Thanks to a reader for sending this information on. Initially, there was speculation that the second season of the Netflix series Mindhunter played a part in this tragic serial murder case being reopened. As explained in Rolling Stone, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Atlanta PD Chief Erika Sheilds announced in March of this year that the City would be retesting evidence in the cases of more than 25 black children and adolescents who were murdered during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The article describes the March 2019 press conference where Mayor Bottoms acknowledged and thanked producer Will Packer, who created the documentary Atlanta Child Murders, which premiered on the ID channel two days after the press conference was held.
“Regardless of the reasons for reopening the case,” the reporter explains, “Bottoms stressed that the ultimate goal was to bring closure to the loved ones of the victims, such as Catherine Leach-Bell, the mother of Curtis Walker, who was murdered in 1981 when he was 13. ‘I want to know who killed Curtis, his case is sitting on a shelf getting dusty and rusty until you can’t see the page,’ Bottoms said during the press conference. ‘They’ve been forgotten and forsaken. And it’s not right.'”
The public affairs officer for the Atlanta PD told Rolling Stone “that the investigation was not opened to exonerate [Wayne] Williams [who was convicted of murdering two young adult males], as much of the existing evidence already pointed strongly in his direction, BUT THAT THE CASE SHOULD NONETHELESS BE REOPENED TO DISCOVER THE FULL TRUTH.” What a concept.
Stay tuned. Maybe these yet unsolved child murders in Atlanta will finally get the attention they should have back in the day. And with advancements in DNA testing occurring at relative lightning speed, evidence in this case, as well as the OCCK murders, should be tested and retested on an ongoing basis. What does it say about a society when child murders are swept under the rug or treated expediently?
And if you want to feel some real terror over the way children are treated and have been allowed to be treated and how society turns away to pretend all is well, check out the podcast Out of the Shadows, with Shane Waters and Gemma Hoskins, specifically the July and August editions discussing the CIA project MKUltra “project” (July 31, August 6 and August 28, 2019). A survivor, initially raised in the Detroit area, was sold by her parents into the most depraved situations possible. Think this stuff never happened or never happens? I dare you to listen and argue it didn’t/doesn’t.