Down the Hill: The Delphi Murders
Episode 7 -- Madness
Individuals Interviewed for this Episode:
Doug Carter - ISP Superintendent
Kim Riley - ISP Police Sgt. & Communications Officer
Kelsi German - Libby's Sister
Todd Ladd - Pastor of United Methodist Church in Delphi
Diane Erskine - Abby's Grandmother
Sadie Maude - Libby's Cousin
Becky Patty - Libby's Grandmother & Legal Guardian
Mike Patty - Libby's Grandfather & Legal Guardian
Tobe Leazenby - Carroll County Sheriff
Erica Gibson - Friend of Abby and Libby
Amy Gibson - Mother of Friend of Abby and Libby
ISP Superintendent Doug Carter:
A sketch is not a photograph. A sketch is what we think is likely a rendition of a composite of a human being. It is not a photograph.
I can look at both of ‘em and put 'em both together. I can see them—I can see them together and that’s what I think this person probably looks like. It’s not a photograph.
Now, remember we have a photograph from the neck down. That’s where somebody who knows who this is. I always think about that now with my own family or with, with other people. You think gosh dang it — somebody, if you, if we put a bag on your head, somebody knows who’s body that is. And we have his voice, and we have his stride. Never in my lifetime did you have all three. And, we still just — this is, this is this monster mystery.
Mid-July 2017 - the first sketch is released five months after the murders
ISP Sgt. Kim Riley:
We feel this is very important because it actually gives a better view of the, uh, the person in the picture that you see down below [the still image taken from the video on Libby’s phone]. Uh, it shows a little more facial features. It gives you a little more information on what we’re looking at -- who the suspect might be. And that’s why we feel it is very important to get this picture out there at this time.
Kelsi German:
It was really interesting to see a face with the body that we had. We knew what his walk kind of looked like, and what he looked like physically, but we didn’t know what his face looked like. And so, putting a face with it was very eye-opening. It made it really real. And it made it so that there was a person we had to look for rather than a voice we had to look for.
DTH:
Did you recognize the face?
Kelsi German:
I didn’t recognize it. Although, I do think there are a lot of similarities in them. In the face, it did look a lot familiar. A lot of the characteristics in it, you can see them in half the people you walk by down the street.
So, when I look at it -- and I'm like, "oh it could be this person or it could be that person," but really it could be anybody. So, that was kinda something that I was kinda struggling with — trying to figure out who this person could be and why it looked familiar to me.
Pastor Todd Ladd:
I’ve not looked at the sketch and thought, "oh that could be..." One other thing is, the reality is, it could be half the white males in Carroll County. And so, I don’t look at it and have this sense of dread. Or say, “oh here’s who it is”. But, there’s also the acknowledgement that you look around and that’s, that’s half the white males in Carroll County — of a certain age that could look that way.
Diane Erskine:
When you study that face, and you look at the sketch and you look, you try to think about how old they are. And, and you know, try to make, try to make some connection.
I, uh, you know, what’s the first lesson you learn in science -- for every action there’s an equal opposite reaction. So, that’s our, I think in our makeup as human beings. We’re trying to justify, too rationalize. Well, this happened so this -- what is the cause? What’s over here? What’s the action that caused? Well, you — that doesn’t work with evil. It just doesn’t.
Um, there is no justification. There is no rationalization for this act. You know, it — I don’t know what the motivation is -- if there even was a motivation. I, I don’t know because it’s evil. It’s -- and it’s deceiving, and it’s come to kill, and steal, and destroy. And so, there’s just — it’s not, uh, it’s not, uh, a mindset that we have. But as humans, we want to know what caused it.
DTH:
Do you think he’s local?
Diane Erskine:
I, I don’t — I honestly do not have an opinion about that. Um, [scoffs] it’s hard enough to go to the gas station and the grocery store, and, and, and drive down the road and you see someone walking by the road, and uh, look at them and, and wonder. But, anywhere — and wonder. I, I honestly don’t have a thought that they are or they are not. Honestly, I really don’t.
