Skip to main content

The Atlanta Child Murders


The Atlanta child murderer, Wayne Williams, killed at least 23 people, mostly young black children.  Initial profiles of the killer claimed that the murders were perpetrated by a white racist person.  In fact, the killer was a young black man, and a member of the very community that he terrorized.  He spent a considerable amount of time building relationships with his unsuspecting victims, offering the older victims a promise of a job.  Once he had the perfect opportunity, he would drug his victims, and then asphyxiate them once they were incapacitated.  He would often leave the victim’s bodies is sexually degrading positions (Keppel & Birnes).






Works Cited
Keppel, Robert D., and William J. Birnes. The Psychology of Serial Killer Investigations The Grisly Business Unit. Academic Press, 2003.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Emmett Till

I think the most important event in African American history since Reconstruction is the aftermath of the murder of Emmett Till.  Till was only 14 years old when he was tortured and killed by two white men in Money, Mississippi after flirting with a white woman at a store.  Till was beaten severely, shot and dumped into the Tallahatchie River, tied to a cotton gin fan.  African Americans were killed often in the South, many times by lynching.  The violence in the South towards African Americans was so prevalent that the two men that killed Till felt they were in the right and had no fear of being punished for this horrific crime.  When Till’s body was sent back to his mother in Chicago, she was shocked and horrified at how horrible her son’s body looked, due to the savage way Till was treated before and after he was killed.  Mamie Till Bradley made the decision to have an open casket funeral and to allow media to photograph his body before and during the f...

Disaster Management: A State of Emergency

Before the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was created in 1979, over 100 agencies had to work together to help people during and after major disasters (Smith).  The result was a conglomerate of uncoordinated efforts that didn’t work very well.  FEMA was created after a series of major natural disasters.  Ironically, after FEMA was created, less severe disasters happened and FEMA didn’t seem quite so important.  Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush used FEMA to make appointments as political favors and the people they appointed to head FEMA had no experience, training, or background in emergency management (Smith).  When a severe storm finally struck, FEMA was unprepared.  After a category 5 hurricane hit Florida City in 1992, it took 5 days for troops to show up to assist.  Over 125,000 homes were destroyed and thousands of people were left without federal assistance or necessities, like water or food (Smith).  Jane Bullock, former C...

Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women

The United States has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) international agreement.   According to the National Women’s Law Center, only the United States and six other countries have not ratified this agreement ("Issues").   The Co-President of the National Women’s Law Center testified that CEDAW protects basic human rights and aims to stop gender based discrimination against girls and women.   Nearly 200 countries have adopted CEDAW.   The main tenets of CEDAW are to: 1) prevent crimes of sexual assault, domestic violence, sex trafficking and other forced physical and sexual acts primarily experience by women worldwide; 2) give girls and women equal access to education and job training; 3) improve access for women to healthcare and improve maternal mortality rates; and 4) provide critical legal support and legislation to families, mothers and their children (Greenberger). CEDAW seems like a no brain...