>> this is the first time wayne williams has talked on tv in at least a decade. why do you think you were convicted? >> fear. >> what do you mean? >> atlanta, at the time, was in a panic. they wanted any suspect that they could find. and let's just be honest. it had to be a black person, because if it had been a white suspect, atlanta probably would have gone up in flames. it came very close to that. >> do you think you'll ever be free? >> no doubt it's not a matter of if to me. it's a matter of when. >> some 30 years after wayne williams' trial and conviction, there is still debate and some doubt. this time, you can be the judge and the jury. we'll lay out the evidence on both sides and you'll hear from wayne williams at length. then we'll invite you to reach your own verdict, guilty, innocent, or a third choice, not proven. the first clue was found on a dead boy's tennis shoes. the victim was eric middlebrooks. his body left here in a rainy alley. a foster child who rode his bicycle away one night on an errand and was dead by dawn. detective bob buffington saw something red stuck to eric's tennis shoe. >> and i noticed in the flap of the edge of this shoe this tuft of what to me appeared to be wool. and that was it. we could find no other evidence. >> back at homicide, buffington showed the fibers to his superiors. >> the lieutenant made a big joke out of it and told the rest of the squad that if i went over to the lieutenant's house and cleaned out the lint trap in his dryer, we could probably clear out all the cases in the city of atlanta. >> still, buffington sent the fibers to the state crime laboratory. a young forensic scientist, larry peterson, took a look. why was a fiber that was stuck in the crack of a shoe, why was that important? >> because it was somewhat loosely there. people normally don't have tufts of carpet fibers loosely stuck in their shoe. >> from those few thin threads, peterson would begin to build a case to try to catch a killer. how many fibers across the board did you look at every day in this case, when the case really started getting busy? 100? 500? 1,000? >> literally there's going to be hundreds, if not thousands, of fibers there, depending upon the case. >> in the spring of 1980, no one wanted to believe a serial killer was loose in the city, even when bob buffington spotted a disturbing pattern. >> there had been a sharp increase in the number of children under the age of 14 who had been killed. >> when he told his boss at homicide, the major threatened to transfer him. >> and i truly think that they were afraid that there would be a panic. >> it was this mother, after the loss of her 9-year-old son, who finally forced police to listen, but not until almost a year after her boy died. camille bell and her children lived in these project apartments. poor to the eye, but rich in mind and spirit. yusuf bell was an honor student in the gifted program at school. on a warm october sunday in 1979, he walked away on an errand to buy snuff for an elderly lady downstairs. >> he went barefooted in a pair of brown shorts. he got to the store. he bought the snuff. he started back home. >> less than half a block from this store, yusuf bell stepped off this curb and vanished. >> and nobody saw anybody do anything or anything. but they did see him come back across the street. and that's the last that we saw him. >> camille bell called the police. they came and said they'd write a report. that's all. days went by. camille waited with two older children and yousef's 3-year-old sister. >> and so she is terrified. if he can go to the store and they can steal him, then she doesn't want to leave the house. she doesn't want to do anything. >> camille hid her own fear from her children. >> and you've got to hold them together so you can't act as scared as you are. >> the body of yusuf bell was found in an abandoned schoolhouse. >> his body would not turn up for another month. yusuf bell had been strangled. >> all of the what could have been, should have been and probably would have been was taken away, and we'll never know now, because somebody decided that it was all right to just kill a little kid because they wanted to. >> for a long time, the 3-year-old would look for yusuf every time it was a foggy day. >> and we'd go out into the fog and she would go as far as she could into the fog. and i'd say, come back here. and she'd say, i got to go find my brother. and she said, the clouds came and she said, the clouds came down, so yusuf can come down! >> the child, her mother said, had confused the fog with heaven. still ahead -- the boy who was too brave. >> i mean, he was like, man, i want to find this killer and get this reward money. >> a drive-by threat against the fbi chief's child. >> some guy in a pickup truck said, i'm going to get you, nigger. >> and in the end, the curious question of the cia. >> you're 19 years old. you say you worked for the cia. you've been recruited. >> i'll let the document speak for itself. i'm not going to comment on that. >> then -- >> you know how to kill somebody with a choke hold? that's a yes or no answer? >> no, it's not. >> yes, it is, actually! >> no, it's not. >> do you know how to kill somebody with a choke hold? >> no, it's not. 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[ male announcer ] stop the uh-oh fast with kaopectate. police were still reluctant to listen to camille bell. >> children were dying on the streets of atlanta in the daytime. >> among them, jeffrey mathis, only 10. like yusuf bell, he walked down the street on an errand to this gas station to buy cigarettes for his mother. she never saw him again. >> what we had here was a predator. and what he was looking for was somebody who was cut off from the herd. and if you don't realize you're in trouble until you're in trouble, then you have no way of getting out. >> it would be another year before jeffrey mathis' body was found in the woods, miles from his home. his mother would join camille bell in forming a committee to confront the city's leaders. >> the reaction of the police was that we were overreacting and that there was no serial killer. >> even though by now, six black children were dead. four others were missing. >> perhaps we were like distraught parents that really needed everyone's sympathy, but nobody needed to do anything. >> for years, it has been a dirty little secret among the press and the police. deaths of blacks draw less attention than deaths of