The Sheriff [bonus]

Why is Sidney Dorsey so important to this case?  What role did he have in the Atlanta Child Murders, and why is he in a Georgia Prison?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the special summer series of Atlanta Monster. I'm
your host Jason Hoak. In this episode, we dive deeper
into the story of Sydney Dorsey, a legendary figure in
Atlanta law enforcement, a figure with continued connections to the
Atlanta child murders and some of them responsible for shooting
the sheriff. It was around midnight December, going into December

(00:27):
two thousand. My phone rings and it's the Decapp County
Police Department. They're saying, Mr. Cardwell, are you okay? And
I said, yeah, I'm okay. Would you please come to
your door? So we slowly walked to the front door.
I opened the door and there's a half dozen police
officer standing in the miserable rainy night in front of me,

(00:49):
the waters dripping off the brims of their hats, and
it's a bevy of local law enforcement. And they said,
Mr Cardwell, the sheriff elect of Decapp County, Dorwin Brown,
was shot and killed an hour in his front yard.
He's dead, and quite frankly, we expected to find you
dead too. It's surreal, you know, but it was reality.

(01:10):
And they said, we need you and your family to
get some clothes together because we believe we're just simply
moments ahead of whoever it is that wanted the sheriff dead.
They want you, dad, they want Jay Tom Morgan dad.
There are a number of people that they've had on
a hit list, and you're thinking, Oh my god, that's unbelievable,

(01:31):
that's impossible, that could not You can't be telling me,
wake me up. In Atlanta, another body was discovering today
at police Task Wars headquarters. There are twenty seven faces
on the wall, murdered, one missing. We do not know
the person or persons that are responsible. Therefore, we do
not have the money from Tenderfoot TV and how staff

(01:52):
works in Atlanta like a love Another recent victims in Atlanta,
Rogers apparently was asphyxiator Atlanta. It was unlikely to catch
the killer unless he keeps on killing. This is Atlanta monster.

(02:14):
During our investigation, Wayne Williams and Dwyane Hendricks told us
that Sydney Dorsey was the key to breaking open this case.
That he would have invaluable information that would change everything.
You're going to get to hear from Sydney Dorsey. Uh,
he was a person w person responsible. They put me
in prison. The Dorsey, who is probably good. I agree

(02:35):
to talk to you. He's willing to complete I mean,
Sidney Dorsey is the key to all this. Dale Cardwell
was a reporter and investigator for local Atlanta television. One
faithful night you got a knock on his door from
local authorities. The night they brought him into protective custody,

(03:00):
Cardwell had been tracking corruption happening in the local Decap
County Police Department, a department that was led by Sheriff
Sydney Dorsey. If you'll recall, Sydney Dorsey was part of
an effort in the late nineties and early two thousands
to reopen the case, along with Officer Louis Graham. Both
Graham and Dorsey did not believe Williams was responsible. I

(03:25):
frankly don't think that Wayne Williams has killed anyone. That's
former Atlanta homicide detective sid Dorsey, who was with the
task force that put Williams behind bars. He's one of
an unlikely group of people in the criminal justice system
now coming forward to say Wayne Williams did not commit
the Atlanta child murders. I have never thought at Wayne

(03:47):
Williams was guilty of any murder that had not one
of those dozens of killings, not one. People asked me often,
did Wayne Williams do it? And I says no. Jones
disappeared in August close to this inner city strip mall.
Hours later, he was found near at dumpster behind the mall,

(04:08):
strangled wrapped in plastic. There was a young man who
claims to have witnessed the murder of Clifford Jones. Dorsey says.
An alleged eye witness described the strangling of Jones and
identified the strangler not Wayne Williams, but a man named
Jamie Brooks. I've always lived with the notion that Jamie

(04:32):
Brooks murdered the child. Brooks later died after serving time
in prison for rape, sodomy, and kidnapping. And despite all
that evidence, the task force blamed Clifford jones murder not
on Jamie Brooks, but on Wayne Williams. Dorsey was part

(04:52):
of the task force that worked on the Atlanta missing
and murdered cases. We recently filed an open records request
with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for details on all
evidence collected for each of the victims killed during this time.
In these thousands of pages of records, we found many
instances of Sydney Dorsey involved as an officer on the case.

