Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - The Atlanta Child Murders Pt. 2

Episode Date: November 11, 2021

In 1981, Wayne Williams was a 23-year-old with aspirations of putting together the next Jackson 5. But after he’s found leaving the scene of a crime, he’s charged and convicted for two murders — and implicated in a dozen more. Had police finally found the Atlanta Child Murderer? Or was an innocent man about to pay for crimes he didn’t commit? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode contains discussion of murder and sexual assault that some listeners may find disturbing. Extreme caution is advised for listeners under 13. In the early hours of May 22, 1981, the sky was an inky black canvas, and a fog of silence hung heavy over Atlanta. But not everyone in the city was asleep. Police recruit Robert Campbell sat in his car, watching the James Jackson Parkway Bridge, with sleepy eyes.

After a string of bodies had washed up in the Chattahoochee River, Campbell and his colleagues were stationed around the city, staking out the city's bridges. The task force had been surveilling the bridges for nearly a month, but nothing had happened, and they were beginning to get restless. In the somnolent hours before dawn, Campbell had settled into a languid state

when he heard something that jolted him awake. A loud splash. To Campbell, who'd worked as a lifeguard for years, it sounded like a body hitting the water. The recruit darted out of the car and ran to the water's edge. He shone his flashlight into the vast expanse and saw ripples spreading over the water's surface. He looked up at the bridge above where the splash occurred

and saw headlights. This was the moment they'd all been waiting for, and it was time to make their move. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today we're finishing our exploration of the Atlanta Child Murders. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Last time, we discussed the more than two dozen deaths that haunted the series of the series of City of Atlanta between 1979 and 1981. While the community roiled in fear and anger over the police's slow response, investigators

launched an operation to stake out the city's bridges in the hopes of catching the killer in action. Today we're learning about the investigation's first and only real suspect, Wayne Williams. We'll delve into the case against him and why decades later, questions still linger on whether investigators got the right guy. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.

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Sprits on lush notes of rainforest orchid and crisp sea breeze with he fresco paraizzo. Embrace a floral and fruity scent inspired by Rio's nude beach with chiqui bikini or capture sun-kissed bliss with limonada gelada, where zesty Brazilian lemonade accord meets coconut milk and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection only at Sephora. Most parents have probably experienced the pulsating terror of losing their child in a public place. They step out of sight even if just for a minute and dread and agony washes over everything. The seconds tick by painfully slow, each one feeling like a lifetime.

Luckily, most parents are reunited with their children quite quickly and they get to hold them in their arms. But in some heartbreaking instances, the kids are gone forever and their families never see. see them again. In Atlanta, between 1979 and 1981, children were disappearing with alarming frequency. Young black kids were being snatched off the streets, sometimes in broad daylight, their bodies turning up in empty lots and wooded areas. After a careless officer revealed to the media that similar fibers had been pulled from many of the bodies, the killer started dumping them in the Chattahoochee River. Money and resources poured into the city and a special task force was set up to try and catch the killer.

By May of 1981, 24 kids and 3 adults had been murdered, and police were desperate to crack the case. It was at that time a man named Wayne Williams came onto investigators' radar. Wayne was a somewhat short 23-year-old. Judging by his appearance alone, he barely seemed capable of the crimes

he'd later be accused of. But before we get to that part, let's rewind the story and learn a little bit more about who Wayne Williams was. From the very beginning, Wayne Bertram Williams was used to getting whatever he wanted. Wayne was the only child of Homer and Fay Williams, and according to many accounts, they treated him like he was God's gift to the world. The couple were a little older than most

first-time parents, and they lavished him with the affection they'd been waiting so long to give to a child. In other words, Wayne was spoiled. Anything he wanted, his parents gave him. Homer and Faye had both worked so hard for so long, and they were prepared to give their son the very best. While it's natural to want to give your children everything, spoiling a child can impact the way they operate in the world and how they treat others, and not in a good way. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. As a note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show.

Thanks, Greg. Spoiling and mollycoddling children can feel like a natural instinct for parents who want to make sure their kids are happy, safe and fulfilled. But when a child gets everything they want from their families and are rarely told no, it can impact their ability to form a sense of consequences and hinder their social development. They can become self-centered and may be incapable of dealing with stress and disappointment in a healthy way. Homer and Fay may not have given way in the skills to deal with difficult emotions,

but he had all the material things he could ask for. With their family finally complete, Homer and Fay settled into their home in the Dixie Hills neighborhood in southwest Atlanta. When they first moved in, the area was a hub for middle-class black Americans. But as more low-income public housing projects were built there, wealthier families fled, and with them went the bulk of the city's investment in the neighborhood. With very little money flowing in, crime became more commonplace, and poverty enveloped the area. But even with the neighborhood's changing dynamic, the Williams family decided to stay put. In spite of his changing surroundings, and perhaps because of his parents coddling, Wayne flourished.

