Paul John Knowles

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dark Cast Network indie pods with a dark side.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Sometimes it's not the loudest stories that keep us up
at night. It's the quiet ones, the ones that never
quite made the headlines, the ones that left behind more
questions than answers. The Final Trace is a true crime
podcast about the strange, the unresolved, and the stories that
slipped through the cracks, from disappearances to mysterious debts to

(00:26):
cases that were technically solved but still don't sit right.
We dig into the overlooked, the eerie, and the human
side of every story, because even when a case goes cold,
there's always something left behind, a clue, a feeling, a
final trace. Follow the Final Trace wherever you listen to
podcasts and confined with still lingers in the silence. I'm

(00:50):
your host Hopper Daily, and this is the Final Trace.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Devil is on his way.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Devil is on his way. Devil is on his way.
Mother for God, the devil gonna make you pay.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Fall to your knees.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Devil is on his way. Fall to your knees.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Devil gonna make you pay fall to your knees.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Devil is on his way.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Hey, y'all, Welcome back to Mountain murders. I'm Heather and
we have a special guest in our studio today. Dylan
was unavailable, so the Ghost of Ed Geen It will
be co hosting today. How you doing, ed, Hey, Heather,
how's it going.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
I'm just babysitting kids, okay, all right, working on a
sewing project.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
You like arts and crafts?

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, you know, I like to go.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Out bones about it. You like arts and crafts, No
bones about it.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
I like to you know, just.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
You just can't do it. I can't stick with it.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
I'm sorry. So obviously we've been watching the Netflix series
Monster EDG the ed Genes story, and uh, what are
your thoughts, Heather. I think it's I think it's pretty good.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Well, I'm kind of on the fence about Ryan Murphy shows.
They sometimes they're hit or miss for me, right, Like,
there are some seasons of American horror story that were
well done and then others that just really did not
hit the mark for me, or they kind of suck.
And it's the same thing with this Monster series, because

(02:53):
I really felt like the Menindas Brothers series was pretty
fucking bad. Not like it. I didn't think it was
well done. I thought it was ridiculous and took too
many like creative liberties, if you will. But so far
with the ed Gan, it started off maybe a little boring,
and maybe it has some lulls here and there, but

(03:15):
overall I'm enjoying it. It's entertaining.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, And I think what's selling it is Charlie.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
That man could tell me anything.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Charlie Hoonan's performance. I think that's the most impressive part
of the series so far.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
From me, I think his body is the most impressive
part of the series for me. That man is jacked.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
No, he is jock.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
I even know how you get that ripped up, And of.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Course in a rhyme Murphy series, you're gonna get see
every inch of them.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Oh yeah, but not complaining.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
I'm amazed though, for his departure from the you know,
kind of bad boy, handsome whatever, hotty guy, which he's
done basically in some type or some way in every
role he's ever done.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Apparently you've never seen Nicholas Nickleby be it huh classic.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Be it a Sciphi or anything like that. He always
still kind of has that you know, same thing. But
this I feel like it's a real departure for him.
He's really immersed hisself in the character.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
Right. I wasn't sure if he was going to be
able to pull it off because Mike, wait a minute,
he's a pretty handsome guy. And ed Geen is not
I mean back in the day if they had been
on that website hot or not, like in the late nineties,
ed Green is definitely not. What do you mean, Heather,
You're not hot?

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Ed?

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Sorry, not my type. Okay, you a little little too
uh bony for me, if you know what I'm saying. Nice, No,
but so far, Yeah, I think he's he's really kind
of embracing the character and bringing a certain kind of charm,

(04:52):
but almost like creepiness to the character.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, yeah, No, definitely like a subtle creepy.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Like a little like he just makes you feel a
little unsettled right right.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
And it's much more realistic than and if it was,
you know, he was being weird and like overtly.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
I think it's the voice that does it for me.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Well, okay, have you met my mom?

Speaker 3 (05:17):
She's a ray of sunshine. It's too much, it's too much,
you have to stop.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Oh and Jackie from what's her name? Jackie from Roseanne
is what I always called her she just played god
his mom was a or at least in this portrayal.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Oh, she was an old battle axe.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
A freaking asshole dude.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, I know. Supposedly she was just as bad, if
not worse, in real life.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
So like people around town knew that she was just
this old, crotchety, very narrow viewed person. You know, if
you don't align with her.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
She's an old, heightful bit's what you're trying to stay doing.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Hey, you found the words I was grasping for.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, I mean she was not a pleasant person and
I think Ed definitely had some mommy issues. Yeah, Dylan,
we have an interesting case to discuss today.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, I know, I'm kind of blown away. You know,
you told me a little bit about this, and I
really this is totally unknown to me.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
As I mentioned before, we're going to be discussing a
serial killer. Others may consider this person to be more
of like a spree killer or a thrill killer. But
I think maybe he's a serial killer. I think he
just maybe likes to kill people.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
You know, over the years, it's like people really want
to make a a comparison or point out the differences
between a serial killer, a spree killer, and I'm just like, dude,
I mean, you're killing multiple people in a very short
period of time.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
You're killing me smalls.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
And it's I mean, is there I think I almost
think it's a serial killer who happens to be, you know,
doing this other activity.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Quit it picking it dude, people.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Before we dig into it, I would like to say
we had a blast at the Horror car Oh.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, man, we had a great time at Carolina's horror
Fest in Ashville over the weekend. We got to meet
some great folks and we got to meet a longtime listener, Ashley,
so big shout out to Ashley, thanks so much for
traveling travel a few hours up to Ashville to meet us.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yes, Ashley and Ross, it was very nice meeting you.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
Yeah, they were super cool and.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
We saw it super cool. Maybe we'll grab a beer sometime.
And we also saw some great costumes. Okay, wow, yeah,
saw some great costume.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
There was a Santa Art, the clown, the Terrifier, Yes,
he was amazing. We had Doctor Loomis and Michael Myers,
what a cute couple. Leather face, yeah, leather face, and
he even had a little chainsaw. I was carrying around.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
We have some iconic costumes, and I gotta say, it's
so fun watching people who love something, whatever it is,
whatever the con might be, you're at just people who
really as you can tell, they really love, you know,
this is their hobby or their passion.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
Are you gonna host Cereal con?

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (08:21):
I really love cereal and so we're gonna have a
I'm gonna host a Cereal con and you'll have like
really passionate about it.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Your your special guest could be like the guy who
voices Tony the Tiger. Yeah, they're great.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
Someone can We'll get Captain Crunch there?

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Okay, yeah, what about.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
The frog from Honey Smacks?

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Count Chocula?

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yes, yeah, I have to break down and admit, Dylan,
I did buy a box of Count Chocula for the
simple nostalgia.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Well, it's good.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
It's like a taste of my childhood.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Let's be honest.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
I was never a big fan of what is it
the Booberry?

Speaker 1 (09:00):
You know, I could not describe what Booberry tastes.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Like because what's the other one that's like the pink
characters at Frankenberry.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Or yeah I think it is.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah, but the cat chocola is where it's at for me.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, but you know it doesn't taste as good as
when you were a kid.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Well probably not. I haven't even opened it yet. I'm
sort of just like saving it, admiring the box, pretending
it's the eighties, simpler times when things made sense.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
Okay, so all right, so let's dig into this case.
I think it's a great story.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
That shout out to Luke, our newest patron.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Hey, Luke, thank you so much for your support over
there on Patreon. We really appreciate it and we hope
you enjoyed the ad free in extra content.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Absolutely, And speaking of ad free extra content, Dylan, we
will be dropping a second episode in our West Memphis
three series. We are doing the deepest dive over on.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Patreon, and we're never coming up for it.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
All the things you think you know about the West
Memphis three, we're gonna teach you some more things that
you didn't know.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
No, in all honesty, the first episode was a blast.
We hope some of our patrons have already had a
chance to check that out.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Oh, I've had patrons demanding when is the second episode
coming out?

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Because there truly is a lot of information in there.
You thought you might know the case inside and out.
But Heather is in true Heather fashion, going to die
very deep and I can't wait for the next installment.
It's gonna be so much fun.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, So we'll be dropping that in a couple of days. Dylan,
all right, are you ready, let's do it? Are you
strapped in?

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah? I think I got all my wiggles.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Is that your helmet on?

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Definitely need to be wearing a helmet, all right, Paul, Joan, Joan, Paul,
I'm off to a great start here. Paul John Knowles
was born April seventeenth, nineteen forty six, in Orlando, Florida,
but grew up in Jacksonville. He was the youngest of

(11:02):
five children born to Thomas and Bonnie Knowles. His father
was a hard working blue collar carpenter. Described as an
intelligent but destructive child, Paul was incorrigible. Being the youngest,
you could say he was babied, which only fueled his mischief.

(11:22):
By the time he reached school age, Paul was known
for back talking adults and running wild. Dylan, Oh gosh,
running wild. He avoided schoolwork, other boys seemed to gravitate
to him, kind of making Paul the leader of this
troublesome group. So like all the bad kids in the

(11:44):
neighborhood wanted to be Paul's friend.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
So he's like captain of the misfits.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, I guess you could say that. Yet, some reports
described Thomas, his father, as being physically abusive to his children,
especially his young son Paul. The reports of abuse were
so severe that Paul often ran away from home, preferring
to sleep in the woods rather than be at home.
And that reminds me a lot of Eileen Warness's background, right, Yeah,

(12:14):
in nineteen fifty three, Paul was seven years old. It
is at this time that he began stealing bicycles.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
What you know, as bad as that would be any
time during your life, if you lived around someone that
was physically, mentally, sexually any of the abusives to such
a degree, you would rather sleep in the woods than
you know, go home where you should feel safe. I
think when it happens to a child, it's just, you know,

(12:42):
it's so so much worse, because that really is the
time in your life when you should be you should
feel comfortable, security, nurtured, and secure. You feel secure because
you know the world's out there just waiting for you.
But as children, you're supposed to remember back before you
were thrust out into the cruel world. You know.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Now, I'm trying to remember being seven years old and
I was hardly a criminal. So we've got Paul. I mean,
he's already off to some shenanigans at a very early age,
stealing bicycles that I would say, that's a big deal.
Well yeah, you know, back then especially bicycles were very

(13:22):
important to kids. It was their mode of transportation, probably
expensive for most families.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Well look, it's no different than an adult coming out
and their car's gone. Well yeah, I mean really to
a kid, and from their perspective, you know, that's their
whole that's their whole thing there there. You're proud of
your bike, You love it. Maybe you wanted a certain
one for you know, a while, and then you finally
got it for a birthday or a Christmas.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
For me, it was the he Man bicycle. For blue.
It was he Man and we bought it at Low's.
Lows used to sell bicycles back in the day.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
For me, it was a white hoofey with white tire.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, I know, you know that sounded like a.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
Really good, so fresh and so clean clean.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
And you know what, I lived in the country.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
So a seven year old came along and stole your bike.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
No instantly, the tires were like red clean but colored
for the rest of its existence. But you couldn't tell
me I had character, bro, You couldn't tell me anything
on the showroom floor at Walmart or wherever we purchased it.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Kind of like a roses or something.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
It was pimp as hell.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
Thomas and Bonnie tried to get a handle on their
son without luck. If they try to confront or contain Paul,
he would explode into violent rages. Like even as a
little kid.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
No, you know, little kids get upset and cry or
you know, raise a little hell. But when true rage
or anger coming from a child, I would that would
I would find that unsettling, to say the least.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Finally, Thomas seemed to just give up on disciplining like
his son at all and just allowed state authorities to
take over. Paul told a prison psychiatrist quote, I'm a criminal,
and I've been a criminal since I was a little kid.
Nothing good ever happened in my life. So he does
not believe he had a good childhood. Now, by the

(15:16):
age of seventeen, Paul was sent to Florida Like School
for Boys, one of those training schools that we've heard
so much about.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
So is this like a reform school or kind of well?

Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yeah, right right, well, no, what do you think it is, Dylan,
What are they training them to do?

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Well? You know, the claim is they're just learning how
to be better criminals from the all.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
That's exactly what it is. I mean, have you ever
heard of a like boys school being a good place?

Speaker 1 (15:45):
No?

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Sometimes I just think you're a little goofy.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Well I've actually no, I've never heard of a people
saying they had positive experiences at these places exactly. And
it's almost like they had a gosh, no oversight or
no direction or outline as to how the you know,
boys or girls should be treated.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
Well, I gotta saying. Paul was sent to the Florida
School for Boys six times by the age of seventeen
for crimes ranging from breaking and entering to grand larceny.
Every time he was released, Paul would return to Jacksonville
to continue his crime spree. If you will. He had
no desire to stop, and it did not seem like

(16:29):
any amount of punishment. No matter what you threw at
this kid, you threaten to put him back in the
boy's school. He just did not give a fuck, Dyllain.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
So what do you even do with someone that's like that?
You know, I don't know, man, I mean, because the
threat of punishment is supposed to supposed to be the deterrent, right.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
Well, that's what they say.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
And uh. And if you have someone who don't give
any fucks and they don't care, and they're just stonefaced
when they're you know, in front of judges.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
Or incompatible with society, let's be honest.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it really seems to be the case.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
Send them off to like a small island where they
can fit for themselves. Well, I think we should surrounded
by sharks. It's called Alcatraz by they shut it down.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
By a little sweet little island, and just send all
the people who don't seem to want to play well
with the others. And we could just send them all
there to live.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
It could be like Escape from New York, where you
put all the criminals on this island and just like
let them be. But you have security surrounding the island
so they can't escape right right right, and just let
them do what they do.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, and then you could live stream that and then like.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
The rest of us are just like safe from those people,
and you.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
Could live stream that and people could watch like prison
cam or whatever you want to call island cam, gosh,
and it could be like a reality show you don't see.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, that's probably that's the future. It's the future we
are headed for.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Her'd be like budding relationships. There's all these words sometimes
non consensual.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Little gangs and stuff. Paul had been obsessed with criminal
celebrities from an early age, like you know, Bonnie and Clyde,
John Dillinger, baby Face Nelson. He would read books about
these American outlaws, get copies of those true detective true
crime magazines, those pulp magazines that were so popular back

(18:29):
in the fifties. Yeah they's fifties, sixties.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
But you know, you'd have these those are all very dangerous,
terrible people you're describing, mentioning. But it was romanticized. Their
exploits were romanticized, and they were almost like folk heroes
to it.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Absolutely. Paul also had a reputation for violence against women.
A woman named Kathy Hardy would later come out and
do some interviews. Her brother had ran with Paul's little gang,
and she said he was terrifying. If Paul liked a
girl and she rejected him, Kathy said, quote watch out.