(05:13):
We also found that Dorsey was demoted in the police
ranks in seven when he questioned the case around Clefford Jones,
one of the victims. He filed a lawsuit and later
had his brank reinstated. In an interview with the Atlanta
Journal Constitution in two thousand five, Dorsey claimed that Larry
Peterson of the GBI Crime Lab walked into a room

(05:34):
and told Dorsey and Yvonne Fuller Jones that those fibers
are flying everywhere and that the fibers were also showing
up on an investigator sport code. When the trial approached
in Dorsey and others thought that new evidence would come out,
evidence that hadn't been previously revealed to the public. When
the fiber evidence was the primary thrust of the prosecution's case,

(05:57):
both Dorsey and Graham are called is that all there
is conspiracy theories are not. Dorsey continued on this path
of doubt about the way Williams case. Dorsey said Wayne's
father Homer called him in claiming Wayne had been set
up and like Williams. Dorsey also claimed he received calls

(06:17):
from a mysterious female figure. The woman was worried that
her husband, a recovering drug addict, might slip off and
try to buy drugs, and she contented Dorsey to tail him.
While Dorsey didn't get directly involved, the whiff of conspiratorial
talk creeps into Dorsey's narrative. Despite the police from both
Lewis Graham and Sydney Dorsey, the convictions in the Williams

(06:39):
case were upheld in and way Williams remained in prison.
The judge ruled that regardless of any evidence not presented
at the time of the original trial, nothing substantial had
changed regarding this evidence. But why was Sydney Dorsey so
important to this case now? What role did he have

(06:59):
in the and A child murders? And why is he
in a Georgia prison. The story of the sheriff Sydney
Dorsey is also one of the most bizarre murder cases
in US history. Dale Cardwell remembered not only the Atlanta

(07:21):
child murders, but also Sydney Dorsey. My name is Dale Cardwell.
I spent twenty five years as a conventional investigative reporter,
most of that at WSB. People trusted that I would
tell the story, keep them anonymous if they deserved to
be capta anonymous. I remember thinking, why can't they figure

(07:45):
this out? Who in the world could be doing this,
obviously in such a public manner and be doing it
without anyone catching them? What? A lot of people in
my demographic thought, Okay, they got him, let's put him
on trial, put him away, and let's move on. Dorsey

(08:07):
was intimately involved in the investigation. In fact, he was
part of the team that was in Wayne's house when
evidence was collected. And Dorsey had always been a big
personality in Atlanta. I moved to Atlanta and you couldn't
go anywhere without hearing the name Sydney Dorsey. Covering general

(08:31):
news and being a consumer investigator at the time, you're
running into his name often. Sydney was very aggressive, very personal,
had a charismatic way of presenting himself. He was considered
a cowboy, and so there are stories about his activities.

(08:52):
He was known in the community as as a guy
that would rough you up, and so kids in the
community were petrified of it. He would through the neighborhoods
and people were scared of him. He had two things
going for him. He was charismatic. Plus he had the blue.
He was wearing the blue, so he was all powerful.
There's one story of a kid hiding underneath a house

(09:16):
and Sydney Dorsey going underneath the house and the cross
base and just simply firing his weapon indiscriminately into the darkness.
Sydney Dorsey was ambitious and he had his eyes set
on a bigger prize. The sky was not the limit
for him. He felt driven to be something far beyond

(09:39):
what he had already become. He had incredible self confidence.
He started earning the respect and the support of the
African American church community into Capp County. Still, no one
dreamed that he could ever topple the system and become
the first elected African American sheriff, not only in the

(10:03):
Cab County, but in the state of Georgia. And he
did just that, and it was stunning. He was this
prolific Atlanta homicide police detective in the seventies and eighties
at a time when there were very few African American
police officers on the beat. As the white power structure
transitioned to a black power structure, Frankly, white people wanted

