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Gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer, and let's talk some true crime. [Music]
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[Music] [Music] This is True Crime Garage. And this is the case of the Atlanta child murders.
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Our special segment tonight is a fresh look at the series of murders in Atlanta.
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[Music] Aaron Jackson Jr. was among the youngest, only 9 years old. Lubie Jeter was 14, Timothy Hill 13, Patrick
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Baltazar 11. For almost 2 years, the bodies have kept coming out of Atlanta's rivers and woods. And week after week,
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police speak of sorrow and sympathy, but not a solution. This is just a a tragic,
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horrible nightmare that we're going through. We're not in a position today to make an arrest. There are cases in
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history that have gone on much longer than this has. At police task force headquarters, there are 27 faces on the
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wall, 26 murdered, one missing. The killer, there is a handful of sketches. No one the same, no one certain to be
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the person police want. Almost a year after the task force was set up, police can't answer who or why. They don't know
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how or where or even how many of the black victims may have been killed by the same person. One investigator says
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even if the killer walked in the door and confessed, there is not enough evidence now to convict him. A halfozen
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of the cases may be isolated unrelated homicides. The victims found near home, killed perhaps by family or friends. But
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somewhere in the city of Atlanta, there is a person who has killed 15 or 20 boys
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and young men. The district attorney keeps a chart on the wall with names of the dead and room for more. With my
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theory, the uh person is not abducted, not kidnapped, not snatched off the street at that particular time, but is
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willingly going with somebody for something. At least at the instance they get in the car, they're going to make
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some money. Are they going to meet somebody? They say they're going start now willingly. Like many victims, Jojo
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Bell, 15, was a child of the streets, always in need of money. He worked for his supper once in a while at the
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seafood carry out and always asked the owner to give him a ride home. He would walk through the night because if I let
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it kill him, you know, he used to joke about it, you know. He's I ain't let the kid the kid snatch to snatch me, but
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someone did. Somebody did. Belle had been a basketball buddy of Timothy Hill. Hill spent his last known
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night at the Sidi Shack on Grey Street, the home of a 63-year-old homosexual called Uncle Tom. None of the victims
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has been found sexually abused, but the obvious question intrigues investigators. Mickey Mintosh, one of
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the adults killed, hung around the same carry out where Jojo Bell worked. You know, I have seen gays come down and
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seen Mickey in the car with, you know, gays uh they would they would be dressed all up and stuff. They'll come by here
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and sometimes look for me. Atlanta's safety commissioner will say only what he doesn't know. Where we are in the
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investigation right now is we do not know the person or persons that are responsible. Therefore, we do not have
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the motive. The killer seems to have taunt police and read press clippings. After a well publicized but feudal
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search along a road in an outlying county, the next child strangled with a rope was dumped there. And when a
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suburban police official criticized Atlanta's investigation, a child choked to death was left just inside that
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official's county line. After a press report that police had found fibers on some of the bodies, six of the last
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seven victims have been dropped into rivers, all stripped to their undershorts or less, possibly to wash
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away evidence. NBC News has learned in some cases the synthetic fibers were found on victim's clothing hanging in
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closets at home, indicating those children may have visited their killer at times before their death. But
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authorities have had this secret evidence for weeks and it still has not led to the killer. Police are under
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manned and there is grumbling in the ranks. One patrolman is quoted, "They don't tell us anything. It seems like
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they don't trust us." The murder investigation is being run by a 103 person task force. One official concedes
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it's not even certain what to tell the cop on the beat to look for. The investigation seems beset by friction
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and frustration. We're going to solve the cases. That's our resolve. The only unanswered question right now is when.
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Meanwhile, at the cemetery, the dead, Bell, Hill, Macintosh are being buried faster than the cemetery can supply
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grave markers with their names. Sadly, some officials concede Atlanta is unlikely to catch the killer unless he
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keeps on killing. I will say that there's a better chance to catch him if he doesn't stop.
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[Music] Tonight we are talking about the Atlanta child murders. This is a series of
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murders that took place in the great city of Atlanta, Georgia. Way back in 1979 was when the first victim was
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found. And it carried all the way until 1981. and it span about 2 years. Uh unfortunately saw a lot of victims in
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this case. Um some, you know, there's some debate on on uh if all of the victims belong in this case or if
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they're actually individual cases, but depending on the source that you check out, you could see a number as high as
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28 victims. This was a case that uh gripped the city of Atlanta in fear. Um there was there were curfews. There was
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everything that they could do to try to bring to apprehend this killer and to stop to stop the killings. Yeah. There
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was a special task force set up by the police department. So there was a and then the FBI was involved. Um and also
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they set up this thing called the Guardian Angels, which was a volunteer group mainly of like older teens and and
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and uh males in their 20s. and they were kind of known as like the rougher kids.
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But these kids were then taken to the streets trying to get any information, leads, uh some way of identifying a
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suspect because they had a lot of, you know, um sketches made of, you know, when somebody thought they saw a suspect
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or but we're talking about, I mean, one would be a black man, one would be a white man, one would be a Mexican man.
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There sometimes there would be two men. uh sometimes two men. So it was they didn't have very in much of a solid lead
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at all. Well, and on top of that too here the the citizens forming their own task force. The reason that this happens
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is that they start to not believe in their own police force at some point. At some point the victim number gets to be
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so high that they don't think that the police can solve this. Some of the people thought maybe the police did not
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want to solve this. And we'll get into that more uh as we get into this case. Yeah. And we also had there was rumors
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that the the people that they thought were suspects possibly were wearing police uniforms. So I think that's why
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these task force were set up by the communities. The first victim that is is attributed to this case is Edward Hope
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Smith. Uh he was a 14-year-old boy who was last seen July 20th, 1979. he was leaving a skating rink. Uh he was found
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eight days later at Niski Lake Drive and the cause of his death was a 22 caliber
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shotgun to the upper back. Remarkably, on the same day, police investigate investigators found the body of Alfred
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Evans, a 13-year-old boy who was last seen July 25th. Alfred was last known to have been walking to a theater. Alfred
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Evans, his cause of death was listed as undetermined. Unfortunately, and I'm and
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I'm a little uncertain as to why or to the particulars of this, but Alfred's body would remain unidentified for about
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14 months. And this, of course, certainly does not help the investigation. Through March of 1980, four more
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children disappeared. This further complicating the investigation. The first was Milton Harvey, age 14. He was
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last seen September 4th, 1979. He disappeared. He was out running an errand. He was going to the bank for his
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mother. Uh he was riding a yellow 10-speed bike. Now, the bike was found a week later in Atlanta, but there still
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was no sign of the boy. He eventually was found November 5th, so this is about 2 months later. He's found in a wooded
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area in the neighboring city of East Point. Milton Harvey had been dead about 1 month when found. And of course, there
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had been quite a bit of decomposition that had taken place, so his cause of death was listed as undetermined as
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well. Detectives would not immediately connect Milton Harvey's death to that of the first two boys because his body was
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found outside of the area. The second was Yousef Bell. He was last seen October 21st when he went to the
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store to buy snuff for a neighbor. Later, a a witness would tell the police chewing tobacco. Yeah, for people that
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don't know what snuff is. Later, a witness would tell the police that she saw Yousef getting into a blue car.
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Yousef's body was found on November 8th by a school janitor looking for a place to urinate. His body was found in the
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crawl space of an abandoned elementary school building nearby the boy's home. Wait. So, so the janitor was going to go
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pee in the crawl space. He was going to go pee inside an abandoned building way in the crawl space. It's maybe he felt
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it like he needed some privacy. I don't know. Seems like a strange situation to me, but that's who found the boy's body.
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Now, keep in mind this abandoned elementary school building was near the boy's home. And because the boy's body
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was found indoors and not outside in wooded areas like the earlier found victims, his case was not immediately
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connected to the others as well. Yeah. The boy was found wearing the clothing that he was last seen wearing and he had
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been hit over the head twice and his cause of death was strangulation. The third was Angel Laneir. This is a
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12year-old female. This is the first girl victim that we would see. Mhm. Lenir had disappeared on May 4th, I'm
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sorry, March 4th, 1980. She left her house around 400 p.m. wearing a denim outfit and she was last seen at a
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friend's house watching TV. She is found 6 days later in a wooded area and she had been stabbed to death. Now, there
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are some conflicting stories here. I saw a couple of uh sources here and I do want to point this out. couple sources
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that said that she was stabbed to death and a couple sources that said she had been stabbed, but cause of death was
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strangulation. Yeah. This is going to be a repeating cycle that you'll see uh different reports for each victim. Mhm.
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She was wearing the same clothes in which she had left home, but there was something different here. Something very
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different. A pair of white panties had been stuffed in her mouth and her hands were bound with electrical tape. Yeah.
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And they believe that those panties did not belong to her. Correct. They were not hers. So this is March 10th, 1980.
