March 2, 2018 • 43 mins
What car did Wayne really drive? Where did the reward money go? And was Wayne scouted by the CIA?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Previously on Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The one thing I remember most about the missing and
murdered children is Maynard Jackson sitting there with piles of cash,
offering a reward for any information on who was committing
these crimes.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
We called Wayne Williams at two fifty five am on
the last day of the surveillance.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
I've been incarcerated since nineteen eighty one. A few people
realized I was never convicted in connection with any of
the child murders, but.
Speaker 5 (00:27):
Once it was stand on Wayne Williams, they were thrilled.
That was their way out.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Some people in the black community thought it was the
Ku Klux Klan that was grabbing these black boys.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
The Klan wanted to take credit for it.
Speaker 6 (00:41):
They weren't bright enough to commit this crime.
Speaker 7 (00:44):
They have a letter they called Sanders, the Klansmen, the
prime suspect, and the murders.
Speaker 8 (00:49):
For months before Wayne Williams was arrested and charged with
two of the murderers.
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Anybody out there he thinks that Wayne Williams didn't do
all this by himself, was correct. I only know that
from the mouth of the Double King song.
Speaker 9 (01:10):
I did some television in my early career. I learned
on sixteen millimeter film and sixteen millimeter mag stripe film,
and was a TV reporter in the transition to videotape
three thousand hours of it in a helicopter Captain Dave
and the WSB skycopter. There was a nickname that was
(01:31):
laid on me, might even make that one up. Started
in broadcasting in nineteen sixty nine, so I'm an og.
A couple of years in they started finding the bodies
of young black males, and we had a big newsroom.
(01:54):
I had a lot of reporters. We would all ask
the police are these related? Are these things connected? Could
there be a connection between these? And the answer was no,
until the bodies started adding up. I don't know whether
(02:14):
the police admitted to themselves or they already knew but
didn't say, but then they had to say something. It
was too obvious that there was a pattern of this
in some way, and they started talking about it in
that manner. And I was at many of the scenes,
(02:35):
many of the scenes where the bodies had been found
up until that point at a homicide, police knew me,
knew of me, and there was a level of trust
that you could walk up almost to the body and
talk with them and they would know that you would
be judicious about what you reported. But when they started
(02:55):
finding these bodies, there was none of that kept far
away for the most part, away from where you could
take any pictures or see anything about it, and that
has left many questions for me. I knew Wayne Williams.
(03:16):
I knew Wayne Williams from his days as a freelance
television news photographer. He had a nice camera. That's the
first thing I noticed. He had a Fresolini camera, and
not everybody has one of those on their shoulders. At
that time. Wayne would be out in the city scanner
(03:36):
chasing and he would find a shooting or a fire
or some such going on at night. And we would
come in in the morning and the radio and Wayne
would be there and he would ask us, do you
have a story about, for instance, a fire fourteenth Street.
If we said we did, he would ask the photocopy
the script. He would take that photocopy and tape it
(03:59):
to his film can and leave it for Channel two.
The one thing that I noticed about Wayne was car
he drove. It was a bloom Plymouth satellite and it
was just like a detective police car in Atlanta and Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Another body was discovered today the twenty third.
Speaker 8 (04:22):
At Police Task Force headquarters. There are twenty seven faces
on the wall. Twenty six murdered was missing. We do
not know the person or persons that are responsible. Therefore,
we do not have the money.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
From Tenerfo TV and houstill forks in Atlanta.
Speaker 10 (04:35):
Like eleven other recent victims in Atlanta, Rogers apparently was asphyxiated.
Speaker 8 (04:39):
Atlanta is unlikely to catch the killer unless he keeps
on killing.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
This is Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 9 (04:57):
Wayne Williams drove a blue Plymouth satellite. It looked just
like an unmarked Atlanta police car. I'm pretty good at
spotting undercover cars because the way I drive, and that
one stood out.
Speaker 11 (05:11):
The main car in this case has always been that
white station Wagon, the one Wayne was driving that night
on the bridge. But during my research I was hearing
more accounts about blue cars.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
The first blue car I heard about was a Nova.
Speaker 10 (05:23):
I know there was talk about a blue Nova, which
Wayne didn't drive a blue Nova.
Speaker 11 (05:28):
Vincent Hill also mentioned this victim. Jeffrey Mathis was seen
getting into a blue Nova, and according to Rodney's story,
he was picked up in a blue Nova too. But
Wayne didn't drive a blue Nova. Then I thought, what
do these cars look like? How similar is a blue
Plymouth to a blue Nova? Would a child know the difference?
So I looked them up, and to me, these cars
looked very similar in some ways, almost identical.
Speaker 9 (05:50):
It was medium metallic blue. He had a built in scanner,
not a magnetic mount, but a real scanner, and it
looked for all the world like a cop car. Wayne
Williams a quiet didn't say much, and he got his
job done and left at the station. Here's a question
I have about Wayne Williams. He was kind of pudgy.
(06:12):
How does a guy like that? How do we reckon
that he abducted fairly old, street smart kids who probably
knew how to fight without getting hurt himself. How did
that happen? How did these kids allegedly go with him
with no fight, with no signs of a struggle on
(06:35):
Wayne's part. They would have mashed his face, surely bruised
him in some way or injured him in some way,
but that was never talked about. When I heard that
he was arrested, the one thing that came in my
mind first was why didn't they think of him first?
Because they told us that they were looking for someone
(06:56):
who maybe had a visage of authority that presented themselves
like an authority figure like a police or maybe a
male man or whatever. They were looking for somebody like that. Well,
look at this guy's driving a what looks like a
police car.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
David makes a pretty good point.
Speaker 11 (07:15):
Wayne did fit the FBI profile, in particular the desire
to impersonate a police officer. But David still had his
doubts about Wayne's guilt. He remember as many suspects before
Wayne Williams too.
Speaker 9 (07:27):
There were some bizarre things that happened while they were looking.
There was one suspect who came into mind and was
being actively watched, as we understood, and that person got
angry and came to the radio station wanted to do
an interview. The police chief came to the station with
(07:48):
the general manager, albo Ellis, and me and some other people,
and they were kind of explaining to us. The police
were kind of explaining to us that how dangerous it
was to put.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
On the air.
Speaker 9 (08:02):
Well, we knew that, we knew that the general manager's
station was the recipient of a Peabody award. I mean,
we weren't slapshot at it, and this man came to
us and we did the interview, and the man said,
you know, you could get killed investigating a story like this.
(08:29):
We call police. And for a time she slept with
a radio station walkie talkie beside the bed, and I
had one beside mine in case she had trouble, and
the police had ordered protection for her. When you're investigating
a murder and serial murder and somebody says that that
(08:49):
will send a chill in your spine, they really will.
I can't remember the name of the person, but I
remember it was medium bill, black male, and that's that's
all I can remember. But the police knew who he
was and they were watching.
Speaker 11 (09:12):
Even David himself was investigated at one point.
Speaker 9 (09:15):
They tell me that they looked at me because there
were reports witness accounts that a white man with a
mustache wearing a flat sport cap was trying to pick
up kids along Stuart Avenue. Well, I lived on the
South Side, I had a mustache, no wore flat caps,
(09:37):
So there you go, and they checked me out. Years later,
I was coaching my son's soccer team and one of
the other coaches came up and put his arm on
my shoulder and said, buddy, we know more at you
than you think we do. And I said, how's that?
(09:58):
He said, GBI agent, we had younger surveillance. Head of
the GBI, Phil Peterson told me because I had developed
a relationship with him and talked to him, and he
knew me and I knew him, and he knew if
he told me something not to get out that I
could hold it in confidence. He said, Dave, someday, I'll
(10:27):
sit down with you when this is over, and I'll
tell you everything I know. And philed out of kidney
cancer before I could talk to him. This whole thing
sounds like it's unreal, like it's out of a TV show.
And it always had that kind of vibe to it,
what's next, what are they going to find next? And
(10:49):
it was a vice president, it was a mayor with
a pile of cash, and it was the mayor pointing
his finger at the camera. I'm coming. You've seen the film.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Here's one hundred thousand dollars and it's all yours. This
got me thinking about that reward money.
Speaker 12 (11:06):
Ticket sales alone for the show brought in one hundred
and forty five thousand dollars. Then there were a few
big donations from Warner Brothers, Coca Cola and the like,
and some sizable ones from individuals too. The after party
auction brought in another eighteen grand all in all a
big haul, easily over two hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
At this point, I'd heard so much about it, But
where'd it go?
Speaker 9 (11:26):
I've wondered about a lot of money things, So what
happened to that money? I don't know. After all, the
large of the reward, the more likely it will be
that police will eventually get the information they need to
solve these horrifying murders.
