January 19, 2018 • 55 mins
Atlanta asks, who is Wayne Williams?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
I asked it to get his ID and they said yes,
he was still sitting in his car. I still had
my composite sketch and I pulled it out. He had
these little glasses on and I drew the glasses and
I held it up and I said, anybody recognized this guy?
And it was Wayne Williams to the tee, I mean
it just it was just Wayne. Ironically, we caught Wayne
(00:34):
Williams at two fifty five am on the last day
of the surveillance. When we got there, we were immediately
briefed that this guy was seen on the bridge and
something hit the water. It hadn't been recovered. Of course,
nobody could get in that water because a it's two
fifty five am and the water but current was just outrageous.
(00:54):
Somebody would have drowned and wouldn't have stood a good
chance of recovering anything.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Anyway, I don't think up to him and.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Identified myself as a special agent with the FBI, and
I asked him immediately if he knew why he was
being pulled over, and he said, yes, it's probably because
about those those kids that are missing, which kind of
surprised me.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
That was an unusual answer.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I thought that was his answer.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Well it was, you know, it's a paraphrase of it.
That wasn't his verbatim answer, but yeah, it was something
like that. And the next words out of his mouth
was he says, you know, he said, Channel five is
really covering this very well, but Channel eleven I don't
think covers it enough. So that kind of surprised me.
I remember that jumped out at me as well.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And Atlanta, another bonder was discovered today, but twenty third.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
At the Police Task Force headquarters, there are twenty seven
faces on the wall, twenty six murdered, one missing.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
We do not know the personilar persons that are responsible.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Therefore, we do not have the money from Tenderfoot TV
in house to forks in Atlanta.
Speaker 6 (01:54):
Like eleven other recent victims in Atlanta, rogers are currently
was asphixiator.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Atlanta is unlikely to catch the killer unless he keeps
on killing.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
This is Atlanta monster.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I asked him if I could talk to him in
my car. I told him we needed to get out
of the traffic because the tractor trailers were rolling by
and you couldn't hear. Plus, I wanted to interview him.
I wanted to get him in my car and interview him.
He agreed, real mediable, very friendly guy.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I mean he was he nervous. No, no, he wasn't nervous.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
It was the first impression of well, I didn't have
one other than me telling you what he just kind
of surprised me with the media comment and acknowledging that
it was about the kids. I really didn't have much
of an impression.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I was wanting to.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Know more about what his story was, and eventually I
got it. He gets in the car with me, and
the first thing I asked him to do, and he
surprised me again. I said, can we have consent to
search your vehicle? And he said sure.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So we had.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
A consent for him that I had him sign, and
he signed it and let us search his vehicle. Now,
as I had walked by his vehicle, I stuck my
head in the window and looked around. There was a
bag of clothes laying on the floor, and there was
a pair of gloves laying on the seat. And what
(03:42):
really struck me though, was is that there was a
nylon cord kind of like a ski rope. It was
about twenty four inches long and it was knotted on
each end. That rope really interested me, so I started
interviewing him and ask him what he was out this
late at night, because, like I said, it was two
(04:03):
fifty five am when he got in my car. He
said that he was a talent scout and that he
had an eight o'clock appointment I think eight am the
next morning, but he was out trying to find their
address so that he wouldn't know where it is the
next morning and not be late. That just didn't have
(04:24):
an air of truthfulness to it. Nobody goes out at
two o'clock or three o'clock in the morning to find
an address to make sure they're not late at eight o'clock.
I found out he was an only child. He lived
with his parents, his mom and dad. His dad was
a freelance photographer and his mother had been a retired teacher.
They were quite elderly that he had come along pretty
(04:46):
late in life. He was a pretty intelligent guy too.
He had a very high IQ. Word had it that
he had built an AMFM radio station in his backyard
when he was about fourteen. In the FCC. It had
made him tear it down. I asked the guys, I said,
search of his car over and they said yes, and
I said okay. So I said, if anybody any reason
(05:09):
for him to stay here any longer, and they said no,
So we let him go. There was some things there
that happened, that transpired that.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
The FBI has always been and remains an institution that
is very conscious of not falsely arresting people. They've made
mistakes in the past, everybody does. It's a judgment call.
But we did not that night want to violate any
of his civil liberties, his civil rights, and so we
(05:41):
aired on the side of caution. It was my decision
and let him go. What wasn't my decision is when
I asked them, I said, where is these things you
found in the car? And I went, we didn't keep
any of it, And I went, what you didn't What
I said, what about the gloves and the rope, because
I'm thinking that that's probably part of crimes that had
been committed since the people had been killed from ligature strangulation.
(06:04):
But somewhere we dropped the ball. I was in charge,
so I went ahead and took the hit for it.
I said, Oh, that's just the decision you guys made.
And I'll back you. I don't agree with it right now,
but as far as official official word goes, and we
made that decision, and that's that's the way it goes.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Did anyone ever see Wayne toss anything over the bridge?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
No, never did. But there wasn't another car on that bridge.
He was the only car there. They saw the headlights approach,
they heard the splash, and then they saw what, like
I described earlier as him appeared to just be starting
out again at two or three miles an hour.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Did you guys ask him that night if he tossed
anything over the bridge?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yes, and he I asked him, you know, there'd been
a splash, And I think I asked him he tossed anything,
And I don't remember if he said he was throwing
trash out or something. I can't remember that part. I
don't remember what his answer was, but he did say
I think he said he was throwing trash away or something,
that he had some trash that he needed to get
(07:03):
rid of and he threw it in the river that night.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
No one ever saw or found what caused the alleged
splash that was hurt in the water.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
We let him go and at six am we packed
up and I went ahead and went home. And home
was down south of Atlanta, lived in marl Georgia. I
drove up to East Tennessee because it was Memorial Day weekend.
It was a long weekend to see my mother and
basically crashed. I was totally exhausted. I slept for I
think I got there. It's about a three hour drive,
and I got there about noon on Friday, went to sleep,
(07:34):
woke up at noon on Saturday eight went back to sleep.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Though police had a strange encounter with the man on
the bridge, they decided to let him go.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
They had no reason to hold him in custody. The
bridge steak.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
Out operation was now officially over, and Mike Macombus went
home to rest for the weekend.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
But meanwhile, investigators.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Were still hard at work, suspicious of the man they
top from the bridge, and by the time the combas
woke up again, big things were happening.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Sunday morning, I got a call from Bill McGrath. He
was one of the administrative supervisors on the case.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And Bill called me in.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
He said, did you interview Wayne Williams. I said yes.
He said, well, do you have any notes? I said, oh, yeah,
I got a lot of notes. Well, we just found
a body about five hundred meters down stream. You need
to call in and do your report right now. And
he said, and get yourself back to Atlanta.
Speaker 7 (08:31):
We think we got him.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
A few days later, a body washed up in the river,
just a few miles downstream from the bridge.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
The body was found around eleven this morning in the
Chattahoochee River, just south of the I two eighty five bridge,
where the river forms the border between Cobb and Fulton Counties.
The body was nude, and medical examiners estimated it had
been in the water a couple of days. It was
found by a fisherman. The body was on the Fulton
County side of the river, but it was difficult for
(08:59):
police to get to that part of the river. Boats
were launched from the Cobb County side. Members of the
Special Task Force poured in. About two hours later the
body was brought out. A medical examiner said it was
a young black man in his early twenties.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
The body was of twenty seven year old Nathaniel Cater.
The FBI now had their first real suspect the man
they had stopped on the bridge.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
That man was Wayne Williams.
Speaker 9 (09:27):
The man who has been questioned, was stopped late at
night on May twenty first, after arousing the curiosity of
police on a river's stakeout. The investigators heard a splash
in the water underneath the Jackson Parkway Bridge.
Speaker 10 (09:38):
No arrest was made then, and no one inspected two
bags of clothes, the pair of men's shoes, or the
gloves seen inside the station wagon. For two days, the
task force quietly dragged the river, not finding anything. Three
days later, two people in a canoe did the nude
body of Nathaniel Cater a mile downstream from the South
Cobb Bridge.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Within a matter of minutes, news stations formed the rigs
where Nathaniel Cater's body was found, and it wasn't long
after that the media discovered the name Wayne Williams. Though
no arrests have been made, news stations released his name anyways.
Speaker 11 (10:13):
To anyone who's been anywhere even close to the non
suspect's home, it's obvious he doesn't have any privacy anymore.
In spite of his pleas to remain anonymous, and in
spite of the police begging the media to use restraint,
most have released his name anyway.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Reporters and camera crews from all around the nation lined
up outside the home of Wayne Williams, anxiously awaiting for
something to happen.
Speaker 10 (10:35):
A horde of police, news reporters and photographers smothered this
quiet neighborhood. The media didn't want to miss any arrests
that so far hasn't happened.
Speaker 5 (10:44):
And with this man now under the national spotlight, the
FBI's investigation was sent in the overdrive.
Speaker 12 (10:51):
Two FBI agents and two detectives with the Atlanta Police
Department sat perched on their cars, guns visible, never taking
their eyes off the modest home in northwest Atlanta. The mother, father,
and son inside became a family under siege in their
own home. In around ten this morning, the man's father
came out of the house, pushed the cameras away with
(11:13):
his commanding presence, and silently walked toward the police. Without
saying a word, He signaled them to follow him into
the house.
Speaker 13 (11:21):
Have they asked you to leave?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Do they have anything of a confession?
Speaker 5 (11:25):
The nation was glued to their TVs as reporters scrambled
to find more information on the manning question for the
murder of Atlanta's children.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Everyone wanted to know who was Wayne Williams.
Speaker 9 (11:40):
Wayne Williams is an Atlanta born and bred twenty three
years old. A product of the city's public school system.
He went to Anderson Park Elementary School and graduated from
Frederick Douglas High School on High Tower Road, Northwest. People
who know Williams say he is a highly intelligent young man,
a good student when he was in school. That opinion
is echoed by William's seventh grade teacher, Archie Wilson, who
(12:03):
Williams continues to list as a personal reference on his resume.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Those who knew Wayne Williams were completely shocked.
Speaker 14 (12:11):
As a student, he was extremely bright, fair, intelligent young man, quiet, respectful,
honest student, very dependable, just an idea student.
Speaker 9 (12:25):
Williams's resume lists a number of clubs and organizations he
says he belonged to in high school National Honor Society
ROTC rifle team, but his high school class yearbook does
not show him in any of the organization pictures. Williams's
acquaintances say he is one who tends to exaggerate his
accomplishments and his contacts. His resumes list of professional references
(12:46):
includes many familiar names in the local media. Most of
those references say they knew Williams only briefly and not
very well, but it is clear Wayne Williams is a
bright and ambitious person. He started a radio station in
his parents' home when he was only twelve. In his teens,
he spent time hanging around many of the city's radio stations,
doing odd jobs, mostly as an unpaid volunteer, and talking
(13:10):
to the people he met about broadcasting.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
He was a bit old for his age, so to speak.
Speaker 13 (13:15):
I'm saying that to talk to a kid at that
age about something that you're doing as an adult and
he's talking on your level.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
It's really amazing.
Speaker 13 (13:24):
And as I said before, he was a likable type
of individual, maybe because of the knowledge of the industry
as far.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
As I'm concerned.
Speaker 9 (13:31):
Several years ago, he was arrested for impersonating a police
officer and for using police emergency lights on his car.
The charges were reduced and handled in traffic court. In
nineteen seventy seven, Williams began offering his photographic services to
the Atlantic TV stations. Williams would drive the city streets
through the night, listening to police monitors in his car,
(13:51):
racing to the scene of accidents, fires and homicides, then
peddling film of what had happened to the news departments.
