Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 527 - The Atlanta Child Murders (1 of 2)

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Between 1979 and 1981, thirty Black children, teenagers, and young adults all disappeared from the streets of Atlanta, triggering one of the largest and most terrifying serial murder investigations in American history. Sadly, nearly everyone who had went missing would be found, but not found alive.  In this first of two episodes, we explore the killings that shocked not just the city of Atlanta, but the nation. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In July of 1979, the dead bodies of two young black teenagers were found in the woods of a neighborhood in southwest Atlanta, Georgia. The victims were identified as 14-year-old Edward Smith and 13-year-old Alfred Evans. They disappeared just four days apart earlier that month. At the time, the murders received a routine investigation, including an examination and photographs of the crime scene, autopsies, and returning the bodies to their families. The deaths were mostly ignored and unknown by the public in the press in a huge city where murders like these sadly were not altogether that uncommon. However, the black-owned newspaper, the Atlanta Voice, feature the murders in a front-page story. Reporter Harvey Gates wrote,

Nothing excites us anymore. There is something strange about the death of these two black boys. Who are these boys? We don't know where they come from. We don't know why they were there. How did they get there and why were they killed? we do not know the answers to any of these questions. The overriding question is, why don't we know any of these answers?

The answer to this question is that somebody, somewhere, is not talking. The murders of Edward Smith and Alfred Evans marked the beginning of the Atlanta Child Murder's investigation. Over a two-year period, 30 African-American children, adolescents, and young adults would go missing, and almost all of their bodies would be found after they had been murdered in Metro Atlanta and the surrounding area. At first, the mostly wide Atlanta police force rejected the idea that a serial killer was prowling primarily African-American neighborhoods and snatching kids off the streets. But many residents of Atlanta knew better. They knew that there was an evil killer on the loose in their city.

They just didn't know who it was. Eventually, the police would establish a task force. The FBI would be brought in, and even the president and vice president of the country, weigh in on what became the biggest serial killer hunt in the United States for several years. Celebrities would make huge donations to the cause of finding them All of America's major media companies would cover the case extensively And yet at the height of all this attention, the killer not only did not stop killing, they started to kill more frequently and doing less to hide the bodies.

They were clearly enjoying continually evading capture and taunting law enforcement And the terrified parents and children of Atlanta. Who was the Atlanta killer? Was he a white man like some thought with a racially motivated vendetta against black Atlantans? Was he part of the case? KKK, as many speculated. Was it the government stealing children for human experimentation? That theory was also tossed around.

But was he somebody's neighbor, a black man targeting black children? Today, in this first part of a two-parter, thanks to this story being so huge and having such good sources to provide so many details that in the end, I just did not want to cut, we will discuss the history of the largest metropolitan area in the southeast and begin a dark timeline of way too many kids dying at the hands of a monster behind the Atlanta child murders. On another true crime, most people are great, but a few are full-on evil edition of TimeSuck.

This is Michael McDonald, and you're listening to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday. Welcome or welcome back to the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins, the master's sucker. Oh, Suckie Balls, longtime County Crows fan, who's a person. opinion will never ever be swayed by the legions of music snob counting crows detractors and haters. And you are listening to Time Suck.

Hail Nimrod, Hail Lusufina, praise be to Good Boy Bojangles and Glory B to Triple M. One big important announcement before I'll jump in to the start of this huge story today. The good god Nimrod, not Amway, has decreed that the eighth annual Bad Magic Giving Tree is upon us. Gift card donations are open October 6th through November 16th and the name submission is open. in October 5th through October 15th. As a community, we will be ensuring that 35 families get a great holiday this year who otherwise would not. Listen closely for details. If you're driving, if you're in a place where you can't take notes, just visit badmagicproductions.com for all this info.

This year's process will mimic last years. Everyone who would like their children to be considered need to email only your first and last name to Giving Tree 2026, giving Tree 2026, at bad magic productions.com. Nothing more. We will enter all the names into a random online generator that will allow zero favoritism. Everybody will receive an email

regardless of the outcome. Submit your name between October 5th and October 15th. No names will be accepted after October 15th. By October 24th, everybody will be notified. Those whose names were picked from the hat will be given next steps.

As in years past, we will be applying the December monthly donation to this amazing giving tree and we'll be giving this money right back to our community. We continue to ask and encourage our community to donate Amazon gift cards to the cause. After a lot of trial and error, that is by far the most efficient way we can do this,

that we can have the time to do this. For every extra dollar donated to the cause, Lindsay and I will match it personally, up to $13,000. If you have, you know, $1, $10, you know, or more that you'd be willing to donate. Please do it. It all adds up.

Last year, the fans sent in an additional $14,000. thousand dollars if you're able to help go to amazon.com to purchase a digital gift card and when prompted for a recipient email enter giving tree 2026 at bad magic productions.com and again you can go to bad magic productions.com for all of this info thank you in advance you wonderful beautiful bastards we're going to do it again and now let's look into something that is not uplifting at fucking all but is darkly captivating For today's first of two parts, we will begin with an overview of the economic and social background of Atlanta, leading up to the child murders to give us some context for the killings, followed by the beginning of a big old timeline of the investigation. In the 1960s, Atlanta was known as the city too busy to hate.

From 1962 to 1966, Atlanta created 26,000 jobs a year, and the city had the highest number of people engaged in non-agricultural employment in the entire Southeast region. in the U.S. Unemployment was well below the national average of 4%, which is still the current average today, not that it's been consistently that since then. Atlanta became, quote, the economic giant and cultural entertainment capital of the Southeast and the Regional Center for Finance, transportation, manufacturing, commerce, tourism, and conventions. This was accomplished with a combination of pro-business ideology and urban renewal that involved demolishing a number of old buildings and neighborhoods and rebuilding. Between 1961 and 1967 alone, Atlanta saw 101 office buildings and 36 hotels and motels built or expanded, and this is crazy to me, 144 manufacturing

plants and 176 warehouses relocated to the Atlanta metro area. Atlanta's per capita annual income was $3,500, which doesn't sound like much today, but that was far higher than the national average of $2,900 when, you know, those amounts went a lot further than they do now. However, this quick development of Atlanta also displaced a full one-seventh of its population. As many neighborhoods were destroyed, others experienced neglect, overcrowding, and racial tensions. Atlanta's economic success continued into the early 70s, despite a nationwide recession, in part due to federal employment in the city through two military bases, a federal prison, and the CDC.

In 1972, Atlanta was rated among the 11th,000. most prosperous cities in all of the U.S. Before the 80s, it was home to seven Fortune 500 manufacturing companies, including Coca-Cola. According to Professor and Author and Journalist, Bernard Headley, the author of today's main source, The Atlanta Youth Murders, The Driving Force Behind Atlanta's rapid rise to prominence was the city's white power structure, its economic center regime. The power structure was made up of an old guard of business and commercial elite, whose successor generation in the 1960s and early 1970s remained remarkably intact since first studied by sociologist Floyd Hunter in the late 1940s, in the early 1950s. The power structure that Hunter and others

observed consisted of a narrow old-boyed network that ruled Atlanta in the manner of a benevolent dictator. Members made unilateral policy decisions on vital matters affecting all aspects of Atlanta's public life. The machinery of government, Hunter wrote, was at their bidding. Moreover, they control large industries in which they reign supreme in matters of decision affecting large numbers of the citizenry. They are persons of dominance, prestige, and influence. They are in part the decision makers of the total community. They are able to enforce their decisions by persuasion, intimidation, coercion,

and if necessary force. Until the end of the 1960s, political and economic power in Atlanta was concentrated amongst this small group of wealthy white men in banking, real estate, architecture, and retail. The Atlanta Chamber of Commerce was also all white, and the city had a liberal white press, which always enjoyed a sort of associate member status in the power structure. Chamber of Commerce members took note of racial issues that occurred during the civil rights era and did not think the city should get, quote, bogged down by the legal battles of desegregation. According to writer Fred Hobson, quoted by author Bernard Headley,

the Chamber of Commerce members felt that, quote, after all, business was business, and business required that Atlanta give up the outward signs of racism. When the Supreme Court ordered Atlanta to desegregate public schools by the fall of 1961, the city agreed with no protest. Until the late 60s, those, no significant protest, until the late 60s, those in power in Atlanta typically chose one of their own as mayor, or they would allow an acceptable outsider into office. The chosen politician secured votes from Black Atlanta residents, residents who would make up a slim majority of the city's population, 51% by 1970, by taking up progressive positions on race and once in office they would, according to Headley, make symbolic gestures at placating the mass of black voters who were not benefiting in any meaningful way from their political alliance with the white power structure. During the election of 1969, Black Atlantons mostly rejected

the candidate chosen by those in power. Insurance magnet and alderman Rodney Cook. Instead, they supported Sam Massel, a wealthy realtor who'd served as vice mayor for the past two terms. Massel, a Jewish man, won the election. Even more significant than this to many Atlantans, was the election of Maynor Jackson, a young black lawyer as vice mayor. The general consensus was that Jackson would challenge Massel in the next election and become Atlanta's first black mayor,

and that is exactly what happened. Jackson successfully ran against Massel in the 1973 election, and for the first time, there were an equal number of black and white members of Atlanta City Council. Jackson was re-elected for a second term in 1977, and for the first time the city council had a black president. While black politicians were rising to prominence in Atlanta, the city was also doing well economically.

Magazines like Ebony called Atlanta, the Black Mecca of the South, a precursor to Atlanta now frequently being called Blacklanta. According again to Arthur Bernard Headley, the nominal control that blacks came to assume over city government energized black expectations for both the present and the future, especially among Atlanta's black poor and working classes. It was primarily their vote after all, which had put in political power leaders

who had been nurtured in the movement politics of the 60s. The city's black poor thus expected a dramatic reversal of the inequitable status quo that had long benefited mostly white interests, a sentiment that many within the white power structure described as scary. What do they want? Ah, God damn it.

They want to become our, fuck, our next door neighbors? Are all of our kids going to be playing to the same parks? Will our kids be dating? God damn, am I going to have black grand babies? So funny what we choose to fear, right? So much really scary shit to actually be afraid of in the world. But that ain't it. But I get it in the sense that it is very human to be wary of any and all change.

You know, for some of us more than others, but I have learned that here in times like over and over again. Just a lot of people just fear change. Regardless of it's, if it's good change, bad change, it just freaks them out. The concept of having to rethink things. Anything different, right or wrong. Just, you know, knee-jerk reaction. of like, ooh, ooh, scary. Just leftover tribalist caveman instincts and all that, you know,

shit that used to service very well a long time ago, eh, not so much now. Uh, Headley continued by writing, in reality, though, the type of power arrangement into which an educated black elite had entered did not allow for a reordering of existing priorities. Accommodations as the operative principle. Uh,

the old white Atlanta guard had peacefully acquiesced with pragmatic acceptance to use the political theorist Antonio Gramsci's terms. to joint control of the city on the understanding that black office holders would do the following. Contain the demands of the black poor and working class, or at least keep these demands within the bounds of, quote, normal protest politics. Show competence in the management of city affairs, particularly in the management of things like crime, and a self-perpetuating white power structure in turn would do the following, continue to invest in downtown, thereby helping to ensure the viability of an elite class of black political leaders,

who, among other things, needed a reliable task. space from which to implement redistributive policies that would keep them in elected office, and vacate the arena of electoral city politics leaving it exclusively or almost exclusively to up-and-coming blacks. So in the end, the rise of black politicians in Atlanta did not bring in many economic opportunities for lower-income black residents. During his time as mayor, Jackson insisted that black contractors and subcontractors be involved in major capital ventures, such as the construction of the new airport, though, also pressure the city's financial institutions to include. the number of black people in managerial positions. This was less successful than the previous effort. Jackson also reorganized the city government, including the Atlanta Bureau of Police Services.

And that was huge, right? That was a very good thing. For decades, black Atlanta residents had been rightfully fearful of the police, who were noted to have been extremely racist, even encouraged by commissioners to kill black residents. Up to the 1940s, at least according to former police chief Herbert Jenkins, police officers had to literally join the KKK if they wanted to be accepted by the rest of the force. And from day one on the job, rookies were highly pressured into joining, and they would be ostracized if they didn't. By the early 70s, the issues with the force were no longer anywhere

this extreme. The civil rights movement and the counterculture revolution moved the needle quite far, did a hell of a lot of good in this regard, but racism, you know, still deeply rooted amongst officers. Between July of 1973 and July of 1974, 23 black people were killed under questionable circumstances that often led to investigations by or into Atlanta police officers that didn't go anywhere. Mayor Jackson believed that further positive change would only come by increasing the number of black officers on the force. In 1974, only 23% of the police force was black when black people, as I mentioned, made up just a little over half of Atlanta's population. Jackson decided to recommend the city personnel board that two-thirds of all new officers be chosen from a black applicant

pool until the racial imbalance was eliminated, but he ran into opposition. And I will say I do get both sides of the argument here. On the one hand, you don't want a severely racially imbalanced police force in a historically racist city. It's not going to be good for officers or the public if ongoing racial tensions continually hinder the ability of a police force to build community trust, which is proven to reduce crime, also reduced violence, being unlawfully perpetrated by police against citizens and also against officers by the citizenry.

Bad relationship leads to less safety for fucking everybody. And both the cops and the public deserve to be. be as safe as possible. But also, if you are turning away more qualified candidates simply to fill a quota due to not many black citizens wanting to be police officers, for example, well, now you're weakening the competency of the police force, which again jeopardizes the building of trust between the force and the community, which then again makes shit less safe for everybody. And you're turning away people with a rightful claim to a needed job. Too many people on all sides of the ideological and political spectrum want to act like, in my opinion, this kind of

This shit's a lot simpler than it is. Jackson also called for a public safety department that would house the police, fire, and civil defense responsibilities. The heads of the units were responsible for a commissioner of public safety. Jackson appointed his chief administrative assistant, A. Reginald Eves, a black man as commissioner of public safety. The business elite of Atlanta opposed the appointment, but Jackson's black constituents favored the move. During Eve's tenure, a crime decreased in Atlanta. All of Jackson's successes did not change how well flowed in the city, though. money remain concentrated amongst the elite.

