Payne Lindsey & Donald Albright Talk "Atlanta Monster" Podcast & More

Creators of the "Monster" podcast — originally called "Atlanta Monster" in its first season — Payne Lindsey and Donald Albright have opened up during an appearance on The Breakfast Club about their popular podcast ahead of the first-ever iHeartRadio Podcast Awards on January 18th. "Atlanta Monster" is nominated for several awards including Podcast of the Year, Best Crime Podcast, Most Bingeable Podcast, and Breakout Podcast. Lindsey and Albright will also be attending the awards as presenters during the evening.

"Atlanta Monster," produced by Tenderfoot TV and HowStuffWorks, takes an in-depth look at the Atlanta Child Murders that took place between 1979 and 1981, which claimed the lives of 29 victims. Now in its second season, Lindsey and Albright are exploring the Zodiac Killer.

During their Breakfast Club interview, the duo opened up about how the "Atlanta Monster" podcast began, the story of the Atlanta Child Murders, some of the case's theories, and more. Read on for some highlights below.

How They Went from "Up and Vanished" to "Atlanta Monster":

After the "Up and Vanished" missing persons podcast, they knew he wanted to continue making podcasts, but take on bigger subjects liker serial killers. Albright explained, "It was a different approach. We knew that after doing one it was, it was huge. I mean, 'Up and Vanished' did like over 150 million downloads in the first year, and we knew that before you went to do another one, we wanted to do another season of 'Up and Vanished,' we wanted to do something different. That's why we ended up doing 'Atlanta Monster.' We wanted to get out of like the missing persons, true crime space, and we knew we wanted to do something maybe along the lines of a serial killer. I texted Payne one day and I was like, 'Have you ever heard of the Atlanta child murders?' And he said 'No.' And I was like, you know, me being black, and even though I grew up in California, I'm like, man, I heard about this my whole life growing up."

Breakfast Club

Background on The Atlanta Child Murders:

Albright gave a quick background on the Atlanta Child Murders. He explained, "So 1979 to 1981, over 30 a young black African American boys to young men went missing and 29 of those 30 turned up murdered. And there was outcry in the city where these mothers had to band together and really try to get any recognition that children were even missing. They took a year for a task force will be formed, it took over a year for FBI involvement. And it was an explosive situation because you had only black kids, all but two were young boys. They are being found two, three weeks later, maybe months later on the sides of roads in ditches. And there was just no attention being paid to it. And especially, I mean, that's still a problem today, so imagine how it was in '79. And to make matters even more complicated, Atlanta in a transitional period where there was the first black mayor, first black police chief, so they had this obligation to the community that elected them, but they also had an obligation to continue to move the city forward towards this convention city that would later host the Olympics and become a metropolis of the South. So it was just real crossroads and when rumors started swirling about Klan involvement and these being a racially motivated, the city was literally about to explode or implode. So, it was just an important story that was important to me, and Payne being of a different community and younger, he didn't know anything about it even though he grew up less than 10 miles away from [where] some of these murders were taking place. So when sent him the info, he just got inspired and felt like we needed to do it."

How They Found and Interviewed Wayne Williams:

Lindsey explained how they tracked down Wayne Williams, who was convicted of two adult murders, to talk to him for the podcast. "Finding him was just completely random. There was a guy that I met online who had this Facebook page about all these different conspiracy theories surrounding Wayne Williams and the Atlanta Child Murders. Talked to him for a few days and then he just drops on me one day that he knows Wayne Williams, personally, has known him for years, and Wayne wants to talk to me. And so he basically just opened the door to Wayne and for about three or four months, I just talked to Wayne almost every day."

Donald Albright on Whether He Thinks Wayne Williams committed all of the Atlanta Child Murders:

"I don't think he committed them all, but I think he committed more than he was convicted of. And I think, just as Payne said, that the city needed to move past this. And they use the excuse that they didn't want to utilize resources to try him for things that he was going to get any additional time for. But what that left was a void in those families thinking that they never got justice. There's evidence out there that the Klan could have been involved in psalm, that there could have been copycats. There's probably about six different scenarios that make up over 30 missing and murdered kids."

On If They'd Ever Take on Celebrity Crime Cases Like 2Pac & Biggie & How They Were Approached About R. Kelly:

Donald Albright explained that they've been approached about doing a podcast around several different cases. "We've been approached to do a couple. I mean, there's just a ton of things we want to do, especially coming from a music background, and I mean just huge fans of a lot of these guys. It's something we'd love to do. It would have to be a fresh angle for Biggie and Pac. We actually, someone emailed [Payne Lindsey] about R. Kelly and I had conversations about that several months ago. There's a ton of things that we can do, it's just about finding the time to really dedicate to something and doing it right."

Watch the full interview with Payne Lindsey and Donald Albright above and check out the "Monster" podcast on iHeartRadio.


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