They had watched the testimony before Senator Sam Ervin’s Watergate Committee and had listened to President Nixon’s repeated assertions that he was “not a crook” for months. Now, however, things were finally coming to a head. By the end of July, it became clear that Congress was going to impeach and convict the president for his role in the attempt to cover up the Watergate break-in.
2 Facing such a headwind, the Howland and Lippincott
descendant who was currently occupying the Oval Office decided to resign. The
family gathered around the television set in the family room that evening to
hear the President’s address.
3 He said: “I have never been a quitter. To leave
office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body.
But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a
full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with
the problems we face at home and abroad.” If he continued to press for his
vindication, Nixon admitted that the process would absorb all of the attention
of both himself and the Congress.
4 The resignation would take effect at noon on the
following day. The President concluded his remarks by saying that he had “felt
a very personal sense of kinship with each and every American” as a consequence
of his having served in that capacity. He finished with a prayer: “May God's
grace be with you in all the days ahead.”
5 It was finally over. Gerald Ford would be sworn in
as the thirty-eighth President of the United States the following day.
6 Ironically, like Mr. Nixon, Mr. Ford was also a
Henry Howland descendant. Thus, for Lonnie and his brother, one distant cousin
succeeded another as President.
7 The following month, Annie was headed back to
Birmingham from her cottage on Guntersville Lake when she decided to pull off
at the Quick Stop Lounge for a drink before returning home. “I’ll have a Bud,”
she said as she sat down at the bar. “Coming up!” the female bartender replied.
8 A few minutes later, another customer handed her a fifty-dollar
bill. “Anybody got change for a fifty?” she shouted so that everyone could hear
her.
9 Annie waved her hand and opened her purse. She
removed a large wad of money from it and counted out one twenty, two tens and
two fives on the bar before her.
10 A tall, thin, redheaded young man at the end of the
bar perked up and paid close attention to the transaction. After it was
finished, he picked up his beer and moved over to where Annie was sitting.
“Hello, Darlin,” he said with a broad smile.
11 “Well, aren’t you pretty?” Annie offered with a
smile of her own. “Thank you,” he replied with an even bigger grin. “You’re
lookin pretty good yourself.” “I’m old enough to be your mama,” Annie admitted.
“My mama never looked that good,” he smiled.
12 “I’m Annie Dawson,” she said as she shook her head
in disbelief and offered her hand. “Daryl Gates,” he lied as he took her hand
and kissed it. He ordered them both another beer, and they made small talk for
about an hour.
13 “This place is a bit of a dive, isn’t it?” he
finally asked. “Don’t you have someplace where we could go and get better
acquainted?” he asked with a leer.
14 Annie couldn’t take him home where her
grandchildren would be waiting for her return, and there was something a little
unsettling about the handsome stranger. “I know of a much nicer place a few
miles down the road,” Annie volunteered. “You can follow me,” she offered.
15 They drove to the Hide-A-Way Tavern and parked.
“This isn’t quite what I had in mind,” Daryl said as he walked toward her car.
“We can get something and go to a motel,” he suggested. “Alright, you go get us
something, and I’ll wait on you,” Annie told him.
16 He entered the bar, and Annie waited about fifteen
minutes in the parking lot for him to return. Bored, she finally went inside
and joined him at the bar. They purchased a bottle of whiskey and left a few
minutes later.
17 “You can follow me,” she told him. “We’ll just take
my car,” Gates replied. “I can bring you back later,” he reassured her when he
saw the look of doubt on her face.
18 “I can’t stay out too late,” Annie told him. “I’ve
got to get home to my kids,” she explained. “I’d love to meet them,” he
replied. “That’s not going to happen,” Annie thought to herself. “Oh, just get
in the car!” he shouted in exasperation. “No thanks, you can follow me,” she
repeated.
19 He suddenly came up behind her and pulled out a
knife. “I told you to get in the car,” he snapped in a low voice.
20 She hesitated at the passenger door, then opened it
and crawled inside. Although she didn’t know it at the time, the car she was
now sitting in belonged to a man who had been murdered by Daryl just a few
short weeks before. Even so, Annie now understood that Daryl Gates (or whoever
he was) was dangerous.
21 In fact, he wasn’t Daryl Gates at all. His real
name was Paul John Knowles, and he had already murdered about two dozen men,
women and children by the time he had met her.
22 They drove to a motel and checked in with Annie’s
credit card. Paul was unable to perform in bed, but he refused to let Annie go.
23 The next morning, he forced Annie back into the car
and headed for Mississippi. Several days of fear and uncertainty followed as
the unlikely pair slowly made their way west on Interstate 20.
24 Then, just after they crossed the Mississippi River
into Louisiana, he pulled off the highway and stopped in a wooded area on the
outskirts of a small town. Knowles dragged Annie into the woods and raped and
strangled her with her own nylons.
25 From there, his murderous romp across the country
continued. He was finally captured by police two months later and was shot
while trying to escape the following month.
26 In the end, Paul John Knowles had murdered
thirty-five souls. And, although the authorities were only able to positively
identify eighteen of his victims, Annie was one of them. It would, however,
take another two and a half years to have her declared legally dead and allow
her grandchildren to inherit what little was left of her estate.
No comments:
Post a Comment