The Casanova Killer – Life of Serial Killer John Paul Knowles –5.Both Young and Old

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Both Young and Old

July 26, 1974

Knowles was on the run, and needed to get away fast. That required money and a vehicle, neither of which he had access to, so he invaded the Jacksonville Beach home of Alice Curtis, a sixty-five-year-old retired schoolteacher. It is not known whether he actually broke in or was invited inside after using a ruse. He would employ both strategies in the months to come.

After overpowering and tying up the elderly woman, Knowles ransacked her home looking for money and valuables. Focused on collecting what he could and getting away quickly, he was unaware that Mrs. Curtis' dentures had been dislodged by her gag and forced down her throat. By the time he went to check on her, she had choked to death.

Something must have shifted in Knowles as he stared down at the elderly woman's corpse. He had never killed anyone before.[12] Sandy Fawkes, who came to know him somewhat during their short time together, speculated on what must have gone through his head.

"I believe that in the first killing... he sensed his own power for the first time in his life," she wrote in Killing Time. "The man who had always been... dominated by judges, juries, and jailers had found revenge, a source of emotional satisfaction."[13]

As an ex-convict, Knowles would also have known that killers had status in the prison hierarchy. As a petty thief, he'd been relegated to the lower rungs of the ladder. Abducting a police officer would have elevated him somewhat, but as a loner doing time for non-violent offenses, he remained at the bottom echelon.

Now things were different. If he ever went back to prison, it would be as a murderer. But not just any murderer. He wanted to be the "biggest of them all," as he later told his attorney. If the only way to keep himself in funds and stay free was to kill, he wouldn't hesitate.

After leaving the scene in Mrs. Curtis' white Dodge Dart, Knowles drove west to Jacksonville and hid out with friends. It wasn't long before he killed again. This time it would be a double murder.

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August 1, 1974

At 6:00 p.m., Elizabeth Anderson, accompanied by her thirteen-year-old daughter, left her residence in Jacksonville's Pumpkin Hill area to visit a sick relative. Two younger girls, 11-year-old Lillian and 6-year-old Mylette, remained at home, but they weren't expected to be alone for long. Mrs. Anderson's husband, Jack, a commercial fisherman, was due home at 7:00 p.m.

She called the residence shortly before 7:00 p.m. to check on the girls, and they assured her everything was fine. But when Jack Anderson arrived home at 7:20 p.m., delayed by a problem with his boat, the girls were gone.[14]

The Andersons were convinced that Lillian and Mylette had been kidnapped. "Our children wouldn't do anything they weren't told," Jack Anderson insisted. "I feel someone broke into the house and took them away. We are just praying they will be returned."[15]

With assistance from the public, the police conducted a 140 square mile search of northeastern Duval County, but nothing was found. Jack and Elizabeth Anderson were beside themselves with anxiety. Lillian had a thyroid condition, and Mylette suffered from asthma and a weak heart. Both required medication.

The sisters' fate was not revealed until the following January, when authorities listened to a tape-recorded "diary" that Knowles kept.

He said that he had been in the middle of abandoning Mrs. Curtis' car on a quiet residential street when he noticed the Anderson girls watching him curiously. They weren't strangers to him. In fact, Elizabeth Anderson was a friend of Bonnie Knowles, his mother. Convinced that they would tell their parents they had seen him, Knowles coaxed Lillian and Mylette into the white Dodge dart, drove them to a remote location, and strangled them both. Afterward, he dumped their bodies in a swamp.

Acting on the information, the police searched all the swamps in the area but failed to turn up the missing girls. Although Knowles claimed credit for their disappearance, the case officially remains open.