Crime Weekly - S1 Ep29: The Snapchat Murders: Abigail Williams and Liberty German (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

It is a story that we have all become familiar with. Two small girls in a small town go missing after a carefree day in the woods, a day that was supposed to have been filled with fun, and childhood memories, but turned darker than most of us even realize. Two friends, fourteen year old Libby German and thirteen year old Abby Williams, would be found murdered the next day, and the tight knit community of Delphi Indiana has never been the same. Over the years, this case has been analyzed by thousands of people, but even though video footage of the suspect was captured, as well as audio of what his voice sounds like, the murders of these two, innocent teenage girls have yet to be solved. Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

It's a story that we've all become familiar with. Two young girls in a small town go missing after a carefree day in the woods. A day that was supposed to have been filled with fun and childhood memories, but turned darker than most of us even realize. Two friends, 14-year-old Libby German and 13-year-old Abby Williams, would be found murdered the next day. And the tight-knit community of Delphi, Indiana has never been the same. Over the years, this case has been analyzed by thousands of people, but even though video

footage of the suspect was captured, as well as audio of what his voice sounds like, the murder of these two innocent teenage girls has yet to be solved. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. Okay, and today we're covering a case. It's been highly requested just both on YouTube and for Crime Weekly, which I understand it's a case that I think still drives a lot of people crazy because you would think that it would be solved by now with all that they have. But in reality, we don't really know all that they have, do we? This is one where the police have stayed very tight lipped.

Yeah, it's still in the eyes of a cold case investigation. It's not really cold. I mean, it's still pretty active. And so it's important that they stay tight-lipped because anything that leaks out at this point could ultimately hurt any form of prosecution down the road. So it's understandable why and as it should be. Again, a lot, like you said in your opening, a lot of people have covered this, but it's been in a very short period of time. And I think it's safe to say personally for you and I that these two girls, Abby and Libby, as well as their families, are pretty close to our hearts and they're constantly in our minds.

Yeah. And as you guys will hear today, we had the opportunity to sit down with Kelsey and speak to her. And I recently had the opportunity to meet her in person for the first time at CrimeCon. I think you'd already met her at that point, right? Yeah. And Kelsey is Libby German's older sister. Right. Right. She's amazing. You'll hear it for yourself in this episode and in the following episodes as well. But she's just an amazing person. And although this case is unsolved, she's using this tragedy to help others.

And so, I mean, you can't help but support her and her cause. She's a sweetheart. We love her because she's so cute and she looks, you know, so young and she's soft spoken. But damn, she's strong. She's so strong and she's so smart and she's been getting a lot better after being thrust into the public eye. She's been getting a lot better on defining her boundaries and letting people know what's okay and what's not. And actually, I moderated a panel called Ethics and True Crime at CrimeCon that involved Kelsey as well as Sarah

Turney who's the sister of Alyssa Turney and it really did come back to this case how it's gone from being a true crime case or something in the headlines to almost being a circus sideshow to a lot of people out there in the world who have taken it upon themselves to analyze every little thing they've been going so far as to even accuse her family, family members of these girls. You know how the internet gets. Yeah, no, I sat down with Kelsey, her grandmother and her aunt for an interview. And you can tell who runs the show. It's her grandmother for sure. She does not play around. We'll just say that. And she's good at deciphering fact from fiction and putting people in their place when they speak out of turn.

So they do have a good support system. I can see where Kelsey gets her tenacity from. And I'm glad we're covering it. I know a lot of people have covered it already. But as we've said on numerous episodes, we're building up our own archival vault of different cases that we covered. So some of these situations you may have think you've heard of everything, but Stephanie and I like to put our touch on it as well. And we were hoping when we talked to Kelsey, she could give us a better understanding of the day of the search for these girls and kind of, you know, a better understanding of maybe why this case hasn't been solved even four years later. All right. So our story starts on February 13th, 2017 in Delphi, Indiana.

And Delphi is the county seat of Carroll County. So I believe in 2017, the population of the town was under 3,000 people. That's a small town. And it was considered to be a fairly safe place with a really low crime rate, especially when compared to like the national crime rate was four times the crime rate of Delphi. A commenter online who lives in Delphi described it as a small farming community where pretty much everyone knows everyone, just an overall safe and good place to raise a family and to grow up in. The schools are good, the people are friendly, they all take

care of each other. Libby's grandfather, Mike Patty, said that Delphi was a place where you would leave your doors unlocked at night, where you would leave the keys to your car in the vehicle, where you'd leave like your garage door open all night. They felt pretty safe because everyone knew everyone. But all that changed after February of 2017. It's always good to point out what the town or city was like before this tragic incident, because again, we're not telling most of you anything new. It can happen to anyone. And that's why it's important to cover these cases

and to point out things like this, because I can promise you, they did not think this was going to happen to their family before it did for these exact reasons. Low crime rate, good schools, everyone knows everyone, right? It can't happen here, but I can't tell you how many times I've been with victims or victims, family members. And they say this exact thing in the very moment when it happens. Like I, I cannot believe this is happening right now. I feel like I'm having like an outer body experience. How could this happen to us? And so as you guys are listening to this episode or any other episode, understand that there is an underlining reason for it. And it's to show you to be vigilant and be aware of your surroundings,

because if it can happen to them, it can happen to you. So yes, you're getting your podcast fix for the week, but we hope that you're also taking something away from it that's educational, that's informative, that may one day protect you or someone you love. That is the underlining meaning of all this. Yeah. And I think sometimes people listen to these cases or they watch these cases and I see the comments where they're like, well, they shouldn't have done this or they shouldn't have done that. And what they're doing is, I don't think they're trying to be cruel. I think that they're uncomfortable by the fact that stuff like this happens. And they're like, well, this wouldn't happen to me because I don't let my kids out of my

sight or this wouldn't happen to me because I'm a responsible parent or things like that. So just try to be compassionate. Money, I would say almost all of the people that bad things happen to did not go into it thinking I'm going to be irresponsible so that something happens to my family member or my loved one. Everybody's just going about their life here. Nobody's, you know, going out of their way to be lax. But, you know, we all do have the right as well to live our lives in safety and comfort and happiness and not have to worry about horrible things happening to us. However, there are horrible things out there. There's horrible people. And you should live your life. But like Derek said, remain vigilant and understand that every single person who you hear about on these shows, they all thought that it

couldn't be them. Now, Abby and Libby, they were best friends. They were both in the eighth grade at Delphi Community Middle School. The girls had become tight after discovering that they had so much in common. They both played the saxophone in the school band. They were both interested in photography. They were both on the volleyball team, and Abby had actually been looking forward to joining the softball team, which Libby had already been a part of. Libby was also active in soccer and swimming, and Abby, she was very passionate about art, especially painting, and she loved crafting. So Libby was friends with everybody. I don't think I know anybody in her grade that she really wasn't friends with. I'm sure there were people she liked more than others,

but she was friends with everybody. I know I get messages all the time from somebody saying, I was Libby's best friend, or Libby was my best friend or I was so close with Libby I love talking to her and um just like being around her because that's how she was with everyone so I think that's kind of how her and Abby were she wanted to make people happy she wanted to be everybody's friend and so they started being friends um because they had a lot of mutual friends they kind of just connected that way I always said that Libby and Abby were opposites because Libby was very outspoken very loud and liked to make people laugh and just have fun and she was so brave but Abby was kind of the opposite in some ways where she was quiet

and shy and held back until she knew you um and not quite as brave so Libby was able to push her to do things like walk across the bridge um if Abby wasn't not scared to do that so that's kind of how they fit together because opposites really do attract in those ways. And then they also had a lot of good qualities in common. They both loved art and music and so they were in band together. They both played the saxophone and they loved painting and drawing. So because they were so opposite and also had things in common, they just kind of clicked and were very good friends because of that. The day of Monday, February 13th would normally have been a school day, but the past winter in Delphi had it been a mild one. So they didn't have as many

snow days as they were expecting. So the district actually decided to give its students a day off in mid-February. Now this news was obviously welcomed by Abby and Libby, and I'm sure all of their classmates, and they took the opportunity to have a sleepover Sunday night at the home of Libby's grandparents, Becky and Mike Patty. Libby and her older sister, Kelsey, who we've talked about, they were in the primary care of their grandparents, and their father, Derek, who was Becky and Mike's son. He also lived with them in the home. We're going to talk a little bit more about this family situation and this family dynamic in a little bit, but they didn't have their mother living in the same state as them. Their mother and their father had been divorced. There was a bunch of issues and I'm going to let

Kelsey tell you about that a little bit later. yeah that that is one thing you guys are going to see that's going to be a little different in this episode kel we we conducted two different interviews with kelsey uh they were over an hour each and we're going to interlace our interview with her with this you know our normal way of telling these stories so that instead of hearing it from stephanie and i you're going to hear it directly from the person who was involved, which we think gives another level to it that not every time we've looked at the coverage that's been on this case, you've had that. So what better person to hear from than Kelsey herself? Right. And she's obviously not going to get anything wrong like we might. Nope. Yeah, exactly. Well, on the morning of the 13th, Abby

and Libby, they slept in late because, you know, they didn't have school. And the night before they'd been up quite late, they'd watched a movie. They ordered pizza. Kelsey actually watched the movie with them, ate the pizza with them. They painted a picture together that they titled Chocolate. So I imagine that it was quite a beautiful picture because chocolate is a beautiful thing. And then like normal teenage girls at a slumber party, they spent a lot of time being silly, messing around, taking pictures and videos of each other. When they woke up on Monday morning, it was around 10 a.m. and they immediately requested pancakes for breakfast. So Libby's father, Derek, he started making the batter and getting the griddle hot. While they were having breakfast, the girls started planning their day.

So I woke up around 10 a.m. on February 13th. I slept in. So we had the day off of school. At the time, I thought they had planned on just staying home, which was fine. I had planned on going to my boyfriend's house. We were going to clean out his truck and watch movies before work and just hang out because we had the day off up until time for work and I remember going downstairs and my dad was actually making them um banana bread pancakes and so that was her one of her favorite breakfasts that he made us um and he was cooking and he said hey you want a pancake and I said sure I'll get ready for work or get ready to leave to go to my boyfriend's house.

