Good points and also I'd add, MP said he was buddies with some firefighters so that's another level of first responder who was "on it," right from the beginning, a connection that most people, or at least most people in bigger communities, would not have had.
Found Deceased IN - Abigail (Abby) Williams, 13, & Liberty (Libby) German, 14, The Delphi Murders 13 Feb 2017 #125
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Good points and also I'd add, MP said he was buddies with some firefighters so that's another level of first responder who was "on it," right from the beginning, a connection that most people, or at least most people in bigger communities, would not have had.
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Yes that’s right. It reminds me of people reaching out to help others and it just happened that some helped in their official capacity as opposed to a responsibility associated solely to employment.
I think one of the reasons this case has hooked me is because it brings me back in time to long ago memories of small town anywhere, totally different than the dynamics within a city.
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Thank you for your response. Please note, I was not implying that opportunity is the ONLY factor necessary.
I was stating that without it, the attack does not take place.
A perpetrator needs to have victims, space and methodology in order to create opportunity.
Over simplistic? I can see why you feel that way, but without opportunity, no crime can take place.
The rest - the mental , emotional, the "sickness" the desire, the sexual motivation have BEEN playing in a perpetrators mind for a long time.
What did he need in order to carry out the fantasy?
Opportunity.
I understand your point but I feel, again MOO, that most behavioralists would view it as exactly the opposite way around, with opportunities arising frequently and only infrequently would that combination of stressors and victimology meet in such a way that a crime is carried through. So yes, "opportunity" is necessary for a crime to take place but that's like saying "it is necessary for an offender to be in the proximity of another person who could become the victim." It's true but it doesn't give us any insight into the crime itself.
In 2014 the FBI published a document that was a guide for local jurisdictions on how to handle crimes like the Delphi murders. One day I may post more about the information contained in this guide as much of it may apply to the Delphi case. However, in this document, the FBI defines opportunity as the offender merely being present in one of his designated hunting areas. However, the other factors that go into whether or not a crime actually proceeds would be: availability of victims, vulnerability of victims, and desirability of victims (note: this isn't talking about "attractiveness" per se, it has to do with the suitability of a particular victim for an offender's intrinsic needs). It occurs to me that some might consider all of these factors to be, colloquially, "opportunity" though the FBI may not define it exactly that way.
I do think that the Delphi offender is one of those who, through his daily activities, carves out for himself prospective hunting areas. I doubt this trail system was the only one that he had marked as full of possibilities.
Raising my kids, a 15 minute time difference would have sent a huge red flag. When I was raised we just played outside all day with no supervision. Not any more. I see nothing wrong with the reaction timeline from the family
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So, I found two additional podcast episodes about this case that I thought were pretty interesting and transcribed them for you guys. The two episodes are two parts of one discussion.
Best Case Worst Case is a podcast hosted by former federal prosecutor Francey Hakes and Retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent & Profiler Jim Clemente. For this particular discussion, they invited two additional retired FBI Special Agents to join them, Maureen O’Connell and Bobby Chacon.
BEST CASE WORST CASE SCENARIO: THE DELPHI MURDERS (Episode 123)
PART 1 – Released April 25, 2019
Clemente
Hello and welcome to Best Case Worst Case. This is Jim Clemente, retired FBI Profiler, former New York City Prosecutor, and writer/producer on CBS’s Criminal Minds.
And, with me today is --
Hakes
Hi, everybody. It’s former state and federal prosecutor Francey Hakes. Jim, we’re in the studio. We’re together. We’re in California together. This is like a miracle.
Clemente
It is pretty much that, yes. Because, well you know, getting us in the same room at the same time is kinda difficult sometimes.
Hakes
It has been a challenge lately. And even more exciting, and I’m sure our listeners are going to be thrilled because they’re always clamoring – yes, I used the word intentionally – clamoring, to have these two guests back. And we’ve gotten them IN the studio together. And they are –
Chacon
Bobby Chacon, retired FBI Special Agent.
O’Connell
Maureen O’Connell, retired FBI Special Agent.
Hakes
I feel—I feel a little surrounded.
O’Connell
I am getting a little overwhelmed, guys – THREE former FBI agents in the same room. But since I was always the boss, I think it’s fine. I can handle it.
[Laughter]
Clemente
[Laughing] Why don’t we just put that to rest right away. The boss! You were like 18 when I started working at the FBI.
O’Connell
Yes, that’s probably true.
Clemente
AND I became a Supervisory Special Agent. I don’t believe you were ever a supervisor there. I don’t know, but –
[Talking over one another and teasing each other.]
O’Connell
FINE.
[Laughter]
Clemente
Anyway… yeah, it’s –
Hakes
It’s great to be together, it’s great to be in the studio, and it’s great to have you guys with us, Bobby and Maureen. Because all joking aside what I really wanted to talk to you about and talk about today is a topic that practically the whole country is talking about, and that is the murders of Abby Williams and Libby German. Two little girls in Delphi, Indiana.
Yesterday, there was a press conference. There were all sorts of things going on. Let me just give a quick overview for those of our listeners who are not familiar with it.
Back a couple of years ago in 2017, in Delphi, Indiana – which is about an hour or so from Indianapolis – two teenage girls, 13 and 14, Abby Williams and Libby German, went on a hike over a trestle bridge on a trail that is –
It’s very popular in Delphi. It’s not like a regionally popular trail, but it is something the locals know all about. They were dropped off by an older sister, and they were going to go on a hike. They did not come to the meeting place at 5:30pm that day and were reported missing.
Tragically, their bodies were discovered by searchers the following day, and they’d both been murdered. And, we don’t know the cause of death.
Libby German managed to capture some audio and video of a person of interest, who may or may not be the killer, on her phone.
[Audio Plays]
A sketch and some audio was released a couple of years ago, but this week there was a press conference. And, that’s what I want to talk to you all about.
So, I want to kind of go a little bit back in time, and then we’ll move forward to discuss what happened in the press conference. But let’s talk first, let’s go back in time.
Jim, I want to ask you, first of all, a question we always get on social media. You’ve got someone who has obviously killed, and you don’t know if they were sexually assaulted, what’s the motivation for the murder? Uh, because the police have not released it. But some person has taken the life of two teenage girls. What motivates someone like that? How can anyone kill teenage girls like that?
Clemente
Well, unfortunately, if you’re looking at the motivations for these, the vast majority of them are sexual in nature. And, unfortunately, that’s, you know, a sad reality. That’s probably the most likely.
The other motivations in child abduction homicides are greed, somebody getting in the way of, uh, a relationship, and, um –
Chacon
Like Chris Watts when he killed those, his two daughters.
Clemente
Yes.
Chacon
If, I believe that’s right. That was, that was getting in the way of his relationship.
Clemente
And, also, there are some cases in which people just, they have a lust for murder, and they want to try it. So, you have murders without a motive, generally, in serial cases. So, you can, you know, you can pretty much rule out most of those.
And, you know, it’s unfortunate. But, you know, I hope they didn’t suffer in that way but it’s, you know, a strong possibility.
Hakes
Well, the other thing that I had when I first heard about this case originally, and I understand there were two young girls, but the audio portion of, uh, what Libby captured on her phone, to me was significant. Because if this is the killer, he told them to go down the hill in kind of a command.
But to me, Jim, I’m wondering what you think? And then I want to ask you guys this as well, Bobby and Maureen. What do you think about the difficulty level, if you will, of controlling two teenage girls?
These aren’t, you know, six or seven-year-old girls. These are thirteen and fourteen-year-old girls.
Clemente
And he probably had a weapon. I mean, that’s just the easy go-to thing. I know that people have analyzed pictures of him, and uh, they see shapes and forms that could be a gun or some other type of holster type weapon. So, it’s most likely that.
Also, these are probably, you know, good girls. And, unfortunately, killers sometimes use the victims own—
Hakes
Lures.
Clemente
Yeah, they use lures. But they also use the victim’s own politeness and social graces to get somebody into a position where they’re now more vulnerable.
O’Connell
Manners. When an adult tells you to do something – I grew up in the south – when an adult tells you to do something, you do it.
Clemente
But the fact that Libby took the pictures tells me that she was fairly certain that something bad was happening.
O’Connell
She knew for sure.
And then they did an audio as well. And going back, uh, to piggyback on what you said, we saw an initial grainy photograph back in 2017 when these girls were abducted and murdered. And in that photography, I remember thinking that this guy was a very heavyset person. But the significance of the video they put out yesterday shows a person, if you look at his legs and the movement, his legs look rather thin. That there is a lot of stuff shoved into his jacket and he also has a fanny pack on. Um, and you can see the gape caused by this, um –
Clemente
Bulk.
O’Connell
Bulk, exactly. Between the, uh, between the buttons. So, uh, he could have had what could be described as like a kill kit, or something of that nature in there, or a gun or something.
Clemente
Yeah, it could be. You know, the fact is that he was clearly kind of trying to disguise himself, hide his identity, and probably hide whatever he used to threaten them. And it was very effective.
Chacon
And Libby’s grandfather is quite sure that she took those pictures and that audio, or that video and that audio, because she thought there was something wrong with him. I think he even said like, “I think she was probably gonna come back home and tell me – ‘look, I saw this strange man hanging out at the park’.”