(19:05):
He had a serious temper and would punch a girl
or woman in the face without even thinking about it.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Damn.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
There were many times Paul was beaten up by the
brother or boyfriend of one of these girls, but that
didn't slow him down. He didn't care if they kicked
his ass.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
I don't care how many times you hit me in
the face, you son of a bitch. I'm still gonna
punch your sister.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
Maybe he likes it, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
He's like, I will punch you and didn't get his
ass whoopd by like every dude, which totally makes sense
because any guy wants to hit on women like that,
it's usually a freaking dork or coward.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
Kathy knew how to play him. She kind of learned,
I guess early on, having been around him, that there
were ways to manipulate Paul. Paul loved flattery. For example,
to get along with him, Kathy would brag on what
a bad boy he was. When Paul would say one
day he was going to be a famous criminal. Kathy

(19:59):
would play ca by saying, you better give me your
autograph now before you get famous. Oh, paul ate this
up with a spoon. I mean, he like relished in
these compliments. So the more she kind of like greased
his ego, you know, then he was cool. He was
nice to her, he liked her, he treated her well.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
So it's funny she's found you have a person who
is doesn't care, does what they want, no impulse control,
you know, actually a dangerous individual to be around, right
for many reasons. They can get you in trouble, you know,
in legal trouble with them. I don't even like hanging
around people like this. This is way too unpredictable for me,

(20:45):
you know what I mean. I like to know what think,
I know what my friends are gonna do. But she's
found a way to manipulate, kind of the manipulator, if
you will. Like.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
Fortunately for me, I haven't been around too many people
like this in my life, just hardened criminals.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Well, no, I would be like, why do you do it?
You know if someone just all of a sudden is like,
I'm gonna go rob this convenience store.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
I would be like, what, No, Yeah, it's not like
I've ever, you know, tried to seek out these folks.
And I'm pretty lucky that I've never been around too
many of these types of people now. During a car
theft in March of nineteen sixty five, an officer pulled
Paul over driving a stolen car. Paul grabbed the policeman's gun,

(21:26):
forced him into the car, but then released him two
hours later. Well, it didn't take long for Paul to
be arrested. He was convicted of kidnapping the police officer.
Paul would be sent to state prison for five years,
and Paul had learned The boys' school was no walk
in the park, but prison was far worse. The food

(21:46):
was terrible, the hygiene standards were very low. Paul began
engaging in violent sexual encounters with mal inmates. It is
said this led to him being unable to achieve orgasm
with women, which in turn made him angry.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
God, what a what a weird loop to be called
in right, called in a trap. So, I like your man,
bud Crack, unless I'm Mail, I.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
Can't get it up for my lady.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
So unless I'm Mail, and you're basically raping me.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
You can't get it, can't do it for me, Bud.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, I wonder how that conversation with a doctor would go.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
I'm like, big, I gotta creep up from behind black.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Dock, you guy. Any thing that can make me get
sexually aroused around females without thinking about raping males exactly right.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
Far from rehabilitated, Paul was released from prison after serving
two and a half years of the sentence. Again, it
does not take long for him to get caught attempting
to break in break and entering, which sent him back
to Raye for Prison to finish out the remainder of
his center. He was released on May tenth of nineteen

(23:03):
seventy with a new suit, twenty five dollars in cash,
and a parole officer.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
I'm sure the suit's going to make all the difference
in Paul's life.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
It's gonna make him feel quite important. When he had
been released in nineteen sixty seven, Paul had met the
Knight family. Soon he was visiting the couple in their
three children regularly. You know, now that he's out of prison,
he can go hang out with his new friends. He
became a staple around the house, Paul enjoyed taking their

(23:34):
children to local fairs and winning prizes for them. When
he went back to prison for violating his parole, the Knights,
the husband and wife had separated. Jackie Knight began writing
Paul in prison. Soon a romance blossomed.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
The kids would be like, Uncle Paul, why are you
always wearing that jail suit.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
They actually did call him uncle.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Paul, really they did. That's awesome, Like we're at the fair.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
You could wear short.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
It's uncle Paul. Think that suit off.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
And I don't know about you, Dylan, but when I
think of prison, I think of romance blossoming.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah, some people, well maybe there were I guess maybe
there were fireworks between them or around Well.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Rihanna said that she fell in love in a hopeless place.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
So so that maybe there's some kind of unrequieted love
or sexual tensions, you know.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
I mean, I can see the benefits of dating a
man who's incarcerated. I mean, you always know where he is, right,
he's not up in your face twenty four to seven.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
No, it's one of those relationships where you can have
an interaction, but you're not you're not getting smothered, right,
You know what I'm built for this.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
I need to find myself a guy who's like on
death row.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Or you you could just find it.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
So I like talk to him for like a couple hours,
or write him a letter, and then just like go
back to my life and have my you know, my
bed to myself. I don't really have to engage with
him that often.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Or you can get with a blue collar worker because
y'all probably won't.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
Sleep in the sundbad sometimes you are home and then
you get on my nerves. So I don't know. Paul
promised Jackie that when he was released from prison he
would marry her and quote, go straight. I don't know
if that meant he was gonna stop getting in trouble
or he was gonna quit raping other men? What too much?

Speaker 1 (25:24):
No, that's really great take. I mean that's a valid point.
I would say, we need to see exactly what you
mean by that, or could you do both? I mean,
you know it'd be crazy. You know, he's got like
his closet full of suits, or he's released out of
jail so many times. You know, at what point do
they just realize this person doesn't want to.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
He doesn't want a suit damn it.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Maybe he wants a pair of coup locks and a
damn T shirt. You know, I don't think.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Men wear cool lots, Honey. I think that's like a
it's not a lady thing.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
But like I went to prison and all I got
his stupid T shirt.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yeah, he might be happier with that, Okay. Jackie and
Paul married upon his release from Rayford. The relationship had
been better at a distance. Jackie is learning the hard
way now she got put up with him.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Now. I've seen this phenomenon many a time on Love
after lock Up. Oh yeah, these people have these relationships
and it's and also what happens I think is when
you have a long distance.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Relationship, she gets out of jail, she steals his car,
she gets arrested for smoking crack.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, and like seals the rental car or whatever. Yeah.
But also when you're having this relationship through us, say
the mail or you know, emails or texting, it's very wordy.
It's it's really uh gosh, flowery, and you know.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
You're just well, you can put your best foot forward, yeah, right,
you can play a character, you can live up to
this person's romantic prince charming expectations, and then in real
life they find out you're just like a cloud.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Well, and you also don't have you can do all
that well, I love you and all this stuff, but
you also don't have have to do the you know,
the other parts of relationships. You know, you don't have
any responsibility out the trash. You get a job or
you know, you know, straighten your shit up. So I
could imagine that oftentimes these relationships do go sideways once

(27:25):
the people you know, get together in the same.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
Room, go out for milk, that kind of thing. Paul
couldn't find a job. No one wanted to hire an
ex con. He soon gave up looking for work. Paul
returned to his criminal friends. He was drinking and you know,
just sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing. Finally,
Jackie had had enough. She took her three children and
moved to make in Georgia. She had the marriage annulled.

(27:50):
Despite this, Jackie and Paul did keep in touch and
had some sort of amicable type of relationship. Okay, even
after the annulment, Paul just could not stay out of trouble.
Dylan and I don't know what it is, but there
are these people that no matter what you could offer

(28:10):
them the world on a silver platter, they're gonna always
make the wrong choice and always end up right back
in trouble YEP. In September of nineteen seventy one, he
was caught breaking and entering again that the maximum penalty
was fifteen years. A judge sentenced him serve only three
years for the felony.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
See I mean, gosh, here we are yet again. You
have this career criminal since they were very young in
and out, never learn their lesson and they never get
like serious time. You know, at what point are they
just like, Okay, you don't want to be part of society.
You're going to jail for thirty years.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
While in prison, Paul was given certain privileges after a year.
And that's the thing, like you throw them in prison,
but then you're gonna like kind of give them, uh
I guess, like the minimum security type of setting where
he can have privileges and he can, you know, drive
a vehicle around the you know, things like that. One

(29:12):
day Paul just up and leaves jail. He's just like, yeah,
I'm piecing out because the security was laxed and he
had these special privileges and just like walked out the
front door. Police caught up to him. He ended up
fighting with the officers, but was returned to Rayfer Prison anyway. Still,
nothing would stop Paul Knowles. He was truly beyond reform.

(29:37):
During his nine years on and off in the Florida,
Florida prison system, Knowles was described as a loaner. Other
inmates considered him to be a rat, although there is
no evidence to support that. He was like a criminal
informant of any kind.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
So he just had rat energy.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
He had rat energy. When given an IQ test in prison,
he scored a one twenty five, which was well above
the other inmates. Paul didn't make friends, so again he's
this loaner. But he did have interests hobbies much like
ed Gean. You know, he liked arts and crafts. No,

(30:15):
he didn't really, I like to make stuff.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
No.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
For some reason, Paul was into astrology. He read horoscopes
every day. He relied on the details to dictate like
how the day would go. If the horoscope was positive,
Paul would become guinny, giddy, almost manic. Like first thing
in the morning, he reads his horoscope and if it's

(30:41):
you know, good news, then he's like in a great mood,
over the top energetic.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
So you know, I think this right here, what you're describing,
and so I assume if it's a gloomy outlook for
the day, that's that's how he's gonna that's what his
mood's gonna be.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
Well, if the horoscope didn't live up to his expectation,
Paul would become sullen, sour, gloomy.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
As you said, Yes, that's how that works. And people
are like, wow, my horoscopes are so dead on, but
they're actually you know, affecting their days through this very
method right here.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
Paul also developed an interest in Tarot cards and became
a skilled tarot like tarot card reader. I don't know
if he was giving readings to the other inmates, but
he would give himself tarot card readings, right Paul found
a personal ad for a woman in American astrology magazine
in early nineteen seventy three. Apparently people would put these

(31:37):
personal ads seeking pin pals and that type of thing
in the back of this astrology magazine, Dylan, Okay, which
I think a lot of magazines offered that like pin
pal or personal ad type of thing back in the day.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
I think you can find all kinds of stuff in
the back of magazines, like X ray glasses.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
My gun magazines, stuff like that. Looking for a lady
who wants to talk about guns, you know, stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
I'm just looking for a lady likes a not strong
airrees like me, because I'm I'm bold. Ram stuff.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
Okay, that's my.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
That's my advertisement for me, in the back of a stuff. Yeah, well,
my my big ram head's are Okay, I think it's
a ram.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
You don't even know it it is. Angela Kovic was
a cocktail waitress in San Francisco. Kovic's mother was a
well known local psychic. The mother apparently read some of
Paul's letters and was like, hey, Angela, you know, I
think maybe you found a winner here. Okay, this guy

(32:46):
who's in prison who's also into astrology.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Well, I mean he's he's held it down. He's been
in prison for a long time, right, I mean, he's
really good at that.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
Angela and Paul shared an interest in esoteric teachings, and
she also found these letters to be alluring. Angela had
a husband that had also been serving time in a
California prison, so she was sympathetic to Paul's situation in Florida,
she hired an attorney to secure his release so that

(33:18):
he could, you know, be parolled and join her in California.
Angela Kovic even visited him in September of nineteen seventy
three before his release. It was during this visit that
Paul proposed to Angela and she accepted. I love you, baby,
It's really romantic.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
I ain't just saying this because you got me a
lawyer and stuff and gave me put some money on
my books.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
My horoscope said love is in the air. You flew here.
You was in the air, so see, you must be
the one. I was like, my girl's in the air
right now. It's true. Love is in the air, dyling God.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Horscopes be dead on, don't they? It really works.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
I've read a few that do seem to kind of
be spot but I don't know.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
Well, look here's the thing, and I don't know.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
If I like fully believe in that stuff.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
No, it's well, look, I gotta say, anyone I've ever
been around who was intoscope, horoscopes and astrology, they were
usually a fairly positive, cool person, you know, very seldom
do you see someone who's into something like that, angry
just a stick in the mud like that ain't true,
there's staying horsecope, don't know me.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
And now I do think there is something authentic about
the star signs though certain people you can kind of
pick what I can kind of pick, like I say,
I can pick their star sign based on their personality traits,
and they do have. There are certain people under certain

(34:47):
signs that have certain traits.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Well know that when you read the disc That's the
part of it that I've ever seen. When the basic
description of who you know whatever, it usually pretty true,
you know. But it's what I think is kind of funny,
is like the daily horoscope stuff, right, because oftentimes it's
very very vague. It's just like, well, yeah, why breather too.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Have you ever had a birth chart? Like, have you
ever had a birth chart created for you?

Speaker 1 (35:18):
No?

