The Vault [bonus]

down to the sub basement identity stories faults. After driving around Atlanta with Jason and the team locating some of the prevalent sites in this case, I had many more questions about the patterns of these murders, including if a pattern even existed at all. It was eerie just how close by some of these murders were to each other, and how the patterns seem to change once the body

started showing up in the rivers. Is it even possible they're all connected or there are different patterns at play here In this episode will be mentioning a book called The List by Chet debt Linger and Jeff Pruge. Debt Linger was a law enforcement officer, independent investigator, and an author, and Pruge was a writer for the l A. Times. Though now out of print, the book remains one of the most comprehensive and critical literary sources on the Atlanta

child murders. During the investigation, Chet debt Linger focus on geography as part of his independent investigation. Seven former Atlanta policemen give about twenty hours each week to this case. One of them is Chet that Linger. His strength is not an investigation, but it is in analysis. He has compiled a map with twenty missing and murdered Atlanta children. He counts some Atlanta police do not count because they

fit the pattern. Because if you travel that Linger's route, you can see most of the places where kids were snatched or last seen or dumped without ever leaving your car. He even believes a map he has drawn would show where the killer lives and works and plays. Det Linger believes the killer lives somewhere near Memorial Drive and Second Avenue, may hang around near Hollywood and High Tower, and work

somewhere between red Wine Road and Stewart Avenue. I'd have someone at this point, someone at this point, someone at this point and at this point, and I'd be looking for the same car or the same individual would come by that place, and I keep him there and I'd find out, do we have a person passing these points? I mean, we've already got penty kids there, and I

would find out. And if it showed up, if the same person showed up more than the two or three times at the different points on on this route, I think I have suspect. Furthermore, det Linger says the Official Task Force can no longer deny some of these cases are related. I think maybe the kids aren't connected, but the geography shure connected because this child came from here to hear this child came from here to here, and

this child came from here to here. Now, the only other explanation would be if this guy, if there are three different killers, they just happened to wander out and find the same spot to leave a body in those those locations are connected. I've asked members of the unofficial Task Force why none of their advice is sought by Atlanta police. They all answered the same thing. Politics, petty politics, chat. Detlinger is ready to share everything he knows if anybody

wants it. We decided to talk to Dr Maurice Gobwin, a private investigator and geographical profiler who worked with me on my first podcast Up and Vanished for Atlanta Monster. We asked them to assemble a heat map of all the missing and murder cases to see what he could tell us about the geographical patterns. There's two types of

serial killers. Predominantly, you have a commuter, and a commuter commutes from the suburban area into a central business district and kills, or he commutes from the inner city out and kills and then goes back home. Or the marauder, and that's just somebody that's just scattered about running around here. They're just picking them up, you know, in any way they can, and killing them and dumping them. That's two

comparable terms typologies that you want to call them. The first one is called a viper, and the second one is called cobra, obviously based on the behavior of the snakes, the way in which they behave. In my analysis of aerial killers, I found that six were vipers. They lay low, They target victims near familiar areas, such as home, at work. They dispose of earlier victims at considerable distances from home, and later victims in or near their comfort zone. That

comfort zone provides them. They believe a psychological blanket of protection thirty seven percent with Cobra's huge difference. There huge difference. This relates also to a criminal behavior. This type of predator, to Cobra, is what we call a hunter. They target victims outside of their comfort zone so they're not too worried about that blanket of protection. They dispose of each victim at a considerable distance from home, and later victims

in or near their comfort zones. I have a theory called the wedge theory, and this is based on academic research on sold cases. The wedge theory the foundation of it is this that ever criminal retains some kind of environmental image of his or her city. Criminals develop mental maps of their environments in the same way non criminals do. For example, you go to the grocery store, you go, you take a right out of your driveway, and you go to the shopping center a particular way. Rarely do

you deviate from those things. Most people do not deviate. And then finally, criminals use their mental maps thereafter as a spatial frame of reference. That's the foundation of wedge theory, sort of shaped like a windshield wiper effect. The home base would typically be near this short point of the wedge and the crimes will be dispersed outward towards the wide part of the wedge. In the Atlanta child murder case, I had geographical coordinates, A plotted the thirty three locations

dealing with these murders. I plotted the body dump sites, and I plotted the abduction sites, and which is rare to have those abduction sites because a lot of cases don't have them. And then I entered those geographical coordinates into my predator system and ran it, and what I got was a forty three to forty four probability that the fender lives between Highway one thirty and UH Interstate

twenty nine. The probability percentage is low normally I'm getting on other cases, I get at least fifty here four. I think there's something else going on that we're attributing murders to an individual here that they're not responsible for, and that may be a reason why of the low probability plot. For geographically, there's no pattern between the child murders and the adult murders. It's very very rare that

a serial killer will kill children and adults. I would separate uh Eddie Duncan, Larry Rogers, aged Michael McIntosh agree, Jimmy ray Payne, a John Porter, Nathaniel cater Age. Those victims fall into the wedge with Wayne wims Is home down at the sharp point of the wedge. I would separate those victims from the rest of the child murders. We then asked Maurice about Daring Glass, the one victim on the list that has never been found. Darren is

an orphan and has a history of running away. He's done it twice before and told some playmates last Sunday that he was going to do it again. Are you worried about him? She is, but you just think he's going to eventually come to show up. He has he and you don't think he's been kidnapped. I shall know you live on alone, on his own, because he won't leave.

