April 10, 2019

Ms. Lois Reitzes,

I was very disappointed in your City Lights show on April 10.

If it was news, it was not accurate,
if it was opinion, it was not balanced,
if it was merely entertainment- well you succeeded. Certainly some will be
entertained by the unchallenged conspiracy theories and psychological assessments
of your guests. I was not amused.

It makes great entertainment when your guests express their opinions on the
psychological state of the investigators, and make incorrect comments about the
legal standards of a fair trial. Their uninformed , false and unchallenged statements
do not rise to the level of news, history or fact. It is mere entertainment and
conspiracy theory.

For example: Ms. Pearson said: (29:22)

”The fact that they kept saying that it had to be done by a black man, and to
me this is one of the biggest failings of the investigation because they assumed
immediately it had to be a black person which was not true” “They did not know
the neighborhood they were talking about, because if they had they would have
had a much larger net of people to interview and investigate.”
I have to ask where she gets such false and misleading information? I recall no
such statements from that time when I was a homicide detective for the Atlanta
Police. How does she presume to know the neighborhoods better than the police
who worked in these beats and streets every day while she was reading the news.

There was a composite drawing of a black man that looked like Wayne Williams. The
drawing was of a man described as a suspect who had been seen with young boys.
The police and FBI working the bridge detail were in possession of this composite
drawing that was the result of good police work. And contrary to Ms. Pearson’s
statement: the murders actually were committed by a black person: Wayne Williams.

In another unchallenged assertion by your guests, they both said that Williams did
not get a fair trial. That opinion is not shared by the Supreme Court of Georgia. This
is old and debunked information, because after having considered all the
information regarding the white supremacist described by you and your guests, The
Court found the trial to be fair and upheld the Williams conviction. None of the
statements of the alleged supremacist informant corresponded with the physical
evidence found on the victims. Statements by a braggart seeking notoriety do not
override physical evidence linking Williams to the victim. You have to ask how did
multiple hairs and fibers from Wayne Williams home and car get attached to the
victim?

Allow me to summarize my perspective of this case that I shared with Kevin Riley of
the AJC: .
-------
The murder conviction of Wayne Williams in 1982 was a phenomenal Atlanta, and
American, success. Never before had local state and federal law-enforcement
worked together so closely to capture and remove a serial murderer from society.
This was a huge relief to Atlanta’s citizens, and to everyone worldwide who shared
Atlanta’s pain.
 
For me, and for most of Atlanta, these memories are painful.  Despite being very
professionally produced, this HBO documentary is still salt in Atlanta's wounds.  The
first and most enduring of these wounds is our children were murdered. 
 
The next wound is the myth of Wayne Williams’ innocence. This myth continues
despite the findings of the jury, the overwhelming physical evidence, the
eyewitnesses,  and the lengthy and exhaustive judicial review and appeals. The
guilty verdict has always been upheld.  
 
Third has been the relentless assault on the credibility of police and prosecutors by
documentaries, mock-umentaries, docu-dramas, celebrities and self proclaimed
community representatives alleging incompetence, cover-ups and claims of political
pressure to frame an innocent black man. A lie told repeatedly does not become
true.
 
It is a wound that lingers when I hear the unanswered lie that the Atlanta Police did
not care about these black children and did not genuinely investigate these crimes.  
 
Last, and one of Atlanta’s grievous wounds from this case, is the allegation of racism
by the Atlanta police, by Atlanta’s elected officials (including two of our African
American Mayors) and by Atlanta’s white population in general. To put this in
perspective one must remember that the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was passed only 14
years before Wayne Williams began killing black children in 1979.  Although APD had
hired its first black police officers 22 years earlier, and had a black police
commissioner and chief of police during this time, America and particularly Atlanta
will always bear the deep scars of racism. Some scars are visible and on display;
many more are internalized, hidden and permanent.
 