Hakes
You know, and Bobby, that leads me to another question I wanted to ask you, as a trained investigator. I think that that is such a significant piece of evidence. Because you’re talking about something that I believe must have been surreptitiously recorded. Or else don’t you think the offender would’ve taken the phone with him?
Chacon
Oh, it was. I don’t have any doubt that. It was surreptitiously recorded.
And, if in fact it was like I believe, then it clearly shows that her motivation was to capture this man on tape, who she felt very uncomfortable with for whatever reason. And she wanted to capture that audio and video. I mean, this is a very wise young girl doing this, and it may ultimately lead to capturing her killer.
Clemente
Yeah, it comes back to what Gavin DeBecker wrote about in The Gift of Fear. You have to listen to your instincts. Your primitive brain has protective mechanisms, and it calculates the risks of things that you do and things that are going on.
And that’s why, and it tells you what’s going on and when you should be afraid – by giving you that feeling where the hair stands up on the back of your neck, or you get chills, or goosebumps, or you get a real sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. That’s your brain actually telling you there’s something wrong – be careful, be on edge, be hypervigilant, be aware of your situation.
Situational awareness is obviously something that Libby exhibited here. She clearly understood that this guy was not there for good reasons; that he had nefarious intent. And, thankfully, because of that we have some leads in this case. Otherwise, we’d have almost nothing.
Hakes
This brings up a great point that I want to ask you all.
As investigators who have investigated – between you – probably thousands of crimes, when this case originally happened. When police originally released some of the video, some of the audio, and the sketch two years ago, they said – quote, “there was more evidence relating to the suspect on the phone, but we’re not going to release it in order to avoid compromising a future trial.”
Now, as a former prosecutor, I know what I think about that. But can you all explain to me, and to our listeners, why there would be some evidence police would withhold in a case where you don’t know who the suspect is? Maureen, why don’t we start with you.
O’Connell
Well, because the police are always going to protect the, um, integrity of the investigation. That’s the number one thing.
And, you know, the first thing that comes to my mind is that, uh, forensic genealogy because that has not yet been tested in court. But I, it’s become, that’s come out on so many other murders that it doesn’t seem likely to me at this point.
Clemente
Well, I think that, just generally, talking about the fact that they always hold back information. It’s necessary because in case you get a confession, it’s the way that you sus out false confessions. It’s the way that you drill down and find out if the person actually knows what they’re talking about. So, it’s normal.
I would assume that that information is of a kind that they are releasing. In other words, they are releasing part of it but not all of it. And that’s really important, I think. They did release more of it yesterday, and I think that they probably still have held stuff back.
Chacon
Sure. My default position was always don’t release anything in my investigation unless it aids the investigation. I have no obligation to anyone outside the investigation. My obligation is to track down the perpetrator of the crime in a way that’s going to allow someone like yourself to prosecute the person successfully.
There is a certain obligation to the family. We have special victim witness people that handle that stuff. But as far as the evidence in the case, I even have to always be careful what you tell the family. Sometimes that comes off as looking insensitive.
We often get – “oh, the family’s not being updated by the police.” Well, let me tell you something. Most of the cases, and you saw it yesterday at the press conference, the police are living this case emotionally. They are not abusing the family in any way. If they’re withholding information, it has everything to do with the validity of this investigation, and protecting the, the investigation, and capturing the perpetrator. It has nothing to do with wanting to withhold from the family.
Clemente
The family doesn’t WANT to know information that will end up hurting the prosecution down the road. So, they typically understand.
Of course, if the investigation goes on unsolved for years and decades, the family can get very frustrated. But still, if in the end, their goal is to actually get a suspect arrested, and have a successful prosecution, and get justice for their family member or their loved one, well then in the end, the sacrifice they have to make in not knowing the details, that’s a very worthy sacrifice.
O’Connell
Although, although we don’t want to admit it, oftentimes the big leaks from investigations do come from the family members because they ARE so emotional. And, rightfully so.
So, we don’t tell them everything because we don’t want them sharing that information with other people.
Hakes
Well, and I have to wonder whether, when they said in 2017, they have more evidence on the phone but aren’t releasing it. I have to wonder how much of the crime might have been captured on Libby’s phone.
Because you’re talking about us only having a snippet, and there’s certainly evidence if you think about it in the reverse, that the offender never knew that he was being captured on the phone. Because otherwise, you’d think he would have taken it with him.
So, you have to wonder how much evidence of the actual crime itself is on the phone.
Chacon
And the chief said yesterday, “that you wanna know how much we have and someday you’ll find out.”
Hakes
Yeah, well we’ll talk about that in just a minute. I wanna get to the press conference, but first I want to talk a little bit about what makes investigations like this one so challenging.
I think that a lot of the public wonders what is taking so long. And I know that for me, a press conference two years later, with a brand new sketch, it makes it seem like, “well why didn’t you give us this information two years ago?”
But you understand that it, as of June of the year that these little girls were killed, Libby and Abby were killed, they had received 18,000 tips with at least 4 to 5 new tips coming in daily. That has to be overwhelming.
Clemente
Yeah, but that is not unusual, and the FBI has these rapid deployment teams. Rapid Deployment Child Abduction Deployment Teams. And they also have teams that are set up to deal with massive amounts of data and they do. You remember the, the—
Chacon
The software that’s used to take all the incoming leads and divvy them out to different people, and different units, and things like that.
O’Connell
So, you can track them properly. So, the FBI does have software. It tracks every single one of these leads, and the, um, the chief also said yesterday that we have a witness. So –
Clemente
Right. And here’s the thing, Francey. You know, to answer people who think, “why now, why are they releasing this now?” Because it may have been the arrest of that one guy who fit that description very well a couple days ago. That may have been them finally ruling him out as the killer. And so, now they have more confidence, and it is the perfect time to release this other sketch of this other person that has now become the primary suspect in this case. And from what the cops said, they probably have some other reasons to suspect him as well.
Chacon
You also have to understand [that] releasing a sketch is a huge responsibility. It’s irresponsible of you to do that if you don’t have a high degree of confidence that that’s the perpetrator.
Because what you’re going to do is you’re going to have a whole host of people that look like this sketch getting harassed. You’re going to have their neighbors looking at them. You’re going to have friends looking at them and saying, “you look just like the guy in the sketch”. And that’s the last thing that you want.
Hakes
Well, and I think there’s just that natural tension between finding the perpetrator, who’s completely unknown, and releasing information. And I think that’s, it seems to me that it’s almost a last resort to release information to the public. Because you worry about all the things that you all have talked about. On the other hand, if you’ve got no more investigative avenues to explore, what do you do?
So, let’s talk a little bit about, um, Maureen, let’s talk a little bit about DNA. We don’t know the cause of death of these, uh, two little girls. We have no idea what exactly happened to them, but my guess and my pure speculation is that there was, as Jim said, a sexual element to this. And that the children were left in such a state that there almost has to have been DNA left on them.
But I want to be a little bit careful. Because I saw something on TV, some supposed expert on the other day talking about touch DNA on television, talking about touch DNA and said that technology is such that if the killer touched so and so’s clothes that we should find DNA. And, that is misleading. We MIGHT find DNA.
Clemente
Right. Because how were the bodies disposed of? What was the time of year? What was the weather conditions? All that kind of stuff. Was there water involved?
But, here’s the thing. When I said sexual motives, I am not necessarily talking about what people would consider traditional sexual assault. There could be many different things that are sexual for an offender. And so, you may not have, you know, what you might expect in a rape case which is semen. You might not have that. And an offender, even if he has an intent to do that, may not be able to consummate that rape. So, there’s all sorts of things that can happen that are sexual for an offender that –
I mean we’ve arrested people for, for example, spanking someone. That was sexual to the offender. And it was obvious because of what they did, and the type of
they collected, and their fantasy material. But that was actually a sexual experience for them. There are many different things that people will, will get off sexually on, and it doesn’t have to be like I said, traditional sex.
Hakes
Well, let’s talk. I’d like to ask you, Maureen.
It sounds to me like this was without a doubt a difficult crime scene. You’re talking about nature. You’re talking about being a half mile off a trail. So, it was February. So, it was cold and possibly wet in Indiana. There may have been snow, or snow melt, in that part of Indiana.
So, can you talk a little bit about what would’ve been your goals if you had been in charge of this crime scene involving these two children in those conditions?
O’Connell
Well, the first thing we would do is cordon everything off and pay particular attention to the pathway that they took down to wherever he told them to get down to. And the reason we do that is because there will be boot prints, shoe prints. We could see potentially the positions they were in as he led them down this hill. But also, because, um, it was probably his, um, egress route. So, uh, we would we would cordon that off.
Hakes
I’m sorry, what’s an egress route?
O’Connell
Uh, how he got out. The path that he took out. So, those are the things we would initially be looking at.
We would I, I just have the feeling, and this is just a feeling based on the information that we’ve received so far from the police and that in the presser yesterday, that, um, they may have been posed or staged. And I, I think, Bobby, you were in LA when we worked that case with that beautiful young victim, Samantha Runyon. And, she too was posed. And, that was one time, um, Francey, where I saw a hardened seasoned homicide detective cry.
So, it’s that type of thing. It’s the victimization on top of the victimization, the piling on that these people do for their own personal gratification. So, in a situation like that, there’s going to be a lot of evidence. And there’s going to be a lot of evidence that has to be very, very, very carefully collected and then maintained.
