The Casanova Killer – Life of Serial Killer John Paul Knowles –10.On the Run

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On the Run
After Sandy Fawkes left him, Knowles met James and Susan MacKenzie, a British couple who knew Sandy and felt sorry for Knowles because he now seemed so alone. When Susan, an attractive blonde, mentioned that she had a hair appointment the next day, Knowles offered to drive her and she accepted. James MacKenzie had no objection to the arrangement. He and his wife both found the lonely young man to be polite and respectful.

Once Susan was in his vehicle, Knowles pulled over after driving a short distance and asked her for sex. Shocked, she refused, so he pulled out a pistol. Instead of cowering or crying, she fought back, knocking the weapon aside and screaming. When she got the car door open Knowles grabbed a fistful of her hair but she broke loose, ran into the road, and hailed a passing motorist.

Susan went straight to the police and told them what happened. A bulletin went out immediately, containing descriptions of the attacker and the car and requesting all police officers to watch for "Daryl Golden." Soon afterward, a West Palm Beach policeman recognized the white Chevrolet Impala and pulled him over. Knowles drew a sawed-off shotgun.

"Hold it right there," he warned.

The officer, who had opened his car door, dropped to the pavement and stayed there until Knowles drove away.

Knowing that the police would be watching for his car now too, Knowles ditched it and sought to steal another. That afternoon, a wheelchair-bound woman named Beverly Mabee heard a knock at the door of her West Palm Beach home. She opened it to a good-looking young man who identified himself as Bob Williams from the Internal Revenue Service and asked if he could come in.

Puzzled but not wanting to be perceived as uncooperative, Miss Mabee consented. Once he was inside, Knowles dropped the act and told her that he needed a hostage and a getaway car because the police were after him.

The young woman remained calm. "I knew if I screamed he would get violent. So I just kept quiet," she said afterward.

She told him that she did not own a car, but her sister, Barbara Tucker, did. When she added that Barbara was actually en route, Knowles sat down and waited.

"He knew his business," Miss Mabee would remember. "He didn't talk much. He just sat down, and we waited for Barbara."[24]

When Mrs. Tucker arrived, accompanied by her six-year-old boy, Knowles pounced. He tied up Beverly Mabee, told the child to go play in another room, and forced Barbara to drive with him to Fort Pierce in her beige Volkswagen.

Mrs. Tucker, who was a redhead like Sandy Fawkes, didn't scream or do anything to antagonize her captor. She remained calm, kept him talking, and did everything he ordered. Instead of killing her, Knowles left her tied and gagged in a motel room on Friday night before escaping in her car.

When Beverly Mabee wriggled out of her bonds, she called the police and reported Barbara's abduction. Her description of their assailant tallied so closely with that of Daryl Golden that detectives suspected they were dealing with more than an attempted rapist.

Anxious to see if he was already in the system, the police dusted Miss Mabee's home for fingerprints and showed her some mug shots. The two identification tactics soon yielded a positive result, and an all-points bulletin went out requesting area patrols to be on the lookout for Paul John Knowles. His photo was also televised, along with the warning to residents that he was armed and dangerous.

The net was closing in.

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Detectives tracked down Sandy Fawkes and questioned her about "Golden." Because the Carr murders were initially thought to be a two-person job, they were also trying to determine if she had been an accomplice in any of his crimes. When Fawkes realized that her strange companion had been a rapist and suspected murderer, she was shocked. Any doubt was erased when the detectives showed her some photographs of items taken from the Carr residence, and she recognized shirts and suits that "Golden" had been wearing.

Asked if he had given her any gifts, Sandy showed them a Mickey Mouse watch. They checked it against the inventory of missing items and determined that it had once belonged to Mandy Carr, which sickened her further. As a journalist who specialized in challenging and even violent assignments, not much rattled her, but the realization that she had been riding in a murder victim's car and enjoying luxuries paid for by a dead man's credit cards nearly did her in.

Until her death in 2005, Sandy Fawkes never stopped wondering why Knowles spared her. She suspected that it was because he wanted her to write that book about him and guarantee his place alongside other famous killers. In Killing Time, she also speculated that he might have seen her as a kindred spirit, given their rough childhoods and their sense of having been abused by "the system." Whatever the reason, she would forever be tagged as the one who got away.