Original subtitles

There was a bogeyman amongst us.

And he was taking children who look like us.

McComas: I noticed in the front seat a pair of gloves

and a flashlight.

Pearson: He fit what they considered

the profile of a serial killer.

Drolet: Little bits of evidence just keep adding up.

Smith: How could he have done all those things?

Hello, and welcome to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

It was one of the most painful chapters in Atlanta's history.

Beginning in the summer of 1979,

more than two dozen Black children

and young adults vanished without a trace.

Days, weeks, and in some cases months later,

they were found murdered.

Parents were afraid to let their children out of their sight.

The city called for a curfew, and a special task force

was set up of more than 100 investigators.

They believed many of the murders were linked,

but they had no viable suspects.

There were several theories.

Could it be a serial killer,

or someone in the community the victims trusted,

maybe a police officer, or maybe the Ku Klux Klan?

This is how it really happened.

Bottoms: Children were disappearing.

They were walking to bus stops

or they had been out with their friends,

and they were disappearing.

Good evening.

Another child has been found murdered in Atlanta.

Man: What was tying them together

were what you call victimology.

They were all Black.

They all had disappeared under strange circumstances

and then been discovered murdered.

Reporter: So, the search goes on for yet another missing child.

The police would say that they didn't know

whether they were looking for one killer,

for multiple killers.

It'd had to be someone who could move

within the Black community unnoticed.

Procopio: Oh, it was frustrating as hell.

No crime scene. No evidence. No witnesses.

Automatically people thought Klan.

You went through all these theories --

that it was the Klan,

that is was the police or the authorities --

someone who the kids may have known

or someone who the kids didn't fear.

How is he getting them in the car?

How is this person getting control over these children?

The last victims were found in a body of water.

That was an obvious attempt to wash away any evidence.

The guy is probably throwing them off of bridges.

And they said, "We want to watch the bridges."

And as luck would have it, last night, last bridge,

there's a splash.

[ Water splashes ]

He looks up.

It was an old station wagon, white in color.

Droplet: It looked like it was starting from

a stopped position.

So the car goes to the end of the bridge.

Little does he know there's a police car

hiding in the bushes.

And the other surveillance team

watched him go up and turn around at the Starvin' Marvin.

That's when the pursuit cars had pulled him over.

[ Siren wailing ]

Reporter: He was first detained early on the morning of May 22nd

while driving over a bridge across the Chattahoochee River.

I said, "My name's agent McComas.

Do you know why we've stopped you?"

He volunteered immediately,

"I'll bet this is about those boys, isn't it?"

Which was a very interesting thing to say.

And he expressed a displeasure

in the media coverage of the killings.

Reporter: Yesterday, there was much press coverage

of the cases.

We believe that the murderer was paying

very, very close attention to all the media coverage.

It really got my attention.

I said, "Can we have consent to search your car?"

I noticed in the front seat

a pair of gloves and a flashlight.

And as I looked in the back on the floorboard,

I noticed that there was a cord that was knotted at both ends.

About two foot long length, which some people might think

you could use as a ligature for strangling somebody.

That's when I ask him if he would mind

getting in the car with me to talk a minute.

And he was very pleasant.

He told me that he was a talent scout.

He said he had an appointment the next morning

with two sisters, Cheryl and Barbara Johnson

that lived at Spanish Trace apartments.

He didn't know exactly how to find it.

And I said, "So let me get this right.

"You are out at 3:00 in the morning

"trying to determine where an address is

so that you won't be late?"

Drolet: Not a good explanation.

McComas: He denied throwing anything over.

He denied stopping.

All they had was they heard this noise.

[ Water splashes ]

They believe it to be a body, but they don't know.

Procopio: It's two hours.

We're pushing the envelope in detaining him.

Glover: And they didn't think they had enough to arrest him.

And so, they let him go.

When he left, I looked around and asked,

"Where's the stuff you took out of the car?"

