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Speaker 1: What we have is raw news footage from WSBTV. We

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Speaker 1: have seventeen thousand hours of raw news footage. So far,

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Speaker 1: I've identified six hundred and fourteen clips, but we have

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Speaker 1: about another one hundred and fifty taps to scrub through.

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Speaker 1: The Whole time I've been working on this collection, I've

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Speaker 1: been thinking someone somedays, someone is going to come along

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Speaker 1: and do this. It was you, guys.

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Speaker 2: Step aboard our tartists bigger on the inside than it

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Speaker 2: is on the outside where we're going down to the

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Speaker 2: sub basement high density storage vaults.

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Speaker 3: It's like a rollercoaster.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I can make it go fast if you left.

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Speaker 2: It's a thirty thousand square foot facility which we keep

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Speaker 2: at fifty degrees fahrenheit with a relative amidity of thirty percent.

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Speaker 2: Thirty two feet from floor to the ceiling. Actually the

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Speaker 2: top of our ceiling there is the floor of the

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Speaker 2: second floor. Prior to us building this building here was

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Speaker 2: a Native American settlement of some sort here. If I've

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Speaker 2: understand what people have told me over the years, everything

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Speaker 2: is shelved down here by size and then by dark.

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Speaker 3: How many records do you think you guys have on

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Speaker 3: the Atlanta Chalmers in Atlanta. Another bonder wasn't discovered through day,

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Speaker 3: but twenty third.

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Speaker 4: At Police Task Force headquarters, there are twenty seven faces

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Speaker 4: on the wall, twenty six murdered, one missing.

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Speaker 3: We do not know the person or persons that are responsible. Therefore,

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Speaker 3: we do not have the money from tenderfoot TV in

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Speaker 3: house to works in Atlanta.

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Speaker 5: Like eleven other recent victrums in Atlanta, rogers are currently

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Speaker 5: was as fixiator.

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Speaker 4: Atlanta is unlikely to catch the killer unless he keeps

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Speaker 4: on killing.

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Speaker 3: This is Atlanta monster.

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Speaker 6: Sketching back then wasn't what it is today. I mean,

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Speaker 6: some of these sketches they come out with better than photographs.

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Speaker 6: Back then, you know, you work with what you had,

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Speaker 6: and it was a pretty good sketch. We had a

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Speaker 6: composite of it of who this guy would be.

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Speaker 7: What it looked like to you. Remember well, it was

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Speaker 7: a blackmail with bushy hair.

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Speaker 6: I remember the composite sketch very well. This is a

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Speaker 6: folder of paperwork I kept from my time as deministrative

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Speaker 6: coordinated the Atlanta child murder cases. It wasn't animosity between

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Speaker 6: the local police and the FBI. One of the main

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Speaker 6: things is the mayor maina Jackson. He says, I want

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Speaker 6: every living FBI agent. My police department is basically incompetent

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Speaker 6: and they can't solve it. We need the FBI to

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Speaker 6: solve it. So he threw his department under the bus.

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Speaker 6: None of us want to get involved because it looked

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Speaker 6: like just a local miss.

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Speaker 3: This is Jim Procopio, but he goes by Popcorn. Look,

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Speaker 3: he worked for the FBI alongside Mike mccomis during the

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Speaker 3: time with the Atlanta child murders. Mike actually introduced me

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Speaker 3: to him.

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Speaker 8: Probably be interested in talking to Procopio. Yeah, Popcorn is

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Speaker 8: a good guy. Now if you can get into his

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Speaker 8: treasure trove, he's got boxes and stuff.

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Speaker 3: Popcorn dealt with all the records and files in the FBI,

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Speaker 3: And just like Mike McComas, he stressed the importance of

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Speaker 3: a composite sketch they received early on in their investigation

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Speaker 3: from a kid who told police that a man had

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Speaker 3: tried to abduct him.

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Speaker 6: Well, it was a blackmail with bushy hair. I remember

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Speaker 6: the composite sketch very well.

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Speaker 3: After interviewing the kid, they were able to form a

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Speaker 3: detailed sketch of the suspect. A blackmail with bushy hair.

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Speaker 3: After only a few minutes with popcorn, you get the

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Speaker 3: impression that this guy doesn't forget a thing.

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Speaker 6: And it goes back to another cultural socioeconomic issue. When

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Speaker 6: Maynard Jackson became mayor, first black mayor in Atlanta, the

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Speaker 6: first thing he said was, I want to make the

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Speaker 6: police department more brown. Police department up with that time

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Speaker 6: had some black officers, several were majors and above, but

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Speaker 6: it was mainly a white police department. Well, when the

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Speaker 6: white officers heard that, they saw they saw the handwriting

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Speaker 6: on the wall. If you were white, you're not going

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Speaker 6: to rise rapidly in this department. It's going to be black.

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Speaker 6: A lot of the older ones, they say, we'll see you,

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Speaker 6: they retire. So consequently they lost many of their senior officers,

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Speaker 6: the best homicide investigator. Then they had a big cheating

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Speaker 6: scandal in the police department. They found out that a

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Speaker 6: lot of the black recruits in the police academy were

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Speaker 6: given the answers to tests. So that was another major scandal.

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Speaker 6: So the police department was left in seventy eight seventy

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Speaker 6: nine eighty relatively new and inexperienced. So I guess some

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Speaker 6: of the homicide detectives were not that experienced and they

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Speaker 6: missed the signs that there were commonalities in the eight

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Speaker 6: to ten to twelve they had. By time the Bureau

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Speaker 6: got in, they were up to fourteen ten found for missing. Further,

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Speaker 6: the FBI does not investigate murders. Murder is not a

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Speaker 6: federal crime. If it's committed on a government reservation, it

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Speaker 6: is off as certain federal authority as it is is

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Speaker 6: killed in the commission of a civil rights violation, it is,

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Speaker 6: but we don't investigate. Doesn't even investigate murders like you

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Speaker 6: have on the street every day.

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Speaker 7: So we had no jurisdiction.

