Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Delphi Murders: Sweet Girls Abby & Libby Wear SCARVES to Cover Neck Wounds at Funerals

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

New claims have surfaced that Delphi murder victim Libby German was almost decapitated by her killer. What's more, some are questioning whether the real killer is behind bars.   When the girls' bodies were first found on property owned by Ron Logan, he became a suspect. Police served search warrants on his property and took away his Ford Pickup truck for processing.  Logan was also arrested at that time on a probation violation. Ron Logan claims he was not at home when the kidnapping and murders happened, but was 20 miles away buying tropical fish in Lafayette. Logan says he got home around 6:30 in the evening and neighbors asked for permission to look on the property for the girls. Logan was questioned by detectives at length, but ultimately police let him go and moved on to other potential suspects.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Matthew Mangino – Attorney, Former District Attorney (Lawrence County); Author: “The Executioner’s Toll: The Crimes, Arrests, Trials, Appeals, Last Meals, Final Words and Executions of 46 Persons in the United States” Dr. Jorey Krawczyn – Police Psychologist, Adjunct Faculty with Saint Leo University; Research Consultant with Blue Wall Institute, Author: Operation S.O.S. – Practical Recommendations to Help “Stop Officer Suicide”  Sheryl McCollum  – Forensics Expert & Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder; Host of Podcast: “Zone 7;” X: @149Zone7 Joe Scott Morgan – Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author of “Blood Beneath My Feet,” and Host: “Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;” X: @JoScottForensic Susan Hendricks - Journalist, Author: “Down the Hill: My Descent into the Double Murder in Delphi;' IG @susan_hendricks/ X @SusanHendicks  Barbara MacDonald -Court TV Documentary Producer, Co-host/producer of HLN’s “Down The Hill Podcast” and documentary, X:@NewsyBarbara  Kim Dunlap - Reporter for Kokomo Tribune, X: @KimDunlap_KT    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Will there ever be justice for Abby and Libby, the two beautiful little girls that were slaughtered in Delphi with a pharmacy tech behind bars awaiting trial. In the last days, wild rumors that one of the girls was decapitated or near decapitated. Another rumor that the wrong guy's behind bars and the real killer is walking free. Yeah, they said that about OJ Simpson too, didn't they? And Scott Peterson. And Robert Blake. Gosh, I could go on and on about the real killers that are walking free. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being

with us here at Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111. Let's talk about the truth. As the trial approaches, what is the truth about the murders of these two beautiful little girls? Joining me, an all-star panel to-host of Down the Hill podcast. Barbara McDonald, thank you for being with us along with her. Susan Hendricks, journalist and author of Down the Hill, My Descent into the Double Murder in Delphi. My former colleague at HLN, Barbara Susan, thank you for being with us. First of all, Barbara, in all of your research, in everything you have discovered in your Down the Hill podcast, have you ever heard anything about one of these two little girls, Libby or Abby, being decapitated? No, not to that extent. I've heard near decapitation, but that was very early on in the investigation. And I think it largely came from those text messages that are attributed to Abby's step uncle or half uncle, David Erskine, who claims in those text messages, if they're legitimate, that he was one of the volunteers to have found the bodies. And he recounted some of the things that that he claimed existed at the crime scene.

And with regard to the girls, I know that there's a lot of information contained in those messages that is not accurate. And that's one of them. What information, what Erskine have written or texted that would suggest one of the girls was decapitated or near decapitated? Well, we do know from the defense filings that the girls had fatal injuries to their necks that were caused by some sort of an edged weapon. And it's possible that a volunteer who came upon that scene might have thought it looked perhaps different than it actually was. But my understanding is that both girls were completely intact. New rumors are swirling to Cheryl McCollum, my longtime friend and colleague, forensic expert, founder, director of the Cold Case Research Institute and star of Zone 7 hit podcast. Cheryl McCollum, I don't understand how it benefits anyone to heap on gossip about these two little girls.

Gossip like the real killer is someone else. The real killer is walking free. That Libby was near beheaded, quote, out of rage. Why? Nancy, you and I both know there's a big difference between verified information and potentially harmful speculation and rumor. You have to ask yourself, how does this benefit the family of these girls? How does this benefit law enforcement? How does this benefit the prosecution?

