Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Serial Killer Stalks Young Boys in Atlanta, Who's the Real Killer?

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

Twenty-three children, teens, and young adults—mostly boys—were kidnapped and murdered from inner city Atlanta, between 1979 and 1981. At first, no one put together the links between the crimes, but soon the common details were noted, and Atlanta Police realized a serial killer stalked Atlanta. One man became the prime suspect, Wayne Williams. Williams is charged and convicted in two of the killings but is believed to be responsible for at least 24 of the murders. Listen today as Nancy's guests, intimately involved in the case, lay out the evidence.  Joining Nancy Grace Today:  Joseph Drolet - Prosecutor, Author: "The Pursuit of the Atlanta Child Killer: Facts, Fibers, and Forensics" Lou Arcangeli - Former Deputy Chief of Police, Atlanta Police Department Vern E. Smith - Former Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Chief & National Correspondent, Author: "The Jones Men", Contributor, YahooNews.com, Twitter: @VESstories, VernESmith.wordpress.com Dr. Jorey Krawczyn  - Psychologist (Panama City Beach, FL), Adjunct Faculty with Saint Leo University; Research Consultant with Blue Wall Institute, Author: "Operation S.O.S. - Practical Recommendations to Help “Stop Officer Suicide”, bw-institute.com Dr. Todd M. Barr - Board-Certified Anatomic/Clinical/Forensic Pathologist (Ohio), Testified in Shawn Grate serial killer case, Featured in "Thin Places: Essays From In Between" by Jordan Kisner, Twitter: @ToddBarrME See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A city gripped in fear as the body count grows. 1, 2, 8, 12, 17, 18, 21, 28, 30. Many of the dead, young boys. All I can think about right now are my children and my son, John David. What was going through the minds of all of these parents when on that day, their son didn't come home? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111.

A period of months drag on and on. No answers as to who was kidnapping and murdering little boys and young men across the city of Atlanta. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. But first of all, take a listen to this. It was a phrase uttered by a local television anchor that haunted parents in Atlanta's neighborhoods. It's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your children are? 29 children and young adults were killed. The carnage became known as the Atlanta child murders.

More than two dozen were killed or missing, most of them children and male between the ages of 9 and 28 years old. One child vanished after another, never seen alive again. Their bodies found across metro Atlanta, strangled, suffocated. The first two discovered on August 7, 1979. By August the following year, the bodies of seven more victims were found. Two teen boys were the first victims. 14-year-old Edward Hope Smith was missing for seven days. He was last seen at the Greenbrier Skating Rink. Alfred Evans, 13, had just graduated seventh grade. He was missing for three days after disappearing from East Lake Meadows Housing Project. Their bodies were found in a wooded

area off Niskey Lake Road, southwest of downtown Atlanta. The location was just two miles from where Smith was last seen. How did it all start? Take a listen to what went down in July, July 28th. To be exact, you were just hearing our friends at CrimeOnline.com and WXIA. Now listen to our friends at CBS. On July 28th, a woman was walking along this wooded road looking for aluminum cans to turn in for money when she approached this embankment. People often dump things from passing cars here. At the bottom, she saw a body,

which had also presumably been dumped from a car the previous night. It was 14-year-old Edward Smith. He had left home eight days earlier to go to a skating rink. He had been shot to death. Nearby lay the body of his friend, 13-year-old Alfred Evans. He had disappeared on his way to the movies three days earlier. Police were unable to say how he was killed. With me in All-Star Pound makes sense of what we know right now with the body count rising.

People living in fear, not letting their children go outside for fear the children, especially the boys, would be snatched off the street. The district attorney's office was in a tumult with me, high-profile lawyer joining me out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, Joseph J. Drolet, author of The Pursuit of the Atlanta Child Killer, Facts, Fibers, and Forensics on Amazon Now. Now that's the title, Joseph Drolet, The Pursuit of the Atlanta Child Killer, Facts, Fibers, and Forensics. Before I go to the rest of our all-star panel, I want to go to Joseph Drolet first.

