Found Deceased IN - Abigail (Abby) Williams, 13, & Liberty (Libby) German, 14, The Delphi Murders 13 Feb 2017 #124

[SMK777]

DBM

 

[SMK777]

A tip

I sure wish there’d be that one that leads to an arrest. Do you think it will be someone who knows him who sees some solid proof, like souvenirs kept from the murders?

Because at this point suspicion isn’t going to be enough (for example, him talking about the murders a lot. Not enough to arrest. Remember John Mark Karr emailing all that info to the professor, confessing to JonBenet Ramsey’s murder, and it amounted to nothing?)

 

[rosesfromangels]

I almost agree. The only thing I have in my scenario different is the age of 21-40 and that is because of the 2nd sketch. But I can see the rest of it. I also wonder what his social skills are like.

He could be a model citizen, or the family loser. I’m not ruling anyone out.

Amateur opinion and speculation

 

[minazoe]

oh he's a loser all right. everyone knows it too. mOO

 

[rosesfromangels]

I sure wish there’d be that one that leads to an arrest. Do you think it will be someone who knows him who sees some solid proof, like souvenirs kept from the murders?

Because at this point suspicion isn’t going to be enough (for example, him talking about the murders a lot. Not enough to arrest. Remember John Mark Karr emailing all that info to the professor, confessing to JonBenet Ramsey’s murder, and it amounted to nothing?)

I think it will be a tip they received early on that is just proving out

amateur opinion and speculation

 

[JnRyan]

Possible sealed juvenile record.

JMO

Wow! Good catch! If it turns out this guy is on the low end of the age range, his criminal record may not be available. Especially, if they were not felony arrests.

 

[carbuff]

I think the killer will be 50-60 years old, loner, who has lots of time to think about his crimes. He does not seem to know much about the technology habits of young teenagers. He may choose two victims so as to threaten one so the other complies. This could also indicate some sort of physical impairment.

I think based on the clothing probably a truck driver who drives a refrigerated truck.

I think there is a good possibility this case is linked to that of Elizabeth Collins and Lyric Cook in Evansdale, Iowa. Based on the idea that nobody actually saw this individual commit these crimes I think he is very careful. I know eyewitnesses at the Monon High Bridge trail in Delphi, IN think they saw this person, but I do not think so based on the sketches released.

Since most criminals tend to branch out from their home base when they start their crimes, I would guess he lives north of Evansdale, Iowa because Elizabeth Collins and Lyric Cooks bodies were found north of Evansdale. I would guess Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, or the area of Canada above those states as where he may live. The possible connection to Evansdale, Iowa is only a guess and not based on any facts.

There is over a 4 1/2 year gap between the Evansdale, Iowa murders of Elizabeth Collins and Lyric Cook and the Delphi, Indiana murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German. I think the killer is patient too.

I think he's from or lived in southern Wisconsin or possibly Minnesota. Just a gut feeling on that.

Truck driver wouldn't surprise me, or some kind of work where he travels to other areas for contract work--construction, laying fiberoptic or working on cell towers, heavy equipment operator, that sort of thing.

I think he might be a veteran, might have sexual offenses from his time in the military. Might have a juvenile record or a record of sexual offenses, not necessarily against children.

I think he has a flashpoint temper and that rage as much as sexual factors contributed to the murders.

 

[SMK777]

I think it will be a tip they received early on that is just proving out

amateur opinion and speculation

Sure hope it’s soon.

 

[somequestions]

I find this case quite frustrating. How can two fit and active teens be murdered like this, with video evidence, and still be unsolved? It really does defy belief. It does make me wonder if the police botched something in the beginning that meant some evidence was destroyed or corrupted. I wonder if they think they know who it is but can't arrest them due to lack of evidence they can use to convict.

It wouldn't surprise me if a few people know what happened / who did it but aren't talking for some reason.

It is not that hard to understand. When we think something, it is what we think and it does not change sometimes even in the face of hard evidence or facts.

Until we know the outcome of this case, we do not know if police will be right or wrong about what they think.

 

[JnRyan]

I think it will be a tip they received early on that is just proving out

amateur opinion and speculation

Yeah, I still believe there is a good possibility with all the tips he is in there somewhere. In the beginning many of thought this would be solved in short order. What if he was the subject of an early tip and something just got missed.

