Hidden True Crime - Gag Order Lifted! An Interview with Delphi's Lead Investigator Jerry Holeman

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

Lauren Matthias was inside the courtroom in Delphi, Indiana for the trial and sentencing of Richard Allen, and today she is interviewing the lead investigator on the case, Lt. Jerry Holeman. About Hidden True Crime: Lauren Matthias, a former television reporter, and her husband Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, started Hidden True Crime in 2020 with their Season, 'Beyond the Veil,' a psychological deep dive into the doomsday murders and prophet. What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please have your boarding passes ready to scan. If your phone is cracked, old, or was chewed up by your. your Chihuahua travel companion, please refrain from holding up the line. Instead, go to Verizon and trade in any phone in any condition from one of their top brands for the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus with Galaxy AI and a watch and tab on any plan. Only on Verizon. With new line on my plan, service plan required for watch and tab. Additional terms apply. See Verizon.com for details. Hello, Hidden Gems. We have a very special program for you today because we have a very special interview. I am with the

lieutenant Jerry Holman who was a big investigator and figure in the Delphi case, in the murders of Abby and Libby. And you testified at trial how many times, so many

times at the trial. At an actual trial, I think I testified twice but all the hearings leading up to it, I've testified multiple times at all the hearing. Every hearing I believe I testified at to include this hearing. But at the trial, I believe only twice. Only twice.

Okay, it seemed like more. But then you also were a witness at the sentencing that where we just attended, which I want to ask you about. We have so many questions for you, actually. So thank you for taking this time with me and with hidden true crime. We appreciate it so much. And I want to start by thanking you for the work you did on this case. and you have been with the Indiana State Police since 2001,

and you also have a robust military career as well. You joined the Marine Corps right after school. Is that correct? That is correct, yes. Thank you. Thank you for your service. And, you know, man, so many questions. Because you know and I know, man, the Internet has been kind of like the Wild Wild West

when it comes to this case from the very beginning. And really what really matters the most, though, is that two little girls' lives were taken. But questions do surround the investigation. And there hasn't been a lot of answers for the public. And we're here because the gag order has been lifted. And so we have questions. Let's start first off, Lieutenant Holman,

if that's okay, with how you got involved in this case. take me back to February 14th, 2017. Okay, yeah. So at the time I was the district investigative commander or DIC for the Lafayette Post. So I oversee all investigations that the state police is involved in. And we quite often assist other counties. So if we hear about something, we'll reach out to the sheriffs or investigators of those counties. And at that time, it's February 14th, and I was on my way to the Lafayette post, and I heard on the radio on the news that there was two missing girls in Carroll County.

So it was probably eight in the morning. I reached out to Sheriff Lesonby at the time and asked him if they needed any assistance. And he said at that time, they didn't. They had a large, a number of volunteers looking and searching the area that they were last saw. And I said, okay, well, if you need anything. let us know. And probably a couple hours after that phone call, I received a phone call from Captain Kirkham, who is now retired, but he was the Area 1 captain, was one of my supervisors at the time. And he said that they were requesting a helicopter and wanted investigators over there to find out

what was going on. So myself and my sergeant, Dee Buckley, headed over there. I got there first and met with Tony Liggett and Kevin Hammond and also spoke with the sheriff. And they said, well, we're just searching. We don't know what happened and asking questions and things like that. So that was my first involvement in the investigation. Okay. And you were involved then, should we say, up until this moment, always involved in the investigation? Yes. I've always been involved in it for the last seven years and 10 months. We never left the side. It was at the bottom of the hill once the girls were located.

Myself and Sergeant Buckley got there rather early. There were some other officers there. We got to scene secure. And other officers were putting up crime scene tape and things like that. And then we had the opportunity to meet with Tony Leggett and Kevin Hammond. And at that time, I said, hey, are you guys going to be the lead in this? or do you want us to be? And I can't remember which one, and I refuse to ask, but one of them said, you guys should probably be the lead, but the other one said, let's talk to the sheriff.

And later, Sheriff Lazanby came, and he said, I think, you know, it's our county will be the lead, but will you promise to give us all the resources you have? And I said, yes, I won't, we will not leave you and we'll give you everything we have. The state police is a much larger organization. We have a lot more resources available to include our laboratory and crime scene investigators and things like that, public information officers, more detectives. So I said, yeah, we're not going to leave you. And I meant that. And we didn't. Can I ask you at the crime scene what your first thoughts were when it came to maybe the type of crime this was? Is that, is that fair to ask? I didn't tell you I was going to ask that.

Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, I've been asked that type of question. multiple times and I think my my answer is I was very angry that so another human being could treat two human beings like that, two young, innocent girls. I've been involved in many traumatic events, crashes, homicides, domestic batteries throughout the years and also a marine for eight years. So I've become a little bit compartmentalized, I believe. on traumatic events. The actual scene itself doesn't haunt me or bother me. It's just the anger outweighs all the other emotions that I may have because I just

don't understand how any human being can treat other human beings like that. So I was I was just angry about that and not knowing why somebody could do that. The scene itself, I knew it was going to be a very tough investigation because of the location. It's out in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't going to be a lot of witnesses. And it turned out there wasn't a lot of cameras around or a lot of evidence that we could follow up on. So I knew it was going to be a very intensive investigation. It's going to labor intensive investigation.

It's going to take a lot of old-fashioned detective work. That's kind of what my first thoughts were. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And we're going to get into, honestly, let me say this first. There was something that you said before we started that I want to share, and that is that you said, you have nothing to hide. You have nothing to hide.

And so with that, thank you for that. And I think that I want to go through all the different scenarios of possibilities with this crime, you know, from odinism to Kagan to, you know, to, you know, the landowner, but where did your mind go to what type of person did this? Did you think right away ritualistic crime because of sticks? Or did you think that this was a, this was like a sexual motive? Or where did your law enforcement brain or military brain take you when you were assessing this crime?

Initially, I think I and a lot of others thought it was a failed sexual assault. and maybe a kidnapping attempt. And just because of the way the girls are found, one completely naked, the other had clothes off and put some others on it. And so I think that that's where my mind went. I always thought it was one person, but I didn't want to put blinders on. So I kept an open mind and thought maybe it could be multiple. But as the investigation went on, it was clear to me that one person,

was capable and did do this. So the odinist, the risk of realistic killing thing, I never believed that. Our crime scene investigators told us early on that the blood on the tree was blood spattered, that it was not initially painted on there or put on there. You could tell the difference. They could. I mean, you and I maybe not because that's not our specialty, but our crime scene investigators at the time Jason Page had plenty of training in blood spatter.

And I would say he's a blood spattered expert. So he was saying that that wasn't a symbol. And but again, we didn't rule it out. The sticks to me looked like just sticks randomly put on there with no purpose. And that's what our crime scene investigators were telling us as well. So we, I didn't believe it was realistic. or ritualistic. But again, we weren't going to leave any stones unturned.

