Speaker 1: In Atlanta. Another body was coming today at police Task
Speaker 1: Dors headquarters. There are twenty seven faces on the wall, murdered,
Speaker 1: one missing. We do not know the person or persons
Speaker 1: that are responsible. Therefore, we do not have the mode
Speaker 1: from Tenderfoot TV and How Stuff Works in Atlanta. Like
Speaker 1: eleven other recent victims in Atlanta, Rogers apparently was as
Speaker 1: fixy victor Atlanta. It was unlikely to catch the killer
Speaker 1: unless he keeps on killing. This is Atlanta Monster. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: thanks for tuning into our first Q and A episode.
Speaker 1: I'm Payne Lindsay. I'm here with the Tenderfoot team and
Speaker 1: the House Stuff Works team. Hey, it's Jason here with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works Merit from Tenderfoot, and this is Donald
Speaker 1: from Tenderfoot. And today we're gonna be going through some
Speaker 1: of the voicemail questions. To start this off, we received
Speaker 1: an overwhelming amount of listener voicemails ranging from all types
Speaker 1: of questions, and today we've picked some of the best
Speaker 1: ones and we'll be going through them individually and giving
Speaker 1: the best answers we can. Hi, my name is Jimal Anthony.
Speaker 1: Why this story? What made you guys? Decided this was
Speaker 1: the story to tell it's a very unique story, but
Speaker 1: it's very um complex and it seems to be ever changing,
Speaker 1: you know, so many moving parts to it. So what
Speaker 1: made you guys decide to pick the Atlanta child murders.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Um really, Donald all right, my
Speaker 1: business partner here at tender Foot TV, he brought this
Speaker 1: story to me. At first, I'd never heard of the
Speaker 1: Atlantia Old murders. Donald, what inspired you to bring this
Speaker 1: up in the first place? Initially, I know we wanted
Speaker 1: to do something different, Um first podcast up and vantashed.
Speaker 1: You know, we're planning on doing a season two of it,
Speaker 1: but I know we wanted to do something other than
Speaker 1: a missing person's case. And um, just thinking back on
Speaker 1: my childhood, the Atlanta childmars was something I remember growing up. Um,
Speaker 1: it affected me, and I think some of our other
Speaker 1: listeners that are either forty and up and from the
Speaker 1: black community especially remember hearing about this. And I was
Speaker 1: away in California, UM, but it still affected me. You know,
Speaker 1: I heard about it from my parents, from my uncle's
Speaker 1: and it was something that just I felt like I
Speaker 1: needed to ask you if if you had ever heard
Speaker 1: of it before? And when I did, and you hadn't
Speaker 1: you hadn't heard of it. I was like, how many
Speaker 1: other people out there, you know, just don't know about
Speaker 1: this tragic story. So I figured, look, if we can
Speaker 1: bring this story, uh some more attention, maybe some justice
Speaker 1: or some at least at the very least some awareness
Speaker 1: and the closure for those families, then I think I'd
Speaker 1: be worth this. You and shot yeah. And I did
Speaker 1: some initial research after you told me about it to
Speaker 1: see if this would be a good podcast, and I
Speaker 1: realized very quickly how important this story was um to
Speaker 1: the nation, especially just the city of Atlanta. Um all
Speaker 1: the racial bifurcations in the story, the way it's sort
Speaker 1: of shaped this city, and kind of it's had this
Speaker 1: sort of dark cloud over Atlanta for a long time,
Speaker 1: and it's something that was sort of swept under the rug.
Speaker 1: And the more you dig into it, the more you
Speaker 1: learn that just isn't readily available out there, right, And
Speaker 1: I think also, I mean I learned a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought I knew about this case, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people think that they know about this
Speaker 1: case until you actually do the research listen to the podcast,
Speaker 1: so you know the things that I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: some of those, um were rumors, and and you know
Speaker 1: those were dispelled by doing the research. So I got
Speaker 1: a lot from it. But I think the interesting thing
Speaker 1: also is that, you know, we sat down with Jason
Speaker 1: from How Stuff Works, Uh, and you also, Jason had
Speaker 1: had this idea to do this podcast, so it kind
Speaker 1: of seemed like a perfect match and that's why we
Speaker 1: ended up doing it together. So yeah, But when I
Speaker 1: met you, Jason, I had just talked to Donald about
Speaker 1: the Atlanta child murders case, and we met for the
Speaker 1: first time in your office, and you brought up the
Speaker 1: Atlanta child murders and I said, I'm not kidding my
Speaker 1: business partner, Donald just mentioned this to me, and I
Speaker 1: was gonna write there in between you guys, what was
Speaker 1: your take on doing this as a podcast? You know,
Speaker 1: for me, I was what nine or ten years old
Speaker 1: at the time, and that image of the case, even
Speaker 1: living far away in Wisconsin, was burned in my brain.