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Speaker 6: We went to the Atlanta Police Department and says here,

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Speaker 6: we're here to help you. You know, we're greeted by yeah, right,

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Speaker 6: we won all your files. So it went to roller cases.

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Speaker 6: We assigned. There were two agents who are one agent

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Speaker 6: per victim, and we had fourteen of the victims at

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Speaker 6: the time. So we said go out.

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Speaker 7: And redo the case, look through it, give it a.

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Speaker 6: Fresh look, come back and tell us what you're fine about.

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Speaker 6: Ten or twelve of them come back and said, he's

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Speaker 6: looked like local crimes. We were pretty much convinced that

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Speaker 6: they were all local homicides that the APD had bungled.

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Speaker 6: We didn't see any pattern. We didn't see anything.

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Speaker 3: The FBI, along with local police, were not convinced they

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Speaker 3: were dealing with a serial killer, but as the death

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Speaker 3: toll of black children was growing, they began to recognize

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Speaker 3: similarities in the murders. It would start with the child

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Speaker 3: going missing for days, weeks, and sometimes even months. The

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Speaker 3: FBI became involved in many of the searches. Popcorn recalled

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Speaker 3: the first big search he was a part of.

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Speaker 6: There were one thousand searches all over the city. One

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Speaker 6: place was red Wine Road in South Fulton County. If

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Speaker 6: you go there today, it's right off two eighty five.

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Speaker 6: There's a huge shopping center with a Tarja and old

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Speaker 6: bunch of stores. Back then it was woods. About three o'clock,

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Speaker 6: the team down on red Wine Road says we found

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Speaker 6: skeletal remains. So everybody hauled ask and it was like

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Speaker 6: being in Vietnam again. There were the news choppers overhead.

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Speaker 6: They got window.

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Speaker 7: Where we were.

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Speaker 6: All the news choppers were overhead. So I got there

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Speaker 6: there about five o'clock and I'm walking and I'd park

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Speaker 6: my car on red Wine Road and I walk in

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Speaker 6: the woods and something catches my eye at eleven o'clock

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Speaker 6: and I walk over and there was a skull and.

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Speaker 7: More human remains.

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Speaker 6: So we had two human remains within one hundred feet

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Speaker 6: at one another, and this led to.

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Speaker 7: One of the most bizarre episodes.

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Speaker 6: About one hundred feet below both bodies, we found a

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Speaker 6: Playboy magazine. It was that week's Playboy magazine. It came

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Speaker 6: out that Wednesday.

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Speaker 7: This was Friday.

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Speaker 6: So we found the Playboy magazine and there was a

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Speaker 6: sticky substance between the pages. I'll let you decide what

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Speaker 6: that was. So he immediately fantasized the investigators. The killer

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Speaker 6: came back, came down here to the side of the murders, masturbated,

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Speaker 6: then took off.

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Speaker 7: This is key evidence.

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Speaker 6: We packaged it up, raced it out to the airport,

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Speaker 6: gave it to the captain of a Delta jet heading

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Speaker 6: for Washington, DC.

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Speaker 7: An agent picked it up as.

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Speaker 6: Soon as the plane landed, rushed with the FBI laboratory.

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Speaker 6: They gave it to a ladder lab. They developed prints

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Speaker 6: and identified the sticky substance. We didn't have any of

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Speaker 6: the prints on file, so they sent it to the

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Speaker 6: APD to look up through their files. Within an hour

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Speaker 6: they identified the print.

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Speaker 7: So we went in. We arrested the guy, We searched us.

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Speaker 6: He brought him to the Bureau. We polygraphed him. He

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Speaker 6: passed the PolyGram. What the hell were you doing down there?

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Speaker 6: He says, well, my wife just had a baby. I

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Speaker 6: went down there that afternoon. Now, during that time we

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Speaker 6: were part of the Vice President of George Bush's task

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Speaker 6: for us. Everything I wrote went to a UNI chief

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Speaker 6: of the Bureau, went to the director, to the Attorney General,

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Speaker 6: to George Bush. George Bush read it. So the one

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Speaker 6: thing he asked us was please don't tell my wife.

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Speaker 7: We said, you goddamn idiot.

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Speaker 6: Do you know the Vice President of the United States

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Speaker 6: knows what you did when you went into the woods,

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Speaker 6: and you know where your wife's going to find out.

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Speaker 7: By the way, we code named that. It was known

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Speaker 7: as the Woodwhacker.

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Speaker 3: Popcorn's first big lead went nowhere. Popcorn had found the

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Speaker 3: bodies of eleven year old Christopher Richardson and eleven year

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Speaker 3: old Earl Terrell. Christopher had been missing for eight months,

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Speaker 3: an Earl had been missing for six months. To me,

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Speaker 3: on the surface, these cases seemed open and shut. A

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Speaker 3: Playboy magazine with semen on It was found near the

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Speaker 3: bodies with the suspect's fingerprints on it. But after an

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Speaker 3: extensive interrogation, the suspect passed a polygraph test, and despite

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Speaker 3: all the bizarre circumstances, the FBI was convinced that this

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Speaker 3: man was not involved in the murders, so they moved on.

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Speaker 3: Both Popcorn and Mike Macombis told me that when the

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Speaker 3: FBI got involved in these cases, there was an extreme

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Speaker 3: tension brewing in the city of Atlanta.

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Speaker 8: Of course, the blacks wanted it to be somebody white

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Speaker 8: and the whites wanted it to be somebody black. And

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Speaker 8: I can't speak for the rest of the bureau, but

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Speaker 8: my partner and I are Larry Ellington. We talked about

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Speaker 8: it a lot. First off, our profilers said that serial

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Speaker 8: killers rarely cross races. They'll kill in their own race,

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Speaker 8: and all these kids were black.

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Speaker 3: Popcorn and Macomis both mentioned FBI profilers the people who

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Speaker 3: formulate an idea of who the killer is, who the

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Speaker 3: FBI should be looking for, and there was one characteristic

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Speaker 3: that stood out to me immediately.