So we did a thorough investigation, did research on that, and, you know, behavior analysis units, professors, people that specialize in those types of investigations. And they were telling us that it's just not realistic that it would be, because if it was, there would be no doubt. It would be so obvious that, it was. But we, anybody would come and say, hey, I think it's this. Can I look into it? Yeah, go ahead and look. Let us know what you say, but no one could ever prove that it was some sort of ritualistic

killing now because Bradholder and Patrick Westfall were involved in in Norse paganism religion, some people jump to conclusion that that's automatically what they do. Well, that that's just not true and I had no clue about those religions back then, but doing research and being updated on that, that's, it's a religion. It's not a cold. It's not a gain. And they don't believe in human sacrifices. So we pretty much ruled it out, but kept an open mind. And, you know, that's my initial thought on that. Lieutenant Holman, something that you said before and you actually said in trial is that you left no stone unturned into this investigation. But if there was probable cause, you move forward. So are you saying that you absolutely did investigate this sort of ritualistic

killing scenario and there wasn't probable cause or how would you explain that? Yeah, I think that's a pretty good explanation. We had tips on numerous different people not related to ritualistic killings and some that people thought were involved. like I said, in that religion and basically just didn't know what the religion was about. But yeah, we looked into those people, multiple interviews with multiple different people. And the only person that we established probable cause to make an arrest on was Richard Allen. The rest we didn't. And we're not going to falsely arrest somebody or falsely accused people without establishing problem cause.

That's just not what we're going to do. So we looked into, like you started to say earlier, the property owner, multiple people. And we served multiple search warrants on people and people's property. And again, nothing came back to establish probable cause on those people. So again, we're not going to have tunnel vision, but we're also not going to falsely arrest somebody. Okay. Okay. So in other words, I think I just want to like kind of process that with our listeners too, that there was a base, there was an idea, there was an investigation into could this be ritualistic?

And the bottom line is you went through the evidence, you assessed, you investigated. There was, was there any hiding at this time of information or evidence when it comes to this? I'm bringing up all of the theories online, you know? No, no, none whatsoever. We looked into them. There was no evidence indicating that those people that practice that religion were involved or anybody. And the evidence at the scene just wasn't strong enough to indicate that that was a ritualistic killing. You know, I was actually going to try to go in order here.

But since we're on sort of what you're talking about, what about this idea of, another person confessing or the possibility of someone else saying my DNA is at the crime scene. I think you know who I'm talking about. Yeah, absolutely. You know, somebody's saying that if my spits on at the crime scene, but I can explain that away, doesn't mean that that that's a clue that we need to go back and talk to that person again. and that person was interviewed multiple times by multiple different people. And his explanation was he wanted to know if I spit on the ground and someone scoops that spit up and takes it to a crime scene,

would you be able to tell that? That was his explanation. And that person had never been to Delphi. We can never put that person into Delphi. You know, I think, again, probable cause goes a long way. And you can't just say, because this person knows this person, knows this person. that knows this person conspired to commit, commit a crime. You can't put them together.

They don't know each other just because one knows somebody kind of sort of, and that person knows another person. There's no proof or evidence indicating that they were in some sort of club or organization or cult or gain to do that. So we investigated that very thoroughly. You know, Todd Click, Kevin Murphy, and before Greg Ferency was brutally murdered, all those people were looking into it and others and other investigators, me included. We were looking into that very thoroughly.

And yeah, the bottom line is there was no connection, no direct criminal nexus in that group of people that, in my opinion, the defense came out and falsely accused. I mean, we looked into it and covered that, those people very thoroughly. Thank you. Yeah, and we mentioned the property owner, Ron, Logan. I'll just say his name. You know, still to the state, people say, well, I think it's him. I think it's him.

I think it's him. And you're saying as far as probable cause goes, you could not tie him to this crime. Is that correct? That is correct. Several search warrants on him and his property. and there's no direct nexus to him being involved either. He had an alibi. It would, it was tight. But he was, you know, at certain places that we were able to prove during that time

that would have made it very, very difficult for him to be at the crime scene during the crimes. So we looked into it. Again, searched his house and found no evidence connecting him to the, to the crime scene or the crimes. Thank you for sharing that. I'm sure this feels what we call rinse and repeat for a lot of law enforcement as you've investigated this. But for those of us in the true crime community and those of us covering this case,

it's sort of this continuous conversation. And we have been waiting, you know, for you, for the gag order to be lifted to ask these questions once again. So thank you for indulging these questions that might feel like repeat. to you. I appreciate it. You know, so how important was then the, the evidence of Bridge Guy? And by that I'm saying how important was the evidence that Libby herself, the victim, brought to this? Where is Daredevil?

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This should be tons of fun. Marvel television's Daredevil, Born Again, now streaming only on Disney Plus. Investigation. Well, very important, very, very important. And like Prosecutor McLean said, and I've said it before, the girls are the true heroes in this. case. I hate people. I hate people say, no, you're a hero. No, I didn't do anything special. I followed up on the evidence of the facts. Who did something special was Liberty and Abby. And to be able to be a 14-year-old

girl and have the awareness to turn your phone on and videotape that, obviously they were in fear of their lives. And she videotape that. And from day one, after we got that video, a lot of me included believed that that was the person that killed the girls. And we knew up until we found the tip and the information on Richard Allen, we knew that if we found Ridge Guy and we knew we have not identified him, that we would be able to solve this crime. What's one financial lesson you learned the hard way? I'll go first.

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either as a witness or as a suspect. And we've, we started putting circumstantial evidence together, leading us to believe that he was bridge guy. And then I think when I first believed it was when Steve Mullen and Tony Liggett interviewed him. And he basically described himself as bridge guy and being out there on the bridge. And at that point, I, I knew that he was bridge guy. And I knew that we were able to have eyewitnesses who said they saw a bridge guy. And, you know, you put all of those pieces of the puzzle together. And there was no doubt that he was out there and that he was the one on the video telling the girls kidnapping them,

telling them to go down the hill. And I think at that time, I believed it. But again, we were building the case and we weren't going to falsely arrest anybody. so we were putting together an establishing problem cause. And when he left and stopped cooperating and wouldn't allow us to look at his phone or get his DNA, we were able to apply and obtain a search warrant for his residence. And I think out there, my communication with him was odd. His behavior was odd.