Speaker 1: And I think what Donald said is right where, um,
Speaker 1: something's actually surprised us here. So um the reactions from
Speaker 1: folks who lived during that time and remembered it but
Speaker 1: actually didn't quite remember everything. These things tend to be
Speaker 1: urban legends the longer they get drawn out, and the
Speaker 1: stories tend to change over time, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: even if you listen to the podcast, you'll be like,
Speaker 1: it sounds like even folks at the FBI don't quite
Speaker 1: remember everything thirty or forty years later, and so there's
Speaker 1: a certain mythology that that builds over time. Uh. The
Speaker 1: second thing that, um, I think most shocked me, and
Speaker 1: I think pain you probably feel this way too, is
Speaker 1: how many people had no idea that this was actually
Speaker 1: a story that happened, that this many African American children
Speaker 1: were missing in murdered, and that this happened in a
Speaker 1: major metropolitan city like Atlanta. The other why is that
Speaker 1: it's been forty years, and part of this is what's
Speaker 1: the same and what's different about this country in this
Speaker 1: city actually, And we're talking about race, we're talking about economics,
Speaker 1: we're talking about politics, we're talking about police and justice,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty stunning to see certainly some things have changed,
Speaker 1: but a lot fuels the same after forty years. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I've said this before, UM, speaking about the podcast,
Speaker 1: is that you know, there's a difference between progress and change,
Speaker 1: and a lot has changed, but we haven't progressed as
Speaker 1: much as a nation as we'd like to think. And
Speaker 1: I think that's one lesson I want to take away
Speaker 1: you can have from listening to this podcast. To add
Speaker 1: to that the why now it's been forty years, Like
Speaker 1: you're saying, a lot of these players in this case
Speaker 1: are getting really old now, whether some of them are
Speaker 1: not even around. So I mean, in ten years, I
Speaker 1: don't think you could do this podcast, if you know.
Speaker 1: And just kind of brings up another side note, which
Speaker 1: is what was our goal on the podcast. So it
Speaker 1: was an investigation and we wanted to get to the
Speaker 1: root of the stories. But at think we discussed early on, um,
Speaker 1: we wanted people to make up their own minds and
Speaker 1: and here everything, even the wild crazy stuff, and make
Speaker 1: up their own minds and then looking themselves and be like,
Speaker 1: why did I think that way? What's causing me to
Speaker 1: think that way? Is it based on things I've held
Speaker 1: onto for years? Or is it because I really feel
Speaker 1: compelled one way or another that the evidence is swaying me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I promise as a listener, whatever you were feeling, I
Speaker 1: was feeling the exact same thing at some point. This
Speaker 1: is so confusing, This is puzzling, Why why is this
Speaker 1: like this? Do I believe this? Do I not believe this?
Speaker 1: Those are things that people have thought for almost forty
Speaker 1: years now. It's nothing new in this case. Everyone associated
Speaker 1: with this has kind of a different perspective um based
Speaker 1: on age, based on race, and like Pain being thirty,
Speaker 1: you know, you weren't even born when this happened. You know,
Speaker 1: Meredith's on our team even younger. Jason and I were
Speaker 1: young and you heard about this growing up. But just
Speaker 1: you too, you know, Meredith and Pain, you guys are
Speaker 1: the generation of pot cast listeners that you know, really
Speaker 1: don't know about the story. So just hearing about it
Speaker 1: and learning about it in the way that you did,
Speaker 1: you can probably relate a little bit more to the
Speaker 1: listener um that's hearing about it firsthand from the podcast. Right.
Speaker 1: So I didn't grow up with the story obviously like
Speaker 1: either of you did. But I think it's interesting in
Speaker 1: my perspective to still see um parallels between this story
Speaker 1: now and what's happening today in and social issues we're
Speaker 1: facing now, and how like you're suggesting, Donald, there might
Speaker 1: not have been as much progress as we like to
Speaker 1: think that we have, and these issues that are there,
Speaker 1: some of them are still here in two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: and I think that it's interesting to see that from
Speaker 1: my perspective and coming across the story brand new right now. Hey, paying,
Speaker 1: this is Wendy from North Atlanta. So my question is,
Speaker 1: so the bridge that supposedly Wayne Williams through the body
Speaker 1: off of I was wondering why it took so long
Speaker 1: for them to recover that body. Don't bodies float when
Speaker 1: they're first thrown in the water and then they sink later. Therefore,
Speaker 1: they would be able to recover that body that night,
Speaker 1: as opposed to waiting three days and then not being
Speaker 1: able to connect it to Wayne Williams throwing the body in.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I am, by no means an
Speaker 1: expert on uh the human body in that sense, but
Speaker 1: from what I know, a dead body does not flow
Speaker 1: up until the gases inside from the decomposition make it
Speaker 1: rise to the surface. So let's assume that it was
Speaker 1: Nathan Okator's body that was tossed off the bridge, and
Speaker 1: he had died just a few hours earlier. Within that timeframe,
Speaker 1: he likely would sink and then rise to the top later,
Speaker 1: the FBI told us and Also, it's in the FBI
Speaker 1: reports all the documents that they did go search for
Speaker 1: a body that night with boats and with helicopters and
Speaker 1: all kind of stuff, but they found nothing. So Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's not I've been fishing on the Chattahoochee many
Speaker 1: times and it's it's very cold, very cold water, and
Speaker 1: it's a little bit tricky to navigate. It's not the
Speaker 1: widest river in the world. There's lots of overhanging trees,
Speaker 1: and if you were to do that at night, it's
Speaker 1: not the easiest thing to kind of find a clear
Speaker 1: pathway and just a body be there. Um. And so
Speaker 1: I just knowing that environment, I know it is a
Speaker 1: little bit tricky, and I'm sort of not surprised it
Speaker 1: took him maybe an extra day or two to to
Speaker 1: find the body. Yeah. I think another thing is the current.