whites. >> nobody cared. so you could have several killings go on and if the people were poor, then no one discovered there was a serial killing. if you were black and poor, then really nobody looked. especially if you're black and poor and southern. >> police were slow to recognize these deaths were different. many of the bodies were left in the woods, far from home, unlike most murder victims who are found where they fall. >> unsolved murders of children is very rare. if a 9-year-old got killed, it was because somebody slapped him across the room, he hit his head and he died. >> police did not create a task force until a year after the first murders began. fbi profiler roy hazelwood came down to help. three detectives drove him around the city and turned into jeffrey mathis' neighborhood. >> as soon as we turned on to that street, everything stopped. a guy cutting the grass stopped. guys playing dominos on the porch stopped. i said, what's going on? i said everything stopped. they said, laughingly, that's because we have a honky in the car. >> john glover, who took over as fbi chief in atlanta that summer, said that's why he and hazelwood decided the killer had to be black. >> the killer is someone who is invisible in the black community and who is invisible in the black community but another black person? >> malcolm harris was one of the first task force detectives. he knew it had to be someone who went unnoticed. >> we felt like it was somebody who could come in the neighborhood and get these children and not draw attention to themselves. >> the question of which race struck a raw nerve. it had been only a dozen years since the murder of dr. martin luther king. on the surface, atlanta was a well integrated city. beneath the surface, it remained separate and unequal. >> my prayer and the prayers of everybody in there was we wanted the person to be black. and the reason why you wanted him to be black, i knew what it would do to this town if it had have been a white person or somebody of another race. >> in the black community, in the early '80s, a black serial killer was unheard of. all the classic serial killers were white. never black. >> didn't mean we didn't have one now. >> today, black serial killers are not rare. in 2009, here in cleveland, as well as in milwaukee and los angeles, each time the accused serial killer turned out to be african-american. dr. eric hickey is a psychologist who keeps track of serial killers. >> overall in my study, one out of every five serial killers is african-american. in the past since 1995, over 40% are african-american. we're finally saying, you know what, blacks do this, too. >> there were whites who fed the fear in atlanta. as fbi chief john glover had moved into this upper class white neighborhood, his 12-year-old son was playing outside one afternoon. >> some guy in a pickup truck, he was out in the yard in our side yard. we were on a corner. we lived in -- we had a corner lot, you know. said, i'm going to get you, nigger, as he was driving by. >> kasim reed, seen in these childhood photos, was only 10 when the first two bodies were found in the woods close to his home in the summer of 1979. >> my life did change. >> how so? >> not out as late as you used to be. not able to ride your bike unaccompanied. >> in 2010, reed would become the mayor of atlanta. but back then, as the youngest boy in his family, his teenage brothers were his protectors. >> and i didn't move without my brothers for about a year. >> the bulk of the victims were boys like you? >> you're right. >> your age. >> you're right. >> black boys. >> yes. >> did you personally feel afraid? >> i can't honestly say that i really felt afraid, except for at moments. you would have a van slow down and everybody was very mindful of vans at the time. >> people were suspicious of everybody. and they were afraid. and you had children walking the street, car go by, you could see some of them were in fear. >> and for good reason. the murders were about to increase to a body almost every week. ♪ the time of trouble ♪ in the time of trouble coming up, a creature of the night. >> being an ex-news reporter and all, you know, nighttime is me. that's the time i'm out most of the time. >> and a mystery within a mystery. >> he walked into the back of the studio and he had horrible scratches on his arms. and he said he had fallen into a bush. with the spark miles card from capital one, thor's couture gets the most rewards of any small business credit card. your boa! 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[ major nutrition ] ensure. nutrition in charge! you know what's exciting? graduation. when i look up into my students faces, i see pride. you know, i have done something worthwhile. when i earned my doctorate through university of phoenix, that pride, that was on my face. i am jocelyn taylor. i'm committed to making a difference in people's lives, and i am a phoenix. visit phoenix.edu to find the program that's right for you. enroll now. so many of the children who died were poor, who earned spending money carrying groceries, running errands for others, or, like lubie geter, peddling car deodorizers outside this supermarket on new year's weekend 1981. his mother worried about his going off alone. >> he said he was a big boy, that they'd have to catch him first. >> lubie was a good student, a sophomore in high school. a witness at the shopping center that day saw lubie with a man and helped a police artist draw this sketch, a man with a baseball cap, perhaps a scar on his cheek. lubie never came home. >> i believe he had been kidnapped. >> police searched the woods around atlanta. they did not find lubie. instead, police found two other bodies, young boys who had disappeared ten miles and a month apart, yet both left here at the same dumping ground. the number of known dead now 15. the unsolved murders of so many children had become front page news around the nation and the world. >> this is the reward -- >> the city announced a $100,000 reward, soon to grow to $500,000. the task force was swamped with sketches of suspects, none of them alike, many suggested by psychics. at the state crime lab, larry peterson was sifting through thousands of fibers, nylon, rayon, acrylic, acetate. is it like looking for a needle in a haystack? >> like looking for multiple needles in multiple haystacks. >> then in january of 1981, a breakthrough. peterson realized they we seeing one green carpet fiber with