And today the searchers took the form of a canvas here in Darren's old neighborhood, where searchers went door to door seeking out Darren's old friends who might be able to offer some new information. We're trying to find any information concerning his whereabouts, the way he possibly may be. At this point, we feel that it's still very possible that Darren Glass could be alive, safe and well at some place. So far police have no leads at all, but they say this case, like the others, is now

top priority. The bill marks the seventh month that we've been conducting these searches, and I think it has taken a lot of wear and tear out of a lot of people. They combed the woods, sifted through debris, and bagged what they thought might be evidence in the mounting number of child murders haunting Atlanta. But slowly, as the searchers found nothing, interest dwindled and the throng thin to just a few. Now the search is at an end. Well.

To try to find the body of victim Darren Glass, normally you would have to have is called reverse geographical profile and meaning that we try to use the offender's home base along with the rest of the victims and try to get a pinpoint area that a victim is likely to be at. In this case, I would pull anything to do with when was out of that and I would do the analysis with the rest of the victims.

And this will be the first time ever that you will be able to use analysis of remaining victims to try to find the one victim that's never been found before. The case of Darren Glass is such an outlier from what geographical profilers like Maurice tell us, it's not impossible for him to still be found if he is indeed

a victim. In the summer of eighty one, after Wayne Williams was arrested, a South Carolina artist came to Atlanta to paint murals of the child victims on neighborhood housing in the city, but it didn't get the reaction you would expect. Over the weekend, bigger than life paintings of the children started popping up around Atlanta, Latonia Wilson's picture on a Wallet, Bowen Holmes, Angeline Ears, and McDaniel Glen,

Eric Middlebrook at Henry Thomas Housing Project. The paintings were done in two days by Columbia South Carolina artist Ralph Waldrop. He paid for the project himself as a gift and remembrance of Atlanta's twenty eight tragedies. City officials are so impressed with Waldrop's generosity they plan to make him an honorary citizen of Atlanta tomorrow at a special ceremony. But

not everyone is happy with Waldrop's artistic contribution. Sixteen year old Patrick Rogers mother says she and the other mothers are furious that no one asked their permission. If Manages did, he did have any reason to do it for est parents gonna be all right. I don't think it's right. It make the parents walk out him and when I walk up to the pup, do something to me. Ms Rogers says. Camille Bell drove through McDaniel Glenn yesterday and was stunned to see her son Yusuf's picture in front

of her. They ain't nothing but memory. The mother's planned to meet in the morning to decide what they should do, but it appears what seems to be and out of town or his act of kindness has turned sour. I want it down. I want it down me, I want it down. October nineteen eighty, during the height of the hysteria around the Atlanta child murders, an explosion devastated a local daycare center, killing four young black children. The explosion happened at a time when no suspect was in custody

and rumors circulated constantly about KKK connections. At ten twenty two on October, an explosion with a force of seventy five sticks of dynamite ripped the roof off the daycare center. Four three year old boys were killed instantly, so was their teacher. Six others were injured. The black community was panicked. Nine children in Atlanta were already murdered. Now this, they insisted the explosion was a bomb, some sort of sick

conspiracy against blacks. Mayor Jackson and others tried to convince them otherwise. The biggest rumor running through this crowd was that the explosion was caused by a bomb. Tension began to build because these people wanted to needed to blame something for the tragedy they had just witnessed. Need your place down? Why not live? Why the lack dot down? Well in councilman? Dog time? What indail house him? That's why we black leaders saw how dangerous the situation could get.