Clemente
The fact is [that] when an offender moves victims, he moves them to a place of greater privacy and control. And so, he may have had a particular lair set up there where he wanted to take them once we got them. And maybe he was waiting for a girl to walk by, and it just happened to be two, and so he took them both.
But I don’t think he could’ve known; they couldn’t have been targeted victims. I don’t think he could’ve known that they were going to be there. I think he set up his trap, and they fell into it. But he needed to get them to a particular place so he could have privacy to do what he wanted to do.
O’Connell
Or, you know, following along on that part of his, um, sexual gratification could be taking them to another place and building a lair where he can do what he’s doing. But, you’re right. He, he, in moving them, it does say a lot about this person. And everything he did, every move he made, is another signature. And, these signatures add up.
Hakes
Okay, so Maureen, when you’re talking about a complicated crime scene like this. Where there actually could be multiple crime scenes, Jim has just said that you’re talking about someone who may have moved them. He may have a lair. This is all information that we do not have; that the police have not given us.
What kind of time frame are you talking about with such a complex scene like that? How long does it take before you say to yourself, “okay, everybody pack your bags, we’ve gotten all the evidence we’re gonna get”?
O’Connell
As long as it takes. Sometimes it can take four hours. And I mean, it depends on the size of your team. It depends on the amount of information you have. It depends on the size of the crime scene, the complexity, um, the different techniques you have to engage in to complete the tasks.
So, it could be anywhere from, a case like this, I would say minimally twelve hours to three days. I mean, we worked a, uh, crime scene on a, on a plane crash that was ten full days 24/7 before we left, and that wasn’t even a complete wreck. That was just what we considered having all the body parts in place.
Hakes
Well, I don’t, obviously none of us know. Uh, I certainly have tremendous respect for whatever the police departments out there had to work with, but we don’t know whether they had the kind of crime scene units that they needed.
Did they call in the FBI immediately? Did they get the state police immediately? Obviously, we don’t know any of those things because we haven’t been given that information. But I certainly hope that you’re right, and that it was as thorough a, um, forensic crime scene, um, examination as is possible.
So, Bobby. When you’re talking about investigating a crime like this. So, say you’re, you know, you’re one of the investigators. You’re on the scene with Maureen while she’s collecting evidence. What are you on scene doing as an investigator out there? Are you looking for this lair that Jim is talking about and why?
Chacon
Well, you know, on every investigation is the traditional gum shoe, right? Looking for witnesses, it’s what we used to do, and knock. We used to go – but doing a neighborhood where you knock on every door around the place, but here you didn’t have that.
You wait and you look at every car in the parking lot. If there’s a trail head, you want to know who’s hiking there. You’re going to look at the bulletin board and see who goes there often. Who’s posting things on there? Because these are the people that often use that place.
So, you want to see who’s hiking there on a regular basis. Who’s running, is there a group that maintains that trail? There are often these volunteer groups. So, you’re going to look at all of those groups and see who’s coming and going.
Who could have possibly been on that trail? And not just at that time, you want to go the rest of the day, the day before. You want to see a face, or a guy hanging out two days in a row that they’ve never saw there before.
So, you’re going to go back in time, as far back as you can, to see if the people who regularly use that area, you know, if you, you want to find somebody that saw something. And, that’s how you do it
Hakes
Jim, what does the actual location itself tell you about, uh, you know, sorta the offender and where he might be from? What sort of geographic information can you glean knowing that it’s kind of a local area, and that there may have been movement of the bodies, and there may be a lair?
Clemente
Well, I think there’s more details to it.
But I think that a number of these, you know, sort of intricacies and nuances tell me that he’s probably from around there. That he spends a significant amount of time there. Whether he grew up there or he landed there from somewhere else, I don’t know. But he’s certainly spent enough time to know that this was a place where little girls who fit his fantasy could come by, you know.
I think he’s the kind of guy who fantasized a great deal about doing this. That this is not something impulsive; this is something that he planned for. He played it out in his mind over and over again. It didn’t go exactly as he planned but he thought about this.
He was compulsive. He played this fantasy in his mind repeatedly, and then, you know, took steps to carry it out. And that whatever that was, in terms of, you know, him preparing a place, uh, preparing a way to threaten and control his intended victim, um, preparing a place where he could, you know, sort of be unseen until the victim came into view – sort of laying his trap or throwing out his net.
I think he showed some level of criminal sophistication that only comes from having done, committed, precursor crimes. I think he would’ve exhibited peeping behavior. He might have broken into residences to basically be there for, you know, when somebody wasn’t home, and go thru you know underwear drawers and things like that.
Hakes
Your voyeur kind of crimes.
Clemente
Yes. Well, the peeping is that voyeur side but the other side is more like the excitement, the thrill, of being in a place that you’re not supposed to be and looking at people’s intimate things. And, he probably did those kinds of things, and they are called nuisance crimes. And it might have been misdemeanors, but I believe he probably has a record like that. He almost certainly DID it; I don’t know if he got caught at it before.
But, the guy has also some level of forensics investigation. Because he didn’t apparently leave a lot of forensic evidence behind of himself, at least that they’ve reported. So, that tells me that he wasn’t, you know, uneducated on forensics. So, he has some experience. And that may come from his experience as a criminal, that may come from having been arrested before on certain things, so now he knows how to avoid those things.
Hakes
Could it also be because he maybe has not ever been arrested by law enforcement and is secure in the knowledge that his DNA exists nowhere but inside himself?
Clemente
Well, I don’t know. I don’t know that because he wouldn’t know about investigative genealogy, but that wouldn’t protect him anymore.
But, at that point, you know, I don’t think people who protect themselves by not leaving evidence are doing it because they don’t think they can be caught if they leave evidence. It’s that they think they can get caught if they do leave evidence.
O’Connell
Or it could be as you said earlier, Jim. That he just couldn’t perform. Like, even though it was a sexual act for him, and he was gaining satisfaction, he wasn’t able to ejaculate.
Clemente
It’s possible.
Hakes
Well, and so what’s interesting to me from an investigative standpoint, for all our listeners who are sort of detectives at heart and who are wondering about all the evidence in the case. Jim, everything that you just said and everything that Bobby and Maureen have also said, you’re talking about a tremendous investigation.
When you look at people that’ve been, people that have been on the trail, people that are parking there, people who maintain it, people who were there last week at the same time, the last month at the same time – because investigators are going to want to know has this guy been effective in stalking this trail, and has anyone seen him parking, and walking, and acting suspicious, or not acting suspicious, or going off the trail and coming back on. I mean, you are talking about trying to find a massive number of people in a place where it’s not like New York City and there are street cameras.
O’Connell
Francey, I think it’s likely in those 18,000 tips and leads that they’ve received, that some people have said to them, “I’ve seen that guy before on the trail, or it was four years ago, or it was five years.” It might have been 8 years ago.
I remember that, Francey, because the law enforcement officers are very, very sure that this guy has been either in the town, living in the town, part of his family lives in the town, he grew up here. He’s extremely familiar with this area.
Clemente
Or he works there, or he plays there.
And I think that what must have happened is that they have taken these leads, they have interviewed literally thousands of people, and they have found someone who looks at that video that they released and says, “yes, I definitely saw that guy minutes before these girls came by and I saw his face.” And that’s where this sketch came from.
And so, the other sketch was, somebody saw in the area and was suspicious about, and it turns out it’s a guy who is sexually interested in children, who’s had multiple arrests for it.
O’Connell
Who could have been stalking the same area –
Clemente
Could’ve been stalking the SAME GIRLS at the SAME TIME, and that’s what I call a target rich environment.
And just like the case in UVA, where there was a girl who’s a young college freshman, and she was inebriated and walking around, obviously drunk on her own. There was a guy who claimed to be a Good Samaritan who started following her. But then the other guy stepped to her, put his arm around her, and walked her away – he was the murderer. I think the other Good Samaritan guy could have also intended to sexually assault her, to take advantage of her in some way. I don’t know if he would have killed her, but I think that’s why he was doing it because he laid in wait. He stepped back into the shadows in a doorway and waited for her to walk by. And then he steps out and follows her, but the other guy overtakes him. He was following her so slow that the other guy could overtake him and get up to her before he did. Why? What’s going on in his mind? Why is he doing that?
And so, to me, that was very suspicious behavior. And, I actually wrote an episode of Criminal Minds about it called Target Rich. Because I believe that when there are vulnerable victims around, and at the beginning and the end of the year and during holidays around college campuses, where young girls are first sort of having the freedom to drink and be on their own and do what they want, these guys are drawn to that. Drawn to this target rich environment and they take advantage of these opportunities.
O’Connell
As all predators are –
Clemente
Yes, and I think in this particular case, that Abby and Libby just happened to walk by. Just happened to fall in this guy’s net and become his victims.
So, when people are victim hunting, they’re looking for vulnerability, availability, and then desirability. And sometimes, the desirability factor is just anybody who’s available and vulnerable.
And so, if we look at somebody like Israel Keys, for example. Bobby worked the case. This guy would literally bury a kill kit all across the nation, memorize the GPS points where they were, and then he would go back home to Alaska. And then at some point, he would fly down to some city, rent a car with cash, drive up to a thousand miles to another a city, unbury the kill kit, and set a trap. And whoever came by, that’s the person he killed. And when that didn’t work, he got really pissed and killed somebody else.
