The Night Shift [bonus]

Recalling Wayne's time working as a stringer... under the cover of night.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the new summer series of Atlanta Monster, where
we will uncover new stories around the Atlanta child murders.
I'm your host, Jason Hope, and in our first episode,
we talked to the men and women that reported on
the case that gripped Atlanta and the nation nearly forty
years ago. The time has healed old wounds. One thing
is clear. The nightmare of that traumatic time sticks with

(00:23):
many even to this day. You don't want to believe
that you've given anybody an opportunity to do anything to
harm anybody, because it means that you could have been
a part of fueling what may have happened. In other words,
if he wasn't an overnight photographer, maybe he wouldn't have

(00:45):
had the opportunity to do this. To think that you
have come face to face with someone who could potentially
kill that many people and be that close to where
you shake their hand, You've hugged them, you have laughed
with them, that's the hard part. You don't want to

(01:06):
think that he was so wrong in judging somebody. I
don't want to believe that he did that because somehow
I feel that I may have had some role in
helping in Atlanta. Another body was discovered today there at
Police Task Force headquarters. There are twenty seven faces on

(01:29):
the wall, murdered, one missing. We do not know the
person or persons that are responsible. Therefore, we do not
have the moody from Tenderfoot TV and how still works
in Atlanta. Like eleven other recent victims in Atlanta, rogers
apparently was ASPHIXI victor. Atlanta was unlikely to catch the
killer unless he keeps on killing. This is Atlanta Monster.

(02:04):
I'm Joscelyn Dorsey. I'm Director of Editorials and Public Affairs
at WSBTV, which is now Cox Media Group Atlanta, and
I've been there for forty five years. I started out
as a street reporter in nineteen seventy three and worked
in the newsroom from nineteen seventy three to nineteen eighty three,

(02:25):
and after that became the director. Jocelyn Dorsey was the
first African American television news anchor in Atlanta, arriving from
Ohio in nineteen seventy three. During her career, she has
reported on numerous happenings in and around Atlanta, including the
Atlanta child murders, with reporting on the psychics and community
efforts to help local kids who are highly distressed at

(02:45):
the time. Through the central character art the Art Institute
in Atlanta, Police hope to teach children about safety in
a way that can be fun. The four primary messages
are don't get into a car with strangers, don't take candy, money,
or gifts from strangers, play in groups, and if you
need help, go to a police officer, firefighter, or bus driver.

(03:05):
They're your friends. Art Institute Community Relations director Liz get
says besides the basic themes, teachers can use the book
as a teaching tool. The coloring book, produced by students
of the Art Institute on a volunteer basis, is being
donated to the Atlanta Police Bureau later this week. The
printing costs for the fifty copies were donated by Diggler Brothers,

(03:26):
a local firm, and officials say you'll be seeing a
lot more of Artie in public service announcements soon. Joscelyn
Dorsey Action News, but that's not the only part of
her involvement with this story. Jocelyn was one of the
first to discover Wayne in his teen years, where he
was already hard at work at the radio station he
had built in his house. I first met Wayne Williams

(03:50):
as a street reporter. We got the story of this
young whiz kid who had started a radio station in
his basement, so I covered the store. He was fascinated
with media, and normally I mentor young people who are
interested in the business, and he was very interested and

(04:10):
wanted to come and see the station. From there, we
maintained a relationship because he asked questions and wanted to
shadow me and all of that. Paul paula Celli worked
in the newsroom at WSB. Also he saw firsthand and
for the first time in his life, a new world

(04:32):
when he wasn't entirely prepared for. I went to WSB
is the executive producer and assistant news director. Atlanta was
a very aggressive news community who was a hot growing
city at the time. We were calling these kids street kids.
The Omni is a complex of amusement arcades, theaters, restaurants,

(04:55):
shops in the heart of Atlanta. It's a meeting place
for the city. Is Footloose Young Blacks, a place which
many of the missing and murdered children used to visit.
Most of them were what the locals called street wise,
coming often from broken homes. They hustled for money, did
odd jobs, sometimes had trouble with the law. They were tough.

