Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods

Wayne Williams and the Atlanta Child Murders

Race War?

Over the years, an increasing number of people connected with the case do not believe that Wayne Williams is guilty, including some of the relatives of the victims. DeKalb County Sheriff Sidney Dorsey, who as an Atlanta homicide detective first searched Williams home, says, " Most people who are aware of the child murders believe as I do that Wayne Williams did not commit these crimes."

In July of 1999, the Augusta Chronicle reported:

"A divided Georgia Supreme Court ruled that a state judge wrongly dismissed two claims raised by Wayne Williams in his bid for a new trial in the slayings of two Atlanta blacks 18 years ago. The 4-3 ruling sends the case back to Judge Hal Craig to rule on Mr. Williams' claims that prosecutors were guilty of misconduct and that his own attorneys did not effectively represent him at his 1982 trial."

Williams and his lawyers are seeking DNA tests on the bloodstains found in his cars, which prosecutors claimed were consistent with the blood types of two victims who were stabbed.

Throughout the murder investigation there was a fear in the black community that the Ku Klux Klan was responsible for the murders of the children and young adults. There was also credence given to the theory that the CIA and/or FBI were responsible.

A police informant allegedly claimed that Klan member Charles Sanders tried to recruit him into the racist organization. Sanders allegedly told the man that the Klan was trying to begin a race war by killing black children.

Any group that can blow up churches can and does murder children. Explosives are a very efficient way of harming lots of people quickly with limited risk of exposure. We have learned this from Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing. However, individual murders are not a very effective way to eradicate a large number of people, especially considering the risks of being caught by a black community that was in a heightened state of alarm. It seems unlikely that any white person(s) could pull off all or most of these murders. He (or they) would have been too obvious to have escaped attention during a two-year period.

 

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