on the back, a red demon. The decal on the Dodge Demon, the same car Knowles had stolen from Alice Curtis. At some point, Knowles came back to the neighborhood and potentially tried the same thing on how. He strangled her with a nylon stocking. While Knowles killed in a variety of styles,

this proved his most common method, strangling, specifically strangling a woman with her own stockings. So what does that tell us about him? Well, strangulation can be a crime of opportunity. You don't need any other tools to kill someone. other than your bare hands. Yeah, but if a person kills someone with their stockings or other underwear or clothing? That's probably a little more deranged.

On top of thrill-killing, Knowles also fits the profile for a lust killer. The term lust killer can cover a wide array of types of murder. In an article for psychology today, Dr. Scott A. Bone said that sex is a motive for about 50% of serial killers. Lust murder, or erotophonophilia, defines something more specific. These killers partake in rape, bodily and genital mutilation, necrophilia, cannibalism, even blood drinking. While sometimes a killer will enact any of these horrors to destroy evidence, most of these killers have extreme violent fantasies, often killing their victims during sex. For the more sadistic, the sexualized violence is a tool for the murders to gain further control over their victims and also to degrade them.

This desire to degrade is where strangling a victim with their stocking, or underwear comes in. But it doesn't always fulfill their violent fantasies, which is why they repeat the same behavior over and over and over. Did Knowles partake in the more horrifying acts of erotaphonophilia? Oh, yes, he did. We'll come to that before too long. So back to Marjorie Howe's apartment.

After strangling her, Noll stole two things from How, a rifle and a TV. He gave that TV to Jackie Knight. Our listeners might remember that Jackie Knight was an ex-wife of Knowles. He maintained contact with her after. their divorce, and he'd drop in on her and her children often as he traversed the country, murdering people. He'd bring them gifts, but hesitated to talk about his life and job. He joked about being a robber and bragged about petty thefts. Jackie didn't take him too seriously,

though she must have known, given Knowles' past that these jokes contained elements of truth. In Noll's tapes, he claimed that after killing Marjorie Haou on August 2nd, he picked up a hitchhiker named Alma, raped and strangled her, and left her body in the woods. Police couldn't find any records of a missing woman named Alma, though, so they regarded this victim with skepticism. That might sound foolhardy, but remember, Knowles boasted as many as 35 victims. He could have made this one up. Knowles provided disturbing details about the murder, though.

After killing Marjorie Howe in Atlantic Beach, Knowles moved northwest toward Warner-Robbins, Georgia, a small town roughly four hours from Jacksonville. A day earlier on August 1, 1974, a 13-year-old hitchhiker named IMA Gene Sanders left her home in Warner Robbins. IMAGene should have spent the day babysitting her little sister, but friends came by to pick up IMAGine. IMAGine told her sister to lock the door and then she left. IMAGene ran away from home frequently, and she always came home, so her parents stopped alerting authorities.

But this time, she didn't come home. So eventually they called the police. IMAGene was declared missing. So Imogene left her home on August 1st. Knowles left Atlantic Beach on August 2nd, and not long after, the specific date isn't known, Knowles picked up the hitchhiker he thought was named Alma. Yes. Nolz claimed that he raped and strangled her,

leaving her body hidden in the woods. At some point in the near future, he came back to that location in the woods and found animals had ravaged Imagin's corpse. Nolz took her jawbone, which had detached from her body, and buried it nearby. This is a bit odd, right, Vanessa? Yeah, well, for a number of reasons. It could be that the murderer wants to retrieve or destroy evidence that he or she has left at the scene,

or it's a way for them to feel empowered by the fact that they're doing something so risky without the police being able to catch them. And Knowles liked risk. Knowles also frequently took mementos from his victims, like Alice Curtis's Dodge Demon and Marjorie Howe's TV. It could be that in the absence of having any other reminder of I'm a Jean's Sanders, he visited the crime scene. Do we know if he went back to any other locations of his murders?

