The Casanova Killer – Life of Serial Killer John Paul Knowles –7.Sheldon Yavitz

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Sheldon Yavitz

By 1974, Sheldon Yavitz's criminal law practice was booming.

"I was too antisocial to have other clients," he said in 1993. "I liked professional criminals. I wasn't judgmental."[19]

When Angela Covic retained him to secure Knowles' release on parole, Yavitz was a criminal defense pro. Clients included Cuban extortionists who attacked their victims with hand grenades, a gang of marijuana smugglers that delivered to customers using Federal Express, and a man who loved to rob adult bookstores. When a jewel thief paid his fees using precious stones, Yavitz didn't bat an eye, and when a burglary ring offered him a Cobra sports car in lieu of money, he happily accepted. He even had a convicted drug dealer work for him as a secretary.

Yavitz automatically assumed that his clients were guilty, so he was never shocked by their crimes. Whenever they called him, he only asked for details of their arrest and how to reach them by phone. He rarely if ever secured their release using actual facts, convinced that the truth would always be damning in their cases. Instead, he got them off on continuances and technicalities such as improper search and seizure by the police.

In October 1974, when Paul John Knowles visited his office, Sheldon Yavitz was making more than $100,000 a year. He operated his practice out of a small office at the side of his huge ranch house in Coral Gables. His non-judgmental attitude toward his clients' crimes was as well-established as it was lucrative, but even he was surprised by Knowles' admission.

He listened as Knowles described his audiotape diary and called all the murders "successes." He wanted Yavitz to make sure that the press and public knew about them after his death so he could, in his words, "become as famous as Bonnie and Clyde."[20]

Michael Newton, author of The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, wrote that Yavitz recommended surrender, but Knowles insisted that he would rather be shot down in a blaze of glory like John Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde. Because he had committed murder in several death-penalty states, he knew that his days were numbered. He intended to live what time he had left as wildly as possible.

Yavitz agreed to keep the tapes, without listening to them, until after Knowles' death. Happy, the self-proclaimed "success story" headed back to Jackie Knight's home in Macon. While there, he may have killed Edward Hilliard and Debbie Griffin, another pair of teenaged hitchhikers who had been traveling from their hometown of Gainesville, Florida to Love Valley, North Carolina. Hilliard was found outside Macon on November 2, body punctured by five bullets. Although Debbie Griffin remained missing, searchers came across her purse, keys, and some articles of clothing not far from her companion's body.[21]

Although Knowles never took credit for Hilliard's murder or Griffin's disappearance, he was definitely in the area when they were found, so chances are high that he killed them. Perhaps he was making up for the young couple he'd been forced to release in Miami. At any rate, the police were still actively searching for Griffin's body when Knowles struck again.