 

[Marzipan]

I think he's from or lived in southern Wisconsin or possibly Minnesota. Just a gut feeling on that.

Truck driver wouldn't surprise me, or some kind of work where he travels to other areas for contract work--construction, laying fiberoptic or working on cell towers, heavy equipment operator, that sort of thing.

I think he might be a veteran, might have sexual offenses from his time in the military. Might have a juvenile record or a record of sexual offenses, not necessarily against children.

I think he has a flashpoint temper and that rage as much as sexual factors contributed to the murders.

Could you expand on why Minnesota or Wisconsin. I know both states—and I don’t need to be anonymous enough to hide the fact that I’m from Minnesota, so I’m curious. Is it our meat packing and livestock transportation? But then you list all those other things, so why else MN WI?

 

[MistyWaters]

Yeah, I still believe there is a good possibility with all the tips he is in there somewhere. In the beginning many of thought this would be solved in short order. What if he was the subject of an early tip and something just got missed.

Yes I agree. Extra officers from other areas were called in to lessen the workload and iirc tips were also made through other police departments. If the information from the tip wasn’t thorough and concise an effective interview wouldn’t be possible.

Note - these comments come a year after sketch #2 was released. BBM

Apr/2020
“Mistakes may have been made early on in the rush to get a resolution to this,” Leazenby said. “It could be that just the right question was not asked or a nerve was not touched by a question to help us figure out who did this.”

The Sheriff said evidence is being revisited to determine if there are more leads than were first thought....”
Lots of tips, no arrest in 2017 double homicide | Carroll County Comet

 

[rosesfromangels]

Yeah, I still believe there is a good possibility with all the tips he is in there somewhere. In the beginning many of thought this would be solved in short order. What if he was the subject of an early tip and something just got missed.

This is exactly what I speculate

 

[carbuff]

Could you expand on why Minnesota or Wisconsin. I know both states—and I don’t need to be anonymous enough to hide the fact that I’m from Minnesota, so I’m curious. Is it our meat packing and livestock transportation? But then you list all those other things, so why else MN WI?

Wisconsin for I-39 mostly. Straight shot south to a whole bunch of east-west highways. Delphi and Waterloo are about the same distance in opposite directions.

Lots of truck drivers, big construction, and agricultural service companies seem to be located in Janesville/Rockland area, so it's a good base for somebody who worked around the area.

There's a person I suspect in the Lizzie-Lyric murders who lived just over the Minnesota border at the time of the murders. Rochester MN to Eau Claire WI through Madison is a straightforward route.

I mean, nothing I could support from evidence, y'know? Just stuff adds up for me.

 

[ScumbagTrav]

I almost agree. The only thing I have in my scenario different is the age of 21-40 and that is because of the 2nd sketch. But I can see the rest of it. I also wonder what his social skills are like.

Find a cigarette buttnat the trailhead?

 

[cujenn81]

Down the Hill: The Delphi Murders
Episode 3 — A Picture and A Search Warrant

At the beginning of the podcast, there is a short discussion about the two Snapchat photos. The snaps have already been discussed at great length here, and there’s nothing new or noteworthy to add from this discussion.


Sgt. Kim Riley:
Basically, we have identified the bodies, uh—uh, of the two, um, females that were found on yesterday. Yesterday—or, uh yeah, yesterday. Uh, the bodies are, uh, have been positively identified by as Abigail J. Williams, 13, of the Delphi area and Liberty Rose Lynn German, 14, of the Delphi area. The two girls were reported missing on Monday, February 13th; the bodies were discovered about 12:15 on the 14th, in the woods just east of town here. My volunteers that helped search of the children after they were reported missing to the Sheriff’s Carroll County police department.

Family has been notified. This is considered a double homicide investigation. We are asking for anyone to come forward who has information—that were either on the Delphi Historic Trail yes—there on Monday, especially if they were near the Monon High Bridge. That they might’ve seen—seen somebody out there, they may have taken pictures where somebody might be in that photograph. If they were out there doing that kind of stuff we need that information. We would love to have pictures of that—more to just clarify what we’ve got going on out there.

Reporter: Is there anybody else out there in the community?

Sgt. Kim Riley: I’m sorry—what was that?

