All language subtitles for How.It.Really.Happened.S05E01_English

♪♪

Reporter: The search goes on
for yet another missing child.

Bottoms:
As a child, I felt fear.

They were killing children,
Black children, in Atlanta.

I don't think any of us attached
a face to what these killers

or this killer looked like
and who it was.

It was just somebody evil.

♪♪

♪♪

Hello and welcome to
"How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

From 1979 to 1981, the city
of Atlanta was gripped by fear.

Children were disappearing --
little girls, boys,

and young men,
all of them Black.

They were later found murdered,
most of them strangled,

their bodies left in abandoned
buildings and in the woods.

Panic swept the city.

Parents kept their kids close

as police launched
a desperate search

to find the killer or killers.

And in Atlanta,
the nightly TV catchphrase

"Do you know
where your children are?"

took on a new, ominous tone.

This is how it really happened.

♪♪

Agan: Saturday afternoon,
July 28, 1979.

I was a rookie homicide
detective, learning the ropes.

A call came up to respond
to Niskey Lake Road.

What had happened was

someone was looking for aluminum
cans alongside the road,

and they had stumbled upon the
remains of a decomposing body.

♪♪

So, we arrived on the scene.

It was a typical Georgia
summer day -- hot, humid.

And Niskey Lake Road
was a very desolate area.

Back in those days, in the '70s
and the '80s, it was woods.

Agan: To assume that the body
was dumped there

would be
the logical assumption.

And somebody said,

"Well, maybe we should do
a search of the immediate area."

Smith: And not far
from where his body was found,

the remains of another
Black child was found.

Agan: This body
was in much better shape,

physically, than the first body.

It was still intact.

Clearly, it was
a young Black male,

more or less fully clothed,
laying on the ground faceup.

We really need help from
the public on this one to --

on these two cases.

It took a while
to identify them.

♪♪

Edward Hope Smith,
who's 14 years old --

he had been shot in the back
by a small-caliber weapon.

And Alfred Evans -- he was 13.

And the cause of death
was attributed to asphyxiation.

So, there's these
kind of divergence

in terms of method of homicide

that caused
the police department

to believe
that they were unconnected.

Agan: And there were the first
two murders on Niskey Lake Road.

They got very little coverage,
if any, with the press.

The level of alarm
did not spread too much

beyond the communities
that they came out of.

Suggs: But after the finding
of the two bodies,

things just started
to kind of build.

I just want my little girl
found safely and brought home.

I miss her, and I love her.

[ Voice breaking ] I love her.

♪♪

Suggs: There were more children
missing.

More bodies were being found.

News anchor:
Authorities in Atlanta today

identified the remains
of a child

found by volunteer searchers.

There was a small patch of hair
next to the skull.

More bodies turn up.

Reporter:
14-year-old Milton Harvey.

Smith: Yusuf Bell.

Angel Lanier.

News anchor: The body
of 7-year-old Latonya Wilson

was found near a railway track

not far
from where she had lived.

Suggs: Then the bodies
just started piling up,

piling up, piling up, piling up.

People were very concerned.

Someone's killing our kids.

Someone's after our children.

Good evening.

Another child has been found
murdered in Atlanta.

It was just a very dark and
scary and sad time in our city.

We must bring an end
to the killing of Black folks

in this country!

Glover: I don't know how
we can look back at it now

and try to describe the horror.

I can still see
those black-and- white photos

of those children.

I can still see them.

Suggs: And you think about
29 murders in two years,

that's a lot of murders
of Black kids.

You had a whole city
of children.

We were terrified.

People are getting children
around here.

I don't like it.

Absolutely terrified.

And we had every reason to be.

♪♪

Suggs: Atlanta was always
this aspirational place.

At the time,
Atlanta was a growing city.

Atlanta was a changing city.

Glover: Back then, in 1979,

Atlanta had an African-American
mayor, Maynard Jackson.

He was the first
African-American elected

to be the mayor of any
major city in the South.

Ladies and gentlemen, the future
of Atlanta begins tonight.

[ Cheers and applause ]

The city's motto back then
was "city too busy to hate."