We do not. This is a slight change in his MO, right? Two of his murders, Alice Curtis and Marjorie Howe were home invasions. And though he did pick up the Anderson sisters on the side of the road, that was to help cover up the Alice Curtis murder. So what would change that he picked up a hitchhiker at random? Well, he could have done it for the thrill, though hitchhikers are also common victims of lust killers, and don't forget, he wanted to be famous. With more bodies, he'd have a better

shot at notoriety. What about taking the jawbone? Do you think he wanted to keep that as a memento? Well, some killers, like Jeffrey Dahmer, would collect their victim's body parts. This, too, was a means to relive their crimes. But Knowles didn't do this. He kept items, not pieces of human anatomy. Maybe when he saw Imogene's body eaten by animals, it gave him some sense of remorse for once. Was he trying to hide evidence? If so, he did a bad job. He left the rest of her skull and body above ground. In 1976, IMAGine Sanders' skeleton was found, at that point almost unrecognizable as human remains. In 2011, IMAGine's mother and sister submitted DNA samples to a database for unsolved crimes.

A match came back, and police finally figured out who the Alma in Paul Knoll's tapes was. After 37 years, IMA Gene Sanders finally returned to her. her family, and her mother and sister laid her remains to rest. After killing IMA, Nolz dropped in on Jackie Knight and her family, crashing with them for the next three weeks. That may also explain why he went back to IMA Gene Sanders' body. He stayed around the location of the murder longer than he did with his other victims. Since three weeks is a long time to spend with your ex. Knight hinted that Knowles had overstayed as welcome. On August 23rd, Knowles, on the road again, passed through Mussel Sala, Georgia. That's where he met Kathy Sue Pierce, a 24-year-old mother. He strangled her in her home

with the telephone court. In front of her three-year-old son, whom Noles left alive. So here's a strange new development. Noles had already killed two young girls because they could have identified him. This time, he left a young boy who saw him commit his crime unharmed. Why would he do this? This wasn't the only time he spared a boy. He'd do it again at the end of his murder road trip. You might remember, too, from the last episode, that Knowles got along well with Knight's kids. As we've said, Knowles killed across all demographics, except young male children. If he really was abused at the Florida School for Boys, maybe he felt that he couldn't abuse another child like himself. Interesting analysis. Noles left Pierce's body in her

bathroom, took her cash, and then drove north, and kept driving. Two weeks later, on September 3rd, a man named William Bates disappeared after getting drinks in a bar with a red-headed man. In Lima, Ohio. Almost 700 miles from Mucela, Georgia. Police found a yellow-dodge demon near the bar. Alice Curtis's, of course.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1974, a hunter found Bates' naked body in the woods. Knowles had bound and gag Bates with electrical tape before strangling him. There has been speculation that Bates was naked because he and Noles had sex, or intended to. As we said last time, it's unknown how Knowles identified sexually, though reports claim Knowles had relationships with men in prison, and Bates wasn't the only

male victim who Knowles may have had sex with. Nolz took Bates' red Chevy Impala and his credit cards. He'd drive the Impala stealing different license plates and swapping them out until he was apprehended. Over the next week, Knowles drove southwest. First to Montana, then down through Utah, and then into Nevada. He passed through Eli on the eastern side of the state. Over 1,800 miles away from Lima, Ohio, the credit cards he got from William Bates in Lima were maxed out, so he needed more cash.

And when he got the opportunity, he killed for it. On September 12th, Emmer and Lois Johnson, a couple in their 60s from San Pedro, California, were vacationing in Eli. Knowles tied them up, shot each of them behind the left ear, and stole their cash and credit cards. Their bodies weren't discovered for another week. This again was a case where police had no leads

until Knowles confessed to the crime. The same goes for Knowles' next victim. He moved on to Texas. In Seguin, he encountered a motorcyclist, Charlene Hicks, stopped on the side of the road on September 21st. Reports differ on why Hicks stopped there. Some say her motorcycle broke down, and others say she pulled over to admire the view,

but for Knowles it was another eye. opportunity. Knowles abducted, raped, and strangled her, then dragged her body through barbed wire. Is this an example of Knowles mutilating the body in an act of erotophonophilia? Perhaps, but Knowles actually pulled her body away from the road over a barbed wire fence and hid her body amongst the bush where it was discovered four days later. So he didn't see the barbed wire as inspiration? Well, maybe? He never cared much about hiding bodies, but he did with this one. Maybe something happened that made him feel like he needed to be more discreet.

