25: Wayne Williams: Psychopath or Scapegoat?

Summary

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UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast

Episode 25: Wayne Williams: Psychopath or Scapegoat?
Date: June 3, 2026
Host: James Buddy Day

Episode Overview

This episode delves deep into the life, crimes, and trial of Wayne Williams, the central—and still fiercely debated—figure in the notorious Atlanta child murders. By investigating FBI files, speaking with former defense attorney Ron Kuby, consulting psychological profiles, and drawing on the firsthand reporting of journalist Clem Richardson, host James Buddy Day asks a provocative question: Was Wayne Williams a calculating psychopath responsible for a city’s worst nightmare, or a scapegoat caught in a web of hysteria, racism, and flawed policing? The episode aims to unravel the complexity of Williams’ personality, his crimes, and the ever-present shadow of doubt over his guilt.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Atlanta Atmosphere: 1979–1981

• Widespread Fear:
  • Residents lived in terror as black children disappeared and were found murdered.
  • “Every day you came out of your house and you didn't know who it was. You did not know who it was. It could have been your neighbor. It could have been your friend.” – Clem Richardson [01:02]
• Community & Political Pressure:
  • Atlanta was under unique scrutiny as a black-run city with rising black middle class pride.
  • The pressure to solve the case and preserve this image was immense.
  • "All black children being killed by someone in a black administration..." — Clem Richardson [01:40]

Wayne Williams: Upbringing and Psychological Profile

• Privileged Only Child:
  • Both parents were teachers who overindulged him, funding his ambitions and insulating him from reality.
  • “I saw his father and mother—adoring parents who would give him whatever he wanted.” — Clem Richardson [11:08]
• Early Patterns of Grandiosity:
  • Williams was a social outcast, commonly claimed to be “gifted,” and frequently reinvented himself (radio host, photographer, record producer).
  • His resume was described as “a masterpiece of exaggeration.”
  • "He was odd. Very, very, very odd. He was sort of self-aggrandizing, self-important..." – Ron Kuby [13:05]
• Difficulty Forming Attachments:
  • No real friends; acquaintances barely knew him.
  • Pattern of seeking superficial admiration, especially from young boys/teens.
  • “I've never had somebody come forward and say, hey, I've known Wayne all my life....” — Clem Richardson [14:07]
• Psychopathy Indicators:
  • Grandiosity, lack of empathy, superficial relationships, impulse, and callousness. Described as “having all the hallmarks of psychopathy.”
  • “If someone like that is not a psychopath, then we don't know what a psychopath is.” — Psychopathy Expert [19:20]

Patterns in Williams’ Adult Life

• Professional Personas as Camouflage:

  • Williams styled himself as a news photographer, then as a record producer seeking young talent ("Gemini," “Omega Entertainment”—companies that never really existed).
  • Used authority and material access (video equipment, home studio, flashy car) to lure boys.
  • “He had a recording studio in his house. Who had that back in the 80s?” — Clem Richardson [26:52]

• Escalating Behavior & Violence:

  • Documented violent outbursts; attacked both parents.
  • Grandiosity and delusion increased as his real accomplishments vanished.

The Murders: Patterns & Investigative Challenges

• Victimology & Geography:
  • Victims were mostly poor black children/teens, abducted or lured from housing projects.
  • Bodies found clustered along roads/highways, then shifting to rivers as police strategies became public.
  • “When you plot these recoveries on a map ... they begin forming a loose geographic arc...” — James Buddy Day [30:32]
• Challenges in Policing/Multiple Perpetrators Theory:
  • Not all murders fit a single pattern. Some were likely family or gang violence; Williams is not believed to have killed all victims.
  • Evidence points to at least two overlapping crime patterns.

Williams’ Capture and Trial

• Police Surveillance and the Bridge Incident:
  • Police stationed on bridges over the Chattahoochee River heard a splash and saw Williams’ car—this became the pivotal moment.
  • Williams’ story for being there was quickly contradicted by evidence and his observable behavior.
• Behavior Under Suspicion:
  • Thrived on media attention, gave interviews, inserted himself in the investigation rather than shying away.
  • “Instead of panic, Williams appears energized by the attention.” — James Buddy Day [50:28]
• Core Forensic Evidence:
  • Fiber evidence (from his home and car) found on multiple victims. The cumulative weight of fibers, hairs, and witness testimony was used to link Williams to the crimes.
  • "One fiber is a coincidence, two fibers raise questions. But dozens...that becomes something else." — James Buddy Day [45:56]
• Conviction:
  • Convicted of murdering two adults (Nathaniel Cater, Jimmy Ray Payne), not children.
  • Prosecution argued the adult murders matched the pattern of the child killings; case built on pattern evidence.

Debate: Guilt, Justice, and the Scapegoat Theory

• Unfairness in Trial:
  • Defense attorney Ron Kuby argues that Williams received a "fundamentally unfair trial," that some evidence was "junk science," and that doubt remains regarding his responsibility for all (or even any) of the murders.
  • “The burden of proof is on the prosecution...not simply point out this guy gives a bunch of stories...therefore, he's guilty.” — Ron Kuby [40:58]
• Race, Media, and Police Bias:
  • The city needed a resolution—a conviction allowed authorities to close the book, but left many questions unaddressed, especially for the families of the murdered children.
  • “The families of all of the child victims never received any measure of justice...” — Ron Kuby [53:24]
• Contemporary Complexity:
  • Williams’ continued denials and relentless self-advocacy (filing motions, giving interviews) keep the case alive, fueling conspiracy and scapegoat narratives.
  • "If they get him out, let him come live with you. You just let him come live with you." — Clem Richardson [56:16]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

The Depth of Fear in Atlanta

"Every day you came out of your house and you didn't know who it was. You did not know who it was. It could have been your neighbor...anybody."
— Clem Richardson [01:02]