(05:20):
I mean, I remembered my father said, what in the
world is going on down there? And I said to him, Dad,
I got to tell you something. I would have known
more about what was on the surface of the moon
then I knew about how people lived in public housing
in Atlanta, Georgia. I was totally unprepared for the world
that I walked into. I didn't know that there were

(05:42):
children who had no one with primary responsibility for those children.
I didn't know that there were children who would be
out at two and three o'clock in the morning being
a mule for a drug dealer or selling homosexual favors.
It was a world that was totally separate and apart
from the caudal world that I grew up there. I
had no concept that people lived like that. I had

(06:03):
no concept that there was that level of child abuse
in society. And Atlanta was having an epidemic of child
abuse at the time, and it was particularly impactful and
harmful to the minority kids at the time, and that
was the big subject that never got addressed out of this.
You know, they wanted to get this problem out of
the way as fast as they could. And I'm not
sure that Atlanta ever looked into that talk about a

(06:26):
child being vulnerable. A nine year old on the street
at three o'clock in the morning, and then you've got
people prowling those streets looking for god knows what. Back
in those days, we had what we called stringers. We
were shooting sixteen millimeter film and we would give a
camera to a freelancer, especially on the overnight crew, and

(06:49):
he decided he wanted to be a photographer. He kept
shadowing them, would come in all the time volunteer and
I told him, I said, you know, we can't pay
people to volunteer here, but if you want to try
out to be a stringer, you could be a stringer.
And that's what he did. He was freelancing for us
as a photographer. Wayne's world, his world was the world

(07:14):
of the stringer. His world was the world of going
around looking for trouble with night and taking pictures of it.
He was a component of that very world. He was
just a young kid, and I mean he was right
out of high school. I think when he first started
working with us, I didn't know much about his home life.

(07:36):
I knew his parents, and he was a child that
was born later in their lives because they had had
problems having a child. And I remember his mom telling
me that he was a very special child because you know,
she thought she wouldn't be able to have children. His

(07:58):
father was in the business. I think he was a freelancer.
He may have actually worked for a newspaper, but um
he was a photographer, so I imagine his interest came
from his dad. Jocelyn got to know Wayne and Wayne's family.
But what was Wayne really like. He wasn't charming, and

(08:19):
a lot of people didn't like him. He was kind
of what people would call a nerd. You know, he's
very nerdy, very bright. So I never thought that there
was anything strange because I knew a lot of nerdy
kids growing up, and you know, I just thought that
he was different. He did have a way about him
that rubbed some people the wrong way. We heard this

(08:42):
over and over again. Wayne was nerdy, pudgy, highly intelligent.
He is a highly intelligent young man, A good student.
When he was in school, he was a very intelligent
young man. I said, you're very intelligent. I said, what's
your a cue and he said, I don't believe in
accus and I said, well, you must have done well,
and they just seem to be educated in articulate or whatever.

(09:02):
As a student, he was extremely bright. He was a
pretty intelligent guy too. He had a very high i Q. Brilliant, asshole,
unassuming and cocky at the same time. He comes across
as a nerd. He's a nerd. He's a little nerdy.
He is so mild mannered. He couldn't hurt fly, small,

(09:23):
not very threatening at all. Old kid with the classes,
one of those pudgy little guys whose mom made him
practice of piano. A little fat five seven, Wayne Williams,
very quick mind mentally, he could just run over the
average person. Wayne Williams quiet, didn't say much, and he
got his job done and left. In our newsroom, there

(09:48):
are quite a few guys who would tease him because
of the way he looked. And this is back in
the sevenings too, so the times were very different. But
we don't know what impact had had on Wayne. You
really didn't have a lot of involvement with people because
you were so busy trying to get that story on
the air. I didn't know him enough to know what

(10:12):
was inside of his head. I knew it was different
from most people. I guess. I defended him because I
have known people like him, and um, I felt sorry
for them because I know that they've been bullied or

