victim, would be the last child to turn up in a wooded area. a day or two later an official would tell 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.
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. once i put that sample under the microscope, i mean, i knew instantly that that was it. you knew that they had the killer? i knew that was it. and i you know, i had made
no, he 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 fbi s top fiber expert, harold dedman, led the search. in wayne s bedroom he took 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.
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. 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 was
under the bed. this evidence slide contains the yellow blanket fibers that dedman clipped that night, magnified by our own video camera. but when larry peterson had returned that june for a second search a couple weeks later there was no yellow blanket to be found that i could find. there are a lot of things in your case that disappeared. a lot of disappearances. yellow blanket. yes. disappeared. in the first place, there was never a yellow blanket. there were fibers of a yellow blanket. there were fibers alleged to have come from a yellow blanket. nobody has been able to produce the yellow blanket because quite simply and i m just being very blunt with you there was no yellow blanket. or maybe you got rid of it between the first time they searched and they cameack. seems like to me if i was a police officer i would have confiscated the blanket. it doesn t make sense. the prosecution was allowed to bring in ten other deaths among them patrick baltazar, eri