We\u2019re back in Atlanta during the summer of 1979, and children are still going missing. Dead bodies are still showing up in the riverbanks. Families still live in fear of the Atlanta Monster. And despite the best efforts of the police, the monster is still on the prowl. But who was this monster? The Atlanta police couldn\u2019t tie any evidence to any suspect, let alone describe who the perpetrator was. It wasn\u2019t until the FBI and performed their investigation that some light was finally shed on the matter. In accordance to their previous studies on serial killers, the Atlanta Monster was most likely African American (because serial killers don\u2019t usually cross racial lines), male (because he needed to be strong enough to have killed the victims the way he did), and commonly seen with children (because he must have been a trustworthy figure to have repeatedly captured so many children). This profile, alongside being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is what landed Wayne Williams in the hands of the police \u2013 the man who was ultimately charged for all of the Atlanta murders. In retrospect, we podcast listeners know that he truly is the killer and that the police have caught the right man, but back when we were actively listening to the podcast, this was by far the most suspenseful and mysterious part of the story. Who was Wayne Williams, and could he truly be the Atlanta Monster? The podcast could have simply stated that the police had their man the second they arrested Williams, but it chose not to. They mysteriously shrouded the character of Wayne Williams, and kept listeners guessing to incorporate suspense and mystery into their story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One way\nthat the podcast makes a mystery out of Wayne Williams is by including\ninterviews of people\u2019s thoughts on him from both perspectives \u2013 one from the\npeople who were convinced he was innocent, and the other from the people who\nwere convinced he was guilty. Whether it be family, friends, public, or police\nbeing interviewed about him, it all adds to the conflict faced in the story \u2013\nwas Wayne Williams really the serial killer they were looking for? The\ninterviews start with ones from friends and family, leading the reader to think\nthat he couldn\u2019t possibly be the murderer. One of the most significant of these\ninterviews was one from Monica Pearson, one of his friends and coworkers. She\nsaid, \u201cI was just a news anchor at that time. And from our viewpoint, it was\nlike, what? This was a guy we worked with, who was a freelance photographer\nhowever, and a lot of us knew him. There was chatter of \u2018Not Wayne! He is so mild-mannered.\nWhat do you mean? He couldn\u2019t hurt a fly.\u2019\u201d Another one of these interviews that\ncorroborates those from friends and family is from Wayne\u2019s 7th<\/sup> grade\nteacher, Archie Wilson. He said, \u201cWayne was bright, a very intelligent young\nman. A quiet, very respectful, honest student. Very dependable too, just an\nideal student.\u201d These interviews painted a picture in listeners\u2019 heads \u2013 a picture\nof Wayne Williams as a wrongfully convicted man. But just as these interviews\nin Wayne\u2019s favor ended, the ones against him started. The podcast then played many\ninterviews from police and FBI agents who were certain Williams was the perpetrator,\nfurthering the convolution around Wayne Williams\u2019 character. A turning point in\nthe story is when former FBI agent Richard Radcliff gives Williams the\npolygraph test, and his account is as follows: \u201cIt\u2019s human nature to want to\ntrust people, so I assumed he would pass the test. He stayed pretty much\ncomposed the whole time… But after a long conversation, I asked the question\nthat brought me there in the first place. Did you kill Nathaniel Cater? Did you\nthrow his body over the bridge that night? He said no, just denied it\u2026 But the\ntest showed that he was deceptive. And that\u2019s the first indication in two years\nof who did it. \u2018Wow, so you\u2019re the guy we\u2019re looking for\u2019 was how I was\nreacting as I graded the test out\u2026 I\u2019ll be darned, he was the guy killing all\nthese kids.\u201d Now, thanks to the podcast\u2019s clever interview organization, listeners\nwere left even more conflicted about who Wayne Williams was. It was these\ninterviews, with such opposite views of Wayne, that developed Wayne\u2019s character\nin such a mysterious way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\naddition to this, the podcast oddly develops the character of Williams is by\nomitting his perspective from the story entirely. Even after everyone else\u2019s\ninterviews, opinions, and hypotheses have been presented in the podcast, listeners\nstill haven\u2019t heard from Williams himself. By purposely talking around the\ncharacter of Wayne, an element of mystery is incorporated into the story. All listeners\nhave to compose a picture of Wayne in their minds is the word of other people \u2013\nwhich is clearly conflicting, as mentioned previously. By consistently developing\nWayne\u2019s character in such abstract ways, the podcast creates an identity that\nis unique to itself. It adds suspense, excitement, and depth to the story it\u2019s\ntelling, leaving listeners anxious to hear from the murderer himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Word Count: 857<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019re back in Atlanta during the summer of 1979, and children are still going missing. Dead bodies are still showing up in the riverbanks. Families still live in fear of the Atlanta Monster. And despite…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,23,7,6],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-atlanta-monster","tag-engl200c","tag-podcasting-sherlock-holmes","tag-sage-richardson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions\/306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}