All language subtitles for Atlantas.Missing.and.Murdered.The.Lost.Children.S01E01.WEBRip.x264-ION10

[bright tone]

["Save Me"
by Joan Armatrading playing]

♪ ♪

- ♪ Sinking ♪

♪ Caught up
in a whirling motion ♪

♪ Such a strange sensation ♪

♪ ♪

♪ The currents uncertain ♪

♪ Like sails of a mill,
I spin ♪

♪ Like wheels,
I move in a circle ♪

♪ While you stand ♪

♪ On the bank ♪

♪ Immune or evasive ♪

♪ Throw me a lifeline ♪

♪ Save me ♪

♪ Save me ♪

- The Atlanta child murders
from 40 years ago

are back in the headlines

as investigators now plan
to reexamine the evidence.

The man detectives believe
is responsible

is serving two life sentences,

but he was never tried
on any of the child murders.

[uneasy music]

- The bodies were linked
to his vehicles,

his environment,
his house.

The fiber evidence, I think,
was the most important

because it basically put
a lot of dead bodies

in his environment.

- We can prove emphatically

that Wayne was a pr--
was a homosexual.

He's gone all the time
at night.

He driving all these cars.

And even--he got in a fight
with his daddy

where, I believe,
Homer pulled a shotgun on him.

So stuff like that
made Wayne out to be violent.

♪ ♪

- Only people I think
that can snatch

some black children
is white people.

It was kind of crazy
how all those kids

end up missing
in broad daylight.

You go to a black neighborhood
and snatch up a child

in broad daylight,
and a black person did it,

they would know
who did it,

because we know black people.

It was numerous people
that was doing the killing,

a bunch of people
that knew each other

and was getting away
with it.

♪ ♪

- When you look at 30 murders
over 23 months,

that's a big deal.

For Atlanta to be able
to move forward,

you gotta get rid
of this stain.

This stain is still here.

- Good afternoon,

and thank you all
for being here today.

In 1979,

I was nine years old.

I was the daughter

of a single mother
working two jobs,

and my story

was the story of many children

across this city.

In the backdrop
of that story

is something that has stayed
with me my entire life,

and that was the era

of Atlanta's missing
and murdered children.

And for those of us
who grew up in that era,

in so many ways,
it shaped our childhood.

It robbed us
of our innocence,

and it reminded us all

that evil was real.

- There is something sick
about people

who would snatch out
the lives

of little children.

Certainly afflicted
by a fiendish illness

that is beyond
our comprehension.

- A lot has changed
in our world since 1981,

when there was a conviction
for two of these murders.

A conviction
of Wayne Williams.

- Wayne Williams?
[stammers]

Who?
Are you serious?

Wayne?
All these kids?

I mean, half these kids
were his size.

- Now, I don't know
how that little guy

killed 29 people.

29?

- We have to understand

there's evil
in the world, man.

I mean, nobody wants
to look at evil and say,

"Oh, why'd he do it?"
He liked murdering people.

Wayne liked killing people.

Wayne was a killer,

'cause think, you have to be
a killer to kill a kid.

You have to be a killer

to choke the life
out of a child.

He wanted to kill them.
He killed them

because he enjoyed
killing people,

and we have to accept that.

- And those are kids.

How can you do that
to a child?

♪ ♪

Are you human?

Are you beast?
What are you?

- And this case is a case
of politics--

I say politics, greed, racism,
and oh, yeah, murder.

And they shut the cases down

two days after Wayne
was convicted and said,

"Yeah, he's probably done
all the rest of them,

but we're not gonna waste
anymore time or money."

Okay, thank you, goodbye.
Closed the cases.

That was it.
Amen, goodbye.

The families never had
any closure.

- I commend the mayor

for coming in and saying,
"You know what?

"This is a really ugly,
dark chapter,

but we need to own it."

The Atlanta Police Department

has numerous boxes
of evidence.

We already have begun
the process

of going
through these boxes

to see if there's anything
that was never tested.

Do I think that
in some of the cases,

there will be
a different suspect?

Yes.

Lieutenant Danny Agan here--

he was a key investigator,

along with Detective Buffington
on the original investigation,

and we spoke with him
ahead of time,

and he agreed that it's prudent
to review the case.

So I appreciate you
being here, Lieutenant.

- Some people
will refuse to believe

whatever evidence
you throw in front of them,

and I'm convinced right now

that if Wayne Williams
confessed today

and says, "Okay,
I'ma tell you all, I did it,"

there would be people
that would say,

"Oh, no.
It's not even possible.

- You know, I've been asked
a lot of times,

was he guilty?

Did he act guilty?

And I have to say,

he was a lot of things,

and sometimes he made me...

Perhaps it's unladylike,
but he made me pissing angry,

because he was difficult,

but while he was
a lot of things,

I never saw a killer.

- We don't know
what we'll find,

but what we do know is,

we have an obligation
to these families

to ensure that every imaginable
investigative lead

was followed.

- Doubt.
There's always doubt.

And if there's doubt

that Wayne didn't kill
my child,

then who did?

How could you not
support the mothers?

Obviously, somebody killed
their children.

- And I can't stand here today
and not call their names.

They were Edward Smith,
age 14,

Alfred Evans...
[readers echoing names]

Age 13,
Milton Harvey, age 14,

Yusuf Bell, age 9,

Angel Lanier, age 12.