Speaker 1: It's been suggested to us that the current was really strong.
Speaker 1: It's also been suggested to us that the current was
Speaker 1: relatively calm. So depending on who we talked to, we
Speaker 1: get mixed information. We got mixed information about that, and
Speaker 1: I think, um, regardless, there was a lot of time
Speaker 1: between when they heard a splash Wayne was pulled over.
Speaker 1: They talked to Wayne the assembled people to go out
Speaker 1: and start investigating the splash. That was in the early
Speaker 1: early morning hours of that night and or of that day.
Speaker 1: And I think it probably took a long time before
Speaker 1: anything was set in motion, so that could account for
Speaker 1: some you know, missing time, or where Nathaniel Kator's body,
Speaker 1: if it was indeed dumped that night, where it would
Speaker 1: have been in relation to actually first hearing the splash.
Speaker 1: But the focus was on Wayne almost immediately you have
Speaker 1: this the splash, this uh suspicious character on the bridge.
Speaker 1: It's late at night, so all the police officers the
Speaker 1: FBI are there focused on Way Williams. They're also trying
Speaker 1: to look for a body that one recruit claimed he
Speaker 1: heard hit the water. So it's late, it's dark, and
Speaker 1: I think that um even Macomis made a comment to
Speaker 1: us offhand, the FBI agent that they didn't even launch
Speaker 1: a full investigation that night in the water because the
Speaker 1: current was strong and it was not safe to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you think about it, they didn't even really
Speaker 1: know for sure what they're looking for. They didn't know
Speaker 1: Nathaniel Kator was missing at this point. It wasn't that
Speaker 1: they were looking for someone in particular, They just here's
Speaker 1: a kind of fishy situation, let's look into it. So
Speaker 1: I think that definitely is a good point to bring up.
Speaker 1: That mcomis they didn't know what they're looking for. They
Speaker 1: didn't even launch an official investigation yet. I think FBI
Speaker 1: also mentioned that the recruit under the bridge could have
Speaker 1: been as much as fifty yards away from uh where,
Speaker 1: directly where the body may have hit the water. So
Speaker 1: if he's you know, under the bridge, fifty yards away
Speaker 1: and that he hears a splash, he still used to
Speaker 1: you know, walk over there and then shine his light
Speaker 1: on the water. And by that time, I mean, even
Speaker 1: the body has hit the water and initially come up
Speaker 1: before it sinks again and the current takes it away.
Speaker 1: I mean you're looking at at least a couple of
Speaker 1: minutes of someone walking and then looking around. The body
Speaker 1: can definitely have disappeared by that time. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of variables. I think, um, there's no
Speaker 1: definitive answer to really, they should have found it as
Speaker 1: soon as it hit the water or three days later. Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is Julian. I just finished listening to your podcast.
