Anne Jean Wilcox Dawson, a 49-year-old woman from Birmingham, Alabama, disappeared on the evening of September 23, 1974, after leaving a lakeside cottage near Guntersville and beginning the trip home. Although some records list September 29 as the date of her death, the evidence reviewed by Alabama courts placed her presumed death on or about September 24, 1974.
Her body was never recovered, but investigators ultimately concluded that she had been abducted and murdered.
Dawson had spent the weekend at her cottage near Guntersville Lake and was last seen there by her sister, Cecelia Worley, on Sunday, September 22. She planned to leave the lake late the following day, return to Birmingham and report to work Tuesday morning at the beauty shop she operated in Fairfield. Those who knew her described her as exceptionally reliable. She handled her own clients, made certain another beautician was never left working alone and regularly kept in touch with her sisters. When she failed to arrive at the shop and did not contact anyone, her absence immediately appeared out of character.
At approximately 6:15 p.m. on September 23, Dawson entered the C S Lounge in the Birmingham area. Tina Burgess, a part owner of the establishment, later told police that Dawson helped change a $50 bill and briefly exposed a considerable amount of cash inside her purse. A man already in the lounge noticed her and began a conversation. Witnesses said the pair appeared increasingly friendly as the evening continued, and they eventually left together at approximately 9:15 p.m.
The stranger was described as about 30 years old, roughly six feet tall and weighing around 170 pounds. He had reddish hair that extended below his ears, brown eyes and distinctive clothing that included a plaid shirt, gold-colored pants, a white belt and white shoes with buckles. Investigators believed the description closely resembled Paul John Knowles, a fugitive who was moving through several states during a violent 1974 crime spree. Knowles had reportedly been in the Birmingham area that same day and was using a credit card belonging to William Bates, another man authorities believed Knowles had killed.
Dawson’s automobile was located the next day outside the Hide-a-Way Lounge in Tarrant City, several miles from the C S Lounge. Employees there remembered a woman who may have been Dawson arriving during the evening and joining a gray-haired man wearing a suit and tie. They left together around 9 p.m., although neither employee could positively identify Dawson from a photograph. The difference between their description of the man and the witnesses who had seen the red-haired stranger created uncertainty about exactly what happened after Dawson left the first lounge.
Police distributed Dawson’s photograph, a summary of the investigation and a composite picture of the suspected man to Birmingham television stations and newspapers. Despite the publicity, searches and interviews, investigators found no verified trace of her. There was no indication that she had voluntarily abandoned her home, family or business. She also suffered from serious medical problems, including failing kidneys and a colostomy that required daily attention. She regularly took antibiotics but had left behind the additional medical supplies and medication she would have needed if she planned to remain away.
The investigation changed dramatically in January 1975, when Birmingham homicide Sergeant Jeffrey Webb received information connected to recorded statements made by Knowles. According to notes prepared from the material, Knowles described meeting a woman named Ann in an Alabama bar during the latter part of September 1974. He said she was a beautician in her forties or fifties who owned a beauty shop. His account stated that they drank together at one establishment and then went to a second lounge, where he abducted her at knifepoint in the parking lot and left her automobile behind.
Knowles reportedly claimed that he drove the woman west in his Chevrolet Impala, crossed into Louisiana near Interstate 20 and took her into a wooded area. He said he sexually assaulted her, strangled her and stole approximately $500. The details closely matched Dawson’s profession, name, age range, movements and the discovery of her abandoned car. Sergeant Webb concluded that the unidentified woman in Knowles’s account was Dawson.
Authorities conducted an extensive search in Madison Parish, Louisiana, using horses, four-wheel-drive vehicles and a helicopter. Much of the terrain had become flooded by the time officers arrived, making it far more difficult to examine the same landscape that would have existed in September. No remains or personal belongings connected to Dawson were found. When two skeletons were later discovered near Bovina, Mississippi, investigators compared them with Dawson’s dental records, but a pathologist determined that neither was hers.
Knowles was arrested in November 1974 after a nationwide series of killings, kidnappings, robberies and vehicle thefts. He was fatally shot by law-enforcement officers on December 18, 1974, after authorities said he attempted to seize a weapon while being transported in Georgia. Because Knowles died before he could be prosecuted, he was never charged, tried or convicted in Dawson’s disappearance and presumed murder. His recorded account therefore remained an alleged confession rather than evidence tested before a criminal jury.
Dawson’s sister, Bernice Eubanks, later asked an Alabama court to declare her legally dead so that her estate could be administered for the benefit of her three grandchildren. The court considered her dependable habits, close family relationships, severe medical needs, abandoned automobile, complete lack of communication and the striking similarities between her disappearance and Knowles’s statement. It found that she had died on or about September 24, 1974. The Alabama Supreme Court upheld that ruling in 1977, concluding that the circumstances proved her death by a preponderance of the evidence.
No other person is known to have been arrested or prosecuted in connection with Dawson’s presumed killing. Investigators regarded Paul John Knowles as the principal and likely sole suspect, but the absence of her body and Knowles’s death prevented a conventional murder case from moving forward. Her final resting place has never been established, leaving the account of her abduction and death dependent upon witness recollections, circumstantial evidence and the confession attributed to a suspected serial killer who never faced trial for what happened to her.
