January 26, 2018 • 58 mins
Wayne Williams through the eyes of those seemingly closest to him...
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode of Atlanta Monster contains explicit language. Listener discretion
is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm in a recording studio and I'm recording a song
in my phone rings. It's Wayne Williams. Everybody in his
studio is like everyone with step.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
From that point forward? What transpired?
Speaker 4 (00:29):
What did Wayne and say?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
What was developing after that?
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Welcome to the real world, neo.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
So you know Wayne Williams absolutely describe Wayne to me?
Speaker 4 (00:48):
What's he like?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Brilliant asshole, very intelligent asshole. That's the best way I
could put it. And I don't mean it in a
bad way because I'm an asshole at times, you know.
But he's the He's the type of person that you
have to be very strong to deal with him because
(01:16):
mentally he could just run over the average person.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
And Atlanta another pond.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
It was discovered through the twenty third at the police
Time Forts headquarters.
Speaker 6 (01:24):
There are twenty seven faces on the wall twenty sixth
murder one missing.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
We do not know the person or persons that are responsible. Therefore,
we do not have the money.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
From Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
In House too works in Atlanta.
Speaker 7 (01:36):
Like eleven other recent victims in Atlanta, Rogers apparently wasn't sexy.
Speaker 8 (01:39):
Exert Atlanta is unlikely to catch the killer unless he
keeps on killing.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
This is Atlanta monster.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
The average person doesn't have the mental acumen to be
able to hold conversations with this guy. I'll tell you
about the asshole part. There have been multiple conversations that
me and him have had that end up in me,
you know, basically having to curse him out and tell him, Look, dude,
you gotta shut the fuck up and let me do
(02:18):
what I know how to do. You've been in prison
for over thirty years and you don't understand how the
world is operating. Right now, you understand and you can't
go under the premise and guys of how things were operating.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Before you left the real world.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So shut the fuck up and let me do what
I do. And absolutely absolutely if you're not strong, he
will have you doing some shit that maybe you don't
want to do. It's been a roller coaster ride. It's
been a roller coaster ride for the simple fact that
you're dealing with a microcosm of so many different emotions
(03:02):
and you're dealing with such a extreme personality. You're dealing
with the guy who was supposed to be la Red.
You understand, Wayne Williams started a radio station when he
was fifteen years old and it was successful. His family
was educators and his dad was a college professor. He
(03:26):
knew the people in the affluent circles of the city
of Atlanta. You imagine somebody like myself who has a
very strong personality. Now I meet this guy thirty five
years removed from everything that is transpired and all of
the psychological damage and everything else that he's had to
(03:49):
and do it. So we bump hes a lot, you know,
but you have to think it's a guy who had
all his promise in was the only child, and it's
been in prison and has had to watch his mom
with away and die, watch his dad with away and die.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
When you first talked to Wayne, what did he tell
you in your first conversation?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
What was he saying to you?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
He started doing the background on me. He found out
what I had already been doing as far as community
activism and you know, educating people in the black community.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
So when we first.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Talked, he wanted me to know that he was impressed
with what he had already.
Speaker 9 (04:37):
Learned about me.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So, because he learned all of these things about me,
he said he thought I was the perfect person to
put together a documentary piece.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Because I was aware of.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Things that publicly most Americans just don't think it's possible
or would never believe to cover up by both the
GBI and FBI, and how they played such a hand
in this. Because of course, whenever you get involved with
something like this, it's always going to be a certain
(05:12):
level of fear that will always be looming.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
What do you think Wayne cares about most as a person?
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I think from what I know about him now, and
this is this is a fault of his very selfless
human being, selfless so much so that he hurts himself.
He's more concerned with helping this guy who's a good
(05:44):
This is a good kid.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
He's not supposed to be here, right, Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And the thing of it is is that, dude, if
you get out of prison and we prove what we
can potentially prove, you're gonna be able to help a
lot a lot of people that are in this kid's situation.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
You see, Wayne cares more about other people than he
does themselves.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Absolutely, I'm the same way. So I understand it.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
When you live in this.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
World and you meet Morpheus, so to speak, and you
make a decision to take the red pill, and you
see the injustices, and you see the things that we
see in this world that we just.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Know are not right.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
But then you have an understanding of it from my perspective.
A Wayne's perspective always has to be a patsy, And
usually the person who's the patsy, they have some kind
of connection, just as Lee Harvey Oswald did to the
CIA or to some sort of governmental agency.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Right where do you draw the line between conspiracy theories?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
In fact, I don't even consider the concept of what
people say conspiracy theory is a real thing, because is
it a conspiracy theory or were the facts or what
was presented to the public alter to make it seem
a certain way. I know the truth, You know, Wayne
(07:16):
knows the truth. The problem is we live in a
world in which people have been programmed not to ask questions.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
Dwayne maybe right about this.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
There seems to be a lot of lingering doubt when
it comes to Wayne William's guilt, but it's not exactly
widely discussed. For example, I'd heard varying opinions of Wayne's
physical capacity to kill and disposed of Nathaniel Cater, the
twenty seven year old, was one of the few adult
victims of the Atlanta child murders.
Speaker 5 (07:44):
I asked Dwayne what he thought about that.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
The murder of Nathaniel Cater and it being blamed on
Wayne Williams. It's no way it could have happened at all.
In the court case, Wayne's car never stop on the bridge.
So a six one, one hundred and eighty pound man
(08:07):
was thrown from a moving car over a barrier that's
about five feet high. How he man can't do that?
This guy six y' one, How is he gonna fit
out of a window of a car. Nathaniel Cater was
a badass. Nathaniel Cater was known in the streets of
(08:32):
Atlanta to be able to beat up two guys at
one time, three guys at one time. So little five
to seven Wayne Williams, little fat five to seven Wayne
Williams killed this guy. No, there's no way. So how
now does Wayne take a six to one, one hundred
and eighty pound man with one arm.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
That's the most disgusting lie ever.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
Dwayne says.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Cater was six to one, one hundred and eighty pounds,
but according to court documents, he was actually five to eleven,
one hundred and forty six pounds. Nathaniel Cater was one
of the two adult victims that Wayne was actually convicted
of murdering. The other was twenty one year old Jimmy
Ray Payne. Payne lived on Magnolia Street, about a block
from the home of Patrick Boltazar.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Jimmy Ray Payne was a guy who was in the
streets who supposedly Wayne killed. On the autopsy report on
Calls of death, initially it said that it was undetermined.
Then it was changed to say asphyxiation, which basically means
(09:42):
he was strangled.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
I have the actual picture.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
I checked this out. Dwayne was right.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Records show that Jimmy Ray Pain's cause of death was
originally marked as undetermined rather than homicide on the medical
report on June sixteenth, nineteen eighty one. However, on August sixth,
nineteen eighty one, through a short was redone and Pain's
cause of death was changed to homicide. News covers of
Wayne Williams's trial shows that the medical examiner could only
say with certainty that Paine's death was a result of
(10:10):
undetermined asphyxia.
Speaker 10 (10:12):
Officials from the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office spent more
than six hours last night and today examining Jimmy Paine's body.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
There are multiple means of asphyxiation, and the medical examiner
couldn't be sure of the exact mechanism.
Speaker 11 (10:23):
Any external marks at all around the neck, no extended
locks out on the neck.
Speaker 10 (10:27):
There is there any evidence of sexual molestation.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
No evidence of sexual molistation.
Speaker 10 (10:32):
Doctor Zaki says there is still a slight chance Pain drowned.
He estimates the twenty one year old died very soon
after he disappeared last Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
When the medical examiner was questioned by Wayne's attorney, he
admitted changing the cause of death to homicide. He also
went on to say that he couldn't totally exclude drowning,
but there should have been clearer evidence than Pain's lungs.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
So is there any doubt in your mind that Wayne
Williams did these murders?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Is no doubt in my mind, unequivocally, he didn't murder anyone, unequivally,
without a doubt. He didn't murder anymore, absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Where does that firm belief come from?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Well, for one, for me examining you know, the cases
and learning what I've learned, you know, researching what I
was going to need to research just to do the documentary.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
And along the way it went from hey man, nobody
is going to be able to speak up for me
like you.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
So does Wayne want to get out of jail.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
He wants to get out of prison, but he also
wants justice for the families more than anything else. We
consider him the thirtieth victim.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Does Wayne consider himself a victim?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
He doesn't, but I do.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Do you think there is a killer or killers out
there responsible for some of these murders that have never
been apprehended.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yes, I know that there is. That's a fact, Jack,
That is an absolute fact.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Dwayne told me he wasn't the only one who believed
in Wayne's innocence. In fact, there were two reputable sources
public figures. One was named Sidney Dorsey and the other
was Lewis Graham, who worked as detectives on Wayne's case
back in the early eighties. Graham even tried to reopen
the case into cab County back in two thousand and five.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So one of the things we hope to be able
to do is to get the actual notes from Lewis
Graham and Lewis Graham and Sidney Dorsey were pretty close.
Both of these guys were detectives for Atlanta Police Department.
Sidney ended up being the sheriff for the Cab County.
I think what he was really trying to do is
(12:43):
he was trying to solve the murders. Initially, he found out,
for one, that there were multiple people that were doing
the murders. They were prepared to make arrests.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Did he find any evidence that would Oh?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Absolutely, absolutely absolutely. I mean Sidney Dorsey is.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
The key to all of this.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
If you get a interview with Sidney Dorsey, he has
all of the intimate knowledge as far as the police work.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Where is he now.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
He's in Reesville State Prison.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
During a life sentence.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Sidney Dorsey was the first African American sheriff of Dekap
County in Atlanta from nineteen ninety six to two thousand.
When he ran for reelection in two thousand, he was
defeated by Derwin Brown. Sidney Dorsey then arranged for the
assassination of his opponent by a deputy. Derwin Brown was
then murdered and Sidney Dorsey was sentenced to life without parole.
(13:50):
Per Dwayne's recommendation, we looked into Sidney Dorsey's involvement in.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
Reopening Wayne's case.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Over the years, he's been quoted by news sources, including
the Atlanta Journal Constitution, advocating for Wayne's innocence.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
So we decided to write Sidney Dorsey a letter in prison.
We haven't heard back yet.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
After meeting Dwayne Hendrix, I started looking for more people
who knew Wayne Williams before he went to prison, before
Dwayne even met him.
Speaker 5 (14:23):
It was hard.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It's been a very long time and Wayne didn't seem
to have tons of close living friends and family. But
after weeks of searching, I eventually found someone. His name
was Tyrone Brooks, a civil rights advocate, a disciple of
doctor Martin Luther King Junior, and Reverend Joseah Williams. Tyrone
agreed to meet with me.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
I know Wayne, I met him when he was in
high school, and he invited me to his home of
on Penelope off Anderson Avenue in northwest Atlanta to do
a live radio show. I get a phone call from
Wayne Williams. He says, my name is Wayne Williams. I'm
a high school student. I have a radio show. I
(15:02):
like for you to pay on my show. Said where's
your show? He said, over here on Penelope Drive off
of Anderson Avenue. I said, I'm familiar with that area,
so I went over and sure enough, he's got a
FCC license and he's broadcasting. He's got a tower down
the street. He got a radio tower up in there
down the street. His daddy had helped him build a
(15:23):
radio station. And how in the world he gets a
license from the Federal Communications Commission to broadcasts. And I
was just amazed that, you know, here's a high school
student with the radio station in the backyard and he's
already got his FCC license.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
To brock Tyrone Pannawayne Williams as a whiz kid, a normal,
likable teenage boy.