Given the many indefensible acts of racism in our past, people were justified in
distrusting the police in those days, however, in this case it simply wasn’t so.  I
would like to see these accusers say to the men (now deceased) who worked on
these crimes like Detective Welcome Harris, Sgt Henry Bolton and many others up to
and including Maynard Jackson, that the child victims were ignored because of
racism!  That lie left unchallenged will only cause more pain.
 
 Mayor Maynard Jackson led the City through that troubled time, and the tragedy of
the Atlanta Missing and Murdered Children.  It was his greatest challenge and he
succeeded. Mayor Jackson met with many relatives of the victims, he crossed party
lines to ask for support from President Ronald Reagan and he got it. Mayor Jackson
marshaled celebrities and entertainers in fund raising efforts, even getting into a
boxing ring with Muhammad Ali, and he secured the full support of the Governor of
Georgia. Remember that Mayor Maynard Jackson fought for FBI resources, for
summertime activities, and he fought for Atlanta’s children..    
 
These tragedies were a terrible burden to the Mayor.  After the conviction of
Williams for two murders, with the additional evidence of 10 child murders, Mayor
Jackson spoke at multiple community meetings to discuss the case.   He was often
accompanied by Prosecutor Joseph Drolet who shared with the citizens the facts,
and the overwhelming witness, blood and fiber evidence in the case against Wayne
Williams.
 
Our local media and particularly the AJC have perpetuated the myth of Wayne
Williams’ innocence over time by equating emotions with facts.  The AJC has paired
every instance of fact-based evidentiary and scientific reporting, with the opinions of
those who either deny the facts or remain willfully ignorant of them.   Every
instance of AJC reporting during the 20+ years of judicial review, the multiple
findings that the trial was conducted properly, the DNA evidence that failed to
exclude Williams as a suspect, and the denial of  parole for convicted murderer
Wayne Williams are always accompanied by some rumor, allegation, emotional
ranting  or baseless claim of Williams innocence. I’m sure Williams enjoys this
attention from his prison cell.
 
It’s as if when the AJC or local TV reporters mention this case they add that some
people still believe that Wayne Williams is innocent, some believe the KKK killed
many or all the children, and as incredulous as it seems- some believe a black man
could not possibly have committed these crimes.  We have a right to our opinions,
even to our willful ignorance and denial of facts. The members of the “Flat Earth
Society" are entitled to hold strange opinions, but they are not entitled to their own
facts.   It is as if every time NASA or the International Space Station is in the news,
included as credible are the infantile opinions of members of the "Flat Earth
Society".  This is ludicrous.  Physical evidence matters, the truth matters, and our
system of justice matters.
 
In HBO’s introductory trailer Monica Kauffman Pearson, a former TV anchor woman
looks into the camera and commands, with all the gravitas of someone who reads
the news but has no actual knowledge of the events: “Investigate the cases”.   Her
forceful delivery of that line makes good TV, but it is uninformed and pathetic.  In
another statement: “It seems like they were throwing stuff against the wall…rather
than getting back to basic police work”.  She is entitled to her opinion, however this
unwarranted and groundless criticism is not supported by the enormous volume of
“basic police work”, and ultimately successful police work, at that time. Basic
police work was the foundation of the witness evidence, and the physical evidence,
that convicted Wayne Williams.
 
These illegitimate attempts to discredit our police and court institutions are attacks
against all of us, and particularly the police and court officials who worked in Atlanta
at the time of Wayne Williams heinous murders and subsequent conviction.
 
Many motivations seem plausible for these deniers of evidence and facts.   My first
observation is that some of the people expressing doubt in the Wayne Williams
murder convictions and guilt are simply profiteers.  That was the word used by
Tyrone Brooks (and joined by John Lewis and others) in 1981 to describe those who
were using the deaths of these children to enrich themselves financially.  This
profiteering continues today, either in the form of seeking notoriety, relevance or
ratings. 
 
These motivations are not to be compared to the understandable reasons why some
family members of the murdered and missing children are still unable to accept the
facts 40 years later.  The trauma of violent crimes can last a lifetime, and to
acknowledge that Williams is guilty it to accept that their child is gone forever, and
was murdered.  Another wound.
 
