WEBVTT - The Sheriff [bonus] 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to the special summer series of Atlanta Monster. I'm 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:07.440 your host Jason Hoak. In this episode, we dive deeper 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:10.800 into the story of Sydney Dorsey, a legendary figure in 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:15.240 Atlanta law enforcement, a figure with continued connections to the 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:19.280 Atlanta child murders and some of them responsible for shooting 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:26.960 the sheriff. It was around midnight December, going into December 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.440 two thousand. My phone rings and it's the Decapp County 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:35.320 Police Department. They're saying, Mr. Cardwell, are you okay? And 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:39.320 I said, yeah, I'm okay. Would you please come to 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.240 your door? So we slowly walked to the front door. 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.240 I opened the door and there's a half dozen police 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:48.920 officer standing in the miserable rainy night in front of me, 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.720 the waters dripping off the brims of their hats, and 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:54.680 it's a bevy of local law enforcement. And they said, 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.240 Mr Cardwell, the sheriff elect of Decapp County, Dorwin Brown, 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:02.120 was shot and killed an hour in his front yard. 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.640 He's dead, and quite frankly, we expected to find you 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:10.800 dead too. It's surreal, you know, but it was reality. 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.160 And they said, we need you and your family to 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:17.040 get some clothes together because we believe we're just simply 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.280 moments ahead of whoever it is that wanted the sheriff dead. 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.160 They want you, dad, they want Jay Tom Morgan dad. 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:26.760 There are a number of people that they've had on 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:31.840 a hit list, and you're thinking, Oh my god, that's unbelievable, 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:34.959 that's impossible, that could not You can't be telling me, 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:39.680 wake me up. In Atlanta, another body was discovering today 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.560 at police Task Wars headquarters. There are twenty seven faces 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.880 on the wall, murdered, one missing. We do not know 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.120 the person or persons that are responsible. Therefore, we do 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.320 not have the money from Tenderfoot TV and how staff 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.440 works in Atlanta like a love Another recent victims in Atlanta, 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:59.360 Rogers apparently was asphyxiator Atlanta. It was unlikely to catch 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:04.520 the killer unless he keeps on killing. This is Atlanta monster. 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:18.000 During our investigation, Wayne Williams and Dwyane Hendricks told us 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.200 that Sydney Dorsey was the key to breaking open this case. 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.639 That he would have invaluable information that would change everything. 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.280 You're going to get to hear from Sydney Dorsey. Uh, 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.120 he was a person w person responsible. They put me 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.840 in prison. The Dorsey, who is probably good. I agree 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:40.480 to talk to you. He's willing to complete I mean, 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:47.320 Sidney Dorsey is the key to all this. Dale Cardwell 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:52.040 was a reporter and investigator for local Atlanta television. One 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:54.160 faithful night you got a knock on his door from 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.680 local authorities. The night they brought him into protective custody, 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.560 Cardwell had been tracking corruption happening in the local Decap 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.840 County Police Department, a department that was led by Sheriff 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:12.200 Sydney Dorsey. If you'll recall, Sydney Dorsey was part of 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:14.640 an effort in the late nineties and early two thousands 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:19.800 to reopen the case, along with Officer Louis Graham. Both 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:25.080 Graham and Dorsey did not believe Williams was responsible. I 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:29.359 frankly don't think that Wayne Williams has killed anyone. That's 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.880 former Atlanta homicide detective sid Dorsey, who was with the 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:36.120 task force that put Williams behind bars. He's one of 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.440 an unlikely group of people in the criminal justice system 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.120 now coming forward to say Wayne Williams did not commit 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:47.160 the Atlanta child murders. I have never thought at Wayne 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.880 Williams was guilty of any murder that had not one 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.360 of those dozens of killings, not one. People asked me often, 0:03:56.000 --> 0:04:01.160 did Wayne Williams do it? And I says no. Jones 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.880 disappeared in August close to this inner city strip mall. 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.400 Hours later, he was found near at dumpster behind the mall, 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:14.280 strangled wrapped in plastic. There was a young man who 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:19.400 claims to have witnessed the murder of Clifford Jones. Dorsey says. 