The desperate gamble began with a single, terrifying choice. Facing a man who had already murdered dozens, Barbara Mabee Abel looked past the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun and offered herself as a sacrifice. “He says I’m going to take your son and I said take me instead,” she recalled.
That split-second decision on November 14, 1974, would pit a mother’s cunning against one of America’s most prolific serial killers, a man known as the Casanova Killer, in a harrowing game of psychological survival that would redefine the meaning of heroism.
The nightmare unfolded in the quiet normalcy of a Thursday afternoon in West Palm Beach, Florida. Barbara, a 33-year-old copywriter at a local radio station, had returned home with her six-year-old son, Dale. Her twin sister, Beverly, who suffered from cerebral palsy, was supposed to be waiting for them.
When Dale went to look for his aunt, he found her in the bedroom, bleeding and bound. The idyllic family home had been breached by a predator who had been hiding in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
When Barbara saw the man with the shotgun, her blood ran cold, but her maternal instincts roared to life. The intruder, who identified himself as Paul John Knowles, had already attacked Beverly. “I said did you rape her because if you raped her I’m going to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 you,” Barbara shouted, her fury momentarily overriding her fear.
Knowles laughed, claiming he had tried but failed. The terror of that moment was overwhelming, but Barbara knew she had to think clearly; her son’s life depended on her next move.
Knowles announced his intention to take young Dale. The thought of her son in the hands of this monster was unbearable. In that instant, Barbara made the ultimate maternal sacrifice.
“No way would I let him take my son and I said take me instead,” she stated. Knowles, intrigued by the offer, agreed. He tied Dale and Beverly to the bed, warning them to stay quiet, and then forced Barbara out of the house and into her gold Volkswagen, leaving a trail of fear and uncertainty in their wake.
As they drove away, Barbara was consumed with worry for her family, but she was about to learn the true extent of the danger she was in. Knowles, a man who had escaped from prison months earlier, was a whirlwind of violence. Police were already connecting him to a string of brutal murders across the country, including the strangulation of a 15-year-old girl and the stabbing of her father.
The radio crackled with news of his crimes, and Barbara realized she was trapped with a man who had nothing to lose.
“He started getting agitated and he had me turn the stations,” Barbara remembered. The news reports detailing his murderous spree were triggering his rage. “I was terrified so I started talking about the weather and I mean anything that would come into my mind to get his mind off of that newscast.”
It was in that moment of sheer desperation that Barbara conceived her audacious plan. She would not fight him physically; she would fight him psychologically. She decided to make the Casanova Killer fall in love with her.
“I wanted to make him fall in love with me. I was trying to save my life and get back to Beverly and Dale,” she said. She began to stroke his ego, complimenting his looks and comparing him to actor Robert Redford.
She offered him cigarettes and engaged him in conversation about movies and music, anything to keep his mind off the violence that simmered just beneath the surface. The flattery was a calculated risk, a high-wire act performed without a net, with her life hanging in the balance with every word she spoke.
Knowles responded to the attention. He asked about her job and her writing skills, revealing a desire for fame and notoriety. He repeatedly confessed, “I’ve killed people,” testing her reaction.
Barbara, a master of deflection, refused to react with fear, instead treating him as if he were a troubled man, not a monster. She was playing a role, but the stakes were absolute. “He was so evil I just wish I had the guts to try to go and push him out the door but I couldn’t.
I was too tired and too scared,” she admitted.
Back at the house, young Dale had managed to free himself and untie his aunt, racing to a neighbor’s house to raise the alarm. Police swarmed the area, setting up roadblocks and issuing a nationwide alert for Barbara’s car. But they were too late; Knowles had already slipped past the perimeter.
He drove north for nearly 70 miles before stopping at a motel in Fort Pierce, announcing they would stay the night. Barbara knew the real terror was just beginning.
At the motel office, Knowles forced Barbara to play the part of his loving wife. With his shotgun hidden, he checked them in as “Mr. and Mrs.