And the answer down the line is it doesn't. Not at all. So to me, this can only be just reduced to almost a carnival barker. You're just trying to get hits and likes and people to watch what you're doing. That's all this is. And when you're relying on people that we've never heard from, you're relying on people that are exes or somewhere on the perimeter that they've kept this knowledge. Well, hold on. I know where you're headed with

that, Cheryl McCollum. The very wild Delphi murder theory has now reared its ugly head again. An ex-girlfriend, ex-girlfriend of a former person of interest, Ron Logan, insists that he, Logan, is the real killer, not the pharmacy tech behind bars who has admitted to the murders, who had the gun, whose bullet was found at the scene between the two dead bodies and it cycled through his gun, used as a scare technique on the girls. You know how somebody like in the movies cocks the gun and twists the barrel. That's what he did. And one of those bullets fell out of his gun in his demonstrations to the two victims.

Long story short, that bullet matches the gun at the defendant's home. That is incredibly probative, proves something. But that said, I want you to hear, cut one, three, four, Jackie. I want you to hear our friend Rachel Bonilla from Crime Online. Connie Dillman is the ex-girlfriend of Ron Logan. She claims they met in a bar and hit it off over their love of horses and the outdoors. Their six-year relationship had come to an end by the time of the Delphi murders, and Dillman believes Ron Logan is the killer.

She says the voice on the tape saying, down the hill, is absolutely him. She also claims that Logan was violent and when she refused him sex one night, he hit her with a wrench causing seven stitches. Dillman has yet to say why she waited until now to speak up. Ron Logan died in 2022 of COVID-19. You know, to you, Kim Dumlap joining us,

a reporter from Kokomo Tribune. Kim, thank you for being with us. Why was Logan a POI person of interest to start with, other than the bodies were found on his property? You know, I feel like at one point, especially early on, everyone, you know, that matched this sketch was potentially the suspect. And I feel like Ron Logan, to a lot of people, matched that first sketch. Now, there was a second sketch that came out, looked a lot different than the first one. But I feel like a lot of it was just because this was his property.

He went on, I think, a couple talk shows or a couple media outlets back then and kind of talked about the case in the beginning. But you kind of talk to the people in town at the time, and he had a search warrant at his house. And he kind of talked to people at the time. And, oh, we got him. We got him. We got Ron Logan. This is the guy. And then it sort of went away.

It came back a couple of years ago, but I mean, really, I think it was just the nature of the beast back then that if you went public with any information about Delphi, that you were just, you know, automatically, if you, especially if you look like that sketch, you fit that, that person, you were, you were them, you were that person, you were the bridge guy. So why was Ron Logan a person of interest at the beginning of this investigation? And why have new rumors resurfaced now? Listen to Sydney Sumner from Crime Stories. Ron Logan was a person of interest when Libby German and Abby Williams were murdered. Their bodies were found on his property, his house only 1,400 feet from where the girls were discovered. Logan matched the appearance of the man in the blue jacket

walking on the bridge that was captured in Snapchat footage taken by the girls. Just before they disappeared, the girls took a video where a heavyset man in a blue jacket is heard saying, down the hill. Investigators have long believed the voice on the film belongs to someone who took part in the murders or did it by himself. Ron Logan was questioned by detectives at length. They sweated him in jail over a probation violation, but when his alibi checked out, police let him go and moved on to other potential suspects. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Let me ask this. Cheryl McCollum joining us from Zone 7.

Cheryl, why now? Why is this re-emerging now, closed by an ex-girlfriend, that Ron Logan is the killer, not the perp sitting behind bars who has confessed? knew it when they first released it. And then she goes on to say that she called the tip line to even report it. But I don't know where in the last seven years she's been. I don't know how forceful she was with her understanding and determination that this was in fact Ron Logan. She hasn't been forceful, but she has been talking has I first met her in 2021 and heard her story and then after she and I spoke she did start participated in some of the Facebook groups and commenting online with a bit of her story wait wait wait wait wait Barbara McDonald I'm all about people participating in Facebook groups. But did she go to police at the time she heard Down the Hill and say that is Ron Logan?

