One of the criminal profiling cases Mindhunter Season 2 (Netflix) focuses on is the Atlanta Child Killings. It has been a really long time since this case has made the news. In the show a few of the family members of missing ATL children confront Holden Ford about the fact that Wayne B Williams was never charged but suspected of being the Child Killer.
I had forgotten about this case and I thought it had been resolved. Not true, no one was charged and once Wayne B Williams was in prison the investigation into those 29 cases stopped. Children stopped disappearing and life went on.
But this past Thursday, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields announced plans to reopen the cases and re-test the evidence for DNA. With all the advancements we have in 2019, we should know who the killer(s) are at last.
Chief Shields of @CityofAtlanta
Over a two-year period from 1979 to 1981, at least 25 African-American children were killed in areas around Memorial Drive. Several other adults were killed around the same time. Thirty-one people were killed in total.
Atlanta native Wayne Williams was convicted in the deaths of two adults in 1981. A police recruit heard the splash of a body hitting the Chattahoochee River, which led to Wayne Williams' arrest. It was the last body recovered in the case.
Police also think he is responsible for at least 22 of the children's deaths, though he has never been tried for them. Williams has maintained he never murdered any children.
On Thursday, Bottoms read out the names and ages of each of the victims before saying she hopes new DNA technology could erase any lingering doubt about who killed them.
She hopes taking a fresh look at the evidence may give peace to the victims' families 40 years later.
"(We hope) to let them know that we have done all that we can do ... to make sure thier memories are not forgotten ... and in the truest sense of the word to let the world know that black lives do matter," Bottoms said. Read Full Article
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