Speaker 1: So if Wayne used to drive around the blue car
Speaker 1: with like the police scanner, pretend to be a police
Speaker 1: officer or be the reporter and get all the information
Speaker 1: on the cops. How did he not know that the
Speaker 1: cops were at the stakeout and then like, you know,
Speaker 1: not and then the boy being caught regardless, It just
Speaker 1: there's just seems to be I'm just kind of confused
Speaker 1: about that. Well, according to Wayne Williams himself, he did
Speaker 1: know about this. He told me it was an episode
Speaker 1: ten in one of my last phone calls with him,
Speaker 1: that he knew about the bridge steakouts. Was he telling
Speaker 1: the truth? I don't know, But according to Wayne in
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, he did know about the bridge steakouts,
Speaker 1: and he did have a car that was like a
Speaker 1: police car with a police scanner, so he had the
Speaker 1: know how and the ability to hear a police scanner
Speaker 1: and possibly find out about bridge steakouts. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that helps or hurts his story, but that's what
Speaker 1: he told me. That's the only time I've ever heard
Speaker 1: him say of that. Do you think he was like
Speaker 1: that that was just another turn in the story at
Speaker 1: the end, because I don't think he even had the
Speaker 1: police scanner in the white station wagon. I think it
Speaker 1: was in some of the other vehicles. I just I
Speaker 1: have a tough time believing that he knew, and if
Speaker 1: he knew, why would he do it? Anyway? I think
Speaker 1: Wayne tends to say things and shape things as he's
Speaker 1: talking to people, UM, and he shapes the stories in
Speaker 1: a way that fits whoever he's talking to and whatever
Speaker 1: he's trying to get across. UM. I think in that moment,
Speaker 1: he felt compelled to tell me that, you know, all
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous because he knew about these steakouts when
Speaker 1: you know. I don't know why he didn't say that
Speaker 1: in his trial. I think it's a good point that
Speaker 1: he didn't necessarily have the police scanner with him in
Speaker 1: that car. I'm not sure if that was something. He
Speaker 1: moved around to different cars, and he moved drowned plenty
Speaker 1: of cars, as we know, But he did know enough
Speaker 1: about what was going on. This is me talking assuming
Speaker 1: that Wayne did this, But he did know enough about
Speaker 1: what was going on to change the place of dumping
Speaker 1: to the rivers. So I don't think it was out
Speaker 1: of the question to think that he knew they would
Speaker 1: be looking at rivers by this point. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: this was the first body that was that had shown
Speaker 1: up in a river. Yeah. Bottom line is kids were
Speaker 1: turning up dead in the Chattahoochee River. That was in
Speaker 1: the Atlanternal Constitution, that was in articles, it was in
Speaker 1: the news. That was a known fact in Atlanta at
Speaker 1: that time. And then mainly adults at the end showing
Speaker 1: up further and further outside the Atlanta city boundaries in rivers. Again,
Speaker 1: as Um Popcorn says, because he heard the fibers were important,
Speaker 1: so he was stripping the clothes off of them. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm actually really surprised that the law enforcement was able
Speaker 1: to keep their steak outs a secret from the media.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there was an agreement with the
Speaker 1: media to keep it quiet, but for all the stuff
Speaker 1: that happened to be able to essentially cover every one
Speaker 1: of these bridges out in the country for thirty days
Speaker 1: and no one knows about it, I'm still surprised that
Speaker 1: that didn't get out. I thought it was suggested to
Speaker 1: us once that maybe people didn't know exactly what was
Speaker 1: going on and where, but that they knew that police
Speaker 1: were steaking out new locations. Even Captain Dave Captain Dave
Speaker 1: said off hand in our interview that he recalls on
Speaker 1: the police skinner they were using code words. I don't
Speaker 1: remember what the word was, but it was something. It
Speaker 1: was some street name that he had never heard of
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. He said, where is this street? Where is
Speaker 1: this turns out it was a code word for the
Speaker 1: bridge steak out and he found this out during that
Speaker 1: time period. So way Williams having the same access that
Speaker 1: this guy has, And you know, it's plausible that Wayne
Speaker 1: would know about the bridge steak out. The question is
Speaker 1: then if he did, like Wayne saying, if he did
Speaker 1: know about the bridge steake out, then why does he
Speaker 1: go into the bridge at three in the morning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's surprising, but it is conceivable. And I think
Speaker 1: it's important that to remember that when he was pulled over,
Speaker 1: at least to us, he suggested that when um, he
Speaker 1: was questioned, he said, is this about the kids? Even
Speaker 1: if he's claiming his innocence, he knew that he was
Speaker 1: being pulled over in association with you know, the kids
Speaker 1: being missing and turned up murdered. So also, I think
Speaker 1: he could have known about the bridge steakouts, and um,
Speaker 1: that's not going to deter if it, you know, if
Speaker 1: he's the one who is guilty of it's not going
Speaker 1: to deter that person from dumping them in the water.
Speaker 1: That was he believed at the time that it was,
Speaker 1: you know, getting rid of evidence. So you know, the
Speaker 1: killer has to know. It's just common sense if I'm
Speaker 1: dumping bodies and rivers, there's if there is a steak
Speaker 1: out there probably looking at rivers and you know where
Speaker 1: these bodies are being found. Um. And also they say
Speaker 1: he was aware of the steakouts, doesn't mean he knew
Speaker 1: exactly which bridges, exactly which times when the bridge steakhouts
Speaker 1: were ending, and that that was the actual last night.