And I got to say, doesn't it always? Everywhere, throughout history. Even in communist societies, money remains concentrated amongst the elite. An unfortunate fact of life, at least so far here in the world. Not to be nihilistic, but not sure how you get away from that, right? While Joseph Stalin was poor on paper, he owned essentially the entire fucking Soviet Union. At one point, a dude frequently hosted all-night dinner parties for his inner circle featuring imported delicacies, fresh game caviar, fine Georgian wines,

bounce between a number of lavish lakeside villas and mansions while cosplaying as an impoverished man of the people. Every chapter of the story of the human struggle has featured the haves and the have-nots. Not saying that the fight for greater levels of equality and equity, not important, not important, not valid, you know, to keep the scales from becoming further imbalance, not saying that it would be okay to live in a land of nothing but trillionaires

and fucking peasants. Just pointing out that this power dynamic, certainly not unique to Atlanta in the 70s and 80s, or 70s, I guess. Bernard Headley wrote in his book, Throughout his two terms as mayor then, but Maynor Jackson's political actions consisted mostly of trying to answer simultaneously to the city's downtown business elites and to a heretofore disenfranchised black population. To stay in power, he constantly had to give currency to racial themes,

equally important, though he could not afford in doing so to deliberately antagonize or appear to deliberately, you know, go after powerful white economic interests. The mayor needed to keep the power structure and other economic elites happy so they would choose to stay and choose to continue to invest in the city. Yeah. Because Maynard Jackson did not perform economic miracles, he was seen as a traitor to some and as a sellout, leading to a context of racial strain throughout his second term.

The most, man, fucking a lot of these jobs. I do admire politicians who really try. try and make a difference because no matter what you do, a lot of people are just going to be fucking pissed off of you. And a lot of that's going to come from just wildly unrealistic expectations. The most striking example of Jackson's breach of trust amongst black residents was how he treated striking sanitation workers whom he previously had marched with when he was vice mayor. Sanitation workers were still earning below the poverty threshold. And in March 1977, they initiated a strike, excuse me, demanding 50 cents more per hour. Jackson told them that

while their demands were justified, the city didn't have the money at the time to increase the wages. Negotiations broke down. Jackson announced the workers who did not return to their jobs would be fired. Not a popular move in many people's eyes. According to Headley, this was a significant event because black metal class leaders and representatives of the white power structure stood with the black mayor in opposing a group of black workers. Wasn't a good look for him again popularity-wise. On top of that, Atlanta's formally robust and rapidly growing and improving economy. started to falter in the late 70s, as it did in a lot of places in America.

The city lost over 6,600 jobs between 1972 and 1978. The percentage of the region's workers employed in Atlanta dropped from 55.8% to 43.5% rather than setting up in city limits, insurance companies and foreign capital started to move into the suburbs, and that would lead to a lot of urban blight in Atlanta's downtown. And yeah, a trend seen across America. Mayor Jackson's Poverty Task Force attributed the city. growing unemployment rate to the loss of low and semi-skilled blue-collar jobs to other locations and to mismatch between skills needed for available jobs and skills possessed by those in need

of the jobs. Between 1970 and 1975, the number of firms in the city decreased by 5% from 17,000 down, yeah, 5% below that. The number of total persons employed declined 4%. Blue-collar jobs decreased from 146,000 to 131,000, new manufacturing and web. warehousing operations, also relocating to suburban areas for greater efficiency of land use and cheaper operating costs. What makes sense? Business follows the path of least resistance and easiest profits. Always has, always will. Development of interstate highways reinforced this trend.

The public transportation system did not go outside the city limits, and there was a lack of affordable housing in the suburbs. There was also little vacant land in the city for new industrial development. Approximately 72% of the metropolitan labor force was classified as skilled with 12% of the state. classified as semi-skilled and 16% classified as unskilled. The demand increased for white collar and skilled workers, but half of the city's resident workforce was not classified as highly skilled as those jobs became more and more desirable for employers, thanks in large part, to advances in industrial automation.

When the robots start coming for your job, you got to adapt. If you don't want to get left out in the cold, you're not going to beat them. If a robot can add that bolt on the assembly line better and cheaper, right, faster than you, you got to see the writing on the wall and get proactive. If not, you're going to be home and unemployed and bitching about fucking robots, robots that aren't fucking bitching about you because they don't fucking think, not that way, you know? So what can you do that the robot can't? I talk to my kids about stuff like this, you know, especially right now regarding the rise of AI about how practically speaking, how you feel about the ethics of it all isn't going to matter

if you pick a career path that is replaced by it. You know, do you want to sit at home with no job, bitching about how unfair it all is, because you'll be right. It will be unfair, but you'll still be unemployed. You know, the way of the world so often is unfair. I think it's best to accept that and try to adapt on some level. In September of 1980, the national unemployment rate for black people of all ages reached a record of 16.3% compared with 7.5% for all adults, 6.5% for white adults. For the Atlanta metro area, the 1980 unemployment rate for all groups was 6%. 4.9% of white workers unemployed in 1980, whereas racial minorities had an average unemployment rate of 10.7%.

The problem much worse for black teens. White teens, age of 16 to 19, had an unemployment rate of 11.6%. Black teens had an unemployment rate, you know, largely living in the inner city, of 35.6%. And that's not good. Speaking from personal, former constant criminal, true menace society, juvenile delinquent, being poor and unemployed at that age is a recipe for disaster. I still think sometimes about how I was like an arrest or two away from a very different life when I was 15 or 16 years old.

Within the city limits of Atlanta, the unemployment rate for black teens ages 16 to 19 was 39.8%, 27.9% for young black men ages 20 to 24 compared with rates of 9.6% and 0.1% for white males in those age categories. Damn. by the end of the 70s, the economic gap between black and white Atlantans had increased. Sociologist Gary Orfield, Chicago Tribune reporter, Carol Ash Canazi. They analyzed economic trends in Atlanta from the early 70s to the mid-80s. And according to their report, the concentration of poor families in the central ghetto increased substantially. Between 1970, 1982, a period of enormous population increases from Metro Atlanta, the percent of central city households that were the poor doubled or that were poor.

or doubled. And that fucking sucks, right? All the jobs go away. The rent prices drop. The poorest citizens are pressured economically to, of course, go where the rent is the cheapest, but then also end up living where economic prospects are the lowest, which is a recipe for property crime, crimes of desperation. And when those crimes increase, violent crimes follow.

And also it just leaves a lot of kids, you know, wandering around unsupervised, which makes them fair game to be picked up by some fucking predator. by 1980, about 30 to 40% of Atlanta's population live below the national poverty line. Damn. An article in the Atlanta Constitution Journal references in an editorial to a special series titled Black and Poor in Atlanta.

If you measure Atlanta's prosperity in terms of new office towers that are changing the skyline, then Atlanta is the pace setter in the southeast. If you measure Atlanta's progress by the number of bright professionals and skilled and educated workers who are moving into the city, then Atlanta must be rated. amongst the nation's brightest urban centers. If you measure Atlanta in terms of the beautiful people, fine restaurants, big league sports,

first-rate entertainment, then Atlanta is the it place to be. But if you measure Atlanta in terms of being poor and being black, you will find this is a city of despair. Bernard Headley summarized it as follows. So despite formal black political empowerment in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Atlanta had a distinctly surplus black population. Its memory formed, that sector of the Atlanta order, which to use the apt phraseology of sociologist Stuart Hall

was consigned to a position of wagelessness. The group's continuous disadvantaged position relegated them to permanent subproletariat, the most vulnerable strata in society. Street and domestic crime. Also now a serious problem in Atlanta, and of course it was. At the risk of sounding dramatic,

I don't know about you, but if I can't buy groceries for me and my family, I'm going to try and fucking take those groceries before we starve, right? Or take some money. get some money, however, by any means necessary, right, to feed the family. Illustrating how all of us affected today's subject matter, Atlanta's police force was ill-equipped to face this increase in crime. The police department was facing a major manpower issue.

A bunch of white officers had left in mass after Reginal Eves took over his public safety commissioner, which had reduced the number of active duty officers. And while more officers were soon hired, well, now the department had a bunch of rookies with no experience under their belts. Large group of white officers filed a lawsuit against the city, and Jackson rebuked the federal district court judge for not acting quickly enough. The judge's inaction delayed hiring and promotions within the APBS for several years. In 1978, Jackson replaced Eves with Lee P. Brown for Atlantic Public Safety Commissioner,

a man who would become the first African-American police chief in Houston, Texas, four years later. Eves had resigned amid a scandal involving cheating on police promotion exams. George Napper was appointed police chief, and both Napper and Brown were seen as Loof, and lacking the charisma that it made Reginal Eves so endearing to a lot of Atlanta residents. And so crime increased under their watch. She gets worse. In 1979, Atlanta had the highest murder rate of any of the U.S.'s 40 largest cities. Atlanta's homicide rate was 34.1 per 100,000 people in 1978, 53.3.4% in 1979.

And crime was mostly concentrated, as it often is, in economically depressed areas. desperate times and all that. Many, however, attributed the high crime rate, not to desperation amongst the poor, but to the demoralized state of the Atlanta Bureau of Police Services, who had lost a quarter of its personnel, excuse me, between 1975 and 1979.

So lost a quarter of the force. I would say it's a combination. You know, I don't envy the job of police chiefs and commissioners and low-income areas. Too many simple assignments with Big Mouse out in the world whose fucking P-brains just cannot connect the obvious fucking dots between poverty and crime.

people who do not understand it. If you don't fix the underlying economics, you will never stop the crime that flows from that situation, right? Make all the fucking arrests you want. Often that will just make it worse, because now you're further destabilizing already unstable homes, lowering the chance for any remaining potential providers to provide and increasing the odds that more people are just going to turn to illegal means

to put food on the table and cash in hands, right? You just perpetuating the cycle. Addressing crimes fueled by bad socioeconomics, by only making arrests, is like treating a badly-in-finding. and currently badly bleeding deep wound in desperate need of antibiotics and some serious stitches by just slapping on one fucking band-aid after another. And for a few moments here and there, you know, at least nobody can see the wound, still infected, still bleeding, underneath the band-aids.

On July of 1979, the city held a summit on crime involving political and business leaders, focusing on problems within the police force. After the summit, Mayor Jackson said he would announce a plan to fight crime, and a lot of scared and frustrated people were listening. Many of the parents of children of Atlanta working class or lower income residents amongst them, the parents of children who are increasingly often victims of violent crime, as Headley wrote. At its existential core, the Atlanta tragedy was a story of the world of sad children being forced to grow up much too fast. Children of dreary are from dreary, neglected homes worth escaping, even at odd hours of the night, children from neighborhoods without parks and recreation, children who had to take a bus for long distances, past countless liquor stores and juke joints

to catch a movie, use a swimming pool, or buy a loaf of bread or a carton of milk. The story was about most of the young boys being pushed and sometimes pulled into dubious manhood their yearning to escape a life of poverty and boredom driving them into streets where they had become available. Then on top of all that shit, between 1980, 1990, 1992, Atlanta received national attention

due to a string of mysterious slains and disappearance of Black City youngsters. Between the summer of 1979 and the spring of 1981, 28 boys and young men and two girls were reported missing. 29 bodies will be found in and around the city. Many of the victims came from working class neighborhoods that were primarily black. Many of these young kids disappeared while they were outrunning errands for parents or neighbors. We're trying to make some money.

14 kids ages 7 to 14 went missing between July of 1979 and September of 1980 alone. Then between October of 1980 and May of 1981, 16 more black males reported missing. they're too often mutilated dead bodies found all across the city. They had been strangled, shots, stabbed, or beaten. Other victims' causes of death were undetermined. The killer, if it was just one killer, had left no signature that might reveal his identity, although that would kind of change as it went on. Then in the summer of 1980, a multi-jurisdictional task force would be established to investigate the murders.

Many in Atlanta's black community thought the murders were racially motivated, possibly orchestrated by the KKK. That was the word on the street. some even believed government agencies like the FBI, CIA, or CDC were working with the KKK to commit mass murder for human experimentation. And my first instinct, when I read that, was to dismissively be like, oh, fucking come on.

You can't be serious. But then I remembered shit like Project MK Ultra, the Tuskegee Experiment. And I was like, well, okay, all right, all right, actually fair. I could 100% see our government doing some more nefarious shit. Project MK Ultra

ran until 1973 The Tuskegee Sifilis study did not end until 1972 Both of those previous topics Many members of Atlanta's black mental class Thought it was dangerous to the city's progress To attach racial meanings to the murders, though No need to ratchet up racial tension

That could backfire on them in a variety of ways Meanwhile working class And impoverished black Atlantans Especially the families of the victims Believe black officials were turning a blind eye To the crimes Through grassroots efforts, The victim's families and local leaders

gathered demonstrators to speak out against city officials. What quickly became known as the Atlanta child murders received national media coverage from news outlets like ABC, PBS, and CBS. And in 1979, when the child murders first began, there were two other high-profile murders in the city that received major news coverage. On June 28, 1979, 39, 35-year-old Dr. Mark Tettelman, a research physician from Cleveland, Ohio,

was fatally shot by armed robbers near Atlanta Civic Center. He was in the city attending a convention on nuclear medicine walking back from dinner with his wife and three others. Two men approached the group. One pulled out a pistol, demanded their wallets. Tettleman refused and got shot in the chest. One other person in the party also shot in the chest and the right arm and hand, but survived. Tettelman would die an hour later at the hospital.

Damn, man. Clearly he was a smart guy, right? Book-wise, academic-wise. But street smarts, come on, man, give him the fucking money. When somebody has pulled a gun on you out on the street and they're asking for your wallet, give it to them. Way easier to get more money. Get your fucking IDs and shit and credit cards back later than it is to, you know, try and plug up some fucking badly bleeding bullet holes.

Don't be too proud to know when to take the loss, live another day, saying the shit to myself as well as anybody else because I have a temper. And previously, I've not always handled public confrontations well. I'm very lucky to have not suffered really bad consequences for being too proud moments. The Atlanta Chamber of Commerce offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the guilty parties, white elites in Atlanta blamed Mayor Jackson for the crime problems in the city. Dude was a mayor, not a miracle worker, though. Four months later, on October 17, 1979, Patricia Barry on her way to her birthday lunch, shot and killed in front of a crowd in Margaret Mitchell Square.

Gunman then shot himself in the head. Man. Patricia worked as a legal secretary at a prestigious law firm in Atlanta. Her killer was 32-year-old Raymond Bunting, a man from New Jersey who was believed to have had a history of mental illness. So not necessarily a crime for poverty this time. crime and mental illness. Scarier because you can't fucking reason with somebody

who's living in an alternate reality. Sometimes you just run into the wrong fucking person on the wrong day and there's sadly not a lot you can do. Once again, white residents of Atlanta were outraged, concerned about crime. They wanted law enforcement to do something about it. According to Headley, quote, in the dramatically publicized,

Tettlement and Barry murders, white Atlanta had suddenly caught a glimpse of the horror that was an everyday reality inside Atlanta's black, or poor black and forgotten neighborhoods, where life was and still is nasty, brutish and short. In between these two high-profile murders, two black teenage boys also killed in Atlanta.