Jeffery Mathis, age 10,

Eric Middlebrooks, age 14,

Chris Richardson, age 12,

LaTonya Wilson, age 7,

Anthony Carter, age 9,

Earl Terrell, age 10,

Clifford Jones, 13,

Darron Glass, 10,

Charles Stevens, 12,
Aaron Jackson, 9

Patrick Rogers, 16,

Lubie Geter, 14,

Terry Pue, 15,

Patrick...Baltazar, 11.

- 11 years old.

- Joseph Bell, 15,

Timothy Hill, 13.

- Clifford Jones,
13 years old.

Curtis Walker, 13 years old.

- William Barrett, 17.

Adults Eddie Duncan, 21,

Larry Rogers, 20,

Michael McIntosh, 23,

Jimmy Ray Payne, 21,

John Porter, 28,

Nathaniel Cater, 27.

♪ ♪

There have been some
who've cautioned us

not to touch it,
to leave it alone,

which I find
very interesting.

You think about the attention
that's given now

when a child disappears,
you think about the attention

that's been given
to JonBenét Ramsey,

and multiply that
by an extraordinary number

of children.

- I don't think it's right

for all these kids
to be killed in this city

and nobody was concerned
about it.

We loved our children,

and it really hurt.

I want to know
who killed Curtis.

His case is still sitting
on the shelf

getting dusty and rusty,

and you can't see the page.

Anybody hear the sound
of my voice,

please, please help us,

because I'm not gonna stop.

'Cause you know why
I'm not gonna stop?

Because I'm a warrior,

and I'm a prayer warrior,

and I'm not gonna stop
till I get it.

- A fiberglass stretcher
was sent to the bridge,

and soon afterward, the body
was taken by ambulance

to the DeKalb County
medical examiner's office

for identification.

- On Friday afternoon,

about 3:30 or 4:00,

my chief investigator
notified me

that they had found
what appeared to be the body

of a black child
in the river

in the south part
of DeKalb County

in Atlanta, Georgia.

- For hours,
reporters awaited word

of who the young child
in the river might be.

- That was Curtis
they pulled out the water.

- Curtis Walker
was 13 years old.

He'd been suffocated.

- A lady
two apartments from me--

she called me on the phone.

She said, "Catherine,
look at the news,

"'cause I think that's Curtis

that they pulling
out the water."

So I ran upstairs
and cut the TV on

and started looking at it
and sat on the edge of the bed,

and I was looking at the news,

and I seen them
when they pulled him

out the water.

- Can you tell us anything?

- I haven't anything
to tell you.

I don't know anything.
I haven't been down there yet.

- Well, have you been
briefed at all?

- No.
- Do you have a body

down there?
- I don't know.

- I just run out the house.

They had to catch me.

I just ran out the house
like a wild woman.

I was screaming
and hollering so loud.

[mournful music]

- I just knew that was him.

I knew that was him.

- We need all the vehicles
moved off [indistinct] road...

- I was so crazy.

They had to call
the fire department.

Only thing I remember is,

I'm laying down
on the sofa

with my boys sitting down
on each side of me.

I mean, my mind had left me,
'cause I had a suicide spirit,

and I wanted
to cut my wrists

because I felt like I didn't
have nothing to live for.

♪ ♪

I couldn't sleep at night.

I couldn't eat.

I couldn't do nothing.

♪ ♪

You know, I wanted to know

who did that to my son.

I wanted to know.

♪ ♪

- There's no memorial.

There's nothing in the city

other than
institutional knowledge

and your memory

that tells you
about these young people

who were murdered,

And their cases
were never solved.

♪ ♪

Do what should've been done

in 1979, 1980, and 1981.

Do the police work.

Solve the cases.

- If you can find bin Laden,
you can do anything.

But my question is,

do Atlanta want
to pursue this?

Because if they pursue this,

it's gonna destroy
the Atlanta name for a while.

It will turn Atlanta
into the real Atlanta.

- I understand why the city

handled it the way they did

and wanted it to go away,

because the result
of how they handled it

is this beautiful city
that we have today.

- ♪ Every man has a place ♪

♪ In his heart,
there's a space ♪

♪ And the world can't erase ♪

♪ His fantasies ♪

♪ Take a ride in the sky ♪

♪ On our ship, fantasize ♪

- Atlanta is the epitome
of success

in all areas of the black
experience in America.

Atlanta is a city that has

four historically
black colleges,

and they're all producing
great students

that come out
into the workforce.

The jobs
are available here.

- ♪ Forever ♪

- From the African-American
perspective,

Atlanta is Wakanda.

- Bye.

♪ ♪

- There was a magnetism
to Atlanta

that's really existed
for a long time.

Atlanta was what we would call
the crown jewel of the South.

- Well, you do feel
a kind of pride

that's associated with

some of the fancier things
about the city--

for instance,
the black businesses here.

This is the main

business artery
in my district.

Most of the businesses
up and down here

are owned and run
by black people.

- You could live in Atlanta
and be successful

and not go downtown
to a white bank.

There's a black hospital
right here

with black doctors in it.

There's a black movie,
there's a black--

obviously, a nightclub,

There's a black street

called Auburn Avenue.

[upbeat music]

- My ex-husband is in
the entertainment business,

so we lived in Augusta,

which is about 2 1/2 hours
east of here.

And he brought me downtown.
I'll never forget it.

I saw black people
with suits and ties

and dressed so business-like,

and I said,
"This is where I need to be.

I am coming to live here."

♪ ♪

- There was a lot
of activists

who had flooded into the city
of all kinds

from the Nation of Islam

to communist organizations

to, you know,
civil rights organizations.