Speaker 7 (15:46):
He's very friendly, very affable, humorous, funny, funny, smart, he's
a smart guy's intelligent, very intelligent. But he was kind
of like, yeah, you civil rights guys, you guys are
my heroes. You all really made it possible for me
to be where I am. I got my own radio
(16:08):
station and I'm working here at Channel two or eleven,
one of them. He worked for both of them at
for a period of time.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Wa ain't looked up to Tyrone because at the time,
Tyrone was one of the youngest members of the SCLC,
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded by civil rights leaders,
primarily doctor Martin Luther King.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
From reconstruction up until nineteen forty six, black people could
not vote in the democratic primaries. Nineteen forty six. The
whole goal was cheap black people from voting. We don't
want them in our democratic primary because pretty soon they're
going to start wanting to hold public offices themselves. They're
(16:47):
going to change the whole dynamic of the white segregationist
whole on the South. But on April second, nineteen forty six,
the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously George is all
white Dixiecrat Party primary was illegal and unconstitutional. So on
April second, it was a huge celebration across the South
(17:11):
of African Americans and supporters who said we can find
a vote in the democratic primaries. My parents went to
vote in my hometown of Warranton. Many of them were
met by mobs a kookut klansman, and the klan said,
ain't no niggas coming in here to vote. And my
daddy and some of my relatives got guns and they
went back to the courthouse and they said, we're either
(17:32):
going to vote, we're gonna die. Five people died, two
couples that an unborn infant, George Darcy May, Mary Dorsey,
Roger Malcolm, Darthur Malcolm, and the baby. We named the baby.
In two thousand and eight, we named the baby Justice.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
It captured national attention and President Truman tried to pass
an anti lynching legislation.
Speaker 7 (17:51):
This is a case that remains unsolved. It was doctor
King's project. He had two things on his agenda when
he was assassinated in nineteen sixty eight. The Poor per
Campaign March on Washington, which we did complete, and the
Moors for a bridge lynchings.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Though tons of names and suspects are tied of this event,
cooperation was limited. No one confessed, and to this day
the case remains unsolved.
Speaker 7 (18:14):
So here comes the Missing and Murdered Children crisis in
the late seventies and early eighties. Okay, here it comes,
you know, here it comes, and all of a sudden,
Wayne is back in our lives again.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Tyrone told me he actually went to sea Wayne the
day he became a suspect.
Speaker 7 (18:32):
He calls me up and he says, I need you
and Reverend jose Williams to come up to our home.
My daddy his father's name Homer. Mister Homer was a
photographer for the Atlanta Daily World. We need to go
talk to Wayne. He's called me. I know he's called you.
He told me he called you, Tyroe. We need to go,
seem So jose In I drove up to the home
and so we went up to the house. Now, when
(18:54):
we got there, the whole front yard was covered with
TV cameras. I mean it was like the present in
the United States holding a news conference. I mean the
whole front the whole the driveways, the little streets and
narrow streets were just cluttered with cars. So the authorities
had made a decision that they were going to hone
in on Wayne's and they were going to get him,
(19:15):
and they had notified the media.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
So we go up to the house. So we go in.
Speaker 7 (19:20):
They let us in and Josea said to Wayne in
front of his parents, jose said, Wayne, I'm talking to
you as your second father. Tyrone met you when you
were in high school. We're here, we respect you. We've
been on your radio show You've been following us around
in the movement. You've covered us in the movement, he said,
(19:42):
But if you've been involved in any of this, you
gotta tell us because we want to help you get
the best legal counsel possible. And Wayne looked us in
the eye and he said, Reverend Williams. Tyrone, I have
not been involved in any of these killings. I've only
tried to cover the killings. I've only been following the authorities.
(20:02):
I've been getting leads and tips, and people on the
inside of the police departments have been calling me and
telling me, you know, they found the body here, and
he would go to that spot and he'd be set
up there with his camera. Yeah, people on the inside
of the police department. He had connections, and I think
he stepped on toes and he rubbed people the wrong way.
(20:23):
But he told us that night, and he convinced me
that he was not involved in any killings. He said,
they have to find a scapegoat to close this case out.
I believe he did. I believe he was telling the truth.
I think he told us the truth that night, and
I believe he has maintained all alone. I think Wayne
is prepared to die standing on his conviction of telling
(20:45):
the truth. I think it's a tragedy for Atlanta. I
think it's a tragedy for the American criminal justice system
to have an innocent person incarcerated for something they did
not do. And the sad fact is the real killers
were never captured, the real killers have never been punished.
We believe the Ku Kluk Klan is connected to this,
(21:07):
and we believe that some of these white officers who
are klansmen, closet klansmen, they are out here picking up
these young black kids. I believe that was a similus
of truth to it. I really believe that was a
clan connection. I'm convinced that Wayne Williams is innocent of
any murder. I think Wayne Williams probably just got a
(21:27):
little too close to the investigators. They were frustrated. And
the thing that really really is important to me is
the fact that the two lead detectives who worked the case,
Lewis Graham, who was chief of homicide for the City
of Atlanta for many years, any went over to Fulton
County became chief, then he went to the Cab County
became chief. Before Lewis and Graham died Lewis would always
(21:50):
see me in passing and he would say, man, you
are someone that we'll always respect. You had the courage
to speak the truth to power. We were convinced that
Wayne Williams did not commit those crimes. And his partner
was Sidney Dorsey. Detective Sydney Dorsy who later became chef
of the cab count Who's you know, famous for another reason.
But they both said to me, there should have been
(22:13):
more people in Atlanta standing up and speaking out and
telling the truth about Wayne Williams.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I asked Mike McCombs about his thoughts on the racial
tensions around the Atlanta child murders.
Speaker 12 (22:25):
It always comes back to racial tensions. Of course, there
was a lot of racial tensions. You know, people were
afraid of each other. I mean, I don't think it's
any worse than it is now, but when you have
a pacific crime, that adds fuel to the fire. And
like I said, the blacks wanted to be white and
the whites wanted it to be a black And I
didn't care who it was as long as we caught them.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
I could have cared less.
Speaker 12 (22:46):
But I don't think the racial tensions then were any
worse than they are now. I mean, people treated me
with respect and I treated them with respect, and so
I don't think it's any different than what it is now.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
It was just a high.
Speaker 12 (22:57):
It was a very tense time.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
It was very tense.
Speaker 12 (23:00):
There's always been, you know, discrimination, always has been. I'm
fearful to say that there always will be. There's just
always going to be somebody that's going to discriminate, and
there's blacks that discriminate against whites and whites that discriminate
against blacks. It doesn't mean that either one of them's right.
As a matter of fact, it means both of them
are really really wrong. You know, I didn't know whether
(23:21):
you were black or white when you called me, and
didn't care, could care less. I mean, you know, it's
not the way I was raised. You know, you're going
to have agitators to this day. You always have agitators
that get involved, that take things to the extreme, and
that's that hurts.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
I mean, it hurts a lot, worse hurts the situation.
So we had them then.
Speaker 12 (23:41):
You know, we had agitators that said that you know,
it was we were that someone was trying to you know,
commit genocide of the Blacks and this.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
That and the other.
Speaker 12 (23:50):
I mean, you have to keep in mind, And I
used to tell people this all the time, The FBI
wanted to know what the truth is. We didn't want
to convict Wayne Williams. We wanted to know what the
truth was. So when you're doing this and you're poking holes,
try to see what the individual's motives are. But yeah,
there's going to be those folks out there that doesn't
(24:11):
think that, for whatever their motives are, that he didn't
do it. But you know, people, that's the reason now
that I'm not in the FBI, I'm not real quick
to render an assessment on things because I know that
I don't have all the facts. I'm not in that
circle anymore, and I know that what goes on in
the middle of that circle, there's a lot of things
that John Doe public they just don't know, and they're
(24:32):
not going to know, and so they don't have enough
information to make a good intelligent assessment. That's my thoughts
on it.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
So, yeah, he did it.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Why do you think Wayne liam still says he didn't
do it?
Speaker 12 (24:46):
Well, I'm not really sure that there would be any
advantage to him admitting it. For the first thing. But
I think Wayne has some mental issues, some disorders that
would cause someone to be a compulsive liar. I don't
think he'll ever admit it. I don't think he has
the ability to admit it. Shoot, he's been in there now.
We convicted him in eighty two, so I mean he's
(25:09):
he's got thirty five years in prison now.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Just like mccombis, Popcorn also thinks Wayne Williams is guilty
and that Wayne is the Atlanta child murderer. But he
acknowledges people's disbelief. He didn't necessarily look like a cold
blooded murderer.
Speaker 13 (25:23):
He was not a threatening character. The first time I
looked one him, I almost laughed. I said, this guy,
but he was not threatening. And that's why he got
away with it, because people said, no, this guy murdered
that many kids.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
They refuse to believe it.
Speaker 13 (25:36):
You know, if somebody has a better suspect out there,
please let us know. But there's no one has ever
come forward with anyone else.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
But after Wayne Williams was apprehended, did the murders actually stop?
Speaker 13 (25:47):
The best evidence of will was last body that fell
off the bridge. We arrested Willie Williams, They ain't been
a murder since what do you mean, no murder since
after we arrested him, they were no more victims.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So since eighty one, there's been no murdered African American.
Speaker 13 (26:02):
First has been don't you read the papers, but none
with a similar, dissimilar mo There have been no similar
murders since that last body fell off the bridge, strangling, strangling,
taking off the street, young black male taken off the street,
strangled and dumped. Now the people who don't believe, would
have you believe that the murders still continue. The newspapers
(26:23):
are just covering up with the police. I mean I've
heard that that said, the murders have continued all this time,
just the police and the media not reporting them. Do
you think I'm an idiot? You work for the media,
do you do you think it's true? No, but this
is the stupid shit they come up with. But Wayne,
that was the best evidence, the every ten day pattern
of a kid stripped, dumping or stopped, and we didn't
(26:46):
have any more.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Why do you think Wayne Williams still claims he's innocent.
Speaker 13 (26:49):
Because that's Wayne Williams. One of the things Wayne Williams
thought he was smarter than us, And I said, his
biggest mistake was overestimating his intelligence and underestimating oz and
he thought he can commit for a crime. He wanted
to show the world that he was smarter than everyone else.
So this was this was an ego.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Trip for him.
Speaker 13 (27:06):
I tell people in my bureau career, I put five
men in prison who murdered a total of thirty five people,
and twenty five of them were done by one man.
How many people can say that good old fashioned police work,
you know, nothing fancy just sitting under a bridge waiting
for something to happen. If you come up with a
(27:27):
better suspect, please let us know. But right now, this
is the best thing, the best suspect we got going.
Speaker 14 (27:34):
Like now, when you look back on it, I felt
like they just they need to put it on somebody,
and he kind of like fell into place, and then
it hadn't helped it. After they got him, it stopped.
So you know that just say, oh, we got the
right man. That doesn't necessarily me he's the right man,
but you know, it stopped. I mean, I think he
could have did some stuff, but I definitely don't think
(27:56):
he did all of it, even if he did any
of them, you know, but the only thing hearing him
is they stopped once they got him, they stopped.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
So it was like, well, even if we ain't got
the man, they stopped. The problems are with.
Speaker 15 (28:10):
Wayne Williams under arrest. Everyone thinks they can relax and
the string of murders has stopped. But it just may
be that whoever's really doing it, if it's not Wayne Williams,
they decide, well, now it's a good time to stop
because this other guy's in jail for it.
Speaker 16 (28:24):
Many people think, well, maybe these murders didn't stalk. With
Wayne Williams arrest, there's a lot of contention around the
distinction between the murder of children and the murders of
these adults who Wayne Williams was directly convicted of killing,
and whether those are necessarily a part of the same
(28:46):
pattern crimes. They see my valid questions to ask. In
my opinion, every single child that was identified as part
of the pattern cases of the Atlanta child murders wasn't strangled,
and they all were in the same place or found
in the same place or from the same place. More
or less generally, when you have that volume, but not
(29:07):
all of them. There's always this sense that what evidence
was collected, what evidence was lost?
