Speaker 1: The Atlanta child murders is one of the largest and
Speaker 1: most complex cases in US history. As a team, we've
Speaker 1: spent months taking through police records, court documents, and media archives.
Speaker 1: Through all this research, we've come across a lot of
Speaker 1: unusual stories that don't seem to be widely remembered today.
Speaker 1: With this episode, we're going to dig deeper into some
Speaker 1: of these stories. This is the vaults where we're going
Speaker 1: down to the sub basement identity stories faults. After driving
Speaker 1: around Atlanta with Jason and the team locating some of
Speaker 1: the prevalent sites in this case, I had many more
Speaker 1: questions about the patterns of these murders, including if a
Speaker 1: pattern even existed at all. It was eerie just how
Speaker 1: close by some of these murders were to each other,
Speaker 1: and how the patterns seem to change once the body
Speaker 1: started showing up in the rivers. Is it even possible
Speaker 1: they're all connected or there are different patterns at play
Speaker 1: here In this episode will be mentioning a book called
Speaker 1: The List by Chet debt Linger and Jeff Pruge. Debt
Speaker 1: Linger was a law enforcement officer, independent investigator, and an author,
Speaker 1: and Pruge was a writer for the l A. Times.
Speaker 1: Though now out of print, the book remains one of
Speaker 1: the most comprehensive and critical literary sources on the Atlanta
Speaker 1: child murders. During the investigation, Chet debt Linger focus on
Speaker 1: geography as part of his independent investigation. Seven former Atlanta
Speaker 1: policemen give about twenty hours each week to this case.
Speaker 1: One of them is Chet that Linger. His strength is
Speaker 1: not an investigation, but it is in analysis. He has
Speaker 1: compiled a map with twenty missing and murdered Atlanta children.
Speaker 1: He counts some Atlanta police do not count because they
Speaker 1: fit the pattern. Because if you travel that Linger's route,
Speaker 1: you can see most of the places where kids were
Speaker 1: snatched or last seen or dumped without ever leaving your car.
Speaker 1: He even believes a map he has drawn would show
Speaker 1: where the killer lives and works and plays. Det Linger
Speaker 1: believes the killer lives somewhere near Memorial Drive and Second Avenue,
Speaker 1: may hang around near Hollywood and High Tower, and work
Speaker 1: somewhere between red Wine Road and Stewart Avenue. I'd have
Speaker 1: someone at this point, someone at this point, someone at
Speaker 1: this point and at this point, and I'd be looking
Speaker 1: for the same car or the same individual would come
Speaker 1: by that place, and I keep him there and I'd
Speaker 1: find out, do we have a person passing these points?
Speaker 1: I mean, we've already got penty kids there, and I
Speaker 1: would find out. And if it showed up, if the
Speaker 1: same person showed up more than the two or three
Speaker 1: times at the different points on on this route, I
Speaker 1: think I have suspect. Furthermore, det Linger says the Official
Speaker 1: Task Force can no longer deny some of these cases
Speaker 1: are related. I think maybe the kids aren't connected, but
Speaker 1: the geography shure connected because this child came from here
Speaker 1: to hear this child came from here to here, and
Speaker 1: this child came from here to here. Now, the only
Speaker 1: other explanation would be if this guy, if there are
Speaker 1: three different killers, they just happened to wander out and
Speaker 1: find the same spot to leave a body in those
Speaker 1: those locations are connected. I've asked members of the unofficial
Speaker 1: Task Force why none of their advice is sought by
Speaker 1: Atlanta police. They all answered the same thing. Politics, petty politics, chat.
Speaker 1: Detlinger is ready to share everything he knows if anybody
Speaker 1: wants it. We decided to talk to Dr Maurice Gobwin,
Speaker 1: a private investigator and geographical profiler who worked with me
Speaker 1: on my first podcast Up and Vanished for Atlanta Monster.
Speaker 1: We asked them to assemble a heat map of all
Speaker 1: the missing and murder cases to see what he could
Speaker 1: tell us about the geographical patterns. There's two types of
Speaker 1: serial killers. Predominantly, you have a commuter, and a commuter
Speaker 1: commutes from the suburban area into a central business district
Speaker 1: and kills, or he commutes from the inner city out
Speaker 1: and kills and then goes back home. Or the marauder,
Speaker 1: and that's just somebody that's just scattered about running around here.
Speaker 1: They're just picking them up, you know, in any way
Speaker 1: they can, and killing them and dumping them. That's two
Speaker 1: comparable terms typologies that you want to call them. The
Speaker 1: first one is called a viper, and the second one
Speaker 1: is called cobra, obviously based on the behavior of the snakes,
Speaker 1: the way in which they behave. In my analysis of
Speaker 1: aerial killers, I found that six were vipers. They lay low,
Speaker 1: They target victims near familiar areas, such as home, at work.
Speaker 1: They dispose of earlier victims at considerable distances from home,
Speaker 1: and later victims in or near their comfort zone. That
Speaker 1: comfort zone provides them. They believe a psychological blanket of
Speaker 1: protection thirty seven percent with Cobra's huge difference. There huge difference.
Speaker 1: This relates also to a criminal behavior. This type of predator,
Speaker 1: to Cobra, is what we call a hunter. They target
Speaker 1: victims outside of their comfort zone so they're not too
Speaker 1: worried about that blanket of protection. They dispose of each
Speaker 1: victim at a considerable distance from home, and later victims
Speaker 1: in or near their comfort zones. I have a theory
Speaker 1: called the wedge theory, and this is based on academic
Speaker 1: research on sold cases. The wedge theory the foundation of
Speaker 1: it is this that ever criminal retains some kind of
Speaker 1: environmental image of his or her city. Criminals develop mental
Speaker 1: maps of their environments in the same way non criminals do.
Speaker 1: For example, you go to the grocery store, you go,
Speaker 1: you take a right out of your driveway, and you
Speaker 1: go to the shopping center a particular way. Rarely do
Speaker 1: you deviate from those things. Most people do not deviate.
Speaker 1: And then finally, criminals use their mental maps thereafter as
Speaker 1: a spatial frame of reference. That's the foundation of wedge theory,
Speaker 1: sort of shaped like a windshield wiper effect. The home
Speaker 1: base would typically be near this short point of the
Speaker 1: wedge and the crimes will be dispersed outward towards the
Speaker 1: wide part of the wedge. In the Atlanta child murder case,
Speaker 1: I had geographical coordinates, A plotted the thirty three locations
Speaker 1: dealing with these murders. I plotted the body dump sites,
Speaker 1: and I plotted the abduction sites, and which is rare
Speaker 1: to have those abduction sites because a lot of cases
Speaker 1: don't have them. And then I entered those geographical coordinates
Speaker 1: into my predator system and ran it, and what I
Speaker 1: got was a forty three to forty four probability that
Speaker 1: the fender lives between Highway one thirty and UH Interstate
Speaker 1: twenty nine. The probability percentage is low normally I'm getting
Speaker 1: on other cases, I get at least fifty here four.