Drolet, do you remember the first time you ever saw a dead body? Yes, I do. When was it? It was when I was with the district attorney's office when I first started, and we went and watched an autopsy. Oh, the good old days at the morgue watching autopsies. The good old days watching autopsy and seeing who could make it through. It's one thing for you or I to see a dead body because we're used to it now. I remember

the first time I saw a dead body in my official capacity as an assistant DA along with you. And I will never forget it as long as I live. But for people in Atlanta to just look over and see a little boy that goes missing from a skating rink and there you look down and you see a dead body that's a shock to a civilian it was a shock i think nancy to everyone and it continued unabated for a long time to the point that it became a frightening terrifying i think for everybody in the at metropolitan area. And then somehow, Joseph J. Drolet, you ended up as one of the five very brave lawyers to take this on. Joining me, longtime friend and colleague, former deputy chief of police in the APD, Lou Arcangeli. Lou, it's great to hear your voice again. I know you recall the fear and the terror under which everybody was living in Atlanta.

Describe it for our listeners that were not there when it all started. Oh, it was horrible because of the uncertainty. At one point, there were five in November of that year. There were five children missing at the same time, all of them between 10 and 14 years old. And of course, the real tragedy is one of these children, Darren Glass, has never been found. His body is still missing. You know, I can't even imagine that, Lou Archangel. Every day, every night on the news, you see another child missing. You said five were between, did you say nine and 14? That was at one point. There were five children missing at the same time.

But for months, there were four missing, three missing. And then ultimately, the last one to be found was Nathaniel Cater was an adult. He was dumped in the river because the perpetrator evolved. Evolved. Yeah. And that's very unusual. You know, to Dr. Todd M. Barr, a pathologist joining us. He testified in the Sean Gray serial killer case.

Dr. Barr, thank you for being with us. He testified in the Sean Great serial killer case. Dr. Barr, thank you for being with us. People believe that serial killers never change their MO, their modus operandi, their method of operation. So when you see some little boy strangled dead and then another victim ends up in the water, the Chattahoochee to be exact, many people go, oh, that's not the same killer because there's a different M.O. That's not true, Dr. Barr. Yeah, no, that's absolutely not true. I've worked on a couple of serial killer cases, and, you know, strangulation and they keep the same modus operandi to, you know, strangulation with with the evolution to burning them in a car, that type of thing. So, yeah, you can't just jump to conclusions if it's not the exact same mode of operation.

Yeah, perfect example. Joseph J. Droulet. We had a then lawyer in our office, Henry Newkirk, that had been a cop in Florida during the Coyote killings. Remember Ted Bundy? Ted Bundy's MO changed drastically. He went from picking people up at the beach or in his Volkswagen to clubbing them dead in their sorority house. So that's a perfect example of how MO's method of operation can change for serial killers, right? Nancy, I think this is Joseph Thoreau. I think also the profilers at the FBI said that serial killers do, they change based on the circumstances. And in this case, of course, the changes, including dropping bodies in the river were because evidence was being found that could

identify the killer. And suddenly bodies started showing up in the river without their clothes on. Wow. Joseph, will you say that again one more time about how the MO changed after it got out about the fibers? Right. The fibers started being noticed. And by the early spring of the second year, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation knew what they were looking for. They were looking for a location that had a green carpet that had some sort of violet acetate fiber on some item, and it had a dog, probably a German shepherd. That got out into the newspapers. This was in February, and from then forward, most of the victims ended up in the river. Jimmy Ray Payne was wearing only his shorts, red cotton shorts. Nathaniel Cater was naked. Guys, the body count rises. Take a listen to our friends at Crime