So Mayor Jackson and others trying to reassure the crowd, what I want you to know that we will not rest until we turn every stone, until we look under every leaf, until we explode, exploit every possible lead, until we follow every possible possibility. We will do everything in our power to find the reason for this which at this point appears to be an accident. However, the crowd here did not believe much of what Mayor Jackson had said. They still believed in the rumors that this was a

deliberate act of violence, and this didn't help. The rumor of a bomb threat sent emergency teams into the elementary school across the street from the daycare center. They ordered everyone out and were tight lipped about why what are you Why are you evacuating the school. Let's let's get back when I ask you kindly to get back, okay, and asked to get that let's go. There's a possibility of a bomb. Nothing happened, either in the school or in the crowds outside, although there were a lot of

passionate cries for someone to do something about anything. Could you say they did know something encouraging relate took to the future protection at you. I think that's all they need something increasing protection for the area. We will do everything in our power to increase protection for the area. Later, a police investing Asian showed the explosion was an accident. A poorly maintained boiler blew up. As tragic as it was, it was an accident. Been bowling and from stuff they

don't want you to know. Sat down with us again to go over the details of this tragic episode and the subsequent conspiracy theories at spurred. Let's set the stage. It's ten twenty two October at a place called the Bowing Homes Daycare Center when an explosion occurs, and at first people have no idea what's going on. From miles away, you can see a plume of white smoke. People run from adjacent streets. You know, especially think about the parents

who were there, who knew roughly where that building was. Right, hundreds of people are mobbing the area, teachers running out with their children. We would later learn that five people passed away in that explosion. Uh. There were four children, Andre Stanford, Ronald Brown, Kelvin Snelson, and Terence Bradley. These boys were all around three years old. In addition, a teacher named Nell Robinson also passed away, and UH six

to seven people were injured. The public immediately thought there was a bomb, and in the archival footage you can hear people in the back saying it was a bomb. Go downtown. It was the clan. The clan did it. This panic was compounded by the fact that the elementary school across the street was also evacuated, and law enforcement refused to say why. And in the absence of transparency,

of course, speculation grows. And so all it takes is one person to say I heard that that there's a bomb in there, right, And later officials would say that the explosion was caused by a boiler, right, or what's called the water to boiler, and that when this explosion occurred, it occurred with such force that it did prove fatal, but it did not prove some sort of premeditated action. Most importantly, no one you know, snuck in and explosive. Nobody snuck in under the cover of night and tinkered

with this boiler. But given the cultural ecology of the time, it's completely understandable why people would think this, you know, especially if we're looking at a community where as we have already established distrust of authority figures is at a high, a completely understandable and rational high. We also have to consider what Chet, debt Linger, and Jet Pruved point out in their book The List. This occurred against a backdrop of brutal murders, horrific crimes that also appeared to target

minority popular nations. In the United States, there was the shooting of the National Urban League President Vernon Jordan's in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and in Buffalo, New York. Black cab drivers were being murdered with their hearts literally cut out of their chest. As you can hear on the footage show. When you hear the explosions, the panic, the chaos, and you already know that someone is targeting children, specific types of children right, certain age range, right, and they may

even be your children. You feel powerless right in you cling to a nature of explanation, right as that Luner points out here when he was looking at the layout, the mapping of this area Bowen Holmes fits into the geographical region that he was looking at. He notes that a boy who lived on the same street as the daycare center later disappeared in a way that might have and connected, in his opinion, with the murders. And additionally, when a tragedy like this occurs, we hear rumors being

treated with the same regard as a fact. And in den Lajers case is very by the book author an investigator. In his case, he begins to notice things that trouble him. One of the points was made by John Lewis, who

was then president of the Atlanta Cab Drivers Association. He said he was appointed to a committee to calm public alarm after this boiler explosion because people meet when the explosion occurs, law enforcement pushes them away, gives medical care to people, finds the deceased victims rent, and then later that night there's another public gathering where people are saying,

why isn't anyone doing anything about this? So, in a very real sense, at this time and place in history, it feels as if there is not simply one Atlanta. There's more than one Atlanta right there are at least two. And the people who are encountering on top of this murder epidemic explosions in places that are supposed to be

the safest place your kid could be. It feels like there's another Atlanta in Atlanta that has safety for its citizens, in Atlanta that has non antagonistic law enforcement in Atlanta where people can walk at night without fear of a crime. And this feels like a very different Atlanta when you're around exploding daycares. So immediately after getting news of this explosion, the mayor travels there in person, seeking to quell these fears.

This is not a bomb. Authorities assure me that while a tragedy, this is entirely traceable to this water tube boiler. The crowd is not buying this, and you can hear, you can hear the fundamental anger, right, And there's always a sense of betrayal that occurs in a tragedy. Right, There's a part of there's a part of our our minds, we could even say our souls that recognizes this is

not how things are supposed to be. And you are the mayor, this is your job fix this, Explain this, and if we don't believe the official explanation, then give us what we see as the real one. There's a book called Outbreak, The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior by two authors, Hillary Evans and Robert Bartholomew. And this is a reference work that compiles different examples of what we

would see as public panics. In the case of these incidencies that the journalists have compiled, we see several commonalities, and the number one commonality, regardless of anything else, right, regardless of time space, socioeconomic actors, the number one problem is the perceived lack of transparency. This becomes doubly frustrating and difficult when there is an authority figure. The people in this neighborhood played a large role in this mayor's election.