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:23.200 An alleged eye witness described the strangling of Jones and 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:27.160 identified the strangler not Wayne Williams, but a man named 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:32.160 Jamie Brooks. I've always lived with the notion that Jamie 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:36.440 Brooks murdered the child. Brooks later died after serving time 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:40.280 in prison for rape, sodomy, and kidnapping. And despite all 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.920 that evidence, the task force blamed Clifford jones murder not 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:52.760 on Jamie Brooks, but on Wayne Williams. Dorsey was part 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:54.719 of the task force that worked on the Atlanta missing 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.760 and murdered cases. We recently filed an open records request 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.240 with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for details on all 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.479 evidence collected for each of the victims killed during this time. 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.120 In these thousands of pages of records, we found many 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.880 instances of Sydney Dorsey involved as an officer on the case. 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.119 We also found that Dorsey was demoted in the police 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.640 ranks in seven when he questioned the case around Clefford Jones, 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:23.320 one of the victims. He filed a lawsuit and later 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.840 had his brank reinstated. In an interview with the Atlanta 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.640 Journal Constitution in two thousand five, Dorsey claimed that Larry 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.760 Peterson of the GBI Crime Lab walked into a room 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.880 and told Dorsey and Yvonne Fuller Jones that those fibers 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.039 are flying everywhere and that the fibers were also showing 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.080 up on an investigator sport code. When the trial approached 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.840 in Dorsey and others thought that new evidence would come out, 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:54.159 evidence that hadn't been previously revealed to the public. When 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:57.160 the fiber evidence was the primary thrust of the prosecution's case, 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:00.360 both Dorsey and Graham are called is that all there 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:06.520 is conspiracy theories are not. Dorsey continued on this path 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.680 of doubt about the way Williams case. Dorsey said Wayne's 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.159 father Homer called him in claiming Wayne had been set 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.640 up and like Williams. Dorsey also claimed he received calls 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:21.440 from a mysterious female figure. The woman was worried that 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.279 her husband, a recovering drug addict, might slip off and 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:28.000 try to buy drugs, and she contented Dorsey to tail him. 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.719 While Dorsey didn't get directly involved, the whiff of conspiratorial 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.880 talk creeps into Dorsey's narrative. Despite the police from both 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:38.960 Lewis Graham and Sydney Dorsey, the convictions in the Williams 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:43.400 case were upheld in and way Williams remained in prison. 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.600 The judge ruled that regardless of any evidence not presented 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.840 at the time of the original trial, nothing substantial had 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:56.800 changed regarding this evidence. But why was Sydney Dorsey so 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.360 important to this case now? What role did he have 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:01.760 in the and A child murders? And why is he 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:10.160 in a Georgia prison. The story of the sheriff Sydney 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:12.920 Dorsey is also one of the most bizarre murder cases 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:21.800 in US history. Dale Cardwell remembered not only the Atlanta 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:29.320 child murders, but also Sydney Dorsey. My name is Dale Cardwell. 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.480 I spent twenty five years as a conventional investigative reporter, 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:37.040 most of that at WSB. People trusted that I would 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.720 tell the story, keep them anonymous if they deserved to 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:45.400 be capta anonymous. I remember thinking, why can't they figure 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.360 this out? Who in the world could be doing this, 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.040 obviously in such a public manner and be doing it 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:56.560 without anyone catching them? What? A lot of people in 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.440 my demographic thought, Okay, they got him, let's put him 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:07.840 on trial, put him away, and let's move on. Dorsey 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.520 was intimately involved in the investigation. In fact, he was 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:13.840 part of the team that was in Wayne's house when 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.800 evidence was collected. And Dorsey had always been a big 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:26.320 personality in Atlanta. I moved to Atlanta and you couldn't 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:31.360 go anywhere without hearing the name Sydney Dorsey. Covering general 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.439 news and being a consumer investigator at the time, you're 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:41.640 running into his name often. Sydney was very aggressive, very personal, 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:46.079 had a charismatic way of presenting himself. He was considered 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:50.840 a cowboy, and so there are stories about his activities. 