Found Deceased IN - Abigail (Abby) Williams, 13, & Liberty (Libby) German, 14, The Delphi Murders 13 Feb 2017 #142

[Yemelyan]

Please refresh my memory, do you know why LG’s grandfather said that if it wasn’t true? IMO

Unclear, except he may have heard from LE or the cellular carrier that Libby's phone pinged at different times off different towers near Delphi and assumed this meant movement. In fact, the tower that the phone connects with at any given time can change even while the phone is stationary - it's more complicated than just connecting to the nearest one. MOO

 

[MollyDDD]

Good questions.
Is it possible one of the girls was pushed off the bridge?
The killer would then order the other girl down the hill? Has this theory been discussed?

Good questions.
Is it possible one of the girls was pushed off the bridge?
The killer would then order the other girl down the hill? Has this theory been discussed?

IMO, pushing someone off a 63 foot high bridge might attract attention from passerby's. That, and he’d have to then retrieve her body from the water, provided it didn’t float downstream, which would give the other girl an opportunity to run away, not to mention attract more attention. IMO

 

[Charlot123]

.

They did search that area that night but that's not exactly where the girls were found. Once you're down the hill, you go across a private drive, across the creek and they were in a low part of the woods.

Many police and fire fighters remained searching through the night. The official search was ended, not the actual search. Remember that police and fire fighting are jobs, jobs have risk analysis, they have safety standards. I have a family member who is a fight fighter and unlike television, they aren't allowed to rush into a burning buildings if the risk is too great to their life. People are thinking about this with emotion (which is okay) but they also have to think about it in a practical, job safety sense. People also should remember that a lot of kids go "missing" every day who end up being a-okay. That's not to say that people don't need to take it seriously, it's just to say that the full-force of state's resource can't be brought out in the first hour every time it happens.

Should more have been done to bring in the right equipment for a safe search that night? Maybe, yes, but that's in hindsight.

I would believe it. If the firemen would take mindless risks like they do it in Hollywood movies, their insurance companies would not be too happy. I assume off-duty policemen can search as private citizens. But realistically, as private citizens, they probably searched till it got cold and dark, and then, went home, to return in the morning. No one, indeed, expected double murder.

 

[paraphrase]

IMO, pushing someone off a 63 foot high bridge might attract attention from passerby's. That, and he’d have to then retrieve her body from the water, provided it didn’t float downstream, which would give the other girl an opportunity to run away, not to mention attract more attention. IMO

I looked at the map provided by Websleuths, and noticed a large sand bar below the bridge and just off to the side. It appears it would be somewhat easy to cross at that location. Moo
If someone was pushed off the bridge, it appears they would hit branches and trees on the way down, causing extensive impalement and cut injuries. There could be a blood trail. Or bits of clothing near the fall. If someone fell in the water, I would assume fractures.
If the remaining girl was then ordered down the hill, at gun point, towards her friend, maybe they crossed the creek to the final kill location, with a lifeless body in tow. Moo.
Just trying to think of different scenarios.


Abigail Williams & Liberty German. Delphi, IN. 2/13/17 - Google My Maps

 

[Charlot123]

Touch DNA isn't as easily obtained as TV shows and hopeful articles make it sound.

I remember what was said from the very beginning, although I can't always find links.

1) MP said that Libby would not go without a fight. At that time, possible scratches and DNA under nailbeds was mentioned. I am sure I am not the only one to remember it. From these words, I assume Libby was not quickly incapacitated, as people sometimes post now.

2) if Libby did fight, but there is no DNA under nailbeds, then, someone, indeed, took care of it. If so, I return to my question, what kind of a person was the killer, to be so aware of the DNA? Not how he got rid of it, rather, how did he think? To a degree, strong analytic thinking rules out people like JBC. (And - includes many others into potential poi list).

