WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.540 Okay, so I want you to imagine something for 00:00:01.540 --> 00:00:04.540 a second. Picture yourself standing on a bridge. 00:00:05.419 --> 00:00:08.820 It's the middle of the night. It is pitch black. 00:00:09.919 --> 00:00:12.980 And the air is so humid it feels like you're, 00:00:12.980 --> 00:00:14.640 I don't know, wearing a wet wool blanket. Oh 00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:17.059 yeah, that's Georgia in late May for sure. Exactly, 00:00:17.260 --> 00:00:19.879 standard operating procedure. But the heaviness 00:00:19.879 --> 00:00:23.059 in the air, it isn't just the weather. The date 00:00:23.059 --> 00:00:27.510 is May 22, 1981. You're in Atlanta. And the entire 00:00:27.510 --> 00:00:29.670 city is absolutely terrified. It wasn't just 00:00:29.670 --> 00:00:31.890 fear. You know, it was more like a siege mentality. 00:00:32.310 --> 00:00:34.869 You really have to understand the texture of 00:00:34.869 --> 00:00:37.750 that time. This wasn't a simple lock your doors 00:00:37.750 --> 00:00:40.250 kind of thing. This was a crisis that was, I 00:00:40.250 --> 00:00:42.469 mean, it was tearing the social fabric of the 00:00:42.469 --> 00:00:46.250 city apart. For two years, children, specifically 00:00:46.250 --> 00:00:49.030 young black children, mostly boys, had been vanishing. 00:00:49.030 --> 00:00:51.450 Gone. Gone. Disappearing from street corners, 00:00:51.490 --> 00:00:53.070 from running errands for their parents, right 00:00:53.070 --> 00:00:55.409 out of the front yards. And then they were turned 00:00:55.409 --> 00:00:59.299 up dead. Asphyxiated, strangled, dumped in the 00:00:59.299 --> 00:01:02.219 woods or in rivers. And by this point, in 81, 00:01:02.420 --> 00:01:05.799 the number of victims is just, it's staggering. 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:07.700 Depending on which list you look at, it's getting 00:01:07.700 --> 00:01:10.540 close to 30 victims. It is. And the police are 00:01:10.540 --> 00:01:12.859 under this immense, immense pressure. We're talking 00:01:12.859 --> 00:01:15.959 political pressure from the mayor's office, community 00:01:15.959 --> 00:01:19.620 pressure from terrified parents. They had to 00:01:19.620 --> 00:01:22.579 stop. What everyone was calling the Atlanta child 00:01:22.579 --> 00:01:25.319 murders. The whole city is on edge. People are 00:01:25.319 --> 00:01:27.980 looking at their neighbors with suspicion. It's 00:01:27.980 --> 00:01:30.840 a level of civic terror that is almost impossible 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:34.579 to describe today. And that brings us right back 00:01:34.579 --> 00:01:36.959 to that bridge, the James Jackson Parkway Bridge. 00:01:37.180 --> 00:01:39.180 Yeah. The police aren't just out on a random 00:01:39.180 --> 00:01:42.040 patrol. No. They are specifically staking out 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:44.819 the bridges over the Chattahoochee River. They 00:01:44.819 --> 00:01:47.359 have this grim working theory that the killer 00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:49.340 is using the river to his advantage. Dumping 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:51.939 the bodies to wash away forensic evidence. Exactly. 00:01:52.299 --> 00:01:54.519 Fibers, hairs, fingerprints, anything that could 00:01:54.519 --> 00:01:56.420 link him to the victim. So you have this surveillance 00:01:56.420 --> 00:01:59.280 team sitting there in the dark. It's just before 00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:02.560 3 a .m. Windows down, just listening. And then 00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:04.939 at roughly 2 .50 in the morning, they hear it, 00:02:04.980 --> 00:02:07.859 a sound that just changes everything. A big loud 00:02:07.859 --> 00:02:10.659 splash. That's the exact phrase from the official 00:02:10.659 --> 00:02:13.840 reports. It wasn't a little ripple. It wasn't 00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:16.120 a fish jumping or a turtle sliding off a log. 00:02:16.300 --> 00:02:18.800 This was a heavy impact. Something substantial 00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:20.900 hitting the water below. And almost immediately 00:02:20.900 --> 00:02:23.060 after that sound cuts through the silence, another 00:02:23.060 --> 00:02:28.039 sound. A car. A station wagon turns around on 00:02:28.039 --> 00:02:30.419 the bridge and starts to drive off. This is the 00:02:30.419 --> 00:02:32.419 moment. This is the catalyst for everything that 00:02:32.419 --> 00:02:35.680 follows. The police pursue the car. They pull 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:39.560 it over. And the driver, he's in some spectral 00:02:39.560 --> 00:02:41.620 monster, you know, some phantom. No, he's a 23 00:02:41.620 --> 00:02:43.879 -year -old local guy. A 23 -year -old man named 00:02:43.879 --> 00:02:46.280 Wayne Bertram Williams. And from that second 00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:48.740 forward, the entire mystery of the Atlanta child 00:02:48.740 --> 00:02:51.680 murders shifts. It goes from who is doing this 00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:55.139 to did this specific guy do this? But that shift. 00:02:55.550 --> 00:02:57.789 It's not simple at all. And that is exactly why 00:02:57.789 --> 00:03:00.210 we're doing this deep dive today. Right. Because 00:03:00.210 --> 00:03:01.849 on one hand, you have the prosecution's narrative, 00:03:01.969 --> 00:03:04.110 which is very clear. Wayne Williams is the Atlanta 00:03:04.110 --> 00:03:06.289 monster. He's a serial killer who terrorized 00:03:06.289 --> 00:03:08.629 the city, was convicted of two murders, and then 00:03:08.629 --> 00:03:10.310 the authorities attributed more than 20 others 00:03:10.310 --> 00:03:12.810 to him. Case closed. But then you have this other 00:03:12.810 --> 00:03:15.569 hand, a story that just refuses to stay closed. 00:03:16.090 --> 00:03:18.750 You have Williams himself, sitting in prison 00:03:18.750 --> 00:03:21.469 for over 40 years, serving two life sentences, 00:03:21.710 --> 00:03:24.270 and maintaining his innocence the entire time. 00:03:24.620 --> 00:03:27.300 And it's not just him saying it. You have these 00:03:27.300 --> 00:03:29.460 persistent theories about a Ku Klux Klan cover 00:03:29.460 --> 00:03:32.599 up. You have intense arguments about so -called 00:03:32.599 --> 00:03:36.099 trilobal fibers. And you have modern DNA tests 00:03:36.099 --> 00:03:39.039 that, well, they seem to cut both ways depending 00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:41.139 on how you look at them. Exactly. So what we 00:03:41.139 --> 00:03:43.710 need to do today is unpack all of it. Unpack 00:03:43.710 --> 00:03:46.030 the evidence that convicted him, which was both 00:03:46.030 --> 00:03:48.650 groundbreaking and incredibly controversial for 00:03:48.650 --> 00:03:50.789 its time, and weigh it against these lingering 00:03:50.789 --> 00:03:53.370 doubts, these theories that suggest he might 00:03:53.370 --> 00:03:55.270 have been a scapegoat. A scapegoat for something 00:03:55.270 --> 00:03:58.389 much darker involving racial politics and maybe... 