Casanova Killer #1

Paul John Knowles killed at least 18 people in 6 short months across the United States.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listen to Hudson River Radio dot Com. Don't make us
come and find you.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Linda Zimmerman.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm Brian Harrowitz, and this is.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Good evening, murder fans, Hudson River Radio murder fan.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Maybe we should call him Justice fans. I don't know,
justice fan.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, yes, I I concur Yeah. See, I'm coming in
a little steamed today. Usually I get that way by
the after the second break, but yeah, I'm coming. I'm
coming in hot for this episode.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
And uh into the chair ready.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Okay, So before we get to our main episode, I
do have to mention we did an episode on Megan McDonald,
the woman in all Orange County who was killed back
in two thousand and three, and finally her alleged assailant,

(01:10):
Edward Holly, went to trial a couple of months ago.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
We're recording this in mid May, just because there's going
to be a delay by the time this gets rised.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yes, yes, So I went to the trial. I wanted
to see first hand, and this is just this is
just my impression. The judge I thought, excellent, she really
had control over everything. The prosecution seemed competent. The defense,

(01:45):
oh my, when I was there, I won't be naming names,
but he's he's asking, he's getting things wrong, he's getting
dates wrong, he's handing the witness the wrong report. You
know when you wrote this report. Oh this is not
my report. Oh okay, I should have known that. And

(02:06):
I'm like, what what? And then he's asking the witness
a question incorrectly. I am not a lawyer, I don't
even play one on television, but in my head I'm screaming,
you can't ask a question that with that is an
improper And of course he'd ask it. The prosecution objection,

(02:31):
the judge sustained. He says it wrong again, and this
went on numerous times, and I should not be in
a courtroom. I was. I was surprised. I didn't have
to be restrained. But get the freaking question right, at
least phrase it right. Finally the judge said, hold on
a minute. She turns to the witness and phrases the

(02:55):
question properly, which he then the witness then answers, and
then she looks back at the defense attorney and says, okay,
now move on, Like wow. The judge should not have
to phrase I'm she was getting as frustrated as everybody else.
And I was sitting behind Megan McDonald's family, and wow,

(03:21):
that was very emotional. I mean you could see what
they were going through. And one other thing, the jury
was very young. You know, usually a bunch of white
haired old people, none of that. Some a little older people,
but mostly young. And you know they're paying attention most

(03:47):
for the most part. But you know there's one girl
twirling her hair around her fingers, or somebody else staring
at the ceiling. It's you know, I'm like, uh oh.
And of course the I don't know who didn't think
he was guilty. But it ended in a mistrial because

(04:09):
they couldn't come to unanimous decision. And a lot of
times after a trial you find out, well, jury number
eight said I couldn't convict him because of this, or
you know, and you get some sense. I don't know
if it was eleven to one to convict, I don't

(04:30):
know if it was two to nine toqu you know,
to convict, I don't I didn't see any of that.
And I would think both attorneys will want to interview
the jurors to find out what worked and what didn't,
what convinced them and what didn't. They are going to retry.

(04:54):
They have decided to retry, Holly. I think it's October eighth,
early October. But this time I'm going to be there.
I was. I wasn't able to go to opening statement.
I'm going to go to opening statements and I'm going
to go as much as possible. But you know, I
kept up on it, and I don't know whoever didn't

(05:15):
vote to convict. I don't know what they were looking
at and what they were hearing. But hey, you know
it's jury trials or a crapshoot.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, yeah, that is true.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
But I hate to see Megan McDonald's family go through
all this again, right right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Well, getting out of jury duty was always a joke,
and it's not as easy as it used to be.
You know. It used to be go say something off
the charts and they'll kick you out, and not so
much anymore. Yeah, well that might be why you're to put.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Me on that jury, but that ain't happening. Yeah, well
the hanging judge.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Should look in and catch fire. I think that's right.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, and they'd say, oh no, Zimmerman, you turn around
and get right back out here. We don't need your kind.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
But you can't go to law school and be on
the other side of the fence, you know, you've done
everything else.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
I think that's the Yeah, now that my Civil War
book is done, maybe I need to go to law school.
All right, I'll do it.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Okay, that's good to me.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
So now that we've digressed, but it's important people should
follow this case and pay attention come early October. Yeah,
it's Megan McDonald and the defendant is Edward Holly.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
And you see that a lot. You see publicity at
the arrest, you know, the crime, the arrest, the initial
and then it fades and right you'll see maybe the
results of the case down the road. But even that's
fifty to fifty for a major crime, you know, and
everything in between is just you don't hear a whole

(07:01):
lot about.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, there were a few reporters there I recognized, you know,
local publications, but the coverage was just not there that
I expected. So we'll see what happens next time around.
But yeah, I restrained myself. I was calm. It was

(07:24):
not easy.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Did you bring the Civil War book to sign?

