Missing in Atlanta
- Episode aired May 20, 2004
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Missing In Atlanta
This is a documentary about the hunt for one of the most notorious serial killers in American history, the man responsible for the Atlanta Child Murders. Because all the victims were black there was obvious concern that there was a racial angle to them, although in the de facto segregated neighbourhoods of Atlanta, any white man hanging around kids would have stuck out like a sore thumb.
As the bodies piled up, political pressure caused the intervention of the President himself; a two hundred strong task force was drafted in from the FBI, but as with many similar cases, it was a lucky break that put the killer in the frame.
Wayne Williams was a slight oddball; he was stopped in his car in the small hours when the body of a man was dumped in the river. At that point, a task force stake-out had heard a splash, nothing else. When however the body of Nathaniel Cater was found, Williams became the prime suspect. He would eventually stand trial only for the murder of Cater and another man, but he was in effect on trial for the child murders as well.
After his conviction, controversy raged, for one thing it was not clear that all the victims had been murdered by the same person. This is not a new problem of course, but Williams was convicted primarily on the basis of forensic evidence, fibres found on the victims. Some of this evidence was suspect, but some of it – that was found on ten victims – was not. This was said to have been a distinctive fibre that was found in the Williams home.
Not everyone is satisfied though, and another suspect has been identified; Jaime Brooks who died in 1987, was a known sexual predator. However, this documentary is misleading because the forensic evidence was a lot stronger than the people who made it and some of the people who appear in it would have us believe.
The film makers talk to lawyers and others including Williams himself. The fact that he is still behind bars should be good enough for the viewer.
As the bodies piled up, political pressure caused the intervention of the President himself; a two hundred strong task force was drafted in from the FBI, but as with many similar cases, it was a lucky break that put the killer in the frame.
Wayne Williams was a slight oddball; he was stopped in his car in the small hours when the body of a man was dumped in the river. At that point, a task force stake-out had heard a splash, nothing else. When however the body of Nathaniel Cater was found, Williams became the prime suspect. He would eventually stand trial only for the murder of Cater and another man, but he was in effect on trial for the child murders as well.
After his conviction, controversy raged, for one thing it was not clear that all the victims had been murdered by the same person. This is not a new problem of course, but Williams was convicted primarily on the basis of forensic evidence, fibres found on the victims. Some of this evidence was suspect, but some of it – that was found on ten victims – was not. This was said to have been a distinctive fibre that was found in the Williams home.
Not everyone is satisfied though, and another suspect has been identified; Jaime Brooks who died in 1987, was a known sexual predator. However, this documentary is misleading because the forensic evidence was a lot stronger than the people who made it and some of the people who appear in it would have us believe.
The film makers talk to lawyers and others including Williams himself. The fact that he is still behind bars should be good enough for the viewer.
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- a_baron
- Aug 7, 2014
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