- Many of us
were involved in struggles

and movements

and going to jail and picketing

and fighting the Klan.

- There were boycotts,
clearly,

but the real energy
of protest

did not happen
in the city of Atlanta.

This is not a resistance city.

This is the city

of the middle class.

- This was the city
where the civil rights leaders

come back to and have,
relatively, racial harmony

because it was not
politically--

they wanted Atlanta to be
the city too busy to hate.

- That kind of description
of Atlanta

continued through the '60s

and the '70s,
but into the 1980s,

and in fact, Atlanta
was one of the first cities

to elect a black mayor.

And Maynard Jackson
was a mayor in full.

- Now, you don't have
to be crazy to be mayor,

you know, but it helps.
[laughs]

- Maynard was
the first black mayor

of any major Southern city.

- Never...
- Never.

- Never...
- Never.

- Never...
all: Never!

- Never...
all: Never!

- Never...
all: Never!

- Never shall I let you down.

[cheers and applause]

- It was euphoric.

It was like, "Here's one of us

getting to the seat of power,
finally."

- Maynard Jackson
came in knowing

that he had to do
at least two things.

Number one is
that black businesses

had been locked out
of city business,

and the city was spending
tens of millions,

hundreds of millions
of dollars,

and black businesses
were left to the crumbs,

and he knew
he had to change that.

The second thing he knew

is that he had to get control
of the police department,

and that they had
to acknowledge

that the people
that they were serving

were mostly black people.

- Maynard Jackson
took over office in 1974,

and one of the first things
he said was,

"I want to make the police
department more brown."

He wanted to integrate it.

Well, if you were a
white officer in the APD then,

what's the message you got?

"There ain't room for me
anymore."

So a lot of those who could,
retired.

- And Maynard was not playing

about blacks getting
their piece of the pie.

- Mayor Jackson called this

the most ambitious
all-black project...

- Made for some great stories
because it was new territory

for both the white community
and the black community.

It was like
a tale of two cities

coming together
for the first time.

And there were stories
that abounded

here in Atlanta
unlike anyplace else.

- It's time for us
to understand,

America is a sick,
racist nation.

- Hosea Williams,

Julian Bond,
John Lewis.

I mean, just many
civil rights leaders,

legends, tough folks
who did great things.

But by the same token,

it was not always that easy
to deal with

the J.B. Stoners
of the world, KKK.

- Oh, we have
all of this propaganda

directed against white people.

- I remember interviewing him
one time

in Stone Mountain,
such a Southern KKK foothold.

J.B. Stoner was holding
a rally there.

Now, how I got
that assignment, I'm not sure.

Maybe it was partly a joke.

Maybe it was to see,
could I handle it?

And I heard him
use the N word all the time.

I remember asking him,
"Stoner," I said,

"Man, you not gonna call me
that word, not on camera."

And he's a little guy.
He didn't call me on camera.

He said, "You finished now?"
I said, "Yeah."

He said, "All right, nigger.
You can go."

- I have to put up with Jews
and niggers on television

whether I like it or not.

- It was still the South.

- Atlanta was--
during that time,

it was kind of like
you stay in your neighborhood,

you stay in yours.

Klan presence
was a real thing.

Atlanta as a city--

you know, they'll tell you
when you come to Atlanta,

Atlanta's the city
too busy to hate,

but go 15 minutes
outside of Atlanta,

and you will see,
especially back then,

the Confederate flags
still flying,

the Confederate symbols
still around,

the streets
in the black communities

being named
after Confederate soldiers.

- The reality is,

it's the South,

with old feelings
and old ways.

- When Maynard was running
for mayor,

the overall tone was,

"You're not gonna take over
this city."

- We have reached the point
in our history

where it is time black leaders

tell black audiences
that for their own good,

they must be able
to think white.

- You would read stuff
in the paper,

and you would hear
the conversations,

you know,

and you would know that...

if you were black,
you had to get back.

- It was all about growth
and development

and more people coming,
more roads being built.

We have to keep
getting bigger,

and it was the new South.

This was supposed
to be the city where

black folks had
all this opportunity,

and there were
a lot of black folks

who found a lot
of opportunity here,

but in a lot of ways,

for a lot of poor people
in poor communities,

they were starting to see that
nothing was really changing.

The schools weren't really
getting better.

They weren't getting
more jobs.

The promises
of the civil rights movement

were not being realized.

- The poorest families
in Atlanta

have a yearly income
just under $2,500.

They live in areas
like Techwood Homes,

Summerhill,
and Mechanicsville.

It's in stark contrast
to their fellow citizens

in some northern communities
of the city,

where average family income
is $22,000.

- 'Cause I knew
the history of this city,

I started thinking
about this issue of

whether Atlanta was
a black mecca or not, right?

And I thought that
if you were a poor kid

in Vine City
or in English Avenue

or Perry Homes,

or any of the projects
here in Atlanta,

the black mecca was
more myth than reality,

that it did not ring true

for everybody.

- In these communities,

this was being poor
and black in Georgia,

before Maynard Jackson.

This is poor and black
in Georgia

after Maynard Jackson.

So in that sense,
you know,

there had been hope
that was crushed,

but it was nothing new.

- The public housing projects
were utter poverty.

It was just another
slice of Atlanta

that many folks
tried to avoid.

It was almost
a hidden Atlanta.

White folks
hardly saw it at all

because they lived
in the wealthier,

northern parts of town.