For example, the assault could have occurred near the roadside, and so he feared someone saw him or would see her body. Or maybe something happened during the rape and abduction that led to him wanting to mutilate the body, probably to degrade Hicks. This is frequently found with lust killers. But what is he saying in his tapes? Unfortunately, those aren't available. They were kept in the courthouse in Macon, Georgia, until a flood destroyed them.

Everything we know from the tapes, we know from a second-hand account. In just two months from July to September of 1974, Knowles had taken 10 lives and showed no signs of slowing down. His next murder marked another change in his usual pattern and was followed by several more stark changes that eventually led to his capture. We'll get to that right after this. This is Euphoria Calvin Klein, the new Elixir Collection,

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two outlaws united in love and crime. After a week, Knowles grew tired of her company, killed her and dumped her body in the Mississippi. Wow. Over the next two weeks, Knowles moved back east, and he traveled through Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota, and all the way to Marlborough, Connecticut. On October 16th, he knocked on the door of Karen Wine, a home he seemingly picked at random. Karen wasn't there, but her 16-year-old daughter, Dawn, was. Knowles forced his way into the house

where he raped and strangled Dawn with a nylon stocking. Karen arrived before Knowles left. He did the same to her. Karen Wine's other daughter found the bodies. Knowles stole a stereo and some albums from the Winehouse, which he gave to Jackie Knight as a gift. He also stole a tape recorder. This is the same tape recorder he'd soon used for his confessions.

On October 18th, he broke into the home of 53-year-old Doris Hosey in Woodford, Virginia. He told Hosey he only wanted a gun and that once she gave him one, he would leave. She offered her husband's rifle, hoping to be rid of him. He loaded it and he shot her, then laid the rifle down next to her. That's killing just for the sake. of killing. He didn't take anything else and committed none of his usual sexual abuse. However, threatening someone like this would have at the very least been a form of psychological and emotional torture for Hosey. Aside from building his fame by adding to his body count,

there's nothing more he got from killing her other than the thrill and the sense of dominance. Not long after this, Nolz ended back up in Florida. He picked up two hitchhikers in Key West. Key West sits at the southernmost point of the contiguous United States. So by now, Noles had traversed a significant portion of the country. He planned on killing the hitchhikers, but he got pulled over instead. Remember, though, police didn't know his connection to any of his crimes at this point, and Nolz had changed the plates on the stolen Impala, so the officer that pulled him over was unaware who he had in his grasp, so the officer let Noles go.

This event actually spooked Noles. He knew now that he couldn't get away with murdering the hitchhikers, so he dropped them off in Miami. and then he swung by the office of Sheldon Javitz, his attorney. He surprised Javits with this news. Quote, I have something to tell you. Brace yourself. I'm a mass murderer.

Unquote. Other lawyers would be more shocked by a client telling them this, not Yavits. His Rolodex was full of murderers and drug smugglers, clients who he didn't even attempt to prove as innocent. Instead, he got them off on technicalities. And Javits recommended that Nol's surrender. Noos refused. He told Yavitz he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory and become as famous as Bonnie and Clyde. He gave Yavitz's tapes. Yavitz wrote Knowles a will and then Nolz set out on the road.

