Wayne's World [05]
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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.

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This conference is being recorded. My bad. Everybody's here. Okay. Yeah. Can you hear him, Wayne? Oh, yeah. Hey, can you hear Wayne? I can. Can you hear me?

Okay, yeah. No problem. Okay, is this Payne? Is that your... Yeah, this is Payne. That's my first name. We got Payne, Wayne, and Dwayne. All right. To tell it my way, to me, it's not really what's important because my way is the right way. And it's the truth about what happened. You know, I've lived...

To me, you know, let the book fall where it may, you know, wherever, because there's only one truth. Truth is truth, you know. And all this, I guess, fake news as we hear all this, you know, I'm not into that either. And the truth in this case is really simple. It's not complex or anything, but it's just that it's a truth that people may not want to hear. And it's a truth that they have to hear to understand what happened and continues to happen.

Now, let me give you just a little, by the way, if time goes on, we have to call out and call out because I'll explain to you as we go to mechanics of how we got to communicate and all because it's kind of weird here. So basically what we were looking for from a documentary point of view is a multi-part thing to tell the story. You can't tell it in 60 minutes like you and I both know.

It's not important. In other words, people don't need to hear and see what... That's not what's important. These other people have a story to tell. They're going to tell my story for me. That's what I'm saying. You understand what I'm getting at. You will fully understand once we get into this.

Because one thing about prison, you can't fool these guys in here. If these people thought I had killed somebody or done something like that, I'd have been dead the first day I hit the county jail. Are you understanding me? I'm in a closed security prison in a dorm with 80 other inmates. Shanks, now all that floating around. You got Crips, Bloods, GD, all kind of gangs here. And...

I got darn good relations with all of them. If they thought anything, I wouldn't be here. Are you understanding what I'm saying? This is the reality you're going to get to tell in this story, man. You know, you can't fool with God. They can smell a rat if there's a rat. You know, it's almost like a dog, you know. A dog knows an evil person for the good. They'll start growling, you know, so, you know, it'll come out. This isn't about Wayne. This isn't just about me.

This is for all those families who never got justice of all these years. They deserve some answers. Because I'm in a prison now with two family members. I'm here with an uncle and a cousin, two of the murder victims. We play ball every day together. Do you understand what I'm saying? We need to tell that story. I see that hurt and pain. We have shared things. There's a bond right there that needs to be told. Family members we're in contact with, they have given us information, and at least everybody

I'd heard from the FBI, the APD, and victims' families. Now it was time to hear from Wayne. I asked Wayne what he wanted to say. What did he personally want to put out to the world?

My thing is put the facts out and speak for yourself. We don't need to doctor it up. Just put it out there. And when we explain things like the bridge, so-called bridge incident, what did and did not happen, like Duane and I have talked this through, it'll make sense now once we can go through. You'll hear it all. You're all going to believe it. It's incredible.

Also, in the podcast, in other words, there's another component on this. I have been doing a lot of work with the younger generation, and particularly the music community, to get them involved. Okay, one of which, by the way, is my cellmate. He's a 21-year-old kid, grew up and everything. He's a writer, not only a rap star, but he's very intelligent. He actually wrote...

that the name of my life story is called Shattered Dreams. He actually wrote the theme song for that. And I want to include in the podcast through Dwayne some of his writings and all comments on the social commentary. You know, that's another way of telling it, reaching the younger audience. And the reason why this is somebody, and you may find this incredible, but this is somebody who lives with me 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We're on the same record. He knows me probably better than my own family at this point.

And if you want to know what Wayne Williams is really like, Anthony Spencer's the person you ask. You understand what I'm saying? And the other part I'm asking you to do, like I said, is on the young man I want to launch as recording artist, Anthony Spencer. Let me first give you the... Thank you for using. Secure us. Goodbye. Just hold tight. He's going to call back in like 30 seconds. ♪♪

I was pretty surprised. Did Wayne have an artist he was trying to manage from prison? Another young black male like Jimmy. But this time, the artist was his cellmate. From what I could tell, Wayne was doing in prison exactly what he was doing in Atlanta in the 1980s, being a talent scout.

