Found Deceased IN - Abigail (Abby) Williams, 13, & Liberty (Libby) German, 14, The Delphi Murders 13 Feb 2017 #129

[St. Anthony2017]

What kind of tip could someone provide that would seal the deal for LE? Other than so and so told me he did it, nothing else, IMO. Someone saying they know someone who acted strange after the murder, or followed it closely, or called out of work that day, none of that is going to make LE say NOW we know who he is and can go get him. I want to know what info they need from the public

Maybe posts they had on Facebook or pictures on their FB would yield clues of someone’s suspicious behavior or their weird comments and postings about Valentines Day the night of when the girls bodies were found.

 

[steeltowngirl]

It wasn't the sherriff's idea to do a question and answer, it was the newspaper's. What we want to know doesn't count. I know that is annoying to some, but there it is.
IMO, there will be no answers that LE doesn't believe will progress the investigation.
Having said that, I'm suprised that more aren't sending in questions, just in case. Here is an opportunity where we might learn something new, so why not take a chance?

What I sent in is really more information than a question. I posted back in May about a 38 year old case that was solved in Nampa, Idaho. I admit that since the killer was revealed, I now see every case wondering if something similar happened in the girls' case. That's not logical, but I've followed the case since nine year old Daralyn Johnson went missing in Idaho 39 years ago on the 24th of this month!

I asked Leazenby if he is aware of the Idaho case because I'm hoping and praying that there was a hair from the suspect found in the Delphi case. Daralyn's case was finally solved as summarized in this article:

In 2018, the hair was sent to the University of California, Santa Cruz, lab under the direction of Dr. Edward Green, according to the document. The lab was able to use a DNA technique to develop an SNP profile, or single-nucleotide polymorphism, to identify certain stretch of DNA.

Greg Hampikian, co-director of the Idaho Innocence Project at Boise State, said that Canyon County authorities used a mitochondrial DNA strategy mapped out in his laboratory at the university to eliminate suspects. In 2017, the Hampikian lab devised a forensic genealogy strategy and recommended a California lab to carry out the work that ultimately identified Dalrymple.

The pubic hair was determined to be male. From there, the FBI was able to identify a family line tied to the Dalrymple family. The family included four boys and two girls from Idaho.

bbm
And the hair did not have a root/bulb! So I am hoping so strongly that they have a hair in the girls' case, because I know it could be solved!

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article242487046.html


I'm reasonably sure that Indiana is aware of the Idaho case, but I sent in the reference just in case!

You are right, I will try to be less cynical.
Question for Sgt Carter - will he elaborate on this quote?:

Carter said he believes the killer lives in, works in or frequents the Delphi area, but he declined to elaborate on why he believes that.

"One day I'll be able to tell you. I can't wait for that day," Carter said.

 

[Yemelyan]

Here is a new article from the Kokomo Tribune....some interesting quotes from LE on there regarding what's going on in the investigation.

Delphi deaths, 4 years later

 

[Deleted member 102539]

If LE had, say, 1000-1500 tips max, they could probably track down almost every one where the caller merely says the person is suspicious with little detail. But the massive volume of tips here is probably more than the total of any 5 crimes I can think of. I've heard LE in other cases state that no tip is insignificant, no tip is too small. I don't hear that here, but instead there is a laundry list of what LE would like to have in the tip as @MistyWaters has listed. I don't believe this killer has confided in anyone, but if he is the subject of one of the tips he is buried in an avalanche of tips. Literally hidden in plain sight.

Maybe, we should have asked yesterday, whether it is usual to get this many tips (circa 50.000 during 4 years, afaik) after the double murder of 2 teenagers in a very small town. What is the average number of tips in cases like the Delphi case?
Btw: 50.000 tips without thousands of the right tip - how is it possible? Has it been managed/manipulated by the killer to flood the CS/LE/FBI/DC himself with tips? How many of the tips were anonymous? From how many different IP addresses, if emails? From how many states, if phone calls?

 

[Charlot123]

You are right, I will try to be less cynical.
Question for Sgt Carter - will he elaborate on this quote?:

Carter said he believes the killer lives in, works in or frequents the Delphi area, but he declined to elaborate on why he believes that.

"One day I'll be able to tell you. I can't wait for that day," Carter said.

and this makes me wonder what could put Carter under “gag order” today.

