Threads of evidence produce an arrest in Atlanta
Two fibers, three or four dog hairs and one loud splash. Slim shreds of evidence, but last week they were enough to convince a Georgia magistrate that Wayne Bertram Williams, 23, should face a grand jury for possible indictment in the murder of Nathaniel Cater, 27, the most recent of the 28 young blacks found slain in Atlanta. Williams showed no emotion as Magistrate Albert Thompson read the decision upholding the arrest. Only later, as he was transferred back to his 6-ft. by 12-ft. isolation cell in Fulton County Jail, did the suspect comment: "This is ridiculous!"
Williams' lawyer certainly seems to think so. The case against her client, though only sketchily presented at the hearing, is "very, very weak," said Mary Welcome. It appears to rest on events observed by police in the predawn hours of May 22, when Williams was first stopped and questioned by authorities near a bridge on the Chattahoochee River, and on laboratory analysis of evidence taken from the suspect's home.
Police Cadet Freddy Jacobs testified that he saw Williams driving "really slow" and unusually close to the edge of the bridge that morning after another policeman had reported a loud splashing sound. Lieut. J.T. Campbell testified that he had helped recover Cater's body from the river two days later. In crossexamination, Williams' attorneys tried to show that the splash could have been made by a beaver. Later, Welcome pointed out that "no one even saw Williams' car stop that night on the bridge." Throwing the 146-lb. Cater from a moving automobile, she said, would have been virtually impossible.
More evidence for the prosecution came from Georgia Crime Lab Microanalyst Larry Peterson. A purple thread from Williams' bedspread, a green fiber from his bedroom rug and several hairs from his pet German shepherd, said Peterson, showed "no significant microscopic difference" from fibers found in Cater's hair. Police have long hinted at the importance of this "trace evidence," and last week said that their findings had been confirmed by forensic experts from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. None of this seemed to impress Defense Attorney Welcome. Said she to reporters after the hearing: "Any one of you could have killed Cater. You all have fibers in your hair."