The city was growing.

It was undergoing a huge
economic and building boom.

Every major corporation
you could think of

was relocating to Atlanta.

Ford: It was the very beginning
of CNN.

We were the new kids
on the block.

For the first time
in television history,

there is now
a 24-hour-a-day news service.

Back then, Atlanta
was just super-busy.

[ Siren wailing ]

But it was the homicide capital
of the United States.

There were more murders
per capita in Atlanta

than anywhere else
in the country.

Our crime statistics
in the '70s were horrible.

So you're trying to be
this wonderful city,

a city that's too busy to hate,

but at that time,
in the late '70s,

you had a city
that was really full of crime.

Back up this way.
Go back up.

News anchor:
Atlanta police have set up
a close watch on children

for the weekend amid reports

the killer of Atlanta's
Black children may strike again.

♪♪

Bottoms:
So many years later,

it's still incredible
to think that it happened

and that it happened day in,
day out for weeks,

for months, for years,

and there was nothing
we could do to stop it.

♪♪

Reporter:
Jefferey Mathis, age 10,

went to the store
for his mother two weeks ago

and hasn't been seen since.

I'm still hoping
that he's alive,

but I just don't know
at this point.

Bottoms: Literally,
children were disappearing.

They were walking to bus stops

or they had been out
with their friends,

and they were disappearing.

Agan:
What was tying them together
were what you call victimology.

All Black.

I think there was one female
at that time.

The rest of them were males.

They all had disappeared
under strange circumstances

and then been discovered
murdered.

It took a moment
for people to even realize

that we had a problem
on our hands.

Suggs: The mothers were the ones
who kind of sounded the bell

to say,
"Hey, our kids are missing.

Our kids are being taken
and killed,

and the police
aren't doing anything.

They're not doing
anything fast enough."

The police department doesn't
want to alarm the community.

They are afraid of panic.

How many children do we have
to lose in our neighborhoods

before the police department
says,

"Hey, we've got a problem"?

♪♪

The mothers formed the Committee
to Stop Children's Murders.

And there was one mother
in particular,

Yusuf Bell's mother,
Camille Bell.

We needed to warn the city
that something was going on.

Camille Bell is starting
to raise hell,

and she's getting attention.

McComas:
She started to tell the media

that we had
a serial killer on our hands.

I am so sorry that what happened
to my child happened,

but what I want you to do
is try your best to see to it

that it doesn't happen to yours.

Buffington:
Yusuf Bell was going to
the grocery store for people.

And then he became missing,
and they found him strangled

and pushed into an air duct
in an old, abandoned school.

♪♪

Bell: He was bright.
He was ambitious.

He was in the gifted program.

All of the what could have been,
should have been,

and probably would have been
was taken away.

And we'll never know now,

because somebody decided
that it was alright

to just kill a little kid
'cause they wanted to.

♪♪

Buffington: It was in May.

We got a call
in the early morning.

Agan: Somebody observed
this body of a young boy

on the sidewalk
in back of this lounge.

The fact
that the little boy's body

was dumped behind a dumpster

was, for me,
psychologically significant

in that he thought
the child was trash.

Agan: The scene basically
consisted of the body,

and there was a bicycle.

The pockets of the little boy
were turned out

to make it appear
to be a robbery,

and then pennies, nickels,
dimes were strewn

just like somebody
had actually thrown them.

Agan: We didn't have a lot
to work with.

One, we didn't know
who the boy was.

We didn't know how he got there.

Cause of death
wasn't readily apparent.

Buffington: There was some
discoloring to the neck,

and it also appeared
that he had been bludgeoned.

Agan: When we were conducting
our crime-scene investigation,

Bob saw some fibers
that were stuck

to the bottom
of the boy's shoes.

It was all we had.

There was no blood.

There was no semen.

There was nothing.

Danny and I hand-carried
the fiber out to the GBI lab

and talked to Larry Peterson,

who we worked with a lot
in our homicide investigations.

♪♪

It was fairly obvious to me
that it was carpeting

that he had to have been
in contact with

just before his body
was laid there.