Okay, we back. Okay. Like I said, that's my roommate and he's gonna, you know, I really want to tell in music his words about as a young kid just hearing about this, about getting that story out to the young people. You understand what I'm saying? That's a powerful way. As a matter of fact, what I want you to do, I want you to just introduce yourself briefly to him right here. Here he is right now. Just tell him who you are, what we're going to be doing. Just very quick. Here he is.

Hey, how you doing, sir? Pretty good. How you doing? Likewise, likewise. Well, like Wayne was saying, my name is Anthony Spencer. And upon meeting him, I just started, like, really becoming aware of everything that's going on, been going on for some time. And it was really like hell being removed from my eyes. And I've just been doing a lot of writing, writing,

This was almost unbelievable to me. Had Wayne tried to promote fellow inmates as artists before? Or was this the first time?

And how exactly could someone develop a music career from prison? Anthony sounded like a young, eager, and amiable guy. And above all, he sounded excited to send me his music, inspired by Wayne's story.

This is somebody who knows me better than anybody. And we need to put him out there because the public relations are trying to reach the age group he's going for. You meet this guy and his family, you will understand. We need to put him out there. Get with Dwayne, get with his mother, and we want to go ahead and we want to put him out there and eventually land him out there. It's not just an artist, but a commentary. And basically...

He's got his own story to tell. He's got the type of story that should end up a lifetime by itself. And in the meantime, Payne, get in touch with Mrs. Spencer's mom. She's in Atlanta. First, I'm going to call Anthony's mom and then tell her that I'm going to be giving you her information.

These phone calls with Wayne and Dwayne took a lot of coordinating. The prison email system, phone protocol, and of course our schedules. It took multiple calls before I began meeting anyone outside of the prison. I asked Wayne why he thought he was in jail today. Some people I talked to seemed to think he was a scapegoat, and that maybe this whole thing was orchestrated. Dwayne Hendricks went as far as to say it was a full-fledged conspiracy, but I wanted to hear what Wayne thought.

Hear me clear, that was not and never was a conspiracy to get me before the fact. Nobody knew the route I was going to take that night of May 22nd regarding that bridge, not even me. I am a Gemini. Gemini, there's that word again. The band that Wayne was developing in the late 70s. Now, Wayne was using it as his astrological inspiration for how he lived his life, including that fateful night on the Jackson Bridge.

Gemini is symbolized by twins, dual personality, volatility, and a tendency to switch up routines. Okay, by birth, I'm a Gemini. That was a last-minute decision I made because I'm the type of person, I'm liable to change my mind in a heartbeat. I like driving, getting in the car, and just going. You understand what I'm saying? I'm a free spirit.

That was a decision I made. The only conspiracy that came in was once my name hit those FBI computers and it got to Washington. That's when they panicked because they had Iran-Contra going and because two people in government knew of my background working for the agency and they were afraid to ever expose that. The state, Louis Slayton, didn't even want to prosecute me.

They had a meeting on June the 20th, the Sunday before, excuse me, the Saturday before in which George Bush personally come down and thread them and say, if you don't arrest Wayne Williams, the feds will take this case and prosecute it as a civil rights violation.

Slade didn't even want to prosecute this case. I have nothing but love for Atlanta and Fulton County and Georgia. My enemy is the federal government. It still is. It is not those people. Let me tell you something. The sheriff of Fulton County, when I was in Fulton County Jail,

before I went to trial, when I had my record, a lot of people, there's a hill behind the old jail. I used to go out with one deputy who didn't even have a gun. We used to go out there across the street from the jail and go to the store. That's how much they were concerned. They say, you know, we ain't worried about this. Are you understanding what I'm trying to tell you? When a person does a crime,

And the public doesn't understand it. Say a burglary. If you do one burglary in a neighborhood and they've had 20 burglars in the neighborhood, they don't give a dang. You're going to wear all of those cases so they can close the books because prosecutors in Georgia are elected officials. They're not appointed. They're elected. And that's one of the biggest flaws in the criminal justice system. They go on votes. It's about closing cases.

Bottom line. Whoever, whatever suspect they came up with, they're going to... You have one minute left. That's the way it works.

