Hundreds Call Hot Lines on Atlanta Film

The city terrorized by a three-year killing spree of young blacks watched with a sense of skepticism Sunday night as CBS televised the first half of a controversial movie about the slayings.

Television stations and telephone lines for parents whose children were upset by the presentation received hundreds of calls, mostly negative, as the first part of “The Atlanta Child Murders” was shown.

The dramatization has attracted both praise for its artistic qualities and criticism for its inaccuracies from Atlanta leaders. The second half will be aired Tuesday night.

It strongly suggests that the man blamed for the killings, Wayne Williams, 26, was railroaded. He was convicted of two of the 29 slayings linked by a police task force in 1979-81 and was later blamed for 22 more.

“It was a bad enough tragedy as it was, and it’s really bad to make it a worse tragedy--and that’s what the movie does,” said Joe Drolet, a prosecutor in the trial of Williams.

Begins With Advisory

CBS, after a meeting last week with civic leaders concerned about damage to the city’s image and psychological harm that it might do to young viewers, began the film with an advisory: “The following presentation is not a documentary, but a drama based on certain facts surrounding the murder and disappearance of children in Atlanta between 1979 and 1981.

“Some of the events and characters are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Certain scenes may be disturbing to young viewers. Parental discretion is advised.”

Atlanta’s CBS affiliate, WAGA-TV, prepared a public service announcement of its own, giving parents a help line number to call if their children were upset by the movie. Within 20 minutes of the broadcast, the station’s telephones began ringing with mostly negative calls, said the assistant news director, Kevin Dunn.

“Most were complaining that we--or CBS--shouldn’t have shown it in the first place,” Dunn said. “The most common complaint was of the portrayal of people here as hicks.”

Meanwhile, the Atlanta school system’s hot line for parents whose children were upset by the film received more than 100 calls, said Ruby Tatum, a psychologist with the school system.