And I'll come back down and eat. Now, everyone says this about Libby. She was somebody who was always on the go. She was up for anything. So she'd be the first person who would be like, what are we doing today, guys? What's going on? You know, she was not the kind of girl who would just have a relaxing day at home. She was always looking for an adventure. She always wanted to have fun and she herself brought a lot

of fun to any event that she was at. It was also unseasonably warm that day for the middle of February. So, you know, these girls were itching to get out and do something. Now, Becky Patty, who I believe owns and runs a real estate company, she was like, listen, I've got to work today, but I do have some filing that needs to be done. So if you guys want to work on this filing, I'll pay you. You know, it'll give you something to do so you won't be bored. And the girls were like, yeah, that sounds great. So they went and they started doing the filing. As they were doing this, Libby's older sister, Kelsey, she came downstairs and started talking about her plans for that day.

So Kelsey was planning to go to her boyfriend's house. I think his name was Chase. And she was going to help him clean his truck out because Chase was planning on selling his truck. And then she had to work at four. So she basically said, this is what I plan on doing today. And then she went upstairs to get ready for the day, get dressed and all of that. Now, Kelsey remembered and you'll hear her tell the story. She was in the bathroom getting ready. And then Abby and Libby kind of like swung the door open on her while she was getting dressed. And Libby was like, hey, Kelsey, do you want to go to Monan High Bridge today? Do you want to go to the High Bridge today?

And so he was down there making breakfast. And while I was upstairs getting ready Libby ran upstairs um they had already been outside working on painting Libby's desk and filing files for my grandma's appraisal business um and doing some painting in their room and they'd been laughing and loud as can be at 9 a.m um just hanging out and being friends and enjoying each other's company on a day off and she came upstairs while i was in the bathroom you know peeing going to the bathroom and she opens the door all the way and her and abby are standing there and she's like hey um kelse you want to go to highbridge today you could take us and we could hang out. And I was like, well, I'm going to

this person's house. And so maybe, maybe not today, maybe tomorrow. And she walked away and she's like, okay, that's fine. We'll just stay here. So the Monon High Bridge, it's located at the east end of the Delphi Historic Trail System, just about a mile outside of town. The bridge was part of the Monon Rail Line. It was built in the 1890s, so it's over a century old, and it stretches for more than 800 feet. It used to carry trains across Deer Creek, and Deer Creek lies roughly 70 feet beneath the bridge, but there hasn't been a train on that bridge since the 1980s, and it has since become abandoned and rickety. It's very old. It's not very safe. But it was still a big attraction for Delphi locals, especially the younger population who would embark on these

daredevil missions to cross it. They would cross using the railroad ties. And these railroad ties, they're in really rough shape. This is an old bridge. They're not sturdy. They're very far apart from each other. It was a very common place for people to go. In Delphi, we have food and school and that's really all the kids can do other than going to the parks and playing basketball or walking the trails or riding our bikes there. So on our days off, we either went to Dairy Queen and got ice cream or went to McDonald's and got a small fry and sweet tea. Or we went to the trails and rode our bikes and take pictures or geocached. So that's part of our trail system that you can go and just explore and enjoy nature.

And it's not too far away from town. So a lot of people would go out to High Bridge. There were a lot of kids that would go out there and ride their bikes or take pictures. It's like it's kind of a walk to get there from Freedom Bridge, but it's secluded if you think of it from there to the school. Downtown isn't secluded, so that would count as secluded, I guess. But there were always people there, so it just felt safe. It's a very scary bridge. I would never cross it. Libby had to force me to cross it. I crawled the first time because it's very high up. It's actually like an old train trestle. So a train really did go across

it at one point in time. But eventually it was just old and trains didn't go that way anymore. And so when you get up on this bridge, you can look out over the water. And at sunset, it's gorgeous. It's so pretty. But there's huge gaps in between from where the wood has fallen through. So you have to almost take two steps at a time and walk very slow. And be very careful because the bridge is very old and very scary and I it could fall apart while you're walking across it yeah so a lot of the kids in Delphi explore the trails over in that area um I know as a kid my family would even ride our bikes out there we would do bikes around town

even when I went out there that day when um'd found out that they were missing, I had just gotten out there and I'd seen kids from school out there, a couple that were even close to Libby's age. So it was not uncommon for these kids to be out there. I mean, for me, you cannot catch me on this bridge. It's so terrifying to me. I'm not even really afraid of heights, but it seems so high. It's very long. I mean, have you seen this bridge? Yeah, I've seen the pictures of it and I'm not a fan of heights either. And so I agree. And I remember when we were talking about it with Kelsey, a lot of the times she was saying that you'd only have like, if people were coming like southbound on it or northbound on it the

other person would wait because you never really wanted to be passing someone in the opposite direction while crossing because you could bump that person off and i was like yep that's it that's all i had to hear not doing that you know unless i had to to help someone i have no ambition to to partake in that type of adventure i I'm good. It's like every movie, like an adventure movie where you see that these people have to cross this old rope bridge and it's just like wooden planks

and they have to do it so cautiously and then somebody always ends up slipping and oh my, it just gives me the biggest anxiety like Indiana Jones vibes and I'm not brave like that. But Libby was brave. Libby was brave.

And she and Kelsey had actually been to the bridge before. She'd crossed the bridge before. But I don't believe that Abby had ever been on the bridge. I think that this was her first time. Libby and me had been out there several times. There were a couple of geocaches there, which is something we would do together. And so we'd been there and found them. We'd rode our bikes out there with our family and seen the bridge.

Um, I even went out there at one time with like my cousins and one of their friends and Libby. And so we'd been out there a few times and I'd heard that Abby had been out there maybe once or twice, but her mom would never let her cross it. So I think they were both familiar with the area. Abby had been out there maybe once or twice, but her mom would never let her cross it. So I think they were both familiar with the area. They knew what the bridge was, at least, and knew that it was there. So this area was probably attractive to Libby and Abby, especially Libby, because it was just gorgeous. So once you get up on the bridge, the views, I imagine, are stunning. And I've seen videos where people are on the bridge and they do like these 360 views. It's obviously gorgeous. Both of these girls were into photography, which means that they're into things like natural beauty. They want to take pictures and stuff like that. And I do know that

a lot of photographers sometimes put themselves in risky positions to get that photo. And so I understand why it was attractive to them and, you know, other young people in the area, because it was kind of known as a place that the young people would go and hang out. At first, Kelsey told Libby, no, she wasn't going to bring them to the bridge. She had plans. But then as she thought about it a little bit more, she was like, you know, I've been saying no to Libby a lot lately. So she went back and she found Libby and she said, I can drop you off on my way to my boyfriend's as long as grandma says it's okay. And, you know, we'll do it that way. So Libby then went to Becky Patty, her grandmother, and she said, can we go on the bridge? And Becky said, well, you know, I'm working all day. Kelsey's working all day. So yes, you can go to the bridge. But obviously, Becky had some,

you know, conditions. And I get the impression from Becky Patty that she's very much like me as a parent as a guardian anxious she's a caretaker she's worried constantly about everything and the safety of these girls that were in her care so she said yes you can go but you have to make sure that you have a ride home because I'm going to be at work all day and I can't leave and you also have to make sure that Abby's parents are okay with it. And then Libby came back a few minutes later and she was like, okay, we have a ride. And Becky said, she just kind of assumed that Libby had done these things, you know, done her due diligence, like called and got a ride, called Abby's parents, et cetera. Yeah. And I mean, again, some of you may look at this and

I had the chance to sit down with Becky Patty and I've already explained that she's amazing. And again, good person. Kind of reminds me of the situation with John Walsh. I always go back to that because everyone loves John Walsh, but he lost a son, not in this exact way, but in a manner where they were in a situation where you would think your, your child is safe and come to find out Adam wasn't Adam Walsh wasn't. So, um, this is a very similar situation. And Stephanie's pointing this out because Becky Patty did nothing wrong. And she, she, she did what every parent or a grandparent would do. You're doing the best you can while still carrying out your own functions, right? You have a job, you have a, you know, you're, you have things are responsible for,

and yet you're still trying to be that good parent by making sure that your kids are doing the right things and are setting themselves up in a way where they're going to be, you know, dropped off, picked up, and they're not going to be unaccounted for, for a long period of time. So that did appear to happen here. And even with that, we know what the outcome was, but it's important to mention it because even while doing the right thing, bad things can still occur if you have people there with nefarious intentions. Yeah. And I want to point out that I think this is quite common as a parent, especially one that works full time, because these kids had off that day. They want to go out, they want to do something, but you're working, you know, so usually they have off on the weekends when you're not working. So you can do things with them and you can take

them places. But now they have this day off. It's beautiful outside. Probably the first nice day of the winter. They want to go out, they want to, you know, take a hike, but you're working. So then you feel guilty and you're like, well, is it my, is it their fault that I have to work and I have to prevent them from doing this thing? So you want to let them go. You want to give them a little independence, but you also want to make sure you're being responsible and making sure they have someone bring them there. Someone dropped them off. Becky also said that right before they left, she told Libby, you know, you need to take a coat because it may seem nice out now, but the weather could turn at any time. And Libby was like, no, I don't need a coat. I'm okay. So she's the typical mom type,

bring a coat, even if it's nice out, she's caring. She wants to make sure that they're okay. Yeah. And you guys got to remember too, Abby was 13, Libby was 14. So these are teenage girls. And so they're not seven and eight year old-old girls that they're leaving the house. I mean, they're teenagers. So they're going to go out. They're going to do their own thing. And it's just a matter of trying to make sure that they're going to be as safe as possible while also letting them have their own freedom as teenagers.

And again, what Stephanie said earlier in this episode, not only about Delphi, but about this bridge in particular. It was a known area to locals. It's not a high crime rate. They're being dropped off and picked up. They shouldn't be anywhere else but this bridge. They're 13 and 14 years old. So everything is aligning where they should be fine. And there's always tons of kids and tons of people there.