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:54.680 He was known in the community as as a guy 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.320 that would rough you up, and so kids in the 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:01.200 community were petrified of it. He would through the neighborhoods 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:05.000 and people were scared of him. He had two things 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.160 going for him. He was charismatic. Plus he had the blue. 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.359 He was wearing the blue, so he was all powerful. 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.120 There's one story of a kid hiding underneath a house 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:19.559 and Sydney Dorsey going underneath the house and the cross 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.880 base and just simply firing his weapon indiscriminately into the darkness. 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.160 Sydney Dorsey was ambitious and he had his eyes set 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.960 on a bigger prize. The sky was not the limit 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:39.079 for him. He felt driven to be something far beyond 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:45.280 what he had already become. He had incredible self confidence. 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:51.599 He started earning the respect and the support of the 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:56.000 African American church community into Capp County. Still, no one 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.520 dreamed that he could ever topple the system and become 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.719 the first elected African American sheriff, not only in the 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:06.320 Cab County, but in the state of Georgia. And he 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:11.760 did just that, and it was stunning. He was this 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:16.320 prolific Atlanta homicide police detective in the seventies and eighties 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.280 at a time when there were very few African American 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:23.040 police officers on the beat. As the white power structure 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:27.600 transitioned to a black power structure, Frankly, white people wanted 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.520 to keep their control over that transition. So there were 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:35.520 hands selected African Americans that were brought into the mix, 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.720 very capable, but they knew that there were white people 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:43.040 that wanted them in those positions. In a sense that 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.079 gave rise to the fact that they were untouchable. They 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:51.959 were not monitored and managed in the same way that 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.600 you would normally bring in someone and move them through 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:58.480 the police ranks. They were handled with kids clubs, and 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:00.400 they were able to get away with stuff that a 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.040 conventional officer was not able to get away with. Sydney 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.120 Dorsey's run a sheriff was not to go unchecked, though 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:11.960 he handily defeated opponent Derwin Brown. Brown would challenge Dorsey 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.000 again in two thousand. Derwin Brown was a decap county 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.720 police officer. By all accounts, he was straight laced, he 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.360 treated people fairly, He was very involved in his community. 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:25.720 He truly cared about the community. He was a very 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:30.080 very pro union police officer, and so therefore the county 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.760 management could not stand him. They were at constant odds 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:36.680 because Derwin Brown was always trying to fight for police 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.640 officers rights and he was not afraid to be in 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:42.640 the lead in that fight. They were okay to keep 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.840 him in this place as long as they could control him, 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:49.280 keep him as a decapped county officer. Yeah, he's rattling 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.400 sabers and talking about better pay for police officers. But 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:54.480 as long as we keep him there, we're okay. They 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.199 never dreamed that he could break out of that paradigm, 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:00.720 and the thought of him running for sheriff and actually 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:08.480 winning the office was unthinkable. I was at a dairy queen. 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:10.880 It was late in the evening, and I'm standing in 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.079 line and a guy behind me says, hey, you're Dale 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:17.800 Cardwell with Channel two. I've got the story of the year, 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:20.640 but I don't think you've got the courage to tell it. 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.400 I said, Okay, try me, and he said, the sheriff 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:28.680 of De Cab County is using on duty sheriff's deputies 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:33.200 to man his private security jobs all over me to Atlanta, 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:38.200 and nobody will do anything about it. He's using on 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.120 duty deputies who are being paid by the taxpayers, and 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:46.040 then he's dispatching them to banks, shopping centers, all kinds 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:50.560 of commercial establishments where the sheriff has private security contracts 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.439 with those establishments through his side business called s and 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:59.520 s security and I said that's crazy. There's no way 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:01.920 that he could get away with that. He says, yeah, 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.800 well he is because everybody is afraid of this guy, 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.600 and nobody will bust that story. I was notive enough 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.680 to think I'll bust that story. If I can determine 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:16.000 that it's true, I'll tell that story. He wanted anonymity, 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.400 obviously for reasons that Sydney controlled a lot of jobs 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.280 in the county. And I started digging, it's what I do, 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:32.520 and I found that he told me the truth. I 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:39.080 saw Sydney Dorsey's name everywhere on every Sheriff's Department vehicle, 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:44.880 on every entrance to every building that's controlled by the 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.520 decamped county Sheriff's Department. Sydney was a promoter, par excellant. 