On Williams’ Personality and Motivation

"He was sort of self-aggrandizing, self-important...felt himself to be sort of smarter than everyone, notwithstanding his circumstances, doing, you know, life for the most notorious murders in Georgia history."
— Ron Kuby [13:05]

On Williams As a Psychopath

“He has all the pillars of psychopathy. He's grandiose to the point of being delusional. He's callous. He cannot form attachments...he's impulsive, arrogant...if someone like that is not a psychopath, then we don't know what a psychopath is.”
— Psychopathy Expert [19:08–19:53]

The Weight of Fiber Evidence

"One fiber is a coincidence, two fibers raise questions. But dozens of fibers...that becomes something else."
— James Buddy Day [45:56]

What Remains Unresolved

“Wayne Williams was never charged or convicted of murdering a child. He was convicted of murdering two adults...But no children. What the prosecution did was to take a pattern... They created a pattern based on 10 child murders and said...that was the killer's fingerprint.”
— Ron Kuby [52:31]

“Wayne had a hand on them, and that's a good way to put it. Wayne had a hand in an awful lot of them and was arrogantly thinking that he could do it for forever.”
— Clem Richardson [47:55]

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• 01:02 – Clem Richardson on the everyday terror in Atlanta
• 06:24 – The scale of death and Williams’ possible involvement
• 09:49 – Atlanta's cultural and racial context in 1980
• 11:08 – Williams’ upbringing and parental influence
• 14:29–19:08 – Lack of attachments and evolving psychopathic traits; expert opinions
• 21:20 – Williams’ reinventions: photographer, record producer, “music talent” recruiter
• 27:12 – His businesses and ambitions crumble, violence increases
• 30:32 – Body dump geography and patterns emerge
• 35:52 – Williams closely following media, adjusting behavior
• 40:58 – Defense arguments: personality vs. evidence
• 45:56 – The role of fiber evidence
• 50:09 – Bridge surveillance, Williams’ critical mistake
• 52:31–53:24 – Verdict and failing justice for the murdered children

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Conclusion

This episode doesn’t attempt to settle the debate over Wayne Williams’ guilt. Instead, it scrutinizes the overwhelming—yet complicated—evidence, the psychological profile of a man at the center of Atlanta’s greatest trauma, and the powerful need for closure in a wounded city. Williams emerges neither as a simple monster nor a clear scapegoat, but as a tragic, troubling figure whose actions and mythologies keep the case unresolved decades later.

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For an expanded discussion—including a full conversation with attorney Ron Kuby about possible KKK involvement—listeners are invited to engage further on the podcast's YouTube channel.

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Transcript

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[Clem Richardson]

This is real now. This wasn't like. This wasn't a movie. This was. This wasn't, you know, you weren't turning this off when you go home and. And it wasn't happening anymore. Every day you came out of your house and you didn't know who it was. You did not know who it was. It could have been your neighbor. It could have been your friend. It could have been anybody, you know, anybody.

[James Buddy Day]

There are cases that resolve cleanly and there are cases that. That never really end. Cases that linger inside cities for decades because the facts are so disturbing, the fear so total, that people keep returning to them, hoping the answer will finally feel complete.

[Clem Richardson]

All black children being killed by someone in a black administration that was trying to show that black folks could run a city and black. The pressure to find out who this was, to stop this, was overwhelming.

[James Buddy Day]

Between 1979 and 1981, at least 28 cases involving missing and murdered black children and young adults became tied to what the media eventually called the Atlanta child murders. The city tore itself apart trying to answer a tank terrifying question. Was one person responsible to feel just

[Clem Richardson]

the dread that folks had?

[James Buddy Day]

But this episode, it's not about the Atlanta child murders. It's about one man, Wayne Williams, convicted of two murders officially linked to many more. A man who, nearly 50 years later, still insists that he's innocent.

[Clem Richardson]

I covered when the body was found. I know Wayne was involved in this killing in some way, shape or form.

[James Buddy Day]

So who is Wayne Williams? A psychopath? A scapegoat? A narcissist who inserts himself into environments filled with vulnerable children? Or is he the victim of one of the most infamous miscarriages of justice in American history? To Answer that. I'm going through hundreds of pages of FBI files, surveillance notes, witness statements, fiber analysis. I'm even speaking to Williams former lawyer Ron Kuby. And the deeper I get into this case, the stranger Wayne Williams becomes.

[Ron Kuby]

I'm not a shrink, so I'm not going to diagnose him as a psychopath. I. I certainly have no problem agreeing with you that his behavior is profoundly disturbing, deeply unnerving, wildly grandiose, inexplicably provocative.

[James Buddy Day]

I'm James Buddy Day. This is unmarked,

[Clem Richardson]

foreign.

[James Buddy Day]

They usually take one of two paths. Some unburden themselves. They leak information drip by drip. Sometimes it's because they enjoy the attention, sometimes because they want control over the narrative. And sometimes because after years of carrying the fantasy around in their heads, they finally need someone to hear it. And then there's the other cases, those who deny. Take John Wayne Gacy, a man who literally drew investigators a map to the bodies beneath his house, then went on to spend the next 14 years on death row documenting his innocence. To anyone willing to listen to the nonsense spilling from his mouth, that's psychopathy. It doesn't matter what happened. It doesn't matter what the evidence says. All that matters is the version of reality they can impose on other people. And that brings me to Wayne Williams. Because for almost 50 years, Wayne Williams has been trying to prove his post conviction innocence. He's filed motions, given interviews, written letters, reframing evidence, pulling the case back into the public view over and over again. And in doing so, he's ensured the Atlanta child murders never fully leave the American consciousness. But before we get too deep, let me catch you up. In 1980, a task force in Atlanta was convened to investigate a horrifying pattern emerging across the state city missing and murdered black children. Eventually, investigators would examine at least 28 cases connected to what becomes known as the Atlanta child murders. Most of the victims were boys, most poor, and most come from black neighborhoods and housing projects spread across a rapidly changing Atlanta. But this episode, it's not about the Atlanta child murders. This episode is about one man, Wayne Williams.

