Today’s AJC Deja News comes to you from the Tuesday, March 31, 1981, edition of The Atlanta Constitution.
BODY OF YOUTH FOUND IN CHATTAHOOCHEE
A name that will live forever in Atlanta infamy resurfaced recently: Wayne Williams. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced March 21 that state and local officials will reexamine evidence from the Atlanta Child Murders cases. Around 30 young black children, teens and adults, most of them male, were killed from July 1979-May 1981.
"The operation will be a joint one, with authorities from the Atlanta Police Department, the Fulton County District Attorney's Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation using modern technology to test stored evidence such as DNA or cloth or carpet fibers," the AJC's Joshua Sharpe reports.
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By 1981, the murders had become a national story. And in Atlanta, the discovery of yet another dead child merited front page coverage -- even if it likely took space away from the historic report of a presidential assassination attempt.
President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously wounded outside of a Washington D.C. hotel on March 30, undergoing emergency surgery. The March 31 Constitution updated readers on the president’s condition; Reagan was doing well, a positive report for an anxious nation. But atop the page, a story headlined “Body Of Youth Found In Chattahoochee” promised Atlanta readers an all-too-familiar tale of another likely victim in what was then called the Missing and Murdered Children case.
Credit: AJC PRINT ARCHIVES
Credit: AJC PRINT ARCHIVES
Constitution staff writers T.L. Wells and Emily Ellison presented a set of grim facts.
“The body of a young black male, clothed only in underwear, was found Monday afternoon tangled in underbrush in the middle of the Chattahoochee River in a remote area of southwest Fulton County.
“The body was the 21st found in the metropolitan Atlanta area since July 28, 1979. Most of the victims have been underprivileged, slightly built males and many were either strangled or suffocated.”
Credit: AJC PRINT ARCHIVES
Credit: AJC PRINT ARCHIVES
The article continued:
“Twenty of the slayings, plus two cases in which black youngsters vanished, are being investigated by a police special task force.”
>> Atlanta child murders: A chronology of the missing and murdered cases
>> Photos: The Atlanta Missing and Murdered Children cases
>> Stories: More on Wayne Williams
Next came an ominous report on those still missing, which served as a reminder to Constitution readers of the increasing frequency with which they were disappearing.
“The two missing children are 10-year-old Darron Glass, last seen Sept. 14, 1980, and Joseph Bell, 16, who disappeared March 3, 1981. A third child, 13-year-old Timothy Hill, missing since March 13, has not been added to the task force list because police consider him to be a runaway.”
Joseph Bell’s body was found April 19 in the South River near the DeKalb-Rockdale county line. The body discovered March 31 in the Chattahoochee River was that of Timothy Hill. Darron Glass remains missing.
>> Photos: Who were the victims?
On April 22, Wayne Williams was stopped and questioned during a nighttime stakeout on the South Cobb Drive bridge over the Chattahoochee near the Bolton Road / Hollywood Road area upstream from where the bodies of Jimmy Ray Payne, 21, and Nathaniel Cater, 27, were located in late April and May of 1981.
On July 17, Williams was indicted for the slayings of Payne and Cater. In late February 1982, he was convicted of both killings.
Down at Telfair State Prison, Williams continues serving out his sentence of two consecutive life terms. To date, he is the only person charged in the Atlanta Child Murders case. Williams was never charged in the other 20-plus killings. Those cases were closed starting in March 1982.
"Authorities closed the children’s cases after those convictions, saying they were certain Willliams was responsible for the entire string of crimes,” Joshua Sharpe writes. “Williams never faced charges in any of the children’s deaths, and questions among victims’ family members and some investigators have lingered over the years."
Williams maintains his innocence.
>> LATEST UPDATES: Visit our Crime page
During her press conference announcing the fresh look at the old evidence, Mayor Bottoms "noted that evidence does link Williams to many of the murdered children, but wants to make sure there isn't something new to be learned from re-testing evidence."
The cases are not being re-opened. And the mayor acknowledged that even the most up-to-date analysis methods may ultimately render little or nothing of further value.
“It may be there is nothing left to be tested,” Bottoms said. “But I do think history will judge us by our actions and we will be able to say we tried.”
Staff writer Joshua Sharpe contributed to this article.
READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE
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