00:03:59.019 --> 00:04:00.919 institutional failure. We're going to look at 00:04:00.919 --> 00:04:03.300 the biographical data, the actual trial records, 00:04:03.460 --> 00:04:05.340 some really interesting wiretaps that the jury 00:04:05.340 --> 00:04:07.120 never even got to hear. And of course, the post 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:09.159 -conviction DNA testing from the 2000s, which 00:04:09.159 --> 00:04:12.080 really complicates the picture. We have to strip 00:04:12.080 --> 00:04:14.539 away the sensationalism, the monster monikers, 00:04:14.539 --> 00:04:17.000 and just look at the raw data. We really need 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:19.220 to understand the fibers. I mean, really understand 00:04:19.220 --> 00:04:21.959 the science of them and why it was so powerful 00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:24.120 in that courtroom. We need to look at the wiretaps. 00:04:24.259 --> 00:04:27.000 Yeah. And we have to look at how modern DNA testing 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:30.319 can sometimes make a case more confusing, not 00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:33.740 less. So, yeah, buckle up. Because to understand 00:04:33.740 --> 00:04:35.839 what happened on that bridge, we first have to 00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:39.120 understand who exactly was driving that car. 00:04:39.379 --> 00:04:42.480 Who is Wayne Williams? It's a great question, 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:44.639 because if you're trying to build a profile of 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:46.839 a typical violent offender or serial predator, 00:04:47.540 --> 00:04:49.980 Wayne Williams doesn't immediately fit the stereotype 00:04:49.980 --> 00:04:52.699 people had in their heads back in 1981. He's 00:04:52.699 --> 00:04:54.720 not a drifter or an outcast? Not in the traditional 00:04:54.720 --> 00:04:58.139 sense, no. He was born May 27, 1958, right there 00:04:58.139 --> 00:05:00.639 in Atlanta. Yeah. He was raised in a pretty stable 00:05:00.639 --> 00:05:02.579 middle -class neighborhood called Bixie Hills. 00:05:02.860 --> 00:05:04.699 And he had a solid family background, didn't 00:05:04.699 --> 00:05:06.699 he? He did. He was the son of two schoolteachers, 00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:09.519 Homer and Faye Williams. By all accounts, he 00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:12.629 was a... a pretty pampered only child he was 00:05:12.629 --> 00:05:14.589 a bright kid you know graduated from douglas 00:05:14.589 --> 00:05:16.970 high school but what's really fascinating about 00:05:16.970 --> 00:05:21.050 him is his personality his interests he was what 00:05:21.050 --> 00:05:24.490 we would probably call today a radio nerd i love 00:05:24.490 --> 00:05:27.490 this detail he didn't just like listen to the 00:05:27.490 --> 00:05:30.490 radio he built his own radio station he literally 00:05:30.490 --> 00:05:34.389 did he constructed his own Carrier Current Radio 00:05:34.389 --> 00:05:36.009 Station. Okay, what is that? For those of us 00:05:36.009 --> 00:05:38.750 who aren't audio engineers. It's a way of transmitting 00:05:38.750 --> 00:05:41.389 a radio signal through the electrical wiring 00:05:41.389 --> 00:05:44.350 in a building rather than through a giant broadcast 00:05:44.350 --> 00:05:47.689 tower. It has a very limited range. Maybe it's 00:05:47.689 --> 00:05:49.910 a building or a city block, but it's a real radio 00:05:49.910 --> 00:05:51.889 station. He was completely obsessed with the 00:05:51.889 --> 00:05:54.470 industry. So he's not just tinkering in his basement. 00:05:54.589 --> 00:05:57.230 He's trying to get into the business. Hanging 00:05:57.230 --> 00:05:59.670 around professional stations. Constantly. He 00:05:59.670 --> 00:06:02.589 frequented stations like WeGo and Walk, which 00:06:02.589 --> 00:06:05.129 were big in the black community in Atlanta. He 00:06:05.129 --> 00:06:08.069 befriended the announcing crews, the DJs. His 00:06:08.069 --> 00:06:10.689 whole dream, his aspiration, was to be a pop 00:06:10.689 --> 00:06:13.209 music producer and a talent manager. So he's 00:06:13.209 --> 00:06:15.129 not trying to be a gangster or a tough guy. He 00:06:15.129 --> 00:06:19.129 wants to be a media mogul. Exactly. A young... 00:06:19.339 --> 00:06:21.959 Black entrepreneur on the rise. He was always 00:06:21.959 --> 00:06:24.959 out there scouting for talent, trying to manage 00:06:24.959 --> 00:06:27.000 local bands, trying to make a name for himself. 00:06:27.339 --> 00:06:30.399 He had this very specific image of himself that 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:33.459 he wanted to project. OK, so that's the person, 00:06:33.579 --> 00:06:37.459 a 23 -year -old aspiring music manager. And he's 00:06:37.459 --> 00:06:39.439 the one driving across a bridge at 3 in the morning 00:06:39.439 --> 00:06:41.879 when the police pull him over right after hearing 00:06:41.879 --> 00:06:44.899 that big splash. Right. And this is where things 00:06:44.899 --> 00:06:47.519 get, well, they get sticky. Because if you're 00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:49.560 innocent, you usually have a pretty straightforward 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:53.019 answer for what you're doing. But Wayne, he starts 00:06:53.019 --> 00:06:55.439 talking. And he just talks himself into a huge 00:06:55.439 --> 00:06:58.319 hole. A huge one. When the police stop him, they 00:06:58.319 --> 00:07:00.459 ask the obvious question. Where are you going 00:07:00.459 --> 00:07:02.860 at this hour? Williams tells him he's heading 00:07:02.860 --> 00:07:04.600 to a neighboring town to check on an address. 00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:07.000 Okay. He claims he has an audition scheduled 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:09.540 for the next morning with a promising young singer. 00:07:09.899 --> 00:07:12.980 A woman named Cheryl Johnson. Cheryl Johnson. 00:07:13.060 --> 00:07:15.079 That sounds very specific. Almost too specific. 00:07:15.279 --> 00:07:17.220 It does. But here's the problem. The police, 00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:19.480 of course, they investigate this alibi immediately. 00:07:19.800 --> 00:07:22.360 The phone number he gave them for her. Fictitious. 00:07:23.139 --> 00:07:27.060 The person, Cheryl Johnson. She didn't exist. 00:07:27.379 --> 00:07:29.939 The entire story was a complete fabrication. 00:07:30.500 --> 00:07:32.519 Wow. Okay, let's just unpack that for a minute. 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:36.740 Why lie? If you're just driving home, or maybe 00:07:36.740 --> 00:07:38.379 you're doing something a little shady but not 00:07:38.379 --> 00:07:41.819 murder, why invent a whole person? That is the 00:07:41.819 --> 00:07:44.269 million -dollar question, isn't it? Innocent 00:07:44.269 --> 00:07:46.050 people sometimes lie to the police because they're 00:07:46.050 --> 00:07:48.009 nervous or maybe they're hiding something minor 00:07:48.009 --> 00:07:49.310 like they were with someone they shouldn't have 00:07:49.310 --> 00:07:51.490 been with. Right, something embarrassing but 00:07:51.490 --> 00:07:54.230 not criminal. Exactly. Maybe he just panicked 00:07:54.230 --> 00:07:56.189 and wanted to sound important to fit his music 00:07:56.189 --> 00:07:59.310 mogul persona. But in the context of a murder 00:07:59.310 --> 00:08:03.709 investigation, a fabricated alibi is just, it's 00:08:03.709 --> 00:08:06.029 devastating. It reads as consciousness of guilt. 