Paul John Knowles

In his taped confessions, Knowles claimed to have murdered a teenage girl named "Alma." On December 21, 2011, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation identified this victim as 13-year-old Ima Jean Sanders, who disappeared on August 1, 1974 in Warner Robins, Georgia, and whose skeletal remains were found in April 1976.

After his escape from police custody, Knowles began a four-month, multistate crime spree. At the time, the crimes were not linked but after Knowles' capture authorities discovered he had recorded audiotaped confessions that he mailed to an attorney. These tapes were never released to the public, but were reviewed by a grand jury in 1975. The tapes, along with all transcripts, were destroyed "after being ruined beyond repair in a flood of the Federal Courthouse in Macon," according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Born in Orlando, Florida, Knowles lived in foster homes before first being incarcerated at the age of 19. In early 1974, Knowles was serving time at Raiford Prison in Florida (now known as Florida State Prison) when he began corresponding with a divorcee in San Francisco, eventually becoming engaged. His fiancée paid for his legal counsel and, upon his release, Knowles flew directly to California to be with her, but she called off the wedding. Knowles claimed to have murdered three people on the streets of San Francisco that night, but that has never been verified.

Knowles returned to Jacksonville, Florida. He was soon arrested after stabbing a bartender during a fight, but he picked a lock in his detention cell and escaped on July 26, 1974.

Knowles claimed to have kidnapped and killed 11-year-old Lillian and 7-year-old Mylette Anderson outside of Jacksonville, Florida, on Aug. 1, 1974. Although the girls' disappearance was never solved, investigators have said they believe this was a false confession

On August 2, 1974, Knowles met Marjorie Howie, 49, in Atlantic Beach, Florida. She was found strangled in her apartment and her television set was stolen.

On August 23, 1974, Knowles forced his way into the home of Kathie Sue Pierce in Musella, Georgia. Knowles strangled Pierce, but left her three-year-old son physically unharmed.

On September 3, 1974, 32-year-old William Bates was seen with a redheaded man at Scott's Inn, a roadside pub near Lima, Ohio. Bates' wife reported him missing. Near the bar, police found Alice Curtis's vehicle abandoned but Bates' car was missing. In October, Bates' nude body was found. He had been strangled and dumped in the woods.

Now driving Bates' car, Knowles bound and killed two elderly campers, Emmett and Lois Johnson, at a rest stop near Ely, Nevada on September 18, 1974.

Charlynn Hicks was reported missing by family on Sept. 22, 1974. Her body was found discarded beside the road on Sept. 25, 1975, near a rest stop outside of Seguin, Texas. Her vehicle was found at the rest stop. She had been raped and strangled.

Knowles appears to have met beautician Ann Dawson on September 23, 1974, in Birmingham, Alabama. It is unclear as to whether he abducted her or if she traveled with him willingly, but she paid the bills while they traveled together. Knowles claimed that he killed Dawson on September 29, 1974, and threw her body into the Mississippi River. Her body was never recovered.

On Oct. 16, 1974, Karen Wine and her 16-year-old daughter Dawn were bound, raped and strangled after their Marlborough, Connecticut, home was broken into. The only thing found missing from their home was a tape recorder. Authorities say that Knowles was the perpetrator.

On October 18, 1974, 53-year-old Doris Hosey was shot to death with her husband's rifle. The gun was placed beside her body.

On November 6, 1974, in Milledgeville, Georgia, Knowles befriended Carswell Carr and was invited back to Carr's house to spend the night. He stabbed Carr to death and strangled Carr's 15-year-old daughter, Amanda.

On December 18, 1974, Sheriff Earl Lee and Agent Ronnie Angel from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation were traveling down Interstate 20 with Knowles, who was handcuffed in the back seat. Their destination was Henry County, Georgia, where Knowles had, per a Georgia GBI press release, admitted to dumping a handgun he had taken from Florida State Trooper Charles Eugene Campbell, after killing him with it.

Paul John Knowles (April 25, 1946 – December 18, 1974), also known as The Casanova Killer, was an American serial killer tied to the deaths of 18 people in 1974, though he claimed to have murdered 35.