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Questions: Part 2 [bonus]

2018/5/4
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Atlanta Monster

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The team discusses listener questions about a possible sexual ring involving a house with green carpet, referencing Uncle Tom's house and the activities that allegedly took place there.

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Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America.

Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life, because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives.

Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all-new podcast There and Gone. It's a real-life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck, and vanished. A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. But which victim was the intended target and why?

Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪

In Atlanta, another body was discovered today, the 23rd. At police task force headquarters, there are 27 faces on the wall, 26 murdered, one missing. We do not know the person or persons that are responsible, therefore we do not have the motive. From Tenderfoot TV and how stuff works in Atlanta. Like 11 other recent victims in Atlanta, Rogers apparently was asphyxiated. Atlanta is unlikely to catch the killer unless he keeps on killing.

This is Atlanta Monster.

Hey guys, welcome to part two of our Q&A session. I'm here with the Tenderfoot TV team and HowStuffWorks. I'm Jason from HowStuffWorks. I'm Meredith from Tenderfoot. This is Donald from Tenderfoot TV. And we are here today to answer your questions. Hey, my name is Joe. Was there ever a house or location of where they thought there was like a sexual ring going on where people were taking maybe over to that house and that could have green carpet there? Just wondered if you've ever heard anything about them actually investigating the house.

One of the hardest parts of this story, I think, to hear. And frankly, it was a story that was told in the media. So going to Uncle Tom's house, Tom Terrell, there was frank and open talk about at least 10 of these boys visiting his house.

We've seen some pretty graphic detail of what happened there, that these kids would come through the neighborhood and just for a couple bucks would participate in some, you know, some pretty troubling things and even sleep over. A couple years after this case was closed, Tom Terrell's house and the house next door burned down. We went back, if you remember. Mm-hmm.

and it was raised. There was nothing there. It was a clean field. It's an empty lot, yeah. If you were looking at the field and you looked directly to your left, you saw the Georgia Dome and you saw where the Omni, which is a big location in the podcast. So you can actually imagine where kids were coming from there, going through the neighborhood, stopping and then hitting their ultimate destination at their houses at any time of the day. It's really heartbreaking. And often in trials,

Not all the evidence they have is presented. Just enough of the strongest evidence is used to convict someone. So even though it was known it was in the media, it doesn't mean it has to show up in trial. But what we don't know is, was there a larger kind of pyramid of players here? We've heard some of the adult victims may have been running through the same neighborhood. So I hate speculating on this stuff, but something really, really nags at me that says...

There's a connection here. I just don't know what it is. And we didn't present this on the podcast because we frankly just didn't have the evidence. We didn't have anything that would tell us that these things were all specifically connected. Even back then, the media theorized that some of the adult victims could actually have been co-conspirators. So there is a scenario that some of these things are connected and that it's larger than one person. So

We already all believe that, you know, this wasn't all the work of one monster, but it could be the work of a few people working together. And then some of some other things that are completely unrelated, some things that are related to those that those houses were and some of those victims that were at those houses that also weren't related to Wayne Williams or any other co-conspirators with Wayne Williams. So just like I said, there's just not enough evidence to point.

that is true or false. So it's one of the things we didn't really dive deep into because it's just a big question mark. So we kind of focused on, you know, the larger issues in front of us that we had, you know, more evidence to point to. It was called Uncle Tom's Cabin was the nickname that it was given in the media. Vincent Hill, the former police officer, was a huge advocate of this theory. And he had his own evidence he showed me. He firmly believed that there was a real connection between

this Uncle Tom's cabin and the Atlanta child murders. And based on what he showed me, I think that at least a few of the victims were connected. But the question remains, did it have to do with Wayne Williams? Is there a bigger story here? Or are we looking at a bunch of different murders by different people?

Yeah, I mean, like, Timothy Hill was at Tom Terrell's house the day before he went missing. Right, and was supposed to return. And you can't just, you can't dismiss that, but it's hard to put those connections together so many years later. That's the problem with this. Everyone says it's so confusing. It is confusing. There's no way to make it all make sense.

Because I firmly believe it doesn't all make sense. It doesn't all connect. There's not one big puzzle here that makes sense and this explains everything. We're talking about different things that happened. Right. I think one thing that we make the mistake of, just the general public, when we look at a crime like this is trying to find the one answer that solves everything. And also that trying to look at every child's name that appears on a list and saying that –

All of the evidence has to fit every single victim. And when one doesn't fit, we can't throw it all out. It may just be that that evidence or that assailant or, you know, the person responsible for one is not responsible for the other. There's definitely a world where several of these victims are

for several different reasons, some associated with one killer, some associated with this house, some by street violence, and all that evidence is no way it's going to all match up. And one thing is true.