And when he, him and I had minimal discussions, but I told him, hey, we're not here to tear your house up for, you know, break any locks, but if we need your cooperation, will you assist us so we don't do that? And he made multiple comments of, it doesn't matter, it's over. He made that comment multiple times out there when we served the search warrant. And I just thought that was odd and just putting all of it together. And then finding the items that we found and sending them to the lab and getting the results back that indicated that the round that we found on February the 14th,

between Abby and Libby, closest to Libby, matched his gun. And he couldn't explain that. So putting all that together in the video of his car and all the circumstantial evidence with the witness statements, I knew he had the right guy. That was one of the big things you testified on was were the conversations you had with him while his house was being searched. was a moment. You just mentioned it. So he stated to you, and I want to understand this, he stated to you, it doesn't matter anyway. Or can you take me back to what he was saying to you? Because this was a really important part, in my opinion, of your testimony on the stand of

conversations you had with him during the search of his house. Sure. So as a supervisor, I did a walk through with the crime scene investigator and they take pictures before they start to search that way if we are accused of you know destroying a property we'll have that on on pictures of it before we started and after we we also go back and take pictures after and during the search so i did a walkthrough and i told richard allen i was going to do a walk through and why and that if we did destroy anything it wasn't going to be on purpose in that there's a process. We have a torque claim that he can fill out if we do destroy any of this property. And he made the comment. And I'd have to look at my report to see exactly what he said,

but he said, it doesn't matter. It's over anyway. And I didn't dig into it at the time. I just noted it. And I put it in my report. But he made that several times. He, at some point, he sat in the car with me when his wife needed to use the restroom. She went to her place of employment. And he asked if he gets set in the car with me. And He asked me, did you guys detain or did you arrest my wife? And I said, no, why? He said, well, she'd been gone for a long time. And I said, well, I could take you out to where she works if you want me to go find her.

And he said it again, no, it doesn't matter. It's over anyway. And he said it a few times. And then in my interview, I asked him what he meant by it. He just said, well, you've talked to these people. And they all think I'm guilty. And, you know, my life's over anyway. And, you know, that's just weird to me that an innocent person would say that.

I think only guilty people would think that. We searched many people's houses and they never said, you know, it's over. They said, go ahead, search. I didn't do it. You're not going to find anything. So it was just odd to me that he would say that multiple times. Of course, the other really interesting part of your testimony in court, and maybe this is actually why in my brain,

I envision you testify more than even twice, as you said, is because we watched multiple times the interrogation that you did of Richard Allen, two separate interrogations, and one in which led to the arrest of Richard Allen. And, you know, nobody else, the public has not seen those. It was interesting. I think I might have been one that after I watched it first time in court,

I might have joked and maybe said you kind of maybe thought you were on an episode of CSI or something. You were really, you were really into it and passionate. And the language that was used was really intense. A lot of F bombs, a lot of all this. But take me, can you take me back there? Because it was also edited it. Like we didn't see the whole thing. We saw the majority of it.

But all of a sudden it went from like a bit of calmness to you just sort of really yelling at him. and, you know, telling him he did it. Can you take us through this interrogation? I hope that the public is able to see it one day. But, you know, what were your tactics and what were you feeling and thinking during this interrogation? Well, again, it wasn't meant to be an interrogation. We actually hadn't set up the time for him to come in

and we planned on giving him his car back. But we wanted to talk about some of the results of the tests that we had, one being the tool marks on the round that was found matched his gun. And then also we were still testing other items, and we wanted to know if he had lent any other items out or anything like that. What was weird to me is we actually scheduled that interview a few days before, but he canceled. And then when he came, when I went out to the law,

lobby to get him. He was with his wife. And just the way he was dressed to me was odd. He was wearing like sweatpants and a t-shirt or believe her. And he took his coat off and he gave, he emptied his pockets. I think he may have like a lighter and some cigarettes or something, maybe a wallet. I can't remember exactly. But he emptied his pockets and gave those items to his wife, which most people don't do that. I have had people that I've interviewed in the past and said, Hey, I'm going to turn this report over to the prosecutor. And if he decides to issue a warrant, can I call you and you meet me and turn yourself in?

And they said, yeah, sure. And when I would call them, that's how they would show up because I think it's common knowledge that you can't bring personal items into the jail and more than likely they're going to throw them away or lose them. So to me, from as soon as I. engaged with him in the lobby, it was like he thought I was going to arrest him. And at that time, our intentions was just to try to clear up some things and get some explanations for some of the test results that we had and collect his DNA and do do some other things. But our intentions

weren't to arrest him that day. We were trying to give him the opportunity to explain what's going on. So that was odd. And then during the interview, you know, the first, the majority of the interview, we were both calm. He did started, he started cussing at me. I'd normally, um, treat people as they treat me. So if you're not cursing, I'm not going to curse, but if you start cursing, then I'm going to speak your language. And he had dropped the F bomb a couple times. And, um, I did not. I was giving him the, you know, benefit of the doubt that, you know, I was accusing him of killing two people. And, uh, but he just, he made some odd comments and things like that. To me, I made the comment that he said he cared what people thought about him.

And I said, yeah, I understand that. And, you know, your wife doesn't think you're a bad person. I don't think you're a bad person. And he made a comment, what kind of good person kills two girls? That was odd to me. I allowed him a couple, a break, actually a smoke break and a bathroom break. And gave him a couple waters, maybe one or two. and everything that, you know, we normally do in an extended interview.

And I also ask him if he would like to talk to his wife because she was telling us some things that wasn't adding up. And he said, yeah. So I allowed him to talk to his wife. And it was very odd when she come in, in my opinion, I observed it. She was very standoffish. She didn't act like she wanted to be there. She was upset.

She asked him why, why you didn't tell him? tell me you were on the bridge that day and they had a conversation about some things. He tried to hug her and she was just very standoffish with him. So that was odd behavior. And then, yeah, some things are edited out because they may be too prejudicial for the jury to hear. And the things that were edited out was I offered him a polygraph. And you can't say that because of someone, um, denied or refuses to take a polygraph, that's too prejudicial to present to the jury.

And I understand that. And, you know, that's why those things were edited out. That's the only thing that was edited out. So he denied. Yeah, he refused multiple times. And why his wife was in there, I asked her, I said, if you're innocent, would you take a polygraph? And she said, yes. And I said, well, I've offered Richard to take this polygraph multiple times and he refuses to do it. And he got angry with me then and asked started cussing and then I started cussing and said, you know, if you're innocent, take the eff and polygraph and things like that. And then he asked for me to let his wife go. And I said, sure, you can go.

And I said, you know, tell him to do the right thing. And then when I really got angry, is when he, he said that you're going to pay for this. And I said, no, it's not on me, Richard Allen. This is on you. I'm not going to pay for this. you're going to pay for that. And, you know, I only raised my voice and curse for maybe a total of 30, maybe 30, 40 seconds.