Didn't take the rope. Didn't take anything.

McComas: Why it didn't happen, I-I don't know.

Huge mistake.

Reporter: The body of Nathaniel Cater was found

just down from that same bridge.

Reporter 2: Nathaniel Cater fits the profile

of the other murdered Blacks.

Like 17 of the victims, he was asphyxiated.

The main exception is he's older than the other victims.

He was 27.

The ages of the victims are seemingly getting older.

The fact of the matter is we've had five young adults

who have been killed.

Peterson: Nathaniel Cater was nude when pulled from the river.

In his hair, there was a layer of silt against the scalp,

and there were fibers still entrapped inside that silt.

There was dog hair, violet acetate,

the green carpet fiber, all in his head hair.

That same trace evidence was being turned up

on one more than one victim.

At that point, we knew we had to talk to the guy

that was on the bridge that night.

They think that the person had thrown a body off the bridge.

Reporter: Many Atlanta parents aren't letting their children

out of their sight for one second,

with the exception of school hours.

What we had here was a predator.

These children trusted whoever they went to.

And by the time they figured out that they were not safe,

they were already unable to do anything about it.

Now let us update you on the missing

and murdered children in Atlanta

and the possibility of a suspect.

Before that night, when he was stopped

on the James Jackson bridge, we had no viable suspects.

Reporter: We're all down here standing

outside the Federal Building.

And from what we understand, they have a suspect in custody

that they're now interviewing.

Procopio: He's not very tall.

He's not very threatening looking.

There's no muscular development at all.

Who the hell is this guy?

They ask him if he'd like to take a lie detector test,

and he says, "Of course."

Dick Rackleff was one of our very first polygraphers,

one of the best of the best.

Rackleff: Well, his personality was very, very interesting.

He was very composed, very calm.

"Here's what I wanna ask you.

"Did you cause the death of Nathaniel Cater?

And did you throw his body into the Chattahoochee River?"

"No."

Asked him if he was nervous or anxious.

"No."

His hands were sweating profusely

and left little pools of water

where he had been holding his hands.

Rackleff: And we ran three charts.

It showed deception.

He fails it on all the key questions,

such as "Did you murder Nathaniel Cater?"

"Did you drop the body of Nathaniel Cater

in the Chattahoochee River?"

And then he said, "Am I under arrest?"

They brought him in for questioning

to get him away from the house

and served a search warrant at the same time.

That's when the first search of the home occurred

and also a search of the station wagon.

Reporter: Have you heard about the raid

on the suspect's home tonight?

Woman: We understand there was a raid this evening.

They're not making any further comment about it.

Of course, none of the evidence that had been seen the night

he was stopped on the bridge was still there.

The rope and the -- the gloves.

Drolet: Those items were all missing.

McComas: Entering the house,

the first thing I'm looking for is a green carpet.

Reporter: For months now,

the lab has gathered mounds of possible

evidence in these cases --

everything from carpet and blanket fibers to dog hair.

McComas: The green carpet fiber --

I mean, I'd seen it so many times from different victims.

And there was a green carpet in Williams' bedroom

and throughout the house.

Reporter: A search of the home of the suspect

in Northwest Atlanta tonight yielded bags of evidence.

But we were advised that he was not going

to be arrested that night.

We have not nor do we intend to make an arrest.

For 11 hours last night, Federal, State,

and local authorities thought that they had a man responsible

for some of the 28 murders of young Blacks in Atlanta.

Peterson: But we needed more information

about the green carpet.

The evidence was not fully developed by any stretch.

Reporter: The individual,

whose name is not being released by the media

because no criminal charges were filed against him,

was returned to his Northwest Atlanta

home early in the morning.

Surprisingly, he gets home,

and he decides he's going to call a press conference.

He was telling his side of the story.

Drolet: But he says "You can't film me, so don't show my face."

The cameras are turned on the reporters.