The mayor, regardless of how well perceived he might be, is still functioning as an authority figure in a time when authority figures are considered inherently untrustworthy. So when the dust has settled and all of the immediate questions and answers that can exist do exist, one of the more terrifying things that occurs is you begin to wonder is it just this one daycare center? If it's a boiler, is it just this one boiler? How many other daycare

centers are here? How many other playgrounds, for example, haven't been repaired in what decades? Where is the sewage line that was supposed to be here? Why doesn't this infrastructure exist? An interesting note that some people may recall, also in Atlanta history, was the collapse of an interstate piece of an interstate called I five. When this collapse, there was an official story about a fire that was set by people who didn't mean to burn down this concrete bridge.

But again, this becomes symbolic of a larger context. Right, a lack of a lack of care for public goods. Right, it's not Maybe it's not just this one day care. Maybe it's every daycare. Maybe it's every road in this zip code. And we have to remember that Atlanta has a provable and undeniable past of using local districting, even unto the level of changing street names to denote the

two or more different Atlantis that exist culturally. And for some people, I five falling was another example of this, and even today you will find people who tell you that the official story makes no sense. So it's tempting for us as people to look at history as something that is disconnected. Happened. Once we're done with it, we can read about it if we want to. That could not be further from the truth. History never leaves us, and in the case of the Bowenhaus daycare Center, this

story continues. Yes, this tragedy occurs soon after the community comes together and they rebuild the daycare center. It was one of the most horrible tragedies Atlanta had ever seen, but in time, attention turned towards making sure a tragedy like this could never happen again. The state legislature past new laws tightening up the requirements for boiler operation and inspect and in May, the rebuilt Bowen Homes Community Center was dedicated, a new and more modern boiler now in place.

There was optimism all around. So are these long standing infrastructure problems actually fixed? The answer is no, because in two thousand and seven, the furnace explodes again, and ultimately in two thousand nine. In June of two thousand nine, the daycare center itself is demolished. The Atlanta Housing Authority took a major step today to become the first major city to tear down its public housing projects. Work has

officially started on tearing down Bowen Holmes. This was a powerful and emotional day for many of the residents who once lived in the bow and Holmes public housing complex. But with that comes change and uncertain On reflection, there's no question that this direction shot I hate to see it go. It's a This is one of the all this um tragics in in America. Sound it's kind of SATs. These are perfect good apartments. It wouldn't's had nothing to renovate.

The spot may keeping going on, but they did whatever they had to do to make sure that they got this land and its profety. I mentioned the Omni in previous episodes as a particularly significant site. Many victims were last seen there were heading there. During our research, we found an anonymous individual who claims Wayne Williams was hanging around the Omni picking up known murdered children from this case.

Unfortunately for us, the person's identity was concealed. He was interviewed after Wayne was arrested, but before the trial started. Here it is the interest in the complex has once again been rekindled by this man, a songwriter who wishes to remain anonymous. In a statement to the FBI, he has told of Wayne Williams and Joseph Felt together at a bucket studio. I remember Joe Joe because he came in and he uh, he sang for a few you know, he's sing a few tunes and he had a very

good voice. And I was asking Wayne what was he gonna do it in Wayne said he was gonna sign the guy to a contract immediately. He also tells of times when he and Williams went to the Omni. Um he said he was going so he can find some more stars. Um. I went to the Omni with Lane Um singing those most of kids they got new Wayne. Uh. They all come up to him asking when they were gonna do maybe do some record and the things of that nature. Um I asked when how did he know

so many kids? He said they were his spies. They told him everything he wanted to know about everybody. Jason from How Stuff Works and Meredith from our team here at Tenderfoot sat down together to discuss the contents of a night one US Weekly magazine, a double issue feature on Wayne Williams. Wayne was arrested for the murders of two black males, Nathaniel Cater and Jimmy ray Payne, that same summer. Until January, Williams remained in custody awaiting his trial.

Before the trial began, while still in prison, Williams shocked the country by giving an exclusive interview with US Weekly. The interview itself infuriated the judge and police officials working on the case. The main reason for today's order was this magazine article to be released next week. We were hud winked in align and I don't appreciate it. That, of course, was the sheriff's reaction today the article. When he and the judge in charge of the case read

it last night. They were both shocked, and sources say Judge Clarence Cooper was outraged. For most of the morning. They both sought out this woman defense attorney Mary Welcome. Last night she told us she knew of the article but would not say anymore. Well, today she did say more to the judge and sheriff. Apparently the reporter of freelance writer came into town the weekend of August two and three. Today over the phone, Mickey Segal told me she went along with miss Welcome to the jail. When