So basically,
it's highly significant.

Bring me a sample of red carpet
that you think it may match,

and then we'll do a comparison
and see.

But there was no matching
source for the longest time.

At some point
during the morning,

we identified him
as Eric Middlerooks.

Buffington: I had connected
the bodies of the two children

at Niskey Lake
and Eric Middlerooks.

So I wrote a letter saying that
I thought that it was important

that we start looking at them
as related cases.

And I sent the letter
up to my major,

who was the head of homicide.

And the major asked me
if i liked working homicide,

and i told him I did very much.

And he said,
"Well, how about auto theft?

If I see another letter
like this,

you're gonna be in auto theft."

I think they were afraid
of a serial murderer.

It was almost as if everybody
was suffering from deniability.

It didn't seem like law
enforcement was jumping on it

or giving it a lot of attention.

Reporter:
As late as yesterday, detectives
in the homicide division at APD

were saying there was no link
between the cases.

In fact, they wouldn't even
acknowledge

that there have been
more kidnappings and murders

involving children
than in the past.

Suggs:
The causes of death were random.

Some were shot.
Some were strangled.

Some were asphyxiated.

Initially, they were showing up
all over the place.

They were showing up in woods,
in the back of buildings,

and abandoned places.

It seemed like
there was no pattern.

You had a very loosely
connected series of homicides.

It wasn't anything that you
could connect evidentiary.

And just two days ago,
on Monday evening,

another young boy
was found dead.

The Black community --

they were pretty sure
it had to be someone white.

No Black person
would do such a thing.

Buffington: And so as the body
count started to ramp up,

the city was on edge.

McComas: You expect something
occasionally to happen

from time to time,

but when you start finding them
just one right after the other,

it starts to say, "Okay,
you know, this Is alarming.

There's something going on."

Then, finally, finally,
the authorities were like,

"Okay, we have something here
that we need to really,

really kind of look into."

And that's when they put
together the task force.

Wright:
He was laying straight up there,

and I just came on the side
of the bridge

and then looked down there.

And there he was.

Reporter: 9-year-old
Aaron Jackson was found

on this riverbank
Sunday afternoon.

A passerby spotted his legs
and shoes from the bridge above.

And so did Aaron's father
on a local TV newscast.

Ford: When we showed up
at their parents's houses,

I felt like the Grim Reaper.
I really did.

Did you ever think
that this could happen to you?

No.

I didn't think
it would happen to me.

I don't think anybody thinks
it could happen to them.

It was awful.

It was terrifying,
just the day-to-day existence

of not knowing
what was gonna happen.

Bottoms:
I just remember one day

standing at the bus stop
and a car slowing down,

everyone just taking off
running.

And I think that's really
symbolic of the fear

that we carried with us,

that there was
a boogeyman amongst us,

and he was taking children
who look like us.

You can't even walk out the door

without looking
over your shoulder.

Reporter:
Anita, are you aware of the
children who have been murdered?

Yes.

Does it worry you?
Yes.

What do you do about it?

I always have a dime with me,
and anything happen, call.

During the time of the missing
and murdered children,

we did teasers.

Announcer: It's 11:00 p.m.

Do you know
where your children are?

That's a reminder every day

that something is happening
in your city,

that kids are being snatched up
every day.

Arcangeli:
Children got much more closely
supervised during this period.

You saw people walking
their kids to the bus stop,

waiting for the bus.

Reporter: A group of residents
in the Techwood housing project

have armed themselves
with baseball bats and guns.

And some of the neighborhoods

had what they called
"the bat patrol,"

where a group of them would
walk around with baseball bats,

protecting their neighbors.

We intend to protect
and defend our community

by any
and all means necessary.

Reportre:
The parents of some these
children have complained

that police
aren't doing enough.

The mothers started speaking out

and walking down the street
with signs,

and it became a P.R. issue.

Reporter: Partly because
of these complaints,

but mostly just to try and get
to the bottom of all this,

the special task force
was created.

Within the period of time
we're looking at,

with the number of kids
that have been killed

or still missing,
it's not normal.

