Jerry Holeman spoke with the Murder Sheet about his experience investigating the Delphi case over two episodes.
Link to part 1 of his interview:
Episodes
He talks about his extensive and honorable career in the Marines and how he decided to enter law enforcement. He also used to be a substitute school teacher while going to school for education. Kim Riley (former ISP information officer at the time the Delphi case started, now retired) used to be Holeman's neighbor and his wife babysat Riley's children. Riley asked him if he still was interested in being a state trooper and he let Holeman know that the ISP was letting people who had been in the military use their military service in lieu of experience. He brought Holeman an application and after going through the whole process he was hired in 2001. Holeman has extensive training in different types of investigations and is a graduate of the FBI academy for investigators. He became first an investigative squad commander in 2014 and then an investigative commander starting in 2016, supervising basically all the other investigators under him for several ISP posts.
He was on his way to work when he heard on the radio that there were two missing girls in Delphi. He immediately called Leazenby and TL said he didn't need assistance at that time as there were a bunch of volunteers. This was 8am on February 14. Then next Holeman heard Carroll County was requesting an ISP helicopter. So Holeman drove to the site and met with Leazenby around 11am. But shortly after that around 12pm the girls were located. So Holeman was already on site, and rode with an FBI agent to the scene and started the investigation from there.
This crime was very brutal.
"They were treated like animals. He embarrassed them. He controlled them with a gun." Holeman was angry that someone would treat two people like that.
They agreed early on it would be Carroll County's case with the ISP assisting. It was difficult at times to manage as there were many agencies involved. The FBI had a lot of turnover in personnel and eventually started to pull back from the case. However, the FBI was always there when they needed them to assist unlike the misconceptions have led us to believe.
Some unique challenges in the case were: 1. how far out in the middle of nowhere it occurred, especially since there was little traffic camera data 2. very little biological evidence (people get caught up in this but
it is actually not uncommon to have no or insufficient DNA in investigations) 3. the media 4. the command center had to move several times. It "started out as chaos, became controlled chaos, eventually became managed chaos." 5. the number of tips. Over 14,000 tips.
Tips led to a lot of unrelated arrests, including an arrest on a cold case murder. However, not all the tips were helpful.
They received a lot of "unorthodox" tips or ones that did not contain enough information. "It looks like this guy I just saw at WalMart" with no info on which WalMart or even what state. "Interview the sasquatch that lives under the bridge."
A lot of the tips were investigative suggestions, like "check all the SO lists in the area." They were all things they had done multiple times.
Their main focus from the beginning was identifying the guy on the bridge.
New direction press conference - a lot of different agencies had reviewed the case, and they were at the point where they weren't getting any new info. A tactic was suggested to speak directly to the killer to try to generate better tips.
"I and others always thought the second sketch was the same person, just witnesses saw him from different angles and lighting." Putting up the new sketch may give a witness a different perspective that matched who they saw that day. Holeman believed that the new sketch was just a "younger" perspective on the same person as the old sketch. Older witnesses may be likely to view the person they saw as younger - even much younger than their actual age. And younger witnesses likely to view him as much older. Holeman's not a huge fan of sketches as they aren't reliable. People aren't trained witnesses - they don't know a crime is about to occur. A lot of witnesses get angry at themselves for giving poor descriptions once the perp is found. That's why LE kept saying, don't focus on the sketches, focus on the video.
What characteristics did you think the killer had? Through the investigation, they believed that the killer was a power-assertive, or control freak person.
Many other agencies who reviewed the case said he more than likely was someone with limited or no criminal history. It was likely someone who was introverted, or lived with parents. But had a controlling demeanor. Someone who had fantasies about sexually assaulting young girls. At the time of the "new direction" press conference, they had no evidence or belief that it was Richard Allen.
KAK - A tip came through ICAC (Internet Crimes against Children). They started working the KAK case as a child predator case and at some point they found out he was communicating with Libby and some of her friends. KAK was a pathological liar and used the Shots profile to lure the girls in. They spent countless hours investigating him. But at the end of the day, they could not establish probable cause that he was involved.
Holeman does think KAK was communicating with the girls and KAK may be the reason they showed up on the bridge that day. But that doesn't mean he was responsible for murdering them. To get jail house cred, KAK lied to get his 5 minutes of fame. That's Holeman's opinion. They did find the red jeep and it was tested for evidence, of which there was none. KAK said they drove past the Hoosier Harveststore but it's not on video there and they can prove KAK lied about this and multiple other things throughout the investigation.
Kathy Shank has "a heart of gold." She was retired but she was there a lot and was asking to help even more. Mullin had worked with her in Child Protective Services and trusted her. When she organized the files the investigation became much better.
The Orion computerized tip system they were using had its glitches so that it wouldn't put together, for example, a tip on John Smith vs. John Doe Smith. Investigators would go out to interview John Doe Smith and find out he had already been talked to four different times with no new information. So Kathy's organization helped organize these tips so that they knew if followup had been done or not. She found a tip on Richard Allen Whiteman that had not been filed appropriately. So they had to work that tip from the beginning like they did any other tip to eliminate him or establish probable cause. RA was the only tip that they were able to establish probable cause on.
Holeman's interactions with RA were brief. During the search warrant, Holeman was there to make sure it was executed correctly and nothing was damaged. When he got to the Allen residence, RA and KA were sitting in a van. This is when RA said twice "it doesn't matter, it's over." Later RA came over and asked if he could sit with Holeman in his car. He would smoke cigarettes quite a bit. He asked if KA was detained. He said three or four more times, "it doesn't matter, it's over." During their interview at the ISP post, RA's demeanor was odd. He had emptied his pockets and gave his wife all his belongings even though he only thought he would be picking up his car. So that seemed like he knew he was going to be arrested even though he had not been told that. Talking to him, he first seemed to be coherent, but then a little bit agitated. Holeman gave him some outs to explain why his round got between the victims' bodies but he would never say that anyone had borrowed his property or that there was any explanation for the evidence. Holeman felt RA was fishing to see what LE had on him. He did make odd comments and would sometimes hold his hands out and say "just arrest me."
Holeman says he has never seen an innocent person do this, especially that many times. Observing RA's behavior in jail, Holeman says "he obviously had mental health issues" but "he also played that to get what he wanted."
There was certain information the jury did not see or hear. For example, the recording of one of Holeman's interviews with RA was edited for the jury. One was shown where RA and Holeman were sitting quietly and then next Holeman was yelling and cursing.
What wasn't shown is that this was an interrogation tactic where Holeman matches someone's behavior or energy. This is used to elicit more information than the suspect planned to give you. RA refused a polygraph because "I'm on anxiety meds." When KA was in the room with them, Holeman said to her, "If I offered you a polygraph because I was trying to help you prove your innocence, would you take one" and KA said "Absolutely." Holeman said, "Well, RA won't." At that point RA became very angry with him and started cursing, and that's when Holeman matched his energy. RA would get really upset whenever Holeman would say things like "tell your husband to do the right thing here." Holeman was finding buttons to push.
Polygraphs are just tools to elicit responses/information.
There was a video of RA had Cass County Jail that ended up not being shown to the jury because the defense objected. Prosecution was trying to establish that RA was NOT a "fragile egg" and
in this particular video you see RA go from 0-100 from sitting on his bed to suddenly punching, making throat slashing motion, screaming. Then calming down 10 seconds later. Holeman thinks something similar is what happened February 12th. He impulsively murdered two girls and then calmly went back to living his life.