Online and CBS. Two more victims would be found that same year. Nine-year-old Yusuf Bell's body is discovered in an abandoned elementary school. His body had been stuffed in a crawl space. Bell was last seen getting into a car on October 21st. Not quite a month later, the body of 14-year-old Milton Harvey was found, discarded on a road in Fulton County. Harvey had actually gone missing before Bell. He was last seen on his bike September 4th, but his body wasn't discovered until November. In November, two more bodies were found. 14-year-old Milton Harvey was found on the 5th. Police unable to say how he died. And three days later, nine-year-old Yusef Bell. He had been strangled. 1980 came and children continued to disappear and die. All were poor. Several disappeared from

shopping centers which they frequented in hopes of picking up some change by helping people with their bags. Not all, but most were street kids from single parent or broken homes. All but two were boys, ages ranged from 7 to 16. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I want to go to Vern Smith, a special guest joining us, formerly Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Chief and National Correspondent, author of The Jones Men. Vern, thank you for being with us. My pleasure, Nancy.

The fact that the children were taken in various ways, some were riding their bikes, others were on the street, and that they were found in so many different places. One stuffed in a crawl space in an abandoned elementary school. Others in the water in the Chattahoochee. Others tossed off by a road. That makes it even more difficult. What do you recall? You know, the thing that lingers for me, you know, something that's been mentioned earlier is the,

what it felt like to be in a situation where there is an unknown terror literally stalking the community and so that the sense of just panic and and regular citizens not trusting people that previously they had not thought anything uh negative about it just kind of had this kind of paralyzing fear of the unknown which which which i think is just something that you have to kind of had this kind of paralyzing fear of the unknown, which I think is just something that you have to kind of experience to understand what that was like. You know, Joseph Drolet, I wouldn't even let my children out the door with this going on. That's true. And most people kept their children home. And that's why I think the ages of the victims started going up because it was more and more difficult. That and a curfew that was imposed made it very, very difficult to find the younger children. So the ages of the

victims started climbing as the cases went on, and they increased in frequency. What do you recall about it? Former Deputy Chief Police APD Lou Arcangeli. Well, the terror extended far beyond Atlanta. I mean, people that I knew in Alabama were concerned and were bringing their children in, even though there was never any evidence that the killings spread beyond metro Atlanta. But even, I mean, Paris, France had things in the newspaper, had articles in the newspaper about missing children. Children have a special place in our heart, and when they're victimized anywhere, it strikes fear everywhere. I'm just thinking back, Lou, about the witness that looks over

and sees a dead little boy. Oh, I actually saw one of those victims in the morgue. And what struck me was he was so little and so skinny. I mean, it was hard to watch. Even as a homicide detective, it was hard to see the body of a young child. What was going on amongst Atlanta Homicide during all of this? Well, at first, they didn't recognize the pattern because everything was changing. We had victims that were shot, stabbed, undetermined, asphyxiated.

And so there was confusion at the start of the case. But ultimately, they figured out the pattern that was similar was the age of the case. But ultimately, they figured out the pattern that was similar was the age of the victims. And it was all children, you know, for the first year of this, all children. Take a listen to our friends at CBS. They have died in many ways, shot, stabbed, bludgeoned. But most all of the recent ones have been strangled or asphyxiated. In some cases, the bodies were laid out in full view on their backs with arms and legs extended. Others have been thrown down an embankment, into a river, under a building. There are things that suggest drugs, sexual deviation, or cult ritual.

There are many theories, but nobody is in jail. The tension and the terror mounting throughout the city of Atlanta and beyond. And what you were hearing in the background there was funeral footage of one of these little boys. And I keep thinking about what former Deputy Chief Lou Arcangeli just said, seeing the little boy's body, how tiny and skinny he was. To Dr. Jory Croson joining us, psychologist, faculty, St. Leo University, and author of Operation SOS. Dr. Jory Croson, thank you for being with us. Who in the world would stab a little boy or shoot a seven, eight, nine year old little boy.

Well, you know, I always look at behavior and we heard the term evolve. What I really see in research shows it's a maturation. OK, it starts out like you look at where the children were taken from. And that's kind of a predatory hunting style. Okay. There's no force. You know, it's not like it's a blitz attack. There's got to be some means of an interaction and maybe even get the victim to willingly come with you to a certain point before you initiate the process of killing them.

