Speaker 1: Welcome to the special summer series of Atlanta Monster. I'm
Speaker 1: your host Jason Hoak. In this episode, we dive deeper
Speaker 1: into the story of Sydney Dorsey, a legendary figure in
Speaker 1: Atlanta law enforcement, a figure with continued connections to the
Speaker 1: Atlanta child murders and some of them responsible for shooting
Speaker 1: the sheriff. It was around midnight December, going into December
Speaker 1: two thousand. My phone rings and it's the Decapp County
Speaker 1: Police Department. They're saying, Mr. Cardwell, are you okay? And
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I'm okay. Would you please come to
Speaker 1: your door? So we slowly walked to the front door.
Speaker 1: I opened the door and there's a half dozen police
Speaker 1: officer standing in the miserable rainy night in front of me,
Speaker 1: the waters dripping off the brims of their hats, and
Speaker 1: it's a bevy of local law enforcement. And they said,
Speaker 1: Mr Cardwell, the sheriff elect of Decapp County, Dorwin Brown,
Speaker 1: was shot and killed an hour in his front yard.
Speaker 1: He's dead, and quite frankly, we expected to find you
Speaker 1: dead too. It's surreal, you know, but it was reality.
Speaker 1: And they said, we need you and your family to
Speaker 1: get some clothes together because we believe we're just simply
Speaker 1: moments ahead of whoever it is that wanted the sheriff dead.
Speaker 1: They want you, dad, they want Jay Tom Morgan dad.
Speaker 1: There are a number of people that they've had on
Speaker 1: a hit list, and you're thinking, Oh my god, that's unbelievable,
Speaker 1: that's impossible, that could not You can't be telling me,
Speaker 1: wake me up. In Atlanta, another body was discovering today
Speaker 1: at police Task Wars headquarters. There are twenty seven faces
Speaker 1: on the wall, murdered, one missing. We do not know
Speaker 1: the person or persons that are responsible. Therefore, we do
Speaker 1: not have the money from Tenderfoot TV and how staff
Speaker 1: works in Atlanta like a love Another recent victims in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: Rogers apparently was asphyxiator Atlanta. It was unlikely to catch
Speaker 1: the killer unless he keeps on killing. This is Atlanta monster.
Speaker 1: During our investigation, Wayne Williams and Dwyane Hendricks told us
Speaker 1: that Sydney Dorsey was the key to breaking open this case.
Speaker 1: That he would have invaluable information that would change everything.
Speaker 1: You're going to get to hear from Sydney Dorsey. Uh,
Speaker 1: he was a person w person responsible. They put me
Speaker 1: in prison. The Dorsey, who is probably good. I agree
Speaker 1: to talk to you. He's willing to complete I mean,
Speaker 1: Sidney Dorsey is the key to all this. Dale Cardwell
Speaker 1: was a reporter and investigator for local Atlanta television. One
Speaker 1: faithful night you got a knock on his door from
Speaker 1: local authorities. The night they brought him into protective custody,
Speaker 1: Cardwell had been tracking corruption happening in the local Decap
Speaker 1: County Police Department, a department that was led by Sheriff
Speaker 1: Sydney Dorsey. If you'll recall, Sydney Dorsey was part of
Speaker 1: an effort in the late nineties and early two thousands
Speaker 1: to reopen the case, along with Officer Louis Graham. Both
Speaker 1: Graham and Dorsey did not believe Williams was responsible. I
Speaker 1: frankly don't think that Wayne Williams has killed anyone. That's
Speaker 1: former Atlanta homicide detective sid Dorsey, who was with the
Speaker 1: task force that put Williams behind bars. He's one of
Speaker 1: an unlikely group of people in the criminal justice system
Speaker 1: now coming forward to say Wayne Williams did not commit
Speaker 1: the Atlanta child murders. I have never thought at Wayne
Speaker 1: Williams was guilty of any murder that had not one
Speaker 1: of those dozens of killings, not one. People asked me often,
Speaker 1: did Wayne Williams do it? And I says no. Jones
Speaker 1: disappeared in August close to this inner city strip mall.