(10:34):
people have said unkind things to them. So I have
a a soft spot in my heart for people like that,
and so I got to be a bit more defensive
because I felt as if they thought he was nerdy
or something was wrong with him. He kept to himself
a lot because of that. But he worked a different

(10:55):
shift too. That's maybe the other reason he decided to
work overnight so he wouldn't have to come in contact
with people all the time. When the time came, Jocelyn
Dorsey ended up having to fire Wane because he was
taking footage and selling it to the other stations. On
the side, you'll recall that Monica Coppan also said that
strange things were happening. This man was a freelancer for WSBTV,

(11:20):
and that's not something you hide. So the part of
the story was, yes, someone has been arrested in connection
with this case, but this person also has worked here
as a freelance photographer, so that put us in a
different vein from the other stations. Then there was still

(11:41):
the question is he guilty or is he not. I
can remember Don McClellan, who was the reporter then and
it since has retired. He had a huge file on
the Missigan murdered children. Don did that story that night,
and I can remember him being as a good reporter

(12:03):
should be. I'm just going to give you the facts,
but this still is alleged. Wayne's departure from WSB did
not end well. I distanced myself from him after he
left the station. Um, we did not leave on great terms.

(12:23):
So UM, I think he knew that he had done
something wrong and regretted it, but it was it was
not something that could be repaired easily. And then he
left and decided that he was going to go into

(12:43):
the music business. And he would call me and ask
me if I knew any young people or if I
could help him in this music business, and I told
him I really didn't know anything about it, and so
I really felt that this was not my place to
give him any a dies and suggested, you know, maybe
he talked to somebody else. And after that our relationship

(13:06):
kind of drifted. The city struggled to find the killer,
and the body count only grew larger. How would they

(13:28):
know when they found him. Dr Alvin Passant was an
African American psychiatrist with the Harvard and he became a
regular that we touched with because the story had all
of these racial overtones to it that again puzzled us,
why is this happening? Why are all these kids minority kids?

(13:51):
It became this gigantic crossword puzzle that just engrossed all
of it. I've been doing interviews since nineteen Of all
of them, that was the most chilling one I ever did.
We were sitting in the snack room of WSP and
I was doing an interview with him because his contention

(14:11):
was is that this perpetrator had to be African American
because where these crimes were committed and at the times
that they were committed, a white man would have stood
out like a sore phone. So the question then became,
why would an African American male be doing this to
young African American primarily males. And he had a theory

(14:32):
on that that he wanted to cleanse the race. He
was embarrassed by these guys, and while we were doing
the interview, I looked up at the camera and I
planted to the lens and I said, whoever is doing
this might be on the other side of that lens
right there. What do we say to him? And he
looked at me and he said, well, not much we

(14:53):
could say to him directly that I'm going to tell
you this much. When they arrest him, you're going to
know him. Hmm, So you're gonna know him. Phrase literally
was found my spine with the children. I remember getting

(15:27):
a call Mark Picard too thirty in the morning and
Mark called me and said, you will never believe what
has just happened. He said, they just arrested Wayne Williams
and I dropped the phone. I couldn't believe it. I
was in such a state of shock. I just could
not believe what I was hearing. And then, of course

(15:52):
all the events started to unfold, with him being arrested
on the fiber evidence and then going to trial. The

(16:24):
home of the man taken into custody by the FBI
has from time to time this evening taken on the
aspect of a reporter's convention. His mother maintains her vigil inside,
waiting by the phone, waiting to hear from her son
who was down at FBI headquarters and his father who
has now joined them, to say that the police actions
of the past several hours were a shock to the

(16:45):
family that lives here and the neighborhood is an understatement.
The neighbors I spoke with say that the family more
or less kept to themselves, and that the young man
who was being questioned by the FBI was friendly, but
only friendly enough to say hi. They really didn't know
much more about him. This episode began on Thursday May
when the man was stopped by the Task Force at