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Now, here's something kind of strange here, Captain. Right. We have Angel Laneir who's found March 10th, 1980. And
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she's found it in the wooded area near Campbell Road and Willowbrook Road. So about a year later, the body of Jeffrey
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Lamar Matthysse is found in the same location. But the crazy thing here is Matthysse disappeared on March 11th.
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This is just one day after they found the body of Laneir. So, you know, he he took took the girl, he dumps her in a
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location, and then she's found and the very next day he's out abducting another victim. And they would they would find
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this victim in the same area. So, whomever did this takes two victims within a week of one another and dumps
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the bodies in the same location. Now, I have to wonder how long until he returned to the site of where he left
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Angel's body and then he's back there again dumping another body. And this is right after the police were there. This
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is taunting. It's it's no doubt in my mind that the killer he he felt like he could not be caught and that his armor
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was so strong that they would never catch up to him. So, Jeffrey Matthysse was an 11year-old boy. He disappeared
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when he went to run an errand for his mother. He was wearing gray jogging pants, brown shoes, and a white and
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green shirt. A girl said that she had seen Jeffrey get into a car with a light-skinned man and a darkkinned man.
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So, here we go. The first report of seeing two possible uh killers or abductors. From the way you're reporting
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it, it seems like this is the first time that anybody's been seen. Yeah, we this
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is any live vehicle. We have a vehicle that was spotted earlier, the blue vehicle. And then we have uh now these
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two suspects. And now he's seen getting in the vehicle with with two people. And
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this vehicle is blue as well. This is a he's seen getting into a car. No description of the vehicle, just a a
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brief description of each man. Now, these two men could have had nothing to do with this case. It could have just
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been a car that he happened to get into. On May 18th, a 14-year-old boy, his name
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is Eric Middbrooks, uh he answers the phone and then he leaves in a hurry on his bicycle. His body is found very
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quickly. It's found the next day along with his bike. Mhm. Now, here's a twist here. He's found in the rear garage of
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an Atlanta bar. Uh next door is the Georgia Department of Offender Rehabilitation.
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He has stab wounds on his chest and his arms. These are like small stab wounds and he died of blunt force trauma to the
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head. His his pockets in his pants were pulled inside out. Yeah. See, uh it seems like again with a lot of these
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victims, I mean, a lot of times people think, well, if there is a killer, then there he's killing uh his victims all in
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the same manner. And in this case, you kind of see this mostly repeating theme of strangulation, but not always. again
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in this case, uh, not lining up with the strangulation either. But again, like you said, that there was this taunting,
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you know, effect going on. So maybe it was because um there was something in the paper that made him decide, well,
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I'm going to leave a victim out in the open. Yeah. And this is one that I actually thought when when reviewing
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this case, I wasn't convinced that all of the victims listed were part of the same case. I thought that there were a
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few that might be individual cases. This is one that I thought could have been an
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individual case. Um, but this is one where they will find evidence to be able to link this to some of the other cases.
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The reason why I thought this was an individual case is this this young man, he had um some run-ins with some
00:19:04
thuggish people. He had uh he had testified in court against some people uh against like a a young gang of kids.
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Um, and I think it was initially thought that that was Yeah. retaliation for testifying and exa and exactly he's
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found in a different situation. He's not found in a wooded area. On June 9th, 12-year-old Christopher Richardson, he
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is last seen going to a public swimming pool. He's last seen wearing blue shorts, a light blue shirt, and blue
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tennis shoes. And he is found the the following January with yet another boy who was killed. and his name was Earl
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Terrell. On June 22nd, 7-year-old Latana Wilson disappeared from her parents' apartment. This is the second girl
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victim that we're seeing here. According to a witness, she appeared to have been
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abducted by two men, one of whom was seen climbing into the apartment window and then holding Wilson in his arms as
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he spoke to the other man in the parking lot. On October 18th, Wilson's body was
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found in a fenced in area at the end of Verbena Street in Atlanta. By by then, the body had been skeletonized. And so,
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again, we've seen a situation where there no cause of death could be established.
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The next day, June 23rd, 10-year-old Aaron Wech disappeared after having been seen near a local grocery store getting
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into a blue Chevrolet. Mhm. with either one or two African-American men. The witness's description of the car matched
00:20:38
a description of a similar car implicated in an earlier case. This was the Jeffrey Matthysse disappearance. At
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6:00 p.m., the victim was seen at a shopping center. The following day, Whis's body was found under a bridge.
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The official cause of death was exfixiation from a broken neck suffered in a fall. In July of 1980, two more
00:21:02
children, Anthony Carter and Earl Terrell, were murdered. We talked about Terrell. He was found with uh with
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Christopher Richardson's body. Between August and November of 1980, five more killings took place. There were no known
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victims during the month of December. All of the victims were African-American children between the ages of 7 and 14,
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and most had been exfiated. The murders continued into 1981. The first known victim in the new year was
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Lubie Ger uh who disappeared January 3rd. He had been last seen in the area of Steuart Lakewood Shopping Center in
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southwest Atlanta. Ger's body was found on February 5th in a wooded area. This was Jeter. What's that? It's pronounced
00:21:47
Jeter. Oh, thank you. Just like Derek like Derek Jeter, but spelled differently. Uh so so Jeter this his
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body is found 70 ft from Van Diver Road which runs off of Campbell Road which remember this is where two earlier
00:22:03
victims had been found. Jeter's friend Terry Pew also went missing in January. Now an anonymous caller called and told
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police where to find Pew's body. They found Pew's body in Rockdale County. So, we have another jurisdiction to throw
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into the mix here. Terry was last seen at the Crystal, that's Crystal with a K, restaurant on January 22nd. Terry
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frequented a place called the Omni. Uh, this is also a place that a couple of the other victims were known to have
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hang to hang out. It was like kind of a teenage spot to go to. Uh, Patrick Baltazar
00:22:42
would be another victim and he hung out at the Omni as well. Patrick was 11 and he was last seen in the evening hours on
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Courtland Street. This was February 6th and his body was found February 14th behind the Corporate Square office park.
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This is in Dealb Decalb County. Did I say that right? Yeah, I think that's correct. That's pretty close. Uh but
00:23:03
again, another jurisdiction. Enjoy the hate mail. Yeah. He was found fully clothed. uh although his clothing was
00:23:10
unbuttoned and the cause of his death was exfixiation due to legature. In February of 1981, an Atlanta
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newspaper ran an article stating that the matching fibers that matching fibers were found on two of the victim's
00:23:26
bodies. This was a big turning point in our case because the killer, just like we talked about last week, our killer is
00:23:32
reading the newspaper. He's watching the news and he's reacting and adapting what
00:23:38
he is doing to go against the investigation. Now, there's one thing I do want to
00:23:43
touch on here real quick, Captain. You know that some in some circles, and I've heard it said uh several times, and I
00:23:49
think that this is a common misconception amongst the general public, and you hear this from time to
00:23:54
time, that serial killers want to be caught. Maybe not on the surface, but somewhere deep down inside that they
00:24:00
want to be caught and that is why they end up getting caught in the end. So, here's the thing. He's adapting, right?
00:24:08
So, go ahead and believe that they want to be caught if that makes you feel safer. But, but the absolute truth is
00:24:15
no. No, they don't. They don't want to be caught. The majority of them do not want to be caught. There there have been
00:24:21
a few. There's one I and don't ask me his name right now, but there's there's one serial killer I can remember that
00:24:27
turned himself in. Um, and you know, so there there might be a few that want to be caught, but but the majority of them
00:24:34
do not want to be caught at all because this is their drug killing and all that is involved in in the in the ritual for
00:24:42
them, this is it's their what gets them high. you know that the sexual assaults involved, the rape or the just the act
00:24:50
of kidnapping, the terror on the person's face, the look in the in their eye when they're strangling them. It's
00:24:56
this is all part of their of their game. The that's a little graphic for me, but
00:25:01
Right. But those those are the things that that I think that's assuming going Yeah, I think that's I think that's what
00:25:08
we assume. I think especially in this case, too, a lot of people will say that these aren't connected. Um there, you
00:25:15
know, they're not connected because the different deaths and that a serial killer would kill somebody the same way
00:25:22
over and over and over. There would be no uh inconsistencies, which we've seen time and time again that that's normally
00:25:28
not true either. Well, I don't know that it's assuming a whole lot of stuff because I mean again, time after time in
00:25:35
these cases, we see the killer adapting his techniques to elude detection. You know, he is this guy is now dumping his
00:25:43
victims in the river and leaving them in only a pair of shorts or nude so that there are little to no hairs, fibers,
00:25:51
pet hair, anything on the bodies. Yeah. They the the police end up talking about
00:25:55
these fibers and therefore then it's like, well, now I got to change up my game. How can I dump the bodies without
00:26:01
there being fibers on them? I'll dump them with water. Yeah. And and even if I do happen to still leave fibers, animal
00:26:09
hair, pet, you know, yeah, it's going to hair evidence, the the water should be washing this away. But there there's uh
00:26:16
conflicting reports on this anyways because there's multiple times that the news um in the in 1979 and 1980, they're
00:26:23
talking about that uh the majority of these victims were sexually abused. And then later on, uh, it's really hard to
00:26:31
find any talk about sexual abuse and any of the reports after, you know, 81. Uh, and as we said, after this report
00:26:40
comes out in in February of 1981, now the new victims are being dumped into the rivers. Uh, in March, there were
00:26:49
four more murders that took place. Uh, this included Eddie Duncan. He's the first adult victim. Mhm. Um in April
00:26:56
there was Larry Rogers was murdered and there were two more adults, John Porter and Jimmy Ray Payne. Well, and that's
00:27:03
again if you assume that all these victims are part of the whole Atlanta child murders. And then after that we
00:27:11
have William Barrett. He went missing May 16th, 1981. His body was found close to his home. And this is the last victim
00:27:19
added to I'm sorry, the last victim added to this list that I'm aware of is Nathaniel Carter, who was 27 years old.
