. LEFT: White male suspect in Atlanta Child Killings. There were several. RIGHT: the man convicted, Wayne Williams "GOALS OF A TERRORIST GROUP: There are three main goals of any terrorist group that fit into the pattern in Atlanta.   1; To instill a sense of terror in the community in which the group operates. 2: By being able to act and not get caught, the group shows the weakness of the government, and undermines public support for and confidence in it. 3: To replace the existing government with one made up of supporters of the group), or that the group supports. In Atlanta, goals 1 and 2 have been achieved, and the next elect­ion will determine if goal 3 is reached." FBI Analysis of Atlanta Child Killings Points to KKK

Though Georgia officials at first suspected the Klan in the Atlanta Child Murders, they abruptly changed course and refused to provide the Williams defense with the exculpatory evidence they had accumulated. But it wasn't just the Georgia Bureau of Investigations who had such evidence in the hands. So did the FBI: fingerprints and hair samples from a Caucasian male left at the crime scene.

On February 9th,1981, a young black child was followed home from school. His apartment door was opened, the area was ransacked as the child hid under a bed. Nothing of value was stolen. Two days later, this suspect was seen in the vicinity of the boy's school. Later that day another attempt was made to gain entry into the apartment. His mother screamed and the the child saw the same man peering through the window, a blue-eyed white male with a scar on his neck. Following this incident, an unidentified caller threatened "I am going to kill the boy in 48 hours"

By then his mother had purchased a padlock and took extra precautions. While at his grandmother's house on Feb. 17, however, the same man chased the boy for several blocks.

At around that time latent prints had been lifted from two pornographic magazines found at the burial site of two victims.  The accosted boy viewed five photographs and selected the man to whom the latent prints belonged. Incredibly, investigators dismissed his claims due to a discrepancy in witness reports of beard growth between mid Feb and March. The suspect was never charged, despite the latent prints and this positive identification from a child that well-remembered his face.

Instead,  prosecutors charged Wayne Bertram Williams, lacking witnesses, credible physical evidence, and most importantly: prints. Williams was initially charged with killing two black men, but prosecutors were allowed to charge him with the Atlanta Child Killings simply because "they fit a pattern."

The following profile is one of several FBI documents detailing their concerns regarding Klan involvement in the Atlanta Child Killings, including notes that some right-wing elements in the local police department could very well have been involved...

"GOALS OF A TERRORIST GROUP: There are three main goals of any terrorist group that fit into the pattern in Atlanta.

1; To instill a sense of terror in the community in which the group operates.

2: By being able to act and not get caught, the group shows the weakness of the government, and undermines public support for and confidence in it.

3: To replace the existing government with one made up of supporters of the group), or that the group supports. In Atlanta, goals 1 and 2 have been achieved, and the next elect­ion will determine if goal 3 is reached.

MEMBERS: As indicated earlier (page 1) the members of the group are white males, age 25-4O, and in good health.  And a check of the weekday disappearance chart (page 4), shows that it is most likely that they work at a job where they have Tuesday and Wednesday off (a list of such people would include not only police and fire officials, but also hospital or chain store em­ployees).  A list of known right-wing organization members, should be checked against employment, and this with schedules in an attempt to come up with a list of suspects fitting this pattern.

It is important to keep in mind that the members of this group do not look upon their actions as simple murder, but as a form of civic duty. It is the only way that they know to re­turn their city to the proper form of government. Additionally, it is quite possible that they deplore the non-related killings, and that in some way they may serve as part of the justification for their acts.  After all, any government that lets that many little children be killed does not deserve the right to be in office, and should be replaced by a new power structure that will be able to control the situation."

THEORY:  That the core killings, of children, in Atlanta, are the work of a small, fanatical, right-wing cell (possibly linked with the KKK, American Nazi Party, Minutemen, or other right-wing organization). Other killings are the work of copycat or cover-up killers, or the victims of random inner city violence.

MOTIVE:  The motive of the killings is to discredit the black power structure in Atlanta. During the next city election, a "law and order," candidate (backed by the major organization- but unaware of the true nature of the killings) will run for the office of mayor, and the killings will end.

METHOD: Nothing can instill in a population a feeling of fear and lack of faith in its leadership as fast as a series of seemingly random murders.  And if the victims are children, the most defenseless members of the society, the sense of terror is heightened.  It is for this reason that the killer group has chosen children as their victims.  Their work has been made easier by the actions of copycat killers and random killings in Atlanta, that have served to conceal their actions.