The rest of time I was calm just like this. Okay. But I did use some deceptive tactics that were trained to use. And, you know, some people call them lies. I call them deceptive tactics, interview techniques, where I over embellished. some facts like you know we have eyewitnesses that saw you out there where they did they saw bridge guy they identified bridge guy and we were able to identify bridge guy as being Richard Allen we had the evidence of his car we had multiple police officers saying that's him on the video

and that's his voice um and you know i over embellished some of those facts and said it was experts and and things like that but it's it's just techniques that we use that people would use when they're trying to get their kids to tell the truth if they take a cookie out of the cookie jar. I mean, it's simple tactics that we use to try to elicit a response, not necessarily a confession, but just a response that we can build on. And at the end of it, we were both calm. I drove him to the Carroll County Sheriff's Department. We had no interaction at all. Definitely no heated interactions. But, and that was pretty much it. Thank you for explaining that. You know, that interrogation was the talk of those that were sitting in the gallery in court. And I want to say, well, I thought, oh my gosh, that was really intense. Now that I understand some of the edits, it makes a little bit more sense to me. But although I was

one that was like, man, like, they definitely didn't edit you yelling at him. I want you to know that someone else in court was sitting there saying, no, like, I thought it was great. I thought he did such a great job. So like we were all discussing, sharing what we thought about this interrogation. But I want to point out one thing I noticed and you brought it up too was when was when his wife came in. When Kathy Allen came in, I actually thought that was really interesting. My take on that was and you weren't part of this. You guys were, I guess, as you point out, watching, I felt he was really manipulative to his wife in that room where he said, he said, you know I wouldn't have done this. You know that I'm not capable of this. And she wasn't

hugging him. You're right. She was standoffish. And she was sort of like almost she wasn't sold. And he was like, you know I wouldn't do this. You know me, Kathy. You know me. And then to hear, you know, yeah, that she stated was one that she didn't even know he was at the bridge that day. During the sentencing, which just happened six days ago, actually. That was when this gag order was lifted and why we're able to talk right now, you were called to the stand six days ago. And you mentioned that he was manipulative to his wife and family. And you even mentioned specifically religion. That was a moment for me because, as I'm explaining to you, I saw some manipulation

of him that wasn't really addressed, but it's just something I noticed in this interrogation. What did you mean when you shared six days ago at a statement? sentencing that you felt he manipulated his family. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere.

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Start your free trial today atora.com slash remove. Protect yourself now at aura.com slash remove. And those around him. I think that would have been after, you know, the arrest was made, his phone conversations and his conversations with corrections officers, I believe I stated that I felt he used religion to manipulate his mother, wife, and corrections officers to get what he wanted. And maybe not just religion, but I think he manipulated. manipulated them by behavior or his actions that he was doing at the correction facility to get what he wanted.

He broke his iPad. He wanted a new one. He wanted, you know, he didn't like his living conditions. He wanted to be moved. He wanted in person visits with his wife. And I think he was being manipulative saying those things and using. at some point using religion in his Bible to try to convince people that, you know, he found God. And I hope he did. I hope he did. I hope he confesses to all the sins and I hope he's forgiven for those

sins. And I just have a hard time believing that. And I think that he is definitely manipulative and persuasive and selfish. And that's kind of what I meant by those comments. Okay. Thank you for explaining that. Thank you. Yeah, that was, was there any reaction of Kathy after that arrest, by the way? That's something, of course, we didn't see. You know, I saw her reaction in that room, sort of standoffish to her husband. But does she have any reaction during the arrest or anything you remember? Well, I wasn't with her, but what I was told was she was upset. and maybe even began to hyperventilate a little bit.

And they did talk to her several minutes, if not hours, after I took Mr. Allen to Carroll County. So, but yeah, I think probably shocked. I mean, I believe that when this happens, initial shock probably is something that occurs. For give a little break there, just so everyone knows, we were getting some feedback echo on my end. So I put my earphones on and we will continue. We were talking about a reaction of Kathy Allen when Richard Allen was arrested that we didn't know about. And thank you for sharing that. I want to also reiterate that she too is a victim in this and I don't want to blame her in any way. It was actually heartbreaking for me to see her in court every day sitting there. You know, one thing about the interrogation, too, the defense brought up after, as you say, the interview that turned into an interrogation on accident or the accidental interrogation the day he was arrested. They brought up that his Miranda rights had not been recorded, that they had been given to him, but they didn't make the recording. There was a lot of talk about recordings. recordings being missing or interviews being missing,

which I think, let's just be honest, led to a lot of theories about you and law enforcement and cover-up. Can you talk about this and what happened with missing recordings? Ashley's President's Day sale is going on now. For a limited time, field of freedom to shop incredible hot buys. Your style, your choice, all at an unfeatable price. Plus, pay over time with up to 60 months. special financing.

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I mean, I think you were at the trial. You even saw we had this brand new smart TV that Prosecutor McLean was ready to throw out the third floor window, second floor, whichever floor we were on. That's true. We would practice that thing the day before playing videos and even on break to make sure it would work. And then when the jury would come back, we'd hit play and nothing would happen.

So technology is great when it works. I can tell you that nothing, none of the errors or technical difficulties that we had were intentional. To speak on mine with, we had multiple. in this case and we have multiple technical difficulties in all of our investigations. But in this one, I thought we checked the recording system before Richard Allen showed up. It was working fine. We started it during the interview and our plan was they were going to email me.

So I have my laptop in the interview room with me if they had any questions or they needed me. And I didn't see the email, but they emailed me and said, hey, the recording's not working. working they came and got me. I stepped out of the room and I said, it looks like it's working now. And they said, well, we don't know. Go back in there. I went back in there and started interviewing. There is a delay. There's like a, it's a long delay. We tried to fix it the other day because of safety reasons. You know, it's probably a 20, 30 second delay. So you'll say something. You don't hear it on the recording the monitor until 20, 30 seconds later.

So I went back in and started the interview. But yeah, before I did not officially read him as Miranda rights because he was not in custody. I basically told him that he was free to go. We were here to discuss the items that we took and some of the items that we were going to return and some of the test results. And I told, I asked him, do you remember being interviewed a couple days ago by Investigator Mullen and Detective Liggett? He said, yes. I said, so you're aware of your Miranda warnings? And he said, yeah, I said, that door's not locked.

You're free to go. at any time. You're free to stop answering questions. So I didn't officially read him Miranda warnings, but I made sure that he was aware. And yeah, unfortunately, that was not caught on the recording system. It was not intentionally done. I'm not even intelligent enough to know how to delete interviews like that. I wouldn't even know where to start. So that was that case. There was another one that wasn't brought up where I interviewed a couple people up in the Department of corrections. Some prisoners that heard some comments. I went there. Same recording device is called I record. So the prison's very sketchy about even police officers bringing in any any additional

items. I don't want you to bring your cell phone or digital recorder. So I asked him, can I bring my digital recorder? And they said, no, we got recording device. So I interviewed three or four people at the Department of Corrections. And after the interviews were over, they were going to download it on a thumb drive for me and it didn't work. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me. So I called the two or three of the prisoners were still out there in the waiting area. So I called him back and got a digital record and re-interviewed them. So it happened again.

And at that time, the other prisoner went back and they were having a hard time located. He was actually with some services and he wasn't where in his room or. wherever they held him at. And they actually put the prison on lockdown. I said, I'll come back. And they said, no, you can't leave. We're on lockdown until we find him. And they weren't concerned about it.

