Original subtitles

There are many more murders making, in my opinion,

Paul John Knowles, the most heinous mass murderer

in American history.

[Wendy] For five months in 1974,

Paul John Knowles terrorized the country

murdering men, women and children as young as 7 years old.

[Roy Harris] The victims were strangled, stabbed, shot.

Apparently just killing somebody excited Knowles.

And there was the sexual element.

He was a smooth talker.

He could con you out of your shoe.

And he became known as the Casanova Killer.

Knowles may not be the most well-known,

but he certainly was one of the most vicious.

He thought killing people would make him famous.

[Eleanor] It was said his total was 30 something people.

I mean, it was just unthinkable.

It's shocking that the woman who brought the Casanova Killer to justice

can still detail what happened during those harrowing days.

[Barbara] It's been 49 years, and I am telling my story to the world.

My name is Barbara Mabee Abel

and I survived one of the most heinous serial killers ever.

I was born a twin in Detroit, Michigan,

and my twin sister, Beverly, was born with cerebral palsy.

Throughout my whole lifetime, I always called her Bevy

and while we were fraternal, we both knew each other's thoughts and inner feelings.

She was the smart, funny person

and had anything that had to do with fun stuff.

And I was a serious person.

We lived with Mom and Dad, and an older sister, Jackie and my brother Gary.

And then all of a sudden when I was 6 years old my dad passed away.

After that, Mom decided that she needed a new beginning, and she loved Florida.

So Mom moved all four of us kids down West Palm Beach, Florida,

and then she went and bought this house where I still live today,

after she got a job as a saleswoman,

And she was so proud to buy this in the '50s and make it her own.

It's a darling little house, and it was safe.

Barbara really loved her new life in Florida.

She loved the neighborhood. She made a lot of friends.

I have known Barbara for 56 years,

ever since we were in the seventh grade.

She was just very outgoing, and we got along real well.

We could talk to each other about anything.

[Barbara] Eleanor is my best friend in the whole world.

We became like sisters through the years.

She got married, I got married and we moved up to Georgia.

And my only son, Dale, was born in April 1968,

and I was in my early 20s.

When I brought Dale home from the hospital, he was the light of my life.

He was so beautiful.

He had red hair, blue eyes,

and I couldn't get over hugging and kissing and singing lullabies to him.

I adored my son.

[Wendy] But Barbara's marriage is short lived,

and she and Dale moved back in with her mom and her twin sister, Beverly.

With extra hands to care for Dale,

Barbara joins the workforce, and she discovers her calling.

[Barbara] Somebody said, "Hey, Barbara, why don't you go to work WIRK here in town?"

[on the radio] 339, WIRK, West Palm Beach.

I'm Barry Grant. Got the music.

They had an opening as a receptionist,

and I wound up learning how to record commercials.

And then I could do it and I was hooked.

I wanted to be a copywriter and start writing commercials and recording.

[Christine] Barbara was an author at heart.

She always wanted to be a writer,

so this worked out really well for her.

But a few years later, in May of 1974, Barbara's mother dies.

Beverly and Barbara are both so upset.

But they, you know, make things work

and they develop a new rhythm.

And by November, things are starting to look up.

[Barbara] Thursday, November the 14th, 1974 was like any other day to me.

Got ready for work.

Dale went and got ready for school.

Beverly got her breakfast and was happy.

And after I dropped off Dale at his church school,

I got to work and started writing commercials.

When it was almost noontime I tried to call my sister at home

and she didn't answer, and she always answered.

Which I thought was kind of weird.

After work, I drove home from the nursery school with Dale

and I got to the door with my son and unlocked the door.

We shouted out for Beverly and there was no answer.

So I said to Dale, "Go look for Bevy

and I'm gonna go get some water, honey."

So I went into the kitchen to go get my glass of water.

All of a sudden I had this horrible feeling

and I had chills going up and down my arms.

Maybe it was instinct... fear, but I turned around,

and I see this man with a sawed-off shotgun

and I was scared to death.

At that point Dale runs out and says,

"Bevy is in the bedroom and she's bleeding."

And I said, "I want to see my sister. I want to see Beverly."

So he took me into the bedroom with Dale,

we went into this bedroom right here and I saw Bevy.

And I went around the bed because it was a different way back then,

and I put my hand on her and here she was crying.

And she was laying there with the covers over her.

She was bound and gagged and she had blood dripping from her gag in her mouth.

Once we loosened the gag,

I put my hand on Bevy's shoulder, bent down and kissed her.

