Daily News from New York, New York • 110

'DAILY NEWS, THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1675 48 'He killed so nmaoy peoplle he BosU" count IV i woodixo JoL. lit 7 Sprcgue Missoula IkV Rogut River Dubois a I Port 1 Jems XfWindsor locks (J Wamsutter: Mendoto "XFrernont 'A few Paltz (ZJ I Lil. Newton Lima (1) fW 7 V.Ti "i3 a jfcfaj Taho A Coon Kansas City 1 I i Chattanooga! (T) Tulsa Warner VmXj WiP -V-e StockbridgeTO Xxi SNf Bessemer JocWwiHe S-SwVst-Augustine Pensocola Schulenberg Bellville Jenn.ngs Ts Orlando Columbus News map by Bob Jufr I cular area. P. J.

Knowles launched an incredible journey of terror. In the map, circled numbers indicate murders committed by him in a parti Aimlessly driving from fown fo fown, Knowles would casually select a victim, then rape and strangle her her in the bathroom while her 3-year-old son watched. The boy was unharmed. Soon after this murder, lie left the Macon area and drove north to Ohio on Interstate 75 in Mrs. Curtis' car.

Around 9 p.m. on Sept. 3, he stopped for a beer at Scott's Inn, a popular dining and drinking spot four miles north of Lima, Ohio, on Interstate 75. There he met William V. Bates, 32, account executive for the Ohio Power Co.

and a well-known Lima resident. The two men left the inn together shortly before midnight. Next morning, Bates' wife reported him missing. According to Investigators, P.J. strangled Bates and left his nude body in woods 50 yards off a rural road near Lima, where it was found by a hunter on Thanksgiving Day.

Knowles took Bates' wallet, identification papers, credit cards and his white, blue-topped lmpala. He picked up Interstate 80 south of Chicago and rode it all the way to Sacramento, then swung north and folowed Interstate 5 to Seattle, Wash. man got out, grinned at Mrs. Hicks and yanked open her car door. Four days later, her nude body was found in woods near the roadside park.

She had been beaten, raped, strangled with her pantyhose and dragged through a barbed-wire fence. After he killed Mrs. Hicks, Knowles drove to Shreveport, and then to Birmingham, Ala. Around 7 p.m. on Sept.

23, he sauntered into a cocktail lounge near Pinson, near Birmingham, and lost no time getting acquainted with a tall, slender blonde who was sitting alone at the bar. She was Mrs. Ann Wilcox Dawson, 49, a divorcee who owned a beauty parlor in Fairfield Ala. They left the bar, arm in arm, around 9 p.m. and drove off in a white lmpala with a blue hardtop.

Knowles later told his Miami lawyer that he spent a few days with Mrs. Dawson before he killed her. They apparently used her money during this period, for he made no credit card purchases between Sept. 23 and 29. Police believe he dumped the beautician's body in Louisiana or Mississippi.

Then he took off again, driving to Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa and north to Ferguson Falls, before swinging south and heading back to Dixie. He swooped down as far as Chattanooga, then turned north again, entering Virginia on Oct. 8. The following evening, Oct. 16, he paused briefly in Malborough, and casually strangled Mrs.

Karen Wine and her 15-year-old daughter Dawn. He stole an old tape recorder, Dawn's record collection and a small Statue of no particular value. Leaving New England after this horror, he stopped at Port Jervis for gasoline and once more headed south. On the morning of Oct. 18, he knocked on the door of a small house at Wrood-ford.

12 miles south of Fredericksburg near U.S. Army Camp A.P. Hill. Mrs. Doris Bruce Hosey, 53, opened the door and P.J.

barged in. According to statements he made later, he told her he wouldn't harm her if she could get him a gun. She went to her husband's gun cabinet, unlocked it and handed him a rifle. He loaded it, took her into the den and shot her through the temple, leaving the rifle beside the body. Police at first thought she had killed herself but they couldn't figure out why there were no fingerprints on the gun.

Her death remained a mystery until P. J. made his death diary. After this murder, Knowles returned to Georgia and Florida. He had left 14 corpses in eight states in 84 days.

And the bloodbath wasn't over yet, although an incident that took place in the Florida Keys made P.J. realize it soon would be. "'-V Next: Eiid the tradj By PAUL MESKIL ScimI serlei "He killed so many people that he lost count," a Georgia lawyer xaid of his most loathsome client, mass murderer Paul John (P.J.) Knowles. "He told me he might have killed as many as 35. "He couldn't remember how many people he killed.