But the fact is, there are offenders who, literally, are just getting off on the kill itself and THAT is sexual for them. And so, it’s just not our traditional sexual assault kind of offense but it’s just as deadly.
Link to listen to Part 1 >>>> 122 | Worst Case Scenario: The Delphi Murders – Best Case Worst Case – Podcast
Best Case Worst Case is a podcast hosted by former federal prosecutor Francey Hakes and Retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent & Profiler Jim Clemente. For this particular discussion, they invited two additional retired FBI Special Agents to join them, Maureen O’Connell and Bobby Chacon.
BEST CASE WORST CASE SCENARIO: THE DELPHI MURDERS (Episode 123)
PART 1 – Released April 25, 2019
Clemente
Hello and welcome to Best Case Worst Case. This is Jim Clemente, retired FBI Profiler, former New York City Prosecutor, and writer/producer on CBS’s Criminal Minds.
And, with me today is --
Hakes
Hi, everybody. It’s former state and federal prosecutor Francey Hakes. Jim, we’re in the studio. We’re together. We’re in California together. This is like a miracle.
Clemente
It is pretty much that, yes. Because, well you know, getting us in the same room at the same time is kinda difficult sometimes.
Hakes
It has been a challenge lately. And even more exciting, and I’m sure our listeners are going to be thrilled because they’re always clamoring – yes, I used the word intentionally – clamoring, to have these two guests back. And we’ve gotten them IN the studio together. And they are –
Chacon
Bobby Chacon, retired FBI Special Agent.
O’Connell
Maureen O’Connell, retired FBI Special Agent.
Hakes
I feel—I feel a little surrounded.
O’Connell
I am getting a little overwhelmed, guys – THREE former FBI agents in the same room. But since I was always the boss, I think it’s fine. I can handle it.
[Laughter]
Clemente
[Laughing] Why don’t we just put that to rest right away. The boss! You were like 18 when I started working at the FBI.
O’Connell
Yes, that’s probably true.
Clemente
AND I became a Supervisory Special Agent. I don’t believe you were ever a supervisor there. I don’t know, but –
[Talking over one another and teasing each other.]
O’Connell
FINE.
[Laughter]
Clemente
Anyway… yeah, it’s –
Hakes
It’s great to be together, it’s great to be in the studio, and it’s great to have you guys with us, Bobby and Maureen. Because all joking aside what I really wanted to talk to you about and talk about today is a topic that practically the whole country is talking about, and that is the murders of Abby Williams and Libby German. Two little girls in Delphi, Indiana.
Yesterday, there was a press conference. There were all sorts of things going on. Let me just give a quick overview for those of our listeners who are not familiar with it.
Back a couple of years ago in 2017, in Delphi, Indiana – which is about an hour or so from Indianapolis – two teenage girls, 13 and 14, Abby Williams and Libby German, went on a hike over a trestle bridge on a trail that is –
It’s very popular in Delphi. It’s not like a regionally popular trail, but it is something the locals know all about. They were dropped off by an older sister, and they were going to go on a hike. They did not come to the meeting place at 5:30pm that day and were reported missing.
Tragically, their bodies were discovered by searchers the following day, and they’d both been murdered. And, we don’t know the cause of death.
Libby German managed to capture some audio and video of a person of interest, who may or may not be the killer, on her phone.
[Audio Plays]
A sketch and some audio was released a couple of years ago, but this week there was a press conference. And, that’s what I want to talk to you all about.
So, I want to kind of go a little bit back in time, and then we’ll move forward to discuss what happened in the press conference. But let’s talk first, let’s go back in time.
Jim, I want to ask you, first of all, a question we always get on social media. You’ve got someone who has obviously killed, and you don’t know if they were sexually assaulted, what’s the motivation for the murder? Uh, because the police have not released it. But some person has taken the life of two teenage girls. What motivates someone like that? How can anyone kill teenage girls like that?
Clemente
Well, unfortunately, if you’re looking at the motivations for these, the vast majority of them are sexual in nature. And, unfortunately, that’s, you know, a sad reality. That’s probably the most likely.
The other motivations in child abduction homicides are greed, somebody getting in the way of, uh, a relationship, and, um –
Chacon
Like Chris Watts when he killed those, his two daughters.
Clemente
Yes.
Chacon
If, I believe that’s right. That was, that was getting in the way of his relationship.
Clemente
And, also, there are some cases in which people just, they have a lust for murder, and they want to try it. So, you have murders without a motive, generally, in serial cases. So, you can, you know, you can pretty much rule out most of those.
And, you know, it’s unfortunate. But, you know, I hope they didn’t suffer in that way but it’s, you know, a strong possibility.
Hakes
Well, the other thing that I had when I first heard about this case originally, and I understand there were two young girls, but the audio portion of, uh, what Libby captured on her phone, to me was significant. Because if this is the killer, he told them to go down the hill in kind of a command.
But to me, Jim, I’m wondering what you think? And then I want to ask you guys this as well, Bobby and Maureen. What do you think about the difficulty level, if you will, of controlling two teenage girls?
These aren’t, you know, six or seven-year-old girls. These are thirteen and fourteen-year-old girls.
Clemente
And he probably had a weapon. I mean, that’s just the easy go-to thing. I know that people have analyzed pictures of him, and uh, they see shapes and forms that could be a gun or some other type of holster type weapon. So, it’s most likely that.
Also, these are probably, you know, good girls. And, unfortunately, killers sometimes use the victims own—
Hakes
Lures.
Clemente
Yeah, they use lures. But they also use the victim’s own politeness and social graces to get somebody into a position where they’re now more vulnerable.
O’Connell
Manners. When an adult tells you to do something – I grew up in the south – when an adult tells you to do something, you do it.
Clemente
But the fact that Libby took the pictures tells me that she was fairly certain that something bad was happening.
O’Connell
She knew for sure.
And then they did an audio as well. And going back, uh, to piggyback on what you said, we saw an initial grainy photograph back in 2017 when these girls were abducted and murdered. And in that photography, I remember thinking that this guy was a very heavyset person. But the significance of the video they put out yesterday shows a person, if you look at his legs and the movement, his legs look rather thin. That there is a lot of stuff shoved into his jacket and he also has a fanny pack on. Um, and you can see the gape caused by this, um –
Clemente
Bulk.
O’Connell
Bulk, exactly. Between the, uh, between the buttons. So, uh, he could have had what could be described as like a kill kit, or something of that nature in there, or a gun or something.
Clemente
Yeah, it could be. You know, the fact is that he was clearly kind of trying to disguise himself, hide his identity, and probably hide whatever he used to threaten them. And it was very effective.
Chacon
And Libby’s grandfather is quite sure that she took those pictures and that audio, or that video and that audio, because she thought there was something wrong with him. I think he even said like, “I think she was probably gonna come back home and tell me – ‘look, I saw this strange man hanging out at the park’.”
Hakes
You know, and Bobby, that leads me to another question I wanted to ask you, as a trained investigator. I think that that is such a significant piece of evidence. Because you’re talking about something that I believe must have been surreptitiously recorded. Or else don’t you think the offender would’ve taken the phone with him?
Chacon
Oh, it was. I don’t have any doubt that. It was surreptitiously recorded.
And, if in fact it was like I believe, then it clearly shows that her motivation was to capture this man on tape, who she felt very uncomfortable with for whatever reason. And she wanted to capture that audio and video. I mean, this is a very wise young girl doing this, and it may ultimately lead to capturing her killer.
Clemente
Yeah, it comes back to what Gavin DeBecker wrote about in The Gift of Fear. You have to listen to your instincts. Your primitive brain has protective mechanisms, and it calculates the risks of things that you do and things that are going on.
And that’s why, and it tells you what’s going on and when you should be afraid – by giving you that feeling where the hair stands up on the back of your neck, or you get chills, or goosebumps, or you get a real sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. That’s your brain actually telling you there’s something wrong – be careful, be on edge, be hypervigilant, be aware of your situation.
Situational awareness is obviously something that Libby exhibited here. She clearly understood that this guy was not there for good reasons; that he had nefarious intent. And, thankfully, because of that we have some leads in this case. Otherwise, we’d have almost nothing.
Hakes
This brings up a great point that I want to ask you all.
As investigators who have investigated – between you – probably thousands of crimes, when this case originally happened. When police originally released some of the video, some of the audio, and the sketch two years ago, they said – quote, “there was more evidence relating to the suspect on the phone, but we’re not going to release it in order to avoid compromising a future trial.”
Now, as a former prosecutor, I know what I think about that. But can you all explain to me, and to our listeners, why there would be some evidence police would withhold in a case where you don’t know who the suspect is? Maureen, why don’t we start with you.
O’Connell
Well, because the police are always going to protect the, um, integrity of the investigation. That’s the number one thing.
And, you know, the first thing that comes to my mind is that, uh, forensic genealogy because that has not yet been tested in court. But I, it’s become, that’s come out on so many other murders that it doesn’t seem likely to me at this point.
Clemente
Well, I think that, just generally, talking about the fact that they always hold back information. It’s necessary because in case you get a confession, it’s the way that you sus out false confessions. It’s the way that you drill down and find out if the person actually knows what they’re talking about. So, it’s normal.