Told her how much I loved her and that we're gonna be okay

because God's gonna get us out of this, okay.

And then I pulled back the bedspread and found out she was naked.

That... that's when I lost it.

I said, "Did you rape her? Be...

Because if you raped her, I'm gonna kill you."

He started laughing and said he tried to rape my sister, and I just felt terror.

I asked, "Why are you doing this?"

Like, "What happened,?" He said, "My name is John

and I don't want to go back to jail.

I just need money and your car."

I said, "I've got money,

and I'll get it for you."

And it was the mortgage money.

And then...

He says, "I'm gonna take your son."

No way would I let him take my son.

And I said, "Take me instead,"

and so he did.

At that point, John, who I later learned was Paul John Knowles

went and tied my son Dale up... up to my sister.

It made me feel horrible,.

You know, I mean, my God, she was naked and he was only 6 years old.

But I just had to get out of the house with John

and make sure that Beverly and Dale were going to be safe.

And hope and pray that I would live.

When he tied my son up,

I told Dale to please act like a big boy.

I said, "We're gonna be okay."

Then he got my keys. He already had the money.

And we went out through the front door to the car.

And we drove off into the sunset.

He asked me where the interstate was,

so we got him over on the northbound A1A

and then we started driving.

[indistinct radio chatter]

And all that time, he had the radio on

and he was getting mad

and he had me turn the stations.

And I was wondering, "Why does he want to hear the news?"

[man on the radio] Thank you, Andy, very much.

And this is WINZ Miami.

And then he said, "I've killed people."

I was terrified.

And it was then, I decided that I was gonna do

whatever I needed to do to survive.

And I started talking about movies,

beautiful songs of the '70s.

I wanted to make him fall in love with me.

I was trying to save my life and get back to Beverly and Dale.

So I said, "Honey, do you want a cigarette?"

And he said, "Why are you calling me honey?"

I said, "Why not? You're not a bad guy."

And that's when I said, "You remind me of Robert Redford,

the movie star and he said, "I do?"

and I said, "Well, you kinda do.

You know, you're not bad looking."

After that, he was very responsive in the way I was treating him.

He was actually happy to be talking to me and talking to somebody

'cause he said he had silence all day being in the home with Beverly.

He started talking about his family a little bit,

how he had a rough childhood with his father.

"I have brothers and sisters. I was raised in Jacksonville.

I was raised with a Christian family."

And then he said, "I heard from your sister that you wrote something."

And I said, "I work at WJNO radio and I'm a copywriter."

"Well, do you know how to write books?"

And I said, "Why do you want to write a book?"

And he told me that he wanted to be famous.

And I said, "What do you want to be famous for?"

And he didn't answer.

And I didn't ask after that.

[Wendy] As Barbara and her captor continue north,

a vehicle has been recovered in West Palm Beach.

It was stolen from a man named William Bates back in September,

and a strangled body is discovered in Ohio months later.

[Christine] Inside the vehicle were credit cards and insurance cards

that belonged to a guy named Carswell Carr,

who was also murdered in a double homicide

along with his 15-year-old daughter, Amanda, in Georgia

just days before Barbara was abducted.

[Officer James Josey] Carswell and Amanda Carr

were found in their ransacked home.

She had been strangled.

He had been stabbed approximately 35 times.

Pair of scissors...

It was the most bloody crime scene I'd ever seen.

Based on the severity, we figured a lunatic might have done it

because we had no idea who we were looking for.

[Christine] Back inside the stolen vehicle

they also discover a will of a man named Paul John Knowles.

Little do they know Paul John Knowles is a serial killer

zigzagging across the country on a five month rampage.

Karen Wine is 35, and her daughter Dawn, 15,

were found dead on October 16th,

and on this particular day, Knowles broke into their home

and made them eat dinner with him.

He tied them up and then strangled and sexually assaulted them.

Knowles killed a 13-year-old girl hitchhiking near Macon, Georgia,

who was later identified as Ima Jean Sanders.

He raped her, strangled her and left her body in the woods between trees.

[Christine] Doris Hosey was a 53-year-old woman found shot dead in her home,

and Knowles shot her with her husband's gun.

[James] Starting in the summer of '74 and for the next five months,

old women, children, it didn't matter to him.

When he had the urge to kill, whoever was there happened to be the victim.

The will identified the name of Knowles' attorney, Sheldon Yavitz

and so he was called.

In early '74 I became associated with him

because I was hired to get him a parole from Raiford Prison

where he was serving two sentences,

one for burglary, the other one was resisting arrest.