♪♪

Smith:
For so long, the police would
say that they didn't know

whether they were looking
for one killer,

for multiple killers,

whether multiple people
had killed multiple victims.

Was anything connected?

Maybe not, maybe so.
Who knew?

Because it was not clear.

There was talk of whether or not
it was the Ku Klux Klan.

Suggs:
This was the South.

This was only a decade
after the assassination

of Martin Luther King Jr.

So there was an obvious
assumption

that if Black kids
were being killed in Atlanta,

that the Klan
could be involved in it.

News anchor:
Are the children of Atlanta

being systematically killed
by a hate group?

At one point, there was an
explosion at a daycare center,

a public-housing facility.

Reporter: The explosion ripped
out four sections of wall.

90 children
were inside the building

when the blast occurred.

Four children and their teacher
were pronounced dead on arrival.

The Black community
went berserk.

Reporter: A crowd
of nearly 1,000 people gathered,

and rumors soon circulated.

Pearson: The Black community
thought some white racists

set off a bomb
to kill more Black children,

that it was the Klan,

and they found out
the boiler exploded.

Reporter: Through it all,

Commissioner Brown
stood motionless,

powerless to quiet factions
of the crowd,

trying to tell them that
there was nothing to indicate

the furnace explosion
was anything but an accident.

That's just how tense it was.

Anything could have necessarily
happened at that point.

You went through
all these theories --

that it was the Klan or it was
the police or the authorities,

someone who the kids
may have known

or someone
who the kids didn't fear.

Buffington:
When the word got out
that it might be a policeman,

well,
I'm a white police officer.

And I'd get out of the car,
and I'd go around asking people,

"Did you see something?"

Well, there was nobody there
to answer it.

A lot of times, people would
just close the door.

♪♪

The city has
an extraordinary problem.

The problem is that our children

are being abducted
from the streets,

and in 11 instances,
they have turned up dead.

In that case, we all have to do
things that are extraordinary.

Reporter: In efforts
to prevent future killings

and ease apprehension
in the Black community,

city-council members approved an
11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew

for persons
under the age of 15.

Jackson: I have asked the
Commissioner of Public Safety

to put our police on foot,

knocking on doors
and door-to-door canvassing

throughout the entire city.

Police officer: Yes, ma'am,
we're handing out information

about the missing children.

Smith:
You could see the impact on him

of having to deal with
these cases

that this police department
couldn't solve.

I think that everybody
remembers the picture

of Maynard Jackson sitting there

with all of this cash
in front of him.

This is the reward that will be
made available under conditions

and terms to be announced
in the immediate future.

Smith: It was sort of a measure
of how desperate the city was

to try to bring these cases
to an end.

Reporter:
Police are positive that
someone somewhere in this city

has information
on the killer or killers,

and they believe
that a $100,000 reward

will be enough to entice them
to come forward with it.

I have asked the FBI
several times

to make a stronger commitment
to Atlanta.

Procopio: In early November,
the mayor, Maynard Jackson --

he made a public call
to the attorney general.

His words were --
and I'm paraphrasing --

"The Lindbergh baby
was one white child.

We have 14 missing and murdered
Black children here in Atlanta.

I want every living FBI agent
down here."

Glover: In order for the FBI
to become involved,

it must first be
a federal crime.

That was not the case at all

in any of these
local crimes in Atlanta.

Procopio:
So, the Bureau was ordered
to come in and investigate

if any Federal Laws were broken.

There's no evidence
that any of these kids

have been taken out of state,
except we have four missing.

We don't know where they are.

They could be out of state,
and if they are,

then we got
federal jurisdiction.

So that was the hook
that got us in.

So, the FBI coming in
was a major, major event.

Procopio:
The code name of the case --
ATKID, major case number 30.

It was a big, big deal when
it gets designated a major case.

It means all the resources
of the Bureau

are focused on this one case.

We brought in
some African-American agents,

because we understood
the value of that.

We had, I believe, 30 agents
from the Atlanta division,

and we got 10 agents
from other divisions

to come in and help us.

We had a total of 40.