He was a bright and intelligent boy. He had an above-average IQ and did well in school, routinely outperforming his peers. But Wayne's passions weren't confined to the classroom. From a young age, he had a keen interest in electronics, and enthusiasm his parents recognized and actively helped him pursue. When Wayne was just 11, his parents helped him and two friends purchased the equipment they needed to start their own radio station. Naturally, Wayne was the brains behind the whole operation, mastering the broadcasting technology by reading books. By the time he was 16, the station which was called WRAZ, had grown large enough that he was able to move it out of his parents' house and into an office. And though this seems like an incredible accomplishment, Homer and Faye were still the ones funding their entrepreneurial sons' endeavors, and they spent all of their savings in the process. It seemed like Wayne's future was full of promise. He wasn't even out of high school, but already he was building a name for himself in the city.

and according to the New York Times, many radio personalities who went on to have successful careers at larger, more established stations got their start in radio at WRAZ. All of that success couldn't last forever, though. In 1976, the station folded, and the Williams family filed for bankruptcy. Though the bankruptcy was a direct result of the failed radio station, the reasons for collapse are unclear. But based on the accounts of some people who worked with the station while it was on the air, it may have been because of Wayne's mismanagement. Homer and Faye may have put too much trust in their son, believing in him to an almost unrealistic extent. According to business broker Murray Lewis, Wayne could do no wrong in his parents' eyes.

Lewis had wanted to purchase equity in WRAZ, but Homer refused to relinquish any of his son's control over the station, and the deal fell through. through. It was perhaps because of the way his parents treated him that many people who knew Wayne claimed he acted in narcissistic ways. According to a study published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, children are likely to grow up to be narcissistic when their parents overvalue them.

How children see themselves and behave in response is often a reflection of how their parents see and treat them. If they're treated as though they're better and worthier than others, they'll internalize that belief. In turn, they'll often grow up to be over-entitled adults who lash out, sometimes violently, when they don't get what they want. For his part, Wayne believed he was smarter than everyone around him, a view seemingly supported by his parents. And as with most over-indulged children, the problem didn't end with childhood. Even when Wayne was old enough to support himself, his parents continued to give him whatever he needed to make his dreams come true. After the failure of WRAZ, which happened the same year he graduated from high school, Wayne had to shift his sights to something else.

While he was running the station, he'd always loved the news gathering process, and he'd even appointed himself the station's news director. So naturally, that interest propelled him towards his next venture. Wayne got a police scanner and a camera, and he started a business called Metro News. He'd listened to the scanner for emergencies and then rush over with his camera to get footage that he would later sell to news stations. This work gave Wayne a front row seat to many official investigations. As the police process crime scenes, he watched them attentively, quietly gaining insight into how they worked. But Wayne was a man who kept himself busy, and Metro News wasn't enough to be.

keep him occupied. He was determined to make it big in the world, but the thing was he didn't possess the skills to actually make it happen. After a lifetime hearing how great he was, his belief in himself boarded on delusional, and he often lied about his accomplishments to make himself seem more important than he was. That elevated sense of self likely explains why Wayne decided his next foray would be into the music industry. Wayne had never worked in the music industry before, and Wayne had never worked in the music industry before,

wasn't gifted with any musical abilities. So he set his sights on becoming a talent agent instead. He was sure he could form the next big musical sensation. The Jackson Five were all the rage when Wayne was growing up. Their singles topped the charts and exploded on the airwaves, and Wayne wotted in on the stardom. He often spoke of forming the next Jackson Five, watching their rise to fame and feeling so sure that he could replicate what they created. He just needed to find the right talent. To do that, Wayne scoured the streets of Atlanta, holding out posters encouraging young kids, boys especially, to audition for his band, which he called Gemini. To gain the trust of the

kids he was recruiting, as well as their parents, Wayne oversole his accomplishments and feigned associations with well-known people. Before long, he had assembled a group he was sure was poised for stardom. Even still, his first version of Gemini failed. We don't know exactly what caused the group's early demise. Still, Wayne's hunger for fame and notoriety was insatiable. And even though his appetite for prestige far exceeded his actual talents, he would eventually gain the celebrity status he craved, just not in the way he imagined.