Speaker 17 (29:13):
How many children black males from poverty areas disappeared after
Wayne Williams went to jail, the list existed. After he
was convicted, the list disappeared. But I've always wanted to
know how many black boys in that same age group
(29:34):
from those neighborhoods disappeared after that.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Looking at the numbers, fewer kids died from asphyxiation in
nineteen eighty two versus nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
But to say that all the murder stopped just isn't true.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Dozens of young black kids were abducted and murdered in
the nineteen eighties after Wayne williams imprisonment. However, maybe a
more accurate statement is that the volume of pattern crimes decreased,
in particular young black males who died from asphyxiation rather
than stab wounds or gun violence, and whose bodies were
later found seemingly scattered throughout metro Atlanta. So do serial
(30:10):
killers just stop killing? Well, sometimes they do. For example,
the infamous BTK killer stopped killing after seventeen years, and
he wasn't apprehended until nearly fourteen years after the last
murder he committed. I sat down with Meredith, one of
our producers, and a man named Kerrie Middlebrooks, the brother
of victim Eric Middlebrooks. He wanted to hear his perspective
(30:32):
as a family member. Who was his brother Eric, and
what to Kerry think of Wayne Williams.
Speaker 8 (30:37):
My foster dad called me and he woke me up.
He said, we'll come over here. I want to talk
to you about something. He said, well, I don't know
how to tell you this, but Eric was killed last night.
I guess I just didn't know what to say at
that point, so finally I said, well what happened? And
(30:58):
he said, well, they found him behind the with Johnson
Hotel buying some dumpsters. So what happened? Did somebody shoot
him or what? And they said, well, no, he was
seriously injured. He had been hitting the head with something
(31:21):
and on his bicycle. They cut his tires and stabbed
them in their arm.
Speaker 11 (31:29):
The body of fourteen year old Eric middlebrook was found
about seven this morning behind a bar and the two
hundred block of Flat Shoals Road near Memorial. He was
hit on the back of the head with some kind
of blood instrument his pockets had been gone through. The
bike he was riding was next to his body.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
I mean, it was an earth shattering I guess you know.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
I still have not gotten over that because he was fourteen.
Body can do something like that to a kid. This
was just straight up violence, you know, holding his head
stabbed in an arm. I mean, I try and sit
up and imagine what was going on in his mind
(32:16):
at the time. All of this stuff was going on,
and it's rough, But I actually became an Atlanta police
officer because my brother had been killed.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
I had just got out a Marine Corps.
Speaker 8 (32:32):
I was working as a security officer at the P
Street Plaza Hotel. One of my supervisors said, you know,
the city of Atlanta is hiring, why don't you become.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
A police officer. There was no way, in.
Speaker 8 (32:48):
My opinion, my brother died by mechanisms of Wayne Williams.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Carrie Middlebrooks then told me his own theory about Eric's murder.
He saw some thing the day his brother was found
dead and it stuck with him to this day. He
mentioned a woman named Lisa, one of Eric's neighbors.
Speaker 8 (33:10):
Apparently, Lisa called my foster dad's house to ask if
Eric could go to the store to get some cigarettes
around nine o'clock ish that night. All I know is
he said they got a phone call at nine o'clock
the night before about the store trip.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
He didn't come back home.
Speaker 8 (33:32):
Where my foster dad lived and where Lisa lived was
approximately one hundred feet They all lived in the same
apartment complex. I guess i'd been there a couple hours
and Lisa said, why don't you come down to my
house and we'll talk. When I went to her house,
I can just say I didn't see it happened, but
(33:53):
I just have to say something brought me to that
apartment for me to observe that something that takes place.
Whether it was God or you know, fake O don't,
I don't know, but based on what I saw, something
related to my brother had to have happened there.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
When I got down to her apartment, I noticed.
Speaker 8 (34:16):
There was a lot of blood on the floor, table,
various places, you know. I started having all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Running through my head.
Speaker 8 (34:27):
She explained to me that her finger had been cut,
and I don't know how all of that blood could
have come through that basically or scratch. It wasn't just
in one spot.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
It was in.
Speaker 8 (34:40):
Several spots about a pint of blood. My thing is,
I don't think Wayne Williams killed my brother. I think
it occurred about a hundred feet from where my brother
actually lived.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I did tell the policeys, I did tell the FBI this. Now.
Speaker 8 (34:58):
What I should have done, which is what I was
thinking about doing, was scoop up some of the blood
and put it on something.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Didn't do that.
Speaker 8 (35:07):
I guess I was sort of gullible, but I'm saying
that he died in that apartment. I clearly told the
FBI what I thought about what took place with my brother.
Apparently they didn't do anything because Wayne Williams seemed to
remain the primary subject they were focusing on. And so
(35:31):
I just don't feel that man could have killed my brother,
you know. I mean, like I said, Eric was fourteen,
so he was really kind of like a young lion,
you know. I mean, Wayne Williams was not much bigger
than my brother, not that my brother was a big guy.
To me, Eric would have had to have been killed
sort of like in an enclosed area or confined area.
(35:54):
I don't feel that they have the right person for
my brother's murder. I think they were kind of reaching
for Straws. I mean at one point they called them
a psychic. We're talking professional police investigators. You call it
a psychic to help you do what?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Kerry brought with him a framed document titled a resolution.
It was sent to his family in twenty thirteen by
the Georgia House of Representatives.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
It said, honoring the victims and the Atlanta Missing a
Murdered Children.
Speaker 18 (36:25):
Case, It's a resolution to commit to continuing work until
adequate laws or passed to protect our children in Atlanta
by the House of Representatives. Here is this consolation. Do
you feel Did you feel good about receiving this?
Speaker 8 (36:45):
I mean, it's just the plaque or some acknowledgement that
something occurred with a bunch of names on it.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
But it doesn't resolve anything.
Speaker 8 (36:56):
But yeah, hopefully y'all can do something with this man.
I mean, Wayne Williams has been saying that he's innocent.
How innocent I don't know, but I don't think he
killed my brother.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Carrie Middlebrooks was now the second relative of a victim
to tell me he did not believe Wayne Williams was guilty,
at least for any crime against his family. Back in
my very first meeting with Dwayne Hendrix, he mentioned a
man that knew Wayne Williams very well back in the day.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
His name was Jimmy Howard.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Jimmy would be what you would say is was Wayne's protege.
He was the lead singer for the group that Wayne
was managing at the time, and he was the guy
who was with Wayne every day, and he.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Was part of the band that Wayne was putting together
right before he was arrested. The same one Wayne mentioned
in his press conference. Jimmy knew Wayne back at the
very beginning, when Wayne was in his early twenties trying
to start the next Jackson five.
Speaker 19 (37:56):
Tell me mentioning in murder kids kids, think y'all Wayne
Trevor killing them kid? They got the Wayne Trither two grown,
the ducks man. Put all the all the kids that
are done, look at them. See the number one thing
here to me. Number one. You got the parents out
here who kids has been murdered. They number one that
(38:19):
never been closed, that wounds still open. But the place
keep moving on. Wayne will Number two a man that
y'all use for an escapegoat. Lock this man up, forget
about it. Then y'all think y'all on the side of
the case.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
Ask Jimmy how he met Wayne in the first place.
Speaker 19 (38:37):
Man, I met Wayne in a talent show. Who's doing
the talent show? I was in a band. We was performing.
You know, after all the accident did their thing, they'll
come out and said who won is who placed this
and that? But when at the time was when we
hit the stage. The crowd, you know, they had a
(38:58):
big spotlights now shout. I was playing drums and they
shine that light back there on me. In the crowd
just went crazy cause I was singing and playing the
drums at the same time. So when it was over with,
as soon as we got ready to exit the stage
to go out to the back and was greeting people
and talking to people, that's when I met Wayne and
he came in and duced. He said, Man, that was great, man.
(39:21):
What's your name?
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Man?
Speaker 9 (39:22):
That was hot. Man.
Speaker 19 (39:23):
Listen, man, you you don't need to be on the drums,
you need to be out here in the front. So
I'm looking at him like, yeah, he said, what's your name?
I told him he said, Man, hey, take my car,
get in touch with me.
Speaker 13 (39:33):
Man.
Speaker 9 (39:33):
You gotta know I can call it man. I got
some things I'm putting together.
Speaker 19 (39:36):
That's exactly how how it went, so I didn't never
call him. I ended up seeing Wayne again at about
two other shows and then my brother said said, what
do you see? What are you talking about when? And
that's that's why I went. And he told me what
he was doing.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
How old were you?
Speaker 9 (39:52):
Fifteen? Sixteen? And he said, I'm putting the group together.
Speaker 19 (39:58):
So one one weekend and he asked me to come
to the studio recording section, rang my mom and everybody.
He said, I want to build this group around you.
I met the guys, we talked. We all locked in
pretty good.
Speaker 9 (40:10):
At the time.
Speaker 19 (40:11):
It was just them two guys I met, and then
three of y'all yeah, and then the other two came,
so it was five at that point. We went on
and started doing songs man, and just doing things, meeting
every other weekend, mean through the weekdays on rehearsing on
these songs that he had picked that Wayne had chous,
(40:34):
some songs and remixes that each old for us to
do well. The plans were to be the next, the
next famous group behind the Jackson.
Speaker 9 (40:45):
It was just crazy the time. But I can say
this though I know we ain't even do no killing?
Speaker 3 (40:52):
What is The group called.
Speaker 20 (40:53):
Gemini guards at the Fulton County Jail were authorized to
allow Williams three calls per week. The guards were to
dial the numbers from outside Williams's maximum security selle and
had him the receiver.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
But that is not what happened.
Speaker 20 (41:07):
The calls made by Williams include calls to members of
this group of singers who Williams claims to manage. In fact,
Wayne Williams from his sale set up this rehearsal and
invited the Action News team into videotape it.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Then Jimmy told me an incredible story. He was actually
with Wayne the night he was picked up by the
FBI and taking in for questioning. That night, Wayne had
taken Jimmy and his fellow bandmates to Wendy's after practice.
Speaker 5 (41:32):
That's when it happened.
Speaker 19 (41:38):
We went to Wendy's on food in the dust. I
was sitting in the wonder Man. You can see the cops.
You can see the cars. They were just sitting there,
the ones that we would recognize. Okay, we're sitting there.
When I said, man, thin' gonna lot me? If I
will say, just gonnun lock me up and stop harassing me.
Speaker 9 (41:58):
You know everybody at home.
Speaker 19 (41:59):
We got on bank aage they Brian home and as
we was going down that street over our bank head,
we went past bread house and turned around. Two mark
cars was following up behind cars that I never seen
that was at the windows day was behind us. We
turned around, came back, dropped them off some once. I'm
tired of this s As we was getting to the
edge of the street, stopped trying on bank here Wain
(42:20):
so I'm been and call him mayor tell him that
they gonna lock me up, Lock me up now. He
pulled a splitt across the street into the JR. It
used to be a jar Creek store. It was a
big star. That was a phone book now and he
got out the car. Man toyot was sitting in the car. Man,
I think he got on that phone book. No more
than about two minutes. Cars just come from everywhere swarmed
(42:41):
the car.
Speaker 9 (42:42):
Helicopters. Man, it was crazy. Me and two was looking
at each other.
Speaker 19 (42:47):
Man We was like, what that, what's going on here?
And we looking cop opened up the door and and
put one over to and say hey, come on, come
on over with us. We're gonna take Wing with us.
Tweyn said, why you gonna do that?
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Man?
Speaker 19 (43:00):
It is do y'all think really, way ain't killed them kids?
I said, nah, I ain't did that, man, I don't
believe that. He said, well, he said, come on, we're
gonna we don't want the media you see your guys.
Come on, he covers up. We're gonna carr y'all home.
We're gonna take Wayne with us for some question. At
that point, At that point, right there, that's when I
really started feeling some kind of way.
Speaker 9 (43:20):
Right there. It was a scary moment. I was like, man,
what the what is they doing?
Speaker 19 (43:28):
Look at who they convicted Wayne or killing and they
didn't even have the evidence to convict him of that.