And before it was all over,
it was probably about 100.

The fear was tangible.

I mean, most of Atlanta
was afraid.

And there was no way
to reassure them.

He was the Atlanta monster.

I had no idea how close
he already was, though.

He was close enough
to reach out to my brother.

Yeah.

He was that close.

Welcome back to
"How It Really Happened."

By the fall of 1980,

the FBI had joined
a special task force

working around the clock
to solve the mysterious murders

of Atlanta's children.

Police had no real leads,

and another name
was about to be added

to the list of the missing --
a beloved older brother

affectionately known
as "Pat Man."

♪♪

Rogers: We were staying in
Thomasville Heights apartments.

That was over in
the southeast side of town.

Had a pretty extended family.

My brother Patrick was 16
at the time,

and you had me 6,
going into 7.

He was the one in the family
that I can honestly say

took the time
to reach back to me,

to make sure,
"Hey, you okay?

Is everything okay with you?

I'm here if you need me."

So he was a great big brother.

He loved Michael Jackson,
Jackson 5.

He fancied himself
as an R&B artist,

and he had
a small group of friends,

a little doo-wop group.

And they would just go around
and competing, competing,

competing in all the talent
shows around the city.

I remember he'd walk me
to the bus stop in the morning.

He'd always tell me,
"Be careful,

be careful, be careful.

There's something going on
around the city."

I don't think he wanted
to frighten me,

but he wanted me to know

that I needed to be
way more aware than I was.

♪♪

It was a typical day,
you know?

Wake up, get dressed,
go to the bus stop.

On this particular day,
I returned home from school,

and I just remember
my mother kept asking me,

had I seen Pat Man?

No, I hadn't seen him.

And I wasn't really worried
about him.

Like, "He'll be here," you know?

But he never came home that day.

He never came home.

And the next time I saw him...

♪♪

...was when they had discovered
his body.

Reporter: They say he died
from head injuries

and showed signs
of asphyxiation,

which could have been caused
by drowning.

Rogers: I was watching the news,
and he was being taken

out of the Chattahoochee.

So that was tough
for a 7-year-old.

It was tough, 'cause to me,

he was, like,
all I had, you know?

♪♪

When the FBI became involved
in the case,

we really didn't know
what we had.

Procopio: Reinvestigate
the case, start from scratch.

There are several problems
with that, initially.

Number one, no crime scene.

We don't know where
the children were killed.

We know where they were dumped.

No crime scene, no evidence,
no witnesses.

Everybody had their theory
in terms of what was happening.

Some people suspected the Klan.

There were some people
who thought

that there was a sexual
pedophilia involved

or homosexual activities.

The bodies had been
thoroughly examined,

and no sign
of sexual assault at all.

None.

But that didn't stop us
from examining that possibility.

A number of individuals
were interviewed

who had had records
of crimes against children.

A number of them
were given polygraph exams,

and for the most part,
they passed them.

Procopio: So our agents
went out, and basically,

they did not come up
with anything,

except they determined
initially,

at least two,
maybe three of the children

may have been killed
by a family member.

So it appeared, initially,
that not all of the victims

were victims
of the same person.

January 3, things got kind of
turned up on their head.

Reporter: 14-year-old
Lubie Geter was last seen

at a shopping center
Saturday afternoon.

Procopio: Lubie Geter disappears
without a trace.

Reporter: Volunteers
searched this area for clues

to what happened to Atlanta's
16th missing child, Lubie Geter.

Geter:
I believe he's been kidnapped,

because he's never
been out before

and stayed away from home.

Ford: I remember Assie Geter --

she tried to be
very calm about it,

and the tears
rolling down her face.

And it was heart-wrenching.

Lubie Geter
was just a good kid.

He was going to school.

He was trying to make
extra money.

He was selling car products
at a little shopping plaza.

So, we're gonna conduct
a citywide search of dump sites

and see
if we could find Lubie.

And by 3:00 in the afternoon,
the radio crackled,

"we found skeletal remains."

So I headed out there,
and as I'm going into the woods,

at about 11:00,
something catches my eye.