They knew he was probably out of an appointment. They just took him a while, but they located it. But yeah, we had technical difficulties even up there. And then the ones that were referred to in court about that at the Delphi City, I can tell you, without a doubt that Steve Mullen did not intentionally. erase or lose any audio videotape statements. What happened was the system they have, it's either a key or switch outside the recording interview room,

and you turn that on, and usually most of them a green light comes on, and you know that somebody's in their recording. And then when you're done, you turn it off and there's a red light. Well, whoever went in there accidentally left to switch on, So it just rewrote over multiple interviews early on. And we weren't aware of that until, you know, weeks or months into the investigation. Once we found out that happened, we owned it. And we attempted to go back and locate the people that were interviewed.

And if the investigator or detective did not memorialize that in the written report, then we would try to locate the people and re-interview them and make sure that we had that on an audio videotape. or memorialized in the report. And then later on, at the other place that we had, our command center, the old RMC building, we had made several interviews there. And at some point, the audio quit working. We didn't know it until a few months or a few weeks or when people started listening

to them and trying to put things together. And as long as the officer memorialized what was, said in the report. Some people maybe felt comfortable going back and re-interviewing, and some of them were comfortable with the memorialized information in the report. So we were able to correct most of those mistakes with the audio video. And none of it pertained towards Richard Allen. None of those mistakes were, except for the ones at DOC were about Richard Allen's comments, but the early on mistakes, call mistakes, I call them technical difficulties.

But I'm telling you, if anybody knows, Steve Mullen, he's the most honest guy I've ever met. I've known him for years. When I first came on in 2001, he was a deputy, and he was so calm, cool, honest, and I enjoyed working with him. I didn't work with him a lot on the road. But if I ever got a call and Steve Mollum was there,

I knew it was going to go smooth. And I had no issues about him at all. And then we became the chief, and he's just an honest guy. And I know he feels bad, but he had no control of it. That's just things that we can't control when technology doesn't work our way. It hurts, but it's nothing that we did intentionally. We're not withholding any information or any interviews that we did. It just happened.

And it's unfortunate, but it happens in every investigation. Okay. Well, thank you for explaining that. While we're on the topic, then let me jump into, you know, Mullins was a concern. but let me jump into Sheriff Ligott. He was running for sheriff at the time Richard Allen became a suspect and was arrested. There's a lot of talk.

I mean, I admit that like the timing of that does not look good. You know, there's a lot of conspiracy theory about wanting to win an election. And I know that you're not Sheriff Liggett, but anything you can say there about that. Yeah, I think that's ridiculous. and very appalling to everybody involved because I'm not corrupt. I'm not a liar.

I'm a lot of things. I've been accused of a lot of things, and I am a lot of things. I'm not perfect, but I can tell you that I would not jeopardize my career and nor would Tony Liggett ask me to jeopardize my career to do something like this. And first of all, so now you've got to go back and say we purposely hid that tip before Sheriff Liggett

was going to run for sheriff. He had no intention to run. him for sheriff when this when this investigated investigation started in 2017 to my knowledge maybe in his mind that was a dream of his someday but he he he never said hey i'm gonna run for sheriff in four to eight years or whatever so so then now i mean now you got to come up with these ridiculous outrageous conspiracy theories and everybody involved is very passionate about their job so now the public wants us to stop the investigation, wait until Tony wins or loses, and then arrest the guy that we believe killed them. We found the information. We acted on it as best we could. And within a couple weeks, we made an arrest. Had nothing to do with an election. I mean, that is a Republican county. And people saying, oh, he was losing. He was Republican running against an independent or Democrat. That's a, that's a very Republican county. And in my opinion, I don't know, because I'm not into politics.

the Republican was going to win that election, whether, whether, you know, we found this tip and arrested Richard Allen or not. So I think that's, it's just appalling to everybody involved in anybody that believes that. That's just ridiculous to me. I mean, you can't make that up. That would, that would take a lot of time, effort, and resources clear back in 2017 to, to stage an election in 2022. too, ridiculous. It's just ridiculous to me. Yeah. Thank you for letting me talk about that. And thank you

for your transparency also during this interview. I want to say that a big issue with this case, I think is the lack of transparency. Yeah, I have to admit, I feel like you're being very transparent before this interview. You said, I have nothing to hide. The gag order has been lifted. Can you talk to us about that? Because I feel like a lot of these things that we are discussing today have to do with a lack of transparency or theories about this case running rampant. Anything you want to speak to about that? Transparency comes up a lot. And I believe in transparency.

As you can see, I'm going to be honest with you. And I'm not going to voice anybody, any other people's opinions on these. This is just mine. But transparency is key. but we often get put in between a rock and a hard place when it comes to protecting the integrity of the investigation. I think we thought long and hard about what information we could release. The state police has policies and procedures that we follow. And we also don't want information out there that the killer and only the killer knows.

That helps us solve cases. So, and then the gag order was in place. So then we can't defend ourselves or talk about the issues that people want. But, you know, I think that the public is unrealistic thinking that investigators are going to talk about every step of the investigation in the public while the investigation or trial is still going on. I just think that's totally unrealistic. What I think is realistic is what we did. We gave information. the media that we thought would help us identify who the killer was.

And those were very strategic. And we don't like to talk about investigated strategies because we don't necessarily want the public to know what we can and can't do to find out who committed the crime. Because if everybody knows that we can do this or that, then they're going to stop doing that. Obviously, people know about DNA and fingerprints, so they wear clothes. or protective equipment to not allow that. And everybody knows that technology allows us to look at cell phones. So now people leave their cell phones at home. So if we talk about all the investigative strategies and every piece of evidence that we have,

that would violate the integrity of the investigation of making it much harder for us to solve crimes. So I wish we could tell everything. And even now, I don't think. the public is ever going to know everything about this investigation. I wish they could. I wish everybody could come out. You know, not a lot of people are going to want to talk because everything I say today is going to get twisted by the defense and they're going to say, oh, look, he said this. What he really meant was this. So a lot of people are afraid to talk. I'm not. I have nothing to hide. And I want the truth to come out. And the truth is we did a very thorough investigation. We

established probable cause and the rest of the right person. for this crime. But transparency is key. But again, we get put in between a rock and a hard place and we can only do so much. I hear you. I appreciate you and your transparency. I feel like you have very much been transparent. You know, you mentioned that I didn't know that.

That Richard Allen had declined a polygraph. multiple times, but you couldn't share that in court because it was prejudicial. And that makes sense. You can't let the jury know about that. There are a couple other things I know about that weren't you guys weren't able to, or the prosecution, I should say, wasn't able to share during the trial. One of them being a video of Richard Allen, being angry in a video. Can you share what that video was and why the prosecution might have wanted to?

share that video or anything else that you weren't able to share in court. That polygraph bit is interesting. Yeah, there is probably a few things, but I don't know the trial rules and like I should. I'm not an attorney. I know the criminal law and traffic law and investigative techniques and strategies, but when it comes to the trial rules, I learned a lot. I joke around with prosecutor McLean saying I'm a apprentice attorney because I've learned so much about what you can do and can't do. And because I was like, why don't we say this?

