Crime Immemorial

In the early days of 1977, a suspected serial killer would begin a strange run of crimes in Atlanta, Georgia. Dubbed the Lover’s Lane Killer, this individual manifested many of the same traits as the Zodiac, as well as the Phantom Killer of Texarkana, attacking random couples parked in cars and shooting them dead.

The first homicides in the series occurred on January 16th, when police were summoned to what appeared to be the scene of an automobile accident, whereby the driver of the vehicle had careened across an intersection and crashed into a street sign.

However, upon closer investigation, officers found to their surprise that the driver—twenty-six-year-old LaBrian Lovett—was naked and covered in blood, having been shot multiple times in the head, stomach, right leg, and left arm. LaBrian’s twenty-year-old girlfriend Veronica Hill, also nude, was sprawled across the back seat, covered with a coat and clinging to life, also the victim of gunshots to the leg and abdomen. Though both Veronica and LaBrian were still alive upon being discovered, both died shortly after arriving at the hospital.

Authorities deduced that the victims had been having sex in their car at nearby Adams Park when the shooter had snuck up on them and starting opening fire. LaBrian had then attempted to speed off in his vehicle to get help, but was overcome by blood loss, causing him to crash.

This ghastly crime was still in the initial stages of investigation nearly a month later, when the assailant apparently struck again.

On February 12th, 1977, another couple—eighteen-year-old Dennis Langston and seventeen-year-old Deitria Tatum—were sitting in their car in West Manor Park, also located in southwest Atlanta. According to the victims, they were approached by a large black man with a gun who attempted to open the car door. Finding it locked, the man then began shooting through the vehicle’s windows. Though both Dennis and Deitria were shot, they survived their injuries, though neither had got a very good look at their assailant.

In March, the so-called Lover’s Lane Killer would target yet another couple, but this time, one of them would not be as lucky as Dennis and Deitria had been.

On March 12th, twenty-one-year-old Gordon Whitfield and his nineteen-year-old fiancée Diane Collins were seated in their vehicle in Adams Park when an armed man walked up to them and started shooting. Diane was killed outright, while Gordon survived with injuries to his neck and jaw. He also did not get a close look at the perpetrator.

Much like the previously mentioned Phantom and Zodiac Killers, the Lover’s Lane Killer of Atlanta seemed to target his victims completely at random, and also appeared to adhere to a schedule, striking on the middle weekend of the month. This meant that his crimes fell roughly twenty-eight days apart, a schedule that hearkened back to the Texarkana slayings of 1946, which had occurred approximately three weeks apart.

Noting this similarity, Atlanta police braced themselves for the weekend of April 9th and 10th, but no Lover’s Lane killings occurred on those days, or indeed ever again. Police employed many of the same tactics seen in other similar slayings, such as placing police decoys in cars parked in lover’s lanes, but just as in the previous crimes, the killer never took the bait, and remains unidentified to this day. All that authorities knew about him was that he was a black man who used a .38 caliber pistol loaded with a particular type of flat-fronted ammunition known as “wadcutters,” normally used for close-range shooting at paper targets.

Interestingly, two years later, Atlanta would be the site of another series of appalling crimes, collectively known as the Atlanta Child Murders, even though some of the victims were adults. From 1979 to 1981, at least twenty-nine children and adults were murdered in Atlanta in what appeared to be the terrifying reign of a serial killer. In 1982, Wayne Williams was convicted of two of the murders, with authorities confidently stating their belief that he was also responsible for at least twenty-three of the twenty-nine so called “Child Murders.” Williams has proclaimed his innocence since his arrest, claiming that the KKK was involved in the murders and authorities were covering up the fact to avoid inciting riots.

Wayne Williams has never been a suspect in the Atlanta Lover’s Lane Killings, and that particular series of crimes remains a complete mystery.