So I walked over,

and it was a human skull
and torso.

Turned out to be Earl Terrell.

So now we had two victims

located within 100 yards
of one another.

And it was shocking,
because they were out

looking for Lubie Geter,

and he hadn't been found yet,
but two other kids turned up.

So now we've got three kids
out here.

Two are found,
one still missing.

Procopio:
I remember we just looked
at one another and said,

"We have a problem."

By no means did we anticipate
what was discovered here.

And it's at that moment
that we realized

that there was
a serial killer out there.

Lubie was finally found
a month later.

Reporter: With the discovery
of the body Thursday,

there are now 15 kids dead,

and two others
are officially missing.

Glover: The Lubie Geter case

spawned a detailed investigation
of the Klan.

♪♪

Suggs: There's a story
about Lubie Geter

having a confrontation
with a Klan member

because he bumped into his car
with his go-kart,

and the Klan member
threatened to kill him,

and Lubie Geter ends up dead.

McMichael: The Klan members were
brought in and given polygraphs.

They passed them.

This whole conspiracy of it
being a white supremacist,

there was never any evidence.

♪♪

Reporter: The crowd's fragile
patience was beginning to crack.

We've got children dying
in Atlanta.

Suggs: Atlanta was basically
a tinderbox,

and it could have exploded
at any point.

♪♪

McComas: The thing
that really rattled us was,

how was he getting them
in the car?

How is this person getting
control over these children,

with all of the media coverage
and all of the "Hey.

There's a bad guy out there.
Do not get in the car"?

And we're still finding bodies.

How does it happen?

♪♪

Since the string
of child murders began,

the Atlanta police department
has received over 25,000 tips,

and the number is growing daily.

It was very crucial that the FBI
became involved

and was able
to send down profilers,

people who understood
criminal minds to come down

and give this stuff
a fresh look.

Behavioral-science profiling
was brand-new then.

Douglas, Hazelwood, Roger Depue
were the first three guys,

and they took off
and ran with this.

They gave us a profile
that consisted of 21 points.

They said that the guy
would probably be an only child.

They said he would be
of higher intelligence.

They said that he would be
an ambulance chaser.

Someone who was narcissistic,

someone who seeks glory
and fame.

He'd be somebody who might
be a police imitator,

somebody who followed the press
very, very closely.

I think the consensus was that
it had to be someone

who could move within
the Black community unnoticed.

They'd be part of the scenery.

We drove Hazelwood into one
of the neighborhoods.

The first thing he says,
"The killer's got to be Black."

You could not be a white person
and go into a Black neighborhood

at that time
without being noticed.

Suggs: Whoever this was,
he was totally invisible.

He was able to infiltrate these
communities and get these kids.

McComas:
According to John Douglas,
who was a behavioral scientist,

serial murderers
rarely cross racial lines.

Reporter: There is another
missing child in Atlanta --

12-year-old Patrick Baltazar.

Baltazar:
I'm like, "He didn't come home?

Oh, my God.

Missing.

Murdered."

That was the first thing
that popped in my head.

Patrick was very aware
of what was going on.

He didn't express
no fear whatsoever.

That's what feared me the most,

'cause I know he was
in the streets more,

spending a lot of time
at the Omni Hotel.

Well, he were last seen there.

Several of the victims
were taken from the Omni.

It was a skating rink.

Kids gathered there
on a Saturday, Sunday afternoon.

Glover: The Omni had a lot
of these arcade games

that kids played with
at the time,

and it was a hangout
for young children.

Suggs: If you look at where
these kids are being taken from,

the pattern becomes that
the person who's taking them

is familiar with these places.

He's familiar
with these type of kids.

He's familiar with what
these kids want and need.

McComas: The Omni was just
a target-rich environment.

If you're a shark in the park,

that's where you go
looking for your victims.

♪♪

Reporter:
Friday, a maintenance man found
the body of Patrick Baltazar.

The medical examiner's office
said he died of asphyxiation.

You could see that rope-print
across his neck.

And they told me he had
struggled for his life.