It was simply a matter of record keeping to close the cases to make it look good. Over 90% of the black community knows I didn't do this and thinks I'm innocent. But with the white community, it's just the opposite. It's only, you know, 50% of the white community because of articles like CNN and what you have. It's a racially polarized perspective.

And the sad part about it is these white communities, pardon my language, don't know diddly shit about what happened. The ones who are telling you I didn't do this are the ones who know. But, you know, it's just like the thing going on with the police killings today and the things in the stadium. In other words, nobody will air about, well, let's just play about it. That isn't the point. The point is, pardon my language, just like in my case, if those athletes have been just any other person other than an athlete, pardon my language, Pam, but you're going to hear this again.

they would be just another nigger to anybody else. That's the same thing in this case. Are you understanding the relationships why we have to tell it like this? Because the black community has a different perspective on Atlanta murders than the white community, totally different, because they know. And they feel that their community has been slighted by the white community who is more concerned with just throwing money at this and having press conferences. That's the whole hurt.

The caller has hung up. Wayne talked rapidly during our conversation. Maybe it was a habit formed from having to maximize time while using the prison phone system. Or maybe it's just Wayne. Some of what he was saying directly reflected the opinions of people like Monica Pearson and Kalinda Lee. These murders were not handled properly in the eyes of much of the black community. However, what he said about press conferences was a little conflicting. Didn't Wayne rally his own press conference at his house?

If he was so opposed to sensationalizing the news, why would he have done that? The next thing Wayne brought up was his attorney, Lynn Whatley. Next conference call, we're going to have to involve the attorney. Lynn, and I'm going to tell you point blank, I don't use this language anymore.

He's an asshole, okay, to deal with, but he's an essential asshole to tell the story because he's been burnt so many times. I don't think people understand what Lance's problem is. Why he doesn't return calls, and that's what infuriates Dwayne. You know, I've been through it myself with him. We've been through not, but let me tell you something.

Lynn has done everything legally correct. He's been blocked every step of the way by the courts and prosecutorial misconduct. You're going to find out what his frustration is in the case because of a connection that Dwayne and I will get into later on. He's not afraid of anything, but it has to do with some of his family. You'll understand as you talk to him on that.

But the main thing is, Len will be able to make available a few things like the court transcripts. He'll be able to tell you what went on behind the scenes. He'll be able to tell you what the Supreme Court justice told us before he died about the call he got from the vice president of the United States during the original Georgia Supreme Court thing. He'll be able to tell you.

what happened on the DNA testing when they went back in 2009 to test the two blood samples we had and went back in the state. The very next day, the state crime lab said, oh, we lost that overnight. You'll get all of that. Go ahead and pay that man a visit. Don't wait on me because he's heard of you. We talked about it, but you know what, Lynn, is go ahead and see him. But like I say, don't get frustrated with him. When he talks crazy, talk crazy right back to him. Thank you for using...

In a matter of just a few minutes, Wayne had made some pretty big claims about this case. From involvement from the vice president to lost evidence. I had to talk to his attorney, Lynn Whatley. No matter how many times I tried to call Wayne's attorney, Lynn Whatley, I never got an answer.

Finally, he responded to one of my texts and told me he was completely busy for the foreseeable future. Wayne said he would talk to me and that he would provide me with all the information I needed to see his side of the story clearly. But apparently, Lin didn't have the time to talk. In fact, he seemed to be actively avoiding me. The next person I contacted, per Wayne's request, was Tracy, Anthony Spencer's mom, Wayne's cellmate. I wanted to know more about the person Wayne's been living with the past few years.

especially given how highly Wayne spoke of him. Anthony Spencer, he is my oldest son. He's been a good kid all his life. Never in any trouble in school, not a reprimand or anything. Everybody loves Anthony. His goodness is heartened. He's a good person. And when the incident happened and he went to jail, everyone was in disbelief.

So I said, okay, you know, let me have a fish fry. Let me try to raise some money to do something, maybe a lawyer, you know. So I went and bought all this fish, and I sold $600 worth of fish in two hours. That's a lot of fish. That's a lot of fish, but they came to support him, you know. He's a really good person. Some of his friends had planned an armed robbery, a robbery, to rob the Chinese delivery man.

From what his mom told me, Anthony was likely at the wrong place at the wrong time. He wasn't part of the plan, but he was there. Besides that, I knew very few details about the incident. But the judge said at the end of the trial that he didn't want to sentence Anthony to 10 years. He knew that he didn't deserve that. Judge Kiel. And it was, I felt it. It was heartfelt, you know. He didn't want to do that. But he said by law he had to. He had no choice. Anthony's in tail fair prison.

He started off in Waycross, and then he went to Valdosta, and now he's in Telfair. Anthony has been in prison this summer seven years. How's that been? It's rough. I have a 10-year-old, and Anthony spent so much time with him. And it hurts me to see them hurt, you know, because they missed their sibling. Yeah, it's rough.

You know, I feel like he should be out here. He made a mistake, but he should be out here living his life. He doesn't know how to drive. You know, I don't even know if he's ever even had sex. You know, you know, nothing. He hasn't hasn't even begin to live his life. You know, Anthony does the newsletter in prison. And since he's been at tail fair, he met Wayne. And I think that helps.

to have someone that you can communicate with that's there and that really understands what's going on, opposed to me really understanding what prison life is like. You know, when Anthony first emailed me and told me that he met Wayne Williams, stay away from him! Do you know who that is? He was like, yeah, ma. I said, boy, that is accused of line of child murder. I said, nah, I don't think he killed them kids.

But I don't know what Wayne be doing. Stay away from his ass. You know exactly what I told him. And he was like kind of distraught, you know, like, and then he kept coming at me with it. Well, this person is going to call you and this person is this person going to call you. And I'm looking at the email like, whatever, you know, recently, probably about a month or so ago, you know, and I could just hear in his voice that

how much his attitude and his spirit had lifted, you know. And I started listening to him. I said, this really means something to him. You know, I can't tell him what to believe and what to think. That's only for me to do for myself. Wayne, to me, sounds like he gives him good advice. And I just hope their relationship is a good relationship. Yeah.

You know, like I said, I don't know too much about Wayne personally. But I spoke with Wayne a few weeks ago. And I was like, huh? Wayne Williams. So I called my daughter. I said, guess what? I just got off the phone with Wayne Williams. Oh, my God. You know? And she was like, what, Mom? I was like, yes. I was like, I can't believe this. And I called all my sisters. You know? It was like meeting... He's an Ike? You know? I mean...

It's like, that was something that's deep. You know, and I'm not into celebrities. You know, I'm just not, you know, because they don't do nothing for me. So, you know, but to actually speak to Wayne Williams, and I know from doing a little research that I've done on him, and, you know, which didn't tell me too much, he's a very intelligent guy. Very intelligent guy.

I was just excited. You said he was like an icon, right? Yeah. What do you think he represents? I don't know exactly what he represents. He represents his self, you know, and I know he's been advocating for

to get out of there. You know, and like everybody else, he just wants to live his life. But I think he's a good person. I think he probably was just a scapegoat. And he seemed kind of weird, you know, from when I look at the films and stuff back in the day, like, you know, a little nerdy type. You know, but he was smart. Smart. I know he was into electronics and radio, you know, but it seemed like he kept to himself back then, you know. Well,

It's sad, but I don't know. I really don't know what he represents. I don't know what he represents. I talked to him. That was that brief five-minute conversation. What did he say to you? He just told me, called me, addressed me, Ms. McCain, and told me who he was. And then he proceeded to talk about Anthony and how bright and intelligent he really thinks he is. And...

He's talented. You know, he told me how talented he is. And he said he has his lawyer helping with Anthony's case. And he said he didn't want anything. He just wanted us to advocate, you know, for him. In what way?

I'm assuming like his story or whatever he's trying to convey to the outside world that he wants us to grab a hold of that and help convey the message because everybody doesn't listen to podcasts. Like I said, I never didn't even know what a podcast was, you know, and that's all he asks in return.

As a mother, is there any part of you that has any sort of fear or sense of uneasiness that Anthony's cellmate was accused of doing something like that? I don't think because I know I don't think he did anything. My fear was for like five years was that something would happen to my son, you know. Inside prison. Inside prison. That was my biggest fear. Yeah. You know, I just pray for him, you know.

And he comes out of this thing unscathed and in his right mind, you know, to become a productive citizen outside those walls. You know, and now I'm just like, I'm smiling every day because I know now we're on countdown. You know, I'm just ready for my son to get busy, get to work, live his life, find a nice lady, get married, have me some grandbabies.

Of course, Tracy isn't the only one who's unsure about Wayne's conviction. After meeting Tracy, I spoke to another family member of a victim, Jeffrey Mathis' cousin, Mel. Growing up, Mel saw firsthand what Jeffrey's murder did to his family emotionally.

And he told me his entire family doubts they'll ever get closure. What can you tell us about Jeffrey? Jeffrey, you know, he was a very good kid. He was very, you know, malleable, smart. You know, he was, you know, playful, liked to go to the, you know, stores and stuff and, you know, make pocket money and stuff like that. He was a very good kid. And the night he went missing, his mother sent him to the store to run an errand for her. And he was taking so long to come back, so she sent his older brothers to go look for him. And...

He never did return. And it was over 11 months before they found him. What does your family think about what happened to him? All that we know is he just, back in 1980, he went to the store and he never did return. So far as us ever knowing what really happened to him, probably never going to know. Do you think Wayne Williams was involved in his murder? No, I never do think that. Why not? Well, I couldn't really see him as really being anyone to hurt anybody,

He was just too much of like an intelligent, whiz kind of like guy. And he wanted to be like known into the media and, you know, kind of like a big entrepreneur guy. And I just can see him even hurting anybody. He just didn't look that energetic enough. To me, he didn't. But I don't know. If he is guilty of some of the murders, you know...

I would advise, I would just, you know, hope for them to just say, well, we're going to just go after him for those and then bring the right other killers to justice for the recipe cases and just properly prosecute them. My family has been through, you know, hell, like chaotic mess, you know, not knowing what happened. And we don't know anything. They had to get it over with. They had to get it over with. And it was just like when they solved the case, it's like the world just stopped listening. We just really want to know

What happened and why? That's about it. I just want to get closure. And what's it going to take? Well, it's going to take the right people at the right time to come along and say, well, let me try to right this wrong. Just get these families closure because they need it. If there are so many people like Mel and Anthony's mom who aren't convinced of Wayne's guilt and the only evidence of his involvement was trace fiber evidence, how was he in jail? Well, the FBI profilers played a huge part in that.

At the time of the Atlanta child murders, FBI profiling was a pretty new practice. I asked McComas and Popcorn for more detail about the profile that was made prior to Wayne Williams' arrest, and I have to admit, it was eerily accurate.

Our profilers, John Douglas being one of them, had given us 21 points that we could look for that this guy would resemble. And one of them was that he would be very conscious of the news media. And also John said he would be driving a white car, which he was. He said he'd be an only child, which he was. I think out of the 21 points, he hit about 20 of them. It was spooky.

Yeah, it's an amazing science, which I've never understood. But we had two guys that were the best in the world at that time at it. In my layman's terms, I think he's a sociopath. I think he exhibits all the characteristics of

Based on the profile, basically it's going to be a black male released from prison, arrested for a minor traffic infraction, impersonated a police officer. And we got a list of 3,000 names. And damn if Wayne Williams' name wasn't on that list. We eventually would have sent two agents out to interview him. Wayne was on that list because he had been arrested for, of all things, impersonating a police officer. We were expecting a guy with one eye in the middle of his forehead and horns. We were expecting the devil himself. And what we got was...

Who is this guy? Small, not very threatening at all. Who is this guy? That's Wayne Williams. Get him out of here. Get him the hell out of here. He's not the killer because he comes across as a nerd. Let's refer back to Jasper and Eric Cameron. They grew up in West Atlanta during the 1980s. What did they think when Wayne Williams turned out to be the boogeyman, according to the news? He's like the picture. He's like the poster child for the Atlanta Missing the Murder Kids. You get what I'm saying now?

Like, that's when they said Mr. Murder, sure, the first thing they think about Wayne Williams. That was the booger man of Atlanta. Like, they show us this picture of him, and you know how we be judgmental, you know? He look like... You know, he had the glasses, and yeah, yeah, he look like he could do some shit like that. You know how people be judgmental, you know, really, but, you know, it was... I mean, it was kind of hard to believe. Honestly, I think...

He could have done some things, but I don't think he killed all those kids. You know, my whole thing was, at the time, it was like a lot of racial stuff going on. And I think at the time, they didn't want it to be something that would separate the city racially. You know, they didn't want it to be, you know, they didn't want to

find out it was some white guys or the Klan or something. You know, they didn't want that because they knew what would happen. Kind of like what's going on now with the Trump thing. Like, it's divisive. Yeah. It would be so divisive. Anything that divide people, you could bring in confusion and really it could tear apart everything. We like, the police say he did it.

He did it. You know, you believe the police. I mean, at least you want to believe the police. Back then, though, you looked at police officers as your safety net. You know, some people had bad experience with a cop, but for the most part, you looked at police as like they're here to protect and look out for us and make sure we're okay. The day, to be honest with you, is so much information, good or bad, that how can I say this?

It's always a beautiful thing, but sometimes with everything being so open, I don't know if that's good because it desensitizes people. The way it is now, man, the world's just so desensitized, man. Like, you'll get more attention now from going up to somebody and taping the recording and slapping them on the street than really helping them. Back in the day, you'd see something happening and you would help. Now, the first thing you hear somebody holler, Worldstar! Worldstar!

Nah, for real. It's like tragic shit going on and somebody hollering, Worldstar. Like, really now? You don't look at the police the same. Yeah, people don't look at them the same. They don't look at them the same for whatever reason. You know, it's kind of like, if the police, you'd be like, I don't know. You know, I can't really, let me see. Let's look at the evidence. Yeah. You know, let's dissect the evidence. You know, everybody are forensic scientists. All these shows on TV now and all this. Let's check the evidence. I began asking Wayne for some hard evidence.

I needed names, stories, and leads to follow up on, or else I couldn't even tell the story he was painting for me. Jasper and Eric were right. In times of doubt, you have to go back to the evidence. And unfortunately, there's not too much to go off of in this case. But Wayne promised me that he had big things to share. Things that would shake the foundation of his conviction.

You're going to get to hear from Sidney Dorsey, who was an ex... He was the person... One, the person responsible for putting me in prison. Now he wants to tell the story about the witnesses he paid and why he did what he did. I'm not into theories. I'm into facts. And what I'm saying is there are some facts that we have from an investigative point of view from the inside of the case that have never been revealed publicly. These are the types of things that I want to put out and let people come to their own conclusion on them.

But it was hard to get the details out of him.

We got a lot to talk about, man. So believe me, you're going to get it all.

You're going to get that. You're going to get all of that. Don't worry about it. That's going to come. 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. Over time, I picked up on some of Wayne's stories and began looking into them. The next thing Wayne brought up was physical evidence that linked some of the victims to other suspicious groups.

Over, I think it's several thousand fingerprints that they took in this case. There's not a single fingerprint. If the victims, hey, if you're saying 20, 30, however many it was, we don't even know. If you're saying these folks had association with Wayne Williams and his environment, surely there would have been some forensic evidence or fingerprint for some of the victims and a house card, some of my, nothing. You understand what I'm saying? This was a true witch hunt.

So we want to attack the witnesses that lied and why they lied under this right here, because they were trying to get a half million dollar reward. Wayne seemed to be right about this, the fiber evidence at least. A Washington Post article from 1982 quotes Crime Lab microanalyst Larry Peterson, who worked this case and stood behind the fiber evidence. He's quoted saying, we didn't have any bullets or fingerprints, only what we got off the bodies.

Okay, you've got groups of killings. Some of them were unrelated to others. They just happened at the same time. You've got six or eight cases that we know that white supremacists were involved in. We know this for a fact, including there's certain physical evidence, Caucasian fibers you never heard about. We know for a fact in six of those murders, we know this for a fact, based not just on

According to FBI records, two Caucasian head fibers were found on the body of Charles Stevens, but it didn't seem to be a recurring pattern, from what I could find at least. And then...

Wayne brought up a homosexual ring. We know that another six cases were involved in a homosexual ring going on in Atlanta, a black homosexual ring. It's been learned that investigators have now found this man, Tom Terrell, and questioned him today about his role in some type of homosexual ring operated out of this home in northwest Atlanta. That ring apparently involved the latest child victim, Timothy Hill, and through recent findings may have linked together several other children on the task force list.

I read about this man, Tom Terrell, in my research, and he did seem like a pretty suspicious and potentially dangerous man. Tom Terrell owned two houses on Gray Street, one that may have been a haven for pedophiles and sex offenders, and one that was his place of residence. A witness said that he'd had sex with one of the Atlanta child murder victims, Timothy Hill, at one of Tom Terrell's houses on Gray Street.

He also claimed to have seen at least 10 other victims at the same house. Terrell knows this man, Larry Marshall, now in a Connecticut jail on armed robbery charges. Marshall is believed to have known at least three of the victims, Patrick Balthazar, Timothy

Timothy Hill, and Joseph Bell, who is still missing. Before his arrest, Marshall shared a house in West Atlanta with this man, Jerry Thornton. Thornton says police showed him pictures of the child victims, and he recognized 10 of them. And Marshall is an acquaintance of Tom Terrell. Terrell lives in this house on Gray Street Northwest, where several of the victims are said to have spent some time. The house has also been linked to an alleged sex-for-hire ring involving young boys.

Police have been watching the house, and investigators have talked to Terrell a number of times. So far, though, no one revolving around this homosexual ring has been arrested as a suspect. It's not known what Tom Terrell has told police or just how helpful Larry Marshall might be if he decides to cooperate. But even investigators who are skeptical about Marshall's possible contributions to the case say this sex ring is an important investigative theory, certainly worth following up.

These are members of Gay Dignity, homosexuals who don't like what the media has been reporting the last few days. Those reports center around a possible sex ring that includes homosexual men, one of them being Marshall. Investigators know Marshall knew Timothy Hill and possibly other boys on the task force list.

Hill and the others hung out here in a northwest Atlanta home owned by an admitted homosexual. Although there is no hard evidence, the task force is looking into the possibility that some type of sex ring may be involved in the killings. These gays think the word homosexual has been used too much. They reemphasize homosexual in every adjective or nouns in most cases when they're talking about this incident rather than just speaking of the word sexual.

As I stated earlier, in many cases when there's rape and so involved, the headlines do not read "Heterosexual Man." It reads "Sexual Assault" or something like that, but it does not read "Heterosexual." And the word "black," you know, another comparison. When it's a person who is a criminal, they don't refer to the person as a black man or a yellow man or a Chinese man. They refer to them as a man.

Clearly homophobia.

continues to be rampant. People are not necessarily speaking candidly and freely about gay identity. There is a lot of incredibly inappropriate conflation with gayness and predatory behavior, and particularly with gayness and predatory behavior towards children.

So, you know, it's not a distant step for people who are thinking in that way to think, well, certainly somebody who's gay would be somebody who might be a danger to children and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Although there's clearly no real evidence for such a connection. And so that...

seems to have had a role to play in how people were thinking, first of all, about the murders, thinking about the children, thinking about the taboo around talking about how some of the children were assaulted, not just because of a kind of respect for victims, but also because of a sense of

of soiling, of taintedness because of any kind of connection with homosexual activity. So all of that was a part of that conversation. And then you have these murders clearly of young black gay men, whether it's part of this pattern or a separate issue. It's hard for me to understand how the murders of these fully adult, albeit young, men

feel the same as the murders of six and eight and nine-year-olds. But all of that serves together to further marginalize, vilify, shroud in secrecy and taboo and taint the victims and to some extent ultimately the man who's accused of the murders.

During that time period, we were not looking at child trafficking the way we are now. We didn't talk about child prostitution back then and how children could have been picked up and used for illicit means. During that time, very homophobic time too, people could not accept people for who they were.

And every person who was a homosexual was considered to be a pedophile, which is not true. It was so disheartening to see that negativity that also was pointed at the gay community. But that was the time, thanks be to God, we had grown. But that was really very frightening.