In July 79, their bodies found 150 feet apart in a wooden section of a mostly black neighborhood. And Headley wrote, for these victims, there were no outraged press conferences, no ferocious columnists demanding the city do something, even if it meant bringing out the National Guard. Their deaths barely made it onto the back pages of the metro section

of one of Atlanta's two major newspapers. Although the first two victims never made front page news, their murders did mark the start of a case that would consume the city for the next two years. And with that, let us now begin our timeline of the Atlantic child murders. Right after today's first of two, Mitcho sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads again, please sign up to be a space lizard on Patreon. Help us make monthly charitable contributions.

Get the catalog ad-free episodes three days early and more. Now, how about that timeline? Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-suck timeline. The investigation began on July 28, 1978, with the discovery of the bodies of 14-year-old Edward Hope Smith and 13-year-old Alfred James Evans. Shit, man, all these years in.

And I'm glad it's still shocks and saddens the fuck out of me to hear about kids being killed. Right? I've been a little sad and extra emotional lately just because my kids are in college and don't live at home anymore. You know, they're doing fucking great, though. And I'm still bummed a moment just because I miss seeing their faces around the houses often. But getting the news that your child is dead and they've been murdered.

Cannot imagine how big of a hole that would cut out of your heart and how fresh that wound would always be. I imagine it would just never stop bleeding. That afternoon, an elderly woman was looking for cans in a wooded lot off a Nisky Lake Road in the middle class, primarily black neighborhood, or in a, middle class, primarily black neighborhood in southwest Atlanta. and instead of can, she found the partially closed body of a black child line halfway buried under some brush. Officers would then find the second body just 150 feet away. A month later, the first body would be identified as Edward Smith, who had been missing for a week. Edward had died of a gunshot wound to the upper back from a small caliber pistol.

Upper back, unusual placement for a fatal wound. I wonder if it severed a major artery or vein. After almost a year of dispute, the second body identified as Alfred Evans. Alfred's cause of death was probable asphyxia. resulting from probable strangulation. At the time, the murders received a routine investigation, including examination, photographs of the crime scene, an autopsy, and then the bodies were returned to the families.

The deaths mostly ignored, unknown by the public and mainstream press, as these kind of deaths often are when you have a city with a lot of murders. Over 310 murders have already occurred in Chicago so far this year. How many of those victims' names do you know? It's sad. However, the Blackout newspaper Atlanta Voice did. did feature, as I mentioned in the cold open, these murders in a front page story, writer Harvey Gates wrote, nothing excites us anymore.

Right, I know I'm reading this again, but it's nice to have a reminder here. There is something about the death of these two black boys. Who are these boys? We don't know where they come from. We don't know why they were there. How did they get there? Why were they killed? We do not know the answers to any of these questions.

The overriding question is, why don't we know any of these answers? And the answer to this question is that somebody somewhere is not talking. Edward and Alfred would soon become the first and second victims to appear on a city task force's list of missing and murdered children. According to author Bernard Headley, Edward Smith and Alfred Evans came from two of Atlanta's most disadvantaged communities. They also grew up in less than intact families. They probably did hang out with the wrong crowd, and despite their tender ages, they were uniquely experienced in the ways of the street. Eventually investigators learned that on the evening of July 20th, 1979, Edward Smith had walked into the Greenbriar Skating rink in southwest Atlanta from his home in the Kimberly Court Housing Project, which was

three miles away. My God, kid was walking three miles one way, so then probably go skate for another 10 miles. Hearing that shit makes me feel super old. If I'm walking three miles somewhere, it's because something's gone wrong. It's not, and it's not to do more physical activity, right? I'm looking for a place to rest and recover. Maybe think about how do you get some new shoes for treks like that. Edward came to the skating rink

Almost every weekend He left the rink with a girlfriend About 1230 a.m. on July 21st They separated the corner of Camelton and Fairburn Roads. Edward told his girlfriend, he was going home Then disappeared at some point along the way home. Skating rink owner Eddie Eugene

Later told investigators that Edward was last seen wearing a black football jersey with red numbers. Football was his favorite sport He wanted to try out for his school's team when he started the ninth grade in the fall. The young man clearly had the stamina for competitive sports when his body was found, his jersey was missing,

as well as his socks and leather sun visor. Alfred Evans, the other victim, lived in the East Lake Meadows Housing Project on the other side of the town from Edward Smith. Another athlete in great shape played for a school basketball team and boxed at the Warren Memorial Boys Club. Also enjoyed watching wrestling events

at the downtown municipal auditorium. On July 25th, 1979, Alfred left home with $3 to go see a martial arts movie, his favorite genre of film. Fuck yeah. told his mom Lois he was going to Carinette Theater

on Peachtree Street downtown. And when he did not come home next morning, Lois called the DeKalb County Police. She was instructed to call the Atlanta police instead. Tried to call the city's missing persons unit,

but the unit was closed. Would not be open until Monday. Man, I would lose my fucking mind in that situation. That's crazy to only process missing people requests on certain business hours. Imagine if the rest of

the police department operated that way. Right? Somebody's broken into your house on a Friday night. You barricaded yourself in your bedroom. They're armed. They've threatened sexual violence.

You call the police. Somebody answers. And then they're like, uh, okay, so he's broken in, he's pounding on the door and is threatening to rape you. Is that correct?

Okay, you're gonna have to call back on Monday at 9 a.m. when the sexual violence unit is back in from the weekend. The fuck. Uh, the entire weekend would pass before the investigation into his disappearance would begin.

Uh, investigators looked into a young man who knew Alfred. admitted to giving him a bus ride on a Glenwood Avenue, or a ride, excuse me, to a bus stop on Glenwood Avenue, the day he went missing. Alfred's mother told police he would have caught one of the two metropolitan Atlanta rapid transit authority, Marta, buses, that passed along Glenwood Avenue, which would have dropped him off downtown.

The year that Alfred disappeared, drug trafficking was a serious problem in the East Lake Meadows complex, and Alfred did have numerous relatives involved in the drug trade. Relatives he did sometimes assist as a runner. So initially, officials thought Alfred probably died of a drug overdose, that maybe he got dumped in the woods by a guy who gave him a ride the day he left home, you know, somebody who panicked. You know, easy to see how they could come to that assumption based on what they knew. However, Alfred's teacher, Rosalind Williams, adamantly told investigators that even though Alfred, you know, might have tried drugs, he was far too bright and athletic to have used heavily. Another theory was that both Edward and Alfred attended what officers referred to as a, quote, pot party free for all.

Oh, one of those pot party free for alls. Everyone knows how closely connected to violence. The devil's lettuce is. Well, those two kids, they clearly died thanks to some reefer madness. These high school boys and girls are having a hop at the local soda fountain. Oh, God. Innocently, they dance. Innocent of a new and deadly menace lurking behind closed doors.

What? Marijuana. No. Burning weed with its roots in hell. Oh, my God. It's turning into a pot party free-for-all. In this film, you will see the ease with which this vicious plan can be grown in your neighbor's yard. Oh.

...told into harmless-looking cigarettes. No. Hidden in an innocent shoe or watch case. If you want a good smoke, try one of the deep. You will meet Bill. Bill. Bill. Who wants to pride in his strong will as he takes the first step toward enslavement.

Smoking the soul-destroying Reaper, they find a moment's pleasure. Oh. But at a time. terrible price. No. Corsely. Violence. Murder.

Oh, God. Suicide. Holy shit. And the ultimate end of the marijuana addict. Pletbantir. Hopeless insanity. Fucking weed. It goes straight to fucking murder, suicide, and hopeless insanity.

Watch out for those pot party free for all kids. Be sure and, uh, you know, uh, just, uh, stick with beer. Stick with the beer being peddled. on Super Bowl commercials because nothing bad has ever come from alcohol. Weed, terrible. Alcohol, oh, golden.

No one's ever fucking been hurt or, you know, negatively affected by alcohol. To be fair, Edward did have friends involved in drugs and associated with boys who had criminal records, also had friends in, and that was, by the way, yeah, just the trailer for Reefer Madness.

That'll propaganda film. He also had friends on County Line Road where the alleged pot party free-for-all took place. This theory fell apart when an anonymous caller failed to show up for a scheduled meeting with an Atlanta detective. The caller claimed she was at a pot party where one boy was shot and another was strangled.

But investigators couldn't find anybody else who knew about this pot party free for all. Six weeks later, another Atlanta child would vanish. On September 4, 1979, 14-year-old Milton Harvey went missing on what was supposed to be his first day of school that fall. Milton had only been eight years old when his mom, Patricia, and stepdad Roy Ellis, had moved out of the Layla Valley Housing Project in southeast Atlanta, 19, 73. Family moved into a home on Nash Row with a swimming pool in the backyard. Fuck yeah. man when I was a kid I thought only millionaires had swimming pools in the yard

I mean we did have a swimming pool for summer too in our yard next to our double wide but my mom had bought it at Kmart and you could move it around and fill it up with a garden hose because it was above ground not quite the same

you couldn't lean on the walls because it would fucking completely collapse and flood part of the yard Milton enjoyed shooting pool playing basketball at a park to make money he did odd jobs such as mowing his neighbor's lawns painting babysitting his older sister's kids

he was a great young man A night before he went missing, Milton's mom bought him a pair of sneakers. He did not like and he had asked her to stay home until he could, until she rather, could get him the right shoes the next evening. Very much 14 year old kid behavior. Mom! I can't go inside of these shoes! Are you fucking kidding me?

I'm social suicide! If any kid from school sees me wearing these shoes, I will be an outcast forever. Why are you trying to ruin my life? Reminds me of a friend telling me just the other night that his kid who's around this age told another kid on the baseball team that something was sick like oh sick bro

and I guess that kid just like stopped and this kid that stopped was like super popular it's a very cool kid and was like what no one says sick anymore dude why did you say that and then my friend's kid

just felt like a complete fool and was just like so upset just thought his life was over at school he was so mad at his dad for saying sick around the house dad stop saying sick you sound like such an uncunk you're making me uncool

mom agreed to get him the right cool shoes good job mom asked Milton to go pay her master card bill the following day then since he wouldn't be at school. Roy Ellis recalled that Milton took $100 check from his mom to go pay the bill. He borrowed a bike from a friend. This man's so fucking sad. He has to borrow a bike to go help his mom pay a bill.

He goes to Citizens in Southern Bank about three miles away from home on Old Gordon Road, just off the Fulton Industrial Boulevard. Bank records show that Milton did in fact pay the bill, and then investigators don't know what happened to him after he dropped off that check. A week after he goes missing, neighbor finds the borrowed bike beside a pine tree just off a Sandy Creek road

this dirt road running off a Fulton Industrial Boulevard between the bank and Milton's house. An employee who worked at a drilling company across the road recalled seeing two boys just north of the road around lunchtime

the day Milton disappeared. They were pushing a bike on Fulton Industrial Boulevard. Over two months later, November 16th, 1979, a man picking up cans found Milton's skeletal remains just off a red wine road

in East Point, a suburb south of Atlanta near the airport 12 miles from Milton's home. Man, good thing a lot of people were picking cans up back then. Otherwise, how long it would have taken to find these first bodies? East Point authorities initially doubted Milton was murdered because there were no visible

marks on his bones to indicate foul play. When Atlanta authorities were brought in, they suspected asphyxia as the probable cause of death and believe the killer might have been a painter since flexed paint found on Milton's clothes, but then that theory thrown out when investigators learned Milton had stopped briefly over at a friend's house to help

them paint. Again, just good kid. Milton's knee-length socks, sneakers would never be found. Ultimately, police could not conclusively determine his cause of death. On October 21st, 1979, Yule Birdsong, asked her nine-year-old neighbor, Yusuf Bell, to go buy her a box of snuff. Yes, she asked her nine-year-old neighbor to buy her some snuff. It was a very different time. Pretty sure if I did that now, the cops would be called. Come on, Duke, quit being such a bitch about it. Go get Uncle Dan some snuff or if they're out just grab me some smokes Marlboro Reds. Don't open it. I'll know if one's missing. Uh, Yusuf, his two sisters and his brother lived with their mother Camille Bell in the McDaniel Glen Housing Project described as a stretch of dilapidated

buildings situated in the shambles of the Mechanicsville neighborhood. Sounds fucking bleak and it was. It would later be demolished in 2006. Despite the bleak circumstances, Yusuf enrolled in the gifted students program at his elementary school. Then at the Warren Memorial Boys Club where Alfred Evans also at attended before he was murdered, there's going to be so many connections between victims. Yusuf impressed people with his recitation of Martin Luther King Jr.'s, I have a dream speech. I just did it from memory. According to author Bernard Headley, Yusuf was a quick-witted child who seemed destined to climb from his depressing surroundings on brain power alone.

Folks in the neighborhood treated the fifth grader like a walking electronic calculator, an encyclopedia wrapped up in one. At this time in history was not unusual for a neighbor like Yulea Birdsong to ask a kid to run an errand, even if that errand wasn't. a kid under 10 buying snuff. Just seen as a way for kids to earn some pocket change. Yusuf bought the snuff at Reese Grocery on McDaniel Street. Fucking crazy that people were just selling nine-year-old snuff, such a different world, then went missing afterwards. An employee recalled him leaving the store at 4.45 p.m.

A different neighbor reported seeing Yusuf get into a blue car on Fulton Street, with whom she believed was his mother's estranged husband. But after interviewing Camille Bell's husband and his female friend, police did not give credit to that sighting. Yusuf disappearance, big news in the Mechanicville community. Camille urged the abductor to not be afraid to send Yusuf home and told the media, quote, the police may be interested in finding out who took him, but from my point of view, I just want my son back, even if it's tomorrow, even if it's next week, dress him up differently, put him out by a phone booth, and that poor woman.

Also, I do understand the gist of what she was saying there. But also her saying, even if it's next week, I can see people could fucking take that the wrong way. She wanted him back, but also not in the biggest hurry to get him back. Just bring him back now. Or tomorrow. Actually, you know what? Better yet? A couple months.

You know, maybe a couple years. He's a little bit older. He can look after himself a little better. November 8th, 1979, 18 days after Yusuf was last seen. A janitor looking for a place to take a piss, found his body hidden in a crawl space at an abandoned school not far from Yusuf's home. Fucking nine years old again. Such a little dude.

Also, how the fuck did somebody looking for a place to piss, lead them to stumbling upon a hidden crawl space that had an abandoned school. The fuck is going on with that janitor. I don't know more about it so we'll have to move past it but that seems pretty weird

to me. What were you doing inside that crawl space? I was just crawling around looking for a place to pee for a place to pee. I like to pee crawling in dirt.

Yusuf was only wearing the cutoff shorts he had on the day he disappeared. He'd been strangled to death. He had bruises and fingernail punctures on his throat. God damn it.

Consisted with manual strangulation. Investigators believed he was killed elsewhere, carried into the abandoned building because the floors of the building were dirty, but the bottom of his feet were clean. On the seat of his shorts was a small piece of masking tape, and on that tape were some fibers,

including a green carpet fiber that will become a critical piece of evidence later in this case. We will talk a lot about fibers over these two episodes. Black Atlanta residents, shocked by the news of Yusuf's death, as he should have been, as everybody should have been. He's again a nine-year-old kid. The church that hosted his funeral, overflowing with visitors.