But the freelance photography business was never very successful, and
most recently, william says he has acted as a talent scout,
helping young people get ahead in the entertainment industry. Williams
has always lived with his parents in this house on
Penelope Road, Northwest, the quiet neighborhood that has suddenly become
(14:15):
a constant subject of interest for the police and news media.
Neighbors say they never knew the family very well, the
typical wave as you go by type of thing.
Speaker 15 (14:24):
He've been such a good boar for it.
Speaker 16 (14:26):
I know, I haven't seen nothing to make me suspicious
of him.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
If he has really surprised me, really shocks me.
Speaker 12 (14:34):
Why would you think it would be a shock to you?
Speaker 13 (14:36):
So close and I got son and that sons, one
of them used to go in and wait with him
in his radio station.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Right.
Speaker 9 (14:43):
Intelligent, not terribly close to a lot of people, A
news and police groupie of sorts. That is how Wayne
Williams is described by those who know him, and as
his neighbors said, there is shocked that this quiet and
promising kid is now a major suspect in the Atlanta
child murders.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
He was described repeatedly as someone who was intelligent and docile,
the last person you would suspect in a murder, but
the FBI was convinced otherwise. They continued their investigation in
searched Wayne williams house.
Speaker 17 (15:12):
On Wednesday night, June third, Action News learned that FBI
agents and a representative of the Special Task Force had
executed a search warrant and had collected potential evidence from
Williams's home and car.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
They found an eight by ten sheet of paper that
basically was a flyer that said, if you're between the
ages of six and ten and you think you can
sing or dance, I'm a talent scout.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Wayne Williams called himself a talent scout, and he had
passed out flyers throughout the city in search of young
kids to form a music group. I recently found a
copy of that flyer, the same one the FBI had
found in his home.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
The flyer reads, in bold letters.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Can you sing or play an instrument if you were
between eleven and twenty one, male or female and would
like to become a professional entertainer. All interviews private and free,
no experience necessary. The FBI found this very interesting. The
flyer suggests that Wayne was putting contact with young kids,
probably more than one.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
So he put himself out there as a talent scout.
And that's that's how we surmised that he was getting
the kids into the car, Because when you're having that
many kids and getting that much worldwide publicity, you would
think somebody would have enough brains to not get in
the car with somebody.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
But he was pretty good at what he did.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
It could be a huge coincidence, a line of work
with the best intentions, or it was the perfect way
to get children alone. Investigators were now more certain than
ever that they'd found their man, and it was time
they spoke to Wayne Williams again, so they brought him
in for questioning.
Speaker 15 (16:49):
They went out, picked him up and brought him into
the FBI office, take him into the back and as
a massive scene of city of dignitarian and state and
everybody in the world wanted to get involved in it.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
They in and gather.
Speaker 15 (17:01):
He agreed to take a potograph test, and we talked
for him, and they went downstairs and I did the
testing downstairs in my office.
Speaker 7 (17:08):
Just you two, just the two of us.
Speaker 15 (17:12):
The full task force, and everybody was on the tenth floor,
press and news all around the entire building, and we
were kind of on the ninth floor, just the two
of us.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
This is Richard Ratcliffe, former special agent with the FBI.
He sat down alone in a room with Wayne Williams
to conduct a polygraph test.
Speaker 15 (17:29):
We had this very interesting interview for about two hours.
I said, you're very intelligent, so what's your IQ And
he said, I don't believe in that case the potograph.
You have to have confidence in it. I think he
was totally confident he could beat it. He said that
he was just totally calm that he could beat it.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
And what you do?
Speaker 15 (17:51):
You ask us series of comparative questions? This series of
about ten questions or some of them are very simple.
It's everything we've discussed, all yes and no answers. It's
not really confusing, is really clear, very pretty simple and
no surprises. And at that time I ran what's considered
to be the most valid format in the potograph research,
and that was the zone comparison test, A former set
(18:14):
of questions about ten questions. I'll go through that and
record the physiology, and then I'll ask him, was any
problem to anything, anything need to explain or correct or know.
Then you run a second time, you ask the same
set of questions, and I record a second chart. You
run the same set of questions the third time, and
after the third time, then you score each one of
those and compare the responses to the other responses, and
(18:36):
then you add those scores up, and it would show
either either deception or no deception. And this human nature
to want to believe people, So I'm assuming he's going
to pass the test. He stayed pretty much composed the
whole time. He was composed, and he's not really fair
to say relaxed, because the whole situation is not one
where you're relaxed. He was very engaged, and he was
(18:59):
very much operative and in participated willingly. We had this
very interesting conversation and then about what happened, why he's
on the bridge, and one of his things that made
him suspect was every time he was asking about the bridge,
he gave a different story, so he'd already given two
or three different versions by the time I talked to
him about where he was going, what he was doing,
didn't stop on the bridge, just stopping the bridge through
the boxes in the river, didn't throw anything in the river. So,
(19:20):
I mean he had variations of his story. He's a
talent scout, and he had this girl's name, Cheryl, whoever
her name was, and he's supposed to meet her the
next morning at seven am. And so he went to
see if he'd find the apartment. And I said, are
you interviewing young girls at seven in the morning in
their apartments? And that puts you in an awkward position.
I said, I wouldn't do that. He said, I'm not homosexual.
(19:42):
He just made a point, I'm not homosexual. He argued
that that he wasn't homosexual. I was asking about being
alone with this girl in her apartment seven in the morning,
and I was asking him why he would do that.
Why he would just set up interview at seven in
the morning in the girl's apartment. That would make him heterosexual,
making mineral sexual, right, Yeah, And that's why I was asking.
But his argument was that he wasn't homosexual. People I
(20:02):
guess were suspicious of him being homosexual. I said, well,
I'm not accusing you of being homosexual. Well, but we
had that discussion. So I said, what do you have
a girlfriend?
Speaker 18 (20:10):
Iza?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Can you? He said not right now?
Speaker 15 (20:12):
So I said have you ever had a girlfriend? And
he couldn't name one.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
After a long conversation, Racliffe asked the big question that
had brought him there in the first place.
Speaker 15 (20:22):
Did you cause the death in Nathaniel Cater? Did you
throw Cater's body into the cheers the river that night?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
What do you say? He said, no, he's denied it.
Speaker 15 (20:32):
I don't know the Kaniell Cater. I didn't have any
conduct Nathaniel Cater, didn't know him, had never been on
he didn't have a body, he didn't throw anything in
the river.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Wayne Williams denied any involvement in the murder of Nathaniel Cater,
claiming that he never even knew him.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
But the results of the polygraph told a different story.
Speaker 15 (20:48):
The test to his deceptive and that's a first indication
in two years on who did it? Wow, So you're
the guy we were looking for me And that's how
kind of how I reacted when I got through and
great it all out when I got through and said,
this show's deception. I'll been learning you're the guy that
we've been looking for you, you're the one killing these kids.
He said, that's not me, So let me see that.
(21:08):
So then he spread up the charts. Well, the charts,
you wouldn't know from what I just saw. Would you
look at that and tell me that somebody's liner that
killed the guests? So he spread the charts, look at
all the tracings. So he points on he says, what's
that question right there? I said, that's pretty good. Did
you cause the death Nathaniel Cater? So he picked out
that question, which is where his reaction was, you know,
(21:29):
and then I make my call. I go out and
tell the whole world you know that he's deceptive and
indicates that he's the one that killed in the can
of Cater.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
Though Wayne appeared to show deception in his polygraph test,
investigators let him go and now arrest was made.
Speaker 17 (21:47):
After twelve hours of interrogation. Public Safety Commissioner Lee Brown
told waiting reporters that the man had been released and
no arrest made.
Speaker 19 (21:56):
In terms of our efforts tonight, we have not ended
up with the information that would resolved in an arrest.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
A late night press conference was held outside the building,
kilding questions from reporters that is correct, But as it
turned out, this was a distraction.
Speaker 17 (22:12):
What the reporters on hand did not know was that
Brown was creating a diversion for the man and his
father to leave the building.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
Soon after, the media rushed to way Williams home in
hopes of a statement from the man, and what happened
next shocked everyone. Wayne invited all the reporters into his
living room and held his own press conference for the
nation to see.
Speaker 17 (22:32):
At seven am, three and a half hours after returning home,
the young man conducted a news conference, setting the condition
that he would not be shown and that his name
not be used. You will hear him, but you will
see reporters and photographers. He contended that he was being
harassed prior to his detainment, intimidated during his custody, and
pressured to confess to crimes he says he did not commit.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
They openly said, you kill Nathaniel Cater and you know it,
and you line to us. They said that, and they
said it a number of occasions.
Speaker 16 (23:02):
They said it.
Speaker 6 (23:02):
On that night, one of the task force captains on
the scene pointed his finger at me and said it,
and said he was tired of the bs about working
the long hours working the steakouts, and that he was
ready to pull the thing to an end. Done, they
put a tail on me starting last week. I made
him probably in the first hour or two, and in
(23:23):
the process of telling me, a couple of the guys
apparently weren't very good drivers, and I caused them to
have a minor accident, and I think they were just pissed.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
After claiming his innocence and expressing frustration with law enforcement,
he began to elaborate on his role as a talent scout,
detailing his involvement in music groups.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
It's our job to take some entertainer, say, basically from
the street, polishing them up, get them professional, and try
and shop a record deal for them. And we had
a young group that we have been putting together since
nineteen seventy seven, a group called Gemini. When we're trying
to do is just capture the marketplace basically that Jackson
five had.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
He mentioned recruiting kids to form music, nay one in
particular that he was currently working on that he called Gemini.
Speaker 17 (24:05):
Williams himself did not exactly go into hiding. He did,
on several occasions call local reporters. He led police surveillance
on some wild goose chases passing by Commissioner Browns and
Mayor Jackson's houses.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Was this the man who was killing Atlanta's children or
just a local talent scout who was simply at the
wrong place at the wrong time. The FBI had gone
through countless leads over the past two years, but in
their eyes, the one that made the most sense was
Wayne Williams.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
When you work a case that long with that many people,
there's going to be a lot of theories, a lot
of names, a lot of people that you have to
check and wash out. I mean, it's quite an ordeal.
So there were a lot of theories out there, but
none of them had the substance of Wayne Williams.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
What they had on Williams was almost entirely circumstantial.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I'm not sure that we had a gigantic case when
it comes to physical evidence, but we had an overwhelming
wave of circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Except for one key piece of physical evidence.
Speaker 10 (25:02):
They do have numerous fibers from the man's house that
match those found on several victims the fibers. The fibers
are of different colors and texture. Some think that's good
enough others, including prosecutors, disagree.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
But even the fibers they found weren't convincing enough for
the district attorney to press charges.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
Public Safety Commissioner Brown, FBI had John Glover and Task
Force had Morris Redding met with District Attorney Lewis Slayton
for an hour this morning. Slayton's office took out the
search warrants to search the house of the man police question,
and Slayton decided last night there was not enough evidence
to charge the man, so he didn't press charges. No
charges filed. You might have missed that fact if you
(25:43):
read the New York Post. It's headlined this morning was sensational.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
But the New York Post had already run their morning
paper with a very conflicting headline that read Atlanta monster ceased.
Speaker 8 (25:55):
But investigators here are worried about sensationalism, only to the
extended effect their investigation.
Speaker 20 (26:02):
He was a freelance photographer for WSBTV, so that was
the shocker for our newsroom.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
As the media dove deeper into Wayne Williams's background, his
story became even more interesting. In addition to being a
talent scout, he had also worked as a freelance photographer
for the local news station in Atlanta, WSBTV. Monica Pearson,
who worked at WSBTV was also anchor at that time,
recalls us very well, I was.
