On April 5, 1985, around 11 p.m., a woman, identified as K.L., was getting out of her car in her apartment complex parking lot in Sandy Springs, Georgia, just north of Atlanta, when she was approached by a Black man. The man asked her if she could help him find “Paul.”
He then pulled out a gun and told her to move into the passenger seat. After initially having trouble starting the car, he drove to a nearby dead-end street where he raped K.L. After the attack, he drove her back to the parking lot and left on foot.
K.L. was taken to the hospital, where a rape kit was collected. She told police that the attack lasted over 45 minutes, that there was a full moon, and that the parking lot was well-lit. She helped a police artist draw a composite sketch.
On April 10, 1985, around 9 p.m., another woman, identified as K.G., was getting out of her car in her apartment complex on the same street as the attack on K.L., when a Black man approached. The man asked her if she could help him find “Carol.” He then put a razor blade to her throat and got in the car. He demanded sex and tried to pull off her clothes. She was able to talk the man into leaving her car.
The police showed K.G. the first victim's composite sketch, and the second victim immediately identified the sketch as resembling her attacker.
On April 28, 1985, at 4 a.m., 23-year-old Willie Otis "Pete" Williams and two of his friends were stopped for suspicious behavior near the location of the attacks. Williams gave the officer a false address, and the arresting officer noted that he looked like the composite sketch. Williams was released.
On May 13, 1985, Williams’s photograph was put in a photographic lineup. Both victims identified him in the lineup. On May 15, 1985, Williams was arrested on charges of rape, kidnapping, and aggravated sodomy for the attack on K.L.
In September 1985, Williams went to trial in Fulton County Superior Court. K.L. and K.G. identified him as their attacker.
Another woman testified that she was at K.G.’s apartment complex around the time the man attacked K.G. She identified Williams as a man she saw standing near the driveway to the complex. During cross-examination, this witness testified that her identification was based on the composite and photographic lineup rather than her observations on the night of the assault.
A forensic analyst testified that serology testing had been performed and that Williams could not be excluded, although 44 percent of the population was excluded.
Williams testified and denied committing the crime. During his testimony, he denied holding a gun in the past year. During cross-examination, the prosecutor confronted him with having been recently charged with pointing a gun at someone. Williams admitted he had been charged with a misdemeanor for allegedly pointing a gun, but denied he had done so.
The defense asked for a mistrial based on the cross-examination, but Judge John Langford denied the motion.
On September 12, 1985, Williams was convicted of rape, kidnapping and aggravated sodomy for the attack on K.L. Judge Langford sentenced Williams to 45 years in prison. It was not clear whether he was ever prosecuted separately for the attack on K.G.
Williams’s defense Michael Schumacher subsequently learned of three similar crimes that took place in the months after Williams’s arrest. These crimes took place in the same area as the attacks on K.L. and K.G., and in each instance, the attacker asked the victims for help finding “Carol” or “Carolyn.”
In two of the crimes, the attacker had had trouble starting a car. In two cases, he had used a gun. One of the victims had been raped. In the third crime, the victim was able to write down the license plate information of the attacker’s car. Based on the license plate information, police arrested Kenneth Wicker, who lived on the same street where the attacks on K.L. and K.G. occurred. When arrested, Wicker was carrying a gun that resembled the description of the gun given by K.L.
Schumacher filed a motion for a new trial. Judge Langford held a hearing on July 17, 1986 and denied the motion.
In January 1987, the Georgia Court of Appeals upheld Williams’s convictions and sentence. The court said the prosecutor’s cross-examination was improper, but was harmless error. “[C]onsidering the extensive evidence of [Williams’s] guilt, we have little difficulty concluding that it is highly probable that this improper impeachment did not contribute to the verdict and thus did not constitute reversible error,” the court said.
Later that year, Wicker pled guilty to one count of rape and two counts of attempted sexual assault. He was sentenced to four years in prison and was released on parole in 1989.
In 2005, the Georgia Innocence Project (GIP) sent a letter to all Georgia prison inmates serving time for rape advising them about the existence of the project. Williams wrote back in July 2005 professing his innocence. The GIP then located the K.L.’s rape kit at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
In November 2006, Williams’s motion for DNA testing was granted. In January 2007, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation completed DNA testing on the rape kit, and reported that Williams was excluded. The rape kit from Kenneth Wicker’s 1985 rape case was submitted for DNA testing. The profile in that case was the same profile as was identified in the rape kit in Williams’s case.
On January 23, 2007, Williams was released from prison.
On February 9, 2007, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced Wicker’s arrest for the April 5, 1985 crime on K.L. On February 13, 2007, Williams’s convictions were vacated,and the case was dismissed.
In September 2007, the prosecution dismissed the case against Wicker, saying that K.L. insisted that Williams was her attacker.
In May 2008, the Georgia Legislature approved $1.2 million in compensation for Williams. In 2009, Williams also filed a civil lawsuit in state court that was moved to federal court and dismissed in 2010.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 03-12-2026