So there was
the black middle class

and the black lower class,
and of course,

you had working class families
as well,

so it was like three divisions
of black folks,

and they didn't
necessarily intermingle.

♪ ♪

- Wayne Williams
was the only child of

Homer and Faye Williams.

- I knew them
as a true Atlanta family.

Homer and Faye Williams

were great people.

Homer Williams
was a photographer,

and he freelanced
for the "Atlanta Daily World."

Faye was a schoolteacher
for years.

She taught
some of the mothers

of the missing
murdered children.

♪ ♪

- Homer and Faye Williams
were very loyal to their son.

♪ ♪

- They were very close.
They were very close.

They just loved him
and adored him.

♪ ♪

- His mom and dad,

middle income folk,

were considered
very good individuals

in the black community.

- Really a good family.

You can tell the house
was a modest house

that they had bought,
in a modest neighborhood,

well-kept,
with mowed lawns,

manicured hedges.

You know these were people
who kept their house

very well.

- Wayne was an A student,

very bright,

very entrepreneurial.

- Wayne was a young man

who had a very promising life

but got short circuited.

- July 28th, 1979,

police discover
the decomposed remains

of two children
in a wooded area

in southwest Atlanta.

- Shift started at 4:00,

and it wasn't long after 4:00
that the call came up.

A body had been discovered
by someone

who was scavenging
the roadside,

looking for cans or bottles,

and in the process
of doing this,

they came upon
a decomposing body

of a human.

♪ ♪

I was a--what you call
a rookie homicide detective.

I was still in training.

I was still trying
to figure out, you know,

what homicide detectives
were supposed to do

and how they were supposed
to do it,

and this body here is

really in bad shape.

Cause of death was not known.

If you want to describe
a rural section of Atlanta,

this is it.

It's wooded.

It's a road
that's not heavily traveled.

If you were gonna dump a body,
this is the place

that you would want to go
dump a body.

And somebody says,

"Well, let's conduct
a concentric search

"and make sure
we're not missing

any other evidence
that could be important."

So everybody fans out,

starts prowling around,
looking through the woods.

♪ ♪

Next thing you know,

somebody walked upon
another body--

black male, fully clothed.

And it's not
as badly decomposed

as the previous body,
which made you think that

the two bodies had been dumped
at different times.

And they weren't
initially considered

to be related homicides.

- One of them
is quickly identified

as 14-year-old
Edward Hope Smith,

but the second body is in

such an advanced state
of decomposition,

it's impossible to say
who it is.

- Bodies are taken

to the medical examiner's
office for examination,

and then the determination
is made

that one of them
has been shot,

and then the other one,
cause of death

was determined
as strangulation

or maybe unknown, initially.

- Both of these boys,
by the way, are black,

and they're both
about 15 years old.

- The examiner
called my mom,

saying that they had found
my brother.

She said that wasn't
my brother,

'cause the body
that was there--

it didn't match
any of the clothing

that my brother was wearing.

- At the medical examiner's
office,

Alfred's father
and two brothers

looked at the body and said
it wasn't the boy they knew.

- I went
to the medical examiner

two or three times,

looked--had to look through
a little frosty window

about that big.

But they showed me
two or three different children

that I had to look at.

- The body stayed
in the morgue

until August 7, 1980,

when the boy was buried
in Crest Lawn Memorial Park

as a pauper.

In October 1980,
an Atlanta detective

discovered Alfred's
dental records.

Associate medical examiner
John Fegel

officially pronounced
the boy in Crest Lawn

to be Alfred.

- He said his neck
was broken,

and that took the life
out of me then.

Who would want
to break his neck?

We put money together

and gave it to him
for the bus fare.

I say, "Now, this is
for your bus fare,

"this is for your snack,

and the movie fare."

And I don't know if somebody
broke his neck for that.

I just never understood that.

- I feel like somebody
knows something

other than Wayne Williams.

[dramatic music]

- Reporting on the story

of the missing and murdered
children,

at first was a story--

it's just two boys
who have been found,

and maybe they were together.

We don't know what happened,

but it was just reported.

Two young boys found dead,

Niskey Lake Road.

Period.

- Things started

in the context
of a high homicide year,

one of the highest in the--

I think the highest
in the history of Atlanta.

♪ ♪

- The first year I was in
in '79,

I believe we had
230, 240 murders,

and we were balancing
two, three cases.

Every officer was,
every detective.

♪ ♪

- Most of the crime
that you were dealing with:

black victims,
black perpetrators.

The people being victimized
were the poorest people

and the most vulnerable people
in the city.

- The initial reaction was,

"These are the kinds of things
that happen every year.

This is nothing extraordinary."

So it was par
for the course,

just the usual,
what had happened before.

- The disappearance
in September

of another 14-year-old

also attracts
little public attention.

Then nine-year-old
Yusuf Bell disappears.

- He wasn't the kind
of little boy

that would run away.

He's involved in everything.

He's in the gifted program
at Dunbar.

He's involved in boys' club.

He's involved
in a karate class.

He's running for treasurer
of his school.

He plays in the band.
He plays drum.

The initial police
who showed up

had, in fact, seen him
going to the store,

and we know
that he got to the store

and we know
that he left the store, and...

It's like he dropped off
the edge of the world

at McDaniel and Glen,

and nobody's seen him
since then.

I was able to get

a group
of high school students

that helped with the search,

because at that point,

missing persons consisted

of a sergeant
and two detectives

for everything in Atlanta.