Speaker 20 (26:28):
Just an anchor, but I can tell you from our viewpoint,
it was what, you know, this is somebody we all
worked with who was a photographer, but a freelance photographer,
not on staff, and I did not know him, but
because he worked mainly on weekends, but other people did,
and it was kind of a matter of not Wayne.
(26:49):
He is so mild mannered and you know, what do
you mean he couldn't hurt fly. But then there were
others who said, well maybe.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
In the weeks following the bridge incident, America was gripped
by the ups and downs of the FBI's investigation into
Wayne Williams. But on June twenty first, nineteen eighty one,
everything would change.
Speaker 8 (27:13):
Suddenly. Late in the afternoon, authorities arrested Williams.
Speaker 19 (27:17):
As you know, we meet on this on a day
to day basis. As a result of the meetings we've
had today, the decision was made to issue the arrest warrned,
which was done and he was taken into custy As
a result.
Speaker 8 (27:29):
Of that, Williams was taken to the Fulton County Jail.
He was booked on a charge of murder the murder
of twenty eight year old Nathaniel Cater.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
Despite his initial hesitation, the district attorney suddenly changed his
mind and Wayne Williams was charged with the murder of
Nathaniel Cater.
Speaker 10 (27:58):
An indictment for the was almost predictable, but the surprise
came when District Attorney Lewis Slayton made the announcement.
Speaker 21 (28:05):
The grand jury had returned an indictment in two counts,
charging Wayne Bertram Bertram Williams with the murder of Jimmy
ray Payne and one count and Theathaniel Kata and the
second count.
Speaker 5 (28:21):
Wayne was also charged with the second murder. On April
twenty seventh, nineteen eighty one, the body of twenty one
year old Jimmy ray Payne was also found in the
Chattahoochee River.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
The cause of death was asphyxiation.
Speaker 10 (28:33):
That announcement came as a very big surprise late this afternoon.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Not only did the.
Speaker 10 (28:38):
Attorneys for Wayne Williams think any indictment wouldn't come until
next Tuesday, they never thought their client would be indicted
for the murder of twenty one year old Jimmy Ray Payne.
Speaker 20 (28:47):
The police have arrested and charged him, but he still
has to be judged by his peers and in a
court of law. So until he is found guilty, we
have to say all let there was still the question
is is he guilty or is he not?
Speaker 10 (29:05):
In a brief statement, william stood in front of Judge
Clarence Cooper and said, I plead not guilty to both counts.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
The trial was under way and Wayne William's defense attorney,
Mary Welcome was ready to fight back.
Speaker 18 (29:18):
There has been a serious effort on the part of
the government, the law enforcement agencies of various and agencies
to convince the country, even the world, that Wayne is
implicated in all of the murders. So on reflection, I
shouldn't be too surprised that they would trying to tie
at least.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
One more in to She implied that law enforcement was
ganging up against Wayne in an effort to close the case,
and felt very strongly about her client's innocence.
Speaker 10 (29:48):
From the beginning, many people thought the state's case against
Wayne Williams was as suspect as the suspect himself. Prosecutors
had no eyewitness to the crimes, no confession, but on
December twenty, the eighth of last year, the state went
ahead with its case. Its main ingredients fibers and animal
hair that allegedly matched.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
Larry Peterson of the Georgia State Crime Lab began analyzing
fibers found in the bodies of victims. The fibers collected
were dog hairs and green, violet, yellow, and red material fibers.
In particular, some of the green fibers reportedly came from
unique carpeting that was found inside Willie William's family home.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
We came up with three types of fiber, some of
it was microscopically found. The green fiber I have personal
knowledge of because my partner and I tracked that down.
They used to have an old green carpet. It was
a shag carpet. Did you guys ever see any.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Of that will check?
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Yeah, it's quite it's quite old, very dated, and it
was a green collar. And when Harold Dedman told us
when he finished with his he took a microscopic fiber
and found out that this was manified actually in South
Carolina and it was transported by West Point Pepperrell to Dalton, Georgia.
At Dalton there was like two hundred thousand square yards
of it. It went to ten or twelve different distributors
(31:11):
in Atlanta, and then we came down from Dalton and
we contacted those ten or twelve and we found the
paperwork where Wayne Williams's parents had purchased that carpet like
fifteen years before. So we traced a microscopic fiber from
its very beginning all the way to Wayne's house, and
it was the same fiber that we were pulling off
(31:31):
of the bodies. Now that my friend is a piece
of investigation.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
The second major part of the prosecution's case was the
bridge incident, but the prosecution had no eyewitnesses.
Speaker 10 (31:45):
The bridge incident was the closest investigators could put their
suspect to a dead body, a legal necessity called corpus delecti.
Although prosecutors had most of the pieces that night in
May a splash, an alleged slow moving car a body
downstream just two days later, it's still lacked the essential
part of the puzzle, someone actually seeing William's car stopped
(32:06):
on the bridge, or better yet, the suspect throwing a
body from the structure.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
No one who actually saw what allegedly happened on the
bridge that night. The defense argued in the courtroom that
Wayne Williams was five foot seven and Nathaniel Cater was
six foot one, claiming that it was impossible for a
man of Wayne's size to pick up his body and
throw it over a bridge.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
I asked Mike mccombis about this.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Wayne wasn't a great big guy, but he was round
and he was pudgy. I don't know if you ever
had a real rush of adrenaline. People do amazing things
when they've got a rush out of adrenaline. And when
you're not trying to be careful and hurt somebody, you
can drag them, pick them up.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
It's no problem.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Another point the prosecution argued was the sound that a
car would make when driving across the bridge.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
What was interesting.
Speaker 22 (32:56):
There was an expansion played on the bridge, and if
a car goes over the way. Later determined if a
cargoes over the bridge faster than five miles an hour,
the expansion plate will make a loud clank. Under five
miles an hour, there's no sound.
Speaker 10 (33:12):
That sound, the defense claims, is the key to their proof.
Police recruit Bob Campbell, part of the stakeout team, says
Williams card did not make that sound, indicating the vehicle
was traveling at a slow rate of speed, But a
sound expert hired by the defense as that's impossible that
even at four miles an hour, the family station wagon
makes the joint rattle loud enough for someone underneath the
(33:33):
bridge to hear it, suggestion that recruit Campbell was fast
asleep on the job the night Williams was stopped, and
the prosecution surprisingly went along with a theory. Asking Mark
Oviot if a loud splash would wake the recruit up,
the expert said yes. The state contends that loud splash
was the body of Nathaniel Cater heading the water. Williams
(33:53):
bluntly stated the police version of the now famous bridge
incident was wrong, a lie. He claimed he wasn't driving
slowp that he didn't turn around in a parking lot
next to the bridge, that he did not throw anything
into the river. He tried to persuade the jury he
really was out near a bridge that night looking for
a Cheryl Johnson, who still remains a mystery to this trial.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
According to Wayne Williams, the night he was stopping the bridge,
he was going to find a young woman named Cheryl
Johnson who wanted to do an audition for him. Earlier
that day, Cheryl Johnson had called his home and Wayne's
mother answered and wrote down her name, phone number, and address.
According to Wayne, that night he was going to verify
her home address so he would know where to go
for the morning appointment. But the major problem was investigators
(34:36):
never found a Cheryl Johnson When they went to the
address on the piece of paper. There was no Cheryl
Johnson who lived there, and the phone number didn't work.
So who was Cheryl Johnson and where was she? The
prosecution claimed that she wasn't real, but Wayne stuck by
a story.
Speaker 10 (34:51):
The state implied he fabricated the story, but Williams didn't
budge from it, claiming the woman simply gave him a
wrong number and wrong address.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
After a grueling two month trial, it was time for
a verdict.
Speaker 10 (35:03):
After several days of testimony, three experts summed it up
in two sentences. Fiber and hair from William's home and
car matted fibers and hair taken from the bodies of
cater and pain. They also painted him as a possible
homosexual who hated poor, young blacks. The defense, steered by
a Mississippi lawyer, fought back better than many had predicted.
(35:23):
Their goal placed out in these people's minds. As Binder
said throughout the trial, Wayne Williams is not a killer.
He countered with former police recruits who charged members of
the stakeout team that night in May were drinking and asleep.
A loose fitting fiber expert from Kansas came in and
showed that fibers may not be as unique as the
state had claimed.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
For twelve hours, the jury deliberated you. On February twenty seventh,
nineteen eighty two, the jury returned their verdict.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Guilty.
Speaker 10 (36:01):
When the verdicts were read, William's father stood before the
court and said, I feel this is very unjust. I
don't see how anyone could find my son guilty of anything.
I just don't see it. William's mother called the judge
and uncle Tom, the twenty three year old freelance photographer,
this morning only a suspect, was optimistic. Tonight as he
left the courthouse, his mood had changed. He is now
(36:23):
painted as the mass murderer.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
Wayne Williams was found guilty for the murder of Nathaniel
Cater and Jimmy ray Payne, but in addition, the FBI
essentially closed all other cases of Atlanta's murdered children, attributing
them to Wayne Williams.
Speaker 10 (36:39):
The question of race popped up a lot tonight. Missus
Williams remarks about Uncle Tom Binder even said a white
man would have been treated differently, and the mother of
victim Joseph Bell, a woman who prodded police into forming
a task force several years ago, was very disappointed.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
With the outcome.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Camille Bell, mother to victim Yusef, Bell, acted as a
voice for the appearance of the missing her children, and
she wasn't very happy with the verdict.
Speaker 23 (37:02):
If I believe that Wayne Williams killed the other twelve
that they claimed the same fibers that were found on
those bodies were also found on Usef's body, then I
must believe that Wayne Williams killed my son. But since
I don't believe that Wayne Williams killed anybody, I can't
believe that Wayne Williams therefore killed my son. What it
(37:24):
all boils down to is now we have Williams twenty three,
the thirtieth victim of the Atlanta Slaves.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
From that day forward, Wayne Williams was in history books
as the Atlanta child murderer.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
A lot of people think he's innocent, believe it or not.
Speaker 24 (37:45):
You know, I think they view him as someone who
who got caught up in it and ended up getting
bland for it.
Speaker 25 (37:53):
I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you. I you know,
I never spent a lot of time paying attention. I
was happy when they was like, we off cold Red.
Now everybody can go out and play again.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
So is Wayne Williams the Atlanta child murderer.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Absolutely, without a shadow of doubt, Wayne Williams was the
child murderer. I'm not saying he did all of them.
He was convicted on two because we didn't have enough
evidence to take him on the rest of them. We
contributed the lion's share of him to him.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I mean, he.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Definitely did more than just two, but that was the
only two that we had enough to take him to
court and.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Convict him on.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I didn't have any problem with the way it was concluded,
you know. You know, it's like if you catch a
guy with one hundred bank robberies, he's not going to
get any more. I mean, you can only sentence a
guy so many times, so much so two life sentences
is the same as ten life sentences.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Life is life.
Speaker 7 (38:48):
It really wasn't over. It really wasn't over.
Speaker 20 (38:54):
Today it's not over. Wayne Williams says he did do it.
The families don't believe he did it. Law enforcement says
he did it, the court said he did the adults,
but no one has ever convicted him on killing the children,
the boys who were found suffocated. I still think it's
(39:19):
a story that needs to be investigated.
Speaker 7 (39:22):
I would love and I'm glad you're.
Speaker 20 (39:24):
Doing this to open up the case again and see
what you can find.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
All these years later.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
Remember Russell Boltazor, whose brother Patrick was found brutally murdered.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
I asked him about this.
