A 46-year-old mother was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for concealing the death of her young son, whose body remained unidentified for more than 20 years after being found in woods near a Decatur cemetery.
Teresa Ann Bailey Black received the maximum sentence. She will be credited for the 549 days she has already spent in custody.
“As a mother, I cannot fathom how you could leave your child in the woods to rot,” DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Stacey K. Hydrick told Black. “There were so many other options and it did not have to end this way.”
Black did not speak during the sentencing. She plans to appeal her felony conviction for concealing the death of her 6-year-old son, William DaShawn Hamilton, her lawyer said. She was acquitted Wednesday on two counts each of felony murder and cruelty to children as well as a single count of aggravated assault in relation to William’s death.
Public defender Ryan Bozarth said leaving William in the woods was the greatest mistake of Black’s life.
“She’s held the regret and guilt and shame of that for 25 years,” Bozarth told the judge. “She has not moved on from that guilt or shame and she never will.”
He asked that Black be sentenced to two years in prison.
Prosecutor Shannon E. Hodder recommended that Black receive the maximum sentence, saying her crime was “one of the worst cases of concealing I can think of.”
“We believe the evidence has shown that Ms. Black dumped him in the woods,” Hodder told Hydrick. “She did it to protect herself from crimes she believed she would be charged with because she knew that she hadn’t taken care of William and she was responsible for his death.”
Credit: Henri Hollis
Credit: Henri Hollis
The boy’s decomposed body was found by a gravedigger on Feb. 26, 1999, in a wooded area near a Decatur cemetery at the intersection of Clifton Springs and Clifton Church roads. He was identified in 2020 and Black was indicted in 2022.
Prosecutors alleged that Black gave William a toxic amount of Tylenol and Benadryl and hit him in the head before dumping his body.
Black claimed she was homeless at the time and woke to find her son dead after they’d gone to sleep in the woods. She left him, afraid she would be blamed for his death, her attorneys said.
It is undisputed that Black lied about what happened to William for 23 years, telling friends and family he was being cared for by others in Atlanta as she returned to her home state of North Carolina then moved to Alaska and Arizona.
When investigators caught up with Black in 2022, she initially denied having a son and having lived in Atlanta. Black, who was living in Arizona with her teenage daughter and longtime partner, ultimately acknowledged she was with William when he died.
William’s father, William Harris Hamilton, spoke at Black’s sentencing. He said Black should be punished for leading him to believe that William was alive and didn’t want to make contact.
“I feel like she should spend the rest of her life in hell,” Hamilton told the judge. “I just feel so bad that I never got to spend time with him.”
Hamilton didn’t know his eldest child had died until investigators traveled to North Carolina and knocked on his door. He provided a DNA sample, which helped confirm William’s identity.
Until 2020, investigators knew nothing about the boy whose remains were found in the woods, other than he had been wearing a plaid shirt, red jeans and Timberland boots. William’s skull was fractured and his leg tissue contained traces of acetaminophen and diphenhydramine – commonly known as Tylenol and Benadryl.
The mystery was solved when Black’s former friend from North Carolina, Ava McNeil, saw an updated facial reconstruction of the unidentified child and recognized William.
McNeil spoke during Black’s sentencing via Zoom. She said she loved William and didn’t believe Black’s explanations about where he was.
“I always knew something was wrong,” McNeil said. “It’s a huge loss to the world that his life was cut short. Nothing will heal my heart from the loss of him.”
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