00:08:06.290 --> 00:08:09.170 Completely. And it got so much worse very quickly 00:08:09.170 --> 00:08:11.509 because Two days after that stop on the bridge, 00:08:11.629 --> 00:08:14.569 on May 24th, a body is found in the river. And 00:08:14.569 --> 00:08:17.269 this is Nathaniel Cater? Yes. Nathaniel Cater, 00:08:17.350 --> 00:08:19.889 27 years old. His body was found floating in 00:08:19.889 --> 00:08:21.829 the Chattahoochee, downstream from that very 00:08:21.829 --> 00:08:23.730 bridge. And how long had he been missing? He'd 00:08:23.730 --> 00:08:26.569 been missing for four days. And here's the critical 00:08:26.569 --> 00:08:30.110 link. He was last seen alive with Wayne Williams. 00:08:30.410 --> 00:08:33.269 So the police now have a direct connection. They 00:08:33.269 --> 00:08:35.429 have a direct connection. The medical examiner 00:08:35.429 --> 00:08:39.500 rules the death. As probable asphyxia. Probable? 00:08:39.500 --> 00:08:42.159 Why not definitive? Well, because of the condition 00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:45.539 of the body. After being in the water, decomposition 00:08:45.539 --> 00:08:49.200 and, you know, water damage make it really hard 00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:52.039 to spot the classic signs of strangulation. Things 00:08:52.039 --> 00:08:54.039 like petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes. I see. 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:56.159 But it fit the pattern of the other victims. 00:08:56.700 --> 00:09:00.299 So now, the police have a theory. The splash 00:09:00.299 --> 00:09:02.679 they heard. That was Nathaniel Cater's body hitting 00:09:02.679 --> 00:09:04.879 the water. That's the theory. Yeah. So they have 00:09:04.879 --> 00:09:06.740 the splash. They have the body. They have the 00:09:06.740 --> 00:09:09.360 fabricated alibi about an audition. And they 00:09:09.360 --> 00:09:11.940 had a suspect who was the only person on that 00:09:11.940 --> 00:09:14.279 bridge at that exact moment. But they don't arrest 00:09:14.279 --> 00:09:16.399 him right away, do they? I remember reading that 00:09:16.399 --> 00:09:18.440 he was questioned for hours but then let go. 00:09:18.919 --> 00:09:20.879 That's right. They brought him in for questioning 00:09:20.879 --> 00:09:23.860 on June 3rd and 4th, held him for about 12 hours 00:09:23.860 --> 00:09:26.340 at the FBI headquarters in Atlanta. But they 00:09:26.340 --> 00:09:29.490 released him. Why? Not enough to hold him. Not 00:09:29.490 --> 00:09:33.090 yet. But they did not stop watching him. He was 00:09:33.090 --> 00:09:38.009 placed under intense 247 surveillance. They basically 00:09:38.009 --> 00:09:41.509 glued a team of agents to his bumper. And this 00:09:41.509 --> 00:09:43.629 is when the monster monikers start to appear 00:09:43.629 --> 00:09:46.570 in the press. The Atlanta boogeyman. The Atlanta 00:09:46.570 --> 00:09:48.710 child killer. And Wayne Williams, he doesn't 00:09:48.710 --> 00:09:50.629 exactly lay low during this period, does he? 00:09:50.710 --> 00:09:52.870 He does the opposite. He actually held a press 00:09:52.870 --> 00:09:56.669 conference outside his own home. That's a bold 00:09:56.669 --> 00:10:00.029 move. It's an incredibly bold move. And he volunteered 00:10:00.029 --> 00:10:02.409 information that the police hadn't even released 00:10:02.409 --> 00:10:05.230 to the public yet. He told the press that he'd 00:10:05.230 --> 00:10:07.750 taken three polygraph tests. And what did he 00:10:07.750 --> 00:10:09.710 say about the results? He announced that they 00:10:09.710 --> 00:10:12.190 were inconclusive. Wait, wait. He told the public 00:10:12.190 --> 00:10:14.789 that his own lie detector tests were inconclusive. 00:10:14.850 --> 00:10:17.110 Why would you do that? Bizarre. His reasoning 00:10:17.110 --> 00:10:18.889 was that they would be inadmissible in court 00:10:18.889 --> 00:10:21.470 anyway, which is true. But it's one of those 00:10:21.470 --> 00:10:23.889 things where being legally smart doesn't always 00:10:23.889 --> 00:10:25.750 mean you're publicly smart. Right. It just makes 00:10:25.750 --> 00:10:29.830 you look suspicious or arrogant. Exactly. It 00:10:29.830 --> 00:10:31.690 made him look like he was confident in his ability 00:10:31.690 --> 00:10:34.009 to talk his way out of anything. But while he 00:10:34.009 --> 00:10:36.350 was busy talking to the press, the forensics 00:10:36.350 --> 00:10:39.029 team was quietly building a case against him. 00:10:39.269 --> 00:10:41.850 A case that would change the history of criminal 00:10:41.850 --> 00:10:44.399 trials. And this brings us right to the heart 00:10:44.399 --> 00:10:46.980 of it. Section two, the fiber case. Because when 00:10:46.980 --> 00:10:49.039 people talk about Wayne Williams, they always, 00:10:49.120 --> 00:10:52.000 always talk about the carpet. Always. Sounds 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:55.740 so mundane, you know, carpet fibers. But this 00:10:55.740 --> 00:10:57.820 was the nail in the coffin, wasn't it? It really 00:10:57.820 --> 00:11:00.820 was. This was one of the first major American 00:11:00.820 --> 00:11:04.000 trials where fiber analysis wasn't just supporting 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:06.120 evidence. It was the primary linkage. It was 00:11:06.120 --> 00:11:08.120 the star of the show. And you have to look at 00:11:08.120 --> 00:11:10.659 the sheer volume. It wasn't just one or two fibers. 00:11:10.759 --> 00:11:13.429 Not at all. end of the trial, prosecutors managed 00:11:13.429 --> 00:11:19.129 to link 19, that's one nine, 19 different sources 00:11:19.129 --> 00:11:21.590 of fibers and hairs from Williams's immediate 00:11:21.590 --> 00:11:25.289 environment directly to the victims. 19. That's 00:11:25.289 --> 00:11:27.169 an overwhelming number. What kind of sources 00:11:27.169 --> 00:11:29.110 are we talking about? We're talking about everything. 00:11:30.049 --> 00:11:32.009 Fibers from his bedspread, from the bathroom, 00:11:32.110 --> 00:11:34.669 from a pair of gloves, from the trunk of his 00:11:34.669 --> 00:11:38.409 car, his clothes, and yes, most famously, from 00:11:38.409 --> 00:11:41.340 the carpet in his bedroom. But this wasn't just 00:11:41.340 --> 00:11:45.019 any carpet. This is the famous trilobal fiber. 00:11:45.399 --> 00:11:47.299 Tell us about that. What exactly are we looking 00:11:47.299 --> 00:11:49.159 at under a microscope? Okay, so when they make 00:11:49.159 --> 00:11:51.299 synthetic carpet fibers, they push the polymer 00:11:51.299 --> 00:11:53.639 through a nozzle, kind of like a pasta maker. 00:11:53.879 --> 00:11:55.860 Right. And the shape of that nozzle determines 00:11:55.860 --> 00:11:58.720 the cross -section shape of the fiber. Some are 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:01.399 round, some are square, some are octagonal. The 00:12:01.399 --> 00:12:03.879 carpet in the Williams home had what's called 00:12:03.879 --> 00:12:06.190 a trilobal cross -section. What does that look 00:12:06.190 --> 00:12:07.870 like? It's shaped sort of like a three -leaf 00:12:07.870 --> 00:12:11.129 clover or maybe a radioactive symbol. And the 00:12:11.129 --> 00:12:13.970 prosecution's experts testified that this specific 00:12:13.970 --> 00:12:17.669 type of fiber in this specific color was incredibly 00:12:17.669 --> 00:12:20.789 rare. So finding the specific fiber on a victim 00:12:20.789 --> 00:12:23.210 is almost like finding a rare specific coin in 00:12:23.210 --> 00:12:25.309 their pocket that you know only Wayne Williams 00:12:25.309 --> 00:12:28.070 collects. That's a perfect analogy. The friend 00:12:28.070 --> 00:12:30.110 and scientist did an incredible job of sourcing 00:12:30.110 --> 00:12:33.309 it. They traced that specific fiber to a manufacturer 00:12:33.309 --> 00:12:37.059 called Wellman Inc. and then to a specific dialogue 00:12:37.059 --> 00:12:39.919 called Luxaire, made by a company called West 00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:42.179 Point Pepperell. They got that specific. They 00:12:42.179 --> 00:12:44.539 did. And then the prosecution brought in experts 00:12:44.539 --> 00:12:47.620 to do the math. They calculated how much of this 00:12:47.620 --> 00:12:50.659 specific carpet in this specific greenish color 00:12:50.659 --> 00:12:53.980 was sold in the entire Atlanta metropolitan area 00:12:53.980 --> 00:12:56.059 over a 10 -year period. And what was the number? 