And that's that sex rings were a real thing in Atlanta and other cities. We're going to share a clip from another caller who I actually know. Her father was named Wayne Williams and was in the phone book and they got all kinds of nasty calls. And here she shares a story of some of the sex ring activities that were happening in Cabbage Town here in Atlanta.

I lived in Inman Park at the time, which is just on the other side of the tracks from where everything was happening. I have a lot of memories of it. I know for a fact that there was a kiddie pornography ring that was going on in Cabbage Town.

And I know this for a fact because I rode the school bus with a lot of the boys who would whisper about getting paid for PPE pictures and have that, you know, kind of burned into my brain.

Hi, this is Dave from Los Angeles. I know you guys kind of touched on this before, but has there ever been any serious inquiry on whether Wayne possibly partnered with his father in these murders? With the fibers from the house being on the victims, it seems to me the only real good way to get a fiber onto a victim is direct contact with the fibers themselves. And so the victims were brought home, exposed of, and even photographs of

Most serial killers have a trophy aspect to them. And Wayne's dad was a photographer and enjoyed taking pictures of the funerals afterwards. That's a good point. It would be merely speculation to talk about that at all. But one thing I do find interesting is that you take all the evidence against Wayne Williams, it would also match his father.

All the carpet fibers, everything would be the same. So it is interesting. And I don't know much about their relationship. I asked Wayne a few times about his father, but he never really got into it, which I found also was kind of strange. And they had a strained relationship. And we kind of briefly touched on that. They had an argument out in a parking lot around the trial time.

We stayed away from trying to present a lot of the speculation on this. We heard a lot of stories that we actually did not put in the podcast. But I will say this. We do know that Homer Williams was the only photographer at the Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. benefit concert. We do know that he was on stage with Frank Sinatra. We do know that he took the iconic photo of Sammy Davis Jr. and Mayor Kasim Reed.

But there's lots of questions. Like one of the things we heard over and over again was –

Wayne and Homer are showing up at the funerals. They're showing up at the case sites where the bodies were. I can tell you personally, I looked at hours and hours and hours of video footage and never saw it. So we're not going to make a statement on that. Like, I've never seen it with my own eyes. So to present that out there just doesn't make sense. We do know that Chet Detlinger talked about Homer being there at Jimmy Ray Payne's funeral, and we did discuss

kind of that connection. But we've heard lots of things. Chet also talks about, he actually met with Homer and Wayne a lot. He met Wayne in jail. He went to their residence when Wayne was in jail and Homer was at home and talked with him about the fact that they took boxes and put them in dumpsters near a nearby downtown school. And the fact that Homer had all kinds of

photography that he burned. And he admitted to doing it, but he said, you know, it was just unclaimed extra copies of stuff. So I'll burn them and not just throw them away? Yeah, and this was in the kind of cleanup phase. He said they were unclaimed extra copies and photos that just didn't turn out right. And Chet said, I've never been satisfied with any part of the explanation about the cleanup, either Wayne's or Homer's. The best I can say is it could be true.

After your entire world is flipped upside down,

From unbelievable romantic betrayals... The love that was so real for me was always just a game for him. To betrayals in your own family... When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. Financial betrayal...

This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars. And life or death deceptions. She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio.

I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsman plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil,

They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to. Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat. It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all-new podcast There and Gone.

It's a real-life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck, and vanished. Nobody hears anything. Nobody sees anything. Did they run away? Was it an accident? Or were they murdered? A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. It was definitely murder for hire for Danielle, not for Richard. He's your son, and in your eyes, he's innocent.

But in my eyes, he's just some guy my sister was with. In this series, I dig into my own investigation to find answers for the families and get justice for Richard and Danielle. Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There and Gone.

For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. However, one murder of a crime boss sparked a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the mob.

It sent the message that we can prosecute these people. Discover how law enforcement and prosecutors took on the mafia and together brought them down. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeartRadio, this is Law & Order Criminal Justice System. The first two episodes drop on August 22nd.