00:27:27
So, we're seeing all kinds of different activity here, right? If if if we're to believe that they're all connected. Mhm.
00:27:33
And it's a really tough thing to go through because there are so many victims in such a short amount of time.
00:27:39
you know, if we assume that all 28 are connected, depending on what report you're going with, um, that's 28 victims
00:27:47
that they find within a two-year period. It's becomes this crazy list. And so, you know, sorry that we have to go
00:27:56
through that morbid uh, list, but uh, this also is the reason why they spawned uh, they spawned a book called The List.
00:28:04
And if you dive into this case more, you're going to see that as a reference point over and over. That's called the
00:28:10
list. Uh we'll talk more about this case right after a quick beer break. All right, and now we're back from our beer
00:28:16
break. Cheers everybody. Cheers. We have already gone through the victims in the
00:28:22
Atlanta child murders case. And earlier we touched upon the idea that the the locals, the civilians had set up their
00:28:30
own task force because they weren't really believing in the police efforts and didn't trust the police to to finish
00:28:36
the job, right? But they had we've already are seeing multiple jurisdictions, multiple agencies working
00:28:43
together to try to solve this case. Yeah. The FBI is involved at this point as well. The FBI gets involved as well
00:28:50
as the BCI units. They come in and they're trying to figure out how to apprehend this person that is killing
00:28:56
off the youth in Atlanta. Mhm. Now, there's a couple problems here, though. They they come up with some different
00:29:02
ideas, and we'll touch on those in a minute. What what I do want to get into right now is the super cops. So, enter
00:29:09
the super cops. Uh these this was an idea that they would grab some of the detectives and police officers that were
00:29:17
involved in some of the most notorious cases in the United States. They would get them together for a meeting. They
00:29:23
would present them with the victims, much like we just did earlier, and they would ask the super cops to as a group
00:29:30
form several opinions about the case. Yeah. kind of a profiling session. Yes. Uh so what who were the super cops?
00:29:39
These were people that were involved in the most notorious cases. Uh they were looking for officers and detectives who
00:29:46
had handled one or two or sorry one of two different types of serial cases. The first being detectives who did not know
00:29:54
that a series of murders had taken place before the offender was caught. The second being detectives who were already
00:30:01
pursuing serial cases but did not know who the killer was. And here is a list of the members making up the task force
00:30:08
that was the super cops. We have Captain Sydney Smith and Detective David Milikon. These were two guys that
00:30:15
investigated the sexually sadistic killers Dean Coral and Elmer Wayne Henley who killed 17 people and buried
00:30:22
their bodies in a boat storage building in Texas. Mhm. Next we have Detective Frank Braun. He
00:30:29
was one of the detectives in the famous John Wayne Gayy case from near Chicago. Gayy killed 27 young men and buried
00:30:35
their bodies in his crawl space and some in the yard as well. We also have Inspector Joseph Belli. Uh and we've
00:30:42
actually discussed him on this show. He investigated the famous Son of Sam case in New York City. And of course, you
00:30:49
know, he he was the one that was out shooting couples that were sitting in their cars. We have Lieutenant Ed
00:30:54
Henderson and Detective Philip Sartuchi from Los Angeles and Bellingham, Washington. They investigated the
00:31:02
Hillside Strangler case. We also have Inspector Jeff Brch. He investigated the Zebra killings in San Francisco which
00:31:09
were committed by African-American religious extremist. And last but not least, we have Lieutenant Frank Chase
00:31:16
and Detective Robert Keell from the Ted Bundy murder cases. Now the super cops as said they were presented with with
00:31:25
the cases and with the crimes and they were asked to come up with they had three objectives. All right. The first
00:31:31
was to give an opinion on how many murders were connected. The second objective was to provide a criminal
00:31:38
profile and the third to give a plan for apprehension. Now let's talk about the first objective
00:31:45
murders connected. The super cops believed that at least 23 of the 27 murders that they had reviewed were
00:31:53
connected and committed by the same person. Okay. And using this, they they they're going off of the idea that they
00:31:59
had animal hairs and fibers linking nine of the victims. So there was not much debate over those nine. Right. Yeah. But
00:32:07
then we had a lot of the victims that ended up in the water. Mhm. So that could uh you know deter some of the
00:32:13
evidence. So I I think that's what they're going off of is we got nine that we can link. So
00:32:18
then we can probably link some of the ones that went into the water as well. You're exactly right. We have the nine
00:32:22
that were were linked by fibers or animal hairs or both. Um and then we have other victims that were found with
00:32:29
some of those victims or near those victims. Uh and again as you mentioned or they also had relationships to the
00:32:36
other victims and then we start seeing the victims showing up in the rivers. So this is the um this is the killer
00:32:42
adapting to the investigation and they believe that these are all linked as well. So that bumps up the number quite
00:32:49
a bit. They did say that they could not and would not rule out the other four murders. Uh all 27 could have been the
00:32:57
work of one serial killer, but they felt very strongly about the 23. Mhm. The second objective was to create a
00:33:05
criminal profile. Now, nobody, it's hard to find somebody that's willing to take
00:33:12
responsibility for this, okay? Uh there was a theory going out there in the beginning of this case and and it was
00:33:20
going on until these super cops got involved. Now, this theory was that these crimes were committed by a white
00:33:27
racist group, by a white racist person or persons or an occult. uh and they used these theories thinking with the
00:33:36
thought that somebody or someone's they were working together to eliminate African-American youths in the community
00:33:44
to create this all kinds of fear. Yeah. Well, I I I don't think fear would be the type right motive. I think what
00:33:54
if it was um white supremacist group, what they're trying to do is create one fear, but outrage and then basically
00:34:03
what you want to cause is a race war. Well, the first thing that the super cops come up with, and they're not very
00:34:10
far into the presentation that they all seem to agree that the Atlanta child murders were more likely committed by an
00:34:17
African-American male in his 20s. And they Yeah. Okay. And they were going to they have some theories on this. All
00:34:23
right, let's hear these these genius theories. Okay, very condescending. But uh some of the killings had victims
00:34:31
disappearing and or were last seen in areas popular with young African-American males. Um and
00:34:38
affixiation asphyxiation was being the predominant method of death. And this does not logically fit the white racist
00:34:46
theory. These were not terrorist murders. This was committed by somebody, a young African-American male in his 20s
00:34:54
whose method of operation reflected a personality with a need for hands-on activity with each victim before and
00:35:01
after death. This would be a killer that had the ability to move about freely. He
00:35:06
would have to have had relationships in the community, and he needed his presence in the area. He he so he could
00:35:12
be in the area on any given day that he would choose and it would not be considered anything out of the ordinary.
00:35:19
He was somebody that could walk amongst the people and not not stand out. The super cops also believed that the killer
00:35:26
was taking victims that had no idea that they were in danger. Asphyxiation is the
00:35:30
most likely cause of death in most of the cases and in those cases there are no signs of struggle. This most likely
00:35:37
points out that the killer was strangling them by surprise or they were drowsy. He was he was doing something to
00:35:45
create to so they would let their guard down. Uh and that he'd be able to surprise tox
00:35:51
they have a toxicology report. That was the first thing that the super cops asked of the Atlanta Police Department
00:35:58
that they wanted to see if there were toxic toxicology reports done on the victims. M they were not provided with
00:36:05
this. The super cops did stick with this theory though. They were saying that it
00:36:09
was most likely that he was using drugs or alcohol to induce this drowsiness and
00:36:13
that he could quickly and and well and what we hear from the one uh I believe he's a detective in the
00:36:21
trailer is he says that he believes that the that these victims are going with uh
00:36:29
the suspect willingly. So there is no like struggle. There's no like, "Hey, get in the car. I got a gun." That So,
00:36:36
so again, going with the super cop theory. Yeah. And then once that they were drugged or or drowsy that he could
00:36:42
then quickly suffocate the children or the victims. Um, and one thing that they're pointing out here is just like
00:36:50
that other detective said that you just spoke about that for somebody to be able
00:36:55
to do this, for a killer to be able to do this, this would mean he would have had to have patience and a plan. And it
00:37:01
meant that the killer would have spent considerable time with each victim from the initial point of contact to the
00:37:07
induction of the state of drowsiness and then to the eventual murder. To accomplish all of this meant that the
00:37:14
killer was deceptive and that the victims trusted him. They also believed that the killer would have had something
00:37:20
that the young victims would have wanted and that this would be how he would lure
00:37:25
them into his trap. Money or something. You're exactly right. I mean, all these victims were coming from poor areas.