00:12:56.679 --> 00:12:59.419 They argued that the probability of any random 00:12:59.419 --> 00:13:02.460 house in Atlanta having this exact carpet was 00:13:02.460 --> 00:13:05.250 minuscule. Something like 1 in almost 8 ,000. 00:13:05.370 --> 00:13:07.509 So it's not impossible, but it's highly, highly 00:13:07.509 --> 00:13:09.730 unlikely. Highly unlikely. And to make it even 00:13:09.730 --> 00:13:11.889 worse for him, Williams tried to explain it away. 00:13:12.309 --> 00:13:14.269 During questioning, he claimed that the carpet 00:13:14.269 --> 00:13:16.029 in his house had been there for a long time. 00:13:16.379 --> 00:13:19.299 He said it was installed in 1968. OK, why does 00:13:19.299 --> 00:13:21.700 that specific date matter? It matters because 00:13:21.700 --> 00:13:24.259 the manufacturer of that specific trialable fiber, 00:13:24.580 --> 00:13:28.379 Wellman Inc., didn't even exist until 1971. Ouch. 00:13:28.419 --> 00:13:31.200 So he told a lie to try and create distance from 00:13:31.200 --> 00:13:34.299 the evidence. And the lie blew up in his face. 00:13:34.700 --> 00:13:37.419 It proved he was actively trying to mislead them. 00:13:37.679 --> 00:13:40.259 It just destroyed his credibility. If he just 00:13:40.259 --> 00:13:42.600 said, I don't know when it was installed or my 00:13:42.600 --> 00:13:44.909 parents handled that. it might have been less 00:13:44.909 --> 00:13:47.950 damaging. But he gave a specific, provably false 00:13:47.950 --> 00:13:50.509 date. He walked right into a trap of his own 00:13:50.509 --> 00:13:52.710 making. And remember, it wasn't just the carpet. 00:13:52.889 --> 00:13:55.909 It was the dog hair. The family's German shepherd. 00:13:56.190 --> 00:13:58.070 Right. They found hairs that were consistent 00:13:58.070 --> 00:14:01.429 with the Williams family dog on multiple victims, 00:14:01.649 --> 00:14:04.029 including a young man named Junie Ray Payne. 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:06.659 So now you have a triangle of evidence building. 00:14:06.779 --> 00:14:08.820 You have the carpet fibers from the house. You 00:14:08.820 --> 00:14:11.179 have the dog hairs from the dog. And you have 00:14:11.179 --> 00:14:13.620 Williams' own presence at the bridge where a 00:14:13.620 --> 00:14:16.200 body was dumped. This allows the prosecution 00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:18.440 to invoke something called the product rule of 00:14:18.440 --> 00:14:20.779 probability. The product rule. Break that down. 00:14:20.940 --> 00:14:23.620 It's a statistical concept. If you have one coincidence, 00:14:23.820 --> 00:14:26.559 say, the 1 in 8 ,000 chance of the carpet match, 00:14:26.759 --> 00:14:29.889 that's suspicious, but... Maybe plausible. But 00:14:29.889 --> 00:14:31.769 then you multiply the odds of that by the odds 00:14:31.769 --> 00:14:33.950 of the dog hair match. And then you multiply 00:14:33.950 --> 00:14:36.070 that by the odds of a fiber match from the trunk 00:14:36.070 --> 00:14:39.230 of his car. So each new piece of evidence makes 00:14:39.230 --> 00:14:42.549 the coincidence exponentially less likely. Exactly. 00:14:42.570 --> 00:14:45.590 The prosecutor argued that the combined mathematical 00:14:45.590 --> 00:14:48.570 probability of this all just being a random coincidence 00:14:48.570 --> 00:14:52.080 was something like 1 in 30 million. It was a 00:14:52.080 --> 00:14:54.399 number designed to be so large that the jury 00:14:54.399 --> 00:14:56.500 couldn't possibly believe it was anyone else. 00:14:56.600 --> 00:14:58.519 And on top of all this physical evidence, we 00:14:58.519 --> 00:15:01.440 can't forget his behavior, both before the trial 00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:03.700 and in the courtroom itself. It was disastrous 00:15:03.700 --> 00:15:06.220 for him. You mentioned he was this kind of radio 00:15:06.220 --> 00:15:08.740 nerd, maybe a bit arrogant. How did that play 00:15:08.740 --> 00:15:11.259 out when he was in front of a jury fighting for 00:15:11.259 --> 00:15:14.279 his life? Terribly. The trial began in January 00:15:14.279 --> 00:15:17.620 1982. And Williams made the incredibly risky 00:15:17.620 --> 00:15:19.720 decision to take the stand in his own defense. 00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:22.740 Which is always a gamble. A huge gamble. At first, 00:15:22.759 --> 00:15:25.820 he was calm, collected, trying to project that 00:15:25.820 --> 00:15:29.240 intelligent, media -savvy persona. But the lead 00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:32.419 prosecutor, Joseph Drolet, he knew exactly how 00:15:32.419 --> 00:15:34.700 to push his buttons. He started poking at Williams' 00:15:34.879 --> 00:15:37.379 story, his inconsistencies, his failed music 00:15:37.379 --> 00:15:39.580 ventures. And Williams snapped. He didn't just 00:15:39.580 --> 00:15:42.799 snap. He completely alienated the jury. He became 00:15:42.799 --> 00:15:45.960 angry, combative, argumentative. He started calling 00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:49.740 the prosecutor names like fool. He came across 00:15:49.740 --> 00:15:53.419 not as a man wrongfully accused, but as someone 00:15:53.419 --> 00:15:55.559 with a volatile temper. Which is not the look 00:15:55.559 --> 00:15:57.379 you want when you're accused of strangling people. 00:15:57.870 --> 00:16:00.950 It's the worst possible look for a jury that 00:16:00.950 --> 00:16:03.210 is trying to decide if this man was capable of 00:16:03.210 --> 00:16:05.730 strangling someone in a fit of rage. Seeing that 00:16:05.730 --> 00:16:08.230 anger explode live in the courtroom. I mean, 00:16:08.250 --> 00:16:10.490 by all accounts, it was a major turning point 00:16:10.490 --> 00:16:14.370 in the trial. So on February 27, 1982, the verdict 00:16:14.370 --> 00:16:17.649 finally comes down. Guilty on both counts. The 00:16:17.649 --> 00:16:20.120 murders of Nathaniel Cater. And Jimmy Ray Payne. 00:16:20.139 --> 00:16:22.139 End the sentence. Two consecutive life terms. 00:16:22.259 --> 00:16:24.700 But wait a minute, there were nearly 30 victims 00:16:24.700 --> 00:16:27.000 in this whole string of murders. He was only 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.179 officially charged and tried for two of them, 00:16:29.220 --> 00:16:31.279 and they were both adults. That is a critical 00:16:31.279 --> 00:16:33.299 distinction, and it's a point of a lot of confusion. 