On November 14, 1974, Barbara Mabee Abel returned home from work with her 6-year-old son to find the Casanova Killer, Paul John Knowles, waiting in her kitchen with a double barrel sawed-off shotgun. To protect her son and sister, she convinced Knowles to take only her, begging him to kidnap her instead of harming her family. During her captivity, she employed a survival strategy of charming him and attempting to make him fall in love with her to keep him from killing her. By this time, Paul John Knowles, had already been on a 4 month killing spree and claimed to kill more than 35 people.