(17:05):
the Chattahoochee River. He was questioned about the possibility of
dropping something into the river, which he was denied, and
then he was let go for any lack of reason
to hold him. But surveillance on him continued until he
was taken into custody by the FBI around three o'clock Wednesday.
The man was most recently involved in a company which
he formed the search out talented local youngsters singing, dancing, acting,

(17:29):
and so forth. It is reported that he told his
family that he was trying to set up an audition
on the night that he was questioned by the Task
Force at the Chattahoochee River, and that he had a
friend in his car, supposedly also for an audition when
he was taken into custody on Wednesday. The FBI apparently
had a pretty good idea of what they were looking
for when they executed the search warrant here at the home.

(17:51):
Among the things that it removed, it took pieces of blankets, robes,
human hair, and dog hair. We understand that this material
has been taken to the State crime Lab where it
is either being processed now or will be processed first
thing in the morning. That should determine whether the people
here can finally rest in peace or whether they're nightmare

(18:13):
and a possible solution to some of the murders is
at hand. Mark Picard, Action News. Mark Picard was also
a reporter at w SPTV on the front lines during
the case. In fact, he was there the night Wayne
was taken downtown. Much to the surprise of the rest

(18:34):
of the media. Picard was inside the house with Wayne
and his parents that night. When he returned from his
interview with authorities, I got a phone call from a
police source who said that the task force were searching
Wayne's house and uh I should get over there with

(18:55):
the crew. And I got there and for a while
we were the only crew. They're reporting on what was
going on. I guess Wayne either saw us outside or
was watching television, and he did ask me to come inside.
He put in a cassette in an old cassette recorder

(19:17):
and recorded our conversation. The rationale behind it, I think
was to offer a defense for himself. At the end
of the conversation, he gave me the cassette and said,
hold on to this. This is going to be valuable.
It was a crazy night. I went back to the

(19:38):
station and immediately turned over the cassette to my news
director and that was the last I ever saw it.
Early that next morning, Piccard was inside the house again,
this time at the hastily called press conference thrown together
by a still unnamed suspect in Wayne Williams. You will

(19:59):
hear him, but you will see reporters and photographers. Did
they ever call you a suspect? They ever used words
they did as strong in a suspect. They openly see it.
You Kio, Nathan U Cat and you know it, and
you land to listen. I just remember it was a circus.
It was the center ring in the three wing circus.

(20:23):
All of it was surreal. In my reporting career, I
was relatively young and fresh, and this was crazy to me.
I was trying to keep perspective and not let the
events overtake me. At that press conference, Wayne passed out
as resume to the media. The FPI kept a copy

(20:45):
of this resume and we found it in their case file.
Despite Wayne being a mere twenty two years old, the
resume was already five pages long. FBI records indicated that
this resume was also one of the items found in
the white station wagon when they searched the vehicle on
June three. Though we worked as a stringer and freelancer

(21:06):
at WSB for approximately three years, Wayne's resume indicated he
was employed at WSB from January ninety nine to March
ninety nine. The murders began in June of nineteen seventy nine.
The resume listed an extensive set of positions and accomplishments,

(21:28):
and personal and professional references from NBC News, CNN, Arista Records,
the City of Atlanta Public Safety, and Jocelyn Dorset. His
resumes list of professional references includes many familiar names in
the local media Most of those references say they knew

(21:49):
Williams only briefly and not very well, but it is
clear Wayne Williams is a bright and ambitious person. He
started a radio station in his parents home when he
was only twelve, and his teams you spent time hanging
around many of the city's radio stations, doing odd jobs,
mostly as an unpaid volunteer, and talking to the people
he met about broadcasting. This was a surprise to Jocelyn.