It's the historic trail system. It's one of the biggest draws, would say of delphi so yeah there's gonna be people around and you know you shouldn't have to worry about this stuff you really shouldn't yeah so after libby told um after libby told her grandmother like no i don't need a co i'm fine she and abby went out to the car to wait for Kelsey. And Kelsey said when she came down to get in the car, Libby was in the front seat and Abby was in the back seat. And then Kelsey went up to the car and she was like, yo, you guys need like coats or sweatshirts or something. And obviously they protested. But Kelsey went back inside and she got Abby one of her sweatshirts. And then Libby grabbed one of her own sweatshirts that was already in Kelsey's car

because Kelsey said, you know, she was always in the car with me. So she already had a sweatshirt there. And they had their sweatshirts. They took off. Kelsey said it was a beautiful day. They rolled the windows down. They were singing.

It wasn't a far drive to the bridge. It was just this normal day, like her sister and her sister's best friend. They were happy. She was happy. She was going to see her boyfriend. Like everything was just this normal day, like her sister and her sister's best friend. They were happy. She was happy. She was going to see her boyfriend. Like everything was just normal. She would have no idea what was about to happen.

Now, on the way to the bridge was actually when Libby called her father, Derek, to ask if he could pick them up. So she did not call before she left the house, even though she told Becky Patty that she had called him and that he would pick her up. And Becky Patty was like, you know, I don't blame her for this. Like she knew that her father was going to pick her up. Her father would not say no to her. Libby didn't ask for a lot of things, but whatever she did ask for, Derek always said yes. The two of them were very close. He loved her very much. And, you know, he also wanted to be a good father and support his daughter in any way he could. Now on this day, Derek was out taking pictures of some properties for his mother for the real estate company. And so there was no specific time that he agreed to pick up Libby and Abby. He was just like,

I'm on my way back from Frankfurt, which is about two hours away from Delphi. That's where he was taking pictures. I will give you guys a call or text you and let you know that I'm on my way and then you can just kind of make your way to the entrance of the trail and I'll pick you up. So the estimated time that Libby and Abby got dropped off at the entrance to the Monan High Bridge Trail, it's believed to have been about 1.40 p.m. Kelsey reminded them to take their sweatshirts

before they got out of the car. She told Libby that she loved her and then she watched as the two girls walked away and they would never be seen alive again. We don't know exactly what they did or where they went after getting dropped off, but based on social media activity from Libby's phone, we do know that by 2.05 p.m., so not long after, but just about 25 minutes after, the girls were crossing the Monan High Bridge. At around 3.11 on his way to the trailhead, Derek called Libby to let her know that he was crossing Wilson's Bridge. That was just a couple minutes away, a couple minutes drive away from the trailhead. And he was calling

her to let her know that he was close and that she and Abby should start heading back to the road. But his call went unanswered. Once he got to the trailhead, he called again. This was at 3.14 p.m., and once again, the call was not answered. So Derek got out of the car, and he walked towards the high bridge looking around for the girls, but he didn't see them. So probably at this point, he was thinking maybe their phone died, maybe she doesn't hear her phone, maybe it's on vibrate, so I'll just go and get them and bring them back to the car. As he walked, he ran into a man who was walking away from the bridge. And Derek asked this man if he'd seen two teenage girls at the bridge. And the man was like, no, but I did see a couple of people by Deer Creek, which is under the bridge. So Derek sort of switched directions.

And instead of heading towards the bridge where this man had just come from, he went towards the creek. And when he got there, there was no people there. The girls weren't there. So he headed back and he called his mother, Becky Patty, at around 3.30. And he was like, listen, Libby's not answering her phone. She's not answering her texts. And I don't see her anywhere. At this time, Becky and her daughter, Tara, who was Libby's aunt, they were together. So they both started calling Libby and sending her text messages, all of which went unanswered. While they did this, Derek was still looking for the girls. He walked to the nearby Freedom Bridge.

He walked back to the car. And after 30 minutes passed with no sign of the girls and no answer on Libby's phone, Becky decided to look for them herself. Before leaving, she called her husband Mike Patty, who was at work. I believe he worked in Lafayette, which is just a couple towns over from Delphi. And she let him know what

was going on. And he was like, okay, let me just finish up what I'm doing here. And then I will drive right over there. Becky knew that if the girls had decided to leave the bridge and walk home, there was only two routes that they would have taken. So Becky in one car, she drove one of those routes and then Derek and Tara in another car, they drove the other. But once again, there was no sign of Abby and Libby. So Becky started to become very anxious. She was worried that the girls had gotten hurt or they'd gotten lost because Libby always had her phone with her. So maybe something had happened to Libby's phone because it had been glitching the week before and Libby had had to factory reset it. So Becky obviously was thinking, not thinking that that these girls had been murdered by some random psychopath, but that maybe they'd gotten hurt.

Maybe one of them had twisted an ankle. And this is said repeatedly by a lot of these people who were searching for them this day, as well as many people who knew them. If something had happened to one of the girls, the other one wouldn't have left her. So if one of the girls had gotten injured, the other one would have stayed with her. And this worried everyone because they thought, well, maybe either Abby or Libby had, I don't know, sprained an ankle, broken a leg, fallen off the bridge. And her friend was trying to help her and trying to stay with her. And so they were worried that both of these girls were out there lost or hurt somewhere potentially, but nobody could really ever even fathom or imagine what the actual reality was. Yeah. And again, to go back to the whole premise of why we're covering this, you know, as far as it being able to happen to anyone and such how small of a window someone who has these intentions going into it really needs to carry out

some type of act like this. And if you really break it down with the timestamps that Stephanie just laid out, you're talking in totality from the time they're dropped off to the time phone calls are made around 314, that it's only about an hour and 35 minutes. And then if you want to even make it smaller than that, take into consideration that they were seen at 2.05, right? They're seen at Monon Bridge at 2.05. And then by 3.15, that's only about an hour and 10. So it's an hour and 10 minutes from the time when this individual approaches them to the time when they're killed for this whole thing to transpire. Think about how small of a window that really is. And it's really scary

to think about as a parent, because that just goes to show you that it could happen to anybody. Because how many times have you left your children alone for an hour where you knew where they were, but you didn't have them in sight? They had a phone on them. They're in a known, a highly, you know, well-lit area with public, you know, people all around. And yet this was able to take place. And it's, it's a scary thought to think that's the society, that's the world we live in today. And with that disturbing thought, let's have a quick break. So Becky is driving around looking for the girls. doesn't find them so she goes to the bridge and she said that by the time they got there or she got there there was a lot more cars there a lot more cars than were there when Kelsey had originally dropped them off just even a couple

hours before and she said there's like a sort of makeshift parking lot across the street it's kind of like a large ditch and then there's also cars like parked on the road. So it kind of shows you that this is a well-traveled area. Like people go there to just hang out and walk, especially on a day when kids have off from school. It's super nice out. I bet you that that day, the 13th, was way busier on the Monan Trail than any other day for months before. Because this is like the first sign of spring and everybody was itching to get outside. So she gets there and obviously she's looking around. She

still can't find them. Becky even called AT&T, who was Libby's cell phone provider, and she was like, you know, can you track her phone? Can you ping it? She's missing. And they gave her a run around. They told her, no, we can't do it. They even instructed her to like download an app on her phone. And oh, so frustrating for me listening to her tell this story because I've worked at a cell phone company before. So I've seen this happen with people. She was looking for her granddaughter. She told them her granddaughter was lost. They were like, download this app. She was like, okay, I downloaded the app. Now what do I do? And they were like, oh, well, now you have to download the app on her phone. And she was like, what do you not understand? When I say she's missing, I can't download the app on her phone and all the like 15 minutes that she wasted going

through this and downloading the app just sounds so incredibly frustrating. But she was trying anything that she could. Yeah. I wanted to talk about this a little bit, not only for this case, but also for future cases that we do. And when we talk about triangulations and pinging of phones, because almost everybody now, especially Apple users have, you know, the find my iPhone, find my family, where literally you can use GPS coordinates, which are different from cell phone pinging. We're going to get into that in a second. We're going to go a little nerd here, but we got to do this from time to time. You know, with the GPS coordinates, you're pinning it down to that phone specifically. It's using internet. It's using cellular information to tell you exactly where that device is at that moment. And it's, I don't know what the degree of error is, but it's within a couple feet. With cell phone pinging, it's using the cell phone

towers in the area. So I don't know how many cell phone towers are in the area of Delphi, but basically on the cell phone towers themselves, there's like four to seven positions. And what they'll do is they'll triangulate between three different cell phone towers to say, Hey, it's, it's, um, it's a antenna one on this one. It's antenna seven on this one. And it's antenna three on this one, which shows the direction in which the phone is. And from there, they can triangulate a small area in which the phone is located, not an exact location, but a small enough area where it would give them a general vicinity of where to look. Now, as far as the ability to ping for the phone from a law enforcement perspective, it's gotten a lot harder over the years.

But I will tell you initially, when I started getting cell phone pings, I was doing them for missing persons. I was also doing them to locate wanted individuals. And initially, you could just call up AT&T, say, hey, I'm Detective Derek Levasseur. I'm looking to ping this specific phone. I have it. I want to know one, if it's on

and two, the last known coordinates of it. And the people at AT&T would say, yep, you have to send us over administrative subpoena. Well, all an administrative subpoena really was at that point was me drawing up a request for the pinging information and my chief of police signing it. And that was enough for AT&T at the time and, or Verizon or whoever it was. And I'll tell you that before I left law enforcement, it got a lot harder. I used to try to sneak in those administrative subpoenas and they would say,

sorry, we had too many departments requesting them. Now you need a warrant signed from a judge, which, which still isn't impossible, but it's, it's, it's harder to get from a judge because they are definitely more critical of handing these things out. Because frankly, just to be real with you, I'm speaking for judges and maybe they would disagree some of them, but they don't want detectives coming to their homes. because that's where you have to go after hours at 7 PM for a girl who might be missing or might just be at her girlfriend's house. Again, I'm speaking for them, but every time you have to sign a warrant, they have to have these random cops at their house to sign it when they're eating dinner.

