With the intent of illustrating how this case has affected the area, to encourage you all to keep looking, I want to describe the destruction this scum bag, whoever he is, left in his wake.
I used to live in Delphi for a couple years until maybe 2013. I worked with the community. My family is still there. I now live 20 minutes away. The day the girls went missing, I believe my ex-husband, who was raised there, called and told me. We had hiked that bridge and surrounding area for 7-8 hours straight in 2010. It was totally normal. We also got incredibly lost in thick forest and had to cut through entire areas full of thorny bushes and ended up covered in bloody scratches from them. I feel like it's pretty normal for the area. In other words, no one was worried. When the news came of bodies found, I can't describe to you the disbelief. I would legitimately not be surprised if most people checked to see if they were reading about the right town. To hear it was them, two young girls, time stopped. It was that almost visible fog where you feel like you're officially not sure if you're awake or not.
Media has said Delphi is small, but it's even smaller than that. One grocery store and it's a very small one. 2 gas stations right across the street from each other, right beside the police station that has a parking lot for police vehicles that's maybe 6 spots wide. This was probably the only positive that people felt at the time, that if these girls had to be killed, the murderer would be caught. Police even encouraged just logical safety methods like making sure people know where you are, try to have someone walk with you if you hoof it anywhere. Everyone I know expected it to all be over within a few days.
My mom described this time as immensely quiet. The grocery store, she said you could hear crickets chirp. No one talked. Not because they were scared, but because it was almost like paying an homage. And people didn't want to be reminded that there was only one thing to talk about and it was too hard to breathe aloud to mere acquaintances.
In July, I had to go get blood work for a new job and my previous Delphi address was on my ID. The nurse asked if I still lived in Delphi, I said no. What started out as us laughing and chatting, it all changed with that one word. Upon hearing the word Delphi, we both looked down and there was complete silence. The words that came next were from the nurse. "I know their grandpa. He's a mess over this." She used a hushed voice. No one around here talks about it at normal volume. It's almost as if it's disrespectful to what happened. Like you don't want to wake the girls peacefully sleeping somewhere in the sky.
Some details were shed in the early days of the murders by family members on Facebook then quickly removed. All that's left now is silence.
We weren't scared at the beginning. But as time goes on, that's changed. My mom, who is not wealthy, bought me a car (I had recently split from my husband and left him everything so I walked back and forth to work to prove to myself that I could succeed on my own). This was probably 6 months after the murders. She was very stressed out about me walking, which is not normal for her. I started getting nervous and carrying a box cutter. Now, I look everywhere. When I walk out of my work. When I go to the mall with my son. Those girls are everywhere and every male is scrutinized. I don't think any of us will ever be the same. And I can't help but feel like this case is maybe not officially cold, but well on it's way.