a unique shape. this is a cross-section of the fiber magnified many times. >> this particular fiber had two very, very large lobes and one short lobe. >> the lobes are the three ends of the boomerang shape. >> the shape was the most distinctive feature of the fiber. >> he showed me a slide taken from another carpet. >> this is a single tuft from the carpet, cut in cross-section. >> yeah, i can't tell that's green. even putting the tiny fibers under the microscope didn't help me. how can you tell what color this is? because in this, this green carpet, because of that light green, looks very whitish. >> the colors seen microscopically is not going to be identical to what overall carpet would be. >> instead, an even more sophisticated microscope. >> so let me just open this up -- >> -- can separate colors to identify a specific fiber. we took another look. oh, now you're talking. now peterson knew what to look for. >> when i was looking at the fiber at first, i had no idea who had made it. i just knew it was very distinctive and i would recognize it instantly. >> but he didn't know where to find it. wayne williams was not yet on anyone's radar. he had freelanced as a tv cameraman who shot fires and overnight news. he told us -- >> i know the streets of atlanta. i've been around a while. being an ex-news reporter and all, nighttime is me. that's the time i'm out most of the time. >> now, almost 23, a wannabe music producer, he was trying to form a singing group modeled after the jackson 5. in fact, the afternoon lubie geter disappeared, williams says this receipt shows he had an alibi, auditioning young singers from 4:30 to 8:30 that evening. >> the studio was a small demo studio. >> kathy andrews was co-owner of that studio. >> to my best recollection, he auditioned young kids for a group that never existed. they were roughly as young as 8 and as old -- for the kids, they were as old as 11 or 12. >> now living in another state, kathy andrews did not want her face shown because of what she saw on another day at her studio. >> at one point in time when wayne came for one of the sessions, he walked into the back of the studio and he had horrible scratches on his arms. >> deep and painful crisscrossing both arms. >> it was more this way and that way and that way and that way and that way and that way and that way. and they were angry looking. and when i looked at him, the first words out of my mouth was, oh, wayne, what happened? that looks awful. and he said he had fallen into a bush. >> 15-year-old terry pugh died late that january. his body dropped by the roadside in a rural county 20 miles from home. he had been strangled. his mother -- >> whoever killed him, he had to tussle with him because he had scratches all over him. >> it gives me chills down my spine still. >> to this day, kathy andrews does not believe wayne's explanation. >> he did not fall in a bush. it was after you realized it, it was fairly obvious. and i don't know what else could have caused that kind of wound on his arm. >> the intervals between murders were shrinking. 19 days from lubie jeter's disappearance until terry pugh's death, then 15 days until the next victim. soon 13, then 11, and before long, a body a week. fbi profiler roy hazelwood says this is not unusual for serial killers. >> they come to believe that they, in fact, are almost immune to mistakes, if you will. and they can take greater risks because it's more exciting and because they're so superior, they don't have to worry about the inferior police catching them. >> after a month, lubie jeter's body would be found in the woods. the boy left naked, except for scraps of underwear. the medical examiner would testify geter apparently had been killed by, quote, a choke hold around the neck, a forearm across the neck. it's a question we'll have reason to ask wayne williams by the end of all of this. it's actually a very simple question. can you kill someone with a choke hold? >> you probably could. and when you're 19 years -- >> you probably could under the right circumstances. >> i know for a fact i could not. when we return, the boy who wanted to catch a killer. >> the body was indeed another victim of atlanta's child killer or killers. >> i just knowed right away it was his body. oh, my god, momma. >> and later, a failed lie detector test. >> it surprised him that he didn't beat that polygraph test. he was convinced he could beat a polygraph test. homicide of young people in america has an impact on all of us. how can we save these young people's lives? as a police chief, i have an opportunity to affect what happens in a major city. if you want to make a difference, you have to have the right education. university of phoenix opened the door. my name is james craig, i am committed to making a difference, and i am a phoenix. visit phoenix.edu to find the program that's right for you. enroll now. these are sandra's "homemade" yummy, scrumptious bars. hmm? i just wanted you to eat more fiber. chewy, oatie, gooeyness... and fraudulence. i'm in deep, babe. you certainly are. 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[ italian accent ] 50% more dough! what's in your wallet? there's yet another twist in the missing and murdered children case. >> atlanta is a city of frustrations and fears. >> as the number of missing and murdered children grow -- >> the body was indeed another victim of atlanta's child killer or killers. >> patrick baltazar was the kid who was convinced he could catch a killer. >> he was like, man, i want to find this killer and get this reward money and i'm going to buy my mom a house and i'm going to do this and i'm going to find this killer. >> his stepmother, sheila baltazar, was worried. >> for a 10, 11-year-old child to be talking like that, that was just like, wow, where is his mind at? >> patrick was a latch-key child, living unsupervised with an older brother in a project apartment near downtown. >> he was very streetwise. >> he stayed out late at night, often at the omni center, now the headquarters of cnn, but back then, a hotel complex with an indoor skating rink and a game room for kids. >> that's where he spent a lot of his time at, at the games arcade. >> wayne williams was known to frequent the omni, passing out these fliers as a talent scout to offer auditions to boys from age 11 on up. >> 15 kids are dead. two others are officially missing and listed -- >> by early february 1981, more than a dozen young african-american