Speaker 24 (39:38):
I think he got taken as an escape goat to
shut down the problems we had. I don't believe that
he was tried with all evidence and said you are
guilty for killing all of those kids. I think it
was a way for them to slow it down. Somebody
better find somebody to put into jailhouse, so make a
(39:59):
lot of the these people start being quiet.
Speaker 10 (40:16):
Jerry find the defendant, Wayne Bertram Williams, guilty on count
number one.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
The arrest of Wayne Williams appeared to solve one of
the biggest multiple murder mysteries in American history.
Speaker 26 (40:31):
The closing of the cases effectively branded Wayne Williams the
Atlanta child murderer.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
On nearly every list of American serial killers, you'll find
the name Wayne Williams.
Speaker 27 (40:41):
Wayne Williams remains in jail and may well be there
for the rest of his life.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
In nineteen eighty five, they made a movie about it,
Starry Morgan Freeman.
Speaker 10 (40:51):
Was this the man who choked the life out of shocked, bludgeoned,
and drowned twenty eight human beings?
Speaker 26 (41:06):
Becuse You're by sentences? The defender Dwayne Bertram Williams to
the custody of the State Board of Corrections, where he
is to serve two life sentences, and.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
Over the next three decades, they continue to make its
way into pop culture, especially in the hip hop community,
being so closely linked to Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Y'all, when we was kids, I was there to.
Speaker 28 (41:32):
Chris Kisses and then they imposed the troupe.
Speaker 7 (41:34):
Atlanta Kids Missing.
Speaker 28 (41:36):
Oh, we with them kids, and now we grow hip
to every evil plots.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
You want to put on.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
Andre three thousand from Outcasts even has a verse on
Travis Scott's twenty sixteen albums.
Speaker 7 (41:47):
In the town they with.
Speaker 29 (41:47):
Murdering kids and dumped them in the creek up from
where it is by the Spider Spider sprint cooader around.
We run in through the sprint around. We'll show what
with boxes pieces. It said he had unlabel on my
grandma and airth My homie said he told him his
name was Wayne.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
But a lot of people think he didn't do it.
Russell bultasor doesn't and he has his own story to
back that up. Russell heard about his strange incident involving
his brother Patrick, and it made him doubt that Wayne
Williams was the killer.
Speaker 24 (42:30):
Spoke to several people out there, and one of the
police officers the story was told to me that they
had him on tape that he was running him and
two kids from individuals in more than one person and
they ran into a phone booth. He picks up the
(42:50):
phone and dial I guess nine one one to call
the police department, and they supposedly had it on recording
that he said that someone was chasing.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Him did he describe the person?
Speaker 24 (43:04):
He said, it was two white people that was chasing him,
and that's all I've ever heard about that story. I
did try to call the police department and talk to
someone about that tape, and all of a sudden, no
one knew what I was talking about, so pretty much
(43:26):
just left that alone up until now you mentioned to me,
I'm telling you the story about it. I think most
of us, like myself, if I knew in my heart
that they proved that he killed those kids, then that
would be a lot of relief for us. But I
don't think they did.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
I realized that Russell Boltazar was probably not the only
person related to a victim that doesn't believe it was
Wayne Williams. I started scouring the internet for other stories
like this, and one day I found a YouTube video
from twenty fifteen under the user name in just Us.
It's a video of a guy named Emmanuel, brother of
Clifford Jones, one of the victims.
Speaker 7 (44:08):
Okay, and your brother's name was Clifford Jones.
Speaker 30 (44:12):
Basically, it was one early morning all of the twenty
nineteen eighty My brother and I basically walked up to
a grocery store for my grandmother. People had kidnapped my brother,
man named Jamie Brooks, Horrace.
Speaker 7 (44:32):
Hopgood, Freddy Costy.
Speaker 15 (44:36):
These guys.
Speaker 30 (44:38):
Helped my brother captive in a lundromat right on the
corner Hollywood Road. They raped him and beat him.
Speaker 16 (44:49):
All day long.
Speaker 30 (44:55):
One of the people stood in the doorway watching my
brother get raped, crying, screaming, saying he wanted to go home,
and saying that he was going to tell his grandmother
and said that the dude Jamie Brooks put a rope
around his neck and pulled on the rope and made
the man told the police did and the police had
(45:19):
all this information, and they still they still blame someone
else for clifford murder and knowing why William didn't kill Clifford.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
So who made this? Who was in just us? Who
is the man behind the camera? Whoever it was.
Speaker 5 (45:36):
They had been doing their own research on this case
decades later, someone I definitely wanted to talk to. After
a little digging, I found him. The man who made
the video was a guy named Dwayne Hendrix. I tracked
him down and I gave him a call, and within
the first thirty seconds it was already getting interesting.
Speaker 16 (45:59):
With this said, you know it's gonna be how do
you want to go to get to the bottom of
this would literally change American history. I mean it would
through so many things. When when you just get into this,
(46:20):
then you get into, like all the layers of it,
the corruption, you deal with, the cover up, the actual
murders themselves. Who is responsible for a lot of this.
There are people in high places that want this shit
to come out, and then there are some people that
wanted to come out, but they're afraid of how it's
(46:42):
gonna come out. And then there are some people that
don't want it to come out at all because there's
gonna be some other buckers that's gonna have to lay
on the sword. It depends on how deep you want
to go. So this rabbit hole is very.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
Dwayne Hendrix told me that he wanted to meet in person,
but he lived in Texas and I was in Atlanta.
So the next weekend it hopped on a flight. I
wanted to hear his whole story. He was so invested,
so personally involved.
Speaker 7 (47:21):
It popped up in the news.
Speaker 27 (47:24):
I just knew it wasn't right, and I remember saying
out loud, they lying on that man. When I grow
up I'm gonna help him get out of jail.
Speaker 7 (47:33):
Those are my exact words. And my grandmama goes, if
you don't sit your little narrow ass down, the racist
ass white boys will kill you.
Speaker 27 (47:42):
And I told her, I said, well, they have to
kill me then, because that man didn't do it. That's
one of the memories from my.
Speaker 7 (47:50):
Childhood that was just always etched in my psyche.
Speaker 27 (47:55):
This case, it was just something so long it needed
in my soul that it's something wrong about this.
Speaker 5 (48:04):
Dwayne remembers seeing the arrest of Wayne Williams in the
news as a child, and it was something that stuck
with him.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
We were real close.
Speaker 27 (48:12):
She had me when she was getting ready to go
for her freshman year in college. We basically grew up together.
We had this bond and it was almost like if
anything was ever wrong with my mom, she didn't have
to say something. I could just look at her and
I knew. And she's a tough woman. So to see
her crying uncontrollably to the point to where you know,
(48:35):
it's like snot all over the place, it was real tough.
My mom was crying like every day, NonStop for like
four days in a row, and she basically didn't want
to tell us in my pop.
Speaker 6 (48:49):
You know.
Speaker 7 (48:50):
He pulled me to the side and he sat me
down and he said, you know, son, this was about
to happen. I'm gonna have to turn myself in.
Speaker 5 (48:58):
Dwayne told me that he was all too familiar with
injustice from a very young age. He talked about his
stepdad's wrongful conviction, which happened during a pivotal point in
his childhood.
Speaker 27 (49:08):
It was very difficult because those years of your life,
you're basically becoming a young man. I ended up becoming,
like so many things in life based on the example
that he said, this was my first respectable man that
I was around all the time, and I could ask
(49:28):
for advice and talk to and he would teach me
stuff like doing this is what a man does.
Speaker 7 (49:33):
That type of thing.
Speaker 18 (49:34):
You know.
Speaker 27 (49:35):
It was tough, man, It was real tough because you
go from just trying to figure out your body and
the changes you're going through as a young man and
everything else, and you have all that wound up in
your head and now you got to figure out how
you're going to lie to your homeboys.
Speaker 7 (49:51):
About where's your step pops.
Speaker 27 (49:54):
It really psychologically, it does something to you, it makes
you very angry.
Speaker 7 (50:01):
For me, it made me hate any.
Speaker 27 (50:04):
Authoritative figure at that particular time in my life. I
didn't realize it, but I would just disrespect teachers in class.
Speaker 18 (50:14):
You know.
Speaker 7 (50:14):
I would go in class and I would just go
to sleep in class, you.
Speaker 27 (50:19):
Know, because I just really psychologically didn't understand what I
was going through.
Speaker 7 (50:24):
But it made me very rebellious.
Speaker 5 (50:28):
All this together inspired Dwayne to research Wayne William's story.
I asked him about the YouTube video of one of
the victim's brothers, Clifford Jones.
Speaker 28 (50:37):
When we initially spoke with one another, I cried in
the meeting that we were having.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
I had to walk out of the meeting.
Speaker 7 (50:45):
A couple of times.
Speaker 27 (50:46):
His brother was inside being beaten and raped all day
before they actually killed him in disposed of his body.
Speaker 28 (50:54):
He said he knew that Wayne Williams didn't kill his brother.
He knew that. It made me even more wanna try
to do everything in my power.
Speaker 5 (51:06):
After talking to Cliffer's brother, Dwaine reached out to more
families and was slowly piecing together a documentary with one
goal in mind.
Speaker 28 (51:13):
The actual goal was to to make sure that we
put together a piece that was.
Speaker 27 (51:18):
Going to actually highlight everything that needed to be highlighted
to give the public the facts that they would need
to know to make an informed decision as to whether
or not they believe Wayne Williams is the Atlanta child
murder or not. That was the whole goal, whether or
not Wayne was a murderer at all. He was never
(51:44):
formally charged or indicted for killing any children. So again
that's another big misconception, right that comes with the cases
that you know, he's been dubbed the Atlanta child murderer.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
Dwayne had one main point that I really couldn't argue with.
Speaker 27 (52:04):
He was only charged with the murder of Nathaniel cater
In Jimmy ray Payne. These are anomalies because these was
two adults. This thing is like something that has always
been talked about, and it won't go away until something
is done about it. It will always be the elephant
(52:26):
in the room in the city of Atlanta.
Speaker 5 (52:29):
A few months into making this documentary, you got a
random phone call late one night in the studio.
Speaker 27 (52:35):
I'm in a recording studio and I'm recording a song
in my phone rings. It's Wayne Williams, and everybody in
his studio is like everyone was stuck.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
From that point forward. What transpired? What it Wayne said?
What was developing after that?
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Welcome to the real world, Neo.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
H next time on Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 28 (53:39):
So you know Wayne Williams absolutely.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
Describe Wayne to me, what's he like?
Speaker 31 (53:52):
Brilliant asshole, very intelligent asshole. That that's the best way
I could put it.
Speaker 27 (54:03):
And I don't mean it in a bad way because
I'm an asshole at times.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
This thing is huge.
Speaker 28 (54:13):
It's huge, and blame me.
Speaker 7 (54:17):
It was more hands than this shit to me. Stay eye.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
And we're gonna bring That was the name that the
media giving way with you.
Speaker 14 (54:32):
They wouldn't use his name, They gave him this name,
Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 5 (54:41):
Atlanta Monster is an investigative podcast told week by week,
with new episodes every Friday, A joint production between How
Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. Original music is by Makeup
and Vanity Set. Audio archives courtesy of WSB News Film
and videotape collection Brown Meat at Archives, University of Georgia Libraries.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
For the latest updates, please visit.
Speaker 5 (55:05):
Atlantamonster dot com or follow us on social media. Do
(55:30):
you keep your hands on this the whole time? You
stay like that, and where are you at? Are you
behind me?
Speaker 2 (55:36):
You know what that does?
Speaker 3 (55:38):
No, it picks up muscle boo less.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
We didn't have that back then.
Speaker 15 (55:41):
So now you want to squeeze your tail or put
it back in your ear.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Oh wow, it's pretty stiff. It's not that bad.
