A 70-style murder spree. I'm Jason Horton. I'm Rebecca Leib. And this is Ghost Town.

You had eyes cold and steel. It's like he was looking right through you.

He was a con artist, smooth talker. You con you out of your wallet, your watch, your car.

There was nothing that would make you think he was a killer.

He wanted to be a famous mass murderer. They killed men, women, boys, girls. He didn't

discriminate. He decided to kill you and had it. Just about every way it went. I left a body.

The Casanova killer. I fell in love with him for maybe an instant.

I always want to do episodes on serial killers for the podcast, but it always feels like it's either

such a task to take on and research and actually do well. Or it feels short and repetitive,

maybe not as exciting as you might like to listen to. But the serial killer we're going to talk

about today. His story is almost made for a movie and horrible and a little film and

loisie. So much so that you can't believe it even happened. Today we're going to discuss the

three-month-long killing rampage of Paul John Knowles, commonly known as the Casanova killer.

Paul John Knowles was born in Orlando, Florida on April 17, 1946. When he was just eight years old,

he started committing petty crimes that escalated so much that his father gave him up to live in foster

homes and reformatories. When it came to crime, he really hit the ground running. At 19,

Knowles went to jail for kidnapping a police officer. And in the years following, he went in and out

of prison. In early 1974, Knowles was doing time at Rayford Prison in Florida, now Florida State

Prison, where he began corresponding with a recently divorced cocktail waitress in San Francisco,

named Angela Covick, who delighted to have Knowles as a pen pal. And after a few letters back and forth,

had fallen in love with him. Now here's one thing you should know about Paul John Knowles. He is,

and this is hard for me to say, he's hot. He's very attractive. Not like Ted Bundy,

...