Reporter: Is there a threat out there to anybody else in the community?

Sgt. Kim Riley: I’ll let you answer that.

Sheriff Tobe Leazenby: At this time we do not believe so, sir.

Reporter: Does that mean you have a person of interest in custody or a suspect?

Sheriff Tobe Leazenby: We—we do not, sir.

Reporter: Can you tell us the cause—the manner of death that the autopsy uncovered?

Sgt. Kim Riley:
No, we cannot do that at this time because of the investigation still in its baby steps, so to speak, and we don’t want to put that information out yet.

Reporter:
Can you describe for us the scope of the investigation? The resources, the people, what’s going on with the investigation?

Sgt. Kim Riley:
The Carroll County Sheriff’s Department is the lead investigation. They also—they’ve asked us to help. The Delphi Police Department is assisting, uh. We have the FBI—what’s called their ERT Team, which is the evidence, uh, collection team that is here. Um, they’re also providing other resources. At this time, we have not put all of it together yet.


HLN News Anchor Jean Casarez:
[News Report] We are following breaking news tonight out of Indiana. Someone has murdered two girls. One just thirteen-years-old, the other fourteen. And in their search for information, they’re trying to locate anyone who was in the wooded area at the time, including a male subject seen on these photographs. They were just released minutes ago by the Indiana State Police. They say they would like to ask this person what he might have seen.

The ISP said the photos, “appear to depict a white male wearing blue jeans, a blue coat/jacket, and a hoodie”.


Superintendent Doug Carter:
All I’ll say is that we’ve had a lot of work done on that photograph.

DTH:
And you can’t make that better for the public?

Superintendent Doug Carter:
No.

DTH:
Can I ask when you look at that do you see a hat? Do you see hair? Do you see a hood? Do you know?

Superintendent Doug Carter:
Yeah, I mean—I do. I do. And again, I’m not—a long time ago—I don’t look at the head anymore. I look at everything else that we know about this person—not what we think. What do we know about this person? We know what his body looks like. We know how he walks, how he talks.

DTH:
When did this really start—this case really start to get the media attention outside of this area?

Sgt. Kim Riley:
I’m gonna say late that night or early the next morning. ‘Cause we started to get—believe it or not—the BBC showed up out of New York. I had a couple of other reporters were here. I was getting phone calls from other countries. It was just starting to snowball.

I mean, I’ve dealt with national news on other—on other things—but not to the way this was. And it was just a whole new experience for me, and I—it was time to call in some help for me. And I had some great other PIOs—just that came and assisted me and backed me up. Where I would be doing one thing, they would be doing something else behind the scene. So, it was—it was nice to know that I had that kinda help. For the first month or so, it just—it just continued and interest just keep growing and growing.

DTH:
Why do you think there’s that interest?

Sgt. Kim Riley:
I think once we kinda got out of what happened, and the information that we did put out there, it just—I know at first we didn’t put a whole lot out there. And there was reasons, ya know.

You don’t throw your three aces on the ground when you’re looking for the fourth one in the card game. And, ya know, that was kinda what we were trying to do—is hold all the information in that we could, uh, but yet still feed the media as much as we could.

And I know there’s a fine line between those two, and it was—and there was a couple times where it, uh, I probably said something I should’ve not said. But, it was just one of those things where it was just harder to hold it back. And, uh, I always conferred with my lead detectives. Um, both in the sheriff’s department, and—and our guys, and with the FBI.

When we did do news conferences or when we did—when they knew I was getting this information and was getting ready to put it out, I always ran it by them before—most of the time before. There were times when I could not do that, but 90% of the time I tried to run everything by them before, uh, I talked to the media. Because I didn’t want to say something that was gonna jeopardize or hurt the investigation.

So, I mean, it was a—it was a fine line on what we were doing, but we tried to do the best we could with the information that we could put out there.

Sheriff Tobe Leazenby:
This is that sudden swarming, if you will, that’s occurred in our community. Where, ya know, whether it was law enforcement, media, ya know, uh, the governor himself. You know, coming on board. Just, uh, just the overwhelm—the initial overwhelming feeling.

