The Casanova Killer: How Paul John Knowles once terrorized Middle Georgia in the 70s

Justin Baxley
·4 min read
2

The Telegraph is highlighting cold case and noteworthy true crime stories from Middle Georgia as part of an ongoing series. If you have a case that could be featured, send it to JBaxley@macon.com

Paul John Knowles was a spree killer who murdered more than 15 people across five states before a GBI agent fatally shot him during a reported escape attempt.

Knowles, a Florida native known as the Casanova Killer for his good looks and charming demeanor, first entered prison as a teenager. In 1974 he was released from prison and hoped to marry a woman he had corresponded with while incarcerated named Angela Covic. Covic decided to call the wedding off after a psychic warned her of a “very dangerous man.”

After the rejection, Knowles went back to Florida, where he was arrested for his involvement in a bar fight. He escaped prison in July of 1974. On July 26, a 65-year-old Jacksonville woman named Alice Curtis became his first victim.

Knowles in Macon

Knowles is tied to at least 18 murders but in recordings released after his death, he boasts of killing more than 30 people. Law enforcement officials in Florida said he liked to embellish his crimes for shock value and believe some of those confessions were lies. Others aren’t so sure.

As quoted in a 1998 Telegraph article, retired GBI agent Ronnie Angel said “if you told me he killed a 100, I could believe that.”

Knowles’ recordings did help solve an assault and murder case in Macon from Aug. 15th, 1974.

Early that morning, a man with a .38 caliber pistol broke into a west Macon home wearing a stocking over his face. He demanded money and attempted to rape the woman who lived there. In the scuffle, the man fired his gun and threatened to harm the women’s niece. A second fight began, and the man shot the woman in the stomach.

Her 13-year-old son managed to call for help after the man left.

Former Middle Georgia district attorney Fred Hasty told the Telegraph in March of 1975 that the tapes Knowles gave to his attorney Sheldon Yavitz allowed Hasty to tie the west Macon home invasion to Knowles.

Warner Robins murder connected to Knowles

Investigators connected Knowles with the skeletal remains of a young woman found in a wooded area off Ga. 96 in Warner Robins in April of 1976. Ima Jean Sanders, a 13-year-old girl, is believed to be a victim of Knowles.

Sanders is believed to be the hitchhiker that Knowles claimed in his tapes he took near Macon, according to authorities. The tapes and related transcripts were ruined in the flood of 1994. But the GBI was able to retrieve a letter that summarized the crime and allowed them to tie it to Sanders in 2011.

“When I began my career with the GBI in 1981, the crimes of Paul John Knowles and the manner in which he died was legendary within the agency,” GBI agent Gary Rothwell told the Telegraph in 2011. “I never suspected I would be involved in resolving one of his unsolved murders so many years later.

Casanova Killer serial murders end

Knowles killed others in Middle Georgia and across the state in 1974, including Carswell Carr, 45, who was stabbed with a pair of scissors, his 15-year-old daughter Mandy, was strangled to death in their home in Milledgeville.

Crawford County native Kathy Pierce, 24, was another of Knowles’ suspected victims. So were Edward Hilliard and Debbie Griffin killed near Milledgeville. Authorities never recovered Griffin’s body.

The Casanova Killer was eventually captured at a roadblock near McDonough on Nov. 17 shortly after killing Florida State Trooper Charles Eugene Campbell and a businessman named James Meyer in Pulaski County after abducting them in Perry, Florida.

The next day, Knowles was to be sent back to a Florida prison when he made a play for an officer’s gun in an attempt to escape after picking his handcuffs with a paper clip but was shot and killed by GBI agent Ronnie Angel near Douglas, Georgia.

Case File

Who: John Paul Knowles: The Casanova Killer who received his name for his good looks and charming demeanor. Often compared to Ted Bundy.

Where: He killed 18 people across more than five states including Georgia, Florida, Texas, Nevada and Alabama. He claimed he killed upwards of 30 people. Including multiple people in Middle Georgia

When: The killings took place from July to November of 1974 before ending in a failed escape from a police car on Nov. 18, 1974.

Podcasts, Books and TV shows:

  • Serial Killers from Parcast Presents (Season 5)

  • Crime Binge (Episode 9)

  • Killer (Case 14)

  • All Killa, No Filla (Episode 49)

  • True Crime Guys (Episode 33)

  • Serial Killers (Casanova Killer part 1 and 2)

  • The Casanova Killer: The Life of Serial Killer Paul John Knowles

  • The FBI Files Special- Dangerous Pursuit