On November 6th, Nolz befriended Carswell Carr in a gay bar called the Pegasus in Millageville, Georgia. And here's where Noles escalated to a degree we haven't seen yet. Why now? Maybe, like with Alice Curtis, he knew he'd have to do something far worse to achieve the fame he designed. Or because he'd gotten away with so much, he thought he could commit even the most awful crimes and still elude capture. Or maybe, as some have theorized, he struggled with his homosexuality. His next two murders were extremely violent. They suggest a desire to degrade, and maybe that came from his own internal battles.

Now, technically, his next victim, Carswell Carr, died at home from a heart attack. A heart attack brought on by being naked and stabbed 27 times with a pair of scissors. The only sign of a forced entry in the home was into the bedroom of Carr's 15-year-old daughter Amanda. Nulls kicked in the door and strangled her with stockings. Then he shoved those stockings so far down her throat that a doctor had to extract them. After she was dead, Nulls had sex with her corpse. So, necrophilia. To our knowledge, Noles never did anything like this before or after.

He also ransacked the home, to the point that authorities described it, as looking like an animal had torn through it. He stole Carswell's credit cards, briefcase, shaving kit, IDs, house keys, his watch, and most of his clothing. And then he pretended to be Carswell Car. Knowles wore Carswell's clothes and used his credit cards, and he drove to Atlanta. And that's where Knowles met Sandy Fox,

or rather Sandy Fox met Daryl Golden on November 8th. A reporter who previously covered the Yom Kippur War, Sandy Fox traveled to Atlanta to find a diversion after what she called a, quote, botched assignment in Washington, D.C. for the National Enquirer. One night she went to a bar at the Holiday Inn and met a lanky, red-headed dreamboat, whose looks fell somewhere between Robert Redford and Ryan O'Neill. He told her his name was Darrell Golden, a businessman from New Mexico overseeing a court case involved, a restaurant chain his father owned. He flirted heavily with her. She rejected him at first, saying, you could easily be another Boston strangler for all I know. He didn't accept that as a final answer, though. Later that night, they went to dinner, then her room. In bed together at the end of the evening, she told him. So you're not a Boston strangler after all? What a disappointment.

Who was Darrell Golden? Did Knowles actually kill him? No. Somewhere along the way, Knowles stole his wallet and had been using Golden's identity and credit cards. That's all. Well, in the book Fox wrote about her time with Knowles, she described their week together. He drove her everywhere. In William Bates stolen Impala. Paid for everything with his credit cards. That belonged to Darrell Golden and Carswell Car. Gave her a Mickey Mouse watch.

That belonged to victim Amanda Carr. And he took her to Miami and they went clubbing. She described his dancing as so good, people surrounded him on the dance floor just to watch. Of course, he relished this kind of attention. But things weren't all peachy between Knowles and Fox. She recognized some odd behavior. When they first met, he told her he thought he would die young. At one point, Fox caught him ripping an article out of a newspaper

about the car murders in Millageville. And then there was that conversation Knowles and Fox had in our last episode. In it, Knowles asked Fox to write a book about him, since he believed he'd be dead in under a year. He also mentioned his lawyers had tapes that would make Knowles famous all over the world. Fox wondered if Knowles was a hitman, or if he was on the run for some other reason?

Sometimes he frightened her, though apparently not enough to make her part ways. On the other hand, she did describe him as sympathetic and easy to talk to. They had something in common. They both survived troubled childhoods. She grew up an orphan. Is that why he didn't kill her?

That may be part of it, though Fox thinks he didn't kill her because she was a writer. And why would that be? Well, she wasn't the last writer he spent some time with, so let's circle back on that question. During this trip, without either of them knowing it, Fox introduced Knowles to the woman who would ultimately get him caught. After six days, Fox decided that her romance with Knowles had run its course. He wanted to keep hanging out, but she didn't.

And she dodged him. Fox had introduced him to two friends, James and Susan McKenzie. And they felt bad for him because they thought he was now lonely without her. so they kept hanging out with them. On November 15th, 1974, Knowles offered to give Susan McKenzie a ride to a hair appointment. On the way, he pulled over, Knowles pointed a gun at McKenzie and demanded sex from her.