Speaker 1: I think there's something else going on that we're attributing
Speaker 1: murders to an individual here that they're not responsible for,
Speaker 1: and that may be a reason why of the low
Speaker 1: probability plot. For geographically, there's no pattern between the child
Speaker 1: murders and the adult murders. It's very very rare that
Speaker 1: a serial killer will kill children and adults. I would
Speaker 1: separate uh Eddie Duncan, Larry Rogers, aged Michael McIntosh agree,
Speaker 1: Jimmy ray Payne, a John Porter, Nathaniel cater Age. Those
Speaker 1: victims fall into the wedge with Wayne wims Is home
Speaker 1: down at the sharp point of the wedge. I would
Speaker 1: separate those victims from the rest of the child murders.
Speaker 1: We then asked Maurice about Daring Glass, the one victim
Speaker 1: on the list that has never been found. Darren is
Speaker 1: an orphan and has a history of running away. He's
Speaker 1: done it twice before and told some playmates last Sunday
Speaker 1: that he was going to do it again. Are you
Speaker 1: worried about him? She is, but you just think he's
Speaker 1: going to eventually come to show up. He has he
Speaker 1: and you don't think he's been kidnapped. I shall know
Speaker 1: you live on alone, on his own, because he won't leave.
Speaker 1: And today the searchers took the form of a canvas
Speaker 1: here in Darren's old neighborhood, where searchers went door to
Speaker 1: door seeking out Darren's old friends who might be able
Speaker 1: to offer some new information. We're trying to find any
Speaker 1: information concerning his whereabouts, the way he possibly may be.
Speaker 1: At this point, we feel that it's still very possible
Speaker 1: that Darren Glass could be alive, safe and well at
Speaker 1: some place. So far police have no leads at all,
Speaker 1: but they say this case, like the others, is now
Speaker 1: top priority. The bill marks the seventh month that we've
Speaker 1: been conducting these searches, and I think it has taken
Speaker 1: a lot of wear and tear out of a lot
Speaker 1: of people. They combed the woods, sifted through debris, and
Speaker 1: bagged what they thought might be evidence in the mounting
Speaker 1: number of child murders haunting Atlanta. But slowly, as the
Speaker 1: searchers found nothing, interest dwindled and the throng thin to
Speaker 1: just a few. Now the search is at an end. Well.
Speaker 1: To try to find the body of victim Darren Glass,
Speaker 1: normally you would have to have is called reverse geographical
Speaker 1: profile and meaning that we try to use the offender's
Speaker 1: home base along with the rest of the victims and
Speaker 1: try to get a pinpoint area that a victim is
Speaker 1: likely to be at. In this case, I would pull
Speaker 1: anything to do with when was out of that and
Speaker 1: I would do the analysis with the rest of the victims.
Speaker 1: And this will be the first time ever that you
Speaker 1: will be able to use analysis of remaining victims to
Speaker 1: try to find the one victim that's never been found before.
Speaker 1: The case of Darren Glass is such an outlier from
Speaker 1: what geographical profilers like Maurice tell us, it's not impossible
Speaker 1: for him to still be found if he is indeed
Speaker 1: a victim. In the summer of eighty one, after Wayne
Speaker 1: Williams was arrested, a South Carolina artist came to Atlanta
Speaker 1: to paint murals of the child victims on neighborhood housing
Speaker 1: in the city, but it didn't get the reaction you
Speaker 1: would expect. Over the weekend, bigger than life paintings of
Speaker 1: the children started popping up around Atlanta, Latonia Wilson's picture
Speaker 1: on a Wallet, Bowen Holmes, Angeline Ears, and McDaniel Glen,
Speaker 1: Eric Middlebrook at Henry Thomas Housing Project. The paintings were
Speaker 1: done in two days by Columbia South Carolina artist Ralph Waldrop.
Speaker 1: He paid for the project himself as a gift and
Speaker 1: remembrance of Atlanta's twenty eight tragedies. City officials are so
Speaker 1: impressed with Waldrop's generosity they plan to make him an
Speaker 1: honorary citizen of Atlanta tomorrow at a special ceremony. But
Speaker 1: not everyone is happy with Waldrop's artistic contribution. Sixteen year
Speaker 1: old Patrick Rogers mother says she and the other mothers
Speaker 1: are furious that no one asked their permission. If Manages did,
Speaker 1: he did have any reason to do it for est
Speaker 1: parents gonna be all right. I don't think it's right.
Speaker 1: It make the parents walk out him and when I
Speaker 1: walk up to the pup, do something to me. Ms
Speaker 1: Rogers says. Camille Bell drove through McDaniel Glenn yesterday and
Speaker 1: was stunned to see her son Yusuf's picture in front
Speaker 1: of her. They ain't nothing but memory. The mother's planned
Speaker 1: to meet in the morning to decide what they should do,
Speaker 1: but it appears what seems to be and out of
Speaker 1: town or his act of kindness has turned sour. I
Speaker 1: want it down. I want it down me, I want
Speaker 1: it down. October nineteen eighty, during the height of the
Speaker 1: hysteria around the Atlanta child murders, an explosion devastated a
Speaker 1: local daycare center, killing four young black children. The explosion
Speaker 1: happened at a time when no suspect was in custody
Speaker 1: and rumors circulated constantly about KKK connections. At ten twenty
Speaker 1: two on October, an explosion with a force of seventy
Speaker 1: five sticks of dynamite ripped the roof off the daycare center.
Speaker 1: Four three year old boys were killed instantly, so was
Speaker 1: their teacher. Six others were injured. The black community was panicked.
Speaker 1: Nine children in Atlanta were already murdered. Now this, they
Speaker 1: insisted the explosion was a bomb, some sort of sick
Speaker 1: conspiracy against blacks. Mayor Jackson and others tried to convince
Speaker 1: them otherwise. The biggest rumor running through this crowd was
Speaker 1: that the explosion was caused by a bomb. Tension began
Speaker 1: to build because these people wanted to needed to blame
Speaker 1: something for the tragedy they had just witnessed. Need your
Speaker 1: place down? Why not live? Why the lack dot down?
Speaker 1: Well in councilman? Dog time? What indail house him? That's
Speaker 1: why we black leaders saw how dangerous the situation could get.
Speaker 1: So Mayor Jackson and others trying to reassure the crowd,
Speaker 1: what I want you to know that we will not
Speaker 1: rest until we turn every stone, until we look under
Speaker 1: every leaf, until we explode, exploit every possible lead, until
Speaker 1: we follow every possible possibility. We will do everything in
Speaker 1: our power to find the reason for this which at
Speaker 1: this point appears to be an accident. However, the crowd
Speaker 1: here did not believe much of what Mayor Jackson had said.
