Atlanta Monster Podcast | S1/E3: ATLANTA MONSTER SEIZED (Transcript)

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Atlanta Monster Podcast | S1/E3: ATLANTA MONSTER SEIZED (Transcript)
Length: 60 mins

Speakers:
MMÔøΩ Mike McComas
PLÔøΩ Payne Lindsay
MRÔøΩ Male Reporter
MalÔøΩ Male

MM: I asked did they get his ID and they said,  "Yes, he was still sitting in his car." I still had my composite sketch and I pulled it out. He had these little glasses on and I drew the glasses and I held it up and I said,  "Anybody recognize this guy," and it was Wayne Williams to the T. I mean it justÔøΩ It was just Wayne. Ironically, we caught Wayne Williams at 2:55 a.m. on the last day of the surveillance. When we got there, we were immediately briefed that this guy was seen on the bridge and something hit the water. It hadn't been recovered. Of course, nobody could get in that water because, A, it's 2:55 a.m. and the water current was just outrageous. Somebody would have drowned and wouldn't have stood a good chance of recovering anything anyway I don't think. I went up to him and identified myself as a Special Agent of the FBI and I asked him immediately if he knew why he was being pulled over and he said,  "Yes, it's probably because about those kids that are missing," which kind of surprised me. That was an unusual answer I thought.

PL: That was his answer?

MM: Well, it was a paraphrase of it. That wasn't his verbatim answer, but yeah, it was something like that. And the next words out of his mouth was he says,  "You know," he said,  "Channel 5 is really covering this very well, but Channel 11, I don't think covers it enough," so that kind of surprised me. I remember that jumped out at me as well.

MR: In Atlanta, another body was discovered today; the twenty-third.

MR: At Police Taskforce Headquarters, there are 27 faces on the wall; 26 murdered, 1 missing.

Mal: We do not know the person or persons that are responsible, therefore, we do not have a motive.

PL: From Tenderfoot TV and HowStuffWorks in Atlanta.

MR: Like 11 other recent victims in Atlanta, Rogers apparently was asphyxiated.

MR: Atlanta is likely to catch the killer unless he keeps on killing.

PL: This is Atlanta Monster.

MM: I asked him if I could talk to him in my car. I told him we needed to get out of the traffic because the tractor trailers were rolling by and you couldn't hear. Plus, I wanted to interview him. I wanted to get him in my car and interview him. He agreed, real amenable, very friendly guy.

PL: Was he nervous?

MM: No. No, he wasn't nervous.

PL: What was your first impression of him?

MM: Well, I didn't have one. Other than me telling you what he just kind of surprised me with the media comment and acknowledging that it was about the kids, I really didn't have much of an impression. I was wanting to know more about what his story was and, eventually, I got it. He gets in the car with me and the first thing I ask him to do, and he surprised me again, I said,  "Can we have consent to search your vehicle?" and he said,  "Sure." So we had a consent form that I had him sign and he signed it and let us search his vehicle. Now, as I had walked by his vehicle, I stuck my head in the window and looked around. There was a bag of clothes laying on the floor and there was a pair of gloves laying on the seat. What really struck me, though, was that there was a nylon cord, kind of like a ski rope. It was about 24 inches long and it was knotted on each end. That rope really interested me. So I started interviewing him and ask him what he was out late at night because, like I said, it was 2:55 a.m. when he got in my car. He said that he was a talent scout and that he had an 8 o'clock appointment, I think 8:00 a.m. the next morning, but he was out trying to find their address so that he would know where it is the next morning and not be late. That just didn't have an air of truthfulness to it. Nobody goes out at 2:00 o'clock or 3:00 o'clock in the morning to find an address to make sure they're not late at 8:00 o'clock. I found out he was an only child, he lived with his parents, his mom and dad. His dad was a freelance photographer and his mother had been a retired teacher. They were quite elderly, that he had come along pretty late in life. He was a pretty intelligent guy too. He had a very high IQ. Word had it that he had built an AM-FM radio station in his backyard when he was about 14 and the FCC had made him tear it down. I asked the guys, I said,  "Is the search of his car over?" and they said yes and I said okay. So I said,  "Anybody get any reason for him to stay here any longer?" and they said no, so we let him go. There was some things there that happened, that transpired, that shouldn't have happened. The FBI has always been and remains an institution that is very conscious of not falsely arresting people. They've made mistakes in the past, everybody does. It's a judgment call, but we did not, that night, want to violate any of his civil liberties, his civil rights, and so we erred on the side of caution, it was my decision, and let him go. What wasn't my decision is when I asked them, I said,  "Where is these things you found in the car?" and they went,  "We didn't keep any of it," and I went.  "What? You didn't what?" I said,  "What about the gloves and the rope?" because I'm thinking that that's probably part of crimes that had been committed since the people had been killed from ligature strangulation, but somewhere we dropped the ball. I was in charge, so I went ahead and took the hit for it. I said,  "That's just the decision you guys made and I'll back you. I don't agree with it right now, but as far as official word goes, we made that decision and that's that's the way it goes."

PL: Did anyone ever see Wayne toss anything over the bridge?

MM: No, never did, but there wasn't another car on that bridge. He was the only car there. They saw the headlights approach, they heard the splash, and then they saw what, like I described earlier, is him appeared to just be starting out again at two or three miles an hour.

Read the full transcript here.