Speaker 1: Hours later, he was found near at dumpster behind the mall,
Speaker 1: strangled wrapped in plastic. There was a young man who
Speaker 1: claims to have witnessed the murder of Clifford Jones. Dorsey says.
Speaker 1: An alleged eye witness described the strangling of Jones and
Speaker 1: identified the strangler not Wayne Williams, but a man named
Speaker 1: Jamie Brooks. I've always lived with the notion that Jamie
Speaker 1: Brooks murdered the child. Brooks later died after serving time
Speaker 1: in prison for rape, sodomy, and kidnapping. And despite all
Speaker 1: that evidence, the task force blamed Clifford jones murder not
Speaker 1: on Jamie Brooks, but on Wayne Williams. Dorsey was part
Speaker 1: of the task force that worked on the Atlanta missing
Speaker 1: and murdered cases. We recently filed an open records request
Speaker 1: with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for details on all
Speaker 1: evidence collected for each of the victims killed during this time.
Speaker 1: In these thousands of pages of records, we found many
Speaker 1: instances of Sydney Dorsey involved as an officer on the case.
Speaker 1: We also found that Dorsey was demoted in the police
Speaker 1: ranks in seven when he questioned the case around Clefford Jones,
Speaker 1: one of the victims. He filed a lawsuit and later
Speaker 1: had his brank reinstated. In an interview with the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Journal Constitution in two thousand five, Dorsey claimed that Larry
Speaker 1: Peterson of the GBI Crime Lab walked into a room
Speaker 1: and told Dorsey and Yvonne Fuller Jones that those fibers
Speaker 1: are flying everywhere and that the fibers were also showing
Speaker 1: up on an investigator sport code. When the trial approached
Speaker 1: in Dorsey and others thought that new evidence would come out,
Speaker 1: evidence that hadn't been previously revealed to the public. When
Speaker 1: the fiber evidence was the primary thrust of the prosecution's case,
Speaker 1: both Dorsey and Graham are called is that all there
Speaker 1: is conspiracy theories are not. Dorsey continued on this path
Speaker 1: of doubt about the way Williams case. Dorsey said Wayne's
Speaker 1: father Homer called him in claiming Wayne had been set
Speaker 1: up and like Williams. Dorsey also claimed he received calls
Speaker 1: from a mysterious female figure. The woman was worried that
Speaker 1: her husband, a recovering drug addict, might slip off and
Speaker 1: try to buy drugs, and she contented Dorsey to tail him.
Speaker 1: While Dorsey didn't get directly involved, the whiff of conspiratorial
Speaker 1: talk creeps into Dorsey's narrative. Despite the police from both
Speaker 1: Lewis Graham and Sydney Dorsey, the convictions in the Williams
Speaker 1: case were upheld in and way Williams remained in prison.
Speaker 1: The judge ruled that regardless of any evidence not presented
Speaker 1: at the time of the original trial, nothing substantial had
Speaker 1: changed regarding this evidence. But why was Sydney Dorsey so
Speaker 1: important to this case now? What role did he have
Speaker 1: in the and A child murders? And why is he
Speaker 1: in a Georgia prison. The story of the sheriff Sydney
Speaker 1: Dorsey is also one of the most bizarre murder cases
Speaker 1: in US history. Dale Cardwell remembered not only the Atlanta
Speaker 1: child murders, but also Sydney Dorsey. My name is Dale Cardwell.
