Richard Williams was a 24-year-old Black man whose body was found on December 6, 1985, in a vacant building behind a house on Mayson Turner Road in northwest Atlanta. He had been shot in the back of the head and stabbed twice. The violence of the scene initially appeared isolated, but other similar killings surfaced in the same part of the city over the following months, and detectives eventually linked Williams’ death to a pattern affecting six men.

Investigators focused on a heavyset man known as Mike or Big Mike, later identified as Michael Devern Terry, who lived near several body-disposal sites and worked at a Lithonia tire shop. Terry was arrested in late November 1986, charged in a string of killings, and after trials and guilty pleas was convicted of six murders; his convictions included the killing of Richard Williams, for which he received consecutive life sentences.

If anyone knew Richard Williams or saw suspicious activity around Mayson Turner Road in late 1985, please share what you remember.