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

Between 1979 and 1981, a wave of disappearances gripped Atlanta. Children — mostly boys — vanished on their way to the store, to friends’ homes or to the bus stop. Before long, their bodies began to appear in wooded areas and rivers. The deaths of at least 29 young people stunned the city and left parents so afraid that many kept their children indoors for years.

According to publicly released FBI case files, roughly 29 children, teenagers and young adults — most of them male — were killed during this period. The bureau joined a multi-agency task force in 1980 and opened the investigation under the code name “ATKID.”

Parents organized neighborhood patrols while police combed city blocks and wooded corridors. The FBI’s online files describe a pattern of bodies being discovered near the Chattahoochee River and in wooded areas on Atlanta’s southwest side, locations later characterized as dump sites.

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

Days later, the body of 28-year-old Nathaniel Cater was found downstream, according to The New York Times.

Investigators soon focused on Williams as a suspect in the series of child killings that had terrified Atlanta for nearly two years. Authorities said that fibers and dog hairs recovered from Williams’ home, car and German shepherd were consistent with samples collected from several victims. Based on that fiber evidence, officials ultimately closed 22 of the 29 cases after his arrest, the Times reported.

Williams was charged with the murders of Cater and 21-year-old Jimmy Ray Payne and was convicted in 1982. Afterward, authorities administratively closed most of the remaining cases while publicly associating Williams with many of them, though he was never formally charged in the children’s deaths, according to the Times.

Williams, who is serving two life sentences, has long insisted that he is innocent. “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,” he told CNN. “The fact is, I didn’t kill anybody,” Williams said.

Many family members of victims likewise remain unconvinced that justice was fully served. “Wayne Williams didn’t kill our children. No! And we want justice,” said Catherine Leach, whose 13-year-old son Curtis Walker was killed in 1981, in comments to 11Alive.

For those who lived through that era, the trauma has never fully faded. “Every day, every night, it seemed like they were finding bodies… There was this big dark cloud over us,” said Sheila Baltazar, whose 12-year-old stepson Patrick was killed in 1981, speaking to the Times.

In March 2019, Atlanta officials announced a new review of preserved evidence using modern forensic technology. Detectives later sent deteriorated items to a private laboratory that specializes in analyzing degraded DNA, GPB News reported. Because of the age and condition of the materials, officials cautioned that testing would likely be slow and that results might be limited.

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,” said the Rev. John Bell, father of 9-year-old victim Yusef Bell, in remarks to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Community awareness will make it very hard for this to happen again,” he added.

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

The renewed investigation remains open. City leaders and police say they have cataloged what evidence still exists and submitted items for testing, while warning that the decades that have passed — and how the materials were stored — may limit what today’s forensic science can uncover. Williams, who continues to assert his innocence, remains in state prison.