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:54.000 No one could touch him in self promotion. He was 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:56.600 on television every chance he had it to be on television. 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.960 He was building an incredible hatronage system for himself where 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:06.560 people owed him for the jobs they had. I think 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:10.600 that he could envision no possibility of losing the election. 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.120 Everyone around him had to be and was a fan 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:16.679 of Sydney Dorsey. They told him that he was great. 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:19.520 He heard every day that he was great. I don't 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:23.680 think anyone ever challenged him at all. Shockingly, Dorsey did 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:27.000 not win his re election for sheriff after being forced 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.600 into a runoff election with Brown, but no one saw 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:34.200 coming Brown ended up winning easily in the runoff. Well. 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.880 On election night it was it was a stunner of 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:41.400 Darwin Brown one three to one. This guy who was 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.240 destined to be a street cop suddenly became the most 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.480 powerful person into Cap County. When you manage a three 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:52.720 hundred plus million dollar budget a year with zero governing, 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:54.720 you're in charge of all of it. All of a 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.800 sudden you're the king. And I don't think that that's 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:02.520 what he was after. I think he was after the 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:04.920 belief that he can make a difference, and it suddenly 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:07.240 he had the power to make a difference. So it 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:12.120 was euphoria for him. It was utter defeat for Sydney 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.160 Dorsey two time. Morgan had been through his own campaign 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:19.640 that year to becoming Decab County's new district attorney. As 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:24.760 the sheriff has little to do with the investigational crops um. 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:29.040 He's more a gatekeeper and guard of the jail. Now 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.040 our jail is the biggest jail decide of the Mississippi River. 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:36.800 In December two thousand, a series of unbelievable events would 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:39.880 change local law enforcement history and the faiths of Sydney 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:56.840 Dorsey and Durham Brown forever. I think it was anger first, 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.840 disbelief second, and I think they started looking for people 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:05.680 to blame, and clearly Derwin Brown was to blame for this. 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.040 It's called sheriff's school. You get two weeks learned how 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:14.640 to be a hotel manager with a gun. When Brown 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:16.760 returned to his home that night, he was shot and 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:21.880 killed in his driveway by unknown assailants. The people that 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:26.480 perpetrated the crime for him, led by Patrick Cuffey. Three 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:28.680 of them were to Cab County Sheriff's deputies that had 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.160 no credentials. They should never have been sworn in as 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:36.960 police officers, criminal records, no training. Patrick Cuffey was the 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:41.520 second highest paid law officer in the county, next to 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.320 Sydney Dorsey. The assailants weren't random shooters with a grudge 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:48.480 against their new sheriff. They were inside the sheriff's department 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:50.880 and included on a list of employees that would not 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.120 be returning to the department. Once Brown officially started as 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.120 sheriff of the Cab County. Brown thought he was doing 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.800 these officers a favor by giving them notice that they 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.400 not be returning, but instead it ended up providing a motive, 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:07.760 a motive to get even. At that time, I had 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.280 a decision to make, and they gave me the opportunity 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:14.119 to make the decision. You know, fail, You're a valuable employee, 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.440 You're a really good reporter, but no one could expect 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.720 you to continue this line of investigation. Your life's in danger, 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.680 it's clearly been threatened. You have the opportunity to move 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.359 off this story. I thought about it, and I said, 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:31.680 this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm in this 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:36.080 position for a reason, and if I quit following this, 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.679 then the forces of evil are going to win. So 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:42.360 I felt compelled that I had to keep telling the story. 