[Clem Richardson]

If Wayne only killed 15 of the 20 plus, that's 15 kids. That's 15 people, right? If he. Only if he killed five of those. There's five people, but he killed a few more than a few of those folks. How many? I don't know. I can't.

[James Buddy Day]

That's the voice of Clem Richardson, an award winning journalist and former reporter for numerous publications, including being the editor and columnist at one time for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Richardson was on the ground in Atlanta while the case was unfolding in real time.

[Clem Richardson]

I was a reporter for the Anderson Independent. I'm from Charleston, South Carolina, which is, you know, five, four hours away by driving. And I landed in Atlanta, and the editor said, hey, go cover this story.

[James Buddy Day]

I'm speaking to Clem because I want to understand not just the evidence against Wayne Williams, but the atmosphere. What was it like surrounding the case? What did Atlanta feel like at the time? What did the reporters see?

[Clem Richardson]

I think part of it is the young folks who didn't live through that get sympathetic to Wayne and think that, oh, well, he's been railroaded.

[James Buddy Day]

And let's be honest about something here that may sound contradictory, but. But probably isn't. The evidence against Wayne Williams as a whole is overwhelming. And at the same time, there are almost certainly multiple killers operating inside the broader Atlanta child murders panic.

[Clem Richardson]

If you live through it. No, no, there's no doubt at all. There's no doubt at all that this guy, that he's the guy, he didn't kill all of them. Some families got away with killing some of them. Kids, abuse, family and family abuse and other kinds of things, but he killed a sizable portion of them.

[James Buddy Day]

So who is this man? Who is Wayne Williams? A psychopath, a scapegoat, or something even more complicated? To answer that, I'm digging through hundreds of pages of FBI files, surveillance reports, fiber analysis, witness interviews, and I'm even speaking to Williams defense attorney Ron Kuby, the acclaimed New York civil rights lawyer known for defending controversial clients and aggressively challenging police narratives.

[Ron Kuby]

I've spent numerous hours with Wayne. Whether it's, you know, was 13 hours or 19 hours, did I think he was innocent? Did I get, like a vibe that said, you know, might my children bless you? I'm as pure as Jesus?

[Clem Richardson]

No.

[Ron Kuby]

But I never get that. I can't look somebody in the eye and know whether they are guilty or not. I try to go by evidence.

[James Buddy Day]

Every documentary, TV series, book, and podcast about the Atlanta child murders begins in the same place. The discovery of remains in. In 1979. But that's not how things work around here. I want to understand Wayne Williams, who he is, where he comes from, why he continues to deny involvement in crimes he almost certainly committed. And to do that, we have to go all the way back to the beginning.

[Clem Richardson]

When I talk about this, I keep trying to keep people to understand what it was like in Atlanta in the early 80s and the 1980. I mean, you know, Atlanta was the mecca of black intelligentsia for the south.

[James Buddy Day]

Atlanta in 1980 is loud with ambition. Downtown towers are climbing into the skyline. Black owned businesses are expanding. Colleges like morehouse, Spelman and Clark. They carry the legacy of the civil rights movement into a new generation.

[Clem Richardson]

Some of the greatest names in civil rights history lived in Atlanta. Coretta Scott king is still there. Ralph David aranathi was there. Joe Lowery. All these people were still a part of the political system there.

[James Buddy Day]

You can feel the confidence in the city. But underneath that optimism is another reality. Poverty, overcrowded housing, underfunded policing. Kids moving through the city alone because their parents are working multiple jobs. This is where Wayne Bertrand Williams grows up. Born in 1958, an only child.

[Clem Richardson]

I saw his father and mother adoring parents who would give him whatever he wanted. Who the only son, only child that they would give him anything he wanted.

[James Buddy Day]

With Williams, this pattern begins early at trial. Defense psychologist Dr. Brad Bayless later describes Williams as a, quote, spoiled rotten child who's frequently teased by other children. Both his parents are teachers, which reportedly makes him a target socially. His parents appear willing to invest in almost any passion he has, any identity, any new version of Wayne that emerges. And when I start digging through the FBI files decades later, I'm struck by how long that pattern appears to continue. Again and again, investigators document Wayne's father, Homer Williams, installed, inserting himself directly into surveillance operations surrounding his son. I found FBI surveillance notes describing Homer confronting members of the task force, recording license plates and photographing surveillance vehicles. According to one FBI memo, agents believe Homer intentionally interferes with surveillance on June 16, 1981, allowing his son to evade police. It reveals something important about the environment surrounding Wayne Williams. Grandiosity rarely develops in isolation. What investigators are documenting in real time is not just a protective father, but a father helping to reinforce Wayne Williams belief that he can outmaneuver everyone around him. This, again is Wayne Williams, Former defense attorney Ron Kuby, telling me about his experiences.

[Ron Kuby]

He was odd. Very, very, very odd. He was sort of self aggrandizing, self important, Felt himself to be sort of smarter than everyone, not with standing, his circumstances, doing, you know, life. For the most notorious murders in Georgia

[James Buddy Day]

history back in the early 1970s, Wayne Williams is still in grade school. He's articulate. He learns quickly. He mimics social cues effectively. By this point, his parents often describe him to others as gifted, sometimes even even claiming he's a genius. But there's a difference between understanding concepts intellectually and understanding people emotionally. And one of the reoccurring themes surrounding Williams is how strangely absent he appears from the lives of Other people.

[Clem Richardson]

I've never had somebody come forward and say, hey, I've known Wayne all my life. Or we went to school together. I didn't be anybody like that. No one came forward to claiming was a decent guy, the great guy to me now and I haven't seen, I didn't see any stories in the Journal Constitution or Atlanta Voice or any of the other newspapers and everybody was covering it. To say this is a friend of Wayne.