She told me in 2021 that she did, in fact, do that and that she did, in fact, have an interview with the FBI around that time. And at that juncture, let me go to Susan Hendricks, joining us, journalist and author of Down the Hill, My Descent into the Double Murder in Delphi. Susan, thank you for being with us. If she spoke to detectives in 2021 and they followed up, they actually held Logan, questioned him and investigated him and let him go. What more can you tell us, Susan Hendricks? Thanks for having me, Nancy. It's great to be on. And there were other names mentioned throughout this long period of time, close to six years before anyone was in custody.

Daniel Nations, Paul Eder, James Chadwell, Keegan Klein, Tony Klein, and of course, Ron Logan, who we're discussing. And I did see the sound from his ex-girlfriend and I felt for her, but I believe it's confirmation bias. She sees what she wants to see. What was telling to me was that there were never any charges against Ron Logan. Two searches of his property, two, in March 2017, and he was never arrested or charged with the crime. So that was telling to me. And you spoke of kind of the craziness going on around this. And I told Becky this morning, I sent her a text that I was going to be on your show. And she said, there's so much craziness right now that if you talked about that, you'd be on the show for hours.

So there is a gag order. They take it seriously. But they're very aware of all of this chaos going on. And it's certainly not helping. Well, I want to circle back, Cheryl McCollum, to her coming forward and claiming, that's my ex-boyfriend right there, the one that beat me. The offense, if I'm wrong, correct me if I am, was February 13, 2017. And she goes forward claiming it's her ex-boyfriend in 2020. No, she went forward in 2017. It was short. It was within days or a week or two. Okay, I'm sorry. I thought you said 2021. Yeah, no, no, no. I spoke to her in 2021 and she told me her story.

But yeah, she did speak to the FBI back in the very early days of the investigation when the FBI was very active, involved in that investigation. And I just wanted to correct one other thing. That taped piece you played said that his alibi checked out. Ron Logan's alibi did not check out. And that is one of the things that I think gives some wiggle room here. And a big question mark on him is he does not have an alibi. According to cell tower data, his phone was at his property at 2.09 p.m. We know from the video that Libby took on her phone that the girls were approached on the bridge at 2.13.

Ron had claimed for many years that he was on surveillance video at this tropical fish store in Lafayette some 30 minutes away. But that store didn't have surveillance video. So there is no proof that he was elsewhere. His phone puts him near his property. That does not mean that he's the killer of the girls, but his alibi does not check out. Cheryl McCollum, was his alibi confirmed by people that worked at the store? My memory is he had a receipt, but the time still gave him enough room that he could have gone to the store and back in the period of time that the girls went

missing and were then killed. But I want to point out something. In the seven years that this has been investigated and been highlighted, law enforcement, the volunteer searchers, and the family have not leaked information to the general public. There was so much we never knew. We never knew how they were murdered. We never knew exactly how they were found, closed or unclosed. Nobody violated that. So I am again questioning the timing of somebody that wants to come in and violate it now so close to trial this coming October. What are you talking about, Cheryl? Don't be mysterious. Who do you believe has violated a gag order?

What I'm saying is I'm not trying to be mysterious. I'm trying to be straight out with it. All of these people have kept information. How were they murdered? That's never been leaked. Who do you believe has violated a gag order i don't know that they violated a gag order because i think they're on the perimeter of it the ex-girlfriend's not under a gag order these cousins or aunts and whatnot are not under a gag order my point is i don't know why they would at this point try to say things this close to trial that are only for shock value. Are you talking about so-called documentaries that claim the girls are decapitated or near decapitated and claims the wrong person is behind bars and that the real killer is Ron Logan?