And it's not really practical. I'm not saying that's the only reason it's also about privacy. So in this particular case, looking at what they had here, you know, it's a case by case basis, but you always want to err on the side of caution. So in hindsight, yeah, they should have pinged the phones. Would it have made a difference in this case? No, it appears that Abby and Libby were already dead, but it's a bigger picture, right? We're not just talking about this case. It's about a precedent and it's about how we handle cases like this in the future. And Stephanie and I, I think we talked about this before, kind of, but not really in a lot of detail, but there has to be a happy medium because I don't think the answer is, sorry, can't help you. Right. That's not, that should never be the answer. I think we all agree on that, but I also am trying to think how they can do it from a legal standard. I think if Becky

owns the phone, if Becky owns the phone, she should be able to call AT&T or whoever the phone is registered to. They should be able to call AT&T and request on the behalf of the police department that that ping information be given to the police. I don't think that's the case yet, but it should be. And that would circumvent the need for a judge. So my perfect example in this situation would be Becky says, I want to ping the phone. Officer Derek says, here's our document. Give consent. You give consent. Okay, cool. We're going to call AT&T. You're probably going to have to sit next to me because AT&T isn't going to give it to Officer Derek Levasseur. You have to give your

pin, whatever it is, your billing information. Boom, we have it within five minutes. I think that there should be a standard document that allows individuals, just like a consent to search, to give police the consent to ping their phones. So I understand it from both perspectives. First of all, I think that if they had pinged the phone at that point when she called, would it have made a difference with the girls being found alive? No, but it would have saved the family an entire day and night of torture and torture because they had to go to sleep that night still not knowing where these girls were and i can't that's unimaginable to me um so i think it would have made a difference there however

having worked at a cell phone having worked at a cell phone store for eight torturous years. The thing is, is these people will come in and be like, oh, I'm so worried about my daughter. I'm so worried about my wife. I need to know where she is. She's missing. She ain't missing. They just think their wife's cheating on them and they want to find her with her lover

and then someone gets shot, okay? Then someone gets shot. So AT&T, Verizon, all of them, they want to find her with her lover and then someone gets shot okay then someone gets shot so AT&T Verizon all of them they're like nope no no we're not getting in the middle of this because it's a case-by-case basis thing so you can't just make this general rule we're like oh if you're the account owner because you could have an abusive husband who's the account holder of his wife's phone and he's beating the shit out of her every day and she tries to escape and go to like a shelter and he finds her the shit out of her every day and she tries to escape and go to like a shelter and he finds her and drags her back home and continues beating her so you can't do that

even with the police because the police might not know if this woman's being beat because she hasn't come forward and said this to the police because she's terrified so you can't you can't have that like it's such a tricky thing for kids i suggest having some sort of app and obviously get their permission because once again, I don't agree if you have like a teenage kid just tracking them. I mean, I'm looking at it also from like my older daughter who's 19, but I have one for her and also on Snapchat. She has her location on for me so I can pull up a little Snapchat, Matt, and I can see where she is all the time in case anything happens. It's just such a tricky thing. It's a slippery slope. And I wish that they had done it for her at that point. But I understand why they didn't want to, because there's always liability and everybody's going to get sued and everybody's going to get blamed if something goes wrong.

So I kind of get it. You know, we kind of reverse roles here, right? Did you notice that? So, and I'm glad, I'm glad because I was playing devil's advocate, but I appreciate you bringing that up, especially with your background, because it's the truth, you know, especially even just on a more like macro level, police departments, some, they really want to catch a bad guy. They may call and say, oh, this person's in danger. We got to find him. But in reality, they're just trying to find where he is because he's evaded police capture for a couple of months. That's not a matter of life or death. And that's usually what the pinging is for. So there's a lot of gray areas with it. And to your

point, AT&T, Verizon are more cautious now with giving out that information to anyone. But I think you make a great recommendation. If your child is under 18 years old, again, this is a parental thing. You have to decide what's good for you. Yeah, it's a personal choice. Yeah. It's a personal choice. But for me, if my daughters want phones and I'm going to pay for said phones and they're under the age of 18, I'm going to respectfully ask, demand, that they have either Find My iPhone or Family 360, if you're not an iPhone user, on their phone because in a situation like this, you can circumvent the police completely. The minute this happens, you can open up the app and find out where their phone is

instantaneously. So in this day and age- If the phone's on, though, that's another thing. If the phone's on, but it usually will give you the last known coordinates before it was turned off. So if you only have an hour window that you're dealing with, more than likely, it's going to give you a pretty close location. But you're right. If the phone's turned off and hours have passed, well, then you probably have some problems. But again, it's a family decision, but I will tell you there are way more pros than there are cons when it comes to having something like this on this phone, just from a standard of theft. Let's not even talk about murder. I can't tell you how many cases we went

and got people's cell phones or iPads for them because they come to the police station and go, yes, my phone got stolen or my iPad got stolen. It got stolen from over here. I'm filling out the report now. Here's where my phone is as we speak. And we would go knock on the door. And most of the time we'd say, hey, we know the device is here. And they turn it over. And then what happens to them? I've always been curious about that. What happens if they steal the phone? What do you do? And this person doesn't give me any pushback and they just voluntarily turn this stuff over and it's a young kid. Would you allow me to make a discretionary call as to whether or not we pursue charges?

IE, this is a 12 year old boy or 12 year old girl who took the shiny iPad. Now, in some cases, the person would say, I just want my stuff back. I don't even want to file a report at all. But there were cases where the person was like, hey, listen, that's my property. They should know better. I'm filing charges. And guess what? That's out of my control. That's my job. What if the person says, I don't have this. I don't know what you're talking about. So in that case, what I would do, most of the time it didn't happen, but there were a few occasions where we would have to go get a search warrant. I would say, hey, listen, I'm going to be outside

of my cruiser. I'm going to be sitting there and we're going to go get a search warrant right now. And so you have two choices. If you turn it over right now, you walk away with just a slap on the wrist. But if I have to go through all this trouble of getting a search warrant, having other people come out here, sticking a patrolman on your house to watch the house until we get the phone. There's no going back at that point. You're going to get arrested for a stupid iPhone or an iPad. Is it really worth it? And 99.9% of the time they turned it over. I actually don't recall a situation where I had to go get a search warrant from a judge because usually it's a kid and the parent comes out and says, you better give that shit back now. Yeah. And they got more problems with the parents than they do

with me anyways, at that point. So I've never had it happen, but if it did, yeah, you get a search warrant. You could easily articulate to the judge why you're asking for a search warrant for that particular house at that time. Another thing that we did, and this definitely worked a couple of times with find my iPhone, you can make the phone ring, even if they have the ringer off. And so I'd stand there and go, you got the phone. And I literally had this happen where I had the owner, I'd text them and say, ping the phone right now. And all of a sudden you hear bing, bing, bing. I'm like, yeah, that phone that I hear coming out of your room, that's the one I'm looking for. And then they're like, give me a minute. I want to go grab that. Oh, that phone?

Oh. How'd that get there? It must have fell in my bag. My dog brought this here. And there's also been times where it's like a habitual offender, someone who we deal with all the time, who's not making an innocent mistake, but is trying to steal the stuff like they do all the time. And no breaks for them.

They're going to get locked up because they're just not gonna get it any other way they probably need like therapy or something it sounds like they're like compulsive thieves or something at that point like if you continue like stealing people's iphones in the area where i worked um it was usually before narcotics so what they would do is they have a drug problem or some type of dependency. And usually it's a quick smash and grab. And they're dumping that iPhone, radio or iPad or computer within an hour or two. And they're basically exchanging $100 worth of drugs for a $1,000 laptop. That's just because they don't care about the laptop. That's usually what was the reasoning behind it.

This person usually had a dependency issue. So funny side story. I don't think it's funny, actually, but I was at a Verizon store when we got robbed. There was a huge spat of robberies happening at Verizon stores when the new iPhone came out and they would just take all the iPhones and then they usually pawn them or sell them overseas. And these like three people come in, they're all messed up and they're all serious and like, get down, get down, give me your stuff. And I'm like, yo, take them. Nobody cares. They're not my phones. Here's the combination. Let me open the safe. Can I help you put them in the bag? What else can I do for you? Like, don't worry about it. You can have them. But my husband who worked for the same company, he was actually the one, he was like

a loss prevention kind of thing. And he was actually the one responsible for like tracking the EINs down. And he would always go to the pawn shop and the pawn shop would be like, we don't know what you're talking about. We don't have these, these phones aren't stolen. He'd be like, they are stolen. And then we'd have to go to the police who'd have to go to the pawn shop. And it was this huge thing and a waste of money when everybody can just act right. But I guess my end story is I'm not saying don't put the app on your kid's phone. I'm saying let them know it's there. You know, like Derek said, like tell them that it's there because I don't think it's right to like be tracking your kids without them knowing it because even children, teenagers 15, 16, they deserve some sort of privacy. And

I think it's a little bit of an issue, but that's all. But I do suggest you do it. Yeah. It has, again, more pros than cons. Yeah. 1,000% saves lives. 1,000%. If you have a good relationship with your kids and they're not doing anything, they shouldn't.

