Wayne Williams
| Wayne Williams | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Wayne Bertram Williams May 27, 1958 Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
| Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment |
| Killings | |
| Victims | 25-31 |
| Country | United States |
| State(s) | Georgia |
|
Date apprehended
|
June 21, 1981 |
Wayne Bertram Williams (born May 27, 1958) is an American serial killer who was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1982 for killing two adult men. After his conviction the Atlanta Police Department announced that Williams was responsible for at least 23 of the 29 Atlanta murders of 1979–1981, also called the "Atlanta Child Murders". Williams continues to maintain his innocence.
Wayne Bertram Williams was born on May 27, 1958 and raised in the Dixie Hills neighborhood of southwest Atlanta, Georgia to Homer and Faye Williams. Both parents were teachers. Williams graduated from Douglass High school and developed a keen interest in radio and journalism. Eventually he constructed his own carrier current radio station. He also began hanging out at radio stations WIGO and WAOK where he befriended a number of the announcing crew and began dabbling in becoming a music producer and manager.
Williams first became a suspect in the Atlanta Child Murders in May 1981 when a police surveillance team, watching a bridge spanning the Chattahoochee River (a site where several victims' bodies had been discovered), heard a "big loud splash", suggesting that something had been thrown from the bridge into the river below. The first automobile to exit the bridge after the splash was Williams'. When stopped and questioned, Williams told police that he was on his way to a neighboring town to audition a young singer named Cheryl Johnson for his music business, but the phone number he gave them was fictional—as was, it later turned out, Cheryl Johnson.
Two days later, on May 24, the nude body of 27-year-old Nathaniel Cater, who had been missing for three days, was discovered in the river. The medical examiner ruled he had died of "probable" asphyxia, but never specifically said he had been strangled. Police theorized that Williams had killed Cater, and that his body was the source of the "loud splash" they heard as Williams' car crossed the bridge. Williams subsequently failed three polygraph tests, and hairs and fibers retrieved from another victim's body were found to be consistent with those from Williams' home, car, and dog. Co-workers told police they had seen Williams with scratches on his face and arms around the time of the murders which, investigators surmised, could have been inflicted by victims during a struggle.
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