3) maybe Libby did not fight, but common post factum explanation as to why the girls were not found (I don't buy it for a second, people who traveled to Delphi and wrote about it described it like a tiny place) + different dates of death on the monuments + "he had to know the lay of the land", and the Delphi settlement being old, hints at one possibility I was always considering, that there may be some shortcuts to the creek. TL's "the lay of the land" implies that only locals might be aware of them.

TL is probably wrong. It is possible that the killer was hiding somewhere and prepared the CS at night of 2/14, but I am not sure that he is local. (Have Google, will find out the lay of the land). Or else, he was living close by and hiding the girls in his house?

 

[JnRyan]

I remember what was said from the very beginning, although I can't always find links.

1) MP said that Libby would not go without a fight. At that time, possible scratches and DNA under nailbeds was mentioned. I am sure I am not the only one to remember it. From these words, I assume Libby was not quickly incapacitated, as people sometimes post now.

2) if Libby did fight, but there is no DNA under nailbeds, then, someone, indeed, took care of it. If so, I return to my question, what kind of a person was the killer, to be so aware of the DNA? Not how he got rid of it, rather, how did he think? To a degree, strong analytic thinking rules out people like JBC. (And - includes many others into potential poi list).

3) maybe Libby did not fight, but common post factum explanation as to why the girls were not found (I don't buy it for a second, people who traveled to Delphi and wrote about it described it like a tiny place) + different dates of death on the monuments + "he had to know the lay of the land", and the Delphi settlement being old, hints at one possibility I was always considering, that there may be some shortcuts to the creek. TL's "the lay of the land" implies that only locals might be aware of them.

TL is probably wrong. It is possible that the killer was hiding somewhere and prepared the CS at night of 2/14, but I am not sure that he is local. (Have Google, will find out the lay of the land). Or else, he was living close by and hiding the girls in his house?

And there is the lead ISP detective 1st Sgt Jerry Holeman in the August 2017 Fox59 interview when asked if they had DNA, he said touch DNA is a powerful LE tool and it is almost always at a crime scene.

 

[MollyDDD]

I remember what was said from the very beginning, although I can't always find links.

1) MP said that Libby would not go without a fight. At that time, possible scratches and DNA under nailbeds was mentioned. I am sure I am not the only one to remember it. From these words, I assume Libby was not quickly incapacitated, as people sometimes post now.

2) if Libby did fight, but there is no DNA under nailbeds, then, someone, indeed, took care of it. If so, I return to my question, what kind of a person was the killer, to be so aware of the DNA? Not how he got rid of it, rather, how did he think? To a degree, strong analytic thinking rules out people like JBC. (And - includes many others into potential poi list).

3) maybe Libby did not fight, but common post factum explanation as to why the girls were not found (I don't buy it for a second, people who traveled to Delphi and wrote about it described it like a tiny place) + different dates of death on the monuments + "he had to know the lay of the land", and the Delphi settlement being old, hints at one possibility I was always considering, that there may be some shortcuts to the creek. TL's "the lay of the land" implies that only locals might be aware of them.

TL is probably wrong. It is possible that the killer was hiding somewhere and prepared the CS at night of 2/14, but I am not sure that he is local. (Have Google, will find out the lay of the land). Or else, he was living close by and hiding the girls in his house?

I really don’t think having knowledge about DNA in 2017 is that unusual. I think I first heard about DNA during the OJ Simpson trial in 1994. IMO

 

[Charlot123]

I really don’t think having knowledge about DNA in 2017 is that unusual. I think I first heard about DNA during the OJ Simpson trial in 1994. IMO

(Too bad you were not in the jury; for many people, the importance of DNA evidence was lost in OJ case)).

And even after 1994, lots of criminals left their DNA on the crime scenes… OJ’s case showed only that if you are a murder suspect, and there were no witnesses, you still might be matched to your crime scene by your DNA (left in abundance).