Speaker 2 (07:28):
It. No, it wasn't done then, okay, So so yeah,
so let me quick plug A Civil War Soldier in
Me Bylinda Zerman on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble, something
i'd been working on for Oh, let me see about
thirty years about a Union soldier. So means a lot

(07:48):
to me. So if you like my crazy writing, well
not my writing is not crazy I am. But I
really took this seriously and I poured my heart and
soul into this book. So look it up. And why
don't we take our first break and get into the
murders that everybody's tuned in for. Hudson Riverradio dot com.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Hudson Riverradio dot com.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
We are back. I'm more centered and calm now, all right, good,
I can hear in my voice.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
For the next at least three and a half minutes
in the right window.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Right, So, as you mentioned, we are in May of
twenty twenty five, and there was some a serial killer
who recently made the news I'm not going to spoil
that right yet, known as the Casanova killer. And I thought, well,
since it's a somewhat current story, at least the news

(08:58):
about this part of it, maybe I should look up
the Casanova Killer. And I the first article that pops
up is talking about the nineteen seventies. I'm like, wait
what Oh, because that's the first Casanova Killer.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Oh, I'm sure he's like the hundredth.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah yeah, good point. Yeah, good point. So this episode
will be the first Casanova Killer. And then if you
tune in for our next episode, that will be the
second Casanova Killer. So if you find Brian, if you
find the third, fourth, and fifth Casanova Killer, maybe we

(09:41):
just have to change the title of our show here.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
It'll be a whole subset, a whole nother. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
So, and if anyone out there knows any other Casanova Killers,
let us know. But we are going to Florida in
nineteen forty six when a little baby named Paul John
Knowles is born, an innocent, cute little thing who started
stealing little kid's bicycles at the age of eight, went

(10:13):
to reform school, ended up in his first real prison
by the age of nineteen, and even admitted he was
a criminal since he was a little kid. He then
spent the rest of his life at least six months
of every year he was in prison for burglary, auto theft,

(10:35):
a variety of things. So just a complete career criminal.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
He didn't go to Vietnam. Huh, he didn't get drafted.
I guess he was in prison.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Probably maybe they didn't want somebody of his caliber handing
them a rifle.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Wasn't that an options? I don't know if they did
that still at Vietnam, you know, go to jail and
go to.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
The art perhaps, But no he did not. He was
known as a very smooth talker, a con man. Women
kept saying he was handsome. I don't see it. He
was kind of gaunt and creepy looking, but maybe in

(11:15):
his younger days, who knows. Very charming. We see this
a lot in serial killers. Very charming, intelligent, polite, never swore,
And in prison he got a pen pal. Now, these
pen pals are usually lonely, unbalanced women who fall in

(11:38):
love with inmates, and this particular one was Angela Kovic.
She was divorced, living in San Francisco, California, and they
started writing. And I guess he was just as charming
and convincing in his writing as in his talking, because

(11:59):
she came all the way from San Francisco over to
the East Coast in Florida there to visit him where.
How romantic he proposed to her in prison. She accepted,
and then she spent a lot of her own money
on lawyers to get him paroled in nineteen seventy four.

(12:22):
Soon as he stepped out of prison, he flew straight
to California, where they were to be married. In the meantime.
I don't know how this came about. A psychic. I
know how you feel about psychics, but this one was right.
A psychic warned Angela that a dangerous man was about
to come into her life. She thought, hmm, I wonder

(12:44):
if this could be my sweetie, Paul John Knowles. And
when he arrived, she was horrified. She said, she just
felt this aura of fear. That's what she called, this
aura of fear around him, and she calls off the wedding.
There's spending all this time and money on him. She's right, noop,

(13:08):
So nope.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
IQs said at fifty right now, we'll give her that.
We'll give her half credit.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yes, we will give her half credit and maybe another
ten percent because she actually survived, which, as we will see,
was not easy to do for women. In Paul John
John Paul knows, get me, let me get this right,
Paul John, We'll call him Knowles in Knowles's Life, Okay,