Speaker 9 (43:34):
What's evidence?
Speaker 5 (43:35):
This is?
Speaker 19 (43:36):
This is big, man, This is huge. This case is huge.
And I'm gonna say this here. I been knowing Wayne
in a long time, long time, But I know you
got some bitterness in him, because think about it, if
you was, if you was in his situation, in his shoes,
you would want someone to stand for you knowing that
you hadn't done this.
Speaker 9 (43:57):
When you man, this thing.
Speaker 19 (44:00):
It's deep, man, It's deepen than a lot of people,
let me tell you, So, that was the name that
the media giving Wayne Way. They wouldn't use his name.
They gave him this name, Atlanta Monster. We're gonna show
this man and it's a good thing. So you know,
(44:21):
we can put this puzza together and everybody gonna be shocked.
Speaker 5 (44:49):
I currently live in Atlanta now.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
I work downtown off Poncetan Leon Avenue in the Old
Fourth Ward. I wanted to explore the city through the
lens of the Atlanta Child Murders. Living here, I'd heard
of many places in this case, but a lot's changed
in Atlanta since then. Jason from Hellstuff Works went through
the process of mapping out all the major sites in
the Atlanta child murders, including the homes of victims, places
(45:10):
they were last seen, and where each victim was found.
One day, we hopped in the car and drove around
the city to get a feel for where these tragedies
took place thirty five years ago.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
Where'd you get this?
Speaker 21 (45:30):
Well, the only place you can give them at these
days Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
So we are here, Yuseph Bell can.
Speaker 4 (45:40):
Hear the traffics from I twenty right behind us.
Speaker 5 (45:43):
So This definitely used to be a building, and they
found Bell's body when it was abandoned. Yusuf was last
seen three days ago. He was running an errand for
a woman who lived in the apartment complex.
Speaker 8 (45:56):
He came to this little store at the corner of
McDaniel and Georgia Avenue.
Speaker 17 (45:59):
Ibody out there like that that has and I just
wish they knew that somebody here loves him, that a
whole lot of people love him, that this whole community
loves him, and they want him back too.
Speaker 22 (46:09):
Yusuf's body was found Thursday in an abandoned schoolhouse at
Fulton and Martin Streets, near the Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.
Police believe the boy, who had been missing for eighteen days,
was strangled.
Speaker 5 (46:25):
We're probably five minutes from the office right now.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
If you were just dropped me here and blindfolded, I'd
have no idea where I was.
Speaker 8 (46:36):
There's like a new kid I disappearing every three or
four weeks.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
The last place we went that day in your neighbor
was Wayne William's old home off Penelope Road in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
Left here, go.
Speaker 5 (46:48):
Straight then should be next.
Speaker 17 (46:56):
Just cross this bridge, then your destination will be on
the right.
Speaker 23 (47:08):
Your destination is on the right.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
We turned down the street and I went by myself
to the door. There was no one there, so I
(47:31):
walked down to one of the neighbor's houses. Someone came
to the door. He didn't live here in the eighties,
but he had an interesting take.
Speaker 21 (47:36):
Nonetheless, it's so funny though, because like every time I
take the left, and every time a left driver.
Speaker 9 (47:41):
Come over, they say, that's the way william house.
Speaker 21 (47:43):
And then like then we heard of it, and then
we googled in and everything.
Speaker 24 (47:47):
It was somebody at the gas station told me because
he needed a ride home or whatever, and they told him, oh,
you live over there by where and he said it
and he didn't think really anything about it. And then
a second person told him in the same.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
Weeks, different mix.
Speaker 5 (48:00):
You know, what's the general consensus you're getting from people.
Speaker 21 (48:04):
That he has something to do in it or whatever.
But it was like, it's probably because clann alre they
bringing kids for them or whatever. I don't know, Yeah,
what did you hear about whatway Williams? I google No,
But I believe that it's a lot of people in
pressing for stuff that they didn't do. Trust me, you know,
and they get scared and taking deals, you know, and
(48:26):
especially in place like Georgia, like where it's not even
safe to go outside of Fourteenth County. Like you know,
if you're African American, you know, the South is still
the South is all black on the outside and white
in the middle. That's not a racist statement, it's it's
a true statement. Because you have black people out here
still that fear of white people. They don't want to,
(48:47):
you know, they don't want to cross that line. A
lot of people are still stuck in the past out here.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
I'd seen Wayne's house in his old neighborhood. But what
about his car, the car that he was driving on
the bridge that night, the same one Jimmy Howard was
writing in.
Speaker 5 (49:05):
When the FBI picked him up.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
The car that would have been a key piece of
evidence in this case, if Wayne was in fact the
Atlanta schold murderer.
Speaker 5 (49:12):
I searched the internet, but I wasn't hopeful.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
But believe it or not, I found a two thousand
and nine article suggesting that I was completely intact. The
car was in possession of a man named doctor Blackwelder
in northeastern Alabama, or at.
Speaker 5 (49:25):
Least that's where it was eight years ago. I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Who this man was, and I couldn't find a single
phone number for him, but I drove down there anyways.
Speaker 5 (49:33):
And gave it a shot. Maybe the car was still
around and it was.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Doctor Blackwelder was willing to give me his perspective. He
was actually a good family friend of Wayne Williams and
had been there through the whole thing, including the trial.
Speaker 6 (49:51):
Trot was in eighty two, and as the hand of
the law enforcement and criminalistic program in a community college,
he would want to know if I'd come up some evidence.
She just give him an opinion about what I thought
about the evidence, if it was any good or not.
And as it ended up, I staved through the whole
trial and got to know Wayne's mom and dad real well,
(50:13):
and then after it was over, I just stayed with
him and I kept going to see Wayne's mother had
catch her and she sometime during our conversation she made
me promise that I'd never turned my back on her baby,
and I told her, I said, well, I'll promise you
that I'll ever turn my back holding But I said
I might go promise him.
Speaker 4 (50:33):
Well, all I should.
Speaker 6 (50:34):
Agree with him, because he was hard to you know,
sometimes she'd I did exactly agree on things.
Speaker 5 (50:39):
I asked Blackwold, why you even had the car.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
He explained that the car being part of the house
of Wayne's father, Homer Williams, for years just sitting there and.
Speaker 6 (50:47):
He just pretty much parked in the backyard and just
left it. So and I went to the prison several
times to see Wayne until I got to where I
just had a heart attack and cancer and all that.
And then Homer died and Wayne called and he said,
you can have that scean wagon if you want it.
Speaker 4 (51:02):
So my wife and I went over.
Speaker 6 (51:04):
There with a roll bag and got the car and
brought it back over here.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
That's pretty much is.
Speaker 6 (51:10):
Most people just want to look at it and take pictures,
but we have people about two or three times and
boks that want to buy it.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Yeah, do you carefully look at it? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (51:28):
Wow, everything is it?
Speaker 6 (51:33):
It was in there when when I got it. Nobody's
earing thing.
Speaker 4 (51:37):
So we don't want to worry.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
Abrom all the stories i'd heard the station wagon was white,
but it wasn't white anymore.
Speaker 6 (51:44):
The car there's been white in the plays. When when
Wayne headed it was this color, and Homer painted the
blue collar after he got after Wayne was in prison.
Speaker 5 (51:55):
It's now a light blue color and covered with brown rust.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Also full of dirt and junk fishing that papers men's
athletic shoes. Blackwater said he believes that most of this
stuff belonged to Wayne's father, Homer. Blackwaters seemed pretty close
(52:21):
to Wayne Liams and his family, so I asked him
what was Wayne like.
Speaker 6 (52:26):
He had an old police car that had he had
a scanner in it, and he would go out and
take pictures of fires and crime sines and things like
that and sell the pictures sing and bodies that warned you.
And he had a job of some type with WSB Television.
(52:47):
He would make you think that he was the star
of the show, but I think really he was just
a runner or so it was really when it came
out down to it, you know, he had a pretty
normal life. He was he was an only child, only
was spoiled, and I think his mom and dad he
had a need to be in the limelight. Have you
ever been in that house up there?
Speaker 3 (53:09):
Not inside of it.
Speaker 6 (53:09):
We walked outside, okay, and on very back was where
his radio station was, and he had some kind of
small transmitter that would cover the neighborhood.
Speaker 12 (53:19):
You know.
Speaker 6 (53:20):
Yeah, he was the DJ and the news director, but
he wanted to open his radio station up and then
he wanted to be a promoter or something. That's what
he was doing out when they caught him on the bridge.
He was trying to find the address of a girl
that he had an interview with the next day to
do singing or whatever.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
Blackwater had sat through the entire trial, so he actually
owned all the defense documents. He even played a role
in the trial actively working with wings attorneys.
Speaker 6 (53:46):
My agreement was with him that I would get a
copy of all of the documents that they used, and
I got copies of all. I've got a basement with
eight or ten bucars full of documents, all the reports
and all the documentaries that the defense got under discovery,
the federal documents, FBI documents, and practically all of the
state documents, FBI reports, all the autopsy reports had scribble
(54:10):
notes that the attorneys took dinner, a meeting at night.
His mother gave me several photographs that of their family
album of Wayne. It was just a little bit fellow
growing up. You see how my filing system.
Speaker 4 (54:22):
Is right here.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
So yeah, it seems like it's kind of my folly system.
Speaker 6 (54:25):
Yeah, after I retired, I brought everything into the house.
It's all just so I'll have to get somebody to
get somebody to go through and dig it out.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
But I've got it. It's all. It's sealed up.
Speaker 6 (54:36):
I don't think he got a fair trial because I
know that Maynard Jackson and all of them needed somebody
to call it because it was affecting convention in trade
and so forth. And when I would go up there
on the weekends and go out and eat, a lot
of the resturants will be just about empty. And the
people said the business had really fallen off since that happened,
(54:59):
and it it hadn't picked up, you know. But once
they called him, then everybody took a shower or leave
and thought, well, you know, we can go back to
live in our normal lives. And of course they called him,
which means people will assume that if they catch somebody,
he's guilty, and then during the trial it would have
been hard, I think for Jerry to find him not
(55:19):
guilty and then go back into their neighborhoods and live.
Speaker 4 (55:23):
And I don't know how much to a what degree.
Speaker 6 (55:26):
They just didn't want to have to put up with
what they would catch from the people of school, to
work at church or whatever if they had found him
not guilty. So I think that plays a part in it,
but I don't know how much.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
After several months of researching the Atlanta child murders and
Wayne Williams himself, I found the case perplexing and nobody
seemed to agree on anything. After meeting in person with
Tween Hendricks in Texas, he called me out of the
blue one day and was about to send this projects
in a whole new direction.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
It was going all day and I just wanted to
reach out to you.
Speaker 23 (56:12):
I actually spoke.
Speaker 8 (56:13):
With Wayne WI about the podcast.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
He basically gave his blessings, gave me ain't light, and he's.
Speaker 12 (56:22):
Willing to talk.
Speaker 11 (56:26):
Give me a call you get.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
Out the tummy tree.
Speaker 5 (56:45):
Next time on Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
This conference is recorded.
Speaker 6 (57:03):
My bed.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Atlanta Monster is an investigative podcast wholl 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 5 (57:30):
For the latest updates, please visit.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
Atlantamonster dot com or follow us on social media.
Speaker 4 (57:57):
Alexa, watch the temperature.
Speaker 23 (58:01):
Right now in Piedmont. It's forty nine degrees with clear
skies throughout the night. You can expect more of the
same with a low of thirty six degrees.
Speaker 3 (58:10):
Alexa, thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (58:14):
You're welcome, Alexa.
Speaker 24 (58:19):
Will you marry me?
Speaker 23 (58:21):
I don't want to be tied down. In fact, I
can't be. I'm amorphosed by nature.
Speaker 3 (58:28):
Are you drinking her prisoner here?
