Wayne Bertram Williams Research Paper

The history of WAYNE BERTRAM WILLIAMS

Summarized by Alante’Kyles

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 became a suspect in the Atlanta Child Murders in May 1981 when a poli¬ce 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

He was arrested on June 21, 1981, for the murdersofCaterand29-year-oldJimmyRayPayne. The trial began on January 6, 1982 in Fulton County.

During the two-month trial, prosecutors matched 19 different sources of evidence from Williams' home and car environment his bedspread, bathroom, gloves, clothes, carpets, dog and an unusual tri-local carpet stains to a number of victims. Other evidence included eyewitness testimony placing Williams with several victims while they were alive, and inconsistencies in his accounts of his whereabouts.

This was the same case which would lead to the stakeouts of Atlanta bridges by the Atlanta PD and FBI thatresultedinWilliamsbecomingasuspectinMay1981 and his later apprehension in June 1981. Williams is serving his sentence at Telfair State Prison. His lawyers have charged that the conviction was a "profound miscarriage of justice" that has kept an innocent man incarcerated for a majority of his adult life and allowed the real killers to escape justice. In contrast, Joseph Drolet, who prosecuted Williams at trial, has stood by Williams' convictions, noting that after Williams was arrested, "the murders stopped and there has been nothing since. "Other observers have criticized the thoroughness of the investigation, and the validity of its conclusions. The

On May 6, 2005, the DeKalb County Police Chief Louis Graham ordered the reopening of the murder cases of four boys killed in that county between February and May 1981 that had been attributed to Williams. There opening of the investigation was welcomed by relatives of some victims, who said they believe the wrong man was blamed for many of the murders. Graham, an assistant police chief in neighboring Fulton County at the time of the murders, said his decision to reopen the cases was driven solely by his belief in the innocence of