(22:16):
Why would he list her as a professional reference when
she had been the one to fire him from WSP. Shockingly,
the defense team from a Williams even reached out to Dorsey.
Before the murder trial, his lawyers had called and asked
if I would testify in his defense, and of course
our lawyers said, no, we're not. We're not doing that,

(22:38):
um because there have been some personnel issues that we
had had with him, and you know, we told them
that that would not be something that they would want
us to have to reveal. You know, they wouldn't want
me to because we had to dismiss him and it
may not look good. I mean, that's certainly not a

(22:59):
great character reference to say you got fired. I actually
had to go down to the courtroom, and it was
very awkward because our lawyers were arguing right up to
the point where they thought I might have to testify,
And so it was really awkward because I was down

(23:19):
at the courtroom and some of my peers were wondering
what I was doing there, and I couldn't say anything.
So they took me off into a room and made
me sit and just wait until they could figure out
what the lawyers were going to do. His lawyer decided

(23:40):
not to call me to the stand. It was pretty
nerve wracking. You can imagine what I was going through
during that time period of us wondering, you know, who
could have done this. I was reporting a lot of
the homicides at the time, and um, there were so
many humors that were going on that that was probably

(24:02):
the worst thing. Newsrooms were hearing rumors and stories constantly.
Questions arose in many of the reporters heads, including Captain
Dave Folk, who wondered what was happening at the Williams home.

(24:26):
Captain Dave and others questioned the role of Homer Williams,
Wayne's father, a topic that came up over and over
at the time. Both the news media and officials investigating
the case. We're also curious as to the role of
Homer and his wife Faye. I'd like to know more
from him. He seemed like his mother was a shot caller.

(24:48):
She was the spokes version for it all when he
was happening. See he has been tried and me as
well say his vision had been convicted long before by
the media. The Williams claimed that police, desperate for a
break in the case, set up their son's arrest. They
didn't have and don't have enough evidence. Not on to indicted,

(25:14):
but to the rest. I'd just like to give them
a warning that when don't they believe it or not,
the killer is still at large. He's out there. I'm
on the parting in Atlanta. Gotta gimen kevinn. Are you
going to try the owner put at Lama, gott bring
confid on my phone. My house is not the thing.
I have faith. I have faith in there and and

(25:41):
all the homofectual stuff. They're talking about paying from those
street curing what they called cure stat Williams made the
call to w g s T news radio last night
during a live interview with Dr Joseph Lowry, President of
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference where from But I did

(26:01):
a lot of cover up and we are going to
expose a lot of it tomorrow morning. But when tomorrow came,
a very subdued Homer Williams and his attorney Lynn Whatley
had little to say. It is our conclusion at this
time that no statements will be made. I think that's
a conspiracy. Um. I definitely feel that have the wrong

(26:25):
place that pl that, and I say a game that's
weighing his vvus as skate. I don't know about his ties.
I don't know about who he knew or what he knew.
He's very quiet, who would not talk. And if so
many victims were linked to the fiber evidence originated from
the carpet and blankets in the Williams house, how did

(26:46):
this all tie together? What happened at the house, And
if they were killed at that house and loaded in
the car, who helped kill them? Who helped load him up?
Is not a logical question, Veenelope wrote him, because that's
where the carpets were, what the dog was You don't

(27:07):
take your dog to kill somebody. What was going on
in the house, fiber or fiber there, It's it's you know,
not enough questions asked, but enough to honestly send him
to prison. But who else needs to be in prison?

(27:28):
Wayne William's parents, who wouldn't talk if somebody was killed
in your house? Don't you think you'd know? The carpet
has been messed up, the floor and there was some
hollering or something. I didn't see it, but I heard
that the police found some burned film in the backyard

(27:50):
of the house. I'd like to know what was on
that film. Maybe it was enough film or pornography. Maybe
he did take and photographic evidence. It was destroyed. Mrs
Williams was outspoken in the defense of your son. I
wanted to hear more from Homer. He was an accomplished photographer.

