Fiber Evidence and the Wayne Williams Trial, Essay Example

It has been thirty years since Wayne Williams was convicted of murdering two adult men in Atlanta, Georgia, a case by then known as the Atlanta Child Murders. Followed by FBI agents stationed along the Chattahoochee River on the theory that the killer would attempt to dump his next victim in water, Williams was questioned after the agents heard a loud splash. Found to have lied, Williams was later arrested. Fibers and dog hair convicted him. Supporting evidence linked him to almost two dozen children’s murders. In 2010, DNA technology was applied to human hair found on one such victim’s body and preserved. It matched Williams’ hair and excluded virtually all others, but a DNA test run on the dog hair proved inconclusive.

The case was unique because the fiber evidence was primary to the case. Usually, fibers are used to support more obvious evidence.  The jury had to be educated in crime-lab fiber forensics with 40 charts and 350 photographs to illustrate: the blue rayon fibers from the throw rug in Williams’ car; other fibers from his bedspread, glove, and blanket under his bed; the yellow-green fibers from a piece of carpet in a back room of his house; and the hairs from the Williams’ family dog. The hydrology of the Chattahoochee River had to be detailed in order to explain the bleaching of fibers found on his two known victims, Nathaniel Cater, 27, and Jimmy Ray Payne, 22. The specifics of 12 child-killings, similar to the two murders Williams was charged with, were introduced into the trial as “pattern cases”. So those children’s unprosecuted murders became supporting evidence in the murder of two adults.  Finally, the jury had to be instructed into the probabilities that the matching fibers could have come from other houses or cars, given that the sources of the fibers were mass produced to a degree. The lesson worked.

The jury, composed of eight African-Americans and four Caucasians, found Williams guilty. Officials later declared him guilty of 22 other deaths and their cases were closed. Williams, now 55, never admitted guilt, and remains incarcerated for life at Sparta, Georgia.