ATLANTA – The AJC reported last Thursday that state and local officials will take a fresh look at the Atlanta Child Murders that left 20 black children and young adults dead 40 years ago.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is at the forefront of this announcement.

Wayne Williams, 60, is serving life for the murders of two of the adult. But the other deaths have gone unsolved, leaving families still yearning for closure.

Authorities closed the children’s cases after those two convictions, saying they were certain Willliams had committed all the crimes. Williams never faced charges in any of the children’s deaths, and questions among victims’ family members and some investigators have lingered over the years.

Bottoms noted that evidence does link Williams to many of the murdered children, but wants to make sure there isn’t something new to be learned from re-testing evidence. She requested the new investigation months after she met Catherine Leach-Bell, whose son, 13-year-old Curtis Walker, was among the victims.

“It may be there is nothing left to be tested,” Bottoms said during a news conference. “But I do think history will judge us by our actions and we will be able to say we tried.”

Thursday’s announcement came days before a new documentary about the case from famed producer Will Packer aired on Investigation Discovery.

With all the DNA being deposited by people all over the world, ever-increasing methods of solving crimes evolve.

The operation will be a joint one, with authorities from the Atlanta Police Department, the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation using modern technology to test stored evidence such as DNA or cloth or carpet fibers. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said this will be the first project of his office’s soon-to-be formed Conviction Integrity Unit.

Williams, who has maintained his innocence, is held at Telfair State Prison in southeast Georgia. After his 1982 conviction for the murders of two young adults in Fulton County, where the vast majority of deaths occurred, authorities there announced they were convinced Williams was also guilty in the child murders and closed the cases.