Claims like that? Of course, 100%. Cheryl, speaking of what is true and that we know, you obtained information about, how is the best way to put it, how the girls were buried. How were they clothed for burial? What can you tell us? I know that they had scarves around their necks. And I think there's at least two other people on this panel today that heard the same information. So again, we know quite possibly their throats were cut. I don't think that would be a shock to any expert in this country looking at a double homicide of two young females that were also more than likely sexually assaulted. But again, that's not something that we ever talked about. That is not something we ever put out there for the integrity of this case and out of respect for

the family. But I too spoke to a family member and told them that I was going to be on today and that I was going to be as upfront as that I was going to be as up front as I possibly could. Well, people on the inside of the case or near the family, we have known for a long time that the throats have been slashed. But claims of a decapitation or a near decapitation and that the wrong person is behind bars, that's all new to me. I don't know that any of that is true. Joe Scott Morgan joining us, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, host of a hit series Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan. Joe Scott, you have studied the case from the very beginning. I'm trying to sort out what's true and what's not true. And bottom line is that somehow all of these pronouncements,

many of them baseless, is that somehow going to hurt the trial. What can you tell me about your analysis of what happened? The idea relative to the deaths of these two young girls uh i've i've held from the beginning that they were specifically targeted and well what do you mean by that that they were spotted in the park that day or that they had been being stopped for months and yeah let me what okay? Let me rephrase that. I think that there was probably an awareness of these young girls. Well, for Pete's sake, the defendant was the pharmacy tech right there in the middle of town.

He knew them and their families. You are correct about that. And so my thought is that this was an opportunistic event where the individual was looking for targets because they had an awareness of the school being out that particular day. They had the individual that is the perpetrator in this case, had a preset location where he was going to take them to, where he would have time with them, or whichever victim had come along at that

particular time that would suit his needs. And it would be in a location where he could have access to them, have privacy with them, because if what we are hearing about the crime scene, this is a complex crime scene, I think, with a lot of evidence that was down immediately adjacent to the bodies. Now, we've gotten off, you know, chasing rabbits, I think, relative to a lot of this stuff that's floating around out there about how they could have potentially have been, you know, sacrificed by Odinists and all these sorts of things. But at its bare bones, what does the science tell us? And we don't have a lot that has been released to this point relative to them. I think one of the most disturbing things is you've got admittedly a lot of intimate contact that's going on,

but yet we don't have DNA linkage that goes back to the primary suspect in this case. How about under the girl's fingernails, specifically Libby's? Yeah. And I think that that is a potential place to harvest that DNA from because you're going to have somebody that's fighting back. For folks that don't know how this works, if you think about a plow going into kind of virgin soil and it's dragging along, creates furrows, that's one of the things that you begin to think about with the fingernails where you're going to capture skin, blood, air

that's beneath the fingernails. And they would have done, look, they didn't just do nail scrapings and nail clippings at autopsy. They did rape kits as well, Nancy. I can almost perfectly guarantee that. They also did alternative lighting photography, which is using things like infrared. If you can pick up on anything, any kind of marks on the body, I hope that they did all of this. They put on a full court press with this to try to collect as much data as they could from these bodies. Well, isn't it true that we have been told at the get-go, Cheryl, that Abby was dressed, Libby was not. Some variation of that, yes. I've heard different type rumors, but yes, that's what we've been told. Rumors, gossip, innuendo now could damage the trial based on what? An ex-girlfriend that claims to recognize the defendant's voice

saying down the hill, played on a loop. Let's talk about the evidence that we do know. To Susan Hendricks, Barbara McDonald, and Cheryl McCollum, what evidence do we know that connects the defendant who is headed for trial right now. Number one, his admission behind bars while on the phone. All of those calls are being recorded to family members claiming he did it. Number two, the bullet from his gun based on hard ballistics forensics, found at the scene between the bodies, matched back to his gun, still in his possession at his home. And also feline hair, cat hair. Police actually exhumed a family cat from the defendant, Allen's yard, to match up to cat hair found on one of the victims.

A victim that we don't believe has ever been in the defendant's home. Now, Cheryl, I find those three pieces of evidence to be damning. What more can you add? I mean, again, the fact that he told a law enforcement person that he was there that day, that to me is so critical. The fact that perhaps his car. You mean at the trestle bridge? Yes, at the bridge. He places him. I mean, it's just like Scott Peterson going, yeah, I was at the marina the day Lacey went missing at the body of water where I was fishing.