Coming up, Wayne becomes the prime suspect in the biggest murder investigation in Atlanta's history. This is Story Booth Daily. Tune into this new podcast for your daily fix of real life stories from real people around the world. We've received thousands of stories that we want to share with you, from talking about being ghosted, or realizing that being popular isn't all that great sometimes. No topic is off the table. This is a podcast that's not only for you, but by you. Story Booth Daily premieres November 8th, so be sure to check us out Monday through Friday. Story Booth Daily is a Willhouse and Spotify Original from Parcast.

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It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're

nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonelioria or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99-79 or visit Zepbounds. Now back to the story. In the summer of 1980, 22-year-old Wayne Williams was a wannabe talent agent living in his parents' house in the Dixie Hills neighborhood of southwest Atlanta. After the first iteration of his band Gemini failed, he ramped up his efforts to find the right talent to fill spots in the group. He handed out flyers in the places where young boys spent their days, like the arcade at the Omni, a massive entertainment complex in downtown Atlanta. The boys would then come to Wayne's house and audition.

Wayne had a habit of exaggerating his accomplishments, which made him seem more legitimate than he actually was. That made the young boys eager to work with him, and for the parents who knew what was going on, it was easier for them to trust someone who seemed so accomplished. This is important, because at the same time that Wayne was recruiting young boys for Gemini, kids in Atlanta were going missing with disturbing frequency. By January of 1981, a year and a half after the abductions and murders began, there were 19 victims. The city was in a panic and the authorities had no real leads or suspects. A task force had been formed in all levels of government were now invested in discovering the killer's identity.

That's when FBI agent John Douglas was brought in to create a profile of the killer. Douglas predicted that the killer was between the ages of 25 and 29. and that he likely lived in or was very familiar with the area that most of the kids had gone missing from. The killer, he said, had to be black. However, the community fiercely disagreed, believing that the person targeting black youth was white, someone with racist motivations. According to Douglas, though, serial killers rarely crossed racial lines, and he didn't think a white person could enter the neighborhoods where black kids were playing without arousing suspicion of the community,

especially not after the murders gained so much attention. Douglas also predicted that the killer had a higher-than-average IQ and said he likely worked for himself. The killer may have also impersonated a police officer at some point in his life and probably had an elevated sense of importance. Despite this detailed profile, without any actual suspects to compare the profile too, it amounted to very little. The task force had to wait for the killer to slip up or make a mistake that would lead them to him.

Then, in the spring of 1981, there was an unexpected break in the case. The task force had been collecting matching hair and fibers off the bodies of the victims, which was how they were able to finally link the cases. The information was only meant to be known by investigators, but someone let the information slip to the media, who immediately reported the development. After that, the body stopped showing up in vacant lots and wooded areas and started showing up in the Chattahoochee River, where any evidence was washed away. That development peaked the interest of one FBI agent, Mike McComis.

He suggested they stake out the city's bridges and try to catch the killer in action. If they were disposing of the bodies by dumping them in the river, he might just be using the bridges to drop them. So every night for one month, teams made up of FBI agents, police officers from Atlanta and surrounding counties, and even police recruits pulled from classrooms, staked out the bridges, watching for any suspicious activity. At around 3 a.m. on May 22nd, police recruit Robert Campbell was staking out the James Jackson Parkway bridge when he heard a splash. To him, it sounded like a body hitting the water. He quickly radioed to a. his colleagues who leapt into action. They pulled over a white 1970s Chevy station wagon that

was driving across the bridge. The driver was Wayne Williams. When he was pulled over, Wayne told the officers, I know this is about those boys. The officers were stunned by this remark and became immediately suspicious and started asking questions. Wayne told the officers that he was a talent agent and that he had an appointment that morning with a woman, named Cheryl Johnson. He said he was driving out to find her place so he wouldn't get lost or be late when he returned in a few hours. The officers were unconvinced by his story. If anything, it made them more suspicious. They quickly got to work and searched the car. However, all they found was a nylon cord, which wasn't enough to make an arrest. So they let him go.

