Found Deceased IN - Abigail (Abby) Williams, 13, & Liberty (Libby) German, 14, The Delphi Murders 13 Feb 2017 #123

[Deleted member 102539]

Thank you, @rosesfromangels.

If true, this speaks against the Evansdale murders and the Delphi case being the work of the same killer.

What, if the intentionally "signature" is, that there is no signature of certain repeating signs and exactly that is the reason for not being caught for years? Okay, he has to be very ill in his head (!!), but he might be so clever to work out a plan of which "signatures" his next crime will exhibit. He pretends to have the needs doing it, in real he hasn't these needs but fabricates the "big show" for the investigators. Delphi these "signatures", Evansdale those "signatures", another crime scene again different. If he is a crime fanatic, he has studied all the subtleties and keeps doing it. He is playing a giant game with authorities and is able to completely fade out his victims. His victims for him are only: exact dates/exact times/preferred locations/different MO/different signatures. Names wouldn't play a role, age perhaps neither.
I can't always use the word "perhaps" or "possibly", but: it's only my opinion atm, how the perp might think and "work". MOO

 

[Ozoner]

What, if the intentionally "signature" is, that there is no signature of certain repeating signs and exactly that is the reason for not being caught for years? Okay, he has to be very ill in his head (!!), but he might be so clever to work out a plan of which "signatures" his next crime will exhibit. He pretends to have the needs doing it, in real he hasn't these needs but fabricates the "big show" for the investigators. Delphi these "signatures", Evansdale those "signatures", another crime scene again different. If he is a crime fanatic, he has studied all the subtleties and keeps doing it. He is playing a giant game with authorities and is able to completely fade out his victims. His victims for him are only: exact dates/exact times/preferred locations/different MO/different signatures. Names wouldn't play a role, age perhaps neither.
I can't always use the word "perhaps" or "possibly", but: it's only my opinion atm, how the perp might think and "work". MOO

If the signatures are fake, that would be considered staging. I believe some SKs have done that.
There have probably been some serial killers whose MOs and signatures varied so much that they killed for decades without LE ever connecting the dots—especially if those SKs traveled extensively.

 

[Deleted member 102539]

The Genetic Detective shines light on Fayetteville's 'Ramsey Street Rapist'
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WTVD) -- The "Ramsey Street Rapist" case will be profiled Tuesday night on ABC11 in the newest episode of The Genetic Detective.

In 2018, Darold Wayne Bowden was arrested in connection with a series of rapes along Fayetteville's Ramsey Street. Bowden, from nearby Linden, was dubbed "The Phantom of Ramsey Street."

 

[Maplesyrup]

IMO and no disrespect to you at all...anyone who would have an "oh well" attitude about two local young girls being murdered in their town, I would just think that person is a horrible human being.

To clairify, I do not mean that a person in Delphi would take this approach. I mean someone in let's say southern Ohio in a small town with a population of 1,000. Or maybe somewhere in Chicago where a person might fear being shot if word gets out that they snitched [you could be shot anywhere for snitching, or worse]. People who live in other areas where BG may be from don't necessarily want to get involved. Not everyone wants to stick their neck out. In the eastern Ohio area I referenced, I really don't know anyone there who would be brave enough to pick up the phone. It is just a different way of life. Clearly I would pick up the phone and submit a tip. It is just harsh reality. Most people don't think they could possibly know a brutal murderer, especially if they grew up with him.

 

[Charlot123]

What, if the intentionally "signature" is, that there is no signature of certain repeating signs and exactly that is the reason for not being caught for years? Okay, he has to be very ill in his head (!!), but he might be so clever to work out a plan of which "signatures" his next crime will exhibit. He pretends to have the needs doing it, in real he hasn't these needs but fabricates the "big show" for the investigators. Delphi these "signatures", Evansdale those "signatures", another crime scene again different. If he is a crime fanatic, he has studied all the subtleties and keeps doing it. He is playing a giant game with authorities and is able to completely fade out his victims. His victims for him are only: exact dates/exact times/preferred locations/different MO/different signatures. Names wouldn't play a role, age perhaps neither.
I can't always use the word "perhaps" or "possibly", but: it's only my opinion atm, how the perp might think and "work". MOO

But what you are talking about is a giant collector. He is not playing with LE.