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Well I have, and I'm gonna say it was kind
of eerie.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Really.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah. You type and you know, like your your birthday,
the time you were born, where you were born, so
it comes up with like the coordinates for the city,
the state where you were born, the town where you
were born, and it does give at least mine was
pretty eerie because I was like, what the hell this is?

(35:45):
Sounds a lot like me. I don't like.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
It interesting, I should try.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
That, Okay. So while a waiting release, Paul earned a ged.
He had begun taking college courses in California. Angela had
promised get him a sign painting job. He told the
parole board that before he met Angela, he was aimless,
but after finding the love of a good woman, Paul

(36:09):
was willing to shed his criminal ways. He was a
changed man, Dylan. He wanted to turn his life around.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Him pursues passion of painting signs.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
He was released under the condition that a you know,
California official pro you know, like I guess probation officer
or whatever would monitor his parole status. Paul had too
many bad friends in Jacksonville and Florida. Officials kind of
felt that a change of scenery would be good for
Noleson saw it as a positive. So they did encourage

(36:43):
him to, you know, get out of Dodge.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
They encourage him to leave so they don't have to
deal with him anymore. Yes, because Paul is hundreds of
thousands of dollars into local resources.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
Right, Paul left for San Francisco on May fourteenth of
nineteen seventy for When he arrived at Angela's house, the
reunion did not go as expected. Angela had changed her
mind about marrying him after a psychic told her quote,
a dangerous man would be entering her life.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Oh my gosh, Like last minute, she's all for it,
and then the ominous warning from the psychic. Yeah, and
she's like, oh my god, I can't do this. And
while she's this is happening, Paul's en route. Love is
in the air from Florida to California.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
Love is in the air, Dylan Now she was afraid
of Paul, realizing the error in judgment. For a week,
Paul spent nights at her mother's house. Angela wouldn't even
like house him under the same roof or sleep in
the bed with him.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Well, I knew, I know that I told you I
loved you and we'd be together. But I need you
to go stay at my mom.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
I need you to go over there. Yes. Finally, Angela
told him that she wanted to reconcile with her ex husband.
This rejection deeply impacted Paul. He returned to Florida in
a state of extreme agitation. Immediately, Paul got into a
bar fight and injured the bartender. He was arrested again.

(38:19):
Paul had no plans to return to Rayford, but he
violated parole and went back to prison. But guess what, Dylan,
what he escaped. He escaped on July sixteenth of nineteen
seventy four.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
They're like, we know that you probably a changed man now,
we can tell by your wrap sheet in and out
of jail, never doing the right thing. But we're just
gonna leave this door open right here, and we're gonna
trust you don't go out it.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
So he escapes, And it was on this night that
Paul John Knowles made a decision to begin a crime
spree that would shock the nation. To live life on
the run, Paul needed two things, money and transportation. He
didn't have those things. Didn't have no money, didn't have
no car, and he hadn't been around to steal any

(39:11):
bicycles from many kids.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
He long ago had lost his bicycle empire. He had.
All he had was a determination to see the country right.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
So he invaded the home of a sixty eight year
old retired school teacher named Alice Curtis. Paul overpowered the
elderly woman, tying her up, he rummaged through her house
searching for valuables. Paul didn't realize that during the struggle,
Missus Curtis's dentures had been loosened and she somehow swallowed them.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
When he went to check on her, she was already dead. Now,
Paul had never killed anyone, but staring down at the
dead woman filled him with a new sense of power.
He had always been pushed around by cops, judges, his dad,
other kids, who was like, don't you steal my bicycle?

(40:05):
And he was almost steal your bicycle and it was
like no, damn, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
He's little. He's led a hard life, but now he.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Could seize control of other people's lives. It brought extreme satisfaction. Also,
Knowles had realized there was a hierarchy in the criminal world.
In prison, a thief like he had been was treated
badly and considered a low life. Murderers, however, earned respect
and power. They health status, which Paul had been seeking

(40:36):
his whole life.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
Damn, So, I mean, it's so strange. You have this
career criminal and now it's almost like he's graduating to
another the next level of ch leveled up Dylan. Yeah,
and uh and he likes it. And this right here
is the exact reason I think they should take these

(41:00):
petty criminals, lifelong criminals more seriously, because this is the
kind of thing that happens, you know, it just escalates. Yeah,
you have you have this guy who should not be
on the street. He's proved time and again that he
can't follow the rule or he just refuses to. And
now this this poor elderly woman has lost her life

(41:22):
because this asshole decides he just wants to take her stuff.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
You no, this guy is like the worst scum sucking
piece of shit on the planet. As we get further,
you know, into our story, you were going to be like, Wow,
this guys, it's just a fucking monster. He is. He's
the worst of the worst, and I don't know how
he's not more well known. Right, Really, Paul realized to

(41:48):
stay free, he needed to do whatever to survive, and
if that bed killing innocent people, he was gonna do it.
Paul stole Missus Curtis's white Dodge Dart. He drove to Jacksonville,
where some friends helped hide him. On August first of
nineteen seventy four, Elizabeth Anderson took her thirteen year old
daughter to visit a sick relative. It was six pm.

(42:11):
The family resided in the Pumpkin Hill area of Jacksonville, Florida.
Since Missus Anderson would not be gone for very long,
she left her two like her other two daughters, eleven
year old Lilian and six year old Milett, at home.
She had informed the girls not to answer the door
or leave the house. Missus Anderson would call to check

(42:32):
on them. And also, you know, their father was going
to be home from work pretty soon, so she didn't feel,
you know, like it was too outrageous to leave the
girls home for you know, an hour or two.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
Yeah, I mean it's common.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
It's in a nice neighborhood.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
I'd sa safe people do that nowadays. I mean, it's
not uncommon.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
Missus Anderson phoned at seven pm. The girls answered, saying
everything was fine. Jack Anderson, who worked on boats, arrived
home a little later than usual. It was around seven
to twenty pm. He had been delayed at work, but
it was like only for a few minutes. By the
time he arrived at the house, his daughters were gone.

(43:12):
Oh my god, no, sign of these little girls. The
Andersons were convinced their children had been abducted from the house.
The children were very mindful and followed their parents' rules.
Jack Anderson knew his daughters would not leave on their own.
Jack and Elizabeth Anderson were deeply concerned about their missing children.
Law enforcement launched a search effort that spanned one hundred

(43:34):
and forty square miles kind of in northeastern Duval County.
Lilian suffered from a thyroid condition and milet had asthma.
Both girls required medication, which added another kind of sense
of urgency to the matter to finding these girls.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
Right and just another reason why they wouldn't just disappear right.
They need them take their medicine. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Law enforcement would later learn that Paul Knowles was not
exactly a stranger to this family. His mother, Bonnie, had
been friends with Elizabeth Anderson. Later, it would be revealed
that Knowles was parked in the stolen Dodge Dart in
this area. He was planning to ditch the car. He says,

(44:22):
that's when he noticed two little girls watching him. I
don't know if they were outside or just like watching
from the front window. Knowles felt that the little girls
would be able to identify him, maybe tell their parents
what they had seen. So he lured the girls into
the car, drove them to a remote location, and strangled them.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Oh my god, dude.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Then Knowles dumped their bodies in a swampy area. Although
Knowles took responsibility for their disappearances, the girls missing person's
case remains open to this day. Law enforcement did search
for their bodies but were unable to locate them. And
so whatever, I guess investigating officers did not believe his

(45:04):
story and think that perhaps he was lying about his
involvement in their missing person's case.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Okay, well, I mean, I guess, I guess they probably
view him as just a turd, and you know, why
should we believe him? But I would say, why would
he even why would he take credit for it? Yeah,
you didn't do it?

Speaker 3 (45:27):
Really sure what law enforcement was thinking if they maybe
had more information right about the case that they weren't
really like letting on and maybe he didn't you know,
these details or whatever, but they you know, it seems
like law enforcement thought he was lying about being involved
in the girl's murders.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Well, look, they certainly like two clear cases, right, I mean,
it's their jaw. That's what they're here to do. And
missing person cases or two girls disappearing like this, or
a tough kind of case to solve, So you may
be right they know some stuff or he didn't know
some important, very specific details because they would probably want to,

(46:10):
you know, have a resolution to this case. So there
must be something there.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
Yeah, it's unclear to me what led officers to believe
he may have been lying or exaggerating. After committing these crimes,
Knowles knew he needed to get out of Florida. He
planned to drive to make in Georgia to stay with
his ex wife Jackie. Money was tight, so Noles ceased
at any opportunity to grab some quick cash. At Atlantic Beach,

(46:36):
Knowles meant a forty nine year old woman named Marjorie
Howie also, I said I should mention this. Dylan Knowles
had been noted for being good looking. Some people called
him a Robert Redford type, kind of had the good
looking like rugged good looks, okay, tall, redheaded or strawberry

(46:59):
blonde hair. And I've seen pictures of him, and maybe
they're not the best pictures, but I can kind of
see where like he might have been handsome, especially for
the time.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
So what you're saying is he could make he could
fake it. He could make contact with a woman and
put her at ease.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yeah, like a ted bund.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
And he's not some scary he's not an ed gen.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
Look, he doesn't look.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
Like, hey, I that other. So he he could you know,
woo a woman to a degree, right sure, before he
starts abuse physically abusing her.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
Right.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
You know, these types of people that are running or
traveling or whatever it is they're trying to do with
no money and the willingness to just steal or kill
even for fifty bucks, it's a very scary person to
come you know, very scary type of person to come across. Hell, yeah,

(48:01):
because that would be I mean, most of the time,
when you're in public and around people, you think that
there's certain I don't know, certain civil etiquette that stops
you know, the worst of things from happening, you know
what I mean. Even if you get in an argument
with someone in public, you don't think they're going to
try to kill you or something like that.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
You know, Well, no, I don't think any of us
leave the house thinking like today we're going to be
the victim of a crime.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
But I mean, you could just be getting gas and
a guy like this see you pay and sees, you know,
a couple of fifties in your wallet, and he, you know,
might follow you around the corner of the gas station
and fucking kill you and take your car and wallet.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
Bathroom and wash you in the head with the toilet.
The back of the toilet was the cover. Yeah, I mean,
just craziness. Marjorie was later found strangled inside her apartment
in the well to Do Selva Marina development. The killer
had taken a nylon stocking belonging to the victim, using

(49:01):
it as a ligature. Paul Knowles had taken guns that
Marjorie's husband had from the war. A television set was stolen.
Knowles would give this TV to his ex wife. And
I don't know what it is, Dylan, because murder is
such a I mean, this is just such a horrible

(49:22):
thing to do, murder this woman. But there's something about
him stealing her TV or taking things from his victims'
homes that just is like so scummy and just grimy
to me.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
No, it is it is anytime someone murders someone then
like Raffles through their stuff. It's just it's the worst
kind of thing, yeah, you know, which I think thieving
and going through someone's home or something like that. I
think it's a really big deal, like I've said many
times before, and I think it's such a, like you said,

(49:58):
a scummy thing to do.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
Somehow, during the struggle, Marjorie's wedding rings were removed and
buried into the shag carpet. Her hands had been tied
behind her back at the time, so there was some
speculation that maybe she had tried to save her wedding
rings and was somehow able to kind of like, you know,
wriggle them off her fingers and sort of stuff them

(50:21):
down into the carpet. So he didn't take them, oh okay,
or maybe he removed them, dropped them. I mean, we'll
never know Knowles removed cash and other valuables from the
home before hitting the road. Marjorie's husband, Samuel, was president
of a carpet cleaning company, and he came home from
work on August second, around six pm to find his

(50:42):
wife deceased. He found the phone line cut and all
of these items missing, you know, including the television set.
How devastated can we just say that Paul Knowles is
an absolute menace.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
I mean, you just come home normal day and discover
something like that. I mean, I wouldn't know what to do.
I mean I wouldn't gosh, I couldn't carry on if
I know not only has something had That's the worst part.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
I know. You couldn't carry on. If someone stole your TV.
You would be very distracted sometime.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
I killing my wife.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
You're talking about taking your TV whatever?