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.800 And just because the person who had been accused of 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:49.080 the murderer and the corruption was now in custody, it 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:51.960 didn't change the fact that we were continuing to unravel 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:59.000 stories of unbelievable corruption. And all these years later, I realized, Wow, 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:02.359 that's taken a toll on me. But I didn't realize 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:07.640 it at the time. My actions then had significant implications 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.520 for my family. My daughter to this day has nightmares 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.000 that something has happened to her dad. She'll call me up, 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.520 She'll say, I had the dream again. I had the 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.920 dream again. J Tom Morgan, to Cab County's newly elected 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:25.280 district Attorney, was also a target, and despite his initial resistance, 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:31.120 he also received help from police officials. Initially, I would 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:36.960 not accept any type of bodyguard or drab or anything 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.840 like that. It was only later is that I got 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:45.960 a confidential disclosure from the town left seeing one of 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:50.000 the four that my life was in danger, and that's 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:54.439 when I started with a round the top protection. We 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:58.920 took it very seriously. Um it was no rocking for 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.320 me and my family and my children. We did not 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:04.879 tell the kids that much, that they just had to 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:08.439 be very careful and there would be somebody, you know, 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.640 walking them home from school. There will be somebody when 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.800 they got home from school. And I never carried again 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:21.720 until that time. Derwin Brown was dead. Metro Atlanta was 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:25.480 shocked by what had happened. There was a buzz in 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:30.640 the city. No one was in custody for his murder, 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:42.159 but the suspects were hiding in plain sight. Nice to 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:48.119 Dale Cardwell's inside information and his newscast, the public and 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:55.399 myself more and more about what was going on. He 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:59.840 had literally run this past people, you know, saying, you know, 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:04.199 if something happened to Darwin Brown, God forbid, what do 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:06.920 you think would happen? And all the Sinkaphan said, well, 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:10.440 you would immediately be voted back in, They would appoint 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:12.720 you as the interim sheriff, and then there would be 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:16.720 a special election, and obviously you're the logical candidate. And 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:21.879 he truly believed that that's what would happen. When you 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.560 have a case like this, you draw a small circle 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:29.879 around someone who's been drawn from the inside out. The 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.680 only person that would seem to have a motive Business Dorsey. 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:40.080 Dorsey had this crazy idea that once Darvan was noted, 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:42.760 that he could run in a special election and get 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:47.960 his job back. We also sent in Fred May's, the 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:52.840 GBI director, Fred head of the GBI investigation not only 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:56.200 of the corruption but of the murder. But Fred went 0:20:56.200 --> 0:21:00.359 into Ms Dorsey's office and was secretly wired and question 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:04.240 him and Mr Dorsey says, and he thinks he's having 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:08.280 a private conversation with Agent Mays, and he says, and 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.880 I quote Drwin Brown is the most god awful son 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:16.480 of the pitch I've ever met him entire life. One 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:22.000 of Dorsey's methods of communication was legendary eating the evidence. 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:27.399 Mr Dorsey had his habit that if he wanted something 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:30.440 to destroyed, he would eat it. There was a check 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:35.760 written by bondsman for a broad and when she paid 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:39.520 the bribe with the check, Dorsey ate the check. He said, 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:43.000 you only pay him cash. There was another instance with 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:47.639 the same boss, uh Suley Michael when they were in 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:51.200 a restaurant and we had ms mclickhel wired and Dorsey 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.280 became suspicious and he write on the napkin are you wired? 