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So, whats the true story behind the Atlanta child murders?
In 1980, the death toll intensified.
Eleven-year-old Jeffrey Mathis disappeared next, although his body wouldnt be found until almost a year later.
Eric Middlebrooks, age 15, was found bludgeoned in May.
Five more children vanished before the years end; seven other children and six adults were killed in 1981.
The bodies of some victims were found shortly after their disappearances, while others didnt surface for months.
Some of the victims knew each other and, as depicted onMindhunter, lived only a few houses apart.
The Investigation
The early police work into the Atlanta child murders could politely be called incompetent.
They wouldnt call us back; nothing was being done.
The investigation finally started to get serious in August, after 13-year-old Clifford Joness body was found strangled.
A six-figure reward was raised to help capture the killer.
Thousands of people started to help with the investigation.
To be clear,Mindhunterplays a bit loose with history here.
Holden Ford is on the ground a lot in Atlanta, meeting the grieving mothers and guiding the investigation.
He also relied on assessments from interviews previously conducted by his unit with 25 serial and mass murderers.
The Suspect
In late 1980, a shift in the killers M.O.
led to a major break.
On June 21, he was arrested for the murders of Cater and 22-year-old Jimmy Ray Payne.
Did the FBI just find someone who fit Douglass profile, or did they actually catch the right man?
(As Douglas recounts in hisMindhunterbook, he was latercensuredby the FBI for this statement.)
Nineteen different sources of fibers and hairs were matched to fibers on a number of victims.
The trial ended with aconvictionon February 27; Williams was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.
Soon after, investigators attributed to Williams the vast majority of the unsolved murders.
But the controversy was just beginning.
CNN ran a documentary in 2010 that included aninterviewwith Williams, who continues to maintain his innocence.
Notably, Douglas himself doesnt think that Williams committed all of the crimes.
Young black and white children continue to die mysteriously in Atlanta.
What if Wayne Williams was merely the scapegoat for someone else?
We may never know.
