29 Kids Vanished from Atlanta’s Streets. One Man Went to Prison — but Questions Remain By Christina Coulter

Between 1979 and 1981, children vanished from Atlanta’s streets — boys who never made it home from the store or to the bus stop — and soon their bodies began turning up in woods and rivers. The killings of at least 29 young people shocked the city and terrified families, who kept their children inside for years.

According to the FBI’s publicly released case files, roughly 29 children, teens and young adults — mostly boys — were killed during that span; the bureau joined a multi-agency task force in 1980 and logged the investigation under the code name “ATKID.”

Parents formed patrols as police scoured neighborhoods and wooded corridors where victims were later found, a pattern described in the FBI’s online case files as dump sites near the Chattahoochee River and in wooded areas on the city’s southwest side.

By May 1981, detectives were watching bridges over the Chattahoochee when an officer heard a splash and stopped a car driven by 23-year-old music promoter Wayne Williams.

Days later, the body of Nathaniel Cater, 28, was found downstream, per The New York Times.

Investigators soon connected Williams to the string of child killings that had terrified Atlanta for nearly two years. Police said fibers and dog hairs from Williams’ home, car and German shepherd matched samples recovered from several victims. Authorities ultimately closed 22 of the 29 cases based on that fiber evidence after his arrest, per the Times.

Williams was charged with killing Cater and Jimmy Ray Payne, 21, and convicted in 1982. Afterward, authorities administratively closed most of the remaining cases while publicly linking him to the others, though he was never charged in the children’s deaths, the Times reported.

“The bottom line is, nobody ever testified or even claimed that they saw me strike another person, choke another person, stab, beat or kill or hurt anybody, because I didn’t,” Williams, who is serving two life sentences, told CNN.

“The fact is, I didn’t kill anybody,” Williams said.

“Wayne Williams didn’t kill our children. No! And we want justice,” said Catherine Leach, the mother of 13-year-old Curtis Walker, who was killed in 1981, told 11Alive.

“Every day, every night, it seemed like they were finding bodies… There was this big dark cloud over us,” Sheila Baltazar, whose stepson Patrick, 12, was killed in 1981, told the Times.

In March 2019, city leaders announced a fresh review of preserved evidence using modern forensic tools.

“This is about being able to look these families in the eye… and say we did everything we could possibly do to bring closure,” said Erika Shields, then Atlanta’s then-police chief, told the Times.

Detectives later sent deteriorated items to a private lab that specializes in degraded DNA, GPB News reported; officials said testing would take time given the age and condition of materials.

In June 2023, the city dedicated the Atlanta Children’s Eternal Flame memorial at City Hall to honor the victims and their families. “This is a really beautiful event to remember this and to keep this out front because this same thing can happen again,” the Rev. John Bell, father of 9-year-old victim Yusef Bell, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Community awareness will make it very hard for this to happen again,” Bell said.

“It goes to show that they are never forgotten,” June Thompson, sister of victim Darron Glass, told GPB News. “Their memories are always alive in our hearts, and this eternity flame is very beautiful.”

The review remains open. City leaders and police say that they inventoried what evidence still exists and sent items for testing, while cautioning that results may be limited by age and storage conditions, CBS News and GPB reported.

Williams, who maintains his innocence, remains in state prison.