But she managed to get free and ran out into the road. She flagged down another couple who fled with her to safety. Susan McKenzie told police about Knowles, and they put out an APB on the Red Impala. Before long, he was pulled over. Despite being on a busy street, he drew a sawed-off shotgun on the officer. The officer took cover, radioed for backup,

as Knowles sped off. He pulled into a random carport and left the Impala there, then fled on foot. That same day, November 15th, Knowles forced his way into the home of Beverly Maybe, a resident of West Palm Beach. He claimed that he just committed a robbery and that he only needed a place to hide out.

Despite the fact that maybe was in a wheelchair due to a disability, Knowles tied her up. He physically assaulted her, though he didn't kill her. Instead, waited for maybe sister Barbara Tucker to come home. Tucker had the family's Volkswagen, similar to Sandy Fox. Barbara Tucker was a copywriter. Writers, the only people Knowles liked. When Barbara Tucker arrived,

Noles greeted her with the scary end of his shotgun. Tucker had her six-year-old son with her, so she begged Noles to take her money and her car and leave them alone. Instead, he tied up the boy and kidnapped Barbara Tucker. Knowles again spared the life of a young boy, and this time a disabled woman as well. There's a lot of people he left alive at the end of his spree. Did he have a change of heart? I don't think so, because he wasn't finished.

Over the next two days, he took two more lives. After Nolz left with Tucker and her Volkswagen, Tucker's son wriggled free and ran to a neighbor's house. they called police. According to Tucker, Knowles kept scanning the radio stations, searching for any news about himself, fearing he'd kill her. She just kept him talking about anything to keep him distracted. In the course of these conversations,

he asked her to write a book about him. Nearby, the police found the red Chevy Impala. In it, they found the will that Sheldon Yavitz wrote for him. After months of evading and confusing police, Knowles was finally identified by authorities, through a legal document. Investigators ran his name through the system. Using the photo in his record,

maybe identified her assailant as Paul John Knowles. The police circulated his description and brought in the FBI, who then put out a nationwide alert for Knowles. He'd also left that newspaper clipping about the car murders in the Impala, as well as several items he stole from the car home. Detectives questioned Sandy Fox.

They suspected briefly that she may be Null's accomplice. She traveled with him for a week and Knowles didn't harm her. Instead, he attempted to rape and possibly murder a friend of Fox, who Fox introduced to him. But Fox had no idea of Noll's true identity. Investigators showed her some photos of items taken from Carr's home, asking if they looked familiar.

Fox recognized Carr's clothes as the ones Knowles had been wearing. Detectives also traced the Impala back to its original owner, William Bates in Lima, Ohio. And detectives in Lima compared the first. fingerprints on the Impala with the yellow Dodge Demon they found near Bates' body. They had a match. A store clerk called in a tip that a red-headed man recently used Carswell Carr's credit card to buy cassette tapes. They also found Jackie Knight, who gave them timelines of her knowledge of his whereabouts. She recalled that he mentioned being at Carswell Car's

house on the day of the murders, though he didn't say he murdered them. So, with the knowledge that Knowles was using Cars and Darrell Golden's credit cards, the police tracked the charges, figured out where Knowles had been, and what kind of hotels he stayed in. So far, he'd traveled 37 states, killing 16 people along the way. He started with Alice Curtis in Jacksonville on July 26, 1974, Lillian and Milette Anderson on August 1st, again in Jacksonville, Marjorie Howe in Atlantic Beach on August 2nd, and then I'm a Gene Sanders near Warner Robbins, Georgia.

On August 23rd, Kathy Sue Pierce in Mucela, Georgia, and then all the way up to Lima, Ohio, where he killed William Bates on September 3rd, followed by Emmett and Lois Johnson and Eli Nevada on September 12th. Then Seguin, Texas, where on September 21st, he killed the motorcyclist, Charlene Harris. On September 29th, he threw Anne Dawson's body into the Mississippi after traveling with her for a week. October 16th, he murdered Karen Wine and Don Wine in Connecticut, taking their tape recorder for his confessions. He shot Doris Hosey of Woodford, Virginia on October 18th, and then on November 6th, he brutally attacked and killed Carswell and Amanda Carr.

