Atlanta's Only True Crime Tour
- Duration: 4 Hours (approx.)
- Location: Atlanta, GA
- Product code: PJCM11
Throughout its history, Atlanta has been home to tragedies that altered its history and changed its residents' lives forever. On this tour, we will explore Atlanta's most infamous murders and crimes, some historic and some contemporary, including solved, unsolved, and reopened cases.
• We meet at the Olympic Rings and discuss local history and the details surrounding the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing. Also in Downtown we'll head to the Atlanta Children's Eternal Flame Memorial at City Hall to discuss the Atlanta Child Murders. Next we'll walk to the Fulton County Courthouse, site of a spree killing in 2005.
• We'll take a drive to the West End next, where we visit a magician/murderer's grave in Westview Cemetery, discussing the crime and its link to Coca-Cola heir, Asa Candler, Jr. While at Westview Cemetery, we'll take a detour to Westview Abbey and Mausoleum, the largest structure of its kind in the world.
• On our way to the next stop, we'll drive past the last home of Roberta Elder A.K.A. Mrs. Bluebeard (we do not stop at the house - people still live there!) As far as I know, she is the only female serial killer in Atlanta history.
• Our next stop is in the historic Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, where we'll retrace the steps of the all-but-forgotten Atlanta Ripper, whose serial murders spanned over a decade from 1909 into the 1920s.
• Murder Kroger: We'll finish with refreshments here and find out why, despite gentrification and rebranding efforts, this old nickname for an actually very nice grocery store just won't go away. We discuss the lynching of Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan.
• Finally, we return to our original meeting point at Centennial Olympic Park.
In addition to the details of the crimes themselves, we will discuss the historic context of the events and the role of local leadership and the media in shaping public opinion and often driving the outcomes of criminal trials.
Be advised that we will be discussing uncomfortable topics. You may think that goes without saying on a true crime tour, where most of our stops are about murders. But we will also be discussing racism and the racial policies that shaped Atlanta and more broadly the South. When we talk about how historic crimes are reported, investigated, and punished in an old Southern city, there is no way to have that discussion honestly without taking a look at how racism affected every aspect.