And I also say that. I mean, again, we're getting into the parental side of things, right? Because if they're doing something bad, then they're not going to. They're not going they're not gonna want it you know there's really no reason there's there's really no reason for them not to want it because it it honestly if you have a good relationship with them they should know you're not really looking at it unless something goes wrong um and so the reason why i brought this all up is because to the to the point of the police they probably genuinely did try to walk becky

through putting the app on the phone they probably had a document that they were you know why are they gonna do that though they just she just said her kid her kid's missing that they don't have the phone to put the app on like oh i would have been but they might have thought they might have thought again i'm trying to give them some benefit here where they might have thought it's 2017 so maybe they had the app on the phone and me, you know, maybe they had the find iPhone set up and unfortunately they didn't, but it wasn't like, I will say just this. It wasn't them pushing her off at the end going up. Well, you didn't download it on the phone. That, that clears us. They genuinely can't do nothing at that point. If the app isn't on the phone, if that hasn't been set up prior to the, there's not the only

other option you have is the route we just discussed and great length, probably too much length, but it's important because we're going to have other cases, especially as we continue to go forward and new cases happen every day where technology becomes more prevalent in whether the case was solved or not. So I want you guys to understand kind of the inner workings behind it. Cause I know I get that question all the time about cell phone tracking and what police can do and what they can't do. And I know your boy Snowden has a whole different check on that whole thing. As far as governments that we could do an episode on that, but just at a, at a, at a family level, if you can have those, those apps on the phone, you know, I think it's a good idea, but again,

it's a decision decision you guys got to make. But it has to be made prior to something occurring. That's what's important to take away from this dialogue that Stephanie and I just had. And as technology does develop and we talk about the miniature crime cases, we're going to have to depend on Derek to explain those things because I have no idea. I love this stuff. I have no idea. I love this stuff.

I love it. i love it i love it i i that's why i started to do the cyber security stuff i think it's amazing i think there is a lot of threats with it as well because if i can yeah if i can gain access to where you are other people can as well so there's a the balancing act there but i'm maybe we'll do an unfortunately the u.s government doesn't understand the word balance. I agree with that. As parents, we understand that there has to be a balance because we don't want to destroy a relationship with our kids, but the U.S. government doesn't care about destroying the relationship with us. So I also did want to go back to something you said right at the beginning of this conversation we had where you said you don't know how many

towers are in the area. And we talked about that with Kelsey, where she said there aren't a lot of towers in the area, which made it even harder later when the cell phone was pinged. Yeah, because now you have this like much larger area that you have to sort of traverse. And I think she said that the cell phone tower covered like a big part of Delphi. And they actually showed up at her boyfriend's house because they were trying to figure out like everyone's cell phone who pinged in that area was looked into and his was one because it was at his house. So it's just really tough because this was a small town and this was an out of the way area. There's 3000 people. You're not going to have 300 towers. So that's tough. Yeah, it's not a metropolitan area where it's going to be a more

concentrated grid that you can focus on. Delphi, small population, less need for cellular towers. AT&T is not focusing on that area as much because that one tower is able to support that population. Sorry for us nerding out right there. But again, it's a little off topic, but it also relates to something bigger that we should all be concerned about. But again, it's a little off topic, but it also relates to something bigger that we should all be concerned about. So again, that's what this is for learning from this. And I'm sure Kelsey would want us to learn from this. What can we take away from this case?

By no means, it's saying they did anything wrong. They didn't. It's just saying, what can we do differently so that if we're faced with a similar situation, which I hope none of you ever are, you're more prepared for it. That's what it's about. Should we take a quick break before you get back into it? Yeah, let's take a quick break. 4.15, my phone rang and I didn't answer it. It was just my grandma. I was like, it's just grandma. I'll call her back in a little bit um and then it rang again and it was

across the room so I'm walking over there and it ends and I'm like okay I'll call her back but it before I could call her back she calls me back and she says hey Kels have you heard from Libby have you gotten a snapchat from her have you gotten a phone call a text anything um your dad's at the bridge she's not here we don't know where she is she's not answering her phone and that got me I was like Libby's not answering her phone um that's really weird because she would have her phone in her hand 24 7 that was the thing we all had our phones you you don't put it down um and Libby especially didn't put her phone down so I was like well she should be answering like I just dropped her off like a couple hours ago hasn't been that long and shortly

later um I was like okay I'll I'll meet you at the bridge I was there by 4 30 um we walked to the area we walked to the bridge um we were shouting her name as loud as we could trying to find them and our our biggest fear at that point was they'd fallen off the bridge like this is delphi it's safe and there's there's nowhere else they could be they have to be here well five o'clock hit and we're like they're nowhere we can't find them we don't see them they're they're not here we don't we can't find them we don't see them they're they're not here we don't we can't see them anywhere where we think that they would be they're not on the other side of the bridge they're not on this side of the bridge they're not in the woods over here

they're not at the cars they're not at freedom bridge like where could they be all right we have a lot of people searching for abby and libby this point. I mean, you've got the family, friends, the communities gathering. It was really a really solid response. And they were doing this until about a quarter after five. By that time, Mike Patty had come from Lafayette. He'd come from work. He was also searching. And it's getting late, right's February it's Indiana the sun's gonna start to go down just before six it's still February and like even though it was nice out it's still winter technically so um at this point about a quarter after five they realized it's time to call the police which they did at 5 20. At that point we decided it was starting to get dark and it was time to call law enforcement and to help us because we we had no idea where they could possibly be.

So we thought maybe they'd fallen off the bridge and maybe they dropped their phone or one started to fall and the other went after trying to grab them. And so they maybe had floated downstream. So all of this was running through our heads as we're trying to figure out what to do next and we get to the sheriff's department um and post it on social media and a huge search party starts people were out there all night there's no lights no cameras out at high bridge there's nothing it's just woods um but that night it you would think it was a football field because there were so many lights there were just so many people out there looking everywhere um trying to find them and in the end we didn't end up finding them that night so Becky had also been trying to get

Abby's mother Anna on the phone for a few hours but Anna was at work that day she was serving tables so she didn't obviously have her phone on her person. I've served tables before. They don't let you carry your cell phone around for the most part, but she was just finishing her shift up for that day when she happened to hear the phone ringing, and she picked it up. It was Becky Patty frantically telling her that the girls were missing, and Becky said something to Anna that you know rang true and she was like listen I don't know about Abby but I know Libby Libby is afraid of the dark Libby would not be with her own will by her own choice out in in this wilderness area after dark something's wrong and I think I heard an interview from Anna where she had said,

you know, at first I didn't really like think anything was wrong. Obviously, I was worried, but I wasn't, my mind wasn't like immediately jumping to like, you know, these girls are in danger. I just figured they'd maybe walked away or they'd gone somewhere else. And you'll see these varied responses from people in the family. And even Kelsey said, you know, at first she just thought, whatever, their phones died or maybe they got lost. Nobody was really jumping to like foul play. Something bad happened to these girls. And that gives you an indication of how safe this place was, how they perceived it to be safe. Because if my kids are gone three minutes, I'm thinking like my mind's going through the gamut of the terrible things that could be happening to them and where they could be. Like, it's just I don't even want to talk about it.

But most of these people were like, I'm sure they'll be fine. And that wasn't the case. And Carrie. But it makes sense, though, right? Yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying. They live in a safe area. I don't live in a safe area.

And plus, it's what we deal with all the time, right? But I mean, to their credit, in their defense, I should say, it's something where low crime rate, again, they're in an area like the bridge where, a wooded area where it would be very easy for a young girl or guy to get hurt, you know, unexpectedly take a fall, twist an ankle. And you said it earlier, if Libby or Abby were hurt, the other one would not leave them. So it doesn't explain why they wouldn't pick up. But I think a lot of people to what you just said thought worst case scenario, one of them is hurt right now. And that's why they wanted to find them is because their fear was that one of them was badly injured and the other one was standing

by their side, but it was getting darker. It was getting colder and obviously other potential dangers now come into play. And so it's interesting to hear that that was their perception of what may be the case because of their surroundings, where you and I, who are constantly surrounded by these tragedies, our minds automatically go to the worst case scenario. And neither way, it's right. But it depends on the world you live in. And that's the world they lived in at the time. That's what it seemed like it would be.

That's where they lived at the time. They'll never live there again. And that's sad. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, great. Yeah, good point. That's sad because everybody deserves to live in that world where they feel like their kids can go outside and play without being kidnapped or murdered. And unfortunately, we don't live in that world.

But I think Kelsey also said at some point that she thought maybe Libby wasn't picking up because they were on the bridge. Maybe the phone fell off while they were on the bridge into the water. So she said even at one point, maybe they fell off into the water or one of them fell off into the water and then the other girl went down to like grab her. And then maybe the phone got wet and didn't work. You know, there was a lot of scenarios that could have happened. Nobody wanted to think that this was the one that had happened. So Carrie Timmons, this is Kelsey and Libby's mom. She was also getting calls. I believe it was Kelsey who finally got a hold of her and Kelsey was like, you know, mom, we can't find Libby. And Carrie, she was also at work, but she was over 200 miles away in Kentucky where she lived. So as I said earlier, Libby's parents were

no longer together. Carrie had remarried. I believe she had another couple of kids from her new marriage. I'm going to let Kelsey tell you a little bit about that herself. And we were looking over there, yelling their names pretty loud. If they were there, they would have heard us. So we looked everywhere on the opposite side that we thought that they could be. And we actually went in the direction opposite of the bridge. We went across the bridge and to the right and looked down in the woods over there. And then we headed back. And by the time we got back, my grandfather had, and my grandma had both headed to the police station to put in a missing persons report. And so they'd actually contacted one of my grandpa's law enforcement friends prior to going and let him know. They're like, what do like they're not here we don't see anyone there's no people at this point at the bridge um and the person he talked to said to go to the

police station and talk to somebody there and at that point that's when we started posting on social media. It was about 5 30 when law enforcement was contacted first and from there we started the searches. Family and friends started scouring the woods in that area all around town. People were looking everywhere and it was all over all over our town. Everybody knew it was all over our social medias. It went so far, so fast. There were people in neighboring towns coming to search from all over. There were just people everywhere trying to help us. So word spread quickly through Delphi that two of their own were missing. Social media was abuzz with the news. Everybody was sharing it. And as the sun set, members of the community gathered at the Monan Bridge Trail with flashlights to help locate them.