To Joseph J. Drolet, former prosecutor and author of a brand new book, The Pursuit of the Atlanta Child Killer Facts, Fibers, and Forensics. It's an incredible work, Joseph Drolet. It's on Amazon right now. Joseph, were the boys sex assaulted before they were murdered? No, there was no evidence of that, although there was certainly a sexual component. Take a listen to our friends at NBC. Aaron Jackson Jr. was among the youngest, only nine years old.

Luby Jeter was 14. Timothy Hill, 13. Patrick Baltazar, 11. For almost two years, the bodies have kept coming out of Atlanta's rivers and woods, and week after week, police speak of sorrow, but not a solution. At police task force headquarters, there are 27 faces on the wall, 26 murdered, one missing. The killer? There was a handful of sketches, no one one the same no one certain to be the person police want almost a year after the task force was set up police can't answer who or why they

don't know how or where or even how many of the victims may have been killed by the same person one investigator says even if the killer walked in the door and confessed. There is not enough evidence now to convict him. Lou Archangelai, former deputy chief of police, APD. What? At that time, if the killer walked in and confessed, you guys didn't have enough to convict him? Oh, that's not true at all. That was a perception in the public and that was certainly reported. But Larry Peterson at the crime lab and the fulton county medical examiners and others had found significant evidence evidence like what they had dog hair they

had fibers they had the unique wellman trilobal carpet fiber that was very unique that was showing up on you know it eventually showed up on 20 of the victims. The same carpet fiber? Yes. Hold on. I'm going to circle back to Joseph Drolet on that. Speaking of fiber, listen to NBC. The killer seems to taunt police and read press clippings. After a well-publicized but futile search along a road in an outlying county, the next child strangled with a rope was dumped there. And when a suburban police official criticized

Atlanta's investigation, a child choked to death was left just inside that official's county line. After a press report that police had found fibers on some of the bodies, six of the last seven victims have been dropped into rivers, all stripped to their undershorts or less, possibly to wash away evidence. Okay, Joseph Drolet. The fiber is what's linking all of these boy victims together. Nancy, it is significant that Larry Peterson went to a number of the victims' homes and obtained fibers and did exclusionary evidence. They never assumed anything. They wanted to know the source of the fibers

and they had to make sure that these fibers weren't in a common part of the victim's environment, that these fibers all came from the same environment as the perpetrator. You know, Lou Arcangeli, you just said something so important because as you will remember, Joseph Drolet, when I tried cases, I would not only try were found on multiple victims, not all, but many of them. How many, Joseph, had the same fibers on them? Well, 15 had the Wellman fiber, 21 had the violet acetate, and 18 had the dog hairs.

But the beauty of this is Joe outlines this so well in the book. It's crystal clear how the fibers are tied together, how the crime lab collected them. How do you do that, Dr. Barr? How do you get fibers off a body? I mean, you can't see them. They're invisible to the naked eye. Right, and we have these stereotactical microscopes that we look at the bodies with.

If we're looking for certain types of trace evidence, that you can actually zoom in and take a very close-up look with these high-powerful microscopes, and you can detect these fibers and then collect them and preserve them. The fibers in this case, Nancy, were obvious enough that Larry Peterson, as he went to scenes, he would see them in the hair and on the clothing of the victims and pull them off and place them on slides to take back to the lab. So they, and many of them, the number of fibers, it was obvious that wherever they were immediately prior to death, this was the source of the fibers on them. Their carpet fibers, you said the violet fibers and the dog hair showing up. One on 21 victims, one on 18 victims can't be ignored and as lou arcangeli

points out investigators would then go to the victim's family home take fibers from their carpet around their home bedspreads and so forth to make sure these fibers weren't from the home to rule that out verne smith joining us former Newsweek Atlanta Bureau chief and national correspondent. When did you first find out? Do you remember finding out the coincidence? And of course, there is no coincidence in criminal law that these same fibers were on multiple victims. Well, you know, the local newspaper, the AJC, Atlanta Journal of Constitution, first broke that story. were saying that they were finding links in the later bodies. So for much of 79 and 80, the official police word was that they didn't know whether they were all,