But Wayne had piqued the interest of many of the officers that night, and he remained on their radar. Two days later, two fishermen at the Chattahoochee River came across the body of 27-year-old Nathaniel Cater. Interestingly, investigators tied Nathaniel's murder into the Atlanta Child Murder's case, even though he didn't fully fit the victim profile. For one, he wasn't a child. In fact, he was the oldest victim yet. But because his body was naked, and because he died by his fixation, the task force believed he was the killer's latest victim. Crucially, the discovery of Nathaniel fit the killer's new ammo of dumping bodies in the river, and his body was found not far from the bridge where police had stopped Wayne Williams just days earlier.

Was Nathaniel's body what police recruit Robert Campbell heard hitting the water that night? To investigators, it was too perfect to be coincidental. The task force set their sights firmly on Wayne, and they got to work digging up any information they could, with desperate determination. For two years, the killer had terrorized the city of Atlanta, and the police's inability to catch him cast a stark and critical light on their abilities.

The department had been subjected to widespread criticism from the public and the media alike. Now they needed to catch a break, and Wayne presented the perfect opportunity. When they looked into his record, they uncovered some interesting tidbits about him. One thing in particular caught their attention. Wayne had won't.

once been arrested for impersonating a police officer. It shouldn't have been surprising that he had a police scanner at his blue station wagon, since that was how he found things to film and sell for Metro News. But he also had police-like lights on the car, and one of his neighbors said he once tried to stop and arrest him using a fake badge. It should also be noted that Wayne was witnessed driving a number of different vehicles between 1979 and 1981, In addition to his station wagons, one blue, one white, he was also seen driving a green car.

Crucially, the blue and white vehicles matched ones some of the missing and murdered kids had been seen getting into. The more investigators learned about Wayne, the more he began to seem like their guy. He checked off many of the boxes on the profile created by FBI agents. He was a black, single loner who lived with his parents. He was intelligent, and he had pretended to be a police officer. With all that in mind, detectives decided it was time to bring him in for a chat. During his interrogation on June 3rd, Wayne took and failed three polygraph tests. But since polygraph tests are inadmissible in court due to their unreliability,

Wayne was released the next morning. At this point, police didn't have enough to make an arrest, but he was still their prime suspect, and he knew it. In the days following his interrogation, Wayne and his father, got to work cleaning up the family home. They started with the yard outside, raking and mowing the lawn and washing the windows. Wayne spent an extensive amount of time thoroughly scrubbing down his car, inside and out. Then they moved their cleaning mission inside.

Neighbors watched as the family spent days performing household chores. At one point, they noticed Homer and Wayne burning things in their barbecue. Police hadn't publicly announced that Wayne was a suspect in the Atlanta Child Murder's case. case, but everyone seemed to know that he'd been brought in for questioning, and the family's sudden attentiveness to a clean home called the attention of prying neighbors. When police heard about the movement around the Williams' home, they thought it might be an attempt to destroy evidence, so they got a search warrant for the family's house and Wayne's car, and they immediately got to work. Since detectives have been collecting fibers and hairs from victim's bodies for months,

They pay particular attention to the rugs and carpets in the home, collecting as many samples as they could. They also made sure to swipe some hairs from Wayne's German Shepherd. Watching the cops search his home, Wayne was incensed. He hated the sudden loss of control. So in an attempt to redirect the narrative, he did something bizarre. The day after the police search, he held a press conference at his house. But Wayne was adamant that the press conference would only be. happened on his terms. To that end, he had stipulations for any reporters who attended.

Then he made the press agree not to show his face or use his name in the coverage of the event. That way he believed he could clear the air, but still remain anonymous. He thought he was pulling all of the strings. During the press conference, Wayne declared his innocence to the media. He denied having thrown anything off the bridge on May 22nd, as the police had suggested. He also used the opportunity to criticize the parents of the kids who'd gone missing and admonished the kids for, quote, running around the streets wild. Wayne told the press that he was the victim of police mishandling the case. They'd dropped the ball on solving the murders, and now they were trying to pin it all on him to absolve themselves of the pressure of finding the real killer.