However, it didn’t resolve the issue of “stranger’s” DNA on the CS. Basically, serial killers. This was a different phase. Such broad genetic criminology became possible with the development of huge, open-source genetic databanks, such as Gedmatch. Really, GSK was one of the first published cases. GSK’s arrest in 2018 became possible because the amount of people submitting their DNAs to Gedmatch reached a certain statistical level. (And maybe, also, because many linked their family trees to DNAs).

GSK case amply demonstrated how even foreign, unknown, DNA left at the CS might be identified.

However, the Delphi situation, when allegedly, the girls were killed exactly where they were found, in less than 30 minutes, plus, the CS, as we are led to believe, was something unbelievable, plus, the killer arranged it all in the same 30 min and left unseen, plus, for the whole evening and night no one, looking for the girls, getting on the bridge, noticed anything, and in the next day, suddenly someone saw the bodies through the binoculars. And, the murderer had enough time to either get rid of the DNA, or, he simply didn’t leave it.

It feels strange. And to add to it, the police has the video and the voice, but the video was not released till 2019…and the voice, as DC says, belongs to “the devil”.

When we start reading about new cases, we never can, mentally, reconstruct them, because the police (and for a good reason) doesn’t tell the whole story. (I remember KB’s murder, when her poor mother, perfectly understanding who was the culprit, said “they are good, they are loving”, only to give the police enough time to work with the case. Reality is shocking…to think that another woman could stupidly agree to clean after a killer surpasses any detective novel. But… the criminals were regular rural dwellers, getting rid of the body but leaving electronic trace. That fits. Not so in Delphi case.).

So I think that perhaps, in Delphi case, the reality will be somewhat unexpected as well, and perhaps the case is multi-layered. But as long as the girls were not alone on that bridge, that CS, even if the narrative is very different from what we know … we don’t need to know everything. But whoever killed them needs to be punished.

 

[TL4S]

I looked at the map provided by Websleuths, and noticed a large sand bar below the bridge and just off to the side. It appears it would be somewhat easy to cross at that location. Moo
If someone was pushed off the bridge, it appears they would hit branches and trees on the way down, causing extensive impalement and cut injuries. There could be a blood trail. Or bits of clothing near the fall. If someone fell in the water, I would assume fractures.
If the remaining girl was then ordered down the hill, at gun point, towards her friend, maybe they crossed the creek to the final kill location, with a lifeless body in tow. Moo.
Just trying to think of different scenarios.


Abigail Williams & Liberty German. Delphi, IN. 2/13/17 - Google My Maps

But we already know the girls were both across the bridge when BG approached them (per the video) and then ordered them DTH.

 

[Peppery]

Please refresh my memory, do you know why LG’s grandfather said that if it wasn’t true? IMO

Because he thought it was true at the time. It’s been discussed at length here but it always bores me so I couldn’t point to a specific post.

Basically because Delphi is so small and there’s only 2 or 3 towers in the area that if one tower was overloaded, a phone would switch to a different tower. A phone can be completely stationary but because of other cell traffic happening around it, it appears to be moving as it pings off different towers.

 

[TL4S]

I've been thinking a lot about the scenario of the girls running across the creek attempting to flee. Maybe I've always kind of hoped that's what they did, but the reality is they might not have had the opportunity.

If they fled, that means BG had to take chase. My assumptions might be he would have had to catch at least one of them, so greater chance of leaving behind quantities of DNA, possibly. And I believe LE said the girls were laying beside each other, which also might indicate they were not caught separately, although I understand he might have captured one and threatened the other, which consequently put them back together. But then there are the signatures. If he originally wanted to abduct them, but wound up having to chase them through the water and onto the opposite bank, would it really end up being the kind of murder to include signatures? IDK...

I guess them fleeing across the creek seems less plausible the more I think about it.

 

[Prime8]

However, the Delphi situation, when allegedly, the girls were killed exactly where they were found, in less than 30 minutes, plus, the CS, as we are led to believe, was something unbelievable, plus, the killer arranged it all in the same 30 min and left unseen, plus, for the whole evening and night no one, looking for the girls, getting on the bridge, noticed anything, and in the next day, suddenly someone saw the bodies through the binoculars. And, the murderer had enough time to either get rid of the DNA, or, he simply didn’t leave it.