boys had been found dead, many dumped in the woods around atlanta. >> i was very fearful. my god. >> sheila baltazar pleaded to send patrick back home to the rest of his family in rural louisiana. >> if i had somewhere to send my son, i would have sent my son. >> one evening, a white man in a big car appeared to threaten patrick and a small friend. >> the little boy said that -- patrick said, man, that might be the killer. >> patrick used a pay phone to call police. he told them, a man was chasing me and my friend in a brown cadillac. >> well, actually, thought it was a crank phone call. they didn't send a car out. >> this is a sketch the other boy provided to police after patrick was dead. two weeks later, on february 6, patrick stopped by the restaurant where his father worked to ask for money, then walked back toward the omni. he never made it home that night. >> i'm like, he didn't come home? oh, my god! that was the first thing popped in my head. missing. murdered. oh, my god! >> the atlanta missing persons bureau continue their hunt for this missing child. 11-year-old -- >> one day seemed like it was a week. that was the longest search in the world. >> it was almost 2:00 p.m. when maintenance man ishmael strickland found the lifeless figure of a young black boy lying in some bushes. >> on the seventh day, a maintenance man spotted a body tossed down into the woods behind a parking lot at a suburban office complex. >> the bank was fairly steep. >> medical examiner joseph burton had to hold on to a rope to get down to the scene. >> he had a ligature mark on his neck like if somebody had a ligature and they were behind you or off to the side behind you and they closed their hands or fists together and pulled the ligature, basically. >> in other words, killed from behind. >> most likely, yes. >> all right. let me place another sample on this side. >> state crime lab scientist larry peterson attended the autopsy. >> i can recall at one autopsy pulling a fiber off of one of the victims. it was a green carpet fiber and mounted the sample on the slide, went over and looked under the microscope and it's the same one. >> you knew right then? >> knew right then. >> it became apparent it's another victim of atlanta's child killer or killers. >> local television carried these pictures live from the crime scene. >> as it was studied, it became apparent it was one of the three children listed as missing. we're told the child's body -- >> sheila baltazar got a call from her mother. >> she say, they found another body. she say, i really feel like this is patrick's body here, you know. oh, my god. >> but if he is one of the three missing children, the chances are strong that he was 11-year-old patrick baltazar who disappeared -- >> mrs. baltazar and her husband went to the funeral home to identify their child. >> they told me he had struggled, you know, for his life. and seeing the print -- the rope print across his neck. all the way around in the front. ♪ >> at patrick baltazar's funeral, she would insist on an open casket. >> i just wanted the world to see that this child could have been anybody's child. >> patrick's fifth grade classmates wrote a poem read at his funeral, this from local tv coverage that day. >> patrick baltazar, our school mate, you came to school, though sometimes late, but you were never mean to anyone. you tried to help people and thought it was fun. then one night, one terrible night, you didn't come home, not even at daylight. something's happened to that boy, the people said, patrick is missing. is patrick dead? we cried some and we bowed our heads. >> and hoped for your safety and prayers were said. oh, god, please bring back that missing boy. when he returns, we will shout for joy. the police and the news, people came and went. in all our hearts was no content. no one could rest until we knew whatever, whatever had happened to you. then one day your body was found out in the woods on the cold, cold ground. someone killed you and dumped you there. it was a mad, cruel person who did not care. there was not a word about how you died. it is no wonder that we all cried. patrick, we miss you and wish you knew how much your schoolmates grieve for you. just ahead -- the klan under suspicion. >> it was an entire family of brothers that were involved in the klan. >> and then a disappearing nylon cord. >> could have been the murder weapon, as far as i knew. 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the gbi followed the four brothers for almost two months. >> these family members were under surveillance at that time, physical surveillance where we had an eyeball on them. >> in those two months, six more black youths would disappear and die. detectives saw nothing to link the klan to them. >> if somebody was in there with a van or two or three men who -- you know, to grab somebody and dump them in the back of the van, people would have noticed if they were white. >> the brothers were called in. they took lie detector tests and passed. >> they were polygraphed and cleared as to their involvement in the killing of atlanta's children. >> clearing the klan didn't stop the murders. jo-jo bell was one of the victims who vanished during the surveillance. he used to hang out at this seafood carry-out place. manager richard harp. >> come here and do anything, i'd give him a dollar just long enough to get money to go to a show or get money to -- you know, to buy stuff at the store or something like that. >> jo-jo bell, unrelated to yusuf bell, came by cap'n peg's one last time. >> around 3:30, 4:00 monday, he came by and stuck his head in the door, and said, richard, i'm going to shoot basketballs, i'll see you later. throwed his hand up, went on up the street. >> to a school yard basketball court like this. this witness, lugene laster, knew jo-jo and said he saw him leave the game and he said he left in a station wagon that looked like this. lester testified he got in the car, got in wayne's car. in court, lester would identify wayne williams as the driver. >> lugene laster pretty much an eye witness, said that you gave a ride to jo-jo bell in your station wagon. >> okay. >> did you? >> no, i did not. >> you never gave a ride to jo-jo bell? >> no, i did not. >> williams did not deny he was the driver. he instead insisted his passenger had to be someone else. jo-jo bell was never to be seen again. >> it would be horrendous if another child dies, period. >> a week later, sammy davis