Atlanta murders of 1979–1981

Between July 1979 and May 1981, at least 28 African-American children, adolescents, and adults were murdered in Atlanta, Georgia, in a series of killings that became known as the Atlanta child murders. Victims ranged widely in age, from children as young as 7 to adults in their late twenties, and many were reported missing while running errands or moving through their own neighborhoods before their bodies were later discovered in wooded areas, rivers, or abandoned buildings. The killings prompted the city to impose curfews, and many parents in Atlanta removed their children from school and restricted them from playing outside.

Early victims in 1979 and 1980 included Edward "Teddy" Smith, Alfred Evans, Milton Harvey, Yusuf Bell, Angel Lenair, Jeffery Mathis, Eric Middlebrooks, Christopher Richardson, LaTonya Wilson, Aaron Wyche, Anthony Carter, Earl Terrell, Clifford Jones, Darron Glass, Charles Stephens, Aaron Jackson, and Patrick Rogers. The killings continued into 1981 with victims including Lubie Geter, Terry Pue, Eddie Duncan (the first adult victim), Larry Rogers, John Porter, Jimmy Ray Payne, William Barrett, and Nathaniel Cater, the last reported victim.

More than 100 federal agents worked on the investigation at points during the killings. In May 1981, following a surveillance operation on bridges over the Chattahoochee River intended to catch a suspect disposing of a body, police stopped a station wagon driven by 23-year-old Wayne Bertram Williams near a bridge shortly after officers heard a splash in the water below. Two days later, the body of Nathaniel Cater was recovered from the river downstream. Investigators cited fiber evidence linking carpet and other materials from Williams's home, vehicles, and dog to fibers found on victims, along with witness testimony placing Williams with Cater on the night of his death. Williams was arrested on June 21, 1981, and indicted for the murders of Cater and Payne.

Williams's trial began on January 6, 1982, before Judge Clarence Cooper. The prosecution's fiber-comparison evidence, along with testimony from FBI agents characterizing contact between Williams and the victims as "virtually impossible" to have not occurred, was later criticized by a Georgia Supreme Court justice as insufficiently supported. On February 27, 1982, Williams was convicted of the two murders and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.

Police subsequently attributed a number of the other killings to Williams, though he was never charged in those cases. Subsequent DNA testing in 2007 of hair and dog-hair evidence produced results described by researchers as not conclusively identifying the source, though they did not exclude Williams or his dog. Investigations into possible Ku Klux Klan involvement in some killings were reported in 1986 and examined again at a 1991 hearing on Williams's request for a new trial. In March 2019, Atlanta officials announced plans to retest evidence using newer technology; as of the most recent reporting, no new results had been made public.