00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:36.080 He was only formally convicted for the murders 00:16:36.080 --> 00:16:39.259 of two adult men, Cater and Payne. So why do 00:16:39.259 --> 00:16:41.480 we call them the Atlanta child murders if he 00:16:41.480 --> 00:16:43.779 was convicted for killing adults? Because the 00:16:43.779 --> 00:16:45.759 prosecution was allowed to introduce evidence 00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:49.450 regarding 10 other... victims, mostly children, 00:16:49.649 --> 00:16:52.350 including an 11 -year -old named Patrick Baltazar, 00:16:52.509 --> 00:16:55.809 to establish a pattern of behavior. So they were 00:16:55.809 --> 00:16:58.190 saying, look, the way these 10 other people were 00:16:58.190 --> 00:17:00.789 killed is so similar, the fiber evidence is so 00:17:00.789 --> 00:17:03.090 similar, that if we prove he did these two, it 00:17:03.090 --> 00:17:05.690 strongly implies he did the others as well. That 00:17:05.690 --> 00:17:08.210 was the strategy, and it worked. Once he was 00:17:08.210 --> 00:17:10.809 convicted and sentenced, the Atlanta Police Department 00:17:10.809 --> 00:17:13.849 and the FBI effectively declared the entire Atlanta 00:17:13.849 --> 00:17:17.059 child murders case solved. Why? What was their 00:17:17.059 --> 00:17:19.779 public justification? It was simple and very 00:17:19.779 --> 00:17:21.880 powerful. The killing stopped. They said, look, 00:17:21.960 --> 00:17:24.539 we arrested Wayne Williams and the body stopped 00:17:24.539 --> 00:17:26.400 appearing on the sides of roads and in rivers. 00:17:26.599 --> 00:17:28.880 Which you have to admit sounds incredibly convincing. 00:17:29.099 --> 00:17:32.920 It does. But, and this is a massive but, this 00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:35.119 is where we have to pivot. Because despite the 00:17:35.119 --> 00:17:37.099 mountain of fiber evidence, despite the splash 00:17:37.099 --> 00:17:38.940 in the night, and despite the jury's verdict, 00:17:39.220 --> 00:17:41.980 there is this huge alternative narrative that 00:17:41.980 --> 00:17:44.660 has never, ever gone away. And this is where 00:17:44.660 --> 00:17:47.059 the story gets really interesting and, frankly, 00:17:47.200 --> 00:17:50.160 really dark. We have to start talking about the 00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:52.759 Ku Klux Klan. Right. Let's get into Section 3, 00:17:52.839 --> 00:17:55.359 the cover -up theory. Because Wayne Williams 00:17:55.359 --> 00:17:58.490 from Day One has said, I didn't do this. I'm 00:17:58.490 --> 00:18:01.190 a scapegoat. Yes. And his defense team argued 00:18:01.190 --> 00:18:03.910 that Atlanta officials were terrified of a full 00:18:03.910 --> 00:18:06.089 blown race war. You have to paint the picture 00:18:06.089 --> 00:18:08.690 of the sociopolitical context here. Atlanta in 00:18:08.690 --> 00:18:11.509 the early 80s was a real powder keg. It was. 00:18:11.589 --> 00:18:13.630 You had a new black administration running the 00:18:13.630 --> 00:18:15.750 city with Maynard Jackson as the first black 00:18:15.750 --> 00:18:18.210 mayor. It was seen as this beacon of the new 00:18:18.210 --> 00:18:21.670 South. But you still had deep seated, violent 00:18:21.670 --> 00:18:24.410 white supremacist activity bubbling just under 00:18:24.410 --> 00:18:26.609 the surface, especially in the surrounding counties. 00:18:26.750 --> 00:18:29.109 So the theory goes, if it came out that a white 00:18:29.109 --> 00:18:30.970 supremacist group was systematically hunting 00:18:30.970 --> 00:18:32.869 and murdering black children. The city would 00:18:32.869 --> 00:18:34.950 burn. There would be riots on a scale that make 00:18:34.950 --> 00:18:37.210 the 60s look small. The political damage, the 00:18:37.210 --> 00:18:39.349 social damage, it would have been catastrophic. 00:18:39.490 --> 00:18:42.430 So the alleged cover up theory is find a black 00:18:42.430 --> 00:18:45.460 suspect, any plausible black suspect. Pin it 00:18:45.460 --> 00:18:47.720 all on him, calm the city down, and avoid the 00:18:47.720 --> 00:18:50.720 race war. That's the core of the theory. But 00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:53.299 the question is, is there any actual evidence 00:18:53.299 --> 00:18:56.720 for KKK involvement? Or is this just a convenient 00:18:56.720 --> 00:18:59.599 conspiracy theory to deflect guilt? And there 00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:01.119 is some evidence, isn't there? It's not just 00:19:01.119 --> 00:19:04.140 smoke. There is. And it primarily centers on 00:19:04.140 --> 00:19:07.920 one man. A man named Charles T. Sanders. Okay, 00:19:07.960 --> 00:19:10.599 so who was Charles T. Sanders? Sanders was a 00:19:10.599 --> 00:19:12.960 known white supremacist. He was affiliated with 00:19:12.960 --> 00:19:15.480 the KKK. And he wasn't just some random racist 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:18.640 guy. He was actively on the radar of the Georgia 00:19:18.640 --> 00:19:21.299 Bureau of Investigation, the GBI. They were watching 00:19:21.299 --> 00:19:22.880 him? They were more than watching him. There 00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:25.079 were wiretaps. Wiretaps. Okay, now we're talking. 00:19:25.259 --> 00:19:27.299 What did they actually catch him saying? In a 00:19:27.299 --> 00:19:31.000 1981 recording, Sanders was speaking to a GBI 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:33.680 informant. He was recorded praising the killer. 00:19:33.859 --> 00:19:35.660 He allegedly said that the person responsible 00:19:35.660 --> 00:19:38.519 for the murders had, paraphrasing the sentiment 00:19:38.519 --> 00:19:40.420 here because the actual language was a horrific 00:19:40.420 --> 00:19:44.240 racial slur, wiped out a thousand future generations 00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:46.940 of black people. That is absolutely chilling. 00:19:47.119 --> 00:19:49.519 That sounds like a motive. It certainly does. 00:19:49.759 --> 00:19:52.390 And it gets even more specific. There was an 00:19:52.390 --> 00:19:56.569 article in Spin magazine in 1986 where an anonymous 00:19:56.569 --> 00:19:58.910 friend of Sanders's came forward. This friend 00:19:58.910 --> 00:20:00.890 claimed that Sanders had actually taken credit 00:20:00.890 --> 00:20:03.049 for the murders and said that his brothers were 00:20:03.049 --> 00:20:05.450 also involved. He took credit for it. So if they 00:20:05.450 --> 00:20:08.430 had him on wiretap praising the killer and a 00:20:08.430 --> 00:20:12.269 witness saying he confessed, why on earth didn't 00:20:12.269 --> 00:20:14.599 they go after him harder? Well, the official 00:20:14.599 --> 00:20:17.460 story is that Sanders and his brothers were brought 00:20:17.460 --> 00:20:20.160 in for questioning and they all passed lie detector 00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:22.960 tests where they denied any involvement. Hold 00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:25.220 on a second. Wayne Williams had inconclusive 00:20:25.220 --> 00:20:27.339 lie detector tests and the police used that against 00:20:27.339 --> 00:20:29.799 him. He even announced it himself. But Sanders 00:20:29.799 --> 00:20:31.740 and his brothers pass a lie detector test and 00:20:31.740 --> 00:20:34.059 they're just off the hook. That seems inconsistent. 00:20:34.420 --> 00:20:36.880 That is the exact point the defense has made 00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:39.859 for 40 years. They argue it's a glaring double 00:20:39.859 --> 00:20:42.710 standard. And there's another. bizarre, almost 00:20:42.710 --> 00:20:46.049 unbelievable coincidence here. What's that? Sanders 00:20:46.049 --> 00:20:48.430 allegedly mused to his friends about how lucky 00:20:48.430 --> 00:20:50.750 he was that the police were focused on Williams. 