RedHanded - Episode 272 - The Delphi Murders: In Plain Sight - Part 1

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

On 14 February 2017, the bodies of 13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German were found in the woods in Delphi, Indiana. Libby’s phone was discovered not far from the crime scene, and the videos she  had recorded on it quickly made this case one of the most infamous of recent decades… Sources: redhandedpodcast.com  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get Hello. A quick word about this case before we get started today. Since we research wrote and recorded this episode, a whole host of brand new developments have come to light in the Delphi murders case. This episode is still completely relevant as it focuses on laying out the background of the case itself.

Part two that will be coming out next week is currently undergoing a bit of a rewrite to reflect the latest information and vitally the press conference that Indiana State Police delivered on the 31st of October 2022 in which they named a man that they have officially arrested in connection to the murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German. So next week our episode will focus on the timeline of the investigation over the past five years, the various suspects and the latest arrest and how it might all be connected. So let's get into it. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed.

Otherwise known as Back to Back Panic Attack. We are flying to Dublin tomorrow morning to kick off our first ever European continental tour. We are indeed. But do you know what the funny thing is? What? This episode will be going out on the first day we are back in the office after the tour is over. Oh wow, so we will have done it. We'll have done it. I've already got the nervy

wheeze. Oh. More updates on the tour when we're back, which will be today. That's madness. It is madness. Do you know what else is madness, Hannah? This fucking case. It's not your best, but look. I'm back to back panic attack, very tired.

I came to work today and I was on the tube and I looked down and I was like, what is that? Like stuck to my back. And it's because I had my trousers on inside out. And the white like clothes label was just hanging out, flapping about on the tube. And I was like, oh my God, fucking hell. And I just had to stand there and take it like a mug. Yeah, my car is in the garage. And like, obviously, I don't know much about cars. So the standard thing they will do is be like, everything is wrong with your car because they don't

think you know any better. I don't know any better. But I was literally like, I'm not going to argue with you, garage man. Take my money. Just fix the fucking car. No, I wouldn't be able to argue with him either. But if we want to talk about back to back panic attack, this case is also that. Yeah. And we're going to get into it now because it's a lot. And I am now obsessed with this case. So welcome to my brain.

It's her personality now. It is. It is all I think about. Imagine a double child homicide in small town USA, where we have a video of the killer, audio of the killer's voice speaking to his victims right before their deaths. We have an exact time of when and where the killer met his victims that day, and a narrow window of just an hour within which the victims were killed. We also know exactly where both children died, and we have their bodies, reportedly with foreign DNA.

We even have eyewitnesses who claim to have spotted the killer shortly before and after, and a whole host of other evidence that's never been made public. But, still, five years on, no one has ever been arrested, let alone charged for the murders. Now, if any of that sounds familiar to you, or you've, you know, read the copy, you know that today we are, of course, talking about the Delphi case and the murders of 14-year-old Liberty German and 13-year-old Abigail Williams. This is a huge case.

I mean, seriously, over the last week, two weeks, however long I've been working on this case, I have been drowning in information. Often we come across cases where there's not enough information. Here, there is infinitely too much. And I have been doing my very best to trawl through all of it. I spent Monday this week reading a 200-page police transcript with the most annoying man on the face of the planet. We will get to that next week.

But for today, all you need to know is that for us to make sense of this case and also to do this case justice, it's going to have to be a two-parter. Delphi, Indiana is a small Midwestern town with a population of around 3,000 residents. People from there call it Delphi. You can call it Delphi if you want to be wrong. That's what I learned. I did learn this when we went to ObsessFest and I was like, Delphi? Delphi. It's Delphi. My brain jumps to the oracle at Delphi. So shut up. Shut up, Hannah's brain. Exactly. I mean, I wish it would listen, but it doesn't. On Sunday 12th February 2017, seeing as they didn't have any school the next day, best friends Libby and Abby had a sleepover at Libby's house. The girls woke up the next morning and they got pretty bored pretty quickly.

Delphi, as much as we're sure it is a lovely place to live, doesn't seem to have that much going on. Yeah, apparently if you want to like go to a cinema or go bowling or literally anything, you have to go to Lafayette, which is like, you know, you've got to get there and you've got to have the money to get there. You've got to have the time and they are kids, like no one's just sending them off to Lafayette on their own. The girls had pancakes for breakfast and then they started begging Kelsey, Libby's older sister, to please, please, please drive them to the local nature reserve. The girls said they wanted to go for a walk along the Delphi historic trails and just take some pictures. At first, Kelsey said she was

too busy. She was getting ready to go to her boyfriend's house and then she had to go to work. But feeling guilty that she'd been saying no to her little sister quite a lot lately, Kelsey agreed to drop them off, if they could get someone else to pick them up afterwards, because she didn't have time to come back for them. So Libby called her dad, Derek, who said it was OK and that he'd pick them up at around 3.30. And so Kelsey drove Libby and Abby to the trails, about a mile and a half outside the town.

And then Kelsey left. At 3pm, Derek, Libby's dad, called Libby to say that he was on his way. But there was no reply. At 3.15, Derek pulled into the pick-up spot where Kelsey had dropped the girls off. And he waited. But come 3.30, Libby and Abby were still nowhere to be seen. And by this time, Libby's phone just kept going straight to voicemail. And Abby didn't have a mobile at all. Panicking, Derek called his mum to see if she'd heard from the girls. But she hadn't.