Speaker 1 (58:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 12 (58:30):
I am really
This episode of Atlanta Monster contains explicit language. Listener discretion
is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm in a recording studio and I'm recording a song
in my phone rings. It's Wayne Williams. Everybody in his
studio is like everyone with step.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
From that point forward? What transpired?
Speaker 4 (00:29):
What did Wayne and say?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
What was developing after that?
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Welcome to the real world, neo.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
So you know Wayne Williams absolutely describe Wayne to me?
Speaker 4 (00:48):
What's he like?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Brilliant asshole, very intelligent asshole. That's the best way I
could put it. And I don't mean it in a
bad way because I'm an asshole at times, you know.
But he's the He's the type of person that you
have to be very strong to deal with him because
(01:16):
mentally he could just run over the average person.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
And Atlanta another pond.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
It was discovered through the twenty third at the police
Time Forts headquarters.
Speaker 6 (01:24):
There are twenty seven faces on the wall twenty sixth
murder one missing.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
We do not know the person or persons that are responsible. Therefore,
we do not have the money.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
From Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
In House too works in Atlanta.
Speaker 7 (01:36):
Like eleven other recent victims in Atlanta, Rogers apparently wasn't sexy.
Speaker 8 (01:39):
Exert Atlanta is unlikely to catch the killer unless he
keeps on killing.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
This is Atlanta monster.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
The average person doesn't have the mental acumen to be
able to hold conversations with this guy. I'll tell you
about the asshole part. There have been multiple conversations that
me and him have had that end up in me,
you know, basically having to curse him out and tell him, Look, dude,
you gotta shut the fuck up and let me do
(02:18):
what I know how to do. You've been in prison
for over thirty years and you don't understand how the
world is operating. Right now, you understand and you can't
go under the premise and guys of how things were operating.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Before you left the real world.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So shut the fuck up and let me do what
I do. And absolutely absolutely if you're not strong, he
will have you doing some shit that maybe you don't
want to do. It's been a roller coaster ride. It's
been a roller coaster ride for the simple fact that
you're dealing with a microcosm of so many different emotions
(03:02):
and you're dealing with such a extreme personality. You're dealing
with the guy who was supposed to be la Red.
You understand, Wayne Williams started a radio station when he
was fifteen years old and it was successful. His family
was educators and his dad was a college professor. He
(03:26):
knew the people in the affluent circles of the city
of Atlanta. You imagine somebody like myself who has a
very strong personality. Now I meet this guy thirty five
years removed from everything that is transpired and all of
the psychological damage and everything else that he's had to
(03:49):
and do it. So we bump hes a lot, you know,
but you have to think it's a guy who had
all his promise in was the only child, and it's
been in prison and has had to watch his mom
with away and die, watch his dad with away and die.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
When you first talked to Wayne, what did he tell
you in your first conversation?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
What was he saying to you?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
He started doing the background on me. He found out
what I had already been doing as far as community
activism and you know, educating people in the black community.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
So when we first.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Talked, he wanted me to know that he was impressed
with what he had already.
Speaker 9 (04:37):
Learned about me.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So, because he learned all of these things about me,
he said he thought I was the perfect person to
put together a documentary piece.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Because I was aware of.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Things that publicly most Americans just don't think it's possible
or would never believe to cover up by both the
GBI and FBI, and how they played such a hand
in this. Because of course, whenever you get involved with
something like this, it's always going to be a certain
(05:12):
level of fear that will always be looming.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
What do you think Wayne cares about most as a person?
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I think from what I know about him now, and
this is this is a fault of his very selfless
human being, selfless so much so that he hurts himself.
He's more concerned with helping this guy who's a good
(05:44):
This is a good kid.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
He's not supposed to be here, right, Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And the thing of it is is that, dude, if
you get out of prison and we prove what we
can potentially prove, you're gonna be able to help a
lot a lot of people that are in this kid's situation.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
You see, Wayne cares more about other people than he
does themselves.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Absolutely, I'm the same way. So I understand it.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
When you live in this.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
World and you meet Morpheus, so to speak, and you
make a decision to take the red pill, and you
see the injustices, and you see the things that we
see in this world that we just.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Know are not right.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
But then you have an understanding of it from my perspective.
A Wayne's perspective always has to be a patsy, And
usually the person who's the patsy, they have some kind
of connection, just as Lee Harvey Oswald did to the
CIA or to some sort of governmental agency.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Right where do you draw the line between conspiracy theories?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
In fact, I don't even consider the concept of what
people say conspiracy theory is a real thing, because is
it a conspiracy theory or were the facts or what
was presented to the public alter to make it seem
a certain way. I know the truth, You know, Wayne
(07:16):
knows the truth. The problem is we live in a
world in which people have been programmed not to ask questions.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
Dwayne maybe right about this.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
There seems to be a lot of lingering doubt when
it comes to Wayne William's guilt, but it's not exactly
widely discussed. For example, I'd heard varying opinions of Wayne's
physical capacity to kill and disposed of Nathaniel Cater, the
twenty seven year old, was one of the few adult
victims of the Atlanta child murders.
Speaker 5 (07:44):
I asked Dwayne what he thought about that.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
The murder of Nathaniel Cater and it being blamed on
Wayne Williams. It's no way it could have happened at all.
In the court case, Wayne's car never stop on the bridge.
So a six one, one hundred and eighty pound man
(08:07):
was thrown from a moving car over a barrier that's
about five feet high. How he man can't do that?
This guy six y' one, How is he gonna fit
out of a window of a car. Nathaniel Cater was
a badass. Nathaniel Cater was known in the streets of
(08:32):
Atlanta to be able to beat up two guys at
one time, three guys at one time. So little five
to seven Wayne Williams, little fat five to seven Wayne
Williams killed this guy. No, there's no way. So how
now does Wayne take a six to one, one hundred
and eighty pound man with one arm.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
That's the most disgusting lie ever.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
Dwayne says.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Cater was six to one, one hundred and eighty pounds,
but according to court documents, he was actually five to eleven,
one hundred and forty six pounds. Nathaniel Cater was one
of the two adult victims that Wayne was actually convicted
of murdering. The other was twenty one year old Jimmy
Ray Payne. Payne lived on Magnolia Street, about a block
from the home of Patrick Boltazar.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Jimmy Ray Payne was a guy who was in the
streets who supposedly Wayne killed. On the autopsy report on
Calls of death, initially it said that it was undetermined.
Then it was changed to say asphyxiation, which basically means
(09:42):
he was strangled.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
I have the actual picture.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
I checked this out. Dwayne was right.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Records show that Jimmy Ray Pain's cause of death was
originally marked as undetermined rather than homicide on the medical
report on June sixteenth, nineteen eighty one. However, on August sixth,
nineteen eighty one, through a short was redone and Pain's
cause of death was changed to homicide. News covers of
Wayne Williams's trial shows that the medical examiner could only
say with certainty that Paine's death was a result of
(10:10):
undetermined asphyxia.
Speaker 10 (10:12):
Officials from the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office spent more
than six hours last night and today examining Jimmy Paine's body.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
There are multiple means of asphyxiation, and the medical examiner
couldn't be sure of the exact mechanism.
Speaker 11 (10:23):
Any external marks at all around the neck, no extended
locks out on the neck.
Speaker 10 (10:27):
There is there any evidence of sexual molestation.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
No evidence of sexual molistation.
Speaker 10 (10:32):
Doctor Zaki says there is still a slight chance Pain drowned.
He estimates the twenty one year old died very soon
after he disappeared last Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
When the medical examiner was questioned by Wayne's attorney, he
admitted changing the cause of death to homicide. He also
went on to say that he couldn't totally exclude drowning,
but there should have been clearer evidence than Pain's lungs.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
So is there any doubt in your mind that Wayne
Williams did these murders?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Is no doubt in my mind, unequivocally, he didn't murder anyone, unequivally,
without a doubt. He didn't murder anymore, absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Where does that firm belief come from?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Well, for one, for me examining you know, the cases
and learning what I've learned, you know, researching what I
was going to need to research just to do the documentary.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
And along the way it went from hey man, nobody
is going to be able to speak up for me
like you.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
So does Wayne want to get out of jail.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
He wants to get out of prison, but he also
wants justice for the families more than anything else. We
consider him the thirtieth victim.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Does Wayne consider himself a victim?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
He doesn't, but I do.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Do you think there is a killer or killers out
there responsible for some of these murders that have never
been apprehended.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yes, I know that there is. That's a fact, Jack,
That is an absolute fact.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Dwayne told me he wasn't the only one who believed
in Wayne's innocence. In fact, there were two reputable sources
public figures. One was named Sidney Dorsey and the other
was Lewis Graham, who worked as detectives on Wayne's case
back in the early eighties. Graham even tried to reopen
the case into cab County back in two thousand and five.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So one of the things we hope to be able
to do is to get the actual notes from Lewis
Graham and Lewis Graham and Sidney Dorsey were pretty close.
Both of these guys were detectives for Atlanta Police Department.
Sidney ended up being the sheriff for the Cab County.
I think what he was really trying to do is
(12:43):
he was trying to solve the murders. Initially, he found out,
for one, that there were multiple people that were doing
the murders. They were prepared to make arrests.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Did he find any evidence that would Oh?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Absolutely, absolutely absolutely. I mean Sidney Dorsey is.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
The key to all of this.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
If you get a interview with Sidney Dorsey, he has
all of the intimate knowledge as far as the police work.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Where is he now.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
He's in Reesville State Prison.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
During a life sentence.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Sidney Dorsey was the first African American sheriff of Dekap
County in Atlanta from nineteen ninety six to two thousand.
When he ran for reelection in two thousand, he was
defeated by Derwin Brown. Sidney Dorsey then arranged for the
assassination of his opponent by a deputy. Derwin Brown was
then murdered and Sidney Dorsey was sentenced to life without parole.
(13:50):
Per Dwayne's recommendation, we looked into Sidney Dorsey's involvement in.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
Reopening Wayne's case.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Over the years, he's been quoted by news sources, including
the Atlanta Journal Constitution, advocating for Wayne's innocence.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
So we decided to write Sidney Dorsey a letter in prison.
We haven't heard back yet.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
After meeting Dwayne Hendrix, I started looking for more people
who knew Wayne Williams before he went to prison, before
Dwayne even met him.
Speaker 5 (14:23):
It was hard.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It's been a very long time and Wayne didn't seem
to have tons of close living friends and family. But
after weeks of searching, I eventually found someone. His name
was Tyrone Brooks, a civil rights advocate, a disciple of
doctor Martin Luther King Junior, and Reverend Joseah Williams. Tyrone
agreed to meet with me.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
I know Wayne, I met him when he was in
high school, and he invited me to his home of
on Penelope off Anderson Avenue in northwest Atlanta to do
a live radio show. I get a phone call from
Wayne Williams. He says, my name is Wayne Williams. I'm
a high school student. I have a radio show. I
(15:02):
like for you to pay on my show. Said where's
your show? He said, over here on Penelope Drive off
of Anderson Avenue. I said, I'm familiar with that area,
so I went over and sure enough, he's got a
FCC license and he's broadcasting. He's got a tower down
the street. He got a radio tower up in there
down the street. His daddy had helped him build a
(15:23):
radio station. And how in the world he gets a
license from the Federal Communications Commission to broadcasts. And I
was just amazed that, you know, here's a high school
student with the radio station in the backyard and he's
already got his FCC license.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
To brock Tyrone Pannawayne Williams as a whiz kid, a normal,
likable teenage boy.