Police compiled as much of this information as was available to them at the time. Using it, they formulated an idea where he might go next. They staked out his family in Jacksonville and searched the motels in the area. Police were right about one thing. Knowles had driven north and did stay at a motel that night in Fort Pierce, Florida. That's just less than halfway between Miami and Jacksonville on the east coast of Florida. He gave the motel a fake name, pretending he and Tucker were newlyweds. Knowles forced Tucker into the hotel room and tied her up. Like he had done in the car,

he searched for news channels for stories about himself. Tucker saw her own missing person report and grew more scared. She felt that he had a Jekyll and Hyde-style personality. At one moment, he'd be charming, then the next he'd burst into a fit of rage. Sometimes, beating her. Her only defense was to keep talking, trying to divert his focus from the news report that she thought made him so upset. She feared if she didn't, he would kill her. The next morning, November 16th, Null's worried staying in the motel wasn't safe. He fled in the Volkswagen, leaving Tucker tied to the bed in the motel. After 30 hours in captivity, Tucker broke free of her ropes and escaped the motel. Police, now aware of at least some of Nol's murders, at first

couldn't believe they found her alive. She supplied them with a crucial bit of information. Knowles told her he planned on going to Georgia. He almost made it. State Trooper Charles Eugene Campbell pulled over the Volkswagen in Perry, Florida, just 45 minutes from the Georgia border. Campbell attempted to arrest Knowles, but Knowles threatened Campbell with the sought-off shotgun. Then he took Campbell's gun. Nol's made Campbell handcuffed himself into the back of the squad, car. Noles then used the squad car to pull over James Myers, an environmental engineer who was in the area on a business trip. Noles forced Campbell and Myers into the back of Myers rented Grand Torino and drove off with his two new hostages. Noles was not discreet. Witnesses saw both of these

events and immediately notified authorities. Nolz stopped for gas in Lakeland, Georgia, about 90 minutes from Perry. The gas station attended wondered why a cop was riding in the back seat, but since Campbell didn't say anything, the intended didn't question it. When the attendant saw the news, he realized his grave error and called the police. Even though the authorities weren't aware of Knowles' destination, they set up a massive roadblock, hoping to stop him before he could do anything to Campbell and Myers. Knowles navigated on the back roads, trying to avoid the police. 24 hours later, on November 17th, a Georgia sheriff's deputy saw Knowles in the Grand Tarino and pursued him.

On Highway 42, just outside Pulaski, Georgia, Knowles crashed the Grand Turino at the roadblock. He left his sawed-off shotgun and fled on foot, taking Trooper Campbell's pistol instead. An officer shot him grazing his leg, but Knowles kept running. The only signs of Campbell or Myers were Campbell's hat and gun belt in the back of the Impala. Without any blood in the car, police hoped that Knowles left them alive somewhere. An enormous manhunt ensued. Over 200 officers searched the area with bloodhounds. Helicopters circled overhead.

Knowles broke into a boarded-up farmhouse. He had tossed Campbell's firearm in the woods somewhere when he realized it was out of ammo. In the farmhouse, he found a shotgun and a box of shells. Then he went to a nearby house to ask for help. That's where he met David Clark, a Vietnam War veteran who just returned from a hunting trip. Knowles initially asked for help,

then tried to shoot Clark. The shotgun jammed, and Clark grabbed his own weapon. He led Knowles to a neighbor's home, and she called the police. If that gun hadn't jammed, and if Clark hadn't been able to keep his cool under pressure, Knowles probably would have escaped again. Instead, he was finally arrested. And a large crowd of reporters swarmed Henry County Jail where Nolz was held. As he arrived, they closed in on him like a celebrity shouting questions.