(13:36):
all right, So Knowles claims that he was so angry
from getting jilted that he went and out that night
and killed three people. That has not been corroborated, but
I I have no reason to doubt that that's exactly
what he did. He went back to Florida, Jacksonville, where

(14:01):
he promptly stabbed a bartender in a fight. He was
thrown in jail then on July twenty sixth, nineteen seventy four.
So there's no sense keeping a list of all this.
It's too much, trust me, But just keep this date
in mind. July twenty sixth, nineteen seventy four. He picks

(14:23):
a lock at the jail he was in, he escapes.
He then goes he's on the loose, goes right to
the house of sixty five year old Alice Curtis, ties
her up with a and gags her. Gags her so

(14:43):
intensely she chokes to death. He stole what he could
find in the house and took her car. So this
is right after he breaks out of prison. Okay. He
then he is seen by eleven years year old Lillian
Anderson and her seven year old sister, my Lett And

(15:08):
these girls knew Knowles's mother and they could identify him,
so of course he had to strangle them both and
dump their bodies in a swamp. Now, there is some
controversy that this was a false confession, but it seems
pretty specific, you know, naming the girls and why he

(15:34):
did what he did. The next day, he is in
Atlantic Beach, Florida, where he broke into the home of
Marjorie Howe, uh strangled her, stole her TV set. I'm
not sure if this is the TV set he gave
to his girlfriend, but at one point he gave a

(15:56):
stolen color TV set That was a.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Big thing, big thing, a nineteen inch giant screen color
TV that weighed four hundred pounds. That's right.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Wow, when you could start seeing TV shows in color,
big big, big deal. Yeah, today, people said, who's going
to steal? Steal? You know, like what a sixty inch TV?
You're going to run down the street with it, you know,
And they're two hundred dollars at Walmart. No, you're you're correct.
They were a big deal.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
They were nineteen inch screen, was sixty inches deep, right,
you needed a crane. You have to take the window
out to crane it into your living room back then.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
So stealing TV sets was a thing. So August first, Now,
remember he started this on July second, we're already up
to body number five, thirteen year old i'm as Sanders
in Georgia was strangled to death. Her skeletal room mames

(17:00):
were not found until seventy six August twenty Third victim
number six, Kathy Pierce and Mussella, Georgia, broke into her house,
strangled her with the phone cord while her three year
old son watched. Just cold blooded killer. Remarkably, for some reason,

(17:27):
he didn't He didn't hurt the child, which he seemed
to have no compunction murdering children, But this three year
old he didn't. So that was So we've had Florida,
we've had Georgia. Now September third, lima Ohio businessman William

(17:47):
Bates meets in a bar, strangles him to death. He
was a big, powerful guy, Okay, so it's one thing
to strangle one hundred and fifteen pound woman. He could
also capable of strangling men, and he was also apparently
a martial artist. I don't know expert but trained in

(18:09):
martial arts, so he overpowered and strangled William Bates. Took
his car, took his money, took his credit cards. This
is what he did. Number eight and nine we are
now he went to California again and then in Eli, Nevada,

(18:32):
he shot to death Emmett and Lois Johnson, who were camping.
Shot them in the temple with a thirty eight caliber.
They found Lois's body in the camper, nude, so there
was most likely some sort of sexual assault. It's extra

(18:56):
tragic because someone had phoned the Nevada Highway Patrol that
there were screams at this location, and oops, they failed
to notify the Sheriff's department, so nobody went to their rescue. Nobody. Yeah,

(19:17):
that's kind of inexcusable. Okay. Number ten. Three days later
after shooting the Johnson's in Nevada, he's now in Segouin, Texas.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Se Segein, yep, Okay, you know it been there many times, yep.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Okay. So he's in Segeen, Texas and there's a woman
who has car trouble. So the good samaritan that he is,
he stops to rape and strangle her. This guy is
just on a tear. Remember this all started July twenty
six well that we know, it started July twenty sixth Okay,

(20:04):
September twenty third in Birmingham, Alabama and Dawson. He actually
met this woman and they believe she kind of thought
he was attractive and willingly traveled with him for a

(20:24):
few days, but he ended even if he liked her,
he ended up killing her on the twenty ninth of September.
He then goes to Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota, and
we have no idea what he did there. Considering he
was killing someone every week or two, I tend to

(20:48):
think he was not just sightseeing during that.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
Sounds like he didn't have time to sight see. No,
what all those places you're missing out?