00:37:32
Yeah. And they thought that the killer's line of approach was most likely an offer of a short-term job to make quick
00:37:38
money. Mhm. And they also noted that this is something that they had seen in their previous cases and that this is a
00:37:44
typical serial killer lure. To the young victims, the killer may have looked like
00:37:49
a role model or a big brother type figure. He is able to get his victims that range in age from 9 years old to 28
00:37:57
years old under his complete control. And what added to his ability to attract each one of those boys was that they
00:38:04
were exact clones of the murder of the murderer himself of what he thought of his own self-image. He looked, thought,
00:38:13
walked, and talked just like the victims. And that would be what would appeal to the victims the most. He
00:38:20
identified with his victims so well that his victims probably never were afraid of him. He would have presented himself
00:38:26
as educated, well integrated into the community and always having a good job. His victims because they were young,
00:38:33
they were unable to see through his mask of superficiality. So the killer has the ability to mingle
00:38:39
across a spectrum of elementary boys, teenage victims, and young adults. That would lead you to expect to find the
00:38:47
killers comfortable in each of those atmospheres. He was or probably still is a volunteer or employee of a boy of some
00:38:55
type of boys club, you know, like the Boy Scouts of America or the YMCA or so on. Yeah. Or after school program. And
00:39:03
he very well likely might have been a volunteer substitute teacher or vendor in an elementary school. He may have
00:39:10
frequented boy prostitutes or been involved in the gay scene. He is not likely to have been an out of the closet
00:39:17
homosexual. In fact, he might have been known to hate homosexuals in some circles and be superficially
00:39:23
heterosexual in his own family. Then there was the need for total possession of the victims by engaging in
00:39:30
post-mortem activities with them. He had a sex drive that embraced necriliac tendencies and a willingness to spend
00:39:38
considerable amount of time with the victims after their death. Mhm. and he was also leaving the victims nude or
00:39:44
close to nude and posing them in sexually degrading manner. As the police began to look more and more inept, this
00:39:51
gave him a feeling of superiority. He wanted the police to feel psychologically like he really felt
00:39:58
helpless and controlled. They also knew that the killer was very aware of the environment and sensitive to the nature
00:40:05
of the police pursuit and clever enough to modify his methods of movement and he
00:40:10
and the people that he prayed on. Again, we talk about the changing of victim dump sites from mainly land to rivers
00:40:19
was the response to the publicity of his crimes. This also shows his ability to monitor the police investigation through
00:40:26
public resources. how the police tracked him mainly with the what they were doing with the
00:40:32
bodies. They were examining the remains and they're looking for these similar fibers and this was very very important
00:40:38
to him. And then he chose to leave the victims in rivers and this would diminish these chances greatly. He did
00:40:45
not want to get caught ever. The killer was engaging in post-mortem activities with the victim should have led
00:40:51
investigators to check out individuals who had worked no matter how briefly in the death services field or were
00:40:59
applicants for places like funeral homes or the medical examiner's office. That was their lengthy uh profile of the
00:41:08
killer. But when it breaks down, when you break it down to simplicity, what they're talking about is an
00:41:13
African-American male who can go into these neighborhoods and be almost unseen because he fits into the neighborhoods.
00:41:20
People don't expect to, you know, a white racist person could stand out and might be more noticeable if there's
00:41:28
children getting into his vehicle, but they want to point out that his his race and his age. And they also talk about
00:41:36
some of the things of his personality. They talk about he could be a volunteer, somebody that would work with children
00:41:42
or work inside of communities, somebody that would be trusted, someone that the victims would go along with willingly
00:41:49
and not ever suspect that they're in danger. Now, I think this is a fantastic profile, but of course, I've been able
00:41:55
to see it through the eyes of somebody that's seen the case solved. Now, at the time, the local police decided that they
00:42:02
did not want to release this profile. They wanted to keep this to themselves. Whether they believed the profile or
00:42:08
not, I don't know. But what they did continue to do is allow the public to believe that it was a white racist
00:42:16
person or white racist group or or the occult that was involved in these child killings. Their third objective was to
00:42:23
come up with a plan for apprehension. Now, we do have to give credit to the Atlanta police force because they
00:42:30
already had a plan that they decided that they wanted to run it by the super cops to see if the super cops agreed
00:42:37
with this plan and if they thought that it would work. The reason being it was going to be a very expensive plan to
00:42:42
execute. Now, their plan was they now know that the killer wants to dump the bodies in the rivers. Well, they have
00:42:49
two rivers to be concerned with. They have the uh the South River and the Chattah the Chattahuchi River. Yep. So,
00:42:57
they have what? They have bridges that they want to monitor and they want to monitor these bridges around the clock
00:43:04
because they believe if they can catch the person red-handed on the bridge with the body in his car or leaving the
00:43:12
bridge after a body is dumped, then they've got their guy, right? Yeah. or possibly start to deter him from dumping
00:43:20
the bodies into the river. So they have a but go ahead. Both of those rivers are
00:43:25
gigantic. So yeah to assume that one that a killer is just dumping the body above a bridge I think is silly for one
00:43:35
cuz I mean there's a million entrance points to that river. Mhm. And so so the fact that we go okay we're going to go
00:43:42
with these two locations. This is what we believe. We believe because of the fibers and what what you haven't been
00:43:48
talking about is the fibers that they believe that they have on these victims come from a vehicle, possibly a trunk or
00:43:55
something. So that's why they're uh the Atlanta cops want to hone in on these bridges, but I still think it's it's
00:44:04
asinine because why would you stop on these major roads on these major bridges to dump off a body? It doesn't make a
00:44:11
lot of sense to me. Well, what their plan's going to entail is that they have 11 bridges that they want to monitor.