You know, I’ll never forget, um, where we currently are—down at the Delphi City Building—um, [laugh] it was kind of like watching a little beehive. I mean, with all these investigators in and out of the door all the time with a file in their hand and going to follow [up] on whomever. Ya know, I remember seeing that first couple days around the—ya know, once we were organized, around the clock. I mean, there were many a nights I was up there ’til maybe one or two in the morning and still seeing guys in and out of the door all the time, following [up] into things.


HLN News Anchor Jean Casarez:
[News Report on February 16, 2017]: We do have information to report. The Indiana State Police are serving a search warrant at a home in Delphi. This is in response to information that the police received through tips and through interviews giving probable cause to search the home. No word on whether there have been any arrests at this hour.

We do want to begin with Lindsey Eaton. She’s a reporter for CBS for Fox 59 in Indianapolis. Lindsey, you are at the scene tonight. Tell us what you’ve seen with the executing of this search warrant at a home.

Fox59 Reporter Lindsey Eaton:
Correct, correct. We’ve been out here for about an hour. State police did issue a search warrant at this home. Within the past hour, some of the authorities have left. There are still quite a large presence of authorities out here. We have seen detectives bringing out some boxes from this home.

There’s a field next-door to this home. We saw detectives with flashlights looking through the field. Um, at this point, the latest we have heard—no arrest has been made. Troopers in the area—Sgt. Riley actually just told us about an hour ago that they don’t anticipate any arrests to be made but this was part of following up on a tip that they received. And they—he said it’s just another piece of the puzzle. They’re following up on each and every tip.

HLN News Anchor Jean Casarez:
Lindsey, I want some more detail here. How many boxes have you seen authorities take out tonight? Have they taken anything other than boxes? Any carpeting, any mattress, anything?

Fox59 Reporter Lindsey Eaton:
We have not, we have not. We saw maybe just a couple—like I said we got here around 7 o’clock. We saw maybe a couple boxes taken from the home. I think there was either no crime tape around the house. Um, there are a few authorities still out here. They were searching the field next door. We saw them going around the house, up in and out of the front door, and that’s about it at this point.


HLN News Anchor Jean Casarez:
[Later that evening speaking with Sgt. Kim Riley on the phone] Okay, so you went to a judge and a judge signed off on this warrant. Why did you select this home in Delhi?

Sgt. Kim Riley:
Through the investigation with the tips, and the uh, interviews we had. We had probable cause, uh, to go into the house and do a search on it.


Prosecutor Robert Ives posted the following statement on Facebook on February 16, 2017 [per the Lafayette Courier & Journal]:
Please do not harass, bother, or accuse anyone. There are no charges pending against anyone as a result of the pending investigation. No one at the home searched is suspected of committing any crime. Please, please leave these people alone and let the police work.

The podcast then speaks with a legal expert about how unusual it is for LE to come up empty after executing a search warrant this early on in an investigation.

DTH spoke with Sgt. Kim Riley about this search warrant. He said it wasn't as significant to the investigation now, as it seemed to them that night. He said they went to the property thinking a suspect could be there. Apparently, the investigation revealed that wasn’t the case. He also said it wasn’t that important of an asset as it was that night.

[I'm not sure what Riley meant by “an asset” in this statement — that wasn't a typo; I just wanted to clarify that.]

DTH tried to gain access to the paperwork for the search warrant, but the ISP denied their request and cited the ongoing investigation.

 

[JnRyan]

Find a cigarette buttnat the trailhead?

No, but Awsi Dooger and Falling Down are closer to the area and might be able to answer that point.

 

[JDough]

Possible sealed juvenile record.

JMO

Yes, yes, yes!!!!! My thoughts exactly.

 

[JDough]

Yeah, I still believe there is a good possibility with all the tips he is in there somewhere. In the beginning many of thought this would be solved in short order. What if he was the subject of an early tip and something just got missed.

I agree with you @JnRyan. The statement by DC in the April 2019 confirmed it for me. " [Speaking] Directly to the Killer, who may be in this room: We believe you were hiding in plain sight. For more than 2 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."

My belief is that BG himself, along with family members and friends/co-workers, have been interviewed. Maybe more than once. Someone is being dishonest, or is providing a false alibi. Or, as you have stated, investigators just didn't pick up on something they should have.

ETA Link
DELPHI PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT (2019) - CrimeLights

 

[Deleted member 102539]

dbm, because of wrong thought