And here is Part 3 from Spellbound, post #244, from thread #65 (parts 1 & 2 are from post #186):
Continuing from [13.13]
A= Alexis McAdams H=Det. Holeman
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Part 3 starts at 13.13
A: That area where the bodies were found, too, when you guys went down there, because you guys kept that crime tape up for awhile, you were still going back down there and re-tracing the steps and looking for anything, that, you know, you might have needed to go back, you know, to the scene to check out.... so when you went back down there, so that area that was taped off, that area was where bodies were found, right in that circular, that taped off place?
H: Yes.
A: So that's where when we walked down there, obviously all that investigative work had been done and they had taken away any evidence they had found. Was there a decent amount of evidence found at the scene?
H: Oh, I think so. I think, uh, you know, without getting into detail, I think, like I said, we don't have a lot of evidence, but we do have more than, you know, maybe your normal crime scene. We have evidence there that we're processing daily and working on, and still, yeah it's been six months but there is still different techniques you can use and things like that. I'm not a lab person, so I can't talk in lab language, but I'm in contact with them weekly, if not daily, and they are telling us we're still doing this, we're still working on things. Yeah, it's hard to say without jeopardizing the integrity of rthe invesrtigation how much evidence we had, because there's three people, in my opinion, maybe more, but at least three people that know what happened, knew what happened that day, and two of them are dead. So that one person knows the details of the crime. That's why we don't like to talk about the details or what we found or what we didn't find, because when we do get that person, when we do talk to them, they are the only ones that are gonna know the details for this. And that's another reason why we don't like FB putting false information out because then people believe that and then they tip off of those details that are false, and it just kind of impedes our investigartion a little bit.
A: [15.11] Was there DNA evidence found at the scene.
H: Well, yeah. Obviously that's a tricky question nobody wants to answer. You know, I think in every crime scene you have, you're gonna have DNA. You're gonna have the victim's DNA, you're gonna probably have victim's family's DNA. You know touch DNA is very powerful, so if I touch your shirt today, you know that DNA could still be there for weeks, if not months. So we're still working on identifying whose all DNA we have there, and we will continue to do that until we determine who all's DNA is at the scene.
A: so, this guy, you know, thinks he possibly got away with this, and that's one of the things, too, I know you guys are waiting, possibly he could start talking about it to people, because that's happened in other cases, they think 'ope, I got away with it' and then they go start trying brag about it, which is something you guys are following up on every day. But if he thinks he got away with it and thinks he cleaned up the scene, there still could possibly be something that he left behind?
H: Absolutely. so, yeah.
A: That's powerful, though, for the community to know too, because they were like that's, like I know you mentioned that's the question that nobody really wanted to get too much into when we talked to the Sheriff and things, but you mentioned any DNA, and DNA's from the girls, DNA is at the scene just from other things. But that's important that you guys are running that through and working with the lab. um, and then, is there anything that happened within that first 48 hours when you stepped in, too. Like, you volunteered immediately to have Indiana State Police come in to help out the Sheriff's department. Is there anything you think that could have been done differently that could have put the case in jeopardy in the beginning stages?
H: Absolutely. I think, you know, when you Monday morning quarterback, there are things you could have possibly done a little better or quicker now. Is there anything we did or didn't do that jeopardized this case? No. I think that with the FBI and the County and the State, all the resources that we have used, there's really nothing that we could have done more. But, I'm my own worst critic, so is there anything we couuld have done better? Yeah. That's every case. But we continue to learn from that and again, like I said, we didn't do anything or not do anything to jeopardize the case, but are ther things that we could do better? Yeah. So, you know, with have Jay Harper with the State Police Investigator, we have Tim McKindle, also, with the State Police Lead Investigator, and my job is to kind of manage this, so I have been trying to manage this from Day One, with the County, with the FBI, so that's an obstacle in itself, trying to manage something this big, but we've had plenty of guidance from all of our supervisors and such a great team; I mean, we obviously have gotten along with Carroll County pretty well and unfortunately, through other instances happen because life doesn't stop, so, unfortunately, we still get major crime scenes that they have to assist with here. And manpower issues, I mean we all have them. The county is short-handed, the State Police are short-handed, the FBI, everybody needs more. So if you are out there, apply for the State Police next time, we definitely need the help.
A: [18.33] you need help, yeah, get some new recruits. Umm, tell me, with the audio, which we heard. I remember the first time that was played at the press conference and that was bone-chilling to know you are going to be able to hear this person's voice, even though it was just that tiny clip. But what he was saying gave away, you know, some clues as well, but what has that been able to do for the case, having that voice out there?
H: I think it's helped a lot. Obviously, it's a distinctive voice. We've been getting a lot of tips off of that. unfortunately, the people that people think it is, we've been able to eliminate them. Not all of them, but most of them, we can eliminate through checking records and things like that. So, I think it's helped quite a bit. I think as we get into this deeper, it's gonna help us even more-so.
A: Is there more audio that was found on Libby's phone?
H: Yes.
A: Is that something that would be released?
H: Not at this point. We've discussed it and at this point we don't think it will help the investigation. At this time it doesn't appear to be anything more than some discussion between the girls and things like that. So, we've only released a portion of it. There's some others that we think could help us, but again, protecting the integrity of the investigation is the key here. We can't release everything we have, because there's only certain people that know the details. If we release everything then we get into possible false confessions and people over-exaggerating and embellishing things put on FB like we already battle with. So, we can only give so much.