My friends Bob Buffington, Danny Agan and Joseph Drolet were interviewed by the
HBO producers and team for their role in these cases and the murder trial and
conviction of Wayne Williams.   We felt it was our duty to the memory of the
detectives and prosecutors who gave so much to this case but who are no longer
alive to share their stories, to defend their decisions or refute the never ending
stream of ridiculous allegations, conspiracy theories and false urban legends.
 
The HBO team conducting these interviews was exceptional.  They were well
informed, interested in the full truth, and worked very hard to get everything right. 
They challenged us on facts, history, our perceptions of the time and we did our
best. We know that many people have different views and accept that HBO will tell
their side as well.   We trusted them with our words and images, and hope they get
it right. 
 
In the final analysis the arrest, trial and conviction of Wayne Williams are examples
of teamwork between local, state and federal law enforcement, and political leaders.
The evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Wayne Williams was a
homicidal psychopath who killed boys and young men.
-----

Ms. Reitzes, in the interest of presenting balanced FACT BASED reporting for your
listeners, please consider interviewing some of the surviving members of the police
and prosecutorial teams that ended the tragedy of Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered
Children. These men are primary sources and participants in this case, and I
recommend Lt Danny Agan, Retired Commander of the Atlanta Homicide Task Force,
and Joseph Drolet, retired Fulton County Prosecutor.

Sincerely,

Lou Arcangeli
Atlanta Police Department,  Deputy Chief of Police, Retired.
larcangeli@yahoo.com
 

For additional source materials see:

 
1.  For your information and reference, I think it's legitimate to ask why the only media outlet in
recent times to credibly balance these events is the Daily Mail.   Amazing that it took an overseas
tabloid newspaper reporter to get it right! You can see the manner that they reported it in 2019
at:  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7381003/Detectives-worked-Atlanta-Child-Murders-
tell-fiber-evidence-helped-convict-killer.html

2.    Another excellent source of contemporaneous reporting on the violent nature of Atlanta in 1980, the
actions of Atlanta Homicide Detectives, and the challenges facing police at that time can be found in the
Atlanta Magazine article “A Dearth of Witnesses”, by Stuart Culpepper, August 1980 pg. 74.   The Atlanta
Magazine reporter and photographer were embedded within the Atlanta Homicide squad on the fateful
night that Eric Middlebrooks body was discovered.  It describes the Eric Middlebrooks crime scene and
the initial investigation by APD Detectives Bob Buffington, Danny Agan. Investigator Buffington testified
about this crime scene and the recovery of fiber evidence at the Wayne Williams murder trial.

 3.    The Atlanta Child Murders; the Night Stalker. 2009, Jack Mallard. ISBN-13:97814392663372, 
Library of Congress Control Number 2009910937   Available on Kindle for $6.00.  see
https://www.amazon.com/Atlanta-Child-Murders-Night-Stalker-ebook/dp/B004EPZ30E
 
https://www.wabe.org/hbos-new-docuseries-re-examines-the-cases-of-atlanta-
child-murders/

NEWS

HBO’s New Docuseries Reexamines The

Atlanta Child Murder Cases
SUMMER EVANS • APR 10, 2020

Beginning 40 years ago, there were nearly 30 murders of Atlanta children

over a period of 23 months.

In March 2019, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Atlanta police Chief Erika
Shields announced that, with the advancements in DNA technology, the city
would reopen the cases, which were mired in controversy.

Monica Kaufman Pearson, then a nightly anchor on WSB-TV, would come on

television every night and say, “It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your
children are?”

This referred to the Atlanta Child Murders from 1979 to 1981.

HBO has released a new five-part documentary series called “Atlanta’s

Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children.” The series takes a deep dive into
the harrowing tragedy that still looms in the shadows of the city today.

Earlier this week, “City Lights'” host Lois Reitzes spoke via Zoom with
Pearson and filmmaker Maro Chermayeff.

