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February 26, 1985/The Maroon Tiger/Section A
Atlanta Child Murders—
Much Ado About Something?
Much Ado About Nothing!
by Robert Bolton
Staff Writer
Just when the Atlantans had
adjusted and learned to cope
with the loss of the many youths
that were snatched from their
neighborhoods, and later found
brutally murdered, here comes
the highly controversial TV
docudrama that did nothing but
jar the horrible memories, and
create a distorted picture of the
entire incident.
This CBS docudrama “The
Atlanta Child Murders,” which
was written and produced by
Abby Mann and was aired in two
parts. The purpose of the film,
according to the writer, was to
dispel some of the confusion
about the Wayne B. Williams
case. His conviction was based
on fiber evidence and a pattern
that was said to link ten of the
cases together.
So why are so many people
enraged about the airing of the
program? Mann feels that "peo
ple are upset because I stripped
it down.” Then, there is the other
side of the story.
Many of the Atlanta officials
feel that the television movie
misrepresented the city's handl
ing of the crisis, which began in
1979 and ended 2 years later with
the arrest of Williams.
The Rev. Joseph Lowery, presi
dent of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
categorized the movie as a
“sinister assault” on Atlanta’s
black leaders. He also said that
the film had "racist implications”
and is a “part of a larger exploita
tion of black leadership." This
film gave the impression that the
leaders were “uncaring, insen
sitive, and at times incompe
tent," commented Lowery.
Despite the accusations im
plied by Abby Mann, Atlanta
officials were concerned and
should not have been mislabeled
otherwise.
Many people were furious
about the derogatory im
plications of the movie.
Numerous ministers banded
together and urged their con
gregations to boycott the
miniseries. In addition to this,
students in city schools were
another concern. The students
were warned about the show.
Fliers were distributed to inform
the parents to monitor their
children’s reactions to the
docudrama.
The fliers urged parents to
view the movie with their
children in order to watch for
signs of fear and anxiety, and to
discuss confusing or upsetting
issues.
The confusing as well as upset
ting issues were discussed in
detail after the airing of the
program by many of its viewers.
Dr. Anna Grant, head of the
Sociology Department at
Morehouse said that the
program was a "definite mis
representation of the actual
case."
Dr. Grant served as one of the
court observers in the actual trial
of the case involving The State of
Georgia vs. Wayne Williams. The
following thoughts are some of
Dr. Grant’s reflections about the
case:
"In July ‘79 Edward Smith, age
14 disappeared. During the same
month his body was found. He
had been shot to death. No hue
and cry went up over the death
of this teenager, because, at the
time, no one dreamed that on an
average of roughly once a
month, over the next two years,
at least 30 children and young
adults, all black, mostly poor and
overwhelmingly from one
parent families, would disappear
and most of them would be
found dead, having died at the
hands of “person or persons
unknown."
About the time the 4th or 5th
child’s body had been found the
city was still trying to polish its
image as a safe and shining
convention city, following the
murder of a young medical
doctor who had come to Atlanta
to attend a conference of
research physicians. A significant
proportion of our police force
had been deployed to make
downtown look and feel safe.
It seemed to take the dogged
insistence of a few mothers of
victims, led by spokeswoman
Mrs. Camille Bell, to impel the
police to investigate what the
mothers insisted were linkages
between the deaths of these
children. Nearly two years later,
30 similar deaths had been
recorded. Although we were to
learn later that a number of
suspects had been questioned,
the police seemed stymied in
their efforts to solve these
frightening murders of Black
children and Atlanta and its
children were truly experiencing
a nightmare.
The last two victims were older
than the others and in an ap
parent change in modus operan-
di, their bodies had been fished
from the river after a leak to the
media that fiber evidence had
been found on many of the other
bodies.
The Atlanta police, with the
help of the FBI, the GBI, and a
special task force, decided to
stake out the Chattahoochee
River which the public was.
unaware of the stake out. But it’s
a long, meandering river and the
watch seemed fruitless until
about three o’clock on a chilly
spring morning; policemen
heard a loud splash in the water.
Alerting their colleagues, staked
out around the bridge, they
followed a car which appeared
to be coming from a stopped
position on the bridge. The
driver of that car was Wayne
Bertram Williams, a young Black
man, age 22, a selfstyled free
lance talent scout and promoter.
Williams said he was in the area
returning from a fruitless
attempt to locate the apartment
of one Cheryl Johnson who had
Dr. Anna Grant
Department of Sociology
called him to ask for an interview
in the interest of a talent audition
Williams was questioned,
released and put under sur
veillance. A few weeks later,
during which time he led under
cover agents on wild goose
chases, including stops at the
home of the public safety com
missioner and a drive past the
Mayor’s home, Williams was
arrested and charged with the
deaths of the last two victims. He
proclaimed his innocence, but a
tightly woven case of cir
cumstantial and forensic
evidence combined with incon
sistencies and inaccuracies in his
and his parents’ testimony, the
silent suggestion of association
in the fact that no more related,
unsolved incidents of missing or
murdered children occurred
after Williams was put under
surveillance and the fact that
Cheryl Johnson could not be
found, led, after 9 weeks, to a
verdict of guilty. Williams con
tinues to protest his innocence
and the case is now on appeal.