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Speaker 7: It had to be a black guy.

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Speaker 6: A white man could not go into a black neighborhood,

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Speaker 6: pick up a ca we had put them in his

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Speaker 6: car and drive off without anybody seeing.

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Speaker 8: If there's a crime scene. Then the media was just unbelievable.

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Speaker 8: And with all of the attention this case was getting,

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Speaker 8: it was almost impossible to get into a predominantly black

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Speaker 8: neighborhood and not be challenged or approached or whatever. If

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Speaker 8: you were white.

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Speaker 6: It just doesn't happen. In fact, when we went into

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Speaker 6: black neighborhoods during the investigation, everybody on a street was

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Speaker 6: out on their front porch as soon as we appeared

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Speaker 6: in the neighborhood.

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Speaker 8: There was one place that I think is gone now.

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Speaker 8: It was a housing project. They had what they call

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Speaker 8: the bat patrol, and these were adults that walked around

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Speaker 8: with baseball bats and looking for suspicious characters or protecting

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Speaker 8: the community whatever they call them. The bat patrol. We

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Speaker 8: were over in this housing area. We had two young

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Speaker 8: black kids that had supposedly seen something we thought, so

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Speaker 8: Larry and I were tasked to go over and pick

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Speaker 8: up these two children and their mother. So here we

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Speaker 8: are in the Brown Ford again. He's driving, I'm in

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Speaker 8: the passenger side, and we have the mother sitting in

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Speaker 8: the middle and the two black kids in the back

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Speaker 8: seat and near the windows, and two young boys, and

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Speaker 8: I think they were like ten or something, eight, ten, twelve,

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Speaker 8: I don't know, somewhere around that. And we didn't get

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Speaker 8: two blocks before we were boxed in by about four

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Speaker 8: three or four different police cars. And we weren't proned

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Speaker 8: out that it was coming to that before we finally

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Speaker 8: got them to look at our identification. Hey, we're FBI agents.

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Speaker 8: And because somebody had called in, there's two white guys

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Speaker 8: with some black kids in the car. So it was

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Speaker 8: tough getting in and out of certain areas, and so

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Speaker 8: we were kind of convinced this guy had to be black.

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Speaker 8: He had to be black. We just couldn't figure out

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Speaker 8: how he was getting them in a car.

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Speaker 3: Was this a skewed opinion coming from only white males.

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Speaker 3: Was it that impossible for a white person to walk

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Speaker 3: around the inner city of Atlanta in the early eighties,

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Speaker 3: I don't know. I asked Eric and Jasper Cameron, they

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Speaker 3: grew up in Atlanta during that time, if anything they

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Speaker 3: would know person.

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Speaker 9: I felt like it had to be somebody that could

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Speaker 9: move around in the community. So therefore I felt like

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Speaker 9: to be somebody black or somebody who wouldn't draw suspicion

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Speaker 9: because you know, over there we live a white person

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Speaker 9: walking around over there, they are gonna be you know,

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Speaker 9: it's gonna draw attention because that wasn't happening then. Now

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Speaker 9: now you go over there, it's like.

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Speaker 3: You know everybody.

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Speaker 9: But back then, nah, you know, it would have drew

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Speaker 9: too much attention. So I always felt like, probably with

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Speaker 9: somebody who could move around pretty easy, you know, undetected,

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Speaker 9: without really causing a lot of suspicion.

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Speaker 3: But not everyone agreed on that. This is Bernard Parks.

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Speaker 3: He grew up in Atlanta too, and was also a

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Speaker 3: child at the time of the murders.

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Speaker 5: There are certain guys that you know that they were around.

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Speaker 5: I mean, you know, it's like it wasn't a lot

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Speaker 5: of white guys, right, but but.

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Speaker 3: There were some.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, like you grew up, you know what

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Speaker 5: I'm saying. It's like, you know, one or two white

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Speaker 5: guys that went to my school, right, But that's just

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Speaker 5: because their family didn't have no money, right, So they

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Speaker 5: were just around and so you kind of accepted them.

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Speaker 5: But you know, I always say, you know, they got cousins,

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Speaker 5: they got friends, they got people that hung around and

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Speaker 5: we accepted.

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Speaker 3: It wouldn't have.

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Speaker 5: Normal, though, for in that time, for a black guy

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Speaker 5: just to walk up and be accepting of a white

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Speaker 5: guy without somebody understanding what's happening, right, I mean, that

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Speaker 5: just wasn't normal. I mean you just questioned, period, because

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Speaker 5: you're in my community and it's ain't your community.

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Speaker 3: I asked Monica Pearson, the former news anchor in Atlanta.

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Speaker 3: Her memory was crystal clear.

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Speaker 10: They weren't looking for a murderer. They were profiling. They

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Speaker 10: decided that that's what it was. And you have to

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Speaker 10: keep all options open. I think anytime you don't open

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Speaker 10: up and cast a wide net, you lose the opportunity

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Speaker 10: of finding someone else who might be involved. It's as

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Speaker 10: simple as that. You have to look at all the possibilities.

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Speaker 10: And if you start out by saying it has to

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Speaker 10: be a black person who did it, because these were

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Speaker 10: black children, then that's the reason why so many people

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Speaker 10: in the black community thought it was the Klan. I

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Speaker 10: think that's short sighted on their part, because you could

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Speaker 10: easily have a white man in that community dressed as

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Speaker 10: black people dressed and no one would notice him because

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Speaker 10: he just looks like a black person. He's in this community.

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Speaker 11: Now.

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Speaker 10: Most white people would not go into that community because

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Speaker 10: they would stand out like a sore thumb. But if

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Speaker 10: you assimilate from the walk, to the clothing, to the attitude,

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Speaker 10: to the speech, and don't say it can't be done,

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Speaker 10: I'm just throwing it out there. I think that's shortsighted

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Speaker 10: to say a white person couldn't do it.

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Speaker 3: A white person could.

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Speaker 10: If you know the community you had. A white graduated

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Speaker 10: a couple of years ago from Morehouse College as a valedictorian.