It was just totally bizarre.

Glover: He passed out résumés to the press that morning,

basically identifying himself.

Droplet: And everybody looked at that résumé and just thought,

"What is this guy all about?"

Suggs: Wayne Bertram Williams was a 23-year-old

part-time photographer,

part-time music producer who lived with his parents.

Baltazar: Wayne Williams?

A young Black man doing all these killings?

We just say, "No."

Brooks: There's no way in the world

he could be involved in anything like this.

I mean, you know, he's a perfect kid.

Procopio: Only child.

Mother Faye, father Homer,

both educators in the Atlanta school system.

Smith: He had built his radio station in his parents' home.

small-Watt station,

but he'd interviewed local politicians and celebrities.

At the time, I remember being extremely impressed

that a 13-year-old kid

would have a neighborhood radio station.

He was even featured in "Jet" magazine

as, you know, this young kind of wunderkind.

He was kinda known as kinda like this wannabe everything.

He had been a cameraman stringer.

It would not be unusual for him to show up at crime scenes.

Reporter: This film of a pre-dawn house fire

was shot by Wayne Williams and aired on Action News

in October of 1978.

And most recently, Williams says he has acted as a talent scout.

Williams: We have a young group that we've been putting together

since 1977, a group called Gemini.

So therefore, he came in contact with young boys.

Because Wayne, at the time,

was trying to put together groups like a Jackson 5.

So he's going around passing out his flyers, you know,

"Can you sing or play an instrument?"

You know, "Call me."

The kids knew him.

He was offering them stardom.

Well, police don't say he's a suspect or a primary suspect,

but the task force is still keeping an eye on Williams.

Williams: It was a mob scene.

There were literally 200 or 300 people

clustered around the house.

Reporter: Reporters and photographers

have been camped out across the street

from this person's home in Northwest Atlanta.

I did not think that this case

would get that far in my naivete.

And I was afraid, you know, my God.

"Wayne, are you the monster?"

Woman: ♪ Jesus ♪

Reporter: At the Mount Olive Baptist church,

friends and family gather to pay their last respects

to 27-year-old Nathaniel Cater.

The family and the authorities

are all asking the same questions now --

why did it happen?

Who murdered him?

We needed to make sure Wayne Williams

doesn't get out of sight.

Reporter: When Wayne left briefly,

a trail of cars filled with local

and federal agents followed him.

They're always present outside the home.

This kind of circus atmosphere prevailed for 10 days or so.

Ford: He liked messing with the cops.

He decided he was gonna just drive

into the international airport.

The helicopter had to pull off and go away

because they couldn't follow him into the airspace.

That takes a lot of nerve.

Our client's life and the lives of his family and friends

have become a virtual nightmare.

Hey, man, I'm asking you, are you gonna quit following me

or not?

My orders are to stay with the police.

I'm not following you. I'm following them.

Well, hey, I'm telling you to quit followin' me.

'Cause I'm saying at this point, you're followin' me,

and you're on private property.

And if I were you, I'd get the hell off.

They basically had him under surveillance

while they were building the case.

He fit the FBI profile.

Single, Black, male, educated,

living with his parents, highly intelligent.

A police wannabe.

In 1976, he showed up at a scene of a traffic wreck

and he's taking pictures

and he's got a blue light and a siren,

so they arrested him for impersonating a police officer.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Describes Wayne.

But you can't use a profile in court.

We had him on the bridge

when the body of Nathaniel Cater was thrown.

Man: He just says, "I'm looking for Cheryl Johnson."

She never surfaced.

The phone number that he said he called for another business.

What was he doing out at 3 in the morning?

Reporter: Top law enforcement officials met with the governor

of Georgia, Mr. Busbee,

at the governor's residence on Friday,

at the request of Vice President Bush.

To try to persuade Mr. Slaton,

who was the district attorney, to charge Wayne.

Man: Louis Slaton was there, the head of the GBI was there.