Reverend Timothy McDonald said in his sermon, Yusuf's death bespeaks the violent nature of our society. Taking the life of a child is inexcusable. Yusuf's potential to liberate his people was blighted out. Mayor Maynor Jackson sent a telegram to the Bell family expressing his and the city council's sincerest condolences back when people sent telegrams, assuring Camille Bell that the Atlanta Department of Public Safety would do everything within its power to expeditiously resolve this tragedy. After the funeral, Yusuf's mother, Camille Bell, pushed for an investigation of all four unsolved murders. She partnered with Grace Davis, head of Atlanta women against crime, to insist that police

should treat the four murders as special cases, not isolated murders. They complained that Mayor Jackson and the police were not concerned about the killings and that Jackson cared more about the convention dollars than he did about black children's lives. Commissioner of Public Safety, Lee Brown had also said he saw nothing out of the ordinary with the child murders. That's not the greatest quote. Nothing out of the ordinary about some kids showing up dead. That's fine. That's just routine. that just happens. It's just the cost of life. Sometimes kids get strangled. Not all law enforcement officials felt this way. The officer in charge of missing persons asked for more investigators to be assigned after the Milton Harvey disappearance, but she was ordered to hold off because the Atlanta Bureau of Police Services was understaffed. Camille Bell, Grace Davis, and other women in the community continue to be outspoken about their dissatisfaction with the police and the investigation.

Word of their increasing supporters reached Mayor Jackson, and he instructed Lee Brown to, look into the matter in the spring of 1980. The APBS, the Atlanta Bureau of Police Services, a name later changed with the APD, Atlanta Police Department, also under fire for the increase of crime in the downtown business district and for the, quote, bad press Atlanta was receiving.

There was a lot of pressure on city officials to do something about the city's overall crime problem, not just these murders. No additional juvenile deaths linked to the Atlanta child murders occurred between November of 1979 and March 1, 1980. Or at least, no new bodies were found. During that time,

and the police were not able to establish a common denominator similarity pattern or trend amongst the first four murders. And then later that month, a fifth child will go missing. 12-year-old Angel and Air. The first female victim went missing March 4, 1980. In early 1980, Venus Taylor and her daughter, Angel had moved from Chicago to Atlanta. And on March 4th, Tuesday, Angel first did her English homework, then left her apartment to visit a friend. But never made it there. Venus told investigators that Angel had steady habits,

basically that she did not deviate from her routines. Yet another great kid, she always did her homework, and when she got home from school, them would go out to play. Her mom immediately knew something was wrong because Angel was not home to watch Samford and Son, a show she never missed. Oh, man, anybody else watched that show as a kid?

Man, that show was great, and they killed that theme song. So good. The Golden Age of sitcom team songs. And poor Lamont, always getting shit from his cranky-ass dad, Fred. Six days later, March 10th, Angel's body found in a vacant wooded lot along Camelton Road. Angel was wearing the clothes. She was last seen in, but a second pair of underwear, which Venus said was unlikely, or was unlike, excuse me, any pair that Angel owned had been stuffed in her mouth.

Angel's hands had been bound with an electrical cord, which investigators believed was the same cord that would have been used to strangle her. investigators initially thought she had been sexually assaulted but later determined she had not been, which is strange, right? The second pair of underwear seemed to clearly reveal a sexual element of the crime, but no evidence of assault, not of her in this regard, or with any of the other victims I've mentioned. Police identified an acquaintance of her mother, Venus Taylor, who was allegedly involved in drugs as a suspect, which led to speculation that Venus was somehow involved with drug traffickers and investigators wondered if somebody had gotten to her daughter to send a message to her. The police eventually cleared all the likely suspects and ran out of legal. leads and another case went cold.

Exactly a week later, March 11th, 1980, 11-year-old Jeffrey Lamar Mathis disappeared while outrun an errands for his mother. Jeffrey was said to be a conscientious, dependable kid, youngest of four sons and two daughters born to Willie May Mathis, right? Another helpful good kid.

On the evening he disappeared, Willie May had asked her older son, 14-year-old Frederick to go to Gordon Street, buy her a roll of toilet paper, get her a money order, and some smokes. For fuck sake, She had just buying snuff and smokes from the store just casually. She had yelled out her final item request as Frederick was running out the front door.

Then when Frederick returned without those cigarettes, Willie May asked him to go back, but Frederick couldn't because he had to go to choir practice. And the church bus was waiting in front of the house. Sorry, Mom, have to grab your smokes later. Gotta go to church now. Willie May asked Jeffrey to go out instead. Jeffrey had been watching TV with his sister at the time. Then he left the house at 7 p.m. with a dollar from his mom.

Also crazy you could buy a pack of smokes for a dollar or less. Jeffrey most likely began walking north on East Ontario Avenue right outside his front door. His home sat 100 yards south of the intersection at East Ontario and Gordon Street. Jeffrey would have passed about six houses in a vacant lot before reaching the intersection. He would have then walked past several more businesses, made a left, then cut across the street to reach Star Service Station, which sold the cheapest cigarettes near his house. And also to kids. That's where you went.

If you were fucking a kid and wanted chief smokes, you went to the Star Service Station. When 7.30 p.m. arrived Willie May wondered what was taking her son so long to run a simple errand. By 8.30, she's starting to worry. She then sent her son Frederick, now back home from choir, and her two older boys, Stanley and Reginal, out to look for Jeffrey. As the night wore on, a police officer on patrol drove past Willie May, and she stopped him to tell him that her child was missing. The officer promised to keep an eye out for Jeffrey, advised Willie May that if her son did not turn up by the morning, she should call to police and report him is missing. Willie May reported Jeffrey missing early the next morning. An officer would come to the house

but she got the impression that a missing kid was just not a high priority. Back then, many police officers did assume that missing kids were runaways who would soon turn up. And to be fair, and I feel like a lot of true crime podcasts just do not like to report stuff like this. The vast majority of kids reported missing are, in fact, statistically runaways by a huge margin. It's very, very common. Data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, NCMEC, shows that roughly 90% or more of the missing kids missing kid cases they assist with involve runaways.

Less than one percent are actually abductions or murders. So, you know, if you're an officer in the last 99 parents you have spoken to about a missing kid, you know, it turned out that that kid just ran away and would later return home. You're also going to be a little jaded when you're talking to the 100th

parent, right, or the 100th set of parents. Unfortunately, Jeffrey, uh, amongst the less than 1%. Jeffrey worked odd jobs around the neighborhood, was known for having a tough streak, fighting with classmates occasionally, but he could also be reliable and cautious. Basically, he was thought to have been pretty street smart. Jeffrey's family continued to search for him in their neighborhood.

For a while, they thought that a local barber named W.A. Williams, who shopped was on Gordon's Street and was a hangout spot for Jeffrey. Was the last one to see him. Williams recalled that Jeffrey knocked twice on his window, March 11th, which was their signal that Jeffrey was heading to the store and wanted to know if he needed anything. William shook his head, no, and Jeffrey continued to walk. Again, good kid. Eventually summer arrived Jeffrey still had not been found His family had been forced to live with a devastating new reality That you know they had to continue to go to school

Go to work while their loved one was missing while they of course feared the worst Willie May kept Jeffrey's clothes folded on his drawer for him Every time the phone rang She of course hoped it was news about her son or her son directly Then months after he disappeared a girl reported Seeing him get into a blue car the day he disappeared with two men One of them black the other white or light-skinned black man but that tip would go nowhere.

Then, 14-year-old Eric Middlebrooks murdered the night of May 18, 1980. Seventh kid we have talked about, and it's only been 10 months. Eric had had a more unstable childhood than the previous victims we've discussed. His mom had given up custody of him when he was four months old. He had not seen her again until he was five. Never knew his father. His mom's family and friends would collectively raise him. In the spring of 1980, young Eric had just moved into an apartment on Howell Street in southeast Atlanta

was living with the male guardian. Around 10 p.m. the night of May 18th, he answered the phone at home, then hurriedly left the apartment complex on his bike, carrying a hammer and several tools with him. It seemed like somebody had called and asked him to meet somewhere and fix something. About 7.30 the following morning,

Eric's dead body was found laying next to his bike behind the Hope You Like It Bar on southeast Flat Shoals Avenue, a few blocks from his home on the opposite side of the interstate. Eric's pockets had been turned inside out and emptied. He most likely only had a couple dollars on his person when he died. There were a clump of red fibers in a rip in his tennis shoes,

which were collected as evidence and will become important later. Again, these fibers. Eric had two slight stab wounds to his chest and upper arms, but the Fulton County Medical Examiner ruled that he had died of a brain injury due to a blunt instrument. Eric was beaten to death and would initially seem like a robbery gone wrong. Unlike the other victims, he was found within 12 hours, last seen alive, about eight hours before he was killed. There was a possible motive in this case. A few weeks before he was killed, he had testified against three years.

kids in a robbery case. Due to some minor bloodstains on his body, investigators concluded he was not killed behind the bar where he was found and police questioned the juveniles whom Eric had testified against, but their alibis checked out. Eric's guardian, Robert Miller suspected he was killed by somebody involved in the robbery or somebody who knew him

but he had no evidence to support that belief, just his gut instinct. Eric's murder remained unsolved and his death was not initially thought to be related to the Atlanta child murders. Twelve-year-old, Christopher Felipe Richardson would go missing less and a month later, June 9th, 1980.

Christopher lived with his mom, Serena, Serena Cobb, and his grandparents in a house off Memorial Drive in Decatur, Georgia, east of Atlanta, into Cobb County. Christopher was described as a quiet stay-at-home kid, an average student who didn't get into trouble. On the afternoon of June 9th, Christopher was walking one and a half miles

to the Midway Recreation Center to go swimming, argued with his mother about whether he could wear his new shirt to the pool. She said no. Gave him the 50 cents he would need to get in. Christopher would leave the rec center in short since he did not own swim trunks, and he was last seen outside the Crystal Hamburger's restaurant on Memorial Drive. Later that same month, still less than a year from when the Atlanta child murders began,

a second girl went missing in Atlanta. Man, six-year-old, six-year-old Latanya Wilson, was reported missing June 22nd, 1980, the day before her seventh birthday. Just a fucking baby. Her parents believe she had been abducted from their apartment in the Dixie Hills Housing Project. Latanya's mother, Ella, went to her bedroom at 6.30 a.m. to check on her and her eight-year-old sister, but Latanya, not there in her brother's room next door to a pane of glass. Next door, excuse me, a pane of glass was missing from one window, and the window next to it was open. The back door was also open, and the missing pane of glass was found in a dumpster some 20 feet away. Investigator's reasoned that the kidnapper removed the glass, opened the other window, and crawled in, then abducted Latania and escaped through the back door. However, he would have to crawl. or he would have had to have crawl over one of her brothers, walk past her parents' room,

and take Latania without waking anybody else up, which seems, you know, pretty unlikely. But neighbor Gladys Durdin claimed she saw two black men near the Wilson apartment about 4 a.m., and later saw one of them carrying Latania out of the apartment under his arm. So maybe he did sneak in. Also, how fucking mad are you at your neighbor Gladys? If you are Latania's parents?

Uh, you saw some dude walk off with my baby at 4 a.m. And didn't think to, oh, I don't fucking know. Say something to them. or call me or call the police Gladys? Latania's parents led neighbors on search of the neighborhood, but they found nothing. Now nine children had gone missing since July of the previous year. Six have been found dead. More and more residents believed the victims were part of a pattern and that the cases were related.

The word serial killer starting to get tossed around regularly. And before we learned what some families of the victims did in response to thinking this was all the work of an active serial killer, time for today's second to two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors. Hope you heard some deals that you liked. And now let's check in with the families of some of the victims to find out what they did to try and help catch their children's killer. The families took the Atlanta police's ineffectiveness and indifference

as signs they themselves would have to come together and put pressure on authorities. Camille Bell, Venus Taylor and Willie May Mathis, three mothers of murdered or missing children, and Baptist minister Reverend Earl Carroll all met one evening in June of 1980 towards this end at Pascals Restaurant, which was a hot spot at the time near the Atlanta University Center.

They planned to take action against the city administration and they made plans to establish an organization that would dedicate itself to the missing and murdered children and they named it the committee to stop children's murders. They just called it Stop for short. Only one reporter for the Atlanta Voice took note of this meeting and urged parents and concerned citizens to support stop.

After the abduction of Latanya Wilson, local authorities asked the FBI to look into her case, but their involvement would initially be only purely procedural. On June 26, the Atlanta office of the FBI sent a routine teletype to their headquarters in D.C. The abduction of Latanya Wilson was the first case of the FBI investigation that would become known as Atkid, a massive 19 volume log. On June 24th, 1980, a seventh child's body was found. The victim was 10-year-old Aaron Witch, a child we have not met yet, whose dead body was found only a day after he was last seen at Tanner's Grocery on McDonough Boulevard in southeast Atlanta. Aaron's body was found face down, but he had a highway overpass on a railroad track near Constitution Road and Moreland Avenue in DeKalb County.

His death would be treated as an accident for months due to the location and circumstances. Authorities assumed he'd fallen from the overpass while walking or run along its edge. However, the overpass was shielded on both sides By two feet concrete abutments with guardrails Which eliminated the likelihood Of somebody accidentally falling from it However, a lot of kids love to climb around dangerous places My son Kyler, man, when he was that age

He for sure did that shit Kind of like there from the age of about Fucking 3 till 18 And kind of still now His main hobby is rock climbing I think he took off several years of my life Constantly walking or climbing around places Where just one slip

And he has badly injured are dead. I was constantly like, hey dude, uh, no, uh, nope, no, we're done with that. No, I don't care. Get down. Now, right now. Do not do that again. Don't care. I could have for sure, have seen him walking along the edge of an overpass like that and just not thinking about the risk of consequences. Uh, and DeKalb County Public Safety Director, Dick Hand would point out that Aaron's body showed no signs that somebody had tried to strangle or smother him. Not laughing about the strangling part. I have to stop and you know goddamn what. Dick Hand. I had to look this motherfucker up to make sure that was his name. Oh yeah. Actually, it gets better. Dude's legal name was Francis Hand, Jr. And he chose to either keep going by his childhood nickname of Dick or, you know, accepted that as an adult. Frank. Frank is what he should have went. Frank is what you normally shorten Francis to, but not this dude. Fucking Dick Hand and Dick Hand Jr. Unreal. Dick Hand.

and his co-worker, the medical examiner, Pussybutt, concluded that Aaron was alive when he fell under the railroad. They attributed his cause of death to positional asphyxiation from injuries to the back of his neck. Tree leaves in his hand supported the theory that Aaron was alive when he fell and that neck injuries prevented him from lifting his head to breathe. And the medical examiner, of course, was not named Pussy But, but maybe somebody is. His name is Joseph Burton. Aaron's mother and grandmother did not believe his death was an accident.