He is an officer - so, give or take, a direct order from above

He is an Indiana patriot - so maybe some information that he’d consider deleterious for the state in general

religion is his core, he is old school in this regard.

I have dual attitude to the expediency of this trait in the investigation. I think it contributes to Carter’s basic honesty, but also, JMO, the detective would be less apt to close the case if he regarded it as horrible injustice, two girls deprived of their lives in the first blossom of youth. Carter of 2019 had already found the way to console himself, they are in heaven, they are not like you have left them.

And the fact that he felt the need to reach for this consolation makes me wonder if in his mind he already considered the cause lost. This would explain everything, the appeal to the murderer’s shred of faith, the Shack.

I wonder if his speech was also meant for the family members, if before that PC they heard something to the extent, that the murderer is unreachable.

Some more thoughts. We always wonder if the case could be deliberately swayed by a man, maybe a LE, close to the perpetrator, or the perpetrator himself, some said.

I wonder if we are forgetting the witnesses; some of them came before the person was even described. Maybe they tried to protect someone?

If not, maybe someone close to the girls gave the motive for the killings that was “too good to overlook”, that the LE started following that lead (and this is why TL thought he knew who the perp would be, he spoke about community being shocked). And after diligently following that lead, they finally realized it was dead end.

I think some information provided by a woman, who either stated she saw something, or gave LE the motive, eventually proved to be untrue.

All of it served to buy the time. In the meantime, the perp became impregnable. I don’t know how.

 

[Deleted member 102539]

Were the victims random or targeted?
Planned or impulsive crime?
Perp.likely to strike again or not?

Keen to learn more about this statement below, directed to the killer, did something suggest to LE that the perp might be concerned with religious matters?
rbbm.
2019
Delphi murders: Why 'The Shack' film was mentioned in reference to killings
''Carter addressed the person responsible for the unsolved Delphi murders in the context of "The Shack," a religious-themed story adapted from a 2007 novel by William Paul Young.

“I recently watched a movie called 'The Shack.' There’s also a book that talks so well about evil, about death and about eternity," Carter said. "To the murderer, I believe you have just a little bit of a conscience left. And I can assure you that how you left (German and Williams) in that woods is not what they’re experiencing today."

I would be interested to learn, if an unknown religious poem (authored by the killer) was left at the crime scene .....

 

[Deleted member 102539]

Some more thoughts. We always wonder if the case could be deliberately swayed by a man, maybe a LE, close to the perpetrator, or the perpetrator himself, some said.

I wonder if we are forgetting the witnesses; some of them came before the person was even described. Maybe they tried to protect someone?

^^ I want to emphasize that part of your post.

 

[Deleted member 102539]

Here is a new article from the Kokomo Tribune....some interesting quotes from LE on there regarding what's going on in the investigation.

Delphi deaths, 4 years later

Unavailable .... (need an URL)

PS: We may have access on Covid-19 all over the world, but aren't allowed for access on news articles except from EU .... Thinking.

 

[mpnola]

Unavailable .... (need an URL)

Delphi deaths, 4 years later

Does that work?

 

[Thelastleg]

Delphi deaths, 4 years later

Does that work?

No, but if it's is cbs4indy, you can find it in the search bar. Thank you

 

[Charlot123]

Deleted; as I was reading the article, my cellphone typed something unintelligible. This case!

 

[Charlot123]

We don’t know if they were sexually assaulted, but if they were, I consider that an outcome. The motivation for a sexual assault could be one or many: sexual, rage, violence, humiliation, revenge, thrill (as examples).

jmo

He has the ability to mimicry and is hiding in plain sight, but about his sexual function, we know nothing.

 

[Ekliptika]

I wonder about this new direction and Carter’s words to the killer about “you never thought we would shift direction, but we have”-ish. Maybe he was in disguish on the bridge and did not mind being filmed by the girls, because in real life he looks nothing like the person on the bridge. <modsnip, rumor> Maybe that was all intended, to lead the investigation in the wrong direction. Dressed like a 40-50 year Old creepy looking guy. <modsnip, rumor>

I have always found these descriptions/behaviour odd, if you were a killer out on the trail that day to look for someone to kill, why would you look and behave weird, as you know this Will attract attention from others? That has never made sense to me. But if you are in disguise and want to attract attention to deliberately lead the investigation of the crime you are plantning to commit in the wrong direction? That is pretty bold and clever, and for the girls to film him was just an additional advantage for him, and that could be the reason why he did not take the phone.
This is not necessarily what I believe happened, just me speculating how the few pieces we have might fit together. And apologies if some of the things I stated above is rumour, I have a hard time keeping track of what is confirmed facts and what is rumour in this case. If something is not according to the rules, I Will delete this post.