He laughed and soaked it in. He never felt so important. He got exactly what he wanted. He became a famous outlaw. And because of his good looks, they called him the Casanova killer. Authorities rushed to find out what happened to Campbell and Myers. Were they alive? Noles killed them both. But he wouldn't tell police where he left the bodies. He wanted to maintain a position of power over authorities even after being apprehended. He told them that just one word would reveal where the men were.

But he wouldn't give them that word. About an hour and a half west of Pulaski in Hawkinsville, Georgia, a hunter stumbled across the sad scene. Myers and Campbell faced down on opposite sides of a tree. Their arms outstretched as if they'd been holding hands. Knowles had cuffed them, shot them, and left them there. He finally told police the word. Pabst.

How did that help, you may wonder? Well, a Pabst brewery was nearby. So then the question became, What did Knowles actually do? How many people did he kill? Why? But he still wouldn't tell authorities anything. Couldn't they just get the tapes from Sheldon Yavitz? Yavitz said he would not turn them over until Knowles died in accordance with Noel's wishes.

When authorities asked Knowles about the tapes, he only said that they held his legacy. We'll return to our story in just a moment. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th. The powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th and the signature

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and get a $50-dollar Best Western Gift Card. a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. And now back to our story. Douglas County Sheriff Earl D. Lee described Noles as, quote, intelligent and mean as hell, unquote. For weeks, authorities tried to get information out of Noles. He continued to toy with them. At one point, though, Lee asked how many he'd killed, and Noles traced 18 on his palm. Then, Knowles wrote down on a paper that he'd committed murders in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Virginia, Connecticut, and Mississippi. But to others, Knowles claimed 35 murders. While entirely possible this is true,

Knowles has only ever been linked to the 18 deaths he admitted to Lee. Those are the ones we chronicled in this episode. Authorities wanted Knowles tapes to get a clearer answer. So a judge jailed Yavitz for contempt. He still wouldn't turn them over. So the judge also jailed Yavit's wife for contempt. So Yavits broke down, went against his client's wishes, and finally gave the tapes to authorities in exchange for his wife's freedom. But he couldn't afford bond for himself, so he remained in jail. Yavits called his friend and mentor, Ellis Rubin.

That's the attention-hungry attorney we mentioned in our last episode, the one with the Spider-Man client. Ruben, too, couldn't get Yavitz released. Yavitz was stuck in the exact place he'd gotten so many of his clients out of. Over the next month, authorities moved Noles around a few prisons. First, back to Millageville to be arraigned for Carswell-Kar's murder. A big crowd awaited him outside the courthouse, and people climbed onto roofs and balconies to get a glimpse of him.

Knowles smiled at everyone. Authorities transferred him to Douglas County Jail, after his preliminary hearing on November 25th. They did this quietly, hoping to avoid attention from the public. Plus, Douglas County Jail was better equipped to deal with a multiple escapee like Knowles. On December 18th, Knowles finally agreed to help police on something. He would lead them to where he discarded Trooper Campbell's sidearm. The police had still not found it.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation hoped that with it they could strengthen their case by solidifying Knowles' connection to the shooting of Campbell and Myers. So Vanessa, why would Knowles agree to this? I don't think he ever intended to actually aid them. Sheriff Lee and GBI agent, Ronnie Angel, drove Noles to the location, with Noles in the back seat of a squad car, the kind that doesn't have a cage in the back.

Sheriff Lee realized Noles had lit a cigarette somehow, so he asked Noles to hand it over. Noles slowly put it out, and Knowles lunged forward. One of his wrists was free. He had picked his handcuffs with a paperclip. Knowles grabbed Sheriff Lee's handgun. He fired the weapon twice while it was still in the holster.

Lee lost control of the car, veering off the freeway. Before Knowles could get the gun free, Agent Angel shot him three times in the chest, arm, and head. Knowles was pronounced dead at the scene. The coroner believed he probably died instantly. Ellis Rubin and Sheldon Javitz declared Nol's death in execution before trial. Yavitz claimed Nolz wouldn't have tried to escape because he couldn't get anywhere with the chains on. Obviously, this doesn't make sense.