It's important to note that at this stage, Wayne hadn't yet been charged with anything. He wasn't even a named suspect, so the stunt was peculiar, and it only seemed stranger when Wayne handed out copies of his resume to the press, magnifying and even fabricating some of his accomplishments. But the thing was, even though Wayne didn't want his name out in the public, the reporters had only agreed not to name him or show his face during the press conference. Anything after that was fair game. So they began reporting on Wayne as the prime suspect, and a media store ensued. Crowds began gathering outside of the Williams House, hoping to catch a glimpse of the suspected Atlanta child murderer, and the police began to openly surveil Wayne, following his

movements whenever he left the house. Though they claimed it was for his protection, it was clear they were trying to catch him out. For a month, the Media and Task Force were camped outside of the Williams House, watching the family's every move. Then on June 21, 1981, Fulton County's district attorney, Lewis Slayton, finally announced that Wayne would be charged with the murder of 27-year-old Nathaniel Cater. Slayton was under pressure from the government to bring someone to justice for the murders, and the prosecutors believed they finally had enough evidence to get a conviction. That morning, police showed up.

at Wayne's home and arrested him. For many people, justice was finally being served. But for others, the arrest only brought up more questions. Coming up, Wayne Williams' trial begins, and a bereaved community reacts. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easy easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual.

Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories,

and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, Every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Now back to the story. On June 21, 1981, 23-year-old Wayne Williams was arrested and charged in the death of the Atlanta child murder cases, most recent victim.

27-year-old Nathaniel Cater. The prosecution later added the death of 21-year-old Jimmy Ray Payne to the charges. Jimmy's body had been found in the Chattahoochee River in April of that year. Wayne's trial was set for January of 1982, and from the very beginning he maintained his innocence. However, proving he wasn't a killer was a lot more complex than he thought. 28 children and adults had been killed between 1979 and 1981, and all of them fell under the umbrella of the Atlanta child murder case. But Wayne was only being charged for the deaths of two adults.

The case against Wayne gets kind of confusing, so we're going to walk you through it. Because the prosecution's strongest evidence came from the deaths of Nathaniel and Jimmy, they were the only ones he was tried for. But the judge in Wayne's case allowed prosecutors to present evidence, from 10 other deaths linked to the Atlanta child murders. That part's crucial because it allowed investigators an opportunity to prove a pattern. It's important to note Wayne was never found guilty of those other killings, but hairs and fibers pulled from the other bodies matched the ones they found on Jimmy and

Nathaniel, effectively tying all of the cases together. This presented a particularly difficult problem for the defense. Now, instead of trying to prove that Wayne didn't commit two murders, they had to prove he didn't commit 12. There are other details that make the Wayne Williams case a complex and divisive one. We're going to go over some of the dubious and flimsy elements of the prosecution's case first, and then we'll go discuss the merits of their arguments. First was the autopsy of Jimmy. When he died, his cause of death was listed as undetermined,

but after Wayne was arrested, it was changed to homicide. Even then, the doctor examining Jimmy's body couldn't definitively say that the 21-year-old's death was a homicide. Nathaniel's death was even more complicated. The 27-year-old's body was discovered in the river on May 24th, but prosecutors alleged that Wayne had dropped the body in the river on May 22nd, the night he was stopped. However, some witnesses claim they saw Nathaniel on May 23rd. If those statements were true, that meant Nathaniel had to have been alive when prosecutors claimed Wayne was dumping his body. But the confusion didn't end there. The coroner's report said that Nathaniel's body had experienced significant water damage

and that it was in the water for five to 14 days before it was found. That evidence completely contradicted everything that had been said before. These details are important because the day the body was dropped in the river was fundamental to the prosecution's case. If it was dropped after May 22nd, Wayne being on the bridge that night was irrelevant. However, any inconsistencies in the prosecution's theory about what happened in Nathaniel and Jimmy were balanced out with the physical evidence investigators had collected.

The bulk of the physical evidence came from the fibers and dog hairs found on 12 of the bodies tied to the case. The prosecution were able to match green strands to carpet found throughout the Williams' home, red strands to a rug in their living room, and animal hairs to Wayne's German Shepherd. Of course, the discovery of the fibers didn't prove that Wayne killed any of the boys, but it connected all of them to an environment where all of those things were found. According to the prosecution, that place was the Williams' home. The physical evidence was important to the prosecution strategy

because it acted as the chain tethering the murders of the children to the murders of the adults, and all of them were being hitched to Wayne Williams. Another part of the strategy was to attack Wayne's character, and to do that they brought in witnesses with damning testimony. One young boy testified that Wayne had tried to grope him once in his car. Then a maintenance man who worked with Nathaniel Cater said that he saw him holding hands with Wayne shortly before Nathaniel's body was found. Other witnesses claimed to have seen Wayne with other victims. One boy said that he saw 15-year-old Jojo Bell get into a crime. car with Wayne. The mother of Patrick Rogers' friend, Joe Harper, said that he told her a man

named Wayne Williams wanted to record the duo's music. Prosecutors also argued that Wayne was racist and that he hated black boys, offering that as a possible motive for the killings. An ambulance driver also testified that Wayne had spoken to him about killing black children and had complained about his dislike of young, poor black boys. The prosecution used the kaleidoscope of testimonies about Wayne's character to paint a picture of a violent, self-hating man with a strong motivation to kill. When it was the defense's turn to present their case, they called Wayne to the stand, and at first he was calm and timid.