I told the West Palm Beach Police,

if you check his criminal record, you're gonna find out all about him.

So within three hours, they have Knowles's fingerprints and his picture.

[James] It was like Christmas.

We actually had a name, we knew who we were looking for.

That didn't solve the case, however,

and we still had to find him.

[Wendy] While the police are busy searching

the West Palm Beach area for Paul John Knowles,

what they don't know is Barbara is trapped beside him in her Volkswagen

as he drives her out of town.

Meanwhile, her sister Beverly and son Dale are still tied up in the family home.

He kept saying, "I've killed people."

And I realized 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.

And Paul John Knowles got tired.

He was exhausted.

So he saw this motel.

It's kind of like on a hill.

And he said, "We're going to stay over there."

And then that's when all hell broke loose.

When we pulled up the motel in Fort Pierce,

he parked the car in front, at the office,

and I said, "You can drop me off and then leave with the car."

And he said, "Nope, you're coming with me."

He got his sawed-off shotgun

and we went to the front office to check-in.

I was almost shaking, but I had to get my head together

because I knew I had to go and

make him see myself as being calm,

when inside, my guts were churning.

At the front desk, he put his arm around my waist

pretending like we were a couple.

And he said, "We're Mister and Mrs. Joe Smith."

I'm thinking, okay, I put my arm around him

because I wanted her to think that we were married.

I figured if I said anything else,

he might go ahead and kill her and me, too.

And it worked. She gave him the key to room 10.

When we got in the room, he says, "Just get undressed."

I told him I didn't want to do anything.

And he says, "Nope," he says, "Just get undressed."

So that's when he decided...

that he had to rape me.

And when he raped me, I, um,

was thinking of Dale and Beverly and everything but being raped.

But he couldn't finish.

He tried to rape me three times, four times.

Then he got furious.

Then he grabbed my thumb and tried to break my finger.

He grabbed my hair and I thought he was going to beat me to death.

And I said, "What are you doing?"

And he, like, shook his head and said, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

He was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I didn't know from one moment to the next if I was going to be killed.

Then he takes a sheet and he rips it apart.

He tied my wrist to the... to the bedpost, and then he...

went and got my ankles and tied them.

I was terrified and I...

I was praying to the dear Lord that I'd get out of this.

I said, "Let me get home to Beverly and Dale," and...

and all of a sudden I was dozing off

because I was so exhausted mentally and physically and...

and then all of a sudden I saw my mo... [breaks up]

I saw my mother. [sobbing]

My mother came to me in a dream and...

and she was like an angel and

she was like, "You're gonna be okay.

You're going to be okay. God's with you."

When I came to, he got me untied and he turned on the TV.

And that's when it flashed with our pictures on the screen.

All I remember on the first news report

was Paul John Knowles was a killer

who had kidnapped me.

And he was so intense.

I mean, I couldn't say a word because he'd probably slap me.

So I just kept my mouth shut and let him listen to the news.

Watching the broadcast, Barbara also learns

that her son and sister are safe.

[Barbara] I thought... [gasps] "Thank God,"

and I was relieved.

That's when I just started sobbing inside

because I didn't want to upset Paul John Knowles.

Apparently, 6-year-old Dale was able to free himself and his aunt

before getting help from the neighbor to call police.

I remember watching the news just, you know, a normal day

and all of a sudden Barbara's picture flashed on the screen

with a story that was horrifying

and shocking, about her being kidnapped.

And I started praying for Barbara's safety

because you just assume that that person is not going to come back home.

[Roy] There was numerous BOLOs that were coming out about Knowles,

and they had a description of the car,

which was a gold colored Volkswagen, not a very common car.

[Eleanor] They had their forces out looking, trying to track them down.

And of course, the more information they have on what he did,

the more frightened we got.

[Christine] Trapped in a motel room nearly 70 miles north

of her West Palm Beach home,

Barbara sees that Knowles is fixated on the broadcast

and his infamy.

[Barbara] He was so intense.

And I thought that must be why he wants me to write his book.

So I thought, if he says it again,

I'll tell him I know how to write a book.

When we went to bed that first night on Thursday,

he took my ankle and tied it to his.

Pretty difficult to sleep on a single bed, with your ankle tied,

Being tied up in the dark next to a killer.

I couldn't get rid of the terror in my...

soul.

[woman] While Barbara tries to survive the night,

the FBI pay a visit to Sheldon Yavitz.

