ATLANTA _ Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced Thursday that officials will take a fresh look at the Atlanta Child Murders cases that left more than 20 youths and young adults dead four decades ago.
At a news conference with Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields, Bottoms said the intention is to use technological advances to re-test evidence and see if any answers come.
"It may be there is nothing left to be tested," Bottoms said. "But I do think history will judge us by our actions and we will be able to say we tried."
The operation will be a joint one, with authorities from the Atlanta Police Department, the Fulton County District Attorney's Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation all gathering old evidence to be re-examined.
Bottoms started thinking about a renewed look into the murders after speaking with Catherine Leach-Bell, whose son, 13-year-old Curtis Walker, was among the victims. Bottoms said the new examination will assure the families of the victims, who were all black, 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."
Authorities have for decades suspected Wayne Williams was the killer who terrorized the city. He is serving life for murder convictions in the deaths of two adults in Fulton County, though he's never faced charges in any child's death. Instead, after his conviction, authorities in Fulton, where the vast majority of deaths occurred, announced they were closing the child homicide cases because they were convinced Williams was guilty. The mayor said that there is evidence linking Williams to many of the children, but she wants to make sure there isn't something to be learned from re-testing evidence.
Five child murders from the same period, including Leach-Bell's son's, are open today in DeKalb County because of disagreements through the years among various officials about whether they should be attributed to Williams. DeKalb police told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in late 2017 that the investigations were inactive. Some of the victims' relatives have questioned whether officials rushed to judgment by suggesting Williams was guilty in all the murders.
Bottoms said she would ask DeKalb police and any other agency that may have old evidence available for testing to join in Atlanta's efforts.
The mayor also she is exploring how to honor the victims with some type of monument, a step some of the victims' families have long called for unsuccessfully. Leach-Bell, who has lobbied for a monument, said she was pleased with the mayor's announcements because "the Atlanta missing and murders children have been forgotten."
Bottoms and the police chief agreed that the city needs to do more to remember the dark period from 1979 to 1981 when the children, nearly all boys, were killed. Shields said the horrifying ordeal seems to be a "foot note" in the Atlanta story, and that needs to change.
Williams, who was a cocky young freelance photographer at the time of his arrest in 1981, has long maintained his innocence. He's serving life at Telfair State Prison.
Thursday's announcement comes at the same time as a media blitz around filmmaker Will Packer's forthcoming documentary on the cases, which is soon to air on the Investigation Discovery Channel. The documentary, as others have, is expected to question whether Williams in fact committed all the crimes.
The theory that he alone didn't kill all the victims is held by many. Even Danny Agan, one of the Atlanta Police Department's original investigators on some of the cases, said he's only convinced Williams committed most of the murders.
Agan, who stood behind the mayor during her announcement, said he didn't view the planned new testing as a jab at the original police work. He said the spirit of the mayor's inquiry was the correct one: to find the truth.
"The truth won't hurt you," he said.
