Atlanta Child Murders

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A mystery killer stalked black communities in
Atlanta in the late nineteen seventies and early

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nineteen eighties. Kids of all ages
were disappearing one by one and then turning

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up dead days or weeks later.
They became known as the Atlanta child murders.

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An Atlanta local named Wayne Williams was
eventually detained by police in connection with

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these disappearances and murders. Although Williams
was implicated in twenty nine killings, he

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was only ever found guilty of two
of them. And the most weird part

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about that is that of the two
he was convicted of, they weren't children.

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He's in prison for killing two adults. Despite the fact that the killing

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stopped Williams was detained, some people, including some of the families of the

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victims, think that Williams was not
the perpetrator of the Atlanta child murders.

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In twenty nineteen, the story was
dramatized in the Netflix series Mine Hunter.

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The genuine Atlanta murder's case was also
reopened in the same year in an effort

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to learn more information. But let's
rewind to the beginning. The first body

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connected to the Atlantic child murders investigation
was found. On a warm summer day.

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In July nineteen seventy nine, Alfred
Evans, a thirteen year old boy,

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was discovered barefoot and shirtless in a
deserted lot three days after he vanished.

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Alfred had been strangled to death.
Police couldn't help but notice a foul

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odor coming from some adjacent overgrown foliage. As they were investigating Alfred's crime scene,

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they came across another dead child,
Edward Smith, a fourteen year old

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African American boy. Edward had been
murdered by gunshot, but you couldn't help

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but think that the two were connected, given that Alfred's body was just one

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hundred fifty feet away. These murder
cases were simply written off by authorities as

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being drug related. A few months
later, more black teenagers began to go

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missing. The next two bodies found
were those of nine year old Yusef Bell

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and fourteen year old Milton Harvey.
Both kids had been murdered by strangulation.

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Bell, the fourth victim, lived
in building four blocks from the scene of

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his death. The surrounding community was
particularly hard hit by his passing. Belle's

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neighbor, who was aware of his
aptitude for math and history said that quote.

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The entire neighborhood wept because they loved
that child. He had a talent

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from God. Families of the victims
began to wonder whether there might be a

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connection. Four black kids in a
short amount of time in the same general

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area disappear and later turn up murdered. The Atlanta police did not, however,

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make any definite connections between the homicides. By March nineteen eighty, the

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four victim tally grew to six.
The communities started to realize that they were

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in serious danger. Curfews were first
imposed by parents of the kids in the

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area, but victims continued to stack
up. With the exception of two girls,

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they were almost all boys, and
while a few victims connected to the

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case were ultimately revealed to be adult
men, the majority of them were kids,

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and they were all black. African
American neighborhoods in Atlanta and the surrounding

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area were shaken by fear and worry, but they were also justifiably upset since

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the Atlanta police had yet to make
a connection or refused to make a connection

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between the crimes. Children kept going
missing despite increased community monitoring. Willie May

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Mathis and her ten year old son, Jeffrey, were watching TV in March

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of nineteen eighty when they both saw
a news story about the murders. She

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gave her young sons advice about approaching
strangers. Mamma, I don't do that,

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he said, I don't talk to
strangers. The very next day,

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Jeffrey set off for the corner store
to buy a loaf of bread, but

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he never arrived. A year later, his remains were discovered. The method

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in which these children were killed varied. Some were shot, stabbed, or

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beaten to death, while others were
strangled. The cause of death for some

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of the victims, particularly the ones
that weren't found quickly, including Jeffrey Mathis,

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was not known. The grieving families
waited daily for any news and he

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updates on the progress of the case. They waited and waited until they couldn't

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stand by any longer. Atlanta Mayor
Maynard Jackson's inaction and the Atlanta Police's resistance

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to seeing the murders as connected infuriated
the community, so they started organizing themselves.

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Yusef Belle's mother Camille, founded the
Committee to Stop Children's Murders in August

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in collaboration with other parents of the
victims. The committee's role was to serve

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as a community led alliance to demand
accountability for the dragged out investigations. Amazingly

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it did. Both the investigating task
force size and the total amount offered as

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a reward for tips were greatly boosted
by the city Bell and the committee members

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were effective and inspiring the neighborhood to
take an active role in the neighborhood security.

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The murder of thirteen year old Clifford
Jones also prompted Atlanta's authorities to take

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more action. He was in town
visiting from Cleveland, and the killing of

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a visitor had garnered widespread attention.
Locals volunteered to join the city's neighborhood patrol

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while arming themselves with baseball bats,
and more volunteers joined the citywide hunt for

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clues that might shed light on the
case. A few months after the committee

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was established, Georgia authorities asked the
FBI to take part in the investigation.

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Five of the top homicide investigators in
the country were hired as advisers. Additionally,

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two representatives from the US Justice Department
were sent to the city to offer

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assistance. Finally, the case received
significant attention from the authorities. Twenty nine

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black children and young adults were victims
of the Atlanta child murders between nineteen seventy

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nine and nineteen eighty one. On
April thirteenth, nineteen eighty one, FBI

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Director William Webster announced that the Atlanta
Police had identified the murderers of four of

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the murdered kids, possibly implying several
offenders. Authorities didn't have enough proof to

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press charges, though. Then a
month later, policemen conducting a late night

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stakeout along the Chattahoochee River heard a
splash after a car approached the bridge.