Speaker 1: So also a lot a lot of variables when it
Speaker 1: comes to that take out. Yeah, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: just while we're on the topic of the bridge again
Speaker 1: over over and over again, we were out at the
Speaker 1: bridge and they have a kind of an extra fence
Speaker 1: on top, now one of those kind of curved rails
Speaker 1: that prevent people from jumping off into the into the river.
Speaker 1: And so we had to use a lift in order
Speaker 1: to get Randy over the top and drop him. But
Speaker 1: this kind of question of how could how could anyone
Speaker 1: Wayne's size pick up a body and throw them in
Speaker 1: the river. Well, if you look at the original um
Speaker 1: bridge structure and some of the photographs, that structure is
Speaker 1: actually not that tall. It's less tall than um than
Speaker 1: a height of a normal car, and it is solid concrete.
Speaker 1: So the ability again I'm getting a little bit graphic here,
Speaker 1: but to pick up a body, even force it against
Speaker 1: that concrete structure and push it over. To me, that
Speaker 1: doesn't seem very difficult, even if um those bodies were
Speaker 1: a lot heavier than the victims who bodies were pushed over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's absolutely doable. I mean if if you
Speaker 1: you try to live Randy. Yeah, if you take the Randy,
Speaker 1: it his height and weight compared to Nathaniel Katy, which
Speaker 1: is you know, it's been some back and forth about
Speaker 1: exact height and weight, but it's it's all very similar
Speaker 1: to what we were dealing with. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: my height and weight and not much different than way
Speaker 1: Williams at that time. And I was able to take
Speaker 1: the dummy um from about the middle of the bridge,
Speaker 1: drag you know, put my arms underneath the dummies arms
Speaker 1: and drag it up the curb over to the bridge
Speaker 1: and lifted at least to my chest height and to
Speaker 1: be able to put it over what would have been
Speaker 1: the barrier At that time. It wasn't a scientific test
Speaker 1: being done by us. It was you know, what do
Speaker 1: we believe? Like? What did I just hear? Like? The
Speaker 1: best way to test this is to do it yourself
Speaker 1: and see if there's anything there. We put ears where
Speaker 1: the recruit heard this splash, so you, as a listener,
Speaker 1: got to hear what it could sound like. It wasn't
Speaker 1: altered it. We literally bought these uh microphone ears to emulate, uh,
Speaker 1: the way people hear things. And so that's the closest
Speaker 1: we could possibly get. Scenario again. Why did they rent
Speaker 1: so many cars during that period? I mean the mom
Speaker 1: shicked the father. I didn't know you know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. I wonder why they rented so many stations
Speaker 1: wide into whatever? Why by they did rent a lot
Speaker 1: of cars, And we asked me about that. According to
Speaker 1: Wayne and to Larry Peterson too, who's the fiber analyst um,
Speaker 1: the Williams family was having trouble with a newly purchased
Speaker 1: LTG during this time period and it was in and
Speaker 1: out of the shop. So all of the rental cars
Speaker 1: they got were associated with that. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was directly suggested that it was from
Speaker 1: the car shop that they were going to that was
Speaker 1: giving them these rentals, but it was because they had
Speaker 1: a new car that was having trouble. Um, it sounds
Speaker 1: convenient that they had all these rental cars, not planned necessarily,
Speaker 1: you know, looking at the list by check Donlinger, there
Speaker 1: was even he talks about the confusion around the cars
Speaker 1: and and what goes where and when, and I had
Speaker 1: trouble following it. Frankly, this is something I found that
Speaker 1: was interesting to me. Um, not just because of the cars,
Speaker 1: but they had pulled over another individual and their car.
Speaker 1: It was actually a tag associated with Wayne Williams Um
Speaker 1: associated to Metro News Productions on eighteen seventeen Penelope Road,
Speaker 1: which is Wayne and his family's address. So they actually
Speaker 1: went to visit Wayne in January. It's the first time
Speaker 1: he was talked to as part of the investigation, and
Speaker 1: well in advance of him being questioned and arrested later
Speaker 1: that summer. So whether they knew it or not, they
Speaker 1: had are actually already talked to Wayne because of an
Speaker 1: association with one of his cars. Well, we talked to Corn,
Speaker 1: the FBI agent. He told Meredith and Knight that there
Speaker 1: was this list of about three thousand people that the
Speaker 1: FBI had created and Wayne Williams was on that list.
Speaker 1: So he said that no matter what, eventually they were
Speaker 1: going to find Wayne because there was this list of
Speaker 1: individuals that fit a profile that they had built in.
Speaker 1: Wayne's name was Lomahold on that list. Hi, Payne, my
Speaker 1: name is Deel London. I'm calling from Campton, Georgia. Is
Speaker 1: it possible that Cheryl Johnson was like a frame by
Speaker 1: the g d I or the FBI, Like could they
Speaker 1: have called and left the incorrect name and number in
Speaker 1: hopes that he would go out and end up on
Speaker 1: that bridge so that they could arrest him or Am
Speaker 1: I really far fetched in that? I think that's a
Speaker 1: little far fetched. I don't believe in these huge elaborate
Speaker 1: conspiracies to pin all this on Wayne Williams. What's the
Speaker 1: point If it was thought out that much, then they
Speaker 1: would have more evidence on Wayne Williams. First of all.
