For Flashback Friday I’ve got Darron Glass, a ten-year-old who disappeared from his Atlanta foster home on September 14, 1980. He’s presumed to be a victim of the Atlanta Child Killer, the only one whose body was never found.
I don’t know much about the Atlanta Child Murders, but I do know that some people don’t believe Wayne Williams, the prime suspect who’s in prison for two of the killings, is guilty. According to this commenter on my blog, it’s possible Darron Glass was found deceased long ago and his body was misidentified as one of the other victims.
The Charley Project Blog 
I am a “Grady Baby” and lifelong Atlanta resident, so I can tell you that most folks don’t think Wayne Williams was the Atlanta Child Killer. We think law enforcement just wanted to get people off their backs about all the black boys getting killed and since Wayne happened to be sighted near a crime scene, pinned it on him. White men were known for prowling poor black neighborhoods looking for young boys to do work for them, which I hope you understand, often meant something very different. I never saw one black girl accosted a white man in all my childhood on the southside of the city. Darron and all them other black boys didn’t need to be worried about what a black man would do to them at that time and place, before communities decayed into fullscale lawless ghettos, Wayne being no exception.
I am also a child of Atlanta. I went on two searches during my high school days, trying to find missing children. The definitive book on the subject, “The List” by Jeff Pugh and Chet Detlinger (I own a copy) outlines a lot of why most of us here don’t think Wayne Williams committed any murders. The case was so botched from start to finish and remains were “identified” that may or may not have been correct. There was huge confusion when one body was found on whether or not it was Darron Glass or Jeffrey Lamar Matthis and a coin was actually flipped to make a determination. Matthis won. The problem was that the shape of the skull was way more consistent with that of Darron Glass. The thought is that Darron is buried in the grave marked for Jeffrey and that Jeffrey is still missing. The worst part is that no one is looking into this- nor have they since Williams conviction. It’s a travesty.
There were several known pedophiles, both black and white, residing in the area where many of the boys lived. Witnesses came forward and testified that some of the missing/later found kids were seen in the company of these pedophiles. This was an open secret, but with Williams conviction, all of the murders “ended”. Did they in reality? No. The later murders were attributed to drugs or whatever. Then, there is the fact that there were two young girls added to the “missing and murdered” child cases- but they weren’t the only murders of young, black girls in Atlanta at the time and in at least one of the two, there is a witness who saw someone other than Williams pretty much abduct this female child out of her bedroom window.
It was a clusterfreak of epic proportions and something that we kids of Atlanta lived with on a daily basis. One of the young men, Patrick Balthazar, was found right next door to where I would be working 2 years later.
No one has ever really looked for Darron and investigated whose remains are in Jeffrey Matthis’ grave and I don’t believe there will ever be a resolution to Darron’s case until someone does. I tried to approach this with an APD officer when I was GA Area Director for the “other” missing persons site and was told that “no one was going to open the Williams can of worms”. So tragic.
I have researched this case for many years, Williams deserves a new trial.
Wayne Williams is definitely guilty of some of the Atlanta Child Murders, no doubt about it, but not all. He was caught at 3:00 am in the morning dumping something over a bridge that cops had staked out in anticipation that a body would be thrown there as other bodies were found in the same area. When pulled over by the cops, Williams’ explanation was that he went to a movie, only the movie he said he went to wasn’t even playing at the time– at 3:00 am mind you, Days later, they found another body right where the “splash” sound came from when Williams was on that bridge, A creepy character to say the least, there was a CNN special with Soledad O’Brien a few years ago where she interviews Williams, you can find parts of it on the internet. If you don’t think this sick puppy had no involvement after watching that, then look at all of the evidence against him, mostly the carpet fiber evidence.
In regards to if a white person committed these murders, I find that extremely unlikely. A white person in that area at the time would have stood out like a sore thumb, noticed immediately, especially after all of these children were missing, everyone was on high alert looking for a KKK connection or a white guy rolling into the neighborhood. Whoever committed these crimes knew the area well, was known by others, and would not have stood out at all.
Kevin- get a copy of “The List” and some of what you say may change. The “splash” body was an adult, not one of the children. They added 5 adult cases onto the Murdered and Missing Children’s cases to tie them all to Williams. If Williams did kill someone, it’s most likely one of the adults. At one point they did try to make a KKK connection, but that was taken seriously. Instead, the focus was the local pedophiles, who in that are were both white and black, especially around the College Park/East Point/Hapeville areas of Atlanta and also around the areas of Delowe Drive- where several of these cases took place. Those areas were mixed population for years. The areas around Columbia Mall and Belvedere Plaza, where at least 2 of these young boys went missing, was also very mixed (and in some pockets, still is). Today, most of those areas have seen a resurgence of “hipsters” and trailblazers, as they like to think of themselves.
http://atkid.weebly.com/jeffery-mathis.html
I read “The List” years ago, and yes, it was an adult who was found in the water, but they found so much corroborating fiber evidence linking most of the victims to a very unique carpet… that happened to be in Wayne Williams’ family home.
There were several strong pieces of evidence that tied Williams to these murders. Distinctive fibers that were consistent with both William’s carpet and bedspread were found with some of the bodies, along with hairs from a German Shepard (which Williams had). More recently, the DNA of two human hairs discovered inside the shirt of one victim is also consistent with that of Williams, while excluding 98% of the population. The evidence against him wasn’t dubious at all.
Raised in Georgia, as a teenager I happened upon a most interesting memoir in an Atlanta bookshop entitled ‘No Place Safe’ and devoured it first learning about the supposed Atlanta Child murders. The author, Kim Reid, grew up as the child of a single mother in the East End of Atlanta during the 1970s-1980s and wrote of how her formerly insular and peaceful childhood came to an abrupt end the year she turned 13 and the murders started. Her mother worked as a detective for the Atlanta PD and was assigned to the case, which she worked obsessively round the clock, all except flat out abandoning her children in her zealousness to track down the culprit. Reid detailed the case with knowledge that only law enforcement would know and admitted that Wayne Williams was just about the last person police would have ever suspected, the alleged evidence against him dubious at best. Her mother, as a detective, did not feel like justice had been served by Wayne’s arrest and subsequent conviction on just 2 charges of murder.