Institute, 1982. Extremely comprehensive practi-
cal legal analysis prepared for distribution to law-
yers and other professionals attending a 1982
conference on the settlement.
National Association of Attorneys General.The
AT&T Settlement: Terms Effects Prospects. New York:
Law & Business, 1982. Document designed to aid
state attorneys general in their responses to the
AT&T breakup and oversight of the transformed
telecommunications industry.
Spencer Weber Waller
See also Business and the economy in the United
States; Cell phones; Information age.
Atlanta child murders
Identification A series of killings in the city of
Atlanta
Date 1979-1981
Place Atlanta, Georgia
The murders of black children and young adults and law
enforcement’s slow response to the initial crimes called at-
tention to the vulnerability of poor, black children in what
was considered to be an economically advanced and ra-
cially enlightened Southern city. They also drew attention to
the phenomenon of the serial killer. Although the murders
began in 1979, they did not come to general attention until
1980, and no suspect was found until 1981.
At the end of the 1970’s, the city of Atlanta had one
of the highest crime rates in the United States. Much
of the crime went unnoticed, however, even by the
local newspapers. On July 28, 1979, the bodies of two
African American children from different housing
projects in different parts of Atlanta were discov-
ered. The deaths of fourteen-year-old Edward Hope
Smith and thirteen-year-old Alfred James Evans were
followed in September by the disappearance of Mil-
ton Harvey, age seven. In October, Yusef Bell, age
nine, also disappeared. The body count quickly ac-
celerated throughout the summer of 1980 into a list
that would eventually grow to thirty names by 1981.
Parents and Police Take Action A group of parents
whose children had been victims, along with their
neighbors and other concerned citizens, formed the
Committee to Stop Children’s Murders (STOP) on
April 15, 1980. The group set up a hotline, provided
safety education, hired private investigators, and held
press conferences. They treated the increasing num-
ber of deaths and disappearances of children as re-
lated. At first, however, the police investigated each
murder individually. As the disappearances contin-
ued, the Atlanta police finally recognized that there
might be a relationship among the murders. On Au-
gust 14, 1980, they formed the Missing and Murdered
Task Force to deal with the series of murders.
In September, the Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion (FBI) entered the investigation at the behest of
Attorney General Griffin Bell, after the mayor of At-
lanta, Maynard Jackson, asked the White House for
help. The official case name assigned by the FBI was
ATKID, also known as Major Case 30. Eventually,
law-enforcement officials were able to provide a pro-
file of a serial killer who targeted young, black males
and to collect enough evidence to solve at least some
of the murders.Arrest and Trial On May 22, 1981, police in the area
stopped the car of Wayne Bertram Williams, a twenty-
three-year-old African American man, after hearing a
splash off the James Jackson Parkway Bridge. Two
days later, they discovered the body of Nathaniel Ca-
ter, a twenty-seven-year-old man, in the Chattahoo-
chee River near the bridge. On June 21, 1981, the po-
lice arrested Williams for the murders of Cater and
another victim, Jimmy Payne, whose killing was con-
sidered the last in the series of murders.
Jury selection for the trial of Williams began on
December 28, 1981, in Fulton County Superior
Court with Judge Clarence Cooper presiding. Nine80 Atlanta child murders The Eighties in America
Convicted killer Wayne Bertram Williams, center, appears at a
1983 news conference at Atlanta’s Fulton County jail, at which
he protests his innocence.(AP/Wide World Photos)