Speaker 1: And if that's also the case, why is it Wayne
Speaker 1: saying that the FBI with plants and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't make any sense. I mean it's they
Speaker 1: didn't say, did Sheryl Johnson come to my house right now?
Speaker 1: He decided when he wanted to go to her house.
Speaker 1: You know, he could have went after the first call,
Speaker 1: after the second call, before he went to the club,
Speaker 1: or after the club, so he could have win a
Speaker 1: completely different direction. Could have been coming from North Atlanta
Speaker 1: or from East Atlanta. You never know where he's coming
Speaker 1: from when he decides to go to Sheryl Johnson's house.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it's kind of far fetched. And
Speaker 1: I also don't believe in like the larger conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: that involve you know, a ton of players that are
Speaker 1: out to get Wayne Williams. There's just not enough. There's
Speaker 1: not an evidence to support that. And like you said,
Speaker 1: paying if they were framing him there will be would
Speaker 1: be a much better frame job than this. I think
Speaker 1: it's important that Wayne doesn't suggest it was ever that um,
Speaker 1: regardless of Sheryl Johnson is real or not, he like
Speaker 1: always stays true to that it was a print call
Speaker 1: about someone who knew using the music business, and he
Speaker 1: always says true to the conspiracy only started after I
Speaker 1: was stopped on the bridge, So it doesn't even you know,
Speaker 1: matter if CHERRYL. Johnson is real or not. I think
Speaker 1: Wayne Williams knows no matter what, that it's a bad alibi. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's just no way that it's a setup. If
Speaker 1: it was, then they messed up and a body was
Speaker 1: tossed over the bridge as a result. Like if if
Speaker 1: they were really trying to set him up, they would
Speaker 1: have been waiting at the top of the bridge. And
Speaker 1: it just seems very far fetched. The two in the
Speaker 1: morning thing. If he's a suspect, you knock on history
Speaker 1: and take him downtown and you questioned him with all
Speaker 1: the stuff you've got on him, you do not do
Speaker 1: an elaborate you know, bridge stake out to trap the
Speaker 1: killer if you will, and to not see someone dropped
Speaker 1: the body off the bridge. If my point was to
Speaker 1: catch the killer, then they would have caught the killer
Speaker 1: right then and there. But they didn't. And if it's
Speaker 1: all made up, I'm gonna makeup a better story. The
Speaker 1: guy unto the bridge, You say, oh, I saw Wayne
Speaker 1: Williams throw that body over, Like why so you know,
Speaker 1: why did it such a shaky story If it's a
Speaker 1: set up, If you're luring a killer and You're expecting
Speaker 1: them to drop a body off a bridge and and
Speaker 1: no one sees it. That just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, how many different versions of that story do
Speaker 1: we here? Hi, my name is Meg, and I thought
Speaker 1: that I heard earlier in the podcast that some of
Speaker 1: the victims had been sodomized, and so I was just
Speaker 1: curious there was ever d N a collection that would
Speaker 1: have correlated with Wayne Williams, or if there was even
Speaker 1: the ability to gather DNA compare it, since that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily was on trial for So it's just one piece
Speaker 1: that was curious about. I think it's firstly important to
Speaker 1: talk about the suggested sexual abuse. Apparently from everyone we
Speaker 1: talked to during our own investigation of this, there was
Speaker 1: no evidence of sexual abuse. It was serialized that sex
Speaker 1: was a motive and it's possible, but we couldn't find
Speaker 1: any records of rape kits. No one from the FBI
Speaker 1: or the a p D ever suggested that there's any
Speaker 1: sexual abuse. So I think firstly that's an important distinction.
Speaker 1: We've thought a lot about the DNA connection because that
Speaker 1: you know, DNA testing wasn't even a thing. It really
Speaker 1: came to late around UM and the suggestion to be
Speaker 1: able to kind of go back and see what happens.
Speaker 1: I've asked that question. We'll probably play a clip from
Speaker 1: Maurice Godwin who came on the show and talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about this. Carpet fibers is not direct evidends.
Speaker 1: Carpet fibers, you've got to have something else to support
Speaker 1: it to make it stronger. DNA is direct evidence. You
Speaker 1: don't need anything else to support DNA and fingerprints. Carpet
Speaker 1: fibers that was in the vehicle for forty years could
Speaker 1: still hold DNA that could produce a profile. The problem
Speaker 1: is what type of environment the car had been in.