But that was just a big coinkydink. What's a grown man with a family doing out in the middle of the day when he should be working by himself, walking on a trestle bridge at the same time the girls go missing and are murdered? And they didn't seek him out. He sought them out to tell them, hey, I was here. If you need anything, I can help you. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's going to be some other things that come out.

You know, they have not told us everything. I keep harping on that. And there's a reason they're playing this so close to the vest. And nor should they should they barbara mcdonald joining us court tv documentary producer and producer of hln's down the hill podcast barbara what evidence in your mind is the strongest evidence linking the defendant alan to the murders of libby and ab. I think his own admission in the beginning that he was out there, that he was dressed similarly to the man that Libby captured on the video,

and that the witness statements, while they're a little bit all over the place, there is a lot of similarity in what the witnesses said, and they seem to have seen a man dressed like him around the time he says he was there. So that all seems to line up. So the fact that he places himself at the scene wearing the same kind of clothes as the guy pictured in the girl's cell phone. To you, Susan Hendricks, what do you believe is the strongest evidence linking Allen to the murders? I believe it is the unspent bullet. But as you know, Nancy, it could be the battle of the experts when they get on the stand.

I've heard from some experts that it, yes, is like a fingerprint from others. I'm sure they will dispute that. To me, what stands out are those jailhouse calls that both the defense and the prosecution mentioned at a hearing this past June. And I always think back to Casey Anthony and those jailhouse calls. We know that the prisoners know that it is recorded. So it will be interesting to see exactly what was said and will it be played in court. To me, that's the most damning. And of course, as Cheryl and Barbara mentioned, being on the bridge. What do you mean by jailhouse calls potentially being the most damning evidence? If the prosecution and the defense mentioned at that hearing in June that he did admit to doing this, to killing Abby and Libby.

And I believe it was on an iPad or a phone call, a device. It was recorded. So will they play it in court? I'm sure they will as evidence that he confessed to his wife and his mother. I mean, just so to you, Matthew Mangino joining us, high profile lawyer, former prosecutor in Lawrence County and author of The Executioner's Toll, The Crimes, Arrests, Trials, Appeals, Last Meals and Final Words and Exec executions of 46 persons in the U.S. Matthew Mangino, thank you for being with us.

Matthew, why now, just as we're heading to trial, are all these wild theories and so-called specials occurring that are spouting out evidence that either is not true or is very harmful to the state's case. Well, Nancy, obviously this case has generated a great deal of publicity. And people want their opportunity for 15 minutes of fame. People want to talk to them. There's gag orders. So we don't know a lot that's going on in court. And so, you know, if you're going to generate any news about this case, it's going to come from people on the fringe. But what it does is it contaminates, you know, the jury pool. I mean, so you have, you know, Carroll County is not a huge county.

If you're going to try this case there and all this publicity is swirling around the community about, you know, other offenders or other people involved or the salacious, you know, details of what happened, that pool is going to be contaminated. And this case may need to be moved or another jury brought in because of these rumors that are swirling through the community and across the country. To Dr. Jory L. Croson, a psychologist, former law enforcement, now faculty at St. Leo University. Dr. Jory, thank you for being with us. What is the motivator for people to make up stories or publish stories that are really just sensationalist and they could actually damage the trial.

And we have this new dynamic, social influencers. And, you know, people, they have these roles on their Facebooks, Twitter accounts and all this with followers. It was mentioned that confirmation bias. And that's, you know, basically what you see when I kind of related to that, you know, she had this concept and she discounts and it's normal. You discount things that don't support it. You just look at things that support it. And in the case of the ex-girlfriend where she was attacked and had, you know, violent interactions with him, you know, she just simply confirmed

that and focused it into her concept of him being the perpetrator. One of the other things that we brought up early on was this possible decapitation. And behaviorally speaking, you know, I always look at behavior and with the behavior, there's time elements, you know, and that all has to kind of factor in. And I remember when we discussed this case previously that there were time windows here, you know, like where the bodies were. They were kind of out in the open. It looked like they were probably attempting to be led into a more secluded area. So, you know, the thing about the decapitation, I find that it's really not probably reliable because of the time that would involve, and even when they use the term rage you know

rage is a specific psychological level right what we call a paranoid shift you know where that rage just overtakes and you get lost in a time it appears this person had you know the cognitive ability to relate to time even with the weapon were I mean you had a knife on down we put the firearm you know, the cognitive ability to relate to time, even with the weapon where, I mean, he had a knife on the arm, but the firearm, you know, the firearm was meant more as a means of control of threat. And especially if he chambered around, you know, to me, that would mean he already had a round in the chamber and he wanted to clear it.

