Pauline George

On March 7th, 1991, Pauline George, 50 years old, left worked at Parkwest hospital at 2pm, drove home to 7724 Luscomb Dr. Knoxville TN. arriving there around 2:30pm. She stopped at the mailbox, then headed inside. She laid the mail on the table and stopped long enough to read a note from her son Randy. She headed to the bedroom, laid her clothes on the bed and took a shower, then put on her housecoat. She was preparing for a dinner date that evening with her boyfriend Jack Lane. 

Several of her neighbor's report seeing an older model light green pickup truck back into her driveway around 3pm. 

Around 5pm Jack would show up to pick Pauline for the dinner date. When no one answered the doorbell, he noticed a back door to the kitchen ajar. Lane stepped inside and walked through the house, calling his girlfriend's name. "The light was on, and her clothes were still on the bed," he recalled. "The door was still locked, and the latch was still on the door. I went down the stairwell toward the basement. I turned on the light and hollered, still no response." Then he spotted something in a side room, the one George's son and daughter had played in as children. Pauline's blood covered body. 

Pauline's sister Betty Fuller and Cousin Jan Tobler showed up as soon as they got the news something had happened to Pauline. Both of them believe that investigators did a poor job at trying to solve this case. Tobler stated the crime scene was an absolute disaster, noting that there were a lot of people in and out of the house. Tobler believes that there had to be something that investigators missed.  

Retired KCSO LT. Larry Johnson, then head of the county's Major Crime Unit, stated the murder wasn't solved for lack of effort. they did everything they could. DNA testing was in its infancy at the time. Johnson stated that the unit went over the scene with "a fine-toothed comb." He believes that if they had half of the techniques that they do now, back then they may have been able to make an arrest. 

An Autopsy of Paulines body showed that her attacker had slashed her throat and sliced up her arms, as she tried to defend herself. The Killer punched Pauline in the face and stabbed her in the legs, chest and abdomen. She bled to death in the basement playroom. 

About six detectives worked the case in the beginning. They searched the house, woods near her home, dusted for fingerprints, dug into Paulines life and questioned almost everyone who knew Pauline, while other plain clothed officers attended her funeral looking for anything or anyone out of place.  Johnson recalled interviewing somewhere around 60 to 70 people, recalling no one had a bad word to say about Pauline.  They spoke to people living with in a three-block radius. 

The elderly couple who lived next door to Pauline, had seen her come in, saying they did not see anything that was not normal. The Older model green pickup reported by neighbors, was tracked down and found to belong to Philip Wayne Matthews, who was on parole at the time for various robbery convictions, His statement was that he was in the subdivision that day collecting scrap metal.  In the following days, Matthews, had bought spray paint and painted his truck an entirely different color. Johnson recalled Mr. Matthews was not cooperative with police. They could put him the area but not more than that.