DTH:
So when the sketches -- the first sketch came out, did you recognize that face?
Sadie M:
No. Um, still to this day it makes me sick to my stomach. I get a knot in my throat when I hear the voice, um, or see the picture. Or I just -- I don’t know why. It just — that’s what happens.
DTH:
It’s the face of evil.
Sadie Maude:
Yeah. The first four or five months, I had to have my husband walk me to the car every morning. I wouldn’t go outside when it was dark outside. Just in fear — but in the back of my mind, I don’t think it would happen at night. This was something that happened during the day, but I was just still scared.
Um, it’s changed a lot of people here. Um, not only in our family circle but the whole town. They were in fear. This would never happen here. I mean, there’s three stop lights in town. But it did -- so now we all have changed. Not just one person, we have all changed.
Becky Patty:
There’s been times that you see somebody that just looks a lot like the sketch, and I can’t stop myself. Tara and I were at a stoplight one time, and both of us — and the person felt uncomfortable. I mean, he knew. He felt us staring so hard that he turned and looked at us, but we couldn’t — you can’t help yourself.
You stare. You look. You scan a room. You scan anywhere you are. You go to a restaurant, you’re sitting there and you’re looking. While you’re carrying on your conversation, you’re looking. At work, when we’re on the road, you look.
I keep thinking, “I, you know what — I had a job that I’m out and about a lot, and you think “oh, if only, if only I could see him.”
DTH:
What would you do?
Becky Patty:
That’d be a tough one.
Well, I want to make sure we get the right person, so I wouldn’t — I definitely would be calling 9-1-1. I would not be — I , if I really thought it was the person, I’d be calling 9-1-1.
DTH:
Has anybody walked into your office to say, “I look like the sketch. I wanna clear my name. Here’s my DNA?”
Sheriff Tobe Leazenby:
Yes. [Laugh] That has occurred.
DTH:
A lot?
Sheriff Tobe Leazenby:
I’d say less than 5 times that I remember, yeah. Not a lot — but yeah, it has happened.
DTH:
And by the same token, have there been people that you’ve gone to check out and said “give us some DNA” and they’re like “I’ll pass”.
Sheriff Tobe Leazenby:
Right, yes. We’ve had that -- and then that’s, you know, where our, our investigators pursue a search warrant thru our prosecutor and pursue it that way, legally.
DTH:
So, is there anybody that you’ve wanted DNA from that you haven’t gotten it?
Sheriff Tobe Leazenby:
No one comes to mind. Eventually, we do.
Sgt. Kim Riley:
Tying us up on false leads and innuendos is not something we want. We want actual facts. We want information that’s gonna help us, not hurt somebody else’s pride. Or their dignity, or uh, embarrass a family because you think he’s the killer. Let us make that decision. That’s what we’re here for.
Superintendent Doug Carter:
I got several this morning. And when, you know — we encourage people not to do side by sides because when you talk about somebody you know here -- we’ve had a lot of people that have been targeted in this and, really, it’s complicated their lives.
So, then we encourage people to be really, really careful doing side by sides. Give us the name. Give us the address. Give us your thoughts. But, don’t do a side by side with a living human being. It makes sense. And, keep in mind that a sketch is not a photograph. It is a rendition of an approximate view. Um, it is not a digital photograph.
DTH:
We also talked to a sketch artist -- not one, uh, here in your state -- who said sketches really aren’t for people who don’t know the person.
Superintendent Doug Carter:
Right.
DTH:
They’re for people who do.
Superintendent Doug Carter:
Oh, I love that. It’s so true. It is so true, Barbara. That’s so true.
Sgt. Kim Riley:
My problem is when you take somebody’s picture, and put it next to the drawing we had, and say "this is the guy" -- and you have no idea who this person is -- or even if you do -- can you tie that person to Delphi? If you can’t, why are you even trying to make something out of nothing?