Speaker 1: I spent twenty five years as a conventional investigative reporter,
Speaker 1: most of that at WSB. People trusted that I would
Speaker 1: tell the story, keep them anonymous if they deserved to
Speaker 1: be capta anonymous. I remember thinking, why can't they figure
Speaker 1: this out? Who in the world could be doing this,
Speaker 1: obviously in such a public manner and be doing it
Speaker 1: without anyone catching them? What? A lot of people in
Speaker 1: my demographic thought, Okay, they got him, let's put him
Speaker 1: on trial, put him away, and let's move on. Dorsey
Speaker 1: was intimately involved in the investigation. In fact, he was
Speaker 1: part of the team that was in Wayne's house when
Speaker 1: evidence was collected. And Dorsey had always been a big
Speaker 1: personality in Atlanta. I moved to Atlanta and you couldn't
Speaker 1: go anywhere without hearing the name Sydney Dorsey. Covering general
Speaker 1: news and being a consumer investigator at the time, you're
Speaker 1: running into his name often. Sydney was very aggressive, very personal,
Speaker 1: had a charismatic way of presenting himself. He was considered
Speaker 1: a cowboy, and so there are stories about his activities.
Speaker 1: He was known in the community as as a guy
Speaker 1: that would rough you up, and so kids in the
Speaker 1: community were petrified of it. He would through the neighborhoods
Speaker 1: and people were scared of him. He had two things
Speaker 1: going for him. He was charismatic. Plus he had the blue.
Speaker 1: He was wearing the blue, so he was all powerful.
Speaker 1: There's one story of a kid hiding underneath a house
Speaker 1: and Sydney Dorsey going underneath the house and the cross
Speaker 1: base and just simply firing his weapon indiscriminately into the darkness.
Speaker 1: Sydney Dorsey was ambitious and he had his eyes set
Speaker 1: on a bigger prize. The sky was not the limit
Speaker 1: for him. He felt driven to be something far beyond
Speaker 1: what he had already become. He had incredible self confidence.
Speaker 1: He started earning the respect and the support of the
Speaker 1: African American church community into Capp County. Still, no one
Speaker 1: dreamed that he could ever topple the system and become
Speaker 1: the first elected African American sheriff, not only in the
Speaker 1: Cab County, but in the state of Georgia. And he
Speaker 1: did just that, and it was stunning. He was this
Speaker 1: prolific Atlanta homicide police detective in the seventies and eighties
Speaker 1: at a time when there were very few African American
Speaker 1: police officers on the beat. As the white power structure
Speaker 1: transitioned to a black power structure, Frankly, white people wanted
Speaker 1: to keep their control over that transition. So there were
Speaker 1: hands selected African Americans that were brought into the mix,
Speaker 1: very capable, but they knew that there were white people
Speaker 1: that wanted them in those positions. In a sense that
Speaker 1: gave rise to the fact that they were untouchable. They
Speaker 1: were not monitored and managed in the same way that
Speaker 1: you would normally bring in someone and move them through
Speaker 1: the police ranks. They were handled with kids clubs, and
Speaker 1: they were able to get away with stuff that a
Speaker 1: conventional officer was not able to get away with. Sydney
Speaker 1: Dorsey's run a sheriff was not to go unchecked, though
Speaker 1: he handily defeated opponent Derwin Brown. Brown would challenge Dorsey
Speaker 1: again in two thousand. Derwin Brown was a decap county
Speaker 1: police officer. By all accounts, he was straight laced, he
Speaker 1: treated people fairly, He was very involved in his community.
Speaker 1: He truly cared about the community. He was a very
Speaker 1: very pro union police officer, and so therefore the county
Speaker 1: management could not stand him. They were at constant odds
Speaker 1: because Derwin Brown was always trying to fight for police
Speaker 1: officers rights and he was not afraid to be in
Speaker 1: the lead in that fight. They were okay to keep
Speaker 1: him in this place as long as they could control him,
Speaker 1: keep him as a decapped county officer. Yeah, he's rattling
Speaker 1: sabers and talking about better pay for police officers. But
Speaker 1: as long as we keep him there, we're okay. They
Speaker 1: never dreamed that he could break out of that paradigm,
Speaker 1: and the thought of him running for sheriff and actually
Speaker 1: winning the office was unthinkable. I was at a dairy queen.
