Caught in the Headlines

While authorities feud, a "suspect" takes the offensive

Journalists around Atlanta who know Wayne B. Williams describe the diffident 23-year-old as a "news groupie." When he was a teenager, he built and broadcasted from a low-power radio station in his home. Later he worked for a number of commercial radio stations and served as a freelance news cameraman for the city's WSB-TV. But since June 4, the news enthusiast has found himself too close to the headlines. Beginning that morning--when Williams was released from local FBI headquarters after hours of questioning about the deaths of 28 black Atlanta youths--he was hotly pursued by an army of reporters, photographers and TV cameramen. He has been described repeatedly in print as a "suspect"--a designation authorities use routinely in private conversation, but have carefully avoided in public.

As police and the FBI continued to seek evidence that might link him to the mass murders, Williams took the offensive. His lawyer, former City Solicitor Mary Welcome, sought a federal court injunction to restrain 17 news organizations and eleven law enforcement agencies and officials from releasing information that might harm her client. The "blitzkrieg of media harassment" and various statements by the authorities, charged Welcome, have already "irreparably destroyed the presumption of innocence" to which Williams is constitutionally entitled if brought to trial. Williams' petition named, among others, Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, Public Safety Commissioner Lee Brown, the three major TV networks, the New York Times and Post, and both the Associated Press and United Press International (TIME was not named). U.S. Judge Orinda Evans decided last week to consider Williams' petition in two separate hearings: one behind closed doors, for law enforcement defendants, the other open to the public, for defendants in the media.

The press has been divided on how to cover the investigation of Williams. While the A.P. and Atlanta broadcasters refused to use Williams' name or photograph on the ground that he had not been charged with a crime, U.P.I, and most other news organizations have revealed his identity. Williams, editors argue, is a public figure by virtue of his extensive interrogation by FBI agents and the subsequent search of his home. More over, he contributed substantially to his own notoriety by holding a press conference at which he not only passed out a five-page resume but acknowledged himself to be "a prime suspect."

The publicity--and confusion--surrounding the Williams investigation has been heightened by a dispute between the Atlanta police and the FBI. Local officials have accused FBI agents of bungling their initial encounter with the supposed suspect. On May 22, agents stopped Williams near the Chattahoochee River after hearing a suspicious splash in the waters, from which the bodies of several victims had previously been recovered. Williams, some local police charge, should have been brought downtown for questioning immediately. Instead, he was released.

FBI officials insist they had no legal right to bring Williams to their headquarters on the basis of a splash. Only when the body of Nathaniel Cater, 27, the 28th and most recent victim, was found in the Chattahoochee two days later were the agents justified in taking action. The one "vulnerability" in the handling of the case, said an FBI official, was the "looseness of surveillance" shortly after the May 22 incident. According to neighbors, Williams removed several boxes from his home the following day. The boxes "could be irrelevant." said the official, "but they also could be the very stuff we're looking for."

If wrangling among investigators "makes us look like Keystone Kops," says a senior FBI agent, "the problem is not with the Atlanta police; the problem is we've got a local prosecutor who is balking at prosecution." The feds are so fed up with Fulton County District Attorney Lewis Slaton's reluctance to charge Williams, TIME Correspondent Evan Thomas has learned, that the U.S. Attorney's office may seek a special prosecutor in the case. "Someone with more courage," as one G-man puts it. Slaton might be more courageous if he felt the evidence were stronger. It is Slaton who would have to see a prosecution through once an indictment is brought, whereas "the FBI will be long gone," says a source close to the D.A.

Still, the FBI is confident of its case. It claims that carpet fibers and dog hairs taken from Williams' home are identical to those found on certain victims, and several witnesses report having seen victims get into Williams' car. Agents are also suspicious of Williams' talent-agent business: they say that he distributed leaflets inviting eleven-to 21-year-olds to audition "in private"--for a rock group. One other coincidence is pointed out by an FBI official: since Williams has been watched, "the murders have stopped; the cycle has been broken."

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