(10:27):
to keep their control over that transition. So there were
hands selected African Americans that were brought into the mix,
very capable, but they knew that there were white people
that wanted them in those positions. In a sense that
gave rise to the fact that they were untouchable. They
were not monitored and managed in the same way that

(10:52):
you would normally bring in someone and move them through
the police ranks. They were handled with kids clubs, and
they were able to get away with stuff that a
conventional officer was not able to get away with. Sydney
Dorsey's run a sheriff was not to go unchecked, though
he handily defeated opponent Derwin Brown. Brown would challenge Dorsey
again in two thousand. Derwin Brown was a decap county

(11:15):
police officer. By all accounts, he was straight laced, he
treated people fairly, He was very involved in his community.
He truly cared about the community. He was a very
very pro union police officer, and so therefore the county
management could not stand him. They were at constant odds
because Derwin Brown was always trying to fight for police

(11:36):
officers rights and he was not afraid to be in
the lead in that fight. They were okay to keep
him in this place as long as they could control him,
keep him as a decapped county officer. Yeah, he's rattling
sabers and talking about better pay for police officers. But
as long as we keep him there, we're okay. They
never dreamed that he could break out of that paradigm,

(11:58):
and the thought of him running for sheriff and actually
winning the office was unthinkable. I was at a dairy queen.
It was late in the evening, and I'm standing in
line and a guy behind me says, hey, you're Dale
Cardwell with Channel two. I've got the story of the year,

(12:18):
but I don't think you've got the courage to tell it.
I said, Okay, try me, and he said, the sheriff
of De Cab County is using on duty sheriff's deputies
to man his private security jobs all over me to Atlanta,
and nobody will do anything about it. He's using on
duty deputies who are being paid by the taxpayers, and

(12:41):
then he's dispatching them to banks, shopping centers, all kinds
of commercial establishments where the sheriff has private security contracts
with those establishments through his side business called s and
s security and I said that's crazy. There's no way
that he could get away with that. He says, yeah,

(13:02):
well he is because everybody is afraid of this guy,
and nobody will bust that story. I was notive enough
to think I'll bust that story. If I can determine
that it's true, I'll tell that story. He wanted anonymity,
obviously for reasons that Sydney controlled a lot of jobs
in the county. And I started digging, it's what I do,

(13:23):
and I found that he told me the truth. I
saw Sydney Dorsey's name everywhere on every Sheriff's Department vehicle,
on every entrance to every building that's controlled by the

(13:44):
decamped county Sheriff's Department. Sydney was a promoter, par excellant.
No one could touch him in self promotion. He was
on television every chance he had it to be on television.
He was building an incredible hatronage system for himself where
people owed him for the jobs they had. I think

(14:06):
that he could envision no possibility of losing the election.
Everyone around him had to be and was a fan
of Sydney Dorsey. They told him that he was great.
He heard every day that he was great. I don't
think anyone ever challenged him at all. Shockingly, Dorsey did
not win his re election for sheriff after being forced

(14:27):
into a runoff election with Brown, but no one saw
coming Brown ended up winning easily in the runoff. Well.
On election night it was it was a stunner of
Darwin Brown one three to one. This guy who was
destined to be a street cop suddenly became the most
powerful person into Cap County. When you manage a three

(14:48):
hundred plus million dollar budget a year with zero governing,
you're in charge of all of it. All of a
sudden you're the king. And I don't think that that's
what he was after. I think he was after the
belief that he can make a difference, and it suddenly
he had the power to make a difference. So it
was euphoria for him. It was utter defeat for Sydney

(15:12):
Dorsey two time. Morgan had been through his own campaign
that year to becoming Decab County's new district attorney. As
the sheriff has little to do with the investigational crops um.
He's more a gatekeeper and guard of the jail. Now
our jail is the biggest jail decide of the Mississippi River.

