Killer's Case Files

Wayne Williams

Wayne Williams was born on 27th May, 1958, and raised in the Dixie Hills neighbourhood of southwest Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Homer and Faye Williams. Both of his parents were teachers. Wayne graduated from Douglass High School and developed a keen interest in radio and journalism. He constructed his own carrier current radio station and began frequenting stations WIGO and WAOK, where he befriended a number of the announcing crew and began dabbling in becoming a pop music producer and manager.

Wayne first became a suspect in the Atlanta murders on the morning of 22nd May, 1981, when a police surveillance team, watching the James Jackson Parkway bridge spanning the Chattahoochee River, heard a "big loud splash", suggesting that something had been thrown from the bridge into the river below. The first automobile to exit the bridge after the splash, at roughly 2:50am, belonged to Wayne. When stopped and questioned, he told police that he was on his way to check on an address in a neighbouring town ahead of an audition the following morning with a young singer named Cheryl Johnson. However, both the phone number he gave police and Cheryl Johnson turned out to be fictitious.

Two days later, on 24th May, the nude body of 27 year old Nathaniel Cater, who had been missing for 4 days, was discovered in the river. The medical examiner ruled he had died of probable asphyxia but never specifically said he had been strangled. Police thought that Wayne had killed Nathaniel and that his body was the source of the sound they heard as his car crossed the bridge.

Wayne failed 3 polygraph tests. Hairs and fibres retrieved from the body of another victim, Jimmy Ray Payne, were found to be consistent with those from his home, car, and dog. Co-workers told police they had seen Wayne with scratches on his face and arms around the time of the murders which, investigators surmised, could have been inflicted by victims during struggles. Wayne held a press conference outside his home to proclaim his innocence, volunteering that he had failed the polygraph tests, which would have been inadmissible in court.

Wayne was questioned again by police for 12 hours on 3rd and 4th June at FBI headquarters and released without arrest or charge but remained under surveillance.

Wayne was arrested on 21st June, 1981, for the murders of Nathaniel and Jimmy. His trial began on 6th January, 1982, in Fulton County. During the 2 month trial, prosecutors matched to a number of victims 19 sources of fibres from Wayne's home and car: his bedspread, bathroom, gloves, clothes, carpets, dog, and an unusual, trilobal carpet fibre. Other evidence included witness testimony that placed Wayne with several victims while they were alive, and inconsistencies in his accounts of his whereabouts. Wayne took the stand in his own defence but alienated the jury by becoming angry and combative. After 12 hours of deliberations, the jury found him guilty on 27th February of the murders of Nathaniel Carter and Jimmy Ray Payne. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. After Wayne became a suspect, the killings stopped.

In the late 1990s, Wayne filed a habeas corpus petition and requested a retrial. Butts County Superior Court judge Hal Craig denied his appeal. Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker said that "although this does not end the appeal process, I am pleased with the results in the habeas case" and that his office will "continue to do everything possible to uphold the conviction." In early 2004, Wayne sought a retrial again, with his attorneys arguing that law enforcement officials covered up evidence of involvement by the Ku Klux Klan, and that carpet fibres purportedly linking him to the crimes would not stand up to scientific scrutiny. A federal judge rejected the request for retrial on 17th October, 2006.

Wayne was not tried for most of the Atlanta Child Murders, including that of Curtis Walker, age 13, whose body was dumped into Atlanta's South River in 1981. But Curtis' death prompted the Atlanta Police and the FBI to conduct surveillance at the Atlanta bridges. Wayne became a suspect in May 1981 after being encountered by police near one of the bridges and was arrested the following month.

Wayne is serving his sentence at Telfair State Prison. On 20th November, 2019, Wayne was again denied parole. He will next be eligible for parole in November 2027.