I would assume that that information is of a kind that they are releasing. In other words, they are releasing part of it but not all of it. And that’s really important, I think. They did release more of it yesterday, and I think that they probably still have held stuff back.
Chacon
Sure. My default position was always don’t release anything in my investigation unless it aids the investigation. I have no obligation to anyone outside the investigation. My obligation is to track down the perpetrator of the crime in a way that’s going to allow someone like yourself to prosecute the person successfully.
There is a certain obligation to the family. We have special victim witness people that handle that stuff. But as far as the evidence in the case, I even have to always be careful what you tell the family. Sometimes that comes off as looking insensitive.
We often get – “oh, the family’s not being updated by the police.” Well, let me tell you something. Most of the cases, and you saw it yesterday at the press conference, the police are living this case emotionally. They are not abusing the family in any way. If they’re withholding information, it has everything to do with the validity of this investigation, and protecting the, the investigation, and capturing the perpetrator. It has nothing to do with wanting to withhold from the family.
Clemente
The family doesn’t WANT to know information that will end up hurting the prosecution down the road. So, they typically understand.
Of course, if the investigation goes on unsolved for years and decades, the family can get very frustrated. But still, if in the end, their goal is to actually get a suspect arrested, and have a successful prosecution, and get justice for their family member or their loved one, well then in the end, the sacrifice they have to make in not knowing the details, that’s a very worthy sacrifice.
O’Connell
Although, although we don’t want to admit it, oftentimes the big leaks from investigations do come from the family members because they ARE so emotional. And, rightfully so.
So, we don’t tell them everything because we don’t want them sharing that information with other people.
Hakes
Well, and I have to wonder whether, when they said in 2017, they have more evidence on the phone but aren’t releasing it. I have to wonder how much of the crime might have been captured on Libby’s phone.
Because you’re talking about us only having a snippet, and there’s certainly evidence if you think about it in the reverse, that the offender never knew that he was being captured on the phone. Because otherwise, you’d think he would have taken it with him.
So, you have to wonder how much evidence of the actual crime itself is on the phone.
Chacon
And the chief said yesterday, “that you wanna know how much we have and someday you’ll find out.”
Hakes
Yeah, well we’ll talk about that in just a minute. I wanna get to the press conference, but first I want to talk a little bit about what makes investigations like this one so challenging.
I think that a lot of the public wonders what is taking so long. And I know that for me, a press conference two years later, with a brand new sketch, it makes it seem like, “well why didn’t you give us this information two years ago?”
But you understand that it, as of June of the year that these little girls were killed, Libby and Abby were killed, they had received 18,000 tips with at least 4 to 5 new tips coming in daily. That has to be overwhelming.
Clemente
Yeah, but that is not unusual, and the FBI has these rapid deployment teams. Rapid Deployment Child Abduction Deployment Teams. And they also have teams that are set up to deal with massive amounts of data and they do. You remember the, the—
Chacon
The software that’s used to take all the incoming leads and divvy them out to different people, and different units, and things like that.
O’Connell
So, you can track them properly. So, the FBI does have software. It tracks every single one of these leads, and the, um, the chief also said yesterday that we have a witness. So –
Clemente
Right. And here’s the thing, Francey. You know, to answer people who think, “why now, why are they releasing this now?” Because it may have been the arrest of that one guy who fit that description very well a couple days ago. That may have been them finally ruling him out as the killer. And so, now they have more confidence, and it is the perfect time to release this other sketch of this other person that has now become the primary suspect in this case. And from what the cops said, they probably have some other reasons to suspect him as well.
Chacon
You also have to understand [that] releasing a sketch is a huge responsibility. It’s irresponsible of you to do that if you don’t have a high degree of confidence that that’s the perpetrator.
Because what you’re going to do is you’re going to have a whole host of people that look like this sketch getting harassed. You’re going to have their neighbors looking at them. You’re going to have friends looking at them and saying, “you look just like the guy in the sketch”. And that’s the last thing that you want.
Hakes
Well, and I think there’s just that natural tension between finding the perpetrator, who’s completely unknown, and releasing information. And I think that’s, it seems to me that it’s almost a last resort to release information to the public. Because you worry about all the things that you all have talked about. On the other hand, if you’ve got no more investigative avenues to explore, what do you do?
So, let’s talk a little bit about, um, Maureen, let’s talk a little bit about DNA. We don’t know the cause of death of these, uh, two little girls. We have no idea what exactly happened to them, but my guess and my pure speculation is that there was, as Jim said, a sexual element to this. And that the children were left in such a state that there almost has to have been DNA left on them.
But I want to be a little bit careful. Because I saw something on TV, some supposed expert on the other day talking about touch DNA on television, talking about touch DNA and said that technology is such that if the killer touched so and so’s clothes that we should find DNA. And, that is misleading. We MIGHT find DNA.
Clemente
Right. Because how were the bodies disposed of? What was the time of year? What was the weather conditions? All that kind of stuff. Was there water involved?
But, here’s the thing. When I said sexual motives, I am not necessarily talking about what people would consider traditional sexual assault. There could be many different things that are sexual for an offender. And so, you may not have, you know, what you might expect in a rape case which is semen. You might not have that. And an offender, even if he has an intent to do that, may not be able to consummate that rape. So, there’s all sorts of things that can happen that are sexual for an offender that –
I mean we’ve arrested people for, for example, spanking someone. That was sexual to the offender. And it was obvious because of what they did, and the type of
they collected, and their fantasy material. But that was actually a sexual experience for them. There are many different things that people will, will get off sexually on, and it doesn’t have to be like I said, traditional sex. Hakes
Well, let’s talk. I’d like to ask you, Maureen.
It sounds to me like this was without a doubt a difficult crime scene. You’re talking about nature. You’re talking about being a half mile off a trail. So, it was February. So, it was cold and possibly wet in Indiana. There may have been snow, or snow melt, in that part of Indiana.
So, can you talk a little bit about what would’ve been your goals if you had been in charge of this crime scene involving these two children in those conditions?
O’Connell
Well, the first thing we would do is cordon everything off and pay particular attention to the pathway that they took down to wherever he told them to get down to. And the reason we do that is because there will be boot prints, shoe prints. We could see potentially the positions they were in as he led them down this hill. But also, because, um, it was probably his, um, egress route. So, uh, we would we would cordon that off.
Hakes
I’m sorry, what’s an egress route?
O’Connell
Uh, how he got out. The path that he took out. So, those are the things we would initially be looking at.
We would I, I just have the feeling, and this is just a feeling based on the information that we’ve received so far from the police and that in the presser yesterday, that, um, they may have been posed or staged. And I, I think, Bobby, you were in LA when we worked that case with that beautiful young victim, Samantha Runyon. And, she too was posed. And, that was one time, um, Francey, where I saw a hardened seasoned homicide detective cry.
So, it’s that type of thing. It’s the victimization on top of the victimization, the piling on that these people do for their own personal gratification. So, in a situation like that, there’s going to be a lot of evidence. And there’s going to be a lot of evidence that has to be very, very, very carefully collected and then maintained.
Clemente
The fact is [that] when an offender moves victims, he moves them to a place of greater privacy and control. And so, he may have had a particular lair set up there where he wanted to take them once we got them. And maybe he was waiting for a girl to walk by, and it just happened to be two, and so he took them both.
But I don’t think he could’ve known; they couldn’t have been targeted victims. I don’t think he could’ve known that they were going to be there. I think he set up his trap, and they fell into it. But he needed to get them to a particular place so he could have privacy to do what he wanted to do.
O’Connell
Or, you know, following along on that part of his, um, sexual gratification could be taking them to another place and building a lair where he can do what he’s doing. But, you’re right. He, he, in moving them, it does say a lot about this person. And everything he did, every move he made, is another signature. And, these signatures add up.
Hakes
Okay, so Maureen, when you’re talking about a complicated crime scene like this. Where there actually could be multiple crime scenes, Jim has just said that you’re talking about someone who may have moved them. He may have a lair. This is all information that we do not have; that the police have not given us.
What kind of time frame are you talking about with such a complex scene like that? How long does it take before you say to yourself, “okay, everybody pack your bags, we’ve gotten all the evidence we’re gonna get”?
O’Connell
As long as it takes. Sometimes it can take four hours. And I mean, it depends on the size of your team. It depends on the amount of information you have. It depends on the size of the crime scene, the complexity, um, the different techniques you have to engage in to complete the tasks.
So, it could be anywhere from, a case like this, I would say minimally twelve hours to three days. I mean, we worked a, uh, crime scene on a, on a plane crash that was ten full days 24/7 before we left, and that wasn’t even a complete wreck. That was just what we considered having all the body parts in place.
Hakes
Well, I don’t, obviously none of us know. Uh, I certainly have tremendous respect for whatever the police departments out there had to work with, but we don’t know whether they had the kind of crime scene units that they needed.
Did they call in the FBI immediately? Did they get the state police immediately? Obviously, we don’t know any of those things because we haven’t been given that information. But I certainly hope that you’re right, and that it was as thorough a, um, forensic crime scene, um, examination as is possible.
So, Bobby. When you’re talking about investigating a crime like this. So, say you’re, you know, you’re one of the investigators. You’re on the scene with Maureen while she’s collecting evidence. What are you on scene doing as an investigator out there? Are you looking for this lair that Jim is talking about and why?
