Atlanta's Missing And Murdered: The Lost Children

Known as "The City Too Busy to Hate" in the 1970s, Atlanta is on the rise, fueled by excitement over the election of the city's first Black mayor. Below the surface, however, long-held racial and economic divisions are percolating. When African-American children begin disappearing and showing up dead, the city is on the verge of an unprecedented crisis.

By 1980, citizens take matters into their own hands. When a volunteer search party finds a slain child in an area local police canvassed a day earlier, the FBI is called in. But even the Feds seem to make little headway, and conspiracy theories abound. We learn more about Wayne Williams, a local talent scout who might have been recruiting some victims.

With the city's reputation on the line, and the murder count rising, law enforcement faces immense pressure to make an arrest. On May 22, 1981, an FBI stakeout of the city's bridges led investigators to 23-year-old Wayne Williams, who became the main suspect in the killings and was promptly arrested concerning the murders of two men in their 20s.

In a stunning move, prosecutors introduce pattern evidence mid-trial that they assert links him to 10 child murders. The jury delivered a swift guilty verdict in February 1982. Just days later, the Atlanta police department shut down the task force investigating the 30 murders and attributes most of the cases to Wayne Williams.

In the mid-1980s, Wayne Williams' appeals attorney receives shocking new evidence connecting members of the Klan to the murders. A judge evaluates Williams' plea for a retrial. Forty years after the murders began, the victims' family members gathered to grieve and assert their unwavering commitment to finding out what happened to their children.