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Officers then observed a station wagon crossing
the South Cobb Drive Bridge in the distance.

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They stopped the driver for further investigation
out of suspicion. Twenty three year

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old Wayne Williams once that driver.
After taking a few fibers from William's car,

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the police let him go. The
body of twenty seven year old Nathaniel

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Carter was found downstream of that bridge
just two days later. It was unsettlingly

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close to the spot where the body
of Jimmy Ray Payne, aged twenty one,

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had been discovered a month earlier.
Wayne Williams was detained in June nineteen

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eighty one in relation to the deaths
of Pain and Carter. Both men were

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among the few adult victims in the
Atlanta murder's case, and these are the

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two I mentioned earlier that he would
be later found guilty of killing. Williams

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received a life sentence in jail.
There havn't been any other connected killings after

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Wayne William's arrest, at least none
that have been publicized as such. However,

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other people, including many of the
victims families, continued to deny that

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Williams was a serial killer. He
was found guilty based on a few fibers

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that the prosecution said were discovered on
Carters and Pain's bodies. These materials reportedly

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matched a comforter in his house and
a rug in his car. However,

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fiber evidence is frequently seen as being
unreliable. Also, inconsistencies and witness testimony

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raised greater questions about William's guilt.
Alternative explanations have surfaced throughout the years,

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from a pedophile network to the government
performing gruesome experiments on black children. Before

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you brushed that last one off as
a wild conspiracy theory. Look up the

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Tuskegee experiment, then get back to
me. But one of the most frequently

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accepted ideas is that the Atlanta child
murders were the work of the klu Klux

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Klan. It was discovered later in
nineteen ninety one that a police informant at

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the time overheard a KKK member named
Charles Theodore Sanders verbally threatening to choke a

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black teenager named Luby Jeter after he
unintentionally damaged his truck in nineteen eighty one.

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Just a few weeks following Sanders warning, his body was found. His

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genitalia lower pelvic region and both of
his feet were all missing, and he'd

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been strangled. Years later, disturbing
information from a top secret probe by a

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collaboration of law enforcement organizations was revealed
in a twenty fifteen expose by Spin magazine.

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According to this inquiry, Sanders and
his white nationalist family members planned to

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murder more than two dozen black children
in Atlanta in order to start a race

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war. Luby's death and maybe as
many as fourteen other child murders were connected

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to the Sanders family. According to
evidence, witness statements, and informant reports.

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Investigators allegedly made the decision to withhold
information about potential KKK involvement in order

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to keep the peace in the city, which also sounds a lot like choosing

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to protect bigots. However, despite
efforts to allegedly hide proof that the KKK

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was involved, many of the city's
black citizens already believed and still do,

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that the white nationalist organization was to
blame. Atlanta Mayor Kesha Lance Bottoms,

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who was a child during the peak
of the Atlanta child murders, reopened the

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case in March of twenty nineteen.
According to her, modern forensic equipment,

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which wasn't available during the investigation four
decades ago, should be used to retest

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the evidence. Mayor Bottoms described what
it was like growing up during this scary

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time, quote, it was like
there was a boogeyman out there and he

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was snatching black children. The Mayor's
conviction that the case required further investigation was

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not shared by everyone. In fact, somethink the problem has essentially been resolved.

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Along with witness testimony, other fibers
and dog hairs were presented as evidence

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in court. Wayne Williams was on
that bridge and two bodies washed up days

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later. Which is indisputable, according
to Danny Again, a retired Atlanta homicide

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detective who looked into three of the
killings. In recent years, renewed interest

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in the Atlanta child murders has also
permeated pop culture. The story became a

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major plot in season two of the
Netflix series Hunter, which, by the

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way, it's fantastic. The series
itself was largely inspired by a book by

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the same name, written by former
FBI agent John Douglas, who is considered

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a pioneer in criminal profiling. As
for Douglas, he thought Wayne Williams was

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guilty of some of the killings,
possibly not all of them. The reality

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isn't pleasant, he once stated,
and there isn't just one perpetrator. Investigators

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are currently going over all the evidence
again and again. It's unclear, though,

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if the families and the community as
a whole will experience any real closure

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as a result of the fresh attempts. That is ten minute Murderer for today,

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brief and bingeable true crime. I'm
Joe the host, and I really

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appreciate you taking the time to listen
today. And someone asked me to talk

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about an opinion that I have that
is unpopular. They asked me to share

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my most unpopular opinion true crime related
or not, And here it goes.

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I'll give you two. One of
them is related to true crime, and

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the other one should be a crime. And this is not going to get

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me canceled, So everybody calm down, at least, I hope not.

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First, I don't believe in the
death penalty. I'm not going to go

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into details about it now. Maybe
on a later episode I will, but

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I will say that I completely understand
why people are for it. I just

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respectfully don't agree. And the other
one, when you're at a concert and

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everyone's singing along so loud that the
singer on stage stops singing and you know

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it, holds the microphone out,
or she holds the microphone out for the

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crowd for them to sing. No, do not, you dare. I

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came to hear the singer sing,
and I want to hear them do it

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so everyone else can kindly hush sing
along in the car on the way home.

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That's fine. Please and thank you. If this is your first time

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