[James Buddy Day]

Clem Richardson's observation is echoed elsewhere. A New York Times profile published during the investigation notes how difficult it is to find people who genuinely know Williams well. People he later describes as close colleagues or collaborators often report barely knowing him. This shallow attachment, it's a consistent trait that I've seen in all psychopathic personalities. And by 1973, when Williams is 14, he's already building identities around himself to compensate. He starts a low powered radio station transmitted through phone lines in his living room. And for a while it works. The story of his success even attracts local attention. Then a national newspaper article. Reporters love the image. A young black teenager building his own radio station out of his parents home during a period when Atlanta is celebrating black ambition and upward mobility. And for Wayne Williams, that attention appears intoxicating. By 15 years old, his parents are investing heavily in equipment for his home based radio station that he now calls WR az. Williams begins attracting minor advertisers. He hires employees. He even leases office space. He reinvents himself as a young media entrepreneur. But behind the image, things collapse. Employees later describe constant conflict. Money is mishandled, investors are burned, staff turnover is high because of William's grandiose personality. And what's striking is how closely this pattern mirrors the man investigators and reporters will encounter years, years later. William spends the rest of his life bragging about WR as proof of his brilliance, even though the venture is a complete failure. By 1979, the station is gone, his parents savings devastated. The family is driven into bankruptcy the same year Wayne Williams graduates high school. Now in his retellings, Wayne Williams has almost completely erased these failures. And that's important because it offers us a window into the fantasy life driving him. Wayne Williams has never openly explained, but if you step back and look at the pattern as a whole, it becomes difficult to miss.

[Clem Richardson]

My mother used to always say, yeah, they lie when the truth can do just as well. That's what he was. He just lied because he got a lie. He could tell you the truth and it would do just as well as a lie. But he prefers the lie. That's how he was.

[James Buddy Day]

By the late 1970s. Williams is grandiose to the point of delusion. One reporter later describes his resume as, quote, a masterpiece of exaggeration. The document lists him as a photographer, pilot, race car driver, producer, media consultant, and numerous other professions and achievements that either never existed or were wildly inflated. It's an aspect of his personality I discussed with Ron Kuby.

[Ron Kuby]

I'm not a shrink, so I'm not going to diagnose him as a psychopath. I, I certainly have no problem agreeing with you that his behavior is profoundly disturbing, deeply unnerving, wildly grandiose, inexplicably provocative. And that is all, I think, borne out by the things that he has said and things that he has done, not just in the course of this case, but subsequently, where he claimed to be a CIA agent on a special mission or some, you know, irrational stuff like that. And all of that is true enough. That's one of the reasons why these people, and, you know, there's a bunch of them end up in these cases whether they're guilty or not guilty.

[Psychopathy Expert]

Wayne Williams is not just weird, right? He's, He's. He has all the pillars of psychopathy. He's grandiose to the point of being delusional. He's callous.

[Clem Richardson]

He.

[Psychopathy Expert]

He cannot form attachments with other people. He struggles to read people emotionally. He's impulsive, arrogant. You know, if you look at the spectrum of psychopathy, he is on the far end of someone who, who, who has all these pillars. And if someone like that is not a psychopath, then we don't know what a psychopath is, Right? What we're debating is not whether or not he has all the hallmarks of psychopathy. He does. What we're debating is whether that psychopathy, if he stepped over that thin line into violence.

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[James Buddy Day]

By late 1977, Williams adopts the first of two two identities that later place him into proximity with the victims. The first is a photographer. Williams begins styling himself as a freelance news photographer. Partially inspired by his father's second career, he forms a company called Metro News Productions.

[Clem Richardson]

I think I only saw Wayne once when he was hustling news. He came up to City hall in the press room once when back because he was an ambulance chaser.

[James Buddy Day]

Creating companies and adopting professional identities becomes one of Wayne Williams defining behavioral patterns. And even after bankruptcy, his parents continue to finance these self reinventions. Williams outfits his car with CB radios, antennas, emergency lights and other police style equipment equipment. At one point he's even arrested for impersonating a police officer, not while trying to abduct someone, but reportedly after being mistaken for law enforcement while speeding towards a crime scene.

[Clem Richardson]

He'd race at night to the scene and then sell the film to some local newscaster.

[James Buddy Day]

But the job satisfies something deeper than ambition. For the first time in his life, people move out of his way. It gives him authority. He begins seeing how police are working, which cases receive attention, which neighborhoods don't, how crime scenes are processed. And under the guise of covering these crime scenes, Williams begins spending nights roaming Atlanta alone. And this coincides with his private struggle with his sexuality. Now at trial, Williams defense strongly denies that he's gay, even producing witnesses who claim he's simply too ambitious to pursue relationships. But the broader picture is complicated. In the FBI files, investigators document Williams purchasing homosexual pornography from a stand called West End News. Also, multiple witnesses, including Williams himself at one point place him at the Marquette Lounge, a gay club in Atlanta. And one psychologist who interviews Williams, though never testifies publicly, later reportedly concludes that Williams is largely asexual, as he's unsuccessful in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. What's clear is a pattern of Williams continually failing at intimacy, hindered by his own grandiosity. And so he adopts a sort of camouflage that gives him immediate authority and recognition, that of a record producer. It's something I discussed with Clem Richardson.