asked who she was, the reporter gave her name. Then this Welcome said the woman was with her. No more questions were asked by the jailers. Asked me, as Welcome, did you tell him them that she was a newspaper report? She said no, They didn't ask me, but again, I didn't think it was necessary to ask a lawyer. Are you doing something you knew? You know we're doing? Do

not allow us. Magazine paid the writer for the story, which has a part two for a later issue, and we've learned Homer Williams Wayne's father was paid three d fifty dollars for the use of these family pictures. No other money was reportedly paid for the story. The writer now says she plans to write a book about the Atlanta murders. The story is headlined on the cover, but it's what is inside that is bound to raise a

few hackles. Williams is highly critical of police conduct, beginning with the night he was stopped and questioned on a bridge over the Chattahoochee River. The two men he's charged with killing were found a short time later in the river. Williams caused the FBI keystone cops and compares Atlanta police to Car fifty four. Where are You? He says he is a scapegoat that somebody has to be caught because of the federal and local money put into the investigation.

He told the writer, it's a matter of justifying money. When you get all this money and you don't do anything with it, people start to ask questions. At some point you've got to answer for it. I feel that I'm the scapegoat. William said the FBI brought him in for accusations and not questioning as they said. He said

they tried to pit him against his parents. He said he was told his parents confessed he was part of the child killings, and the article, Williams again said he is innocent and even says he did not know the two he is charged with killing, Nathaniel Cater and Jimmy ray Paine. The magazine promises a second installment in the interview they say was conducted at the jail. We'll hear more about this later. This is Monica Kaufman. So this is US Weekly, like the US Weekly we still see

in newsstands. Yeah, so I pull up the cover and I certainly see a headline that says accused Atlantic killer Wayne Williams tells his exclusive story. But I also see headlines like how to Be Important by Ronald Reagan and how to beat the s A T s He's become a weird cultural I kind of guess on this one. His name is up here, and if there's a picture of Jackie Kennedy on the cover, and I mentioned of Stevie next, so that kind of sets the stage for

what happened here. So reporter Mickey Siegel to gained access to Wayne via Wayne's a turn Mary Welcome. So she went into the prison where he was being housed awaiting his trial, and she didn't tell the people at the front gates that the person she had with her was a reporter, and this caused a ton of outrage once this was found out by the judge and the other police officials, the fact that she did not identify the reporter.

So this is how it all started. So Mary Welcome was Wayne's attorney, and she thought this was a good idea. I don't know whose idea this was. I have a feeling that in the midst of all the hubbub of this pre trial kind of intensity and news, that most people, probably including Wayne Williams, forgot about this interview because a lot of what we've uncovered here seems to contradict a lot of what we've heard on the podcast. But Wayne

willingly knew he was talking to a reporter. It seems like, yeah, oh definitely. And the article actually kicks off in the in this way. I just I find this fascinating and we'll get into this. So sleeping in odd snatches, reading book after book, watching TV endlessly, Wayne Bertram Williams sits in Georgia's Fulton Countie jail. He's articulate and intelligent. His i Q was one thirty six and he's known to America as the accused Atlanta killer. Yeah, there always seems

to be a stress on exceptional intelligence. I'm trying to understand where the narrative of Wayne being a super intelligent person came from. We've heard numbers from one thirty six to one fifty too, even from Wayne himself saying i Q doesn't matter. This seems very questionable. As the first thing in this article that we hear, there's a what was photo of Wayne Williams um in his looks like his living room. Photos of him also with his parents down in the basement in the in the little radio

station studio. It looks like a normal childhood, looks like a normal childhood. All the photos are from H. C. Williams, otherwise known as Homer Williams. That's Wayne's father, and depending on the source, uh it says that Homer was paid somewhere between three hundred and three thousand dollars for these photos. This came at a time when Wayne's mother, Faye was she had cancer and was going through a lot of things physically and frankly, they didn't have the money. WAYE.

Williams attorney Lynn Watley says that the family needed about forty dollars to support this case. So what ended up happening is the Williams family and some others formed a legal defense fund called Injustice for All has a way to raise funds or raise money for the trial, and they raised ten dollars. Wow. If the trial lasts six weeks as expected, it will cost the county more than

one hundred nine dollars in extra expenses. Most of that money will be spent on housing and feeding the jury, on transportation costs for Williams and Judge Cooper, for special security equipment. Of course, the tab for all that will be picked up by Fulton County taxpayers, but in the meantime, bills on the defense side are also mounting up. Every day the trial goes on is like a huge cash register, ringing up thousands of dollars and legal expenses, legal expenses

which may never be paid. Members of the defense team have revealed that co counsels Mary Welcome and Alvin Binder, and investigator Derwood Myers have spent well in excess of fifteen thousand dollars of their own money on the Williams case so far, mostly to bring fiber and pathological experts to Atlanta for consultation. The trial has also been a financial drain on William's parents, Homer and Faye Williams, are

retired school teachers. They say most of their savings have been spent supporting their son's home radio station and his musical promotion business. A recent highly controversial magazine interview in which Wayne Williams caused the FBI Keystone cops netted the family two thousand dollars, but lawyers say it will take thousands more to defend Williams. They have launched a nationwide appeal for money, trying to raise an immediate forty dollars.