Speaker 7 (11:41):
When Muhammad Ali announced he would add to the reward fund,
making it five hundred thousand dollars, even city officials were surprised.
In thanking Ali. Mayor Jackson said this was the largest
single donation in the history of the cases.
Speaker 11 (11:55):
All those private donations and the benefit concerts, tons of
money raised it catch the killer.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Whatever happened to it?
Speaker 11 (12:03):
It's a question I asked everybody, Captain.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Dave, Now, I don't know where the money man, Monica Pierson, you.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Know that's one of the things you need to ask.
What happened to all of that reward money. Unfortunately, the
one person who could probably answer that for sure it
has passed on the former mayor, Maynard Jackson, because Maynard
was very hands on. I was the city hall reporter
in those days, so he was responsible to the community
(12:31):
and he would know where that went.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Doctor Blackwelter, that's a good question, may be something good
for you looking to the APD.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
I don't have any idea.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Are you saying that that two million dollars is missing?
Speaker 5 (12:44):
No one got the reward? I know, I didn't. I
don't know. I never even heard that there was, but
I don't doubt that it's missing.
Speaker 13 (12:53):
It had to be kept somewhere, and whether it was
real cash or not, or just just set up for
that particular shot. You know, it may have been promised money.
It could have been Coca Cola or Georgia Power or
somebody would have said, Okay, y'all catch him and then
we're going to put in a million dollars. I seem
(13:14):
like I heard that it was going to be divided
between the victims' families, but I don't think we ever
really figured out. But all the true victims, you know
that FBI.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Well, I'm not sure that it went to anybody. You know,
the usually the conditions of reward money as as based
on as you provide information that leads to the arrest
and conviction thereof. Well, the information that led to the
conviction thereof was FBI and police information. It wasn't any
one particular person. Now, had you know, had somebody called
(13:47):
me and said, this is Payne Wayne Williams did this
and here's why, and then we went we found out
then you would be subject to qualify to get the
reward money.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
Word got out. If you got on the list, you
got money. They raised a quarter of a million dollars,
which is a lot of money at that time, and
that went into the fund for the parents of the
murdered and missing kids. So if you made the list,
you got money.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
I wasn't involved in it.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
There was decisions to give so much money to the victims'
families to help them out because they were a lot
of them were on the lower end of the socioeconomical scale.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
If the families are saying they didn't receive it, and
the FBI really doesn't know where it went, then is
it sitting in a bank account somewhere drawing interest?
Speaker 9 (14:35):
What happened to that money. I don't know. I really
wish it had shaken loose more people to talk. Somebody
knows something. They might be dead now, they might be dead.
Somebody knows something.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
You know what I talked to, had any idea where
it went?
Speaker 14 (14:54):
What were what money? I don't remember. I know of
anyone mentioning to us money's being raised for the family.
I don't know if it was being and whatever happened
to it. If it did, of course my dad it
was never mentioned to me by him or either one
(15:16):
of my brothers or sisters that any money was involved
in it. My brother being killed like that, I don't
think none of was thinking about any money in the
first place. If someone said money being raised, and it's
been that money is given to somebody said, well, come
tell me exactly who killed your brother, I'm going to
give him that reward. That's the way I would have
(15:37):
looked at the money. I think that is maybe something
needs to be looked into.
Speaker 9 (16:03):
When I listened to the tape of his interview on
your podcast, No Wonder, his attorney didn't want him to talk.
He was wacky. He was wacky. He talked in a
scattershot manner about stuff that had nothing to do with
anything like trying to enterprise a rap singer out of prison.
(16:26):
And he's connection with the CIA. I just didn't I
don't see that.
Speaker 11 (16:32):
When I started my research on Wayne Williams and the
Atlanta child murders, a certain storyline kept popping up. Wayne
Williams alleged CIA background. It sounds crazy, I know. In
my first call with Wayne, he briefly mentioned it.
Speaker 15 (16:46):
The only conspiracy that came in was once my name
hit the Steprioc computers and it got to Washington. That's
when they pattied because they had a ran country going
and because to the government who on my background working
for the agency and they were a friend, would expose it.
Speaker 10 (17:07):
If I remember correctly. In talking to Wayne, he said
when he was seventeen when he got approached.
Speaker 11 (17:13):
Vincent spoke to Wayne on several occasions and he told
him about it too.
Speaker 10 (17:17):
This agency that UH fronted as the Junior ORLTC program.
But what they would do is they would recruit young
individuals to train for the CIA, and in that training
he learned to kill people with choke hold. I don't
know why he told that story again. It goes back
(17:39):
to Wayne, loving to embellish stuff that ended up getting
him in trouble. Here some of the victims were supposedly strangled,
and here's this guy saying, yeah, I'm trained to put
people in choke holds. Wayne, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Do I believe it happened?
Speaker 10 (17:55):
No, not at all. A there would be some kind
of declassified the record by now, thirty plus years ago
that said, yes, we recruited Wayne B. Williams for this program, right,
I mean, now you can get the declassified Kennedy files.
Thirty plus years later, no one's ever came forward and said, Yep,
(18:16):
Wayne's telling the truth about that. If it happened by now,
we would know about it.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Dwayne Hendrix also mentioned it to me.
Speaker 16 (18:28):
Wayne told me the first in depth conversation that we
had that when he was a part of the CIA
Junior Officers program, he went on two missions to Africa
and he saw two villages of men, women, and children
that were completely and totally wiped out.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Dead bodies stacked.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
Who showed him this?
Speaker 16 (18:49):
Dude, he was a part of the CIA Junior's Officers program.
Speaker 11 (18:53):
Do you think this somehow plays into him being convicted
as the killer.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
Because of what he saw.
Speaker 11 (19:02):
In doing some more digging, I found an old documentary
called Reclamation. Wayne talks about it there too.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
When I was going through school, when I started in college,
I was reports to work for something called a JLT program,
a Junior Office and Training program, which is a minority
recruiting program for the Central Intelligence Agency. I asked him,
went so far as to take two trips to camp Peria,
Virginia nineteen seventy seven in nineteen seventy eight, and these
people wanted me to work with them because I already
(19:30):
had an electronics background of new photography, and they were
having some problems at the time in Africa. Apparently the
United States, what we were told, was involved in some
action in Africa, going against the government in Angola and all,
and they needed some blacks to work for them at
the time. So in the process of considering me for that,
(19:51):
my name was already on the government's computer role. And
I think after the bridge stopped, when you put one
plus one equals two together, people jumped, and I think
that's exactly what happened to Panic during the radio station era.
We came to find out that while we were operating
the radio station, I was also under surveillance by the
FBI's Corn and Tail program. The NSA had a program
(20:15):
which was also called mineration in Shamrock, Minerate and Shamrock.
If you get those files that came out of the
Frank Church here Ins of nineteen seventy five and seventy six,
I am the young black reporter that's mentioned in those
files where we were under observation because of our association
with SCLC. They knew me for a long time.
Speaker 9 (20:36):
If you listen to that interview and he talks about
being with the CIA and all this stuff, he could
have been duped into thinking it was CIA work or
super secret agency stuff. I don't know. I've often wondered
that if there were others the way that they just
(20:57):
took all of the cases after those convictions and shoved
me into a band and close the door and lock it.
I still am not sure that Wayne Williams was the
only guy responsible. I think he deserves to be in prison.
Speaker 11 (21:13):
David Volk told me that he didn't believe Wayne was
the Atlanta Chel murder, but he also admitted that Wayne
was an unusual guy with some pretty out there stories
larger than life.
Speaker 9 (21:23):
They got him dead to rights at the Jackson Bridge.
I mean, he had no explanation for that, but it
is possible. I think it's extremely possible that there were
other people involved. I think he was a conspirator.
Speaker 11 (21:44):
Doctor Blackwelder, who is close to Wayne's family and also
currently owns his old white station wagon, has his own
story of Wayne's CIA involvement.
Speaker 17 (21:52):
Somebody that would take him out to some place in
Georgia that had a firing range and let him shoot
all kinds of machine guns and all. And he said
that he was an undercover agent for the somebody. Hey, Shirley,
let me get my wife. Shirley, okay, can you stick
(22:14):
your head tell her to come in here.
Speaker 11 (22:16):
Blackwater asked me to get his wife from the kitchen
because she remembered the story better.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I got to meet his dog too, tell him what.
Speaker 17 (22:27):
The deal was on Homer and then and Wayne was
supposed to be an undercover agent for somebody or this
guy pulled up in this black car and came in into
the radio station somewhere in the line and took him
out way off somewhere and let him shooting machine guns
and all.
Speaker 18 (22:42):
That.
Speaker 19 (22:43):
That was when Wayne was fourteen.
Speaker 9 (22:47):
It was CIA.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
This is a real thing.