Chacon
Well, you know, on every investigation is the traditional gum shoe, right? Looking for witnesses, it’s what we used to do, and knock. We used to go – but doing a neighborhood where you knock on every door around the place, but here you didn’t have that.
You wait and you look at every car in the parking lot. If there’s a trail head, you want to know who’s hiking there. You’re going to look at the bulletin board and see who goes there often. Who’s posting things on there? Because these are the people that often use that place.
So, you want to see who’s hiking there on a regular basis. Who’s running, is there a group that maintains that trail? There are often these volunteer groups. So, you’re going to look at all of those groups and see who’s coming and going.
Who could have possibly been on that trail? And not just at that time, you want to go the rest of the day, the day before. You want to see a face, or a guy hanging out two days in a row that they’ve never saw there before.
So, you’re going to go back in time, as far back as you can, to see if the people who regularly use that area, you know, if you, you want to find somebody that saw something. And, that’s how you do it
Hakes
Jim, what does the actual location itself tell you about, uh, you know, sorta the offender and where he might be from? What sort of geographic information can you glean knowing that it’s kind of a local area, and that there may have been movement of the bodies, and there may be a lair?
Clemente
Well, I think there’s more details to it.
But I think that a number of these, you know, sort of intricacies and nuances tell me that he’s probably from around there. That he spends a significant amount of time there. Whether he grew up there or he landed there from somewhere else, I don’t know. But he’s certainly spent enough time to know that this was a place where little girls who fit his fantasy could come by, you know.
I think he’s the kind of guy who fantasized a great deal about doing this. That this is not something impulsive; this is something that he planned for. He played it out in his mind over and over again. It didn’t go exactly as he planned but he thought about this.
He was compulsive. He played this fantasy in his mind repeatedly, and then, you know, took steps to carry it out. And that whatever that was, in terms of, you know, him preparing a place, uh, preparing a way to threaten and control his intended victim, um, preparing a place where he could, you know, sort of be unseen until the victim came into view – sort of laying his trap or throwing out his net.
I think he showed some level of criminal sophistication that only comes from having done, committed, precursor crimes. I think he would’ve exhibited peeping behavior. He might have broken into residences to basically be there for, you know, when somebody wasn’t home, and go thru you know underwear drawers and things like that.
Hakes
Your voyeur kind of crimes.
Clemente
Yes. Well, the peeping is that voyeur side but the other side is more like the excitement, the thrill, of being in a place that you’re not supposed to be and looking at people’s intimate things. And, he probably did those kinds of things, and they are called nuisance crimes. And it might have been misdemeanors, but I believe he probably has a record like that. He almost certainly DID it; I don’t know if he got caught at it before.
But, the guy has also some level of forensics investigation. Because he didn’t apparently leave a lot of forensic evidence behind of himself, at least that they’ve reported. So, that tells me that he wasn’t, you know, uneducated on forensics. So, he has some experience. And that may come from his experience as a criminal, that may come from having been arrested before on certain things, so now he knows how to avoid those things.
Hakes
Could it also be because he maybe has not ever been arrested by law enforcement and is secure in the knowledge that his DNA exists nowhere but inside himself?
Clemente
Well, I don’t know. I don’t know that because he wouldn’t know about investigative genealogy, but that wouldn’t protect him anymore.
But, at that point, you know, I don’t think people who protect themselves by not leaving evidence are doing it because they don’t think they can be caught if they leave evidence. It’s that they think they can get caught if they do leave evidence.
O’Connell
Or it could be as you said earlier, Jim. That he just couldn’t perform. Like, even though it was a sexual act for him, and he was gaining satisfaction, he wasn’t able to ejaculate.
Clemente
It’s possible.
Hakes
Well, and so what’s interesting to me from an investigative standpoint, for all our listeners who are sort of detectives at heart and who are wondering about all the evidence in the case. Jim, everything that you just said and everything that Bobby and Maureen have also said, you’re talking about a tremendous investigation.
When you look at people that’ve been, people that have been on the trail, people that are parking there, people who maintain it, people who were there last week at the same time, the last month at the same time – because investigators are going to want to know has this guy been effective in stalking this trail, and has anyone seen him parking, and walking, and acting suspicious, or not acting suspicious, or going off the trail and coming back on. I mean, you are talking about trying to find a massive number of people in a place where it’s not like New York City and there are street cameras.
O’Connell
Francey, I think it’s likely in those 18,000 tips and leads that they’ve received, that some people have said to them, “I’ve seen that guy before on the trail, or it was four years ago, or it was five years.” It might have been 8 years ago.
I remember that, Francey, because the law enforcement officers are very, very sure that this guy has been either in the town, living in the town, part of his family lives in the town, he grew up here. He’s extremely familiar with this area.
Clemente
Or he works there, or he plays there.
And I think that what must have happened is that they have taken these leads, they have interviewed literally thousands of people, and they have found someone who looks at that video that they released and says, “yes, I definitely saw that guy minutes before these girls came by and I saw his face.” And that’s where this sketch came from.
And so, the other sketch was, somebody saw in the area and was suspicious about, and it turns out it’s a guy who is sexually interested in children, who’s had multiple arrests for it.
O’Connell
Who could have been stalking the same area –
Clemente
Could’ve been stalking the SAME GIRLS at the SAME TIME, and that’s what I call a target rich environment.
And just like the case in UVA, where there was a girl who’s a young college freshman, and she was inebriated and walking around, obviously drunk on her own. There was a guy who claimed to be a Good Samaritan who started following her. But then the other guy stepped to her, put his arm around her, and walked her away – he was the murderer. I think the other Good Samaritan guy could have also intended to sexually assault her, to take advantage of her in some way. I don’t know if he would have killed her, but I think that’s why he was doing it because he laid in wait. He stepped back into the shadows in a doorway and waited for her to walk by. And then he steps out and follows her, but the other guy overtakes him. He was following her so slow that the other guy could overtake him and get up to her before he did. Why? What’s going on in his mind? Why is he doing that?
And so, to me, that was very suspicious behavior. And, I actually wrote an episode of Criminal Minds about it called Target Rich. Because I believe that when there are vulnerable victims around, and at the beginning and the end of the year and during holidays around college campuses, where young girls are first sort of having the freedom to drink and be on their own and do what they want, these guys are drawn to that. Drawn to this target rich environment and they take advantage of these opportunities.
O’Connell
As all predators are –
Clemente
Yes, and I think in this particular case, that Abby and Libby just happened to walk by. Just happened to fall in this guy’s net and become his victims.
So, when people are victim hunting, they’re looking for vulnerability, availability, and then desirability. And sometimes, the desirability factor is just anybody who’s available and vulnerable.
And so, if we look at somebody like Israel Keys, for example. Bobby worked the case. This guy would literally bury a kill kit all across the nation, memorize the GPS points where they were, and then he would go back home to Alaska. And then at some point, he would fly down to some city, rent a car with cash, drive up to a thousand miles to another a city, unbury the kill kit, and set a trap. And whoever came by, that’s the person he killed. And when that didn’t work, he got really pissed and killed somebody else.
But the fact is, there are offenders who, literally, are just getting off on the kill itself and THAT is sexual for them. And so, it’s just not our traditional sexual assault kind of offense but it’s just as deadly.
Link to listen to Part 1 >>>> 122 | Worst Case Scenario: The Delphi Murders – Best Case Worst Case – Podcast
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PART 2 – RELEASED MAY 3, 2019
Hakes
There are new developments to report in 2019.
Two years and a couple of months after Abby and Libby’s lives were ended by some terrible, evil human being, the police have announcements to make. And about a week ago, they had what I consider to be, Jim, a remarkable press conference.
And that was by a Doug Carter, who is the Superintendent of the Indiana State Police. They gave a live press conference, and Maureen, you and I were talking about some of the things leading up to the press conference. And I want you to talk a little about what you know the police were doing, and then I want to ask Jim what that means.
O’Connell
Yeah, I wanted to ask Jim what that means too. We talked about that also.
So, about, um, a week or ten days ago, they – they being the state police and all the entities involved in this investigation – they started putting out information on social media that said there’s big information coming down the pike on the Delphi murders. Expect a huge announcement coming down the pike on the Delphi murders. And they sort of ramped up; it was taking on a life of its own. I was seeing it all over, all over platforms of social media.
Hakes
It was a bit of a frenzy.
O’Connell
It was a bit of a frenzy. And, I follow all the true crime podcasts, and all you people out there that love true crime like we do. And I just thought this is very interesting. That they’re giving us so much time to prepare for this. Instead of saying, tomorrow afternoon at noon there’s going to be a press conference –
Chacon
And, it culminated on Friday of last week when they did actually schedule the press conference for Monday morning. So, all weekend there was this, “Oh my God, what’s gonna happen Monday?”
Hakes
Everyone assumed there had been an arrest made, or they were going to announce the suspect, or something really big.
O’Connell
Yes! They were showing photos to people that they thought were the offenders, who matched these, um, the initial sketches from 2017. So, it was, it was quite a hubaloo.
Chacon
And then, we talked about this before. And when you ask me a lot about releasing information to the public, I always keep in the back of my mind – because this is the way you usually do it – there’s a strategic and investigative strategic way of doing that.
So, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ultimately find out, after they arrest the perpetrator, um, and they release some more of this information. That they did that not for publicity or any other reason; they did that because they had some strategic investigative reasons for it.
O’Connell
100%
Clemente
Oh, absolutely! And, I’ll tell you what it is because I know.
I know that that was scripted by the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
O’Connell
Yes.
Clemente
And I think it was very carefully scripted. EVERYTHING. The press in advance, the buildup to it. They want the killer to KNOW that they are coming for him. They WANT him to understand that they now have a laser focus on him. Because that is gonna help others around him know that this behavior is changing.
O’Connell
Yes!
Clemente
Ever since they started making this announcement, his behavior started to change. Ever since he HEARD that press conference, his behavior started to change. And, he will do things that will put a spotlight on him. He can’t hide! He can no longer hide.
Hakes
Let’s talk about some of the specific things that Superintendent did and said.
As Maureen and I talked about earlier, they invited the public to this press conference. Invited the media to this press conference, had a lot of seats available for the public, and yet they didn’t take a single question. So, Jim, could that have been some type of setup to see if the killer arrived?
Clemente
Absolutely.
O’Connell
And that’s why I think they gave so much time, a headway, so this person, if he doesn’t live in town but he visits there, it gives him time to arrive.
Clemente
You can hear Superintendent Carter say, “You may be in this audience! I’m speaking to you!”
And he wants to give that opportunity to the offender to do what’s right because he knows that that offender is listening. Without any doubt, that offender is listening to this press conference, if he’s not in the audience right there.
Hakes
Well so, let’s talk about some profiling secrets, Jim.
When Superintendent Carter said, “Now I’m talking directly to the killer. We believe you are hiding in plain sight. For more than two years, you never thought we would shift gears to a different investigative strategy, but we have.”
Why do the profilers think it’s a good idea to say “we’re talking directly to you” and why are you talking about investigative strategy? That doesn’t sound that exciting. What’s the point of that?
Clemente
S-T-R-E-S-S.
They are increasing the stress on the offender. When offenders get stressed out, they act to their extremes. People will notice the change and that’s what they’re doing. They are absolutely trying to get this guy to realize it’s over; they’re coming for him. They will not give up until they catch him.
They now have a very good description of him. They know where he was at a particular period of time. And they will. They’re whittling down the suspect pool, and they’re aiming right at him now. That’s really important.
Chacon
Delphi is a town of like 3,000 people. It’s rural, um, and I think basically what the chief did was look right into the killer’s eyes as best he could and say, “You will find no safe haven here anymore. This is it. You’re done. You’re done here in Delphi.”
So, if somebody has a friend that happens to look like that sketch and they say, “You know what, I think I’m moving to Florida. It’s time; I’ve been thinking about this for a while.” Things like that, somebody is gonna –
Clemente
Yeah or --
“Uhh, my grandmother’s sick. I gotta go to Texas.”
Chacon
And that person is gonna go, “Oh, what? Now he’s leaving?”
So, that’s what Jim’s talking about, I think. I think that they will no longer have the safe haven in Delphi that they’ve had.
Hakes
Well, and Bobby, you made a recent appearance on HLN. And one of the reporters on HLN was in the room during the press conference and was saying that she felt like a chill wind blew through when the Superintendent said – “Directly to the killer who may be in this room.”
It’s like, until that moment (except for the investigators), it occurred to no one that the killer would be sitting there watching the press conference, and it just makes me wonder. Did everyone immediately start looking around and thinking, ‘This is the sketch? Am I sitting next to this guy? Is he standing in the back? Where is this guy?’
I thought that was a really interesting point that the reporter made about the atmosphere in the room.
Chacon
And just think that, that’s, that reporter made a comment about that room. And, you’re right, I was live on the air with HLN at the time of the press conference and it goes beyond that press conference.
So, yes, people are looking to their left and right. But they’re also doing that same thing in every diner, in every fast food restaurant, every convenience store in Delphi, every gas station in Delphi. And people are looking at the clerk that they usually go to, they’re looking. These people are going to be looking left and right, and if he’s still in Delphi, they will find him.
Clemente
Yeah, but even if he’s NOT still in Delphi, they’ll know that he’s not still in Delphi. They’ll know that he moved out at this point after the murders. They’ll know that he lives somewhere and could be trackable.
Chacon
Right, right. Absolutely.
O’Connell
And, I think that the Behavioral Analysis Unit also trained, or talked to, or is looking at video footage of everyone in that room. If they didn’t videotape everyone that showed up in that room and watch the reaction when certain words were said – for example, when the superintendent said, “You are a coward,” or you know, he actually said, “What will those closest to you think of when they find out that you brutally murdered two little girls, two children? Only a COWARD,” and he paused, “…would do such a thing.”
[Talking over each other]
Hakes
Sorry, Bobby, I just wanted to ask Jim. Because that sort of actually made me nervous.
Because in my mind, I’m thinking to myself, ‘Okay, this guy is a homicidal maniac.’ I know it’s not nice to use those words, but in my mind anyway, he’s a homicidal manic. Now, you’re potentially pissing him off, and you’re obviously doing it on purpose.
I get that you’re trying to stress him out, but are we worried we’re going to enrage a man who’s already killed two little girls?
Clemente
I believe that they would’ve been foolish if they didn’t metal detect everybody that came into that room. I believe that, that what they’re trying to do is get him to show himself, to run. And, they will track him down.
He is not the kind of criminal that is gonna go out and shoot people or confront people. He’s going after little girls; he’s laying in wait in the woods for little girls. And when they called him a coward, it’s because they KNOW that is going to be something he recognizes in himself.
Chacon
His stress, I think, will not be the, the stress reaction he exhibits will not be the one you’re talking about. I understand that’s the natural, “Oh my god, he’s gonna flip out.” But he’s, he’s right, this guy is a coward. And his stress reaction to that is not going to be that; it will be something else.
Clemente
It’ll be, “I’m gonna run and hide!”
O’Connell
Right. Because he always – who, what entices him? What gives him satisfaction? The most vulnerable of the vulnerable.
Clemente
Being powerful, he has to threaten somebody who’s vulnerable. He doesn’t have the balls or the guts to go up against somebody who’s his size, to go up against somebody who’s stronger than him. He’s gonna run and hide. And, if you’re listening, we KNOW it.
Chacon
Jim, I had a question for you, and it came up while I was watching the press conference. What is the strategic reason for the chief to get like, to say, “I think you might have an ounce of conscience left”?
Clemente
Because they’re appealing to him. They’re giving him the opportunity to come in, to not have this end in, you know, suicide by cop. They’re giving him the opportunity to say, “All right, I can prove myself as a human being. I can go back and repair some of the damage I did.” But –
Chacon
A chance for redemption.
Clemente
He’s giving him that chance.
Hakes
And is that, is that the idea – that maybe this killer of children actually is capable of any kind of remorse?
Clemente
Yeah, you can’t put everybody into a little pigeonhole, okay? Just because he did this one thing doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a family, he doesn’t have friends, he doesn’t have a job, he doesn’t have somebody that loves him or that he loves.
O’Connell
Or gives money to charity...
Clemente
Yeah, he could do ALL these things and still be the person that killed these little girls.
And it’s probably very inconsistent with how people around him see him, and so it’s really important that people understand that the guy they’re looking for is NOT a monster predator. That is a label that makes you look right past this guy. Because you would never see him as that, but the fact is that he IS the person that killed these two little girls and he’s been hiding this thing. And it has been eating at him, and eating at him, since it happened. AND he fantasized about doing it before it happened.
His behavior definitely changed.
Chacon
Israel Keys told the interrogators – you can see this on his YouTube because it’s all been released on YouTube now – he tells them, he goes, “You’re gonna talk to a lot of people, and you’re going to get a picture of a person that is not the person that I am going to tell you about. I did these things.” Completely admitted to being a serial killer. Completely admitted to doing all this heinous stuff, but also told them, and admitted that, there was another part of him who’s the father of an 11-year-old daughter—
Clemente
He didn’t want her to know! And, that’s probably why he killed himself. Because he wanted to prevent her from knowing.
He was such a coward that he didn’t want to have to face her. Knowing that he’s trying to teach her to be a good person, and do all these things, and learn right from wrong, yet he’s been killing people around this country for years.
Hakes
Let’s talk a little bit more, Maureen, about this power issue. And Jim, obviously, I want to ask you about that too, but Maureen, you and I talked earlier about the chief’s words and how carefully he spoke them.
I mean, obviously, according to Jim – and I think he’s probably right – it was scripted, very closely scripted by profilers. But he said, “We have likely interviewed you or someone close to you. We know this is about power to you, and you want to know what we know. And one day, you will.”
What is the point of that, do you think?
O’Connell
Well, I think that’s, uh, up Jim’s alley far more than mine.
Clemente
It’s the same exact thing.
What the police superintendent is trying to do is make the offender aware that everything is closing in on him. That the people that know him are going to be his worst enemies now. That the people who have been sort of close to him, and hiding him in plain sight, are the people who are going to come forward and say, “You know, it’s funny. After the press conference, this happened and that happened.” Post-offense behavior that this kind of statement will help bring about.
And the fact is, he’s NOT sophisticated enough to survive that. He’s NOT going to be in a position to be able to mask himself anymore and he is going to be revealed.
