Wayne Williams - Trial and Conviction

Trial and Conviction

He first became a suspect May 1981 when his car was on the bridge from where the sound of a loud splash was heard in the river by a stake out team investigating the child murder case. He was stopped by police and questioned and claimed that he was going out of town to audition a young singer, Cheryl Johnson. The police would later discover that that phone number he gave them did not exist. FBI tried to find Cheryl Johnson from the address and phone details given, but were unable to find her.

Two days later, the body of 27 year old Nathaniel Cater, who had been missing for days, turned up in the river. The medical examiner on the case ruled he had died of "probable" asphyxia, but never authoritatively said he had been strangled. Police theorized that Williams had killed Cater and had thrown him off the bridge the night they had pulled him over. Their suspicions about Williams increased after the results of his polygraph test came back inconclusive, and hairs and fibers on one of the victims' bodies were found consistent with those from Williams's home, car, and dog. Police found a book on how to beat a polygraph test when they searched his home.

Throughout the course of the investigation, police staked out Williams's home for several weeks while he taunted them with insults and jokes. During this time, people working in Williams's studio also told police they had seen him with scratches on his face and arms around the time of the murders, which the police thought could have been inflicted by victims during a struggle. Williams held a press conference outside his parents' home, proclaiming his innocence. He was nevertheless arrested on June 21, 1981, for the murders of Cater and 29-year-old Jimmy Payne.

The trial began on January 6, 1982. The prosecution's case relied on an abundance of corroborating evidence. During the two-month trial, prosecutors matched 19 different sources of fibers from Williams's home and car environment: his bedspread, bathroom, gloves, clothes, carpets, dog and an unusual tri-lobal carpet fiber to a number of victims. There was also eyewitness testimony placing Williams with different victims, blood stains from victims matching blood in Williams's car and testimony that he was a pedophile attracted to young black boys (although none of the victims were sexually assaulted).

Williams took the stand in his own defense, but alienated the jury by becoming angry and combative. Williams never recovered from that outburst, and on February 27 the jury deliberated for 12 hours before finding him guilty of murdering Cater and Payne. Williams was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment.

Williams would later appeal for a retrial in the late 1990s. However, a Butts County Superior Court judge, Hal Craig, denied relief in the habeas corpus petition. Attorney General Thurbert Baker said that "although this does not end the appeal process, I am pleased with the results in the habeas case." and that his office "will continue to do everything possible to uphold the conviction."

In early 2004 Williams would once again seek a retrial. The 146-page federal court filing said Williams should be retried because law enforcement officials covered up evidence of Klan involvement, and that carpet fibers linking him to the crimes wouldn't stand up under scientific scrutiny. A federal judge rejected a request for retrial on October 17, 2006.

Throughout time, Williams has contended that he was framed and maintained that Atlanta officials covered up evidence of Ku Klux Klan involvement in the killings to avoid a race war in the city. His defense lawyers have maintained that a "profound miscarriage of justice" has occurred in the matter, which not only has kept Williams behind bars for a majority of his adult life, but also which kept a blind eye to bringing the real killers of these many victims to justice.