Yeah. And fear instill that fear with that.40 caliber. Yeah, scare the girls. So all the factors down into this time window, to me it created a very disorganized type personality. Guys, I want to talk about the dissemination of evidence that has been leaked. Why? Why leak evidence in this case, particularly this nature of evidence? Take a listen to Nicole Parton, Crime Online. Prosecutor in the Delphi murder case is Nick McLelan,

and he listed 25 reasons he believes Judge Francis Gull should hold Richard Allen's attorneys in contempt of court. McLeelan accuses Baldwin and Rossi of violating a gag order during their time as Allen's counsel. Most of the violation came in connection to an evidence leak out of Baldwin's office. A friend and former colleague, Mitch Westerman, was at Baldwin's office last October when he saw crime scene photos on a conference room table. Once he is alone, Westerman takes photos and sends them to a friend who releases them to social media. The leak led Baldwin and Rozzi leaving the defense team for Richard Allen. Mitch Westerman admitted he took the photos without Baldwin or anyone else knowing

and sent them out himself. Westerman now faces charges. To Cheryl McCollum, what were the photos of? They were straight up crime scene photographs of these two young victims. And Nancy, that was one leak. Another leak was this odinism deal where every single expert in the country just about was like, odinism? I'd never heard of it. So to me, how do you introduce reasonable doubt and still not even be at trial? They've done it. They've done it here successfully a few times. Now you've got a whole jury pool expecting a beheading.

You've got a whole jury pool expecting a beheading you've got a whole jury pool expecting odinism you got a whole jury pool that knows ron logan richard allen wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute let's be clear what odinism is odinism and i've spoken to an expert on odinism is the worship of gods demigods such as you know Thor the guy in the action movies Odin is one of them people still worship Odin apparently so somehow someone was trying to link the murders of Abby and Libby to the worship of Odin. Okay, I don't know how that panned out. Not very well. But it's very disturbing, Cheryl McCollum, that someone would take pictures of pictures of little girls whose throats have been slashed and disseminate them on social media.

Nancy, this family has been re-victimized over and over and over. It's like every week they wake up and there's something else. Oh, we're going to have a trial. Nope, we're not going to do it today. Oh, he's going to be moved. No, he's not going to be moved to a different place today. Oh, now there's openism. Oh, now there's a beheading. I mean, they wake up and get slapped in the face with this

stuff. They didn't participate in the so-called documentary. They are just, again, waiting for the next shoe to drop and the next shoe to drop and still no justice for these little girls. To Susan Hendricks, journalist and author of Down the Hill, My Descent to the Double Murder in Delphi, even if a defense team itself had not leaked photos, the fact that they are of these little girls, potentially naked and savaged, bloody, leaving them out for civilians, not on the trial team to see is negligent. Yeah, exactly. I remember Kelsey telling me that her grandfather, Mike, was the one that first saw Libby's body.

And she said, I never asked how she died. And part of me doesn't want to know. So they're protecting themselves mentally, of course, going through this. And this was in 2019 when she said that to me. But there is a hearing on March 18th, contempt hearing. And we'll see. I don't know why those photos were leaked. It's just horrific. I remember Becky posting on Facebook, these are the pictures that we should be looking at of the girls. It's not our job to solve this.

That's for the courtroom. And that's where they should be shown to the jurors, not out there on the Internet for everyone to see. And there's even word that maybe they were. And another thing to Barbara McDonald, a star of Down the Hill podcast. Barbara, what kind of ghoul would think, oh, let me take pictures of these two dead little girls and post them? It makes absolutely no sense. I don't understand how they can be just displayed in a conference room that you're allowing people who are not actively working on that case to have access to that room. I don't know how those anybody takes pictures of that and then thinks, oh, yeah, let me share this. How that is supposed to be helpful to the case.