jr. and frank sinatra came to atlanta for a concert to benefit the children. the photographer up on stage, that's wayne's father, homer williams, with the black newspaper "atlanta world." >> how come you got no tuxedo on there on the stage looking like that there? >> backstage with sammy davis jr. in a photo which made the front page, that's future mayor kasim reed. >> i remember that. that's so cool meeting frank sinatra. >> as a young child, reed would help the volunteers searching atlanta's woods every saturday. >> we literally would walk through wooded areas chaperoned and we would walk for a period of time until about an hour before nightfall. >> but now a new twist in the murders. patrick baltazar, the 20th victim, would be the last child to turn up in a wooded area. a day or two later, an official woultell reporters fibers and dog hairs were being collected from the victim's clothing. the next child to die would be found in a river wearing nothing but underpants. fewer clues now for larry peterson. >> we're talking maybe a dozen or dozens of fibers as opposed to hundreds or potentially a thousand fibers. >> the 13-year-old victim was found beneath this bridge over the south river in atlanta's suburbs. a driver crossing that bridge earlier in the week saw a man leaning over the railing. it turned out to be the same afternoon jo-jo bell disappeared. at trial, the witness said the man was wayne williams. jo-jo's body would not be found for seven more weeks, until easter sunday. it had floated far down the south river, almost into another county. >> he also had nothing on but underwear basically. >> medical examiner joseph burton went out in a boat to retrieve the boy. >> we've got the body wrapped in a sheet. i'm the one with the shirt off. >> dr. burton ruled both jo-jo and the other boy found in the river had been asphyxiated. >> we didn't have any history of either one of these boys swimming in the south river in their underwear. >> other bodies were now washing up in the chattahoochee river to the west and the north of atlanta. five victims in that river in the next six weeks. >> i said, you know, if i was doing that, i'd be throwing them off the bridge. >> fbi agent mike mccomas grew up along a river in tennessee. he knew if something were to float on downstream, it had to be dropped in the middle of a river. mccomas suggested the bridge stakeouts. >> we looked at remote places, dark places. we believed it would be at nighttime as opposed to daytime. >> the fbi and police began night watches at 14 bridges over the chattahoochee and south rivers. the stakeouts were to last four weeks. nothing -- until the very end. >> we, at that point, were ready for that to be our last night. and wayne williams showed up that night. >> just before 3:00 a.m., the station wagon drove onto the bridge. >> had he waited a couple more hours, we might not have been there. >> otherwise, we would have missed him. next, the night on the bridge. >> you said, i know this is about those boys, isn't it? 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[ female announcer ] new ensure clear. nine grams protein. zero fat. twenty-one vitamins and minerals. in blueberry/pomegranate and peach. refreshing nutrition in charge! that night on the bridge, wayne williams says police made him the scapegoat because he was black. >> soledad, when this case happened, if those police had arrested a white man, atlanta would have erupted, as well as several major cities. you possibly would have had another race war. >> no, says the fbi chief. >> on the atlanta police department's side, they were looking for a white guy. so why would, all of a sudden, the black guy be considered a scapegoat? >> williams disputes almost everything police witnesses said about that night. what happened that night on the bridge? >> okay. in the first place -- and i'm not being facetious -- but nothing happened on the bridge. that's the whole misconception. >> as he tells it, there was no splash. he never stopped and didn't turn around. so you never stopped on the bridge? >> no, i didn't. >> you didn't throw trash? >> no. >> you didn't throw anything? >> no, i did not. >> you didn't throw a body? >> definitely not a body, no. >> his story. >> i crossed the bridge. i turned off briefly after i crossed the bridge at what i call a liquor store. >> williams said he pulled into the parking lot only to look up the phone number of a singer he was trying to locate at that hour. >> i turned back on the highway. i went to a starvin marvin store. i used the telephone and i came back. >> the call didn't go through. >> i got some recording, this number is not in service. i said, this is a prank. >> this is the closest thing to an address he had for a singer he said was cheryl johnson. the fbi looked hard and could never find her. >> it says to me that cheryl johnson didn't exist and he made it up. >> williams says only after that call from a gas station did he turn around to cross back over the bridge again. police would stop him moments later. that's what i said. >> pretty damning statement, don't you think? that night on the bridge, the best that i could describe was a ski rope type. the woven type and it was my guess about 24 inches long. >> no. >> williams denies there was any such cord. >> because if that rope had been in the station wagon that night, i'm sure they would have taken it. >> the fact that i didn't confiscate it didn't make it go away. >> the nylon cord would never be seen again. >> could have been the murder weapon as far as i know. >> fbi supervisors decided to let wayne williams go that night. >> we didn't have a body. secondly, there was no who saw wayne williams outside of his car. there was no one that saw him throw anything overboard. >> two days later, only a mile downstream from that bridge, another body. after two years, one suspect now, wayne williams. >> when we come back, the lie detector test. >> the surprise that he didn't beat that. he was convinced he could beat a polygraph test. he was like i'll be darned. the guy we have been looking for for two years. the second day after wayne williams was seen on the chattahoochee river bridge, the body washed up downstream. he was a down on his luck drunk. 