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The Atlanta child murder was a notorious killer starting in July of 1979. The murders of African-American children and young men went on for twenty-two month. The signature of this killer would be that he would strangle them. He would abduct the children by sneaking into open windows, snatching them when they were playing outside or going from one place to another alone. From 1979 and 1981, the Atlanta child murderer murdered a total of 29 people.

On the night of May 22, 1981, police investigators staked out at a local river where they had found multiple bodies dumped before. After hearing a splash at 2:00 A.M., they saw a car pulling away from the bridge. Wayne Williams was driving the car. They arrested him on the spot as a suspect. A few days after hearing the splash, police recovered a body out of the river.

Because police detectives did not actually see the body dropped into the river, they could not directly accuse Williams of the crime. This made proving the deaths on him would be a lot more challenging and would heavily depend on forensic evidence. One of the key victim’s in the conviction of Wayne Williams was 11-year-old Patrick Baltazar. When Williams was asked if he knew him, he said that he had never met Patrick. Some of the techniques they used were fiber analysis, DNA sequencing, and hair analysis.

Fiber analysis was a major forensic technique that was used to convict Williams. It can put someone at the scene of a crime. According to Locard’s exchange principle, when a person comes in contact with an object or person, a cross transfer of materials occurs. This was very true in the Williams case. The investigators examined fibers found on all the victims. After collecting and examining the fibers, they searched Wi...

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...r evidence in the Baltazar murder to be among the strongest of their cases.

The last forensic technique that was used was blood typing. Forensic investigators found five bloodstains in the station wagon driven by Williams. They blood typed each other the stains in the car and they were consistent with two of his victims, William Barrett and John Porter. Although the blood types were not as persuasive as the hair and fiber analyses, it was still a crucial forensic technique used in the case.

In January of 1982, Wayne Williams was found guilty for the murder of two of the victims, Jimmy Ray Payne and Nathaniel Cater. His conviction was heavily based on the forensic evidence collected and analyzed. Consequent to the verdict, the Atlanta police announced that twenty-two of the twenty-nine murders were solved with the presumption that Wayne Williams was responsible.