Speaker 11 (22:52):
Why would the CIA have any business recruiting Wayne Williams.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
As a kid as his father did.
Speaker 11 (22:59):
He said the took interest in Wayne because of Homer,
his father, and apparently Homer had contact with them too.
Speaker 17 (23:06):
He worked on the Manhattan Project. When these CIA agents
or whatever they were, old Wayne, if you'll work for us,
should help us, we'll kick you out at least you
fly on an airplane and shooting machine guns and everything.
And they took him somewhere that looked like a horse ranch.
But when you went down the niots they had these
targets shut up in all these kind of actions.
Speaker 11 (23:28):
They told me about a collection of files. Hommer had
one they had seen with their own eyes.
Speaker 20 (23:32):
Homer had four file cabinets full of files pictures be
on up the Manhattan Project, and he told Eddie and
myself that we could have it when he passed away.
And he passed away, and we went up there and
they were in a storage building lot. We were the
(23:53):
only ones that had to keep and.
Speaker 17 (23:55):
Had all the Wayne High School textbooks and everything in it.
And we went in there and it was full of stuff,
and here was this file cabin Because I remember I
found one of these little metal file boxes that had
pictures of them grading off for the Atlanta Airports when
they were building the Atlanta Airports. And then there were
three or four file cabinets that were so full that
(24:16):
you couldn't have gotten another file folded if you had to,
and it had a lot of stuff in there that
Homeward you had when he was at the Manhattan Project.
After Homer died, Wayne said, any of that kind of
stuff you want, get it, And so we looked in
there the day that we went to get the car,
but we didn't have any way of bringing that stuff back,
so Sir and I said we'll come back and get it,
(24:37):
and then went back the next time to get it,
and somebody cleaned the place out. Somebody broke in, but
the padlock was locked. Miss Graystell had the key, and
we went out there and came back. He said, Miss Granted,
there's nothing in that house and who got the stuff?
She said, had anybody been in it? Or somebody did?
Speaker 20 (24:58):
So we scared. She know that anybody been out there,
and it was wrapped there at her back.
Speaker 17 (25:04):
Door, but everything in there was gone that was worth
any day, and the file cabage were there, but they
were empty.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
This wasn't the only unsettling experience for the Blackwaters.
Speaker 17 (25:14):
I was doing a church service up in rolling Out
in the country, and so after church that was Sunday morning,
we wouldn't come back home. We didn't go back again
that night. We just stay up there. We went shopping
one day at a mall and I was sitting in
the car relation in the radio, and she went in
the belt shopping and I got a telephone call and
it was from Secret Service to FBI said we've got
(25:38):
a threat on your life. That seemed serious, and he said,
our closest agent is in Summrblee and he's only his
way down there right now. And I said, well, let
me tell you what kind of car I'm driving. And
I told him Matt the tag numbered all And he said,
where are you going to go tonight? I said, we're
(25:58):
going back to the church. And he said, we'll have
somebody sitting outside the.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Church watching the door.
Speaker 17 (26:04):
Do you know who comes to church at that it's
a small country church. It's always the same fable say yes.
He said, if anybody comes in that you don't know,
just fall down behind the puttle bit and we'll be
in their own.
Speaker 11 (26:19):
Is Wayne making all this up? Is black bull making
this up? And for what reason? Wayne had mentioned Iron
Contra to me.
Speaker 15 (26:30):
That's when they've panised because they had a Red Contra going.
Speaker 11 (26:36):
I wanted some more background, sorry, reached out to Ben
Bowling again from stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 18 (26:41):
The Iran Contra affair as it's known today, occurs in
the nineteen eighties, with the final federal government conclusion coming
in nineteen ninety three. Here's what happened. The Reagan administration
was very anti communist, unsurprisingly, and they wanted to fund
(27:02):
the operations of Contras anti Sandinista anti communist fighters in Nicaragua,
but they needed to get the money from some other source.
So at the time, Iran and Iraq are in a war,
and the Reagan administration decides to violate an arms embargo
(27:23):
and sell weapons illegally to Iran in this war against Iraq,
and then take some of the money from that sale
and funnel it again illegally, super illegally to the Contras
in their fight against the Communists. This was in violation
of something called the Boland Agreement that came from the
(27:45):
US Congress, So it was a situation where one hand
of the government is saying something to the public and
the left hand is doing exactly the opposite. It was
a real life conspiracy.
Speaker 11 (27:57):
What do we think Wayne is suggesting here the connection?
What does this have to do with the possibility of.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Him being innocent? Right?
Speaker 21 (28:05):
Yes?
Speaker 18 (28:05):
So what does this person, whether or not they're committing
a string of murders in Atlanta at the time, What
did they have to do with events in the Iran
Iraq War? What do they have to do with communist
conflicts in Nicaragua. And that's a question that's very difficult
to answer because Wayne has mentioned the Iran contra affair,
(28:29):
but has not, to our knowledge at least specified how
he would be functioning in relation to that. That makes
it very difficult to entirely accept.
Speaker 11 (28:47):
Nearly every time I talked to Wayne, I asked for
important people I should interview, and the name that came up.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
The most was Sidney Dorsey.
Speaker 11 (28:55):
According to Wayne, Dorsey, a detective on Wayne's case, later
admitted to the corruption he was involved in that got
Wayne convicted.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
In the first place, You're.
Speaker 15 (29:03):
Gonna get to hear from Sidney Dorsey, who was an
ex He was the person while the person responsible putting
me in prison. Now he wants to tell the story
about the witnesses he paid and why he.
Speaker 19 (29:14):
Did what he did.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
But again I didn't have the details.
Speaker 15 (29:18):
You're going to find out what Lewis Graham took to
the grand jury and all tried to get Insie.
Speaker 22 (29:23):
And why.
Speaker 15 (29:25):
Sidney Dorsey is probably going to agree to talk to you.
He's willing to complete. I am back down on communication
Graham as we speak. These are things that you're going
to learn as we talk. That's what I'm trying to
get to this.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
If you remember from episode four, Dorsey became sheriff of
the Cab County but later went to jail for conspiracy
to commit murder.
Speaker 16 (29:50):
Sydney ended up being the sheriff for the Cab County.
I think what he was really trying to do is
he was trying to solve the murders initially found out
for one, and there were multiple people that were doing
the murders.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
They were prepared to make.
Speaker 11 (30:07):
A risks to find any evidence that would Oh absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 16 (30:13):
I mean Sidney Dorsey is.
Speaker 14 (30:16):
The keita all this.
Speaker 11 (30:20):
If he was the key to all this, then I
had to talk to him. So I wrote him a
letter in prison, and in the meantime, my team looked
around for any way to coroborate his story. That's when
we came across an old dateline interview with Sidney Dorsey
regarding the Atlanta child murders.
Speaker 23 (30:38):
I frankly don't think that Wayne Williams has killed anyone.
Speaker 24 (30:42):
That's former Atlanta homicide detective sid Dorsey, who was with
the task for us that put Williams behind bars. He's
one of an unlikely group of people in the criminal
justice system now coming forward to say Wayne Williams did
not commit the Atlanta child murders.
Speaker 23 (31:00):
Never thought that Wayne Williams was guilty of any murder
that has.
Speaker 24 (31:05):
Not one of those dozens of killings, not one.
Speaker 11 (31:08):
It's pretty hard to misinterpret his answers without a doubt.
His statement was in favor of Wayne's innocence.
Speaker 23 (31:16):
People ask me often, did Wayne Williams do it? And
I says no.
Speaker 11 (31:25):
Dorsey brings up Clifford Jones's case. Jones's body was found
by a dumpster outside a laundrymat.
Speaker 24 (31:31):
Jones disappeared in August nineteen eighty close to this inner
city strip mall. Hours later, he was found near a dumpster.
Behind the mall, strangled wrapped.
Speaker 23 (31:40):
In plaster, there was a young man who claims to
have witnessed the murder of Clifford Jones.
Speaker 24 (31:49):
Dorsey says an alleged eye witness described the strangling of
Jones and identified the strangler not Wayne Williams, but a
man named Jamie Brooks.
Speaker 23 (31:59):
I've always lived with the notion that Jamie Brooks murdered
the child.
Speaker 24 (32:04):
Brooks later died after serving time in prison for rape, sodomy,
and kidnapping. And despite all that evidence, the task force
blamed Clifford jones murder not on Jamie Brooks, but on
Wayne Williams.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
The owner of the laundromat.
Speaker 11 (32:19):
Jamie Brooks wasn't deemed guilty, even though eye witnesses testified
as seeing him place Jones's body there. Years later, Jamie
Brooks went to prison for raping and killing a young boy.