- Nine-year-old Yusuf Bell
has been missing since Sunday.

The nine-year-old
is only one of about

500 missing or runaways

the squad handles each year.

- Okay,
where was he last seen at?

- And so, of course,
we weren't a priority.

Just send him home.

Just let him go
and let him call us.

We'll come pick him up.

They don't have to even
bring him back.

Just turn him loose
where he can get to a phone.

Just send him home.

For a child to be missing
and for it to be important,

they had to be
somebody's child.

We did not know

that other children
were missing

until they found a body,

and they thought it might
have been Yusuf's body,

and it was, in fact,
Milton Harvey's body.

There were also
two other boys

that were missing,

but we didn't know that.

- It took people a minute

to really grasp
the gravity of this,

'cause black children
get killed all the time.

You know, they go missing
all the time,

and so I think
it took a minute

even for the black community
to grasp the gravity

of children missing

over a relatively short
period of time.

- Yusuf Bell, nine years old,

missing from his home
for almost a month

then found strangled
in an abandoned school.

- He had been strangled,

and his body was put into
the shaft in the floor.

- The sergeant of
the missing persons unit

and someone else
came over together

to let me know
that they had found Yusuf.

♪ ♪

I was angry.
I was hurt.

I was relieved.

And I know relieved
sounds weird, but...

Up until that point,
in my head,

someone has stolen
my little boy

and he's alive someplace,
and they're torturing him,

and at least I know
that's not happening.

- It is my hope
at this particular point

that the conscience
of this city,

the conscience of this nation,
will be penetrated

by the life
and by the death

of this young man.

- Women like Camille Bell
know the reality too well.

After her son was murdered,

she created the Committee
to Stop Children's Murders.

- One of the things
that happened fairly quickly:

Camille Bell,
she started the committee

to protect children,
and the camera loved her.

- Yusuf's dead.

We can't do anything
about that.

But the citizens of Atlanta

and the citizens
of the surrounding area

are going to have to take
our community back.

- And she was
the real firebrand

and organizer,
and she was very smart,

media-savvy,

so she was able
to attract attention

to this issue.

- How many children
do we have to lose

in our neighborhoods

before the police department
says,

"Hey, we've got a problem"?

The reason there was an us
at that point

as a group
was because A,

we were being supportive
of each other,

but B, we were trying to--
since the mayor would not

notify the city of Atlanta
that something was going on,

we were trying to notify them.

Yusuf was last seen here,

and he was found here.

- They did a good job,
a great job, in fact,

of creating an organization

and then keeping
that organization

in the public eye
as this calamity progressed.

- I know my son and all.

- You know there was a boy
killed in his apartment.

There's one guy
I'm interested in.

- Camille Bell.

Of all the mothers,

she was not taking it.

And she kept asking the mayor

and asking
the police chief

and applying pressure

to the point of where

people started
not taking her seriously.

You know, she's just
a grieving mother.

- And with us this morning
in our Atlanta bureau

to talk about all of this
is Mrs. Camille Bell.

She has a special feeling
because her nine-year-old son,

Yusuf, disappeared
on October 21st, 1979.

Mrs. Bell is chairman
of a new organization

trying to deal
with all of this,

a committee called Stop
the Murders of the Children.

Is that the correct name,
Ms. Bell?

- No, it isn't,
the correct name is

the Committee to Stop
Children's Murders.

- She would just show up
and demand to see the mayor,

whether he was there or not.

She'd show up
at city council meetings,

and from the time
that she came on the scene,

every time that another child
was found dead,

she would be the headliner,

the constant,
constant pounding on it.

♪ ♪

- The body of 14-year-old
Eric Middlebrooks

was found about 7:00
this morning behind a bar

in the 200 block
of Flat Shoals Road

near Memorial.

- We got a call.

I think it was
6:00 in the morning.

It was not quite daylight.
It was still dark out.

And Danny Agan
was working with me.

And this was a body

that was dumped
by the dumpster.

When we got out there,

we saw that it was a child.

♪ ♪

- His mother said
he left his house

at 345 Howell Drive
just a couple of blocks away

about 10:30 last night.

Police say he was killed
soon after that.

- When you work a case
like that,

you walk onto a scene,

and you got nothing.

You got a body

and any evidence
that you can hopefully find.

- Of course, we didn't have
a lot of technology back then.

It was a pad and a pen,

and, you know,
roll out a tape measure

and take measurements,
take photographs.

- And he had
no identification,

nothing.

And then his pockets
were turned outside,

like a robbery.

There were four
small puncture wounds

to the breastplate,

and I felt that
was pretty significant,

because it was not
a cause of death

and it was postmortem.

There was no bleeding.

- He was hit
on the back of the head

with some kind
of blunt instrument.

- So while we're stooped
over the body,

Bob notices

a fiber attached
to this boy's shoe.

- And it was a tuft of

sort of a reddish fiber.

♪ ♪

And so I was preparing it

to go take it
to the GBI lab,

and so my lieutenant,
BL Nikirk--

he walked over and he said,

"Well, what are you doing,
Buffington?"

And I tried to explain
that we think that

it can be something
significant,

and he was--

he didn't care about it,
and he said to the guys.

He said, "Yeah, well,
Buffington's gonna go home

"with me, and we're gonna
clean out my dryer,

and we'll solve all the murders
in Atlanta,"

and they all laughed,
ha, ha, ha.

Real funny.

We haven't uncovered
anything now

that would lead us to believe

that there's any connection
at all

between this and any other
of the homicides

that we've had of
the young people in the city.