The head of Georgia's
crime-lab unit

says fibers may have been found

which may provide a lead
to the child killer or killers.

Procopio: Around the first week
in February,

a story appears in the paper --
someone leaked it --

that hairs and fibers
are being found on the bodies.

We were all angry
that that story was leaked,

because we didn't want
the killer to know

what evidence we had
and how we were getting it.

There were over 500
textile samples

had been submitted
to the laboratory

for comparison to the cases.

And we're finding some of the
same stuff in multiple victims.

The same fiber types,
we're linking them together.

The first one that really jumped
out in relevance

was a green carpet fiber.

It was a very distinctive fiber.

The shape of it,

the type of inclusions
were just very distinctive.

And then I started finding
the violet acetate

pretty much
on the heels of that.

And as more and more cases
coming along,

I had more and more dog hairs.

It was easier to see similarity
between the dog hairs

to dogs like akita, a husky,
a German shepherd,

dogs like that.

McComas:
The media started to publicize

that we were pulling evidence
from the bodies.

Shortly thereafter,

the bodies started being
found in the river.

Sometimes nude or seminude.

McComas: To me,
that was an obvious attempt

to wash away any evidence.

So we know now he's reacting
to stories in the paper.

Which didn't work,
'cause We still found evidence.

We were still finding hairs
and fibers.

♪♪

Smith: The spring of 1981 was
the most traumatizing period,

because the incidents
began to become closer.

It's like almost every 10 days.

Bottoms: Every day,
when you would turn on the news,

a kid had either been snatched

or they were finding a body
or they were looking for a body.

Procopio:
You could almost cut the fear,
not only the Black community.

I remember driving home at night
and thinking, "Holy Christmas.

There's a madman out there.

He's killing people at will,

and we're
absolutely defenseless."

And nothing traditional,
as far as police investigations,

seemed to work.

Procopio: At this time,
we're grasping at straws.

He's calling the shots,
and we're reacting to them.

Suggs:
Once you got over to 1981,

one of the interesting things
happening

was the patterns of deaths
changed.

The victims became older.

They were in their higher teens,
up into their 20s.

McComas: We had made every
effort to dry up his supply.

"Watch your kids.
Have your kids off the street."

Curfew was enacted,
if you were such age.

You couldn't be near the Omni
at that time.

They put that off-limits.

Well, I haven't seen as many
kids out here in the street.

A lot of them, I guess,
afraid to be out here.

But he probably had to start
targeting older victims

because younger victims were
no longer as readily available

as they'd been before.

Arcangeli: When he could
no longer get child victims,

he switched to small-statured
men,

even older men,
potentially homosexual men.

News anchor: Jimmy Payne was
the fourth-consecutive

adult victim
of the killers,

with all the previous victims
under 16 years old.

We just couldn't figure it out.

I mean, it was frustrating
as hell.

We were at it for seven months,

and we hadn't generated
a single thing.

We can't do anything
to stop this guy.

♪♪

Reporter:
13-year-old Timothy Hill
has been positively identified

as the youngster pulled out
of the Chattahoochee River.

Police chief George Napper
broke the news

to family members.

It was taken very hard.

Just take a little old kid
like that

and just kill him,
just throw him in the river.

You hear me?
That ain't no good.

Take a grown person
and do something to him.

Procopio: The killer
became a one-eyed monster

with a horn
in the middle of his forehead.

That's what we were looking at,
a real monster.

Reporter: Sources have already
told cable news

that the fibers
and human hair

found on the victims' bodies
connect these cases,

as well as some earlier ones.

Dr. Howard:
Looks like we're still talking
about a single individual

who's operating on his own.

That's an unusual type
of modus operandi.

Peterson: As the cases developed
over time,

there was a stronger
and stronger belief

that at least
some of them were linked.

The crown jewel of the physical
evidence,

the green carpet fiber,
was like the top of the heap.

That one fiber type became
so strong that that one piece,

even if it's just one fiber,
was a very strong connection.

I knew I would recognize
this fiber's source

if I ever found it.

Pearson:
It was just a strange time.

You had people coming in
from all over the country

trying to help.