 

[weepingangel]

Their granddaughter and her friend were killed 4 years ago. This is how they want you to help catch the killer - CNN

 

[Skully]

Delphi deaths, 4 years later

snipped from the article...

“You know our DNA offender database,” he said, “that’s been in place for over 20 years. You can get the evidence type, upload it in the state. If it doesn’t match anyone there, it gets uploaded to the national database … which is just a network of the state databases. … But [an exact match] only succeeds about 30% of the time. So about 70% of the time, cases get uploaded and end up matching nobody.

“Familial searching uses the same state offender database that police look for the direct match in,” Harmon added. “But it says, ‘OK, within Indiana, is there a close relative of the person who left the evidence in our state database?’”

Close relatives, Harmon noted, are limited to parent, child or full sibling in this case.

“Then I look at a profile and from the evidence can say, ‘Is that a father-son thing right there?’ Because you inherit half of your DNA from your father,” he said. “So which is it, the father or the son? … That’s what happened in the Grim Sleeper serial murder in L.A.”

Once they’ve honed in on a possible individual, Harmon said that investigators can then use tactics like getting DNA off of a drinking glass or a cigarette butt, even digging through someone’s trash, to locate the exact DNA that was found at a crime scene.

“It works,” Harmon said, “I’ve seen it.”

But Indiana is one of dozens of states whose state police labs don’t conduct familial DNA searching. The Tribune called ISP for answers as to why that’s the case but did not hear back as of press time.

“In order to be done, a state has to agree that it’s the right thing to do,” Harmon said. “And I guess no one’s ever said, ‘How come other states are doing them and you’re not?’ … The premise behind familial searching is that crime tends to run in families. So if you committed a crime, and you haven’t been caught yet, chances are pretty good that someone else close to you in your family committed a crime and are likely in a state database. That’s why something like this works.”

 

[stattlich1]

Let's see. BG is videotaped, they have his photo, voice recordings, eyewitness accounts, sketches, left lots of evidence at the scene, probably even have his DNA..... FBI, ISP, local authorities involved.....

Yet can't solve the case.

How could that be?

From that article "an abandoned railroad track popular with the local youth".

This. This is why BG was there that day. He knew either

a. those girls were going to be there or
b. some target(s) were going to be there.

This guy was familiar with the entire area, including RL's property.

MOO

 

[Rocky1]

Let's see. BG is videotaped, they have his photo, voice recordings, eyewitness accounts, sketches, left lots of evidence at the scene, probably even have his DNA..... FBI, ISP, local authorities involved.....

Yet can't solve the case.

How could that be?

From that article "an abandoned railroad track popular with the local youth".

This. This is why BG was there that day. He knew either

a. those girls were going to be there or
b. some target(s) were going to be there.

This guy was familiar with the entire area, including RL's property.

MOO

Let me ask you this...
Could it be possible that he didn't know that area at all? If he did, then why did they cross the river?
If this was planned out, why cross a river in February subjecting himself to hypothermia, and the possibility of someone taking note he was wet?

This is one of my thoughts, and of course we don't know but...
I think he may have just been out for a walk that day, saw the girls, and decided at that point to kidnap them and take advantage of them. Then, because he never planned this out, discovered that he was boxed in, was afraid that someone at the house may have seen them while they were walking along the river bank, and decided to cross the river at that point in time. Once that happened, he was afraid to go close to the road where someone driving may have seen him. At that time, He may have sexually assaulted them, and he didn't want to be identified, by the girls, so he killed them.
I think this may have been a spur of the moment thing with no/poor planning. If this was well planned, he would have never left that phone with her, imo.
One thing that may sway my thinking is how they were killed. If he had a gun, then maybe I'd say this was planned out. If they were stabbed, he could have used a pocket knife that he carried on a daily basis.
All speculation.

 

[stattlich1]

Let me ask you this...
Could it be possible that he didn't know that area at all? If he did, then why did they cross the river?
If this was planned out, why cross a river in February subjecting himself to hypothermia, and the possibility of someone taking note he was wet?