Joe Smith.” Barbara, terrified that the clerk might trigger Knowles’s rage, played her part convincingly, even putting her arm around his waist to sell the lie. Once inside the room, the facade crumbled.
Knowles tore at her clothes, attempting to rape her, but he was unable to perform. The failure enraged him, and he turned physically violent, leaving Barbara convinced she was about to be beaten to death.
In a sudden shift, the violence ceased. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” he mumbled, a Jekyll and Hyde transformation that was more terrifying than the rage itself. He then tore the bed sheets into strips, tying her wrists and ankles to the bedposts.
Exhausted and broken, Barbara drifted into a restless sleep, where she was visited by a vision of her deceased mother. “My mother came to me in a dream and she was like you’re going to be okay, you’re going to be okay. God’s with you,” she recalled.
That vision gave her the strength to continue her fight for survival.
The next morning, Knowles untied her and took her to a nearby diner for breakfast. Barbara scanned the room, hoping someone would recognize her from the news, but no one did. She was invisible, trapped in a nightmare with a killer who had a shotgun hidden under his coat.
When they returned to the motel, Knowles tried to assault her again, and again he failed. His fury was palpable, and Barbara knew she was seconds away from death. She had to act, and she had to act now.
“I had to do reverse psychology and make him think that he was really great so he would calm down and not 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 me,” she explained. She told him he was a good man, that she wished she had met him under different circumstances. The flattery worked, calming the storm inside him.
He tied her to the bed again, telling her he needed to make a phone call. As he left, he locked the door, but in his haste, he left the key on the nightstand.
Barbara heard him fumbling with the lock outside, but he couldn’t get back in. She remained silent, praying he would go away. After what felt like an eternity, she heard his voice through the door.
“When they pick you up, don’t tell them that I hurt you and I love you,” he said. Then, there was silence. He was gone.
Barbara, still bound, spent the next agonizing hours working her hands free, finally succeeding in the early morning of November 16th.
She called the front desk, and within minutes, police were at her door. She was safe, but the ordeal was far from over. Knowles was still at large, and he had already moved on.
Later that day, he encountered Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Charles Eugene Campbell, who had spotted Barbara’s stolen car. Knowles ambushed the trooper, kidnapping him and stealing his patrol car. He then used the police vehicle to pull over another motorist, James Meyer, adding him to his growing list of hostages.
The manhunt intensified, culminating in a dramatic chase in Henry County, Georgia. Knowles crashed the vehicle and fled on foot into the woods, but he was cornered and shot by police. When they took him into custody, neither of his hostages were found.
Knowles refused to reveal their location. The bodies of Trooper Campbell and James Meyer were later discovered tied to a tree in Pulaski County, Georgia, both shot with the trooper’s own gun.
For Barbara, the news of his capture was a relief, but the trauma lingered. She struggled with panic attacks and nightmares, but she found solace in her family and in a man named Jim, whom she had met years earlier. She wrote him a letter detailing her ordeal, and he responded with unwavering support.
“I knew that she probably needed someone and the way I felt about her anyway I was hoping that that person would be me,” Jim said. Their bond grew, and they eventually married.
The final chapter of the Casanova Killer’s reign of terror ended on December 18, 1974. While leading police to a murder weapon, Knowles picked his handcuffs with a paper clip and lunged for a deputy’s gun. He was shot and killed in the ensuing struggle.
For Barbara, the news brought a profound sense of peace. “It was one of the best days of Dale and my life when we found out that he was killed because he could 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 no more,” she said.
Barbara chose to stay in the house where she had been kidnapped, determined to replace the bad memories with good ones. She dedicated her life to caring for her sister Beverly and raising her son Dale. She wrote a book about her experience, exorcising the demons that had haunted her.
Her story is not just one of survival, but of extraordinary resilience. “You can choose to be a victim or you can choose to be a survivor,” she said. “I chose to be a survivor.”
Her choice, made in a moment of unimaginable terror, serves as an enduring testament to the power of a mother’s love and the indomitable strength of the human spirit.