The fact that you have so much, uh evidence that's going to concern forensics, acoustical tests, fiber evidence, and it's going to be necessary to employ experts in order to effectively assist in Wayne Williams defense. And uh, obviously these things are going to cost money. Six weeks ago, a special legal defense fund was set up for Williams as a nonprofit organization called and Justice for All, But today it's organizers told me business has not been very good

at this time. We have received one ten dollar donation. Why do you think people have been so reluctant to give money. I think that in the mind of the of the general public there is a a feeling that we have the guilt demand and which means that they have already convicted him. Where says his organization plans to step up its appeal for funds for William's defense, but many courthouse observers agree even if the money doesn't come in now, future publishing opportunities for this famous trial may

more than make up the deficits someday. When you talk about public sympathy and really where people were at at this time, I think that is really telling as to what the attitude was in the community. Um of this guy being the guy no one was getting behind them. It almost seems like public sympathy has increased longer we become separated from the killings. Yeah, absolutely, that was my action also, And do we know where this ten dollars

came from? No, we doubt it would be interesting, but it was I think that was incredibly barrassing to have show up on the television broadcast that that was as far as that they had gotten. Frankly, this kind of media coverage and photos and videos and everything, it just points to something that's been nagging at all of us as we've gone through this process, and that is this kind of constant obsession by the Williams family. And that's that's both Wayne and Homer to be connected to the media.

One of the things I found from the book called The List, authored by Chett Linger and Jeff Prue. Jeff Prue was with the Los Angeles Times based here in Atlanta, doing some of the reporting for for the l A Times, and he's chat. He's chat linger Linger was both the author of this book, but he was also part of the defense team as a private investigator. As a private investigator, and he was very much involved in questioning all the details of the case, the patterns. Was there a pattern?

And should every one of the children that was on the list be on the list? I'll read a quote here. On May, Jeff Prue and I, along with a Los Angeles Times photographer, went to the church where Jimmy Ray Paine's funeral was in progress. Like many of the funerals, it was a media circus throughout these cases. All the sobs, the moans, the tears, the eulogies, even poems read by bereaved schoolmates were caught in the glare of TV strobe

lights and hand held mini cams. A woman emerged from the door of the small church during the funeral of Jimmy ray Payne. Wailing uncontrollably. She swooned into the support of arms of two men. They began to assist her. As she stumbled forward on rubbery legs into the wide, busy street. A photographer dashed towards her, his camera lens only inches from her tearful face. Snapping pictures, he backpedaled

across the street, oblivious to the traffic flow. I would see that same cameraman make like a broken field runner again on another street at another time. I also would learn that he had taken photos on the stage of the Sammy Davis Jr. Frank Sinatra benefit concert. For security reasons. Only this one still photographer had been allowed on the stage by arrangement with City Hall. Had the mourner of Jimmy ray Paine known later who the photographer had been,

she probably would have had another strong reaction. I wonder if to this day she knows so. The photographer that was at Jimmy ray Paine's funeral, the one he's mentioning, was the same one who's on stage that we've seen in those archive clips. That's right. So in the course of our research, as you know in the two thousand ten CNN documentary on the Atlanta child killer, who was on stage Harmer Williams. That's right, he was the only one. And what did Frank Sinatra say to him on stage?

You say, didn't he say something along the lines of like who let this guy up here? He kind of like shamed him for the only one that wasn't wearing a top, wasn't wearing a right, So check det Lander doesn't come round, he doesn't come out and say Homer Williams at all. But when you put the connect the dots and put two and two together, you see the connection between Homer Williams um at Jimmy ray Paine's funeral

and at the benefit concert. And it does seem like a really odd coincidence to have the father of the man convicted as the landed child murder be at funerals, be on stage of a benefit to raise money to find the serial killer. I mean, we did see, like in the FBI profile that this would be someone who would be close. So what are the chances that it would be the convicted person's father. All right, So let's get into a little bit of the Q and A

with Wayne done in prison. Yes, some of the narrative from Mickey Seagal says interviewed at the jail, he appears sure, order, more frail, and a little bit pudgier than expected. He peppers his sentences with phrases like let me say this, and you've got to understand, as to be very precise, or to distance himself from what he's saying. In addition, the phrase being in control comes up several times in our talks. Though he denies it, this appears very important

to him. Wow, that's spot on. You've got to understand. I mean, you and I have both heard the interviews. He still says that I could hear Wayne's voice as I read this. And what's the other catchphrase? It was, let me say this, and you've got to understand, you really grip whoever he's talking to. That's a control thing. Control in the narrative, just like having the reporter come to the prison to be able to give this interview in the way that they wanted to release it. The

control of the actual story contents itself really comes out here. Um. Next up, he actually is asked what happened that night on the ridge, and uh, he says he was scared. He says he was shaking, and then he says, well, let me say this. When they stopped me, I had no idea why. Two or three hours later, towards the end of the questioning, I began to put two and two together. I mean, that's a different story than what we've heard when we asked for FBI agent Mike Macomis's account.