Chermayeff said her interest in creating a documentary around the murder

cases and Wayne Williams began before Bottoms reopened the cases.

“I felt so drawn to the relevance and importance of the story and having a
voice for the families. We knew about these other shows, which had been
made about this, but we felt that there was another story to tell, one in
which Atlanta was another character.”

This isn’t the first time that this time in Atlanta’s history has gotten national
attention.
In 2010, CNN created a special crime documentary called “The Atlanta Child
Murders.” In 2018, Tenderfoot TV and How Stuff Works created the podcast
“Atlanta Monster.” In 2019, the Netflix drama “Mindhunter” was inspired by
the Atlanta child murders in the creation of its second season.

This HBO series also delves into the separation between economic and racial
classes in Atlanta.

“If it had not been black children from a poor neighborhood, if it had been
white children or middle-class black children, I think these murders would
have been investigated much sooner,” said Pearson.

These murders took place shortly after Mayor Maynard Jackson was elected
into office. Jackson was the first African-American mayor of Atlanta and of
any major city in the South. Jackson’s administration brought both great
change, such as Atlanta’s international terminal, and controversy. Mothers of
victims and residents criticized him for waiting too long to act on these
cases.

“These murders happened during a time in which, unless someone is missing

for 48 hours, you don’t really think of them as becoming a subject of harm.
So back then, even on television, we would not put up a notice about a
missing kid unless the police inspected foul play and it had been 48 hours.
But unfortunately because these were children from a certain neighborhood,
it took even longer before they started looking into it,” said Pearson.

Chermayeff continues, “At one point Camille Bell (mother of Yusuf Bell) says,
at the time Yusuf went missing, there were 500 missing children at that
time.”

Due to the area in which these crimes were committed, Atlanta law
enforcement stated and presumed that the perpetrator was an African-
American male. Pearson has a different theory as to who the killer could
have been.

“The fact that they kept saying ‘This had to be done by a black men because
there were no white men in the community!’ That means that these were
white people who may have never been in the black community. Growing up
in a black community, there were white people in black neighborhoods all
the time. They owned the grocery stores, the gas station, they were utility
workers, white policemen. There were white people coming into the
neighborhoods to do things that were not legal such as buying drugs or
buying sex. To me, that was one of the biggest failings of the investigation
because they assumed immediately that it had to be a black person.”
Wayne Williams was convicted of murdering two adults in the investigation
— Nathaniel Cater and Jimmy Ray Payne. He was later believed to have been
responsible for the murder of 23 children, but he was never tried on these
claims. He continues to maintain his innocence and is currently serving two
life sentences.

“I still feel that had the investigative techniques been different, had they
widened the net and not been in a rush to just get it solved … unfortunately
we’ll really never know what happened,” said Pearson.

A new episode in the five-part series is released each Sunday on HBO.

 Notes 4-10- 2020

Lois Reitzes LR
 Maro Chermayeff (MC)
Monica Kauffman Pearson (MKP)

Intro:
1:20 :Lois Reitzes (LR) “Last August, Mayor Kiesha Lance Bottons and Chief Erika
Shields announced that with the advancements in DNA technology the city would
reopen the case, which was mired in controversy, ended too soon, and possibly with
the wrong conviction. “ (These words were NOT A QUOTE FROM MAYOR OR
CHIEF- THESE ARE LOIS REITZES WORDS)

3:50 MC One of my favorite moments in the series actually is when Monica says
Do the police work…solve the cases. We looked at the cases. “because I think I don’t
think anybody had really had the time or the resources at that point to do that.”

MKP “Seems cases were being ignored”

11;06 MC “… I don’t know what the appetite is for seeking the truth, retrying the
cases. Because it was clear on appeal that Wayne’s original trial was not a fair trial ”
The original trial is not a fair trial. It’s very clear. I mean the 8100 files were withheld.”