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Speaker 10: White folks go into the black community all the time

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Speaker 10: to buy drugs, and they don't have a problem fitting in.

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Speaker 10: If you look like the people who live there, and

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Speaker 10: your skin is just a little lighter than somebody else's,

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Speaker 10: it's not going to stand out.

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Speaker 3: I think they're wrong on that. From her perspective, the

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Speaker 3: possibility of a white killer was ruled out way too quickly.

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Speaker 3: I couldn't help but think she made a great point.

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Speaker 10: The one thing I remember most about the missing and

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Speaker 10: murdered children. I still see that visual every day is

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Speaker 10: Maynard Jackson sitting there with piles of cash, offering a

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Speaker 10: reward for any information on who was committing these crimes.

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Speaker 12: Here's one hundred thousand dollars and it's all you.

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Speaker 5: Most gangster picture ever him sitting with that money on

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Speaker 5: the desk.

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Speaker 3: I think that's where they got this shot from for

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Speaker 3: uh Ransom.

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Speaker 5: Remember when Ransom they came in and put the male

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Speaker 5: gifts and he put all that money on the table

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Speaker 5: and he was like, now I'm putting his bounty on you.

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Speaker 5: That was Maina's line.

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Speaker 3: I read about this over and over in my research.

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Speaker 3: The reward money. It started with one hundred thousand dollars

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Speaker 3: from the city, but private donations, including one from Muhammad Ali,

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Speaker 3: brought it to over five hundred thousand. Today that would

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Speaker 3: be around one point five million. As Atlanta struggled to

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Speaker 3: find the killer, the city needed more and more money.

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Speaker 3: One solution was a benefit concert.

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Speaker 13: Come Fly with Me, Let's Fine, Let's Fine.

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Speaker 14: Frank Sinatra will be joining Sammy Davis Junior on stage

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Speaker 14: at the Atlanta Civic Center. The two figure to draw

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Speaker 14: a standing room only crowd for the March ten benefit

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Speaker 14: concert to help the investigation into the crimes against Atlanta's children.

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Speaker 3: The city held a huge benefit concert to raise money

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Speaker 3: for the investigation at the Atlanta Civic Center, but the

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Speaker 3: FBI was a high alert for the killer.

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Speaker 6: I was convinced that that night he would respond to that,

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Speaker 6: and I was convinced in my mind that he would

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Speaker 6: drop a body in the fountain right there.

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Speaker 12: Frank Sinatra arrived here at Charlie Brown Airport just a

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Speaker 12: few minutes before six o'clock.

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Speaker 3: He's not on his.

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Speaker 12: Way to the Atlanta Civic centerwhere he'll join Sammy Davis

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Speaker 12: Junior for tonight's benefit concert.

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Speaker 6: Sammy Davis Junior picked up a phone and volunteered.

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Speaker 3: To help Atlanta today. The superstar arrived here on his

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Speaker 3: private jet.

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Speaker 15: Such a horrendous tragedy as this effects, as I said,

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Speaker 15: it certainly affects all of America.

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Speaker 6: I was there that night, and we had cops and helicopters.

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Speaker 6: There were cars everywhere police because there is no one

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Speaker 6: could have gotten there with the body.

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Speaker 16: It started with police dogs sniffing the entire Civic Center

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Speaker 16: looking for explosives. The Mayor's office called this routine.

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Speaker 3: Will you guys are here to catch somebody?

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Speaker 17: Oh?

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Speaker 7: Hell yeah, that's why we're roll out.

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Speaker 18: Officials have been preparing for weeks for this night. Extra

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Speaker 18: security guards have been hired and extra police officers have

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Speaker 18: been put on patrol here with just one objective to

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Speaker 18: keep an eye on children.

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Speaker 6: It was overwhelming. The Atlanta Police Department out in full force.

360
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Speaker 6: Who had a GBI? I know, the FBI was there,

361
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Speaker 6: the Task Force, everybody was there. There's no way anyone

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Speaker 6: could have gotten in there and done anything.

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Speaker 16: There are so many news people here, coming from all

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Speaker 16: over the world, Chicago, New York, Hamburg, London, so many

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Speaker 16: they had to be regulated to a room in the basement. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 16: upstairs Atlanta's finance It started to arrive, but the high

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Speaker 16: points of the show weren't outside. They were in here.

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Speaker 5: I've got the world of the.

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Speaker 6: I've got this didn't respond and to got a lot

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Speaker 6: of publicity. I thought he was response to how he didn't.

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Speaker 16: And while Sinatra was entertaining as he sang, he was

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Speaker 16: most touching when he spoke.

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Speaker 13: More of my tears are shed for the brothers and

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Speaker 13: sisters and playmates of the victims to whom terror has

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Speaker 13: become an unwelcome companion, and to all of the fine,

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Speaker 13: decent people in Atlanta who are frightened by day and

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Speaker 13: doubly frightened by night.

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Speaker 3: You have my prayers that.

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Speaker 13: Is, and that it should pass without further bloodshed.

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Speaker 3: The city as a whole was banding together to catch

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Speaker 3: this killer, and every single law enforcement agency was working

382
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Speaker 3: around the clock. All the murders were of black children

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Speaker 3: from the inner city of Atlanta, and they were disappearing

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Speaker 3: from their own neighborhoods in their own local hangouts. One

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Speaker 3: popular place in the city at that time time for

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Speaker 3: kids to hang out was called the Omni, an arcade

387
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Speaker 3: room with food in a movie theater. But the Omni

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Speaker 3: was also becoming a place where some kids were last seen.

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Speaker 9: That's what we did. It was a game room in

390
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Speaker 9: the Omni, and we literally would go to that game

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Speaker 9: room and go to the arcades and all that. So

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Speaker 9: that's like video games and stuff like that. That's what

393
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Speaker 9: we did. Went to the Omni, hung Omni.

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Speaker 10: Friday night, date night, get out of the house night,

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Speaker 10: and the Omnie is packed with youngsters.