(15:32):
In December two thousand, a series of unbelievable events would
change local law enforcement history and the faiths of Sydney
Dorsey and Durham Brown forever. I think it was anger first,

(15:57):
disbelief second, and I think they started looking for people
to blame, and clearly Derwin Brown was to blame for this.
It's called sheriff's school. You get two weeks learned how
to be a hotel manager with a gun. When Brown
returned to his home that night, he was shot and
killed in his driveway by unknown assailants. The people that

(16:22):
perpetrated the crime for him, led by Patrick Cuffey. Three
of them were to Cab County Sheriff's deputies that had
no credentials. They should never have been sworn in as
police officers, criminal records, no training. Patrick Cuffey was the
second highest paid law officer in the county, next to
Sydney Dorsey. The assailants weren't random shooters with a grudge

(16:45):
against their new sheriff. They were inside the sheriff's department
and included on a list of employees that would not
be returning to the department. Once Brown officially started as
sheriff of the Cab County. Brown thought he was doing
these officers a favor by giving them notice that they
not be returning, but instead it ended up providing a motive,
a motive to get even. At that time, I had

(17:07):
a decision to make, and they gave me the opportunity
to make the decision. You know, fail, You're a valuable employee,
You're a really good reporter, but no one could expect
you to continue this line of investigation. Your life's in danger,
it's clearly been threatened. You have the opportunity to move
off this story. I thought about it, and I said,

(17:29):
this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm in this
position for a reason, and if I quit following this,
then the forces of evil are going to win. So
I felt compelled that I had to keep telling the story.
And just because the person who had been accused of
the murderer and the corruption was now in custody, it
didn't change the fact that we were continuing to unravel

(17:52):
stories of unbelievable corruption. And all these years later, I realized, Wow,
that's taken a toll on me. But I didn't realize
it at the time. My actions then had significant implications
for my family. My daughter to this day has nightmares
that something has happened to her dad. She'll call me up,

(18:14):
She'll say, I had the dream again. I had the
dream again. J Tom Morgan, to Cab County's newly elected
district Attorney, was also a target, and despite his initial resistance,
he also received help from police officials. Initially, I would
not accept any type of bodyguard or drab or anything

(18:37):
like that. It was only later is that I got
a confidential disclosure from the town left seeing one of
the four that my life was in danger, and that's
when I started with a round the top protection. We
took it very seriously. Um it was no rocking for

(18:59):
me and my family and my children. We did not
tell the kids that much, that they just had to
be very careful and there would be somebody, you know,
walking them home from school. There will be somebody when
they got home from school. And I never carried again
until that time. Derwin Brown was dead. Metro Atlanta was

(19:21):
shocked by what had happened. There was a buzz in
the city. No one was in custody for his murder,
but the suspects were hiding in plain sight. Nice to

(19:42):
Dale Cardwell's inside information and his newscast, the public and
myself more and more about what was going on. He
had literally run this past people, you know, saying, you know,
if something happened to Darwin Brown, God forbid, what do

(20:04):
you think would happen? And all the Sinkaphan said, well,
you would immediately be voted back in, They would appoint
you as the interim sheriff, and then there would be
a special election, and obviously you're the logical candidate. And
he truly believed that that's what would happen. When you
have a case like this, you draw a small circle

(20:25):
around someone who's been drawn from the inside out. The
only person that would seem to have a motive Business Dorsey.
Dorsey had this crazy idea that once Darvan was noted,
that he could run in a special election and get
his job back. We also sent in Fred May's, the

(20:48):
GBI director, Fred head of the GBI investigation not only
of the corruption but of the murder. But Fred went
into Ms Dorsey's office and was secretly wired and question
him and Mr Dorsey says, and he thinks he's having
a private conversation with Agent Mays, and he says, and

(21:08):
I quote Drwin Brown is the most god awful son
of the pitch I've ever met him entire life. One
of Dorsey's methods of communication was legendary eating the evidence.
Mr Dorsey had his habit that if he wanted something
to destroyed, he would eat it. There was a check

(21:30):
written by bondsman for a broad and when she paid
the bribe with the check, Dorsey ate the check. He said,
you only pay him cash. There was another instance with
the same boss, uh Suley Michael when they were in
a restaurant and we had ms mclickhel wired and Dorsey

(21:51):
became suspicious and he write on the napkin are you wired?
Handed it to his mut Bible and that the napkin
back and hate it. And then Keffie told all this
that and when he went to see Dorsey, he had
gotten the phone. Called to go see Dorsey. Dorsey answered
the front door where nothing that is bad? From handing
it a copy of note is that Kilda and Brown

(22:13):
copy read note. Dorsey took it back, put in his
mouth and ate it. This Dorsey was arrested at his
first appearance hearing how we're called. Vividly walking my son
to school and we had to pass the courthouse and
there would be protesters out there protesting against me and
for Dorsey and saying that I was prosecuting an innocent man.