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Damn the TV. You can get one for like, buy one,
get one TVs nowadays that's not a big deal.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
Je loves his TV.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
But not only have you lost a loved one, but
they do so in such a violent nature, right, I mean, gosh,
I don't understand how these people even live with this
type of pain.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
I don't know. I hope I never I hope I
never know.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
Well, yeah, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
Emma Jean Sanders was described as a strong willed thirteen
year old. After her parents divorced in nineteen sixty eight,
Emma was sent to live with her father in Beaumont, Texas.
She ran away multiple times, and after so many times,
Emma's father just stopped reporting her disappearances to authorities. Which

(52:05):
blows my mind that a parent would not report their
missing child to authorities.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
But I mean no, But I mean, I guess we
don't understand how they how they really felt about her
or something. I mean, it's kind of weird. I agree.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
Emma hopped a bus to Warner Robbins, Georgia, where her mother, Betty,
and stepfather lived. When Emma arrived at the bus station,
she called her mother for a ride. Unfortunately, six months earlier,
Emma's sister, Charlotte had drowned. The youngest sister, Sharon, clinged
to Emma after that. She was excited to hear that

(52:47):
her big sister was coming to visit. At the time,
Sharon was only four years old. Once Emma Jean settles in,
Betty asks her to babysit Sharon for a short period.
She was only going to be gone a couple of hours,
you know, running errands whatever. Emma Jean agreed she would
watch Sharon, but a group of Emma's older friends stopped

(53:10):
by in a conversion van. Emma told her little sister
to go inside the house and lock the door. Emma
left with her friends. It would be the last time
Sharon would see her big sister.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
What the hell who leaves their four year old sister alone?
Who tells a four year old to go in the house,
lock up? Wait, what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (53:31):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
I mean, even if you're not that responsible and all that,
I mean, everybody should know that that's not okay. I mean,
a four year old's still in the you're trying to
keep them alive mode, right.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Yeah, I mean when I think of a four year old,
I'm like, that's a baby.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
In April of nineteen seventy six, skeletal remains of a
young female were discovered in a wooded area in Peach County, Georgia.
For years, she was a Jane Doe. With DNA advancements.
In January of twenty eleven, their remains were finally identified
as imagen.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
You know, I think the some people that pursue identifying
remains Jane's or John Doe's, that's such a noble, a
noble thing right to put a name to.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
This, to you know, give the family some closure, Give.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
The family information and closure.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
Back their name, give their idea right.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
Because there's just something about being maybe in a literal box,
you know, somewhere in some sort there.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
Just seems to be almost like you're giving them back
like a certain dignity run and death.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
Yeah, agreed, right, Yeah, And I think the people that
and a lot of people are very passionate about that,
you know, getting getting these people identified and to return
to their loved ones. I think that's very noble and
very important thing that they do.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
Keep it at one hundred dollan, I agree with you. Well, yes,
I should also tell you that during this crime spree,
Paul Knowles is making audio recordings kind of giving these
full accounts of the crimes as he's committing them.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
Of course he is, and we'll talk.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
More about this, you know, in a bit, but he
would later mail the recordings to his lawyer.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
So this is what stille the seventies. So he's got
like a seventy four. So he's got literal tape recorder,
a tape recorder and recording himself dictating his crimes.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
Yes, Paul Knowles will later confess in these recordings to
kidnapping and murdering a young girl that he picked up hitchhiking.
He called her Alma. Investigators at the time dent a
piece together. The girl might have been the missing imaging
Knowles said. After abducting the girl, he drove her to
a witted area where he sexually abused her. He then

(56:05):
strangled the girl, leaving her body between trees. Two weeks later,
he returned to the location, and by then animals had
dragged the remains away. At the time, Noles found a
piece of the girl's jawbone. This left him feeling unsettled,
and he buried the small piece of jawbone.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Oh that's so sweet. Such an asshole.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
Paul spent a few weeks with his ex wife Jackie,
but you know she's gonna let him know it's time
to move on. He had overstayed his welcome. We all
know what they say about house guests and fish. They
start to smell after three days.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Is that what the say?

Speaker 3 (56:46):
After a few weeks, she's definitely a pulse stinking up
her house, you know, well, even the he's cramping her
vibe the.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Way I said, even the most perfect, awesome HouseGuest, it
gets old, right, just someone's in your space. You have
to u inevitably, you have to change your routine and
things like that, even the small things, but especially so,
I can't imagine this guy's a treat to be around.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
Right, right, I mean I even feel that way by
my spouse, like you're invading my space.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
You know, you're like touching my things.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
That's why I'm coming inside.

Speaker 3 (57:26):
Your Yeah, it's a lot.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
Well, you know what. I feel the same way sometimes.
So what now?

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Good's sor right?

Speaker 1 (57:36):
I'll leave right now. I'm gonna leave right now.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
Okay, I'll see you later. You know that car's in
my name though, right.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
I'm further away from the microphone.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
You can threaten to leave me, but the vehicles are
all registered to me.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Well, hold on a second. You're going to report the
car stolen. You're going to force me to become a
spree killer? Is that what you're threatening?

Speaker 3 (58:00):
We'll see how far you will take it. Dylan gosh,
he was running low on cash by now. It was
on August twenty third of nineteen seventy four that Paul
left Jackie's home. He went to Mosella, which is in
Crawford County. And I'm probably butchering that it's musa music,

(58:20):
is it? I don't sellersla. I don't know. When I
see it, I want to say Musili, but I know
that's not right. He knocked on the door of a
twenty four year old divorcee named Kathy Sue Woods Pierce.
Kathy had only been divorced from her husband for six months.
After forcing his way into her home, Noels strangled Kathy

(58:43):
in the bathroom with a telephone cord. The only witness
to the crime was her three year old son, Joel Damn.
Noles left the child unharmed at the time of discovery,
which was around three pm. Investigators determined she had been
dead around seven hours. Her ex husband, Larry Pearce, had

(59:05):
an airtight alibi. He had been at work at the
time of his ex wife's death. Investigators turned their attention
to Kathy's boyfriend and his father. The reason the father
was a suspect is that he had lived nearby and
found Kathy's body, like he had just dropped by. Okay,

(59:27):
I'm assuming like maybe he couldn't his son, couldn't get
a hold of her something, so he just like drops
by the house and that's when he finds her.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Damn.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
So then they're like, well, you're a suspect, which is scary. Well, yeah,
I mean, any of us could stumble upon a body,
but that doesn't make us a criminal.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
No, and they say they always take a look at
the of course, the you know people closes, the exes,
current spouses, and also the people who discover the body
oftentimes gets a hard look. So he's not He's got
two strikes against him, right.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation attempted to interview the toddler,
but he was uncooperative. Dylan, you know, because he's three cooperative?

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
What did they expect?

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
They've like got this little baby under like an interrogation light.
He's like butterflies, playing good cop bad cop with him.
I like the bart You'll get the bippy back when
you answer the question. Kid. I mean, I'm sorry, but
it's just dumb.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Just play Miss Rachel really loud and let him sit
in there and stew on it for a little while.

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Scoring a little bit of cash, Knowles traveled to Lima, Ohio.
He thought putting some distance between himself and the murders
in Georgia and Florida would be a good thing. On
September third of nineteen seventy four, Knowles went to the
bar at Scott's Inn. He encountered thirty two year old

(01:00:57):
account executive. This man for the Ohio Power Company and
his name was William Bates. The bartender knew Baits pretty
well and he was inquiring about William's new car. That's
when this this stranger described as a young, tall, redhead.

(01:01:18):
The redheaded stranger chimed in Baits and the stranger chatted.
It sounds like they kind of spent some hours, maybe
drinking together, talking, okay, really hitting it off. Shortly before midnight,
the bartender watched Bits leave with this man. Bates was
described as an avid hunter who liked camping out under

(01:01:40):
the stars. He had not removed a gun or sleeping
bag from his car from the weekend before when he'd
gone on a hunting trip. Bates's wife reported him missing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
Initially, the police thought he'd simply left town until about
a month later on October fourth, when a white Dodged
Dark stolen from a Florida homicide victim was in a
motel parking lot. They ended up finding William bates car
in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November fifteenth. It seemed

(01:02:12):
to be abandoned. Since the Dodge Dart had been linked
to a murder victim and was found in Ohio, investigators
theorized that Bates had somehow met foul play, and that
the same murderer who had stolen the Dodge Dart had
taken Baits car and returned back to Florida, Okay, leaving

(01:02:32):
the other murder victims car in Ohio.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
Go's weird right.

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
Some genius police work there. A hunter was out on
Thanksgiving Day in a wooded area near Lima when he
stumbled upon the nude body of a man in the woods.
The deceased man had been bound and gagged with electrical tape.
Of course, this body is determined to be that of
William Bates, and it was concluded that he had died

(01:02:57):
of strangulation.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
Damns go too, huh.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Tracing credit card transactions will later show that Knowles traveled
through Missoula, Montana, then headed south into Utah. By September twelfth,
bates credit cards had been completely maxed out.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
So they're just he continues, they use them, Yes, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
Knowles was an Eli Nevada. I think that's how you
say it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
Eli.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
It's like el y, or it's Eli el nevada, Eli nevada.
It's Ellie again. Someone will probably be screaming at me
correcting me. I know, guys, I'm a dumbass now, Okay.
So he's in Nevada, in the eastern central part of
the States. It's Nevada whatever, Nevada, Nevada whatever. Knowles found

(01:03:51):
a couple in their sixties, Emmett and Lois Johnson, who
were visiting from San Pedro, California. The couple had been
vacationing in their camper when they stopped at a rest
area at Lake Summit. The pair were ambushed by Knowles,
holding them a gunpoint. Knowles tied them up, shot them

(01:04:11):
both behind the left ear. He escaped with their cash
and credit cards. A Nevada Highway maintenance worker who was
emptying trash barrels at this rest stop made this discovery
on September eighteenth. I guess he's kind of he sees
his camper. It seems like it's been there for a minute, right,
He's like, why isn't this camper you know, why these

(01:04:33):
people moved on? I'm assuming he approaches the camper, starts
to kind of smell something foul, and that's when obviously
he's gonna call law enforcement. The victims were believed to
be dead for a week Missus Johnson was found nude
under a removable table inside the camper. Her husband, Emma Johnson,
was dressed. He was wearing shorts, a shirt, and tennis shoes.

(01:04:56):
He seemed to just sort of be like not placed
in anywhere. He's just kind of like where he landed,
they think.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
Investigators located a travel journal that Lois had kept. She
had documented their trip, which did help investigators trace their
steps and kind of create a bit of a timeline.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Yeah, I'm sure I'd be very healthful now.

Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
Before being found at the rest stop, the last recorded
entry was at a gas station near Alamo. She had
documented the gas purchase, so they knew the couple had
gotten gas and then traveled to this rest stop. But
what they were not sure about, and it was unclear
to me, is if he like abducted the couple at

(01:05:40):
the gas station and forced them to drive to the
rest stop, or if they had gone to this rest
area where they were planning to camp at Lake Summit
and he happened to, you know, find them at this
rest stop right right. So I'm not sure about that.
I tried to find that information, but it wasn't available
to me.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Oh you know, I guess he could just you know,
attack them, kill them, and take what valuables he could find.
I'm trying to see his motivation here, but it seems
to me if he had attacked them at the rest stop,
that there would be some other situation. If he just

(01:06:20):
saw them, you know, go into the bathroom whatever, and
then force his way into the camp r V and
attack them, seemed like there would be how did he
get out of there? You know, you know what I'm saying, Like,
was he already in a car? You know?

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
Yeah, I mean he Yeah, maybe it was at the
rest stop. You were making more sense than me at
this moment. Yes, and he was in that stolen car
belonging to someone I guess, right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
Because if he was forcing them to you know, it
was with them to the rest stop, then how did
he get away from the rest stop? Somebody would see
a guy, you know, or there would be another violent
situation to where you know, he attacked someone and took
their car and then left.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
Right Knowles was then drying through Well I'm not sure,
but they were in a camper, so I'm not sure
if he stole their vehicle. Yeah, it sounds like it
was a camper trailer and not like a full size RV.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Oh okay, so.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
Maybe he stole their vehicle. Like I'm not again, our
resources were not super clear on this.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
Oh okay, well yeah, okay, okay, Well I see I
was picturing like, you know, contained, self contained.

Speaker 3 (01:07:22):
RV, right, I mean I think it was more of
like a camper trailer.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
Okay, So then obviously they were.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
Pulling behind them.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
He took their vehicles.

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
Was then driving through Segouinne, Texas. On September twenty first
of nineteen seventy four, forty two year old Charlyne Hicks
was broken down on the side of the road. Noel
stopped and offered the widow assistance. Some reports state that
she was on her way to a chili cooking contest
in San Marcos. When missus Hicks did not arrive in

(01:07:51):
San Marcos, her family became concerned. She had some family
members who lived there. She was planning to meet up
with them go to this chili cook golf, right, which
sounds delicious.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Well, oh, especially in that part of the country. They
take their chili very seriously.

Speaker 3 (01:08:08):
Yeah, I know, you know, like I was listening to
a pod it was describing like authentic chili doesn't have
beans in it, that's what you were telling me. It's
just like peppers and meat or something. And that seems
odd to me because I'm from the South and we
put beans in our chili.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
Yeah, but I guess you know, when you when you
hear about all these chili you know, the chili officionados,
I didn't realize because to me, like you said, if
it doesn't have beans in it, it's not chili, right,
chili bean.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
Gon't have me have bodle pot of chili beans, right?

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
And some people go meats and some some not. But
I guess you know, what do we know? Right? We
don't know anything about real chili, and I would be
I would love to try it. So if anyone out
there listening to this nose the Real Deal.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
Centric, I've looked up recipes for like authentic chili.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Yeah, I'd rather get it from our listeners. Hit us
up at Mountain Murders Podcast at gmail dot com if
you have a storied, you know, a protected family recipe
of chili The Real Deal Live.

Speaker 3 (01:09:14):
We have a limited selection of chili peppers. Well, sometimes
I have difficulty even locating Peplano peppers I think that's
a bit seems pretty common, right, that's a big part
of it. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe the South is
just like here's a green pepper, that's all you're getting.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Oh, we got to Carolina Reaper. You're some bitch. I
don't want that world renowned.

Speaker 3 (01:09:37):
That makes my insides hurt just thinking about it. They
contacted the Guadalupe County Sheriff's office to report missing. During
a search for the missing woman, a deputy located her
body on September twenty fifth. Missus Hick's nude body was
found in brush near the highway. She had tearing on
her skin a result of being dragged through a barbed

(01:09:58):
wire fence. It seems like this barbed war fence was
kind of like separating the highway from like, you know field.
So he had dragged her, you know, from the highway
through this barbed wire to hide her body, okay, in
the field off the highway. And it seems like this

(01:10:20):
was an area where her car had broken down. Yeah,
so that's how they were able to find her. It
was determined that missus Hicks had been raped and strangled.
A one thousand dollars reward was offered by the Houston Post.
Missus hicks murder would remain unsolved until Knowles confessed two
months later. And if you remember, he's making audio recordings

(01:10:42):
the entire time, So everything he's doing, he's he's recording
it and telling his lawyer.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
I mean, how does that? What's that even sound like? Right?
You just raped and murdered diary. Well, you know, I
just going along and thought it was going to be
a normal day. Then had a little excitement, you know,
raped and murdered, just innocent woman. I mean, what the hell?