This is one of my thoughts, and of course we don't know but...
I think he may have just been out for a walk that day, saw the girls, and decided at that point to kidnap them and take advantage of them. Then, because he never planned this out, discovered that he was boxed in, was afraid that someone at the house may have seen them while they were walking along the river bank, and decided to cross the river at that point in time. Once that happened, he was afraid to go close to the road where someone driving may have seen him. At that time, He may have sexually assaulted them, and he didn't want to be identified, by the girls, so he killed them.
I think this may have been a spur of the moment thing with no/poor planning. If this was well planned, he would have never left that phone with her, imo.
One thing that may sway my thinking is how they were killed. If he had a gun, then maybe I'd say this was planned out. If they were stabbed, he could have used a pocket knife that he carried on a daily basis.
All speculation.

Speculation indeed. That's what we all do

It's possible BG knew nothing of the area. Maybe he stumbled upon it by accident one day, or saw it on google earth, or heard about it from a friend, thereby choosing it as a good location for a double murder. LE has stated repeatedly that for the average person passing through, they'd never know the area existed.

Don't you think it risky, with murder your intention, to order two girls down a hill you'd never been down before? But who's to say he was concerned with risk.

Not to mention LE states there was lots of evidence found at the scene. I'm not sure what that means, but I've always thought it to be a clue that this guy had brought some things along with him, or had placed some things at the CS prior to the murders.

And once down that hill, then through the woods towards the creek. I can imagine not being through those woods before, not knowing where he was going with them. But I find it highly unlikely. In the heat of the moment, why not just murder them right then and there? Why cross the creek? Maybe the girls, running from him, led him that way?

And once across the surprise creek, coming upon it where the water was shallow, emerging on the other side, the killer not knowing where he is, two girls ahead, or in tow, then killing them, in the bottom land, at a random spot, amongst the trees, close to a path that leads right up to that cemetery.

Then by chance hoping not to be discovered, and not knowing the woods, having to return by the path which you took on the way in, back across the creek, up that hill, across that bridge, and down the very same trail?

All in about an hour's worth of time? That snapchat photo posted at 2:07, with Libby's dad arriving around 3:15 to pick them up.

So swift were the murders. From the bridge to the CS and escaped within an hour and 8 minutes.

Sorry, at this point in time, I can't believe the guy didn't know his way around.

I think he knew the area very well. I think he played there as a kid, or drank/partied there as a teen, or hunted there as a teen/young adult. I think he knows who RL is. I think he was familiar with RL's land, with the trails, with the bridge, with the entire area.

I think he parked at that cemetery. Went down the hill toward the CS to check it out, make sure it was secure. Then to a perch to watch for his victim(s). Then follow them across the bridge, force them down the hill, across the creek, commit the crime, and simply walk out of there to his car in the cemetery, and take a few country roads out of there, never being seen.

All speculation

 

[Rocky1]

Speculation indeed. That's what we all do

It's possible BG knew nothing of the area. Maybe he stumbled upon it by accident one day, or saw it on google earth, or heard about it from a friend, thereby choosing it as a good location for a double murder. LE has stated repeatedly that for the average person passing through, they'd never know the area existed.

Don't you think it risky, with murder your intention, to order two girls down a hill you'd never been down before? But who's to say he was concerned with risk.

Not to mention LE states there was lots of evidence found at the scene. I'm not sure what that means, but I've always thought it to be a clue that this guy had brought some things along with him, or had placed some things at the CS prior to the murders.

And once down that hill, then through the woods towards the creek. I can imagine not being through those woods before, not knowing where he was going with them. But I find it highly unlikely. In the heat of the moment, why not just murder them right then and there? Why cross the creek? Maybe the girls, running from him, led him that way?

And once across the surprise creek, coming upon it where the water was shallow, emerging on the other side, the killer not knowing where he is, two girls ahead, or in tow, then killing them, in the bottom land, at a random spot, amongst the trees, close to a path that leads right up to that cemetery.

Then by chance hoping not to be discovered, and not knowing the woods, having to return by the path which you took on the way in, back across the creek, up that hill, across that bridge, and down the very same trail?

All in about an hour's worth of time? That snapchat photo posted at 2:07, with Libby's dad arriving around 3:15 to pick them up.

