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William and the Forces of Evil · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:38
  It was the late nineteen seventies and the city of Columbus, Georgia, was
• 0:42
  being terrorized by serial murderers who were targeting female victims. Several black prostitutes had
• 0:49
  been found dead in the area, and a killer, who the media had
• 0:52
  nicknamed the Stalking Strangler, had been strangling elderly women. Because all of the
• 0:57
  Stalking Strangler's victims were whites, the killer was believed to be black. Although
• 1:02
  the two sets of killings were originally thought to be unrelated because of the completely
• 1:07
  different victim profiles, an anonymous letter sent to the local police station appeared to
• 1:11
  show that they were in fact connected. The letter was handwritten on a piece
• 1:17
  of stationery from the U. S Army and claimed to be from seven white
• 1:22
  males calling themselves the Forces of Evil, who had banded together in an attempt
• 1:27
  to stop the Stalking Strangler from taking any more victims. In the letter,
• 1:32
  the men claimed that they had taken a hostage, a twenty one year old
• 1:36
  black woman by the name of Gail Jackson, who they intended to murder unless
• 1:41
  the police succeeded in arresting the Stalking Strangler. The Forces of Evil demanded that
• 1:47
  the local police chief replied to them by leaving messages on the TV and radio.
• 1:52
  They continued writing more letters to the police demanding a total ransom of ten
• 1:57
  thousand dollars in exchange for Gail's life, and eventually they escalated to placing phone
• 2:02
  calls to the police station. However, in April nineteen seventy eight, Gail
• 2:08
  Jackson's body was found. She had been dead for more than a month.
• 2:13
  Gail had been killed around five weeks ago before the Forces of Evil sent their
• 2:17
  first letter claiming that she was their hostage. Shortly after Gail's death was discovered,
• 2:23
  the Forces of Evil called the police station again, providing instructions to find
• 2:29
  the body of another one of their victims. Sure Enough, a thirty two
• 2:34
  year old black woman named Irene Thirkield was found dead at a Fort Benning rifle
• 2:38
  range. Like Gail, Irene also worked as a prostitute in the area.
• 2:44
  In nineteen seventy eight, behavioral profiling was a new science and the FBI's Behavioral
• 2:50
  Science Unit had only been formed four years previous. One of the original behavioral
• 2:55
  profilers for the FBI, Robert K. Wrestler, worked on the case to
• 3:00
  create a profile of who was responsible for the crimes, but Robert quickly came
• 3:06
  to the conclusion that the forces of evil were not who they said they were.
• 3:10
  He was certain that the killings had been committed by only one murderer instead
• 3:15
  of seven men that the forces claimed to be. Additionally, he believed that
• 3:20
  the culprit was a single black man in his twenties who was unlikely to have
• 3:23
  received a higher education. Robert also believed that the killer was in the military
• 3:30
  at Fort Benning and had a low rank. In one of the letters,
• 3:34
  the author had warned the police that the fact that they used military stationery was
• 3:38
  not a clue, claiming quote anyone could get hold of that. However,
• 3:44
  Robert thought that this was the culprit trying to draw attention away from themselves so
• 3:49
  that the investigators wouldn't realize that they were in the military. That Georgia Bureau
• 3:53
  of Investigation used Robert Wrestler's profile to search for suspects, focusing on bars near
• 3:59
  f Fort Binning, where a black military man might go to pick up a
• 4:02
  prostitute. They zeroed in on one man in particular, William Henry Hans,
• 4:09
  who fit the profile perfectly. He started out as a marine and then later
• 4:14
  signed up to the Army. He lived in Fort Binning, where he was
• 4:16
  ranked as a specialist. As well as fitting the profile, there was plenty
• 4:20
  of physical evidence that ended up linking William to the two murders. Shoe Prints
• 4:26
  that matched his boots had been found at the scene of both crimes. Analysis
• 4:30
  of his handwriting matched the letters that had been sent to the police station from
• 4:32
  the supposed Forces of Evil, and recordings of the telephone calls to the station
• 4:38
  also matched his voice. When William was arrested and accused of the murders,
• 4:44
  he was confronted with the collection of evidence showing that he was the killer,
• 4:47
  and he appeared to understand that there was no point in denying his involvement.
• 4:53
  Immediately, William confessed to posing as the Forces of Evil and murdering Gail and
• 4:59
  Irene, but he also decided to confess to a third crime. In nineteen
• 5:04
  seventy seven, he killed twenty four year old Karen Hickman, his only white
• 5:10
  victim. Karen had a reputation for dating black men who were in the military
• 5:15
  and often spent time in bars that were frequented by black patrons, making it
• 5:19
  easy for William to get her alone until he confessed Karen's murder had gone unsolved.
