Uneasy lull in frightened Atlanta

Press, 2 September 1981, Page 21

Uneasy lull in frightened Atlanta

The trial of Wayne Williams on two murder charges will begin on October 5. W. J. WEATHERBY, of the “Guardian,” London, reports on the mood of the Southern city of Atlanta since the killing of young blacks — 28 died — stopped two months ago. Making an arrest in the Atlanta mass murder case has worked wonders in this frightened, depressed, southern American city. Life is slowly getting back to normal. Black children on the South Side, where the 28 young victims lived, are playing gleefully in the streets again, at least in daylight, and strangers are no longer regarded fearfully in black neighbourhoods. Across the country, in fact, the green ribbons worn by millions of black Americans in protest against the murders have largely disappeared. The trial of 23-year-old Wayne B. Williams, a local black freelance photographer and music talent scout, who has been charged with two of the murders has been set down, tentatively, for October 5. Williams, a plump, bespectacled young man who was as a boy genius at

school, has pleaded not guilty on both counts. He sat impassively through pre-trial hearings, having already protested his innocence at a press conference before his arrest. His attorney, Mary Welcome, told reporters, “I feel the State has a very, very weak case.” The police claim that a surveillance team encountered Williams about 3 a.m. on May 22 after hearing a loud splash in the Chattahoochee River, where two days later the nude asphyxiated body of Nathaniel Cater, a 27-year-old black day labourer, was found. Five of the other victims had previously been found in the Chattahoochee. The police also claim to have matched carpet fibres and dog hairs on Cater’s body with fibres from carpets in Williams's home and hairs from his German Shepherd. Much of the trial is likely to be spent arguing over the value of such “trace evidence,” a speciality in forensic science that is not so widely accepted as weapon or fingerprint identification, but is becoming of increasing importance in criminal cases. However, the most damning evidence against Willi-

r ams in most Atlantans’ • minds is that since he was 1 arrested two months ago, there have been no new i murders of young blacks in ; similar circumstances. The • seemingly never-ending and [ accelerating series of mur- , ders over the past two years has Suddenly stopped. i Yet, whatever local people may assume, this need not necessarily look bad for Wili liams. A wily murderer — • and whoever has been re- ; sponsible for these Atlanta I murders has been clever in i many ways — would stop as r soon as someone else was E arrested. As Williams waits for his • trial in solitary confinement in the Fulton County gaol > under heavy guard, it is j possible that somewhere in ; the city the real murderer is - having a good laugh at the 1 police’s expense. The big question is 5 whether the police are going ; to charge Williams with any > of the other murders. He has i so far been accused of killing t two of the oldest victims 5 among the 28 — the last one, - 27-year-old Nathaniel Cater, f and the 26th, 21-year-old i Jimmy Ray Payne.' During the long investigation, local - police and FB.I. agents de- - cided that no more than 20 of

the 28, whose ages ranged from seven to 27, had been killed by the same person. It is known that Cater had been seen in a well-known homosexual bar shortly before he disappeared, and one theory is that some of the murders had a sexual motive. None of the bodies had been sexually assaulted, but some were found nude or dressed only in underpants. There have been reports in the local media that Williams had been seen with some of the other victims — his work as a music talent scout brought him in touch with many black youths — but this has not been confirmed by police sources. Fibres or dog hairs, similar to the ones retrieved from Cater’s bushy afro, are said to have been found on at least a dozen of the other bodies, but when Williams’s attorney asked about this at the preliminary hearing, the prosecution refused to answer and was upheld by the Judge. The police obviously want to keep Williams in suspense as to their case against him until the trial opens, but the extent of their findings may be suggested by the decision of the District Attorney, Lewis Slaton, seek the

death penalty, which, under Georgia state law, is possible only if a murder is accompanied by an aggravating act. such as rape, robbery, or kidnapping by force. The Supreme Court has restricted a part of Georgia’s capital punishment law that allowed the death penalty in murders that involved "torture or depravity of mind" or were "w-antonly vile.” One of the mysteries of the Atlanta murders, apart from their motive, is how the young men were killed because the bodies showed no signs of violence. Were the victims lulled by drugs or sex beforehand? But even so, a struggle would surely have taken place. Williams, who had been under constant surveillance for two weeks before being arrested, challenged the police to charge him or leave him alone. He requested a temporary court order limiting the information that lawenforcement officials and the news media could make public about him. The police and the press, he said, were ruining his reputation and “w-hat is left of my life.” After his arrest, the Judge denied his request because “there is no longer any doubt he is a public figure.” Public

figures in the United States have few rights to privacy when the chips are down. Mam- local people, familiar with the progress of the case, had expected Williams's lawyer to argue that after the pre-trial publicity he couldn’t possibly receive a fair trial in Atlanta and to seek a change of venue. But the publicity has been nationwide, arousing all kinds of racial reactions, and so Mary Welcome. Williams’s brilliant young black lawyer, has presumably decided Atlanta will be as fair as anywhere is likely to be. and, with the city's large black population, perhaps more understanding of the subtleties of a murder case involving racial prejudices. Williams requested to be released on bail until the trial, but this was refused. The police claimed that shortly before being arrested, he was seen at the local airport inquiring about flights out of Atlanta. Williams replied that the inquiries were related to his work as a photographer who frequently took aerial pictures of the city. But the prosecution argued successfully that giving Williams his freedom might be too risky. Much bitterness has deve'l-

oped between Williams and his parents and the police. When the police searched the home where he lived with his parents W’illiams’s father refused to let the police use his lights, and so electricity for the search had to be generated from outside. . The police have been under great national pressure to find the mass murderer as the toll neared 30 victims and the killing accelerated so much that two of the last victims were found within 24 hours. In a cityfamous for its racial clashes and Ku Klux Klan connections, with the majority of voters now black, with a black mayor and a black police chief that many whites resent, a common theory was that a white racist conspiracy was behind the murder of the 28 young blacks. Riots or other violent outbreaks were feared if this was found to be true. An almost audible sigh of relief came from most white Americans across the country when photographs of Williams showed the accused was black. If there is also a homosexual scandal at the back of it all, perhaps involving blackmail, that will be even more welcomed because it

will take the murder case even farther away from local inter-racial controversies. The trial will certainly be fascinating sociologically for what it reveals about the levels of black society in Atlanta, for the victims were in the poverty belt whereas Williams is affluent, middleclass. his w-ork as a talent scout taking him up and down the social ladder. Whether or not he is found guilty, many aspects of the subtle class differences on the black side are bound to be revealed. Unfortunately some of the Atlanta whites are already smacking their lips at the prospect of playing audience to an exclusively black scandal, but before the trial is over, it may well rebound on them. If Williams is not to be charged with ail the other murders that are related, then the police must still be searching for other killers who are still at large in Atlanta. This thought makes many black parents cautious about the upcoming trial and still worried about their children when darkness falls over this racially divided city. Atlanta is not yet free from fear, or the burden of its racial heritage.