McMichael: And at that time,

Wayne was still under surveillance,

cameras around his house And everything.

We're all kind of watching

Wayne to see if he was going to do anything outrageous.

Reporter: That's when Wayne slipped past the police.

People tried to chase. He was enjoying this.

He ended up in front of the home of police commissioner

Lee Brown.

I think he got a kick out of sort of toying

with the folks who were surveilling him.

Reporter: Crime lab technicians

are finding promising similarities

between fibers found in Williams' house

and fibers found on the bodies of some of the child victims.

I threw a sample of the green carpet from the bedroom

under the microscope, and it just was -- there it is.

And then there was a source of dog hair.

There in the back of the house, tied up is Sheba,

the family German shepherd.

Peterson: And then the suspect's bed was a violet

and green bedspread.

With the bridge incident and with the strength of hairs

and fibers, I knew we had a good case.

There was blood found in the backseat

of the station wagon.

They were able to dig down and cut out little pieces

of the upholstery from the backseat.

There were two different types of blood.

The blood was still fresh.

Man: At approximately 5:00 P.M. this date,

Wayne Williams was taken into custody on an arrest warrant.

We picked the best two cases that we could tie to

the James Jackson Parkway Bridge where we found Williams.

Man: Charging him with the criminal homicide

of Mr. Nathaniel Cater.

Wayne Williams was subsequently then charged

with the homicide of Jimmy Ray Payne.

They were both found in close proximity to that bridge.

Reporter: When Cater was found, he was nude.

Payne was clad in only undershorts.

They were in the river, but they said they found

some of those fibers on those two bodies.

Peterson: The fibers were adherent to the briefs.

Both Jimmy Ray Payne and Nathaniel Cater,

they both had the green carpet fiber that matched.

I remember the news flash, "suspect," da, da, da, da, da.

And I saw him.

Reporter: Williams was the hottest possible suspect.

And I started putting stuff together

'cause I remember the guy.

Welcome back to "How It Really Happened."

Wayne Williams was charged with killing two men

whose bodies were discovered floating

in the Chattahoochee River.

Unique fibers found on the victims

matched fibers found in Wayne's home.

Still, doubts were beginning to emerge

about how these cases were connected to the other murders.

Most of the victims were children.

Then there was Wayne himself,

small in stature and soft-spoken.

Would he be physically able to overpower

and kill all of the victims by himself?

Or was somebody else still out there?

Reporter: According to public safety commissioner Lee Brown,

the special task force is still working under the assumption

that there is more than one person involved.

Our resolve is to continue our efforts

until we bring closure to all of the cases.

Reporter: Atlanta's mayor Maynard Jackson

and President Reagan met at the White House

to discuss the murders.

During that meeting, Maynard Jackson was told

that the FBI would stay with the case

until all the murders were solved.

Reporter: Under very tight security,

23-year-old accused killer Wayne Williams was whisked

into an Atlanta Fulton County superior court,

where he pleaded innocent to two counts of murder.

Nobody saw Wayne Williams commit any kind of criminal act.

All they had was dustbusters, you know,

little bits of -- of fibers.

Who thought about fiber in 1981 as a way to catch a criminal?

We had no fingerprints.

We didn't have DNA at the time.

I could not believe that this little guy could have

physically pulled that body out of that station wagon

and thrown it in that river.

Wayne's defense was "I did not do it.

You've got the wrong guy."

The FBI thought he fit what they considered

the profile of a serial killer.

When the trial first starts, people are wondering

how could this be about the Atlanta child murders?

Because they're charging him

with the murder of these two adults.

I was Wayne's first attorney.

Miss Welcome had not had much criminal law experience,

particularly in the homicide realm.

Mr. Binder saw himself as assisting her,

but in truth he was the principle attorney,

and then I was there to help him.

Man: Is this case winnable?

Oh, yes, sir.

