they came and said they d write a report. that s all. days went by. camille waited wittwo older children and yusef s 3-year-old sister. and so she is terrified. if he can go to the store and they can steal him, then she doesn t want to leave the house. she doesn t want to do anything. camille hid her own fear from her children. and you ve got to hold them together, so you can t act as scared as you are. the body of yusef bell was found in an abandoned schoolhouse. his body would not turn up for another month. yusef bell had been strangled. all of the what could have been, should have been and probably would have been was taken away, and we ll never know now because somebody decided that it was all right to just kill a little kid because they wanted to.
crazy. this man i mean, he it s like he s saying, yeah, i killed them, but you better prove it. can you prove it? he was doing everything he can to outsmart everybody. and it was like, i did it but can you prove i did it? camille bell, yusef s mother, believed wayne to be innocent. she feels that last day on the witness stand convicted him. and then when he flared off, then they were ready to say, well, okay, so he does have fire. when you got angry with the prosecutor, you said, you re a drop shot.
finally forced police to listen, but not until almost a year after her boy died. camille bell and her children lived in these project apartments. poor to the eye, but rich in mind and spirit. yusef bell was an honor student in the gifted program at school. on a warm october sunday in 1979 he walked away on an errand to buy snuff for an elderly lady downstairs. he went barefooted in a pair of brown shorts. he got to the store. he bought the snuff. he started back home. less than half a block from this store, yusef bell stepped off this curb and vanished. and nobody saw anybody do anything or anything. but they did see him come back across the street. and that s the last that we saw him. camille bell called the
listen to camille bell. children were dying on the streets of atlanta in the daytime. among them, jefferey mathis, only 10. like yusef bell, he walked down the street on an errand to this gas station to buy cigarettes for his mother. she never saw him again. what we had here was a predator. and what he was looking for was somebody who was cut off from the herd. and if you don t realize you re in trouble until you re in trouble, then you have no way of getting out. it would be another year before jefferey mathis s body was found in the woods, miles from his home. his mother would join camille bell in forming a committee to confront the city s leaders. the reaction of the police was that we were overreacting and that there was no serial killer.
.and we inspected his brakes for free. -free is good. -free is very good. [ male announcer ] now get 50% off brake pads and shoes at meineke. in the spring of 1980, police were still reluctant to listen to camille bell. children were dying on the streets of atlanta in the daytime. among them, jefferey mathis, only 10. like yusef bell, he walked down the street on an errand to this gas station to buy cigarettes for his mother. she never saw him again.