And this is the interesting thing worth noting at this point is that Derek, Libby and Kelsey, so Derek's the dad, Kelsey and Libby are his daughters. They live with Derek's parents, Becky and Mike Patty. And Becky and Mike Patty are actually Libby and Kelsey's legal guardians. So they know Libby inside out. And so after speaking to her son, Libby's grandma, Becky, was starting to worry. She knew that this wasn't like Libby at all. So she called Mike, Libby's granddad, and told him everything. And Mike immediately left work and headed straight to the trails. Then Becky called Kelsey.

And at first, Kelsey thought it was nothing. Libby had probably just lost her phone and this was just grandma worrying as usual. Abby's mum, Anna Williams, also thought the same thing. It was probably just the girls having lost track of time. So one by one, the families gathered at the nature reserve and started searching. While Abby and Libby had been out that day, Libby had posted two pictures on Snapchat

about 30 minutes after they'd been dropped off. Both of them were of the Monon High Bridge, which if you need a visual description, it looks like the bridge they walk across in Stand By Me. It is absolutely fucking terrifying. It is so high up. It is so high up. It's like 70 feet off the ground, made of wood,

and it's fucking old as fuck. Like, this bridge is completely dilapidated. But let's talk about the pictures that Libby posted first. One picture was of the bridge itself, and the other was of Abby walking across it. Her head down, hands in her pockets, classic Snapchat perfection picture. Upon seeing these Snapchats, Kelsey knew that the bridge was where they all needed to look. And now she was worried too. Because the Monon High Bridge is incredibly dangerous.

It's an old abandoned railway bridge that runs across Deer Creek. It's 1,300 feet long and stands 70 foot in the air. It hasn't been used since the 80s and it's in a state of total disrepair with many of the wooden planks missing or rotted through. We all post pictures of the bridge on our socials because you really do have to see it to understand exactly what we're dealing with here. But I do understand that this is an audio format,

so let's try give you a description. So it's a completely dilapidated bridge that runs from one end of the creek to the other. And while at one end of it, it is connected to the walking trails, it's not a part of the walking of it, it is connected to the walking trails. It's not a part of the walking trails, but it is connected to it. At the other end, the south end of the bridge, it's a complete dead end. So you have to go back. You have to go back. So if you are walking along the trails and you're like, hey, let's take a little side quest, a detour

across this bridge. You can walk the 1,300 feet to the end of the bridge, but it is just woods. There is no walking trail on the other side. You have to turn back and walk back across this bridge, across which, like you said, many of the planks are missing or completely rotted through. I've already got nervy tummy because we're touring tomorrow, but this has made it much worse. It is horrifying. And the other thing about the bridge is that I really want people to understand that it's not just like, oh, it's a railway track that's running along a ground. Once you are on the bridge, either side of you is just a sheer drop of 70 foot into the river that's below you.

That's it, into a ravine, essentially, while it is very, very dangerous, or perhaps because it is very, very dangerous, Monon High Bridge was a pretty popular hangout spot for the local kids. So it's not unusual that the kids would go there. Libby had actually been there before with Kelsey many times. And Kelsey said she didn't really like it, but Libby loved crossing that bridge. So she wasn't surprised that they'd been there. But she was surprised that she could see a picture of Abby on it because she thought that Abby wouldn't have gone on that bridge. So she wasn't surprised that they'd been there, but she was surprised that she could see a picture of Abby on it, because she thought that Abby wouldn't have gone on that bridge. Like, it is scary stuff. So taking Kelsey's lead, the girls' families searched around the bridge, but there was still no sign of Abby or Libby. It would be dark soon,

and it's February in Indiana. The temperature was starting to drop fast. And so, at 5 p.m., with no other choice, the families called the sheriff's department. And Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Lazenby has a good track record of finding lost hikers. And he was confident that he and the volunteers who had come out to help would find the girls fast. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, man who redefined fame fortune and the music industry the first male rapper to be honored on the hollywood block of fame sean diddy cone diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about everybody know ain't no party like a diddy party so yeah. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose,

it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses.

I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery+. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding,

I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti.

It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. But at around midnight on the 13th of February 2017, Lazenby called off the search until morning.

Some people give the police a lot of shit for this, and I do understand why two young girls were missing in the woods in February in Indiana. But, twofold argument, there's no point in more people getting lost and hurt in the dark. Yeah, in one of the media interviews with Mike Patty, Libby's grandad, he actually says, I want to thank everybody who came out and risked their lives looking for my granddaughter. It is such dodgy terrain.

And it's pitch black. And also, the Carroll County Police Force is tiny. There are only two detectives. And the local fire department that was also helping with the search is entirely made up of volunteers, which to me is madness. It's completely volunteers. They were like, I really want to help find Libby and Abby, but I have to go to work at 8am in the morning. Like they have full time jobs. They just do this in their spare time. So no resources at all, even for things like

additional lighting, it just didn't exist. No, they're just using their own torches and their own phones and stuff. But they're searching in the fucking woods. Like it is so hilly. It's so craggy. It's just ravines. It is so rural and so remote. Like you can't stress enough how dangerous it would have been for people to continue searching in the pitch black. Incredibly difficult to navigate even in daylight. So the police knew that it would be better just to come back first thing in the morning. And the girls? Well, as Tobe Lazenby told the families with a heavy heart, it is cold and it is dark, but they have youth on their side. And I think this feels like a good point to tell you a little bit more about Abby and Libby themselves. The two girls were in middle school and that's where they'd actually met and quickly become best friends. Libby's sister Kelsey says

in interviews that there wasn't anything that Libby was scared of. She was so smart and a straight-A student. Libby wanted to be a detective or a science teacher when she grew up, and she was actually already taking advanced science classes well beyond her grade. And Abby, she was a sweet girl who loved music and arts and crafts, and she was also an only child being raised by a single mum. And so Abby and her mum Anna were incredibly close. No one could believe that any of this was happening. The next day, the 14th of February 2017,