Speaker 1: They still believed in the rumors that this was a
Speaker 1: deliberate act of violence, and this didn't help. The rumor
Speaker 1: of a bomb threat sent emergency teams into the elementary
Speaker 1: school across the street from the daycare center. They ordered
Speaker 1: everyone out and were tight lipped about why what are
Speaker 1: you Why are you evacuating the school. Let's let's get
Speaker 1: back when I ask you kindly to get back, okay,
Speaker 1: and asked to get that let's go. There's a possibility
Speaker 1: of a bomb. Nothing happened, either in the school or
Speaker 1: in the crowds outside, although there were a lot of
Speaker 1: passionate cries for someone to do something about anything. Could
Speaker 1: you say they did know something encouraging relate took to
Speaker 1: the future protection at you. I think that's all they
Speaker 1: need something increasing protection for the area. We will do
Speaker 1: everything in our power to increase protection for the area. Later,
Speaker 1: a police investing Asian showed the explosion was an accident.
Speaker 1: A poorly maintained boiler blew up. As tragic as it was,
Speaker 1: it was an accident. Been bowling and from stuff they
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. Sat down with us again
Speaker 1: to go over the details of this tragic episode and
Speaker 1: the subsequent conspiracy theories at spurred. Let's set the stage.
Speaker 1: It's ten twenty two October at a place called the
Speaker 1: Bowing Homes Daycare Center when an explosion occurs, and at
Speaker 1: first people have no idea what's going on. From miles away,
Speaker 1: you can see a plume of white smoke. People run
Speaker 1: from adjacent streets. You know, especially think about the parents
Speaker 1: who were there, who knew roughly where that building was. Right,
Speaker 1: hundreds of people are mobbing the area, teachers running out
Speaker 1: with their children. We would later learn that five people
Speaker 1: passed away in that explosion. Uh. There were four children,
Speaker 1: Andre Stanford, Ronald Brown, Kelvin Snelson, and Terence Bradley. These
Speaker 1: boys were all around three years old. In addition, a
Speaker 1: teacher named Nell Robinson also passed away, and UH six
Speaker 1: to seven people were injured. The public immediately thought there
Speaker 1: was a bomb, and in the archival footage you can
Speaker 1: hear people in the back saying it was a bomb.
Speaker 1: Go downtown. It was the clan. The clan did it.
Speaker 1: This panic was compounded by the fact that the elementary
Speaker 1: school across the street was also evacuated, and law enforcement
Speaker 1: refused to say why. And in the absence of transparency,
Speaker 1: of course, speculation grows. And so all it takes is
Speaker 1: one person to say I heard that that there's a
Speaker 1: bomb in there, right, And later officials would say that
Speaker 1: the explosion was caused by a boiler, right, or what's
Speaker 1: called the water to boiler, and that when this explosion occurred,
Speaker 1: it occurred with such force that it did prove fatal,
Speaker 1: but it did not prove some sort of premeditated action.
Speaker 1: Most importantly, no one you know, snuck in and explosive.
Speaker 1: Nobody snuck in under the cover of night and tinkered
Speaker 1: with this boiler. But given the cultural ecology of the time,
Speaker 1: it's completely understandable why people would think this, you know,
Speaker 1: especially if we're looking at a community where as we
Speaker 1: have already established distrust of authority figures is at a high,
Speaker 1: a completely understandable and rational high. We also have to
Speaker 1: consider what Chet, debt Linger, and Jet Pruved point out
Speaker 1: in their book The List. This occurred against a backdrop
Speaker 1: of brutal murders, horrific crimes that also appeared to target
Speaker 1: minority popular nations. In the United States, there was the
Speaker 1: shooting of the National Urban League President Vernon Jordan's in
Speaker 1: Fort Wayne, Indiana, and in Buffalo, New York. Black cab
Speaker 1: drivers were being murdered with their hearts literally cut out
Speaker 1: of their chest. As you can hear on the footage show.
Speaker 1: When you hear the explosions, the panic, the chaos, and
Speaker 1: you already know that someone is targeting children, specific types
Speaker 1: of children right, certain age range, right, and they may
Speaker 1: even be your children. You feel powerless right in you
Speaker 1: cling to a nature of explanation, right as that Luner
Speaker 1: points out here when he was looking at the layout,
Speaker 1: the mapping of this area Bowen Holmes fits into the
Speaker 1: geographical region that he was looking at. He notes that
Speaker 1: a boy who lived on the same street as the
Speaker 1: daycare center later disappeared in a way that might have
Speaker 1: and connected, in his opinion, with the murders. And additionally,
Speaker 1: when a tragedy like this occurs, we hear rumors being
Speaker 1: treated with the same regard as a fact. And in
Speaker 1: den Lajers case is very by the book author an investigator.
Speaker 1: In his case, he begins to notice things that trouble him.
Speaker 1: One of the points was made by John Lewis, who
Speaker 1: was then president of the Atlanta Cab Drivers Association. He
Speaker 1: said he was appointed to a committee to calm public
Speaker 1: alarm after this boiler explosion because people meet when the
Speaker 1: explosion occurs, law enforcement pushes them away, gives medical care
Speaker 1: to people, finds the deceased victims rent, and then later
Speaker 1: that night there's another public gathering where people are saying,
Speaker 1: why isn't anyone doing anything about this? So, in a
Speaker 1: very real sense, at this time and place in history,
Speaker 1: it feels as if there is not simply one Atlanta.
Speaker 1: There's more than one Atlanta right there are at least two.
Speaker 1: And the people who are encountering on top of this
Speaker 1: murder epidemic explosions in places that are supposed to be
Speaker 1: the safest place your kid could be. It feels like
Speaker 1: there's another Atlanta in Atlanta that has safety for its citizens,
Speaker 1: in Atlanta that has non antagonistic law enforcement in Atlanta
Speaker 1: where people can walk at night without fear of a crime.
Speaker 1: And this feels like a very different Atlanta when you're
Speaker 1: around exploding daycares. So immediately after getting news of this explosion,
Speaker 1: the mayor travels there in person, seeking to quell these fears.
Speaker 1: This is not a bomb. Authorities assure me that while
Speaker 1: a tragedy, this is entirely traceable to this water tube boiler.
Speaker 1: The crowd is not buying this, and you can hear,
Speaker 1: you can hear the fundamental anger, right, And there's always
Speaker 1: a sense of betrayal that occurs in a tragedy. Right,
Speaker 1: There's a part of there's a part of our our minds,
Speaker 1: we could even say our souls that recognizes this is
Speaker 1: not how things are supposed to be. And you are
Speaker 1: the mayor, this is your job fix this, Explain this,
Speaker 1: and if we don't believe the official explanation, then give
Speaker 1: us what we see as the real one. There's a
Speaker 1: book called Outbreak, The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior by
Speaker 1: two authors, Hillary Evans and Robert Bartholomew. And this is
Speaker 1: a reference work that compiles different examples of what we
Speaker 1: would see as public panics. In the case of these
Speaker 1: incidencies that the journalists have compiled, we see several commonalities,
Speaker 1: and the number one commonality, regardless of anything else, right,
Speaker 1: regardless of time space, socioeconomic actors, the number one problem
Speaker 1: is the perceived lack of transparency. This becomes doubly frustrating
Speaker 1: and difficult when there is an authority figure. The people
Speaker 1: in this neighborhood played a large role in this mayor's election.