By now, I had talked to Wayne Williams off and
on for months, countless late night phone calls and digging
(32:42):
through old stories that he says proves his innocence, and
to be honest, it seemed like some of it checked out,
but not everything. I felt it was time to meet
Wayne in person, and he thought so too.
Speaker 15 (32:52):
It's a lot easy to get on the regular visitation
least instead of a special visit. Me anytime, it's get a
special visit. I can have two people of one time
to get I really want to get you and Dwayne
together down here at the same time, so I'll get
deforms to you. You have to fill it out and
return it ahead of time, and then all you've got
to do is sit whatever date you want to come
on the weekends of the holiday.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Sounded simple, so I pulled out performs and sent them
in for this weekend.
Speaker 25 (33:20):
That's when you were trying to do it.
Speaker 26 (33:22):
Okay, if we get it tomorrow, I.
Speaker 25 (33:23):
Can go ahead and run the background checking everything on
you check May women tomorrow afternoon.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Then a few days later, my warden has.
Speaker 25 (33:31):
Left at your significant other form. There's no problems as
far as that. But we're not going to approve the
visit for tomorrow because we have knowledge that you are
doing a documentary on mister Williams, and we have to
put do that through our public affairs department before you
can enter the facility. You know, we probably would have
(33:54):
gone ahead and approved it, but he said, well, let
we just need to run it by just in case,
you know, he said, he thought we would need to
talk with public affairs that just make them aware of it,
and then we would get back with you. But I
will get in touch with them the first of the week,
make sure that there's no issues as far as they're concerned,
(34:16):
which I don't anticipate. But it's just procedure, you know,
it's just procedure. And I'll call you back just as
soon as I mess up.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
A small roadblock, but still promising, He a why n
e first moon?
Speaker 9 (34:33):
Okay, well, they just got in yesterday.
Speaker 26 (34:36):
They want to be processed yet, and I don't see
your name.
Speaker 25 (34:39):
I gave her your number, your call back.
Speaker 27 (34:41):
I think she said she just waiting, you know, the lady.
Speaker 25 (34:44):
You need to talk to her.
Speaker 27 (34:45):
I think she's still a look.
Speaker 26 (34:46):
Your last thing is limbsy.
Speaker 27 (34:49):
Thinking a longer.
Speaker 26 (34:50):
I think I'm good. I got them, I got them
on my desk.
Speaker 9 (34:53):
I to process it.
Speaker 25 (34:54):
Right now, so we don't have you an answer sometime
this afternoons hopefully.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
And finally, yes, sir, it was a proof of this happening.
Speaker 11 (35:07):
It was happening, and in just a few days. But
I've never been to a prison before.
Speaker 8 (35:14):
I mean, it's it's you know, it's I've seen I've
seen every type.
Speaker 11 (35:18):
This is Mark Smirling, creator of the podcast Crime Town
and the docuseries The Jinx.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
This was nothing new to him. Most of the time
you're in a public area.
Speaker 28 (35:29):
I'd been in one prison visit where I was alone with.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
A with an officer with a guard.
Speaker 28 (35:35):
Usually there's some guard sitting right in the very cos,
you know, listening.
Speaker 21 (35:39):
To everything which is going.
Speaker 8 (35:40):
But I found that those people are usually pretty good about,
you know, money, talk about whatever you want as long.
Speaker 29 (35:47):
As you're not talking about escaping. Have you ever done
a prison visit before?
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Nope, I never have.
Speaker 29 (35:56):
Excusing love, you cannot bring anything but quarterse don't bring
anything that much drivers life and this supporter I'm gonna
get you, so we'll we'll be able to change everything.
So we'll we'll like to spit as early as you can.
The reason why is because they have account that happens
like a level o'clock after you level's gonna be one
(36:18):
o'clock before you get in. You got to get there
like that a nine thirty, you know, So we.
Speaker 27 (36:23):
Can make this and we're meant to happen, it be
worth to talk.
Speaker 22 (36:27):
You gotta go through metal detective and all that stuff.
Speaker 19 (36:30):
They're gonna make you take your shoes.
Speaker 22 (36:32):
You know, you just want to have maybe like a
roll of corners.
Speaker 15 (36:35):
You can get a cup home for.
Speaker 19 (36:36):
Something like that out of the machine.
Speaker 14 (36:38):
And you want to be dressed in minimum It's possible.
Speaker 13 (36:41):
Just like one I did say, I.
Speaker 27 (36:43):
Need y'all to give you this close to nine. It
is topble. You gotta have many times to talk.
Speaker 19 (36:48):
Just send you to talk.
Speaker 27 (36:51):
Yeah, I'm doing this project. But for all those people
in Atlanta, you never got dressed. That's talking about the
Mealman of Jongs, of parents, lost family members, and you know,
the police all the language didn't give the ball because
they were like, I got a problem. The same thing
that was happening in Atlanta nineteen eighty one, that happened
(37:11):
in the day. The only difference is you got the
face of it is trade all mark and all these things.
This is why I'm doing is to open up with
high socials so it's any good because of Doug and
make the way to change it. That's what I'm about.
Let's take it happen.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Time Wayne was anxious to me and so was I.
Speaker 11 (37:39):
Just as things seem to be going smoothly, I got
a phone call from the prison Missillians.
Speaker 26 (37:45):
See this is Michelle coming home tail from Sake Prisons.
I'm speaking with him about your visit. Was Innate Williams
that visit for Saturday, Hans the council. Sir, when you
get this smssage, please give my call at two to
nine eight.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Just like that. It wasn't happening.
Speaker 27 (38:05):
While he's in the lockdown.
Speaker 26 (38:06):
You under investigation.
Speaker 12 (38:08):
You will not be allowed to do.
Speaker 11 (38:11):
I'm not really that familiar with what that means exactly.
So does something happen all of a sudden like this
morning or something?
Speaker 26 (38:17):
Just something happened here, So he's on investigation now, so
therefore you won't.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Be allowed to well, no, one won't be.
Speaker 15 (38:23):
Allowed to in to him.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Do you think that it might be weeks before he
can talk or what?
Speaker 19 (38:30):
I'm not sure, sir. I'm not sure how long it
would be before you can talk about the way, sir,
there's nothing you could.
Speaker 11 (38:42):
According to Dwayne Hendricks, Wayne was in the hole. Now
I think that meant isolation. He was under some sort
of investigation.
Speaker 19 (38:50):
Yeah, so they came and got him.
Speaker 21 (38:52):
Uh, last night.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
But Dwayne said, this was nothing new.
Speaker 19 (38:56):
Last time, and shit happened.
Speaker 21 (38:57):
He was in.
Speaker 22 (38:58):
He was in the hole from maybe like a a
month of.
Speaker 19 (39:01):
Maybe even more than that.
Speaker 22 (39:04):
When I first got involved with this initially, I went
and visited Wayne. I went and I met some of
the people that he told me I needed to meet,
and I said, well, fuck it, I'm just gonna go
and do what I needed to do to get started
and start working with Sidney Dorsey. I wrote Sidney Dorsey,
(39:24):
I told him who I was. I was exchanging letters
with Sidney Dorsey. The next step was to go through
the public relations officer for Georgia Department of Correction and
I got the form that I needed. I submitted the form.
Speaker 19 (39:42):
When I made the phone call to see if they
received the form, it was a complete total lockdown for
all inmate in the Georgia Department of Corrections that no one.
Speaker 21 (39:54):
Would be able to interview anyone. That's the extent these
people are willing to try to go to make sure
this ship don't get out. There's multiple people that will
end up going to prison, maybe for the rest of
(40:15):
their lives because.
Speaker 19 (40:16):
Of this taint.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Next time on Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 28 (40:50):
Sim Jersey letters. Well, let's you know it wasn't Tamper
West because the Georgia State President. Interesting. This is handwritten,
which is why it's hard to read. I received your
(41:11):
letter dated December fourth, twenty seventeen, and I truly apologize
for my delay in responding to you. Please forgive and
charge it to my head and not my heart. Best regards, Sydney.
Speaker 11 (41:49):
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 Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
For the latest updates, please visit.
Speaker 11 (42:13):
Atlantamonster dot com or follow us on social media. One
last thing, We've set up an Atlanta Monster tip line.
Anyone with information, leads, or personal accounts pertaining to the
Atlanta child murders can call us and leave a message.
The number is one eight three three two eight five
six sixty sixty seven. Again, that's one eight three three
(42:36):
two eight five six six sixty seven.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 9 (43:06):
I don't think the whole truth will come down, not
unless somebody who knows something here's this and opens up.