Plus, did you know that you can listen to the episodes as they come out completely ad-free? Don't miss out. Subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel today. Available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

Hi, my name is Lori. So several years ago, I read the book Mindhunter by John Douglas. He is one of the people that basically founded the field of criminal profiling. It's a really fascinating book, and he had an entire chapter on the Atlanta child murders. And in that chapter, he describes exactly what was in the profile before they caught Wayne Williams. And it is absolutely uncanny. Yes, I've read that. I've read that section of his book, Mindhunter. And

We did try to reach out to John Douglas early on. The name John Douglas came up multiple times in the FBI. Everyone we talked to really looked up to this person. He was a brilliant man. He's still around, and we tried to reach out to him early on, but we were not able to

Get an interview lined up. I think there was a sort of conflict of interest with the My Hunter show and our show. But, you know, he expressed that he would like to do it, but it just didn't work out. But, you know, everyone we talked to in the FBI really looked up to this guy. And he was sort of the mastermind of creating these FBI profiles like this. Some of them were even his students. I think Popcorn said he went to John Douglas's class and things like that. So it's pretty interesting. It is. It's really interesting with the extra context of watching Mindhunters.

Yeah, yeah.

Hi, my name is Kia. A few episodes back, you talked to a gentleman that was abducted in a car and kind of got out, but the plastic seat kind of grabbed the back of the pick that was in his pocket. And on his way out, the guy who kind of sort of maybe looked like Wayne Williams said goodbye and called it by his name. Did you dig any deeper into that story? Did you revisit it?

because it sounds like there's somebody out there that was snatching kids that looked very much like Wayne Williams. I don't have enough information, but I was just curious. That story stuck with me. By Rodney. That's what he said. It was extremely eerie. It's a bizarre story. I don't know what else to say about it, to be honest. I don't know where to look for more information on that to build a bigger story out of it. This guy was...

Being 100% sincere to me, he had never told anyone publicly this story before. And we've also heard after that a few other stories that make it sound like there was maybe this guy who resembled Wayne Williams who was roaming around the streets of Atlanta in abducting kids or at least attempting to.

Is that true? I don't know. I cannot say for certain if it is or not. Either way you slice it, it seems like there was someone who looked like Wayne Williams who was out in Atlanta at that time abducting kids or at least attempting to. Was it Wayne? This guy says for certain it was not. He knew what Wayne looked like and it wasn't him. So was there someone else out there? I don't know. Okay, so...

Wayne's look seems to be unique to us. I think now in 2018, we hear here's the guy with Afro and glasses. And it seems almost like this iconic pictures that we've seen of Wayne Williams. But at the time, it's been suggested to us many times that that was not a unique look.

Lots of people had that hairstyle. Lots of people had those same types of glasses at that time. And so it's possible that there was someone who looked a lot like him. Yeah, Vincent Hill even said, I look like that. My dad looked like that. We all look like that. Yeah, that was a go-to look, you know, late 70s, early 80s. So not surprising that, you know,

Someone else is out there and being mistaken for Wayne Williams, if that's what, you know, what the look was. I think what gives a little more credence to some of the other eyewitnesses is them being able to also say the guy had abrasions or a scar on his face.

And I think that's kind of what sets the ID apart from, you know, the people who say it definitely wasn't Wayne. People say that it was him. When I listened to the interview with Rodney for the first time, it was just a stunning story by itself. But I was also struck by the story of the driver giving Rodney drugs.

and not really knowing what was in that. The question has come up multiple times, how do you get these scrappy kids in your car or take them and kill them without having a scratch or without having scars? And Wayne's just 5'7 and a pudgy guy.

And it just it's always kind of bothered me that maybe that was the trick, right, is is giving these young kids some concoction that that reduced the resistance. I don't know. There was something that's always kind of bugged me about that. And that being the almost like the candy that the strangers giving these kids to to make them more vulnerable, because I think there is a point to these kids being tough and scrappy and on the streets that would be difficult to take down.

Think the power that you're talking about when it comes to serial killers is in their manipulation every serial killer

their victims and gained their trust somehow. I think that we often underestimate what that is. I think that if you're a psychopath, you're a sociopath, you have all these traits and you're trying to kill somebody, you are convincing them of everything you need to to get them in your car. Yeah, and if you remember the kind of anonymous interview that we played in one of the episodes where

of the guy that knew Wayne and Jojo Bell. He talked about how Wayne had a network of spies that were kids helping him watch the neighborhood. So again, if he is the person, his ability to kind of manipulate those kids and have them act on his behalf is pretty powerful.

This is Jenny Kafka in Edison, New Jersey. How has the podcast shaken things up with the law enforcement? Have they been responding? Have they been acting? Have they been pursuing or reevaluating leads because of what you're doing? I highly doubt it. I think that this is a very old case. The FBI is happy with the way this ended. It's closed in their minds.

