With his latest docu-series, “The Atlanta Child Murders,” film producer Will Packer is calling attention to the cases of more than two dozen Black children who were killed decades ago, reports the Huffington Post.
The three-part series, which premiered on Investigation Discovery on Saturday, re-examines the murders of 29 Black youth, mostly children and a few adults, between 1979 and 1981. Children were abducted and later found dead, in many cases strangled. Black parents and community leaders condemned the city for not treating the matter with urgency. In what many suspected to be an effort to calm hysteria and racial tension, authorities identified Wayne Williams as the main suspect and linked him to many of the homicides. He was convicted of killing two adults, but was never tried for the children’s cases.
Twenty-two of the deaths are now considered cold cases, and the families of at least 22 murdered children have yet to receive justice. Packer, known for producing “Girls Trip,” “Think Like A Man” and “Stomp The Yard,” among other films, wants to help change that. “If we don’t, as a country, and if the people who’re in power and have the influence, don’t make the decision to put the resources behind protecting those that are most vulnerable, then something like this can happen again,” Packer told HuffPost.
On Thursday, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and police Chief Erica Shields announced that the cases are being re-examined and that “technological advances in testing DNA evidence will be the main focus,” according to a press release.
“It would certainly be in order for us to look once again at evidence that the city of Atlanta has in its possession… and to determine once and for all if there’s additional evidence that may be tested that may give some peace ― to the extent that peace can be had in a situation like this ― to the victims’ families,” Bottoms said in a statement. “To let them know that we have done all that we can do… to make sure their memories are not forgotten, and in the truest sense of the word to let the world know that Black lives do matter.” She also thanked Packer for bringing the murders back to light.
