mccomas search his station wagon. on the floor, in the front of the back seat, he saw there was a nylon cord. the best that i could describe the nylon cord 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 doesn t make it go away. it was there. the nylon cord would never be seen again. could have been the murder weapon, as far as i knew. yet, fbi supervisors decided to let wayne williams go that night. we first of all didn t have a body. so secondly, there was no one 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. it surprised him th
clippings from a purple bedspread and from a yellow blanket. your blanket was located under wayne williams bed. on the floor, a green carpet. this is a blow-up of those carpet fibers. they re the only company to produce a fiber like this. but larry peterson was still in the dark. i had no idea there was a bridge incident. he had been called to the fbi office to help search this station wagon. but 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. saw all the green carpet. did you feel, this is it? you know, i really didn t. because it was a middle class home. a young man living with his parents. but peterson thought i m going to run this back to the lab and just look. i started with the green carpet.
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 fig ire of a young brak boy. 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
this missing child. 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 fig ire of a young brak boy. 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.
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 were