the search kicked off again, and as testament to how much the town of Delphi cared, hundreds of people turned up to help. But hours into the search, there was still nothing, and everyone started to fear the worst. Then, at around noon, Kelsey, Libby's older sister, was stood on the Monon High Bridge when she heard one of the volunteers shouting from down in the creek. That volunteer had found a black Nike trainer, and Kelsey knew straight away that it belonged to Libby. At 12.15, the bodies of both Abby Williams and Libby German were discovered near the river, in the woods, roughly a quarter of a mile from the Monon High Bridge. The police held their first press conference at 2pm that day, in which they confirmed not much more than the fact that there had been a double homicide. At this point on the day when they find

the bodies, they won't even confirm if it's Abby and Libby. But, you know, it's pretty obvious. It wasn't until the following day, when the post-mortems were completed, that they confirmed who they had found. But, interestingly, the results of the post-mortem were immediately sealed and hushed up by the police. Investigators flatly refused to talk about anything

from the scene of the crime, including how the girls had actually died, which is pretty unusual. In all the time we've been doing this podcast and all the time, you know, we've been interested in true crime, that is not a common thing that the police withhold cause of death. But there have been recent developments in this case around cause of death and what was found at the scene. But we're going to come back to that next week. All I'll say for now is that the people who found the bodies said two things. One is that they knew immediately that it was a homicide. There was no even inclination that it could have been an accident. On site, it was a homicide. The other thing is that it was incredibly disturbing. That's all we know. Until we come back

to it next week. But you'll also see as we dig through this case over the next two weeks that this sort of withholding of information by the police to the public will go on to become a reoccurring theme in this story. And in some instances, it's very, very clear why the police are doing this. But in some instances, it honestly makes absolutely no sense. But for now, let's get back to the investigation. A major problem facing authorities was that the girls had been killed and left outside. Outdoor crime scenes are incredibly hard to preserve, especially when there's been hundreds of people out there for hours walking around, leaving tracks and just generally creating

a lot of confusion in terms of what's relevant and what's not. And you can't forget the animals. It is almost like the case study of the worst possible situation because it's a double-edged sword. Hundreds of people turn out to help find them, but there's hundreds of people trampled all over everything. Over the two days following the murders, the police maintained their steely silence, leading people in town to grow in equal parts annoyed and terrified. Then finally, on the 15th of February 2017, the police held another press conference. This time they put out a request for anyone else who had been in the Monon Highbridge area on the day of the murders to come forward

and also to make available to them any pictures that they had taken that day. This is so like Lake Mungo. Yeah, and it just gets worse. Authorities also confirmed the FBI's ongoing involvement in the case, which freaked people out even more. Yeah.

I was going to save this for next week, but let's clarify. So the FBI were involved from the beginning with this case, right? And it is on the 15th that they confirmed that the investigation is going to be a multi-organisation investigation. It'll include Carroll County Sheriff's Department, it'll include Indiana State Police and also the FBI. People freak the fuck out because everyone knows that the FBI doesn't get involved in every case. Firstly, it needs to be a federal case. Why is this a federal

case? It happened in Carroll County. No one can understand. The other reason, and it's a very natural one, is that people's minds associate the FBI with investigating crimes like this and immediately they think serial killer. And so people are panicking. And this is the thing that conflicts with that because in the same press conference, the authorities also stated when questioned by the media that there was, quote, no risk to anyone else. They specifically say that when they're asked. I personally think, in hindsight, they wouldn't have said that again. I think that is a misrepresentation of what happened, because this confused everybody more. People started thinking, how could they say that? How

could they say that there's no risk to anybody else when two girls were murdered in the fucking woods? How do they know? And people started to jump to the conclusion that it must have been a domestic or a family murder or a targeted murder by somebody they knew. It was way too early to say anything like that. So in all honesty, I don't know why they said that. I really think it was a miscommunication. They didn't think about what they were saying. I think they were just trying not to cause panic. Yeah, that's what it feels like. Didn't do a great job. But I think that was the intention. It was definitely but if

anybody was holding on to this idea that it may have been some sort of familial murder the next thing that the indiana state police did threw that theory 100 out of the window because later that same day the police released two pictures of the same man saying that they wanted to locate him as a possible witness. Obviously, this wasn't falling at anybody because they released these like two incredibly grainy pictures of a man on the Monon High Bridge. And they say, we just want to talk to him. He's nobody. He's just, he could have been a witness. He could have seen something. But I think the general consensus in town and by the media was that this was the killer.

The FBI are just in the background rolling their eyes, just being like, can you do better, please? Do you know what? You say that, though, but I have sat with this case for a long time now. And honestly, the sheriff's department in Carroll County and the Indiana State Police, they give this 100%. The FBI, on the other hand, we're going to have some words about them. OK, I'll take it back. Next week, because they fucked a bunch of shit up. But when you listen to and we're going to listen to the Indiana State Police and Carroll County sheriffs talk about this case, you will understand how much they cared about solving this. The FBI can fuck right off in terms of their involvement with this case, but we'll come back to that.

Coming back to the man whose picture they released, he's on the bridge. It's a very, very blurry picture. We're going to go on to describe it. But he quickly gained the nickname Bridge Guy. So let's talk about the images of Bridge Guy that were released. They show a white, heavy-set man walking on the Monon High Bridge. He's wearing a blue jacket, blue jeans. He has his hands in his pockets, and he's looking down towards the ground. And that's pretty much it.