I could be absolutely wrong this whole podcast. The information
could be upside down. But if it is, there has
to be somebody who knows it is and it will
(43:27):
come forward. And it's like a promo, stay tuned, will
stay tuned for what.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
That's also the promo for the next episode me
Previously on Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The one thing I remember most about the missing and
murdered children is Maynard Jackson sitting there with piles of cash,
offering a reward for any information on who was committing
these crimes.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
We called Wayne Williams at two fifty five am on
the last day of the surveillance.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
I've been incarcerated since nineteen eighty one. A few people
realized I was never convicted in connection with any of
the child murders, but.
Speaker 5 (00:27):
Once it was stand on Wayne Williams, they were thrilled.
That was their way out.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Some people in the black community thought it was the
Ku Klux Klan that was grabbing these black boys.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
The Klan wanted to take credit for it.
Speaker 6 (00:41):
They weren't bright enough to commit this crime.
Speaker 7 (00:44):
They have a letter they called Sanders, the Klansmen, the
prime suspect, and the murders.
Speaker 8 (00:49):
For months before Wayne Williams was arrested and charged with
two of the murderers.
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Anybody out there he thinks that Wayne Williams didn't do
all this by himself, was correct. I only know that
from the mouth of the Double King song.
Speaker 9 (01:10):
I did some television in my early career. I learned
on sixteen millimeter film and sixteen millimeter mag stripe film,
and was a TV reporter in the transition to videotape
three thousand hours of it in a helicopter Captain Dave
and the WSB skycopter. There was a nickname that was
(01:31):
laid on me, might even make that one up. Started
in broadcasting in nineteen sixty nine, so I'm an og.
A couple of years in they started finding the bodies
of young black males, and we had a big newsroom.
(01:54):
I had a lot of reporters. We would all ask
the police are these related? Are these things connected? Could
there be a connection between these? And the answer was no,
until the bodies started adding up. I don't know whether
(02:14):
the police admitted to themselves or they already knew but
didn't say, but then they had to say something. It
was too obvious that there was a pattern of this
in some way, and they started talking about it in
that manner. And I was at many of the scenes,
(02:35):
many of the scenes where the bodies had been found
up until that point at a homicide, police knew me,
knew of me, and there was a level of trust
that you could walk up almost to the body and
talk with them and they would know that you would
be judicious about what you reported. But when they started
(02:55):
finding these bodies, there was none of that kept far
away for the most part, away from where you could
take any pictures or see anything about it, and that
has left many questions for me. I knew Wayne Williams.
(03:16):
I knew Wayne Williams from his days as a freelance
television news photographer. He had a nice camera. That's the
first thing I noticed. He had a Fresolini camera, and
not everybody has one of those on their shoulders. At
that time. Wayne would be out in the city scanner
(03:36):
chasing and he would find a shooting or a fire
or some such going on at night. And we would
come in in the morning and the radio and Wayne
would be there and he would ask us, do you
have a story about, for instance, a fire fourteenth Street.
If we said we did, he would ask the photocopy
the script. He would take that photocopy and tape it
(03:59):
to his film can and leave it for Channel two.
The one thing that I noticed about Wayne was car
he drove. It was a bloom Plymouth satellite and it
was just like a detective police car in Atlanta and Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Another body was discovered today the twenty third.
Speaker 8 (04:22):
At Police Task Force headquarters. There are twenty seven faces
on the wall. Twenty six murdered was missing. We do
not know the person or persons that are responsible. Therefore,
we do not have the money.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
From Tenerfo TV and houstill forks in Atlanta.
Speaker 10 (04:35):
Like eleven other recent victims in Atlanta, Rogers apparently was asphyxiated.
Speaker 8 (04:39):
Atlanta is unlikely to catch the killer unless he keeps
on killing.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
This is Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 9 (04:57):
Wayne Williams drove a blue Plymouth satellite. It looked just
like an unmarked Atlanta police car. I'm pretty good at
spotting undercover cars because the way I drive, and that
one stood out.
Speaker 11 (05:11):
The main car in this case has always been that
white station Wagon, the one Wayne was driving that night
on the bridge. But during my research I was hearing
more accounts about blue cars.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
The first blue car I heard about was a Nova.
Speaker 10 (05:23):
I know there was talk about a blue Nova, which
Wayne didn't drive a blue Nova.
Speaker 11 (05:28):
Vincent Hill also mentioned this victim. Jeffrey Mathis was seen
getting into a blue Nova, and according to Rodney's story,
he was picked up in a blue Nova too. But
Wayne didn't drive a blue Nova. Then I thought, what
do these cars look like? How similar is a blue
Plymouth to a blue Nova? Would a child know the difference?
So I looked them up, and to me, these cars
looked very similar in some ways, almost identical.
Speaker 9 (05:50):
It was medium metallic blue. He had a built in scanner,
not a magnetic mount, but a real scanner, and it
looked for all the world like a cop car. Wayne
Williams a quiet didn't say much, and he got his
job done and left at the station. Here's a question
I have about Wayne Williams. He was kind of pudgy.
(06:12):
How does a guy like that? How do we reckon
that he abducted fairly old, street smart kids who probably
knew how to fight without getting hurt himself. How did
that happen? How did these kids allegedly go with him
with no fight, with no signs of a struggle on
(06:35):
Wayne's part. They would have mashed his face, surely bruised
him in some way or injured him in some way,
but that was never talked about. When I heard that
he was arrested, the one thing that came in my
mind first was why didn't they think of him first?
Because they told us that they were looking for someone
(06:56):
who maybe had a visage of authority that presented themselves
like an authority figure like a police or maybe a
male man or whatever. They were looking for somebody like that. Well,
look at this guy's driving a what looks like a
police car.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
David makes a pretty good point.
Speaker 11 (07:15):
Wayne did fit the FBI profile, in particular the desire
to impersonate a police officer. But David still had his
doubts about Wayne's guilt. He remember as many suspects before
Wayne Williams too.
Speaker 9 (07:27):
There were some bizarre things that happened while they were looking.
There was one suspect who came into mind and was
being actively watched, as we understood, and that person got
angry and came to the radio station wanted to do
an interview. The police chief came to the station with
(07:48):
the general manager, albo Ellis, and me and some other people,
and they were kind of explaining to us. The police
were kind of explaining to us that how dangerous it
was to put.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
On the air.
Speaker 9 (08:02):
Well, we knew that, we knew that the general manager's
station was the recipient of a Peabody award. I mean,
we weren't slapshot at it, and this man came to
us and we did the interview, and the man said,
you know, you could get killed investigating a story like this.
(08:29):
We call police. And for a time she slept with
a radio station walkie talkie beside the bed, and I
had one beside mine in case she had trouble, and
the police had ordered protection for her. When you're investigating
a murder and serial murder and somebody says that that
(08:49):
will send a chill in your spine, they really will.
I can't remember the name of the person, but I
remember it was medium bill, black male, and that's that's
all I can remember. But the police knew who he
was and they were watching.
Speaker 11 (09:12):
Even David himself was investigated at one point.
Speaker 9 (09:15):
They tell me that they looked at me because there
were reports witness accounts that a white man with a
mustache wearing a flat sport cap was trying to pick
up kids along Stuart Avenue. Well, I lived on the
South Side, I had a mustache, no wore flat caps,
(09:37):
So there you go, and they checked me out. Years later,
I was coaching my son's soccer team and one of
the other coaches came up and put his arm on
my shoulder and said, buddy, we know more at you
than you think we do. And I said, how's that?
(09:58):
He said, GBI agent, we had younger surveillance. Head of
the GBI, Phil Peterson told me because I had developed
a relationship with him and talked to him, and he
knew me and I knew him, and he knew if
he told me something not to get out that I
could hold it in confidence. He said, Dave, someday, I'll
(10:27):
sit down with you when this is over, and I'll
tell you everything I know. And philed out of kidney
cancer before I could talk to him. This whole thing
sounds like it's unreal, like it's out of a TV show.
And it always had that kind of vibe to it,
what's next, what are they going to find next? And
(10:49):
it was a vice president, it was a mayor with
a pile of cash, and it was the mayor pointing
his finger at the camera. I'm coming. You've seen the film.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Here's one hundred thousand dollars and it's all yours. This
got me thinking about that reward money.
Speaker 12 (11:06):
Ticket sales alone for the show brought in one hundred
and forty five thousand dollars. Then there were a few
big donations from Warner Brothers, Coca Cola and the like,
and some sizable ones from individuals too. The after party
auction brought in another eighteen grand all in all a
big haul, easily over two hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
At this point, I'd heard so much about it, But
where'd it go?
Speaker 9 (11:26):
I've wondered about a lot of money things, So what
happened to that money? I don't know. After all, the
large of the reward, the more likely it will be
that police will eventually get the information they need to
solve these horrifying murders.
Speaker 7 (11:41):
When Muhammad Ali announced he would add to the reward fund,
making it five hundred thousand dollars, even city officials were surprised.