whether we were looking for multiple killers or a single killer. And so for a while, we were under that assumption that they weren't connected. But that was really a stunning moment when, you know, it was revealed that there was in fact a connection and you know another thing about the fibers uh based on what verne smith just says dr jory we hear that as soon as it comes out as it's let out which i wish it hadn't been that fibers were involved suddenly the body start turning up naked so this is a very cunning killer. Yeah, that's part of that maturation and changing of operation. You know, he's learning as he's, I guess, progressing is the word that I would use, but that's the maturation process in serial killers. Take a listen now, a big break in the

case. Take a listen to our friends at Troop. The surveillance of Atlanta's bridges pays off. A policeman hears what could be a body hitting the water. According to the record in the case, three o'clock a.m. in the morning, Robert Campbell, who was a young police recruit under the bridge, heard a splash and then saw lights come on on a vehicle. And so the vehicle slowly began to move in a southerly direction across the bridge. Wayne Williams admits he was on the bridge that night. But he says he did not stop and did not throw anything into the river. When the police follow and stop him near the bridge, Williams cooperates fully. They questioned him some more, searched the car, and then they questioned him some more searched the car and then they uh

they let him go three days later on May 24th the body of Nathaniel Cater was found less than a mile downstream from the Jackson Parkway Bridge the oldest victim yet 27th was found in the Chattahoochee River with this discovery the authorities decide that Wayne Williams is the prime suspect. You know, help me out here. Joseph Drolet, who has just come out with a book, who actually worked this case, a landmark case, one of the first times fiber evidence of this magnitude had been used in court of fiber evidence of this ilk. Joseph. So you've got Wayne Williams admitting he's on the bridge. The night a victim is thrown over the side of the bridge, a dead victim. Luckily, somebody, either you guys at the DA's office or you guys, Lou Archangel, APD, had the brilliant idea to start surveilling bridges. And it paid off.

This cop actually hears the splash. He's sitting there in the dark. He hears a splash. And then lights turn on. And there goes the car. And the cop sees. It's Wayne Williams. I mean, he sees the car, doesn't he, Joseph?

He didn't see the car he saw the lights and he radioed Freddie Jacobs who was at the end of the bridge in the bushes Freddie leaned out and said there's a car it's coming from a stop position right up against the rail and it's coming toward me he watched that car then come toward him and make a U-turn in a gravel parking lot at the end of the bridge where he was seen there by Officer Holden, who was in a catch car. And Holden pulls in behind him as he heads back north over the bridge. So he backtracked, he dropped the body, goes to the end of the bridge, turns around, and heads back the other way. Nancy, what's significant about the bridge was we all thought it was a mistake when Dr. Howard mentioned that he had fibers linking several of the victims. We thought, oh my God,

why would he release that? Well, as it turned out, it was that release that compelled Wayne Williams to dump Aaron Jackson under a bridge. Patrick Balthazar dumped under a bridge. But those two didn't even hit the water. They just landed on ground. Well, then he, of course, matured, as the doctor said. Curtis Walker was found in South River. Jojo Bell in the South River. Dr. Howard, by releasing that fiber link, compelled the perpetrator, Wayne Williams, to start using bridges. And then the FBI came up

with the idea of investing a huge amount of manpower to put four cops on every bridge along the Chattahoochee and South Rivers. And on the very last day of the surveillance is when Wayne Williams, because he was now using bridges, he was more concentrated. We could stake it out. And that's what led to his arrest on the, to his contact with police on the bridge. For those of you that worked intimately on the case, Lou Arcangeli, Joseph Drolet, Vern Smith, who covered it.

What was being done to the little boys? Lou Arcangeli, Joseph Drolet, Vern Smith, who covered it. What was being done to the little boys if they were not being sex assaulted? What was happening, Joseph Drolet? They were being mostly strangled. And I think, you know, there was one one victim that got away, a young man who was picked up by Wayne Williams in the middle of the night breaking into newspaper boxes to steal the change. And Williams took this young man, drove him around, asked him various questions, then asked him if he wanted to make some money, asked him if he had money, reached over and touched his penis. And then Williams said, I need to get something out of the back of the car.