28 years old, but small, weighing under 150 pounds. again, the medical examiner said he could have been killed with a choke hold, trapping the neck in the crook of the arm. his would be the last body found in the atlanta murders. the 27th male victim. at his funeral, wayne williams's father homer took this photo for the atlanta world newspaper. on june 3rd, the fbi brought wane n for a long night of questioning. wayne agreed to a lie detector test. >> he was as composed as you can get. get 26 bodies in the woods, he had total control. >> richard was the fbi polygraph examiner. >> i don't care what you were throwing in the river, if it was a body. >> he told williams in advance what he would ask him. did you kill him and did you kill him that night and did you throw him into the chattahoochee river. i said wow, this is it. >> wayne williams flunked all three questions. >> this test reflected you did kill him and it was his body you threw off the bridge that night. >> the polygraph measures sweating, heartbeat and blood pressure. all rise with tension. >> the breathe a little faster and have a hard time getting your breath. you sweat more. he did all of those. >> williams took the test three times and failed each time. >> i said i'll be darned. you are the guy we have been looking for for two years. he was convinced he could beat a polygraph test and said what's this question? that's pretty good. did you cause the death of nathaniel peter. he said what's this question? did you throw his body into the chattahoochee river. >> with the media waiting outside the fbi, the mayor spokesman was called in to handle the press. >> in comes homer williams. >> he asked homer why he was inside the building, trying to get a scoop on the suspect. >> he said no, that's my son. i thought oh, geez. >> homer said -- >> they detained him and impounded by car for littering. i said that doesn't sound right. littering? he was driving over this bridge and he stopped to throw garbage and. >> we asked about him throwing garbage off the bridge and he denied his father said that. >> your father said you stopped to get rid of some trash. >> no, my father never said that. i never said that and my father never said it. >> while father and son were inside the fbi, evidence technicians were combing the williams home. the to be fiber expert led the search. in wayne's bedroom, he took clippings d from a yellow blanket. >> the yellow blanket was located under wayne's bed. >> on the floor, a green carpet. this is a blow up of those carpet fibers. >> they are the only company to produce a fiber like this. >> larry peterson was still in the dark. >> i had no idea there was a ridge. >> he had been called to the fbi office to help search this station wagon. not told why. then he spotted fbi techs returning from their search and so he went out to the home to snip fibers for himself. >> i saw the green carpet. >> did you feel this is it? >> i really didn't. >> it was a middle class home, a young man living with his parents. peterson thought -- >> i'm going to run this back to the lab and just look. i saw the green carpet and once i put it under the microscope, i knew instantly that was it. >> i knew they had the killer? >> i knew that was him. i made hundreds and hundreds of comparisons to various suspects and environments before and nothing was even close until that night. >> did you stand up from the microscope and scream we caught the guy? >> i did want to say oh, my god. >> still, williams was allowed to go home that night. >> i was in the area. >> in the morning, wayne called in reporters and tv crews. they agreed not to show his face. >> he asked if it was dropped in the river. nothing. >> he acknowledged he failed the lie detector test and asked about the victims, williams said this. >> some of these kids in places they don't have no business being at certain times of the day and night. some of them had no home supervision and they are running around on the streets. you are doing that, that is not giving anyone a license to kill, but you open yourself up for all kinds of things. >> we asked what he meant. >> when you say that's not giving anybody a license to kill, but you are opening yourself up for all kinds of things -- >> my point is very simple. if you are out roaming the streets like some of these victims were, you put yourself in a position for bad things to happen. >> for days the district attorney was reluctant to take wayne williams to court based on fibers alone. while he hesitated, the fbi, police, and media all kept a watch on wayne. he showed an angry face to a cnn camera crew. >> i am telling you to quit following me. at this point you are following me and you are on private property. if i were you, i would get the hell out. >> on father's day evening, 1981, detective arrived to arrest wayne williams for the murder of nathaniel. once he disappeared in the back of this police car, williams would never be free again. to this day. >> ahead, the trial. and a blow up on the witness stand. >> i was probably my own worst enemy. i could see almost the shock in the jurors's faces. >> he said you want the real wayne williams, you have got him. i think the jury understand that. i'm only in my 60's... i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options. then i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. 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[ male announcer ] join the millions of people who have already enrolled in the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp, an organization serving the needs of people 50 and over for generations. remember, all medicare supplement insurance plans help cover what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you thousands a year in out-of-pocket costs. call now to request your free decision guide. and learn more about the kinds of plans that will be here for you now -- and down the road. i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is. wayne williams would go on trial at the start of 1982. testimony would last almost two months. it would be a trial like no other before. case built on fibers. no fingerprints or murder weapon or no apparent motive. the jurors had three choices. happened in the case like this. i can't imagine having any case like this. >> smith did write a descending opinion and said the fiber evidence fell short of specific certainty and the prosecution should not have been allowed to use the pattern evidence on ten other murders. >> i said similarities of the crimes in this case is a fact. all of them are dead. >> smith was denounced on the floor of the georgia legislature. >> i was the n lover. you know what the n stands for. >> mary agreed when