ATLANTA — The families of at least four victims in the Atlanta Child Murders gathered to call for the release of all DNA testing related to the case on Tuesday.
The group said it's been one year since they've received any updates from the city after it said it was going to retest DNA evidence in the cases.
“I've waited and I've waited for somebody to come and tell me that they found the killer of Curtis but no one never come,” said Catherine Leach, the mother of 13-year-old Curtis Walker. "The pain is still there, I still hurt because I still don't have no justice."
The crime spree plagued families in Atlanta from 1971 to 1981 and took the lives of 29 Black children.
Facts from the case and who is responsible for the deaths of over two dozen children are still widely debated, over 40 years later.
One man, Wayne Williams, has been named as the man behind the murders, but his guilt is still widely debated. Williams was only convicted of killing two adult men. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1982 but has always maintained his innocence. He's currently housed at Telfair State Prison.
In 2019, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced the city would reexamine the murders.
She even revealed the investigation team would extend the possible timeline from 1970 to 1985 to consider any additional children or other victims that were possibly overlooked.
Then, last year, she announced investigators were headed to Utah to provide a lab with DNA evidence from the murders.
Earlier this year, 11Alive reported that Williams has a new attorney, Janis Mann, who said Williams and the families of the kids killed have already waited too long to hear what came from that evidence.
"We have absolutely no evidence as to what has been uncovered, what came of those DNA samples, we have no answers from the city of Atlanta or Fulton County DA," Mann stated. "I asked the city, Atlanta Police, and the District Attorney's Office about the samples and they told me so far, no official report is available."
The cases are still widely debated, as is who is responsible. Investigators have long suspected Williams. They said they didn't charge him in the children's deaths to avoid putting those victims' families through a trial, but some of the families 11Alive spoke with Thursday said they don't believe he's responsible.
“We've been pushed around for people to just use us to keep making anything up just humiliate the families. I think Wayne Williams is an innocent man and I always said free Wayne Williams,” added Nicolas Burston, the cousin of 9-year-old Anthony Carter, the 11th child to be murdered during the killing spree.
The Atlanta Child Murders are considered a black eye to the city’s storied history. Many critics look at the past and insist that elements of the crime spree were never solved.
11Alive reached out to the Atlanta Police Department and the forensic company conducting the DNA testing, but both said there were no updates to report at this time.