They want to know more about the will found in the stolen vehicle.

And if he knows where his client is.

At the time, the authorities only suspect Knowles

for three murders and Barbara's kidnapping.

They are still unaware of the full breadth of his murder spree.

[Roy] The will said that Knowles was going to record his crimes

he was committing on a tape.

Yavitz would then put him in a safe and keep it until one of two things happened.

One that he was killed.

Committing his crimes.

Or secondly, that he gave a written release

for Yavitz to release the tape.

The tape, naturally, was what we would consider

to be a goldmine on what Knowles had done.

[Yavitz] In October 1974 I met Knowles at a bar in Miami.

And then Knowles said, "I want you to know I'm a mass murderer.

I said, I really don't want to know.

"But I want to tell you what I've done.

I've got to tell somebody.

They've got to know what I've done for the future."

I said, "Do you want to give yourself up?"

"No. But someday I want people to know that I've killed all these people."

And then he said, "Well, I'll put it on tape."

Okay.

That his... His confessions of his crimes.

The next day he's got the tape.

I never listened to it, but I put the tape in an envelope

and then locked in a safe in my home, and then he's gone.

Once it was learned that the tape existed,

the attorney who possessed it, refused to turn it over.

[Yavitz] I said, "This is in accordance

with the lawyer-client privilege. So I'm not going to help you."

And he said, "You are the worst person we've ever seen.

You're horrible.

We're not going to deal with you."

I said, "Okay."

[Christine] As for Barbara, they make it through the night with little sleep.

And by the time the sun comes up,

she's been captive for 18 hours.

[Barbara] The next morning, he said he was hungry

and wanted to take me out to eat.

So, he took me down the road to a restaurant.

It was like a little diner.

We walked in the door and I smelled this freshly baked bread.

Oh, I was so hungry.

We get seated in. I thought, well, maybe I can get loose.

And then I saw the way that he had a sawed-off shotgun.

And he goes and gets it out of his coat, takes his coat off.

Puts the gun on the seat.

And covers it with the coat.

Then this elderly waitress comes over and waits on us.

He ordered orange juice, bacon and eggs, hash browns, everything.

I was thinking to myself, "Why isn't anybody noticing us?

We were on the news last night."

And I knew at that time that there was nobody to help me.

I just couldn't believe that nobody had seen us on TV.

And that's when I realized I had to keep on acting.

Because he had the shotgun.

And I would not put anybody else in danger.

If he was going to kill me, he was going to kill me.

But not with other people involved.

After we had breakfast, we came back to the motel and he raped me again.

Once again, couldn't perform and he got mad.

So I had to do reverse psychology

and make him think that he was really great.

So he would calm down and not kill me.

He says, "I wish I would have met you before all this happened."

When the news came on again later,

he wasn't happy with the reporter and he wasn't happy with me.

And then he took out the gun

and put it towards my head and said, "Bang, bang."

And then started laughing hysterically.

And then he tied me up once again.

He went out to make a telephone call.

I was praying on and off every single moment.

I was praying that I could be released and go home to my sister and my son.

And all of a sudden I looked over at the nightstand

and the motel key was there.

He comes back and he actually tries to get in the door.

But the door's locked.

And Barbara realizes he doesn't have another key.

[knocking on door]

[Barbara] I felt like a miracle just happened

when he couldn't get in the room.

[banging on door]

[Barbara] And after a few minutes...

through the door, Paul John Knowles said,

"When they pick you up, don't tell them that I hurt you.

And I love you."

And then there was nothingness.

But I didn't want to scream for help because what if he was outside?

He'd kill somebody else.

And me, too.

[Wendy] Barbara begins to wriggle herself free.

First from the bedpost and then from the sheets binding her hands and feet.

And by 07:30 in the morning,

Barbara is finally free.

And calls the front desk.

[Barbara] I told her my name.

And I was kidnapped by a serial killer.

When law enforcement came, the FBI showed up.

Plus they had a crimes lab come. And they had everything.

When I was rescued, I had to go to the motel's front office,

because I had a telephone call waiting for me.

It was Beverly, and she was crying,

and then she says, "[gasps] Oh, my God, you're okay."

And I said, "I'm okay." I said, "How are you?" And she says, "I'm okay."

And we both started sobbing together and I said, "How's Dale?"

"He's right here. He's..." "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!"

He gets on the phone. "I love you. I love you. When are you coming home?"

I said, "I'll be there in a little bit." And I said, "I love you to pieces."

He says, "Thank God he didn't hurt you, Mommy."