Speaker 1: Heat destroys the DNA. Time destroys the DNA. Now, a
Speaker 1: case that I worked in O eight to oh ten
Speaker 1: happened in five. It was a woman and her two
Speaker 1: children brutally murdered in their house, and I worked for
Speaker 1: the defense from O eight oh ten and they used
Speaker 1: a vaginal squaff from her from not teen eighty five
Speaker 1: that was just kept in an old cardboard box and
Speaker 1: they matched it to him in oh six. From back
Speaker 1: then you only could use blood. The original blood analysis
Speaker 1: they cut and say was he as or not? But
Speaker 1: they said the DNA was and so they they recharged
Speaker 1: him in No. Six and and court martialed him in
Speaker 1: O ten and found him guilty. He's on death row. Now.
Speaker 1: Everything that was collected by the FBI and the g
Speaker 1: PI and law enforcement for the Willy Williams casse, where
Speaker 1: is it. Well, they have the right to destroy the
Speaker 1: evidence after the trial. Do you think that they did
Speaker 1: in this case. I don't think so. I think it's
Speaker 1: in probably aces, is probably into sureff an X, is
Speaker 1: probably some boxes down and who knows where in the
Speaker 1: police department. It's probably in all kinds of locations. And
Speaker 1: I very seriously doubt that they transferred the information and
Speaker 1: the evidence and everything when computer technology came along, very
Speaker 1: seriously doubt they transferred that to a spreadsheet. So the
Speaker 1: problem is you would have to put somebody down there
Speaker 1: to physically crawl on the floor and look and everything
Speaker 1: to find two things. You might find some things, but
Speaker 1: I would not be surprised at all if it's not
Speaker 1: into the trash dumb victims clothing with blood. Do you
Speaker 1: think they held under that? Well, Um, you've got two
Speaker 1: convictions and the rest of them have been um exceptionally cleared,
Speaker 1: it's what it's called. Uh, they probably don't. And and
Speaker 1: then frankly, you could go deeper and say, um, you know,
Speaker 1: DNA evidence matching is not what it used to be.
Speaker 1: It was originally you know, positioned as how do we
Speaker 1: take the wrongly accused and find something that exonerates them,
Speaker 1: and it's turned into how do we get a guilty
Speaker 1: play out of someone based on this DNA to also
Speaker 1: going even further in saying, um, it's actually swaying some
Speaker 1: of the jurors, they've said, because if I see DNA
Speaker 1: testing put in front of me, I tend to believe
Speaker 1: that that is the truth. And so even d N
Speaker 1: a kind of being considered, this, this bullet proof evidence
Speaker 1: actually has a lot of biases in here and is
Speaker 1: problematic in these days. Um So even if we opened
Speaker 1: it up, even if the samples were clean, there's some
Speaker 1: problems there. Hi, my name is Kim, and my question
Speaker 1: after listening to the POECAST is about the evidence collected.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming it's just sitting in an evidence flucker or
Speaker 1: in storage or something, and I'm just wondering why they
Speaker 1: can't now use modern DNA testing to either clear or
Speaker 1: condemn Wayne if there's so many questions about his innocence
Speaker 1: or his guilt. A couple of points here. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten, there was a case update that actually
Speaker 1: said in looking at DNA findings between Way Williams and
Speaker 1: Patrick Baltazar, it would have actually strengthened the case against
Speaker 1: Wayne Williams, not for him. The other thing to consider
Speaker 1: in looking at again we talked about these flawed techniques.
Speaker 1: Think about it this way. Even if you were to
Speaker 1: match some of the DNA from the hairs that was
Speaker 1: that was a part of the case, But the fiber
Speaker 1: matching was such a stronger case for the state against Wayne,
Speaker 1: and he has less of a defense against that. So
Speaker 1: I think you answer one question, you end up opening
Speaker 1: up a bunch of others. I just I still think
Speaker 1: it's problematic. I think the lack of DNA evidence in
Speaker 1: this case is what's allowed it to be so confusing
Speaker 1: over the years. Usually it's in a murder case in
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, when there's DNA you can usually rule
Speaker 1: someone in or out as to be at the crime
Speaker 1: scene or anything like that. That wasn't really done here.
Speaker 1: The closest thing we had to it was these blood
Speaker 1: samples in the back of one of way William's cars.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting is I actually asked way Williams about
Speaker 1: those blood samples. It didn't make it into the final episode,
Speaker 1: but I want to play that clip for you guys here.