The quality of the images is incredibly poor. But it was possibly an incredible piece of evidence. I mean, you have a picture of a man who is on the bridge and the police are saying that he was there at the same time. The bridge is one straight shot. If he is a witness, he must have seen everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If he wasn't a witness, then he's the killer and they've got a picture of him. Grainy or

not, it's a picture of him. And grainy or not, we will post it on our social media so you can have a look at it at Red Handed The Pod in case you don't follow us already. So go and let us know what you think over there. As soon as these images were released, speculation began as to where they had come from. Was there a trail cam out there? Had the entire murder been caught on CCTV? Well, no, because unknown to the public at the time,

the police had actually recovered Libby's phone from the woods. It had been found not too far from the girls' bodies and the images of Bridge Guy had come from Libby's phone. And as the town of Delphi would soon discover, that's not all that was on Libby's phone. And the next revelation shook everyone to the core. On the 22nd of February 2017, the police held yet another press conference. And we're actually going to listen to this one because it is worth doing. So at this time, I would like to invite Indiana State Police Superintendent

Douglas Carter to the podium. Words tend to escape during these periods of times, and I've only had a couple of other situations in my lifetime where I'm able to stand before you and say that. Why Libby? Why Abby? Why Delphi? Why Carroll County? Why the region? Why the state? Why even in the nation? I say that because this is a classic example and a clear example that evil lives amongst us.

To the family, to the community, the region, the state, as leader of the Indiana State Police, I say I am so very sorry. Resources. It's unlikely that any of you will ever see, nor will we ever see or experience again, the level of resources that are attached

to this investigation. To the media. My gosh. all I can say is give you my sincere thanks. See, this isn't like TV. There's a perception that this can be solved very quickly. Anything that we do can be solved very quickly, but this is a testament that it can't, and we need you. We've needed you since last week. We need you today, and we need you tomorrow, and likely we'll need the media all across this nation. So from a simple guy like me to you, I say thank you. To the people dressed funny like me

and those that represent the law enforcement profession, please understand we're human beings just like you. I'd stand anywhere in the nation with people standing behind me. And I would suggest to you that every time something like this happens, a little piece of us dies as well. But I also want you to understand how committed we are as a collective one, as a collective one, and we will continue. This has been briefed all the way up to the director of the FBI, Director Comey, and Greg Mass is going to talk a little bit about that. I've had an opportunity to speak to my boss, Governor Eric Holcomb,

a couple different times about this situation. And every time I do, I see this look that comes over his face, just like yours in this community's. And that's the unfortunate experience of experiencing evil. We're not stopping. The poster in front of you. Someone knows who this individual is. Someone knows who this individual is.

Is it a family member? Is it a neighbor? Is it an acquaintance? Is it an associate? Or maybe that one guy that lives over at that one place that's just kind of not right. Maybe it's his jeans. Maybe it's his jacket or his sweatshirt.

Maybe it's his shirt tail. Maybe it's his posture. Maybe it's the right hand in his pocket. You see, even with technology, we need human intelligence. In other words, we need you. I'm not suggesting that science, that everything that we can do as science has been done because we are just getting started. Abby and Libby deserve us. They deserve every single one of us and not just the people standing

up here on the stage that have given so much of their lives to not just this, but to this profession, but each and every one of you. Each and every person listening, watching, or seeing this in some form, we need you. Libby and Abby need you. Please do not rationalize tips away. Rationalize what you think that might not be important away by thinking he would never do that to another human being. Or think what I know doesn't matter. Let folks like the people that are standing behind me with such incredible passion and commitment and dedication to this profession make that determination. Tips are anonymous. Some might not want to talk about it because they don't want to get involved because they know the individual. Again, he may be a family member, probably has family. No one will ever know. No one will ever know. There's not an

agency on the planet better than helping us facilitate this than the FBI. And there is as entrenched in this as anybody. No one will know. As poor as this picture is, somebody knows. And if you're watching, we'll find you. Who's next? I hate to ask you that question. I'd give my life to not have to.

But I know you've asked yourself that very question. We must recognize it. You see, we're all the same. We're all human beings. We must keep our resolve for Libby and Abby, for this community, and frankly, to ensure that good trumps evil. And it will. You're going to hear more in just a minute about what we know. Do not discount the voice that you'll hear. We will stay committed. With resolve very rarely exhibited with human behavior. Until this conclusion. Please be patient. Become our partners.

And communicate with us. As often as you can. And now from a very humble servant, that's the most blessed guy on this planet to represent the profession that I represent, to Abby and Libby, it's my hope and my prayer that you're now experiencing God's promise of eternal peace. At this time, I would like to invite Captain Dave Burstyn, Chief Public Information Officer for the Indiana State Police to the podium.

Thank you, Tony. We do have some new information for you today. It's in the form of an audio file from the cell phone that Liberty German had with her at the time. We're not going to play everything that we have, but Liberty had the presence of mind to turn on her video camera. Again, we're not going to be able to share everything with you, but we are going to share this audio clip with you momentarily with the hope that somebody will recognize this voice.

And I want to be very clear that what you're about to hear is just four short words, excuse me, three words, down the hill. You're going to hear this played four times. The audio quality is not superb, but there's enough there that somebody could recognize this person's voice. And as Superintendent Carter said, not to rationalize away. If you hear this today and you think, my God, that sounds like fill in the blank, call us. Make an anonymous tip. Tell us who you think it is.

Let us investigate it. If it's not the right person, they'll just be out a little bit of time and they'll be cleared and they can go on and they'll never know that you called. But you may tell us who the right person was and you could be the person that helps us to solve this horrible crime.

Micah, play the clip, please. Would you play it one more time? so that audio clip later today will be available on the indiana state police website sergeant sulcombe will talk more about that the amount of money that's been raised towards solving this case and really money shouldn't be what drives somebody to help solve this. Just a sense of community and wanting to help and to get this person off the street. The image that you see there of the suspect, that came from Liberty's phone. I think many of you had speculated that before. We weren't prepared to discuss it at the time. We have more video.