[Psychopathy Expert]

All the kind of personal connections he had seemed very superficial. It seems that he was constantly bragging, trying to talk himself up. I'm a record producer. I can do this. And so all of his interactions, he spent a lot of time seeking out strangers, young men, children who he could impress with something he was doing and

[Clem Richardson]

what he was doing. Again, this is the 80s. The guy had video equipment in his goddamn car, right? I mean, he had cameras and, you know, then we are now talking the big ones, right? I mean, the impressive ones, you know, shoulder mounted ones. He's not the little camcorder, Sony camcorder. He had the real TV because his

[James Buddy Day]

parents bought him what he wanted by 1979. Williams is telling people that he's assembling a music group that he calls Gemini. It's supposedly designed to rival the Jackson 5. He hands out flyers at shopping centers and schools over the next several years. Williams himself claims to have auditioned hundreds of black youths. And this is well documented within the FBI files. Wayne Williams calls newspapers like the Atlanta Voice making grandiose claims about his productions and talent searches. One witness later describes Williams as, quote, an extremely self centered individual who is overly impressed with himself. End quote.

[Psychopathy Expert]

There's many, many witness accounts of Wayne Williams at these housing projects, talking to these victims, seeking to put himself in a position of authority over these children. Many, many, many instances of predatory behavior that we see in psychopaths of this nature. That's what I struggle with.

[Ron Kuby]

I certainly did find from everybody's account of Wayne Williams that, you know, he was fancied himself as a music promoter and was constantly engaging young people, both boys and girls, by the way, trying to further their alleged music careers. And clearly very, very creepy. But there's a lot of people in the world who are very, very creepy, who are not serial killers.

[James Buddy Day]

None of Wayne Williams work in show business is real. Wayne Williams never successfully produces artists. He never manages meaningful acts. He never establishes himself inside the music industry in any true way. Omega Entertainment, the company he creates, it exists largely on paper with Williams serving as its only employee. And that's because this isn't about music at all. It's about targeting victims.

[Clem Richardson]

He had a producing studio in his house. Who had that back in the 80s? I mean, if you expose people to those things, particularly kids, other projects, you tell the kid, hey, come on, record a track over at the house and we'll see what we can do. I'd gone, I would have gone. I would have gone. A lot of kids would have gone.

[James Buddy Day]

By the summer of 1979, William's life appears to be collapsing under the weight of its own fantasy. He briefly attempts college, then leaves. His businesses fail. His ambitions do not align with reality. And multiple witnesses later describe Sudden outbursts of violence inside the Williams home. This is something well documented within the FBI files. Witnesses describe Williams attacking his father. Wayne chokes him so severely that Homer reportedly retrieves a shotgun. Other testimony describes Wayne Williams striking his mother during a family confrontation.

[Clem Richardson]

Wayne impressed me as someone who thought he was smarter than everybody else. He just thought he was smarter. He just had that ego thing. But to get to where you can get from that idea to where you can actually kill someone because you think you're smart enough to get away with it, not once or twice, but even in the midst of a national manhunt to find you, you still go out there and do it, right? I mean, that says a lot about how you think of yourself.

[James Buddy Day]

We don't know with certainty who Wayne Williams first victim is, but what we do know is that In July of 1979, Edward Smith, 14, and Alfred Evans, 13, disappear just four days apart. For years, investigators and journalists treat them as the beginning of what would later become known as the Atlanta child murders. And according to the FBI files, Smith is likely killed after a dispute involving drugs and older teenagers at a party. And at least one witness comes forward later claiming that Evans is murdered in retaliation days later. And that immediately tells you something important about this investigation. The Atlanta child murders are not one clean series. From the beginning, investigators are trying to untangle overlapping violence happening inside the same vulnerable communities. But underneath the chaos, a pattern starts emerging. A pattern with Wayne Williams at its center. Alfred Evans body is discovered on July 28, 1979 off Niski Lake Road, dumped on an incline roughly one mile from Campbellton Road, a major four lane highway cutting through Southwest Atlanta. It's about 15 minutes from Wayne Williams residence. The autopsy findings show signs consistent with asphyxia by strangulation.

[Clem Richardson]

There's something bloodthirsty beyond bloodthirsty there, right? I mean that's, that's to, to, to ligature kill someone that had did with your hands. You got your hands on these people, you, you feeling the life leave there. They're struggling. You're killing people and not just one.

[James Buddy Day]

And like Evans, over the next two years, bodies repeatedly cluster near roadways, embankments, bridges, wooded areas just off major arteries where someone can dump a body quickly and disappear back into the Atlanta traffic. And when you actually plot these recoveries on a map, something disturbing begins to emerge. The bodies don't appear randomly scattered across Atlanta, what you would expect with multiple killers. They begin forming a loose geographic arc southwest Atlanta, then east, then north along the river systems and highways, almost like one person Moving through the city counterclockwise. And that's significant because if multiple unrelated killers are responsible for these murders, then somehow they're repeatedly choosing the same places to dump the bodies near the same transportation corridors.

[Clem Richardson]

What happened was the police were searching, and the assailant was making sure that the bodies were found in areas where folks would see it. Right. The idea was that whoever was doing this was taunting the police.

[James Buddy Day]

In one FBI memo I found, dated September 18, 1980, investigators summarized the situation bluntly, quote, 10 black children reportedly missing over roughly a one year period. Six homicides, four still missing.

[Clem Richardson]

People are on edge. People are on edge. And to have this suddenly come out of nowhere, Someone's killing black children, poor black children. I mean, you know, it was amazingly just. Just how that just transfixed the city.

[James Buddy Day]

Now, Wayne Williams is not responsible for all of these murders. Take Angel Lanier. She's discovered with her hands bound in electrical cord. And suspicion quickly falls onto a neighbor who reportedly wears identical electrical cord as a belt. When questioned by investigators, her body is ultimately discovered after city councilman Arthur Langford organizes community volunteers to physically search for missing children themselves.

[Clem Richardson]

Arthur Langford was another city councilman there in Atlanta. He realized he had to do something. So he said, we're going to search for these kids ourselves all day. Researching, researching, walking through all these untrained people, just regular volunteers decided to do something, and damn it, they didn't find a body.