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah, well, why don't we take a break from all
this killing because we're not done yet. This is Hudson
River Radio dot Com.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
This is Hudson River Radio dot Com.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
We are back. So what do you think of our
prolific serial killer knowles Man?

Speaker 1 (21:26):
He got to travel a lot, so was he driving?
Was he flying? Do we have any idea how he was.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Generally driving with the stolen cars? Okay, as we See,
he would kill someone, take all their cash, credit cards
and their car, and when he'd need more cash credit
cards or he just felt like killing, he would kill
someone else get a new card.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
So he'd kind of leapfrog from one vehicle to the next,
ditch the last one, making it that much harder to right,
especially back then.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, yeah, and how are you going to you know, again,
this is seventy four. Are you really tying in the
murders in Florida with the businessman in Limo, Ohio unless
he was seen, unless they had some evidence. These are
random killings.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Right, even if you used the same credit card. Everything
was done manually back then too, so it's not like
you could easily look up activity. You couldn't look up
right stores. You went to that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, remember putting the card on that little slot and
you put a paper down and you slid the thing. Yeah, yep,
to make the impression of the card, and you left.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
With your stuff, whether or not your credit card was
any good because later that night somebody had to sit
down and call in every single transaction. And yep, the
good old days.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yes, So it was much easier to be a serial
killer back then then. He's in Connecticut because Wine in Marlborough,
he breaks into the home of thirty five year old
Karen Wine. He rapes and strangles her, and then rapes

(23:11):
and strangles her sixteen year old daughter. This is one
of the most heartless prolific all right. So then we
go on October nineteenth, Woodford, Virginia, the home of fifty
three year old Doris Hovey, shot her to death. There

(23:35):
was no sexual assault, nothing was stolen. It appeared as
though he just needed to kill. And we've seen that
serial killers usually have a method of that they prefer.
He would shoot, he would strangle. He you know, didn't

(23:56):
matter to stab as long as as long as they
were dead. Okay, in October. And then we're still in October.
Remember this only started the end of July. We're up
to twelve, twelve bodies that we know of already. He
picks up two hitchhikers down in Key West, Florida. He

(24:18):
can't go much farther in the US. He is really
all over. He plans to kill them, but he is
stopped by a police officer for a standard traffic violation.
He's driving the stolen car with the Ohio plates of
William Bates. But the officer, for whatever reason, I guess

(24:42):
he smooth talked his way. I don't know what. I
don't know if it was passing a stop sign, I
don't know what the traffic violation was. The officer lets
him go without a warning. Now in seventy four, could
you call in the plates of an Ohio car and
get you.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
Could run, but out of state. I don't know how
that would work, to be honest, I mean, you're yeah,
I don't even have answer to that.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Today it was file cards, you know, starts with an
A flipped to A. You know, it's insane. So to
look up something was you know, card catalog style basically,
and then now you're dealing with out of state and now
you got to call whoever you need to call out
of state. So I could kind of understand. And Key
West is a touristy area, so having an out of

(25:31):
state plate isn't going to be that unusual.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
That's a good point. Yeah, Florida. Florida in general, people
would drive so and being charming and saying, hey, I
just picked up these hitch hikers. I'm being a nice guy.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Get, which nowadays would be two giant red flags, one
for each hitchhiker that you just picked up.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
So unfortunately he lets them go. But that kind of
spooke him. He was a little scared that he was
pulled over. He was seen, he's the car, so he
actually let these hitchhikers go. So boy will talk about
a close call. So this also rattled him to the

(26:17):
point where he made a confession tape. Okay, because he
probably figured my days are probably numbered. He probably, I'm
sure he was not confessing to clear his conscience. I
think he just wanted credit for everything he did. He
made a confession tape, gave it to an attorney, and

(26:40):
the attorney advised him, you should really give yourself up. Yeah, right,
He left the tape and he took off. Unfortunately, those
tapes were in storage and were not only affected by
a fire but a flood at the location, so we

(27:01):
don't have the original tapes, but some people had listened
to them anyway, he even though he had been rattled,
it didn't stop him. On November two, to score body
counts thirteen and fourteen hitchhikers twenty three year old Edward

(27:22):
Hillard and Debbie Griffin. This was in Georgia. Edward was
found in the woods, shot five times, and Debbie was
never found. Okay, then we go just four days later,
November sixth, he has drinks with a man named Carswell.