And he went to, got out of the car. And this young man got the heck out of there and ran and was able to testify at trial about that. Williams targeted these people. They were all vulnerable young people out on the street, many of them. And he told many, many people that these people shouldn't be on the streets. So I guess he thought he was doing the police a favor by getting kids off the street, by killing them. He expressed sentiment, something along those lines.

There were four or five witnesses at trial who testified about that. He said exactly that kind of thing. But he would then, you know, would then mostly strangle these young men and then dispose of their bodies. They never were found where they were killed. They were placed different places along roadsides in certain positions. Some laid out very, very carefully. Some had ritualistic little stab wounds on them. A number of them, in addition to dying of asphyxia, had been struck in the head, so he may have subdued them at some point prior to killing them by asphyxia. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace i want to talk about wayne williams and i want to talk about

this fiber evidence uh joseph droulet it's all laid out in your brand new book a blockbuster hit the pursuit of the atlanta child killer facts fibers and forensics it's on amazon right now joseph question after all the fibers that were detected on the bodies and on their clothing, when there was clothing on them, to where did the fibers relate? I mean, where did they connect? From where did they come? Well, the carpet fiber was wall-to-wall carpet in the Williams home. When the police and Larry Peterson, the crime lab people, went with a search warrant on June 3rd, they go to the home and they find a home that is wall-to-wall in this green fiber. English olive was the color of green.

English what? English olive. So you still remember English olive? Yes, absolutely. And it's this unusual trilobal fiber with the short, one short leg and two long legs. They go in Wayne Williams' bedroom and there is a violet acetate bedspread, which is interwoven with green cotton fiber. And of course, that's being found on the victims. They look in the backyard,

and there's a German shepherd dog. So they have found the source of the fibers that they are finding on so many of the victims. Joseph, how do you believe the fibers got onto the victims? Did he actually bring them to his home? I don't think so. He could have, but it is more likely that like the witnesses that we had, that he lured them into his car. And the car, as he would track things from the house into the car, and his family, his mother and father would track everything in the house would track into the car. So what the crime lab people discovered was that on the floors of the car, if you swept up what was in there, you would find fibers from all the different things in the house that would yield fibers. So bath mats and rugs and carpets, blankets, all of that would be found in the cars. So they didn't have to actually be in the house, and most probably they weren't. Nancy, this is the theory of transfer that your doctor guests can refer to.

Every time there's an interaction, physical interaction, something's left and something's taken. And in this case, when Wayne Williams was smothering these children, there were over 600 fibers introduced to trial, nine different types. And ultimately, they even found human hairs on the body of Patrick Balthazar that were linked by DNA to Wayne Williams. But yet people still insist, there are people that insist, Wayne Williams is innocent. Take a listen to our cut for WXIA. Prosecutors ultimately tied Williams to the deaths of 22 victims through carpet fiber evidence and witnesses.

Not everyone believed his guilt. There were doubters. I don't believe Wayne Williams did it. I really don't believe that he did it. In 2005, DeKalb County Police Chief Louis Graham reopened five cases in his jurisdiction, but nothing to exonerate Williams came from it. To this day, Joseph J. Drolet, people insist Wayne Williams is innocent. Now, there were 30 murders, we believe. Williams was convicted on a handful of those. There's a

movement afoot to have evidence reexamined from the other victims. But my question to you now, Joseph, is what other evidence links Wayne Williams to many of the boys' murders? Well, there were a variety of things that linked. I mean, you had eyewitnesses of various kinds. And, of course, we presented 10 other murders at the trial. So there were 12 murders actually proven at the trial. So you had that. There were victims who had fibers from different cars that Wayne Williams drove.