00:44:18
And they estimate that each one of these bridges, it's going to take about five persons to monitor these bridges because
00:44:25
they need to put one person on each end of the bridge to record who goes on and who leaves. They also need somebody in
00:44:32
the middle of the bridge or below the bridge to monitor the water to see if there's a splash noise heard. Uh this
00:44:39
would be them the killer dropping the body into the water, right? They also needed two persons to send out nets
00:44:46
because if they need to prove that it's a body that was dumped, you know, that it wasn't just somebody throwing a brick
00:44:52
into the river. Um so what their plan was was as soon as a splash was heard, that officer or patrolman, he would then
00:45:01
make a call out to the to the persons with nets. They would they would deploy the nets and then the persons on each
00:45:08
end of the bridge would be responsible for monitoring and recording who the person was that left the bridge or had
00:45:14
most recently arrived on the bridge. And the reason why this is going to be so expensive, we talked about five officers
00:45:21
per bridge, 11 bridges, and now you're talking about guys working in eight hour shifts so they can watch these bridges
00:45:28
around the clock. Now, what is the math on that? That's like 165 guys just for a
00:45:34
24-hour shift to monitor 11 bridges. Mhm. To me, this is not the best use of tax dollars. That's a good thought, too,
00:45:42
because you don't know how long how many days in a row are you going to have to monitor these bridges. It could go on
00:45:48
for days or weeks. And we saw at one point in this case that there was a month or so without even with with no
00:45:53
victims, right? Um but they do catch a break. Uh this is during a stakeout of the bridges on May 22nd, 1981. Um they
00:46:03
one of the officers hears a splash beneath a bridge. Um another officer notes that a white 1970 Chevrolet
00:46:10
station wagon had turned around and drove back across the bridge. After going up to the bridge, it stopped,
00:46:16
turned around, and came back. Two police officers later then stopped this station
00:46:21
wagon. This would be about a half a mile from the bridge. The driver turns out to
00:46:25
be 23-year-old Wayne Williams. Now, they stop him. They question him. Where are you going? What are you doing? He claims
00:46:33
that he is he has an appointment uh for an audition. He is a uh music promoter and a photographer, kind of like a
00:46:43
talent scout basically. And he's got an audition with an audition with a girl named Cheryl Johnson. She was trying to
00:46:50
be a singer. Um, and Williams claimed that she had lived in a nearby town, but police could not find any record of this
00:46:58
person or the actual appointment. Yeah. He also claims that he didn't turn around on the bridge. He claims that he
00:47:04
turned around. He actually went across the bridge and then actually further down turned around. They claim he turned
00:47:11
around on the bridge. He claimed that never happened. Two days later on May 24th, the nude body of Nathaniel Carter,
00:47:19
who was 27 years old, he's one of the victims that we spoke about earlier, was found floating uh down the river. This
00:47:26
was about a few miles from the bridge where the police had heard the splash and had seen the suspicious vehicle and
00:47:32
stopped Williams. But here's where it starts getting pretty muddy. is because there's actually four w four
00:47:40
eyewitnesses, maybe more eyewitnesses that believe that they saw Nathaniel alive the day after they stopped
00:47:47
Williams on the bridge. So this would be on May 23rd. Williams is stopped on the
00:47:52
22nd, right? So basically this would make their suspicion null and void because he never dumped this body on
00:47:59
that day. The other issue with this, and this is where it gets more muddy, is they believe they don't know how long
00:48:06
Nathaniel was in the water. And it could have been up to two weeks based on the evidence that they found. They couldn't
00:48:14
tell. Maybe he's been in the water for a few days, maybe a few weeks. Mhm. And so
00:48:20
now you get these very crazy opposing uh accounts because if people did see him alive, well then Williams is not your
00:48:28
guy. But also, if they did see him alive, then how how is it not clear how long he was in the water because he
00:48:35
would would have only been in the water two days at that point, right? And but they do have in their defense on their
00:48:43
side, they have that Williams, Wayne Williams was the only person that was stopped on their their monitoring of
00:48:50
these bridges. Yeah. But how many weeks were they monitoring these bridges? It was several weeks. I believe it was four
00:48:56
weeks. Yeah. So, you got four weeks and you got nothing's happening. How many cops were we talking about in a 24-hour
00:49:02
shift? 165. So, 165 and and 24 hours. You don't pull over anybody suspicious. Then you pull over this young
00:49:12
23-year-old black black boy basically. Mhm. And and because he turned around, he turned around somewhere, whether it
00:49:20
was on the bridge or if it was a little further down from the bridge. I think that's why they pulled him over. I don't
00:49:25
think I who knows if they heard a splash. Yeah, it's been called the splash heard around the world. Um and
00:49:32
but regardless, they pull over but the problem that we have with this is yeah, you hear a splash who who you don't know
00:49:41
that that's Nathaniel. Yes, they find Nathaniel, but the two opposing accounts are one, he's been in the water for
00:49:48
weeks. So weeks before you you heard a splash that happened two weeks ago, that's either an account or the other
00:49:57
account is that Nathaniel was actually live the day after. Mhm. And so there would be no splash at all. Unless Unless
00:50:04
the one eyewitness account is completely wrong. It's not one. It's at least four.
00:50:10
At least four. And and and different reports that I've seen have said four credible, eight total. Now, that's a lot
00:50:18
of eyewitnesses. When when Williams is pulled over, um the officers notice a 24inch nylon cord
00:50:27
is in his vehicle. Um and this this would be what they would say would be the um murder weapon in several of these
00:50:35
cases. Mhm. And again, we talk about how the attack may have went down. Um, these
00:50:42
were attacks where there didn't seem to be any type of defense wounds on some of
00:50:47
these victims. Some of the victims didn't even appear to have reached up to defend themselves to pull whatever it
00:50:52
was from their neck that was choking them. Um, and they they believe that this when you took that that nylon cord
00:51:00
that they found uh that when you would lay it across the neck of some of these victims that that it would match up
00:51:07
perfectly in size. Yeah. Now, I don't know the science on that. I don't know what changes with the neck after death
00:51:14
occurs or Yeah. But then when they go to trial, they don't bring this up as the murder murder weapon. Yeah. And another
00:51:20
thing because when they go to trial, they basically say, "We do not have the murder weapon." Yeah. And the other
00:51:26
thing that that makes Williams look bad, but again, something that they cannot use in in court is that he does fail a
00:51:34
polygraph examination. Um, now we're we have to circle back to Well, okay. First
00:51:40
of all, he's a music promoter, so we know he's lying. Uh, it's kind of like a lawyer, right? How do you know they're
00:51:46
lying? Their mouths are moving and their lips are moving. Yeah. So, it's I think
00:51:50
it's the same thing. The other problem too is that you know these profiles, these super cops as you call them, they
00:51:56
say that the that the perpetrator would be h having um you know killing these victims and taking them places and take
00:52:06
and these these victims would have to go back to Williams house. Now one one would think so, right? And and the only
00:52:13
fiber that matches is this carpet fiber. Correct. that could be in thousands of houses. But therefore, it it's either a
00:52:21
transfer. Williams is transferring this carpet from Williams onto the victim or the victim ends up in Williams house.
00:52:29
Now, how is it likely Williams mother is what? She's a teacher. Mhm. And what's his father? Is um I think he's a
00:52:39
teacher. I think he is a teacher. Yes. Yeah. So, two educators and he has to get these uh these kids into his house.
00:52:46
uh whether they're murdered beforehand or afterhand and you're going to tell me that they have no suspicion of this
00:52:55
doesn't make a lot of logical sense to me. You're exactly right. You you are exactly right. But the but with the
00:53:00
fibers Okay. So, we have fibers from a carpet from the Williams residence uh was found to match those that were found
00:53:09
on two of the victims. Additional fibers from the Williams' home, their vehicles,
00:53:15
and their dog were later matched to fibers discovered on other Yeah. Yeah. But matched is uh they're using that
00:53:22
word pretty loosely because when they first found the dog fibers, they claimed that it was from a Siberian husky. Mhm.
00:53:30
But then once they got Williams, he What does Williams has? He he has a German Shepherd. So therefore, they said,
00:53:36
"Okay, well, yeah, well, this pretty much matches a Siberian husky, but we're going it also matches a German
00:53:43
Shepherd." Well, what range is it going? I mean, it it matches a dog. We know it's dog hair. Close enough. I mean,
00:53:52
that's what it seems like to me. You don't make a you don't make u a report that you have dog hairs and it's this
00:53:58
breed and then later on say, "Well, it's all it could be this other breed as well." Well, and then you have your four
00:54:05
eyewitnesses that say that they saw Nathaniel Carter alive the next day on the 23rd. However, there was an
00:54:11
eyewitness that said that they had seen Nathaniel Carter holding hands with Wayne Williams on the night of the 22nd.
00:54:18
That's the night that police believe he was killed and then dumped in the river.
00:54:22
And this eyewitness uh account is a little fuzzy anyways because I I believe the first account was that he was
00:54:30
holding hands with a white male and then later on that recanted to no it would be
00:54:36
Williams because Williams was a lighterkinned black man. Mhm. And so it was like oh I kind of got that wrong.
00:54:42
Well again in this case we have tons of eyewitness reports seeing white men white man with a black man. We also have
00:54:51
this report coming out too that I saw him with a white man uh two white men and one of the white men had a a visible
00:54:59
scar on his right cheek slash um jaw area and does and this is a eyewitness account that comes o comes out more and
00:55:11
more and more. Okay, Williams has no scar on his right cheek. So are these people just misidentifying everything?
00:55:19
But I thought he had a some type of birth mark on his right cheek. Uh I I don't know if you look at the picture. I
00:55:26
don't see it myself. It may have been confused for a uh for a scar. Um it should be pointed out the vehicle that
00:55:32
he's pulled over uh the night of when they believe that Williams was dumping the body was actually his parents'
00:55:40
vehicle. Mhm. He was living with his parents at the time and they had a station wagon which they recently just
00:55:46
received because before that they had a blue vehicle which we have the accounts the eyewitnesses saying they saw a blue
00:55:52
vehicle. And what makes this kind of interesting as far as the Williams scenario goes is
00:55:58
during this whole time they have this blue Ford I can't remember what it's called but it's constantly breaking
00:56:04
down. So they're constantly getting new rental cars. Um because he's like upper middle class. We're not upper middle
00:56:12
class. I'd just say middle class, right? Uh even so much so that the detectives when they were like, "Okay, now here's
00:56:19
our number one suspect." Even when they went to the house, the first thing was, "Gez, this is a nice place." It was It's
00:56:27
very shocking for the detectives. But all these cars that they're giving them, majority of the time are Fords. So
00:56:35
all of them would have the same lining in the trunk, normally the same lighting lining and you know where your feet go.