They noted that Aaron was afraid of heights, and there was no way he would have been climbing on the guardrails. Dick Hand would later conclude that Aaron may have been attempting to get away from a captor, ran away, climbed the bridge and fell. Lesson two weeks later, another child's body was found, the 11th victim in less than a year.

In the early morning hours of July 6th, 1989-year-old Anthony Carter disappeared while playing hide-and-seek with the cousin. Anthony had been celebrating the end of the 4th of July weekend with his family the next day. His body was found behind a neighborhood warehouse, about a half mile from his home. He'd been stabbed at least four times

with a two-inch pocket knife in the chest and stomach. Anthony's mother Vera told reporters that months after his death, the FBI considered her the prime suspect. Uh, what? Did she stab somebody before? Doesn't seem she did. Uh, it wasn't until, uh, this time that most Atlanta investigators felt that the number of child murders was unusually high. Wow, man, a lot of kids being murdered back in Atlanta those days. Uh, 11 kids, a little over 11 months. Not's about right. That sounds good. That's normal. And actually, they weren't wrong in thinking that historical data showed that 10 kids were murdered in Atlanta in 75,

another 9 in 1976 and another 10 in 1978. Fuck. So eight unsolved murders between July of 1979 and July of 1980, plus two more disappearances and another death deemed accidental did not seem out of the ordinary. And investigators felt there was no need to treat the cases with special consideration. However, the mothers of stop pushed for a coordinated investigation into these murders. Author Bernard Headley noted that if the Atlanta police had looked at case reports,

they would have seen that from 1975 to 1978, only two kids in total have been killed via strangulation. But in the past years cases, two kids had already died in that manner. And that was atypical. Residents were growing further impatient with how Atlanta police were handling the murders, and they accused the police of treating poor black Atlantans with contempt. All these victims listed as African-American. If I hadn't already mentioned that, I think I did.

But yeah, all these victims will be. The mothers have stopped. Next, set up at a local mall and established a 24-hour phone hotline. They created safety rules for kids that were shared in parenting and instructional settings. The Mothers of Stop also recruited former Atlanta police officers and a private security specialist who had been saying publicly that the child murders were unusual. Worth noting that all these law enforcement officers were white. These private investigators were originally hired by Stop co-founder Willie May Mathis to find her son, Jeffrey. Unfortunately, they did not discover anything particularly helpful to the investigation, but their work would provide ammo that critics would use against the Atlanta police.

on July 17, 1980. Almost a year to the day after the killings began, Commissioner Lee Brown held a press conference to announce he was forming a special task force to investigate the child murders. Task force was given a list of 10 cases of missing and murdered children. Edward Smith, Alfred Evans, Milton Harvey,

Yusuf Bell, Angel Laner, Eric Middlebrooks, and Anthony Carter. Task force planned to look into the disappearances of Jeffrey Mathis, Christopher Richardson, and Latanya Wilson. Aaron, which is name would be added to the list later. The kid still believed to have fallen. I paused there because that's doing quick math.

Make sure that's correct. The kid still believed to have fallen from an overpass as opposed to having had his body dumped over one. The popular Georgia governor, George Busby, no scandals, no rhetoric dude, who just quietly did a job, was the first Georgia governor to be elected and served two consecutive four-year terms.

Offered a thousand dollar reward per case for info leading to separate indictments. Brown also did not say that the cases were connected, only that the task force was going to look into a set of unsolved murders. The community supported the task force, Although Willie May Math has commented, it took another death to get them to do what they should have done four kids ago. Camille Bell commented at one neighborhood meeting. It takes a little bit more to get people on the Atlanta city government concerned about a child out of the ghetto.

So clearly the perception was that if these kids had been white, the matter would have been taken more seriously. Just two weeks after the task force formed, another kid goes missing. Ten-year-old Earl Lee Terrell went missing July 30th, 1980. Now it's been a dozen kids, a dozen since July of the pretext. previous year. Earl lived on Brown Mill Road in Southwest Atlanta, or Brown's Mill Road, in southwest Atlanta, poor little dude still in the third grade, two years behind his peers in school. It was said that Earl was not quiet nor shy, did not always stay close to home. Earl's brother Anthony later told the New York Times that Earl was his protector. He taught me how to do

everything. We walked to school together. He wanted to be a firefighter. And every time he saw a fire truck, he would run outside. He was a fighter, which is why I don't understand how anybody could have snatched him. On July 30th, Earl had gone to the South Bend Park swimming pool with his siblings. There, he had another kid, started wrestling on the pool deck. Lifeguard broke him up. Lifeguard then kicked him out of the pool when they started to wrestle again. One of Earl's sisters told him to wait for her on a bench outside the pool. He sat there for a little while, but then left on his own. A woman had seen a poor little Earl after 3.30 p.m. crying on the corner near Jonesboro Road, right? Another woman thought she saw Earl buying a freeze pop in a grocery store a block from

his house. The private investigators working for stop discovered that Earl stopped at a friend's house that afternoon, but then moved on when his friend wasn't home. When Earl's family realized he had gone missing, they searched the neighborhood and were about to call the police when his aunt Vicky, who lived next door to Earl's mom, received a strange phone call. According to Vicky, the caller was, quote, a man who sounded like a middle-aged white man with a southern drawl. She quoted the caller as saying, I've got Earl. A few minutes later, the phone rang again, right? He hung up after he said that. Man said, I've got Earl. He's in Alabama.

It'll cost you $200 to get him back on Friday. Vicki and Earl's mom, Beverly, took that to mean that the man would call back on Friday. Beverly reported Earl missing at 2 a.m. Thursday, about 12 hours after he disappeared. She told the police about the ransom demand, and the police put a wiretap on Vicki's phone, but a follow-up call never came.

Might have been a fucking crank caller, which is a fucked-up, fucked-up thing to do in that situation. You're a heartless motherfucker if you're crank-calling somebody whose kid has gone missing. This was a second missing child case shown evidence of a possible kidnapping. The first had been, of course,

little Latanya Wilson, believed to have been abducted from her home, June 22nd. The girl who a neighbor thought thought she saw get carried away, fucking Gladys, acting on a direct request

from local authorities and from information provided by the task force. The FBI's Atlanta office sent a teletype message to D.C. About the disappearance of Earl Terrell on July 31st. The message was also sent

to the Mobile and Birmingham field offices just in case Earl really was being held Alabama. Behind the scenes, Mayor Jackson's team felt that bringing in the FBI in a real investigatory way would serve public interest and city officials wanted to ask for their help publicly so Atlanta residents, you know, would see that they were doing something. They're bringing them into the case. On August 14th, Deputy Police Chief Morris Redding held a conference at the Atlanta

Bureau of Police Services headquarters. Reading told reporters that he had asked FBI special agent in charge for Atlanta John Glover to assist. Although the FBI was now involved peripherally, months passed, with no resolution, and Earl Terrell remained missing. Sadly, young Earl would be far from the last victim. Two weeks later, August 20th, 1980, 12-year-old, Clifford, Emmanuel Jones, goes missing as well. Unlike the other victims, Clifford was not in Atlanta area resident. He lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He lived there most of his life.

His mom had moved to Cleveland a few months for his death. At the time of his disappearance, he and his mom were in town visiting his maternal grandma in Atlanta. Clifford had been warned by his mom about the child murders. She even repeated her warning when he left his grandma's house at 1153 Lookout Ave in northwest Atlanta on the afternoon of August 20th. He and a cousin were going to look for some cans to sell. A lot of cans being collected in this episode. Clifford had set on his way out. Mama will find some cans and make some money so you can wash the clothes.

God, that's fucking brutal. Trying to raise money for mom so she had enough change to afford to do clothes at a laundromat by picking up cans. Clifford got separated from his cousins along Hollywood Road for some. reason and he was last seen at the intersection of St. James Drive and Lookout Ave around 8 p.m. heading back towards his grandma's house, but never made it there. Early the next morning, Clifford's body would be found beside a dumpster at the Hollywood Plaza Shopping Center. This was an area where his relatives had already searched the night before, so he's probably

dumped there after they'd searched. Clifford had been strangled to death, which with what is believed to have been a rope-like object, possibly a cloth. He may have been strangled with his own shirt. Clifford also suffered bruises to his lips and a cut to the corner of his mouth. there had been a fight between him and his killer before he'd been strangled. Clifford dressed in red and blue jogging shorts and white tennis shoes that did not belong to him when he was found. Shorts and underwear he was wearing when he left his grandma's house had gone missing.

Crime Lab techs found synthetic carpet fibers, more fiber on the unfamiliar clothing. Clifford the second victim to die of ligature strangulation. Angel and air had been the first. Body count now sat at 13. That same month, a committee to stop children's murders, stop, formally presented their program. grant objectives at a news conference and summarized what they knew about the murders. The mothers felt confident. The cases were related because the victims were all roughly the same age and size. All residents of poor, primarily black neighborhoods, excluding Clifford Jones.

Bodies had been found south of I-20 and more than likely they were killed outside of their neighborhoods. Camille Bell, again, the mother of nine-year-old victim Yusuf Bell, later wrote about stops, objectives, and concerns in a brochure that was later published as an op-ed by the Washington Post. Our tragedy in Atlanta has focused the nation's attention on the unsolved murders of 26 young black people. Clearly this was done a little bit later. Yet the nationwide coverage, the progress or lack thereof of the investigation, and the statements of many individuals connected with the case have more often than not clouded over the real issue in Atlanta. The tragedy in Atlanta is only the most prominent example of a sickness that plagues the entire nation. More than 4,000 children are murdered annually in the United States, with many of these crimes going unreported.

we the mothers of Atlanta's slain children share a bond with the parents of missing and murdered children everywhere in this country. We know that our children were not hoodlums or hustlers but were ordinary children engage in ordinary children's pursuits. Many were gifted children

destined to lead their brothers and sisters when we are gone. And strong woman, strong mom, so powerful when somebody takes grief over something that horrific and instead of just, you know, drowning in it, they rise up and they work to make the world safer

for other children. So the same thing doesn't happen to other parents, right? So selfless. Stop also organized block groups, so-called block groups in several neighborhoods, which served as a sort of neighborhood watch on the lookout for any suspicious activity. Then in late August, stop set up political awareness teams to educate voters to the necessity of voting for those people who have demonstrated a special concern for children, right? Smart.

If you want to get elected officials, prioritize your concerns, you got to get out there, let their constituents know what kind of job you think they're doing or are not doing. In late August, Commissioner Brown told reporters the Atlanta police would not, quote, leave any stone unturned in pursuing the investigation. We're going to work on these cases, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The department's commitment to these cases is unparalleled. It seemed like stops pressure, you know, might have helped. Mayor Jackson also expanded the task force from one to four supervisors and from four to 13 investigators. For the first time, Atlanta authorities now spoke publicly about obvious pattern killings,

finally agreeing with the families that it seemed like the murders were related, that a serial killer might be on the loose in Atlanta. The governor also sent four Georgia Bureau of Investigation GBI agents to assist the task force and ask the GBI to make readily available state computers and the state crime lab, as well as sending any extra needed funds to the task force. Okay, 13 months of these disappearances and murders, they're now being taken extremely seriously. Good on the women of stop, right?

Hell Lucifina. Governor then announced a flat $10,000 reward for info in any of the 13-K cases on the task forces list. Eventually, there will be a $100,000 reward. However, despite the ramped up investigation, no prime suspects were identified in another child went missing the following month. 11-year-old Darren Glass disappeared September 14, 1980. Man, so many of these kids so young.

Darren had not had an easy life. Both his parents were dead. He was an orphan foster kid who lived with a woman named Fannie Mae Smith, whom he considered his grandmother. According to Fannie Mae, Darren was a, quote, troubled kid. but he was also a, quote, typical 10-year-old boy who liked to eat, drink Kool-Aid and make noise. Ugh, the days of Kool-Aid. Bowling sure makes me hot and thirsty.

This is a job for Kool-Aid. Fuck you out. Hey, Kool-Aid! Oh, yeah. Kool-Aid's here, bringing your fun. Kool-Aid's got thirst on the run, get a big, wide, happy ear to ear. Kool-A-ha-ha-h-ha-l. Because the biggest smile is a Kool-Klaid smile.

smile, a Koolet smile Your friend's cool My friend's Kool-A Kool-A brand soft drink. I really appreciate how high his voice got in that commercial, you know, Kool-Aid man. That was a fun day in the recording studio.

I bet that actor, I bet the whole crew was high as fuck. He was like, no, no, higher. A shulet smile! A little higher! A little higher! Kulet's small! A little bit higher! Of course, Darren like Kool-like. The same reason we all like Kool-Aid, right?

Especially the back of the fucking 80s, that shit was like the sugar equivalent of crack. I don't really know if kids drink a lot of Kool-Aid now. I can remember as plain as if it were yesterday making Kool-Aid at my mom's place, putting in a packet of grape or strawberry in this tan, you know, drink cylinder, then scooping in cup after cup after cup of just cane granulated sugar. So many fucking cups. I have no idea how much the recipe actually called for,

but I do know that me and most of the kids I knew added fucking way more than that any chance we got. And then just vibrated around the yard on glasses that probably would have killed a diabetic. Just before he went missing. little Darren was attending a special program for students with behavior problems at his elementary school. Fannie Mae also described Darren as street smart as a charmer who could talk himself out of a lot of situations. He was last seen around 5.30 p.m. walking away from a church bus that was bringing him home from an outing to a Braves game. Oh man, dude, probably just had the best time. Maybe got to see Dale Murphy at a home run. It's a criminal. That guy's not in the Hall of Fame. Anyway,

Darren left the bus at the corner of Glenwood and Second Avenues in southeast Atlanta within a block the intersection where Alfred Evans disappeared 14 months earlier. Fannie Mae was not super worried at first when he went missing because Darren had a history of running away. Before Fannie Mae, he had been in several foster homes, would sometimes run away, go find relatives in Atlanta to stay with. He had a sister and an uncle who lived nearby. However, neither those two relatives or any others saw him the day he disappeared. A few hours after Darren went missing, Fannie Mae was on the phone. When an operator broke through with the message, I have an emergency call from Darren Glass.

But then the line went dead. Right, more than a little upsetting. Investigators never able to confirm. Supposed at sightings of Darren or a phone call, one of his foster brothers claims to have received from him in November of 1980. Investigators learned that Darren knew at least two other kids from the missing and murdered Atlanta Child Murders List, but hadn't hung out with any of them.

