Just in review, and I am pretty new to this case so sorry if this info in incredibly redundant:
To put the timeline in geographic context. Delphi In. has a population of approximately 3000 people. Their town center boasts three to four restaurants, one of which is McDonalds. The nearest "city" is Lafayette, with a population of approx. 25,000. These are small towns, even Lafayette. Lots of farmland around. Lots of open space. Delphi has a very, very low crime rate.
Feb 13, 2017/1:00 PM -- Abigail and Liberty are dropped off at an entrance to the Delphi Historic Trails that is near to the Monon Bridge. (The entrance I found that was closest to the bridge is now closed off--but it was on W. 300 N Rd (the same road that RL's home is officially on-though his property extends to Deer Creek where the girls were found.) I don't know for a fact that this is where the girls were dropped off, but it makes the most sense.
If they were dropped off at this entrance their walk along the trail would be at the tail end of the 1.5 mile hike. So maybe they had about 1/2 a mile to walk to the bridge? Depending on how quickly they walked, whether they took pictures or not, they could have easily gotten to the Monon Bridge by 1:20, maybe 1:30. Unless they were goofing off and taking pictures the whole way.
2:07 PM there are those last snapchat photos of Abigail and an empty bridge. Then no one really knows what transpired, although at some point Liberty captures the voice and picture of the man crossing the bridge. We've never been told at what time either the man's picture or his voice were captured---have we?
February 14, 12ish PM the bodies of the girls are discovered 1/2 mile from the bridge, on the opposite side of the creek from where the last pictures were taken by Liberty, 50 feet up the embankment. (According to a source, not LE, a set of footprints led searchers to the bodies.)
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/...-bodies-found-as-missing-carroll-county-teens
I know all of the above has been reviewed before, but when I look at where the murders took place, in relation to the center of Delphi, I have to wonder if it is coincidence that the killer chose a spot about as far out of the center of town as you can get--and still run into people on foot. In a very small town, he chose one of the most remote corners of that town, And those girls had not walked very far that day. That's a very short stretch of trail they were on--3/4 of a mile at best. How did the killer find this spot? It's well known to locals, but would a stranger to the town, just happening through, find that spot easily?
And how does he know that property owners residing on the other side of Monon Bridge won't come after him as he trespasses on their land? Indiana is a STAND YOUR GROUND state. Someone could have seen this guy trespassing and just shot him. Why wasn't the killer more concerned about property owners noticing his presence?
It really feels like this guy has some kind of familiarity with this location. Add to this that he was there on a Monday, a week-day, in the afternoon.
I also noticed that Abigail was wearing a light hoodie, that she had open. Yet the man is bundled up in at least two layers of hoodie and jacket. It wasn't a balmy day, but warm for that time of year. Was he hiding, and therefore had to be more bundled up, because he wasn't walking alll that much on the trail, but was instead lurking? Maybe he did more lurking than walking that day.
I don't know. And an isolated location on a hiking trail is not an unusual place for an attack to occur in broad daylight. But everything this guy did was so risky. Unless he'd really scoped it out on other occasions. Or maybe scoped it out earlier that day?
What would bring a stranger to this small town in the first place?
Don't have any answers. In the case of the Amherst Trail rapist and killer, he lived very nearby the trail. And LE looked past him initially because he was well respected in the community and didn't resemble the composite sketch. It wan't until years later, when his DNA matched that found on his victims, that he was caught.
Could this guy be hiding in plain site? Could the sketch be wrong?
Could this guy be from Lafayette? Lafayette has a very high crime rate, and the Google maps suggested route is State Road 25 (27 min). State Road 25 is where one of the entrances to the Monon trail is.
This is a stretch, but maybe the killer is this close by. Maybe another town nearby.
