The Unsolved Atlanta Child Murders Have Been Re-Opened 40 Years Later
Between 1979 and 1981 at least 25 black children and six adults were murdered in the Atlanta area. In 1982, Wayne Williams was convicted of the murders of only two of the adult victims, though "law enforcement task force concluded that there was enough evidence to link Williams to another 20." The child killings stopped when Williams went to jail for life. Though he maintains that he never murdered any children, police think he is responsible for at least 22 of the children's deaths, despite those murders remaining unsolved.
Now, Atlanta police are re-opening the case to test new evidence. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields said in a press conference last week that "new DNA technology could erase any lingering doubt about who killed [the children]," according to a report by WSB-TV Atlanta.
"(We hope) to let them know that we have done all that we can do...to make sure their memories are not forgotten ... and in the truest sense of the word to let the world know that black lives do matter," Bottoms said in the press conference.
The Atlanta Police Department has "has boxes filled with evidence, some of which may never have been tested."
This announcement came just one day before the second season of Mindhunter dropped on Netflix, which delves into the Atlanta Child Murders. In the third episode of Season Two, Jonathan Groff's Holden Ford travels to Atlanta, where he comes into contact with the mothers of some of the victims who are desperate for answers.
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