(22:41):
It is the most dramatic moment of my career. Every
judge does it differently. Judge Becker and I had tried
cases before her before, and I knew she was going
to make the prosecutor read the verdict. I knew that
was going to be very difficult, but I was amazingly
calm read the jury by the defendant as to count

(23:05):
one guilty, as to account to guilty, as to count
three guilty as account for not guilty, as to county
by not guilty, as to count sis guilty, as to
count set guilty as account a guilty, as account that guilty,

(23:28):
as accounting ten guilt, as account of eleven guilty, account
twelve guilty, account of thirteen guilty, as to count four
team guilty. That's account of fifteam not guilty. Saturday, what
I remember is that Phillips Brown h just collapsed. We

(23:52):
all knew the first count was murdered. So when I
read the guilty, uh, Phillips fell out and U so
it's hard to getting through the rest of indictments. Sydney
Dorsey had no physical response to the verdict. You saw nothing,
no change in his demeanor at all. He was very stoic.

(24:14):
He had no reaction, never said a word. During the
Senate scene, he put his hands up and he said,
your honor, I know you're gonna sentence me severely, but
I do not have the blood of during Brown on
my hands. Sydney Dorsey has enough activity in the gray

(24:39):
that it may not be in his best interest to
tell everything he knows, because it might make him look
worse than he does. You have to think, if I'm
in in prison for the murder of my rival, what
could look worse than that? So you know, I tend
to think that Sydney Dorsey ought to talk. Rumblings and

(25:06):
the innocence of way Williams continued from Lewis Graham and
Sydney Dorsey even after Dorsey had been convicted of the
murderer of Brown and made two thousand five, Graham announced
he was reopening the cases around the Atlanta child murders.
Dorsey told Bill Torpy at the Atlanta Journal Constitution that
month that quote way Williams was the perfect suspect, the

(25:27):
perfect fall guy. If they arrested a white guy, there
would have been riots across the US. When Dorsey heard
the news from his old friend Graham, he was confident
that he must have had something. Graham continued to press on,
my responsibility as chief of police in the Camp County

(25:48):
is to look at all cases, and it was my
decisions who look at these UH five cases, along with
other unsolved cases. We are simply open in these cases
and we are simply going to follow uh The evidence
for it leaves is. You have been quoted as saying

(26:10):
I have never believed that he did anything. Is that
a correct quote? That is a very very correct quote.
That's great. The day the paper had the headline that
Lewis Graham was reopening that case, there was another major
political controversy that was coming out the same day. The
gb I had been conducting an investigation of a very

(26:30):
powerful local political leader and the results of that investigation
was going to be embarrassing to that leader. And Louis
Graham worked for that leader. And it's my opinion that
those two people conspired to figure out a bigger story
to break on the day that the embarrassing story was
going to come out to that other figure. And that's

(26:52):
exactly what happened. Missing Murder Children front page of the
j C, the embarrassing story to the political leader buried
in the metro section. Did the case of the Atlanta
child murders get reopened due to a competing political scandal
or was this conspiracy theory? Dorsey himself did not confess
to the murder of Jerwan Brown until years later. He

(27:14):
told District Attorney Gwen Keys Fleming on July thirte two
thousand seven, that he did indeed order the hit on Brown.
The Associated Press reported that Dorsey told Fleming that after
losing the election in two thousand he was angry and
that he was also having problems with his marriage. After
cheating allegations surfaced, he gave Patrick Cuffey the order to

(27:37):
put out the hit, but later cool on this thinking.
Lewis Graham resigned in May of two thousand six after
internal police recordings of profanity laced conversations between Graham and
his assistant became public. Despite the drama and excitement that
initially surrounded the reopening of the investigation of Atlanta child
murder victims from decap County. The investigation was eventually shuttered