Charles Marchman, another Null's attorney, claimed Nol's feared for his life. Marchman had in his possession a letter from Null's former cellmate that said Nolz believed he would be killed before his trial. This was probably true. Knowles talked a lot about how he was going to die young. Still, all three refused to attend the inquest because, according to them, the results were a foregone conclusion. As they predicted, Lee and Angel were cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting of Paul Knowles. So what do you think? Well, Knowles previously escaped custody twice. The first time he held an officer hostage at gunpoint. Very recently, he had shot and killed an officer. He also previously escaped from a locked cell in

Jacksonville, and he repeatedly compared himself to John Dillinger, Jesse, James, and Bonnie, and Clyde. I would venture to say that it is likely Lee and Angel feared for both their lives and the public safety should Knowles escape, and because of that, they took the only course of action that was available to them in the moment. The judge in the inquest certainly felt that way. Authorities also expressed some regret that Knowles died so young. They could have learned more from him. Alabama authorities wanted to question him about the torture and murder of Benjamin. Sherritt, who had been killed in Bruton, Alabama, on October 22nd. In November, someone shot two hitchhikers in Georgia, Edward Hillard and Debbie Griffin. Knowles was in the area at that time,

but his connection to their deaths remains unconfirmed. More requests to review evidence came in from Montana, Arizona, and California. When police tracked the charges on the stolen credit cards, they found he used them in 37 states. A judge listened to Knowles' tapes after he died. On them, Knowles talked about a quest to obtain power, and the only way he could do that was to abduct, torture, or rape people. Taking a human life gave him control and authority that he never had before. He grew more bold as he wasn't held accountable and thought he could get away with anything.

Well, that explains a lot. The stolen cars, dead man's credit cards, the brutality at Carr's house, even maybe why he left some people alive, he thought he'd be able to get away with it, no matter what. Though, I think we know why, specifically, he left Sandy Fox and Barbara Tucker alive. Why is that? Well, a few reasons.

Angela Kovic rushed to be with Noel's family after he died. His ex-fiancee. Right. Kovic said Nolz was deeply religious and spiritual, and that he had believed in an afterlife. She said, quote, I loved him. If he had escaped this time, I would have gone with him. Gone where? Doesn't seem like they'd planned that far in advance. In her mind, she was the bonnie to his Clyde, or so she thought, I guess.

The important part of her statement is Noll's belief in life after death. He instructed Yavetz, quote, to make my life story, record, and history known to the world for the good of society. Knowles suggested books, movies, and television. Knowles recorded those tapes and gave them to Yavitz for the same reason he left Sandy Fox and Barbara Tucker alive after asking them to write books about him. He wanted a permanent record of himself. That would be his life after death.

He hoped fame would make him immortal. His legacy has persisted, as evidenced by the fact that one of his murders was only solved recently. But has he garnered as much fame as Jesse James or Bonnie and Clyde? Not quite. Only Knowles' parents and Angela Kovic attended his funeral in Jacksonville. The priest would not pray for Paul John Knowles to rest in peace. Thank you for listening to Serial Killers. If you enjoyed this episode, please tell your first of you.

friends, don't forget to subscribe to Serial Killers on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Spotify, or any other podcast directory, or through our website, parcast.com. That's p-A-R-C-A-S-T-com. A new episode of Serial Killers comes out every Monday. Let us know what you think and join the conversation on our Parcast Facebook page. You can tweet us at Parcast Network. That's P-A-R-C-A-S-T network. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler and developed by Ron Cutler. It is a production of Cutler media and is part of the Parcast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Ron Shapiro,

with production assistance by Joel Stein and Maggie Admeyer. Serial Killers is written by Zach Cannon and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush. and silence. I've seen something in there. A sleeping bed.

And there was a full of blood. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 is out now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest. and then strikes again.

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