Speaker 1: It was late in the evening, and I'm standing in
Speaker 1: line and a guy behind me says, hey, you're Dale
Speaker 1: Cardwell with Channel two. I've got the story of the year,
Speaker 1: but I don't think you've got the courage to tell it.
Speaker 1: I said, Okay, try me, and he said, the sheriff
Speaker 1: of De Cab County is using on duty sheriff's deputies
Speaker 1: to man his private security jobs all over me to Atlanta,
Speaker 1: and nobody will do anything about it. He's using on
Speaker 1: duty deputies who are being paid by the taxpayers, and
Speaker 1: then he's dispatching them to banks, shopping centers, all kinds
Speaker 1: of commercial establishments where the sheriff has private security contracts
Speaker 1: with those establishments through his side business called s and
Speaker 1: s security and I said that's crazy. There's no way
Speaker 1: that he could get away with that. He says, yeah,
Speaker 1: well he is because everybody is afraid of this guy,
Speaker 1: and nobody will bust that story. I was notive enough
Speaker 1: to think I'll bust that story. If I can determine
Speaker 1: that it's true, I'll tell that story. He wanted anonymity,
Speaker 1: obviously for reasons that Sydney controlled a lot of jobs
Speaker 1: in the county. And I started digging, it's what I do,
Speaker 1: and I found that he told me the truth. I
Speaker 1: saw Sydney Dorsey's name everywhere on every Sheriff's Department vehicle,
Speaker 1: on every entrance to every building that's controlled by the
Speaker 1: decamped county Sheriff's Department. Sydney was a promoter, par excellant.
Speaker 1: No one could touch him in self promotion. He was
Speaker 1: on television every chance he had it to be on television.
Speaker 1: He was building an incredible hatronage system for himself where
Speaker 1: people owed him for the jobs they had. I think
Speaker 1: that he could envision no possibility of losing the election.
Speaker 1: Everyone around him had to be and was a fan
Speaker 1: of Sydney Dorsey. They told him that he was great.
Speaker 1: He heard every day that he was great. I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone ever challenged him at all. Shockingly, Dorsey did
Speaker 1: not win his re election for sheriff after being forced
Speaker 1: into a runoff election with Brown, but no one saw
Speaker 1: coming Brown ended up winning easily in the runoff. Well.
Speaker 1: On election night it was it was a stunner of
Speaker 1: Darwin Brown one three to one. This guy who was
Speaker 1: destined to be a street cop suddenly became the most
Speaker 1: powerful person into Cap County. When you manage a three
Speaker 1: hundred plus million dollar budget a year with zero governing,
Speaker 1: you're in charge of all of it. All of a
Speaker 1: sudden you're the king. And I don't think that that's
Speaker 1: what he was after. I think he was after the
Speaker 1: belief that he can make a difference, and it suddenly
Speaker 1: he had the power to make a difference. So it
Speaker 1: was euphoria for him. It was utter defeat for Sydney
Speaker 1: Dorsey two time. Morgan had been through his own campaign
Speaker 1: that year to becoming Decab County's new district attorney. As
Speaker 1: the sheriff has little to do with the investigational crops um.
Speaker 1: He's more a gatekeeper and guard of the jail. Now
Speaker 1: our jail is the biggest jail decide of the Mississippi River.
Speaker 1: In December two thousand, a series of unbelievable events would
Speaker 1: change local law enforcement history and the faiths of Sydney
Speaker 1: Dorsey and Durham Brown forever. I think it was anger first,
Speaker 1: disbelief second, and I think they started looking for people
Speaker 1: to blame, and clearly Derwin Brown was to blame for this.