(27:44):
Carr meets him in a bar in make in Georgia.
He's such a nice guy. Hey, why don't you come
back to the house we'll have you know, we'll keep
drinking there. You're such a nice guy. So they go
back to Carswell's house where he is stabbed to death. Now,
this is interesting. He was stabbed to death in his bed.

(28:09):
They said it was the most bloody crime scene they
had ever seen. He bled so much, he bled straight
through the mattress. Wow, that's a lot of blood. Okay,
what was he doing stabbing this man to death in bed?
They wonder if there was some sort of homosexual interaction,

(28:32):
and you know, like he did with everyone else, he
had to kill them. Unfortunately, Carswell had a fifteen year
old daughter. Well, he can't leave her as a witness,
so he kills her as well. And this is the
pinnacle of his depravity. He attempts to have sex with

(28:56):
her corpse. Okay, this is who we are dealing with here.
Then on November eighth. Just two days later, he meets
Sandy Fawkes. She is a British journalist. She's very attracted
to him for god knows what reason, and she willingly

(29:20):
goes to Atlanta with him, where for three days he
attempts to have sex with her, but he is unable
to perform because he just can't do it when it's
not forcible rape. Apparently this is okay, seriously sick man okay.

(29:42):
And surprisingly, after three days of failure, she just walks away.
She's like, okay, I'm done here, and he doesn't kill her.
So very uncharacteristic of him, But what is characteristic of him?
Two days after after or just actually the next day

(30:02):
after she leaves, he tries to rape Sandy's friend, but
the woman escapes. So then in West Palm Beach, Florida,
he abducts Barbara Abel, stole her, car raped her, but

(30:23):
let her go alive, let her off in Fort Pierce, Florida,
which I know that place, and actually Barbara's sister I believe,
had cerebral palsy, and he had first tied her up
and Barbara said, you can't, you know, leave her alone,

(30:47):
and so he left her alone and took Barbara some
slight compassion. I don't know if we can even call
it that. Did we take a second break?

Speaker 1 (31:02):
We did?

Speaker 2 (31:02):
We did? Okay, all right, all right, I don't want
to miss the second break. But let me take a
deep breath.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
Okay, is this where the real anger starts? About seven
right now?

Speaker 2 (31:13):
You? Yeah, you haven't noticed the simmering, the boiling. Yes, Okay.
This guy is freaking crazy and he is just killing
with impunity across the country.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah. Where is she staying? Is he staying in like motels?
Or I mean, I guess when he meets these people,
he's crashing with them.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Uh, sometimes he's living with these women before he kills them.
I'm sure when he's stealing credit cards, he's going to
hotels and you know, staying on the on the victim's
credit card. November sixteenth, we are getting to known victim

(31:56):
seventeen and eighteen. Again, we started Lie twenty sixth, We're
only at November sixteenth. Eight I defy many people to
name killers who killed eighteen people in the span of August, September,
October and mid November, you know, basically a little over

(32:18):
four months. Eighteen victims across many states. This is well,
they're all sad. But Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Charles Campbell
recognizes the stolen car that Knowles is driving, so good
for him in Perry, Florida. Unfortunately, when he confronts Knowles,

(32:43):
there is a struggle and Knowles gets a hold of
Campbell's gun. I mean that is the right, I mean,
that is the last.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Thing that's that you can get. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yes, when a cop loses his gun to an assailant,
he has taken hostage. It gets worse because then Knowles
uses the cop car, puts on the lights and sirens
to pull over businessman James Meyer, who he then also
takes hostage. Now he brings them into the woods in Georgia,

(33:20):
handcuffs them around a tree. They're like facing a tree.
I've seen crime scene photos. It's horrific, and for no
particular reason, shoots them each point blank in the head.
A police officer and this businessman who gets pulled over
because he thinks it's a real cop. Well, now he's

(33:42):
killed a cop and there are roadblocks everywhere. There's this
huge man hunt for him. Dogs, helicopters. They have this roadblock.
He crashes into a roadblock, but he manages to get
out of the car and run into the woods, and

(34:03):
they set up this big search perimeter and thereafter a
serial killing cop killer. Now, somehow Knowles gets out of
the search perimeter, but twenty seven year old Vietnam Vet
David Clark happens to be out hunting with his shotgun

