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During the late 70's in Atlanta, Georgia, the city had become a major player in the US economy. However, much of the growing black population of the city remained poor, despite the election of the city's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson. Crime and race relations were increasingly becoming a problem when two high profle murders of white citizens by black assailants in 1979 brought outcrys for a crackdown on the rampant crime facing the city. Meanwhile two other murders, those of two young black boys, when largely unnoticed. However, those deaths would mark the beginning of aseries of murders that would hold the black community, and the city of Atlanta, is the grip of fear for over two years. Fourteen year old Edward Hope Smith was returning home from a skating rink in the very early hours of July 21, 1979. Several day later, his friend Alfred Evans, also 14, was headed downtown to see a karate movie. Both boys, although very poor, had aspirations of becoming professional athletes someday. But that day would never come. Their bodies were found on July 28 in a wooded area in southwest Atlanta. Edward had been killed with a .22 caliber handgun, Alfred had apparently been strangled. Since both boys had a history of familiarity with illegal drugs , the deaths were written off as drug related killings. However, the next death was not so easy for authorities to explain. Fourteen year old Milton Harvey, who had moved as a young child from the projects to a pleasant middle class neighborhood, borrowed a bicycle on September 4, 1979 to take a check to the bank to pay a credit card bill for his mother. He and the bike disappeared that day; the bike was found on a dirt road a week later, it would be mid-November before Milton's badly decomposed reamins were found in a rubbish dump in the suburbs. Originally, the death was not ruled a homocide, due to the lack of traumatic marks on the bones. Some weeks before Milton's body was located, nine year old Yusef Bell disappeared while on the way to a store to buy snuff for a neighbor. He had last been seen getting into a blue sedan. Due to his mother's pleas in the media for her son's safe return, Yusef's case was the first to get widespread public attention Too late for little Yusef, his body was found by a janitor stuffed in a hole in the concrete floor of a school. Although the mayor promised a full investigation, the four murders were not yet seen as connected. The killings abated and the police were given some breathing room from mid-November until Marhc of 1980. Then the killings of young blacks began again with frightening regularity. On March 4, 1980, 12 year old Angel Lenair disappeared and was found dead 6 days later, bound to a tree with electrical cord. She was the first female victim in this series of murders. The very next day, ten year old Jefferey Mathis disappeared. He was also seen getting into a blue car, some later claimed it was driven by an adult white male. On May 18th, Eric Middlebrook, aged 14, went outside his home to repair his bike. The next morning he was found blugeoned to death nearby. On June 9, in the suburb of Decatur, GA, 12 year old Christopher Richardson disappeared on the way to a public pool to swim. On June 22, LaTonya Wilson, 7, was abducted from her home, as neighbors reported it, by a black man who removed a window pane and carried LaTonya out in his arms. At last, the community began to bestir itself to stop the crimes the police and FBI seemed powerless to prevent. Some of the victims mothers, along with Reverend Earl Caroll, formed the Committee to Stop Children's Murders. (STOP). However, the danger continued seemly unabated. |
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| The 80's History Project Crimes The Atlanta Child Murders July 21, 1979 - May 21, 1981 |
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| Edward Hope Smith |
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| Yusef Bell |
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| Angel Lenair |