justice smith wrote the defense attorneys were ineffective. >> we were rendered ineffective and incompetent because of the lack of funds and the lack of time and the lack of resources. absolutely. >> things did go wrong in the trial that should not have. an ambulance driver suggested a motive for wayne williams. this from cnn's report at the time. >> he said williams asked him once, had he considered how many blacks could be eliminated by killing one child. >> unknown to either side, he was not his real name. he had a criminal record. >> he testified under a false name. had an extensive arrest record under his real name. >> i'm not sure we knew that at the time. or it was disclosed to us. >> he was eight blocks away from where he was found. >>arry was a retarded youth. this witness said she saw rogers slumped over in a station wagon as wayne williams drove away. another person also saw rogers in that station wagon at that same intersection that day. he helped the police artist draw this sketch. it does not electric like wayne williams. however, the defense never called the other witness to ask about the sketch.'t remember se that. supporters of wayne williams say there was one murder that shows the fiber evidence could be faulty. the death of 12-year-old clifford jones left by a dumpster in an aloe a summer night in 1980. some of those unusual green carpet fibers were on his body, yet another boy said he saw a coin laundry operator kill clifford jones. he said the boy was not believable. >> he exaggerated. he was open to suggestions. if you said that mickey mouse was up there and he sense that you wanted him to say that, he said yeah. >> wayne supporters point out the laundry manager failed two police lie detector tests, but few are aware of a third test given by the fbi examiner. the result? >> in layman's terms, he passed. >> only days after wayne williams was convicted of killing two adults, the police commissioner closed the books on 21 other murder victims, declaring they too were killed by williams. most were children. among them, clifford jones and usef bell. without trials, the mothers were left without a verdict. way or the other in the deaths of all of the children. camille bell. >> even if it takes 30 trials, i don't care. prove it. >> the prosecutor's answer? it would serve no purpose. >> you can only serve one life sentence. >> just ahead, a new alibi that backfires. >> he was out that night, no question in my mind. he was out that night. >> after all these years, new dna evidence. >> a private exclusion of 98% or so of the people. 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that are. >> they are not mine. >> whose are they? >> i would rather not say. >> in the summer of 1986, henry was in prison here. when he said an associate of wayne williams came to see him and told him what to write. >> when you said i cannot id the face of wayne williams as the man i saw with nathaniel, are those your words? >> what i was told to say. >> by? >> i would rather not say. it might cause a problem. >> could you id the face of wayne williams. >> the person i saw holding his hand was wayne williams, the man convicted. >> henry passed a lie detector test before he took the witness stand. when his visitor came to see him, henry was serving five years for sex crimes. his false affidavit was used in court appeals. wayne williams lost each time anyway. >> to this day, is there any question who you saw? >> no, there is not. >> it was? >> wayne williams. >> robert henry is not the only one whose story changed back and forth over the years. so has wayne williams. at trial, williams testified he was home all evening, sick in bed when henry said he saw him holding hands and now williams said he has a different alibi for that evening. >> i was at a place called hotlanta records in college park. >> williams said he drove to the office near the atlanta airport. he had taken photos for this poster the night before. he went there to turn in this invoice to get paid. >> we delivered a bill and a statement of services. we cut a check and it was probably about 9:00 or 9:30 when i left that location. >> we're reached hotlanta's owner now living in los angeles. >> we call and when he came, i went back and wrote the check behind the desk. that's where the checkbook was. >> williams didn't stay that long. not as late as 9:00. >> it wasn't 5 minutes or ten minutes. we spent maybe a half hour or something like that. >> how did wayne get to the office? >> he drove. i think he had his dad's car if i'm not mistaken. >> wayne's father homer testified he had the station wagon until almost midnight that night. but an investigator for the defense said told him long ago this was a lie. >> he told me he had the car and the guy didn't is have the car. wayne said i had the vehicle and i didn't want to corrupt my dad's testimony so i lied about it and said i didn't have it on the stand. >> what make this is important is what time robert henry said he saw wayne and nathaniel together. >> it was about 9:15 to 9:30. it was on luckie and forsythe street. >> you were in bed until 10:00 p.m. you were so sick your mom o had to help you. >> i was sick. this is where the confusion came. i got back from hotlanta records probably about 9:00 or 9:30. >> there is no one to corroborate that even if his mother were still alive. wayne said she probably didn't see him come in. >> he was out that night, no question in my mind. he was not at home. he was out and about. >> less than six hours after henry saw williams, police heard a splash under this bridge. his body washed up downstream two days later. there was no dna testing then, but now there is. new evidence. >> remember the two human hairs found inside 11-year-old patrick's shirt? in 2007, the hair fragments were sent to the fbi's laboratory in virginia. the result? the lab said they found this dna sequence in 29 out of more than 1100 samples of african-american hairs in its database. less than 3%. most important, wayne williams's dna had the same sequence. >> i think being the possible donor. >> the fbi's dna expert said this finding is as strong as it can get with this particular type of testing. >> did you kill 11-year-old patrick baltazar? >> i didn't kill him or anybody else. >> did you ever meet him? >> i did not. >> never been in contact with him. >> i don't know him. >> we offered to show the dna findings to the stepmother, shla. >> i can't read it. please don't make me read it. oh, my god. >> sore we told her what the fbi report said. wayne williams didn't be excluded as the source of those two hairs. she listened. then this. >> not a shadow of a doubt, i believe wayne william killed patrick. >> next, trained to kill. >> were you trained in armed techniques and could you grab somebody bigger than yourself? >> there were other things besides putting somebody in a choke hold. uh-oh. 