Speaker 1: The mayor, regardless of how well perceived he might be,
Speaker 1: is still functioning as an authority figure in a time
Speaker 1: when authority figures are considered inherently untrustworthy. So when the
Speaker 1: dust has settled and all of the immediate questions and
Speaker 1: answers that can exist do exist, one of the more
Speaker 1: terrifying things that occurs is you begin to wonder is
Speaker 1: it just this one daycare center? If it's a boiler,
Speaker 1: is it just this one boiler? How many other daycare
Speaker 1: centers are here? How many other playgrounds, for example, haven't
Speaker 1: been repaired in what decades? Where is the sewage line
Speaker 1: that was supposed to be here? Why doesn't this infrastructure exist?
Speaker 1: An interesting note that some people may recall, also in
Speaker 1: Atlanta history, was the collapse of an interstate piece of
Speaker 1: an interstate called I five. When this collapse, there was
Speaker 1: an official story about a fire that was set by
Speaker 1: people who didn't mean to burn down this concrete bridge.
Speaker 1: But again, this becomes symbolic of a larger context. Right,
Speaker 1: a lack of a lack of care for public goods. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not Maybe it's not just this one day care.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's every daycare. Maybe it's every road in this
Speaker 1: zip code. And we have to remember that Atlanta has
Speaker 1: a provable and undeniable past of using local districting, even
Speaker 1: unto the level of changing street names to denote the
Speaker 1: two or more different Atlantis that exist culturally. And for
Speaker 1: some people, I five falling was another example of this,
Speaker 1: and even today you will find people who tell you
Speaker 1: that the official story makes no sense. So it's tempting
Speaker 1: for us as people to look at history as something
Speaker 1: that is disconnected. Happened. Once we're done with it, we
Speaker 1: can read about it if we want to. That could
Speaker 1: not be further from the truth. History never leaves us,
Speaker 1: and in the case of the Bowenhaus daycare Center, this
Speaker 1: story continues. Yes, this tragedy occurs soon after the community
Speaker 1: comes together and they rebuild the daycare center. It was
Speaker 1: one of the most horrible tragedies Atlanta had ever seen,
Speaker 1: but in time, attention turned towards making sure a tragedy
Speaker 1: like this could never happen again. The state legislature past
Speaker 1: new laws tightening up the requirements for boiler operation and
Speaker 1: inspect and in May, the rebuilt Bowen Homes Community Center
Speaker 1: was dedicated, a new and more modern boiler now in place.
Speaker 1: There was optimism all around. So are these long standing
Speaker 1: infrastructure problems actually fixed? The answer is no, because in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, the furnace explodes again, and ultimately
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine. In June of two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: the daycare center itself is demolished. The Atlanta Housing Authority
Speaker 1: took a major step today to become the first major
Speaker 1: city to tear down its public housing projects. Work has
Speaker 1: officially started on tearing down Bowen Holmes. This was a
Speaker 1: powerful and emotional day for many of the residents who
Speaker 1: once lived in the bow and Holmes public housing complex.
Speaker 1: But with that comes change and uncertain On reflection, there's
Speaker 1: no question that this direction shot I hate to see
Speaker 1: it go. It's a This is one of the all
Speaker 1: this um tragics in in America. Sound it's kind of SATs.
Speaker 1: These are perfect good apartments. It wouldn't's had nothing to renovate.
Speaker 1: The spot may keeping going on, but they did whatever
Speaker 1: they had to do to make sure that they got
Speaker 1: this land and its profety. I mentioned the Omni in
Speaker 1: previous episodes as a particularly significant site. Many victims were
Speaker 1: last seen there were heading there. During our research, we
Speaker 1: found an anonymous individual who claims Wayne Williams was hanging
Speaker 1: around the Omni picking up known murdered children from this case.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for us, the person's identity was concealed. He was
Speaker 1: interviewed after Wayne was arrested, but before the trial started.
Speaker 1: Here it is the interest in the complex has once
Speaker 1: again been rekindled by this man, a songwriter who wishes
Speaker 1: to remain anonymous. In a statement to the FBI, he
Speaker 1: has told of Wayne Williams and Joseph Felt together at
Speaker 1: a bucket studio. I remember Joe Joe because he came
Speaker 1: in and he uh, he sang for a few you know,
Speaker 1: he's sing a few tunes and he had a very
Speaker 1: good voice. And I was asking Wayne what was he
Speaker 1: gonna do it in Wayne said he was gonna sign
Speaker 1: the guy to a contract immediately. He also tells of
Speaker 1: times when he and Williams went to the Omni. Um
Speaker 1: he said he was going so he can find some
Speaker 1: more stars. Um. I went to the Omni with Lane
Speaker 1: Um singing those most of kids they got new Wayne. Uh.
Speaker 1: They all come up to him asking when they were
Speaker 1: gonna do maybe do some record and the things of
Speaker 1: that nature. Um I asked when how did he know
Speaker 1: so many kids? He said they were his spies. They
Speaker 1: told him everything he wanted to know about everybody. Jason
Speaker 1: from How Stuff Works and Meredith from our team here
Speaker 1: at Tenderfoot sat down together to discuss the contents of
Speaker 1: a night one US Weekly magazine, a double issue feature
Speaker 1: on Wayne Williams. Wayne was arrested for the murders of
Speaker 1: two black males, Nathaniel Cater and Jimmy ray Payne, that
Speaker 1: same summer. Until January, Williams remained in custody awaiting his trial.
Speaker 1: Before the trial began, while still in prison, Williams shocked
Speaker 1: the country by giving an exclusive interview with US Weekly.
Speaker 1: The interview itself infuriated the judge and police officials working
Speaker 1: on the case. The main reason for today's order was
Speaker 1: this magazine article to be released next week. We were
Speaker 1: hud winked in align and I don't appreciate it. That,
Speaker 1: of course, was the sheriff's reaction today the article. When
Speaker 1: he and the judge in charge of the case read
Speaker 1: it last night. They were both shocked, and sources say
Speaker 1: Judge Clarence Cooper was outraged. For most of the morning.
Speaker 1: They both sought out this woman defense attorney Mary Welcome.