I hung up crying and sobbing for the next 15 minutes.

[Eleanor] We were elated that she was able to come home.

And I knew that it was going to be a long, long process of healing...

after the ordeal she'd been through.

I had to be there. And we hugged each other.

It was a miracle.

[Christine] Barbara is rescued, but he's in the wind.

And police actually put out a bolo.

Be on the lookout for Barbara's car.

[Roy] A Florida state trooper was patrolling out of Perry, not far from the Georgia line.

And he apparently saw the stolen car and stopped Knowles.

Knowles had a double barrel sawed-off shotgun that he liked.

And he was able to get the jump on the trooper.

Knowles then puts the trooper in the backseat of the patrol car,

and drives off.

And so Knowles driving the patrol car

ends up pulling over James Meyer,

a businessman who was just in town for a few days.

At this point, Knowles abandoned the patrol car

and took the trooper and Mr. Meyer hostage, and they left in Meyer's car.

They were next observed at a gas station in Lakeland, Georgia.

You've got a civilian and you've got a state trooper in uniform in the back seat

with another individual.

And the attendant thought something's not right about this

and reported it to the authorities.

The kidnapping of a police officer,

a state trooper was unheard of.

That was national news.

And there was an urgency to try to find them before they were killed.

We're here trying to recover our missing trooper,

which was kidnapped in the state of Florida.

Along with another hostage and brought into the state of Georgia.

[Roy] The next day I got a call.

They got Knowles cornered in Henry County.

I got another one arriving now.

Deputy sheriff saw the car and recognized it was a wanted car.

So the deputy radioed ahead and had a roadblock set up.

Everybody from metro Atlanta who had a badge and a gun was there.

I've never seen so many cops in my entire life.

[siren blaring]

[tires screech and thuds]

[Roy] Knowles crashed into the roadblock.

At that point, Knowles abandoned the car and left on foot.

Paul John Knowles was running and had the shotgun.

And exchanged gunfire with the authorities that pursued him.

They shot Knowles in the leg and he took off and he was bleeding.

And a young man who was out rabbit hunting saw him.

But Knowles was exhausted from running, losing blood

and Knowles gave up.

No, not really.

[James] The authorities came, took Knowles into custody.

And the rest, they say, is history.

[Barbara] It was a relief to me when I saw it on the TV.

And when I got home and talked to Bevy, we were both relieved.

[Wendy] When law enforcement realizes that the trooper and James Meyer

are not in the car with Knowles, they assume the worst.

It's more than likely that Knowles killed the two men.

But when he is arrested, he refuses to say.

In one of his interviews, he bragged he killed more than 30 people.

Knowles felt that of everything he did in his life,

the only thing that he had been successful at was killing people.

He didn't want to be caught, but he didn't want to go out at the end.

Nobody knew what he did.

And he thought sharing his high body count would make him look good.

From a publicity standpoint.

And he felt if he was famous,

he'd make money out of it, which would go to his mother.

This was his good deed for his mother.

[Roy] He wanted to be famous.

He wanted a book and a movie made.

And the media was all over it all day long.

[Barbara] I saw a magazine, and it had on there

the picture of Paul John Knowles, Casanova Killer.

And I'm like... "You've got to be kidding me."

[Wendy] Several days later, another deer hunter

discovers the bodies of Trooper Charles Campbell

and businessman James Meyer in the Georgia woods.

[James] He handcuffed both of them to the tree.

Shot both of them in the back of the head, execution style.

[Wendy] Based on the caliber of the bullet,

authorities believe that Knowles used

Trooper Campbell's own gun to kill them both.

[Roy] Once they were discovered, essentially, Knowles was cooked.

And Knowles agreed to take authorities

to Henry County and show him where he ditched

the trooper's .357 Magnum pistol.

They loaded Knowles up in the sheriff's car

and were coming down I-20 into Atlanta.

When Knowles secreted a paper clip,

and picked his handcuffs on his belly chain.

[officer] That man got a handcuff off and he went for my gun,

and he got his hands on my gun.

And you know, you come to your own conclusion, but I'm pretty shook up.

I know he would have taken my life.

I began firing and continued firing until I was satisfied

that the danger had subsided to both Sheriff Lee and myself.

[Barbara] It was one of the best days of Dale, Beverly, and my life

when we found out that he was killed.

Because he could kill no more.

[Yavitz] Before Knowles was killed,

they threw me in jail for contempt.

Because I wouldn't tell them where the tape was.

