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Atlanta Child Murders: Reopened

MrRING

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Atlanta Child Killing Cases Re-Opened

ATLANTA (AP) -- Police have reopened the investigation into the deaths of four young boys who were among more than two dozen black people killed during the notorious Atlanta-area child slayings of a quarter-century ago.

The police chief in DeKalb County said today he may also look into a fifth death, but has not yet decided. Police Chief Louis Graham said no new evidence prompted his decision to assign five officers to reopen the cases, but instead he did it because he believes Wayne Williams, the man convicted in two of the deaths and suspected in most of the others, is innocent.

Graham told The Associated Press today, “After Wayne Williams was arrested, there was this decision by some people to close the cases and I have never been one to espouse that kind of investigation or paint that kind of broad brush. I have never believed that he did anything.” Graham said the decision to reopen the cases was his, adding that he has only spoken to Williams once, about five years ago during a prison visit.

Graham, who was an assistant police chief in neighboring Fulton County when Williams went to trial, became chief in DeKalb County last year. He said that in December he was looking through some old news clippings that jogged his memory that some of the killings occurred in his jurisdiction, so he decided to take a fresh look.

The chief said the cases are among a group of cold cases his department has decided to reopen, but he decided to look at the child killings first.

http://www.11alive.com/news/usnews_article.aspx?storyid=62748
 
As i recall from that time period,there was evidence suggesting he was innocent and was just a scapegoat.
Historicly it seems,that when there is a great enough outcry for a villian to be brought to justice anyone will do as long as it puts the matter to rest.
Really sad that this kind of thing happens.
I am not saying that the man is undeniably innocent,just that it does happen.
 
http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=62914

Chief Reopens 5th Unsolved Case

Reported By: Karyn Greer
Reported By: Alicia Barnes

DeKalb County Police Chief Louis Graham said Tuesday he will reopen a fifth case considered among the more than two dozen included in the quarter-century-old slayings known as the Atlanta Child Murders. The deaths between 1979 and 1981 led to one of the most intensive investigations of the century.

Last week, Graham -- who was an assistant police chief in neighboring Fulton County at the time of the killings -- announced he would look into four of the deaths. On Tuesday, he added to the list Aaron Wyche, 10, whose body was found on June 24, 1980. The other deaths that DeKalb County police are looking into are those of 11-year-old Patrick Baltazar, found Feb. 13, 1981; 13-year-old Curtis Walker, found March 6, 1981; 15-year-old Joseph Bell, found April 19, 1981; and 17-year-old William Barrett, found May 12, 1981.

“There are too many unanswered questions and we’re trying to answer those questions as best we can,” Graham told 11Alive News. “We’re using young detectives, fresh minds, fresh ideas, fresh eyes to take a look at it.”

Graham says no new evidence prompted his decision to assign five officers to re-open the cases, but instead he did it because he believes Wayne Williams -- the man convicted in two of the deaths and suspected in most of the others -- is innocent.

Graham told 11Alive News he talked to Williams five years ago and the conversation convinced him of Williams’ innocence. “I had been convinced for a long time, even before I talked to Wayne, that I thought the cases needed to have a second look,” he said. “It was until I talked to him that I was convinced of his innocence, so I wondered what the end result would be if I opened the cases.”

Williams, a freelance cameraman, was convicted of the murders of 27-year-old Nathaniel Cater and 21-year-old Jimmy Ray Payne, and blamed for 22 others, but was never charged in those deaths. Williams, now 47, is serving a life sentence.

Evidence of a pattern of conduct in 12 of the murders was used against him at his trial. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 1984 and later rejected an appeal for a new trial. Evidence against Williams included tiny fibers found on some of the bodies that were matched to rugs and other fabrics in the home and cars of Williams' parents.

Graham contends the fiber evidence was not conclusive. “If you go back and look at the trial transcripts, what they will say is similar and I don’t know what that means,” Graham said. “I never put a lot of faith in the fiber [evidence].”

Williams, who is black, has contended that he was framed and that Atlanta officials covered up evidence that the Ku Klux Klan was involved in the killings to avoid a race war in the city.

Williams told V-103’s Frank Ski, “The Wayne Williams that you see sitting right here today is just as much a victim of what happened, as anyone else involved in this tragedy.”