At that time, of course,
there was no DNA.

The only thing we could have
is, if you had blood,

then you could trace it back,
male, female, black, white.

Hair, you could do
the same thing.

Fingerprints, of course.

So there wasn't
a whole lot to work with.

It was all work the street,

talk to people,

find out
what the person did,

if he had any enemies.

- He was identified
by some of the kids

who went to school with him
at Roosevelt High School.

- We went to the address
that was listed

for Eric Middlebrooks

and spoke
with his foster mother.

Danny and I stayed out
on the front stoop,

and she talked to us
through the screen door.

It's a lot like in the movies.

When you go
into the neighborhood,

a lot of people
just don't want to talk to you,

and so that's--
that's what we were faced with

most of the time.

- Really, the first murder
is just a murder.

The second murder,
in retrospect,

is part of a pattern,

but the fact is,

in any large city
in 1979, '80, '81,

there was
a fair amount of crime,

and every large city newspaper

and the local TV station
has to figure out

how to cover that best
for its public.

- You had kids who were
a second--

who were afterthought,

You had the media.

They were kind of late
getting on board.

And by the media
being late,

law enforcement
could take their time

'cause nobody's really
looking at them,

so you have, like,
a perfect storm going on,

and so that allowed it to--
to fester.

- LaTonya Wilson,
seven years old,

kidnapped from the bedroom
of her home

on Verbena Street Southwest,

missing since June 22nd.

- I just want my little girl
found safely

and brought home.

I miss her, and I love her.

[sobs]
I want her...

- All together, nine children

between the ages
of 7 and 14

have disappeared
in the last year.

Five were later found dead.

The other four
are still missing.

- There is something wrong
with the heart of Atlanta.

There is something wrong
with the spirit of Atlanta.

- There was
an image maintenance problem.

Atlanta was trying
to establish that

it was a good place to invest,

a good place
for conventions to come.

They opened the new
Atlanta airport terminal,

which at that time
was a big deal.

It was very important
to keep money and...

white folks, primarily,

coming to Atlanta
and feeling safe here

and feeling safe
investing here.

- Then I see our leadership,

and only words that I have
for it,

because sometimes
my vocabulary gets limited,

is shucking and jiving.

- Camille Bell
and the mothers committee

provided
a great public service.

I'm not sure that
that would've been

the first reaction of
the Atlanta Police Department,

you know, which also was under
the command of Lee Brown,

a black commissioner,

and so there was at first
a bit of astonishment

that the police department
was being accused

of ignoring murders
of black children,

you know, because that
would be the last thing

that Maynard Jackson
or Lee Brown

or any of the people working
for them would've wanted.

- Atlanta Public
Safety Commissioner

Lee P. Brown is standing by.
Go right ahead.

You're on
"Sunday Evening Live."

- I would like to know

why so many black kids

have, you know, had to die

before anyone got
really interested in,

you know, solving--
you know,

wondering what happened
to them, you know?

I mean, a bunch of them died

before anyone got interested,
you know?

Just 'cause they black kids.

- From our perspective,
we became concerned

when we had the death
of the first black child.

- We all were saying
to the administration,

'cause I had been
the city hall reporter,

"Why aren't we putting
more resources

into finding out
who's doing this?"

It didn't become the story
it should have been

until, I think,

there were nine young people
who were dead,

and that's when they formed
the task force.

- Investigation of the
murdered and missing children

is under a special task force

of the Atlanta
Police Department

with assistance

from the Georgia Bureau
of Investigation.

- When the task force
was formed,

the Georgia Bureau
of Investigation,

Atlanta PD, the Fulton County
Sheriff's Office,

everybody was involved.

- The head the task force
is Major W.J. Taylor,

whose background
includes traffic,

the SWAT team,
and community affairs,

but no investigative duties.

- To my surprise,

I was called into
the commissioner's office

and told that
I was going to become

the commander
of that task force.

I was absolutely shocked
at the time,

because prior to that time,

I had not worked
any homicide cases.

It was sort of comical.

The homicide commander
at that time

made a joke about it,
he said,

"Taylor wouldn't know
a dead body

if he walked--
fell over it."

- If you have any information,

please call the Special
Task Force on Children

at 658-68...

- We were getting
thousands of leads and tips

into the task force.

It was overwhelming.

- We're not gonna leave
any stone unturned.

And I suppose one
of the biggest frustrations

that we had:
we invited to--

the commissioner invited--
well, I won't say he invited.

He was almost forced.

Dorothy Allison, which is a--
I guess she was a psychic

contacted the media,

and told the media
that she had information

regarding who was killing
the kids.

- Are you confident
you'll be able

to solve this crime?
- I'm positive.

I'm not confident.

There won't be any more dead.
I'm here now.

- So we get the psychic
coming in.

We have to
chauffeur her around

to the various crime sites.

- A visit by Dorothy Allison

has all the trappings
of a visit by a celebrity.

Her two-car caravan
is filled

with investigators
and companions.

They pour into the house
and hover over the psychic

until she gets
what she is after,

and what she is after

is a feeling, an impression,

a mental image which will lead
police to a solution.

And today, Dorothy Allison
feels she will have answers.

- And as a result
of that one psychic,

I think every psychic
in the country

decided they had information
that we needed.

- There.
Oh, God.

♪ ♪

This is...bad.

Bad.

- And then it's like...

And you sit there,
and you're like,

"What?
What just happened?"