Speaker 1: This is his answer. My understanding is what they claimed
Speaker 1: to have found in the car were two dry scrapings
Speaker 1: of blood that were determined to be human blood. And
Speaker 1: these scrapers were supposed to come from the Barrick case
Speaker 1: and the John Porter case, and they presented evidence and
Speaker 1: trial about supposing enzyme tiste and matching their blood type
Speaker 1: or something like that book book. An issue is according
Speaker 1: to the Decab County medicalistam and the report in the
Speaker 1: case of William Bart he was apparently staffed post mortem
Speaker 1: or near at the time of depth or whatever. But
Speaker 1: in any case, the medical examiner was embedic and that
Speaker 1: there was no external bleeding on him. How can you
Speaker 1: have a case where somebody did not bleed externally, but
Speaker 1: Jet you said you found a blood scraper from that
Speaker 1: person that done that? I remember the thing or John Porter.
Speaker 1: He was originally not even included on the task for Smiths.
Speaker 1: He was hold on to give the notes here okay,
Speaker 1: he was found in the open and a makeup lot
Speaker 1: and for multiple staff wounds, and this probably was a
Speaker 1: street crime, so it was it was just an attempt
Speaker 1: to link two cases in a pattern that basically never existed.
Speaker 1: When we were partitioning the court for DNA testing back
Speaker 1: into two thousand and nine, one of the issues we
Speaker 1: raised was to have those blood sapples tested at the
Speaker 1: State Crime Lab. And my attorney's team go to the
Speaker 1: State Crime Lab to to get the two slides samples
Speaker 1: of the scrapements to send off to the lab. They
Speaker 1: have a tested, but when they went back the next
Speaker 1: day to oversee the package that the packing of the
Speaker 1: blood slides sapples, the samples were lost. Not only were
Speaker 1: they lost, but they also lost the caust seat that
Speaker 1: they claimed that these samples came from. My point is this,
Speaker 1: You've got the samples the day before, but yet all
Speaker 1: of a sudden overnight you lose them. When you find out,
Speaker 1: you know, in the process of doing DNA tested, you
Speaker 1: know that raises a real flag with anybody. I have
Speaker 1: a somewhat related question that I've never been able to
Speaker 1: get my um head around, and that's the lack of
Speaker 1: fingerprint evidence that came up a couple of times, especially
Speaker 1: with Wayne. I don't know the answer to that either.
Speaker 1: Do you guys have any thoughts there. It's certainly odd
Speaker 1: that there's no fingerprints of any of the victims inside
Speaker 1: way William's home, if that's where they're theorizing that he
Speaker 1: killed some of these kids. Um, I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's because they didn't dust the entire place. I do
Speaker 1: know that when Larry Peterson told us about the night
Speaker 1: that he went to the house to get the carpet samples,
Speaker 1: he told us exactly what he was looking for. He
Speaker 1: was not looking for fingerprints. He was looking for a
Speaker 1: match on the carpet it. So he saw the green carpet,
Speaker 1: took the sample, he saw the purple material, took that sample.
Speaker 1: He knew what he was looking for. He came back
Speaker 1: that night and it was a match. So I don't
Speaker 1: know if the focus was just not on fingerprints or
Speaker 1: what it was, but there weren't any. So I think
Speaker 1: one thing to consider is Wayne Williams had a leg
Speaker 1: up on anyone coming to search his atmosphere. In fact,
Speaker 1: like people have said, there's that one strange story of
Speaker 1: like Homer in the backyard, burning things, bringing boxes out
Speaker 1: to the trash. I don't know how good fingerprint evidence
Speaker 1: is or was then, but it sounds like there was
Speaker 1: some time to cover some tracks, if there were tracks
Speaker 1: to be covered. Yeah, even if you weren't covering your
Speaker 1: tracks as you were, you know, committing these murders, you
Speaker 1: had time when once you left that bridge, you knew
Speaker 1: that you were a suspect, and you had time to
Speaker 1: then cover your tracks. And also, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: know where else to look for fingerprints because there is
Speaker 1: no like where to seem the crime. You don't know
Speaker 1: where these kids exactly where only disappeared. All we know
Speaker 1: is that you know, they have evidence from the house,
Speaker 1: evidence from the cars, and those are two places that
Speaker 1: he was able to clean up after himself. They I
Speaker 1: didn't come into way William's house and view a crime scene.
Speaker 1: They just viewed a normal looking house. There was no
Speaker 1: body on the ground, there was nothing to there was
Speaker 1: nothing to definitively test for fingerprints. Sure, in theory you
Speaker 1: could fingerprint the whole house, but I'd assume that they
Speaker 1: just did not do that. Remember, half the media was
Speaker 1: in his house the that when it got back from
Speaker 1: being downtown. Yeah, it's pretty loosey goosey. There was people
Speaker 1: in and out. It was all over the place at
Speaker 1: that time. Thanks for listening to part one of our
Speaker 1: Q and A session. Um. If you have any questions
Speaker 1: of your own, please call us at one eight three
Speaker 1: three eight five six six six seven again that's one, three,
Speaker 1: three five six six six seven and tune in next
Speaker 1: week for port two. The blow below lay below b