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.680 Handed it to his mut Bible and that the napkin 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.240 back and hate it. And then Keffie told all this 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:02.480 that and when he went to see Dorsey, he had 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.600 gotten the phone. Called to go see Dorsey. Dorsey answered 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:09.520 the front door where nothing that is bad? From handing 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:13.200 it a copy of note is that Kilda and Brown 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:16.040 copy read note. Dorsey took it back, put in his 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:22.119 mouth and ate it. This Dorsey was arrested at his 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:26.520 first appearance hearing how we're called. Vividly walking my son 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:29.359 to school and we had to pass the courthouse and 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:32.159 there would be protesters out there protesting against me and 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:37.040 for Dorsey and saying that I was prosecuting an innocent man. 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:47.200 It is the most dramatic moment of my career. Every 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.680 judge does it differently. Judge Becker and I had tried 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:53.000 cases before her before, and I knew she was going 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:56.320 to make the prosecutor read the verdict. I knew that 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:58.800 was going to be very difficult, but I was amazingly 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:05.560 calm read the jury by the defendant as to count 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:10.720 one guilty, as to account to guilty, as to count 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:16.119 three guilty as account for not guilty, as to county 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:21.080 by not guilty, as to count sis guilty, as to 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:27.720 count set guilty as account a guilty, as account that guilty, 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:33.600 as accounting ten guilt, as account of eleven guilty, account 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:39.440 twelve guilty, account of thirteen guilty, as to count four 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:47.800 team guilty. That's account of fifteam not guilty. Saturday, what 0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:52.760 I remember is that Phillips Brown h just collapsed. We 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:54.879 all knew the first count was murdered. So when I 0:23:54.920 --> 0:24:00.520 read the guilty, uh, Phillips fell out and U so 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:05.119 it's hard to getting through the rest of indictments. Sydney 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:11.280 Dorsey had no physical response to the verdict. You saw nothing, 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:14.560 no change in his demeanor at all. He was very stoic. 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:17.919 He had no reaction, never said a word. During the 0:24:17.960 --> 0:24:21.680 Senate scene, he put his hands up and he said, 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:28.080 your honor, I know you're gonna sentence me severely, but 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:31.440 I do not have the blood of during Brown on 0:24:31.520 --> 0:24:39.640 my hands. Sydney Dorsey has enough activity in the gray 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:41.919 that it may not be in his best interest to 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:46.040 tell everything he knows, because it might make him look 0:24:46.440 --> 0:24:49.000 worse than he does. You have to think, if I'm 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:53.280 in in prison for the murder of my rival, what 0:24:53.440 --> 0:24:56.720 could look worse than that? So you know, I tend 0:24:56.760 --> 0:25:06.280 to think that Sydney Dorsey ought to talk. Rumblings and 0:25:06.320 --> 0:25:09.439 the innocence of way Williams continued from Lewis Graham and 0:25:09.480 --> 0:25:12.639 Sydney Dorsey even after Dorsey had been convicted of the 0:25:12.720 --> 0:25:16.920 murderer of Brown and made two thousand five, Graham announced 0:25:16.920 --> 0:25:19.960 he was reopening the cases around the Atlanta child murders. 0:25:20.080 --> 0:25:23.280 Dorsey told Bill Torpy at the Atlanta Journal Constitution that 0:25:23.359 --> 0:25:27.480 month that quote way Williams was the perfect suspect, the 0:25:27.520 --> 0:25:30.880 perfect fall guy. If they arrested a white guy, there 0:25:30.880 --> 0:25:36.000 would have been riots across the US. When Dorsey heard 0:25:36.040 --> 0:25:38.480 the news from his old friend Graham, he was confident 0:25:38.640 --> 0:25:42.679 that he must have had something. Graham continued to press on, 0:25:44.400 --> 0:25:48.200 my responsibility as chief of police in the Camp County 0:25:48.520 --> 0:25:51.480 is to look at all cases, and it was my 0:25:51.560 --> 0:25:55.520 decisions who look at these UH five cases, along with 0:25:56.600 --> 0:26:01.160 other unsolved cases. We are simply open in these cases 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:05.800 and we are simply going to follow uh The evidence 0:26:06.440 --> 0:26:09.760 for it leaves is. You have been quoted as saying 0:26:10.040 --> 0:26:12.879 I have never believed that he did anything. Is that 0:26:12.920 --> 0:26:15.639 a correct quote? That is a very very correct quote. 0:26:15.880 --> 0:26:20.960 That's great. The day the paper had the headline that 0:26:21.400 --> 0:26:24.679 Lewis Graham was reopening that case, there was another major 0:26:24.760 --> 0:26:27.840 political controversy that was coming out the same day. The 0:26:27.880 --> 0:26:30.400 gb I had been conducting an investigation of a very 0:26:30.400 --> 0:26:34.400 powerful local political leader and the results of that investigation 0:26:34.480 --> 0:26:37.920 was going to be embarrassing to that leader. And Louis 0:26:37.960 --> 0:26:41.679 Graham worked for that leader. And it's my opinion that 0:26:41.720 --> 0:26:45.679 those two people conspired to figure out a bigger story 0:26:46.040 --> 0:26:49.200 to break on the day that the embarrassing story was 0:26:49.240 --> 0:26:52.359 going to come out to that other figure. And that's 0:26:52.400 --> 0:26:55.720 exactly what happened. Missing Murder Children front page of the 0:26:55.880 --> 0:26:59.800 j C, the embarrassing story to the political leader buried 0:26:59.840 --> 0:27:02.680 in the metro section. Did the case of the Atlanta 0:27:02.760 --> 0:27:06.360 child murders get reopened due to a competing political scandal 0:27:07.160 --> 0:27:11.200 or was this conspiracy theory? Dorsey himself did not confess 0:27:11.280 --> 0:27:14.200 to the murder of Jerwan Brown until years later. He 0:27:14.320 --> 0:27:18.040 told District Attorney Gwen Keys Fleming on July thirte two 0:27:18.080 --> 0:27:21.359 thousand seven, that he did indeed order the hit on Brown. 0:27:22.240 --> 0:27:25.720 The Associated Press reported that Dorsey told Fleming that after 0:27:25.840 --> 0:27:29.280 losing the election in two thousand he was angry and 0:27:29.320 --> 0:27:32.040