I asked it to get his ID and they said yes,
he was still sitting in his car. I still had
my composite sketch and I pulled it out. He had
these little glasses on and I drew the glasses and
I held it up and I said, anybody recognized this guy?
And it was Wayne Williams to the tee, I mean
it just it was just Wayne. Ironically, we caught Wayne
(00:34):
Williams at two fifty five am on the last day
of the surveillance. When we got there, we were immediately
briefed that this guy was seen on the bridge and
something hit the water. It hadn't been recovered. Of course,
nobody could get in that water because a it's two
fifty five am and the water but current was just outrageous.
(00:54):
Somebody would have drowned and wouldn't have stood a good
chance of recovering anything.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Anyway, I don't think up to him and.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Identified myself as a special agent with the FBI, and
I asked him immediately if he knew why he was
being pulled over, and he said, yes, it's probably because
about those those kids that are missing, which kind of
surprised me.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
That was an unusual answer.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I thought that was his answer.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Well it was, you know, it's a paraphrase of it.
That wasn't his verbatim answer, but yeah, it was something
like that. And the next words out of his mouth
was he says, you know, he said, Channel five is
really covering this very well, but Channel eleven I don't
think covers it enough. So that kind of surprised me.
I remember that jumped out at me as well.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And Atlanta, another bonder was discovered today, but twenty third.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
At the Police Task Force headquarters, there are twenty seven
faces on the wall, twenty six murdered, one missing.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
We do not know the personilar persons that are responsible.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Therefore, we do not have the money from Tenderfoot TV
in house to forks in Atlanta.
Speaker 6 (01:54):
Like eleven other recent victims in Atlanta, rogers are currently
was asphixiator.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Atlanta is unlikely to catch the killer unless he keeps
on killing.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
This is Atlanta monster.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I asked him if I could talk to him in
my car. I told him we needed to get out
of the traffic because the tractor trailers were rolling by
and you couldn't hear. Plus, I wanted to interview him.
I wanted to get him in my car and interview him.
He agreed, real mediable, very friendly guy.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I mean he was he nervous. No, no, he wasn't nervous.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
It was the first impression of well, I didn't have
one other than me telling you what he just kind
of surprised me with the media comment and acknowledging that
it was about the kids. I really didn't have much
of an impression.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I was wanting to.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Know more about what his story was, and eventually I
got it. He gets in the car with me, and
the first thing I asked him to do, and he
surprised me again. I said, can we have consent to
search your vehicle? And he said sure.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So we had.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
A consent for him that I had him sign, and
he signed it and let us search his vehicle. Now,
as I had walked by his vehicle, I stuck my
head in the window and looked around. There was a
bag of clothes laying on the floor, and there was
a pair of gloves laying on the seat. And what
(03:42):
really struck me though, was is that there was a
nylon cord kind of like a ski rope. It was
about twenty four inches long and it was knotted on
each end. That rope really interested me, so I started
interviewing him and ask him what he was out this
late at night, because, like I said, it was two
(04:03):
fifty five am when he got in my car. He
said that he was a talent scout and that he
had an eight o'clock appointment I think eight am the
next morning, but he was out trying to find their
address so that he wouldn't know where it is the
next morning and not be late. That just didn't have
(04:24):
an air of truthfulness to it. Nobody goes out at
two o'clock or three o'clock in the morning to find
an address to make sure they're not late at eight o'clock.
I found out he was an only child. He lived
with his parents, his mom and dad. His dad was
a freelance photographer and his mother had been a retired teacher.
They were quite elderly that he had come along pretty
(04:46):
late in life. He was a pretty intelligent guy too.
He had a very high IQ. Word had it that
he had built an AMFM radio station in his backyard
when he was about fourteen. In the FCC. It had
made him tear it down. I asked the guys, I said,
search of his car over and they said yes, and
I said okay. So I said, if anybody any reason
(05:09):
for him to stay here any longer, and they said no,
So we let him go. There was some things there
that happened, that transpired that.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
The FBI has always been and remains an institution that
is very conscious of not falsely arresting people. They've made
mistakes in the past, everybody does. It's a judgment call.
But we did not that night want to violate any
of his civil liberties, his civil rights, and so we
(05:41):
aired on the side of caution. It was my decision
and let him go. What wasn't my decision is when
I asked them, I said, where is these things you
found in the car? And I went, we didn't keep
any of it, And I went, what you didn't What
I said, what about the gloves and the rope, because
I'm thinking that that's probably part of crimes that had
been committed since the people had been killed from ligature strangulation.
(06:04):
But somewhere we dropped the ball. I was in charge,
so I went ahead and took the hit for it.
I said, Oh, that's just the decision you guys made.
And I'll back you. I don't agree with it right now,
but as far as official official word goes, and we
made that decision, and that's that's the way it goes.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Did anyone ever see Wayne toss anything over the bridge?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
No, never did. But there wasn't another car on that bridge.
He was the only car there. They saw the headlights approach,
they heard the splash, and then they saw what, like
I described earlier as him appeared to just be starting
out again at two or three miles an hour.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Did you guys ask him that night if he tossed
anything over the bridge?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yes, and he I asked him, you know, there'd been
a splash, And I think I asked him he tossed anything,
And I don't remember if he said he was throwing
trash out or something. I can't remember that part. I
don't remember what his answer was, but he did say
I think he said he was throwing trash away or something,
that he had some trash that he needed to get
(07:03):
rid of and he threw it in the river that night.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
No one ever saw or found what caused the alleged
splash that was hurt in the water.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
We let him go and at six am we packed
up and I went ahead and went home. And home
was down south of Atlanta, lived in marl Georgia. I
drove up to East Tennessee because it was Memorial Day weekend.
It was a long weekend to see my mother and
basically crashed. I was totally exhausted. I slept for I
think I got there. It's about a three hour drive,
and I got there about noon on Friday, went to sleep,
(07:34):
woke up at noon on Saturday eight went back to sleep.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Though police had a strange encounter with the man on
the bridge, they decided to let him go.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
They had no reason to hold him in custody. The
bridge steak.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
Out operation was now officially over, and Mike Macombus went
home to rest for the weekend.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
But meanwhile, investigators.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Were still hard at work, suspicious of the man they
top from the bridge, and by the time the combas
woke up again, big things were happening.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Sunday morning, I got a call from Bill McGrath. He
was one of the administrative supervisors on the case.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And Bill called me in.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
He said, did you interview Wayne Williams. I said yes.
He said, well, do you have any notes? I said, oh, yeah,
I got a lot of notes. Well, we just found
a body about five hundred meters down stream. You need
to call in and do your report right now. And
he said, and get yourself back to Atlanta.
Speaker 7 (08:31):
We think we got him.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
A few days later, a body washed up in the river,
just a few miles downstream from the bridge.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
The body was found around eleven this morning in the
Chattahoochee River, just south of the I two eighty five bridge,
where the river forms the border between Cobb and Fulton Counties.
The body was nude, and medical examiners estimated it had
been in the water a couple of days. It was
found by a fisherman. The body was on the Fulton
County side of the river, but it was difficult for
(08:59):
police to get to that part of the river. Boats
were launched from the Cobb County side. Members of the
Special Task Force poured in. About two hours later the
body was brought out. A medical examiner said it was
a young black man in his early twenties.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
The body was of twenty seven year old Nathaniel Cater.
The FBI now had their first real suspect the man
they had stopped on the bridge.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
That man was Wayne Williams.
Speaker 9 (09:27):
The man who has been questioned, was stopped late at
night on May twenty first, after arousing the curiosity of
police on a river's stakeout. The investigators heard a splash
in the water underneath the Jackson Parkway Bridge.
Speaker 10 (09:38):
No arrest was made then, and no one inspected two
bags of clothes, the pair of men's shoes, or the
gloves seen inside the station wagon. For two days, the
task force quietly dragged the river, not finding anything. Three
days later, two people in a canoe did the nude
body of Nathaniel Cater a mile downstream from the South
Cobb Bridge.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Within a matter of minutes, news stations formed the rigs
where Nathaniel Cater's body was found, and it wasn't long
after that the media discovered the name Wayne Williams. Though
no arrests have been made, news stations released his name anyways.
Speaker 11 (10:13):
To anyone who's been anywhere even close to the non
suspect's home, it's obvious he doesn't have any privacy anymore.
In spite of his pleas to remain anonymous, and in
spite of the police begging the media to use restraint,
most have released his name anyway.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Reporters and camera crews from all around the nation lined
up outside the home of Wayne Williams, anxiously awaiting for
something to happen.
Speaker 10 (10:35):
A horde of police, news reporters and photographers smothered this
quiet neighborhood. The media didn't want to miss any arrests
that so far hasn't happened.
Speaker 5 (10:44):
And with this man now under the national spotlight, the
FBI's investigation was sent in the overdrive.
Speaker 12 (10:51):
Two FBI agents and two detectives with the Atlanta Police
Department sat perched on their cars, guns visible, never taking
their eyes off the modest home in northwest Atlanta. The mother, father,
and son inside became a family under siege in their
own home. In around ten this morning, the man's father
came out of the house, pushed the cameras away with
(11:13):
his commanding presence, and silently walked toward the police. Without
saying a word, He signaled them to follow him into
the house.
Speaker 13 (11:21):
Have they asked you to leave?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Do they have anything of a confession?
Speaker 5 (11:25):
The nation was glued to their TVs as reporters scrambled
to find more information on the manning question for the
murder of Atlanta's children.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Everyone wanted to know who was Wayne Williams.
Speaker 9 (11:40):
Wayne Williams is an Atlanta born and bred twenty three
years old. A product of the city's public school system.
He went to Anderson Park Elementary School and graduated from
Frederick Douglas High School on High Tower Road, Northwest. People
who know Williams say he is a highly intelligent young man,
a good student when he was in school. That opinion
is echoed by William's seventh grade teacher, Archie Wilson, who
(12:03):
Williams continues to list as a personal reference on his resume.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Those who knew Wayne Williams were completely shocked.
Speaker 14 (12:11):
As a student, he was extremely bright, fair, intelligent young man, quiet, respectful,
honest student, very dependable, just an idea student.
Speaker 9 (12:25):
Williams's resume lists a number of clubs and organizations he
says he belonged to in high school National Honor Society
ROTC rifle team, but his high school class yearbook does
not show him in any of the organization pictures. Williams's
acquaintances say he is one who tends to exaggerate his
accomplishments and his contacts. His resumes list of professional references
(12:46):
includes many familiar names in the local media. Most of
those references say they knew Williams only briefly and not
very well, but it is clear Wayne Williams is a
bright and ambitious person. He started a radio station in
his parents' home when he was only twelve. In his teens,
he spent time hanging around many of the city's radio stations,
doing odd jobs, mostly as an unpaid volunteer, and talking
(13:10):
to the people he met about broadcasting.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
He was a bit old for his age, so to speak.
Speaker 13 (13:15):
I'm saying that to talk to a kid at that
age about something that you're doing as an adult and
he's talking on your level.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
It's really amazing.
Speaker 13 (13:24):
And as I said before, he was a likable type
of individual, maybe because of the knowledge of the industry
as far.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
As I'm concerned.
Speaker 9 (13:31):
Several years ago, he was arrested for impersonating a police
officer and for using police emergency lights on his car.
The charges were reduced and handled in traffic court. In
nineteen seventy seven, Williams began offering his photographic services to
the Atlantic TV stations. Williams would drive the city streets
through the night, listening to police monitors in his car,
(13:51):
racing to the scene of accidents, fires and homicides, then
peddling film of what had happened to the news departments.