• 5:26
  Later on, William was also found to have killed a woman in Indiana
• 5:30
  at Fort Benjamin Harrison, but he was never charged with that crime. Because
• 5:34
  of the letters from the Forces of Evil implying a connection between William's killings and
• 5:40
  the Stoking strangler, investigators looked into whether it was possible that William was also
• 5:46
  the strangler. However, he was found to be innocent. The Stocking strangler
• 5:50
  was later identified as a man named Carlton Gary. For his confirmed murders,
• 5:56
  William was tried in a combination of both civilian and US military courts. In
• 6:00
  military courts, William received a life sentence for Irene's murder, but in civilian
• 6:06
  courts he was sentenced to death for Gail Jackson's murder. While his life sentence
• 6:12
  ended up being overturned because the jury didn't believe he had the mental capacity to
• 6:15
  commit premeditated murder, his death sentence stuck. In the days leading up to
• 6:21
  William's death, his case was surrounded by controversy because of questions about his mental
• 6:28
  health and intelligence, as well as the belief that racial prejudice had influenced the
• 6:32
  jury at his trial. He had an IQ between seventy five and seventy nine,
• 6:38
  meaning that he was classified as only having borderline intellectual functioning. This brought
• 6:44
  up the issue of whether a death sentence was an appropriate punishment, as William's
• 6:47
  intellect was severely impaired. In fact, one of the sentencers in William's trial
• 6:54
  later came forward and stated that she had chosen not to vote for the death
• 6:58
  penalty because of his mental impairments. A member of the jury who had been
• 7:02
  at william sentencing claimed that several of the jurors had used racial slurs when talking
• 7:09
  about the case and made racist remarks, including stating that no one would miss
• 7:14
  William if he was executed and that his execution would be a good thing as
• 7:17
  it would prevent him from having children. Out of all of the members of
• 7:21
  the jury, only one was also black, twenty six year old Gail Lewis
• 7:27
  Daniels. According to the same juror who had shared about the racism in the
• 7:30
  trial, Gail was also the victim of racism. She had been against giving
• 7:36
  William the death penalty and had steadfastly refused to agree with the other jurors but
• 7:42
  the rest of the jury wouldn't listen to her, and instead told the judge
• 7:46
  that they had unanimously agreed to vote for the death penalty. By this point,
• 7:50
  Gail felt afraid to correct them and to tell the judge that she disagreed
• 7:55
  with the death penalty because some of the other members of the jury had claimed
• 7:59
  that she would be guilty of perjury. In her Affidavid Gale wrote, I
• 8:03
  believe that the death penalty is right for people who commit murder when they are
• 8:07
  in their right mind. I did not vote for the death penalty in mister
• 8:11
  Hans's case because I did not believe he knew what he was doing at the
• 8:16
  time of his crimes. When talking about the case, William's lawyer stated that
• 8:20
  if he was executed, it would be first cousin to a lynching. William
• 8:26
  and his attorney appealed the death sentence, and the appeals continued until they reached
• 8:30
  the Supreme Court. Only a few hours before William was due to be executed,
• 8:35
  he was granted a stay of execution by Justice Anthony Kennedy. However,
• 8:41
  that same day, the court voted against taking action on the case. On
• 8:45
  the thirty first of March nineteen ninety four, William Henry Hans was executed by
• 8:50
  electric chair, becoming the eighteenth inmate to be executed in Georgia since the death
• 8:56
  penalty was restored in nineteen seventy six. When these pieces of information about the
• 9:01
  racism in William's trial came to light, the media responded with outrage. Shortly
• 9:07
  afterward, one newspaper published an article about the case, saying there is compelling
• 9:11
  evidence that the law was not followed, that William Hans's civil rights were violated,
• 9:18
  that he was a victim of racism and political expediency. The reporter writing
• 9:22
  the article came to the conclusion that William's execution hadn't been justice at all,
• 9:28
  saying, quote, he might as well have been lynched. That is ten
• 9:39
  minute murder for today, brief and bingeable true crime. I'm Joe the host,
• 9:45
  and thank you so much for taking the time to listen to my podcast.
• 9:48
  If you're a new listener, thanks for joining. I hope you enjoyed
• 9:50
  it, but not enjoyed it. That's I always feel weird about saying I
• 9:54
  hope you enjoyed the podcast, because I don't mean like enjoy is in like
• 9:58
  hahaha, you know what I mean. I hope you found it interesting.
• 10:01
  Is that better? That feels better? I don't know if that is better.
• 10:05
  But that's why many of us are into this true crime world, why
• 10:09
  we consume all of these documentaries, while we read all these books, and
• 10:13
  why I do this podcast. I just there's something about the true crime world,
• 10:18
  the way people's minds function, the mental health side of it all.
• 10:24
  It's interesting to me, the motivations of people. I like hearing about that.
• 10:28
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• 10:33
  the subject. Man. That's hard to explain without sounding like a creep,
• 10:37
  but I think you get me. I mean, if you're listening to the
• 10:39
  podcast, do you get it right? We are weirdos, but like in
• 10:43
  a good way or a I don't know. Hey, Joe, change the
• 10:46
  subject, Okay, I will. If you'd like to get in touch with
• 10:50
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• 10:56
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• 11:00
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• 11:03
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• 11:07
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• 11:11
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• 11:15
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