Speaker 7 (15:46):
He's very friendly, very affable, humorous, funny, funny, smart, he's
a smart guy's intelligent, very intelligent. But he was kind
of like, yeah, you civil rights guys, you guys are
my heroes. You all really made it possible for me
to be where I am. I got my own radio
(16:08):
station and I'm working here at Channel two or eleven,
one of them. He worked for both of them at
for a period of time.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Wa ain't looked up to Tyrone because at the time,
Tyrone was one of the youngest members of the SCLC,
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded by civil rights leaders,
primarily doctor Martin Luther King.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
From reconstruction up until nineteen forty six, black people could
not vote in the democratic primaries. Nineteen forty six. The
whole goal was cheap black people from voting. We don't
want them in our democratic primary because pretty soon they're
going to start wanting to hold public offices themselves. They're
(16:47):
going to change the whole dynamic of the white segregationist
whole on the South. But on April second, nineteen forty six,
the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously George is all
white Dixiecrat Party primary was illegal and unconstitutional. So on
April second, it was a huge celebration across the South
(17:11):
of African Americans and supporters who said we can find
a vote in the democratic primaries. My parents went to
vote in my hometown of Warranton. Many of them were
met by mobs a kookut klansman, and the klan said,
ain't no niggas coming in here to vote. And my
daddy and some of my relatives got guns and they
went back to the courthouse and they said, we're either
(17:32):
going to vote, we're gonna die. Five people died, two
couples that an unborn infant, George Darcy May, Mary Dorsey,
Roger Malcolm, Darthur Malcolm, and the baby. We named the baby.
In two thousand and eight, we named the baby Justice.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
It captured national attention and President Truman tried to pass
an anti lynching legislation.
Speaker 7 (17:51):
This is a case that remains unsolved. It was doctor
King's project. He had two things on his agenda when
he was assassinated in nineteen sixty eight. The Poor per
Campaign March on Washington, which we did complete, and the
Moors for a bridge lynchings.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Though tons of names and suspects are tied of this event,
cooperation was limited. No one confessed, and to this day
the case remains unsolved.
Speaker 7 (18:14):
So here comes the Missing and Murdered Children crisis in
the late seventies and early eighties. Okay, here it comes,
you know, here it comes, and all of a sudden,
Wayne is back in our lives again.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Tyrone told me he actually went to sea Wayne the
day he became a suspect.
Speaker 7 (18:32):
He calls me up and he says, I need you
and Reverend jose Williams to come up to our home.
My daddy his father's name Homer. Mister Homer was a
photographer for the Atlanta Daily World. We need to go
talk to Wayne. He's called me. I know he's called you.
He told me he called you, Tyroe. We need to go,
seem So jose In I drove up to the home
and so we went up to the house. Now, when
(18:54):
we got there, the whole front yard was covered with
TV cameras. I mean it was like the present in
the United States holding a news conference. I mean the
whole front the whole the driveways, the little streets and
narrow streets were just cluttered with cars. So the authorities
had made a decision that they were going to hone
in on Wayne's and they were going to get him,
(19:15):
and they had notified the media.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
So we go up to the house. So we go in.
Speaker 7 (19:20):
They let us in and Josea said to Wayne in
front of his parents, jose said, Wayne, I'm talking to
you as your second father. Tyrone met you when you
were in high school. We're here, we respect you. We've
been on your radio show You've been following us around
in the movement. You've covered us in the movement, he said,
(19:42):
But if you've been involved in any of this, you
gotta tell us because we want to help you get
the best legal counsel possible. And Wayne looked us in
the eye and he said, Reverend Williams. Tyrone, I have
not been involved in any of these killings. I've only
tried to cover the killings. I've only been following the authorities.
(20:02):
I've been getting leads and tips, and people on the
inside of the police departments have been calling me and
telling me, you know, they found the body here, and
he would go to that spot and he'd be set
up there with his camera. Yeah, people on the inside
of the police department. He had connections, and I think
he stepped on toes and he rubbed people the wrong way.
(20:23):
But he told us that night, and he convinced me
that he was not involved in any killings. He said,
they have to find a scapegoat to close this case out.
I believe he did. I believe he was telling the truth.
I think he told us the truth that night, and
I believe he has maintained all alone. I think Wayne
is prepared to die standing on his conviction of telling
(20:45):
the truth. I think it's a tragedy for Atlanta. I
think it's a tragedy for the American criminal justice system
to have an innocent person incarcerated for something they did
not do. And the sad fact is the real killers
were never captured, the real killers have never been punished.
We believe the Ku Kluk Klan is connected to this,
(21:07):
and we believe that some of these white officers who
are klansmen, closet klansmen, they are out here picking up
these young black kids. I believe that was a similus
of truth to it. I really believe that was a
clan connection. I'm convinced that Wayne Williams is innocent of
any murder. I think Wayne Williams probably just got a
(21:27):
little too close to the investigators. They were frustrated. And
the thing that really really is important to me is
the fact that the two lead detectives who worked the case,
Lewis Graham, who was chief of homicide for the City
of Atlanta for many years, any went over to Fulton
County became chief, then he went to the Cab County
became chief. Before Lewis and Graham died Lewis would always
(21:50):
see me in passing and he would say, man, you
are someone that we'll always respect. You had the courage
to speak the truth to power. We were convinced that
Wayne Williams did not commit those crimes. And his partner
was Sidney Dorsey. Detective Sydney Dorsy who later became chef
of the cab count Who's you know, famous for another reason.
But they both said to me, there should have been
(22:13):
more people in Atlanta standing up and speaking out and
telling the truth about Wayne Williams.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I asked Mike McCombs about his thoughts on the racial
tensions around the Atlanta child murders.
Speaker 12 (22:25):
It always comes back to racial tensions. Of course, there
was a lot of racial tensions. You know, people were
afraid of each other. I mean, I don't think it's
any worse than it is now, but when you have
a pacific crime, that adds fuel to the fire. And
like I said, the blacks wanted to be white and
the whites wanted it to be a black And I
didn't care who it was as long as we caught them.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
I could have cared less.
Speaker 12 (22:46):
But I don't think the racial tensions then were any
worse than they are now. I mean, people treated me
with respect and I treated them with respect, and so
I don't think it's any different than what it is now.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
It was just a high.
Speaker 12 (22:57):
It was a very tense time.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
It was very tense.
Speaker 12 (23:00):
There's always been, you know, discrimination, always has been. I'm
fearful to say that there always will be. There's just
always going to be somebody that's going to discriminate, and
there's blacks that discriminate against whites and whites that discriminate
against blacks. It doesn't mean that either one of them's right.
As a matter of fact, it means both of them
are really really wrong. You know, I didn't know whether
(23:21):
you were black or white when you called me, and
didn't care, could care less. I mean, you know, it's
not the way I was raised. You know, you're going
to have agitators to this day. You always have agitators
that get involved, that take things to the extreme, and
that's that hurts.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
I mean, it hurts a lot, worse hurts the situation.
So we had them then.
Speaker 12 (23:41):
You know, we had agitators that said that you know,
it was we were that someone was trying to you know,
commit genocide of the Blacks and this.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
That and the other.
Speaker 12 (23:50):
I mean, you have to keep in mind, And I
used to tell people this all the time, The FBI
wanted to know what the truth is. We didn't want
to convict Wayne Williams. We wanted to know what the
truth was. So when you're doing this and you're poking holes,
try to see what the individual's motives are. But yeah,
there's going to be those folks out there that doesn't
(24:11):
think that, for whatever their motives are, that he didn't
do it. But you know, people, that's the reason now
that I'm not in the FBI, I'm not real quick
to render an assessment on things because I know that
I don't have all the facts. I'm not in that
circle anymore, and I know that what goes on in
the middle of that circle, there's a lot of things
that John Doe public they just don't know, and they're
(24:32):
not going to know, and so they don't have enough
information to make a good intelligent assessment. That's my thoughts
on it.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
So, yeah, he did it.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Why do you think Wayne liam still says he didn't
do it?
Speaker 12 (24:46):
Well, I'm not really sure that there would be any
advantage to him admitting it. For the first thing. But
I think Wayne has some mental issues, some disorders that
would cause someone to be a compulsive liar. I don't
think he'll ever admit it. I don't think he has
the ability to admit it. Shoot, he's been in there now.
We convicted him in eighty two, so I mean he's
(25:09):
he's got thirty five years in prison now.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Just like mccombis, Popcorn also thinks Wayne Williams is guilty
and that Wayne is the Atlanta child murderer. But he
acknowledges people's disbelief. He didn't necessarily look like a cold
blooded murderer.
Speaker 13 (25:23):
He was not a threatening character. The first time I
looked one him, I almost laughed. I said, this guy,
but he was not threatening. And that's why he got
away with it, because people said, no, this guy murdered
that many kids.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
They refuse to believe it.
Speaker 13 (25:36):
You know, if somebody has a better suspect out there,
please let us know. But there's no one has ever
come forward with anyone else.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
But after Wayne Williams was apprehended, did the murders actually stop?
Speaker 13 (25:47):
The best evidence of will was last body that fell
off the bridge. We arrested Willie Williams, They ain't been
a murder since what do you mean, no murder since
after we arrested him, they were no more victims.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So since eighty one, there's been no murdered African American.
Speaker 13 (26:02):
First has been don't you read the papers, but none
with a similar, dissimilar mo There have been no similar
murders since that last body fell off the bridge, strangling, strangling,
taking off the street, young black male taken off the street,
strangled and dumped. Now the people who don't believe, would
have you believe that the murders still continue. The newspapers
(26:23):
are just covering up with the police. I mean I've
heard that that said, the murders have continued all this time,
just the police and the media not reporting them. Do
you think I'm an idiot? You work for the media,
do you do you think it's true? No, but this
is the stupid shit they come up with. But Wayne,
that was the best evidence, the every ten day pattern
of a kid stripped, dumping or stopped, and we didn't
(26:46):
have any more.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Why do you think Wayne Williams still claims he's innocent.
Speaker 13 (26:49):
Because that's Wayne Williams. One of the things Wayne Williams
thought he was smarter than us, And I said, his
biggest mistake was overestimating his intelligence and underestimating oz and
he thought he can commit for a crime. He wanted
to show the world that he was smarter than everyone else.
So this was this was an ego.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Trip for him.
Speaker 13 (27:06):
I tell people in my bureau career, I put five
men in prison who murdered a total of thirty five people,
and twenty five of them were done by one man.
How many people can say that good old fashioned police work,
you know, nothing fancy just sitting under a bridge waiting
for something to happen. If you come up with a
(27:27):
better suspect, please let us know. But right now, this
is the best thing, the best suspect we got going.
Speaker 14 (27:34):
Like now, when you look back on it, I felt
like they just they need to put it on somebody,
and he kind of like fell into place, and then
it hadn't helped it. After they got him, it stopped.
So you know that just say, oh, we got the
right man. That doesn't necessarily me he's the right man,
but you know, it stopped. I mean, I think he
could have did some stuff, but I definitely don't think
(27:56):
he did all of it, even if he did any
of them, you know, but the only thing hearing him
is they stopped once they got him, they stopped.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
So it was like, well, even if we ain't got
the man, they stopped. The problems are with.
Speaker 15 (28:10):
Wayne Williams under arrest. Everyone thinks they can relax and
the string of murders has stopped. But it just may
be that whoever's really doing it, if it's not Wayne Williams,
they decide, well, now it's a good time to stop
because this other guy's in jail for it.
Speaker 16 (28:24):
Many people think, well, maybe these murders didn't stalk. With
Wayne Williams arrest, there's a lot of contention around the
distinction between the murder of children and the murders of
these adults who Wayne Williams was directly convicted of killing,
and whether those are necessarily a part of the same
(28:46):
pattern crimes. They see my valid questions to ask. In
my opinion, every single child that was identified as part
of the pattern cases of the Atlanta child murders wasn't strangled,
and they all were in the same place or found
in the same place or from the same place. More
or less generally, when you have that volume, but not
(29:07):
all of them. There's always this sense that what evidence
was collected, what evidence was lost?
