Wayne Williams was charged with murdering two people in Atlanta, Georgia. Shockingly enough, he was also linked to the killing of ten other boys. The way the evidence effected this trial is what makes the case so well known. There were 28 different types of fibers linking Williams to the murder victims. That can be an overwhelming amount of evidence. This case happened in the 1980s and the evidence presented in the case was crucial to proving Williams guilt. While investigations were going on to determine how victims died, there was a discovery of fibers on the victims’ bodies. The goal of the investigator was to determine if any fibers in Wayne Williams home or person matched those fibers found on the victims. Williams denied killing anyone and was out and about on the night of one of the murders looking for a woman who gave him her number. Williams even failed several polygraph tests. What I found interesting was the dog hair significance in the case. Apparently, some dog hair was found on the victims that belonged to Williams. The tricky part comes to this: Do they prosecute on fiber evidence alone?
It might be hard to convince a jury with only this type of evidence. If they lost the case due to this kind of evidence that would be upsetting. They wanted more rock solid evidence such as witnesses or fingerprints. Eventually, an arrest warrant allowed Williams to be arrested and Georgia law allowed evidence to be brought in from other cases if there was a pattern established. One common problem in this case is that there was a lack of funds. It is very costly to go to trial. They couldn’t interview every witness like they needed to. To successfully shoot down the fiber evidence, expensive, very high caliber expert testimony would have been required. Williams' defense team just didn't have that kind of money. Wayne Williams wife even said she thought he killed