THIS!

(You OK? Day 2)

June 29, 2025

Welcome back! Today’s entry concerns two individuals who also were assigned the elusive number 10 at the top righthand corner of some of their FBI records.

Wayne Bertram Williams/The Atlanta Child Murders

Wayne Bertram Williams is an African American man who, in 1981, became the primary person of interest for murders that were taking place in Atlanta beginning in 1979. These murders were referred to as the Atlanta Child Murders. 

According to the FBI, a law enforcement task force had been conducting a late-night stakeout at one of the bridges traversing the river where several bodies had been found, when they heard a loud splash. The driver who sped across the bridge shortly after the splash, at around 2:52 a.m., was Williams. In 1982, he was tried and convicted for the killing of two young African American men, Nathaniel Cater (whose body was found a couple days after Williams’ encounter with police and was the likely source of the splash) and Jimmy Ray Payne. Law enforcement also linked Williams to 20 of 29  kidnapping-murders of primarily male African American children, teens, and young adults that had occurred between 1979 and 1981. They did so by comparing fibers and hair from Williams’ home and car with those found on the victims. Williams was never tried for the murders of the other victims, however.

Here are several of the reports that were written up before Williams became a suspect:

So, here we are with another convicted murderer, likely a serial killer, who shares the number 10 with Ron Tammen. As we discussed in an earlier post, the Sharon Tate murders by Charles Manson’s followers also appear to have warranted a number 10, though it’s harder to tell for those documents.

Marjorie Swann

Our second example is Marjorie Swann, who was a bookkeeper and pacifist whom the FBI labeled as a subversive. Marjorie belonged to an organization known as the New England Committee for Non-Violent Action, or NECNVA. There were other CNVAs around the country as well, but Marjorie belonged to the chapter in Voluntown, Connecticut. They did what your typical peace-loving org does: convene and plan, hand out fliers, write letters, stage protests, things like that, though, judging by the below document, it appears she was engaged in riskier activities too at times.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that being a convicted murderer and alleged serial killer is way different than belonging to a group that speaks openly about their opposition to the Vietnam War. And you’d be right. However, remember what our current hypothesis is: that the 10 indicates that the FBI’s liaison to the U.S. Secret Service received a copy of the memo.

Nevertheless, it does lead me to ask: does our hypothesis still hold for these two people?

Although the Secret Service isn’t the agency whose primary responsibility is investigating murderers and alleged serial killers—that job belongs to the FBI—I’m sure they would want to be kept in the loop about their actions. For example, there might be a chance that an alleged serial killer could present a danger to the people who the Secret Service does normally protect. So I think our hypothesis still holds for Wayne Williams.

But what about Marjorie Swann? I was wondering if I should abandon my hypothesis, since I thought the Secret Service would have less of an interest in her, though I thought it was possible that her Paris meeting had raised red flags with them. As it turns out, it appears they were interested in antiwar activists in general.

In a memo written by J. Edgar Hoover on September 26, 1969, he alerts a whole slew of federal officials and agencies about “Student Agitational and Antiwar Activity in the United States.” The U.S Secret Service is one of the agencies listed in his “To” column, and indeed, the New England Committee for Nonviolent Action is listed as planning a demonstration in Groton, CT, when the Secretary of Defense was visiting. So I think our theory still holds for Majorie and the NECNVA too.

By the way, did you notice the “fd-217” scribble next to Marjorie’s 10? We’ll be discussing more on that topic later this week.

OK! That’s all for today. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Thanks to the FBI Vault and the Mary Ferrell Foundation for making this document available.