00:20:51.269 --> 00:20:53.349 And do you know why he considered himself lucky? 00:20:53.509 --> 00:20:56.349 I'm afraid to ask. Because Charles T. Sanders, 00:20:56.730 --> 00:21:00.309 the KKK -affiliated white supremacist, also owned 00:21:00.309 --> 00:21:02.730 a white German shepherd. You have got to be kidding 00:21:02.730 --> 00:21:05.559 me. And according to reports and sources from 00:21:05.559 --> 00:21:08.740 that time, he also had carpet in his home that 00:21:08.740 --> 00:21:11.000 was reported to be of a similar type and color 00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:13.660 to the fibers found on the victims. So let me 00:21:13.660 --> 00:21:15.680 get this straight. You have a known KKK member 00:21:15.680 --> 00:21:18.619 who openly expresses hatred for the victims, 00:21:18.819 --> 00:21:21.440 praises their killer, potentially confesses to 00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:24.460 a friend, and he just happens to own the same 00:21:24.460 --> 00:21:27.059 rare breed of dog and have similar carpet to 00:21:27.059 --> 00:21:29.920 the main suspect. That is the allegation. That 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:33.079 is the foundation of the cover -up theory. The 00:21:33.079 --> 00:21:36.059 idea is that once the police and the FBI zeroed 00:21:36.059 --> 00:21:38.579 in on Williams, the Klan realized they had a 00:21:38.579 --> 00:21:41.099 perfect way out. Yeah. As that anonymous friend 00:21:41.099 --> 00:21:43.140 in the Spin article put it, once it was pinned 00:21:43.140 --> 00:21:45.519 on Wayne Williams, they were through. They were 00:21:45.519 --> 00:21:47.880 off the hook. It sounds like the plot of a John 00:21:47.880 --> 00:21:50.380 Grisham novel, but this was the real life defense. 00:21:50.619 --> 00:21:53.079 So what happened to the investigation into Sanders? 00:21:53.359 --> 00:21:55.839 It was eventually officially closed in July of 00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:59.000 2006. They effectively said, we looked into it 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:01.039 and there's nothing here. But for a lot of people, 00:22:01.119 --> 00:22:04.019 closed doesn't mean resolved. Not at all. And 00:22:04.019 --> 00:22:06.839 that feeling, that lingering doubt, is what brings 00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:09.420 us into the modern era of this case. Because 00:22:09.420 --> 00:22:12.509 science, unlike police investigations, doesn't 00:22:12.509 --> 00:22:15.029 stand still. In the 2000s, we started getting 00:22:15.029 --> 00:22:18.430 access to DNA technology that was pure science 00:22:18.430 --> 00:22:21.690 fiction in 1981. Right. So this brings us to 00:22:21.690 --> 00:22:24.329 section four, modern science versus old convictions. 00:22:24.730 --> 00:22:26.829 Williams and his legal team have been fighting 00:22:26.829 --> 00:22:29.910 for appeals for decades. So in the 2000s, they 00:22:29.910 --> 00:22:32.269 finally get some DNA testing done on the evidence. 00:22:32.430 --> 00:22:34.990 What did they find? The first major round of 00:22:34.990 --> 00:22:38.759 testing was in 2007. The FBI agreed to test two 00:22:38.759 --> 00:22:40.619 human hairs that had been recovered from the 00:22:40.619 --> 00:22:43.039 body of one of the victims. Now, before we get 00:22:43.039 --> 00:22:44.579 into the results, it's really important to understand 00:22:44.579 --> 00:22:46.779 the difference between two types of DNA. Okay, 00:22:46.839 --> 00:22:49.359 let's break that down. There's nuclear DNA and 00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:52.019 there's mitochondrial DNA. Nuclear DNA is the 00:22:52.019 --> 00:22:53.740 one we always hear about on TV shows, right? 00:22:53.819 --> 00:22:55.740 It's unique to you, like a genetic fingerprint. 00:22:56.099 --> 00:22:58.079 Correct. Nuclear DNA comes from both of your 00:22:58.079 --> 00:22:59.940 parents. It's found in the nucleus of the cell. 00:23:00.059 --> 00:23:02.720 And unless you have an identical twin, it's yours 00:23:02.720 --> 00:23:05.880 and yours alone. Okay, and mitochondrial. Mitochondrial 00:23:05.880 --> 00:23:09.420 DNA. Or ME DNA is different. It's found in the 00:23:09.420 --> 00:23:11.779 mitochondria of the cell, and you inherit it 00:23:11.779 --> 00:23:14.380 only from your mother. It's not unique to a single 00:23:14.380 --> 00:23:17.420 person. It's shared by everyone along that same 00:23:17.420 --> 00:23:19.680 maternal line. So I would have the same mitochondrial 00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:22.200 DNA as my mother and my sister and my grandmother 00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:24.900 on my mother's side. Exactly. Which means it's 00:23:24.900 --> 00:23:28.019 less presourced for making a positive identification. 00:23:28.700 --> 00:23:31.240 You can't say this hair belongs to John Smith, 00:23:31.480 --> 00:23:34.720 but it is incredibly powerful for exclusion. 00:23:35.400 --> 00:23:37.480 Meaning if the mtDNA doesn't match, you know 00:23:37.480 --> 00:23:40.180 for a fact it's not from that person or anyone 00:23:40.180 --> 00:23:42.839 in their maternal family line. Precisely. So 00:23:42.839 --> 00:23:46.099 back to the 2007 test. They test the mtDNA from 00:23:46.099 --> 00:23:47.880 the two hairs found on the victim. What do you 00:23:47.880 --> 00:23:49.559 think they found? Well, if it exonerated him, 00:23:49.619 --> 00:23:50.960 we'd probably know about it. So I'm guessing 00:23:50.960 --> 00:23:53.660 it didn't. It did not. The DNA sequence they 00:23:53.660 --> 00:23:57.140 found was rare. It eliminated 99 .5 % of the 00:23:57.140 --> 00:24:00.079 general population and eliminated 98 % of the 00:24:00.079 --> 00:24:01.960 African -American population for being the source 00:24:01.960 --> 00:24:04.599 of that hair. But it matched Wayne Williams. 00:24:05.019 --> 00:24:07.640 So it didn't prove 100 % that it was his hair, 00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:10.660 but it proved that he falls into that tiny 2 00:24:10.660 --> 00:24:13.279 % of African -Americans who could have been the 00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:15.759 source. That's right. For the defense, they can 00:24:15.759 --> 00:24:18.970 say, see, it's not a unique match. But for the 00:24:18.970 --> 00:24:21.490 prosecution, they say when you combine this with 00:24:21.490 --> 00:24:24.509 the 30 million to one odds of the fiber evidence, 00:24:24.809 --> 00:24:27.710 the probability starts to stack up against him 00:24:27.710 --> 00:24:29.670 again. And it didn't stop there. There was more 00:24:29.670 --> 00:24:32.529 testing in 2010. Yes. On evidence from the Patrick 00:24:32.529 --> 00:24:35.609 Balthazar case. Remember, the 11 year old victim 00:24:35.609 --> 00:24:38.190 who wasn't part of the original murder charges, 00:24:38.269 --> 00:24:40.789 but was used to show that pattern of killings. 00:24:40.829 --> 00:24:43.269 Right. What did they test? They found two scalp 00:24:43.269 --> 00:24:45.920 hairs on Balthazar's body. They ran the mtDNA 00:24:45.920 --> 00:24:48.119 on those. The result was a sequence that was 00:24:48.119 --> 00:24:52.420 found in only 29 out of 11 ,148 samples in the 00:24:52.420 --> 00:24:55.740 FBI's existing database. And again, it matched 00:24:55.740 --> 00:24:58.400 Wayne Williams. That's very tough to explain 00:24:58.400 --> 00:25:00.539 away if you're the defense. Two different victims, 00:25:00.619 --> 00:25:02.980 years apart, and hairs consistent with your rare 00:25:02.980 --> 00:25:05.640 DNA profiler on both of them. It is. And they 00:25:05.640 --> 00:25:07.519 even went back to the dog. The German Shepherd. 