(34:26):
and he is able to hold Knowles at gunpoint until
the police arrive. So this private citizen with this huge
man hunt going on, finally gets Knowles into custody. Okay,
So December eighteenth, nineteen seventy four, Sheriff Earl Lee and

(34:49):
Ronnie Angel, or a hell of the Georgia Bureau of
Investigating Guest Investigation, are transporting Nole cuffed in the back seat. Okay,
should be pretty secure. According to the report, Knowles grabs

(35:11):
Lee's handgun, discharging it through the holster in the process,
and while Lee was struggling with Knowle's attempting to keep
control of the vehicle, Angel fired three shots into Nole's chest,
killing him instantly. So, you know, maybe that's exactly the

(35:37):
way it happened. But when a cop killer dies in
police custody trying to escape, just saying you don't want
to see that. That should never never have happened. Did
they not have a screen up or some barricade?

Speaker 1 (35:58):
The York regulations and I can tell you New York,
I don't know Georgia. But if you don't have a
barricade between front and back, the second officer is supposed
to sit in the back with the prisoner, with the
firearm on the opposite side, away from the prisoner, you know.
So basically the drivers in the front left and the

(36:19):
police officers generally in the back right. You know, assuming
it's a right handed officer, you may switch if it's
a left hand That's so I don't know what their
situation was, right, you know, never should what holes has
been doing all along. It doesn't sound out of at
a character either, No.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
It doesn't.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Of course it should not have happened.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
But yeah, yeah, you feel a little squirrely. Oh he
was trying to escape, you know, that kind of uh,
that kind of thing. But I'm not sad. It saved
the taxpayers a lot of money trying this guy in
all these different states. So this five months free just

(37:02):
one of the most remarkable I think in US history.
At one point. He had been questioned by a psychiatrist
one of his many times in jail, and he was asked,
what's the worst thing that ever happened to you? And
he responded being born? Okay, not a good life. What's

(37:26):
the best thing that ever happened to you? Nothing? He says.
I've been a criminal since I was a little kid.
He said. My parents didn't give a damn about me.
He said, maybe they loved me, but they didn't give
a damn and he was just left to run wild
and do whatever he wanted. We enumerated about eighteen murders

(37:51):
here he claimed thirty five and unfortunately, oh and he
also claimed five thousand crimes times, burglaries, auto theft.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
All, yeah, how would you keep track of that?

Speaker 2 (38:04):
How would you keep track? Probably a ballpark number. But
when you start committing crimes at age eight.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
Right, I mean nowadays there's an app for that, so
you just click crime.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Yeah, bing bing, you get little you at little awards
when you reach the hundred crime thing. So, unfortunately, the
tapes where he had all his confession are gone, because
if we had them now with the technology and the databases,

(38:36):
maybe we could solve some unsolved murders. So wow, that
is the case of the first Casanova killer.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
He probably is the shortest duration serial serial killer that
we talked about too. Everybody else has been years and
year and putting pieces of the puzzle together. And he was,
you know, he was efficient. I'll give him that.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
He was just on a rampage. Whether it was that
Angela in California, you know, rejecting him, you know, leaving
him at the altar such as it is, whether that
made him snap. But I tend to think he had

(39:27):
probably killed before, right, And you know those four states
that I mentioned that he went to. God knows what
he did. But somebody who's killing almost every week, he's
not going to I really don't think he's going to stop.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Right, well, just to be able to persuade someone like
Angela to front the money to get him paroled. He's
practiced that before. Yes, yeah, good point. I want. I'm
guessing other people posted bail for him at some point
that we don't know about, or something he's curried favors somehow.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Right, right, And all these women, Oh he's attractive. I
think I'll travel with him. I think I'll suddenly go
to Atlanta with them. You know, but yes, and so
that is wow. I was stunned when I was, you know,

(40:28):
writing the notes and researching this, I'm like, wait, wait,
it was just two weeks. Await, it was just a
week ago. Another one, you know, it's fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
It's remind to not really have a pattern. His pattern
was opportunity.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
That's perfect. Yeah, yep, yep.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
So why don't you take us off.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
While Okay, yeah, you go calm down, have a beverage,
take a deep breath because we have a casting over
number two coming up on our next show to do
a little reset. But thank you all for joining us
here on Murder in the Hudson Valley. We will see
you next time. If you are not a victim of
Murder in the Hudson Valley.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.