00:56:43
Um and but they have records of all that and that was presented in the trial as well. Uh unfortunately for Williams, a
00:56:50
lot of that um does not exonerate him. Yeah. And it it's interesting because having access to so many different
00:56:58
vehicles probably helped him elude detection for so long. I mean you you get confusing reports. Oh, we saw this
00:57:04
car. Oh, we saw that car with the next victim and so on and so forth. That goes that helps Williams carry out these
00:57:11
crimes and go undetected. Furthermore, you know, he's driving his parents' car the night that he's pulled over, but he
00:57:17
also had his own vehicle as well. So, we see an additional vehicle that he had access to. Yeah. And I I in a lot of the
00:57:24
stuff that I read I they don't talk much about that. It just seems like it's pretty maybe that vehicle isn't working
00:57:31
in in working order too. I mean he is you know basically doing some freelance photography and vid I think videography
00:57:39
as well. Uh but primarily he's like a this like kind of a loser music promoter you know fast talker trying to make uh
00:57:49
something big happen. you know, talked about how, you know, we have this group and we want to model them after the
00:57:55
Jackson 5. Well, I got this group, too. I want to model it after the Beatles, the bestselling group of all time. So,
00:58:02
he's he's kind of a fast talker. Well, speaking of of the the uh the music promoter, uh one thing that they noticed
00:58:10
after the case, okay, this was after the fact, um they noticed that on several telephone polls around where kids were
00:58:18
last seen or had gone missing from, uh there was a sign posted on some of these telephone polls and it read, I'm going
00:58:24
to read it just as it reads. Okay. The sign said, "Can you sing or play an instrument?" If you are between the
00:58:31
ages, if you are between 11 and 21, male or female, and you would like to become
00:58:36
a professional entertainer, you can apply for positions with professional recording acts. No experience is
00:58:42
necessary. Training is provided. All interviews private and free. For more information, call between 3 pm and 7 pm.
00:58:52
And then it gives a a 10-digit phone number there. Uh 404 area code, right? Which is his parents house, I presume.
00:59:00
And well, it Yeah, the the number was for Wayne Williams. Yeah. Now, here's another issue with this whole thing,
00:59:07
though, cuz Wayne Williams claims that yes, we were a talent scout. We are looking for talent. and that when these
00:59:15
murders were taking place that they actually contacted the the special task force that they set up just to go over
00:59:22
these murders and explain to them what they were doing. Mhm. So again, that's something that wasn't brought up on
00:59:29
trial either. Yeah. It is strange though how much the and I'm not saying that he's guilty
00:59:36
because he matches the profile presented by the super cops, but it is strange how
00:59:40
much he does match that profile, right? I mean, he he's the right age, he's the right race, uh he has the right
00:59:48
involvement in the community. Uh some of his freelance work as a photographer was
00:59:52
taking school pictures, so he was familiar with those environments and those that age group of kids. Um, and
01:00:00
then the other thing they said with the possible offer of a short-term job for quick money, uh, we see these these
01:00:08
signs posted on the telephone polls where it's offering, you know, if you want to get involved and become a
01:00:13
musician or an entertainer, a professional entertainer, call me at this number. Yeah, that the problem I
01:00:20
have with it is again the number he's using to have them call is his parents' number. both being educators themselves
01:00:27
and I just don't think that, you know, I'm I'm sure there's a lot of teachers that by the end of the year they're
01:00:32
tired of their brat students, but uh nobody's going to stand by why you're going to let your son murder these these
01:00:39
kids, right? So, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And also, you hire these
01:00:44
super cops and they just so happen to come up with a profile that it's a young black male and this fits a better
01:00:51
narrative for him because if it is if it is a a racist white guy or a racist white group, then we got a we got a
01:01:01
whole another issue, right? Well, of course. Um, but that's what I believe that's what the community
01:01:08
wanted it to be in the end and that's why you saw the uprising of these uh civilian groups that were coming up with
01:01:15
their own task force. Um, I I got to give the my hat is off to the super cops. I believe that they were on to
01:01:22
something and I believe that in the end the right guy was apprehended. Now, how many of these cases was he involved in?
01:01:29
I can't say. Well, technically, so what happened is he went to trial. They they convicted him of two of the murders, you
01:01:36
know, two of the adult murders. Yeah. None of them being children and um zero there. I mean, they didn't have the the
01:01:46
murder weapon. Uh I mean, almost little to no evidence at all. He gets tried for
01:01:53
those. He's sentenced to two life terms in prison. And then what they do with the other cases, they disclose them.
01:02:00
Yeah. They they closed the majority if not all of the cases and attributed all the crimes to Wayne Williams.
01:02:09
But we do have to address the elephant in the room, right, Captain? There one doesn't have to look very far to see,
01:02:17
you can see and hear and read multiple interviews with Wayne Williams where he's proclaiming his innocence to this
01:02:25
very day. Yeah. And normally this is something that I mean this is something that happens by a lot of uh suspects and
01:02:32
murder cases. This one's a little different though because in 1986 Spin Magazine runs an article. Mhm. In 1985
01:02:43
they get a tip from the group Guardian Angels. This is a group that was pretty successful. They would take um citizens
01:02:51
of normally urban areas. They'd be walking the streets getting information uh and basically keeping street crime
01:03:00
down to a minimum. They contact Spin Magazine saying, "Hey, by the way, we have some information for you. The
01:03:06
prosecutors got it wrong. We think that these murders or at least majority of these murders were um racially related
01:03:15
and they were done by the Clu Clu Klux Clan." Mhm. So, Spin Magazine wants to know more about this. They set uh Barry
01:03:25
Michael Cooper which did the first uh published story on crack cocaine and Bob Keading
01:03:33
um and he did a story on the live aid scandal. They go down to Atlanta and they investigate these uh claims. Now,
01:03:42
the tip was that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was actually at the time uh that they were looking into Williams
01:03:51
or before Williams, they had this parallel investigation. So, you had the child murders happening, but there was a
01:03:57
par a parallel investigation into the clan being involved not in all the murders, but being involved in one
01:04:05
murder with a small town boy. And if that was true, they believe that that one murder connected them to
01:04:12
another 14. So where does this all come from? It comes from informants. The first
01:04:19
informant would talk about his relationship with Charles T. Sanders. Charles T. Sanders was a known clansman.
01:04:27
He was uh connected with the new order of the Ku Klux Clan. One day, this informant, his name was BJ Jones, uh was
01:04:37
out with Charles Sanders and uh Jeter, one of the boys that went missing, actually hit Sanders car with a go-kart.
01:04:46
This pissed off Sanders. He said, "I am going to get that black bastard and I'm going to choke him to death with my and
01:04:53
I'm not going to say it." Um didn't think much of it. The Charles Sanders also was running his mouth to
01:05:01
this informant, this BJ Jones, basically talking all this stuff about how, you know, they're going to they're killing
01:05:08
these children. He wanted to uh recruit him into the clan because Jones had some
01:05:14
experience with bombs and explosives. He just thought that Sanders was just running off of the mouth. Well, once
01:05:23
Jeter came up missing, this BJ Jones then submits this stuff to the police saying, "Look, I was with I was with him
01:05:33
the day that his car was hit." And then uh then he made these remarks the next time that we we uh saw Jeter and then
01:05:43
Jeter shows up dead. Now when Joe when Jeter shows up dead uh his genital his genitals are missing his lower pelvic
01:05:53
area and both feet are also missing. Yeah. He he was the boy that he would have been about 14 or 15 years old. He
01:06:00
wouldn't have had a driver's license. So it makes sense that he was in a go-kart.
01:06:03
Uh he he hits uh Sanders vehicle and uh he was the one that disappeared on January 3rd and his body wasn't found
01:06:12
until February 5th. This was in a wooded area. Uh he was last seen in the area of
01:06:18
Steuart Lakewood Shopping Center in Southwest Atlanta. Right. And we have a eyewitness claiming that she saw Jeter
01:06:26
get into a car with a tall white male with a scar on his face. Scar on his neck, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. Scar on his
01:06:35
face or his neck. That's roughly the the eyewitness testimony. Well, this would come into play because now we have this
01:06:42
parallel investigation into the clan and now we have somebody to target. We have
01:06:47
Charles T. Sanders. Now, his family, the Sanders family, there's at least five members, five known members that are
01:06:55
involved in the Ku Klux Clan. Multiple charges, multiple convictions to these members and their family.
01:07:03
Everything from child molestation, murder, assault, battery, drunk driving. These are just not great people. Uh also
01:07:12
charges with narcotics. Uh Charles Sanders was a known uh his business was narcotics basically. So the the main
01:07:21
suspect is Charles Sanders, the brother Don Sanders. Uh there's also like I believe a Terry Sanders, and then we
01:07:28
have a Carlton Sanders. The Carlton Sanders is the dad. He's a tall white man. People would describe him a sunken
01:07:35
jaw, but he has a scar on the right side of his neck. Carlton Carlton Sanders was
01:07:42
charged with over 35 counts of child molestation. He was acquitted on those charges, but um you know, this family
01:07:51
overall is just connected to some evil stuff. So you make threats to somebody saying that you're going to choke
01:07:58
somebody to death. Um and then they end up dead. Dead by strangulation but missing body parts. Yeah. And on top of
01:08:05
that, as you said, the the the father matching the description roughly of what the one eyewitness says is the last
01:08:11
person, you know, he had seen he or she had seen him getting into the vehicle with a person matching that description.