But eventually, I agreed to produce the tape if it was sealed by the judge,

until the Court of Appeals determined

whether lawyer-client privilege existed.

Well, Knowles was killed in December.

So in January, a judge rules that the lawyer-client privileges died.

And then the judge apparently listened to the tape

and to all the confessions he had made.

[Roy] Although Knowles was killed before he could be prosecuted for his crimes,

the tapes solved 20 of our homicides.

He claimed he killed a lot more.

There are many more murders making in my opinion,

Paul John Knowles, the most heinous

mass murderer in America history.

[James] During the investigation

to find out how more bodies

were attributed to Paul John Knowles,

we discovered that apparently

Knowles was gonna get married in the summer of '74.

But this lady had been to a psychic

who told her that there was a bad man coming into her life

and she needed to get away from him.

So she broke off the engagement.

And we feel that that's what set him off.

Because shortly after that he started killing.

Knowles said he killed at least 35.

And authorities are hoping that the tape would provide

you know, some kind of answer,

as to who these other people that he killed are.

But it just wasn't to be.

[Gary] We ultimately learned

the tape was destroyed in a flood at the federal courthouse

in Macon, Georgia, and no longer existed.

[Christine] Unfortunately, because the tape was destroyed,

no one really knows just how many people Knowles killed.

[Wendy] For Barbara, the death of Paul John Knowles

removes any fear of his return.

But it doesn't erase the trauma for her, Beverly, or Dale.

[Barbara] My son needed help. He was only six years old.

I knew it affected him.

I could see it in his eyes

and how he wanted to be very protective of me after it happened.

And was afraid when I had to go to work

and drop him off at the church school.

But we had the pastors at his church school talk to all three of us

and pray over us and everything.

And he's a beautiful, beautiful family member now.

Has his own business.

And he is a beautiful Christian, helping others now.

[Eleanor] There were days that Barbara was able to somewhat cope.

And there were days that she couldn't cope at all.

It was very strenuous on her psyche.

She would call me on the phone and would be crying and...

And then I'd get off the phone and I'd be bawling.

[Barbara] I wound up one Saturday, just losing it.

And screamed bloody murder.

And all I could hear in the distance

was my son crying out to me, and I came to.

And that's when I decided to go to the West Palm Beach Mental Health Center.

I went to see a beautiful, beautiful woman.

And when I told her my story, she said,

"You're not crazy. That's nothing but stress."

And I knew at that time I was blessed.

That God let me live.

And gave me the right words to think and say and do

during that horrible time in my life.

You really never know until you put in that situation just how you would react.

But Barbara did exactly what she had to do.

Because she knew she had Dale and Beverly at home

that she had to take care of them.

Barbara is one of the strongest women I know.

And I'm blessed to know Barbara

and have her as a friend that she is.

Beverly couldn't talk about the kidnapping for several years.

And there were several times

when I wanted to move after being kidnapped.

And then it dawned on me.

This was Mama's house.

And look at all the love.

And there are way more good memories

in this house than there are bad.

And so I decided to stay.

And I built a life here for Beverly and Dale and myself.

And then I fell in love with Jim, the love of my life.

Oh, oh. Okay. [indistinct] Ta-da.

-Did I tell you I love you? -[laughs slightly]

My name is Jim Abel.

And Barbara and I have been married for 43 years.

[Barbara] I met Jim in 1973.

But he was going overseas.

We decided to keep in touch.

And he became my friend and was writing all that time.

You know, I started having feelings for him really early.

But after everything happened, and Paul John Knowles was killed,

I wrote him a letter.

Telling him several months later about the kidnapping.

[Jim] When I received Barbara's letter, it really hit me hard.

I knew that she probably needed someone

and then the way I felt about her anyway...

I was hoping that that person would be me that could help her through it.

We just had our 43rd anniversary.

So I guess it's doing pretty good.

I definitely admire her strength.

I don't know how she got through it and everything.

That's just the way Barbara is. Very strong.

I don't think about Paul John Knowles at all anymore.

I don't need to.

I've written a book. I've gotten everything off my chest.

And I know and there's only two choices.

You can choose to be a victim.

Or you can choose to be a survivor.

I chose to be a survivor.

I am worth being who I am today.

I am a somebody.

I am a survivor.

He brought me downstairs and he put me inside the hole.

I was very loud.

They were in pain and he was laughing.

He ordained himself as a bishop.

Everything began to smell like death.

I may have lost my mind in that basement.

I made a choice.

I risked my life to save these girls.