[James Buddy Day]

Then there's Earl Lee Terrell. In the FBI files, it reads, victim had been swimming with friends, was ejected from pool by lifeguards, scarred for misbehaving, and last seen sitting on a bench near pool area. His body is eventually discovered in a wooded area. And later residents reportedly revisit the site and discover that investigators have missed bones and evidence during the original recovery.

[Clem Richardson]

We went by later on, they dropped the gloves that. They just dropped the gloves on the ground, and they found bones that they left or the bodies that actually hadn't integrated all the bones.

[James Buddy Day]

It's cases like these that obscure the larger pattern emerging around Wayne Williams. For example, on May 18, 1980, Wayne Williams is seen with a victim named Eric Middlebrooks at a housing project. The victim's body is found the next day, discovered off Flat Shoals road near Interstate 20. Another dump site positioned near major traffic arteries, and the same wooded area near where Earl Lee Terrell had previously been found.

[Clem Richardson]

Christopher again. Again, I should have reviewed these names, but Christopher is his first name. I remember he. I went to his same bank and houses. He was collecting bottles. It Was worth his while to walk the side of the road with this wagon or whatever he was dragging to get all these bottles and take it to the local store and get that $2, $3, $4 that he could get for that because it made a difference in his life to have that money. That's poverty, right? That's the real deal.

[James Buddy Day]

By late 1980, Williams patterns are evolving. Early recoveries of bodies cluster in southwest at the Atlanta. But as media attention intensifies and police pressure increases, the geography changes. Bodies begin appearing closer to water, closer to bridges, closer to the Chattahoochee river.

[Clem Richardson]

The reason the body started showing up in the Chattahoochee or in water was some cop or somewhere along the line. Instead someone let it be known that should the body get in water, of course no evidence was going to be available off the body once it's in the water. So all of a sudden the body started showing up near water, in water or near bodies of water where it was impossible to show what had happened.

[James Buddy Day]

At this point, Wayne Williams isn't simply killing impulsively. He's consuming media coverage, watching police responses, adjusting his disposal methods. Something I discussed with Clem Richardson.

[Psychopathy Expert]

Was it apparent to you at the time that he was watching the news and kind of follow.

[Clem Richardson]

Oh yeah, everybody knew, everybody knew, everybody knew. And that's why it was even more fearsome, right, because that's an, that, that's an intellect, right? That's a, that's a mind at work. This is an accidental. I'm not getting overcome by rage and, and killing somebody and running and leaving the body. I am plotting, I am planning, I am figuring this out.

[James Buddy Day]

Research on serial homicide suggests offenders often become more confident. As the series continues. A study of serial killers life course patterns described serial murder as quote an experiential journey where offenders learn through prior crimes and continue operating so predictably. What we see next is Wayne Williams becoming more visible around the victims. Case in Point. On October 10th, 1980, the partially clothed body of 12 year old Charles Stevens is found near the rear rear entrance to a mobile home park. The autopsy reports asphyxia by suffocation. Investigators later connect Stevens to Williams through multiple fiber matches throughout Williams home. Then In November of 1980, Williams is seen at the Thomasville Heights housing projects Claiming to recruit teenagers for a talent show and music music group. He asks a building manager to help him approach the local boys. Patrick Rogers, 16 years old, is approached by Williams who convinces Rogers to leave with him. On November 10, 1980, Rogers body is recovered from the Chattahoochee River. An FBI memo I located from one month later on December 9, 1980, reads, quote, over the past 16 months, 15 young black children have been reported missing in the Atlanta area. Eleven of those children have been located murdered.

[Clem Richardson]

Atlanta had something to prove about what it was, right? These were. This was the first major black city that black folks were running. They had to show they cared about black folks. But everybody understood how important this was, that we find this guy, that we find whomever this is, that we stop this more than anything else, that we stop these attacks on these children because you're killing kids.

[James Buddy Day]

And as investigators close in, Williams appears to become bolder. Witnesses begin placing him with victims repeatedly at trial.

[Clem Richardson]

Placing.

[James Buddy Day]

Prosecutors ultimately present testimony from more than 100 witnesses, all tying Williams to victims neighborhoods, housing projects or disposal patterns.

[Psychopathy Expert]

When you look at it in its totality, a hundred people from one area who all agree, you know, that they saw Wayne Williams with many, many, many of the victims in many, many, many situations.

[Clem Richardson]

Yes. What's the chances? What are the chances? So, I mean, what are the chances? I mean, you know, all the people you've been around in the last month, but any of them turned up missing, any of them turned up dead? Any have turned up that you. Oh, you found them? Some. They found them in the woods somewhere, strangling strength. Now, how is that possible?

[James Buddy Day]

Then comes Luby Jeter, 14 years old. Multiple witnesses later place Williams with Jeter near a housing project on January 3, 1981. A month later, Jeter's body is discovered 70ft off Vandiver Road in a wooded area. The autopsy reports the cause of death as asphyxiation. And one document in the FBI files stands out. A 15 year old friend of Jeter later tells investigators that he accepted a ride from Williams. According to testimony, Williams drives this witness around Atlanta, fondles him, then stops the car, saying he needs to retrieve something from the trunk. The boy recalls becoming frightened, jumps from the vehicle and runs to a nearby apartment complex. Later, this witness sees Wayne Williams again at Luby Jeter's funeral. Then There's Terry Pugh, 15 years old. Multiple witnesses later report seeing Wayne Williams with Pugh. And Pugh himself reportedly tells others he's been hired by Williams. On January 23, 1981, Pugh's body is discovered approximately a half mile from Interstate 20, lying just off Rockdale county roadway. William's pattern is evolving. Again, he appears increasingly comfortable, approaching not just children, but vulnerable adolescents and even adults.