MC “I Don’t actually think all 30 of these so called list cases are even murders, at all”
…“In my view one is accidental, I think that there are family members involved.
I think its quite possible that the two girls will come off the list”

12:30 “Pedophile situation in Atlanta at that time was very very severe.
Many of these children were all seen in in homes of Tom Terrell and the home of John
David Wilcoxen pedophiles”

15 MKP How much manpower is being assigned?

“If you really want to solve these cases you need to put more manpower but you can’t
put more manpower if youre already short staffed. That’s what is frustrating to me. “
…

16:00 Missing kid rule of 48 hours.

20:30 “Maybe its time to get serious and really investigate these cases.

22:20 “MC

27:00 LR “ During the time Atlanta law enforcement presumed and stated that the
perpetrator was an African American male” “
. all of the children grew up in black impoverished neighborhoods”

27:38 MKP ”The fact that is they kept saying that it had to be done by a black man,
because there were no white men in the community”…
28:07 MKP “and to me that is is one of the biggest failings of the investigation because
they assumed immediately it had to be a black person which was not true” “They did
not know the neighborhoods they were talking about, because if they had they would
have had a much larger net of people to interview and to investigate.” MC “And I
agree”

34:50 LR “We are never going to know what happened. . “

MKP “We are never really going to know.”

34: Lois Reitzes: “Monica you say perhaps this will forever remain a mystery
because it was Botched from the very first day”
MKP “And I still feel that way. I still feel that had the investigation techniques been
different , had t hey widened the net. Had they looked at the evidence they had.
Had they listened to the tape of the confidential informant
Had they not been in a rush just to get it solved because it wa starting toharm the
image…… .

MC We do know
Don’t think all the cases are related

35:22 MC “Lubie Geter was the victim of a go-kart accident”

36:44 MC “in Waynes case that evidence in that trial you know its just absurd. And
then 10 pattern cases brought in half way through the trial it was impossible.
And you see that so the idea that on appeal that would not be recognized on those
grounds alone, let alone the 8100 files and the fact that a major investigation was
taking place and they destroyed the tapes, and they don’t remember when
they destroyed them, it was just a pack of lies.
39:19 MC: “And by the way. How about the fact that they did not make Clifford Jones
The death of Clifford Jones in the Laundromat, a pattern case” A case that was
based on the fibers. That’s how they connected it. But when there was a truly
other viable suspect and eye-witneses to that murder that took place at the
Laundromat. They didn’t bring that case in, because if thay brought that case in,
and ,that was So clearly an issue with that case as that being connected to
Wayne” that would throw all the rest of the fiber evidence into question so they
just couldn’t do it, they just did not bring it in but you know you see those kind of
things and you get well they were just painting it with any brush they felt like
painting it.

38:31 MKP “ I thought it was fascinating when you talked about the fiber evidence that I
never knew that the other man being investigated had a dog, very similar dog hairs,
to Wayne Williams dog.

40:00 MC “ How many german shepherds did they have walking all over all of the
crime scenes. ” while the bodies were still you know on the ground, in various states
depending on how quickly when they found them ..There were dogs sniffing all
over those woods that were german shepherds that were the same kind of dogs
that wayne had. So when they found the dog hair on that body who is to say that
it wasn’t their own dog hair . It was so…it was such a mess.”

-------------------
42: MC “but that did probably come down from government and administration.”
MKP “Do you think it was the city or do you think it was the governor”
MC: I think it was the governor, or higher.

42:40 LR Yea, That meeting when Lewis Slaton was Slaton was summoned to the
governor’s mansion in episode 5…
42:46 MC Lewis Slaton was quite clear in his interviews and in his actions. That he did
not believe there was enough evidence to make a case against Wayne to bring
that case to trial.

LR And yet after that meeting:

MC: He did. … “You can see how it happened.”

46:00 MC “I feel very badly for him (Wayne)”

46:33 MKP “I agree after after seeing this series, all 5 episodes, he did not get a fair
trial”

45 MC “African American men are conveniently and on a regular basis still victims of
extremely unfair treatment by the police, and at trial. This is not something that has
gone away.”