I read somewhere in an article that from afar, it looked like a thousand stars were moving through the trails, and the names Abby and Libby could be heard ringing through the trees coming from the people who were trying to find them. It was a little after 5 p.m. when the Carroll County Sheriff, Tobe Leesonby, was notified about the missing girls, and he said that at first, he wasn't overly concerned because Delphi was a pretty safe place, and over the years, when they'd received calls about missing persons, most of them were located very shortly after. They wanted to believe that they were runaways, and so that's kind of where they started out at. They just assumed that they ran away and that we would find them somewhere in town at a friend's house. Because in small towns like Delphi, that's usually what happens. And I think that's what they'd done cases like that very often in our town. So that's just kind of what they assumed was happening. There was one instance where Abby and Libby together, they didn't run away. So what happened was this one day they went to, they're supposed to be at the school and they ended up

walking over to the other school to watch a game. So my grandpa did mention that to them. And I think that was a big part of why they said, oh, well, maybe they're runaways. Even though it wasn't really running away, they were just in the place that they said that they wouldn't, they said that they would be in a different place and they ended up being. So that I think was a big part of them thinking it was a runaway case in the beginning. And eventually I think they did regret calling off the search and assuming it was a runaway case because we did, we were adamant about telling them that this isn't

something they would do. They wouldn't be outside, not this late and not walking from High Bridge, which is miles away from Delphi, a couple of miles at least from where any of the students at Delphi were at that point. I was going through like the crime stats for Delphi, most years there was zero murders. Zero. Like it kept saying in the little, you know, graphs, zero, zero, zero, zero. So of course, no one's gonna immediately jump to that. And then you've got two young girls. So people are gonna be like, why would anybody hurt two innocent young girls? You know, it's just awful. Mike Paddy, he was the one who made the initial call to the sheriff's office. He recalled their fast response time. He said he'd still been on the

trails looking for Abby and Libby when he made the call, and within 10 minutes as he was walking back towards the road, he ran into two police officers who were also on the trails looking for the girls after his call. Mike also contacted a cousin of his who worked for a local news station, and that same night it was reported on the news that two girls were missing, and what seemed like the whole town of Delphi was out looking for them far past sunset. Now the fire department, which is made up of entirely volunteers, it's headed by a man named Daryl Stewart. He also caught wind of what was happening, and Chief Stewart deployed volunteer firefighters out to many different areas in Delphi. So he sent them out to the bridge, he sent them out to the trails,

but he also sent them pretty much all over town in case, you know, the girls had left the trails and they ended up being someplace else in Delphi. For the next several hours, people searched. Some were on foot, some were on four-wheelers, and as it got darker, the rough terrain became more dangerous until the official search was finally called off around midnight, a decision that many people have questioned. And I questioned this when we were talking to Kelsey. Remember, I was like, what? They called the search. What? I was so pissed off about it. And a lot of people were, you know, and I was like, that's ridiculous. Like

you can't, you can't call the search up when these two girls are out there like missing. It ended up not being as simple as that because that's my initial reaction to always just be outraged. And it ended up not being as simple as that. And I'm glad that I read more into it and found out like that there was actually things going on behind the scenes. So Chief Daryl Steerett, remember he's the fire chief, he said, quote, we were at the high bridge. We had walked the high bridge and we had walked under the bridge. I had guys climb down to the top of the pillars of high bridge. I had guys doing things that they should not have been doing, but we were trying to find something. We had scoured the banks of the creeks, the hillsides. You get to a point

where you've walked over two and three and four times in that area and you kind of feel like you have to put a check mark on it. So we had come to that point. Like I said, it was a tough thing to do. But as a volunteer department, you also have to look out for the individuals that you command because they have jobs. They have livelihoods. That's the tough part about it. Because as the chief, you have to be able to look out for them at some point. They would stay out there till the sun came up if you told them that's what they were doing. But at some point, you have to be realistic. We have turned over every rock we could think of in this area. And at that time of the year, the ground cover isn't like it is now where you've got weeds four foot tall. You could see a good ways even in the dark. So we came to that point where we need to check this spot off and maybe come back fresh in the morning, end quote. But even after the official search was called off, there was still people out there looking. So the area is very dangerous, especially if you're crossing the bridge. I wouldn't recommend doing that at night. But there were so many people out there that there were flashlights everywhere

and you could see a lot of the area because there were so many people out there that there were flashlights everywhere. And you could see a lot of the area because there were so many people out there with flashlights. So we were so mad that they were calling it off. We were like, we know they have to be out there somewhere. Like, they're not here. Libby, my grandma always says that Libby's scared of the dark. And so that's why she kept saying, she said, Libby is scared of the dark. It's getting cold. At the time, I didn't remember

them having jackets. I remember giving Abby one, but I knew that they didn't want to put them on, so I couldn't remember if they left them in the car. So we were talking about how cold it was getting. It was February, how dark it was getting. It wasn't safe for them for us to stop searching um but that's not what law enforcement believed um so they ended up calling it off but that doesn't mean that there weren't people out there all night searching and there were people from our community out there all hours of the night trying to find them i like i said i was one of those people who criticized the search being called off at midnight when abby and libby were still missing because I put myself in the shoes of the family, of the loved ones. You know, how would I feel if my teenage daughter was out there in the dark, possibly hurt or lost without a phone or without

the ability to use her phone and the authorities were just like, yeah, you know, we're tired. It's dark. We're not going to look anymore. You know, how would I find a second of rest that night? How would I even, oh, I feel like I wouldn't even want to leave those woods. Many of us were critical of the decision. What we didn't know is that law enforcement in Delphi was still working to find them, even if they were not out there like actively searching, even if you couldn't see them. So I watched an HLN special on this case and it revealed that law enforcement was trying to track Libby's phone in order to narrow down where they should be searching. And that's smart. Obviously, you're not going to want to

check this whole area. It's a needle in a haystack. You're going to want to figure out where you should be looking so you can focus your efforts in that area. It was just after 2 a.m., so this is the early morning of February 14th, that Sheriff Lazenby got a call that Libby's phone had pinged off a cell phone tower near the Monan Bridge. And then the sheriff at that point, he called the fire department and he was like, we're going back out and searching. Can you guys help us search? And can you bring lights for us to search? And they actually did go back out there for a few hours, but they didn't find anything. So after a couple hours of that, they packed it up again. But I do appreciate

that clearly they did care about this. Clearly, you know, and as the fire chief said, like, you do have to think about the searchers. It's getting dark. It's dangerous. And he said, you know, these guys would have kept being out there. If I said we're staying out here until we find the girls, they would have tirelessly been out there. Yeah. When we were interviewing Kelsey, you and I, we got into a heated debate and it wasn't specifically about this. And you might be, you might've changed your position based on what you're saying, but I'm trying to remember. It was about, I know what it was about.

It was about, um, this is a good question for the week. This is a good question for the week this is a good question for the week because we definitely disagree we won't debate it like we because we were really going at it that day kelsey was like what's wrong with them we were debating it hard but why don't you give if you still stand behind that because it's a good question to ask because i do think you're not an anomaly a lot of people believe are going to agree with you and so i want to hear your take just a concise version of it. And then I'll give my argument to it.

And we'll hear what you guys think because we definitely didn't agree on it. But again, it seems like you've come off of it a little bit because you were saying how they weren't out there at all or doing anything. Well, when we talked to Kelsey, remember she said like, you know, and she was young at this time, like younger, obviously, than she is now.

And she wasn't as involved probably because the adults were like, we don't want it. This is her sister. We're not trying to like let her know everything that's going on. But it kind of like given me the impression that there really wasn't this official response, that the majority of people out there looking were volunteers. And these were the volunteers that kept looking after the police stopped. And I think she even said that, you know, her grandfather had come across police officers that were there on an

unofficial basis, but it looks like they were there on an official basis from his 911 call. That's, that's what he said. So my, but I still think you bring, you still bring up an interesting argument about what you were saying as far as evidentiary reasons.

That was my thing. And I've changed my stance a little bit now that I know more about the investigation. But I said that I would be out there with as many people as possible and I would be picking up every little thing. Cigarette butts. That's right. That's what it was. That's what it was.

I'd be pulling prints, you know, at this point, at this point when they're missing, like they haven't been found yet, you know, no stone unturned. Well, I mean, come to find that that's exactly what they did. That's exactly what they did. I mean, they said, and I'm going to get to it more in next episode, but they said they were picking up all sorts of stuff and it sucked for them because of all the people who were searching. So the, I think it was the police chief. He was like, you don't understand, like this is an outdoor crime scene where dozens and dozens of people had been tramping through it. Right. So we didn't So we weren't talking about the evidence as far as like, well, we have to find these girls.

It was after they found them. And then I said, well, we have to find the evidence to point to who it was. So you need to be pulling prints off of everything in that area, finding the person who's fitting those prints, even if it's 100 different people, and finding out where they were on that date. And you were like, that's unrealistic. But it turns out that that's pretty much what they did. However, you've got all these volunteers who'd been searching for the girls. And the chief was

like, you know, you've got people who are spitting in the grass, spitting on the on the ground, people urinating because they're out there searching and they don't want to leave the search to go and find a bathroom. So they're just urinating outside and we have to process all of that. So they did do that. So I was right in the end. I win. So my, I believe, and yeah, that's pretty much what it was. My argument to your point was, and again, maybe I misunderstood or whatever, but it was like, hey, first and foremost, there should have been a police response initially. We've already cleared that up. There was.

But then one of the things you said was if there were a police response, you could have everyone out there and they could be gathering and collecting evidence while the search was taking place. And my counter to that was we talk about the preservation of evidence and trying to contaminate a scene as little as possible. So you have two different things going on. You have the number one priority, which is preservation of life, right? Trying to find these two girls. So that's number one priority. That takes precedent over anything like find them first and worry about it later. But they're trying to search the area and leave no stone unturned. And then everything you just said, I'm not going to repeat it because

you just said it. You have all these people in that area who are performing the number one objective, which is to find them. But in the same vein, they're also contradicting what a crime scene investigator would want to do, which is preserve the area and not have anybody in it and try to diminish any possibility of contamination from individuals who are not involved. So we were getting off the beaten path, but the argument was, if I were the sergeant, and again, we first didn't even know that there were a lot of officers there, but let's say there's a lot of officers there and I have for Delphi, which is a small department. It was more fire, like volunteer firemen were more on the scene.