Everybody, to my knowledge, was pro bono,

meaning, of course, no money, no fee.

And Wayne Williams -- he himself had no resources.

We have no money to get experts.

We have no money to hire people to do the fiber analysis.

Reporter: Prosecutors say the fibers and dog hairs

taken from Williams' home

match those found on the bodies of his two alleged victims.

The crown jewel of the physical evidence

that links the cases together is the green carpet fiber.

That green carpet is made up of a very unusual fiber.

When you look at it on cross section,

has two very large lobes and then one very short lobe.

Whoever made it was trying to get around Dupont's patent

on a trilobal-shape carpet fiber.

Drolet: It ends up that the Wellman Company

had made this fiber in a very small quantity.

Reporter: Only a little more than 1,500 square yards

of the carpet was sold in the Southeast

during the first six months of 1971.

82 rooms of carpet for the entire state of Georgia.

Three rooms were in the Williams' home.

Both Jimmy Ray Payne and Nathaniel Cater,

they both had the green Wellman 181b carpet fiber that matched.

It almost became a slam dunk

because this type of fiber was so rare.

So, it was all right there in the house.

There were these violet colored fibers from his bedspread.

He had a German shepherd. That dog fiber was there.

They found some of those similar fibers on those two bodies.

We ended up with three fiber experts,

all concluding that if you had all three of these fibers,

it is virtually impossible

that these victims were not in contact with

Wayne Williams immediately prior to death.

You think about the Atlanta child murders,

and he was only charged with the murders of two adults.

But they did bring evidence

for 10 other murders to the trial.

They were part of a pattern and logically connected,

particularly by the fiber evidence.

Reporter: Judge Clarence Cooper ruled in favor

of admitting evidence from 10 additional

Atlanta youth murder cases.

The 10 children victims that the prosecution contended

were linked through fiber evidence.

But for some reason, they wouldn't charge

Wayne with them.

Smith: It was in this instance

that the Atlanta child murders entered the courtroom.

There were 700 fibers from

18 sources tied to Williams.

Not only are there all these fibers from the house,

but they find the fibers from the car

match fibers found on many of the most recent victims.

Before they had the station wagon,

the Williams family had a red Ford LTD.

Eric Middlebrooks, when he was murdered,

he has a clump of red fiber stuck in his shoe.

Detective Buffington notices it in the band of the shoe.

It matches the interior carpeting of the red

Ford LTD that the Williams family is using at the time

that Eric Middlebrooks is murdered.

These were little bits of evidence

that just keep adding up.

We had a couple medical examiners

who said if you're strangling somebody

and asphyxiating them from behind,

they are going to grab your arms.

They are going to reach over and --

and claw as they're dying.

We had four witnesses who had seen scratches

on Wayne Williams.

Reporter: Bennett told the jury he noticed some scratches on

Williams' arm and face one day.

Williams told him his dog bit him.

Kathy Andrews, a record studio owner,

told the jury both arms were scratched from the elbow down.

Rogers: I was over in the Southeast side of town.

We were staying at Thomasville Heights apartments.

I was more than glued to the television.

Isaac, he was the little brother of Patrick Rogers.

My brother was kidnapped

and murdered from these apartments.

My brother Patrick, not only did he sing,

he'd actually write songs.

Pretty good at it, too.

Butts: I know that Patrick had stated to me

that he was working with someone that was going to manage them.

I don't know who it was, whether it was

Wayne Williams or not.

Did you ever meet any of the young men who were victims?

No, I did not.

-Never met them once? -No.

In our apartment complex, there was a lady,

Miss Willie Mae, who sold the sweets and treats and stuff.

One night, it was me and my two cousins.

We went together to Miss Willie Mae's apartment.

A gentleman steps from behind the wall.

He was blocking our exits off, and we started screaming.

And my two cousins took off.

And I turned around, and I ran back

to Miss Willie Mae's door, and I'm beating, I'm beating.

