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Atlanta Prosecutor Says Dog-Hair DNA Ties Wayne Williams to Child Murders; Lab Says Test Can't Single Out His Dog

Mitochondrial DNA from seven hairs in five Atlanta child-murder cases matched Williams' dog, Sheba. The sequence occurs in about 1 in 100 dogs.

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Illustration of a gloved hand adjusting a laboratory microscope beside slides and sample tubes. Not an actual scene from the case.

Wayne Williams has always said he was framed for the Atlanta child murders. On June 26, 2007, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced DNA results on dog hairs from the cases and said they settled the question.

A University of California, Davis, laboratory tested seven dog hairs from five of the murder cases against hairs taken a quarter-century earlier from Williams' dog, Sheba. "All seven hairs tested are the same as Sheba's, the dog of Wayne Williams," Howard said at a news conference. "This testing finally settles the debate over whether Wayne Williams was the Atlanta child killer. He is." The lab's report said the hairs shared the same mitochondrial DNA sequence as Sheba's, a sequence found in about 1 in 100 dogs in its database of more than 1,200. There was not enough nuclear DNA for a more definitive test.

The lab's director, Elizabeth Wictum, called the results "fairly significant" but said they did not conclusively point to Williams' dog. "We didn't individualize," she said. Williams' lawyer, Lynn Whatley, said the results were inconclusive. "Justice has not been done in this case," Whatley told Howard at the news conference.

A Superior Court judge had ordered the tests in February 2007 at the request of Williams' lawyers. Williams was convicted in 1982 of murdering Jimmy Ray Payne, 21, and Nathaniel Cater, 27, and is serving two consecutive life terms. After his trial, officials declared him responsible for 22 other deaths and closed those cases.

The district attorney said the seven hairs were the same as Sheba's, while the laboratory's director said the test did not identify the dog as their source.

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