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Speaker 12: The Omni Complex, a mixture of fine stores, sporting events, movies,

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Speaker 12: and game rooms, a popular place for the inner city

398
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Speaker 12: kid to hang out. That's why the Special Task Force

399
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Speaker 12: became interested in the complex as a meeting place. Investigators

400
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Speaker 12: first started looking for some type of connection back in February.

401
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Speaker 11: This sign went up today at Electronic America. The manager

402
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Speaker 11: doesn't want anyone seventeen or under in here. Wont seven

403
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Speaker 11: o'clock hits. The owners realized such strict rules hurt their business,

404
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Speaker 11: especially when their business attracts mainly teenagers.

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Speaker 3: The nineteen eighties saw the rise in arcades and video games.

406
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Speaker 3: But another trend, and one I didn't know about, was

407
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Speaker 3: the nineteen eighties fascination with psychics. In fact, psychics even

408
00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:47,480
Speaker 3: played a role in the Atlanta child murders. I heard

409
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Speaker 3: a lot of weird stories surrounding this case, but so

410
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Speaker 3: far this seemed the most bizarre, a true example of

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Speaker 3: law enforcement grasping its straws.

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Speaker 19: Police are now working with more than one psychic to

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Speaker 19: solve the cases of six murdered and six missing children.

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Speaker 19: This is how the nationally known psychics spent their Friday

415
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Speaker 19: the thirteenth. They are visiting Atlanta courtesy of the National Inquirer. Yes,

416
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Speaker 19: the same National Inquirer with those sensational headlines that can

417
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Speaker 19: be seen at most supermarket counters. As the psychics scrambled

418
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Speaker 19: through the woods where four of the twenty murdered children

419
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Speaker 19: were found, psychic Mickey Dane of Miami, kicked off her shoes.

420
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Speaker 19: She asked reporters to feel how hot her feet were,

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Speaker 19: and then declared that two more bodies might be found nearby.

422
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Speaker 20: There is something here, some child out there is trying

423
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Speaker 20: to tell us to go further into this.

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Speaker 19: Jonathan Bell, whose brother Joseph is among the victims, also

425
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Speaker 19: served as a guide. A freelance artist was there too,

426
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Speaker 19: sketching psychic's descriptions of suspects.

427
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Speaker 20: I do not care at this point what they think

428
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Speaker 20: of me. I'm here to get a killer off the street.

429
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Speaker 20: If it takes one person of five thousand. My big

430
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Speaker 20: thing is that if I have to do it alone,

431
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Speaker 20: I will I feel that they are afraid that if

432
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Speaker 20: one person does it, how will they feel? And I

433
00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:01,920
Speaker 20: can understand that. But I'm here more so for the children.

434
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Speaker 20: And I do not want the reward money that I

435
00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:07,120
Speaker 20: put in writing. I do not want the money. I'm

436
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:09,399
Speaker 20: not here for the publicity. I'm just like them. I

437
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Speaker 20: want to kill off the street.

438
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Speaker 3: One side gave police and news stations a detailed description

439
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Speaker 3: of who the Atlantic shold murderer was.

440
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Speaker 21: He knows in the daytime what he's dealing with, but

441
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:26,560
Speaker 21: at night, he's not really sure, so he kind of

442
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:30,120
Speaker 21: stays to himself in his apartment. Here's a television set.

443
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:34,199
Speaker 21: There's no guns up there, no nothing. He's very smooth

444
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:39,200
Speaker 21: talking when he does talk, which is very seldom. Oh yes,

445
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 21: there's no doubt in my mind that he's walked side

446
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:48,600
Speaker 21: beside probably some of the parents of these children. He's shrewd,

447
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:51,640
Speaker 21: he's methodical. You're not dealing with a guy with the one

448
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:55,200
Speaker 21: hundred and sixty four IQ. He's clean, he's neat, he's

449
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:59,640
Speaker 21: above suspicion. You're dealing with a methodical, a man that's

450
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:04,119
Speaker 21: some systematic what angry now getting more frustrated. I cannot

451
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:06,479
Speaker 21: stop him. I don't have the authority or the power.

452
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:15,000
Speaker 3: At the University of Georgia in Athens is the Walter J.

453
00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:19,359
Speaker 3: Brown Media Archives, a huge, multi story facility that holds

454
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 3: hundreds of thousands of archive documents. In the early nineteen eighties,

455
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 3: this was arguably the biggest news story, especially in Atlanta.

456
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,159
Speaker 3: I made a call to Mary Miller, one of the archivists,

457
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 3: to see if we can access their news archives related

458
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 3: to the case, and as it turns out, they have

459
00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 3: thousands of hours of raw news footage from WSBTV, the

460
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 3: local Atlanta station. Material that hasn't been viewed by the

461
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:45,159
Speaker 3: public since the early nineteen eighties. In that time, nothing

462
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 3: was digital. It was all on film or tape. But

463
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 3: the team at the University of Georgia worked tirelessly to

464
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:53,639
Speaker 3: gather and digitize as much material as possible, and then

465
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 3: they gave us a personal tour of their vault.

466
00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 2: Everything is shelved down here by size and then by

467
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 2: bark code, so thing that you'll notice here, each item

468
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 2: has a barcode on it, and each shelf has a

469
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:07,439
Speaker 2: bar code, and the items are linked together, so it

470
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 2: gives us a barcode and we work by that.

471
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:22,600
Speaker 7: What we do with videotapes.

472
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 2: Is a little bit different from what we do with

473
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 2: train materials. The videotapes will have to go into coolers

474
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 2: because they need to be acclimated from the cold, dry environment.

475
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 2: When they move upstairs, it's a little warmer and a

476
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 2: lot more humid, so they have to go in the

477
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 2: cooler so the temperature can come up slowly they can acclimate.

478
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:44,920
Speaker 2: January twenty twelve, when we opened to the public, we've

479
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 2: probably pulled about one hundred and fifty to one hundred

480
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:50,639
Speaker 2: and sixty thousand items, and we've yet not been able

481
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:54,360
Speaker 2: to find everything that's been requested. And I said, he's

482
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:56,040
Speaker 2: going to start coming this way, so we're gonna need

483
00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 2: to start walking back this way.