We're not releasing it. It's germane to our investigation. And it's important that we spread that person's voice far and wide for somebody that will recognize who that is and will call us and tell us. So as you heard that, the audio quality of the clip they play is pretty terrible. It's just like, like that's pretty much all you can hear. Because you have to remember that it's recorded outside. So they cleaned it up. I hate it. Downhill. Downhill. Downhill. I hate it.

I hate her. Gives me shivers. It's absolutely horrendous. And I know when we did the Barari case, I was like, it's been a long time since I had nightmares about a case. Like until I watched the video footage of that particular crime scene. This audio footage of just down the hill, down the hill, down the hill. Honestly, I would wake up sometimes and I would just like be hearing it. It is horrific. It is absolutely horrific. I hate it so much. So yeah, as you can hear that in the cleaned up version,

you can hear the man saying to Libby and Abby, down the hill. And these three words would go on to become as infamous as this entire case. So what is Bridge Guy referring to when he says down the hill? Well, there's a steep hill that goes from the Monon High Bridge down into the woods below. And it was across the river from here that the girls' bodies were found. So Bridge Guy had taken the girls down the hill. They had then crossed the river, and then he had killed them and left their bodies on the edge of the water on the other side of the

creek. And it's also interesting to note at this stage that at the end of this press conference, there's like a media Q&A, and the investigators make it very clear that they are leaving everything on the table. They say it could have been a chance encounter, it could have been by somebody they knew, it could have been by somebody who knew that they were there, it could have been one person, it could have been more than one person. They're not ruling anything out. Clearly, the police just wanted more leads. And with a reward pot of a quarter of a million dollars, the tips came flooding in. It was a small town after all, and the theory was that this man, bridge guy, whoever he was, must have been at least somewhat familiar with the local area.

Where the girls were killed isn't particularly famous for anything, let alone hiking. And so, for someone to have attacked them in broad daylight and then got away, the person must have known those trails, known that bridge, and known those woods. It all happened so fast. Let's have a look at the timeline. Abby and Libby were dropped off at 1.30. It takes 15 minutes to walk from the drop-off spot to the bridge. Libby posted those two pictures of the bridge on Libby's phone of Bridge Guy confirmed that it was taken

between 2.15 and 2.30 and the medical examiner placed their times of death at around 3pm the same day. So this whole thing went down in less than half an hour. Isn't it absolutely fucking horrific that Kelsey drops them off at 1.30 and Brian is on his way. He leaves his house at 3 to go pick them up. He's there at 3.15. By the time he's there, the girls are probably already dead. I mean, I can't even wrap my head around that.

They were there for literally an hour and a half, two hours, and this man found and killed them. And obviously this is probably for next week, but it makes it so unlikely that it was a chance encounter. Absolutely. I think this is the thing when these photos were released and when this audio was released I think everyone thought they're horrified obviously as to what's happened and they're horrified to the thought that this could have been a local but there was also a sense of relief that people thought okay this must be a local man because what are the fucking chances and if it is a local man or a man from the surrounding areas

someone is going to recognize him someone's going to recognize that boy someone's going to recognize that picture and he's going to be put away within days but that just doesn't happen so there were of course searches carried out on the property of the man who owned the land that the girls had been found on. Because most of that land is National Park land. But the specific part of the woods that the girls were found in was actually private property. And it was owned by this man named Ron Logan. And of course, he was a natural suspect. The girls were found like 1,400 feet from his house.

We are going to dig into Ron here. We're going to save that for next week and come back to talking about all of the suspects then. The still image of Bridge Guy next to random people's pictures. There were entire Facebook groups dedicated to this ridiculous hobby. And this is what they were doing, Hannah. They were like literally taking pictures of this sketch, taking that still image of bridge guy and just going on people's Facebook profiles taking pictures of them and then posting side by sides and basically just wrecking people's lives like I said next week we are going to talk about suspects but we are only going to talk about what the police have said and what they have asked for and the suspects that they have made public. We're not just going to randomly go around ruining people's lives. And what was done here was, frankly, absolutely appalling.

And there is a really interesting podcast that I would recommend that people listen to. It's by HLN and it is called Down the Hill. And it is a dedicated miniseries about the Delphi case. And in that, I thought there was such a good quote from a sketch artist that they speak to. And he says, sketches like this are not for people who do not know the suspect. In other words this sketch any composite sketch that's ever released is intended to jog the memory of someone who knows who the police are looking for. It's for someone to couple it with other information or other suspicions about a person that they know. For example, someone who looks like the sketch

and also who perhaps started acting oddly around that time or who drives a vehicle that matches something else the police says or who missed an appointment the day of the murders. It's not for random people to just take that sketch and go hunting with. Yeah, like what's-his-face, Ken and Barbie. Exactly. When he was like, oh, how funny, it does look exactly like me. It's not for random people to go hunting with on the internet,

but that is exactly what happened. Oh, good. And it led nowhere, because although the police investigated multiple possible suspects during this time, thanks to the tens of thousands of tips they received, none of the people they looked at were Bridge Guy. Police also focused on registered sex offenders in the area, and while they never

released details of any sexual elements linked to the killings, given the clearly predatory behaviour of Bridge Guy and the fact that the victims were two young girls, it's hardly a stretch to have predicted from the start that the crime was sexually motivated. Investigators even explored other cases from across the nation, particularly those involving double child homicides. But again, they found no connections. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't.

I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your

favorite podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant.