Speaker 1: Last night she told us she knew of the article
Speaker 1: but would not say anymore. Well, today she did say
Speaker 1: more to the judge and sheriff. Apparently the reporter of
Speaker 1: freelance writer came into town the weekend of August two
Speaker 1: and three. Today over the phone, Mickey Segal told me
Speaker 1: she went along with miss Welcome to the jail. When
Speaker 1: asked who she was, the reporter gave her name. Then
Speaker 1: this Welcome said the woman was with her. No more
Speaker 1: questions were asked by the jailers. Asked me, as Welcome,
Speaker 1: did you tell him them that she was a newspaper report?
Speaker 1: She said no, They didn't ask me, but again, I
Speaker 1: didn't think it was necessary to ask a lawyer. Are
Speaker 1: you doing something you knew? You know we're doing? Do
Speaker 1: not allow us. Magazine paid the writer for the story,
Speaker 1: which has a part two for a later issue, and
Speaker 1: we've learned Homer Williams Wayne's father was paid three d
Speaker 1: fifty dollars for the use of these family pictures. No
Speaker 1: other money was reportedly paid for the story. The writer
Speaker 1: now says she plans to write a book about the
Speaker 1: Atlanta murders. The story is headlined on the cover, but
Speaker 1: it's what is inside that is bound to raise a
Speaker 1: few hackles. Williams is highly critical of police conduct, beginning
Speaker 1: with the night he was stopped and questioned on a
Speaker 1: bridge over the Chattahoochee River. The two men he's charged
Speaker 1: with killing were found a short time later in the river.
Speaker 1: Williams caused the FBI keystone cops and compares Atlanta police
Speaker 1: to Car fifty four. Where are You? He says he
Speaker 1: is a scapegoat that somebody has to be caught because
Speaker 1: of the federal and local money put into the investigation.
Speaker 1: He told the writer, it's a matter of justifying money.
Speaker 1: When you get all this money and you don't do
Speaker 1: anything with it, people start to ask questions. At some
Speaker 1: point you've got to answer for it. I feel that
Speaker 1: I'm the scapegoat. William said the FBI brought him in
Speaker 1: for accusations and not questioning as they said. He said
Speaker 1: they tried to pit him against his parents. He said
Speaker 1: he was told his parents confessed he was part of
Speaker 1: the child killings, and the article, Williams again said he
Speaker 1: is innocent and even says he did not know the
Speaker 1: two he is charged with killing, Nathaniel Cater and Jimmy
Speaker 1: ray Paine. The magazine promises a second installment in the
Speaker 1: interview they say was conducted at the jail. We'll hear
Speaker 1: more about this later. This is Monica Kaufman. So this
Speaker 1: is US Weekly, like the US Weekly we still see
Speaker 1: in newsstands. Yeah, so I pull up the cover and
Speaker 1: I certainly see a headline that says accused Atlantic killer
Speaker 1: Wayne Williams tells his exclusive story. But I also see
Speaker 1: headlines like how to Be Important by Ronald Reagan and
Speaker 1: how to beat the s A T s He's become
Speaker 1: a weird cultural I kind of guess on this one.
Speaker 1: His name is up here, and if there's a picture
Speaker 1: of Jackie Kennedy on the cover, and I mentioned of
Speaker 1: Stevie next, so that kind of sets the stage for
Speaker 1: what happened here. So reporter Mickey Siegel to gained access
Speaker 1: to Wayne via Wayne's a turn Mary Welcome. So she
Speaker 1: went into the prison where he was being housed awaiting
Speaker 1: his trial, and she didn't tell the people at the
Speaker 1: front gates that the person she had with her was
Speaker 1: a reporter, and this caused a ton of outrage once
Speaker 1: this was found out by the judge and the other
Speaker 1: police officials, the fact that she did not identify the reporter.
Speaker 1: So this is how it all started. So Mary Welcome
Speaker 1: was Wayne's attorney, and she thought this was a good idea.
Speaker 1: I don't know whose idea this was. I have a
Speaker 1: feeling that in the midst of all the hubbub of
Speaker 1: this pre trial kind of intensity and news, that most people,
Speaker 1: probably including Wayne Williams, forgot about this interview because a
Speaker 1: lot of what we've uncovered here seems to contradict a
Speaker 1: lot of what we've heard on the podcast. But Wayne
Speaker 1: willingly knew he was talking to a reporter. It seems like, yeah,
Speaker 1: oh definitely. And the article actually kicks off in the
Speaker 1: in this way. I just I find this fascinating and
Speaker 1: we'll get into this. So sleeping in odd snatches, reading
Speaker 1: book after book, watching TV endlessly, Wayne Bertram Williams sits
Speaker 1: in Georgia's Fulton Countie jail. He's articulate and intelligent. His
Speaker 1: i Q was one thirty six and he's known to
Speaker 1: America as the accused Atlanta killer. Yeah, there always seems
Speaker 1: to be a stress on exceptional intelligence. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: understand where the narrative of Wayne being a super intelligent
Speaker 1: person came from. We've heard numbers from one thirty six
Speaker 1: to one fifty too, even from Wayne himself saying i
Speaker 1: Q doesn't matter. This seems very questionable. As the first
Speaker 1: thing in this article that we hear, there's a what
Speaker 1: was photo of Wayne Williams um in his looks like
Speaker 1: his living room. Photos of him also with his parents
Speaker 1: down in the basement in the in the little radio
Speaker 1: station studio. It looks like a normal childhood, looks like
Speaker 1: a normal childhood. All the photos are from H. C. Williams,
Speaker 1: otherwise known as Homer Williams. That's Wayne's father, and depending
Speaker 1: on the source, uh it says that Homer was paid
Speaker 1: somewhere between three hundred and three thousand dollars for these photos.
Speaker 1: This came at a time when Wayne's mother, Faye was
Speaker 1: she had cancer and was going through a lot of
Speaker 1: things physically and frankly, they didn't have the money. WAYE.
Speaker 1: Williams attorney Lynn Watley says that the family needed about
Speaker 1: forty dollars to support this case. So what ended up
Speaker 1: happening is the Williams family and some others formed a
Speaker 1: legal defense fund called Injustice for All has a way
Speaker 1: to raise funds or raise money for the trial, and
Speaker 1: they raised ten dollars. Wow. If the trial lasts six
Speaker 1: weeks as expected, it will cost the county more than
Speaker 1: one hundred nine dollars in extra expenses. Most of that
Speaker 1: money will be spent on housing and feeding the jury,
Speaker 1: on transportation costs for Williams and Judge Cooper, for special
Speaker 1: security equipment. Of course, the tab for all that will
Speaker 1: be picked up by Fulton County taxpayers, but in the meantime,
Speaker 1: bills on the defense side are also mounting up. Every
Speaker 1: day the trial goes on is like a huge cash register,
Speaker 1: ringing up thousands of dollars and legal expenses, legal expenses
Speaker 1: which may never be paid. Members of the defense team
Speaker 1: have revealed that co counsels Mary Welcome and Alvin Binder,
Speaker 1: and investigator Derwood Myers have spent well in excess of
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars of their own money on the Williams
Speaker 1: case so far, mostly to bring fiber and pathological experts
Speaker 1: to Atlanta for consultation. The trial has also been a
Speaker 1: financial drain on William's parents, Homer and Faye Williams, are
Speaker 1: retired school teachers. They say most of their savings have
Speaker 1: been spent supporting their son's home radio station and his
Speaker 1: musical promotion business. A recent highly controversial magazine interview in
Speaker 1: which Wayne Williams caused the FBI Keystone cops netted the
Speaker 1: family two thousand dollars, but lawyers say it will take
Speaker 1: thousands more to defend Williams. They have launched a nationwide
Speaker 1: appeal for money, trying to raise an immediate forty dollars.
