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Atlanta Child Murders · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:16
  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
• 0:27
  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,
• 3:00
  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
• 11:01
  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
• 11:09
  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
• 11:50
  appreciate you taking the time to listen today. And someone asked me to talk
• 11:54
  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
• 12:13
  me canceled, So everybody calm down, at least, I hope not.
• 12:16
  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
• 12:43
  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.
• 12:50
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