Macomis says, as soon as he pulled him over way, Williams said, this is about those kids, isn't it? Or this is about those children, isn't it. That's two different stories. You can either say you were blindsided and had no idea in shaking with fear, or you can say, at least what we've heard today from Wayne, and that's I was totally in control. I was calm and collected. I knew exactly what it was, and I wasn't a bit worried. And those are very different accounts. I don't know if

that's hindsight bias or if it's a lying. He's he's asked about the press conference. He said I would never have said anything publicly if the story hadn't already come out. It was linked to the media that I've been arrested on a ten count murder indictment, and no such thing had been done. The Atlanta newspapers and several other national papers had already used my name address everything. The New York Post even printed Atlanta monster killer seized. I feared recrimination.

I called the conference because I didn't want two people coming out and attacking me in my home. At the end of the day, it ended up backfiring because the media perched outside his house anyway, and it ended up being a bigger media circus. He's asked, are you guilty? He said, no, I am not guilty. Did you have anything to do with Cater or Pain I didn't even know them. No. Is emphasized here, have you ever known any of the others? Have you had them in your

singing room? Talking about Gemini? Have you had any of them in your home? And he says nope, never. I mean, there's just the constant questions which comes up about if he's had a girlfriend before and his acquaintances. But this was a constant focus of the media and of of the various agents to ask him because they were really looking for a pattern. Right here talking about having a girlfriend and having any romantic ties. I think that's important because of um his alibi. He says he's looking for

Cheryl Johnson that night at two am. And even Richard Brackliffe, the polygrapher, he asked him, you know, why would you be going to a woman's house at two am, And he says Wayne's told him, or at least Richard's account. Wayne said I'm not homosexual, and He's like, well, I wasn't suggesting that. So it seems like it's always been a question on people's minds, maybe from that moment. I don't know where it originated. So he's very explicit here. He says, I have gone out with women, some married,

some single. Yes I do see ladies, and yes I do date. So he's very firm in making sure that that point came across. So that's part one of the interview that was October eighty one. People had to wait two weeks for the next issue to come out oct The kind of primary focus initially on this this interview is actually with Faye Williams, Wayne's mother, and she was battling cancer, high blood pressure. She was sixty six and had gone through a lot and had just recently retired

from being an educator or a school teacher. And she was certainly very frightened for Wayne and what had happened. It was very devastating for their family. Both Wayne's parents, Homer and Faye, were older when they had Wayne. Uh, and this is pretty devastating to them. See, he has been tried and miss well say, he has visually been convicted long before bad the media. We had no savings in anything, and what a little bit we had due to my illness in this case, that's depleting. So it's

been mental and it's been on financial string. Oh my, and I think the physical stren also because she is suffer with the high blood pressure recently and actually had me stuff with it. They didn't have and don't have enough evidence. I don't to indicted, but to the rest, I'd just like to give them a one and that where they believe it or not. The killer is still

at large. He's out there. So this is the question that Mickey Seagull asked to resume part two of the interview, the discussion around dog hair as we know Wayne had a German shepherd. This is Wayne's reply. He says, how many dogs are there in Atlanta? And how many different kinds of dogs have they talked about? They're looking for a dog that has a top coat and an undercoat that fits Mala Mutes College's Huskies St Bernard, some Spaniels, and a German shepherd which I have. Anyhow, a dog

hair is a dog hair. I took a hair from one dog and a hair from my present dog and couldn't distinguish the difference under a microscope. And the reporter asked, why did you do that? And he replied, after that, after the case came down, I got curious about it. So let me just pause there for a second. So Wayne's pulling out the microscope in his home to do his own scientific breakdown of the evidence, staying ahead of

the story for sure. Oh yeah, this is right in line with what Richard Rackliff had said about them finding a book in his house about how to pass a polygraph test or what are the inner workings of a polygraph test. He seems very closely following something, more closely than the average person would. So when the reporter asked didn't you receive several science awards in school? Wayne answers at first. But I made a change when I got to high school, a very significant change. Until then, I

was Mr Academia, you teacher's pet. But in the eighth grade that changed drastically, and my home relations changed quite a bit. I became more of an assertive person. My father and I had disagreements over how much trust he put in me. We had plenty of arguments over the car. I don't drink, but one weekend I got completely wasted, completely drunk, and my relationship with my father got much worse. He was pushing me for an education, but I had only applied myself in school when I had to because