00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:10.779 The German Shepherd. In 2007, the veterinary 00:25:10.779 --> 00:25:12.940 medicine lab at UC Davis, which is one of the 00:25:12.940 --> 00:25:15.539 best in the world, tested non -human hairs that 00:25:15.539 --> 00:25:17.519 were recovered from Balthazar's body. And did 00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:20.059 they match the Williams family dog? They did. 00:25:20.509 --> 00:25:22.890 The mitochondrial DNA sequence from the hairs 00:25:22.890 --> 00:25:25.130 on the body matched the sequence from the Williams 00:25:25.130 --> 00:25:27.849 family dog. But again, there is a caveat. It's 00:25:27.849 --> 00:25:31.630 dog mtDNA, so it's not unique. Right. The lead 00:25:31.630 --> 00:25:33.910 scientist on that study said the specific genetic 00:25:33.910 --> 00:25:36.890 sequence they found occurs in about one in every 00:25:36.890 --> 00:25:40.150 100 dogs. He called the match fairly significant, 00:25:40.210 --> 00:25:43.980 but not conclusive proof. On its own, having 00:25:43.980 --> 00:25:46.420 a dog with that DNA isn't a crime. One in a hundred 00:25:46.420 --> 00:25:48.640 is actually pretty common. If you go to a dog 00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:50.380 park, you might find another dog with that exact 00:25:50.380 --> 00:25:53.400 sequence. You might. But this is the so what. 00:25:53.789 --> 00:25:55.890 moment for the prosecution you have to look at 00:25:55.890 --> 00:25:57.630 the totality of the evidence what are the odds 00:25:57.630 --> 00:25:59.789 that a man is on a bridge at the exact moment 00:25:59.789 --> 00:26:02.970 a body is dumped lies about his alibi has incredibly 00:26:02.970 --> 00:26:05.569 rare carpet fibers that match the victims has 00:26:05.569 --> 00:26:07.910 his own rare dna profile consistent with hairs 00:26:07.910 --> 00:26:10.630 on the victims and has a dog with a fairly significant 00:26:10.630 --> 00:26:13.250 dna profile consistent with hairs on the victims 00:26:13.250 --> 00:26:16.269 when you stack it all up like that the coincidence 00:26:16.269 --> 00:26:18.809 theory just starts to crumble under the weight 00:26:18.809 --> 00:26:22.660 it does however The defense got a bit of a boost 00:26:22.660 --> 00:26:25.400 in 2015. What happened then? The Department of 00:26:25.400 --> 00:26:28.000 Justice, in partnership with the FBI, released 00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:31.910 a massive study. And it was a bombshell. It admitted 00:26:31.910 --> 00:26:34.930 that microscopic hair analysis testimony by FBI 00:26:34.930 --> 00:26:37.630 examiners in the 80s and 90s. Right. Well, it 00:26:37.630 --> 00:26:39.549 often failed to meet professional standards. 00:26:39.849 --> 00:26:41.670 Meaning what? They were lying. Not necessarily 00:26:41.670 --> 00:26:44.170 lying, but overstating the certainty of their 00:26:44.170 --> 00:26:47.250 findings. They would testify in ways that implied 00:26:47.250 --> 00:26:49.609 a hair match was a unique identification, like 00:26:49.609 --> 00:26:51.789 a fingerprint, when scientifically it isn't. 00:26:52.069 --> 00:26:54.630 The DOJ admitted that this flawed testimony had 00:26:54.630 --> 00:26:57.170 been used in thousands of cases. So the defense 00:26:57.170 --> 00:26:59.920 team for Williams can now say, see. The foundational 00:26:59.920 --> 00:27:02.460 science of your case was junk. The hair analysis 00:27:02.460 --> 00:27:04.279 was flawed from the start. And that's exactly 00:27:04.279 --> 00:27:06.779 what they argue. But the prosecution's response 00:27:06.779 --> 00:27:09.700 is, the microscopic hair comparison was just 00:27:09.700 --> 00:27:13.460 one small piece of a massive puzzle. Even if 00:27:13.460 --> 00:27:15.859 you throw it out entirely, the rest of the fiber 00:27:15.859 --> 00:27:18.660 evidence, the DNA evidence, and the circumstantial 00:27:18.660 --> 00:27:21.779 evidence all still stand. Which brings us to 00:27:21.779 --> 00:27:24.039 the lingering questions. Because even with all 00:27:24.039 --> 00:27:26.079 this science, if the evidence is so seemingly 00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:29.789 overwhelming, Why do so many people, and not 00:27:29.789 --> 00:27:33.190 just conspiracy theorists, still feel like justice 00:27:33.190 --> 00:27:36.069 wasn't really done here? That is the gut check 00:27:36.069 --> 00:27:38.650 problem of this entire case. And it brings us 00:27:38.650 --> 00:27:41.130 to our last section here, section five, public 00:27:41.130 --> 00:27:43.789 opinion and the pervasive doubt. You have these 00:27:43.789 --> 00:27:46.529 incredibly prominent, thoughtful voices raising 00:27:46.529 --> 00:27:49.309 questions, like the author James Baldwin. The 00:27:49.309 --> 00:27:51.829 great James Baldwin. In 1985, he wrote a whole 00:27:51.829 --> 00:27:54.390 book about this, right? The Evidence of Things 00:27:54.390 --> 00:27:57.470 Not Seen. He did. And he was profoundly skeptical. 00:27:57.609 --> 00:27:59.730 He looked at Wayne Williams, this articulate, 00:27:59.869 --> 00:28:02.369 nerdy son of two black schoolteachers, and he 00:28:02.369 --> 00:28:04.789 just couldn't reconcile that image with the image 00:28:04.789 --> 00:28:07.150 of a monster who was preying on poor black children 00:28:07.150 --> 00:28:09.009 from the other side of the tracks. He saw a disconnect. 00:28:09.390 --> 00:28:12.990 A huge one. He raised these profound... questions 00:28:12.990 --> 00:28:15.349 about whether the justice system needed a conviction 00:28:15.349 --> 00:28:17.490 more than it needed the absolute truth. And it 00:28:17.490 --> 00:28:19.970 wasn't just intellectuals like Baldwin. The victims' 00:28:20.069 --> 00:28:22.710 families themselves were deeply divided. That's 00:28:22.710 --> 00:28:24.730 the most heartbreaking part of this entire story. 00:28:25.150 --> 00:28:27.369 You would expect the families of the murdered 00:28:27.369 --> 00:28:30.109 children to be the ones most certain of his guilt, 00:28:30.210 --> 00:28:33.089 the ones who want closure the most. But many 00:28:33.089 --> 00:28:35.369 of them didn't believe it was him. Many did not. 00:28:35.759 --> 00:28:38.220 Several of the parents were very outspoken, saying 00:28:38.220 --> 00:28:40.339 they felt the police just wanted to close the 00:28:40.339 --> 00:28:43.380 cases, declare victory, and move on. They didn't 00:28:43.380 --> 00:28:45.339 feel like Williams was the man who killed their 00:28:45.339 --> 00:28:47.900 children. And even some people within law enforcement 00:28:47.900 --> 00:28:50.500 agreed with them. I was reading about the DeKalb 00:28:50.500 --> 00:28:52.759 County police chief, a man named Louis Graham. 00:28:53.099 --> 00:28:57.099 Yes, this was a big deal. In 2005, Graham officially 00:28:57.099 --> 00:29:00.539 reopened four of the murder cases that fell within 00:29:00.539 --> 00:29:03.539 his jurisdiction. And he stated publicly that 00:29:03.539 --> 00:29:05.619 his decision was driven by his personal belief 00:29:05.619 --> 00:29:08.299 in Wayne Williams' innocence. A police chief 00:29:08.299 --> 00:29:10.920 saying that, that's incredible. It's almost unheard 00:29:10.920 --> 00:29:12.859 of. And then you have the former sheriff of neighboring 00:29:12.859 --> 00:29:15.920 DeKalb County, a man named Sidney Dorsey, who 00:29:15.920 --> 00:29:18.200 said something incredibly provocative about the 00:29:18.200 --> 00:29:20.859 case. What did he say? He said, quote, if they 00:29:20.859 --> 00:29:22.720 arrested a white guy, there would have been riots. 