But the freelance photography business was never very successful, and
most recently, william says he has acted as a talent scout,
helping young people get ahead in the entertainment industry. Williams
has always lived with his parents in this house on
Penelope Road, Northwest, the quiet neighborhood that has suddenly become
(14:15):
a constant subject of interest for the police and news media.
Neighbors say they never knew the family very well, the
typical wave as you go by type of thing.
Speaker 15 (14:24):
He've been such a good boar for it.
Speaker 16 (14:26):
I know, I haven't seen nothing to make me suspicious
of him.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
If he has really surprised me, really shocks me.
Speaker 12 (14:34):
Why would you think it would be a shock to you?
Speaker 13 (14:36):
So close and I got son and that sons, one
of them used to go in and wait with him
in his radio station.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Right.
Speaker 9 (14:43):
Intelligent, not terribly close to a lot of people, A
news and police groupie of sorts. That is how Wayne
Williams is described by those who know him, and as
his neighbors said, there is shocked that this quiet and
promising kid is now a major suspect in the Atlanta
child murders.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
He was described repeatedly as someone who was intelligent and docile,
the last person you would suspect in a murder, but
the FBI was convinced otherwise. They continued their investigation in
searched Wayne williams house.
Speaker 17 (15:12):
On Wednesday night, June third, Action News learned that FBI
agents and a representative of the Special Task Force had
executed a search warrant and had collected potential evidence from
Williams's home and car.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
They found an eight by ten sheet of paper that
basically was a flyer that said, if you're between the
ages of six and ten and you think you can
sing or dance, I'm a talent scout.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Wayne Williams called himself a talent scout, and he had
passed out flyers throughout the city in search of young
kids to form a music group. I recently found a
copy of that flyer, the same one the FBI had
found in his home.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
The flyer reads, in bold letters.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Can you sing or play an instrument if you were
between eleven and twenty one, male or female and would
like to become a professional entertainer. All interviews private and free,
no experience necessary. The FBI found this very interesting. The
flyer suggests that Wayne was putting contact with young kids,
probably more than one.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
So he put himself out there as a talent scout.
And that's that's how we surmised that he was getting
the kids into the car, Because when you're having that
many kids and getting that much worldwide publicity, you would
think somebody would have enough brains to not get in
the car with somebody.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
But he was pretty good at what he did.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
It could be a huge coincidence, a line of work
with the best intentions, or it was the perfect way
to get children alone. Investigators were now more certain than
ever that they'd found their man, and it was time
they spoke to Wayne Williams again, so they brought him
in for questioning.
Speaker 15 (16:49):
They went out, picked him up and brought him into
the FBI office, take him into the back and as
a massive scene of city of dignitarian and state and
everybody in the world wanted to get involved in it.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
They in and gather.
Speaker 15 (17:01):
He agreed to take a potograph test, and we talked
for him, and they went downstairs and I did the
testing downstairs in my office.
Speaker 7 (17:08):
Just you two, just the two of us.
Speaker 15 (17:12):
The full task force, and everybody was on the tenth floor,
press and news all around the entire building, and we
were kind of on the ninth floor, just the two
of us.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
This is Richard Ratcliffe, former special agent with the FBI.
He sat down alone in a room with Wayne Williams
to conduct a polygraph test.
Speaker 15 (17:29):
We had this very interesting interview for about two hours.
I said, you're very intelligent, so what's your IQ And
he said, I don't believe in that case the potograph.
You have to have confidence in it. I think he
was totally confident he could beat it. He said that
he was just totally calm that he could beat it.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
And what you do?
Speaker 15 (17:51):
You ask us series of comparative questions? This series of
about ten questions or some of them are very simple.
It's everything we've discussed, all yes and no answers. It's
not really confusing, is really clear, very pretty simple and
no surprises. And at that time I ran what's considered
to be the most valid format in the potograph research,
and that was the zone comparison test, A former set
(18:14):
of questions about ten questions. I'll go through that and
record the physiology, and then I'll ask him, was any
problem to anything, anything need to explain or correct or know.
Then you run a second time, you ask the same
set of questions, and I record a second chart. You
run the same set of questions the third time, and
after the third time, then you score each one of
those and compare the responses to the other responses, and
(18:36):
then you add those scores up, and it would show
either either deception or no deception. And this human nature
to want to believe people, So I'm assuming he's going
to pass the test. He stayed pretty much composed the
whole time. He was composed, and he's not really fair
to say relaxed, because the whole situation is not one
where you're relaxed. He was very engaged, and he was
(18:59):
very much operative and in participated willingly. We had this
very interesting conversation and then about what happened, why he's
on the bridge, and one of his things that made
him suspect was every time he was asking about the bridge,
he gave a different story, so he'd already given two
or three different versions by the time I talked to
him about where he was going, what he was doing,
didn't stop on the bridge, just stopping the bridge through
the boxes in the river, didn't throw anything in the river. So,
(19:20):
I mean he had variations of his story. He's a
talent scout, and he had this girl's name, Cheryl, whoever
her name was, and he's supposed to meet her the
next morning at seven am. And so he went to
see if he'd find the apartment. And I said, are
you interviewing young girls at seven in the morning in
their apartments? And that puts you in an awkward position.
I said, I wouldn't do that. He said, I'm not homosexual.
(19:42):
He just made a point, I'm not homosexual. He argued
that that he wasn't homosexual. I was asking about being
alone with this girl in her apartment seven in the morning,
and I was asking him why he would do that.
Why he would just set up interview at seven in
the morning in the girl's apartment. That would make him heterosexual,
making mineral sexual, right, Yeah, And that's why I was asking.
But his argument was that he wasn't homosexual. People I
(20:02):
guess were suspicious of him being homosexual. I said, well,
I'm not accusing you of being homosexual. Well, but we
had that discussion. So I said, what do you have
a girlfriend?
Speaker 18 (20:10):
Iza?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Can you? He said not right now?
Speaker 15 (20:12):
So I said have you ever had a girlfriend? And
he couldn't name one.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
After a long conversation, Racliffe asked the big question that
had brought him there in the first place.
Speaker 15 (20:22):
Did you cause the death in Nathaniel Cater? Did you
throw Cater's body into the cheers the river that night?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
What do you say? He said, no, he's denied it.
Speaker 15 (20:32):
I don't know the Kaniell Cater. I didn't have any
conduct Nathaniel Cater, didn't know him, had never been on
he didn't have a body, he didn't throw anything in
the river.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Wayne Williams denied any involvement in the murder of Nathaniel Cater,
claiming that he never even knew him.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
But the results of the polygraph told a different story.
Speaker 15 (20:48):
The test to his deceptive and that's a first indication
in two years on who did it? Wow, So you're
the guy we were looking for me And that's how
kind of how I reacted when I got through and
great it all out when I got through and said,
this show's deception. I'll been learning you're the guy that
we've been looking for you, you're the one killing these kids.
He said, that's not me, So let me see that.
(21:08):
So then he spread up the charts. Well, the charts,
you wouldn't know from what I just saw. Would you
look at that and tell me that somebody's liner that
killed the guests? So he spread the charts, look at
all the tracings. So he points on he says, what's
that question right there? I said, that's pretty good. Did
you cause the death Nathaniel Cater? So he picked out
that question, which is where his reaction was, you know,
(21:29):
and then I make my call. I go out and
tell the whole world you know that he's deceptive and
indicates that he's the one that killed in the can
of Cater.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
Though Wayne appeared to show deception in his polygraph test,
investigators let him go and now arrest was made.
Speaker 17 (21:47):
After twelve hours of interrogation. Public Safety Commissioner Lee Brown
told waiting reporters that the man had been released and
no arrest made.
Speaker 19 (21:56):
In terms of our efforts tonight, we have not ended
up with the information that would resolved in an arrest.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
A late night press conference was held outside the building,
kilding questions from reporters that is correct, But as it
turned out, this was a distraction.
Speaker 17 (22:12):
What the reporters on hand did not know was that
Brown was creating a diversion for the man and his
father to leave the building.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
Soon after, the media rushed to way Williams home in
hopes of a statement from the man, and what happened
next shocked everyone. Wayne invited all the reporters into his
living room and held his own press conference for the
nation to see.
Speaker 17 (22:32):
At seven am, three and a half hours after returning home,
the young man conducted a news conference, setting the condition
that he would not be shown and that his name
not be used. You will hear him, but you will
see reporters and photographers. He contended that he was being
harassed prior to his detainment, intimidated during his custody, and
pressured to confess to crimes he says he did not commit.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
They openly said, you kill Nathaniel Cater and you know it,
and you line to us. They said that, and they
said it a number of occasions.
Speaker 16 (23:02):
They said it.
Speaker 6 (23:02):
On that night, one of the task force captains on
the scene pointed his finger at me and said it,
and said he was tired of the bs about working
the long hours working the steakouts, and that he was
ready to pull the thing to an end. Done, they
put a tail on me starting last week. I made
him probably in the first hour or two, and in
(23:23):
the process of telling me, a couple of the guys
apparently weren't very good drivers, and I caused them to
have a minor accident, and I think they were just pissed.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
After claiming his innocence and expressing frustration with law enforcement,
he began to elaborate on his role as a talent scout,
detailing his involvement in music groups.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
It's our job to take some entertainer, say, basically from
the street, polishing them up, get them professional, and try
and shop a record deal for them. And we had
a young group that we have been putting together since
nineteen seventy seven, a group called Gemini. When we're trying
to do is just capture the marketplace basically that Jackson
five had.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
He mentioned recruiting kids to form music, nay one in
particular that he was currently working on that he called Gemini.
Speaker 17 (24:05):
Williams himself did not exactly go into hiding. He did,
on several occasions call local reporters. He led police surveillance
on some wild goose chases passing by Commissioner Browns and
Mayor Jackson's houses.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Was this the man who was killing Atlanta's children or
just a local talent scout who was simply at the
wrong place at the wrong time. The FBI had gone
through countless leads over the past two years, but in
their eyes, the one that made the most sense was
Wayne Williams.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
When you work a case that long with that many people,
there's going to be a lot of theories, a lot
of names, a lot of people that you have to
check and wash out. I mean, it's quite an ordeal.
So there were a lot of theories out there, but
none of them had the substance of Wayne Williams.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
What they had on Williams was almost entirely circumstantial.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I'm not sure that we had a gigantic case when
it comes to physical evidence, but we had an overwhelming
wave of circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Except for one key piece of physical evidence.
Speaker 10 (25:02):
They do have numerous fibers from the man's house that
match those found on several victims the fibers. The fibers
are of different colors and texture. Some think that's good
enough others, including prosecutors, disagree.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
But even the fibers they found weren't convincing enough for
the district attorney to press charges.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
Public Safety Commissioner Brown, FBI had John Glover and Task
Force had Morris Redding met with District Attorney Lewis Slayton
for an hour this morning. Slayton's office took out the
search warrants to search the house of the man police question,
and Slayton decided last night there was not enough evidence
to charge the man, so he didn't press charges. No
charges filed. You might have missed that fact if you
(25:43):
read the New York Post. It's headlined this morning was sensational.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
But the New York Post had already run their morning
paper with a very conflicting headline that read Atlanta monster ceased.
Speaker 8 (25:55):
But investigators here are worried about sensationalism, only to the
extended effect their investigation.
Speaker 20 (26:02):
He was a freelance photographer for WSBTV, so that was
the shocker for our newsroom.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
As the media dove deeper into Wayne Williams's background, his
story became even more interesting. In addition to being a
talent scout, he had also worked as a freelance photographer
for the local news station in Atlanta, WSBTV. Monica Pearson,
who worked at WSBTV was also anchor at that time,
recalls us very well, I was.
