Hey everybody welcome back to coal case murder mysteries. I'm your host Ryan Kraus guiding you back into the dark depths of the criminal mind.

In this episode, if my fucking microphone ever works, we're going to examine the unsolved

child murders and specifically in the context of primary suspect Wayne Williams.

From July 1979 through May 1981, dozens of children and a handful of adults fell victim to at least one vicious predator tormenting to city.

Yet while 23-year-old Wayne Williams was arrested for the murders of two of the adults in

question, to this day the numerous little boys and girls who were killed

have received no justice.

In the absence of charges and a subsequent criminal trial to determine Wayne's guilt through evidentiary means,

we're left to explore the psychological implications of the event.

And the best way to do that is to go back to the point of origin where it all began. That's going to be our

access point into Wayne's mind. So here we are. It's July 26, 1928 in Holly Grove, Arkansas. A baby boy named Joe was born to parents Samuel

and Crystal. He went on to become the eldest of five children in the family, and therefore often found himself the subject of his father's scrutiny.

Unfortunately, dad was a domineering and strict man, a school teacher who dished out discipline and expected his firstborn to be a success.

Joe would later describe his father as somebody to be feared and respected all at once. Growing up under these circumstances, Joe, as many

boys do in that position, began to develop an equally obsessive inclination for pleasing his father and simultaneously getting symbolic

revenge on him.

I mean, Joe had to be a fighter to survive this environment.

So as you do, he became one. After Samuel and Crystal separated

when Joe was 12, the family left dad behind in Arkansas and headed north for East Chicago where the preteen would suddenly find

himself the default man of the house without preparation.

Though we do learn that for a time Joe went out to live with his father in Oakland, but unfortunately he was taken back by the fact that dad was going to remarry and things didn't work out there.

So angry at his absent father upon coming back to East Chicago

...