A woman was charged with murder in the death of her 6-year-old son outside of Atlanta more than 23 years ago, her arrest was caused by a forensic artist’s rendering of the child led to a tip, authorities said Wednesday.
A DeKalb County grand jury returned indictment on June 28 against Teresa Ann Bailey Black, District Attorney Sherry Boston said in a statement.
Black, 45, was charged with felony murder, cruelty to children, aggravated assault and concealment in the death of another in the death of William DaShawn Hamilton. He was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, on June 29 and is awaiting extradition to Georgia.
There is no lawyer listed for Black in online court records.
When the child’s body was found in a woods on Feb. 26, 1999, authorities estimated he was dead within three to six months. His identity is unknown and the manner and cause of his death have not been determined.
He remained anonymous for decades, despite the efforts of DeKalb County police and the county medical examiner’s office, as well as news coverage on the case. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) was involved in 2000, providing rendering of the boy and featuring the story. A forensic artist with a center made a new rendering in 2019 that was featured by news outlets.
Someone who met Black and his son in 1998 saw the rendering in May 2020 and contacted the center, according to the news release. That person, named Ava, told NCMEC that when she saw the image, she cried and started crying.
“I knew he was that,” he said to the center. “No doubt. That’s him.”
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
DeKalb County police and prosecutors then followed that lead.
DNA collected from Black earlier this year linked him to the remains, authorities said.
“For a very long time, this important boy had no name and no story,” Boston said in the news release. “Through the relentless efforts of several individuals and organizations determined not to let this child be forgotten, William has been identified, and he will be given justice in his memory.”
Black and his son were living in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a family member when he dropped William from school in December 1998 and moved with him to Atlanta, the release said. He returned to Charlotte in late 1999 without the boy and told various stories about where he was.
Angeline Hartmann, spokeswoman for NCMEC, said the case shows “why we’re not losing hope.”
“For more than two decades, a woman in Charlotte who knew William and his mother followed her gut feeling that something was wrong and kept looking for her,” Hartmann said in the release. “We’re grateful he didn’t stop until he found a rendering of William online and gave investigators the missing piece to help solve this 23 -year -old mystery.”
Boston asks anyone who may have known Black or William at the time of the child’s death to call his office.
For Ava, the woman who saw the artist’s rendering and called for the important tip, her long search for William was over.
“Maybe that’s my goal when it comes to her life – to make sure that when she’s taken away, that I can give her justice,” Ava told NCMEC. “And I have.”
