Paul John Knowles

What the record shows

Paul John Knowles, known in the press as the Casanova Killer, was linked to at least 18 killings committed between late July and mid-November 1974 after he escaped from a jail cell in Jacksonville, Florida. The killings attributed to him took place in Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Nevada, Texas, Connecticut and Virginia, with Georgia accounting for the largest share. He was arrested in Henry County, Georgia, on November 17, 1974, and was charged with murders in Georgia, Florida and Ohio, but he never went to trial: on December 18, 1974, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent shot him dead during a transfer, in what authorities described as an escape attempt. Because he was never tried, none of the killings resulted in a conviction.

Knowles was born in Orlando in 1946 and, according to the Wikipedia article, spent much of his childhood in foster homes and in the Florida School for Boys before serving adult prison terms. News4JAX reported in 2022 that in the summer of 1974 he was being held in Jacksonville for stabbing a bartender when he picked a lock and escaped. That same night, according to News4JAX and WGXA, Alice Curtis, a 65-year-old retired teacher in Jacksonville Beach, was bound and gagged during a robbery and died; she is regarded as his first known victim. Marjorie Howie, 49, was later found strangled in her home in Atlantic Beach, and News4JAX reported that Knowles is believed responsible. He also claimed in a letter to have killed two Jacksonville sisters, Annette and Mylette Anderson, who vanished in 1974; prosecutors later concluded he was responsible, but their bodies were never found and some investigators doubted the claim, so they are not included in the count of 18.

In Georgia, the GBI said in 2011 that investigators had found evidence that Knowles murdered Ima Jean Sanders, 13, of Warner Robins, who disappeared on August 1, 1974. Her skeletal remains were found in Peach County in April 1976 and identified through DNA in 2011; a 1975 letter from the U.S. Attorney summarizing Knowles's taped confessions had described a teenage hitchhiker who called herself Alma. Kathy Pierce, 24, was killed in Musella in Crawford County later in August. The Wikipedia article attributes the September 1974 deaths of William Bates near Lima, Ohio, of Emmett and Lois Johnson at a rest stop near Ely, Nevada, and of Charlynn Hicks near Seguin, Texas, to him. Ann Dawson, a Birmingham, Alabama, beautician, disappeared after meeting him in late September; Knowles claimed to have put her body in the Mississippi River, and remains were found in Mississippi in 1977.

On October 16, 1974, Karen Wine, 35, and her 16-year-old daughter were killed in their home in Marlborough, Connecticut, according to the Wikipedia article, and two days later Doris Hosey, 53, was shot with her husband's rifle. News4JAX reported that Knowles's confession tapes described killings in Virginia as well as Connecticut, Nevada and Texas. In early November he was in central Georgia. Two hitchhikers, Edward Hilliard and Debbie Griffin, disappeared near Macon on November 2, and remains were later found in Crawford County; the Wikipedia article says Knowles is reportedly suspected in their deaths. On November 6 in Milledgeville, Carswell Carr was stabbed to death and his 15-year-old daughter Mandy was strangled after Carr invited Knowles to spend the night, according to WGXA and The Atlanta Constitution.

On November 16, near Perry, Florida, Knowles took Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Charles Campbell hostage, used the patrol car to stop motorist James Meyer, a businessman from Wilmington, Delaware, and drove both men into Georgia. They were found handcuffed to a tree in Pulaski County, each shot in the head, the GBI and WGXA reported. The next day Knowles crashed through a police roadblock in Henry County and fled on foot, firing at officers. He was cornered hours later by an armed resident outside the search area and handed over to Henry County investigators, according to the Wikipedia article and the AJC.

Knowles had mailed audio-taped confessions to a Florida attorney. The GBI said litigation over the tapes reached the federal appeals court, that a federal grand jury was allowed to review them in 1975, and that the only copies were later destroyed in a flood at the federal courthouse in Macon. The AJC reported that the tapes described 16 murders and that he claimed between 20 and 35 killings in all; investigators have linked him to at least 18, and the true number is not known.

On December 18, 1974, Douglas County Sheriff Earl Lee and GBI Agent Ronnie Angel were driving Knowles along Interstate 20 to search for Trooper Campbell's missing handgun. Authorities said he freed himself from his handcuffs and grabbed the sheriff's revolver, which fired, and Angel shot him three times in the chest; the car left the road near Lithia Springs. Knowles was 28. His Miami attorney, Sheldon Yavitz, publicly doubted the escape account, the AJC reported. The killings were never tested in court.