women and three men were chosen. The trial began
on January 6, 1982. Williams was represented by At-
lanta attorney Mary Welcome and attorneys Alvin
Binder and Jim Kitchens from Jackson, Mississippi.
District Attorney Lewis Slaton led the prosecution
team. The prosecution presented a wide array of
blood, fiber, and hair evidence tying Williams not
only to the two victims with whose murders he had
been charged but to ten other murders as well. In ad-
dition, a series of eyewitnesses testified to seeing Wil-
liams with some of the victims.
On February 27, 1982, the jury found Williams
guilty of the two murders. Two days later, members
of the task force declared that Williams had killed
twenty-one others on the list, and these cases were
declared solved. Williams was sentenced to two con-
secutive life terms in prison.
Aftermath and Controversy Although there was a
certain relief at the conclusion of the Williams trial,
many people remained critical of the way in which
the deaths of so many African American children
had been handled and the prosecution’s perceived
dependence on circumstantial evidence, which
opened the possibility that all of the murders attrib-
uted to Williams might not have been committed by
him. It was hard for some to conceive of a black serial
killer, and the kind of profiling that would later be-
come an accepted part of investigative practice was
just establishing itself when the Atlanta murders
came to public attention. Some even believed that
Williams was innocent of all the murders, although
these were in the minority.
Impact The series of youth murders focused atten-
tion on the previously invisible poverty and crime that
haunted Atlanta and especially on the inadequacy of
police protection and investigation in the city’s poor,
black neighborhoods. In the end, it became clear
that the poor, black members of Atlanta suffered
disproportionately from rampant crime and lack of
police protection, a problem that would prove to be
endemic—and would only worsen—in urban areas
throughout the United States during the 1980’s.
Further Reading
Dettlinger, Chet, with Jeff Prugh.The List. Atlanta:
Philmay, 1983. Criticism of the way in which the
murder investigation was handled that calls atten-
tion to other murders not on the official “list”
established by the task force. Coauthored by a for-
mer Atlanta police officer and a journalist and
nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Includes the list,
maps, and photographs of the victims.
Douglas, John, and Mark Olshaker.Mindhunter: In-
side the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit. New York: Lisa
Drew/Scribner, 1995. The chapter, “Atlanta,” tells
the story of the murders from the perspective of
one of the FBI’s best-known profilers, who was in-
volved in the investigation of the murders, the ar-
rest of Wayne Williams, and the prosecution’s
trial strategy. Dispels myths about the involve-
ment of the Ku Klux Klan and takes the position
that Williams killed at least eleven of the victims.
Headley, Bernard.The Atlanta Child Murders and the
Politics of Race. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Uni-
versity Press, 1998. Academic study by a professor
of criminology and criminal justice. Covers the
various reactions to the crimes, the trial of Wayne
Williams, and the verdict; takes the position that
Williams was guilty of at least twenty-three of the
thirty murders. Contains appendixes with a total
list, photographs, and details of the murders, as
well as the guidelines of the task force established
to solve them.
Lopez, Nancy. “The City It Always Wanted to Be: The
Child Murders and the Coming of Age of At-
lanta.” InThe Southern Albatross: Race and Ethnicity
in the American South, edited by Philip D. Dillard
and Randal L. Hall. Macon, Ga.: Mercer Univer-
sity Press, 1999. Places the child killings in the
context of the economic, political, and racial his-
tory of Atlanta.
Susan Love BrownSee also African Americans; Crime; Lucas, Henry
Lee; Night Stalker case; Racial discrimination.Atwater, Lee
Identification Political strategist and chairman of
the Republican National Committee in 1989
Born February 27, 1951; Atlanta, Georgia
Died March 29, 1991; Washington, D.C.A pioneer in the business of political consulting and the
manager of George H. W. Bush’s 1988 presidential cam-
paign, Atwater was responsible for bringing a highly per-
sonal and confrontational style of negative campaigning to
the forefront of American politics.The Eighties in America Atwater, Lee 81