Speaker 1: The fact that you have so much, uh evidence that's
Speaker 1: going to concern forensics, acoustical tests, fiber evidence, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be necessary to employ experts in order to
Speaker 1: effectively assist in Wayne Williams defense. And uh, obviously these
Speaker 1: things are going to cost money. Six weeks ago, a
Speaker 1: special legal defense fund was set up for Williams as
Speaker 1: a nonprofit organization called and Justice for All, But today
Speaker 1: it's organizers told me business has not been very good
Speaker 1: at this time. We have received one ten dollar donation.
Speaker 1: Why do you think people have been so reluctant to
Speaker 1: give money. I think that in the mind of the
Speaker 1: of the general public there is a a feeling that
Speaker 1: we have the guilt demand and which means that they
Speaker 1: have already convicted him. Where says his organization plans to
Speaker 1: step up its appeal for funds for William's defense, but
Speaker 1: many courthouse observers agree even if the money doesn't come
Speaker 1: in now, future publishing opportunities for this famous trial may
Speaker 1: more than make up the deficits someday. When you talk
Speaker 1: about public sympathy and really where people were at at
Speaker 1: this time, I think that is really telling as to
Speaker 1: what the attitude was in the community. Um of this
Speaker 1: guy being the guy no one was getting behind them.
Speaker 1: It almost seems like public sympathy has increased longer we
Speaker 1: become separated from the killings. Yeah, absolutely, that was my
Speaker 1: action also, And do we know where this ten dollars
Speaker 1: came from? No, we doubt it would be interesting, but
Speaker 1: it was I think that was incredibly barrassing to have
Speaker 1: show up on the television broadcast that that was as
Speaker 1: far as that they had gotten. Frankly, this kind of
Speaker 1: media coverage and photos and videos and everything, it just
Speaker 1: points to something that's been nagging at all of us
Speaker 1: as we've gone through this process, and that is this
Speaker 1: kind of constant obsession by the Williams family. And that's
Speaker 1: that's both Wayne and Homer to be connected to the media.
Speaker 1: One of the things I found from the book called
Speaker 1: The List, authored by Chett Linger and Jeff Prue. Jeff
Speaker 1: Prue was with the Los Angeles Times based here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: doing some of the reporting for for the l A Times,
Speaker 1: and he's chat. He's chat linger Linger was both the
Speaker 1: author of this book, but he was also part of
Speaker 1: the defense team as a private investigator. As a private investigator,
Speaker 1: and he was very much involved in questioning all the
Speaker 1: details of the case, the patterns. Was there a pattern?
Speaker 1: And should every one of the children that was on
Speaker 1: the list be on the list? I'll read a quote here.
Speaker 1: On May, Jeff Prue and I, along with a Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Times photographer, went to the church where Jimmy Ray
Speaker 1: Paine's funeral was in progress. Like many of the funerals,
Speaker 1: it was a media circus throughout these cases. All the sobs,
Speaker 1: the moans, the tears, the eulogies, even poems read by
Speaker 1: bereaved schoolmates were caught in the glare of TV strobe
Speaker 1: lights and hand held mini cams. A woman emerged from
Speaker 1: the door of the small church during the funeral of
Speaker 1: Jimmy ray Payne. Wailing uncontrollably. She swooned into the support
Speaker 1: of arms of two men. They began to assist her.
Speaker 1: As she stumbled forward on rubbery legs into the wide,
Speaker 1: busy street. A photographer dashed towards her, his camera lens
Speaker 1: only inches from her tearful face. Snapping pictures, he backpedaled
Speaker 1: across the street, oblivious to the traffic flow. I would
Speaker 1: see that same cameraman make like a broken field runner
Speaker 1: again on another street at another time. I also would
Speaker 1: learn that he had taken photos on the stage of
Speaker 1: the Sammy Davis Jr. Frank Sinatra benefit concert. For security reasons.
Speaker 1: Only this one still photographer had been allowed on the
Speaker 1: stage by arrangement with City Hall. Had the mourner of
Speaker 1: Jimmy ray Paine known later who the photographer had been,
Speaker 1: she probably would have had another strong reaction. I wonder
Speaker 1: if to this day she knows so. The photographer that
Speaker 1: was at Jimmy ray Paine's funeral, the one he's mentioning,
Speaker 1: was the same one who's on stage that we've seen
Speaker 1: in those archive clips. That's right. So in the course
Speaker 1: of our research, as you know in the two thousand
Speaker 1: ten CNN documentary on the Atlanta child killer, who was
Speaker 1: on stage Harmer Williams. That's right, he was the only one.
Speaker 1: And what did Frank Sinatra say to him on stage?
Speaker 1: You say, didn't he say something along the lines of
Speaker 1: like who let this guy up here? He kind of
Speaker 1: like shamed him for the only one that wasn't wearing
Speaker 1: a top, wasn't wearing a right, So check det Lander
Speaker 1: doesn't come round, he doesn't come out and say Homer
Speaker 1: Williams at all. But when you put the connect the
Speaker 1: dots and put two and two together, you see the
Speaker 1: connection between Homer Williams um at Jimmy ray Paine's funeral
Speaker 1: and at the benefit concert. And it does seem like
Speaker 1: a really odd coincidence to have the father of the
Speaker 1: man convicted as the landed child murder be at funerals,
Speaker 1: be on stage of a benefit to raise money to
Speaker 1: find the serial killer. I mean, we did see, like
Speaker 1: in the FBI profile that this would be someone who
Speaker 1: would be close. So what are the chances that it
Speaker 1: would be the convicted person's father. All right, So let's
Speaker 1: get into a little bit of the Q and A
Speaker 1: with Wayne done in prison. Yes, some of the narrative
Speaker 1: from Mickey Seagal says interviewed at the jail, he appears sure, order,
Speaker 1: more frail, and a little bit pudgier than expected. He
Speaker 1: peppers his sentences with phrases like let me say this,
Speaker 1: and you've got to understand, as to be very precise,
Speaker 1: or to distance himself from what he's saying. In addition,
Speaker 1: the phrase being in control comes up several times in
Speaker 1: our talks. Though he denies it, this appears very important
Speaker 1: to him. Wow, that's spot on. You've got to understand.
Speaker 1: I mean, you and I have both heard the interviews.