[Ron Kuby]

I do take your point and I guess my response to it is that a defendant doesn't have to prove his innocence. Most defendants, in fact, who are innocent can't prove they didn't do it. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt with reliable and credible evidence, not simply point out this guy gives a bunch of stories. And frankly, this guy is squirrely as hell. Therefore, he's guilty.

[James Buddy Day]

I On March 13, 1981, investigators place Williams at Techwood Homes public housing, where he reportedly solicits teenagers for his music group. Soon after, two more bodies emerge from the Chattahoochee River. Timothy Hill, 13 years old, cause of death, asphyxiation. And Eddie Duncan, 21 years old, cause of death, strangulation. Both connected to Williams recruitment trick from Techwood Homes. And by this point, the closer investigators move towards Wayne Williams, the more the murders appear to accelerate. Michael McIntosh, 23 years old, disappears March 25, 1981. Officially attributed to Williams. Larry Rogers, 21 years old. Witnesses later report seeing Roger slumped in the passenger seat of William's car shortly before Roger's body is discovered inside an abandoned apartment building.

[Clem Richardson]

The pressure to secure, to find out who this was, to stop this was, was overwhelming. But listen, and this is real now. This wasn't like. This wasn't a movie. This was. This wasn't, you know, you wasn't turning this off when you go home and it wasn't happening anymore. Every day you came out of your house and you didn't know who it was. You did not know who it was. It could have been your neighbor, it could have been your friend. It could have been anybody, you know, anybody, but we didn't know it was. It was terrifying.

[James Buddy Day]

And this is when the forensic case starts to close around Williams. Patrick Balthazar disappears on February 6, 1981.

[Psychopathy Expert]

1.

[James Buddy Day]

He's 12 years old. His body is later found in a wooded area. And years later, Balthazar becomes one of the cases where the forensic evidence continues to be dissected. Hairs recovered from his body are consistent with Wayne Williams. And later, mitochondrial DNA testing supports that connection. Other testing points towards hairs consistent with William's German shepherd from the time. Then There's Joseph Bell, 15 years old. He disappears on March 2, 1981. Cause of death, asphyxiation. Investigators later connect Bell through Williams, again through Techwood. John Porter, 28, is found dead in April of 1981. His case is also later connected to Williams. Then Jimmy Ray Payne, 21 years old. Payne disappears on April 23, 1981. His body is found by a fisherman in the Chattahoochee river, roughly a quarter mile downstream from an overpass. And that homicide is key because this becomes one of two murders Williams is actually convicted of. Witnesses place Payne near Williams shortly before his death. One account has pain seen with Williams on Highway 78 near the Chattahoochee river, close to a parked white station wagon. Then William Barrett, 17 years old. On May 12, 1981, Barrett's fully clothed body is discovered just off Winthrop Road within 100ft of Interstate 20. Investigators later connect the victim to Williams through physical evidence, including fibers and blood evidence in Williams car. And this is where I want to pause on the fiber evidence, because taken individually, any single fiber can sound speculative, but that's not how the evidence actually works. The fiber case against Williams is cumulative.

[Psychopathy Expert]

I think people have really locked onto the fiber fiber evidence over the years, especially his defenders, these kind of people who have kind of relooked the case. It's also interesting that none of his defenders were from Atlanta at the time. They're always like an old retired police officer from Connecticut who's inserted himself.

[Clem Richardson]

I read the page, and I'm. Let me tell you what I think. Yeah. No, Please, no. Again, in the city, Wayne was the guy. The collective evidence is overwhelming.

[James Buddy Day]

Investigators from the Atlanta police, the FBI, and the RCMP collected samples from Williams living room, bedroom, bathroom, car, and trunk. These included distinctive white fibers from the trunk liner. And it's those fibers that show up across multiple victims, across multiple locations, across multiple months. One fiber is a coincidence, two fibers raise questions. But dozens of fibers from different sources in the same suspect's environment appearing again and again across victims, connected by time, geography, and witness testimony, that becomes something else.

[Psychopathy Expert]

What I find is a kind of a contradiction at the center of the case. When you look at the evidence as a whole, Wayne Williams is undoubtedly involved in many of the murders. Which murders is hard to say specifically. And I think there's no. Any reasonable person would concede that more than one person is involved in.

[James Buddy Day]

In these 30 or more cases.

[Ron Kuby]

Well, you know, I disagree with some of your. Your premises there. I understand. You just said no reasonable person would think Wayne Williams was innocent of everything. Well, I guess I'm not a reasonable person. I'm not asserting that he's innocent of everything. I don't know. I am asserting that once the pattern falls down and once you discard sort of the junk science with respect to a lot of the fibers and other things, you're left with. I am left with a profound reasonable doubt about his guilt of anything.

[James Buddy Day]

That's the question does the pattern fall down or does the cumulative evidence point to a larger truth?

[Clem Richardson]

Wayne didn't kill all of them by far. Wayne didn't kill all of them, I think, but Wayne. Wayne had a hand on them, and that's a good way to put it. Wayne had a hand in an awful lot of them and was arrogantly thinking that he could do it for forever.

[James Buddy Day]

And then finally the pattern collapses inward. Nathaniel Cater, 27 years old. Cater may have encountered Wayne Williams at Cap and Pegs, a restaurant connected to multiple victims in the case. At least four were known to frequent that establishment, two of them reportedly working there. Multiple witnesses later describe Cater with Williams in the days before he disappears. On May 22, 1981, Cater vanishes. His body is later recovered from the Chattahoochee River. And at this point, investigators are no longer simply waiting for bodies to surface. They're watching the bridges themselves. For weeks, police conduct surveillance along Bridges Cross, crossing the Chattahoochee River. After noticing the growing cluster of river discoveries, officers stake out crossings in the early morning hours, waiting for movement. I'm going to read you this section from the FBI files dated June 1981, 5:05pm at approximately 2:22am a loud splash was heard in the river under the bridge. Bridge and thereafter, an automobile was observed on the bridge, apparently immediately above where the splash originated. When investigators pull over the car, the driver is Wayne Bertram Williams. He tells investigators he's searching for an address for an appointment he has at 6 o' clock in the morning just three hours later. But that answer itself is revealing because as we know, Wayne Williams is not a talent scout. He's never successfully produced a record, never managed a meaningful artist, never built a real entertainment company. The identity exists mostly in his own mythology.