I don't think Wayne Williams is getting out of prison anytime soon, regardless of whether or not he's guilty or innocent. That's just the way it is now. It's been almost 40 years. I don't think the police feel compelled to go back through their own information and their own cases and try to find something, try to find something that was missing before. I don't think it's in the city's best interest for that to happen either. I think that the important part of Atlanta Monster is not

Just whether or not Wayne Williams killed anybody. It's just the retelling of the story as a whole just like I had never heard this story There were plenty of other people who'd never heard this story to even my parents They were around in Atlanta at this time, but I'd never been told this story and they remembered it way differently They didn't have all the facts. They only were they were limited to what they saw on the news and My dad told me he didn't have a TV in his in his apartment So he only saw

the news at Dunkin Donuts or something. So there's so much, there's all this archive stuff we're going through, but who all saw that?

I mean, not everybody, to be honest. It's 1980, 1981. Yeah, I mean, just look at your life today. You know, if you get busy for a few days and you don't watch the 6 o'clock news, 10 o'clock news, you're not up to date on everything that's happening. And we have the Internet. So you think about in the late 70s, you know, you miss the evening news. And for a couple of days, you're completely outdated. So if you don't have a TV. So, yeah, it's a lot. You know, the flow of information isn't...

the way it is now is completely different than how it was then. And people are going to hear this story through a lens, through a different, I guess lens may not be the right word, but they're going to hear this story and it's going to come with a twist on it based off who's telling it to you, based on your community, based on your age. But I think overall, the good question, I think that you answered it perfectly. I mean, it's a case closed. Like,

We got our guy and we're not going to go revisit anything, especially if it's going to kick out some dust that we don't want to get into. That's the opinion of local and federal law enforcement. Yeah, I think to law enforcement, this is done. And if you remember from the last two episodes, every child's case that they thought was connected in a compelling way with trace evidence and circumstantial evidence, they brought those up in trial.

So though it didn't maybe make the news that way, and many people don't think that the kids were tried, and they weren't. Their cases were tried. But they still brought those up. So I don't know why they would ever reopen these cases again.

I don't think they're going to get more evidence on those cases. That's why they were so flimsy. But they connected in some way through, you know, fibers to the two cases they had more evidence for. And that's Nathaniel Cater and Jimmy Ray Payne. Right. And I think I think the problem that I have and that maybe some of the listeners have as well is that.

They didn't just close the cases that were brought up in court. And there is the, you know, elephant in the room. So those parents, you know, not only was their child never brought up in court, but, you know, there were never, never had, there was never a trial. There was never anything. Those cases were just closed. And I think that's where, you know, the big issue lies. So, uh,

If there was going to be an effort to look into something, I think it should be into the cases that were not brought up in court that we aren't so sure that he did. But I think we've said it before that, you know, if you close 12 cases and there are 30, they're still an Atlanta child murder out there. And I think that's what the city was dealing with at the time. So I think they politically, you know, they were motivated to close, you know, the majority of these cases, which they did. And I think that's where the injustice came in.

Yeah. So I guess that's not necessarily opening up Wayne Williams case again. It's like those outlying undetermined cases. Right. But they would have to admit that those outlying undetermined cases were not committed by Wayne Williams. And they've already closed and attributed over 12 that were not brought into court. And that, you know, there's the there's a difference.

Yeah, I would love to just view all the stuff that never got presented to the public. Because I mean, this went on for a couple years. And I think that is kind of the unknown question of what happened within the task force within APD within the FBI, what leads did they get and not follow? What kind of conversations did they have? If they were talking to Tom Terrell and investigating the sex ring? What was that investigation like? And how come it was not presented?

Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Stories about regaining a sense of safety, a handle on reality after your entire world is flipped upside down.

From unbelievable romantic betrayals... The love that was so real for me was always just a game for him. To betrayals in your own family... When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. Financial betrayal...

This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars. And life or death deceptions. She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio.

I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsman plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil,

They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to. Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat. It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all-new podcast There and Gone.

It's a real-life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck, and vanished. Nobody hears anything. Nobody sees anything. Did they run away? Was it an accident? Or were they murdered? A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. It was definitely murder for hire for Danielle, not for Richard. He's your son, and in your eyes, he's innocent.

But in my eyes, he's just some guy my sister was with. In this series, I dig into my own investigation to find answers for the families and get justice for Richard and Danielle. Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There and Gone.

For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. However, one murder of a crime boss sparked a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the mob.

It sent the message that we can prosecute these people. Discover how law enforcement and prosecutors took on the mafia and together brought them down. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeartRadio, this is Law & Order Criminal Justice System. The first two episodes drop on August 22nd.