I had my radio station by them. Correct me if I'm wrong, But it almost sounds like he's trying to distance himself from the intelligent, for lack of better word, dorky kind of image he was he was given and almost sound like a cool and rebellious and he's using that. He's using the media as a platform, is what it sounds like, to further the vision he wants of himself. One of the questions that kind of was on everyone's mind is with so many kids having gone missing and

many of them showing up murder. Of course, um his connection to adolescence. UM that were involved in the in the music business with him, and the question was really asked of him, didn't your dealings with adolescence make you a suspect? And he said, I always let the authorities know what I was doing in November, specifically because of the murders. I even called the Task Force to let them know i'd be out auditioning children. And when he was asked, why do you feel you had to do that,

he responded, so there wouldn't be any problems later. You don't go around talking to kids in the streets of Atlanta because everything gets reported. You don't understand what this city was like. I had contact with the Task Force three times before I was ever questioned. Then he was asked, why did you contact them the other two times? And he replied, I can't talk about that. So this is new.

This is nothing we've heard before, this story of him reaching out to the Task Force, and frankly, nothing from the Task Force that says that this was ever logged, because they really didn't know who he was until they caught him on the Bridge. Yeah. I wonder how many people were proactively reaching out to the Task Force to tell them they would be interacting with children. It seems like another getting close to the case, you know, for

the sake of getting close to the case. Yeah. So this entire you know, a couple of week interview um segment that ran on US weekly was really an incredible fine that we we've passed this around the office, We've not known what to do with it. It feels like such a an isolated, stand alone type of interview and also incredibly unusual that it was really the only thing that was coming out between his arrest and the trial.

I don't I almost don't know what to make of it still, and it's odd that it was almost smug gold in by his own lawyer, this opportunity to be in such a pop culture magazine with like almost a emphasis on like celebrity and luxury, and here's a Wayne Williams interview twenty three year old Wayne Williams biding his time in jail. Yeah. And I think it also points to the fact that there's so many occasions during the course of thirty five to forty years where you hear

different versions of the same thing. And I think maybe that's where we should leave this is as we've uncovered things in the archives, we've just found that there is no single story that has maintained its um kind of its essence as the bible of this is exactly what happened. Um And I'm not just talking about Wayne Williams. I'm

talking about um FBI agents. I'm talking about police officers who they get most of the details right, but their recall of everything that happened so many years later has differed absolutely every time, a different story. Yeah, and and so what's difficult here is what is the motivation behind that? Is their motivation? Is it forgetfulness? Is it changing the

narrative to be most convenient. Those are the kind of questions I think that we continue to ask ourselves as we get into the archives and kind of look at the vault. One of the most unusual stories we've heard so far is this one. It involves a woman and her husband driving through a cemetery and witnessing a struggle between a man and a young black child. But despite being on television and being submitted to the task force, this story never seemed to lead anywhere. There is a

Soft View Cemetery off Johnsboro Road in southeast Atlanta. The Clayton County woman and her husband are not identifying because if they did see the killers, we don't want them to have a way of tracing them. The Clayton County woman and her husband were driving on this narrow cemetery road when they saw a green car coming straight at them at a high rate of speed. Her husband swerved

to the side to get out of the way. They say they've reported it to the task Force by phone, but the task Force hasn't got back to them for an imperson interview. The driver was tawel and he's light colored, a light colored black man. And the other one, uh was dark or black and he had on a wig. It was a rudish brown. I know it was a week because it was he was losing it because it was a child in the front struggling. He was struggling

with that child. But he had broad shoulders, but his head came about like man, so he would be back in my henight. But the other one was towel was he had almost touched the roof. But I know it was a wig because it was coupling off. You're sure you saw a child, and yes, yes, I saw because it was just back and forth like that, and they're like that was trying to hang on to that child. It was a boy between the ages of the baton and trial, and he had a short haircut. Do you

think you could identified these two? Many yes, and the one with the wig hand on glasses I could identify. We hope this gave you a feel for just how many stories are out there and why this case is just so hard to untangle. Lastly, we'd like to play you a song that the Atlanta officials promoted in the wake of the poor pr the city was facing. The song is called Let's Keep Pulling Together, Atlanta and was

broadcasted throughout the city. The video features black and white citizens standing side by side and pulling a never ending rope, glossing over the obvious racial tension at the time. It's not hard to imagine that it wasn't entirely well received. You decide, we'll leave you with this. Thanks for listening to the first episode of The Vault, and be sure to tune in next Friday for episode eight. See you next week. SA showing Sky