And this is in addition to the constant fibers from the home, which were probably in the car, there were also the fibers from the car. And there were fibers from 13 different cars, 13 different victims, should I say, had fibers from the cars. And as Williams would change cars, the fibers would change as they were found on the victims. Interesting. So all of this was leading back to Wayne Williams' home and his cars and a very, very unique carpet analysis and carpet fibers. Isn't it true, Joseph Drolet, that Wayne Williams injected himself in the media business tv radio and he would somehow be the first stringer uh on the scene of a crime getting video before any other tv crew would get there right and he had he had scanning equipment in his car he a lot of people thought he was a police officer and and the first car that we

linked to him was a plymouth car that he had decked out as a police car with a blue light, with police radio, scanner, the whole works. So he knew what was going on. And many people thought he was a police officer. He had a police jacket that was discovered after the trial. And then he moved on to being a TV person, a cameraman, a stringer, as he said. And that put him at the scenes of things. Lou Arcangeli, did any of the cops notice that this guy, Wayne Williams, who sometimes dressed up like a cop, kept showing up the first one on every crime scene? Obviously, because he knew

about the crime scene before anybody else. But did anyone put that together? No, they didn't. He actually showed up on one of my crime scenes, but he worked for WSB. He would sell footage of fires and wrecks and homicide crime scenes to WSB TV. But he was a frequent, he was frequently present at crime scenes and he had a police scanner. Who is this guy, Joseph Drolet? I know he's an only child. Both parents were teachers and they doted on him. I mean, they even set up his own radio station in the home. That's correct. So he was very much a child who his parents would do anything for, and he was in many ways controlling of his parents. And a lot of evidence of that came out during the case that he ordered them around. In what way? How would he order the parents around?

There was testimony at trial. He even yelled at them once and said, you know, you better not come home and things like that because they wouldn't rent another car for him. There were evidence of him assaulting his father. So there are a lot of things where they created, you know, this child who dominated them. Did they help cover up evidence, do you think, Joseph? Oh, I certainly think they knew a great deal more than they let on. And his mother, I think you would say, lied for him at different times, including at trial. His father had to know a great deal more than he ever said. And they covered for Wayne completely.

You know, they tried to back up his story about this Cheryl Johnson, this phantom woman that was never found, that he claimed he was out looking for when he was stopped on the bridge, or near the bridge, I should say. Was there a circumstance where the father was destroying evidence in the backyard? Yes, and we don't know exactly what it was. There were photographs that were burned in the barbecue pit, black and white photographs. All that was left was the remnants of them,

and you couldn't tell actually what was in there. But they had done that apparently after Wayne Williams was stopped on the bridge and he went home. And I think some of the neighbors had even said that there was something burning out in the barbecue pit in the backyard. Joseph, what was it like sitting in that courtroom with our boss, Lewis Slayton, and a team, a brain trust, trying this case? Well, it was something that was completely engrossing.

I could think of nothing else from the time I got involved in the case until the trial was over. And, of course, it has continued to be something that has come up repeatedly over the last 40 years. As evidence is looked into, it was reopened in 2005. There was DNA testing. There have been movies about it. And more recently, former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms had asked the police department in the DA's office to look into it again. They've been doing that for three years. Nothing has changed.

There's nothing that would indicate Wayne Williams is not guilty. What about some claim that the Klan, I hate to even say the word, is involved? Yeah, that was another interesting development. Two years after the trial, the director of the GBI came to the office and said, there's something I got to tell you. During this investigation, we also investigated the Klan. And we did a separate investigation in March and April before Wayne Williams was ever even a suspect. And we had them under surveillance and we took samples of things and we watched them and we couldn't find anything. There was no evidence the Klan was involved.