Plus, did you know that you can listen to the episodes as they come out completely ad-free? Don't miss out. Subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel today. Available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Hi, my name is Kelly. I was listening to another true crime podcast and it was about the freeway phantom slayings that happened in the 70s. There were six young DC females who disappeared

and were found off the side of freeways, strangled and dead and raped. This was prior to the Atlanta Monster's appearance, but the link that was most intriguing to me is that in both cases, these were young children from disenfranchised communities who also had green carpet fibers found on them and on their clothing and possessions. So I just thought that that was a really interesting

I'm not sure if anyone has investigated the links between these two serial murders, but I thought that I would call in, in the off chance that it could be a helpful tip.

Firstly, I think it's important to reiterate that there are many, many types of green fibers. And I think it's a misconception that green is the thing that made these fibers stand out in the Williams case. It wasn't that they were green. It was that the green carpet fibers they did find had this unusual structure that was trilobal. And it was called the Wellman 181B. And it was among fibers extremely rare.

So it's not inconceivable that other cases, their victims would be tied together through fibers, even green fibers, even green carpet fibers. But it was the linchpin in this case because the fibers were so rare. I'm not familiar with the fibers in the case that...

You're bringing up, but I think that it would be very unlikely that there's any tie at all because when we narrowed it down with Larry Peterson, the fiber analyst, it was like maybe 82 rooms in Georgia might have that carpet. Maybe.

Hi, Payne. I have a question for you and your team. I was just listening to episode 10, and I was wondering if the two guys that were given a story actually, like, got in contact with the police or the family members got in contact with the police?

So out of the three stories that I was told, um, only one person did go to the cops. And that was the man who ended up in prison with Wayne Williams. Ironically, years later, he said he did tell the police about what happened to him and they came to his house and they, uh,

asked him some questions about what happened, and they seemed interested, but it just kind of ended there. And they never followed up after that, but he did make an attempt to tell law enforcement. They did come to his house, and they asked him a bunch of questions, but it pretty much just ended there.

Hey, Payne and team. My name is Jason. I'm a big fan of your work and of your podcast. I loved Up and Vanished, and I just got finished seeing it with Atlanta Monster. With Up and Vanished, I felt that there was a very clear wind, if you want to call it that, but the evidence that was uncovered kind of turned a new leaf in the investigation. And with Atlanta Monster, I didn't feel it was kind of the same way. So really, I was just curious, Payne, on a personal level, if you were convinced that

Wayne Williams is innocent, or are you convinced that Wayne Williams was in fact the Atlanta monster? Oh man, that's the tough one to answer right there. I'm not convinced of his innocence or his guilt, to be honest. But what I'll tell you is that Wayne Williams lied to me. He lied to me about the bridge incident and the club on multiple occasions. And I called him out on it.

Why was he lying to me? Is it because he killed Nathaniel Cater that night? Or is it because he was doing something suspicious and it just makes him look bad? If that's the case, then why not almost 40 years later come out and say, hey, I'm sorry, I lied about this. This is why it doesn't make any sense. But I still didn't kill anybody. He's not saying that. He's still lying for some reason. Why is that? And I also can't argue with the FIBR evidence.

You know, it's funny because, you know, on the way up to Larry Peterson's house, I was with Meredith and we were both talking about how, man, we really think that Wayne maybe didn't do this. Maybe he's innocent. It just sounds too perfect. Things don't add up all the way. What's the deal here? Maybe he's innocent. When we left after about a four-hour conversation with Larry Peterson, we both looked at each other and said, I think he did it. So I don't know. I've gone back and forth a lot, but...

I don't want to be the guy who says, you should believe this or you should believe that. What I wanted to do was present the whole story and have you decide and have you understand why this has been so puzzling for so long. And also, the focus should not be Wayne Williams. It should be the kids. It should be what happened last

Almost 40 years ago, that was wrong. There were things that were done the wrong way in this case, and there's things to learn from. It's also an important part of our culture to know how things were and how they are today. So those are the more important factors that I would like to focus on. Did he do it? I don't know, but he lied to me, and he's very suspicious. Thanks for listening to part two of our Q&A session. If you have any questions of your own, please call us at 1-833-285-6667.

Again, that's 1-833-285-6667. And be on the lookout for more specials of Atlanta Monster this summer.

Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America.

Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life, because the more we know about what's running under the hood...

I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all-new podcast There and Gone. It's a real-life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck, and vanished.

A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. But which victim was the intended target and why? Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.