When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Then the case took another wild turn. On the 22nd of April 2019, so more than two years after the murders, the police held the following press conference. And the voice you'll hear is again that of Superintendent Doug Carter. I got to say to the Delphi community how grateful I am. You inspire people you don't even understand and you don't even understand why. Information is being released today is the result of literally thousands and thousands of hours of extraordinary investigative efforts by Delphi, Carroll County, the FBI, the Indiana State Police and countless other agencies. This community surrounded us some 26 months ago and you did everything you could to support us. But most importantly, you surrounded the family of these two little girls. Gosh, I'll never forget it. After you hear what we're going to release

today, I'm going to ask for your continued support, your continued understanding, your empathy and compassion as we move forward to find out who did this, and we will. We're seeking the public's help to identify the driver of a vehicle that was parked at the old CPS-DCS welfare building in the city of Delphi that was abandoned on the east side of County Road 300 North next to the Hoosier-Heartland Highway between the hours of noon to 5 on February 14, 2017. If you were parked there or know who was parked there, please contact the officers at the command post at the Delphi City Building. We are releasing additional portions of the audio recording from that day. Please keep in mind the person talking is one person and is the person on the bridge with the girls. This is not two different people speaking. Please listen to it very, very carefully. We are also releasing video recovered from Libby's phone. This video has never before been previously released.

The video shows a suspect walking on the bridge. When you see the video, watch the person's mannerisms as they walk. Do you recognize the mannerisms as being someone that you might know? Remember, he is walking on the former railroad bridge. Because of the deteriorated condition of the bridge, the suspect is not walking naturally due to the spacing between the ties. During the course of this investigation, we have concluded the first sketch released will become secondary as of today. The result of the new information and intelligence over time leads us to believe the sketch, which you will see shortly, is the person responsible for the murders of these

two little girls. We also believe this person is from Delphi, currently or has previously lived here, visits Delphi on a regular basis or works here. We believe this person is currently between the age range of 18 and 40, but might appear younger than his true age. Directly to the killer who may be in this room. We believe you are hiding in plain sight. For more than two years, you never thought we would shift gears to a different investigative strategy, but we have. We likely have interviewed you or someone close to you.

We know that this is about power to you, and you want to know what we know. And one day, you will. The question to you, what will those closest to you think of when they find out that you brutally murdered two little girls, two children? Only a coward would do such a thing. We are confident that you have told someone what you have done, or at the very least, they know because of how different you are since the murders. We try so hard to understand how a person could do something like this to two children. I recently watched a movie called The Shack,

and there's also a book that talks so well about evil, about death, and about eternity to the murderer. I believe you have just a little bit of a conscience left. And I can assure you that how you left them in that woods is not what they're experiencing today. To the family, I hope that you all will give them some time because we're going to be asking that there's no media inquiry or no media response for at least the next two weeks and I hope you understand why. The family found out about this about this information this morning. I just want the family to know that when I take my last

breath on this earth I'll be thinking of them. There's going to be a tremendous amount of questions. I know that. I know that. I've Never in my career have I stood in front of something like this. Please be patient with us. Please. We're just beginning. We are just now beginning. And I can tell you on behalf of the sheriff and the police chief, so many other partners that have stood with us over this period of time,

that we will not stop. Right. There is a lot to take in there. So let's break it down. Firstly, Doug Carter starts by saying that they're looking for a car that was parked at the old CPS-DPS welfare building, not far from the Monon High Bridge. OK. But isn't it interesting that they don't describe the vehicle at all they don't say we're looking for a black voxel courser

that was parked near the old cps building they just say we're looking for a vehicle that was parked there so who were they speaking to because like firstly what was the tip and secondly what were people meant to have their memories dropped by just by any vehicle that was in the area? It seems like a weird thing. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. No, I think it is strange. And like, I felt like, who are they speaking to? Are they speaking to the killer himself? Are they trying to like, call his bluff by saying we know something? I don't know. I don't know. But I

thought it was quite strange. And whether they were speaking to the killer or not at that point when they're talking about the vehicle, I think it's hard to ignore that there is a lot of direct conversation with the killer from Carter during this presser. For example, he says, quote, to the killer who may be in this room. Hate it. I know. And the people who were in that room, the media people who were in that room actually said afterwards, he said that so confidently that we actually turned around to look at where he was looking. And they said that they half expected him to actually jump down from the stage

and arrest somebody there and then. And they also said that when he said that, all of the men standing on the stage, like all of the police officers standing on the stage, turned and looked at one direction. But I don't know if it was choreographed. I don't know if it was just to freak people out. I'm freaked out.

It's working. I'm freaked out. It's fucking freaky. And also, there are some people that say that the confidence that Carter comes into this with is not actually confidence, but it was desperation. Because it's been 24 months now since the girls were killed. And Carter also said,

we have likely interviewed you or someone close to you. Again, is this a bluff or do they know? What I want is for you guys to remember this particular bit and we will come back to it next week. And I think it's also interesting that Carter makes very specific comments with clearly religious undertones during this press conference. For example, he talks about the stunning piece of cinema, The Shack, which is a 2017 American Christian drama, my favourite. I had no idea about this film. I had to, like, Google it and look it up, and I was like, OK. The Americans have a full of it, man.

Oh, yeah, they love it. There's so many, especially fucking Dean Cain, who used to be Superman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's in all of those, like, super anti-abortion films where the, like, baby who wasn't aborted shows up in court and everyone gasps, like, Dean Cain, I expected better from you. Anyway, The Shack is about a man whose youngest child vanishes

and then he becomes really severely depressed. But his life takes an unlikely turn when he receives a mysterious letter asking him to visit a cabin. This mysterious letter is from none other than God, who presumably had nothing better to do. And also, Doug Carter says, quote, a book that talks so well about evil, about death and about eternity. Pretty obvious that he's talking about the Bible there. So Doug Carter is clearly a religious man. That's evident in other interviews with him that we've listened to.