Speaker 1: It's called sheriff's school. You get two weeks learned how
Speaker 1: to be a hotel manager with a gun. When Brown
Speaker 1: returned to his home that night, he was shot and
Speaker 1: killed in his driveway by unknown assailants. The people that
Speaker 1: perpetrated the crime for him, led by Patrick Cuffey. Three
Speaker 1: of them were to Cab County Sheriff's deputies that had
Speaker 1: no credentials. They should never have been sworn in as
Speaker 1: police officers, criminal records, no training. Patrick Cuffey was the
Speaker 1: second highest paid law officer in the county, next to
Speaker 1: Sydney Dorsey. The assailants weren't random shooters with a grudge
Speaker 1: against their new sheriff. They were inside the sheriff's department
Speaker 1: and included on a list of employees that would not
Speaker 1: be returning to the department. Once Brown officially started as
Speaker 1: sheriff of the Cab County. Brown thought he was doing
Speaker 1: these officers a favor by giving them notice that they
Speaker 1: not be returning, but instead it ended up providing a motive,
Speaker 1: a motive to get even. At that time, I had
Speaker 1: a decision to make, and they gave me the opportunity
Speaker 1: to make the decision. You know, fail, You're a valuable employee,
Speaker 1: You're a really good reporter, but no one could expect
Speaker 1: you to continue this line of investigation. Your life's in danger,
Speaker 1: it's clearly been threatened. You have the opportunity to move
Speaker 1: off this story. I thought about it, and I said,
Speaker 1: this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm in this
Speaker 1: position for a reason, and if I quit following this,
Speaker 1: then the forces of evil are going to win. So
Speaker 1: I felt compelled that I had to keep telling the story.
Speaker 1: And just because the person who had been accused of
Speaker 1: the murderer and the corruption was now in custody, it
Speaker 1: didn't change the fact that we were continuing to unravel
Speaker 1: stories of unbelievable corruption. And all these years later, I realized, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's taken a toll on me. But I didn't realize
Speaker 1: it at the time. My actions then had significant implications
Speaker 1: for my family. My daughter to this day has nightmares
Speaker 1: that something has happened to her dad. She'll call me up,
Speaker 1: She'll say, I had the dream again. I had the
Speaker 1: dream again. J Tom Morgan, to Cab County's newly elected
Speaker 1: district Attorney, was also a target, and despite his initial resistance,
Speaker 1: he also received help from police officials. Initially, I would
Speaker 1: not accept any type of bodyguard or drab or anything
Speaker 1: like that. It was only later is that I got
Speaker 1: a confidential disclosure from the town left seeing one of
Speaker 1: the four that my life was in danger, and that's
Speaker 1: when I started with a round the top protection. We
Speaker 1: took it very seriously. Um it was no rocking for
Speaker 1: me and my family and my children. We did not
Speaker 1: tell the kids that much, that they just had to
Speaker 1: be very careful and there would be somebody, you know,
Speaker 1: walking them home from school. There will be somebody when
Speaker 1: they got home from school. And I never carried again
Speaker 1: until that time. Derwin Brown was dead. Metro Atlanta was
Speaker 1: shocked by what had happened. There was a buzz in
Speaker 1: the city. No one was in custody for his murder,
Speaker 1: but the suspects were hiding in plain sight. Nice to
Speaker 1: Dale Cardwell's inside information and his newscast, the public and
Speaker 1: myself more and more about what was going on. He
Speaker 1: had literally run this past people, you know, saying, you know,
Speaker 1: if something happened to Darwin Brown, God forbid, what do
Speaker 1: you think would happen? And all the Sinkaphan said, well,
Speaker 1: you would immediately be voted back in, They would appoint
Speaker 1: you as the interim sheriff, and then there would be
Speaker 1: a special election, and obviously you're the logical candidate. And
Speaker 1: he truly believed that that's what would happen. When you
Speaker 1: have a case like this, you draw a small circle
Speaker 1: around someone who's been drawn from the inside out. The
Speaker 1: only person that would seem to have a motive Business Dorsey.