He is collecting own crime.

But within this crime, he would be collecting subsections, so to say.

Imagine any collector. Imagine it is a woman, and she’s collecting diamonds. Different cuts, shapes, times, rings, necklaces, bracelets, but diamonds it will be. Or pearls. It could be Tahitian, South Sea, Japanese, but still pearls.

Or books. It could be a unifying theme, time period, genre, or first editions, or even covers, but there are some other principles.

Ask gun collectors, as I don’t collect guns. I collect clothes, there should be something matching.

And collections are organized.

What I want to say, the person would introduce himself as a “collector of books”, but inside, there would be other groups.

There should be some subdivisions of his murder collection. They are not totally random.

I would put all known murders into a computer and see what else pops out. Could be dates, could be gender, could still be something in the places. So we shall know what his “subsections” are. Letters? D - Delphi, E - Evansdale.

Lastly, do you think his gait is different? DC thinks, no, other people think, yes. At least there is some locality in his accent. Let us say, Midwest could be his lair. He won’t move to the area where he’d stand out. So he travels, but it would be within a certain areal. Where he blends in. If he stands out in certain ways, he can’t afford to be noticeable.

Lastly, maybe there are communities of people who show “collections” online, people want to boast.

 

[Falling Down]

Ives said he saw the crime scene, and he saw the entire video, so that's more than anyone else has seen who is willing to talk. He did say at one point "I'm not an expert on serial killers," which I thought was.... interesting. He admitted that in his career he normally sees murder scenes that are acts of domestic violence, etc. But we know child abduction murders are so rare that most jurisdictions the size of Carroll County won't deal with one very often if at all. So in that light, the crime scene was odd to him. I can take that at face value.

I'll agree that it's odd, for the simple fact that it's located in an odd place.

I think that's kind of what he was saying.

JMO

 

[Falling Down]

If the signatures are fake, that would be considered staging. I believe some SKs have done that.
There have probably been some serial killers whose MOs and signatures varied so much that they killed for decades without LE ever connecting the dots—especially if those SKs traveled extensively.

Good points, and yes some killers have done such with the intention of "throwing off" or confusing investigators.

 

[Yemelyan]

Good points, and yes some killers have done such with the intention of "throwing off" or confusing investigators.

I feel like I've read of some cases where a family member or acquaintance killed a victim and then staged the scene to make it appear that a stranger/sexually motivated murder had taken place. Is that what you are talking about?

Or do you know of examples of stranger killings where the offender staged fake signatures in order to mislead investigators? Would this be a so-called copycat crime? If you can think of examples of the latter, I would be interested to read about them as that represents a very interesting psychology on the part of the offender.

 

[St. Anthony2017]

Or dug in the ground. It could have been done before the murders. Or after. It might have been not meant to be seen from the ground, or the bridge. We don’t know if it is a signature.

But these are “patterns”. Heart on the beach - heart in the grass - St. Valentine’s.

I looked at the heart from Libby’s FB page and I agree there are similarities.

 

[Falling Down]

I feel like I've read of some cases where a family member or acquaintance killed a victim and then staged the scene to make it appear that a stranger/sexually motivated murder had taken place. Is that what you are talking about?

Or do you know of examples of stranger killings where the offender staged fake signatures in order to mislead investigators? Would this be a so-called copycat crime? If you can think of examples of the latter, I would be interested to read about them as that represents a very interesting psychology on the part of the offender.

By "throw off" or what have you, to me it means a killer could do any number of things at a crime scene, "odd' things, etc., for any number of reasons.

In the beginning the FBI/U.S. DoJ used over 6,000 billboards across how many states to get the word out about the case and one image of BG. Eventually, LE claimed it has to be someone local, or someone very familiar with that specific area, or perhaps that part of Carroll County. Maybe something at the CS indicates the person is more local than a lot of us (myself included) first thought, could be LE has come across information or evidence which points to such.

JMO

 

[Deleted member 102539]

Charlot, (I can't reply atm)
I think, he is collecting victims and he is interested to follow the LE/FBI and media and social media at least, day and night, when travelling, when he can't sleep, all.the.time. He is certainly euphoric, when reading all the thousands of statements and opinions and speculations (!!!) about a mystery killer, who escaped unseen like a ghost.
I think, he doesn't think of himself as a loser, but of someone, who always got too little respect from others. As a killer he has everything under control and as a "loser" in people's eyes, who murdered, he afterwards gets the (ridiculous) "RESPECT" because of his ability to escape. Nobody knows his face (he thinks), his stature (he thinks), his voice (he thinks), the respective vehicle (he thinks). One day he has to wake up. Soon, I hope.