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
Yeah, I know. Two days after killing Charlynne Hicks, Knowles
arrived in Birmingham, Alabama. There he met forty nine year
old beautician and Jeane Dawson. It is not known if
she traveled willingly with Knowles or had been abducted, but

(01:11:25):
for six days, Knowles and Dawson traveled together. She paid
for their motel, rooms and food during this time. So
it's likely to me that maybe he was holding her
hostage and like forcing her to pay for things, well
her money.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
That was that's the most likely scenario. I guess it's
possible she didn't realize who this guy was, right, But
I mean, why was she just hook up with this
random dude and pay for everything.

Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
You know, right. He killed the woman and dumped her
body in the Mississippi River. Dawson's body was never recovered.
For the next few weeks, there were no known murders
connected to Knowles. He traveled to Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota.
He shut up next. On October sixteenth, in Marlborough, Connecticut,

(01:12:16):
Knowles knocked on the door of a random home. Sixteen
year old Down Wine answered the door. The girl was
home alone. Knowles pushed his way inside the house. Dawn
was subdued then raped. When Don's mother, thirty five year
old Karen, came home, Knowles did the same to her.
After strangling the women with pairs of their silk stockings,

(01:12:40):
he stole money, a tape recorder, and some tapes from
Don's music colection. Knowles will give these tapes to Jackie
Knight's children.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
So from Yeah, so creepier. I take stuff from murder
victims and gifts them to other people.

Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
Yeah, hair, I got you, Sonny and share tape.

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
I've lost track, homie. People. This guy's killed.

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
He's a maniac. Seventeen year old Cheryl Wine discovered her
mother and sister in an upstairs bedroom of their home,
which was located on Flood Road in Marlborough. Karen was
an LPN, so she was a licensed Practical nurse who
had been taking classes to become an RN. She worked

(01:13:23):
sixty to seventy hours a week as a single mother
to care for her daughters. This includes working two jobs
and attending college full time.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
Damn.

Speaker 3 (01:13:33):
Oddly enough, missus Wyne's ex husband had been involved in
an espionage plot in nineteen sixty eight to sell Polaris
submarine routes to the Russians.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
So that's like some damn that's some big tom stove
right the.

Speaker 3 (01:13:51):
Right, right, I think her husband. I'm not sure if
he was in the Navy or worked with the Navy.
But what is it called gr Grouten sub Base? I
guess in Connecticut. It's not too far from where they lived.
But I just thought that was a very strange element
to the story. Yeah, how many times do you know
somebody who's involved in an espionage plot. Police determined that

(01:14:14):
a small statue, liquor, a radio, and some cash was
missing from the home. The double homicide baffled police at
the time.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
Well, yeah, there's I mean there's to it's so random,
you know, so unconnected to the victim. I mean, you
don't have a lot to go on.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
They have no known enemies. Yeah, Mom's hard working. She's
just trying to like make her way in the world
so she can provide a good life for her kids.
Don's a sixteen year old high school student, you know, popular,
has a lot of friends.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
I'm sure the town and area where they lived were
totally baffled and scared.

Speaker 3 (01:14:50):
Absolutely. Three days later, Knowles made a stop in Woodford, Virginia.
It's a small town east of I ninety five. Using
his charms, he persuaded fifty three year old Doris Hosey
to let him in her white farmhouse. Doris, a beloved
member of the community, along with her husband, had built

(01:15:11):
this home two years earlier with retirement in mind. Described
as an attractive homemaker, she had lived in this area
her entire life. Doris had spent the day in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
She had gotten her hair done and visited her two
sisters who lived there now. Once Knowles gets inside the house,

(01:15:33):
he tells Hosey that all he wants is a gun
and if he can get a gun. He's going to
leave her alone and go. You know, he's going to
go on his way.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
Okay, I just need a gun, right and I'll leave peacefully.

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
She went into the study to retrieve her husband's twenty
two rifle. As soon as Knowles loaded it, he shot
missus Hosey in the head. Before he left, Knowles cleaned
the weapon and dropped it next to her body. Missus
Hosey's brother, who lived about a half a mile away,
had walked into the house only to find his sister's

(01:16:06):
partially dressed body. Her dog tinker Bell, was like sitting
by her side.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
Oh my gosh, how pitiful is that? Well, damn, So
this dude is just like he just wants to kill
people at this point, right, I Mean, it seems like
it's becoming less and less about desperation or not that
these are good, good reasons obviously, but it just seems
like now he just won't getting off on doing it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:32):
Doris's husband was out of town at the time, having
driven his parents back to West Virginia after a visit.
At the time, Marcia Josey Pence, Doris's daughter, told the
media quote, the puzzling part of my mother's death is
not so much how it happened, but why would anyone
want to do something like this to her? Doris's sister

(01:16:53):
recalled that she had had cash in her purse. It
was missing, along with her one carrot diamond ring. Missus
Hosey also had an inch long cut across her left temple.
It was not known if she was hit like before
or after being shot. Also, though she was partially undressed,
she had not been raped. In Key West, Knowles picked

(01:17:17):
up a pair of hitchhikers. He planned to murder them,
but was stopped for traffic violation. The officer let him
go with a warning, but Knowles panicked, knowing that this
officer had his identity, and decided not to kill the couple.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Wow, how close they came, right.

Speaker 3 (01:17:36):
I'm also like, if you pull him over and you've
got his ID, like I know back then they didn't
really have I guess the global connection we have today, right,
But he's wanted. He escaped from prison, So how do
they not know when they run his ID that he's wanted?

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
Well, I mean, I guess it was still in the
day of if you're out, especially in another state.

Speaker 3 (01:18:04):
There's just not right now, he's back in Florida.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
Oh ye, back in Florida.

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):
That's where he escaped from prison.

Speaker 1 (01:18:11):
Well damn, it seemed yeah, okay, I see what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (01:18:13):
After dropping this hitchhiking couple off in Miami, he went
to see his lawyer, Sheldon Yavitts. Knowles presented the attorney
with two things, a set of audio tapes and a
shocking confession. He said, quote, I have something to tell you.
Brace yourself. I'm a mass murderer.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
My god.

Speaker 3 (01:18:33):
Sheldon Yavitts was a busy criminal defense attorney who liked
working with the worst of the worst. He was pulling
in over one hundred thousand dollars a year, which, by
today's standards is between like six hundred and fifty to
seven hundred thousand dollars a year.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
My god, is the buying power of the dollar that far?
That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:18:54):
Yavitz automatically assumed that his clients were guilty, therefore he
was never so prized by their crimes. Angela Covic had
hired Yavitts to fight for Paul Knowles's parole from prison.
Now in court. Yavitz was known for getting clients off
by getting continuances and uh, you know, base and then

(01:19:15):
like bringing up technicalities. It was rare that he won,
like that he had a good criminal defense and won.
It was usually like he would just get the case continued,
you know, continued multiple times until it just got thrown
out of court. Oh wow, Or he would find some
technicality to get his clients off.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
So he wasn't some kind of star criminal defense lawyer
who's going to woo the jury with his really slick
no closing argument.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
No, I don't think that he was like the dream Team.
He was not. Was OJ's lawyer?

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
Oh? Was it Shapiro and uh Flee Baileylee Bailey famous? Yeah,
and Johnny can't forget Johnny Johnny Cochrane.

Speaker 3 (01:20:03):
Oh yeah, that's the one I was thinking of. Also,
Robert Kardashian. Wasn't he kind of like a slick criminal
defense attorney?

Speaker 1 (01:20:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:20:10):
Yeah. Now he operated out of a small office located
beside his home in Karl Coral Gables, Florida. When Yavits
listened to his client's audio tapes, even he was startled
by Knowle's confessions. Knowles explained in the audio recordings that
the murders had been quote successes. He also noted that

(01:20:31):
he wanted Yavitz to spread word about the crimes to
the media, Like once he got caught, he knew he
was gonna get caught. It was just a matter of time.

Speaker 1 (01:20:40):
So he just drops his stuff off to the lawyer
and just keeps moving. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:20:46):
Knowle's explained that he wanted to become as famous as
Bonnie and Clyde. Yavittz encouraged his client, who was on
the run, you know, to turn himself in. Noles refused,
stating that if he was going to go down, it
would be an blaze of glory like John Dillinger.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
Or John bon Jovie, John bon Jovie.

Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
Yeah, several of the murders were in death penalty states.
Knowles realized his days were numbered, but expressed to his
attorney that he wanted to live his last days of
freedom as wildly as possible. Yeah, it's agreed to hang
on to these audio tapes.

Speaker 1 (01:21:23):
I really think you should stop killing people.

Speaker 3 (01:21:27):
I mean, I'm not sure what kind of advice he
gave his client, should turn yourself in. Bud Knowles headed
back to Jackie's house in Making, Georgia. It is suspected
that he picked up hitchhikers Debbie Griffin and Edward Hilliard,
who were traveling out of Gainesville, Florida. The couple were
going to visit friends in Love Valley, North Carolina. On

(01:21:50):
November second, twenty three year old Hilliard's body was discovered
near Knoxville Road after law enforcement received an anonymous tip.
He had been shot five times. It was determined that
he had been deceased for about ten days now. The
couple had departed Gainesville on October twenty seventh, and were

(01:22:11):
last seen at a motel in Commerce, Georgia, on November two.
Debbie Griffin had moved to Gainesville in the spring of
nineteen seventy four. Debbie's mother described Eddie Hilliard as quote
a very strange young man. Debbie was known to hitchhike often,
usually carrying a guitar with her. Debbie had not spoken

(01:22:35):
to her family in a month, which was, I guess
not unusual for them, so it took a minute for
them to realize she was missing.

Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
Well, yeah, yeah, I mean, you didn't talk to people
every day, and especially if they were moving around, right.

Speaker 3 (01:22:48):
Debbie had a four year old son at the time
of her disappearance. Now after locating Eddie Hilliard's body, law
enforcement needed to find Debbie. I mean they knew they
were traveling together. They were a couple. Debbie had been
in trouble with the law before. Two years earlier, she
had received probation from the Michigan court system. It was
on drug related charges. That's how she had met Eddie Hilliard.

(01:23:13):
He was also on probation, but Debbie's mother didn't know why.
According to missus Bolcina, Eddie stayed in trouble. That's Debbie's mother.
By the way, Eddie stayed in trouble and moved around frequently,
which she assumed was to avoid arrest for his many
shenanigans that he was getting into.

Speaker 1 (01:23:33):
It's a bad boy.

Speaker 3 (01:23:35):
Hilliard graduated from a high school in Alabama, but had
lived all over at the time his body was found.
He had a California driver's license in his pocket, and
this was in Crawford County, Georgia. About a week later,
a blood stained shirt belonging to Debbie was found near
the Crawford County line near a church. It was called

(01:23:58):
the Open Bible Tabernacle Chure. A pocket book and a
diddy bag were also like near her body.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
A didty bag.

Speaker 3 (01:24:07):
Yeah, Now, I don't know what they mean by a
ditty bag, but we had didty bags when I was
in the military.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
It was full of baby hole and it was.

Speaker 3 (01:24:14):
Like what you put your dirty shit in. Oh, it
was like a little bag that zipped up. Yeah, don't know.
So I'm not sure if this was like her clothes
were in this bag, I don't know. Dylan, a prospective
property buyer, made the Grizzly discovery in August of nineteen
seventy five, about five miles from where Eddie Hilliard's body

(01:24:36):
had been found a year earlier. This property buyer was
just kind of like walking around checking things out, and
that's when he discovers these human remains. The skeletal remains
of the young woman had two bullet holes in the skull,
and they were later determined to be Debbie Griffin. However,
the murders of Eddie and Debbie are still considered unsolved.

(01:25:00):
Knowles is a prime suspect in both murders, but it's
one of those things again where you know, he makes
a confession to police or law enforcement and they just
kind of blow him off, like he's trying to exaggerate
his crimes, and I'm like, does he really need to exaggerate.
I mean, he's already left a wake of carnage.

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
Well he has, but behind he also they, I mean,
I'm sure at this point realized that he is in
pursuit of this you know, infamy or you know, and
so maybe in their minds, it's not that big of
a it's not that weird of a concept for him
to try to maybe, even though he's done plenty of shit,

(01:25:41):
take credit for everything he could think of or everything
he's seen.

Speaker 3 (01:25:45):
Early on the morning of November seventh, nineteen seventy four,
the Milliteville Police Department was informed of an incident at
a home in one of the town's suburbs. Inside, they
found the home ransacked. Forty five year old Carswell Car
was lying in bed, naked, his hands bound behind his back.
He was covered in dried blood. He had twenty seven

(01:26:08):
shallow stab wounds, but the medical examiner will later say
that they were not significant enough to cause death. The
medical examiner theorized the stab wounds were more for torture purposes.
Carr actually died of a heart attack.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
Oh gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:26:25):
The second victim was fifteen year old Amanda car Mandy
had been strangled with a nylon stocking in her bedroom.
Another had been forced down her throat with such force
that a doctor had to like surgically extract it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
Damn.

Speaker 3 (01:26:42):
It appeared that Knowles had attempted to rape her but
had failed to do so. But they didn't find any
seamen present, and so I'm not really sure like how
they concluded that he tried to rape her, but I
probably don't want to know now diet to rigor mortis.
It was determined that they had been murdered the night before,
so it had been some hours. With the extensive damage

(01:27:05):
done to the home, police initially concluded two assailants were
responsible for the double homicides because this house was like trashed, damn.
I mean to the point again they were like, there's
no way a single person, one person could have trashed
this house so badly.