00:29:23.380 --> 00:29:25.880 He was convinced that Williams was the safe arrest, 00:29:26.140 --> 00:29:28.559 the one that would prevent the city from exploding 00:29:28.559 --> 00:29:31.890 into racial violence. Wow. So this doubt isn't 00:29:31.890 --> 00:29:34.390 on the fringes. It's coming from inside the system 00:29:34.390 --> 00:29:37.990 itself. It is. Which leads us to 2019. We have 00:29:37.990 --> 00:29:40.829 a new mayor in Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, 00:29:40.890 --> 00:29:44.269 and a new police chief, Erica Shields. And they 00:29:44.269 --> 00:29:45.890 make a massive announcement. They're going to 00:29:45.890 --> 00:29:48.529 re -examine and re -test all the evidence in 00:29:48.529 --> 00:29:50.789 the Atlanta child murders cases. This was a huge 00:29:50.789 --> 00:29:53.730 moment. A huge moment. And Mayor Bottoms was 00:29:53.730 --> 00:29:56.549 very clear about the motivation. She said, it 00:29:56.549 --> 00:29:59.440 may be there is nothing left to be tested. But 00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:01.839 I do think history will judge us by our actions, 00:30:01.980 --> 00:30:05.079 and we will be able to say we tried. The goal 00:30:05.079 --> 00:30:07.400 was to apply all the latest modern technology 00:30:07.400 --> 00:30:10.440 to this decades -old evidence to see if a definitive 00:30:10.440 --> 00:30:12.819 answer could finally be found. Has anything new 00:30:12.819 --> 00:30:14.880 come out of that reexamination yet? It's still 00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:17.059 an ongoing process. These things take an incredible 00:30:17.059 --> 00:30:19.500 amount of time. But interestingly, right as this 00:30:19.500 --> 00:30:22.059 reexamination was getting started, new accusations 00:30:22.059 --> 00:30:25.339 against Williams surfaced. In 2019, after all 00:30:25.339 --> 00:30:29.299 this time. Yes. In 2019, two men. Their names 00:30:29.299 --> 00:30:32.279 were Derwin Davis and Isaac Rogers. They came 00:30:32.279 --> 00:30:34.859 forward publicly. And what did they claim? They 00:30:34.859 --> 00:30:37.700 both claimed that way back in 1979 and 1981, 00:30:38.059 --> 00:30:40.660 when they were children, Wayne Williams had attempted 00:30:40.660 --> 00:30:42.759 to abduct them in separate incidents. My goodness. 00:30:42.819 --> 00:30:44.720 So at the very same time that some people are 00:30:44.720 --> 00:30:46.680 looking for his exoneration, you have others 00:30:46.680 --> 00:30:49.559 coming forward and adding to this pile of accusations 00:30:49.559 --> 00:30:52.019 against him. It just shows you how incredibly 00:30:52.019 --> 00:30:55.539 complex and raw this legacy is in Atlanta. It's 00:30:55.539 --> 00:30:57.539 not just a legal case. It's a cultural trauma. 00:30:57.799 --> 00:31:00.579 You see it reflected in pop culture, in the show 00:31:00.579 --> 00:31:03.920 Mindhunter, in the Atlanta Monster podcast. This 00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:06.220 case haunts the city because it sits right at 00:31:06.220 --> 00:31:08.279 that painful intersection of forensic science, 00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:11.279 racial tension, and the unresolved grief of nearly 00:31:11.279 --> 00:31:14.019 30 families. So after all of that, where does 00:31:14.019 --> 00:31:15.859 that leave us today? What's the current status? 00:31:16.180 --> 00:31:18.420 Wayne Williams remains in Telfair State Prison. 00:31:18.700 --> 00:31:21.700 He has been denied parole multiple times, most 00:31:21.700 --> 00:31:25.069 recently in late 2019. He won't even be eligible 00:31:25.069 --> 00:31:27.289 to be considered for parole again until November 00:31:27.289 --> 00:31:31.049 of 2027. And he is still sitting there over 40 00:31:31.049 --> 00:31:33.509 years later, insisting he didn't do it. And the 00:31:33.509 --> 00:31:36.170 state of Georgia is still insisting just as strongly 00:31:36.170 --> 00:31:38.670 that he did. OK, so let's try to wrap this up. 00:31:39.279 --> 00:31:41.599 After going through all of this, what is the 00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:44.099 main takeaway from this deep dive? I think it's 00:31:44.099 --> 00:31:45.940 a paradox. At the end of the day, you have a 00:31:45.940 --> 00:31:48.920 man who was convicted on a mountain of circumstantial 00:31:48.920 --> 00:31:52.460 and, at the time, cutting edge forensic evidence. 00:31:53.240 --> 00:31:56.299 Fibers, dog hair, his timing on the bridge, his 00:31:56.299 --> 00:31:59.319 lies to the police. And the undeniable fact that 00:31:59.319 --> 00:32:01.819 the string of killings stopped the moment he 00:32:01.819 --> 00:32:04.539 was taken off the street. That is a very powerful 00:32:04.539 --> 00:32:06.500 narrative. An incredibly powerful narrative. 00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:08.880 But on the other side of the paradox. On the 00:32:08.880 --> 00:32:11.519 other side, you have this persistent whisper 00:32:11.519 --> 00:32:15.720 of what if. What if the KKK involvement was real 00:32:15.720 --> 00:32:17.859 and was actively covered up to keep the city 00:32:17.859 --> 00:32:20.380 from imploding? What if Williams was involved 00:32:20.380 --> 00:32:22.440 in some of the murders, but not all of them? 00:32:22.579 --> 00:32:24.740 What if the terrifying reality is that a serial 00:32:24.740 --> 00:32:27.480 killer and a racist hate group were both operating 00:32:27.480 --> 00:32:30.460 in the same city at the same time, preying on 00:32:30.460 --> 00:32:33.059 the same vulnerable population? That is a truly 00:32:33.059 --> 00:32:35.420 terrifying thought. The idea of two distinct 00:32:35.420 --> 00:32:39.460 evils operating in the same space. It is. But 00:32:39.460 --> 00:32:41.440 that may be the reality of the Atlanta child 00:32:41.440 --> 00:32:45.359 murders. It was a chaotic, terrifying time. And 00:32:45.359 --> 00:32:49.220 there may not be one neat, single answer that 00:32:49.220 --> 00:32:51.339 explains everything. It just keeps bringing us 00:32:51.339 --> 00:32:53.460 back to that one moment on the bridge. That one 00:32:53.460 --> 00:32:56.380 loud splash. And then the silence that followed. 00:32:56.579 --> 00:32:59.259 Indeed. So I want to leave you with a final thought 00:32:59.259 --> 00:33:02.420 to Mullover. We focus so much on the fiber evidence, 00:33:02.700 --> 00:33:05.700 the DNA, the complex science of it all, but I 00:33:05.700 --> 00:33:08.160 want you to consider this. In a case where the 00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:10.920 monster fits the forensic profile so perfectly, 00:33:11.140 --> 00:33:14.480 the carpet, the dog, the location, but fits the 00:33:14.480 --> 00:33:17.559 community's intuition so poorly, is the silence 00:33:17.559 --> 00:33:19.859 after his arrest absolute proof of his guilt? 00:33:19.980 --> 00:33:22.279 Yeah. Or is it simply proof that once the police 00:33:22.279 --> 00:33:24.359 had their man, they just stopped looking for 00:33:24.359 --> 00:33:27.059 anyone else? That is the question that 40 years 00:33:27.059 --> 00:33:29.599 later, history is still trying to answer. Thanks 00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:31.299 for listening to this deep dive. Stay curious 00:33:31.299 --> 00:33:33.359 and keep questioning the narrative. Until next 00:33:33.359 --> 00:33:33.640 time.