484
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:03,119
Speaker 3: While searching the archives, I came across several news stories

485
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 3: involving strange leads. This one in particular caught my attention.

486
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 3: According to FBI documents, on January eighth, nineteen eighty one,

487
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:18,920
Speaker 3: an anonymous white male called the Rochdale County Sheriff's Department

488
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:22,120
Speaker 3: claiming that he placed the body of Luby Jeter out

489
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:24,720
Speaker 3: on Sigmund Road. Then he threatened to leave the body

490
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 3: of another child, but this time the child would be white.

491
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:32,399
Speaker 12: An unidentified man who has been calling the Rochdale County

492
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 12: Sheriff's Department for the last few weeks.

493
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 3: That man has told deputies.

494
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 12: They could find Atlanta's missing children on Sigmund Road, and

495
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 12: we've learned that recently he's also called and said he

496
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 12: was going to harm some of the children in this neighborhood.

497
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 12: When the Rockdale County Sheriff's Department arrived at the scene

498
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 12: this morning, all they knew was they had something already

499
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:54,679
Speaker 12: very familiar to Atlanta investigators, the body of a black

500
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 12: mail around fourteen years old line just off Sigmund Road.

501
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 12: There was no apparent sign of a strug. Sheriff Vic

502
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,200
Speaker 12: Davis would only say today his department and the others

503
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,679
Speaker 12: involved are again very interested in tape conversations with an

504
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 12: unidentified male caller, the most recent call coming the day

505
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 12: before the body was found. The man told Rochdale deputies

506
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:16,880
Speaker 12: victims could be found along Sigmund Road.

507
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 3: Someone was calling the local sheriff's department claiming to be

508
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,399
Speaker 3: the killer, even declaring where the next body would be found,

509
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 3: but it seemed at that time the police didn't give

510
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 3: this much merit.

511
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 17: Some detectives say, since this latest body was found so

512
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:33,120
Speaker 17: far from Atlanta, they may be dealing with the copycat murderer,

513
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 17: or they say the killer or killers may have known

514
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 17: that the Rochdale sheriff was receiving crank calls about the

515
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 17: missing and murdered children and so just decided to dump

516
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 17: a body here to taunt police.

517
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,359
Speaker 22: We're taking a closer look at the calls at this time,

518
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 22: but we still feel that maybe just the publicity drew

519
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 22: the actual killer to this area to dump a.

520
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:59,360
Speaker 12: Body Sheriff Vic Davis hopes today's discovery and the calls

521
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 12: are just coincidental.

522
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 3: Then I found another story. The video was of a

523
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 3: live newscast featuring a church minister in Atlanta named Earl Polk.

524
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 3: He voluntarily called into a local news station to present

525
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 3: this story, and he was making some very eerie claims

526
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,400
Speaker 3: his alleged interaction with the Atlanta child murderer.

527
00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 23: I have received several calls from a person identifying himself

528
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 23: as the one responsible for these crimes.

529
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,160
Speaker 15: I did notify the authorities, but I should like.

530
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 23: To remind you that I stand readed a minister to you,

531
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 23: and we are protected and covered by the Constitution of

532
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 23: the United States of America. I stand ready to be

533
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 23: directed by you as to a place of meeting. I

534
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 23: will minister to your needs, and you will be protected,

535
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 23: and you will be covered.

536
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 18: For one thing, the voice on the phone was not

537
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 18: the same one that has called before, so Polk says

538
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:58,720
Speaker 18: his first step was to determine how much.

539
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 15: The man knew many of the children are crimes are

540
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 15: you involved in? He said, well, let's put it this way.

541
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 15: The first three somebody helped me with them. I said, well,

542
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 15: is he not helping any longer.

543
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:13,479
Speaker 8: He said no.

544
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 15: I said why did he quit? He said, well he

545
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:17,280
Speaker 15: got afraid, I mean his wife got afraid, and he

546
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 15: left town.

547
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 18: Paulk says the man told him he could prove he

548
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 18: was the killer because he could show Paulk a piece

549
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 18: of clothing belonging to Curtis Walker. Walker's body was found

550
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 18: just two weeks ago in a river about a quarter

551
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 18: mile from Paulk's church.

552
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 15: So I said, tell me how you got the kids

553
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 15: to get in your car. He said, well, I've got

554
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 15: a van, and he says, I tell him I've got

555
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 15: paint jobs to do, and they get into in the

556
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 15: van to go to paint.

557
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 18: Paulk then questioned the man about his motives.

558
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 15: I said, well, what makes you do this? What what

559
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 15: caused you to do these crimes? Could you tell me that?

560
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 15: He said, well, I'm I'm impelled or I'm controlled or

561
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 15: forced by voices to do it. I said, well, why

562
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 15: are you calling me now? Are the voices really to

563
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 15: so you could call me? He says, well, I don't

564
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 15: hear the voices right now. I said, why are you

565
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 15: turning yourself in or why are you wanting to come

566
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 15: see me now? He said, well, I'm tired of running,

567
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 15: I'm out of money, and my wife is afraid.

568
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 18: The man told Paulk he was speaking from or near

569
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 18: a pub on Ponsta Leon Avenue. Paulk then asked him

570
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 18: if they could meet at his church on Flat Shoals Road,

571
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,200
Speaker 18: and the man agreed. About a half hour later, a

572
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 18: van pulled into the parking lot across the street, but

573
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 18: immediately sped off. Paulk says he thinks the man spotted

574
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 18: some police cars at a nearby shopping center and may

575
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 18: have thought he was walking into a trap.

576
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 15: My purpose of even telling the story was hopefully that

577
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 15: he would know that there was no trap set up,

578
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 15: and that per chance he may yet try to make contact.