I say he got within maybe four to five feet

of Miss Willie Mae and I.

And then he looks back over at me,

and then he steps off the porch

and disappears around the building.

And I remember being home, watching the news.

Reporter: Wayne Williams emerged from his parents' house

only once today.

Same bushy afro, glasses, buttoned-down shirt.

Nobody else knew it, but I knew that they had the guy.

Anybody who knows me, come on.

This -- this isn't me.

Reporter: If anything is spectacular,

it could be Williams' own testimony.

He may have to take the stand to explain his alibi.

I think they thought there's too many questions that

only Wayne Williams can answer.

And then they got him on the stand.

Reporter: This was a day for Wayne Williams

to face his accusers.

The 23-year-old freelance photographer

took the witness stand at his trial in Atlanta.

Smith: Wayne, he had the gift of Gab.

I think he's very convincing.

Reporter: 23-year-old accused killer Wayne Williams denied

murdering two Blacks he's charged with killing.

I didn't kill anybody.

-You didn't kill anybody? -I didn't kill anybody.

-Not one person? -Not one person.

And Wayne sounded great.

So you never stopped on the bridge? No, I didn't.

-You didn't throw trash? -No.

-You didn't throw anything? -No, I did not.

-You didn't throw a body? -Definitely not a body. No.

Mallard: Wayne had answers for everything.

Reporter: One by one, 23-year-old accused killer

Wayne Williams refuted the testimony of state witnesses

linking him to Atlanta murder victims.

He called the witnesses liars or unfamiliar to him.

And I knew that he figured he could out-talk the prosecutor.

And John Douglas from the FBI behavioral science unit,

he's been watching this.

They had suggested the serial killers are real good

in the short run and real bad in the long run.

Then they advised us to keep him on the witness stand.

Jim Kitchens, one of his co-counsel,

had to go out to the jail and talk to him that night.

We said, "You know, Wayne,

"the things that he's accusing you of

would normally make a person furious."

We said, "You're on trial for your life here.

It's okay to show some emotion."

"You need to fight every word he says.

You need to show some fire."

What's up, people?

The next morning, he was a complete different person.

Mallard says to Wayne, "How did it feel

when you were choking the lives out of those victims?"

Kitchens: Wayne said, "Mr. Mallard,

you must be a fool."

"You want the real Wayne Williams? You got him."

And Wayne goes bananas, basically -- yells at us.

Calls us goons.

I'm like, "This man gotta be crazy."

Williams: I could see almost the shock in the jurors' faces.

Everybody said, "My God, is this the same

Wayne that was up here yesterday?"

I could see that.

The prosecution contended that Williams

was a dual personality -- a Jekyll and Hyde.

More evidence is piling up against accused murderer

Wayne Williams, and for the first time,

the prosecution is speculating on a motive

for some of the Atlanta child murders.

They were trying to say that he just

didn't like poor Black kids.

These people were just a burden on society.

He's berating the victims.

We presented witnesses who said he had made derogatory

remarks about poor street kids.

"They're keeping down the Black race."

And so, I believe, for whatever reason,

he'd taken it on himself to cleanse the race.

Mary Welcome, in her closing arguments,

she actually put a thimble on the banister

in front of the jury and said, "The state's case is basically

just a thimbleful of evidence."

But Lewis Slaton, he was a really good attorney.

He told the jury that when Wayne Williams was arrested,

the murders of young

African-American males stopped.

Drolet: Dr. Stivers, who was then

chief medical examiner of Fulton County,

had testified prior to 1979,

they'd just never had homicides by asphyxia.

And then all of a sudden, there was a spike.

After Wayne Williams was stopped on the bridge,

it goes down to zero.

In fact, there has not been a single murder or child

reported missing since I've been mayor.

And during the campaign, I was in pretty close touch

with the police and Mayor Jackson.

And I don't think that kind of thing

could be kept quiet in a city like Atlanta.