I don't see it at all. It's it's disturbing and disgusting, quite honestly. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Joe Scott Morgan, let's just walk for a short distance down this flight of fancy, this path to nowhere. It's a pig path. You know what a pig path is, right? You know how pigs won't run straight? They run all different ways. That's a pig path, and it leads to nowhere. Claims that someone other than Richard Allen is the killer. Let's follow that through to its logical conclusion, Joe Scott. That would mean that someone had to go to Richard Allen's home, put a bullet in his gun, cycle it through without him or his wife or daughter ever knowing anybody was there,

getting the bullet out, taking it to the crime scene and dropping it between the two dead bodies or some other way of stealthily obtaining a bullet out of his gun, replacing the gun, and then allowing the bullet to be found there. Basically framing him. You think somebody's framing Richard Allen, the guy that confessed to his wife, crying and snotting on the phone to his mommy? Really? And, and, and you'd have to imagine that someone then also planted the cat hair. The cat's dead in the backyard, buried. They had to exhume the cat, Joe Scott. So to believe someone else framed Richard Allen, what did they go pluck the hair from the cat? Did they dig the

cat up? I mean, this is insane. It doesn't make any sense to claim anyone other than Richard Allen did this or someone in this home that leaves his wife and his daughter. I don't see it. I see Richard Allen. You got all manner of, you know, goblins that are inhabiting this area. Who are these people? I'd never heard of Delphi, Indiana before this occurred. Of course, I know it well now. I'm familiar with the families after all these years. And I got to tell you, you know, the fact that you would have all of these players come in to enter on and off the stage of this tragedy and that it would be this idea

that he's being framed somehow, you know, with this whole Odinism thing. And now you've got this, you know, girlfriend, former girlfriend that's saying that the other person, you know, who is conveniently dead now is the person that did this. It really gives you pause to think about it. And let me just kind of plainly state this right now while I have your attention. Whoever released that photo, whoever sent that out, I still, and I know that there are charges pending, I do not understand at this point in time

why a bench warrant was not issued for that individual and their ass was put in jail as a result of this. Because this can be something that is so incredibly damaging. The stuff that Mac and I have done over the course of our career, we enter on the other side of a veil, if you will, and no one is supposed to penetrate that because it screws up the continuity of the case. Everything that we do is protected. That's why we don't share it with other people.

And if this person who has put this photo out there has ruined this case, we'll be into them because it could be that damaging. And I don't know what else may have happened along the way because it's taken so long for this case to move forward. Nancy, can I please jump in? Yeah, please do. And then I'll circle back. Go ahead. We started working together when I was in my early 20s. You would sometimes, I remember, spread the case file out and you would pray over each file. Never in the entire multiple decades that we worked together did you ever share a case file with me, photographs with me, statements with me that I was not directly involved in? You worked hundreds of cases, not once for show, not once for bragging, not once for you ain't going to believe this.

Did you show me photographs? Never. So again, for somebody to leave those out when just a regular Joe off the street comes in, it's almost hard for me to believe that wasn't on purpose. And again, I'm going to go back to how do you introduce reasonable doubt? How do you taint a case? How do you throw it off track? They've done it beautifully. Photographs are leaked. Odinism is all of a sudden there. You've got Ron Logan coming back from the grave. You've got Richard Allen.

You've got Keegan Klein. They're just throwing every little bit of mud they can on the wall to see what's going to stick. You know, Cheryl, speaking of those files, I remember distinctly, I don't know if you've ever seen flight attendants or pilots at the airport. They'll be going along with a little pull cart thing with their suitcases on there. I would stack up in U.S. mail buckets, those big white buckets, all the evidence at the end of every day of trial.