It feels strange. And to add to it, the police has the video and the voice, but the video was not released till 2019…and the voice, as DC says, belongs to “the devil”.

I honestly don't find any of this strange. LE has stated that the girls were killed where they were found. Yes, they could be lying but I don't see why they would push this narrative so hard (yes, I could make up reasons why but it just doesn't seem likely).

The fact that BG went seemingly unnoticed as he left is part of the reason LE thinks he knew the area. There are a few ways he could have taken and been out of sight, especially if he already had a plan and knew the area.

LE has described the scene as having some unusual signatures, it's only the internet that have turned that into something so crazy like it's from a movie. Simply posing the girls (this could be as simple as crossing their arms), putting a cross on them with sticks, putting something on their eyes, some post-death mutilation, etc. could be a "strange" signature and not take more than a few minutes. When the search first started, people didn't think they were kidnapped so no one was checking exits possible perpetrators and I don't believe searchers were in the area of the girls (across the creek) in the first few hours. They weren't even thinking the girls could have been injured at that point. BG could have left unnoticed while people were already searching.

Sunset was at 6:20 that day; the police did not get involved until 5:30 so the larger search was done mostly after dark. I don't know if you've ever been in an unlit forest in the dark but you're not going to be seeing much at all. They would probably only have seen the girls if they walked right over them or a few feet from them.

They didn't just randomly see the girls through binoculars and find them. They found a shoe, in/near the creek. A searcher found some footprints and followed them up a bit (not sure if the shoe or footprints were found first) Then either that searcher or another person used their phone to zoom in where a deer caught their attention and that's when they found something that was abnormal (the girl's bodies - not sure exactly what they saw). We do not know if the girls were covered with anything but we do know they were in a low area of the hilly woods.

As for the reason they didn't release the video early, who knows. I think they probably were chasing good leads and they thought it was unnecessary, IMO. I also think DC is very religious and it shows it self quite a bit in the way he describes things.

 

[iamnotagolem]

Re: signatures, could be as simple as he did the same thing to both bodies.

 

[minazoe]

Because he thought it was true at the time. It’s been discussed at length here but it always bores me so I couldn’t point to a specific post.

Basically because Delphi is so small and there’s only 2 or 3 towers in the area that if one tower was overloaded, a phone would switch to a different tower. A phone can be completely stationary but because of other cell traffic happening around it, it appears to be moving as it pings off different towers.

but it can also be moving around right? or does the latter have a specific marker the other lacks?

 

[minazoe]

I honestly don't find any of this strange. LE has stated that the girls were killed where they were found. Yes, they could be lying but I don't see why they would push this narrative so hard (yes, I could make up reasons why but it just doesn't seem likely).

The fact that BG went seemingly unnoticed as he left is part of the reason LE thinks he knew the area. There are a few ways he could have taken and been out of sight, especially if he already had a plan and knew the area.

LE has described the scene as having some unusual signatures, it's only the internet that have turned that into something so crazy like it's from a movie. Simply posing the girls (this could be as simple as crossing their arms), putting a cross on them with sticks, putting something on their eyes, some post-death mutilation, etc. could be a "strange" signature and not take more than a few minutes. When the search first started, people didn't think they were kidnapped so no one was checking exits possible perpetrators and I don't believe searchers were in the area of the girls (across the creek) in the first few hours. They weren't even thinking the girls could have been injured at that point. BG could have left unnoticed while people were already searching.

Sunset was at 6:20 that day; the police did not get involved until 5:30 so the larger search was done mostly after dark. I don't know if you've ever been in an unlit forest in the dark but you're not going to be seeing much at all. They would probably only have seen the girls if they walked right over them or a few feet from them.