You wanna be the big star of the show, so to speak. That’s not what police work is all about. It embarrasses that person, for one. Especially if you put a name with it. The next morning, how would you like to have about six phone calls saying -- "Hey Kim Riley, I understand that you’re the murderer of the two girls"? If you look at the Facebook, ya know, I don’t want to be getting those, you know, those phone calls.
DTH:
Well, you know... if it really is the killer, wouldn’t that perhaps tip him off that now people are on to him? He might change his behavior.
Sgt. Kim Riley:
Yes. He’s gonna change his behavior. He’s gonna change his look. He’s gonna — excuse the expression — get outta dodge. Uh, you know, he’s not gonna hang around.
Tell us. Send that information to us. Don’t send it and then put it on facebook. Or put it on Facebook and then decide to send to us. Cause we’re not -- we look at Facebook but we don’t — that’s not where we get our information. We get our information from the tipline and from the emails.
And, preferably, we prefer the emails. It’s the easiest way to do it. And, that’s the way we want it 'cause we don’t have time to go on and look at every Facebook page. And we, and most people don’t have that much time and, you know. When you’re, just because we’re dealing with this case doesn’t mean there’s not five, or ten, or fifteen other different cases we’re dealing with also.
DTH:
Some of them think they could actually solve this.
Sadie Maude:
[Laughs] Can you insert an eye roll there?
Yeah, dumb people and their Facebook investigating -- that's what we like to call it. But they don’t have legal authority to do anything, so I don’t understand why they think they can solve it.
Somebody called a tip in on my husband, and my husband is like under 135 pounds, like no. And, we had a police officer sit down at my kitchen table and ask my husband many, and many, and many questions. And, it was hurtful but we were open to tell him. "No, this is where we were. This is what we were doing." Because we had no shame to hide because we knew what we were doing, and we would never want to do anything like that to someone. Especially to someone in my family of all things.
The cop was like "I don’t know why this tip was called in, but we have to follow up thru this so we’re just gonna ask you these questions. And, if you’re — I might be back if something doesn’t check out." And, everything checked out fine. My husband was at work that day, so —
Sheriff Tobe Leazenby:
My name’s been brought up three times in the whole process. You know, what was the sheriff doing that day?
You know, uh, were there, uh, a personal issue that someone has against me? Or I — I don’t know. Were that, were those three separate times where they came from — but um, as with everyone else, the -- and I, you know, again kudos to our investigators because they came to me and said "hey sheriff, I hate to tell you this but..."
DTH:
We gotta check you out.
Sheriff Tobe Leazenby:
[Laughs] Yeah, yeah. And so, like everyone else, uh, you know, that’s exactly what they did. I mean, they checked into the various individuals in our community and said okay you know what — where were you basically during this time period on February 13, 2017?
Erika Gibson:
People talk without knowing anything.
Amy Gibson:
Um, people just want their five seconds of fame, and that’s all it comes down to. You know, they want to throw out whatever they can to get their name out there. Regardless if it’s true, regardless of who it hurts. They just — they’re selfish. They don’t care about Abby and Libby. Their interest is just to be the one who caught the killer and to get that money. I mean, that’s all it comes down to. They don’t have — they don’t care all about Delphi. They don’t care about the families, you know.
Erika Gibson:
They all bash everybody in Delphi. Like every person in Delphi is this or Delphi people are this. And so, we know we’re not that.
Amy Gibson:
Ya know, we come from a good town. Delphi is not bad, you know. We’ve never had violence here like this. I’ve grown up here my whole life. We’ve never had anything like this happen before, you know. And, everybody you know -- getting on LE saying that they, that they’re corrupt, and they know what happened, and all that stuff.