He said he killed three in one night." Macon attorney Charles Marchman Jr. believes the triple slaying took place In the San Francisco area last June. When Knowles applied for a paro from Kaiford Prison, he told the Florida Parole Bonrd that he had a girl and a steady job waiting for him in San 'FrHiicisio. The girl was Angela Covic, a eocktnil hostess who had been corresponding with him. After P.J.

proposed marriage in one of his letters, Angela retained a Miami lawyer to work on hi parole and she got him a job with an outdoor advertising company. P.J. got his parole last May and flew to San Francisco in June, expecting to start a new life. But something went wrong. He didn't get the girl and he didn't take the job.

Found stronger Angela, a buxom brunette four years older than Knowles, thought she knew the real P.J. from the many letters he had written her. But the lanky redhead who showed up at her apartment seemed like a complete stranger. "He had found my name In an astrology magazine in 1972 and had been writing to me since then," she said recently. "I went to Florida to see him when he was still in prison.

We had planned to many. But when he came out here. I felt strange about it. I realized I didn't want aything to do with him anymore. I don't know why I changed my mind.

I guess it was woman's intuition. "He took it pretty badly. He was very hurt. But he never talked or acted violently with me. When I first heard about the killings, I thought I might have l.een to blame.

But nobody would ell that, go around killing people just because they were rejected by me. Hut Marchman believes that was what set him off. Marchman said P.J. told him this story: "The night he left Angela he went and kiliod three people two girls and man. 'He was taking out his vengeance Angela.

He picked up one girl a or nightclub and they went to her apartment. After he killed her, lift her in the apartment and went --k out. and picked up( gin, 4 in a 'bar'. He took her out in car, Killed couple Vrnm tlisro ho drnvp past to Mis- either her car or one he had stolen. He killed her in the car and left her there.

He hitchhiked back downtown. Some gay man picked him up and they spent the night in his apartment. The next morning he killed him." These alleged murders have not been verified. But what happened next a cross-country, odyssey in which at least 20 people died has been documented by police and FBI reports, credit card records of Knowles' wanderings, physical evidence, statements of imesses, P.J.'s own statements to lawyers, lawmen and fellow prisoners and his tape-recorded confession. After only four days in San Francisco, he flew home to Jacksonville, and quickly got in trouble again.

One night last July, he knifed a bartender during a barroom brawl in Jacksonville Beach. Charged with assault, he was locked up for the night in a detention cage at the Jacksonville Beach police station. When no cops were around, he kicked open the cage door and walked out. Shortly thereafter, he broke into the Jacksonville Beach home of Mrs. Alice Curtis, 65, a retired school teacher who lived alone.

He tied her up and shoved a cloth gag in her mouth with such force that it choked and killed her. He took a few dollars from her purse and drove off in her white Dodge Dart. A few days later, on Aug. 1, he returned to his old Jacksonville neighborhood. He saw Mylette Josephine Anderson, 7, and her sister, Lillian Annette, 11, playing near their home.

He knew the girls and was afraid they'd report his whereabouts to their parents, who might notify police. So he kidnaped the sisters, killed them and dumped them in a swamp, according to investigators. Next day he strangled Mrs. Mar-jorie Howie, 49, in her fashionable home at Atlantic Beach, next to Jacksonville Beach. He stole her TV set, put it in the trunk of the Dart and left the area.

One scorching afternoon In mid-August, he picked up a teenage hitchhiker was about 14," he said later, "and a runaway, I think" and took her into the woods near Macon, where he raped and strangled her. On the evening of Aug. 23, P.J. entered the home of Mrs. Kathy Sue Woods Pierce, 24, a divorcee, at Musella, near Macon.

He cut her telephone line and 'used' the' phone cord' to Strangle' soula, then south to Provo, Utah. South of Provo, he turned off Iter-state 15 and made a side trip into Nevada through cattle and mining country and spectacular mountain scenery. About 40 miles south of Ely, he saw a camper parked all alone beside the road. In it were Emmett and Lois Johnson, both about 60, a vacationing couple from San Pedro, Cal. Knowles tied them up at gunpoint, shot them both behind the left ear and took about $450.

The double killing took place on the afternoon of Sept. 12 but the bodies weren't discovered until six days later. By then, P.J. was back in his native Florida. But he didn't stay there long.

On Saturday afternoon, Sept. 12, Mrs. Charlynn Hicks left her Houston home to drive to Sequin, Texas, where she was to meet friends. They planned to attend a chili-cooking contest next day in San Marcos, Texas. But Mrs.

Hicks never got there. The 42-year-old widow stopped her car at a roadside park between Columbus and Sequin, about 70 miles from Houston on Interstate 10. As she sat watching the scenery, a white lmpala pulled into the' 'pai knife area. 'gaunt; Ved-haireor.