In thanking Ali. Mayor Jackson said this was the largest
single donation in the history of the cases.
Speaker 11 (11:55):
All those private donations and the benefit concerts, tons of
money raised it catch the killer.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Whatever happened to it?
Speaker 11 (12:03):
It's a question I asked everybody, Captain.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Dave, Now, I don't know where the money man, Monica Pierson, you.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Know that's one of the things you need to ask.
What happened to all of that reward money. Unfortunately, the
one person who could probably answer that for sure it
has passed on the former mayor, Maynard Jackson, because Maynard
was very hands on. I was the city hall reporter
in those days, so he was responsible to the community
(12:31):
and he would know where that went.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Doctor Blackwelter, that's a good question, may be something good
for you looking to the APD.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
I don't have any idea.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Are you saying that that two million dollars is missing?
Speaker 5 (12:44):
No one got the reward? I know, I didn't. I
don't know. I never even heard that there was, but
I don't doubt that it's missing.
Speaker 13 (12:53):
It had to be kept somewhere, and whether it was
real cash or not, or just just set up for
that particular shot. You know, it may have been promised money.
It could have been Coca Cola or Georgia Power or
somebody would have said, Okay, y'all catch him and then
we're going to put in a million dollars. I seem
(13:14):
like I heard that it was going to be divided
between the victims' families, but I don't think we ever
really figured out. But all the true victims, you know
that FBI.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Well, I'm not sure that it went to anybody. You know,
the usually the conditions of reward money as as based
on as you provide information that leads to the arrest
and conviction thereof. Well, the information that led to the
conviction thereof was FBI and police information. It wasn't any
one particular person. Now, had you know, had somebody called
(13:47):
me and said, this is Payne Wayne Williams did this
and here's why, and then we went we found out
then you would be subject to qualify to get the
reward money.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
Word got out. If you got on the list, you
got money. They raised a quarter of a million dollars,
which is a lot of money at that time, and
that went into the fund for the parents of the
murdered and missing kids. So if you made the list,
you got money.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
I wasn't involved in it.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
There was decisions to give so much money to the victims'
families to help them out because they were a lot
of them were on the lower end of the socioeconomical scale.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
If the families are saying they didn't receive it, and
the FBI really doesn't know where it went, then is
it sitting in a bank account somewhere drawing interest?
Speaker 9 (14:35):
What happened to that money. I don't know. I really
wish it had shaken loose more people to talk. Somebody
knows something. They might be dead now, they might be dead.
Somebody knows something.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
You know what I talked to, had any idea where
it went?
Speaker 14 (14:54):
What were what money? I don't remember. I know of
anyone mentioning to us money's being raised for the family.
I don't know if it was being and whatever happened
to it. If it did, of course my dad it
was never mentioned to me by him or either one
(15:16):
of my brothers or sisters that any money was involved
in it. My brother being killed like that, I don't
think none of was thinking about any money in the
first place. If someone said money being raised, and it's
been that money is given to somebody said, well, come
tell me exactly who killed your brother, I'm going to
give him that reward. That's the way I would have
(15:37):
looked at the money. I think that is maybe something
needs to be looked into.
Speaker 9 (16:03):
When I listened to the tape of his interview on
your podcast, No Wonder, his attorney didn't want him to talk.
He was wacky. He was wacky. He talked in a
scattershot manner about stuff that had nothing to do with
anything like trying to enterprise a rap singer out of prison.
(16:26):
And he's connection with the CIA. I just didn't I
don't see that.
Speaker 11 (16:32):
When I started my research on Wayne Williams and the
Atlanta child murders, a certain storyline kept popping up. Wayne
Williams alleged CIA background. It sounds crazy, I know. In
my first call with Wayne, he briefly mentioned it.
Speaker 15 (16:46):
The only conspiracy that came in was once my name
hit the Steprioc computers and it got to Washington. That's
when they pattied because they had a ran country going
and because to the government who on my background working
for the agency and they were a friend, would expose it.
Speaker 10 (17:07):
If I remember correctly. In talking to Wayne, he said
when he was seventeen when he got approached.
Speaker 11 (17:13):
Vincent spoke to Wayne on several occasions and he told
him about it too.
Speaker 10 (17:17):
This agency that UH fronted as the Junior ORLTC program.
But what they would do is they would recruit young
individuals to train for the CIA, and in that training
he learned to kill people with choke hold. I don't
know why he told that story again. It goes back
(17:39):
to Wayne, loving to embellish stuff that ended up getting
him in trouble. Here some of the victims were supposedly strangled,
and here's this guy saying, yeah, I'm trained to put
people in choke holds. Wayne, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Do I believe it happened?
Speaker 10 (17:55):
No, not at all. A there would be some kind
of declassified the record by now, thirty plus years ago
that said, yes, we recruited Wayne B. Williams for this program, right,
I mean, now you can get the declassified Kennedy files.
Thirty plus years later, no one's ever came forward and said, Yep,
(18:16):
Wayne's telling the truth about that. If it happened by now,
we would know about it.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Dwayne Hendrix also mentioned it to me.
Speaker 16 (18:28):
Wayne told me the first in depth conversation that we
had that when he was a part of the CIA
Junior Officers program, he went on two missions to Africa
and he saw two villages of men, women, and children
that were completely and totally wiped out.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Dead bodies stacked.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
Who showed him this?
Speaker 16 (18:49):
Dude, he was a part of the CIA Junior's Officers program.
Speaker 11 (18:53):
Do you think this somehow plays into him being convicted
as the killer.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
Because of what he saw.
Speaker 11 (19:02):
In doing some more digging, I found an old documentary
called Reclamation. Wayne talks about it there too.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
When I was going through school, when I started in college,
I was reports to work for something called a JLT program,
a Junior Office and Training program, which is a minority
recruiting program for the Central Intelligence Agency. I asked him,
went so far as to take two trips to camp Peria,
Virginia nineteen seventy seven in nineteen seventy eight, and these
people wanted me to work with them because I already
(19:30):
had an electronics background of new photography, and they were
having some problems at the time in Africa. Apparently the
United States, what we were told, was involved in some
action in Africa, going against the government in Angola and all,
and they needed some blacks to work for them at
the time. So in the process of considering me for that,
(19:51):
my name was already on the government's computer role. And
I think after the bridge stopped, when you put one
plus one equals two together, people jumped, and I think
that's exactly what happened to Panic during the radio station era.
We came to find out that while we were operating
the radio station, I was also under surveillance by the
FBI's Corn and Tail program. The NSA had a program
(20:15):
which was also called mineration in Shamrock, Minerate and Shamrock.
If you get those files that came out of the
Frank Church here Ins of nineteen seventy five and seventy six,
I am the young black reporter that's mentioned in those
files where we were under observation because of our association
with SCLC. They knew me for a long time.
Speaker 9 (20:36):
If you listen to that interview and he talks about
being with the CIA and all this stuff, he could
have been duped into thinking it was CIA work or
super secret agency stuff. I don't know. I've often wondered
that if there were others the way that they just
(20:57):
took all of the cases after those convictions and shoved
me into a band and close the door and lock it.
I still am not sure that Wayne Williams was the
only guy responsible. I think he deserves to be in prison.
Speaker 11 (21:13):
David Volk told me that he didn't believe Wayne was
the Atlanta Chel murder, but he also admitted that Wayne
was an unusual guy with some pretty out there stories
larger than life.
Speaker 9 (21:23):
They got him dead to rights at the Jackson Bridge.
I mean, he had no explanation for that, but it
is possible. I think it's extremely possible that there were
other people involved. I think he was a conspirator.
Speaker 11 (21:44):
Doctor Blackwelder, who is close to Wayne's family and also
currently owns his old white station wagon, has his own
story of Wayne's CIA involvement.
Speaker 17 (21:52):
Somebody that would take him out to some place in
Georgia that had a firing range and let him shoot
all kinds of machine guns and all. And he said
that he was an undercover agent for the somebody. Hey, Shirley,
let me get my wife. Shirley, okay, can you stick
(22:14):
your head tell her to come in here.
Speaker 11 (22:16):
Blackwater asked me to get his wife from the kitchen
because she remembered the story better.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I got to meet his dog too, tell him what.
Speaker 17 (22:27):
The deal was on Homer and then and Wayne was
supposed to be an undercover agent for somebody or this
guy pulled up in this black car and came in into
the radio station somewhere in the line and took him
out way off somewhere and let him shooting machine guns
and all.
Speaker 18 (22:42):
That.
Speaker 19 (22:43):
That was when Wayne was fourteen.
Speaker 9 (22:47):
It was CIA.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
This is a real thing.
Speaker 11 (22:52):
Why would the CIA have any business recruiting Wayne Williams.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
As a kid as his father did.