Speaker 20 (26:28):
Just an anchor, but I can tell you from our viewpoint,
it was what, you know, this is somebody we all
worked with who was a photographer, but a freelance photographer,
not on staff, and I did not know him, but
because he worked mainly on weekends, but other people did,
and it was kind of a matter of not Wayne.
(26:49):
He is so mild mannered and you know, what do
you mean he couldn't hurt fly. But then there were
others who said, well maybe.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
In the weeks following the bridge incident, America was gripped
by the ups and downs of the FBI's investigation into
Wayne Williams. But on June twenty first, nineteen eighty one,
everything would change.
Speaker 8 (27:13):
Suddenly. Late in the afternoon, authorities arrested Williams.
Speaker 19 (27:17):
As you know, we meet on this on a day
to day basis. As a result of the meetings we've
had today, the decision was made to issue the arrest warrned,
which was done and he was taken into custy As
a result.
Speaker 8 (27:29):
Of that, Williams was taken to the Fulton County Jail.
He was booked on a charge of murder the murder
of twenty eight year old Nathaniel Cater.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
Despite his initial hesitation, the district attorney suddenly changed his
mind and Wayne Williams was charged with the murder of
Nathaniel Cater.
Speaker 10 (27:58):
An indictment for the was almost predictable, but the surprise
came when District Attorney Lewis Slayton made the announcement.
Speaker 21 (28:05):
The grand jury had returned an indictment in two counts,
charging Wayne Bertram Bertram Williams with the murder of Jimmy
ray Payne and one count and Theathaniel Kata and the
second count.
Speaker 5 (28:21):
Wayne was also charged with the second murder. On April
twenty seventh, nineteen eighty one, the body of twenty one
year old Jimmy ray Payne was also found in the
Chattahoochee River.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
The cause of death was asphyxiation.
Speaker 10 (28:33):
That announcement came as a very big surprise late this afternoon.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Not only did the.
Speaker 10 (28:38):
Attorneys for Wayne Williams think any indictment wouldn't come until
next Tuesday, they never thought their client would be indicted
for the murder of twenty one year old Jimmy Ray Payne.
Speaker 20 (28:47):
The police have arrested and charged him, but he still
has to be judged by his peers and in a
court of law. So until he is found guilty, we
have to say all let there was still the question
is is he guilty or is he not?
Speaker 10 (29:05):
In a brief statement, william stood in front of Judge
Clarence Cooper and said, I plead not guilty to both counts.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
The trial was under way and Wayne William's defense attorney,
Mary Welcome was ready to fight back.
Speaker 18 (29:18):
There has been a serious effort on the part of
the government, the law enforcement agencies of various and agencies
to convince the country, even the world, that Wayne is
implicated in all of the murders. So on reflection, I
shouldn't be too surprised that they would trying to tie
at least.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
One more in to She implied that law enforcement was
ganging up against Wayne in an effort to close the case,
and felt very strongly about her client's innocence.
Speaker 10 (29:48):
From the beginning, many people thought the state's case against
Wayne Williams was as suspect as the suspect himself. Prosecutors
had no eyewitness to the crimes, no confession, but on
December twenty, the eighth of last year, the state went
ahead with its case. Its main ingredients fibers and animal
hair that allegedly matched.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
Larry Peterson of the Georgia State Crime Lab began analyzing
fibers found in the bodies of victims. The fibers collected
were dog hairs and green, violet, yellow, and red material fibers.
In particular, some of the green fibers reportedly came from
unique carpeting that was found inside Willie William's family home.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
We came up with three types of fiber, some of
it was microscopically found. The green fiber I have personal
knowledge of because my partner and I tracked that down.
They used to have an old green carpet. It was
a shag carpet. Did you guys ever see any.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Of that will check?
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Yeah, it's quite it's quite old, very dated, and it
was a green collar. And when Harold Dedman told us
when he finished with his he took a microscopic fiber
and found out that this was manified actually in South
Carolina and it was transported by West Point Pepperrell to Dalton, Georgia.
At Dalton there was like two hundred thousand square yards
of it. It went to ten or twelve different distributors
(31:11):
in Atlanta, and then we came down from Dalton and
we contacted those ten or twelve and we found the
paperwork where Wayne Williams's parents had purchased that carpet like
fifteen years before. So we traced a microscopic fiber from
its very beginning all the way to Wayne's house, and
it was the same fiber that we were pulling off
(31:31):
of the bodies. Now that my friend is a piece
of investigation.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
The second major part of the prosecution's case was the
bridge incident, but the prosecution had no eyewitnesses.
Speaker 10 (31:45):
The bridge incident was the closest investigators could put their
suspect to a dead body, a legal necessity called corpus delecti.
Although prosecutors had most of the pieces that night in
May a splash, an alleged slow moving car a body
downstream just two days later, it's still lacked the essential
part of the puzzle, someone actually seeing William's car stopped
(32:06):
on the bridge, or better yet, the suspect throwing a
body from the structure.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
No one who actually saw what allegedly happened on the
bridge that night. The defense argued in the courtroom that
Wayne Williams was five foot seven and Nathaniel Cater was
six foot one, claiming that it was impossible for a
man of Wayne's size to pick up his body and
throw it over a bridge.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
I asked Mike mccombis about this.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Wayne wasn't a great big guy, but he was round
and he was pudgy. I don't know if you ever
had a real rush of adrenaline. People do amazing things
when they've got a rush out of adrenaline. And when
you're not trying to be careful and hurt somebody, you
can drag them, pick them up.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
It's no problem.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Another point the prosecution argued was the sound that a
car would make when driving across the bridge.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
What was interesting.
Speaker 22 (32:56):
There was an expansion played on the bridge, and if
a car goes over the way. Later determined if a
cargoes over the bridge faster than five miles an hour,
the expansion plate will make a loud clank. Under five
miles an hour, there's no sound.
Speaker 10 (33:12):
That sound, the defense claims, is the key to their proof.
Police recruit Bob Campbell, part of the stakeout team, says
Williams card did not make that sound, indicating the vehicle
was traveling at a slow rate of speed, But a
sound expert hired by the defense as that's impossible that
even at four miles an hour, the family station wagon
makes the joint rattle loud enough for someone underneath the
(33:33):
bridge to hear it, suggestion that recruit Campbell was fast
asleep on the job the night Williams was stopped, and
the prosecution surprisingly went along with a theory. Asking Mark
Oviot if a loud splash would wake the recruit up,
the expert said yes. The state contends that loud splash
was the body of Nathaniel Cater heading the water. Williams
(33:53):
bluntly stated the police version of the now famous bridge
incident was wrong, a lie. He claimed he wasn't driving
slowp that he didn't turn around in a parking lot
next to the bridge, that he did not throw anything
into the river. He tried to persuade the jury he
really was out near a bridge that night looking for
a Cheryl Johnson, who still remains a mystery to this trial.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
According to Wayne Williams, the night he was stopping the bridge,
he was going to find a young woman named Cheryl
Johnson who wanted to do an audition for him. Earlier
that day, Cheryl Johnson had called his home and Wayne's
mother answered and wrote down her name, phone number, and address.
According to Wayne, that night he was going to verify
her home address so he would know where to go
for the morning appointment. But the major problem was investigators
(34:36):
never found a Cheryl Johnson When they went to the
address on the piece of paper. There was no Cheryl
Johnson who lived there, and the phone number didn't work.
So who was Cheryl Johnson and where was she? The
prosecution claimed that she wasn't real, but Wayne stuck by
a story.
Speaker 10 (34:51):
The state implied he fabricated the story, but Williams didn't
budge from it, claiming the woman simply gave him a
wrong number and wrong address.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
After a grueling two month trial, it was time for
a verdict.
Speaker 10 (35:03):
After several days of testimony, three experts summed it up
in two sentences. Fiber and hair from William's home and
car matted fibers and hair taken from the bodies of
cater and pain. They also painted him as a possible
homosexual who hated poor, young blacks. The defense, steered by
a Mississippi lawyer, fought back better than many had predicted.
(35:23):
Their goal placed out in these people's minds. As Binder
said throughout the trial, Wayne Williams is not a killer.
He countered with former police recruits who charged members of
the stakeout team that night in May were drinking and asleep.
A loose fitting fiber expert from Kansas came in and
showed that fibers may not be as unique as the
state had claimed.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
For twelve hours, the jury deliberated you. On February twenty seventh,
nineteen eighty two, the jury returned their verdict.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Guilty.
Speaker 10 (36:01):
When the verdicts were read, William's father stood before the
court and said, I feel this is very unjust. I
don't see how anyone could find my son guilty of anything.
I just don't see it. William's mother called the judge
and uncle Tom, the twenty three year old freelance photographer,
this morning only a suspect, was optimistic. Tonight as he
left the courthouse, his mood had changed. He is now
(36:23):
painted as the mass murderer.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
Wayne Williams was found guilty for the murder of Nathaniel
Cater and Jimmy ray Payne, but in addition, the FBI
essentially closed all other cases of Atlanta's murdered children, attributing
them to Wayne Williams.
Speaker 10 (36:39):
The question of race popped up a lot tonight. Missus
Williams remarks about Uncle Tom Binder even said a white
man would have been treated differently, and the mother of
victim Joseph Bell, a woman who prodded police into forming
a task force several years ago, was very disappointed.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
With the outcome.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Camille Bell, mother to victim Yusef, Bell, acted as a
voice for the appearance of the missing her children, and
she wasn't very happy with the verdict.
Speaker 23 (37:02):
If I believe that Wayne Williams killed the other twelve
that they claimed the same fibers that were found on
those bodies were also found on Usef's body, then I
must believe that Wayne Williams killed my son. But since
I don't believe that Wayne Williams killed anybody, I can't
believe that Wayne Williams therefore killed my son. What it
(37:24):
all boils down to is now we have Williams twenty three,
the thirtieth victim of the Atlanta Slaves.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
From that day forward, Wayne Williams was in history books
as the Atlanta child murderer.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
A lot of people think he's innocent, believe it or not.
Speaker 24 (37:45):
You know, I think they view him as someone who
who got caught up in it and ended up getting
bland for it.
Speaker 25 (37:53):
I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you. I you know,
I never spent a lot of time paying attention. I
was happy when they was like, we off cold Red.
Now everybody can go out and play again.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
So is Wayne Williams the Atlanta child murderer.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Absolutely, without a shadow of doubt, Wayne Williams was the
child murderer. I'm not saying he did all of them.
He was convicted on two because we didn't have enough
evidence to take him on the rest of them. We
contributed the lion's share of him to him.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I mean, he.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Definitely did more than just two, but that was the
only two that we had enough to take him to
court and.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Convict him on.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I didn't have any problem with the way it was concluded,
you know. You know, it's like if you catch a
guy with one hundred bank robberies, he's not going to
get any more. I mean, you can only sentence a
guy so many times, so much so two life sentences
is the same as ten life sentences.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Life is life.
Speaker 7 (38:48):
It really wasn't over. It really wasn't over.
Speaker 20 (38:54):
Today it's not over. Wayne Williams says he did do it.
The families don't believe he did it. Law enforcement says
he did it, the court said he did the adults,
but no one has ever convicted him on killing the children,
the boys who were found suffocated. I still think it's
(39:19):
a story that needs to be investigated.
Speaker 7 (39:22):
I would love and I'm glad you're.
Speaker 20 (39:24):
Doing this to open up the case again and see
what you can find.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
All these years later.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
Remember Russell Boltazor, whose brother Patrick was found brutally murdered.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
I asked him about this.
Speaker 24 (39:38):
I think he got taken as an escape goat to
shut down the problems we had. I don't believe that
he was tried with all evidence and said you are
guilty for killing all of those kids. I think it
was a way for them to slow it down. Somebody
better find somebody to put into jailhouse, so make a
(39:59):
lot of the these people start being quiet.