"I probably made the most viable and common sense. If they didn't arrest a black person, Atlanta wasn't going to be a city that had many buildings standing after while,” Williams said.

Ruby Frazier, Jimmy Ray Payne’s mother, told Ski she does not believe Williams killed her son. “I never believed it and I do not believe it,” she told Ski. “My son is huskier, and when I came to court and seen Wayne Williams for the first time, I looked up there and saw him, this little old fella. I couldn’t believe that he did it.”

A former Fulton County prosecutor who was involved in Williams' trial -- now Atlanta Solicitor Joseph Drolet –- told CNN that reopening the cases might reveal that others also took part in the killings He, however, remains convinced Williams was guilty.

"I'm not sure it's going to change anything in regard to the evidence against Wayne Williams,” he said in a CNN interview.

Jack Mallard, also a former prosecutor in Williams' trial, echoed Drolet's sentiments. "I am certainly satisfied in my mind without any equivocation that the man who murdered those children, that he’s the right one, and he’s where he should be,” he said.
 
LINK
Convicted Atlanta Child Killer Wayne Williams Allowed to Use DNA Testing

By David Lohr


February 2, 2007

ATLANTA, GA.(Crime Library) — Earlier this week, Georgia prosecutors agreed to allow DNA testing of dog and human hair evidence used in the 1982 trial of alleged serial child murderer Wayne Williams. The key evidence at the trial was fiber and dog hair.

According to the prosecution, a microscopic comparison of dog hairs and tri-lobal carpet fibers found on some of the victims were consistent with hair and fibers taken from Williams' family home and cars. The evidence was considered controversial from the start. Despite the fact that the fibers were common to many homes throughout the Atlanta region and the fact that the dog hair evidence was part of an early, inexact science, Williams was convicted of the murders of two young African American men and sentenced to two life terms. He was also held responsible for 22 other deaths.

Victims in order

In an article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Dr. James Starrs, a professor of forensics at George Washington University, asserted that microscopic comparison could be helpful in determining a person's race, but not their identification. "It cannot pinpoint a particular suspect," he said. Starrs also said that prosecutors sometimes overstate the significance of hair evidence.

Kevin Jon Heller, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law, recently published an article at Michiganlawreview.org entitled "The Cognitive Psychology of Circumstantial Evidence." According to the article, there are methods of forensic analysis that are so "error-prone" that they border on "junk science." Included in this category is microscopic hair analysis, which Heller says has a false-positive rate of approximately 4%.

Williams' attorneys consider the DNA test a step towards proving their client is innocent. While state prosecutors do not object to the tests, they say the results will not have an impact on Williams' conviction.
 
I couldn't find an online article (other than some older ones about the latest reopening of the Atlanta Child Murders:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/21/us/atlanta-child-murders-wayne-williams-mayor-bottoms/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/us/atlanta-child-murders.html

But the local news has been reporting that the current Atlanta police chief, after her preliminary look at the case, thinks:
- Wayne Williams did commit the killings of the two he was convicted of
- one case looks to be an unrelated accident
- one case looks like a relative killed the individual
- The rest are still unknown, but she isn't sure that there is a definitive link to Wayne Williams for them
- There doesn't appear to be any evidence of suppression of evidence or anything like that
 
One other bit that I don't recall from the original coverage from back in the day, but which has come up locally. The current Wikipedia quotes:
Adding to a growing list of suspicious circumstances, Williams had handed out flyers in predominantly black neighborhoods calling for young people ages 11–21 to audition for his new singing group that he called Gemini.
Why is this interesting to me? The idea of astrological significance in serial killer stories...

Also, I just discovered this podcast dedicated to exploring the case, so I may be listening to these soon:
https://atlantamonster.com/

I should also mention that I grew up in south Dekalb county, which is part of the metropolitan Atlanta area, in a predominantly African American community, so this was going on all around me and we were all worried. As hard as it is to believe now, the little kid me didn't really understand race at the time, so it seemed just as likely to me that I could be a victim as all my school pals and neighbors. Nobody from my school got caught up in the situation fortunately, but there were two years where nearly every social science school project done by classmates involves the case, which at the time was called "Atlanta's Missing And Murdered Children". I do remember the local news doing ads that would display a still image of a kid's face with the audio message of "It's (various times) - do you know where your children are?", and I remember seeing coverage of many of the bodies being found.
 
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