Reporter: The fate of accused killer Wayne Williams

is now in the hands of the jury.

Drolet: Do they believe Wayne Williams?

Do they feel sorry for Wayne Williams?

All it takes is one person saying,

"I ain't gonna convict him," and you got a hung jury.

After nine weeks of trial, the jury came back in 11 hours.

It was shocking.

Mr. Williams was found guilty of two counts of murder.

And identifying him basically as the serial killer

that was terrorizing Atlanta for two years.

Williams was sentenced on February 27th

to two consecutive life terms

in the murders of two young Atlanta Blacks.

I was sitting in the bedroom when they said

that he was found guilty.

I said, "Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus. You've answered my prayers."

He's been charged with two murders,

but I know you killed Jeffrey, too.

I knew he killed my son.

But Wayne Williams was only found guilty

on two murders, Cater and Payne, not your son. Right, right.

But I still say he had some kind of connection

in that with my son.

Camille Bell was saying, "No, he didn't do this."

Because Wayne Williams did not commit the murders.

One of the reasons that I don't think

Wayne Williams committed the murders

is that I do not believe that Wayne Williams is Superman.

It would be very difficult to take a body,

lift it up over the railing without anybody seeing him.

So, a couple of days after the conviction,

the task force, they held a press conference.

Reporter: Atlanta public safety commissioner

Lee Brown announced the police task force

that investigated the crimes would be disbanded

because most of the murders now were regarded as solved.

Drolet: Probably 24 can be attributed to him,

and that's what were cleared by the task force.

There were 24 that were associated with fiber.

They were all male.

Those two girls are an aberration,

and there have always been thoughts

that someone else was involved in that.

I don't believe Wayne Williams is responsible

or had anything to do with the deaths of Angel Lenair

Or LaTonya Wilson.

Some family members said that, "I felt that my child

deserves his case being heard in court."

The district attorney at that time decided

not to proceed with the other cases,

mainly because Wayne Williams had already

received two life sentences.

Now what are we going to do?

How are we going to find out who killed the kids?

These families have not seen justice at all.

They're just as much a victim as I am.

I wish the families would, you know,

find some kind of peace, but that wasn't the case.

Wayne Williams immediately appealed.

I'm not a quitter. I'm not a coward.

And I'm gonna fight this to the end.

Pearson: Wayne Williams' first appeal was not successful.

Reporter: In Atlanta today, a judge denied a motion

for a new trial for convicted murderer

Wayne Williams.

An appellate court is not gonna overturn a jury verdict

in the absence of some serious error

that they perceived occurred.

Some police at one time suspected

the Klan of being involved in the murders.

Investigators had turned up a report that victim Lubie Geter

had had a confrontation

with a man reported to be in the Ku Klux Klan.

So the GBI did a lot of that investigation --

wire taps, essentially.

They had these guys under physical surveillance.

The GBI didn't tell anybody that they were investigating it.

They decided to keep it secret.

The prosecution team did not know about it at trial.

It was an entire family of brothers

that were involved in the Klan.

This was a device to keep a race war from happening.

And if they indicted someone from the Klan,

that's what's going to happen, in their opinion.

So, they wanted to sacrifice Wayne Williams

in order to keep the peace.

Reporter: But most important was police informant

Billy Joe Whitaker,

who claims a reputed Ku Klux Klansman 10 years ago

told him the Klan was killing the children.

This little kid run into his van. What little kid?

Geter. On his go-cart.

"Well," he said, "I'm gonna kill that little Black bastard."

Reporter: Charles Sanders allegedly made that comment.

He vehemently denies it -- denies even being a Klansman.

Well, I sympathize with their cause.

As far as myself, I have never been a member of the Klan.

I've never associated with them.

Ingram: We heard a lot of racial slurs.

They were involved in drugs. They were involved in guns.

I was constantly harassed,

under investigation by the GBI.

