Ian Toten - Atlanta Child Murders
The Opperman Report' · Oct 17, 2026 · 56:21
The Opperman Report' · Oct 17, 2026 · 56:21
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Ian Toten - Atlanta Child Murders
Ian Toten makes a welcome return to the Opperman Report with his deep dive into the Atlantic Child Murders.
The Atlanta murders of 1979–1981, sometimes called the Atlanta child murders, are a series of murders committed in Atlanta, Georgia, United States between July 1979 and May 1981. Over the two-year period, at least 28 African-American children, adolescents, and adults were killed. Wayne Williams, an Atlanta native who was 23 years old at the time of the last murder, was arrested, tried, and convicted of two of the adult murders and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Police subsequently have attributed a number of the child murders to Williams, although he has not been charged in any of those cases, and Williams himself maintains his innocence, notwithstanding the fact that the specific style and manner of the killings, which was by chokehold-strangulation, ceased after his arrest.
In March 2019, the Atlanta police, under the order of Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, reopened the cases in hopes that new technology would lead to a conviction for the murders that were never resolved.
But the story goes further, deeper and is even more sinister. And Ian Toten is just the person to get at the root of the stories. It's a terrifying story of abuse and the wilful ignorance of those who are supposed to protect and serve, doing neither.
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