We don’t believe that. The people that live here, we trust in our law enforcement. You know, we trust that they’re doing everything they can. This doesn’t happen here. They didn’t know what was happening. You know, like, I would never blame them for anything.
Mike Patty:
It doesn’t bother me, it really doesn’t because I know the truth is on my side. People can speculate, and throw out all kinds of stuff, and innuendos, and rumors. It’s not going to change the facts. And remember, right — I live in a world of facts and data.
Um, while I would like for my family and everybody else to be able to see the, you know, the speculations that people put out there. It really doesn’t. And, even between the wife and I — she’ll, I know at times she says I don’t know how it doesn’t bother you. And, I say because it doesn’t — it’s not the truth.
You know, people out there that look at this as, as uh, I don’t know if they look at this as a case. I don’t, I don’t know how to say it for sure, but if they would take all that energy that they spend and put it in a positive light, they could truly possibly help the situation.
But, you know — and, and that’s what I would ask people. To stop and think before you post. Before you do things — is this really gonna help? How can I help the situation? Make it better, not worse. Um, because all the, you know, the vile stuff that’s been said about, you know, myself and the family -- that doesn’t, that doesn’t provide any positivity towards to getting to a resolution here.
Becky Patty:
And, as for some of the other things -- I just think there’s malicious people out there. Too much time on their hands. Um, the only thing that worries me is that it’s not just us but there’s other people that they could potentially ruin their lives. You know, these people have done nothing. These are innocent people out there. There’s only one guilty person, so all of these pictures and all of these people that they’re sharing -- you know, they’re all innocent. Maybe, maybe one.
DTH:
Becky, I can’t help but notice — you’ve obviously suffered unspeakable loss but its this, or this part of the story, about this kind of effect of social media -- it's the first time I’ve seen you visibly angry.
Becky Patty:
I get very angry. There’s been so many lies -- not rumors, lies -- brought out. There’s been things, private things, that’ve been put out there that should’ve never been put out there. They have invaded things that they should’ve never invaded. This isn’t entertainment, this is our lives. So yeah, I get very angry because they, I think, dirty Libby’s memory.
Sgt. Kim Riley
That’s the information we were getting. People were ex-wives, ex-husbands, um, ex-lovers. We were getting information on them. Just because you don’t like ‘em doesn’t mean that they killed those two little girls.
DTH:
Why do you think that people do that?
Sgt. Kim Riley:
Just to cause a hassle for them. Uh, I mean, because if we get a tip on you, we’re gonna have to check into it. I mean -- we don’t, we don’t know where you were at that day. We don’t know what you were doing. So, we gotta send somebody out or call a department in the area — because some of these tips were coming from all over the country, all over the world. We have had people -- we weren’t gonna transport guys all over the country to do it. We would have to call the area’s local departments in the area -- sheriff’s department or maybe the FBI had to send out somebody. So, it was, it was tying up time and a lot of precious time that we really didn’t have.
DTH:
So, if somebody sent in a tip and said that I was the person, then you would have to call the Atlanta police department, who would have to then track down my employer, who would then, basically, have to vouch for if I was actually working that day or not. That’s the, that’s the extent —
Sgt. Kim Riley
Exactly.
DTH:
And, if you weren’t, if you were out running errands, then you gotta go track down —
Sgt. Kim Riley
People that you talked to.
If we have you in Atlanta on that day, you’re not going to be in Delphi at the — if we have you in Atlanta, at the station or on an errand to go get something, and you were back in an hour, we — that’s gonna cover you pretty good.
But let's say you called in sick that day. Now, we gotta go send somebody. First of all, we send them to your work to find out if you worked that day, and they tell us no he was not there. Now, we gotta send somebody to your house to talk to you. And, you’re going, "Delphi, Indiana? Where in the world is that at?" And, now we’ve wasted your time. We’ve wasted the investigators time here to send the information to Atlanta, to have Atlanta or the FBI -- whoever wants to do it -- find himself an investigator to check on you.
