Guess who this is?
Posted on 05/06/2005 5:53:44 PM PDT by MisterRepublican
ATLANTA (AP) -- A police chief has reopened an investigation into four of the child slayings that terrorized the Atlanta area more than two decades ago, saying he believes the man suspected in most of the killings is innocent.
Altogether, 29 people - all of them black, most of them boys - were killed in the Atlanta area between 1979 and 1981.
Wayne Williams, 47, is serving a life sentence for the murders of two young men. After his conviction, authorities blamed him for 22 of the other slayings but never charged him.
Dekalb County Police Chief Louis Graham said he plans to take another look at the slayings of four boys between February and May 1981. Graham, who became chief last year, said he took an interest in revisiting the cases after looking through some old news clippings.
"After Wayne Williams was arrested, there was this decision by some people to close the cases, and I have never been one to espouse that kind of investigation or paint that kind of broad brush," Graham told The Associated Press. "I have never believed that he did anything."
The main evidence against Williams was tiny fibers found on the bodies and matched to rugs and other fabrics in the home and cars of Williams' parents. The state Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 1984 and later rejected an appeal for a new trial.
"There's no question this is a significant development, and we look forward to learning all of the facts concerning re-examination of these murders," said one of Williams' attorneys, Michael Jackson of Buffalo, N.Y.
Williams, who is black, has said that he was framed and that Atlanta officials covered up evidence of a Ku Klux Klan role in the killings to avoid a race war in the city.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Who brought the bong?
Well!
Hopefully they retained some DNA evidence from the crime scenes.
Equally strange that the killings stopped as soon as Williams was in custody.
It's just preposterous that a bunch of Klansman could have even driven down the street in these neighborhoods and not been instantly noticed -- let alone snatched kids without anyone raising the hue and cry. Only a New York lawyer (see the story) could believe this.
I don't really mind a new chief investigating cold cases, especially when they were just closed upon conviction in another case. Williams wasn't convicted IIRC in any DeKalb case. They may have just taken the opportunity to clean up their files. Of course the rumors about the Klan have persisted for years, and there may be some political pressure on the DeKalb chief to give these cases another look. But I think he's probably wasting his time on this one.
Paging Rick Rickett, Chan Chandler, et al.
Cold Case Ping
Let me guess - the cop is black, right?
It's still a pretty scary story. I've wondered about it like you do, if there were one or more other killers doing this. Of course the fact the crimes stopped upon this guy's arrest is quite telling, I wonder if another psycho would have the restraint to stop because another person had been arrested for the crime(s).
Exactly. I was a kid at the time, but even I remember that.
That is the most telling sentence in the entire story. This guy has no new evidence, no new theory, nothing. He just never believed he did it. Talk about a waste of taxpayer money.
"That is the most telling sentence in the entire story. This guy has no new evidence, no new theory, nothing. He just never believed he did it. Talk about a waste of taxpayer money."
He wishes the crimes were racially motivated. He wishes it badly.
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