The 23-year-old Atlanta photographer whose car was seen near a bridge the night a body surfaced

The bridge over the Chattahoochee River was dark on the night of May 22, 1981.

Police were staking it out, watching for movement in the water below.

They heard a splash.

Then they saw a car, driven by a 23-year-old Black freelance photographer and music promoter from Atlanta.

His name was Wayne Williams.

Two days later, the body of a 27-year-old man was found downstream.

That man would later be named as one of two victims in the murder charges against Williams.

The splash was a sound in the dark.

The car was a shape crossing the bridge.

Both are documented observations from the stakeout, recorded by police that night.

Neither is a confession.

Neither is a conviction.

The legal outcome comes later in the record, and this section does not reach it.

What the record establishes is this: police heard a splash, and police saw his car.

It does not establish that the splash was a body being dropped.

It does not establish that Williams caused it.

Those are theories the record leaves open, and the record leaves them open deliberately.

The case known as the Atlanta Child Murders spanned July 1979 to May 1981.

At least 28 Black children, teenagers, and young adults disappeared or were found murdered across the metropolitan area.

The victims ranged in age from 7 to 28.

Most were male.

Bodies were discovered in wooded areas, in rivers, in vacant lots.

The city's Black community lived in fear for nearly two years.

That night on the bridge, the police heard one sound.

A splash.

And then they saw a car.

What did that car have to do with it?

That would require evidence.

The record has the car.

It has the splash.

It does not have the answer.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S ATLANTA

Wayne Williams was 23 years old then.

He was a freelance photographer and music promoter in Atlanta, a young Black man moving through a city that was counting its dead.

Between July 1979 and May 1981, at least 28 Black children, teenagers, and young adults disappeared or were found murdered.

The victims ranged in age from 7 to 28.

Most were male.

Their bodies were found in wooded areas, in rivers, in vacant lots across the city.

The city's Black community lived in fear for nearly two years.

The killings continued, and the investigation became one of the largest manhunts in American history.

It did not start as one manhunt.

It started fragmented, with multiple agencies working separately, before a task force was formed in 1980.

The FBI became involved.

The investigation was led by Atlanta Public Safety Commissioner Lee Brown and Police Chief George Napper.