Several subsequent opinion
polls suggested that two thirds of
respondents in Metro Atlanta
believe Williams is guilty. One
third maintain he is innocent.
I was not there to judge the
defendant’s guilt or innocence,
but I was involved with the case
in the pretrial hearing, regarding
the wisdom of allowing televi
sion cameras in the courtroom.
Later I was to prepare a suppor
ting amicus curiae brief for the
Georgia State Supreme Court
and to return as a Court
Observer for the early and final
weeks of the trial.
Some of my observations as a
Sociologist are the following:
-The defendant was born, late
in life, to school teacher parents
who had despaired of having
children. The new mother was 41
years old.
-His mother called him "our
miracle child”
-He was male-the preferred
sex of a child in Western Society
-He was intellectually bright
His jubilant parents seemed to
have left “no stone unturned" to
give their child every material
and cultural advantage. He par
ticipated in all the appropriate
activities that are expected of
middle class children. He was a
leader in church and school
activities.
-He soon showed a precocious
interest in electronics and, dur
ing his early early teen years,built
and operated his own radio
station and transmitter where he
interviewed such outstanding
local personages as Mayors,
community leaders and such
national personages as Vernon
Jordan of the National Urban
League and Benjamin Hooks,
then head of the Federal Com
munications Commission.
-The station moved from his
home to a commercial address
where it faltered financially,
despite the fact that the parents
had secured supportive loans,
mortaged their home and ul
timately declared bankruptcy.
-Meanwhile, Williams
graduated from High School and
entered Georgia State Universi
ty, where he made an un
distinguished showing and later
dropped out.
-He then entered Southern
Area Technological School, but
left after he was reputed to have
said that he knew more about
electronics than his instructors.
-Williams held a series of non
contractual free lance jobs from
ambulance attendants, accident
photographer, to arson
photographer, but was never
self-supporting.
He drove around town in cars
outfitted with police lights, siren
and police radio scanner - all of
which he is reputed to have used
- Some say they thought he was a
policeman. Meanwhile he
cultivated people in the enter
tainment and recording in
dustry, studied the industry - on
his own - and soon was adver
tising himself as a talent scout
and promoter. He went through
the city looking for singing and
instrumental talent, particularly
in the poor, inner-city
neighborhoods.
-By his own admission he did
the bulk of his work after noon
and into the night and early
morning hours.
-He estimated that he averag
ed 2000 miles a day, driving
around Metro Atlanta: The
prosecutor’s office presented
evidence that in a single month
he clocked 4,000 miles on his
stationwagon odometer.
The defense attempted to
depict Williams as a gifted,
humane "dreamer," like unto
Martin Luther King, Jr., whose
concern for disadvantaged
youth was economically
devasting to his family but who
was on the verge of beginning to
succeed when he was arrested.
On the other hand, the
prosecution presented him as a
crafty, cool, cunning, "mad-
dog" killer whose parents gave
him too much too soon; whose
talents peaked too early; who
was a failure at everything he
tried - an unsuccessful,
frustrated man with unresolved
sexual orientation who loved
power, attention, the media, and
the challenge of testing his wits
against those of others. Williams
can be considered a self rejec
ting man who, hated his own
blackness and blamed the low
opinion in which all blacks are
held on poor, unachieving
blacks Of which he felt there
were too many.
So, in a predominately black
city with a Black mayor, a black
public safety commissioner, a
black chief of police, a black
judge, a black regional director
of the FBI, a jury made up of 8
black and 4 white jurors, and a
black lead attorney, Wayne
Williams went on trial.
After nearly nine weeks of
testimony and evidence, he was
found Guilty. I believe the guilty
verdict was influenced by the
overwhelming mass of forensic
evidence as forensic evidence
is the way of the future in crime
detection, the rebuttal of the
parents’ testimony, the incon
sistencies in the defendant's
testimony, the hostile, abrasive
and contesting attitude of the
defendent and his parents as
witnesses.
Also, the rudness of the defen
dant’s language and his projec
tion of disdain in the courtroom;
the perceived manipulation and
exploitation of weak, but well-
meaning parents by a son who in
his adulthood had failed to live
up to the promise of a gifted
childhood and possibly, in the
back of the minds of thejury, the
community outrage that sur
faced over the verdict in the
Amp Wiley rape-murder-heart
stomping case in Decatur.
Wayne Williams had “Blown”
his opportunities and had un
derestimated the greater power
of the “group mind” - of the
collective intelligence - over
individual brillance and singular
cunning.
There you have it, an actual
account based on the evidence
given at the trail. However, this
nor the film establishes the
innocence of Wayne Williams.
The only person that can
truthfully answer the puzzling
question-Are you responsible
for the murders of the Atlanta
youths? Is Wayne.
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