Speaker 1: He still says that I could hear Wayne's voice as
Speaker 1: I read this. And what's the other catchphrase? It was,
Speaker 1: let me say this, and you've got to understand, you
Speaker 1: really grip whoever he's talking to. That's a control thing.
Speaker 1: Control in the narrative, just like having the reporter come
Speaker 1: to the prison to be able to give this interview
Speaker 1: in the way that they wanted to release it. The
Speaker 1: control of the actual story contents itself really comes out here. Um.
Speaker 1: Next up, he actually is asked what happened that night
Speaker 1: on the ridge, and uh, he says he was scared.
Speaker 1: He says he was shaking, and then he says, well,
Speaker 1: let me say this. When they stopped me, I had
Speaker 1: no idea why. Two or three hours later, towards the
Speaker 1: end of the questioning, I began to put two and
Speaker 1: two together. I mean, that's a different story than what
Speaker 1: we've heard when we asked for FBI agent Mike Macomis's account.
Speaker 1: Macomis says, as soon as he pulled him over way,
Speaker 1: Williams said, this is about those kids, isn't it? Or
Speaker 1: this is about those children, isn't it. That's two different stories.
Speaker 1: You can either say you were blindsided and had no
Speaker 1: idea in shaking with fear, or you can say, at
Speaker 1: least what we've heard today from Wayne, and that's I
Speaker 1: was totally in control. I was calm and collected. I
Speaker 1: knew exactly what it was, and I wasn't a bit worried.
Speaker 1: And those are very different accounts. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's hindsight bias or if it's a lying. He's he's
Speaker 1: asked about the press conference. He said I would never
Speaker 1: have said anything publicly if the story hadn't already come out.
Speaker 1: It was linked to the media that I've been arrested
Speaker 1: on a ten count murder indictment, and no such thing
Speaker 1: had been done. The Atlanta newspapers and several other national
Speaker 1: papers had already used my name address everything. The New
Speaker 1: York Post even printed Atlanta monster killer seized. I feared recrimination.
Speaker 1: I called the conference because I didn't want two people
Speaker 1: coming out and attacking me in my home. At the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it ended up backfiring because the
Speaker 1: media perched outside his house anyway, and it ended up
Speaker 1: being a bigger media circus. He's asked, are you guilty?
Speaker 1: He said, no, I am not guilty. Did you have
Speaker 1: anything to do with Cater or Pain I didn't even
Speaker 1: know them. No. Is emphasized here, have you ever known
Speaker 1: any of the others? Have you had them in your
Speaker 1: singing room? Talking about Gemini? Have you had any of
Speaker 1: them in your home? And he says nope, never. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's just the constant questions which comes up about if
Speaker 1: he's had a girlfriend before and his acquaintances. But this
Speaker 1: was a constant focus of the media and of of
Speaker 1: the various agents to ask him because they were really
Speaker 1: looking for a pattern. Right here talking about having a
Speaker 1: girlfriend and having any romantic ties. I think that's important
Speaker 1: because of um his alibi. He says he's looking for
Speaker 1: Cheryl Johnson that night at two am. And even Richard Brackliffe,
Speaker 1: the polygrapher, he asked him, you know, why would you
Speaker 1: be going to a woman's house at two am, And
Speaker 1: he says Wayne's told him, or at least Richard's account.
Speaker 1: Wayne said I'm not homosexual, and He's like, well, I
Speaker 1: wasn't suggesting that. So it seems like it's always been
Speaker 1: a question on people's minds, maybe from that moment. I
Speaker 1: don't know where it originated. So he's very explicit here.
Speaker 1: He says, I have gone out with women, some married,
Speaker 1: some single. Yes I do see ladies, and yes I
Speaker 1: do date. So he's very firm in making sure that
Speaker 1: that point came across. So that's part one of the
Speaker 1: interview that was October eighty one. People had to wait
Speaker 1: two weeks for the next issue to come out oct
Speaker 1: The kind of primary focus initially on this this interview
Speaker 1: is actually with Faye Williams, Wayne's mother, and she was
Speaker 1: battling cancer, high blood pressure. She was sixty six and
Speaker 1: had gone through a lot and had just recently retired
Speaker 1: from being an educator or a school teacher. And she
Speaker 1: was certainly very frightened for Wayne and what had happened.
Speaker 1: It was very devastating for their family. Both Wayne's parents,
Speaker 1: Homer and Faye, were older when they had Wayne. Uh,
Speaker 1: and this is pretty devastating to them. See, he has
Speaker 1: been tried and miss well say, he has visually been
Speaker 1: convicted long before bad the media. We had no savings
Speaker 1: in anything, and what a little bit we had due
Speaker 1: to my illness in this case, that's depleting. So it's
Speaker 1: been mental and it's been on financial string. Oh my,
Speaker 1: and I think the physical stren also because she is
Speaker 1: suffer with the high blood pressure recently and actually had
Speaker 1: me stuff with it. They didn't have and don't have
Speaker 1: enough evidence. I don't to indicted, but to the rest,
Speaker 1: I'd just like to give them a one and that
Speaker 1: where they believe it or not. The killer is still
Speaker 1: at large. He's out there. So this is the question
Speaker 1: that Mickey Seagull asked to resume part two of the interview,
Speaker 1: the discussion around dog hair as we know Wayne had
Speaker 1: a German shepherd. This is Wayne's reply. He says, how
Speaker 1: many dogs are there in Atlanta? And how many different
Speaker 1: kinds of dogs have they talked about? They're looking for
Speaker 1: a dog that has a top coat and an undercoat
Speaker 1: that fits Mala Mutes College's Huskies St Bernard, some Spaniels,
Speaker 1: and a German shepherd which I have. Anyhow, a dog
Speaker 1: hair is a dog hair. I took a hair from
Speaker 1: one dog and a hair from my present dog and
Speaker 1: couldn't distinguish the difference under a microscope. And the reporter asked,
Speaker 1: why did you do that? And he replied, after that,
Speaker 1: after the case came down, I got curious about it.
Speaker 1: So let me just pause there for a second. So
Speaker 1: Wayne's pulling out the microscope in his home to do
Speaker 1: his own scientific breakdown of the evidence, staying ahead of
Speaker 1: the story for sure. Oh yeah, this is right in
Speaker 1: line with what Richard Rackliff had said about them finding
Speaker 1: a book in his house about how to pass a
Speaker 1: polygraph test or what are the inner workings of a
Speaker 1: polygraph test. He seems very closely following something, more closely
Speaker 1: than the average person would. So when the reporter asked
Speaker 1: didn't you receive several science awards in school? Wayne answers
Speaker 1: at first. But I made a change when I got
Speaker 1: to high school, a very significant change. Until then, I
Speaker 1: was Mr Academia, you teacher's pet. But in the eighth
Speaker 1: grade that changed drastically, and my home relations changed quite
Speaker 1: a bit. I became more of an assertive person. My
Speaker 1: father and I had disagreements over how much trust he
Speaker 1: put in me. We had plenty of arguments over the car.