He reiterated that he didn't know any of the victims and that he didn't kill anyone. On the stand, he wasn't the vicious, aggressive killer that the prosecution painted him as. But the prosecution knew how to unleash Wayne's aggressive side, they asked him direct, agitating questions about the murders and how he pulled them off, hoping to bait him into reacting. And it worked. Wayne erupted, insulting and disparaging the prosecutors and investigators. Unsurprisingly, the moment had a big impact on the jury. If nothing else, the outburst proved that Wayne wasn't as passive as he wanted people to believe. It was the last image of him the jury was left with.

The case came to an end after Wayne's testimony. The jury left the courtroom to deliberate and took just 11 hours to reach a decision. On February 27, 1982, Wayne Williams was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder. He was given two life sentences. But that wasn't all. After the conviction, authorities considered Wayne the Atlanta child murderer. In their minds, there was no one else. also could be. They'd prove that. Across Atlanta, the verdict was met with jubilation and confusion,

with relief and shock. While many people were glad to see justice served, others were bewildered. They believed that an innocent man was paying the price for murders he didn't commit. Following his conviction, the remaining cases were closed and considered solved by police. But closing the cases didn't bring closure to their families. Many of the parents of the victims didn't believe their kids received justice. Sure, a double life sentence was punishment enough for the monster who killed them, but what if that wasn't Wayne? Many of them didn't believe he was guilty of any of the killings. Camille Bell, mother of nine-year-old Yusuf Bell, told the media that she didn't believe Wayne killed anyone, and that he was just the latest victim of the Atlanta child killer.

Camille believed that the real killer had racist motivations. And looking back on the evidence, it's possible she was onto something. In 1986, four years after Wayne's conviction, Spin Magazine published a scathing report. It revealed that before Wayne was arrested, a secret committee made up of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies had looked into a Ku Klux Klan connection to the murders. The committee had information about a Klan. member named Charles Sanders, who was part of the National States Rights Party. One of the most active KKK units in Atlanta, and one particularly keen on violence, he told a police

informant about plans he had to create mass unrest in Atlanta's black community by killing black children. He'd also threatened at least one of the boys who was killed, telling the informant he was going to strangle him to death. According to Spin's report, the committee suppressed the investigation for fears of inciting a race war. Crucially, the task force created to find the killer wasn't aware of the possible KKK connection or that another investigation was happening simultaneously. As they struggled to make progress,

the secret committee was pursuing a focused and discrete investigation of their own, and one that seems to have had real merit. It's unclear why the KKK investigation was terminated, but Spin speculated that it was due to the committee's of provoking racial violence in Atlanta. Wayne was arrested and convicted shortly after that investigation closed. In the decades since his conviction, Wayne has maintained his innocence, and theories about what really happened between 1979 and 1981 continue to circulate through

Atlanta and beyond. In 2019, the Atlanta Child Murders was reenacted in the Netflix show Mindhunter, renewing public interest in the case. In response, Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and police chief Erica Shields officially reopened the investigation. Bottoms was nine when the murders began and vividly remembers the fear and terror that coursed through Atlanta. With all the developments in technologies since the 1980s, authorities are hopeful that retesting old evidence might yield new results and bring definitive answers to a case that's still riddled with uncertainty. The reality is we may never know if Wayne Williams did commit the murders

or if another killer used his conviction to get away with the crimes. And while there is hope that the truth will eventually come to light, it fades a little more with every passing day. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with a new episode. You can find more episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify.

We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Michael Motion, with production assistants by Ron Shapiro, Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, and Joshua Kern. This episode of serial killers was written by Sarah Hussein,

with writing assistance by Joel Callan, fact-checking by Kara McEleen, and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood. Serial killers stars Greg Poulson and Vanessa Richardson. This is Story Booth Daily. Tune in to this new podcast for your daily fix of real-life stories from people around the world. Story Booth Daily premieres Monday, November 8th on Spotify.

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A beloved 75-year-old man washing up, getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.