Wayne Bertram Williams, also known as the Atlanta Monster, is a major antagonist in the Netflix original series Mindhunter, serving as the main antagonist of the second season. Like his real-life counterpart, he is the prime suspect in the Atlanta child murders, although it is left ambiguous how many of the crimes he is responsible for.
He was portrayed by Christopher Livingston.
Biography[]
First murders[]
Williams' crimes are first mentioned when Special Agent Holden Ford, visiting Atlanta for two days, is contacted by the mothers of Yusuf Bell, Angel Lenair, and Jeffrey Mathis - three children who have been killed or disappeared over the course of six months and whose cases are not being investigated because the victims are poor and black. Holden agrees to review the cases, which the mothers have linked to three other child abductions and murders since July 1979, and suspects a single perpetrator because all six victims were black children (all but Angel Lenair were boys) around the same age who were abducted in broad daylight. However, local authorities dismiss his theory because the M.O. was different in many cases and only one of the victims, Angel Lenair, was sexually violated.
Over the next few months, five more black children, four boys and one girl, are abducted by the so-called "Atlanta Monster", with all but one eventually being found dead. The cause of death varies between victims, but the most prominent is suffocation or strangulation. Several are stripped down to their underwear, suggesting a sexual motivation.
The FBI become involved in the case after the abduction of a twelfth victim, 10-year-old Earl Terrell, because a white man claiming to be the killer calls the Terrell family to demand a ransom, making the abduction a Federal kidnapping case. Holden and his partner are sent to Atlanta to investigate. Holden soon works out a profile of the offender, who he believes suffers from hebephilia and derives sexual satisfaction from choking his victims. He also dismisses the ransom call as a hoax and concludes that the killer is black; the victims were all taken from majority-black neighbourhoods, where a white man would attract too much attention to successfully abduct children. Holden's theory is born out when the "kidnapper" doesn't call the Terrell family again, but with the call dismissed as a hoax the case is no longer a Federal crime and Holden and Bill are sent back to Quantico before they can investigate further.
ATKID taskforce[]
The murders soon resume with 12-year-old Clifford Jones, who is abducted and strangled 20 days after Earl Terrell's abduction, and continue unabated for another four months before the Department of Justice decides to get involved and orders the FBI to open a full investigation, by which point 17 black children are dead or missing. An eighteenth victim, 14-year-old Lubie Geter, has been abducted by the time the FBI arrive. Holden is sent to assist and continues to maintain that the killer is likely black, but the authorities refuse to consider his theory.
The strangled bodies of two of the still-missing victims - Earl Terrell and 12-year-old Christopher Richardson - are found in the same woodland location as one of the previous victims. A suspect is arrested after the police find that he had masturbated at the scene of the crime, but Holden is sceptical as the suspect is white and doesn't fit the profile. He is proven right when the killer strikes again while the suspect is in custody, abducting and strangling 15-year-old Terry Pue and dumping his body in a location that was previously searched on a false lead; Holden realizes the killer is close to the media coverage and is deliberately trying to keep the police's attention and tries various means to draw him out, to no avail. Meanwhile, Lubie Geter's strangled body is found two miles from the first two bodies, stripped down to his underwear. A twentieth victim, 12-year-old Patrick Baltazar, is found strangled while the taskforce are interviewing suspects in the Geter murder.
Patrick Baltazar's murder proves to be a tipping point in the murders, as someone within the investigation leaks to the media that fibre evidence was recovered from Baltazar's body (similar carpet and dog hairs were found on six previous victims). Holden and his partner Bill Tench realize that the killer now knows they can recover evidence from the bodies and will change his M.O.; sure enough, bodies begin turning up in the Chattahoochee River, where the killer hopes the water will clean off any forensic evidence. The victims also begin to include adults, as the heightened paranoia around the child murders makes it difficult to get at children.
Identified[]
Based on insights gained from interviewing various serial killers, Holden and Bill theorize that the killer will return to the site where he threw the bodies into the river in order to re-live his crimes and the Atlanta P.D. begin patrolling access points to the river looking for anyone who fits the profile. This operation yields few results at first and the body count continues to climb until the killer has claimed 28 victims.