Speaker 1 (01:27:22):
My gosh, like a.

Speaker 3 (01:27:23):
Tasmanian devil had, you know, whizzed through the scissors used
a sad mister Carr were in the home, but contained
no fingerprints. They had been cleaned. Missus Carr was able
to recall the item is missing from the home. Most
of her husband's quote stylish wardrobe had been taken, along
with his leather briefcase, shaving kit, credit cards, and house keys.

(01:27:46):
Knowles had also taken a digital clock, radio and a
plastic watch from Mandy's bedroom. Police later learned that mister
Carr had been a patron at Pegasus, a gay bar,
like the night before. The bartender witnessed mister Carr with
a tall young man described as attractive with reddish hair. However,

(01:28:08):
the bartender did not know if they had left together. So,
I mean, it seems like maybe mister Carr and this
fella met at this bar and went home to his house,
or maybe Knowles followed him home. Right right, A sales
clerk at Zayre department store in Macon came forward to

(01:28:29):
say that after the murders, a tall man with red
hair and what was described as a Zeppota mustache had
used Carswell Carr's credit card to purchase a tape recorder
and four blank tapes. When she saw the news report
mentioning the murder, she recognized the name on the credit

(01:28:51):
card as being the murder victim and contacted law enforcement.

Speaker 1 (01:28:56):
So something must have stood out about this guy. She's
just going to. You know, she probably sees hundreds of
names a day, right, right, And this is back then
when they put it on the little thing and they
you know, it makes like almost a paper copy. And
I thought they used to ask for ID. You know,
it wasn't so easy or common for everyone to have

(01:29:17):
a card, a debit card and things like that. So
I'm surprised you can just take people's card, credit card
and just go around using it and no one says anything.

Speaker 3 (01:29:26):
It's a different time. Dylan Knowles had stolen cars, White
Chevy and Paula. He drove to Atlanta, Georgia, and checked
into a holiday inn using car's credit card. British journalist
Sandy Fox was sitting at an Atlanta bar when she
saw a handsome, rugged, redheaded stranger. She thought he was

(01:29:47):
a cross between Ryan O'Neill and Robert Redford. He offered
to buy Fox a drink, using the name Daryl Golden.
Knowles told her he was a businessman from New Mexico
who in town for a court case involving his father's
restaurant chain. Okay, I mean that's a pretty good lie, right, Yeah,

(01:30:08):
he's pretty good on the fly. Initially, Fox dismissed his advances.
By night's end, they were in bed together at Sandy's hotel.
Sandy Fox said they kissed and made out, but Knowles
was unable to maintain an erection. He apologized profusely, but
Fox assured him by saying, quote, you've just had too

(01:30:31):
much to drink.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
Yeah, it's okay, it happens.

Speaker 3 (01:30:34):
Yeah, it happens. Yeah, that's what we say.

Speaker 1 (01:30:38):
Well, I'll be like, yeah, I know, I know it's happening,
because it's happening right now. Bitch, damn drunk. Hey, the
liquors can get you. The liquors can get youry.

Speaker 3 (01:30:51):
Sandy thought it was merely a one night stand, but
the next day Noles offered to give her a ride
to an interview she had scheduled. Sandy had plans to
travel to West Palm Beach, Florida for an assignment that
was like her next assignment, and she had a flight
that evening at six pm, but suggested, like, you know,

(01:31:12):
we should hang out in Atlanta before I leave, Like,
once my interviews wrapped, we'll continue to hang out until
I have to go to the airport. Sandy, and I'm
gonna call him Darryl because that's what she knows him.
As Sandy and Daryl got drinks at a bar called
Polaris during this time, he asked if she would write

(01:31:33):
a book about him. Daryl said he didn't have much
time to live now. She thought he meant like he
had a terminal illness, but Darryl explained that he did
not have a terminal illness, but that he was gonna
be killed soon. He wasn't sure when, but he knew
he would be dead within the year.

Speaker 1 (01:31:53):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:31:53):
After this strange conversation, Darrel admitted that he had given
audio confessions to attorney in Florida of some crimes he
had committed. Sandy thought he was joking around. Ha ha ha,
you're so funny, Darryl.

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
Well, I often make jokes about crimes that I committed.

Speaker 3 (01:32:15):
Yeah. Now, at this, Sandy told him, like, maybe you
need some psychiatric help. Daryl's response was that he had
actually seen a psychiatrist once. Quote he told me I
have the perfect criminal mind.

Speaker 1 (01:32:28):
So the psychiatrist just said I'm awesome right now.

Speaker 3 (01:32:32):
Sandy would later write a book called Killing Time about
her days spent with Paul John Knowles. She ended up
canceling her flight, she was intrigued and wanted to spend
some more time with Daryl.

Speaker 1 (01:32:45):
Killing time great name right.

Speaker 3 (01:32:48):
Sandy and Daryl traveled to Florida by car. Sandy would
later say part of her felt frightened by his odd behavior,
but that he was also like really easy to talk
to and chill and lady back and you know, charming, So.

Speaker 1 (01:33:03):
It's almost like there's two sides of him right.

Speaker 3 (01:33:07):
During the week they spent together, Sandy introduced Knowles to
many of her successful friends, some of them were journalists.
Darryl again, I'm calling him Darryl felt important, like by proxy,
he wanted to continue hanging out with her. Just being
around her successful friends kind of made him feel like

(01:33:27):
he was somebody.

Speaker 1 (01:33:28):
Yeah, I can be somebody. I don't have to just
keep killing. I can be some Raping, killing and stealing
is not the only part, you know, of my life.
I can do something else.

Speaker 3 (01:33:38):
But now, like they've had a week together, Sandy is
getting her fill of this guy and decides she's going
to ghost him. Now. He tries to reconnect, popping by
her hotel things like that, but she's ignoring him. She's
staying like away from her hotel room, just absolutely avoiding him,

(01:34:00):
telling the front desk like, I don't want to accept
this guy's calls.

Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
I'll tell you what happened here. This guy had an edge, right,
an edge to him, almost like a bad boy vibe.
And for a hot minute, it was interesting to her.
He was different than the other types of people and
men and women that she hung around. And you know,
and I'm sure friends probably like, oh, you know whatever,

(01:34:26):
and it but it quickly wore in, right, and the
guy's really not all for it. He's not bringing much
to the table, right, not much more.

Speaker 3 (01:34:37):
Right, So after the.

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
Weirdness kind of wore off, she's just like, yeah, I
don't want to hang around this guy anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:34:43):
Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. So
like she ghosts him for a while, you know, a
couple of days, and then he seems to lose interest.
So she's like, yes, I'm in the clear, got rid
of this dude.

Speaker 1 (01:34:57):
Successful ghosting.

Speaker 3 (01:35:00):
After his week with Sandy, Paul was once more on
the run. He'd actually met a British couple through Sandy.
They were a couple of her friends, James and Susan Mackenzie,
and they liked Paul. When they met him, they thought
this young man Daryl seemed lonely, but he was also polite, charming, likable.

(01:35:22):
He even offered to drive Susan to a hair appointment
like one afternoon. Now. Once Paul or Darryl gets Susan
into the car, he propositions her for sex and she
turns him down. That's when Paul pulls out a pistol.
Susan was not gonna go down without a fight. She
starts hitting him, eventually knocking the gun out of his hand.

(01:35:45):
Susan tried escaping the vehicle, but he grabbed her hair.
She was able to break loose and wave down a
passing motorist. She went straight to police.

Speaker 1 (01:35:54):
Damn dude, Yeah, way gonna go, Susan, don't fuck.

Speaker 3 (01:35:58):
With the British man. She's like, oh, She's.

Speaker 1 (01:36:02):
Like, yeah, I'm not going to insult our British listeners
with my accent. She's like, I was going to do
the accent, but there's no need.

Speaker 3 (01:36:10):
She's like, you know, take that.

Speaker 1 (01:36:12):
You fucking Yankee.

Speaker 3 (01:36:15):
Yeah, I don't know. I was trying to think, what's
a what's a good British infult? Chicky bastard? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:24):
Are you having a piss?

Speaker 3 (01:36:25):
Are you having a piss? You bosted, so a bulletin
went out immediately. Darryl Golden was still driving carswell cars
White and Paula. It didn't take long for a West
Palm Beach police officer to recognize this car. Noles was
pulled over. However, he drew a sawed off shotgun, forcing

(01:36:46):
the officer to the ground. Noles jumped back in the
car speeds away. He knew that Susan had given law
enforcement a description of this White and Paula, so he
needed to ditch it. Later that after noon, a wheelchair
bound woman named Beverly Maybe her a knock at the
door of her home. A young man was at the door,

(01:37:08):
and he told her he was from the I. R.
S And asked if he could come in wait.

Speaker 1 (01:37:14):
Her last name is Maybe, Yeah, God, I have so
much fun if that was my last name. It's it
maybe be yeah, I know A maybe.

Speaker 3 (01:37:23):
It's maybe Maybe? What do you think it is?

Speaker 1 (01:37:26):
I thought you were saying maybe.

Speaker 3 (01:37:27):
It's M A B E E maybe. Okay, how would
you pronounce that? Maybe?

Speaker 1 (01:37:35):
No? But people be like, are you dealing? Maybe? I'm like,
maybe I mean, come on, dude, she'd have fun all
my life with that last name.

Speaker 3 (01:37:46):
Please be quiet. You're fired from Bring back Ed? Want
to co host with Ed? I would rather co host
with Ed wearing like his mama's skin suit than like
sit here with you a minute longer.

Speaker 1 (01:38:00):
Listening to your story. It's very good. This guy I
killed two. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:38:07):
You're terrible on that.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
I'm not day. That's a good. That's a good. Uh,
Charlie Hoon and Ed sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:38:13):
Once she invited him in, he called himself Bob Williams
from the Irs. Now. Once he's inside the house, he
reveals that he needs a hostage and a getaway car.
Beverly decided to keep quiet. She felt that if she
screamed or made a fuss, this man would kill her,
so she's like, I'm just gonna cooperate with him. Do

(01:38:36):
exactly what he says. She explained that she didn't own
a car, but her sister, Barbara Tucker, had one, and
that Barbara was actually on her way over to Beverly's
house and would be there any minute. Knowles waited quietly
for the sister to show up. When Barbara arrived, Knowles,
by that point had tied Beverly up, although this was

(01:39:00):
something that he was not expecting. Barbara had her six
year old son with god. Knowles told the little boy
to go play in the other room. That's when he
kidnapped Barbara, forcing her to drive him to Fort Pierce,
Florida in her Volkswagen Missus Tucker. Like her sister, remained

(01:39:21):
calm and cooperative. She tried to keep him talking, feeling
like maybe if she kept him talking, it might like
disarm him. Right. Once they arrived in Fort Pierce, Knowles
checked into a motel room where he ditched Barbara, but
he left her tied up. But he ditches her there
and then steals her car. Beverly was able to free

(01:39:43):
herself and call police. She gave them the description of
this Bob Williams. Police were like, that sounds an awful
lot like Darryl Golden.

Speaker 1 (01:39:55):
So wow, I'm actually surprised that them both staying calm
and collected worked they were able to survive. I mean,
I'm sure it was still very traumatic, you know, thing
to have gone through. Yeah, but still they survived and
weren't raped or murdered.

Speaker 3 (01:40:15):
Right, So police are like, okay, this description of this
Bob Williams sounds a lot like Daryl Golden aka Paul Knowles, and.

Speaker 1 (01:40:24):
I don't think he works for the irs.

Speaker 3 (01:40:26):
And law enforcement believed, you know, this is the same person.
Police were able to dust Beverly's home for fingerprints. They
gave her some mugshots and she was able to finger
Paul John Knowles as the man who had tied her
up and abducted her sister. An all points bulletin alerted
law enforcement contacted news stations. They urged them to show

(01:40:49):
a photo of Paul Knowles and they should describe him
as being armed and dangerous, to let the public know
this guy's out there. You know, if you see him, like,
do not engage. Run, don't let him, you know, come
in your house. No, don't let him steal your car.

Speaker 1 (01:41:06):
Don't let him borrow your car either, he's not going
to bring it back.

Speaker 3 (01:41:10):
Investigators located Sandy Fox, the journalist, and they had a
lot of questions for her. Since law enforcement suspected the
car murders had been a two person job, they considered
she might have been involved. Sandy was stunned to learn
that her companion had been a cold blooded killer all along.

(01:41:32):
After seeing some photos of the cars this crime scene
and also just some photos of carswell car She kind
of noticed that, like some of the same suits that
were worn in the photos were the same clothes that
Daryl Golden had with him. Okay, missus Carr had said
her husband's clauset like had been raided. All of his

(01:41:54):
clothes had been stolen.

Speaker 1 (01:41:56):
Well, it sounded like he was a you know, sharp dresser.
You know, it must have called this piece of shit's
eye and he just took all this guy's cool stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:42:04):
Also, Darryl aka Paul had gifted Sandy a Mickey mouse
watch that belonged to Amanda car. He had stolen this
Mickey mouse watch from the girl's bedroom.

Speaker 1 (01:42:15):
Now I'm saying he gets off on this taking these
trophies of sort, it's kind of like trophies and then
given it to other unsuspecting people, knowing that it's from
you know, his victims.

Speaker 3 (01:42:27):
For years until her death in two thousand and five,
Sandy Fox would wonder, like, why did he spare my life?
She thought it was because she had been in foster care,
had been abused by the system, and she had shared
her background which had been very troubled with Paul and
that perhaps he thought they were kindred spirits.

Speaker 1 (01:42:49):
Or maybe maybe On.