Reporter: Members of New York's
Guardian Angels arrived,

saying they would
teach Black youths

how to protect themselves.

I remember Sammy Davis Jr.

and Frank Sinatra
doing a concert here.

Muhammad Ali came.

Reporter:
The champ upped the reward
to a half-million dollars

with a $400,000 contribution.

You had President Reagan

give something
like $1.5 million.

This nightmare has continued
for more than 19 months,

and I'm determined to continue
to assist the city of Atlanta

in bringing it to an end.

Procopio: The last victims,
with the exception of one,

were found in a body of water.

Mike McComas and his partner
came up to me one day,

and they said,
"We got an idea."

And I said, "That's a first
for both of you,

but anyway, go ahead.

What's your idea?"

"We want to watch the bridges."

McComas: I was raised on a river
in East Tennessee.

If you want something
to float downstream,

you're going to have to get it
in the middle of the flow,

you know, the current.

And I said, "I'll bet you
he's throwing them off bridges."

I said, "Okay.

You know how many bridges
there are over the ridges

and streams and byways
of Atlanta?

There were hundreds
and hundreds.

How are you gonna know
which is the right ones?"

"We're not.

We're just gonna pick
15 bridges or so,

and we're gonna cover them.

You have a better idea?"

And I just said, "No.
At the moment, I don't really.

Go for it."

That was the birth
of the bridge detail.

♪♪

Procopio:
Started around the end of April

and said,
"Go with it for 30 days."

It took a lot of manpower.

I think we needed
about 140 people for it,

because you've got 14 bridges.

You've got an average of four
to five people per bridge.

You've got to cover it
seven days a week.

They decided to go to
the police academy in Atlanta,

and they had several
recruit classes

that were on the verge
of graduating.

And so now they're told,
"Time-out.

You are now going to work
this special detail."

Drolet: There was an FBI agent
back in the woods

north of the bridge,

an Atlanta police officer
on the south end of the bridge,

and then there were
two police recruits.

McComas:
We called them trolls.

We put the trolls
under each end of the bridge.

We'd have everybody in place
just as soon as dark happened

so we would see
what was going on.

They would run from 6:00 or 7:00
or 8:00 at night

till 6:00 in the morning.

♪♪

It went for about four weeks
with nothing happening.

I said, "The only thing buzzing
out here are the mosquitos."

We had been told,

due to us coming up
with absolutely nothing,

that Friday morning was the
last day of the surveillance.

And as luck would have it,
last night, last bridge,

there's a splash at 3:00
in the morning.

[ Water splashes ]

Drolet: One of the recruits,
Robert Campbell --

he'd been a lifeguard
and thought,

"This sounds like
it's big enough to be a body."

Procopio: He calls across
to his partner,

"Is there a car on the bridge?"

"Yes, there's a car
on the bridge.

I see the lights.

It's starting to move."

I heard something on the radio
about a splash.

And the lady on the radio
that night --

her name was Jeanie.

I asked Jeanie
what was going on.

She said, "They're about
to pull a car over."

And the rest is history.

[ Siren wailing ]

Now let us update you
on the possibility of a suspect.

Who the hell is this guy?

Where'd you get him?

Some believe he is involved
in the murders,

and others say
he is only a scapegoat.

How could he have done
all those things?

Rackleff:
This is the serial killer.

We've been looking for him
for two years.

They called it
"the trial of the century."

His defense team's job
was to create a doubt.

That doubt was clearly created.

Last week, Atlanta's mayor
announced a new push

to re-examine evidence
using modern forensics.

We can't go back and undo
what happened 40 years ago,

but we can do better.

Pearson: I want these children
to be remembered,

but more importantly,
I want these cases solved.

♪♪

After nearly two years
of terror,

the task force
finally had a suspect

in the Atlanta murders,
a man who seemed to fit

the description laid out
by the FBI profilers.

But his case stirred controversy
right from the start

and left many families
with unanswered questions.

Could he really have killed
all these victims,

or were there others involved

in part 2
of "The Atlanta Serial Killer"?

Thanks for watching.

Good night.