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[ male announcer ] stop the uh-oh fast with kaopectate. >> when we returned to prison for our final interview with wayne williams, we had one question he was not expecting. what had written about being recruited for espionage training as a teenager. at a secret government camp hidden in the woods where he was given what could amount to a license to kill. >> it's called finding myself. what's fining myself? it reading like an auto biography. >> go ahead. i'm listening. >> it's an account of your cia training. >> we are not going to get into that. >> why not? >> we are not going to get into that. >> i have a copy of that. >> we are not going to get into that. >> by his account, he was fresh out of high school, just 18 years old when he was approached by an associate of an old world war 2 spy living in the atlanta area and was initiated into a secret world. >> you are not going to answer a single question on this? >> no, ma'am. >> is it fake? >> no. >> did you work for the cia? >> i'm not getting into that. >> in these pages he said he spent his summer weekends in those words, learning how to handle plastic explosives and hand grenades and something more chilling. >> i will do the talking part and you can answer the part you want. you write how you fired rifles and submachine guns and assault weapons and grenade launchers before you learned unarmed combat techniques through this training group over weekends. is it true or is it false? >> i'm not going to comment. >> you are 19 years old. you are saying you worked for the cia. you have been recruited. >> i will let the document speak for itself and i cannot comment. >> did you work for the cia? >> i can't comment. >> copyright by williams. is this an auto biography? >> i cannot comment on that. >> in his own words wayne williams said this was part of a secret plan to send young black agents into the worst trouble spots in africa in the late 1970s. he wrote that he finished training and then withdraw from the program. >> either this is a true story and you have been trained in basic tactics, ex-filtration techniques and weapons use and unarmed combat that includes a deadly choke hold or if made up. >> where did you obtain that? >> i can't tell you that. >> there we go. >> you know the news man, you knew the answer before you asked it. is it true? it's got your name on it. were you trained in unarmed combat and could you grab somebody bigger than yourself and put them in a choke hold? that's what that is. >> i'm sure there other things rather than putting somebody in a choke hold. >> when i say what does that mean? that's one of the things on their list. top two. >> i went down there. >> so are you trained in that? >> let me say this. >> i am asking such straight forward questions. >> i understand, but i ask you to understand my position on this. let's say that that were true and that were the case. let's just say that i had some experiences that i do not want to comment for reason that is the documents say. the fact is, what does that have to do with the situation today? >> everything. >> you tell me. >> for has everything to do with it. a big part of the conversation when i talked to your lawyers is could wayne williams grab somebody, did he have the strength. he's not a big guy. could he grab someone in an unarmed combat technique and kill them? your attorneys would say you met him. he's not a big guy. if you are saying yes, in fact, i was trained by the cia which is what this do you want necessary a nut shell on weekends when i was a teenager and i am trained in the choke hold technique, that's one thing. if you are telling me no, that never happened, but you are writing a long fantasy about being trained for the cia in weaponry and the choke hold technique, that takes it a whole other direction. >> remember doctors said at least two victims and perhaps more were probably killed by choke holds. >> do you know how to kill somebody with a choke hold? that's a straight forward question. i can answer it. my answer would be no, sir, i do not know. >> let me say something about that. >> it's a yes or no answer. >> no, it's not. >> not until the end of our prison interview did we come close to a real answer. >> it's actually a very simple question. can you kill someone with a choke hold? >> you possibly could. >> i know for a fact i could not. i know you are being facetious, but i could not. were you trained as a teenager to do this. i get cia and you don't want to talk about it, but it's off the record. >> let me state this for the record. i think in the paper that you have and i will say this. it says there was contact with a certain program. i will say it was the junior officer training program. which was run by a certain agency and you are correct. i never said that i worked for them. >> now who is splitting hairs. were you trained -- >> that's all i'm going to say. >> were you trained in these techniques? >> that's all i'm going to say. >> here acknowledged it was cia training, but said no more. so is this true? or only a fant assy in his mind. the mind of the man a courts found to be a killer. we will leave that question with you. the verdict is now yours to decide in your own mind. again, the choices are guilty , innocent, or a third choice, not proven either way. in a few moments, we will show you the verdict that our audiences reached when this documentary was first broadcast. before that, a look at the answers from those who lived through the terror 30 years ago. >> the prosecutor. >> obviously guilty . >> the defense attorney. >> not proven. one way or the other. >> the fbi agent in charge. >> guilty of two double homicides. >> she'll is baltazar. >> he could have killed all of them. >> the supreme court justice. >> not proven. >> the witness. >> guilty . >> camille bell. >> innocent, but stupid. >> that are first task force detective. >> no maybes. guilty . >> the right man is in jail. >> the original audience verdict is guilty , 69%. innocent, 4%. not proven either way, 27%.