Speaker 3 (01:42:52):
November sixteenth, a Florida Highway patrolma named Charles Campbell noticed
a page Volkswagon matching the description that had been sent out.
You know, on this APB. Knowles was driving towards Georgia,
passing through Perry, Florida, when he saw blue lights flashed
behind him. And we all hate that feeling, don't we.
When you see the blue lights in the mirror, you're like,

(01:43:14):
damn it, I was driving too fast.

Speaker 1 (01:43:18):
It's a worse just like, uh, just what yesterday the
cop came up beside us and it's pulling someone else over.
I was like, dude, don't Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:43:26):
You were like, oh my gosh, but I got the
other guy. Yeah, but I was because you were driving
like an old man. So I'm like, why would he
be pulling you over?

Speaker 1 (01:43:33):
Well, yeah, they're going ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:43:34):
They're you're just doing your old man like driving forty
five on the highway. Move.

Speaker 1 (01:43:38):
Well that's what I do. I know, I'll stay out
of the way. It's the best way to stay safe
on these highways around here.

Speaker 3 (01:43:44):
Just get well where we live, You got it? Because
people drive like maniac.

Speaker 1 (01:43:47):
You get in the slowest lane, you do dead on
the speed limit, which is plenty slow enough because everybody
else is doing fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit.

Speaker 3 (01:43:57):
Our county has the highest number of fatalities of the state. Yeah,
and so all those traffic fatalities, all those.

Speaker 1 (01:44:03):
Crazy people get mad because you're not doing ninety and
they just like fly you know. Yeah, I'm just like,
go on, just get away from me.

Speaker 3 (01:44:09):
Honestly, I'm so freaked out by the terrible drivers in
our city that that's another reason I don't like to drive. No,
I make you drive me everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:44:18):
I'm driving this Heather, you.

Speaker 3 (01:44:20):
Are because I hate to drive. I'm always afraid. And
it's not that I'm a bad driver, it's these other people.
They scared the shit out of me. Now. Before Campbell
could react, Knowles pulled a gun on him. Campbell was
ordered to handcuff himself and get in the back of
the patrol car.

Speaker 1 (01:44:35):
Damn, this guy keeps getting the drops on cops.

Speaker 3 (01:44:38):
Yeah. Paul abandoned the stolen Volkswagon and climbed into the
cruiser with Campbell in the back seat. A passing driver
witnessed this abduction right and quickly contacted law enforcement. They
were dispatched, but it was too late to catch Knowles.
Knowles knew he couldn't get very far in this yellow

(01:45:00):
and black highway patrol car. Right, using the blue light,
Knowles pulled over a businessman from Delaware named James Meyer.
Meyers stopped near a wooded area in southwest Perry. He
and Campbell were forced into the back seat of the
blue Grand Torino. Knowles secured both men and drove away,

(01:45:22):
stealing myer's car. How does he keep getting these cool cars?
He's like stolen in pollen. Now he's got a Grand
to Reno.

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):
Well, no, how shitty is that? You're like, oh crap,
I'm getting pulled over and turns out as some freaking
maniac who's already got a kidnapped cop trooper in the
back seat. Yeah, and now he's taken you and forcing
your I bet you'd be like, what the hell is
going on?

Speaker 3 (01:45:43):
Yeah? Hours later, Noles stopped for gas in Lakeland, Georgia.
The clerk noticed a police officer was sitting in the
back seat of a blue Grand Torino, which seemed out
of place, but didn't really think any more of it. Right,
until watching a new report about a highway patrolman who
had been abducted by this madman.

Speaker 1 (01:46:07):
And that's not something you see every day.

Speaker 3 (01:46:10):
Well, in the news report, they have a photo of
Knowles and the trooper and the man. The clerk is like,
oh my gosh, that dude was just in here and
I saw that cop in the back seat of this
blue to Reno Grand Torino. So he contacts police, gives
them a full description of a blue Grand Torino, like
what time they lived, which direction they were traveling, all

(01:46:31):
the info. With law enforcement hot on his tail, Knowles
continued traveling further into Georgia. On November seventeenth, law enforcement
spotted this blue car, but he was able to kind
of get away from them. They set up roadblocks like
all over the.

Speaker 1 (01:46:49):
Place, creating a perimeter.

Speaker 3 (01:46:52):
We're going to catch him. At one ten pm, Knowles
got caught up in a police blockade near Stockbridge, Georgia.
He stepped on the gas driving through the blockade.

Speaker 1 (01:47:05):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:47:06):
The car ended up careening into a tree. Knowles escaped
the wreck by running into the woods. He was firing
a snubnosed revolver at police. Police were firing back at him.
Now inside the car, police find Campbell's trooper hat and
empty gun belt. There was no blood in the car,
so law enforcement is hopeful that the hostages are still alive. Yeah,

(01:47:30):
it's just a matter of where did he drop them off?

Speaker 1 (01:47:33):
So he's done, so they're nowhere to be found.

Speaker 2 (01:47:36):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:47:36):
I thought everyone going to be in the car.

Speaker 3 (01:47:38):
Right, I know. When Knowles emerged from like this wooded area,
he runs into the woods. He emerges and is spotted
by a Vietnam veteran named David Clark. Clark sees this
bloodied man like limping out of the woods, and he's
not playing around. He grabs a shotgun. He can see

(01:48:00):
that Knowles's hand is bleeding. He'd run out of ammunition
his gun. His head was bleeding. He had a gunshot
wound to his left leg, which was causing him to limp.

Speaker 1 (01:48:13):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (01:48:14):
Knowles approchased Clark and shows him his hand and he's
like it's all wrapped up in a scarf, and he's like,
please help me. I'm bleeding. Oh I need some help. Yeah.
Clark's like, okay, well, we're gonna go over here to
my neighbor's house. They can tend to you and so
while he's at the neighbor's house, he calls police. Officers
showed up immediately to take Noles into custody with several injuries.

(01:48:37):
He was taken to the hospital giving some medical attention,
and then booked into the Henry County jail. Now, when
he's being booked in the jail, they're marching him in.
He's doing like purp walk or whatever. There's media everywhere
snapping pictures, reporters yelling his name, TV crews, and he's

(01:48:58):
lapping it up. Oh my god, he loves this.

Speaker 1 (01:49:02):
This is exactly what he wanted.

Speaker 3 (01:49:03):
He feels like he's on a damn red carpet strolling
into the jail. Knowles refused to say if the hostages
were dead or alive, so the fate of the two
missing men remained a mystery despite search efforts. On November twenty, first,
deer hunters in Pulaski County located the bodies of Meyron
Campbell inside a pine thicket. The men were handcuffed to

(01:49:25):
a tree, shot in the head, execution style. They had
been there for several days. Soon Sheldon Yavitz arrived at
the jail. The attorney, yeah, he's like, where's my client?
The slick attorney?

Speaker 1 (01:49:40):
Who was that? How do you even represent people like
this man?

Speaker 3 (01:49:43):
Money baby?

Speaker 1 (01:49:44):
I say, yeah, but he did. Knowles doesn't even have any.

Speaker 3 (01:49:48):
Knowles told him he didn't want to die by electric chair.
He said, quote, I don't want them to fry me.
That's a bad way to die. Like, Bro, you've killed
all these people. You don't get to choose.

Speaker 1 (01:50:00):
Raise a ship, murder, kidnapping, terrorizing, torturing, stealing, all these
things you've done, all the things would hurt my wheedle body.
Oh but my hands bleeding.

Speaker 3 (01:50:15):
I know, what a pussy?

Speaker 1 (01:50:16):
What a piece of shit?

Speaker 3 (01:50:17):
That law enforcement was able to link Noles to eighteen murders,
though he claimed it was closer to thirty five. When
his photo made national headlines, the press dubbed him the
Casanova killer due to his good looks. Okay Yavits and
his wife were jailed on contempt charges because they refused

(01:50:39):
to hand over the audio recordings. Yavits held them in
a safe, but refused to give us Marshalls the combination
so they could get the tapes out. Eventually, his wife
was freed, Yavits gave her permission to hand over the tapes,
but he had to remain in jail on a fifteen
thousand dollars bond. Okay, the judge wouldn't lower it, and

(01:51:02):
I guess they didn't have enough money to get him
out his wife. On December fourth, Knowles was transferred to
the Douglas County Jail since he had a history of escaping.
I guess they thought this was a more secure jail.

Speaker 1 (01:51:15):
Yeah, we're going to lock the door this time.

Speaker 3 (01:51:17):
The transfer was kept quiet, so no one knew he
had been transferred to this other jail. Two weeks later,
Knowles was put in a car for transport back to
Henry County. He had promised to show investigators where he
had dumped Campbell's service Revolver. Nole's wrists and ankles were
chained up for the ride. Now, at some point an

(01:51:38):
officer saw this is actually an agent with the GBI.
His name is Angel Ron Angel. He notices, like what's
going on? Knowles has lit up a cigarette in the backseat.

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:51:53):
The other officer slows down the car and demands that
Knowles hand the cigarette over, but instead Knowles had managed
to free the other wrist and he leaned over the
seat trying to grab at the officer's gun. It went
off in the holster. The other agent, Ron Angel, drew
his weapon and shot Noles three times. The other officer

(01:52:15):
was trying to keep the car on the road, but
it skidded off the highway. They slid down a small
embankment and then hit a barbed wire fence. Knowles had
managed to get a paper clip somewhere and he had
wedged it into the right lock, like the right cuff,
handcuff into the lock, yeah, and pop the cuff open.

Speaker 1 (01:52:36):
Yeah. Your basic handcuffs, they're not hard. You get anything
that you can get in that little keyhole and you
can pop them.

Speaker 3 (01:52:45):
A corner ruled. Paul Knowles was dead at the scene.
His body was transported to a funeral home, then flown
to Jacksonville, Florida. Sheldon Yavitz didn't believe that Paul Knowles
attempted to escape. He insisted that Knowles had been so
up for execution yeah, and that the cops staged this
whole thing cool. Noles had told former cellmates that he

(01:53:08):
believed they, meaning the police, were going to kill him
before he went to trial.

Speaker 1 (01:53:15):
I mean, what do you believe. Well, look, here's the thing.
This guy has escaped many times. He's certainly he's killed
all these different people. He's even killed a trooper, right,
so he doesn't respect anything. So I mean, I think

(01:53:36):
it's quite possible that he tried to escape and then
they shot him. But there also is the possibility of
vigilanti justice, which isn't right, if you will, as far
as our system goes. But I think this guy's was
a shipbird, you know, I mean, a rape murderer, rapist,
murderer who just killed all these people. So, I mean,

(01:53:59):
I don't know how I feel about it.

Speaker 3 (01:54:01):
And in quest, jury found no wrongdoing on behalf of
the law enforcement officers. Noel was buried in Jacksonville, Florida.
Only his family and Angela Kovic attended his funeral. The
minister who conducted the funeral refused to pray that Noel's
soul risket in peace. He's like, I'll do the funeral,
but I'm not going to pray for his soul.

Speaker 1 (01:54:22):
Damn.

Speaker 3 (01:54:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:54:23):
Even the pastor wasn't having it. Side.

Speaker 3 (01:54:26):
In the wake of his death, victims' families were left
with little relief. The Anderson sued Knowles's estate for twenty
five hundred dollars. Jack Anderson refused to entertain the possibility
that his daughters, Milett and Liian were dead since their
bodies had never been recovered. He just like would not
accept it and really believed that they were still alive
out there somewhere, that Knowles had done something like had

(01:54:49):
given them to someone, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:54:53):
I mean, it's really sad that was the two young girls.

Speaker 3 (01:54:56):
So yeah, the two little girls, through.

Speaker 1 (01:54:57):
The authorities didn't think that, right, Knowle's okay, but.

Speaker 3 (01:55:02):
The girl's family believed he was responsible.

Speaker 1 (01:55:04):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:55:05):
Some argue that Knowles was a thrill killer and not
really a serial killer since he didn't have like a
victim profile. He killed indiscriminately at times, you know, leaving
others alive. Again, he would sexually assault some victims, believe
others untouched. So he's definitely like an interesting study as
far as a mass murderer goes, Like, is he a

(01:55:29):
serial killer? I think it's an interesting debate.

Speaker 1 (01:55:33):
Well, no, it is. And it's like I guess with
thrill spree killers, I mean, obviously they're demented or messed up,
but I guess you could argue that they kill out
of almost a necessity or a desperation. Maybe not for

(01:55:54):
the love of killing, which I think this man certainly
crossed that line, opinion. It seemed seemed like he got
off he grew to light killing. Yeah, I will, and
I think, honestly, you could argue he's just a mixture
of the two. And this was a really long spree too.
I mean a lot of times they don't last as long. No,

(01:56:15):
this was like months and covered this much ground. Right,
So gosh, I just I still don't know. I'm still surprised.
I've never heard of this guy, right, I must say.

Speaker 3 (01:56:26):
My resources for today I read three different books. The
Castanova Killer by Jack Smith Mark Stokes is The Casanova
Killer really original titles, and then Sandy Fox's book Killing Time.

Speaker 1 (01:56:42):
Okay, so did you, uh, what did you think about
her book? Did a where there's some interesting insights as
far as her relationship.

Speaker 3 (01:56:54):
Honestly, I found it a little confusing because she kept
calling him Darryl, right, And I don't know, I mean
it was just like, yeah, we went to breakfast and
then he saw some construction workers and said this odd thing.
I mean, I don't know, I didn't really think it
was that great.

Speaker 1 (01:57:11):
Right, you just think it's one of those situations where
she came in contact with this person who did all
these things and she just happened to be a jaralist I.

Speaker 3 (01:57:20):
Write a book about I'm going to write a book. Yeah, okay,
I mean it's all right.