That's the kind of crazy
that was going on in Atlanta.

- Dressed in red berets
and insignia T-shirts,

New York's Guardian Angels
came to teach

Atlanta's children
how to protect themselves.

- There's no doubt that in
the public housing projects,

people had pretty much
lost faith in law enforcement.

- If a serious crime is being
committed on this corner,

we're not just gonna
run to a telephone

and call the police.

We are going to utilize
our constitutional power

of making a citizen's arrest.

We're gonna pursue
that individual, detain him.

- There's a lot of people
that say,

"We just don't see cops
anywhere, we don't see it."

I brought that
to the attention of Lee Brown,

who was
the public safety director.

He said, "Well, we have
budgetary issues."

I said, "You might have
budgetary issues,

"but you need to get cops
out there in uniform,

showing people
that you dare to care."

- Everything
you could think of,

from psychics to dogs
to profilers...

They were just throwing stuff
up against the wall

rather than getting back
to basic police work.

- But, Lord, I really hope
they find out who's doing this

and get them stopped,

because this city can't handle

losing many more children.

- Christopher Richardson,
age 11.

He vanished while playing
near his home June 9th

and is still missing.

- We're just so upset.

We are concerned
about our boy.

And all I want is just tell him

"Your mom's here."

- He used to play
with a little boy

down the street.

They just disappeared
from the neighborhood.

I called the police.

They told me that they
couldn't do anything

because it was...

I don't know
how they handled it.

It wasn't the way
I thought it would be.

I thought they would
come, you know,

sit down and talk to me
and explain

some of this stuff
that was going on,

but I didn't get a chance--

or they didn't get a chance
to talk with me about it.

Just, I don't understand

how people can just
take your child like that.

We looked everywhere
we knew to look,

but I couldn't find my baby.

- Anthony Carter,
age nine,

found stabbed to death
July 7th,

and Earl Lee Terrell,

last seen on July 30th,

still missing.

- Earl Lee Terrell
was my brother.

We was two years apart.
He was the oldest.

♪ ♪

I remember how we used

to play here
all over this place.

All the kids
used to be out here.

Whole bunch of kids out here.

That day,
my brother Earl was like,

"I want to go
to the swimming pool."

My brother didn't have
no clean swimming trunks,

so I gave him
my swimming trunks,

and I gave him my money,

and 20 minutes later,

start walking--
they came to the pool.

That's when it all started.

- Terrell was last seen
in July,

sitting outside a pool
at South Bend Park.

Then he mysteriously
disappeared.

- It wasn't unusual
for him to walk home.

He knew to go straight home.

So that's why I was kind of--

it's kind of crazy to me,
like...

How?

We went looking for him,

went all over the neighborhood
where we always hang out at,

and never found him.

♪ ♪

- We were asking
Maynard Jackson

to warn the city
that something was going on.

He told us
he didn't want to alarm

people in the city of Atlanta.

His own workers

put Earl Terrell
out of that swimming pool

because they didn't know
it was so unsafe out there,

and that would've been fine

if it had been 1978
in Atlanta,

but it was 1980,

and children
were being murdered.

- Clifford Jones became
victim number 12.

- His body was found
behind a dumpster

at the Hollywood Plaza
shopping center.

- Around September of '78,

we moved to Atlanta
from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

My nephew Clifford
came in town to visit us,

him and his sisters
and his brother

and his mother.

I was 13, the day
before my 14th birthday.

I asked my older sister
to bake me a birthday cake.

- And we ran out of sugar,

we didn't have no Kool-Aid,

and I needed some salt,

'cause I'm making
a homemade cake.

And I sent them
to the store.

- So we walked up
Hollywood Road

to the store called Big Star.

Clifford asked,
could he stay outside

to help people put groceries
and stuff in they car,

so I just told Clifford

just stay in front
of the store.

We got the stuff.

We was in there probably
about 15 minutes,

and while I was in the line
paying for the stuff,

I asked Emmanuel
to go let his brother know

we finna get ready to go,
and he came back into the store

and he said
he didn't see him nowhere.

So I thought
maybe he was in the store,

so we looked around for him
for a few minutes,

and then we went back outside
looking for him,

but we couldn't
find him nowhere,

so we started to walk home.

- When they came back
in the door,

there's no Clifford.

And I looked up the street,
I just didn't see him.

And so we walked back
to the Big Star store,

and we were asking everybody
as we pass people

did they see a little boy.

♪ ♪

It was about 10:00,
almost 11:00.

They knocked on the door.

They were trying to get me
to look at the picture,

and I didn't want
to look at it

'cause I didn't want it
to be Clifford.

♪ ♪

And I just fell to the floor,

and I guess
I must've passed out,

'cause my brother Ricky
was the one

who had to identify
Clifford's body.

And when he came back
in the door, he told me--

told me that it was him,

said he's laying down there
like he asleep.

♪ ♪

- I'm just so sorry.

I was just so excited

that I was gonna get
that birthday cake, and--

that I took the--
went to that store

and he didn't come back
with me.

I'm sorry.
[cries]

- But you don't have
no reason to be sorry.

You didn't do--you didn't
have nothing to do with it.

No, you did not
cause that to happen.

- [sniffs]

- I'm gonna always be
big sister, no matter what.

- I know.

I love you, big sister.

[crying]

♪ ♪

[soulful music playing]

♪ ♪

- He was victim number 14,

the latest to die.

12-year-old Charles Stephens,

smothered to death.