01:08:18
Um now, how does this tie them to any of the other victims? Well, remember we had
01:08:23
said that um that Jeter he had frequented a place called the Omni. Um this would be a place that several of
01:08:30
the other victims were have known to have hung out as well as his body was found 70 ft north from Vindy Road uh
01:08:39
which runs off of Camel Road which was where two of the earlier victims were found. Another piece of evidence is that
01:08:46
they have actually a tape recorded phone conversation with Sanders talking about
01:08:51
wanting to buy guns and grenades and things like that cuz basically they were tapping his phone. And all this
01:08:59
basically proves is the mo the motive. If we kill these little black children and we can create
01:09:08
a race war and and and if that's their motive, well, we kind of know that there's that's their motive because
01:09:16
they're also collecting weapons at the same point, right? and not only collecting weapons, but he is urging and
01:09:22
encouraging other clan members to arm themselves and to to create these arsenals and and um because he even says
01:09:31
that if there were to be a race war, I believe he even puts a date on it and says that this this will happen sometime
01:09:36
in 1981. So, you better gear up and be prepared uh because you're going to be involved in this. and and one one
01:09:44
wonders if they were preparing to come forward and say, "Hey, we're responsible for these murders or if they were being
01:09:51
or if they were prepared that they were going to get busted." So, some odd things in the Jojo Bell case was that
01:09:59
Jojo Bell runs in, tells his friend, "Hey, look, there was this white man and a black man. They wanted me to get in
01:10:05
their car." Um, you know, he thought it was a little sketchy. He told his friend
01:10:10
he ended up leaving that night. His friend saw him missing on the evening news. Uh Jojo Bell's work, the captain
01:10:20
and Peg, I believe that's his work or place that he would do odd chores for for a little bit of pay or maybe even
01:10:26
just dinner. They get a call the following evening and the assistant manager answers the phone and on the
01:10:35
other line it says, "This is Jojo and they're about to kill me and I'm about dead and they're about to kill me.
01:10:42
Jerry, they're about to kill me." Then the phone went dead. Now again in this report he's he is stating they Yeah.
01:10:52
He's not saying he, he's saying they. And again, it doesn't go along with what the super cops were saying. They were
01:11:01
saying that uh this would take somebody that had patience and had a plan and that the the victims most likely at no
01:11:08
time would suspect that they were going to be in danger. And then uh 9 days after Jojo um goes missing, that Timothy
01:11:19
Hill, Jojo's best friend, goes missing as well. They get another um mysterious phone call to this cap
01:11:28
Captain Peg restaurant and this one is from a woman sounding white and uh somewhere maybe in her 30s. She says uh
01:11:37
her man is dangerous. She says Jojo Bell was different from the other kids who had been murdered because she liked him
01:11:45
and she was trying to have him released. She said, "Do not call the police." Um because if they did that, this person
01:11:52
would kill her, too. Now, she just says she's talking more singular. Her man her
01:11:58
man is dangerous. And heck, for all we know, these could just be prank phone calls. Um but you
01:12:07
know, again, these are things in the trial of uh Wayne Williams that are not brought to light at this point. in the
01:12:15
parallel investigation into the Ku Cook clan or just members uh especially the investigation to the Sanders family.
01:12:23
It's full-blown allout wiretapping and they have a conversation. Basically, what they're trying to do is find
01:12:29
something that's a little more concrete. We know that they're buying weapons. We
01:12:33
have these um this informant that said that um he heard Sanders, Charles Sanders, threaten this boy um Jeter that
01:12:44
ends up missing or went missing and then found dead. So, they're ramping up this
01:12:50
investigation. They get this phone call. I could read it to you all, but it's in
01:12:54
the article, the Spin article, if you want to check that out. Uh I'll try to put a link or something in in the show
01:13:01
description. But basically, it's not Charles Sanders talking. It's Terry Sanders and Donald
01:13:10
Sanders. And back and forth through this conversation, Donald Sanders basically uh, you know, is trying to, "What are
01:13:17
you up to tonight?" Oh, not much. Okay. Well, I might swing by. Okay. Well, I'll
01:13:20
see you later. And then the one guy goes, "You going to go look at for another boy?" He's like, "Yeah, I'm
01:13:25
going to go I'll go look around uh for another kid and scope out some areas." Now, this is very to me credible and
01:13:35
very damaging to again is Wayne Williams responsible for all of them? I would say
01:13:42
no. 100% certain. I believe he's not. Uh is he responsible for a couple of them?
01:13:48
Possibly. I I don't know at this point because this becomes so muddy and murky. It's
01:13:55
like you don't know what to believe. What is up now? What is down? And I'm not really for sure.
01:14:02
Robert Keell. He was the author of the Riverman book. He was also a member of the Super Cop unit that we had talked
01:14:09
about earlier. He was involved in the Ted Bundy investigation later on in the um Green River Killer investigation, but
01:14:17
he was one of the super cops that they brought in to be involved in the three objectives that we talked about. You
01:14:23
know, were all of these cases linked? Now, he did have a a a big complaint that he didn't care for when they were
01:14:32
being presented their information. He did say that there was a lot lacking uh as far as the information that they were
01:14:40
provided to determine if all of these cases were connected. They basically received a a bit of a limited timeline
01:14:48
with a victimology uh talking about the deaths of each one of these victims. Well, we talked about
01:14:55
the co toxicology report not being uh submitted to them as well, right? That was one of the things the super cops had
01:15:02
asked about was the toxicology because they did believe that some of these or all of these victims may have been
01:15:07
drugged or alcohol used on them. They couldn't prove that without having the toxicology results. And furthermore,
01:15:13
actually, Robert Keell believes that maybe that the toxicology wouldn't have even been done on some of these cases.
01:15:20
Furthermore, he goes on to say that in one of the cases, the one that I had brought up that I thought was probably
01:15:26
not connected, but then the police later say, "Well, there's fibers that match some of these other victims." Uh, we had
01:15:32
talked about the the victim that was found uh in a garage with his with his pockets pulled out, right? Um, and one
01:15:40
thing that Keell had asked in this situation was, "Well, can we see we need to be able to see these fibers? We need
01:15:49
to have uh the the actual reports on these fibers because one thing that the super cops had questioned were is there
01:15:58
a chance that these fibers are so generic that anybody could have them in their homes or anybody could have them
01:16:04
in their cars. And the captain brought up one one thing that was really interesting earlier about uh Wayne
01:16:10
Williams's parents having multiple vehicles whether it be rentals or because they were replacing vehicles or
01:16:16
whatnot. And we know Wayne Williams drove a separate vehicle as well. Um, we're seeing all these fibers and
01:16:22
they're saying that those are all linked, but we're also talking about multiple vehicles. Well, and also what
01:16:27
how are they linked? I mean, like everything with DNA or fiber analysis, it's always linked to a percentage. Oh,
01:16:35
one out of a hundred. I mean, if you break down what the percentage is, if it if it's these fibers are found in 25% of
01:16:43
the homes in Atlanta, well, now you've got this huge uh spectrum. Um but basically the other conclusion too is
01:16:51
that the you know the vice president at the time uh pushes the prosecution and and and Atlanta's police force pushes
01:17:00
the prosecution saying if you're not going to rush this trial uh with Wayne Williams, we're going to replace you.
01:17:06
And then then the defense is thrown under the bus because not only are we going to be tried for these two murders
01:17:13
that William Williams then gets found guilty of, but we're going to allow information into all these other deaths.
01:17:20
So, you're talking about thousands and thousands of pieces of evidence on a trial that's going to be rushed. So, um,
01:17:28
because of the spin article, it was reopened. Uh, then it was closed and they put him
01:17:33
back in his box. Now, I I think the point of all this is I don't know if this I'm not sitting here saying, "Well,
01:17:41
it has to be this Charles T. Sanders." But if you have this investigation, you know, it seems like sometimes
01:17:49
uh law enforcement, government, or whatever it is, they're not interested in the truth. You know, they're just try
01:17:56
they're trying to mop up this bad problem, you know, but they're mopping it up with a wet mop, right? you know,
01:18:03
you're just pushing the water around. And at the end of the day, if he if if Wayne Williams didn't do this, then you
01:18:11
got an innocent man sitting in prison, right? So that that's the first flaw, but also um the community has a right to
01:18:20
know. and the parents of the victims and majority of them now after the articles
01:18:26
like this after these other informants come out the parents of the victims say look we don't buy this Wayne Williams
01:18:33
theory anymore and it's not fair to them for them to not ever know the truth but
01:18:38
the truth of the matter is that most of the time law enforcement government officials the vice president of the
01:18:46
United States they don't give a [ __ ] about you and it's Not because you're white and it's not because you're black,
01:18:53
it's because you're poor. Mhm. So, even if this happened to a group of poor white kids, it'd be the same thing. It's
01:19:01
a poverty thing. And I think uh it's it's a shame that we're not any I don't think we're anywhere further from
01:19:11
solving this thing than they were in 1981. Well, I mean, okay, so here's the thing.