Speaker 1: Dorsey had this crazy idea that once Darvan was noted,
Speaker 1: that he could run in a special election and get
Speaker 1: his job back. We also sent in Fred May's, the
Speaker 1: GBI director, Fred head of the GBI investigation not only
Speaker 1: of the corruption but of the murder. But Fred went
Speaker 1: into Ms Dorsey's office and was secretly wired and question
Speaker 1: him and Mr Dorsey says, and he thinks he's having
Speaker 1: a private conversation with Agent Mays, and he says, and
Speaker 1: I quote Drwin Brown is the most god awful son
Speaker 1: of the pitch I've ever met him entire life. One
Speaker 1: of Dorsey's methods of communication was legendary eating the evidence.
Speaker 1: Mr Dorsey had his habit that if he wanted something
Speaker 1: to destroyed, he would eat it. There was a check
Speaker 1: written by bondsman for a broad and when she paid
Speaker 1: the bribe with the check, Dorsey ate the check. He said,
Speaker 1: you only pay him cash. There was another instance with
Speaker 1: the same boss, uh Suley Michael when they were in
Speaker 1: a restaurant and we had ms mclickhel wired and Dorsey
Speaker 1: became suspicious and he write on the napkin are you wired?
Speaker 1: Handed it to his mut Bible and that the napkin
Speaker 1: back and hate it. And then Keffie told all this
Speaker 1: that and when he went to see Dorsey, he had
Speaker 1: gotten the phone. Called to go see Dorsey. Dorsey answered
Speaker 1: the front door where nothing that is bad? From handing
Speaker 1: it a copy of note is that Kilda and Brown
Speaker 1: copy read note. Dorsey took it back, put in his
Speaker 1: mouth and ate it. This Dorsey was arrested at his
Speaker 1: first appearance hearing how we're called. Vividly walking my son
Speaker 1: to school and we had to pass the courthouse and
Speaker 1: there would be protesters out there protesting against me and
Speaker 1: for Dorsey and saying that I was prosecuting an innocent man.
Speaker 1: It is the most dramatic moment of my career. Every
Speaker 1: judge does it differently. Judge Becker and I had tried
Speaker 1: cases before her before, and I knew she was going
Speaker 1: to make the prosecutor read the verdict. I knew that
Speaker 1: was going to be very difficult, but I was amazingly
Speaker 1: calm read the jury by the defendant as to count
Speaker 1: one guilty, as to account to guilty, as to count
Speaker 1: three guilty as account for not guilty, as to county
Speaker 1: by not guilty, as to count sis guilty, as to
Speaker 1: count set guilty as account a guilty, as account that guilty,
Speaker 1: as accounting ten guilt, as account of eleven guilty, account
Speaker 1: twelve guilty, account of thirteen guilty, as to count four
Speaker 1: team guilty. That's account of fifteam not guilty. Saturday, what
Speaker 1: I remember is that Phillips Brown h just collapsed. We
Speaker 1: all knew the first count was murdered. So when I
Speaker 1: read the guilty, uh, Phillips fell out and U so
Speaker 1: it's hard to getting through the rest of indictments. Sydney
Speaker 1: Dorsey had no physical response to the verdict. You saw nothing,
Speaker 1: no change in his demeanor at all. He was very stoic.
Speaker 1: He had no reaction, never said a word. During the
Speaker 1: Senate scene, he put his hands up and he said,
Speaker 1: your honor, I know you're gonna sentence me severely, but
Speaker 1: I do not have the blood of during Brown on
Speaker 1: my hands. Sydney Dorsey has enough activity in the gray
Speaker 1: that it may not be in his best interest to
Speaker 1: tell everything he knows, because it might make him look
Speaker 1: worse than he does. You have to think, if I'm
Speaker 1: in in prison for the murder of my rival, what
Speaker 1: could look worse than that? So you know, I tend
Speaker 1: to think that Sydney Dorsey ought to talk. Rumblings and
Speaker 1: the innocence of way Williams continued from Lewis Graham and
Speaker 1: Sydney Dorsey even after Dorsey had been convicted of the
Speaker 1: murderer of Brown and made two thousand five, Graham announced
Speaker 1: he was reopening the cases around the Atlanta child murders.