Speaker 10 (40:16):
Jerry find the defendant, Wayne Bertram Williams, guilty on count
number one.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
The arrest of Wayne Williams appeared to solve one of
the biggest multiple murder mysteries in American history.
Speaker 26 (40:31):
The closing of the cases effectively branded Wayne Williams the
Atlanta child murderer.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
On nearly every list of American serial killers, you'll find
the name Wayne Williams.
Speaker 27 (40:41):
Wayne Williams remains in jail and may well be there
for the rest of his life.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
In nineteen eighty five, they made a movie about it,
Starry Morgan Freeman.
Speaker 10 (40:51):
Was this the man who choked the life out of shocked, bludgeoned,
and drowned twenty eight human beings?
Speaker 26 (41:06):
Becuse You're by sentences? The defender Dwayne Bertram Williams to
the custody of the State Board of Corrections, where he
is to serve two life sentences, and.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
Over the next three decades, they continue to make its
way into pop culture, especially in the hip hop community,
being so closely linked to Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Y'all, when we was kids, I was there to.
Speaker 28 (41:32):
Chris Kisses and then they imposed the troupe.
Speaker 7 (41:34):
Atlanta Kids Missing.
Speaker 28 (41:36):
Oh, we with them kids, and now we grow hip
to every evil plots.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
You want to put on.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
Andre three thousand from Outcasts even has a verse on
Travis Scott's twenty sixteen albums.
Speaker 7 (41:47):
In the town they with.
Speaker 29 (41:47):
Murdering kids and dumped them in the creek up from
where it is by the Spider Spider sprint cooader around.
We run in through the sprint around. We'll show what
with boxes pieces. It said he had unlabel on my
grandma and airth My homie said he told him his
name was Wayne.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
But a lot of people think he didn't do it.
Russell bultasor doesn't and he has his own story to
back that up. Russell heard about his strange incident involving
his brother Patrick, and it made him doubt that Wayne
Williams was the killer.
Speaker 24 (42:30):
Spoke to several people out there, and one of the
police officers the story was told to me that they
had him on tape that he was running him and
two kids from individuals in more than one person and
they ran into a phone booth. He picks up the
(42:50):
phone and dial I guess nine one one to call
the police department, and they supposedly had it on recording
that he said that someone was chasing.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Him did he describe the person?
Speaker 24 (43:04):
He said, it was two white people that was chasing him,
and that's all I've ever heard about that story. I
did try to call the police department and talk to
someone about that tape, and all of a sudden, no
one knew what I was talking about, so pretty much
(43:26):
just left that alone up until now you mentioned to me,
I'm telling you the story about it. I think most
of us, like myself, if I knew in my heart
that they proved that he killed those kids, then that
would be a lot of relief for us. But I
don't think they did.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
I realized that Russell Boltazar was probably not the only
person related to a victim that doesn't believe it was
Wayne Williams. I started scouring the internet for other stories
like this, and one day I found a YouTube video
from twenty fifteen under the user name in just Us.
It's a video of a guy named Emmanuel, brother of
Clifford Jones, one of the victims.
Speaker 7 (44:08):
Okay, and your brother's name was Clifford Jones.
Speaker 30 (44:12):
Basically, it was one early morning all of the twenty
nineteen eighty My brother and I basically walked up to
a grocery store for my grandmother. People had kidnapped my brother,
man named Jamie Brooks, Horrace.
Speaker 7 (44:32):
Hopgood, Freddy Costy.
Speaker 15 (44:36):
These guys.
Speaker 30 (44:38):
Helped my brother captive in a lundromat right on the
corner Hollywood Road. They raped him and beat him.
Speaker 16 (44:49):
All day long.
Speaker 30 (44:55):
One of the people stood in the doorway watching my
brother get raped, crying, screaming, saying he wanted to go home,
and saying that he was going to tell his grandmother
and said that the dude Jamie Brooks put a rope
around his neck and pulled on the rope and made
the man told the police did and the police had
(45:19):
all this information, and they still they still blame someone
else for clifford murder and knowing why William didn't kill Clifford.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
So who made this? Who was in just us? Who
is the man behind the camera? Whoever it was.
Speaker 5 (45:36):
They had been doing their own research on this case
decades later, someone I definitely wanted to talk to. After
a little digging, I found him. The man who made
the video was a guy named Dwayne Hendrix. I tracked
him down and I gave him a call, and within
the first thirty seconds it was already getting interesting.
Speaker 16 (45:59):
With this said, you know it's gonna be how do
you want to go to get to the bottom of
this would literally change American history. I mean it would
through so many things. When when you just get into this,
(46:20):
then you get into, like all the layers of it,
the corruption, you deal with, the cover up, the actual
murders themselves. Who is responsible for a lot of this.
There are people in high places that want this shit
to come out, and then there are some people that
wanted to come out, but they're afraid of how it's
(46:42):
gonna come out. And then there are some people that
don't want it to come out at all because there's
gonna be some other buckers that's gonna have to lay
on the sword. It depends on how deep you want
to go. So this rabbit hole is very.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
Dwayne Hendrix told me that he wanted to meet in person,
but he lived in Texas and I was in Atlanta.
So the next weekend it hopped on a flight. I
wanted to hear his whole story. He was so invested,
so personally involved.
Speaker 7 (47:21):
It popped up in the news.
Speaker 27 (47:24):
I just knew it wasn't right, and I remember saying
out loud, they lying on that man. When I grow
up I'm gonna help him get out of jail.
Speaker 7 (47:33):
Those are my exact words. And my grandmama goes, if
you don't sit your little narrow ass down, the racist
ass white boys will kill you.
Speaker 27 (47:42):
And I told her, I said, well, they have to
kill me then, because that man didn't do it. That's
one of the memories from my.
Speaker 7 (47:50):
Childhood that was just always etched in my psyche.
Speaker 27 (47:55):
This case, it was just something so long it needed
in my soul that it's something wrong about this.
Speaker 5 (48:04):
Dwayne remembers seeing the arrest of Wayne Williams in the
news as a child, and it was something that stuck
with him.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
We were real close.
Speaker 27 (48:12):
She had me when she was getting ready to go
for her freshman year in college. We basically grew up together.
We had this bond and it was almost like if
anything was ever wrong with my mom, she didn't have
to say something. I could just look at her and
I knew. And she's a tough woman. So to see
her crying uncontrollably to the point to where you know,
(48:35):
it's like snot all over the place, it was real tough.
My mom was crying like every day, NonStop for like
four days in a row, and she basically didn't want
to tell us in my pop.
Speaker 6 (48:49):
You know.
Speaker 7 (48:50):
He pulled me to the side and he sat me
down and he said, you know, son, this was about
to happen. I'm gonna have to turn myself in.
Speaker 5 (48:58):
Dwayne told me that he was all too familiar with
injustice from a very young age. He talked about his
stepdad's wrongful conviction, which happened during a pivotal point in
his childhood.
Speaker 27 (49:08):
It was very difficult because those years of your life,
you're basically becoming a young man. I ended up becoming,
like so many things in life based on the example
that he said, this was my first respectable man that
I was around all the time, and I could ask
(49:28):
for advice and talk to and he would teach me
stuff like doing this is what a man does.
Speaker 7 (49:33):
That type of thing.
Speaker 18 (49:34):
You know.
Speaker 27 (49:35):
It was tough, man, It was real tough because you
go from just trying to figure out your body and
the changes you're going through as a young man and
everything else, and you have all that wound up in
your head and now you got to figure out how
you're going to lie to your homeboys.
Speaker 7 (49:51):
About where's your step pops.
Speaker 27 (49:54):
It really psychologically, it does something to you, it makes
you very angry.
Speaker 7 (50:01):
For me, it made me hate any.
Speaker 27 (50:04):
Authoritative figure at that particular time in my life. I
didn't realize it, but I would just disrespect teachers in class.
Speaker 18 (50:14):
You know.
Speaker 7 (50:14):
I would go in class and I would just go
to sleep in class, you.
Speaker 27 (50:19):
Know, because I just really psychologically didn't understand what I
was going through.
Speaker 7 (50:24):
But it made me very rebellious.
Speaker 5 (50:28):
All this together inspired Dwayne to research Wayne William's story.
I asked him about the YouTube video of one of
the victim's brothers, Clifford Jones.
Speaker 28 (50:37):
When we initially spoke with one another, I cried in
the meeting that we were having.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
I had to walk out of the meeting.
Speaker 7 (50:45):
A couple of times.
Speaker 27 (50:46):
His brother was inside being beaten and raped all day
before they actually killed him in disposed of his body.
Speaker 28 (50:54):
He said he knew that Wayne Williams didn't kill his brother.
He knew that. It made me even more wanna try
to do everything in my power.
Speaker 5 (51:06):
After talking to Cliffer's brother, Dwaine reached out to more
families and was slowly piecing together a documentary with one
goal in mind.
Speaker 28 (51:13):
The actual goal was to to make sure that we
put together a piece that was.
Speaker 27 (51:18):
Going to actually highlight everything that needed to be highlighted
to give the public the facts that they would need
to know to make an informed decision as to whether
or not they believe Wayne Williams is the Atlanta child
murder or not. That was the whole goal, whether or
not Wayne was a murderer at all. He was never
(51:44):
formally charged or indicted for killing any children. So again
that's another big misconception, right that comes with the cases
that you know, he's been dubbed the Atlanta child murderer.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
Dwayne had one main point that I really couldn't argue with.
Speaker 27 (52:04):
He was only charged with the murder of Nathaniel cater
In Jimmy ray Payne. These are anomalies because these was
two adults. This thing is like something that has always
been talked about, and it won't go away until something
is done about it. It will always be the elephant
(52:26):
in the room in the city of Atlanta.
Speaker 5 (52:29):
A few months into making this documentary, you got a
random phone call late one night in the studio.
Speaker 27 (52:35):
I'm in a recording studio and I'm recording a song
in my phone rings. It's Wayne Williams, and everybody in
his studio is like everyone was stuck.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
From that point forward. What transpired? What it Wayne said?
What was developing after that?
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Welcome to the real world, Neo.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
H next time on Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 28 (53:39):
So you know Wayne Williams absolutely.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
Describe Wayne to me, what's he like?
Speaker 31 (53:52):
Brilliant asshole, very intelligent asshole. That that's the best way
I could put it.
Speaker 27 (54:03):
And I don't mean it in a bad way because
I'm an asshole at times.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
This thing is huge.
Speaker 28 (54:13):
It's huge, and blame me.
Speaker 7 (54:17):
It was more hands than this shit to me. Stay eye.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
And we're gonna bring That was the name that the
media giving way with you.
Speaker 14 (54:32):
They wouldn't use his name, They gave him this name,
Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 5 (54:41):
Atlanta Monster is an investigative podcast told week by week,
with new episodes every Friday, A joint production between How
Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. Original music is by Makeup
and Vanity Set. Audio archives courtesy of WSB News Film
and videotape collection Brown Meat at Archives, University of Georgia Libraries.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
For the latest updates, please visit.
Speaker 5 (55:05):
Atlantamonster dot com or follow us on social media. Do
(55:30):
you keep your hands on this the whole time? You
stay like that, and where are you at? Are you
behind me?
Speaker 2 (55:36):
You know what that does?
Speaker 3 (55:38):
No, it picks up muscle boo less.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
We didn't have that back then.
Speaker 15 (55:41):
So now you want to squeeze your tail or put
it back in your ear.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Oh wow, it's pretty stiff. It's not that bad.
Atlanta Monster News
Host
Payne Lindsey
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