579
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 3: After hearing the many stories from the FBI and looking

580
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 3: back on the news archives, I started to get a

581
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 3: sense of how the general public must have felt in

582
00:30:54,640 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty, completely confused an incriminating Playboy magazine, psychic involvement,

583
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 3: bizarre phone calls, in that mysterious composite sketch of a

584
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 3: black guy with bushy hair, but none of it was

585
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 3: amounting to anything. The media coverage of Atlanta's hunt for

586
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 3: a serial killer was gripping the entire nation. But things

587
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 3: were about to change when a local Atlanta policeman found

588
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 3: what appeared to be the first signs of physical evidence.

589
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 24: We had a body, a young young boy, on the

590
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 24: behind a building, and we found a fiber on him,

591
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 24: just a one fiber.

592
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 3: You guys.

593
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 8: Yes, And.

594
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 24: I removed it off of his shirt, and I think

595
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 24: it was blue, maybe a quarter of inch long. It

596
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 24: looked like a maybe a sweater or a blanket or something,

597
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 24: just a piece of lent. Took the fiber to the

598
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 24: crime lab. That information leaked out through high ranking people

599
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 24: to the media and lo and behold, it wasn't me,

600
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 24: you know, and they were putting anything they can grasp.

601
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 24: The media were at that time, you're talking about vultures.

602
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 24: I mean, everybody wanted to be the one to know

603
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 24: the little tidbit that nobody else knew.

604
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 6: The Atlanta Journal came out in early February with a

605
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 6: story the police are finding hairs and fibers on the victim.

606
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 7: Well guess where the next victim wound up? Stripped it

607
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 7: in the river.

608
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 6: And we were getting victims every ten days.

609
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 8: We're starting to see bodies in several different counties. We

610
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 8: probably need to come up with a method, or come

611
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 8: up with an idea or a thought to where we

612
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 8: can at least direct this guy, you know, keep him

613
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 8: from spreading bodies everywhere in hopes of course he's catching him.

614
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 6: What I thought was the dumbest idea I ever heard

615
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 6: when Mike Mcombs and his partner Larry Ellington came to

616
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 6: me and says, we got an idea. And I said, Okay,

617
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:03,680
Speaker 6: what's your idea? And they said, we want to cover

618
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 6: the bridge. Its because it's obvious he's throwing a body

619
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 6: off bridge. And I said, why is that obvious? I

620
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 6: didn't know at the time. Macomas grew up in a

621
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 6: small town in Tennessee on a river, and I grew

622
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 6: up in New York City.

623
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 7: We didn't know what rivers were.

624
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 8: The reason is I don't think he would drive down

625
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 8: to the river because the chances are getting caught. And

626
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 8: besides that, I was raised on a river in East Tennessee,

627
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 8: and I know that gets something to float down the river,

628
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 8: you've got to get it out in the middle of

629
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 8: the water or you stand a good chance it say

630
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 8: it's going to come right back to this, to the bank.

631
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 6: He knew that if you threw something from the shore,

632
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 6: it eventually floats back to land. But if you throw

633
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 6: something off of a bridge in the middle of the river,

634
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 6: it'll float down the river. And I says, how do

635
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:47,360
Speaker 6: you know which bridge? He said, well, we're going.

636
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 7: To pick fourteen. I said, hey, you know you're going

637
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 7: to pick the right, right one.

638
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 6: And he looked at me and said, you got a

639
00:33:52,080 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 6: better idea, dumb shit, And I said not. At the moment, there.

640
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 8: Was two rivers, and there was the South River and

641
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:08,839
Speaker 8: the Chattahoochee River, and I recommended that we stake those

642
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:13,359
Speaker 8: out the bridges because I felt that that was how

643
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 8: he was getting the bodies into the water, was throwing

644
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 8: them off river bridges, because it would be quick, it'd

645
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 8: be fast, he would get them in the water, and

646
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:22,759
Speaker 8: there was a good chance they would float down stream

647
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,879
Speaker 8: quite aways from my idea. I got rewarded of kind

648
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 8: of supervising the detail. It was started every night around

649
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:33,359
Speaker 8: six pm, and we quit every morning at about six.

650
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 6: It started toward the end of April, first of May,

651
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 6: and we gave them thirty days, and we actually about

652
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 6: one hundred and forty people totally because we had a

653
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 6: cover all night, and we had a cover of weekends,

654
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 6: so we had one hundred and forty people assigned.

655
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 8: And we were burning one hundred and forty bodies a

656
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 8: night too, because we had so many bridges on the

657
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 8: South River and so many bridges on the Chattahoochee River.

658
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 8: And what we did was is we had to people

659
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 8: on the ground under one side of the bridge, two

660
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 8: people on the other, and then we had two chase

661
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 8: cars per bridge, so if anybody dropped something in the

662
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 8: people underneath would notify the chase cars. And that's the

663
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 8: way it happened. It was quite taxing. I mean, I mean,

664
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:21,960
Speaker 8: you're going seven days a week, twelve hours a day.

665
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 8: It's tough. I was single. The married guys, I don't

666
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:26,880
Speaker 8: know how with families, I don't know how they did it.

667
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,760
Speaker 8: But I was single at the time, so it didn't

668
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:33,840
Speaker 8: really have that much of an effect on my home life.

669
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:37,320
Speaker 8: Of course, social life, yeah, but not the home life.

670
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 8: But like I said, we were using one hundred and

671
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 8: forty bodies a night. As a matter of fact, there

672
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:44,319
Speaker 8: were so many bodies that we had to go to

673
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:47,760
Speaker 8: the police Academy and they gave us several recruit classes

674
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:49,799
Speaker 8: that hadn't graduated yet, so the only thing they were

675
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 8: allowed to carry was batons and flashlights because they weren't

676
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 8: qualified on firearms. So, I mean, that's how many bodies

677
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 8: we were burning, and that's why they decided that it

678
00:35:57,920 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 8: was going to have to come to an end, because

679
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 8: we were just really wearing out man hours and nothing

680
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:03,759
Speaker 8: came of it.

681
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 3: As an officer with the APD at that time, Mike

682
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 3: Tovey remembers this bridge steakout, and.