A: The FB thing, I know that's been a, that's had a huge effect on the family. I mean, that's like, you know, probably a few years ago if this case had happened, or a decade ago, that wouldn't even have been a thing. Has that interfered with the case?
H: Oh absolutely. I talked to some of the older investigators, they didn't have to deal with that. When I talk about some of the stresses about social media. I've had a tip on me from interviewing with other stations. Absolutely. We've had tips on other police officers for whatever reason. We've had people that do their blogs that put out false information, and then if I tell them that's false and then they embellish and tell people that I'm giving out details of the case, which we are not. I will try to squash any rumors that people call and ask about, without jeopardizing the integrity of the investigation. But yeah, you know, again, I can't imagine what the family is going through just because of the incident, but now you have social media with all these rumors and false implications that i'ts just got to be driving them crazy. I talk tot the family quite a bit and try to tell them, you know, don't believe everything you hear on social media. I think it could be positive, I think. But what I would say is, instead of posting it on FB, call us before and let us investigate it because once you put it out there and it is false, then it interferes with our investigation and it bogs us down, because people start tipping off of false information, and we follow up on every tip. So, I think social media is a challenge for us, and we're trying to utilize it to teh best of our abilities, but it is definitely something that interferes with our investigations at times.
A: [22.04] How often do you listen to the audio clip. I mean, you probably listen to the full one, but is that something that kind of gives you .... when you're feeling down or you're like 'all right, here I am six months later and we have all these people working the case, you put, like, your whole life has been pretty much been consumed by this, so I mean, when you try to listen to that guy's voice again and look at that picture, does that kind of give you more momentum to be like, 'I'm gonna find you."?
H: I think that every time I close my eyes I hear the audio and I see the picture, I don't have to listen to it because I have listened to it a million times. But yeah, it definitely re-motivates us to think about that. So yeah, it's there
A: Do you think he thinKs he got away with it"
H: Oh yeah. I think probably. But he didn't. We'll catch him. I mean, like I said, it's not from lack of effort and we will continue to put all the effort that we have available and utilize all the resources that we have until we catch the monster that's responsible for this.
A: This is something that I wanted to ask about the audio clip. You mentioned that there's discussions and things like that. Can you say if the recording was going when thE murder happened?
H: I would say that I can't divulge that, just to protect the integrity of the investigation.
A: Resources you said you had never seen so many resources, FBI, ATF, local, State, Federal authorities, all coming in. I mean, you had all those people coming from Quantico and tried to help with the behavioral analysis, and that was also interesting in the beginning. Did that help, did that bring you guys maybe to a stage where you think you kind of know more about his guy?
H: Well, I think so. You know, the FBI has brought their behavioral analysis unit, they gave us more information. You know. We utilized social media, people just looking at social media. Like I said, it's bad, but we can also gather a lot of information about people from the social media, or digital media recovery specialist that, you know, would get all the information off of computers for us, and cell phones and, yeah. It's just a ton of resources that we were able to utilize through State, Local, and Federal.
A: [24.16] Was her cell phone, I mean, are you surprised he didn't try to take cell phone or take any evidence with him?
H: Was I surprised that ....?
A: That he didn't try to take it? I mean, you would think that if that had had, maybe he didn't know that they were recording, but ...
H: Yeah.
A: Do you believe that?
H: You know, I don't know. Nothing surprises me any more after doing this job for awhile, but who knows what he was thinking or what he knew. You know, we don't know that.
A: But it was all pretty, like, you didn't have to go searching through the woods, all that stuff was kind of let in that area, right?
H: ahh, that's a fair statement, the general area.
A: Then, going to tips, you've had thousands of tips, thousands of dollars in reward money. How many people have you guys interviewed?
H: Well, I would say probably thousands of people. Depends on what you consider an interview. A lot of people may say that's a little smaller, but we did an area canvass, so we interviewed probably 600 people that were driving through the area, we'd stop, talk to them. We've contacted numerous people to talk to them and I would consider those interviews. As far as formal, you know, if you're audio/videoing somebody, is that a formal interview? Probably four or five hundred-ish. But we have talked to thousands of people on this case.
A: The last thing. Do you think that he was from Delphi?
H: You know, I really don't know. I think for obvious reasons I think he had to know the area. Was he from here, visiting, or been here.... I mean, I don't know. But you mentioned earlier the train and that area taht this incident occurred, for somebody just to go out there and be able to do what he did and leave, you would think he either got real lucky and walked the right way to get out with nobody seeing him, or drove or flew, who knows how he left the scene, or he knew the area.
A: Was a weapon left at the scene?
H: uhh, I don't want to answer that at this time, so....
A: Anything else you want to add, or is that pretty much everything?
H: Oh, I think so. I think that's it
[a man out of the scene is asking a question] For the image to be captured on the phone, was there prior video of the girls together before that, or do you think they felt danger from this person and that is why she recorded that clip of him?
H: Both. There were pictures of ... they went out there to take pictures on the bridge, and there was pictures and video, but it appeared that, and this has been said before, that Liberty had enough senses to realize that something wasn't right and she started that video because she felt uncomfortable, both girls were uncomfortable. And I think that's why. But they were out there taking pictures with the phone and videos.
A: Is the clip like several minutes long?
H: I don't know exactly how long it is, but .... (He seems "uncomfortable", for lack of a better description)
A: Did she shut it off, or was it just ....
H: uh, I don't want to talk about how that ... right now.
A: OK, that's fine. sorry