Speaker 1: I don't drink, but one weekend I got completely wasted,
Speaker 1: completely drunk, and my relationship with my father got much worse.
Speaker 1: He was pushing me for an education, but I had
Speaker 1: only applied myself in school when I had to because
Speaker 1: I had my radio station by them. Correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, But it almost sounds like he's trying to
Speaker 1: distance himself from the intelligent, for lack of better word,
Speaker 1: dorky kind of image he was he was given and
Speaker 1: almost sound like a cool and rebellious and he's using that.
Speaker 1: He's using the media as a platform, is what it
Speaker 1: sounds like, to further the vision he wants of himself.
Speaker 1: One of the questions that kind of was on everyone's
Speaker 1: mind is with so many kids having gone missing and
Speaker 1: many of them showing up murder. Of course, um his
Speaker 1: connection to adolescence. UM that were involved in the in
Speaker 1: the music business with him, and the question was really
Speaker 1: asked of him, didn't your dealings with adolescence make you
Speaker 1: a suspect? And he said, I always let the authorities
Speaker 1: know what I was doing in November, specifically because of
Speaker 1: the murders. I even called the Task Force to let
Speaker 1: them know i'd be out auditioning children. And when he
Speaker 1: was asked, why do you feel you had to do that,
Speaker 1: he responded, so there wouldn't be any problems later. You
Speaker 1: don't go around talking to kids in the streets of
Speaker 1: Atlanta because everything gets reported. You don't understand what this
Speaker 1: city was like. I had contact with the Task Force
Speaker 1: three times before I was ever questioned. Then he was asked,
Speaker 1: why did you contact them the other two times? And
Speaker 1: he replied, I can't talk about that. So this is new.
Speaker 1: This is nothing we've heard before, this story of him
Speaker 1: reaching out to the Task Force, and frankly, nothing from
Speaker 1: the Task Force that says that this was ever logged,
Speaker 1: because they really didn't know who he was until they
Speaker 1: caught him on the Bridge. Yeah. I wonder how many
Speaker 1: people were proactively reaching out to the Task Force to
Speaker 1: tell them they would be interacting with children. It seems
Speaker 1: like another getting close to the case, you know, for
Speaker 1: the sake of getting close to the case. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: this entire you know, a couple of week interview um
Speaker 1: segment that ran on US weekly was really an incredible
Speaker 1: fine that we we've passed this around the office, We've
Speaker 1: not known what to do with it. It feels like
Speaker 1: such a an isolated, stand alone type of interview and
Speaker 1: also incredibly unusual that it was really the only thing
Speaker 1: that was coming out between his arrest and the trial.
Speaker 1: I don't I almost don't know what to make of
Speaker 1: it still, and it's odd that it was almost smug
Speaker 1: gold in by his own lawyer, this opportunity to be
Speaker 1: in such a pop culture magazine with like almost a
Speaker 1: emphasis on like celebrity and luxury, and here's a Wayne
Speaker 1: Williams interview twenty three year old Wayne Williams biding his
Speaker 1: time in jail. Yeah. And I think it also points
Speaker 1: to the fact that there's so many occasions during the
Speaker 1: course of thirty five to forty years where you hear
Speaker 1: different versions of the same thing. And I think maybe
Speaker 1: that's where we should leave this is as we've uncovered
Speaker 1: things in the archives, we've just found that there is
Speaker 1: no single story that has maintained its um kind of
Speaker 1: its essence as the bible of this is exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: Um And I'm not just talking about Wayne Williams. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about um FBI agents. I'm talking about police officers
Speaker 1: who they get most of the details right, but their
Speaker 1: recall of everything that happened so many years later has
Speaker 1: differed absolutely every time, a different story. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: so what's difficult here is what is the motivation behind that?
Speaker 1: Is their motivation? Is it forgetfulness? Is it changing the
Speaker 1: narrative to be most convenient. Those are the kind of
Speaker 1: questions I think that we continue to ask ourselves as
Speaker 1: we get into the archives and kind of look at
Speaker 1: the vault. One of the most unusual stories we've heard
Speaker 1: so far is this one. It involves a woman and
Speaker 1: her husband driving through a cemetery and witnessing a struggle
Speaker 1: between a man and a young black child. But despite
Speaker 1: being on television and being submitted to the task force,
Speaker 1: this story never seemed to lead anywhere. There is a
Speaker 1: Soft View Cemetery off Johnsboro Road in southeast Atlanta. The
Speaker 1: Clayton County woman and her husband are not identifying because
Speaker 1: if they did see the killers, we don't want them
Speaker 1: to have a way of tracing them. The Clayton County
Speaker 1: woman and her husband were driving on this narrow cemetery
Speaker 1: road when they saw a green car coming straight at
Speaker 1: them at a high rate of speed. Her husband swerved
Speaker 1: to the side to get out of the way. They
Speaker 1: say they've reported it to the task Force by phone,
Speaker 1: but the task Force hasn't got back to them for
Speaker 1: an imperson interview. The driver was tawel and he's light colored,
Speaker 1: a light colored black man. And the other one, uh
Speaker 1: was dark or black and he had on a wig.
Speaker 1: It was a rudish brown. I know it was a
Speaker 1: week because it was he was losing it because it
Speaker 1: was a child in the front struggling. He was struggling
Speaker 1: with that child. But he had broad shoulders, but his
Speaker 1: head came about like man, so he would be back
Speaker 1: in my henight. But the other one was towel was
Speaker 1: he had almost touched the roof. But I know it
Speaker 1: was a wig because it was coupling off. You're sure
Speaker 1: you saw a child, and yes, yes, I saw because
Speaker 1: it was just back and forth like that, and they're
Speaker 1: like that was trying to hang on to that child.
Speaker 1: It was a boy between the ages of the baton
Speaker 1: and trial, and he had a short haircut. Do you
Speaker 1: think you could identified these two? Many yes, and the
Speaker 1: one with the wig hand on glasses I could identify.
Speaker 1: We hope this gave you a feel for just how
Speaker 1: many stories are out there and why this case is
Speaker 1: just so hard to untangle. Lastly, we'd like to play
Speaker 1: you a song that the Atlanta officials promoted in the
Speaker 1: wake of the poor pr the city was facing. The
Speaker 1: song is called Let's Keep Pulling Together, Atlanta and was
Speaker 1: broadcasted throughout the city. The video features black and white
Speaker 1: citizens standing side by side and pulling a never ending rope,
Speaker 1: glossing over the obvious racial tension at the time. It's
Speaker 1: not hard to imagine that it wasn't entirely well received.
Speaker 1: You decide, we'll leave you with this. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to the first episode of The Vault, and be sure
Speaker 1: to tune in next Friday for episode eight. See you
Speaker 1: next week. SA showing Sky