But the statement here in this conference seems so purposeful. It doesn't sound off the cuff. And if you watch it, he's got notes that he references frequently. And this led some people to speculate that the words Doug Carter spoke in that conference room on that day may have been the work of the FBI's BAU. Which is, of course, the Behavioral Analysis Unit. So basically, people are starting to think that the profilers from the FBI are involved. And while we've never been told about the specifics of the crime scene, like we said, or what was found there there some interesting points were later made about certain discoveries which i know i'm breadcrumbing you like a dirty filthy little chicken kiev

but we will get to those next week i filthy chicken kiev is my diner that i'm gonna open i'll be there i'll only serve guy fury the rest of you can get fucked. Lovely. So for now, basically what we need to do is think about how people took this when Doug Carter said this. People were wondering if there was something at the scene that led police to think that this was a religiously motivated killing. We can't say because we don't know. Maybe Carter was just trying to appeal to the killer's conscience. And in an area like the one that they're in, rural Indiana, chances are that the killer would have been a Christian. Maybe they were just taking a punt. It's very true detective, isn't it?

It really is. This fucking gay man. This is what I keep thinking about. It's freaky. I hate it. But I also am obsessed. Also, you'll have heard Doug Carter there say very specifically about no media inquiry and no media response for the next two weeks. Why? Why were they so specific? We don't have the answers. I think people genuinely expected something to happen in those two weeks. He's speaking directly to the killer.

He seems, in many people's minds, to be speaking in coded language with religious undertones. He says no media contact for two weeks. People expected something to happen. And maybe they did because of what happened next. Once Doug Carter was finished, he walks off and a giant easel that was set to the side, covered in a red sheet of card, was revealed. And on that easel was a huge sketch.

Let's go back to the press conference. I just unveiled the person that we believe responsible for the murder of these two little girls. So I invite media to take a look at that now. And to everyone's absolute shock and confusion, the sketch was completely different to the original one. It couldn't be more different. No, it couldn't be more different.

Unless it was like a woman. Unless it was like a woman. Unless it was like a black woman. It couldn't have been more different to the middle-aged white guy that they had unveiled the first time. And the first time was two years before, let's remember. So this new sketch showed a much younger man, a guy between 17 to 24. He looks like Justin Timberlake.

Yeah. Curly hair, fucking ramen perm and all. Exactly. And the man in this sketch also has a big chin and quite a prominent forehead. Doug Carter does say that he wants people to look at both sketches, which seems like a difficult thing to request. And he says in later interviews that the killer's real appearance and age is likely somewhere between the two.

Yeah, it's very confusing because at the time they unveil the new sketch, they basically say, this is the one. This is the one we're now looking for. The other one is now less relevant. But then years later, months later, Doug Carter does say, it's probably more accurate to say that the person is in between those two sketches and probably just looks a bit younger than he really is. It just, it's so confusing. It's so confusing. But he makes it clear at this press conference that this sketch, sketch two, is the primary sketch and the man responsible for killing the girls. It was completely unbelievable. For two years people

had been looking at and working off sketch one and now there had been a complete change of direction seemingly out of nowhere and it was all the more shocking when it was revealed that sketch two had been made based on statements of another eyewitness who had been on the trails on the day of the murder and that it had been made way way back in February 2017, the same time as Sketch won. But it had only been released to the public now, 24 months later. Why? This is the thing that's completely shocking. It's not a new person that's come forward or new information. They had this all along. So how did they pick which Sketch they revealed to people back in 2017?

So after the new Sketch was revealed, the investigators then play a new clip of audio, and this one has one extra word added to it. And also the audio that's additional to what's been previously released. There's only a slight change in it. So give Sergeant Riley just a second as he gets that up and ready. it's the way he says it though it's so casual i know it's so like nothing's happening nothing weird oh guys like it's i hate it it's so casual there's no like urgency in his voice no there's nothing no and we're gonna dig into that next week much more deeply but this is the thing we need to talk about for now is that we hear the voice saying guys down

the hill and according to doug carter he says this very specifically he says this is not two people speaking this is one person and it is the person on the bridge with the girls and it is the person responsible for killing them thereby it is the person in the bridge with the girls. And it is the person responsible for killing them. Thereby, it is the person in the sketch. So even with the addition of guys, this sample was still not big enough for anybody to like assess accent or intonations or age or anything really. All you can tell from it is that it's a guy and that it is someone who is American. I think that's all you can really tell. It did, however, lead some people, including FBI profiler John Douglas, to speculate that maybe Bridge Guy

knew the girls because he called them guys. Now, love you, John. Great work. But I'm not totally convinced by that. No, I'm not. I'd call strangers guys. Yeah. I'd actually say that, more likely say that to strangers. Yeah, definitely. Guys, sorry, can someone... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone help me a sec. If anything, it seems to me like the guys was just to get their attention on him, to get them, get Abby and Libby to look at him.