(28:15):
But what did you know about that case? The FBI
noted changes in the house from the time they visited
one and when they executed a search warrant on June three.
When they went back to the house, FBI special agents
observed a number of changes. Furniture from Wayne's bedroom had

(28:37):
moved to other rooms. Business papers and unidentified documents previously
observed have been removed. New indoor outdoor carpeting have been
added to a room since the may visit. What exactly
was happening in the Williams house as investigators were closing

(28:57):
in on their suspect. Was Williams family removing items from
the house? And if so, why I'd like to know
what they found? It didn't burn. Wouldn't you like to
go to the evidence locker and just have everybody lay
these pieces out, lay out the autops report, the crime

(29:17):
scene information? How were the bodies placed? Why was that
such a secret? Captain Dave wasn't the only one that
wanted it no more. I heard from people on the
task force and my police sources who didn't believe Wayne
or his dad were responsible. That was one of the
threads that was out there, a suspicion that he may

(29:39):
have been involved. But he's not around for anybody to
pursue that, and I'm not sure anything was done in
that regard. Many reporters continued to hear from Wayne during
but also after the trial. I would hear through people

(30:03):
from him occasionally when he was in jail, and um,
it was it was just quite shocking. The first time
he reached out, I was in the radio station and
he called me. We had this long talk on the
tape that, of course I don't have anymore we write.
I haven't written to him in a while, but he
used to write me. He'd write and criticize stories, tell

(30:27):
me problems in the prison, that kind of thing. The
story is headlined on the cover, but it's what is
inside that is bound to raise a few hackles. And
the article, Williams again said he is innocent and even
says he did not know the two he is charged
with killing, Nathaniel Cater and Jimmy ray Pay. The magazine
promises a second installment in the interview they say was

(30:47):
conducted at the jail. But how did that interview happen?
Fulton County Sheriff Leroy Stinchcomb told me tonight no jail
personnel let anyone interview Williams, and he wants to know
how it happened to He told me he isn't pointing fingers,
but says the only people allowed to see Williams are
the d a's office, William's parents, Williams attorneys, and people

(31:08):
working on the defense who were approved by Williams attorneys.
Stinchcomb says they're about six of them, and he's giving
those names to Judge Clarence Cooper. This morning, Cooper is
hearing the case and he told me he'll have no
comment until later. If then Attorney Mary Welcome would only
say she knew about the article, which he wouldn't see.

(31:30):
The impact of this case still sticks with those who
covered it, triggering a surprising range of emotions then and now.
There was a certain exhilaration actually to be honest, not
to in any way see any advantage in the suffering
of the families who have lost their children. Just as
a news story. It was probably the biggest that I'd

(31:52):
ever been involved with, and so I felt an exhilaration
at that point, but I also felt an obligation to
be fair and to get it right. Literally wake up
in the middle of the night. It just flash awake,
and I remember seeing in my mind, you know, the
nightmares that I would have. I would be in one
of those projects and a killer would be stocking me.

(32:15):
It affected me to that level. I'm Becky Leaf was
the ABC reporter at the time who would report it
on Ted Bundy. She had the exact same experience reporting
on Ted Bundy. She said, I would wake up in
the middle of the night and I would see Bundy
in my room, and it was that kind of thing
with the Atlanta child murders. For me, I'm glad that
I never had to deal that much with that kind

(32:36):
of story again, the incarnate evil that can live in then.
The only thing that I really felt was why he
was working an overnight shift, and I always wondered why
he was so interested in covering homicides or breaking news.

(32:59):
I guess the hard thing for me is to think
that I would have been such a poor judge of character.
We've had enough. I mean, it was, it was very tense,
and I think people breathe the collective sigh of relief
and buried it. Thank you for joining us. We hope

(33:36):
you enjoyed the first of our special summer series of
Atlanta Monster. Be on the lookout for more new episodes
in the coming weeks. Atlanta Monster is a joint production
between How Stuff Works and Tinderfoot TV. Original music is
by Makeup and Vanity Set. Audio archives courtesy of WSB

(33:57):
News Film and Video Tape Collection, Round Media Archives, University
of Georgia Libraries. For the latest updates, please visit Atlanta
Monster dot com or follow us on social media.