[Clem Richardson]

Even when they called him that night, I mean, that's when you hear his answers. The what he tells the cops, you realize, oh, damn, he really wasn't prepared for that. He really thought that, hey, I can dump this body and drive across this bridge and go on about my business like I've done in previous times, and no one will catch me.

[James Buddy Day]

And after the bridge stop. Wayne Williams doesn't behave the way most innocent people do under suspicion. That's one of the details that repeatedly stands out to reporters covering the case in. In real time. Instead of panic, Williams appears energized by the attention. Over the following weeks, he gives interviews, constantly speaks to reporters, inserts himself directly into coverage of the murders, tries to manage the public's perception and explain the evidence away. This Is a psychopath trying to control the narrative around himself.

[Clem Richardson]

I think somebody tells me you're killing kids, and all of a sudden you're not terrified, right? You're not screaming. You run into everybody, hey, I'm innocent. I didn't do this. This is where I was. This is what I did. This wasn't me. This ain't me. You didn't get none of that. You didn't get any of that.

[Ron Kuby]

He's exactly the kind of person that the police love to target. He's loud and he's annoying, and he. He baits the cops, and all of which he did, but prior to the time he was arrested, so he basically painted a huge bullseye on his back and enjoyed running around, forcing the police to give chase.

[James Buddy Day]

And then on June 21, 1981, Wayne Williams is arrested. By that point, Atlanta has spent nearly two years living in fear since.

[Clem Richardson]

The other thing about him, his eyes, just. His eyes were predator eyes. You know, I remember looking at him, looking at him in one of those car chases before he got in the car. He just look at you, and those eyes just look at you like, you know, yeah, I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. I can take you out. I could do that. I can kill you.

[James Buddy Day]

Wayne Williams is ultimately convicted for the murders of Nathaniel Cater and Jimmy Ray Payne. But the larger debate, it never ends.

[Ron Kuby]

Wayne Williams was never charged or convicted of murdering a child. He was convicted of murdering two adults, Jimmy Ray Payne and Nathaniel Cater. They were 21 years old and 28 years old, but no children. What the prosecution did was to take a pattern. They created a pattern based on 10 child murders and said that the pattern of those 10 cases was so similar to the murders of Payne and Cater that they, in essence, were the killer's fingerprint.

[James Buddy Day]

Over the decades, investigators, journalists, psychologists, attorneys, and former law enforcement officers continue to argue over how many murders Williams actually committed.

[Ron Kuby]

My real touchstone on this is Wayne Williams received a fundamentally unfair trial, and the families of all of the child victims never received any measure of justice because as soon as he was convicted of killing two adults, they closed the book on all of the child murders.

[James Buddy Day]

And this is where Wayne Williams becomes more than a simple true crime story, because the case sits at the intersection of race policing, forensic evolution, and psychopathy.

[Ron Kuby]

I mean, if what you're saying is if Wayne Williams is a serial killer and he goes free, then he is indeed a dangerous person on the loose. Is that what you're saying or implying

[Psychopathy Expert]

when you look at the case in Its totality. When you sit back and look at the forest for the trees, there's no question that Wayne Williams is in the center, that he's connected to multiple victims, that. That he has bad excuses for. For alibis, that he can't explain things over and over again, that he's a grandiose, pathological liar who is targeting children. He's saying that he's a talent executive. He's saying that he's. He's at these housing projects with these victims to further their lives, yet he's never produced anything. You know, so. So that's what I'm saying is how do we weigh his. His lies of innocence with the fact that you're right, he didn't get. Probably didn't get a fair trial.

[Ron Kuby]

Admittedly, it would have been a lot easier in 1985 when we started this process when most of the witnesses were still alive, had the state simply said, you know what? You're right, was a crappy trial. We're going to do it over again, and we are going to prove our case in a way that comports with basic principles of due process in science. That would have been a lot better, to be sure, but they refused to do that year after year, decade after decade after decade. So even now, though, the solution is simple enough. You overturn the conviction, you retry the case.

[James Buddy Day]

There were almost certainly multiple forms of violence happening simultaneously in Atlanta during those years. How do we acknowledge the complexity of the Atlanta child murders without losing sight of the overwhelming evidence surrounding Wayne Williams himself? That's the challenge of psychopathic personalities. They distort reality long after the violence ends.

[Clem Richardson]

He is a murderer, and they can mess around, get him out. He's been in jail all these years. Has he changed? Is. Is he different? Or is his ego just as big that now, Wow, I can get out. And let's see, let's see what y' all do with me now. If they get him out, let him come live with you. You just let him come live with you. Let's see how that works out.

[James Buddy Day]

Before we wrap a few show notes. There's so many aspects to this case, and we could not include them all in this episode. One specifically is the debate over whether or not the KKK was involved in the Atlanta child murders. I spoke to Ron Kuby about that at length, and instead of putting that inside unmarked case files, we're going to put portions of that conversation on our YouTube, YouTube channel as a bonus episode later this week. Now, if you want to go more in depth into the cases we cover. My book Charles Manson the Last Words is available on Kindle and Amazon and Kindle Unlimited for a limited time. This book documents my 10 year journey to find the Manson family and speak to Charles Manson himself.

[Psychopathy Expert]

As always, if you want our episodes

[James Buddy Day]

early and ad free free, you can get them on unmarked Case Files, Our Patreon this episode was produced by John Nadeau. Its associate producer is Jesse Demaray and it was edited by Dave Alderson. Until next week, this is unmarked

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