Board denies parole for Wayne Williams, Atlanta Child Murders suspect
Wayne Williams, long considered by many authorities as the prime suspect in the Atlanta Child Murders, has been denied parole.
Williams, 61, has maintained his innocence even as he was convicted in 1982 of the murders of two adults and then sentenced to two life terms in prison with the possibility of parole. Prosecutors said he was also suspected of killing more than 20 black children in the Atlanta area from 1979 to 1981, but he was never charged in any child’s death.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole’s decision to deny Williams parole comes amid new scrutiny on the Atlanta Child Murders. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced in March that city police and the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office would
re-examine the cases.
Bottoms said she hoped new technology could help old evidence yield answers in the decades-old cases that shook Atlanta for
two terrible years. The mayor said the decision shouldn’t be taken as a move supportive of Williams.
“It may be there is nothing left it be tested,” Bottoms said in March. “But I do think history will judge us by our actions and we will be able to say we tried.”
Danny Agan, a retired detective who worked some of the cases for Atlanta Police, said Monday the board’s decision was a good one.
“I’m not surprised at all given all of the facts that are known, how strong his conviction was,” Agan said. “It has held up under years of appeal. There’s no reason to believe the conviction was flawed. In my opinion he is still a threat to society. He’s unrepentant.”
Agan, who followed Williams’ case closely, also supports the mayor’s decision to re-examine the cases, because the retired detective thinks Williams killed most but not all of the children. Agan’s doubts Williams killed the two girls who have long been considered part of the Child Murders “list.” All the other victims were boys.
The parole board isn’t required by law to give a reason for parole decisions, but in a letter to Williams, the board explained tersely. The reason “is insufficient amount of time served to date given the nature and circumstances of your offenses(s),” according to the letter obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
A board spokesman said the board set Williams’ next date of parole consideration to November of 2027. That is as far into the future as the board can push it.
The decision was made in late November, but as a rule, the board waits until the inmate has been notified to reveal decisions to the media.
The board’s ruling is likely to draw a rebuke from Williams’ supporters who have claimed he was used as a scapegoat to end the nightmare of the child murders, which had become grim national news.
Police and federal and state agents investigated dozens of suspects as the murders were happening. Some who confessed but were eliminated because police believed they were more likely mentally ill and lying. Tips also came in about brothers who were purportedly
tied to the Ku Klux Klan.
But all other theories began to fall away after a May 1981 police stakeout by a bridge over the Chattahoochee River. Officers heard a splash, thought to be a dropping body, and spotted Williams in a car.
After a body was found, Fulton prosecutors charged
Williams, a cocky young freelance photographer, with the deaths of two adults who’d been recovered in or near the river.
The state
earned his conviction in 1982 by using new technology to connect Williams through hairs and carpet fibers found with the bodies. Prosecutors also presented evidence from 10 of the child deaths, including three from DeKalb County, as “pattern” cases that prosecutors said pointed to Williams guilt in the kids’ murders.
After Williams’ trial, the children’s cases were closed or or became cold, with the general consensus forming among law enforcement and prosecutors that Williams had also killed the kids.
In 1987, Lewis Slaton, then-Fulton district attorney, declined demands by relatives of 13 young victims to either charge Williams or reopen the cases. Slaton said he didn’t have enough evidence for convictions, though he believed Williams was guilty.
Today, Paul Howard, the current Fulton DA, is using a new conviction integrity unit to examine the Atlanta Child Murders. He recently told Channel 2 Action News that his office was considering the possibility that there were victims who should have been included in the “list” of children who died in the ordeal but weren’t for whatever reason.
Howard’s office declined Monday to give an update on its efforts to re-examine the cases, as did the Atlanta Police Department.