And then to round off the presentation, investigators played a two-second video clip of Bridge Guy walking. Well, of Bridge Guy taking a step and a half on the railway tracks. We'll share that video for you as well on our social media for you to look at. Apparently NASA and Disney, which is quite the duo, both tried to enhance the footage and that's the best that they could do. It's blurry and it's very short, but we will put a pin in that and unpin it next week to analyse what that footage might tell us about Bridge Guy. And this is the first time that people knew that there was video as well

because previously they just had the stills. So what's important to note is that these new revelations led people to ask a lot of questions, mainly falling under one umbrella question of what else do the police have that they are not telling us? Because they keep releasing bits months and years apart. People are like, why don't you just tell us what else you can got now? But yeah, this is where we're at with the audio, the video, the sketches. I know it seems like we're going into a lot of detail, but you really have to understand how bitty this information is and like how spaced apart it comes out to the

public. Police now confirmed that the video that they had of Bridge Guy had been shot by Libby on her phone. But how long was the video? That can't have been the whole thing. Why didn't the police release the whole thing? Why hadn't they released the video clip sooner? And crucially, what else was in that video that the police know and other people don't? It would later be discovered that the video was 43 seconds long, but to this day, it has never been made public. We've not seen any more than anyone else. All we've seen is the two-second clip of Bridge Guy walking. And we've never heard more than the four words, guys down the hill. The police maintain that there is nothing else on the video that would help identify the killer.

But I think the reasons they haven't released the entire video are probably multi-layered. Firstly, the video of bridge guy walking towards the girls is estimated to have been shot from about 65 feet away i couldn't find anything that is specifically 65 feet away but a tennis court is about 78 feet long okay so not far off right so the key thing is that he's not that close yet to libby when she's filming him and i think that during this time that Libby and Abby are filming Bridge Guy, the girls probably, and this is complete speculation, we don't know what's on that video, the girls probably flip between filming Bridge Guy and filming themselves. And

the reason I think this is that in a separate interview, given much more recently to HLN for their podcast series that I mentioned earlier, Sergeant Kim Riley, one of the investigators who worked on this case, says that watching the entire video was, quote, scary. He said in the video, you can tell that the girls are scared. He also says, quote, I won't say which one, but you can tell the feelings that they are feeling. And it made me sad that I couldn't do anything to help them. So I think it is very obvious that they are visibly it made me sad that I couldn't do anything to help them. So I think it

is very obvious that they are visibly scared in the video. Another official who worked on the case also told reporters that the video is quote something I'll never be able to unsee. There's a look on one of the girl's faces that made me realize that they knew what was going to happen and honestly that is some of the most chilling fucking shit I have ever read. Because it makes your mind run to all sorts of places. Oh, absolutely. It is horrific. Not knowing is always worse than knowing.

Yeah. And I suspect that the video shows and the audio records the girls being visibly and audibly terrified. Especially after they go down the hill with their killer. I also think because the audio quality of down the hill is so bad, like in the first clip we played you, that by the time Bridge Guy is close enough to say that to them, Libby has most likely hidden her phone with the camera still running in her pocket. That's why Bridge Guy doesn't realise that she'd recorded him and that's why the police found the phone at all because otherwise he would have found it and destroyed it. So there may be more video but it's likely not much more useful than what we've already seen as Libby likely stashed the phone once he was close enough

to see what she was doing. And any extra audio of which I am sure there is definitely some because I find it very hard to believe that Bridge Guy just didn't speak again to the girls after saying guys down the hill but I suspect that the rest is probably overlapped with the girls talking or crying or screaming. Even if there is something else on the video that could be identifying that's not interrupted by the girls' voices, the police need to hold back evidence. They need to keep some information away from the public in order to avoid false confessions and confirm if a potential suspect is the right person. And the way they do that is by checking if they know something that was never reported in the media.

It's the oldest trick in the book. Yeah, and I think especially with things like cause of death, if nobody else knows it and then this killer is the only one that's able to identify how they died, this is how you're going to get it. Because infamous cases like this, of which I'm sure they would have known this was going to become attract people who just confess and so like i said some bits they held back make sense some bits they held back doesn't make any sense all right i'm upset how's everyone doing my brain is fried i feel like unwell yeah no it's so creepy and awful it really is because i started listening to down the hill when we were on our way to columbus for obsessed fest and i was just like

what the fuck i knew this case like in the back of my mind i knew about it roughly but i had no idea and honestly i get scared sometimes sleeping in hotel rooms anyway but fucking hell I would fall asleep after listening to this and it was just guys down the hill down the hill down the hill also didn't help that our hotel rooms had an enormous mirror in it like facing one of the beds and I was like I'm just not gonna sleep in that bed because bad things will happen if I wake up in the middle of the night and see my own reflection. Bridge guy's in there. Bridge guy's in there and the mirror has trapped my soul because I just don't believe you should fall asleep in front of mirrors.

That's why they cover them when people die so you don't get stuck. So terrifying, stomach upsetting, etc. But also a lot of information to take in all at once. So this is where we are going to pause this week. So go look at the sketches, the pictures of the bridge, and of course, watch and re-listen to that video at your own risk. And listen to the audio of Bridge Guy. We're going to post all of it on our social media. And I know that you can easily just find this through a Google search.

You don't have to come follow us at Right Hand at the Pod to look at it. But I am so obsessed with this case now that I need to talk to people about it. I need to see what people are saying. So please come look at the pictures, the videos, the audio on our social media and comment because I am just like, my mind is blown by this case. It is so much, so much. And next week, like I said, we are going to talk about the video of Bridge Guy and talk about what it can tell us about the murders

and also what it can tell us about what kind of man he is. And we're also going to follow the investigation all the way up until 2022, including all of the recent and most shocking revelations that if anyone's following this case, you guys already know, we are going to talk about it next week. We're also going to take a detailed look at all of the police's main suspects on this one it's going to be a lot and there's going to be some very upsetting things that we're going to have to discuss next week but it's got to be done otherwise we all really have done a half-assed case on this case so come back join us then and yeah i don't know go listen to under the duvet to feel a bit better after that because that was horrible goodbye bye don't sleep in front of a mirror. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal.

We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+.

You can join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime,

and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and, and there's much more to come.