And again, this is one more. There's so many weird little connections between these kids as we go forward. For the moment, everybody hoped that Darren would turn up soon. After the disappearance of Darren Glass, church and civic groups, organized safety programs for Native neighborhood kids, the media instructed parents to monitor their children's activities, warn them not to accept rides without parental permission, and to know how to contact their children's friends in case of an emergency. Meanwhile, Mayor Jackson was dealing with the fallout of these

murders and crime in general. In September of 1980, a Tennessee-based company had decided to cancel its plans to build a $7 million factory outlet shopping mall south of the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium because the city's growing reputation for crime had scared off potential investors. Meanwhile, the task force kept hitting dead ends and tips slowed significantly. The task force had already looked into convicted sex offenders and other so-called perverts, recently released from prison. Behavioral scientists also analyzed earlier crimes resembling the Atlantic cases but could not offer a profile of the killer because there was no clear evidence to indicate with certainty that only one person was responsible.

Investigators got so desperate for leads that they turned to the supernatural for help. Authorities got in touch with nationally known psychic, Dorothy Allison, from Nutley, New Jersey, now less than 15 miles from Manhattan. It's as though I turned on a TV station and got a picture. And this is what I get when I get a vision of something or a place or a person or anything. It's as though you're tuning in on a TV set.

That was a little clip of her from an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries, featuring some of her work, opinions about her being some sort of psychic, very mixed. She would not be helpful at all in this investigation. The police said she ultimately did nothing more than give them 42 possible names for the murderer, none of which would prove to be fucking correct. A lot of people thought she was a fraud. I'm thinking she probably was.

Two police detectives in Patterson, New Jersey, accused her of offering them money to say that she'd been helpful. In the 1979 search for a missing boy, later found murdered. She didn't make money from her cases, and she liked to say that a lot, as if that was, you know, like she has to be legit. Like, why is she doing this? Well, because she made money charging people privately for psychic session. people who had heard about her thanks to publicity and media exposure because of the cases she worked for free on

cases like the Atlanta child murders and the son of Sam serial killings I live exploring the supernatural over on scared to death and I have come across, you know, shit that has left me being a believer and a lot more stuff being possible than I once thought but I do think that most of these self-proclaimed psychics are fraud you know fraudsters grifters they just never seem to have good batting averages right I mean if you're only right about 10, percent of the time. And even then, only in kind of a vague way reminiscent of like a fortune cookie

or a horoscope, you know, as far as getting shit right, you know, it's very loose. Are you really a psychic or are you just somebody who's pretty good at, you know, guessing? Are you somebody just, you know, really good at not letting previous times being wrong, keeping you from, you know, confidently proclaiming that you're right going forward? I would love to see somebody offering their services as a self-proclaimed pretty good guesser. Seems more honest. It is I The great comdini Pretty good guesser

Quiet I'm getting something You sought me out Because you need my help Finding your missing child Is that right? Okay, okay, you caught me on that one You did tell me that's why you were coming

That doesn't count as a pretty good guess Because I knew that Stop! Hold on I'm getting something else now Your child was wearing clothing when they disappeared. Am I right?

Well, of course I am. That was a pretty good guess, wasn't it? Silence. I'm getting something else now. Your child had these, oh, God, these two things protruding straight down from their body towards the ground. They would use them to travel

along with when they went missing. I believe they're called legs. Does your child have legs? Really? Ah, another pretty good guess. Count it. Stop, write this down, right now. Your child was taken by a man.

A man with a name that starts with a letter. A man with legs. And also arms? Also wearing clothes. Who can't? Oh, yes, I'm guessing now that he can talk. And also, he can hear. Wait.

That's who you need to search for. A cloth-talking, hearing man with legs and arms and clothes. When you find this man, you will find your son, and it will be revealed that I had made a series of pretty good guesses. The great comdini out. Right? I think I just found my backup career. You know, I don't know who would hire that person, but again, it's not so grifty.

Also in September of 1980, the private investigators working with stop on the Jeffrey Mathis case had noticed a new pattern in the murders. Private investigator Mike Edwards drove journalist Steve Onee on a route of secondary roads in the city. they drove along Gordon Street, Fulton Street, and Memorial Drive. They travel from the location on Gordon Street where Jeffrey disappeared to the intersection of Memorial Drive and I-285 in DeKalb County 15 miles away. Whole time, Edwards only had to make one left and one right. O'ney noted, quote, his course flowed as easily as a river. Edwards was able to point out along the route where Anthony Carter's body had been found,

where Yusuf Bella disappeared, where his body was found, where Eric Middlebrooks was found, and numerous other locations where children had gone missing or also like where these victims had lived. Before authorities gave credence to this map to the route it seemed the killer might frequently cruise and even before self-proclaimed psychic investigator Dorothy Allison came to the city to not help anyone at all. Yet another kid was reported missing.

10-year-old Charles Stevens lasting alive October 9th, 1980. Charles lived in an apartment on prior circle in southwest Atlanta, love playing basketball, tinkering with plastic models, often helped his neighbors empty their garbage cans for a small amount of money. Right, the fucking can theme continues. Clothes had gotten into some trouble, or Charles, clothes.

I don't know why I just called him clothes. Charles had gotten into some trouble earlier in the year when a neighbor reported him to the police claiming he had killed her watchdog and stolen her television at 10? Let's hope she was wrong. On the day he was last seen alive, Charles had been sketching on a piece of paper,

watching TV at home after missing the school bus. The next morning, body found on a grassy hill off Norman Berry Drive near the entrance of two, the Longview trailer park and East Point, that suburb south of Atlanta near the airport we visited previously in September of 1979 when 14-year-old Milton Harvey's body was found there. Charles Stevens' body been placed where it would be found easily. When he went missing, Charles was wearing a t-shirt, dark pants, and his sister's shoes. Now his shirt and one shoe were missing. He had been smothered by an object like a blanket or a hand that had been placed over his face as evidenced by

rub marks on his nose, experts would later recover fibers from his body that, you know, came from some piece of clothing or something from the person who had likely killed him. Then just a few days later, October 13th, there was an incident in the city that further reinforced a suspicion that the killings were, quote, part of a ghastly racial vendetta, according to Time magazine. That Monday, there was explosion at the Gate City Daycare Center in the Bowen Holmes Housing Project near Northwest or in northwest Atlanta. Experts said the explosion had to force of 50 pounds of dynamite,

four kids, one adult, tragically killed, and like the victims in the Atlanta child murders, all the victims, Black Atlantans. That night after the explosion, a group gathered at the Greater Fair Hill Baptist Church to demand answers from Mayor Jackson, who was loudly booed, excuse me,

by the crowd when he said the explosion was an accident, which it turns out it was. According to political writer Frederick Allen of the Atlanta Constitution, quote, which were convinced that a bomb had been planted, that some racist individual or group had murdered their kids

and they were not able to be quieted by reassurances from any of the familiar leaders. The booing was so intense, the mayor eventually gave up trying to speak. So did other Black city leaders who were at the church, state representative, Josea Williams, the former field general for MLK Jr., and part of his inner circle, eventually ordered the TV crews to leave.

Then he spoke to the crowd about the problem of racism in the U.S., then led him on a five-mile march to the city hall. According to the official report, the daycare center exploded because of the building's boiler as a result of poor work done by the Atlanta Housing Authority, whose crew had lit the boiler less than half an hour before it exploded. That is still the official explanation to this day. Black residents wanted to know why it took the Atlanta police a half hour to arrive at the scene. Police explained they were answering all of the various bomb threat calls they had received after the explosion. There were 12 certifiable threats to predominantly black public schools in the city that had come in. On top of that, a group of neo-fascists had met in Atlanta a few days before the explosion.

The meeting had been called by the men, some of which were convicted rapists, who had also been implicated in the killings of four young girls in the 1964 Birmingham church bombing, so a bunch of real fucking scumbags. According to Bernard Headley, the prevailing belief among Black Atlantans was that the murdered children were connected in some way to the explosion and that the reason behind these tragedies was racism. A bunch of, you know, dots being connected with string. Mayor Jackson-held a press conference the day after the explosion. He denounced the activities of Georgia's KKK members,

but was careful not to suggest a KKK or any other hate group were responsible for the explosion or the killings. However, the mayor did secretly worry that the recent growth of the KKK would spark racial violence in Atlanta. Fuck man, recent growth in the 80s. And now all these decades later, still dealing with big groups, like the proud boys and shit. Sometimes it feels like fucking stupidity is just impossible to completely eradicate.

Like, you can reduce it through educational efforts, and you should. You can weaken it. It's hold on a system. society, but you just can't ever completely get rid of all the dumb motherfuckers out there who don't have the balls to admit that they're probably the problem. Not all the other people they're pointing their fingers at. Mayor Jackson privately asked Governor George Busby to step up an ongoing GBI probe into KKK activities in and around the city. Meanwhile, another group was focused on searching for

the five children who were still missing the United Youth Adult Conference of Atlanta, the UYAC, led by Reverend Arthur Langford Jr., organized Saturday searches to search vacant lots and interview residents in hopes of identifying potential subjects. The UYAC founded in 1972 as an advocacy agency for crime prevention, better working conditions, and community improvement. Reverend Langford told author Bernard Headley that they organized the Saturday searches because the community wanted to do something and accused the Atlanta police of just dragging his feet on these cases, which I don't think they were at this point, but that was a perception.

These Saturday searches began October 18th, 1980. Search teams spread out in different neighborhoods to look in abandoned buildings, hollow tree trunks, stream beds for any piece of evidence they can find looking everywhere. And the very day they started, some skeletal remains were found in the Dixie Hills neighborhood of near northwest Atlanta. Hot damn. The bones were collected by examination or for examination by task force investigators. Dental records would identify the remains as somebody we already went over young Latanya Wilson,

right, the seven-year-old who'd been missing since June of 1980. The girl thought to have been taken from her bed in the middle of the night. Her bones found a defense tin wooded, wooded air, near the intersection of Verbena Street and Suwani Avenue with an eyesight of the Hillcrest apartment complex that she'd lived in. The medical examiner said her cause of death could not be immediately determined due to severe decomposition, but he suspected foul play. There was no soft tissue left, just bones, you know,

make it nearly impossible to determine a cause of death or whether or not Latonia had been sexually assaulted. Although they were saddened by the discovery, the UYAC was encouraged by their success, the very first search, and vowed to do more. They also did not as close the location of the next search to avoid tipping off the killer. Next weekend, roughly 3,000 searchers showed up, including Mayor Jackson. Right, that's awesome. They searched the East Lake Meadows community where Christopher Richardson, Darren Glass, and Alfred Evans lived.

Second search did not find any bodies, but they kept it going, called for even more volunteers for the next weekend. Mayor Jackson still intent on reducing tensions in the city assigned still more officers to the task force and pushed again for further involvement from the FBI. ABC's 2020. Nightline both covered the case that fall, raising national awareness of the mysterious and ongoing child murders in Atlanta. The national media emphasized a theory that race could be the reason behind them. Nightline interviewed public safety commissioner Lee Brown, who indicated he for one, still not convinced the unsolved cases were actually linked. He said, being that we have not solved the cases, we're unable to determine the motive. We know that there are certain characteristics that are similar, so because we do not even know the motive, we have no way of saying what they are related to.

The host interrupted, asked if after 15 months the police had nothing other than 10 dead children and four missing. And Brown replied, well, we're operating under the premise that the murders could be related, that one or more could be related, all could be related, or none could be related. We don't know at this point, right? Not sexually, sexy or sensational, but I do appreciate him just at least being honest. Brown now seemed to be backing off from his and other investigators earlier statements that they were looking at the murders as a whole. 2020 spoke to stop founder Camille Bell, who said, the children who are being killed are primarily poor, primarily black, and no one gets terribly concerned.

I mean, I does seem like there was a lot of investigative work, but I mean, yeah, I wasn't there. I can't understand what it would feel like. The program also discussed a local TV station investigative report on the KKK, show KKK members saying they were preparing for guerrilla war. Of course, those fucking dorks. Someday, I want some white supremacist group to truly try to go to war with the government. just so the government can just show them no fucking mercy right just just just true like

fucking mow them down right just go go to war fucking bring all your guns start fucking shooting and get mowed the fuck down by some apache helicopters or missile strikes i would love in my fantasy to have their entire force be obliterated every soldier every fucking you know structure headquarters they have just burn to the ground and just just to remind those dumb motherfuckers how pathetic they actually are that's a daydream i've had more times than i can count according to Bernard Headley, the white establishment of Atlanta was furious over the supposed

unfair reporting making the city look bad. Then self-proclaimed psychic Dorothy Allison, pretty good guesser. Actually arrived in Atlanta October 21st. She told reporters at a press conference, I guarantee there will be no more murders

while I am here. Ballsy, but also she wouldn't stay very long. Police chief George Napper expressed his hope that Dorothy's presence could lead to a resolution in the case. She stayed for five days, didn't find any missing kids, didn't help finding a debilts.

bodies or, you know, the suspect, as I mentioned. She thought they were probably black like the suspect. She also said something super weird. She said the city's generosity and too much publicity stopped her psychic powers from working at full capacity. Okay. Although Dorothy's trip was unsuccessful, Mayor Jackson admitted that the police were continuing to talk with a number of other persons who claimed unusual powers.

If only the great Comdini, pretty good guesser, would have been around. For real, though, I do love that they were trying everything, right, leaving no stone unturned. Meanwhile, city officials scheduled a conference for late October with members of the DOJ and civil rights organizations to, quote, assess local racial attitudes and head off a possible confrontation between blacks and whites, right? Clearly these killings and the narratives surrounding them stoking racial tensions to nearly a boiling point. In the early morning hours of November 1st, 1989, 9-year-old Aaron Jackson now disappears. Aaron Jackson Jr. while he was out wandering around his neighborhood. Man, another very good kid, very young kid, excuse me. And good, I'm sure.

Aaron lived on Norwood Road in southeast Atlanta with his father and two older sisters. He was often out wandering rather than hanging around home. Geneva Sims, the manager of a neighborhood supermarket, told the Washington Post, I'd see him in the park at 11 p.m. with no shoes, just walking around. Aaron, she said, quote, would go wherever someone would give him a meal. Fuck, that's sad. Poor little guy, right? again just a baby

Not sure what dad's story was But I fucking doubt he had any excuse to be that checked out Aaron last seen alive at the Moreland Plaza Shopping Center Near the intersection of Custer and Moreland avenues In southeast Atlanta His body found the next day line Just off of Forest Park Road On the bank of the South River beside a bridge

Not far from home Investigators included he had been smothered to death Some fucking monster just snuffed out Little Man's Light for some sick kicks Aaron was wearing a silk shirt blue jeans and socks when he disappeared, but his socks were gone when his body was found. Around the time Aaron was murdered, the task force still looking for similarities amongst the various cases. Aaron's murder was compared to the murders of Charles Stephen and Clifford Jones,

also found the day after they went missing, who had also died of being asphyxiated, of suffocation. Their bodies had been placed in easy-to-see locations as well, and they were also missing clothing. Jones had been strangled rather than smothered, but bruises on his lips indicated he had been attacked in a similar manner to both Jackson and Stephen. investigators also found the same kind of carpet-like fibers on Aaron Jackson's clothes like they had on Jones and Stevens. Aaron's mother, Benny Jackson, would tell the Washington Post he was a free-spirited child, but he was a loner. That's what bothers me. Aaron didn't talk to grown-ups. Whoever killed him had to catch him off guard.