You can't. That's too prejudicial. And I understand that. And I respect the judge for her decision, although I was angry that we couldn't play that video. I think the reason that we wanted to play it, and again, I'm not the prosecutor. But the reason I thought we wanted to play that videos because they were. trying to make him out is, I think, the term they used a fragile egg. And he's not. And we thought he was faking some of those actions.

So during this video at Cass County, where he had, he probably had three or four incidents while he was at Cass County. And the one was, he became very abusive verbally. He was sitting on his cot and reading the Bible and he just broke out. I had an outburst, started yelling and screaming, made a throat-slashing motion, and started threatening to kill everybody and started banging his head on the wall, punching. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet.

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and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a VPN. ORA gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at ORA.com slash remove. Protect yourself now atora.com slash remove. The door and within seconds, I mean, you just turned into this violent, human being. And I think that showed that he has that ability to lose his temper and become a

monster. And then within seconds, he'd come back down, sat on the bed and said, no, I'm fine. They wanted to take him to the padded cell. And he was just able to control it like that. And I think that, in my opinion, is he got angry at the bottom of the hill on February 13th. The girl said or did something or something happened and he's capable of doing that. He's capable of losing his control and in coming into and being that beast that he that he that he is that day and killing two innocent teenage girls. So I think that was kind of important. But again, the judge ruled against it.

It was too prejudicial and I believe that she made the right decision. Although I don't understand it sometimes, I think we should put everything out there. you know, same thing. You know, I'm sure the defense thinks, you know, why couldn't we put the odinism in? Well, the judge ruled the Indiana statute clearly states that you have to establish a direct criminal nexus with a third party defense. And they couldn't do that. They had three days to do it.

They couldn't do it. And we knew that because, again, we spent months trying to tie those people to the crime. and they're just not any evidence or facts that tie them into it. So that's another decision that she made. And I think that those are the reasons why, and she followed the law on those decisions, whether we like it or not, is probably the right thing to do.

Without a doubt, it's the right thing to do. There was no nexus. There was no probable cause. In other words, so you could have add that third party to the, that third party sort of theory to, You just can't say Lauren did it. You know, I didn't do it.

Lauren did it. They have to have a direct criminal nexus or connection to the crime scene. And the only person that had that connection was Richard Allen. Nobody else. So that's why they didn't allow it. That's my opinion. Again, I'm not an attorney or definitely not a judge. But that's how it was explained to me.

And not having that third party theory was technically, a loss, I guess, for the defense, you could say, who wanted that in. You know, they wrote their Franks memo. But I want to point out, too, that the prosecution not being able to put in that moment of Richard Allen raging and doing this with his hand gesture, that was a win for the defense. And sometimes I think that there was also the idea because there was no video and audio in court. I want to say this. I felt I saw judge goal rule a lot for both sides.

for the defense and for the prosecution, I think that what she was working towards was a clean trial, in other words. Yeah, I think early on in one of the hearings she stated, you know, I don't exactly remember how she said, but they were talking about she didn't know the facts and

she made a comment to, I don't need to know the facts. I'm the referee. I'm just a referee, basically. I just need to know is what you're wanting fair and legally obtainable. If not, then I'm not going to allow it. And I thought she did a great job. Again, I've worked a lot of trials. And I think, you know, she was very firm but fair.

In my opinion, I think most judges are because they're going to be scrutinized in every decision that they made as well. And she knows that. And so I think she took all. that under consideration and made the correct decisions to the best for her ability. I have just so many questions for you. You know, you mentioned a bit about a theory of what happened that perhaps one of the girls said something and it put Richard Allen into a rage. Do you personally have any theories on what happened that day on February 13th, 2017, when Abby and Libby lost their lives?

Can you take us to what you think happened that day? Well, I think the evidence and the facts clearly indicate that they were out there, dropped off, you know, possibly to meet somebody or maybe just to go out there and enjoy a nice unseasonably warm day. And in Richard's own words, he laid him weight. He stalked them. He kidnapped them. by telling them to go down the hill by pointing a gun at them. I believe he was going to sexually assault them at the bottom of that hill underneath the trestle.

My theory is that he probably commanded them to get naked and was going to do some sort of sexually gratifying acts there. But the van driven by Mr. Weber spooked him. He probably heard it. I mean, that's a long lane. You can hear it before it gets right up there. You can. I've heard it.

Yeah. So I think that he then took him across that frigid creek and was being selfish and was a coward. I think he treated them like animals. And again, that's where my anger comes into how one human being could treat two other human beings that way. I think that he was selfish and thought that they were going to, turn him in that he failed to kidnap him. He failed to gratify himself sexually. And he slit their throats, put sticks on him, and how he can go on and live his life. I don't

know. I'm not a psychologist. But he did. And I think there's a lot of other theories, but that's what the facts and the evidence clearly indicates happen. So that's what I believe happened. And it's very unfortunate, very unfortunate. Didn't need to happen. From what I could tell and learn and understand, it seemed as if there was some, let's say, overkill with Libby. Do you feel that too?

Because you're law enforcement, not me. And so this is me sitting in court. What was that about it? What are your feelings on that as law enforcement? My best theory on that is she was probably bigger, stronger, maybe a little harder to control. And that's my only explanation with that. I don't know what was going through his mind. But to me, that would be the logical answer is she was probably a little bit physically stronger.

Abby wasn't near as big and developed yet. She's still young. But I don't know. I mean, only three people know, and two, unfortunately, are deceased, and the other one doesn't want to take responsibility for his actions. So I don't know if we'll ever know. One thing you mentioned is why they were there. They were dropped off because they either wanted to enjoy a seasonally warm day, or you mentioned that they might have wanted to meet somebody there. What did you mean by that? Yeah, I mean, there's been a lot of speculation about Kagan Klein and the Anthony Schott's account

that we know that Anthony Schatz was communicating with Libby and some of our friends. We don't know for sure if that's why they were going out there or not. Unfortunately, with Snapchat and Kick and musically and some of those apps that people use to communicate, we can tell people are communicating, but sometimes we can't tell the content. But it wouldn't surprise me if maybe they thought somebody was going to be out there or maybe a friend or something like that. So that's what I meant by that. Do you think it could have been Keegan?

Do you think maybe they were perhaps wanting to meet Keegan or a cute boy at the trail? Possibility that Anthony shots, they thought might be out there who obviously was a fake persona that Kagan was using. I don't think Kagan was out there. I mean, again, evidence indicates that he was not. that day and time. So if there's evidence that would have proved that, then he would be in prison for that as well. I mean, obviously he's in prison for being the child predator that he is, but, you know,

we would not withhold that. If we had probable cause to believe that he was involved in this, then we would definitely file charges. And if any evidence comes up that he was, and then we would pursue that. And we would write a report up, give it to the prosecutor. And he would determine whether or not that that would be the case. You know, I do want to go back to odinism really quickly because odinism became a very, very big deal when the Franks memo, the defense wrote their, their, Franks memo discussing their defense, which again was that this was an odonistic. ritualistic killing. You've mentioned that this was something that had been investigated, you know, by law enforcement, there was no evidence, there was no nexus, there was no probable cause,

but it became a really big deal once the defense presented this and the public caught a hold of this part of the investigation, as I guess you could say. Was this a way to get around the gag order? because you mentioned the gag order was to prevent parts of the investigation getting out. And I genuinely don't know. I'm genuinely asking. And so that's one question I have. And then I'm going to maybe the reason I'm asking it. And you can answer that maybe the reason I'm asking it too is because there was talk at the press conference about the defense, not adhering to this gag order.