Speaker 1: Dorsey told Bill Torpy at the Atlanta Journal Constitution that
Speaker 1: month that quote way Williams was the perfect suspect, the
Speaker 1: perfect fall guy. If they arrested a white guy, there
Speaker 1: would have been riots across the US. When Dorsey heard
Speaker 1: the news from his old friend Graham, he was confident
Speaker 1: that he must have had something. Graham continued to press on,
Speaker 1: my responsibility as chief of police in the Camp County
Speaker 1: is to look at all cases, and it was my
Speaker 1: decisions who look at these UH five cases, along with
Speaker 1: other unsolved cases. We are simply open in these cases
Speaker 1: and we are simply going to follow uh The evidence
Speaker 1: for it leaves is. You have been quoted as saying
Speaker 1: I have never believed that he did anything. Is that
Speaker 1: a correct quote? That is a very very correct quote.
Speaker 1: That's great. The day the paper had the headline that
Speaker 1: Lewis Graham was reopening that case, there was another major
Speaker 1: political controversy that was coming out the same day. The
Speaker 1: gb I had been conducting an investigation of a very
Speaker 1: powerful local political leader and the results of that investigation
Speaker 1: was going to be embarrassing to that leader. And Louis
Speaker 1: Graham worked for that leader. And it's my opinion that
Speaker 1: those two people conspired to figure out a bigger story
Speaker 1: to break on the day that the embarrassing story was
Speaker 1: going to come out to that other figure. And that's
Speaker 1: exactly what happened. Missing Murder Children front page of the
Speaker 1: j C, the embarrassing story to the political leader buried
Speaker 1: in the metro section. Did the case of the Atlanta
Speaker 1: child murders get reopened due to a competing political scandal
Speaker 1: or was this conspiracy theory? Dorsey himself did not confess
Speaker 1: to the murder of Jerwan Brown until years later. He
Speaker 1: told District Attorney Gwen Keys Fleming on July thirte two
Speaker 1: thousand seven, that he did indeed order the hit on Brown.
Speaker 1: The Associated Press reported that Dorsey told Fleming that after
Speaker 1: losing the election in two thousand he was angry and
Speaker 1: that he was also having problems with his marriage. After
Speaker 1: cheating allegations surfaced, he gave Patrick Cuffey the order to
Speaker 1: put out the hit, but later cool on this thinking.
Speaker 1: Lewis Graham resigned in May of two thousand six after
Speaker 1: internal police recordings of profanity laced conversations between Graham and
Speaker 1: his assistant became public. Despite the drama and excitement that
Speaker 1: initially surrounded the reopening of the investigation of Atlanta child
Speaker 1: murder victims from decap County. The investigation was eventually shuttered
Speaker 1: one Grammar signed. Recently, we heard from Sydney Dorsey again.
Speaker 1: While we continued to ask him more questions about the
Speaker 1: Atlanta child murders, Dorsey was still light on details in
Speaker 1: his follow up letter sent from prison. I will read
Speaker 1: our questions and Meredith, our producer, will read the responses
Speaker 1: from Sydney Dorsey's letter. Dear miss Steadman, I received your
Speaker 1: letter dated January and I must honestly tell you that
Speaker 1: I remain challenged to seek the truth although locked up
Speaker 1: behind these prison walls. I want justice for our poor
Speaker 1: kids and their families. Unfortunately, time and memory is a
Speaker 1: factor and its weight must be considered as I address
Speaker 1: each of your questions. They're for Please bear with me
Speaker 1: for a moment as we reopen a cold case. I
Speaker 1: heard that you fought to keep the Clifford Jones case
Speaker 1: in the trial as one of the victims. Is this true?