Man, where the fuck were you when he was alive, Benny? Why was he wandering around alone? At the park close to midnight with no shoes on? Looking for a fucking meal at, you know, nine years old. until the end of October, the FBI, as I have mentioned, had played a minimal role in the investigation. Atlanta officials had been keeping them informed on developments, asking for help, and the FBI had advised Atlanta on some forensic leads,

but Atlanta wanted more help from the agency. Throughout the summer of 1980, Mayor Jackson tried to get the agency to formally sign on to the investigation, but the Bureau had resisted. But by late fall, there were rumors that the FBI was involved in Atlanta murders. According to this conspiracy theory, the FBI collaborating with the CIA to obtain the bodies of dead kids for the CDC to accomplish. experiment on or they were covering up for the KKK who were actually committing the murders. And like I mentioned earlier, sounds fucking crazy on one hand.

But 100% possible, on the other hand, when you think about, you know, what we know went on with Project MK Ultra and the Tuskegee Experiment. And those are just the former Timesuk episodes. There's been so much more. And all the ongoing bullshit with Epstein, man, who the fuck knows what really went on? Who's been compromised, right, et cetera? So much shit lately. Our weird allegiance to Israel, no matter what the fuck they do. all this shit might just turn me into a full-blown conspiracy theorist,

the recent Omaha Credit Union, like the Franklin Credit Union conspiracy episode. I don't know what the fuck's going on anymore. But I do know because we've seen it in episodes on like Nazis and Japan's unit 731, etc., that humans, including humans and government organizations, are capable of rationalizing the most evil shit a person can do. Like there's no fucking limit.

Despite these rumors, Atlanta leaders still wanted the FBI's involvement because they believed that if white Atlanta children were being murdered, the FBI would have already stepped up, you know, and gotten more all in. However, under federal statutes, a legal basis still needed to be established under which the FBI could be authorized into the investigation. So Mayor Jackson sent telegrams to Georgia congressional leaders into the White House. And at a November, at a November news conference, he openly criticized FBI director William Webster. The day after the press conference, November 6th, the U.S. Attorney General authorized a preliminary investigation by the FBI. to determine if the four missing kids, Jeffrey Mathis, Christopher Richardson, Earl Terrell, and Darren Glass were being held in violation of the U.S. Code on kidnapping.

If kidnapping was suspected, the FBI then could legally establish jurisdiction in Atlanta. During the time, it took Mayor Jackson to get the FBI more involved in investigation, another kid gets murdered. A. 16-year-old, Patrick Rogers, last seen shortly before 7 a.m., November 10, 1980. Patrick was walking his 7-year-old brother to the bus stop on Henry Thomas Drive in Thomasville Heights area. of southeast Atlanta. Mary Harper, whose 19-year-old son Joe, did some songwriting with Patrick, reported that Patrick came by her apartment

about 7.30 a.m. asking for Joe. Patrick said that, quote, a guy wanted to record some of their songs. This is important and important detail to remember later when the suspect had eventually caught. Guy who wanted to write some songs, do some songs with them.

Joe wasn't home, so Patrick left and asked Ms. Harper to, quote, tell Joe if he come, I'll be back. Weeks later, on December 7th, Patrick's body will be pulled from the Cobb County side of the Chattanoucci River near the Pace's Ferry Road Bridge. Chattahoochee, excuse me.

He was still wearing the clothes he had been wearing when he disappeared, but his brown pants had been pinned together at the waist. Patrick had suffered a blunt force injury behind his left ear and died due to a skull fracture, but his body was so decomposed that no other evidence was found and there was no way to determine if Patrick, quote, sustained this injury through a fall or whether somebody zapped him in the head and shoved him in the river.

A burglary warrant had been issued against Patrick two days after he went missing. And some investigators believed he might have been killed in a dispute with criminal associates. One detective told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution that Patrick ran with the bad crowd. They had a attitude and could go where they wanted and do what they wanted because there were so many and mean enough, because they were so many mean enough and nobody would mess with them, he said. At first, authorities thought Patrick's criminal connections and his age might rule him out of the child murder's investigation. And for over two months, they did not add him to the task force list.

Investigators looking into Patrick's disappearance before his body was found learned that a young black man claiming to be a music scout had been in the Thomasville Heights neighborhood the week before he disappeared distributing flyers for a talent show he was organizing that announced auditions for aspiring musicians and listed a phone number to call. That number belonged to the residents of Faye and Homer Williams. Two retired school teachers living in the Dixie Hills area of Atlanta. And this will not be the last time. We will check in with the Williams family. There were also some interesting coincidences linking Patrick's to some of the other victims, right? That comes up again. According to his mom, Patrick had known 10-year-old Aaron Witchwell because Aaron had lived in an adjacent apartment building.

When Aaron's body was found in June, Patrick told his mom the murders were, quote, getting close to home. Patrick also knew 9-year-old Aaron Jackson Jr., who often visited his friends in Thomasville Heights. Despite these connections, the task force, unable to establish a well-defined chain of circumstances that could have brought the use together in death. In November of 1980, two weeks before Patrick's body was found, FBI officials agreed that abduction had occurred in the Atlantic cases, and the Bureau would be more involved in investigation but would not be part of the special task force. They would conduct their own separate investigation. Mayor Jackson brought 1980 to a close by asking for more donations to the reward fund, which he would get. Meanwhile, the Atlanta police were looking into Reverend Earl Carroll, co-founder of the group of Stop, the group of mothers.

He was suspected of stealing funds, God damn it. And he was arrested, months later charged with improper solicitation, and writing bad checks. Doesn't seem like he went to trial for this, and in fact, he would launch a million-dollar countersuit against the police department for his arrest, accusing the police of targeting him for being critical of their investigation in the press.

By January of 1981 now, a year and a half into all of this, it seemed like every Atlanta resident was affected by the child murders. Everybody had a theory about the murders, why they had not been solved yet. Child experts noted that the murders were affecting the lives of many,

if not most of Atlanta's children. Some had stopped their typical play activities. Emotional problems were increasing overall, you know, children overall having difficulty trusting others, not surprised. Mayor Jackson and Atlanta City Council had instituted a strict curfew going into 1981. Everybody 16 and younger required to be off of the street between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. Still, just three days into this new year, another kid goes missing. And neither the police nor the FBI had a strong suspect yet.

On January 3rd, 191, 14-year-old Luby Getter Jr. disappeared during a trip to the mall. Louby was the fifth child of Annie Getter and Luby Getter Senior, a VA hospital chef. He was in the 10th grade, was a good student. Luby also had a job at a car wash and made extra money carrying bags for people at the local shopping center. Dude was grinding at 14. Annie recalled that on the day Louby went missing, he had spent some of his Christmas money on wholesale car deodorizers to later resell.

Dude was a 14-year-old entrepreneur. Wanted to go to the mall, which is about five miles from home to sell them. After breakfast, Luby's older brother Frank drove him and his friend the mall and he had asked Luby to come back before dark and warned him to be wary of strangers in light of the child murders. Luby had replied, don't worry, mom, they've got to catch me first. Also, how was one kid named Luby in this family and the other kid was Frank? It's like naming one kid Moongazer while the other kid is Bob. They just don't sound like they belong together. I mean, I get that he was a junior. But Luby was not back home by dark, which was concerning.

He told his brother that he didn't want to ride the bus home when he had finished selling his product and that he would call when he was ready around 5.30 p.m. But then he didn't. He was last seen standing outside the Big Star Food Store at the Stewart Lakewood Shopping Center on Georgia Route 166 selling those car deodorizers at first, and he thought that maybe Luby had gone to the movies, but then the night dragged on with no word from her son,

and she grew increasingly worried. She reported Luby, missing to the police the following morning and referred to the ABPSs. That acronym does not fucking flow at all, missing persons and youth squad unit. I'm glad they changed it to APD later. The detective who did the initial investigation did not form the task force of the case

despite it being standard procedure by this time. Case would be not turned over to the task force for three full days after Luby had been reported missing. On the night of January 8th, the sheriff's office in Rockdale County, about 20 miles east of downtown Atlanta received a call from a man who told officers to look for a black boy's body

on Sigman Road in Rockdale County. This was the first time Rockdale was involved in investigation. They believe the call might be in regards to Luby Getter. So early the next morning, almost 100 county and state officers searched a portion of Sigman Road but found nobody. So maybe got another very funny crank caller on our hands. Oh, cool guy alert. If you're a grown man who calls a police about an investigation into the serial murders of children, just fucking go ahead and walk in front of the speeding train.

The FBI court in a larger search, January 9th, marking the FBI's first opportunity to enter a case of a child disappearance simultaneous with local law enforcement. 250 officers and 26 FBI agents searched a four square mile area in the vicinity of the Stewart Lakewood Shopping Center. That afternoon, an East Point officer suggested that a few men break off from the main search party, searched the woods off of a red wine road near I-285. Officer remember that it was a common dumping ground for stolen cars. Shortly after they began searching that area, a man approached and said a hunting dog of his had come home with a very bad odor and sticky stuff on him like he'd been nosing into something. So sticky stuff as in decomposing human tissue, yes.

About 75 feet in the road, the dog found two sets of skeletal remains. They were soon identified as child remains, but were too badly decomposed to be Luby Getter. Four days later, one of the bodies was identified as the missing Christopher Richardson, the 12-year-old who had gone missing six months back on June 9, 1980, after he had gone to the rec center to swim in his shorts since he did not own swim trunks. The other was tentatively identified as Earl Terrell, which was officially confirmed. five months later, the 10-year-old who had gone missing back on July 30th, 1980, also after going swimming, the kid in the third grade who'd gotten kicked out of the pool for wrestling. Chief Fulton County Medical Examiner, Dr. Robert Stivers, would attribute a delay in identifying the remains to Atlanta investigators failing to properly secure the crime scene and bagging and labeling the remains without his permission. Key parts were missing. Experts had to go back to recover them. They later found 11 teeth on the ground, which is how he identified the bodies.

that's good to have a fuck up like that that deep into a heavily scrutinized investigation Christopher and Earl had not known each other and lived six and a half miles from one another they went missing nearly two months apart there was no apparent connection besides them being found close together leading investigators to speculate that of course

the same person killed him and dumped the bodies off red wine road their causes of death could not be determined but there were other key similarities investigators found similar fibers on the bodies despite the decomposition these fibers again bodies missing some of their clothing both boys have been falling behind, excuse me, in school. Both came from unsettled family circumstances.

Both frequented public swimming pools and were on their way from pools when they went missing. Both last seen alive near a shopping area. Both agitated when they were last seen. Christopher got into a fight with his mom. Earl, like I said, been kicked out of the public pool. As the investigation continued, as no suspect emerged, despite 18 kids. Now, I have been murdered and in not quite a year and a half, another body's family. 15-year-old Terry Lorenzo Pugh left home on the afternoon of January 21st, 1991 to go play basketball.

Terry, one of 11 siblings, a family lived in the Hollywood court, or lived at Hollywood Court, excuse me, in northwest Atlanta. Terry told his mom that he was going to play basketball over in East Point. In the evening, he went to visit his sister Pamela at her apartment in East Lake Meadows in southeast Atlanta. She wasn't home, but Terry spent some time around the complex visiting his girlfriend and then spent the night inside a 24-hour fast food restaurant outside the eye. 285 perimeter on Memorial Drive. Following day, he hung around a shopping center and a memorial drive, traded empty bottles for money, and then went missing.

Hate that he was running around so unsupervised. On January 23rd, a passerby found Terry's body line just a few feet off of Sigmund Road in Rockdale County at the exact spot where that male caller had told the police they would find a black child two weeks earlier. That's fucking creepy. Did that caller kill him?

Seems like he was involved. Fucking with the cops, right? One witness thought Terry was a second. sleep because he was fully dressed lying on his side. There were abrasions on his elbow, bruises on his head, indicating the struggle. He was killed by, quote, rope or some rough material with a woven pattern. He had been strangled. Lab experts found dog hairs and violent and green, violet and green fibers,

identical to fibers found on at least four other victims. However, investigators struggled to identify a clear suspect. All they really had were those fucking fibers, right? No witnesses, no usable latent fingerprints were ever recovered from the skin or clothing of these are other victims, DNA technology, still completely unavailable. When police investigators looked into Terry's death, they found that Terry had told a waitress at the fast food restaurant where he had stayed overnight right before he disappeared, quote, that his parents were living their lives and he was living his.

Looks like neglect, but maybe not. Terry's mom told investigators later that he had suffered a skull fracture when he was two, left him with a learning disability. He'd been to juvenile court eight times for truancy, shoplifting, and was placed in the state-run facility for youthful offenders at the West Hunter Street Baptist Church. It was there that he had met victim Luby Getter who had visited that school. So, you know, this kid, you know, maybe his parents were trying, but, you know, fairly hard to control.

And weird, all these connections between the kids. Atlanta's a huge city. You know, a huge city now, a huge city then, the population of the Atlanta metro area back in 1980 was over 2.2 million. And yet so many of these victims, you know, were at least acquainted with one another before they've been killed. that makes it seem like even more to me like the work of a serial killer

right who knew all of these kids who's out meeting a bunch of kids what adult in that area it's just you know frequenting places where kids are hanging out investigators assume that since Terry was trying to make some money as he made his way back to Atlanta

he had encountered someone who had wanted to harm him up to this point the bodies have been found inside city limits portions of the city in either Fulton or DeKal County in East Point Cobb County and now in Rockdale County None of the bodies have been found in unincorporated DeKob County.

One of the victims, Christopher Richardson, did have a DeKob County address in the city of Decatur, but he was found in the city. Aaron Witch had also been found in DeKob County, but his death not considered a murder until February of 1981. That meant DeKob County had not received information from the task force yet, which is strange. Why were various jurisdictions being tight-lipped about the case back then, right? Why not, as a courtesy, just send neighboring counties info on a case like this?