(27:59):
one Grammar signed. Recently, we heard from Sydney Dorsey again.
While we continued to ask him more questions about the
Atlanta child murders, Dorsey was still light on details in
his follow up letter sent from prison. I will read

(28:24):
our questions and Meredith, our producer, will read the responses
from Sydney Dorsey's letter. Dear miss Steadman, I received your
letter dated January and I must honestly tell you that
I remain challenged to seek the truth although locked up

(28:46):
behind these prison walls. I want justice for our poor
kids and their families. Unfortunately, time and memory is a
factor and its weight must be considered as I address
each of your questions. They're for Please bear with me
for a moment as we reopen a cold case. I
heard that you fought to keep the Clifford Jones case

(29:07):
in the trial as one of the victims. Is this true?
If so, could you shed light on your reasoning. I
remember the name Clifford Jones, but I do not remember
any of the details regarding his case. Please write me
back with more details, then, perhaps that will help me
to remember. Was there another name besides Wayne Williams that

(29:27):
came up repeatedly in the investigation? I do not recall
any name or names that came up repeatedly during our investigation. However,
I advise you to contact the former team leaders and
get their input. Did it never seem to you that
someone or some group was not looked into enough? Four

(29:51):
brothers reportedly members of the KKK. We're not thoroughly investigated,
in my opinion, and if they were, I have information.
Who would you talk to if you were us hopefully
to close the door on this tragedy. I honestly do
not know anyone in or out of law enforcement that

(30:13):
can help you close the door on this tragedy. Perhaps
you should consider contacting Welcome Harris, a former team leader
who headed a team of investigators roseland Richardson whose team
handled all of the incoming tips, and a GPI agent
who also led a team of investigators. I was also
a team leader in charge of all crime scene investigation. Finally,

(30:37):
Morris Reading was the chief of police and in charge
of the homicide Task Force. Did you ever personally speak
to Wayne Williams? If so, when was the last time.
I have never seen in person, nor have I spoken
with Wayne Williams at any time. Welcome Harris, former ajor

(31:00):
with the Atlanta Police Department, died in two thousand and sixteen.
We will reach out to both Richardson and Reading, though
neither has made any public comments on the innocence of
Williams since his conviction in Reading was Atlanta Deputy police
chief at the time and a key figure on the
task force. When the guilty verdict was handed down to

(31:21):
Way Williams, District Attorney Lewis Layton offered thanks to Reading
and others for their work on the case. Despite our
multiple efforts to uncover more information from Dorsey, what we
received was vague and full of dead ends. I think

(31:42):
the man that craved the limelight twenty years ago does
not exist anymore. Intimidation, corruption, murder. Sydney Dorsey has been
attached to all of these things over as many years
as an officer of the law. As we all know now,
Mr Dorsey was involved in the killing of a lot

(32:04):
of people. He was not indicted in an altercation he
had at a gas station. The teenager at a gas
station over allegedly spilling gas on Mr. Dorsey's vehicle and
the man winds up getting shot to death. And this
is during the Missing and Murdered Children's case. In a

(32:26):
strange twist of fate, Dorsey's son was murdered earlier this
year in a shootout. Well, the son of a former
Decab County sheriff who is now imprisoned for the assassination
of his rival, has been murdered. Clayton County Police found
the body of Sydney Dorsey, Jr. On north Ridge Trail
in Ellenwood January nine. He was faced down in the

(32:47):
middle of the road, shot several times. Right now, police
do not have any witnesses or suspects. Dorsey's father is
currently serving life in prison for arranging the murder of
Derwin Brown after Brown meeting him. Thank you for joining

(33:19):
us for another episode of Atlanta Monster. Stay tuned for
more news about upcoming episodes and new seasons. Atlanta Monster
is an investigative podcast toll week by week with new
episodes every Friday. A joint production between How Stuff Works

(33:41):
and Tenderfoot TV. Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Audio archives courtesy of WSB News Film and video tape collection.
Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries. For the latest updates,
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