They didn't just randomly see the girls through binoculars and find them. They found a shoe, in/near the creek. A searcher found some footprints and followed them up a bit (not sure if the shoe or footprints were found first) Then either that searcher or another person used their phone to zoom in where a deer caught their attention and that's when they found something that was abnormal (the girl's bodies - not sure exactly what they saw). We do not know if the girls were covered with anything but we do know they were in a low area of the hilly woods.

As for the reason they didn't release the video early, who knows. I think they probably were chasing good leads and they thought it was unnecessary, IMO. I also think DC is very religious and it shows it self quite a bit in the way he describes things.

ok but just to add and be accurate..those on the scene alluded to the crime scene as something out of a horror movie..so it's not that far of a reach to imagine something with many aspects..or props. mOO

 

[TTF14]

ok but just to add and be accurate..those on the scene alluded to the crime scene as something out of a horror movie..so it's not that far of a reach to imagine something with many aspects..or props. mOO

Where was this said?

 

[rosesfromangels]

I think there is good wisdom in both your, and Prime8's post Minazoe. There is much we don't know, but likely some real oddities in how the children were left, or posed. As far as the video, I *speculate* that more wasn't released b/c LE doesn't want to tip their hand on any specifics that only the Perp would know, or to give the internet ghouls something to experience through the video.

Amateur opinion and speculation

 

[Yemelyan]

but it can also be moving around right? or does the latter have a specific marker the other lacks?

I just watched a trial where cell phone evidence was used extensively. The data analyst explained on the stand that if you are stationary (in your house, for example) your cell phone will sometimes connect to one nearby tower and at other times connect to other ones (sometimes a bit farther away). There is a process that the phone and tower use to determine which one can handle the call or data transfer the best at that particular moment and it's not always the closest one. In the trial I watched, the suspect's phone, while in his residence, connected randomly at different times with three different towers. Sometimes, the analyst explained, through a process called "drift," the phone would connect to a tower quite far away because it was remembering an earlier connection.

The important thing, however, is that the data "handshakes" between phone and tower do occur off particular sides of the tower. So that analysts can get an idea of the directionality of the phone's location, though unless there many towers nearby (a dense urban area, for example) it was difficult to get triangulation such that you could pinpoint a location with extreme accuracy.

However, to answer your question, if analysts could really dig into the data they could probably determine that directionality was changing, not just towers changing. And that would give an idea of movement.

 

[Tower]

Except Delphi didn’t have those resources. The fire department was there, along with half the town. Multiple people did continue to search throughout the night. The FD chief did an interview a few years ago and if you read it, you’ll see that no one just threw up their hands and went to bed. A lot of facts seem to be forgotten lately.

There has been so much reported, and some of it is obviously conflicting. I have most often read in MSM that the family tried to continue searching, but no LE or trained personnel searched after midnight, as noted in the article below.

As you would search for a missing baby first in a nearby pool, because it is the most dangerous, search and rescue in my area would continue to search for girls of this age because they were last known to be on a trail in winter. Hypothermia would be the biggest risk. No volunteers should be part of this, it should be LE with headlamps, hiking and calling for the girls all night. That is what happens in my jurisdiction. It is not life-threatening to LE to do this. If this did happen, it was not widely reported in MSM, imo. I’d love to read a good MSM source about it.

There are huge liability reasons you can’t assume young girls just ran away if you still have not found them. Jmo

But with hindsight, nothing they did or didn’t do would have saved these precious girls.

DELPHI TIMELINE: The search for Libby & Abby's killer

 

[Tower]

rsbm

Many police and fire fighters remained searching through the night.

Not trying to call you out at all, but do you have a source that first responders continued to search? It’s okay if you don’t, because it wouldn’t have done these precious girls any good.

But it’s my understanding they wished they had continued searching (and later wished they had searched more for ways the killer left the area) because they did make the assumption the girls were probably just not calling home.

DELPHI TIMELINE: The search for Libby & Abby's killer