Just find out if they might have. have similar cases. Seems like common sense to me and a good way to solve a case more quickly. I don't fucking understand why they don't do this stuff more often or didn't. At a news conference on February 4th, 1981, DeKalb County Director of Public Safety, Dick fucking Hand is back. Man of perhaps the most masturbatory name ever. Co-worker in my mind, at least, of medical examiner Pussybutt. He now criticized the task force for not sending information to him and declared his agency would have done a better job at solving the cases.

maybe he was just bitching but also why not send him all the info why not send everyone all of the info what is the point of being territorial about information like this just ego the next day February 5th 19 when a man looking for rabbit traps in a wooded area in southwest Fulton County

came upon his neighbor's puppy which had something in his mouth the man followed the dog's path found a body victim was lying on their back with their arms out the body rested along the wooded side of Vandever Road within a few miles of where several other victims

have been found. Six hours later, Annie Getter identified the body as her missing son. Fourteen-year-old, Luby Getter Jr. had disappeared during a trip to the mall, remember, a month before, back on January 3rd. He had died of manual strangulation. And the killer acted by, quote, forcing his larynx up and back and breaking his neck bones. Oof. Puzzlingly, there were no marks on his neck. The medical examiner believed that, quote, it looked like someone coming up from behind, catching a child on the crook of the elbow. Additionally, Luby was only found in his underwear. All his other clothes were missing. But just like with all the other victims, there was also no evidence of a sexual assault.

Once again, some green carpet fibers found on his body, similar to fibers found on other victims' bodies. Obviously, identifying the source of these fibers are going to be a crucial part of the later investigation. Whose fibers were they? Investigators still have zero clue. Nothing, nada. Anybody could have done this. On February 6, 191, 12-year-old Patrick Balthazar goes missing victim number 20. Patrick had had a difficult. life. One of 14 children, he was close to his dad, Russell, often tagged along with him when he did landscaping jobs. Patrick's mom and dad had separated four years earlier in 1977. Russell had moved from Glenmore, Louisiana, to Atlanta. He had promised to return for Patrick did in the late summer

of 1979. The next July, Patrick's 20-year-old brother Donald moved into their apartment at the Vine City Complex. In his spare time, Patrick liked to hang around the Omni area, play games in the arcade. he would sell confections and newspapers there. He would clean the restaurant where his dad worked as a dishwasher for extra coin. It was said that Patrick was a confident boy, not afraid to approach an adult for a job. Hard worker who actually had a fake permit showing that he was 16 years old, which had allowed him to get a job dishwashing at a buffet. Big and mature for his age.

No one suspected he was just 12 and so many good hardworking kids in this timeline. On February 6, Patrick had stopped by his dad's workplace to get some money to attend a box. boxing match at the Civic Center. Dude was living a full life at 12. No one knew if he ever made it there. His visit with his father was the last time he was definitively seen alive. But there were reports placing a kid probably him at the Omni until midnight playing in the arcade. After Patrick failed to come home that night, Russell had called around, acted on tips,

drove all over the city looking for his son. Atlanta Police launched a massive search for Patrick before turning the case over to the task force. Investigators speculated that he had wandered back into the Cab County after he'd already been there to see his dad and perhaps got picked up by somebody. Exactly a week after he disappeared on February 13th, Patrick Baltizar's body found in DeKalb County by a maintenance worker for corporate square, this business office complex between Beaufort Highway and I-85. His body was found in an overgrown area behind the complex, down an embankment from the parking

lot. Investigators figured that the killer drove up to the edge of the parking lot and then basically tossed his body down the embankment. Dick Hand, old fucking Dick Hand, would say about that. this, I'm sure the killer meant for it to go all the way to the bottom, but it didn't. Got caught on a bunch of sticks. Thank you, Dick Hand. That was very important information.

Oh, surprised. That powerful observation didn't break this case wide open. Genius. Dick Hand was a goddamn investigative genius. The DeKalb County's medical examiner, pussybutt, I mean Joseph Burton, speculated that Patrick was killed shortly after he'd vanished. He was strangled probably with a cord or a sash. His body had a few scrapes and bruises consistent with a minor struggle.

Georgia crime lab experts Found dog hairs And green fibers Once again Similar to those found On other victims FBI lab techs Also agreed

That the findings were similar Dick Han probably weighed in Probably threw in his two cents Great job guys Yeah no The fibers They do look They do look similar

I was gonna tell you that If you had asked I came to that conclusion before you did Mm-hmm Definitely thought of that first On the afternoon of Patrick Ballas On the afternoon Patrick Baltizars

Remains were found I keep wanting to put an H in his name. FBI agents were conducting another routine search in a patch of woods off a super and cascade roads in unincorporated Fulton County where they found another boy's remains. The remains consisted of a skull and a few bones.

According to Fulton County detective, George Coleman, police spent hours crawling on their hands and knees, trying to find clothing and other evidence, but found nothing. They gathered up some of the earth for some crime lab analysis and the bones were sent to the medical examiner. Dental records would identify the boy as the missing 11-year-old Jeffrey Mathis,

that kid who'd gone missing back on March 11th, 1980, almost a year earlier, after his mom had sent him out to grab her a pack of smokes. His cause of death not immediately determined. I mean, how could it be? All this left him, a skull and a few bones. Jeffrey's mother, Willie May Mathis, held a funeral that would make national headlines. Although she was devastated, she said that she felt better knowing that he wasn't still being held somewhere against his will and abused. Due to the funeral, the case back in the national news, but the investigation still no close. to finding the killer that it was when the first body had been found.

Then just six days later, on February 19th, 13-year-old Curtis Walker goes missing kid after kid after kid. Curtis said to be shy and wary, rarely strayed far from his neighborhood near Bankhead Highway. Curtis won his seven kids, you know, seven siblings, not all that interested in school, but passionate about art. After school, Curtis sometimes followed his brother down the highway looking for work at local shops and supermarkets. Because he was too shy to ask himself, usually. that's why he liked to go with this bro. Again, another good young kid out there working on top of going to school, trying to get ahead.

Local gun shop owner Archie Byron later recalled he would just open the door and stand there and stare at you until you realize what he wanted. Poor little dude just painfully shy. February 19th with Curtis's first day back at school after receiving or after recovering, excuse me, from an upset stomach. And that afternoon, he went looking for work by himself for the first time in anyone's memory, right? Fuck, that sucks so bad.

He finally decides to be brave, and then he runs into the worst luck ever. He appeared at Byron's gun shop, about 4 p.m. There was no work for him there, so he headed towards a small shopping center to see what they had, and then was never seen again. I wonder if whoever took him offered him a job. Wonder if that's, you know, what they were doing with a lot of kids, is offering them jobs, offered him some kind of opportunity, some way to make money. Curtis's family searched the neighborhood, but couldn't find him.

Next day, tracking dogs followed his scent one block to the back of a school where the scent trail disappeared, leading authorities to speculate that he'd gotten into a car. Someone had enticed him with some kind of opportunity. Some bullshit offer. In his February 1981 state of the city address, Mayor Jackson would discuss his two terms in only four pages, but then would spend 11 pages talking about the Atlanta child murders. That shows how heavily these murders are weighing on him, how big of a shadow they are casting over the entire state of Atlanta, you know, for a year and a half now. A journalist described his speech as not a proclamation but a plea, a prayer that parents be attentive,

citizens be vigilant, critics be reasonable, if not silent, and racial tensions be eased. I like it, right? Truly does seem like they were doing everything they could. Sometimes these motherfuckers, especially the days before DNA tech was available, they were just so hard to catch. I think about, like, you know, people like the Green River killer Gary Ridgeway, old Mr. Clean wean, killed for almost 20 years straight in Western Washington before they finally caught him. And that dude has the IQ of a fucking dish rack, which maybe helped him. It's just too stupid to get creative or taunt the cops.

Investigators still not ready to say that one killer was at work. Commissioner Lee Brown had said back in January on the McNeil-Lear Report, this nationally syndicated, very popular news program back then on PBS. We can say, based on the evidence, we do not have one person in our city that stalking our streets abducting our children. Again, as we look at each case individually, as we carry 16 cases in the task force, we could conceivably have 16 separate unrelated cases. Eh.

and also his number low due to a few victims' bodies still not having been found not assigned as far as homicide victims by the end of February investigators did have finally some suspects they were looking at they were focusing on an address

on Niske Lake Road in southwest Atlanta which was almost directly across the street where the bodies of Alfred Evans and Edward Smith have been found the house identified as a regular drug hangout hopefully not one of those pot-free for all places could have been where the boys were killed Edward Smith reportedly frequented that address

And the use of Bell case Investigators are questioning at least three black males About his death There were two suspects in the Angel and Air case Including an acquaintance of her mother Who was arrested for grabbing another child in the neighborhood Some other creep At the time of his arrest he was wearing a belt

Fashioned from an electrical cord Similar to the one used to bind Angel's hands FBI agents also polygraphed Willie May Mathis The mother of Jeffrey Mathis But Willie May pass the exam In the Eric Middlebrook's case investigators focusing on the possibility

that his death was gang related. In Latanya Wilson case, investigators focused on two black males seen lurking near her home the night she disappeared. In the Anthony Carter case, investigators still believed his mom, you know, it could be responsible for his murder. There was a, quote, strong suspect in the death of Clifford Jones, the manager of the laundromat and the

shopping plaza where his body been found. Three youths had come forward to identify him, claimed that they saw the manager go into the back room of the laundromat with a young boy. One of them claimed he saw the manager, quote, strangle and beat the boy. and carries his body out at the trash container. Fucking what?

The manager then failed to FBI administered polygraph tests and admitted he knew Clifford and that Clifford was in the laundromat on the night of he died. However, not charged because authorities determined the kid who had said he saw the murder had a very serious intellectual disability.

None of these suspects would ever be arrested. There was also a suspect in the murder of Aaron Jackson. They were clearly thinking there was more than one killer, but the Atlanta police also acting as if they were after just one person, setting up roadblocks near at-risk neighborhoods and stopping and searching

cars driven by non-resident white males. The police in DeKalb County also stopped light-skinned black men who could have been mistaken for white males who were driving cars with boys inside. The stop and search operations did lead to the arrest of a young man attempting to kidnap a five-year-old girl, but that man ruled out as a suspect in these murders. Just another fucking creep in a world of too many creeps. In late February, top executives from three national recording companies started a fund to help the investigation. They raised $23,000 in two days. Entertainers like Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra,

Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, fucking bunch of superstars, offered to do a benefit concert in Atlanta. Former sucks subject, Muhammad Ali, the greatest, pledged $400,000 on top of a, now $150,000 reward fund. This is a huge story.

Churches across the country, filling collection plates, sending money to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Atlanta headquarters. Some of it's going directly to stop. Venus Taylor, one of the moms in charge of stop. met reported that on any given week in early 1981 stops and out more than

500 replies to people offering their support, right? And this is in the days before the internet. That's incredible. In early March, SCLC's president Joseph Lorry warned that there would be violence in Atlanta soon unless the killer was found. He and others in leadership believe more public demonstrations

could bring people together and ease tensions. So on March 15th, 1600 people roughly marched from the state capital throughout downtown Atlanta, ending at Morehouse College to keep raising awareness about these murders. Keep putting pressure on investigators to solve these murders, you know, find this killer. And the murders are still ongoing. Although Atlantans are coming together, people around the nation are looking, waiting for updates in the case. The killings continue,

despite the increased scrutiny. 15-year-old Joseph Bell disappeared, March 2nd, 191, 22nd victim in the sequence of disappearances and murders associated with the Atlanta child murders. Joseph, who went by the nickname of Jojo, lived with his grandma on Southwest Lod, Lawton Street while his mother was in prison for killing his dad. Motherfucker. Can you imagine that being your story? One parent's in prison for killing the other one. Joseph has spent a lot of his time on the streets of South Atlanta grown up and tried to, quote, act growner than what he was, according to a friend.

Well, yeah, dude, guessing he had to fucking act growner than he was. Joseph worked odd jobs for cash, spent his free time playing a pickup basketball. In January of 1921, Joseph has started going to the John Harlan Boys Club next to the Harris' Homes. housing project. He would often show up with the club in late afternoon, play basketball with his sister. I do love that. Most frequent activity was hanging out at the Cap and Peg's Seafood on Georgia Avenue. He would call owner Richard Harp. Are you fucking kidding me? Early in the day from school to see if there's any work there for him. Other times, you just hang out at the restaurant. Joseph would sometimes stay late into the night and Harp would often drive him home.

In the same episode where we have met Dick Hand, we have now met Richard Harp. Fucking dick harp. Did that name lead me to doing a web search for too long for guy playing a harp with his dick? Of course it did. My search history is beyond fucked. It's fucking ruined forever. No dice though. Found videos of guys playing pianos?

I'm not making this up. I found numerous videos. Oh guys playing pianos, keyboards, guitars, bass guitars, ukuleleys, and drums with their dicks. Sometimes playing them very, very well. this one guy fucking doing some wicked solos with an electric guitar with a semi-hard cock hitting the fucking strings, beyond impressive. But no harp cock combo. Maybe I should have spent even more time searching. But no, I'd already seen more dicks than I wanted to.

I did find a lot of porn of this one woman who plays the harp normally while also shoving a lot of different things up a lot of different people's butts. I don't know if that's good or bad. Probably bad. What a world. What a world. Can we all just pretend that this? that was somebody playing that with their dick? Just think about how strange and also beautiful that would be.

Okay. I needed that for what I, why would I need that? But I did. Anyway, on the afternoon of March 2nd, Joseph stopped at cap and pegs. A place to close decades ago now,

I guess it was pretty popular. When he learned there was nothing for him to do, he left, said he was going to go up the street to shoot some ball. Joseph never seen again. But then the next day, somebody called the restaurant, claiming to be Joseph,

which is super fucking creepy, making it creepier. They said, I'm almost dead. before they hung up. My God, is that the killer? Taunting people again? And now I am going to

stop things right here for this week. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. We still have numerous murders to get through. So we'll jump back into the timeline this next episode.

Numerous murders before the suspect is apprehended and what a strange suspect they, of course, will be a very different kind of person for most of the serial killers we have covered here before. Yeah, quite, quite different, actually. A bit a long time since I've done a two-parter, and in the past, I still would add a top five takeaways,

TimeSucker updates to the end of part one. I don't think that was the best call now after doing multiple multi-part episodes of nightmare fuel over on Scared to Death the past few years. I've learned, which I guess should have not probably been a surprise, that a lot of people like to listen to the episodes back-to-back, and so adding a bunch of non-episode information at the end of a part one of a two-parter,

you know, messes up the flow of the story quite a bit. So in an effort to create the best listening experience possible, I'm instead just going to wrap it up right here this week. So until next week, don't fucking kill any kids. Rethink your entire life instead if that was even a possibility. And just keep on sucking, and I'll see you in a week. I have to at least give you this. I can help myself.

And I think I'll see you in less than a week. That's a short suck. Just soothing heart music. So pretend somebody's just fucking using their hog to pluck those heavenly strings somehow. Which sounds very painful. But they're willing to sacrifice for their art. Little palate cleanser, but also pretty fucked up. You had the dick part.