Speaker 1: If so, could you shed light on your reasoning. I
Speaker 1: remember the name Clifford Jones, but I do not remember
Speaker 1: any of the details regarding his case. Please write me
Speaker 1: back with more details, then, perhaps that will help me
Speaker 1: to remember. Was there another name besides Wayne Williams that
Speaker 1: came up repeatedly in the investigation? I do not recall
Speaker 1: any name or names that came up repeatedly during our investigation. However,
Speaker 1: I advise you to contact the former team leaders and
Speaker 1: get their input. Did it never seem to you that
Speaker 1: someone or some group was not looked into enough? Four
Speaker 1: brothers reportedly members of the KKK. We're not thoroughly investigated,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, and if they were, I have information.
Speaker 1: Who would you talk to if you were us hopefully
Speaker 1: to close the door on this tragedy. I honestly do
Speaker 1: not know anyone in or out of law enforcement that
Speaker 1: can help you close the door on this tragedy. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you should consider contacting Welcome Harris, a former team leader
Speaker 1: who headed a team of investigators roseland Richardson whose team
Speaker 1: handled all of the incoming tips, and a GPI agent
Speaker 1: who also led a team of investigators. I was also
Speaker 1: a team leader in charge of all crime scene investigation. Finally,
Speaker 1: Morris Reading was the chief of police and in charge
Speaker 1: of the homicide Task Force. Did you ever personally speak
Speaker 1: to Wayne Williams? If so, when was the last time.
Speaker 1: I have never seen in person, nor have I spoken
Speaker 1: with Wayne Williams at any time. Welcome Harris, former ajor
Speaker 1: with the Atlanta Police Department, died in two thousand and sixteen.
Speaker 1: We will reach out to both Richardson and Reading, though
Speaker 1: neither has made any public comments on the innocence of
Speaker 1: Williams since his conviction in Reading was Atlanta Deputy police
Speaker 1: chief at the time and a key figure on the
Speaker 1: task force. When the guilty verdict was handed down to
Speaker 1: Way Williams, District Attorney Lewis Layton offered thanks to Reading
Speaker 1: and others for their work on the case. Despite our
Speaker 1: multiple efforts to uncover more information from Dorsey, what we
Speaker 1: received was vague and full of dead ends. I think
Speaker 1: the man that craved the limelight twenty years ago does
Speaker 1: not exist anymore. Intimidation, corruption, murder. Sydney Dorsey has been
Speaker 1: attached to all of these things over as many years
Speaker 1: as an officer of the law. As we all know now,
Speaker 1: Mr Dorsey was involved in the killing of a lot
Speaker 1: of people. He was not indicted in an altercation he
Speaker 1: had at a gas station. The teenager at a gas
Speaker 1: station over allegedly spilling gas on Mr. Dorsey's vehicle and
Speaker 1: the man winds up getting shot to death. And this
Speaker 1: is during the Missing and Murdered Children's case. In a
Speaker 1: strange twist of fate, Dorsey's son was murdered earlier this
Speaker 1: year in a shootout. Well, the son of a former
Speaker 1: Decab County sheriff who is now imprisoned for the assassination
Speaker 1: of his rival, has been murdered. Clayton County Police found
Speaker 1: the body of Sydney Dorsey, Jr. On north Ridge Trail
Speaker 1: in Ellenwood January nine. He was faced down in the
Speaker 1: middle of the road, shot several times. Right now, police
Speaker 1: do not have any witnesses or suspects. Dorsey's father is
Speaker 1: currently serving life in prison for arranging the murder of
Speaker 1: Derwin Brown after Brown meeting him. Thank you for joining
Speaker 1: us for another episode of Atlanta Monster. Stay tuned for
Speaker 1: more news about upcoming episodes and new seasons. Atlanta Monster
Speaker 1: is an investigative podcast toll week by week with new
Speaker 1: episodes every Friday. A joint production between How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: and Tenderfoot TV. Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Speaker 1: Audio archives courtesy of WSB News Film and video tape collection.
Speaker 1: Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries. For the latest updates,
Speaker 1: please visit Atlanta Monster dot com or follow was on
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