However, on the last night of the stakeout an officer hears a suspicious splash in the river. Proceeding to the scene, Special Agent Jim Barney pulls over a car driving back across the bridge. The driver is a black man in his early 20s, matching Holden's profile of the killer, and identifies himself as Wayne Bertram Williams. Holden, Bill, and Jim interview Williams, who claims to be a music promoter and photographer on his way to meet a promising young singer, but the child in question turns out not to exist. Holden observes dog hairs resembling the fibres found on some of the victims in Williams' car, and finds a rope and gloves in the back. Williams also makes a number of suspicious remarks and implies that he looks down on the victims for being street kids. However, the body presumably dumped in the river is not found, and with no evidence of a crime they have to let Williams go. The body of 27-year-old Nathaniel Cater is found downstream two days later.
Holden and Jim go to Williams' address where he lives with his parents to interview him further. Williams explains he is a talent scout who canvasses children for appointments at his music studio, but is unable to name a single one of his clients; Holden realizes this is how he lures his victims. On the way out Holden encounters a dog, which Williams had denied owning, and notices a green carpet resembling the fibres on the victims. Further investigation reveals that, while Williams regularly takes children back to his rented studio, he has never recorded a single demo. The studio owner also reveals that Williams showed up with scratches all over his arms the day after Terry Pue's murder, and Jim finds that a man resembling Williams was seen talking to Lubie Geter the day he was abducted.
Final capture[]
Holden and Bill begin surveilling Williams and find that he briefly worked in the media and still has press credentials, which allows him to re-visit the crime scenes without arousing suspicion. He also has a police scanner on his car and a prior conviction for police impersonation, leading them to believe he pretends to be a cop while on the prowl to avoid suspicion. However, when they try to tail him he notices them immediately and taunts them by walking over to their car to serve them drive-thru food. They also discover that Williams burnt the rope from his car and the clothes he was wearing on the night he was stopped.
Williams is arrested and fails two lie detector tests. Eyewitnesses have linked him to the abductions of Yusuf Bell and Lubie Geter, he has no alibi for any of the murders, and he admits to having canvassed children for appointments at multiple locations where the victims worked and hung out. Carpet fibres and dog hairs from his house link him to at least 14 of the murders. However, Williams still denies everything and there is still not enough evidence to charge him. Williams is released without charge, and immediately begins giving interviews declaring his innocence, accusing Holden and Bill of persecuting him and blaming the victims for putting themselves in harm's way. This, combined with a friend of Williams who tells them that Williams told him the victims deserved to die, leads Holden and Bill to speculate that he kills young black kids because he thinks they're worthless and have caused him to be negatively stereotyped, blaming them for his lack of success in life.
Williams continues to revel in the media attention, pulling elaborate publicity stunts like going down to the mayor's house to publicly accuse him of trying to frame him. During this stunt, Jim sees Williams' father taking advantage of the distraction to charter a flight to South America, realizing that Williams plans to flee the country. Before he has the chance to flee however, the Department of Justice lean on the District Attorney to charge Williams; based on fibre evidence, the D.A. charges Williams with the murders of Cater and another of the adults, Jimmy Payne. Williams is arrested in front of the media and later convicted of both murders and sentenced to life without parole; although he is never charged with the child murders, the Atlanta P.D. close the case and attribute 22 of the 27 unsolved murders to Williams.
Ambiguity[]
Although it is made clear that Williams committed a number of the murders, it is left ambiguous whether he committed all of them.
- As in real life, he is only convicted of murdering Jimmy Payne and Nathaniel Cater rather than any of the child murders, although he is implied to have committed at least some of them, and the victim's families never accept his guilt, maintaining the Ku Klux Klan are responsible.
- Two of the victims, Angel Lenair and LaTonya Wilson, do not fit his usual victim profile as they were female. Angel Lenair was also likely sexually molested, which none of Williams' supposed victims were.
- Bill and GBI agent Garland Periwinkle, surveilling Klansman Charles Sanders after Lubie Geter's body is found, overhear him telling his brother that he wants to "go out and get me another kid". He also remarks "I told him I was gonna kill his ass" when informed that Lubie Geter's body was found, as he had a grudge against him for damaging his truck. However, he passes a lie detector test (though lie detectors are not 100% accurate and can be beaten) and Holden maintains he does not fit the profile. Williams is also directly linked to Lubie Geter's murder, although he is never charged.
- Several of the victims are known to have regularly visited a house owned by a man involved in a child pornography ring. This lead is initially dismissed, as all photos recovered from the ring are of white children, but Jim discovers after Williams' arrest that there were also hundreds of photos of black children which disappeared from evidence before the children's identities could be established. A friend of some of the victims also tells Holden that they took money from adults to pose for child porn. The case is closed before this lead can be investigated.