683
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 25: We had just about every bridge, I think every bridge

684
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 25: in Atlanta area covered. They canceled our off days and

685
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 25: we worked ungodly hours like five to five in the morning,

686
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,480
Speaker 25: no off days, and we had people under the bridge,

687
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 25: we had people on the water posed as fishermen, and

688
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 25: just about every bridge in Atlanta and even Fulton County

689
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 25: we patrolled it in rafts. We had our guns in

690
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 25: the boat with us, and really we were just grasping

691
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:44,760
Speaker 25: that straws. But it was apparent these bodies were coming

692
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 25: over the bridge.

693
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:49,320
Speaker 3: On the very last night of the bridge steakout, something

694
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:52,280
Speaker 3: happened that would change the course of their investigation forever.

695
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 7: Last night, last bridge.

696
00:36:56,560 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 8: That night we set up knowing this this would be

697
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 8: the last day, I had about six or eight bridges.

698
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 8: I can't remember that. I kind of kept an eye

699
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:07,320
Speaker 8: on and if anybody had any problems, or if somebody

700
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:10,720
Speaker 8: didn't show up, or you know, logistical problems, whatever happened,

701
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 8: and I was to be notified regardless. I was at

702
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 8: a small bridge south and I heard some radio traffic,

703
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 8: and at the time, our radios weren't as good as

704
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:27,360
Speaker 8: they are today. And I remember getting on the radio

705
00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 8: and asking, you know, what's what's going on? And all

706
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 8: I heard was something about is splash. I had a

707
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:42,399
Speaker 8: seventy seven Forward LTD with a four hundred big block

708
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:44,320
Speaker 8: in it, and I can tell you I scorched tires

709
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 8: getting up there because I said something's happening and I

710
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 8: just felt it. We went racing to the James Jackson

711
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 8: Bridge and as I was heading that way, the traffic

712
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:58,960
Speaker 8: started coming in a little clear because I was getting closer.

713
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 8: The gist of the story was is that the splash

714
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 8: was heard by the police cadets, the guys that had

715
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 8: to leave the academy early to work with us. We

716
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 8: had two people under both sides of the bridge, and

717
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 8: of course we kept them hidden out so that they

718
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 8: brought everything they needed for the night because they weren't

719
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 8: going anywhere. And then in close proximity, we had a

720
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 8: chase car on each side of the bridge, and they

721
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 8: too blended in so that they couldn't be seen. When

722
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 8: they looked up on the bridge from under it to

723
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:39,400
Speaker 8: see what caused the splash. The car appeared to be

724
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 8: just starting up again like it had been stopped, and

725
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 8: it was going two or three miles an hour. Then

726
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 8: crossed the bridge, circled around I think a convenience store.

727
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:52,240
Speaker 8: Then as he came back and that's when our cars

728
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 8: tagged him. We went up the Excerpt ramp, went across

729
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 8: the bridge and then went down, saw the cars sitting

730
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:02,879
Speaker 8: on the other side. They were on the south bound

731
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 8: side and we were heading north and I saw that

732
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:11,240
Speaker 8: there was several blue lights over there with a white

733
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 8: station wagon that was pulled over. Since I was supervising

734
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 8: it and I had the ranking Atlanta police officer on

735
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 8: scene with me, when we got there, we were immediately briefed.

736
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 8: I asked, did to get his ID? And they said yes.

737
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 8: He was still sitting in his car and I still

738
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 8: had my composite sketch and I pulled it out had

739
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 8: these little glasses on, and I drew the glasses and

740
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 8: I held it up and I said, anybody recognized this guy?

741
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 8: And that was Wayne Williams to the tea. I mean

742
00:39:48,600 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 8: it just it was just Wayne.

743
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 3: Next time on Atlanta Monster, it was the pre dawn

744
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 3: hours of May twenty second.

745
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 12: The Atlanta Police Bureau and the FBI had been staking

746
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 12: up bridges along the Chattahoochee River for the last two

747
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:19,760
Speaker 12: months and Atlanta recruit heard a splash. Several radio messages

748
00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 12: and a flurry of activities soon had a car stopped

749
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:26,280
Speaker 12: and it was twenty three year old Wayne Williams. People

750
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 12: who know Williams say he is a highly intelligent young man,

751
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 12: a good student when he was in school.

752
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:36,280
Speaker 8: I went up to him and identified myself as special

753
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 8: Agent the FBI, and I asked him immediately if he

754
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:46,799
Speaker 8: knew why he was being pulled over, and he said, yes,

755
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:51,399
Speaker 8: it's probably because about those kids that are missing. Kind

756
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 8: of surprised me. That was an unusual answer.

757
00:40:53,440 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 26: I thought, it's like, idep, you want to go to

758
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:06,399
Speaker 26: this you rabbit hole is very, very very deep.

759
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:15,959
Speaker 3: Atlanta Monster is an investigative podcast told week by week

760
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 3: with new episodes every Friday, a joint production between How

761
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:24,280
Speaker 3: Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. Original music is by Makeup

762
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 3: and Vanity Set. Audio archives courtesy of WSB News Film

763
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 3: and Videotape Collection, Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries.

764
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 3: For the latest updates, please visit Atlantamonster dot com or

765
00:41:38,200 --> 00:42:02,320
Speaker 3: follow us on social media. Why do they call you popcorn?

766
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 7: Ah?

767
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:06,879
Speaker 6: When I was in Memphis a first office agent, brand

768
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:10,280
Speaker 6: new out of the FBI Academy, Andy was my training agent.

769
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 6: Andy was about seven or eight years older than me,

770
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:16,359
Speaker 6: a little more experience than the bureau. And Andy had

771
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:19,359
Speaker 6: a three year old daughter, Karen, who's.

772
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 7: Now in the fifties. And she couldn't say the last

773
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 7: name Procopio. What came out was popcorn. She called me popcorn,

774
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:27,680
Speaker 7: mister popcorn, and it stuck.

775
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 3: Do you like popcorn?

776
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:30,360
Speaker 7: Sure,