Speaker 17 (29:13):
How many children black males from poverty areas disappeared after
Wayne Williams went to jail, the list existed. After he
was convicted, the list disappeared. But I've always wanted to
know how many black boys in that same age group
(29:34):
from those neighborhoods disappeared after that.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Looking at the numbers, fewer kids died from asphyxiation in
nineteen eighty two versus nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
But to say that all the murder stopped just isn't true.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Dozens of young black kids were abducted and murdered in
the nineteen eighties after Wayne williams imprisonment. However, maybe a
more accurate statement is that the volume of pattern crimes decreased,
in particular young black males who died from asphyxiation rather
than stab wounds or gun violence, and whose bodies were
later found seemingly scattered throughout metro Atlanta. So do serial
(30:10):
killers just stop killing? Well, sometimes they do. For example,
the infamous BTK killer stopped killing after seventeen years, and
he wasn't apprehended until nearly fourteen years after the last
murder he committed. I sat down with Meredith, one of
our producers, and a man named Kerrie Middlebrooks, the brother
of victim Eric Middlebrooks. He wanted to hear his perspective
(30:32):
as a family member. Who was his brother Eric, and
what to Kerry think of Wayne Williams.
Speaker 8 (30:37):
My foster dad called me and he woke me up.
He said, we'll come over here. I want to talk
to you about something. He said, well, I don't know
how to tell you this, but Eric was killed last night.
I guess I just didn't know what to say at
that point, so finally I said, well what happened? And
(30:58):
he said, well, they found him behind the with Johnson
Hotel buying some dumpsters. So what happened? Did somebody shoot
him or what? And they said, well, no, he was
seriously injured. He had been hitting the head with something
(31:21):
and on his bicycle. They cut his tires and stabbed
them in their arm.
Speaker 11 (31:29):
The body of fourteen year old Eric middlebrook was found
about seven this morning behind a bar and the two
hundred block of Flat Shoals Road near Memorial. He was
hit on the back of the head with some kind
of blood instrument his pockets had been gone through. The
bike he was riding was next to his body.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
I mean, it was an earth shattering I guess you know.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
I still have not gotten over that because he was fourteen.
Body can do something like that to a kid. This
was just straight up violence, you know, holding his head
stabbed in an arm. I mean, I try and sit
up and imagine what was going on in his mind
(32:16):
at the time. All of this stuff was going on,
and it's rough, But I actually became an Atlanta police
officer because my brother had been killed.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
I had just got out a Marine Corps.
Speaker 8 (32:32):
I was working as a security officer at the P
Street Plaza Hotel. One of my supervisors said, you know,
the city of Atlanta is hiring, why don't you become.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
A police officer. There was no way, in.
Speaker 8 (32:48):
My opinion, my brother died by mechanisms of Wayne Williams.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Carrie Middlebrooks then told me his own theory about Eric's murder.
He saw some thing the day his brother was found
dead and it stuck with him to this day. He
mentioned a woman named Lisa, one of Eric's neighbors.
Speaker 8 (33:10):
Apparently, Lisa called my foster dad's house to ask if
Eric could go to the store to get some cigarettes
around nine o'clock ish that night. All I know is
he said they got a phone call at nine o'clock
the night before about the store trip.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
He didn't come back home.
Speaker 8 (33:32):
Where my foster dad lived and where Lisa lived was
approximately one hundred feet They all lived in the same
apartment complex. I guess i'd been there a couple hours
and Lisa said, why don't you come down to my
house and we'll talk. When I went to her house,
I can just say I didn't see it happened, but
(33:53):
I just have to say something brought me to that
apartment for me to observe that something that takes place.
Whether it was God or you know, fake O don't,
I don't know, but based on what I saw, something
related to my brother had to have happened there.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
When I got down to her apartment, I noticed.
Speaker 8 (34:16):
There was a lot of blood on the floor, table,
various places, you know. I started having all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Running through my head.
Speaker 8 (34:27):
She explained to me that her finger had been cut,
and I don't know how all of that blood could
have come through that basically or scratch. It wasn't just
in one spot.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
It was in.
Speaker 8 (34:40):
Several spots about a pint of blood. My thing is,
I don't think Wayne Williams killed my brother. I think
it occurred about a hundred feet from where my brother
actually lived.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I did tell the policeys, I did tell the FBI this. Now.
Speaker 8 (34:58):
What I should have done, which is what I was
thinking about doing, was scoop up some of the blood
and put it on something.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Didn't do that.
Speaker 8 (35:07):
I guess I was sort of gullible, but I'm saying
that he died in that apartment. I clearly told the
FBI what I thought about what took place with my brother.
Apparently they didn't do anything because Wayne Williams seemed to
remain the primary subject they were focusing on. And so
(35:31):
I just don't feel that man could have killed my brother,
you know. I mean, like I said, Eric was fourteen,
so he was really kind of like a young lion,
you know. I mean, Wayne Williams was not much bigger
than my brother, not that my brother was a big guy.
To me, Eric would have had to have been killed
sort of like in an enclosed area or confined area.
(35:54):
I don't feel that they have the right person for
my brother's murder. I think they were kind of reaching
for Straws. I mean at one point they called them
a psychic. We're talking professional police investigators. You call it
a psychic to help you do what?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Kerry brought with him a framed document titled a resolution.
It was sent to his family in twenty thirteen by
the Georgia House of Representatives.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
It said, honoring the victims and the Atlanta Missing a
Murdered Children.
Speaker 18 (36:25):
Case, It's a resolution to commit to continuing work until
adequate laws or passed to protect our children in Atlanta
by the House of Representatives. Here is this consolation. Do
you feel Did you feel good about receiving this?
Speaker 8 (36:45):
I mean, it's just the plaque or some acknowledgement that
something occurred with a bunch of names on it.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
But it doesn't resolve anything.
Speaker 8 (36:56):
But yeah, hopefully y'all can do something with this man.
I mean, Wayne Williams has been saying that he's innocent.
How innocent I don't know, but I don't think he
killed my brother.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Carrie Middlebrooks was now the second relative of a victim
to tell me he did not believe Wayne Williams was guilty,
at least for any crime against his family. Back in
my very first meeting with Dwayne Hendrix, he mentioned a
man that knew Wayne Williams very well back in the day.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
His name was Jimmy Howard.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Jimmy would be what you would say is was Wayne's protege.
He was the lead singer for the group that Wayne
was managing at the time, and he was the guy
who was with Wayne every day, and he.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Was part of the band that Wayne was putting together
right before he was arrested. The same one Wayne mentioned
in his press conference. Jimmy knew Wayne back at the
very beginning, when Wayne was in his early twenties trying
to start the next Jackson five.
Speaker 19 (37:56):
Tell me mentioning in murder kids kids, think y'all Wayne
Trevor killing them kid? They got the Wayne Trither two grown,
the ducks man. Put all the all the kids that
are done, look at them. See the number one thing
here to me. Number one. You got the parents out
here who kids has been murdered. They number one that
(38:19):
never been closed, that wounds still open. But the place
keep moving on. Wayne will Number two a man that
y'all use for an escapegoat. Lock this man up, forget
about it. Then y'all think y'all on the side of
the case.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
Ask Jimmy how he met Wayne in the first place.
Speaker 19 (38:37):
Man, I met Wayne in a talent show. Who's doing
the talent show? I was in a band. We was performing.
You know, after all the accident did their thing, they'll
come out and said who won is who placed this
and that? But when at the time was when we
hit the stage. The crowd, you know, they had a
(38:58):
big spotlights now shout. I was playing drums and they
shine that light back there on me. In the crowd
just went crazy cause I was singing and playing the
drums at the same time. So when it was over with,
as soon as we got ready to exit the stage
to go out to the back and was greeting people
and talking to people, that's when I met Wayne and
he came in and duced. He said, Man, that was great, man.
(39:21):
What's your name?
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Man?
Speaker 9 (39:22):
That was hot. Man.
Speaker 19 (39:23):
Listen, man, you you don't need to be on the drums,
you need to be out here in the front. So
I'm looking at him like, yeah, he said, what's your name?
I told him he said, Man, hey, take my car,
get in touch with me.
Speaker 13 (39:33):
Man.
Speaker 9 (39:33):
You gotta know I can call it man. I got
some things I'm putting together.
Speaker 19 (39:36):
That's exactly how how it went, so I didn't never
call him. I ended up seeing Wayne again at about
two other shows and then my brother said said, what
do you see? What are you talking about when? And
that's that's why I went. And he told me what
he was doing.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
How old were you?
Speaker 9 (39:52):
Fifteen? Sixteen? And he said, I'm putting the group together.
Speaker 19 (39:58):
So one one weekend and he asked me to come
to the studio recording section, rang my mom and everybody.
He said, I want to build this group around you.
I met the guys, we talked. We all locked in
pretty good.
Speaker 9 (40:10):
At the time.
Speaker 19 (40:11):
It was just them two guys I met, and then
three of y'all yeah, and then the other two came,
so it was five at that point. We went on
and started doing songs man, and just doing things, meeting
every other weekend, mean through the weekdays on rehearsing on
these songs that he had picked that Wayne had chous,
(40:34):
some songs and remixes that each old for us to
do well. The plans were to be the next, the
next famous group behind the Jackson.
Speaker 9 (40:45):
It was just crazy the time. But I can say
this though I know we ain't even do no killing?
Speaker 3 (40:52):
What is The group called.
Speaker 20 (40:53):
Gemini guards at the Fulton County Jail were authorized to
allow Williams three calls per week. The guards were to
dial the numbers from outside Williams's maximum security selle and
had him the receiver.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
But that is not what happened.
Speaker 20 (41:07):
The calls made by Williams include calls to members of
this group of singers who Williams claims to manage. In fact,
Wayne Williams from his sale set up this rehearsal and
invited the Action News team into videotape it.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Then Jimmy told me an incredible story. He was actually
with Wayne the night he was picked up by the
FBI and taking in for questioning. That night, Wayne had
taken Jimmy and his fellow bandmates to Wendy's after practice.
Speaker 5 (41:32):
That's when it happened.
Speaker 19 (41:38):
We went to Wendy's on food in the dust. I
was sitting in the wonder Man. You can see the cops.
You can see the cars. They were just sitting there,
the ones that we would recognize. Okay, we're sitting there.
When I said, man, thin' gonna lot me? If I
will say, just gonnun lock me up and stop harassing me.
Speaker 9 (41:58):
You know everybody at home.
Speaker 19 (41:59):
We got on bank aage they Brian home and as
we was going down that street over our bank head,
we went past bread house and turned around. Two mark
cars was following up behind cars that I never seen
that was at the windows day was behind us. We
turned around, came back, dropped them off some once. I'm
tired of this s As we was getting to the
edge of the street, stopped trying on bank here Wain
(42:20):
so I'm been and call him mayor tell him that
they gonna lock me up, Lock me up now. He
pulled a splitt across the street into the JR. It
used to be a jar Creek store. It was a
big star. That was a phone book now and he
got out the car. Man toyot was sitting in the car. Man,
I think he got on that phone book. No more
than about two minutes. Cars just come from everywhere swarmed
(42:41):
the car.
Speaker 9 (42:42):
Helicopters. Man, it was crazy. Me and two was looking
at each other.
Speaker 19 (42:47):
Man We was like, what that, what's going on here?
And we looking cop opened up the door and and
put one over to and say hey, come on, come
on over with us. We're gonna take Wing with us.
Tweyn said, why you gonna do that?
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Man?
Speaker 19 (43:00):
It is do y'all think really, way ain't killed them kids?
I said, nah, I ain't did that, man, I don't
believe that. He said, well, he said, come on, we're
gonna we don't want the media you see your guys.
Come on, he covers up. We're gonna carr y'all home.
We're gonna take Wayne with us for some question. At
that point, At that point, right there, that's when I
really started feeling some kind of way.
Speaker 9 (43:20):
Right there. It was a scary moment. I was like, man,
what the what is they doing?
Speaker 19 (43:28):
Look at who they convicted Wayne or killing and they
didn't even have the evidence to convict him of that.
Speaker 9 (43:34):
What's evidence?