Speaker 11 (22:59):
He said the took interest in Wayne because of Homer,
his father, and apparently Homer had contact with them too.
Speaker 17 (23:06):
He worked on the Manhattan Project. When these CIA agents
or whatever they were, old Wayne, if you'll work for us,
should help us, we'll kick you out at least you
fly on an airplane and shooting machine guns and everything.
And they took him somewhere that looked like a horse ranch.
But when you went down the niots they had these
targets shut up in all these kind of actions.
Speaker 11 (23:28):
They told me about a collection of files. Hommer had
one they had seen with their own eyes.
Speaker 20 (23:32):
Homer had four file cabinets full of files pictures be
on up the Manhattan Project, and he told Eddie and
myself that we could have it when he passed away.
And he passed away, and we went up there and
they were in a storage building lot. We were the
(23:53):
only ones that had to keep and.
Speaker 17 (23:55):
Had all the Wayne High School textbooks and everything in it.
And we went in there and it was full of stuff,
and here was this file cabin Because I remember I
found one of these little metal file boxes that had
pictures of them grading off for the Atlanta Airports when
they were building the Atlanta Airports. And then there were
three or four file cabinets that were so full that
(24:16):
you couldn't have gotten another file folded if you had to,
and it had a lot of stuff in there that
Homeward you had when he was at the Manhattan Project.
After Homer died, Wayne said, any of that kind of
stuff you want, get it, And so we looked in
there the day that we went to get the car,
but we didn't have any way of bringing that stuff back,
so Sir and I said we'll come back and get it,
(24:37):
and then went back the next time to get it,
and somebody cleaned the place out. Somebody broke in, but
the padlock was locked. Miss Graystell had the key, and
we went out there and came back. He said, Miss Granted,
there's nothing in that house and who got the stuff?
She said, had anybody been in it? Or somebody did?
Speaker 20 (24:58):
So we scared. She know that anybody been out there,
and it was wrapped there at her back.
Speaker 17 (25:04):
Door, but everything in there was gone that was worth
any day, and the file cabage were there, but they
were empty.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
This wasn't the only unsettling experience for the Blackwaters.
Speaker 17 (25:14):
I was doing a church service up in rolling Out
in the country, and so after church that was Sunday morning,
we wouldn't come back home. We didn't go back again
that night. We just stay up there. We went shopping
one day at a mall and I was sitting in
the car relation in the radio, and she went in
the belt shopping and I got a telephone call and
it was from Secret Service to FBI said we've got
(25:38):
a threat on your life. That seemed serious, and he said,
our closest agent is in Summrblee and he's only his
way down there right now. And I said, well, let
me tell you what kind of car I'm driving. And
I told him Matt the tag numbered all And he said,
where are you going to go tonight? I said, we're
(25:58):
going back to the church. And he said, we'll have
somebody sitting outside the.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Church watching the door.
Speaker 17 (26:04):
Do you know who comes to church at that it's
a small country church. It's always the same fable say yes.
He said, if anybody comes in that you don't know,
just fall down behind the puttle bit and we'll be
in their own.
Speaker 11 (26:19):
Is Wayne making all this up? Is black bull making
this up? And for what reason? Wayne had mentioned Iron
Contra to me.
Speaker 15 (26:30):
That's when they've panised because they had a Red Contra going.
Speaker 11 (26:36):
I wanted some more background, sorry, reached out to Ben
Bowling again from stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 18 (26:41):
The Iran Contra affair as it's known today, occurs in
the nineteen eighties, with the final federal government conclusion coming
in nineteen ninety three. Here's what happened. The Reagan administration
was very anti communist, unsurprisingly, and they wanted to fund
(27:02):
the operations of Contras anti Sandinista anti communist fighters in Nicaragua,
but they needed to get the money from some other source.
So at the time, Iran and Iraq are in a war,
and the Reagan administration decides to violate an arms embargo
(27:23):
and sell weapons illegally to Iran in this war against Iraq,
and then take some of the money from that sale
and funnel it again illegally, super illegally to the Contras
in their fight against the Communists. This was in violation
of something called the Boland Agreement that came from the
(27:45):
US Congress, So it was a situation where one hand
of the government is saying something to the public and
the left hand is doing exactly the opposite. It was
a real life conspiracy.
Speaker 11 (27:57):
What do we think Wayne is suggesting here the connection?
What does this have to do with the possibility of.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Him being innocent? Right?
Speaker 21 (28:05):
Yes?
Speaker 18 (28:05):
So what does this person, whether or not they're committing
a string of murders in Atlanta at the time, What
did they have to do with events in the Iran
Iraq War? What do they have to do with communist
conflicts in Nicaragua. And that's a question that's very difficult
to answer because Wayne has mentioned the Iran contra affair,
(28:29):
but has not, to our knowledge at least specified how
he would be functioning in relation to that. That makes
it very difficult to entirely accept.
Speaker 11 (28:47):
Nearly every time I talked to Wayne, I asked for
important people I should interview, and the name that came up.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
The most was Sidney Dorsey.
Speaker 11 (28:55):
According to Wayne, Dorsey, a detective on Wayne's case, later
admitted to the corruption he was involved in that got
Wayne convicted.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
In the first place, You're.
Speaker 15 (29:03):
Gonna get to hear from Sidney Dorsey, who was an
ex He was the person while the person responsible putting
me in prison. Now he wants to tell the story
about the witnesses he paid and why he.
Speaker 19 (29:14):
Did what he did.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
But again I didn't have the details.
Speaker 15 (29:18):
You're going to find out what Lewis Graham took to
the grand jury and all tried to get Insie.
Speaker 22 (29:23):
And why.
Speaker 15 (29:25):
Sidney Dorsey is probably going to agree to talk to you.
He's willing to complete. I am back down on communication
Graham as we speak. These are things that you're going
to learn as we talk. That's what I'm trying to
get to this.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
If you remember from episode four, Dorsey became sheriff of
the Cab County but later went to jail for conspiracy
to commit murder.
Speaker 16 (29:50):
Sydney ended up being the sheriff for the Cab County.
I think what he was really trying to do is
he was trying to solve the murders initially found out
for one, and there were multiple people that were doing
the murders.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
They were prepared to make.
Speaker 11 (30:07):
A risks to find any evidence that would Oh absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 16 (30:13):
I mean Sidney Dorsey is.
Speaker 14 (30:16):
The keita all this.
Speaker 11 (30:20):
If he was the key to all this, then I
had to talk to him. So I wrote him a
letter in prison, and in the meantime, my team looked
around for any way to coroborate his story. That's when
we came across an old dateline interview with Sidney Dorsey
regarding the Atlanta child murders.
Speaker 23 (30:38):
I frankly don't think that Wayne Williams has killed anyone.
Speaker 24 (30:42):
That's former Atlanta homicide detective sid Dorsey, who was with
the task for us that put Williams behind bars. He's
one of an unlikely group of people in the criminal
justice system now coming forward to say Wayne Williams did
not commit the Atlanta child murders.
Speaker 23 (31:00):
Never thought that Wayne Williams was guilty of any murder
that has.
Speaker 24 (31:05):
Not one of those dozens of killings, not one.
Speaker 11 (31:08):
It's pretty hard to misinterpret his answers without a doubt.
His statement was in favor of Wayne's innocence.
Speaker 23 (31:16):
People ask me often, did Wayne Williams do it? And
I says no.
Speaker 11 (31:25):
Dorsey brings up Clifford Jones's case. Jones's body was found
by a dumpster outside a laundrymat.
Speaker 24 (31:31):
Jones disappeared in August nineteen eighty close to this inner
city strip mall. Hours later, he was found near a dumpster.
Behind the mall, strangled wrapped.
Speaker 23 (31:40):
In plaster, there was a young man who claims to
have witnessed the murder of Clifford Jones.
Speaker 24 (31:49):
Dorsey says an alleged eye witness described the strangling of
Jones and identified the strangler not Wayne Williams, but a
man named Jamie Brooks.
Speaker 23 (31:59):
I've always lived with the notion that Jamie Brooks murdered
the child.
Speaker 24 (32:04):
Brooks later died after serving time in prison for rape, sodomy,
and kidnapping. And despite all that evidence, the task force
blamed Clifford jones murder not on Jamie Brooks, but on
Wayne Williams.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
The owner of the laundromat.
Speaker 11 (32:19):
Jamie Brooks wasn't deemed guilty, even though eye witnesses testified
as seeing him place Jones's body there. Years later, Jamie
Brooks went to prison for raping and killing a young boy.
By now, I had talked to Wayne Williams off and
on for months, countless late night phone calls and digging
(32:42):
through old stories that he says proves his innocence, and
to be honest, it seemed like some of it checked out,
but not everything. I felt it was time to meet
Wayne in person, and he thought so too.