You know what, Joseph? I guess you said thanks for telling me now uh anyway right so nothing that became a big a big story you know that oh the client there was a client investigation and it was secret uh it ended up it was begun and concluded uh with no evidence of client involvement before Wayne Williams ever became a suspect or was stopped on or near the bridge. Okay, I've got a question, Joseph, that I want to clear up. Are there victims that were never officially proven connected to Williams, and do you support reanalyzing the evidence in those cases? Sure. And that's what

that's what a group has been doing, you know, with folks from the DA's office and the Atlanta Police Department are looking at it. And we may find out Williams killed them, too. Or we may find out he didn't. I'm all for the retesting of that evidence to find out, if we can now, who murdered those children and young men. When you look back on it, Joseph J. Drouet, what's your takeaway? I mean, obviously, it's haunted you to the point you wrote a book, The Pursuit of the Atlanta Child, Killer Facts forensics right you know it is something that has continued you know there continue to be people who are are doubters and so forth over the years I've seen so many productions that have been done that for the purpose of entertainment they don't talk about the evidence they talk about you know the mystery of the case. What mystery? He did it. Well, if you

don't know about the evidence, you don't know that. And I've had so many people, and I think even in the Daily Mail article that was done two years ago, they interviewed various people. A number of people who said, I don't think he did it, said, I'm not aware of what the evidence was. I've never seen all the evidence. And I found this with many of the mothers, even, that they don't know what the evidence was. If they did, they would probably think differently. What is it, Lou Arcangeli, about Wayne Williams that everyone wants to think he's innocent? He's not. Wayne Williams was a racist, child molesting pedophile. He abused his parents. He's a despicable human being. And yet many people have rallied to

his side because they don't know the facts. But they're so clearly laid out in Joe's book. But after you've read basically how a prosecutor works, how the criminal justice system works. You'll understand the complexities of the case. It'll all come together. Wayne Williams is guilty, I think, of killing 28 people. That is exactly what I think, Lou. That is exactly what I think. Joseph Droulet, this has become a mission of yours.

Why? Well, after the trial, of course, I handled the appeal, and other folks involved in the prosecution went elsewhere. So I ended up being the person who has been defending the case, both in the Georgia Supreme Court and assisting in regard to federal court in a state habeas corpus. And every time something happens about the case, I get calls about it. So I've been talking about this case and acting as sort of the spokesman for what happened for 40 years.

Joe, this is Vern. One question that I've wondered about over the years is despite the imposing forensic evidence, do you

believe that there might have been a different outcome had Wayne Williams not taken the stand? No, I don't think him taking the stand did anything because the evidence was all there. When he took the stand, what it did was dispel the fact that he could deny this with a straight face because he ended up being unable to stick to the story that he had in regard to, for example, what he was doing on the bridge. And that's he sort of melted down on the witness stand. You got to tell me about that, Joseph. Who put their client on the bridge and that's uh he sort of melted down on the witness stand oh you got to tell me about that joseph who put their client on the stand well i you know the the defendant i

think wanted to testify yeah what can you do with that when the defendant insists he's smarter than everybody else and insists he wants to take the stand exactly you can't stop him under the law you've got to let him testify what did did he do on the stand, Joseph? Well, he did real, real well for the first part when he was being examined by Al Binder. He did real, real well. Oh, dear Lord in heaven. But he then, we brought him back the next day because we weren't finished. And what the FBI profilers had suggested was if you keep confronting him with his lies,

he will probably at some point blow up. And he did. And what made him blow up was he could not answer the question if he crossed the bridge going south toward his house. And he said at trial, i crossed the bridge because i wanted to go home well then he turns around at the end of the bridge and goes north up to interstate 285 well then he tries to explain that by saying oh i it's quicker to go home by 285 and of course the question then is well then why did you go down and cross the bridge?

And that one thing made him blow up? Yes, because he had come up with different versions and painted himself into a coroner. Do you have any doubt, Joseph, that Wayne Williams is guilty? No, I don't. I don't. Based on the evidence, I think, you know, very clearly he killed, you know, 18 or so of them, probably 24. Others, you know, we just didn't have evidence. Some of the earlier cases, there was nothing but skeletal remains and evidence had been dispersed over a period of months and even up to a year, he may have killed some of those people. He may have killed Darren Glass, who is still missing.

Well, your book, The Pursuit of the Atlanta Child Killer, Facts, Fibers, and Forensics on Amazon Now is incredible. Gentlemen, thank you. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend.