Tonight at 8:00 p.m. EST a two hour docmentary will air on CNN entitled, The Atlanta Child Murders. I have had the distinct privilege of working with the professionals at CNN for the past year in researching the series of murders that took place in the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area that, in 1982, culminated in the arrest, trial, and conviction of an unknown black man—Wayne Bertram Williams.
Since 1982 I have called Wayne Williams “my friend.’ He’s this, not because he may or may not be guilty; that he may or may not be a serial murderer; that he may or may not be, as some call him, “A black monster.” I call Wayne “my friend” because I have come to know him as most never will and have come to see the human side of this particular inmate that very few other have.
This is a brief recap of my ministry to infamous sadistic serial killer Wayne Bertram Williams.
___________________________________________________________________________________
In 1982 I was a criminology college professor and departmental chairperson at a large Alabama community college. I also directed an academic crime laboratory which presented the opportunity to work with prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys in a variety of criminal cases.
I well remember on late afternoon when my secretary informed me that I had a telephone call from an attorney in Atlanta. What in the world would an Atlanta attorney be calling me, a small time college professor from a small community hardly anyone had ever hear of?
I took this call and my life has never been the same. Here’s why.
The caller was Atlanta attorney Mary Welcome requesting that I travel to her city to review and give an opinion on an undetermined amount of physical evidence that the State of Georgia had against her client—Wayne Williams. This was the first time I had ever heard the name. I had read several newspaper articles concerning the murders of young children in the Atlanta area but William’s name had never been mentioned.
I agreed to drive to Atlanta for a single meeting—one meeting—and left the safety of my academic nest for the Peach State’s capital city. The trip wasn’t remarkable in any way and didn’t actually take as long as I had anticipated.
I arrived, found Mrs. Welcome’s office, parked and went inside. I was met by a young male attorney that introduced himself as being the brother-in-law of a former fraternity brother of mine. I had suddenly had my very first question answered, “How did you get my name?”
I waited for a very few minutes, just long enough to drink a cup of coffee, and was then ushered into Mrs. Welcome’s average looking office. So this is what an Atlanta attorney’s office looks like, I remember thinking.
Mrs. Welcome was most gracious and immediately got to the point of my visit. She had recently be hired by the parents of a young black man that had been arrested by a police task force and accused of having kidnapped and murdered a number of young black children and adults. Here I hear the name for the second time—Wayne Williams.
I reviewed her “Brady” evidence, gave my opinion, was taken to lunch by Mrs. Welcome and her legal crew and then headed back to Alabama never to return.
This was not to be as I soon received a second telephone call asking that I consider becoming a member of William’s defense team. Me, a college professor from a small town in Alabama, becoming a member of the criminal defense team of, at that time, the most highly publicized serial murderer in American history? At the time I didn’t know if this was an opportunity of a lifetime or a curse—I would definitely find out later.
I remember the first time Wayne and I met face-to-face. It was in the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta. He didn’t appear to be a criminal as many think a person accused of a crime is suppose to look. He didn’t have blood dripping from his hands, his eyes didn’t appear as beads, his handshake was strong and firm and he was polite; heck, he wasn’t even foaming at the mouth.
Wayne and I sat down at a small table and began talking. He ask me questions, the usual ones, and I did the same. We learned who each other was and, as best we could, came to an agreement as to who we were, what we would be doing for each other, etc.
For whatever reasons Mrs. Welcome soon stepped aside and a Mississippi Attorney, Al Binder, came to Atlanta to assume the role of lead attorney for Williams. It would be Al Binder that I would sit next to in the courtroom of the Fulton County Courthouse during the nine or so week criminal trial of Wayne Williams.
To say that my “new position” created an opportunity to see a big time trial from the inside is an understatement. You can only imagine what it was like; media from throughout the world, even Switzerland; reporters so thickly standing in front of the courthouse each morning that I was forced to be “delivered” into the courthouse basement by automobile. Walking from the Atlanta Downtown Hilton had become an impossibility just had eating a quite meal. No one would leave me alone…not for a moment.
I’m not going to say whether Wayne Williams is guilty or not…I don’t know. I only know a jury found him to be on February 27, 1982, and he’s presently inmate number 408135 at Hancock State Prison located in Sparta, Georgia.
Daily, throughout the 1982 trial, I met with Wayne to discuss trial strategy and, when we had time, to just “shoot the bull” about common, ordinary things: football, baseball, music, etc. My daily lunch ended up being in the “holding cell” at the Fulton County Courthouse where Wayne and I dined on hamburgers, fries and a Coke or two from a nearby MacDonald’s. The meals were unusual at all, the company, however, certainly was. I was becoming friends with the most infamous serial killer in American history and I was beginning to like him!
Let me stop here to emphasize that I will not say, nor imply, that I think Wayne Williams is innocent. He may well be guilty of the close to thirty dastardly murders of which he is accused. However, I must point out that he was convicted and sentenced for having committed only two of these murders and both of them were of adults not children.
For nine long weeks, seven days per week, I was in Atlanta working with various legal oriented professional who were cast into the role of providing an adequate criminal defense to this infamous sadistic serial murderer merely because he, just as every American, has the constitutional right to such. Remember, in theory at least, everyone is assumed innocent until proven guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainly.”
At the conclusion of tonight’s CNN two hour documentary you will have the opportunity to cast your vote: guilty, not guilty, or not proven. You have one vote with three choices and I encourage each of you to take a moment to cast your vote.
Let me point out from a criminological point of view that Wayne Williams was arrested, charged, tried and convicted of two murders. But police statistically cleared 22 additional cases, one of which Wayne Williams was not charged. Therefore, police show a clearance rate of 85.8% in these particular murders attributed to Wayne although they made arrests in only 6.9%.
Equally important is the fact that Wayne was jailed in June of 1981, and the authorities stopped counting and adding names to “The List.” The Atlanta police-FBI Uniform Crime Reort tabulations show seven (7) unsolved killings of blacks—ages 15 60 25—in Atlanta’s city limits from July through December of 1981 after Wayne Williams was locked up in jail!
When I made this earlier mentioned first trip to Atlanta I had already been teaching criminal justice and criminology for several years during which time I had visited correctional facilities on a regular basis. My theory is that a student can learn so much from a book but the total learning experience must include a certain amount of “hands on” experience. This theory allowed students to accompany me when I went to visit the likes of Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and many others. The students, no doubt, met Wayne and seemed to like him rather well.
To make a very long story a bit shorter, from 1964 until present I have regularly gone into correctional facilities in a number of states and, at the suggestion of one of my Liberty University minister friends, narrowed my work to death row inmates and serial killers. Today I continue to work more with this group than the broader overall prison population although I do, quite regularly, work with inmates serving lesser sentences.
It wasn’t long into my “prison experiences” that I noticed the large recidivism rate, the percentage of inmates being released only to return to prison. It didn’t take a Ph.D. to figure out that rehabilitation wasn’t working.
By now I had experienced the saving grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and was learning that He, through “regeneration,” lowers this above mentioned recidivism rate. In short, rehabilitation doesn’t work—regenerations does! Here I invite you to read 2 Cor. 5:17 for the answer as to why.
During my many prison visits I began to interject more and more “Jesus” into my interviews. I got to the point that I was preaching more than I was researching which goes to show that, yes, God does work in mysterious ways indeed.
You can call it “funny,” “odd,” “peculiar” or whatever adjective suits your desires but I can only call it “God doing His thing.”
The more I told inmatse about Jesus the more they seemed to become interested. I point out the importance of the word “seemed” as those of us experienced in ministering to our nation’s prison population well know how inmates will make every attempt and exert every effort to “use” the new guy to get what they want. I, for sure, experienced my share of being used and, out of necessity, I soon learned to spot it, stop it, and proceed without it.
This article, however, is not about other infamous inmates, it’s about Wayne Williams. My wife says I’m great at getting “off point” and I think I just did!
Anyway, due to a combination of economics, sociology, psychology , politics and plain hysteria Wayne Williams was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences and was transported to the Georgia Receiving and Diagnostic facility in Jackson, Georgia. This is where I next visited with Wayne.
Football, baseball, etc., were our main Jackson topics but there was one more….Jesus! I was serious about salvation by this time but I wasn’t at all sure that Wayne was. I had to make sure—this is what Christians are supposed to do you know.
I bought Wayne a Bible but wasn’t allowed to give it to him since it came from the “outside,” therefore I secured one from the institutional chaplain and gave it to him.
I remember so well that the first verse we read was, as mentioned earlier, 2 Corinthians 5:17 which talked about regeneration, becoming a new person, staring over, etc.
I liked Wayne—I certainly didn’t agree with what he had been found guilty of having done—but I felt compassion, Christian love and a sense of duty to the guy.
Wayne was receptive to hearing The Word and I diligently “put it to him” in no small doses. I didn’t do anything but God sure did! Wayne, after a rather lengthy theological discourse looked at me and said, “Eddie, you believe all this stuff don’t you? You really believe that I can go to heaven when I die.” Not shocked, but a bit surprised, I answered that I believed it to the point of knowing that a person would go to heaven if certain things took place and that he as much as anyone could gain this assurance to the point of being as sure of heaven as he would be if he were already there.
Time passed, visits continued, our friendship survived several bouts of disagreement, but God continued to work. My friends, God won!
It was midday when Wayne prayed the sinners’ prayer. It was just the three of us; God, Wayne, and me.
The Bible tells us that Christians have differing talents that must be used for His good. It says, also, that every Christian has one common talent—the talent to witness and that we must witness to all people. This is not a suggestion, my friend, it is a commandment directly from God Almighty! For those that just may not understand the word “all,” let me give you Webster’s definition:
ALL: The total entity or extent of; the whole number, amount, or quantity; every; any whatsoever; each and everyone.
Remember as well that God didn’t make any junk—not a single piece. Each one of us was made in the likeness of Him and this includes Wayne Williams. You might as well grow accustomed to the idea, friends, its God telling you this, not me. You may disagree and if you do the only thing I can suggest is that you take it up with The Master, after all He wrote it!
I ask you this…..how long has it been since you ministered to a prison inmate or an inmate family member? The Bible speaks throughout about the necessity of ministering to this particular groups of individuals and I urge you to stop using the Bible as a Sears-Roebuck catalog and read everything in it including the verses that command us to go into the prisons and minister to these incarcerated souls.
I have invited many so-called Christians over the years to accompany me to prison church services—very few have ever gone. Their reasons are: “I’d be scared to death”—“I wouldn’t know what to say,” Would they want to talk about their crime,” etc.
Ministry friends, I have been going into prisons from California to New York and I’ve never been threatened, harassed, or hurt by a single inmate. In fact, just the opposite is true with one exception. These men and women are just like you and me and, believe me, any of us, under circumstances, could find ourselves exactly where these people are. (By the way, the exception was “The Clown Killer,” John Wayne Gacy, who made the single threat upon my life that I have received directly from an inmate).
I must say this about being a prison minister—it’s not easy. The problem isn’t with the inmates or inmate family member; the problem is with what the inmates refer to as the “free world population.” This free world population is you and me—those of us who have never committed a crime or, at least, have never been caught!
Sadly, the free world population does seem to look with distain upon us prison ministers and among these looking with distain, the most vocal are our good Christian brothers and sisters. Yep, you didn’t mis-understand, our church going, singing in the choir, Amen corner, Sunday go to meeting Christians are the last to support a prison ministry, last to say, “Preacher, you’re doing a great job,” last to contribute toward the purchase of a gallon or two of gasoline and, last but not least, the last to forgive!
In closing I must say that practically all of the more infamous inmates I have ministered to are certainly guilty as charged, there’s no doubt about this. Nevertheless, in the scheme of theology and Christian witnessing this does not matter and should be of no concern to your witnessing potential.
Listen people, if we got what we deserve we would all go to hell….every single one of us without exception. It’s only by the grace of God, the death of His Son Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary, that we have a choice between spending eternity in a beautiful place called heaven or an eternity in a literal place of fire called hell.
You have these two choices for your eternal future, I have these choices and, accept it whether you like it or not, every inmate in every prison does as well.
Is Wayne Williams going to heaven when he dies—-yes! Am I sure that he will—absolutely. How do I know? I know because I believe in God, I believe in His Son Jesus Christ, I believe in the death, burial, and resurrection. I believe that every letter of every word of every verse of every book in the Holy Bible is the literal truth and Word of God without exception.
Finally, I encourage you to watch tonight’s CNN presentation, The Atlanta Child Murders, and decide for yourself whether you believe that Wayne Williams is guilty of killing almost thirty black children and young adults or not. Don’t forget to vote at the conclusion of the documentary. I understand you will have an hour following the ending of the broadcast to cast your vote.
Also, the broadcast times have changed a bit due to the oil spill. Here are the new times:
Initial CNN airing: 8:00 p.m. EDT
Re-airing: 10:00 p.m. EDT This documentary
This documentary will be re-broadcast several additional times over the following week and you can get these times by visiting my criminology web-site at: www.criminologyresearch.org
Bible References
Prisons
Judg. 16:21
Ps. 142:7
Matt. 14:10
Acts 5:19
Acts 16:27
1 Kings 22:27
Rev. 18:2
Prisoner
Ps. 102:20
Ps. 146:7
Matt. 27:15
Rom. 7:23
Eph. 3:1
2 Tim. 1:8
Dr. Edward Blackwelder
Executive Director
Criminology Research Project, Inc & Liberty Chaplain Ministries
.