GROUP COMPOSITION:  It is my estimation that the killer group is made up four to five, white males, twenty-five to forty years old.  These would be males in their top years of physical condition, powerful enough to overcome the resistance of a child without help.  As to the size of the group, four men is the most that can fit, with ease, into a single car, and retain freedom of movement.  It is also the size of a standard military rifle team, the base unit of any infantry organization. A fifth in­dividual, if involved, would be the team leader and have the closest contact with the major organization.

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE: Several, unrelated facts and trends point to the possible team theory:

1: In recent months right-wing organizations around the nation have established paramilitary units, trained in guerilla warfare methods.

2: Incidents of right-wing terrorist acts, such as the group of six recently apprehended in North Carolina in connection with a bombing plot stemming from the "death to the Klan" killings, are on the rise.

3: Atlanta, is a city on edge, and even assuming the exist­ence of two or three copycat killers, any single in­dividual trying to coax children into a car would draw attention to himself, and provide witnesses for police.

HOW TO GET THE CHILDREN INTO A VEHICLE:  There are several possible methods that the grout) could employ to get the vic­tims into a vehicle.

1: Money: The child is offered a relatively large sum of money (twenty or thirty dollars, and up front) to do some work for the killer. Later the money is re­moved from the body.

2:  An accomplice (possibly a woman or another child) lures the victim to the vehicle with an offer of money or safety.

3:  One member of the group), on foot, follows the intended victim for several blocks (or stands near him, if he is stationary).  After a short period of time a second (and possibly a third) member of the group drives up to where the child is in a plain looking, four-door sedan. He rolls down the window or opens the door, calls out to the child, flashes some form of shield or ID, says he is a law enforcement official, and tells the child that the person following him is a suspect in the killings. The child gets into the car, while a fourth member of the group (in a second car) picks up the individual on foot.  They may go so far as to have some form of radio contact between the cars (over a C.B. net), and then drive out of the area to a pre-determined location for the murder.

TYPE OF VEHICLE: If the groups is using a method like number three above, they must be using one or two, clean, plain looking sedans, of the type most common to the Atlanta police department. However, a more promising type would be a small van of some kind. Hot one with a fancy, "Star Wars," paint job (that would attract too much attention) or a window van, but a simple panel van (probably with one way decals on the rear windows). Such a vehicle would draw little attention to itself, and could provide a rolling trader scene (and if the vehicle is carpeted inside, it could account for some of the fibers found on a few of the bodies).

RAPID RATE OF LAST FIVE KILLINGS: There are several possible explanations for the five killings between January and March, 1981.

1: They are the work of five, unrelated killers, who just by random chance struck within such a short

period of time.

2: One of these killings is the work of the group, andthe other four are random (as in number one, above).

3: All five are the work of the group, in one of the following patterns:

SUMMARY:  Based upon available data, the following are my tentative conclusions regarding the child killings in Atlanta

I:  Killings number 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, are the work of the single right-wing cell, and are politically motivated. These six killings all share specific characteristics: all the victims were black, boys (except #5, see below), age 10-14, all were either killed by strangulation or asphyxiation (forms of death more inclined to instill a sense of terror in others than a shooting or knifing), no major effort was made to conceal the bodies, and all were last seen on a Tuesday or Wednesday.

IMPORTANCE OF AGE:  A part of the motivation for these individuals to join the major organization’s paramilitary unit, is the fear of a racial civil war in the next five to six years. In that case the children age ten to fourteen now, would be young men between sixteen and twenty when the war starts. In this way they are both sending a political message to the community and killing their enemy at the same time.

KILLING #5: The killing of, Angel Lanier, was a mistake. By that I mean that the members of the group did not realize that she was a girl until she had been lured into a trap.  At that point they felt they had no choice but to kill her and make it look like a sexual motive was behind it.

RANDOM PATTERN OF GROUP KILLINGS: There are two prime reasons for the random and prolonged pattern followed by the group in its actions:

a: SCHEDULING: The members of the group have to find a time when they can meet, without some personnel or family situation keeping them from joining the rest of the team.

b: NEED: The act of the group are not the only child killing in the city, and so to keep the situation hot and in the public eye, they need only strike every few months.

II:  Other killings, not related to group actions:

1) Killings 1 & 2, would seem to be related to each other (according to newspaper accounts), however, they are not related to the group) killings.

2) Killing 4, this is a case of strangulation, however three points stand out from the group acts. First, the child was only nine years old (two years younger than the group victims mean age of 11.3); second, his body was concealed in an abandoned building; and third, he was last seen on a Sunday.           

3) Killing 7, also is unrelated to the group acts.