- In the face
of all of our tragedies,

we wonder sometimes,

"Where is God?"

- What is happening
in the black community?

There's all this violence
directed at us.

Nobody was really sure
what was happening.

You know, a couple kids--
that's just a murder.

Five kids?
Wait a minute.

Ten kids?

12 kids?

As it built,

you could feel the anxiety
building with people because

this constant in the life
of black people vulnerability,

that at any moment,
you could be stolen.

[uneasy music]

That's deep in our psyche,

that we come from
stolen people.

We know people
who have been stolen

in our family legacy.

And so the thought
of children being stolen

right in front of their house,
right in their own community,

walking home from school,

from this
neighborhood store...

♪ ♪

[stammers] It was hard
to even process emotionally,

you know,
in the black mecca city

of Atlanta.

- In the community,
there was a lot of frustration

around the child murders,

and it really came to a head

with the October 1980 explosion

at the daycare center
in Bowen Homes.

- 10:22 on October 13th,

an explosion with the force
of 75 sticks of dynamite

ripped the roof
off the daycare center.

- Sir, do you have
children in there?

- Yeah.
- Who?

- Uh, my little--
I got nieces.

I got about nine nieces
in there.

- The Bowen Home explosion.

I was laying in my bed,

and this is the daycare,
and this is my apartment.

So it shook my whole bed.

It shook the whole apartment.

- There were five people dead,

four of them children,

the fifth being a teacher.

- The first ambulance
to arrive

held six-year-old
Vermika Moreland,

critically injured
with a depression fracture

in her skull.

From then, it was
a horrifying parade

of small, injured children.

- The black community
was panicked.

Nine children in Atlanta
were already murdered.

Now this.

- [shrieking]
My baby!

- There was a sense
that the community

was under attack.

- Listen to me.
Listen to me.

- Can you confirm
how many were dead, sir?

- There are five
confirmed dead.

♪ ♪

- How does this happen?

People felt someone
had planted a bomb.

Other people thought
the Klan had come in.

Everyone assumed
that there was a plot

to kill mass numbers
of black children.

- There was a group of people,
very angry,

who insisted
this was deliberate.

- [shouting indistinctly]

- I called the mayor,
and he came.

♪ ♪

- There was still smoke coming
from the daycare center--

what was left of it--
debris scattered around.

You had all of these mothers

and relatives...

- Annie May?
- Annie May Barber.

- Of these children
who attended

the daycare center,

and in the middle
of all this,

Maynard Jackson
with a megaphone

trying to quell this crowd.

[somber music]

- [indistinct]

♪ ♪

[megaphone crackling]

- We want--

do you have another megaphone?

- Maynard Jackson
had no answers at the time

other than to say that

they could count on the fact

that there would be
more investigation.

- I want you to know
we will not rest

until we turn every stone

to find the reason for this,

which at this point,
appears to be an accident.

What else do we have?

- There was a sense
of questioning

whether there was--you know,

the competence of the people
who were in charge.

- Our fire and police officials
have told us

the only evidence we have
at this time

indicates
that this was an accident.

[crowd murmurs]
Just a minute.

Just a minute.

- Everyone was so hysterical,

so that when Maynard came...

♪ ♪

It was almost as if

a sea of people
wanted to attack him...

- I know the frustration
you feel.

I feel the same frustration.

[crowd clamoring]
Just a minute!

Just a minute!
- Don't get mad at us!

- That's the God's truth!

- To blame him
for what had happened.

- I tell you, I want--
I want to do some volunteer--

I don't want
no kind of publicity.

I wanna do some volunteer.

I wanna be
the volunteer work.

I wanna go out there
and find out why it happened

and what it happened with
and who did it.

That's what I want
to find out--who did it--

because he didn't do it
on his own.

Somebody had to have a key.

The door was open!

- This could have turned
into a riot,

because people
were that angry.

[people shouting]

- See you on TV,
we don't want to see you

at voting time,
we want to see you now

about our children.
- Damn straight!

- The mayor was painted

with a broad brush

as caring more for the city
and its image

than caring about
the black children.

- And I know you in
a bad spot,

but that's the price you pay
when you're on the other side.

[cheers and applause]

- The Bowen Homes thing
was the landmark

in this struggle, because...

it really showed the divide

between the community

and the political leadership,

the elected
political leadership.

- The blood of those babies

are on the hands
of this system

that forces us
to live like dogs.

[cheers and applause]

- I don't know exactly
what happened at Bowen Homes.

They said a boiler blew up,

but Bowen Homes
and the explosion

at the daycare center there
really acted as a catalyst

because all of a sudden,
it brought together

the message
of the child murders being,

"you are powerless."

- Who runs the Klan?

It's those rich dogs
that wanna...

[shouting and applause]

- It is, "you are powerless
when these young people

"are being abducted
one by one and taken out,

"and now, look,
we can just come in

and blow up your babies."

- Darn right, I'm emotional!
- That's right.

- When the Bowen Homes
thing happened,

that's the closest it got to,

"Okay, now this
is gonna get bad."

- City too busy to hate?

It's a slogan.

[somber string music]

♪ ♪

[bright tone]

KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS:
The number is staggering.

Thirty murders?

We don't know
if there was something else

that we still haven't
pieced together.

MAN: Somebody knows
who's doing this series

of attacks on our children.

He was the connection
between all of these victims.

SPEAKER: Did Wayne Williams kill
any of these children?

CROWD: (CHANTING) No.

After 40 years,

we're still searching
for answers.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS) ♪

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