I think Delphi only has like two detectives, like two police officers for the whole thing. But let's say they had 12 just for the sake of argument. And we want you guys to weigh in on this too. Because if you could think it's your kids or if you were a volunteer, it's one of those things where if I'm the supervisor and I have to delegate responsibilities, if I have 12 guys at that point, I'm delegating all 12 to get under that bridge or wherever. And like, I want you climbing. I want you searching every single crevice, even if it seems too small to have a human

body in it. I want you searching that because maybe you find a scarf or a cell phone or a shoe that's stuck in a, that's stuck between a rock that may suggest that they were there at that point. And that's important. If I see you picking up cigarette butts at that moment, I'm going to say, what are you doing? Because they're not inside the cigarette butt. But I do agree with you. They're not inside the cigarette butt. Right, right. I mean, it's extreme, but I don't want you doing that yet. But I do agree with you that once the two girls were found, and we won't go this far because again, this is for future

reference, but once the girls are found, that area now becomes the crime scene for a homicide and it completely changes. I don't want anybody who doesn't belong in that area walking around. I want you gone. We have to accept the fact that it's been contaminated because we were trying to find them initially, but now we're not going to contaminate any further. And I want every beer can, every cigarette butt, every piece of clothing, every receipt that you find, whatever it is, collect it all and we'll sort it out later. And so that was, it's really not an argument anymore because we're kind of on the same page now. Yeah, but to play devil's advocate, which they did that,

you know, as soon as they were found, they did like the best you can when you're in like a freaking forest, you know, they had- It's a crime scene. Yeah, they had, it's a crime scene because the, then at that point the Indiana state police were involved in the FBI were involved. So they had more manpower and they were able to kind of like post up law

enforcement officials to, to make sure that nobody was coming in. But by that time, the crime scene is already way more contaminated because all of these dozens and dozens of volunteers have already been through. So like if you're doing it at that at that point, because you've got all of these volunteers looking for the girls. So would it have would it have been a really hard task for like a couple of law enforcement officials who were there to start collecting evidence because, you know, it's not contaminated by volunteers? You know, you just nailed it, though. You just nailed it, though.

At that point, they didn't know what the crime scene was they didn't know that a crime had taken place it's a crime scene you assume a crime has happened this is this is this is guys this is our debate right here so this is this was this is where we went off this is where we assume the worst like what what it's a you just said it's a crime scene how many miles how many miles was that tourist area? I don't know exactly, but I can't imagine it was more than like two miles. Big. Two miles. So two miles by however wide it was. So here's the question. And if I'm wrong in your position, stop me and correct me. But I guess the question to you guys would be, if you're going to an area where you're not completely certain, this is what you would

want from your local police. If you're going to an area where you you you're not completely certain this is what you would want from your local police if you're going to an area where there may have been a crime committed would you want the officers expending any resources on the collection of evidence prior to even knowing there's a crime committed or waiting until after am i saying that right yeah there's like two police officers in delphi so i don't really think the search is going to be missing too much of those two police officers walk around with some evidence bags okay so so that's that's stephanie's position so my position is at that point when they're searching that area there's a possibility that the girls weren't even there anymore and that they had left in there the crime scene has moved to another location so they could be collecting

evidence in that area unrealistic especially considering the resources of Delphi. I understand. I do. Do you? Yes, I mean, I do. We're not clipping this out. This is staying in. I do, but also understand that it would have made their job easier

because by the time they started collecting this evidence, this was after several dozen people had been pissing all over and spitting all over smoking cigarettes and throwing them like these volunteers you guys are great thank you so much but you peed all over the place all right and what did what did i say to you that day too i said like stephanie i would agree with you if it was like a 50 or 60 man department i would have taken like five or six officers aside and said, Hey, do me a favor. Start, start putting placards down. Don't touch anything yet, but start putting numbered placards down, identifying things that might, we might want to collect. They don't, I don't want you touching it yet because we may identify other things that leave a pattern, but you five,

I want you getting placards out and evidence bags. and I want you marking off and taping off areas that might be of interest down the road. But I don't want you, that's not your main focus yet. I just want you to keep an eye on things. But to your point, remember, I was like, it's not logistically possible, Stephanie. And we were like, we were going back and forth. How do you have such a sharp memory for this, like, and just this? Well, because I felt that I was really right in this one. I mean, you were right. Unfortunately, this happened in a- and just this well because i felt that i was really right in this one i mean you i felt you were right um unfortunately this happened in a you guys heard her first you guys heard it right but but in a place like this delphi they don't have a lot of cops there like

that that's that sucks you know you don't want to go missing in a small ass town that doesn't have a lot of cops because they can't do these things that will make their job in the future easier. So maybe I would have called the ISPN more quickly, maybe at that point. I probably would have called the ISPN. Yes, get more manpower out there. And again, coulda, shoulda, woulda, you think about it at that point, as you laid out really perfectly, they truly didn't think they had a homicide at that point. They thought they had two missing kids that were possibly injured. So their main priority, which they were right, was let's find those kids. And to your point, which I wasn't aware of until you read it, was that they actually went back out there. As soon as they got confirmation that the phone was in that area, they didn't care what time it was. They didn't

care how dark it was. Guess what? Now that we know we're not necessarily looking for a needle in a haystack, but now we have a more centralized location. Guess what? We're not waiting. It's confirmed. That phone never left that park. We're going back. And I do appreciate it. I appreciate that. That's great. I do think that's good, especially coming from a law enforcement perspective where they're not used to handling these kinds of crimes, right? It goes back to the JonBenet Ramsey case where you had the Boulder Police Department. This is an area that nobody gets murdered in. All of a sudden, they're dealing with a murder and they screwed up the crime scene and the investigation completely.

Boulder Police, you screwed that up and you all know you did. But it's because mainly, maybe not only, but mainly because they were not experienced in handling these sorts of crime scenes and these violent crimes and murders in general. You know, Boulder was a safe area. Delphi was a safe area. And I don't know what the answer to that is, because as we know, murders and violent crimes happen in these sleepy small towns where nobody locks their doors too. But I also can say, statistically, from what I've seen, it seems that these small sleepy towns that have these murders are the ones that have the hardest time solving them in the end. And you can look at these cold cases 25, 35, 45 years down the road. So-and-so goes missing in this town of 2,000 people. They have no leads. It's still cold. Why? Because that police entity there didn't know the steps to take

and didn't have the resources to take those steps even if they had wanted to. So I don't know what the answer to that is because we want to make sure that people in small towns still have the best kind of law enforcement response if something does happen. Yeah. And yeah, it's 100% true. And it comes down to logistics and finances and a lot more things that nobody really wants to hear an excuse for. But it's like, hey, if this town has 100 people living in it, do they have the manpower or money to prepare for every situation? Because

it's hundreds of thousands of dollars. They're not getting grants. But again, it's no excuse. And if you live in that town, you don't want to hear that excuse. But weigh off in the comments and just understand that as you're weighing in in the comments, Stephanie already acknowledged that I am completely right. So you should just automatically agree with me. Well, listen, if Stephanie Harlow had been in Delphi that day, you would have seen her walking around with her little latex gloves on and little Ziploc baggies collecting cigarette butts. Okay. Because one time I went to put my son on the bus and I saw like six cigarette butts at the end of my driveway as if somebody was watching my house and smoking cigarettes overnight. And I was like, oh, hell no.

You called me about this. Yeah. And I went, I went and I got gloves and I put them in a little baggie. I still have those bitches. Okay. So if anybody ever kills me, you just let them know to check that baggie because the evidence is still there. All right.

And that's what I think we should do. We should find an area similar in square mileage to this area. And you and I should just go out there and see how long it takes you to pick up. Are you going to help me? But in said area. Yeah. You know what? I'll help you.

I would do it. If we both do it together. All day. We'll be doing it for the next six years. No, we would not. If we had to do if we had to do over like a hundred square miles a hundred square miles i said there's like two miles i'm gonna look up this area this crime scene area after this we'll have it for next level what's how

what's the era of monon high bridge how much is the trail system man they knew they were going to the monon bridge so you start there why don't you start on the bridge okay i don't expect you to take all the trails so maybe four what do you want to say like two or three square miles maybe four or five why do you keep going for more than two i said two oh yeah i want to see you out there and you know what worst case scenario we just made the earth we just made the earth a little better i would do it let's do it let's do let's go pick up every yellowstone and doing it too i don't care if it takes me six years if it solves the murder world one cigarette butt one cigarette butt at a time on bottles pouches you're done well anyways

we're almost wrapped up here for today but um i do want to touch on the the snapchat pictures really quickly because i was always interested as to like how the police had even gotten that drawn to their attention, how long it took for them to even know it was there. And it looks like they were aware of these Snapchat videos and pictures on Libby's phone really early on because it was about 6 p.m. that Kelsey was called to the police station and they actually asked her about the Snapchat pictures and they were like, did you see these, etc., etc. And we're going to talk about those posts and pictures in part two. We're going to go over the timeline, what the pictures were, when they were taken, and it's going to give us a better

indication of, I believe, the window that this happened in. And like Derek said earlier, it happened in an hour. I think what we're going to find is it happened a lot quicker than that. And as you know, the search for Abby and Libby would continue the next day. The sun comes up, everybody's back out searching, and the girls' bodies would be found soon after law enforcement and the volunteers reconvened by the bridge. And in the next episode, we're going to talk about February 14th, the day after Abby and Libby went missing, Valentine's Day, which I feel will never be the same for any of their family members, and the day that Delphi, Indiana would forever be

changed. Yeah. And I like how we broke it down today because we could have skipped over a lot of things and just kind of got right to the meat and potatoes of it where they were found. You know, I don't skip over things, man. Yeah. And people have a lot of questions always asked, like, what could have been done to prevent this, you know, from the family perspective, from law enforcement's perspective. And so we really wanted to focus on that. And you guys, as you're listening to this episode, you heard a lot from Kelsey.