Speaker 15 (32:52):
It's a lot easy to get on the regular visitation
least instead of a special visit. Me anytime, it's get a
special visit. I can have two people of one time
to get I really want to get you and Dwayne
together down here at the same time, so I'll get
deforms to you. You have to fill it out and
return it ahead of time, and then all you've got
to do is sit whatever date you want to come
on the weekends of the holiday.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Sounded simple, so I pulled out performs and sent them
in for this weekend.
Speaker 25 (33:20):
That's when you were trying to do it.
Speaker 26 (33:22):
Okay, if we get it tomorrow, I.
Speaker 25 (33:23):
Can go ahead and run the background checking everything on
you check May women tomorrow afternoon.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Then a few days later, my warden has.
Speaker 25 (33:31):
Left at your significant other form. There's no problems as
far as that. But we're not going to approve the
visit for tomorrow because we have knowledge that you are
doing a documentary on mister Williams, and we have to
put do that through our public affairs department before you
can enter the facility. You know, we probably would have
(33:54):
gone ahead and approved it, but he said, well, let
we just need to run it by just in case,
you know, he said, he thought we would need to
talk with public affairs that just make them aware of it,
and then we would get back with you. But I
will get in touch with them the first of the week,
make sure that there's no issues as far as they're concerned,
(34:16):
which I don't anticipate. But it's just procedure, you know,
it's just procedure. And I'll call you back just as
soon as I mess up.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
A small roadblock, but still promising, He a why n
e first moon?
Speaker 9 (34:33):
Okay, well, they just got in yesterday.
Speaker 26 (34:36):
They want to be processed yet, and I don't see
your name.
Speaker 25 (34:39):
I gave her your number, your call back.
Speaker 27 (34:41):
I think she said she just waiting, you know, the lady.
Speaker 25 (34:44):
You need to talk to her.
Speaker 27 (34:45):
I think she's still a look.
Speaker 26 (34:46):
Your last thing is limbsy.
Speaker 27 (34:49):
Thinking a longer.
Speaker 26 (34:50):
I think I'm good. I got them, I got them
on my desk.
Speaker 9 (34:53):
I to process it.
Speaker 25 (34:54):
Right now, so we don't have you an answer sometime
this afternoons hopefully.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
And finally, yes, sir, it was a proof of this happening.
Speaker 11 (35:07):
It was happening, and in just a few days. But
I've never been to a prison before.
Speaker 8 (35:14):
I mean, it's it's you know, it's I've seen I've
seen every type.
Speaker 11 (35:18):
This is Mark Smirling, creator of the podcast Crime Town
and the docuseries The Jinx.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
This was nothing new to him. Most of the time
you're in a public area.
Speaker 28 (35:29):
I'd been in one prison visit where I was alone with.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
A with an officer with a guard.
Speaker 28 (35:35):
Usually there's some guard sitting right in the very cos,
you know, listening.
Speaker 21 (35:39):
To everything which is going.
Speaker 8 (35:40):
But I found that those people are usually pretty good about,
you know, money, talk about whatever you want as long.
Speaker 29 (35:47):
As you're not talking about escaping. Have you ever done
a prison visit before?
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Nope, I never have.
Speaker 29 (35:56):
Excusing love, you cannot bring anything but quarterse don't bring
anything that much drivers life and this supporter I'm gonna
get you, so we'll we'll be able to change everything.
So we'll we'll like to spit as early as you can.
The reason why is because they have account that happens
like a level o'clock after you level's gonna be one
(36:18):
o'clock before you get in. You got to get there
like that a nine thirty, you know, So we.
Speaker 27 (36:23):
Can make this and we're meant to happen, it be
worth to talk.
Speaker 22 (36:27):
You gotta go through metal detective and all that stuff.
Speaker 19 (36:30):
They're gonna make you take your shoes.
Speaker 22 (36:32):
You know, you just want to have maybe like a
roll of corners.
Speaker 15 (36:35):
You can get a cup home for.
Speaker 19 (36:36):
Something like that out of the machine.
Speaker 14 (36:38):
And you want to be dressed in minimum It's possible.
Speaker 13 (36:41):
Just like one I did say, I.
Speaker 27 (36:43):
Need y'all to give you this close to nine. It
is topble. You gotta have many times to talk.
Speaker 19 (36:48):
Just send you to talk.
Speaker 27 (36:51):
Yeah, I'm doing this project. But for all those people
in Atlanta, you never got dressed. That's talking about the
Mealman of Jongs, of parents, lost family members, and you know,
the police all the language didn't give the ball because
they were like, I got a problem. The same thing
that was happening in Atlanta nineteen eighty one, that happened
(37:11):
in the day. The only difference is you got the
face of it is trade all mark and all these things.
This is why I'm doing is to open up with
high socials so it's any good because of Doug and
make the way to change it. That's what I'm about.
Let's take it happen.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Time Wayne was anxious to me and so was I.
Speaker 11 (37:39):
Just as things seem to be going smoothly, I got
a phone call from the prison Missillians.
Speaker 26 (37:45):
See this is Michelle coming home tail from Sake Prisons.
I'm speaking with him about your visit. Was Innate Williams
that visit for Saturday, Hans the council. Sir, when you
get this smssage, please give my call at two to
nine eight.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Just like that. It wasn't happening.
Speaker 27 (38:05):
While he's in the lockdown.
Speaker 26 (38:06):
You under investigation.
Speaker 12 (38:08):
You will not be allowed to do.
Speaker 11 (38:11):
I'm not really that familiar with what that means exactly.
So does something happen all of a sudden like this
morning or something?
Speaker 26 (38:17):
Just something happened here, So he's on investigation now, so
therefore you won't.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Be allowed to well, no, one won't be.
Speaker 15 (38:23):
Allowed to in to him.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Do you think that it might be weeks before he
can talk or what?
Speaker 19 (38:30):
I'm not sure, sir. I'm not sure how long it
would be before you can talk about the way, sir,
there's nothing you could.
Speaker 11 (38:42):
According to Dwayne Hendricks, Wayne was in the hole. Now
I think that meant isolation. He was under some sort
of investigation.
Speaker 19 (38:50):
Yeah, so they came and got him.
Speaker 21 (38:52):
Uh, last night.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
But Dwayne said, this was nothing new.
Speaker 19 (38:56):
Last time, and shit happened.
Speaker 21 (38:57):
He was in.
Speaker 22 (38:58):
He was in the hole from maybe like a a
month of.
Speaker 19 (39:01):
Maybe even more than that.
Speaker 22 (39:04):
When I first got involved with this initially, I went
and visited Wayne. I went and I met some of
the people that he told me I needed to meet,
and I said, well, fuck it, I'm just gonna go
and do what I needed to do to get started
and start working with Sidney Dorsey. I wrote Sidney Dorsey,
(39:24):
I told him who I was. I was exchanging letters
with Sidney Dorsey. The next step was to go through
the public relations officer for Georgia Department of Correction and
I got the form that I needed. I submitted the form.
Speaker 19 (39:42):
When I made the phone call to see if they
received the form, it was a complete total lockdown for
all inmate in the Georgia Department of Corrections that no one.
Speaker 21 (39:54):
Would be able to interview anyone. That's the extent these
people are willing to try to go to make sure
this ship don't get out. There's multiple people that will
end up going to prison, maybe for the rest of
(40:15):
their lives because.
Speaker 19 (40:16):
Of this taint.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Next time on Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 28 (40:50):
Sim Jersey letters. Well, let's you know it wasn't Tamper
West because the Georgia State President. Interesting. This is handwritten,
which is why it's hard to read. I received your
(41:11):
letter dated December fourth, twenty seventeen, and I truly apologize
for my delay in responding to you. Please forgive and
charge it to my head and not my heart. Best regards, Sydney.
Speaker 11 (41:49):
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 Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
For the latest updates, please visit.
Speaker 11 (42:13):
Atlantamonster dot com or follow us on social media. One
last thing, We've set up an Atlanta Monster tip line.
Anyone with information, leads, or personal accounts pertaining to the
Atlanta child murders can call us and leave a message.
The number is one eight three three two eight five
six sixty sixty seven. Again, that's one eight three three
(42:36):
two eight five six six sixty seven.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 9 (43:06):
I don't think the whole truth will come down, not
unless somebody who knows something here's this and opens up.
I could be absolutely wrong this whole podcast. The information
could be upside down. But if it is, there has
to be somebody who knows it is and it will
(43:27):
come forward. And it's like a promo, stay tuned, will
stay tuned for what.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
That's also the promo for the next episode me
Atlanta Monster News
Host
Payne Lindsey
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