Atlanta's Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children (TV Mini-Series)

- 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.

- 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?

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...

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.