Reason First: The Atlanta Child Murderer- Wayne Williams

From 1979 to 1981, a monster preyed exclusively on black children. Was it a Klansman wanting to wipe out enough young lives to satisfy his hatred for African Americans, or was it an unassuming wannabe music executive who shared his victims’ skin color? Surprisingly for most, it was the latter.

Although he was never found guilty of killing over twenty young blacks, Wayne Williams did receive two consecutive life sentences for the murders of Nathaniel Cater (27) and Jimmy Ray Payne (21).

Initially, local police were convinced the culprit was a racially-motivated white supremacist stalking young people of color, but when the bodies began to pile up, the FBI introduced the contradictory theory that the perpetrator was black. They pointed out, accurately, a white suspect would arouse suspicion in black neighborhoods, especially after everyone became aware there was a killer on the loose; people would be on heightened alert, and an outsider would stand out like a sore thumb.

To this day, Williams still claims he is innocent of all the killings, but forensics say otherwise. Dog hair linked to Williams’ vehicle turned up on Cater, sealing the would-be music producer’s fate.

Just as damning was the way murders ceased while Williams was in police custody. Williams is not without his supporters though; Some parents continue to maintain he could not be a brutal murderer. But the FBI profile is hard to refute. In a mostly black neighborhood, a white outsider would have been hard to miss.

A psychopath, Williams carried out his crimes in a haphazard way. He didn’t develop schemes or plan his evil acts. He simply lured young people to their deaths with promises of fame and fortune. According to John Douglass, the author of Mindhunter, Williams’ mental makeup is that of a brute. He’s alleged to have overpowered at least eleven children, and given the way such killings stopped as soon as he was removed from society, it’s easy to see why authorities believe they got the right man.

Williams acted out of emotion, not rational thought. To the extent he will cooperate, psychiatrists should continue to study his mind. If they can delve further into the psyche of this everyman-turned-beast they will shed even more light on a dark part of Atlanta’s history. He’s supposed to remain in prison until his dying day, but interestingly, he is still eligible for parole in the future. He has been denied in the past, but he will be up for parole again in 2027. If research into his mind can show how deranged he really is, it will be easier to ensure he never enjoys freedom again. All indications are he’s a homicidal maniac, but it would give the people of Atlanta more comfort to be able to prove it. Given the number of innocent children who met such grisly ends, it would be a great injustice to grant this psychopath parole.

But Williams’ arrogance masked a fragile ego. A man with a healthy ego would have been able to lead a happy, successful life. People with healthy egos don’t need to dominate other people, never mind kill them. His fragility was his undoing. Rather than building him up, his mind led him to make self-destructive choices; with every life he took, he diminished his own capacity for reason even more. His refusal to accept blame for what he did makes his crimes seem that much more egregious.

In fact, rather than use his mind to accept the reality of his situation, and help the authorities, he focused instead on understanding police lingo, and learning how to defeat lie detector tests.

Williams, who fancied himself a “Renaissance Man,” once wanted to be a photographer, and passed himself off as a star-maker, but in reality, he was just a murderer who couldn’t control his drive to dominate and kill defenseless children and men. His intention to kill was more powerful than his intention to achieve his creative and professional goals.