To compare him to a collector of pearls: Victims of a young age maybe his Tahitian pearls, victims of another age, beyond teens are maybe his Japanese pearls. Then there are the South Sea pearls, which are the pairs of females.* - Of course Idk, if there are males also in the collection. IMO MOO

*I'm too lazy to look for the value of pearls (re the order).

 

[Ozoner]

I feel like I've read of some cases where a family member or acquaintance killed a victim and then staged the scene to make it appear that a stranger/sexually motivated murder had taken place. Is that what you are talking about?

Or do you know of examples of stranger killings where the offender staged fake signatures in order to mislead investigators? Would this be a so-called copycat crime? If you can think of examples of the latter, I would be interested to read about them as that represents a very interesting psychology on the part of the offender.

There have been stranger killings where the killer tried to stage things to throw off police. Staging is by no means limited to killer who know their victims. Serial killers may stage crimes in order to hide the true motive (e.g., by making a killing look like a religious sacrifice when it was actually sexually motivated). Some serial killers do it just to mess with the police and show that they're smarter than the police. I believe Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, admitted to staging at least one of his crime scenes. Some serial killers have staged murder scenes to make them look like accidents.

 

[Justice101]

still following....

 

[Yemelyan]

There have been stranger killings where the killer tried to stage things to throw off police. Staging is by no means limited to killer who know their victims. Serial killers may stage crimes in order to hide the true motive (e.g., by making a killing look like a religious sacrifice when it was actually sexually motivated). Some serial killers do it just to mess with the police and show that they're smarter than the police. I believe Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, admitted to staging at least one of his crime scenes. Some serial killers have staged murder scenes to make them look like accidents.

Okay, I've heard of some serial killers staging murders to look like accidents (Israel Keyes claimed he did this). There wouldn't be a signature involved in that, though, as accidents don't have signatures.

I'll have to read up on what Gary Ridgway did as far as staging.

I fully agree that some offenders may do things to obscure the motive for their crime or to mess with police. But I feel that for certain types of crimes it would be very difficult to fake signatures, which is what @Charlot123 was suggesting. A killer might do "odd" things at the scene to eliminate physical evidence, yes. To stage the scene to obscure motive, yes. But to fake a signature to implicate someone else (given the precise psychological definition of a signature)? That I'm not so sure about without reading more.

 

[Ozoner]

Okay, I've heard of some serial killers staging murders to look like accidents (Israel Keyes claimed he did this). There wouldn't be a signature involved in that, though, as accidents don't have signatures.

I'll have to read up on what Gary Ridgway did as far as staging.

I fully agree that some offenders may do things to obscure the motive for their crime or to mess with police. But I feel that for certain types of crimes it would be very difficult to fake signatures, which is what @Charlot123 was suggesting. A killer might do "odd" things at the scene to eliminate physical evidence, yes. To stage the scene to obscure motive, yes. But to fake a signature to implicate someone else (given the precise psychological definition of a signature)? That I'm not so sure about without reading more.

Staged signatures aren't real signatures , but in some cases they might fool the cops. They're not meant to implicate someone else in particular, but sometimes they might be meant to misdirect LE to a different type of offender.

 

[bradfordsleuth]

By "throw off" or what have you, to me it means a killer could do any number of things at a crime scene, "odd' things, etc., for any number of reasons.

In the beginning the FBI/U.S. DoJ used over 6,000 billboards across how many states to get the word out about the case and one image of BG. Eventually, LE claimed it has to be someone local, or someone very familiar with that specific area, or perhaps that part of Carroll County. Maybe something at the CS indicates the person is more local than a lot of us (myself included) first thought, could be LE has come across information or evidence which points to such.

JMO

Quoted bbm

Perhaps DNA was found at the Delphi crime scene that matches DNA from another unsolved crime in Indiana where a suspect has never been identified?