Speaker 5 (43:35):
This is?
Speaker 19 (43:36):
This is big, man, This is huge. This case is huge.
And I'm gonna say this here. I been knowing Wayne
in a long time, long time, But I know you
got some bitterness in him, because think about it, if
you was, if you was in his situation, in his shoes,
you would want someone to stand for you knowing that
you hadn't done this.
Speaker 9 (43:57):
When you man, this thing.
Speaker 19 (44:00):
It's deep, man, It's deepen than a lot of people,
let me tell you, So, that was the name that
the media giving Wayne Way. They wouldn't use his name.
They gave him this name, Atlanta Monster. We're gonna show
this man and it's a good thing. So you know,
(44:21):
we can put this puzza together and everybody gonna be shocked.
Speaker 5 (44:49):
I currently live in Atlanta now.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
I work downtown off Poncetan Leon Avenue in the Old
Fourth Ward. I wanted to explore the city through the
lens of the Atlanta Child Murders. Living here, I'd heard
of many places in this case, but a lot's changed
in Atlanta since then. Jason from Hellstuff Works went through
the process of mapping out all the major sites in
the Atlanta child murders, including the homes of victims, places
(45:10):
they were last seen, and where each victim was found.
One day, we hopped in the car and drove around
the city to get a feel for where these tragedies
took place thirty five years ago.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
Where'd you get this?
Speaker 21 (45:30):
Well, the only place you can give them at these
days Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
So we are here, Yuseph Bell can.
Speaker 4 (45:40):
Hear the traffics from I twenty right behind us.
Speaker 5 (45:43):
So This definitely used to be a building, and they
found Bell's body when it was abandoned. Yusuf was last
seen three days ago. He was running an errand for
a woman who lived in the apartment complex.
Speaker 8 (45:56):
He came to this little store at the corner of
McDaniel and Georgia Avenue.
Speaker 17 (45:59):
Ibody out there like that that has and I just
wish they knew that somebody here loves him, that a
whole lot of people love him, that this whole community
loves him, and they want him back too.
Speaker 22 (46:09):
Yusuf's body was found Thursday in an abandoned schoolhouse at
Fulton and Martin Streets, near the Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.
Police believe the boy, who had been missing for eighteen days,
was strangled.
Speaker 5 (46:25):
We're probably five minutes from the office right now.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
If you were just dropped me here and blindfolded, I'd
have no idea where I was.
Speaker 8 (46:36):
There's like a new kid I disappearing every three or
four weeks.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
The last place we went that day in your neighbor
was Wayne William's old home off Penelope Road in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
Left here, go.
Speaker 5 (46:48):
Straight then should be next.
Speaker 17 (46:56):
Just cross this bridge, then your destination will be on
the right.
Speaker 23 (47:08):
Your destination is on the right.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
We turned down the street and I went by myself
to the door. There was no one there, so I
(47:31):
walked down to one of the neighbor's houses. Someone came
to the door. He didn't live here in the eighties,
but he had an interesting take.
Speaker 21 (47:36):
Nonetheless, it's so funny though, because like every time I
take the left, and every time a left driver.
Speaker 9 (47:41):
Come over, they say, that's the way william house.
Speaker 21 (47:43):
And then like then we heard of it, and then
we googled in and everything.
Speaker 24 (47:47):
It was somebody at the gas station told me because
he needed a ride home or whatever, and they told him, oh,
you live over there by where and he said it
and he didn't think really anything about it. And then
a second person told him in the same.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
Weeks, different mix.
Speaker 5 (48:00):
You know, what's the general consensus you're getting from people.
Speaker 21 (48:04):
That he has something to do in it or whatever.
But it was like, it's probably because clann alre they
bringing kids for them or whatever. I don't know, Yeah,
what did you hear about whatway Williams? I google No,
But I believe that it's a lot of people in
pressing for stuff that they didn't do. Trust me, you know,
and they get scared and taking deals, you know, and
(48:26):
especially in place like Georgia, like where it's not even
safe to go outside of Fourteenth County. Like you know,
if you're African American, you know, the South is still
the South is all black on the outside and white
in the middle. That's not a racist statement, it's it's
a true statement. Because you have black people out here
still that fear of white people. They don't want to,
(48:47):
you know, they don't want to cross that line. A
lot of people are still stuck in the past out here.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
I'd seen Wayne's house in his old neighborhood. But what
about his car, the car that he was driving on
the bridge that night, the same one Jimmy Howard was
writing in.
Speaker 5 (49:05):
When the FBI picked him up.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
The car that would have been a key piece of
evidence in this case, if Wayne was in fact the
Atlanta schold murderer.
Speaker 5 (49:12):
I searched the internet, but I wasn't hopeful.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
But believe it or not, I found a two thousand
and nine article suggesting that I was completely intact. The
car was in possession of a man named doctor Blackwelder
in northeastern Alabama, or at.
Speaker 5 (49:25):
Least that's where it was eight years ago. I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Who this man was, and I couldn't find a single
phone number for him, but I drove down there anyways.
Speaker 5 (49:33):
And gave it a shot. Maybe the car was still
around and it was.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Doctor Blackwelder was willing to give me his perspective. He
was actually a good family friend of Wayne Williams and
had been there through the whole thing, including the trial.
Speaker 6 (49:51):
Trot was in eighty two, and as the hand of
the law enforcement and criminalistic program in a community college,
he would want to know if I'd come up some evidence.
She just give him an opinion about what I thought
about the evidence, if it was any good or not.
And as it ended up, I staved through the whole
trial and got to know Wayne's mom and dad real well,
(50:13):
and then after it was over, I just stayed with
him and I kept going to see Wayne's mother had
catch her and she sometime during our conversation she made
me promise that I'd never turned my back on her baby,
and I told her, I said, well, I'll promise you
that I'll ever turn my back holding But I said
I might go promise him.
Speaker 4 (50:33):
Well, all I should.
Speaker 6 (50:34):
Agree with him, because he was hard to you know,
sometimes she'd I did exactly agree on things.
Speaker 5 (50:39):
I asked Blackwold, why you even had the car.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
He explained that the car being part of the house
of Wayne's father, Homer Williams, for years just sitting there and.
Speaker 6 (50:47):
He just pretty much parked in the backyard and just
left it. So and I went to the prison several
times to see Wayne until I got to where I
just had a heart attack and cancer and all that.
And then Homer died and Wayne called and he said,
you can have that scean wagon if you want it.
Speaker 4 (51:02):
So my wife and I went over.
Speaker 6 (51:04):
There with a roll bag and got the car and
brought it back over here.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
That's pretty much is.
Speaker 6 (51:10):
Most people just want to look at it and take pictures,
but we have people about two or three times and
boks that want to buy it.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Yeah, do you carefully look at it? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (51:28):
Wow, everything is it?
Speaker 6 (51:33):
It was in there when when I got it. Nobody's
earing thing.
Speaker 4 (51:37):
So we don't want to worry.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
Abrom all the stories i'd heard the station wagon was white,
but it wasn't white anymore.
Speaker 6 (51:44):
The car there's been white in the plays. When when
Wayne headed it was this color, and Homer painted the
blue collar after he got after Wayne was in prison.
Speaker 5 (51:55):
It's now a light blue color and covered with brown rust.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Also full of dirt and junk fishing that papers men's
athletic shoes. Blackwater said he believes that most of this
stuff belonged to Wayne's father, Homer. Blackwaters seemed pretty close
(52:21):
to Wayne Liams and his family, so I asked him
what was Wayne like.
Speaker 6 (52:26):
He had an old police car that had he had
a scanner in it, and he would go out and
take pictures of fires and crime sines and things like
that and sell the pictures sing and bodies that warned you.
And he had a job of some type with WSB Television.
(52:47):
He would make you think that he was the star
of the show, but I think really he was just
a runner or so it was really when it came
out down to it, you know, he had a pretty
normal life. He was he was an only child, only
was spoiled, and I think his mom and dad he
had a need to be in the limelight. Have you
ever been in that house up there?
Speaker 3 (53:09):
Not inside of it.
Speaker 6 (53:09):
We walked outside, okay, and on very back was where
his radio station was, and he had some kind of
small transmitter that would cover the neighborhood.
Speaker 12 (53:19):
You know.
Speaker 6 (53:20):
Yeah, he was the DJ and the news director, but
he wanted to open his radio station up and then
he wanted to be a promoter or something. That's what
he was doing out when they caught him on the bridge.
He was trying to find the address of a girl
that he had an interview with the next day to
do singing or whatever.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
Blackwater had sat through the entire trial, so he actually
owned all the defense documents. He even played a role
in the trial actively working with wings attorneys.
Speaker 6 (53:46):
My agreement was with him that I would get a
copy of all of the documents that they used, and
I got copies of all. I've got a basement with
eight or ten bucars full of documents, all the reports
and all the documentaries that the defense got under discovery,
the federal documents, FBI documents, and practically all of the
state documents, FBI reports, all the autopsy reports had scribble
(54:10):
notes that the attorneys took dinner, a meeting at night.
His mother gave me several photographs that of their family
album of Wayne. It was just a little bit fellow
growing up. You see how my filing system.
Speaker 4 (54:22):
Is right here.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
So yeah, it seems like it's kind of my folly system.
Speaker 6 (54:25):
Yeah, after I retired, I brought everything into the house.
It's all just so I'll have to get somebody to
get somebody to go through and dig it out.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
But I've got it. It's all. It's sealed up.
Speaker 6 (54:36):
I don't think he got a fair trial because I
know that Maynard Jackson and all of them needed somebody
to call it because it was affecting convention in trade
and so forth. And when I would go up there
on the weekends and go out and eat, a lot
of the resturants will be just about empty. And the
people said the business had really fallen off since that happened,
(54:59):
and it it hadn't picked up, you know. But once
they called him, then everybody took a shower or leave
and thought, well, you know, we can go back to
live in our normal lives. And of course they called him,
which means people will assume that if they catch somebody,
he's guilty, and then during the trial it would have
been hard, I think for Jerry to find him not
(55:19):
guilty and then go back into their neighborhoods and live.
Speaker 4 (55:23):
And I don't know how much to a what degree.
Speaker 6 (55:26):
They just didn't want to have to put up with
what they would catch from the people of school, to
work at church or whatever if they had found him
not guilty. So I think that plays a part in it,
but I don't know how much.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
After several months of researching the Atlanta child murders and
Wayne Williams himself, I found the case perplexing and nobody
seemed to agree on anything. After meeting in person with
Tween Hendricks in Texas, he called me out of the
blue one day and was about to send this projects
in a whole new direction.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
It was going all day and I just wanted to
reach out to you.
Speaker 23 (56:12):
I actually spoke.
Speaker 8 (56:13):
With Wayne WI about the podcast.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
He basically gave his blessings, gave me ain't light, and he's.
Speaker 12 (56:22):
Willing to talk.
Speaker 11 (56:26):
Give me a call you get.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
Out the tummy tree.
Speaker 5 (56:45):
Next time on Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
This conference is recorded.
Speaker 6 (57:03):
My bed.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Atlanta Monster is an investigative podcast wholl 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 5 (57:30):
For the latest updates, please visit.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
Atlantamonster dot com or follow us on social media.
Speaker 4 (57:57):
Alexa, watch the temperature.
Speaker 23 (58:01):
Right now in Piedmont. It's forty nine degrees with clear
skies throughout the night. You can expect more of the
same with a low of thirty six degrees.
Speaker 3 (58:10):
Alexa, thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (58:14):
You're welcome, Alexa.
Speaker 24 (58:19):
Will you marry me?
Speaker 23 (58:21):
I don't want to be tied down. In fact, I
can't be. I'm amorphosed by nature.
Speaker 3 (58:28):
Are you drinking her prisoner here?
Speaker 1 (58:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 12 (58:30):
I am really
Atlanta Monster News
Host
Payne Lindsey
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