I don't think Wayne Williams killed all those people in Atlanta

Why do think he didn't commit those murders. I'm not sure he committed all of them but even a couple of murders should keep him locked up.

If you believe he killed at least one person, doesn't that justify him being in prison for the rest of his life? And yes, he was only convicted in killing two, so who else he did or did not kill remains questionable and the case has been reopened so there is now opportunity for some new resolution.

He purposely mislead the host of Atlanta Monster. An innocent person doesn’t need to mislead. He is guilty of multiple murders either way

Lots of reasonable doubt in this documentary alone.

Yeah, OP. His DNA was only all over the crime scenes. Totes innocent!

There was NO DNA evidence. There was disputed and shoddy fiber evidence.

I don’t believe there was any DNA evidence, nor did they ever identify a crime scene. Bodies were dumped in woods and rivers. But I think there’s evidence he killed most of them.

R6 You say that about every black criminal.

What crime scene r5? There were body dump sites but never any crimes scenes. Try again.

Lots of reasonable doubt but no crime scene, no DNA evidence, no eye witnesses, and Wayne had no criminal history or motive.

[quote]But I think there’s evidence he killed most of them.

Anything to back this up? If they had evidence why didn’t they charge him? Williams most likely killed the two adult men he was convicted for, but the kids? All of them? 27 year old men to 17 year old teen boys to a 7 year old girl?

It's unlikely Williams killed all the victims, especially the two female victims. Williams is a odd duck, he thinks he's a genius, in fact, he's just a self-loathing loser who should've been executed decades ago.

Why did the killing stop after he was arrested?

Forensics plus detective work.

It’s financially beneficial for the people who make the podcast to make it seem as though there’s more ambiguity than there really is.

[quote] If you believe Williams is guilty, please explain why.

Because he was found guilty in a court of law.

The burden is thus actually on YOU now to explain why you think he's NOT guilty.

That's how the law works.

[Quote]Why did the killing stop after he was arrested?

As soon as he was put under observation, the murders stopped. Says a lot.

He was caught on a bridge at 3:00 AM shortly after an officer heard a splash. He had no credible reason for being there. A body was found just downstream. There were unusual fibers on the body matching the carpet in his house. He had suddenly removed the carpet after being caught on the bridge, but he missed a patch. He was also seen burning something in the middle of the night. His family dog’s hair matched hair found on victims. Later DNA tests showed match odds 1 in 100. He spent his days searching for “talent” that matched the profiles of the victims.

I'll just copy my comment from the Mindhunter thread to here.

Poor Wayne, just happened to on a bridge where bodies were being dumped when they just happened to find a new body. Just happened have a carpet and dog that matched evidence found on the victims. Just happened to have a job that involved him going around picking up kids. Just happened to have the REAL murderer stop killing once he was being watched.

Poor Wayne, so unlucky.

What I only know from the show, and not if it is accurate or not, is that he lived with his parents. I get that dog hair might be in the car he would be transporting bodies in, but carpet fibers mean that the victims would have been at the house at some point. Were the parents absent a lot at work or vacations? If so wouldn't their schedule of not being there coincide with the murders? What was the time frame between abduction and dumping, could it have been days?

OP, do you think WW killed *some* of those people? If so, let him rot in jail until he dies!

And yes, the killings did stop when he was followed and arrested. If the real killer was someone else, then what, you think the real killer decided to just stop when the police found a patsy? Because I don't that serial killers thank their lucky stars for a narrow escape and decide they've had enough killing, and if the killer relocated and took up business elsewhere there would have been news about more child killing. So yeah, OP, please do explain who you think the real killer or killers are.

It's 11 o'clock. Do you know where your children are?

It's plausible to me that he didn't kill a few of them. The police were probably happy to close as many of the child murder cases as possible, whether there was solid proof for each of them or not. So it might be worth reexamining the case to ensure those kids and their families get the justice they deserve. But Williams is already right where he belongs.

James Baldwin's last book, the 1986 "The Evidence of Things Not seen," is basically a meditation of the Atlanta child killings and particularly the troubling racial dynamic of Williams' arrest and trial and conviction: the state and city (police, DA's office, mayor, etc.) basically assumed he was guilty of all 28 crimes even though he was just found guilty of 2 of the crimes (both adults), so true justice was never found for the families of the 26 other victims. Also, Williams was tried on purely circumstantial grounds, which is much more common today (with DNA testing and other scientific proof) that it was in 1982.

The book is most useful for outlining the racial history of Atlanta going all the way back to the city's founding and why it was made the state capitol. Atlantans tried to separate themselves from Georgia's problems with segregation and racial injustice during the Civil Rights Movement and after, but Baldwin very intelligently shows how that's not really possible.

The weakest part of his argument, though, is an underlying assumption that the killer could NOT have been black given the region's history. I just don't think that's true, especially since we know of many other black serial killers from the deep South who preyed mostly on other African Americans. (It is not always true that a serial killer only kills members of the same race, but it is much more true than not.) but he is very smart on untangling Atlanta's history and the poor treatment the mothers and families received in the case, and the problems with Williams's arrest and conviction.

I am surprised the book is not a big deal eight now given how much interest there has been in James Baldwin in the last few years and the interest right now in "Mindhunter." It is still in print, though.

One thing that does give me pause is that it seems like the victims were not sexually assaulted? Most male serial killers do it for sexual gratification. Not all, but that's the norm. So you just have someone who is going around killing black kids for no obvious reason. That's one little thing that fits well with the theory that that it was done by white supremacists. It's unlikely that they'd stop as soon as he was arrested, but in that hypothetical scenario, they would have had the pleasure of pinning their killings on a black man too.

I don't actually believe this, but it's a little unusual that he didn't seem to rape or molest them. I guess he still might have gotten off on killing them, and it's probably not a coincidence that almost all of his alleged victims are the same sex.

Thank God for posters like R16 and others. Voices of reason are a welcomed change. I appreciate all who have made cogent and concise statements here.