Just speculating and JMO

 

[Yemelyan]

Staged signatures aren't real signatures , but in some cases they might fool the cops. They're not meant to implicate someone else in particular, but sometimes they might be meant to misdirect LE to a different type of offender.

I get what you are saying but I guess I'm having trouble getting past the idea that signatures specifically could be faked/staged. M.O. staged, definitely yes. Clues left behind, also yes.

Let's take Gary Ridgway, who you brought up. I read about him and it seems that he did a few things at crime scenes which I would consider his own signatures. In a number of cases, he posed his victims sexually. In others, he engaged in necrophilia. But in still other instances, he staged the crime scene by introducing chewed gum and cigarettes from other people, litter, and pamphlets from a traveling salesman. From what I read, he did not use these objects in a ritualistic way (though I could be wrong, please correct me if you know something different). He left them around the body to obfuscate the crime scene, to confuse police, and to implicate others. So while he was staging, I wouldn't really consider these items " fake signatures." If he was doing something very specific to the body with, say, the cigarettes, that's another story. But none of these things changed the overall story of the crime scene, which was that a sexually based murder had occurred.

I guess all of this is to say, the idea put forward by some posters here that in the Delphi case you may have a criminal who is staging signatures, I find somewhat outlandish IMO.

The idea that BG staged "odd" things to confuse investigators I could possibly see, as in the Gary Ridgway example. I'd just be careful to distinguish this from signatures.

 

[rosesfromangels]

Thank you, @rosesfromangels.

If true, this speaks against the Evansdale murders and the Delphi case being the work of the same killer.

I haven’t followed the other case closely. Were they found in a remote location rarely traveled? I guess we could say the Delphi girls were in a remote location....?

amateur opinion and speculation

 

[Ozoner]

I get what you are saying but I guess I'm having trouble getting past the idea that signatures specifically could be faked/staged. M.O. staged, definitely yes. Clues left behind, also yes.

Let's take Gary Ridgway, who you brought up. I read about him and it seems that he did a few things at crime scenes which I would consider his own signatures. In a number of cases, he posed his victims sexually. In others, he engaged in necrophilia. But in still other instances, he staged the crime scene by introducing chewed gum and cigarettes from other people, litter, and pamphlets from a traveling salesman. From what I read, he did not use these objects in a ritualistic way (though I could be wrong, please correct me if you know something different). He left them around the body to obfuscate the crime scene, to confuse police, and to implicate others. So while he was staging, I wouldn't really consider these items " fake signatures." If he was doing something very specific to the body with, say, the cigarettes, that's another story. But none of these things changed the overall story of the crime scene, which was that a sexually based murder had occurred.

I guess all of this is to say, the idea put forward by some posters here that in the Delphi case you may have a criminal who is staging signatures, I find somewhat outlandish IMO.

The idea that BG staged "odd" things to confuse investigators I could possibly see, as in the Gary Ridgway example. I'd just be careful to distinguish this from signatures.

A signature is something that meets the killer's psychological needs. Suppose a serial killer deliberately tries to make his crime scenes look distinctly different from one another so that the cops won't connect the crimes. He might pose a victim in a praying position in order to make the cops think that the crime was committed by a religious fanatic. That wouldn't be a signature because it would be strategic (as opposed to being done to satisfy the killer's psychological needs). However, LE might interpret it as a signature.

 

[Yemelyan]

A signature is something that meets the killer's psychological needs. Suppose a serial killer deliberately tries to make his crime scenes look distinctly different from one another so that the cops won't connect the crimes. He might pose a victim in a praying position in order to make the cops think that the crime was committed by a religious fanatic. That wouldn't be a signature because it woul be strategic (as opposed to being done to satisfy the killer's psychological needs). However, LE might interpret it as a signature.

Exactly. So it's not part of the signature if it's faked, it's now part of the M.O. I see what you're saying, I just don't think this happens often enough for it to be taken seriously for the Delphi case. Number one, because the police haven't said what the signatures are for Delphi. Number two, because IF the person who did this is a serial killer or twisted enough to become one, something like 88% of these individuals already have ritualistic signature behaviors that they exhibit at their crime scenes (real signatures... this is from a study by Robert Keppel). So I just don't think many of them are also taking the time to stage ones that aren't real as well. To me that sounds more like the plot of a novel than what statistically occurs most often with these offenders. JMO