Atlanta Child Murder Suspect Larry Marshall is Escorted to Court (May 1, 1981)

Footage: Suspect Larry Marshall being escorted in a courthouse; interview with an unidentified woman – natural sound; muted audio at the beginning of the clip Atlanta Missing and Murdered Children Story On March 15, 1981, the New York Times published its first in-depth analysis on the twenty murders then included in the official police investigation list. The Times played up the Atlanta police theory that they were the work of “many killers, acting separately.” It noted that the FBI and police were very interested in the theory that one or more of the killers were murdering for sexual gratification.” The theory was appealing “despite the lack of evidence on the victims’ bodies of homosexual activity, sexual assault or mutilation.” “We don’t have any evidence of sexual abuse,” said Dr. John Feegel, associate medical examiner for Fulton County, “but when you find a teenage boy in his underwear, you can construe that there’s probably a sexual motive” (Gay Community News, April 25, 1981). Future boy killers, take note. A white gay man from Atlanta who was working with the police gave credence to the theory that a gay man was involved. Frank Scheuren, national president of the gay Catholic group Dignity, told Gay Community News (April 25, 1981) that there was a “strong possibility” that one of the killers was homosexual. “From what I know as a gay man, many of the things they are looking at they need to look at.” He expressed the conviction that “the gay community is not being manipulated.” Scheuren’s statement left the impression that there was something about being gay that might lead a man to murder boys. Prior to the arrest of 23-year-old Wayne Williams, authorities investigated the possibility of pinning the murders on a homosexual “sex ring” involving men and boys. In early April, ABC News reported that police were attempting to link the murders to “organized homosexual activity.” Atlanta Police Chief George Napper denounced the report as “irresponsible,” but officials stopped short of denying that such an investigation was going on. The authorities and the press also spread the story that some of the victims were “hustlers” who sold their bodies and came from “broken homes.” Reports of a hunt for a “sex ring” increased following the discovery of the body of 13-year-old Timothy Hill on March 30. Hill, described as a repeat runaway, was said to have been friends with gay men. In early April, Larry Marshall, a black man, was arrested in Connecticut and extradited to Atlanta. DeKalb County Sheriff Dick Hand reportedly leaked the story that Marshall was to be used as an informant on a “homosexual ring” in Atlanta. The whole thing smelled like a police setup. But after the initial flurry, not much was heard about Marshall. On May 4, Francis Nathaniel Hardy, a 49-year-old man from a disadvantaged section of Atlanta, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex with minor males, all of them white. Authorities claimed he had run a “child sex ring” for at least 17 years. The Atlanta Constitution entitled a pre-trial report “Street Kids Become Victims of City Homosexual Network.” Assistant District Attorney Gordon Miller told the Constitution that the boys “appear unharmed, but you can never gauge how much damage is inflicted by this sort of thing.” Miller said there were many parallels between the Hardy case and the string of unsolved murders of black children.