There'll be nothing left in the courtroom, on the table, nothing. I'd stack it up and take it to my car, put it in my car, myself, put it in my trunk, take it home with me and bring it inside every trial. There would not be a scintilla of evidence left for anybody to look at or see or try to decipher ever, much less pictures of the dead girls just laid out on a conference table for any Tom, Dick, and Harry to come in and ogle. It's just wrong. But that said, you're right, Cheryl McCollum. I expect at trial, Matthew Mangino, you're the high profile lawyer for every one of the names Cheryl just named out and more. Anybody police looked at during the investigation as a potential POI, person of interest, they're going to be brought in in front of the jury, that mini investigation, to say they better be ready for it. In their opening statement, they need to tell the

jury, we investigated this guy. That was wrong. It wasn't him. We ruled him out. This guy, this guy, this guy, this guy. You've got to tell the jury up front. You've got to shoot them down before they even bring it up. Yeah. And I agree with you, Nancy. And, you know, that's that makes the case more difficult and extends the case for the prosecution. But they have to beat the defense to those issues. They have to bring those people in, talk about what the investigation entailed, what who they looked at, why they moved away from that person as a suspect. They have to prove not only that Ellen did this, but these other people didn't. It adds to their responsibility because a jury is going to expect to hear that, and they want to beat the defense to the punch on that issue. Yeah.

To you, Barbara McDonald, star of Down the Hill podcast through HLN, what do you make of what's happening now and what is your prediction? Are we really going to trial on that trial date? Is there any chance for a plea? I am not much of a gambler, but I wouldn't put money on a plea and I'm not so sure we're going to see a trial anytime soon. It is the legal wrangling. It is all about these, all of these attorneys now. The prosecutor is fighting with the defense. The defense is fighting with the judge. I hope. Well, that happens in every trial. Yeah. But, you know, this is an unusual case that already went to the Supreme Court before we even had a verdict in this case.

And the Supreme Court weighed in in a matter of hours, which was a very unusual step for them. The record needs to be established in this case. It needs to be maintained more clearly. It is a mess at the moment. And, you know, we need to get to a trial. Well, I will tell you, Barbara, that's true of every murder case I've ever tried. It's always a legal mess. And when you go to the state supremes or the state appellate court,

it's usually for an emergency ruling that is going to affect the discovery or the trial itself, they usually turn those around pretty quickly. As to all other appeals, forget about anything big. Nobody's in a hurry. But on emergency appeals such as that, you can kind of get a quick turnaround. Few and far between. Susan Hendricks, what do you think? First of all, Kim Dumlap, hold on. Kim Dumlap, this is a death penalty state. Any chance of the death penalty? I haven't heard. I can't say one way or the other. I haven't heard yet. Nobody's brought that up in court filings. No one's brought that up. Well, we would know. You have to announce death penalty at the get-go.

What about it, Sharon McCollum? Any chance of a death penalty here? I say no, it would have been announced a long time ago. I think it would have been announced a long time ago and I've heard nothing about it. I agree. Okay, this is what we know. The case set to go forward.

Susan Hendricks, what do you make of what we've heard today? Well, I think through all of this mess and everything that's gone on and Becky's text this morning saying, wow, the craziness keeps coming. I believe they were re-victimized going through this, but they have their eye on the trial. They want justice. And why would anyone want to imply that Richard Allen did it? If he didn't, that means that the person or persons would still be out there. I do have faith in the system, and I believe they can find jurors who will look at the evidence. And I don't think we know all of the evidence, even within the leaks that we have seen and heard of. I have faith in it.

I agree with you, Susan Hendricks. We have not heard even a tiny portion of the evidence. And why should we? Cheryl McCollum, to you, the fact that these girls had to be buried with scarves wrapped around their necks to cover up wounds is so much to take in, Cheryl. You know, Nancy, you're the first person that sent me there. And when I got to Delphi, I had a very similar experience that Susan and Barbara did. And that as soon as you get into town, I mean, it's picturesque, it's beautiful, everybody's super friendly. But there's no way you find that bridge if you're not from there.

And so to me, the first thing that stuck is that he had to be from right there. There was no doubt in my mind. Once I walked to the bridge, same thing. And Susan and Barbara and you, we have all talked the significance of the location and how it happened is paramount. And I will just leave you with this. They've got more that they haven't told us. They've got more that's going to come out. This is for trial.

This is not for entertainment. It could not have been put any better than Sheryl McCollum just put it. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast. Goodbye, friend.