Blowhard is a good word --

a person that enjoyed, uh, running their mouth.

We took them into custody.

We interviewed and interrogated them.

When they had these guys under surveillance,

three other children were gone missing and murdered,

which led the GBI then to believe that the Klan

certainly was not involved in these three,

and may not have been involved.

The results were conclusive that they were not involved

in either the planning,

the commission, or concealment of any crime

regarding the Atlanta missing/murdered children.

McMichael: There are some people that still want to say

that the Ku Klux Klan did it.

It would just make better sense to some people.

There was never any evidence.

We basically ran into a legal dead-end

with the federal appeals.

Wayne Williams, of course, he still contends

that he didn't do any of them,

that he's not the murderer, he was set up.

Reporter: Louis Graham, the assistant police chief

in Fulton County at the time and part of the missing

and murdered task force, believes Williams.

I don't think Wayne Williams is responsible for anything.

He believed that there was someone else out there.

Maybe you can call it a mother's intuition or just a gut feeling.

I just don't feel like he did it.

There's too many loose ends that's not been answered.

It was confusing and there was no final note

to the whole business.

Their kid's name was never associated

with a killer technically, legally.

The Baltazar case -- there is the single case

with the strongest physical evidence to Wayne Williams.

I believe that there were 12 or 13 different fiber types

linked to Williams found on Baltazar's body.

Hairs were found inside the shirt of Patrick Baltazar.

Back in 1981, the best the FBI lab could do

was say it belongs to a Black male.

They resubmitted the hair in 2007.

Deadman: He is consistent with being the source of the DNA

recovered from those hairs.

It would exclude probably 98%

of the African-American population in the world.

Without a shadow of a doubt, I really in my heart believe

that Wayne Williams killed Patrick Baltazar.

He could have killed all of them.

Smith: There's always this lingering question.

How could he have done all those things?

Keisha Lance bottoms,

who's the mayor of the city of Atlanta,

is saying, "Okay, let's give this a fresh look."

Bottoms: We can't go back and undo what happened

40 years ago in our city.

But we can do better.

Reporter: Last week, Atlanta's mayor announced a new push

to re-examine evidence using modern forensics.

Bottoms: I called our police chief.

I said, "Have we looked at this evidence recently

"with all of the improvements

with DNA technology and testing?"

As law enforcement, we have an obligation

to exhaust every conceivable avenue of investigation

and make every effort to help these families find closure.

I want some justice.

I wanna know who killed Curtis so that I can rest in peace.

Suggs: A lot of people contend, "We got him.

Wayne Williams is a killer."

But there's a big contingency of people here in Atlanta

and nationally who don't think he did it, at least all of them.

I think having somebody go back and reopen those

and look at them is a good idea.

I have always hoped that any of those children

who were friends of some of the missing

and murdered children,

who knew something but were afraid to say something,

now will say something.

At the same time, the mayor decided to come up

with some fitting memorial

for the missing and murdered children.

40 years is a long wait.

But I'm happy to be here to see that.

The permanent memorial will be at City Hall

right outside of the mayor's office.

Every mayor here on out

will be able to look out the window

and think about and remember our children.

Edward Smith, age 14.

Alfred Evans, age 13.

Milton Harvey, age 14.

Yusuf Bell, age 9.

Angel Lenair.

I want these children to be remembered,

but more importantly, I want these cases solved.

Success would be to be able

to look into the eyes of each and every family

and know that they know that we care.

Clifford Jones, 13.

All of the evidence in the mysterious Atlanta

child murders case is being re-examined

using advanced DNA technology.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms says

she was inspired by the new DNA techniques

that helped find the Golden State killer.

Wayne Williams still insists he did not murder

any of the victims in the Atlanta child case

and that the killer or killers are still out there.

In 2019, he was denied parole.

He will not be considered again until 2027.

He will be 69 years old.

Thanks for watching. Good night.