So we have more parts of this coming, but Kelsey, thank you for taking the time to kind of relive this again. We know you're strong and you're capable of doing it, but it's, we could also see it's not easy for you. It never gets easier. But without her insight, we probably wouldn't have been as detailed because again see it's not easy for you. It never gets easier. Um, but without her insight, we probably wouldn't have been as detailed because again, it's easy to look it up and do what, you know, do all that research. It's not easy, but you know what I mean? Um, but to hear it

directly from her, as you said at the beginning, you know, it's accurate because she lived it. And so that's kind of how we're going to break this down where now we're all caught up. Abby and Libby have been found. And so this is the next part of this investigation because up known because of some of the things that were uncovered speaking of breaking things down um he'll he probably won't let me put it in but derrick derrick broke down and cried in this interview with kelsey oh he, it was very sweet actually. I did. You could tell that, I mean,

it's hard to listen to, it's hard to listen to these stories, much less listen to it from the person who had to live through it, the person who dropped them off at that bridge, right? And, you know,

I found myself also feeling very emotional and saying to myself like, you myself, don't cry right now. And then he started crying. And then I was like, oh, no. Well, why was it though? So we had a great conversation with Kelsey. And we had it over multiple days.

And she was telling us a story about Libby coming into her room one night. And they videotaped it. And it was like shortly. With the mask, the guy Fox mask. And I'm going to, yes. And I'm not going to do it now. I'm not going to do it now. Cause this is where it got me, but it was very similar to Tenley and Peyton. I have videos like that from Tenley and Peyton. And when you ever relate it to something you personally care about, where you would give your life for, it just hits different. It just hits different. And she sent us the video unsolicited. She had told us about it, but then at night she sent it to us

and I showed my wife and I started crying. And then I was telling Kelsey about the video and my reaction. I was honest with her, but then as I was talking about it, I explained why I was getting emotional and I got emotional again. It came back, yeah. Yeah, it came back. And it still kind of like bothers me because again, as a father, as a parent in general, my biggest fear is not being there for my kids.

And I saw that video and I saw Tenley and Peyton and I just saw the way how much Libby loved Kelsey and their interactions and the words they were using and how she was scaring her with the mask. I was like, dude, that's Tenley and Peyton and I just saw the way how much Libby loved Kelsey and their interactions and the words they were using and how she was scaring her with the mask. I was like, dude, that's Tenley and Peyton right there. That's literally my daughters. And I was like, I can't handle this. I'm a mess. Because again, I want to help everyone.

But, you know, ultimately, you know, the number one and number two in my life are my kids. And it's like to think about what Kelsey's going through because Kelsey was also like a mother figure to Libby as well. And to see her talking, to see her hurt in her eyes when she's talking about it, it just got me, man. But yeah, that part of me crying will not make it. You guys caught me crying on Breaking Hot. I'm not crying anymore on TV or on camera. Forget that. But Stephanie got to see it for sure. Yeah, I did.

And I tease him about it, but I thought it was really sweet. It's the thing I have over him, so I'll use it. But I do want to leave off with saying this because I think it's important. It's hard to research this case without coming across the message boards, right? The Reddits and the web sleuths. And I'm not going to lie. I do think that there are a lot, the majority of people on these, especially the true crime Reddit ones and especially web sleuths.

Web sleuths is great. They know what they're talking about. They're very smart. They're very good at picking up patterns and stuff. But there is a lot of criticism on these message boards and on these threads, not only about the police response, but about the families of these girls. And I'm not, even though I see it, okay, I see it. Trust me. I can't not see it. Even though I see it, we're not going to spend any time talking about where the family went wrong, by the way. So if that's what you're here for, then you probably don't want to continue on. We

are not ever going to do that. There is no victim shaming or victim blaming allowed here in the family of these girls are just as much victims as they are. And by the way, police have looked thoroughly into every single family member. Those are the first people they look into because when kids go missing and something happens to kids, it is usually like 99% of the time somebody that they know. Okay, so that's the first people that police are going to look into and try to clear before they go on to any other leads or any other suspects. They thoroughly cleared these people that police are going to look into and try to clear before they go on to any other leads or any other suspects. They thoroughly cleared these people. There's nothing to see here, guys.

Move the hell on. It's getting old. Secondly, the criticism of the police. I'll be a little bit more open to that. However, I do want to say that. Of course you will. Yeah, of course. Because they're not the victims. Okay, but what I do want to say is the majority of Abby and Libby's families

have been incredibly supportive of law enforcement and have praised them for their response and their help. Now, there are a few family members who have been critical of the police. I believe Abby's mother, Anna, did have some things to say. I'm not sure if she still feels the same. But overall, from what I can tell, this small police force did the best they could with what they had at the time. And could they have done better? I think that every police force in every investigation could do better with hindsight in any investigation.

But I think that they did the best they could. And they all came together as a community, too, which you don't see a lot in these big city crimes delphi really pulled together the police were there the fire chief i mean the mayor i forget his name but he's like the youngest mayor in american history the mayor of delphi at that time was like 27 years old he was in um a town board meeting or something, a couple towns over, and he got the call. The two girls were missing. He left the meeting. He got in his car and he drove right back to Delphi. So this town did what they could with what they had. And I was critical of them at first. And there may be something I come across in the rest of my research that causes me to be

critical again. But overall, I want to say that I think they did the best that they could. And yeah, you know, I know that it's there. I know that the criticism is there. I know that there's things that people want to pick apart. But I don't think we're going to focus on that too much here. No, and Kelsey did say that multiple times, that she has relationships with a few of these investigators. And believe me, I tried to get her to talk shit about them, okay?

Yeah, no, she definitely speaks highly of them. Obviously, there's always things that could be done better. I think the police officers themselves would tell you that. But overall, it's been a positive experience for Kelsey as far as the transparency with law enforcement, with her at least. And she's tight-lipped about a lot too, because she understands that social media, the internet, it's tough. And there's a lot of stuff that gets out

there. So understandably, she's very tight lipped about some details about the case that maybe, you know, she doesn't want anybody to know. And we completely respect that. Positive note, I'm wearing it right now because we didn't really show it off last week. This is the long sleeve. Got my mug here. It's our our merch i want to thank you guys who are listening and can't see he's wearing our crime weekly day one or his shirt i am and i just i'm drinking out of the mug which i will be drinking out of every episode now but i want to thank you guys the uh merch launch was a huge success we actually sold out of the mugs and the stickers so at the time you're hearing this but they should be back in stock within like a few days. We're just waiting on them. The mugs and the stickers are purchased to order. The, um, the shirts are made on demand, so they can just print them out as soon as they're

ordered where the mugs, we have to basically order a specific amount. Um, and there's, and we didn't want to have too many mugs just sitting around, but they sold out. So to our surprise, they did extremely well. I've been posting a lot of your guys, you showing off the mugs or the stickers or the shirts, continue to do that. Post them on Instagram, post them on Twitter. I'll be retweeting it. We'll be reposting it on Instagram so people can see your gear. And we really, really do appreciate the support. We're glad to see you guys like the, uh, like the stuff. If you want to check it out, cause we didn't do this last time. Go over to crimeweeklypodcast.com slash shop.

We're going to have it put right here. We didn't do that last time. It'll also be in the description. You guys killed me for that. And Stephanie was quick to correct me. She's a, she's a YouTube OG, but again, the link will be in our description. You can go right to it, or you can go to crimeweeklypodcast.com and just click on ship. Either way, it'll get you to the page and we appreciate you showing some love, some support.

And I'm hoping now that as we're traveling around, doing some different things, we've run into people wearing our day one is because we'll be able to identify them immediately. And we hear you that international shipping is a little pricey we hear you we're hearing the comments uh we're we're working with bunker branding to see if there's something they can do to to make it a little less expensive and you know worse comes to worse we'll we'll have to maybe i don't know use another i don't know i don't know we'll see what we can do we're gonna work it out because we hear you that that is that is steep and we don't want our international listeners and viewers to feel left out of this so if we gotta like take the shirts on a plane and fly them all out to

ourselves we'll make it work we did have someone from germany post today somebody from germany posted a tank top today there's got to be a way to do it because it's a trade-off between quality and pricing. Because you guys know, anyone who watches this knows there's a price attached to everything. We're not, for anyone who doesn't know this, we're not dictating shipping prices. It's designed by a computer algorithm that they're coming up with from Bunker Branding. And I already reached out to them and asked them if there's anything we can do about it. Because you have examples where people are ordering a shirt and a mug. The shipping was more expensive than the products themselves.

Yes. Yeah, that can't happen. I mean, that can't happen. So we got to try to figure something out. But we don't want to sacrifice the quality of the products you're getting either. We have all the stuff. I'm biased, but I think it's all really high quality stuff. Even if it didn't have the logo on it, I'd wear it.

It's comfortable. This is a very good quality. So, you know, I'd like to keep the quality and just get the shipping prices down, but we're new. And this is one of the problems that we didn't anticipate, but we're working on it. We're going to figure it out, guys. We're going to figure it.

I think we can do, with everything else, we have to figure out re-recording episodes, shit like that. I think we can figure it out guys we're gonna figure it i think we can do with everything else we have to figure out re-recording episodes shit like that i think we can figure this out derek's been telling me the entire episode how horrible i sound in his ears so yes because yeah our recording software they changed they changed the way they do it and i he's like i just i can't listen to you like this you sound like shit it doesn't sound like it used to. I'm going to be calling them tomorrow because I don't like how it sounds. For those of you who are just listening and can't see us, I am the one recording it on my end. So I'm monitoring it. And I always like to make sure that we don't have to rerecord the episode. So I get nervous when it doesn't sound like the final

product because there have been times where Stephanie sounds great. And then her recording will go weird, kind of weird. And I'll say to her, Oh, stop for a second. Something's up and we can catch the problem immediately. Now I'm like scared. Cause if there's something that happened, we've been recording for an hour and 40 minutes straight. If it happened in minute 12, we're done. There's just nothing we can do about it now so hopefully that's not the case though and we will see you guys next week make sure you follow us on social media if you haven't already follow us on youtube so you can watch us in real time i mean it's not real time but you can actually see us recording these episodes and uh drop some love for us on the podcast reviews like five stars that would be great. Until next time, guys.

Bye. Later.