01:19:17
Think about this, though, too. We have Robert Keell who who was pointing out clear clear holes in the investigation.
01:19:25
And yet this police department, this police force flew in all these super cops from different states and different
01:19:32
cities and paid them and put them up in in nice hotels and asked them to stay in
01:19:37
their city for a handful of days and and meanwhile they present them with with Swiss cheeselike information. Yeah. Or
01:19:44
they put their you know it's like hey fight this fight. Oh, by the way, we're going to put your hands behind your
01:19:48
back. Yeah. And they're they're like, "Okay, well, if these super cops are willing to put their stamp on it that 23
01:19:54
out of 27 murders are connected, then all we got to do is find the guy that does an ex murder and if we can link him
01:19:59
to more than one, then we probably found our guy, right?" The other interesting thing here, too, is they presented a
01:20:07
completely different profile than what the public was already working off of. the public was working off the profile
01:20:15
that it was a white supremist or it was a group of white supremists. Right. And when when these people were when these
01:20:21
super cops were flown into Atlanta and paid to be there and they offered this very extensive profile that's goes
01:20:29
against everything that was already the the original thought. Well, also that then they're told that we don't want to
01:20:35
release that profile. Well, why did they not want to release that profile? Did the Atlanta police force know something
01:20:41
that they did not present to the super cops? Um, right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, well, that's the thing is you can only
01:20:47
present uh your profile of the evidence that of what you are given. Now, the the
01:20:55
apprehension, the the plan for apprehension, it did lead to Wayne Williams. Do I believe that he was
01:21:00
involved in some of these deaths? Yes, I do. Because there are there are some things, you know, like the carpet fibers
01:21:06
from his home. Uh I think that those are going to be different than the the fibers that we talk about from the
01:21:12
vehicles. Well, there's it's very flimsy evidence at best, but but the the if you
01:21:18
do dive into the the fiber evidence, it it is more likely. It points into the direction of him, but that is on just a
01:21:29
couple of them. Yeah. there. Well, and then one of the victims, there was two human hairs found on them, and they have
01:21:35
tested those since then, and they cannot rule out Wayne Williams on that one particular victim. Yeah, that that one's
01:21:42
weird, though, because um they actually believed initially when they found that that those two hairs were of a Caucasian
01:21:50
male. Mhm. But then they found out, well, actually, it's a very small percent that would also match with an
01:21:58
African male. Right. And that very small percentage is like 2%. You're you're exactly right. It it would rule out like
01:22:05
97 or 98% of African-American males males, but Wayne Williams falls into that 2% to that very small percentage.
01:22:14
Yeah. And I it's maybe it's a little more than 2% but it's not it's not at 5%. Is it possible though that that part
01:22:21
of the reason that this case was so tough and that why we saw 28 victims or that that there were two killers working
01:22:29
in a similar area um probably killing with two completely different MOS but this would definitely you would
01:22:37
definitely think this would throw the police off. And the other thing that makes it hard to believe that Wayne
01:22:41
Williams would have done all this we're talking about 27 or 28 victims. Super cops say maybe 23 of them. That's a lot
01:22:48
of victims in like a 24-month time period. That's I mean the that's a lot of rapid action. I mean you you almost
01:22:55
would be doing nothing other than killing and covering up the crimes, you know, in certain situations. Well, and I
01:23:03
think sometimes knowledge hurts you. I think mo most of the time knowledge helps you. I think in this case it kind
01:23:09
of hurts people because they do this thing where they go, "Oh, well the killer the killer must be reading the
01:23:14
paper. the killer must be following what the cops are doing because now the killer is throwing the bodies into the
01:23:21
river. And there's a possibility if they aren't linked, if less of them are linked, right, maybe there's only three
01:23:29
or four that are the same then, you know, or or maybe just the ones that were found in the river are connected.
01:23:36
Mhm. It it necessarily doesn't mean it's the same person. And then just in this case with the whole um the Ku Klux Clan
01:23:45
um connection, yes, you made these threats and maybe uh Charles Sanders carried out these
01:23:54
threats on one victim that just happened to know three or four of the other victims, right? But it is very possible.
01:24:02
Now, that's when you just get into this crazy world. But, you know, so it's very
01:24:06
possible that Wayne Williams is responsible for two of them and then this Sanders guy is responsible for one
01:24:12
or two of them and then there's just somebody else. Uh, you know, all these things come out about the KKK
01:24:19
afterwards. There were a couple things that did come out against Wayne Williams after the fact. Uh, one being that a
01:24:25
police officer would later say that at one of the crime scenes, Wayne Williams had stopped by uh, and offer to
01:24:33
photograph the body for the medical examiner's office, that he was a freelance photographer and that he would
01:24:39
do this to help out with the investigation. There's it's also suspected that he was that he um may
01:24:46
have signed up to try to help search for one of the victims. And then in a third
01:24:51
case, there was an eyewitness that had reported seeing Wayne Williams in his vehicle attending uh the funeral of one
01:24:59
of the victims. Yeah, that's very odd. Uh again, I mean, I think uh it's weird because if you watch an interview with
01:25:07
Wayne Williams, he doesn't seem like that bad of a guy. He just seems very um slick, you know? He seems like uh Yeah,
01:25:14
he's slippery, isn't he? Yeah. Well, he seems like, you know, he's, you know, he's hot [ __ ] or something. But, uh,
01:25:21
this whole case in general is frustrating cuz one, uh, the victims, they didn't, they didn't get to live,
01:25:28
um, a meaningful life. They didn't get the opportunity to do something productive with their life. Um, and the
01:25:34
other sad thing is that there's no real answers. I mean, you have a guy behind bars, but there's no real answers. And
01:25:42
we we really need to start pushing for the, you know, this truth. That's what we
01:25:48
should push. You know, it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong. You know, uh, you know, just find the truth. And while
01:25:56
the captain and I might not agree on if Wayne Williams was connected or if he was responsible or how many of these
01:26:03
murders he was responsible for, I think one thing we can agree that we uh that one thing we do agree on is that uh it
01:26:10
was irresponsible of law enforcement to close all of those other cases just because you had a conviction on two of
01:26:17
them. Well, what that what the law enforcement did was they told the parents of those victims and the
01:26:24
families of those victims, you are nothing more than a number. That's the statement that they made to me. And I
01:26:31
and I think that's uh absolutely wrong because white or black, it doesn't matter. And and frankly, I get tired of
01:26:38
people going around and identifying as such. I'm a white male or I'm a black male or female or whatever. At the end
01:26:46
of the day, we are a human race and we should start acting like it. Thank you, Captain. I'm so inspired right now. Oh,
01:26:54
right. I'm just I'm I just sometimes these cases just piss me off and and I try to just be light and airy, but God,
01:27:03
it just pisses me off. Well, you want to hear something else that's going to piss
01:27:07
you off? My We have to do a show next week. My recommended reading for this week. Captain's going to hate this. I'm
01:27:13
going to recommend a book that I recommended before. Oh my god. Just do your job. Yep. This is one that I
01:27:18
recommended way back when, probably on our third or fourth episode. But the reason why I'm recommending it again is
01:27:25
because it is on my very short list of true crime books that I keep returning to that that multiple times in my
01:27:30
lifetime. I've read this thing four times and I went back to it when we started looking into this case for this
01:27:35
week. And that is by the author and detective Robert Keell that we talked about in this case. uh and his book, The
01:27:43
River Man, Ted Bundy and I hunt for the Green River Killer. The reason why I keep going back to this book is because
01:27:49
it's it's by an investigator, one that was involved in some of the biggest, most notorious crimes in this country.
01:27:56
Uh it involved the Ted Bundy case. It involved the Green River case. He was also one of the super cops in this case.
01:28:03
And it discusses the uh the Michigan the Oakland County child murders as well. Um, this is one of my favorite true
01:28:11
crime books of all time. You can pick it up by going to our website, true crimegar.com, click on the recommended
01:28:16
page, and look for the riverband. Ted Bundy and I hunt for the Green River Killer. And you can get anything through
01:28:22
Amazon. So, go to true crimegar.com, click on our Amazon banner. You can buy anything. And they kick back a little
01:28:29
love, no extra cost to you. Uh if you saw my Instagram uh video of making the trailers and making the music for the
01:28:37
show, you would have seen my beautiful, beautiful divers helmet and that was picked up through Amazon. And a big
01:28:45
thank you and a big I like your jib to all the listeners. The love in the last year has been amazing. Thanks for
01:28:53
telling a friend. Thanks for the support. Uh and big exciting things coming up for the garage. That's right.
01:29:00
And until next time, be good, be kind, and don't live. And be a human. [Music] [Applause]
01:29:23
[Music]