Speaker 1 (01:57:24):
Wow, God, what a ride?

Speaker 3 (01:57:27):
Yeah, I know, right.

Speaker 1 (01:57:28):
Yeah, and thanks again. Another shout out to Luke, our
newest patron. Thank you for supporting today's episode.

Speaker 3 (01:57:34):
Very troubling case.

Speaker 1 (01:57:36):
It is the like raw.

Speaker 3 (01:57:41):
Indiscriminate killing, Like he just doesn't care. He's gonna do
what he has to do.

Speaker 1 (01:57:47):
Yeah, No, he doesn't care.

Speaker 3 (01:57:49):
He was a doesn't care to possibly kill children, teenagers,
you know, elderly women, elderly.

Speaker 1 (01:57:58):
I mean, it's just it didn't matter to him.

Speaker 3 (01:58:01):
It's such a fucked up story, honestly, No, it really is.
Like you said, you've never heard of it. I had
never heard of this case, and I just can't believe
that this guy hasn't had more attention that there's not
documentaries about him. Yeah, I know, you know TV the
true crime episodes on these different TV shows about him.

Speaker 1 (01:58:25):
Well, see, this is a case where you could have
six or seven episodes Netflix, you know, I mean it
seems like they'll take stuff to talk about that really
could be wrapped up in episode or two and make
it an eight part series. I think, most notably the staircase.
It's not bro could have this could have been forty

(01:58:47):
five minutes. What are we doing here? Yeah? It was
an owl. That's what happened to her, all right, So
thank you for that, Heather, You're welcome. Thank you to
our listeners, and we hope you enjoyed that and can't
wait to get to part two of the Memphis West
West Memphis three on Patreon. So if you're not a member,
join us over there and you can catch part one,

(01:59:08):
get caught up and be ready for episode two and gosh,
what else a spooky season is here?

Speaker 3 (01:59:14):
Yeah? This week we will be dropping our midweek devoted
to horror films based on true stories or inspired by
true stories. We're gonna cover the film The Haunting in Connecticut, Yes,
and the story I guess that inspired the film.

Speaker 1 (01:59:33):
Yes. And I must apologize I was a bit flat
on our Jennifer's Bodies episode. I was trying to be
a trooper and get it done, but I was flat
and I kind of.

Speaker 3 (01:59:43):
Sucked you just well, we both kind of sucked. Sorry,
I like listened and realized I said, you know about
a five hundred thousand times, So it's finey, it happens.

Speaker 1 (01:59:54):
It happens. We do think about it and be like, ah,
we kind of I kind of sucked. Heather's sucks less
than me, uh usually, but anyway, I'll tell you.

Speaker 3 (02:00:04):
I really sucks, Dylan. This has been on my mind
simply because I am just blown away. If we had
fame and success from this podcast and we're making you know,
hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even upwards of like
a million dollars, I think we would still be the

(02:00:27):
same goofy. We would just be who we are, because
that's just like we're just We're just us, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 1 (02:00:34):
Yeah, I believe that, but we should test it out.

Speaker 3 (02:00:37):
I am, I guess troubled by this. There is a
podcast that is like a top rated podcast, true crime podcast,
I should say top rated, has just really skyrocketed, lots
of fame, big money deals. Right. I was like a

(02:00:58):
fan of this podcast and was a listener, but they
have since becoming I guess, you know, wealthy, known, famous.
It's like they have the ego right, how to control.
I just cannot believe these podcasters. I mean, they essentially

(02:01:18):
insult their listeners, like all the time they get on
these big political rants, which you know, we really do
try to avoid politics because I'm not out to like
offend anybody.

Speaker 1 (02:01:31):
It's true crime.

Speaker 3 (02:01:32):
Everybody has their opinion. I look at our true crime
podcast as a bit of an escape from from politics,
like I don't want to talk about it. I don't
want you to think about it when we're, you know,
discussing true crime. And I get sometimes we do it
does get a little political, just the nature of the
justice system or laws, what have you. But just to

(02:01:54):
like openly bash other people's political associations or beliefs or
religious to be so judgy, like, well, you're a fucking
horrible person if you vote this way, like you're gross whatever.
And also the pod not only do they do this,
so they're probably bashing like half their listeners who voted

(02:02:16):
a certain way, but they also like openly bash Christians
and like make fun of Christians constantly, and that's a
good majority of their listeners as well. And I just
can't I can't wrap my head around being so comfortable
or having this ego. I'm not sure what it is

(02:02:37):
that you think you can just insult your listeners and
lose listeners over it, and that you're gonna somehow keep
being number one if you are shitting on people and
their beliefs and insulting them, well.

Speaker 1 (02:02:51):
See here. The strangest thing about that is to me, and.

Speaker 3 (02:02:55):
I don't often like to ship talk other podcasters, but
when I see these types of things happening at this level,
I'm just like, what are you doing? Like what is
wrong with you?

Speaker 1 (02:03:08):
Well? See, that's what I don't understand is and what
can't happen and seems, by some people's opinion, be happening
in this particular situation is It's not only that it's like,
then your podcast kind of sucks now, right, It's not
it doesn't have that heart and soul that whatever people
liked about it from the beginning. And I really think
that's a mistake that some people do. Now, some people

(02:03:31):
blow up and they keep it one hundred, right, they
keep doing what they did that got them popular, and
that's cool, but you know, it's almost like they just
start milking their listeners every you know, with tons of advertising.
You know, you know, oh, go get our merch and I'll,
you know whatever, all this stuff, and then but then

(02:03:52):
are delivering like a lesser, a lower grade product than
they did.

Speaker 3 (02:03:58):
They spend more time discussing politics, right, and bashing people's
beliefs and their religious beliefs. Yeah, and you're like, but
you're here to talk about true crime and just hearing
all this and then kind of like looking into it
and seeing that I'm not just the one thinking this.
There's like tons of other people who are like I

(02:04:19):
used to listen to this podcast until you started openly
like insulting me and my religious beliefs. I don't know, man,
Like it's just mind blowing to me.

Speaker 1 (02:04:30):
I guess well, I view podcasting like any other entertainment.
Whatever genre I'm in. Comedy, history, true crime, politics, certainly
I might have, you know, listened to that as well.
That's what I'm here to listen about. Right. That's like
when I go see a fantasy sci fi movie. I
want to see a fantasy sci fi movie. I don't

(02:04:51):
want it to have messages about my currents. To say,
you know what I mean? That was the whole escape
of entertainment, right, I don't.

Speaker 3 (02:04:58):
Need the actor storing in the film to give some
big red carpet speech no on some serious topic like
I don't need to hear your opinion on well, that's
you know what I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:05:09):
Well, and that's why entertainment is faltering, I believe.

Speaker 3 (02:05:12):
I believe so as well.

Speaker 1 (02:05:13):
Because when we were younger people, you didn't know all
these things about their personal life, or their political beliefs
or religious beliefs on. You might to a degree here
and there, but what it was is people were there
to entertain everyone, right, And that's okay.

Speaker 3 (02:05:29):
How people have gotten real comfortable in the age of
social media with openly just like insulting people, degrading them, Well.

Speaker 1 (02:05:41):
Just because someone doesn't believe what I do.

Speaker 3 (02:05:43):
And I just am surprised. I guess I should say.

Speaker 1 (02:05:47):
It doesn't make a situation, It doesn't make meet them
terrible in me superior. Right, That mindset is very narrow minded.
I think it's a egotist to a degree to assume
that your opinion is just superior in all ways. They're there.

(02:06:08):
People don't have We've talked about before. People don't have conversations,
They don't have real conversations. People don't grow they don't.
They don't have a they don't have any variety to
their opinions. Right, It's very echo chambery on all sides
and in all ways you can think about it, and
that's just not how humans are.

Speaker 3 (02:06:29):
Well, I'm just reminded of that phrase pride comes before
the fall, right, And sometimes I think these folks who
get a little bit of fame and it just goes
to their head forget that they could easily they can
easily be humbled.

Speaker 1 (02:06:46):
Well, see listen. And that's why I get Heather's like, oh,
you always talk about I do. We do love our listeners.
We do, we do, And we are a little podcasts
that could and uh, very appreciative to still be podcasts
and people still willing to tune in to us all
these years later.

Speaker 3 (02:07:03):
Absolutely, I mean.

Speaker 1 (02:07:04):
So much to us. Made a few bucks along the way,
but certainly you know we're not rich from it. But
the listeners are the reason we keep doing that. Yeah,
And they're the reason that these people blow up and stuff.
And just your willingness, your hubris, to your willingness to
insult large segments of them, no matter where they fall

(02:07:26):
on whatever spectrum, is very strange to me.

Speaker 3 (02:07:30):
It's very strange to me as well. And I didn't
mean to end the episode on like a ramp or anything,
but I guess I was just kind of blown away,
like this is something that I've recently kind of concluded
in the last week or so, and then started like
looking into am I the only one who's feeling this way?
And then finding that no, there's actually a lot of

(02:07:52):
people who are feeling the same way. And again I
just think, Wow, you know you you had this excess,
but you could easily lose it every night. Well, y,
today's society.

Speaker 1 (02:08:04):
Well they've already made a lick, let's be honest. I'm sure,
but uh it's just uh, no matter about the money
and stuff, just your willingness to do that in the
end or on the other side of being popular.

Speaker 3 (02:08:17):
It's diabolical, Dylan, It's diabolical.

Speaker 1 (02:08:20):
And uh, me and Heather have even threatened to maybe
do some episodes kind of being character.

Speaker 3 (02:08:25):
No, we're not gonna know. Then everyone will know who
we're making fun of. Well I'm just kidding.

Speaker 1 (02:08:32):
No, I think people in the know probably already.

Speaker 3 (02:08:34):
We never make fun of people who.

Speaker 1 (02:08:36):
You're talking about. Never make fun I'm gonna talk like
the kids. Right, I'm just a forty seven year old kid. Right.

Speaker 3 (02:08:42):
Yeah, that's the other thing I find very entertaining that slabs.

Speaker 1 (02:08:46):
This this food is busting. I'm gonna say stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (02:08:49):
Cool.

Speaker 1 (02:08:50):
Yeah, yeah, cool, put the fries in the back.

Speaker 3 (02:08:54):
Telling me earlier people were like annoyed that Theovonn's like
forty five, and that he still dresses a certain way
and acts a certain way.

Speaker 1 (02:09:03):
The young people. Young people claim that he's caused playing
a twin year old. But you made a very valid point. Yeah,
he's right there in our generation, being forty five as
your age, I'm forty seven.

Speaker 3 (02:09:15):
Thanks for telling everybody.

Speaker 1 (02:09:16):
Well they knew, they already knew, and uh we our
whole generation is like that.

Speaker 3 (02:09:23):
We're just a bunch of big kids.

Speaker 1 (02:09:24):
Right, We're a bunch of big kids.

Speaker 3 (02:09:25):
We're all tatted up, purple hair, wearing vans.

Speaker 1 (02:09:29):
We don't do the kind of boring.

Speaker 3 (02:09:32):
Jeans, like yeah, we never grew up.

Speaker 1 (02:09:35):
We don't do the boring parent you know clothes like
back in the day where you knew somebody was parents,
mom and dad. They look like parents.

Speaker 3 (02:09:43):
They look like the Golden Girls, but they were thirty.

Speaker 1 (02:09:46):
They got the old people, hair styles and all that
when they're twenty five. But yeah, gen X, that's proudly
the clearing that we are gen.

Speaker 3 (02:09:55):
X elder millennials.

Speaker 1 (02:09:57):
Yeah, well I'm true gen X.

Speaker 3 (02:09:58):
You're I'm on the cusss.

Speaker 1 (02:10:01):
You're a freaking millennial on the cuss bro. Nothing against millennials.
You guys are still holding it down.

Speaker 3 (02:10:08):
Yeah, but we don't want to grow up. We were
toys r us kids.

Speaker 1 (02:10:10):
We don't want to grow up.

Speaker 3 (02:10:12):
So you know whatever, these young folks can hate on us,
they can be haters, but we're used to being hated on.

Speaker 1 (02:10:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:10:19):
I've been hated on for That's why we big kids.

Speaker 1 (02:10:22):
Our parents hated us. Yeah, yeah, what's up? Let's go
all right? So until next time. I can't wait for
the midweek. Another spooky episode and uh, I can't wait
for all the stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:10:34):
Hold on to that childlike sense of wonder.

Speaker 1 (02:10:36):
Yeah, and we will never turn our backs on any
of our listeners, no matter what you believe.

Speaker 3 (02:10:41):
No man, all are welcome. I'm an equal opportunity hater. Okay,
I'm just gonna I'm gonna hate you all equally stupid.
I'm gonna pick a certain group to Hey, I'm gonna
hate you all equally.

Speaker 1 (02:10:54):
Yeah, yeah, I hate every one of you and I'm
gonna hiss at you the same amount.

Speaker 3 (02:10:58):
But that is that is how you know that you're
you're in my heart.

Speaker 1 (02:11:02):
Yeah, that's how. That's her love language is hissing.

Speaker 3 (02:11:05):
Yeah, exactly. All right, Dylan, thank you so much for
sitting down to discuss true crime with me today.

Speaker 1 (02:11:11):
Thanks for having me wait and uh he what else?
Uh Heather. I would just like to say.

Speaker 3 (02:11:19):
They're ready for us to wrap up. Dylan.

Speaker 1 (02:11:21):
I'd like to say, bod, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (02:11:23):
Ed Gan look ed. You gotta really appreciate you. Go
take your mama's underwear off. Okay, I'm wearing my mama's
song right now. I see all right, you should be
concerned about that.

Speaker 1 (02:11:35):
By Thanks for coming, ed, Bye bye

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