So I guess this is a two-part question. Is that part of it? Yes or no? And how did the defense negate the gag order if that's true? I believe the easy answer would be yes. I think that it was obvious to me from day one that they wanted to try this in the media. They wanted to plant seeds of doubt to potential jurors. and then when the gag order was instated,

I think that, again, I don't know exactly why, but it appeared to me that in all their motions, that they were directing those to the media and social media, hoping that they could get those outrageous conspiracy theories out there that someone might believe and might someday be a potential. potential juror. That's my opinion. It seemed like all their motions, first of all, had a lot of over embellished facts and lies about us. And I thought that was wrong. I thought that was a very unethical strategy that they used. And I think that they continue to do that through

all the hearings and all the, with all the motions. And I think they continued even when the trial started by still continuing to communicate with some media and social media outlets. It disappeared to me. I didn't watch the news. I very rarely watched the news, but I purposely did not watch the news during the trial. And I don't watch podcasts. Sorry, YouTubers and content creators will hate me for this, but I don't, I don't watch them. I didn't even know they existed until after this case started shortly after 2017.

Tadda, here we are. Here you are. And, but I have friends and family members that watch it. And during the trial, they would call and check on me. Are you okay? Yeah, I'm sitting in there watching. You sat in there. I thought everything was going well.

It is like a roller coaster ride. You have good days, bad days. The judge rules on things. And you think, okay, good. And some of the jury questions, you're like, okay, they're very in tune. They're asking the right questions. I think we're doing well. But then what the media and some of the social media outlets were reporting was one-sided.

And that's that's what I was getting from family members and friends are like, it's not looking good. I said, no, we're doing good. The facts and the truth is coming out. And the jury's going to see everything. So, and I can't explain why, but I'm only assuming that they were trying to get their narrative out by pushing some of that. And again, I think that's that's not right. And I think that not all, but some media outlets were biased towards the defense and some social media outlets are biased towards the defense. And there's probably some that are biased towards prosecution. And I think as a reporter, I'm not a journalist. But I think most media, mainstream media outlets need to stay down the middle and non-bias. 100%. 100%. And I think there's really no,

regulations on the social media and the YouTubers and the content creators so they can get away with it more. I think some of the mainstream media and those journalists have to stay more focused and more towards the middle. And I just think that that strategy that they used was to mean not right. That's really interesting to hear your perspective of that. I want to tell you a couple things I heard during the trial. A national producer said to me that she was talking to Rosie and Rosie said, YouTubers are a part of our job and they always will be. In other words, working with YouTubers, I saw Oge, the defense attorney, walk up to a YouTuber in court and pass her a sticky note that said something and then she walked back and smiled at her. I don't know

what it said if it was important or not, but it was an interesting relationship to observe. I'm just pointing out some interesting dynamics, though, in what I observed as far as certain, you're right, social media, as you explain, or podcasts that maybe don't have as many regulations sort of working for certain sides. It was interesting to me. It was interesting to me to say the least. And it is interesting, and I would add to this is the main reason I'm talking to you and other podcasters or YouTubers or content creators. And I don't even know if I know the difference between. That's all the same.

You got a lot. You nailed it. Yeah. But the reason I want the truth out there. And it's very harmful to the community for some of that false information. to be out there. We get death threats all the time. And that's fine. Threaten me, but not my family. I won't talk about my family. I have a great family. I have a wonderful wife, three children. I will never say their names. They're all married and I have seven grandkids. I will never say

their names because I don't want them harassed and they have been. And, and, but more importantly, the victims families, leave them alone. Stop putting those disgusting photographs. that were leaked by whoever, however you want to put it. I'm not here to debate that. But what I am here to debate is if that was your loved ones, you would not want those photos out there on the internet for, like Becky Patty said, generational effects. Libby's nieces and nephews and they're going to have to see that.

And we're going to have to explain that someday. And that doesn't prove anything. Those photos don't prove anything. And I think that's where the hate needs to stop. There's, you know, they think it's funny when they post my head on Shrek or say bad things about me and accuse me of all this stuff, which is just, it's just not true. I have broad shoulders and thick skin. Come after me all you want, but leave family members and community members alone. And I think a lot, like I said earlier, Lauren, a lot of people don't want to talk.

to anybody about this because of the threats that we've that we've gotten through emails and people getting our cell phone numbers and family member's cell phone numbers. And, you know, I just, I just hope that that stops sooner than later. Yeah. I was threatened too. I was threatened. They said show up at the courthouse. Yeah, show up at the courthouse. My husband's a home, seeing the emails coming in going, what is going on? Are you okay? And like, you know, being very, very worried. You said that you, you know, you don't know how the crime scene photos got out. You don't want to blame anyone.

But I am going to point something out that in the victim impact statements by both Mike Patty and Becky Patty, they, they blamed the defense. And they were upset that Richard Allen's counsel were so careless with the photos in their offices that that that. that somebody got a hold of them, took the photos of these crime scene photos, and put them on the internet. And they brought up Rosie sharing something in October 2020. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers.

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online, and you can see those victim impact statements or listen to them. I read them verbatim on our channel and we'll have a link to that in the description of this video. Because I think the victim's voices are so important in this case. And so that's why I'm bringing this up too. This is what Rosie said. Rosie said Now we can Let me see So this is what he said

He said look I saw I mean I saw the pictures I know where those came from And if you know the point here is I'm going to say this maybe a little loosely But forgive me I don't care I don't care that all of this stuff is out there Because it's been out there for five or six years I don't have the time

He doesn't have the time Meaning Andrew Baldwin he doesn't have the time to sit and try to marshal all of this stuff while this case is ongoing because there's no end to it. But at this point, the point is the court needs to have some context that this is nothing new. That's what the victim impact statements were referring to when they said that somebody on the defense team didn't seem to care. And they asked if he would care if it was his children's photos. And while you point out, you're not putting blame, it wasn't Rosie that took the photos.

But it was the photos that the defense had possession of, that somebody took a photo of, that they were carelessly strewn. And so I just want to point that out because the victims stated that in their impact statements, and they wanted to share that. and they're hurt for generations and generations to come. And Judge Gull said herself that she hadn't considered the generational impact and that she was going to take that into consideration. I don't know if you have anything to say to that. It wasn't really a question, but I think I just wanted to share that here.