That was never looked into, as far as I know, by law enforcement. Sex trafficking. Not homosexuality, but sex trafficking. So, you know, did they look into known pedophiles? I mean, it could have been a pedophile who did this.

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.

No matter how you slice it, Wayne became a suspect the night he was stopped on the bridge. We had two people under both sides of the bridge, police cadets. And of course, we kept them hidden out. And then in close proximity, we had a chase car on each side of the bridge. And they too blended in so that they couldn't be seen. About two or three in the morning, they heard a huge splash. Woke up the two guys underneath the bridge. One of them, who was a high school swimmer, he said, that's a body hitting the water. And he looks up.

And he radios his friend across the bridge. Is there a car on the bridge? There was only one vehicle on that bridge. The guy says, yeah, it's starting to move slowly. The car appeared to be just starting up again like it had been stopped and it was going two or three miles an hour. Then across the bridge, circled around, I think, a convenience store. Pulls around right in front of a police car hiding in the bushes.

and goes back up the highway to a 285. Well, they chased him down. And as soon as he pulled off... That's when our cars tagged him. They got him. There's a lot of ambiguity about what actually happened that night. So I asked Wayne for his account.

The officers Wayne mentions in his account are Agent Greg Gilliland of the FBI, two rookie Atlanta police recruits, Officer Bob Campbell and Officer Freddie Jacobs, and Atlanta police veteran Carl Holden. Allegedly, the recruit Officer Campbell was stationed under the bridge and Officer Jacobs was stationed on the bridge, and Holden was in his car at a nearby liquor store. The James Jackson Parkway Bridge connects two counties, Fulton County and Cobb County.

And apparently, at the time of the incident, there was a liquor store on the Fulton County side. South Cobb Parkway, the route Wayne was apparently taking that night, goes over the Chattahoochee River. The Chattahoochee, of course, is where bodies have been showing up. I hadn't even gone to sleep. I had been up all day to go to the kitchen. That sounded good times.

I was coming from trying to find an address off of South Cross Parkway. It turned out to be a fake address on one of the auditions. We had that quite often, and the address was no good, so I was returning home. And as I came home, like I said, I went south on South Cross Parkway, crossed the bridge. As I crossed the bridge, I turned into that gravel parking lot to my right. Briefly turned, you know, turned on the lights, looked for a number, turned back on the road,

He proceeded about a quarter of a mile to what I identified as the liquor store on the left. So I picked up some boxes there, crossed the streets, I made a call and turned back north, back across the bridge to get on I-285. As I approached the bridge, I saw a car headlight halfway in the road. He pulled back and let me pass and turn him behind me.

It turned out that the headlights were those of Carl Holden, the Atlanta police officer, who was parked beside the liquor store at the bridge. They followed me up to 285 where I was stopped. Campbell, below the bridge, he says he heard a splash. This was the radio sequence, 1-1000-2-1000-3-4.

Stop.

That's the timing sequence they testified to in court. There's the contradiction. During that sequence, there's no way any car could have been going south on the bridge, turned into the gravel park lot, and turned back north. That's an absolute impossibility. That car mine had to have been traveling north the entire time of the sequence. Bottom line is, there was no splash. Next time on Atlanta Monster.

We're good up here. We're ready on your call.

Good night here. Action. Atlanta Monster is an investigative podcast told week by week with new episodes every Friday. A joint production between HowStuffWorks and Tenderfoot TV. Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. Audio archives courtesy of WSB News, Film, and Videotape Collection. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries. For the latest updates, please visit atlantamonster.com or follow us on social media.

One last thing. We've set up an Atlanta Monster tip line. Anyone with information, leads, or personal accounts pertaining to the Atlanta child murders can call us and leave a message. The number is 1-833-285-6667. Again, that's 1-833-285-6667. Thanks for listening.

I don't know what to believe. I wasn't told what to believe. Materialistic, young and naive. New era rebels against the parent ass backwards like crisscross getting lost in these streets. Reality turns thoughts to debris and our hearts to concrete. Weigh me down, I don't know what to believe. Weigh me down, I don't know what to believe. Yeah.

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. ♪