So swift were the murders. From the bridge to the CS and escaped within an hour and 8 minutes.

Sorry, at this point in time, I can't believe the guy didn't know his way around.

I think he knew the area very well. I think he played there as a kid, or drank/partied there as a teen, or hunted there as a teen/young adult. I think he knows who RL is. I think he was familiar with RL's land, with the trails, with the bridge, with the entire area.

I think he parked at that cemetery. Went down the hill toward the CS to check it out, make sure it was secure. Then to a perch to watch for his victim(s). Then follow them across bridge, down the hill, across the creek, commit the crime, and simply walk out of there to his car in the cemetery, and take a few country roads out of there, never being seen.

All speculation

I believe that LE claimed they had a lot of evidence at the crime scene because, as with so many other statements Carter made, they were bluffing in hopes the killer would give himself up.
The timeline, as you stated, just a little over an hour, is another reason this makes me think this wasn't planned. If this was planned, what exactly was the motive to kidnap and kill them? Just for kicks, or was it for sexual assault? If it was for sexual assault purposes, he didn't spend a lot of time doing that.
I may be wrong, but I doubt he was chasing them across the river. If he was, I'd think they would have ran in different directions making it hard to be captured. I believe he had control of them when they crossed the river.
I'm not saying that he didn't know the area. I am saying that I'm not convinced this wasn't a spur of the moment thing, because he boxed himself in. It was poor planning if it was planned in advance. If he did know the area, then why not wait till the girls walked back across the RR tracks, knowing they would have had to cross the river? He would have known they would have to walk back over the bridge to leave.
Why not just murder them there before crossing the river? Good question. I think it was because he intended on spending a lot more time with them and intended on taking them elsewhere, then panicked when he got closer to the road. Yes, his car may have been parked at the cemetery, he could have tied them in the car and drove out, but something made him change his mind imo.

Just bouncing my ideas off .

 

[StarryStarryNight]

Delphi deaths, 4 years later

snipped from the article...

“You know our DNA offender database,” he said, “that’s been in place for over 20 years. You can get the evidence type, upload it in the state. If it doesn’t match anyone there, it gets uploaded to the national database … which is just a network of the state databases. … But [an exact match] only succeeds about 30% of the time. So about 70% of the time, cases get uploaded and end up matching nobody.

“Familial searching uses the same state offender database that police look for the direct match in,” Harmon added. “But it says, ‘OK, within Indiana, is there a close relative of the person who left the evidence in our state database?’”

Close relatives, Harmon noted, are limited to parent, child or full sibling in this case.

“Then I look at a profile and from the evidence can say, ‘Is that a father-son thing right there?’ Because you inherit half of your DNA from your father,” he said. “So which is it, the father or the son? … That’s what happened in the Grim Sleeper serial murder in L.A.”

Once they’ve honed in on a possible individual, Harmon said that investigators can then use tactics like getting DNA off of a drinking glass or a cigarette butt, even digging through someone’s trash, to locate the exact DNA that was found at a crime scene.

“It works,” Harmon said, “I’ve seen it.”

But Indiana is one of dozens of states whose state police labs don’t conduct familial DNA searching. The Tribune called ISP for answers as to why that’s the case but did not hear back as of press time.

“In order to be done, a state has to agree that it’s the right thing to do,” Harmon said. “And I guess no one’s ever said, ‘How come other states are doing them and you’re not?’ … The premise behind familial searching is that crime tends to run in families. So if you committed a crime, and you haven’t been caught yet, chances are pretty good that someone else close to you in your family committed a crime and are likely in a state database. That’s why something like this works.”

I thought this article was pretty interesting.
Just to clarify on the parts of the article shown here...Harmon, is Rockne Harmon, a long time prosecutor in California, so part of what he is talking about is his experience on how DNA is used in California, not Indiana.
I thought it was interesting that he said Indiana is one of those states that does not do familial DNA. That answers some questions we had here on WS. The Tribune asked ISP about it and got no answer. I wondered why it took a California prosecutor and four years for a reporter to think that might be a good question to ask. Slack.
Personally, I think all they have is touch DNA and it will prove not so important, but it makes me wonder about the statements LE has said about doing everything they can. But there have been questions from the public about familial and genealogical DNA from the public for a long time and ISP knows Indiana doesn’t do that.
Just weird to me.