Paul John Knowles, known as the “Casanova Killer,” terrorized the United States during the mid-1970s, claiming to have murdered dozens of people across multiple states. Born in Orlando, Florida, on April 25, 1946, Knowles grew up in a crowded three-room home with six family members, according to his brother Clifton, who acknowledged that the future killer endured physical abuse and time in foster care. Knowles was sent to the Dozier School for Boys before entering prison for the first time at age nineteen. In 1974, while incarcerated, Knowles began exchanging letters with Angela Covitch, a married woman who believed he was imprisoned on a drug charge when he was actually serving time for burglary.
Their relationship quickly deepened, and the pair became engaged, with Covitch paying for his legal fees. When Knowles was released, he traveled directly to California to be with her, but the wedding was eventually called off. Before that, Covitch visited a fortune teller who warned her to avoid any new man in her life, describing Knowles as dangerous—a warning that carried far more weight than she could have known. Knowles’s murder spree began shortly after his release.
His first known victim was 65-year-old retired teacher Alice Curtis, whose home he broke into on the night he escaped. He bound her and searched her belongings; because her mouth was gagged, she choked to death on her own dentures. Knowles took money and her car before fleeing, and her son found her body the next morning. No fingerprints were found at the scene.
The killing continued through the summer and fall of 1974. On August 2, in Atlantic Beach, Florida, 49-year-old Marjorie Howie was found strangled in her apartment, her television stolen. On August 23, Knowles broke into the home of Kathie Sue Pierce in Rincon, Georgia, strangling her but leaving her three-year-old son unharmed. On September 3, 32-year-old William Bates was seen with a red-haired man at a roadside tavern in Lima, Ohio.
After Bates disappeared, police discovered Alice Curtis’s abandoned car near the bar, but Bates’s own vehicle was missing. His naked body, strangled and left in the woods, was found in October. In mid-September, while driving Bates’s car, Knowles bound and killed two elderly campers, Emmett and Lois Johnson, at a rest stop near Ely, Nevada. On September 21, he came across stranded motorcyclist Charlene Hicks in Seguin, Texas.
He stopped to offer help, then abducted, raped, and strangled her with her own stockings, dragging her body through a barbed-wire fence to hide it. Her body was found days later. On September 23, in Birmingham, Alabama, Knowles crossed paths with beautician Ann Dawson. It remains unclear whether he abducted her or she traveled with him willingly, but she paid their bills while they were together.
Knowles later claimed he killed her on September 29 and threw her body into the Mississippi River. Her body was never found. On October 16, Karen Wine and her 16-year-old daughter Dawn were bound, raped, and strangled in their home in Marlborough, Connecticut. Only a tape recorder was reported missing from the house, and authorities believe Knowles committed the crime.
Two days later, on October 18, 53-year-old Doris Hozey was shot dead with her husband’s rifle, which was left beside her body. In Key West, Florida, Knowles picked up two hitchhikers but was pulled over by a police officer. The officer let him go with only a warning, unaware that Knowles was driving the stolen car of victim William Bates. Rattled by the encounter, Knowles dropped the hitchhikers off in Miami without harming them.
Around that time, Knowles recorded confessions to his crimes on tapes and mailed them to a Florida attorney named Sheldon Yavitz. On November 2, Edward Hilliard and Debbie Griffin disappeared while hitchhiking near Macon. Hilliard’s body was found in a nearby woods, but Griffin was never found, and Knowles is considered a suspect in their deaths. On November 6, Knowles befriended Carsel Car in Milledgeville, Georgia, and was invited to spend the night.
He stabbed Car to death and strangled Car’s 15-year-old daughter Amanda. Car was stabbed approximately 27 times with scissors, while Amanda was strangled with ladies’ stockings, another pair found in her mouth. On November 8, Knowles met British journalist Sandy Fawkes in Atlanta. She described him as a cross between Robert Redford and Ryan O’Neal.
They spent days together, though Fawkes later claimed Knowles was sexually impotent. They parted on November 10. The next day, Knowles abducted one of Fawkes’s acquaintances, Susan MacKenzie, and forced her to have sex at gunpoint. She escaped and alerted authorities, and when a patrol officer tried to arrest Knowles, he brandished a sawed-off shotgun and fled.
Days later, in West Palm Beach, Florida, Knowles broke into the home of Beverly Mabee, abducting her sister Barbara Mabee Able and stealing their car. He then fled to Fort Pierce, Florida. Barbara later recounted in her book “Sole Survivor” that she was raped during her captivity before being released. On November 16, Florida Highway Patrol trooper Charles Eugene Campbell spotted the stolen car near Perry, Florida.
During the arrest attempt, Knowles seized Campbell’s gun and escaped in the patrol car, taking Campbell hostage. Using the patrol car’s siren, Knowles flagged down 29-year-old driver James Meyer and placed both men in Meyer’s vehicle. He led them to a wooded area in Pulaski County, Georgia, tied them to a tree, and shot both in the head. Shortly afterward, he crashed through a police roadblock in Henry County, Georgia, firing at pursuing officers.
During his escape, Knowles was shot in the foot by lead investigator Philip S. Howard, and officer Jerry Kiefer was injured when Knowles’s car collided with his patrol car. A chaotic manhunt followed with dogs, officers from multiple agencies, and helicopters. On November 17, 27-year-old Vietnam veteran David Clark, who worked in hospital maintenance and was armed with a rifle, cornered Knowles.
Paul Robins and Billy Payne of Henry County arrived at the scene and arrested and restrained him. Knowles had been outside the designated search zone and would have escaped had it not been for the actions of local residents. On December 18, 1974, Sheriff Earl Lee and Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Ronnie Angel were driving on Interstate 20 with Knowles restrained in the back seat, heading to Henry County, Georgia. According to a GBI press release, Knowles had confessed to disposing of the gun he had taken from trooper Charles Campbell after killing him with it.
He seized Sheriff Lee’s pistol and fired through the seat cover. As Lee wrestled with Knowles while trying to control the vehicle, Agent Angel fired three shots into Knowles’s chest, killing him instantly, according to the GBI. Knowles had claimed responsibility for 35 murders, though authorities linked him to at least 18 killings in 1974.
His death brought a sudden end to a five-month rampage that stretched from Florida to Nevada, leaving a trail of victims, unanswered questions, and many bodies never recovered.