It's something I hadn't read Rosie's statement or what he said, and I don't know if you have anything to say to that. Well, I would say that it was, we had to, those photos from day one pretty much and none of those photos were released until after discovery. Now they accused us of leaking crime scene photos, but they were confused. There were some photos taken by citizens of the clothes in the creek that were released, but those were not from law enforcement. They were not crime scene photos. Once a crime scene was secured and photos were taken, none of those were released to the public.

Now, was there some information being leaked, the second, third hand? Absolutely, but not crime scene photos. And I think they should be held responsible for that. I do think that they should be responsible for securing those photos. And how all that happened is just, in my opinion, it was done intentionally. And I'll just leave it at that. And why do you think it was done intentionally? Again, same thing.

I think that some of the photos were not just of the girls, but they were of things that they thought would indicate that it was a ritualistic killing. Or, you know, one was the infamous blood spatter on the tree that they were trying to say was painted on there or purposely put on there. And it just wasn't. And they were trying to get opinions from the public to say that they thought that was what they were trying to portray it, be, which it wasn't. And I do believe that that's, again, they were trying to tape the jury pool. Mike Patty brought up in his victim impact statement that he didn't believe that the justice system consisted of lies being spread, that the forefathers who created our justice system

would be shocked and appalled that this was the American way. I'm paraphrasing what he said. I have his exact verbatim, again, victim impact statement. I don't, I don't want to you can hear it verbatim on, you know, again, in the description of this video here. But that's what, as I recall, he implied what, what lies? Was this one of the lies? What were the lies that you think Mike Patty was referring to? I would probably refer to the Franks memo. Most, most of the information in there was either over-embellished or lies about investigators. I think that that's what he was talking about in my opinion. I don't know for sure. I think that would be a fair assessment.

But yeah, I agree with him. I don't think the defense attorney's job is to lie about certain things about an investigation or make them up or over-embellish the facts. I think their job is to make sure that their client gets a fair and impartial hearing or trial. and I think they went above and beyond that and really attacked the character of everybody involved, including the family. You sat close to Richard Allen during the trial, and I've explained this to people on explaining it again.

Richard Allen, so the gallery was in the back. Richard Allen was in front of us, and he was looking directly at Judge Gull. So when Richard Allen turned to an angle, those in the gallery could see his eyes. If he was looking directly at Judge Gull, we couldn't. So we couldn't see everything. Judge Gould made mention of his eye rolling in court,

and that surprised a lot of us. I didn't see that, although somebody to the side in the gallery did say they saw it once. What were your, what did you notice about Richard Allen during this trial that we might have missed? Uh, you had some odd behavior, uh, the rolling of the eyes, some other reactions, you know, with his hands during some, uh, certain parts of the trial. Um, I observed him writing something on a sticky note, showing it to one of the attorneys and then grabbing it and eating it a couple times.

I thought that was very odd. Um, I was trying to focus more on the jury and, and the witnesses. We had very little reaction. He did speak to me a couple times. I gave him a bottle of water early on. They didn't have water yet. So I gave him one of my bottles of water that was on the table and maybe a couple of breath mints. And, you know, he is a human being. And I'm going to treat human beings like human beings should be treated. I think that he needs to take responsibility and for his actions and be punished for those actions. But he's still human. He dropped his glasses. I picked them up. I mean, very little interaction with him, but his behavior was what I would think. He was trying to stay emotionalless, but at times he was, I could see some emotion from him. What about one thing I noticed, and again, I was behind, you know, so I couldn't see everything. So I'm very curious about this, but when they were showing some of the most heartbreaking stuff on that smart TV, the crime scene photos, the autopsy photos, photos that honestly would create an audible gasp in the gallery.

They were so upsetting. From what I could tell, he was just looking at them the entire time, but I couldn't always see his expression. Can you share maybe, did you look at him during those moments when he was seeing some of these horrible things on the screen? Did he look?

Because I know there were times where I felt like he didn't look at things that had to do with him, but I was curious. I've been wanting to ask somebody that had a better view. Yeah, I don't recall it exactly, but there was times where he would just look to me like he was staring into space over the TV

when some of those were. Sometimes he would look away or look down, but I wasn't, again, focused on him. But yeah, I would say little to no emotion, whether he was, like I said, staring on. He stared into space a lot. It looked to me like at the, ceiling or at the wall or he or he would read read his Bible occasionally had a pocket

Bible and he would pull that out and read it sometimes but yeah I didn't notice a whole lot about him to be honest have you met or talked to any of the jurors can I ask you that no I have not I've never met him or talked to him and I don't know if anybody has I've never been told I would think that the prosecutor may have communicated with the foreman. That's what they're called, I think. Chairperson, but I don't know. I can't, I don't know of any involvement with anybody. No, they kept them pretty, pretty secure. They were in and out of the courtroom. normally after a trial the prosecution is allowed the investigators are allowed to go talk to the jury but yeah not in this case to my knowledge nobody's talked to them okay um i think i just want to end um did you know so so this recording everyone well while our our hidden gems will be watching this a couple of days later uh today the

date of this recording is December 27th, 2024, and it is actually a Libby Germans 22nd birthday today. And honestly, for me, it's heartbreaking to think about that she was a 14-year-old girl and she would be a woman today celebrating, as her mother said, and her victim and Pat Seema with her, they shared a birthday very close in days and that birthdays are now hard for her. You know, this really is, I think. that when I was at the trial, I often felt like sometimes the girls were forgotten or it wasn't about these two brave girls who, as you pointed out, they helped solve their own murder, Abby and Libby, as the prosecution explained, Abby, you know, hid that phone. Libby took the video.

Anything you want to say to the surviving victims today or anything that you think about Abby and Libby today. Yeah, I mean, I would say that the most important part of this interview is what I have to say next. And you could probably delete all the other stuff because I don't care about that. I care about justice for Abby and Libby. Although I don't think the family's ever going to get closure. There's always going to be two huge holes in everybody's hearts that knew them and involved in this investigation. But it's all about them. It's all about them. And that's the most important thing. It's not about me. It's not about the prosecutor. or not about anybody involved, the expert witnesses, or even the defense.

It should be about justice for Abby and Libby. And I think, obviously, I did not know the two girls before this. But I believe just from what I've learned over the last seven years and ten months, I think they were going to do great things. I think they were going to go on to be great people and hopefully help us solve Christ. as they did on February 13th of 2017. I think they were great. I think they're their true heroes.

I hate when people call me a hero. I'm not a hero. They are. They're the heroes in this case. And I just, I'll always hold a special place in my heart for those two girls and their families. And I've said this before. Hard for me to say without getting emotional.

But I hope someday I meet them in heaven. and I'm able to give them a hug and thank them for making me a better person, a better father, a better husband, a better grandfather, a better investigator, everything that I've experienced through this investigation is making me a better person, and I owe that to have you. Thank you. I don't think anything else needs to be said. We'll end on that. And I just want to thank you for your time, Lieutenant.

And it really does mean a lot that you would come forward and show transparency. and honesty that you say you value, you show it too. And so for that, I thank you. Your old or broken phone can let you down. But at Verizon, trade in any old phone from our top brands and get iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence

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