Chacon
Yeah, because as much as he was talking to the killer in that press conference, he was also talking to everyone else that lives in that town. He was telling them, “Look left, look right, look at the people around you because it’s one of you. And, it’s somebody that you know. You don’t even realize it yet, but it’s somebody you know that killed these kids.”
Clemente
Yeah. And I’m sure that if you look at that sketch that was done, that he has changed his appearance subtly over time. That he changed, and changed, and changed. And if he hasn’t, he did RIGHT AFTER that press conference.
It could be hair color, it could be his beard, you know, manipulated his eyebrows at some, whatever. Tattoos, whatever. Something to draw attention away from the way he looks. Because the thing about sketches is that when offenders see themselves in a sketch, it scares the sh*t out of them.
Hakes
I think the other interesting thing to me, to Maureen and Bobby, the more information that was released in the press conference. It wasn’t a ton of information. But, for example, when they previously released –
Clemente
What do you mean it wasn’t a ton!
Hakes
Well, no. What I mean to say is [that] when they previously released the audio and video, it just had the presumed killer saying ‘down the hill’. And then yesterday, they expanded it and now it says ‘GUYS, down the hill,’ which you can clearly hear.
Why do you think they released a little more of the audio, but on the other hand, it doesn’t seem all that significant?
O’Connell
I actually think that the only reason they did this is because they formulated this brilliant plan to offend, stress out the offender. Get him to a point, lure him in potentially, and all these other things.
And, of course, because of the new sketch. I don’t think it had much more to do with these other things.
Clemente
Yeah. The only other thing he made a point of saying [was] it sounds like it is two different people but it is the same person. It is the killer, right? That’s what he said.
And so, it could have been masking his voice in part of it and his natural voice was the other part. So, I think that’s probably why they did it, and I think that’s also why they released the video instead of just the still. And I think when they released the video, people will notice more.
Like Maureen noticed how when he was walking, his gait, he seemed like he was overweight, but when you saw him walking, you could see that his legs were pretty skinny, that he was wearing oversized clothing, and that he had stuffed things in there to make him look bigger. Or maybe that was intentional, or maybe that was just because he was hiding equipment.
O’Connell
Like ropes and anything else.
Hakes
Well, you’re also talking about, to me as a southern (the only southerner in the room), when you have someone saying ‘guys, down the hill,’ that is not what a southerner would have said. It would have been ‘y’all, down the hill.’ So, I think it’s a regional thing.
I’d love to ask Jim Fitzgerald about this, about the dialect and the terminology.
O’Connell
Well, I say ‘guys’ all the time. It is a Midwestern thing; I’m from Chicago.
Clemente
It’s also February, and I don’t know if it was very, it was a nice day there or whether it was freezing out? But, if this person was hanging out in the woods for a long period of time, some of that bulk might have been LITERALLY to insulate him.
Chacon
It was 60 degrees that day.
O’Connell
Yeah, but it was bulgy. So, it was like pokey, bulgy. It didn’t look like I’m wearing three sweaters.
Chacon
It was warm because Libby didn’t want to wear a sweatshirt. Her grandmother said put a sweatshirt on, and she says do I have to –
Clemente
Well, when you’re used to, you know, sub-sub-sub-zero temperatures and then you have a nice day. I remember living in Syracuse, and it got to 50 and we were all in shorts and t-shirts. You know, it was like amazing.
Chacon
I think that taken together, your question, they wanted to release a little bit more because all of this goes to this guy’s signature.
His gait on that bridge. They asked people to look very closely at how he’s walking. Now realizing that, that bridge, and the treads on that bridge, are far apart. It’s a very high bridge and there’s no guardrail on it, and yet he keeps his hands in his pockets. I would have had my hands out trying to balance myself as I’m going between these uneven, uh, slats on that bridge.
So, they want people to look at this and say, “Oh, okay. I know that guy’s gait.” Because we know, you know people’s gait. If you see somebody, you see them all the time, and you turn off the lights and see their shadow, you can identify them.
The word ‘guys’ is some part of the vernacular people, so they release that. The reason I think it sounds different is because the statement ‘guys’ is to bring someone’s attention. If you’re looking at me and I want you to go down that hill, I just say go down the hill.
So, I think what happened was Libby’s phone was facing away from him because they weren’t looking at him. He says ‘guys’ and they turn towards him. Now, the microphone on that little phone is facing him. So, the ‘guys’ and ‘down the hill’ sound differently because of the microphone. They turned to him and he said, “Down the hill”.
O’Connell
That’s a good point.
Hakes
And I also wonder if it was edited. Whether the police have released ‘guys’ from one part of that audio and ‘down the hill’ from another part. And because they wanted the public to hear both, just in case somebody recognizes one voice versus the other.
Chacon
It could be. I tend to think he said ‘guys’ and they turned to look at him, and the microphone was repositioned, and that’s why it sounds a little different.
But I also think they made it a point of making him believe they have more video of him, more audio of him. Specifically, more audio of him and know what his voice sounds like. They didn’t release more of it.
And like you said in the last episode, you know, maybe she had that, he didn’t know she had that phone on. Maybe there is more audio. And I think now, the killer, by releasing even a little bit more, knows the police didn’t really. Because it’s all or nothing, right?
So, now they are telling him, “We have more. We’re just not releasing it.”
O’Connell
And I think what Francey said is true. What you just said is true – there’s a really good reason why they aren’t releasing that audio because it might be horrific for everyone to listen to.
Hakes
Well, in one sense, maybe that’s why they made a reference. As I talked about in the last episode, about preserving evidence for trial. Fortunately, in the sense that we want him captured, but unfortunately, in the whole circumstance, is that a jury will eventually have to see, and hear, and everything that was captured on Libby’s phone.
One of the questions I wanted to talk to you about, because we don’t have anyone here that is working this case, but obviously, we’ve all worked cases that are similar to this emotionally speaking. So, let’s get a little bit inside, uh, the minds of the investigators and go behind the lines, Jim.
This Superintendent Carter was very emotional. It was noteworthy. There were times in his delivery, in some of these statements, that he had to pause. He was VISIBLY emotional, and you know, it’s not something we see often from seasoned police officers. They try not to present that kind of face to the public. We, as professionals, try to be as emotionless as possible in our public presentation of these cases because we have to be able to take a step back in order to work them.
What do you think, Jim? As far as the impact it might’ve had on the offender to see that the police superintendent was emotional. Do you think it shows weakness, strength, or something else?
Clemente
Well, I think it shows humanity. And, I think the level of emotion he exhibited paired perfectly with his statement. That he is NOT going to stop until he gets this guy. And, I think that was incredibly important. It’s a very specific message to this offender. That he can never rest.
Hakes
And Bobby, you’ve recovered children in terrible conditions. Uh, you know, you’ve seen the worst, especially in the Israel Keys case, that people can do to children.
When you hear the emotion coming from the superintendent, what do you think about that – that was the public face that they put out?
Chacon
Well, I think he had to do that. I think he was honest and genuine, number one. I don’t think there was any face put on that that was different. I think that was his honest, raw emotions, and I think it was important, um, that the leader of this effort, that he demonstrate that.
I’m sure the hardened detectives that are working this case also feel that way, but they probably don’t want to be in the public eye like that. I think, though, that it’s important for the leader of this investigation to show that all of the men and women working this investigation have the same emotional, invested interest in it. They are all working night and day to bring this to a resolution, and I think it was very important for him as a leader to put that out, to not only the families but the public as well.
Hakes
Maureen, you’ve worked these kinds of crime scenes with terrible injuries to people. The things that these kinds of killers do, especially to children. How do you do that kind of job? Especially when it comes to children, when your emotions are so involved. How can your emotions not be involved after all?
O’Connell
There’s no way that you can’t become emotionally attached to an investigation like this. I think it just fuels most of us to just work harder, and to do absolutely everything. Like I’m sure these guys will tell you, you just wake up in the middle of the night and you’re like, “Did I try this? Should I try that?” And it’s hard to slow your mind down, it really is hard.
Hakes
Jim, as a profiler, it was obviously part of your job to get inside the mind of an offender like this. Tell us a little bit about what the profiler’s who’ve been working on this case, and the FBI agents helping the local police on this case, are experiencing. Do they stay invested two years later? When do they tire of the kind of evidence in this case?
Clemente
They don’t tire of it; it constantly weighs on their shoulders. Until a case is solved, they are always thinking about it. And they go home to their wives, and their children, and their families and they just pray that nothing like this ever happens to them. Because it taints you; it definitely makes you feel like there’s some real horrors out there. Some real bad people who do really bad things to each other, and it’s really unfortunate.
Link to listen to Part 2 >>>> 123 | Worst Case Scenario: The Delphi Murders (Part 2) – Best Case Worst Case – Podcast
Hakes
There are new developments to report in 2019.
Two years and a couple of months after Abby and Libby’s lives were ended by some terrible, evil human being, the police have announcements to make. And about a week ago, they had what I consider to be, Jim, a remarkable press conference.
And that was by a Doug Carter, who is the Superintendent of the Indiana State Police. They gave a live press conference, and Maureen, you and I were talking about some of the things leading up to the press conference. And I want you to talk a little about what you know the police were doing, and then I want to ask Jim what that means.
O’Connell
Yeah, I wanted to ask Jim what that means too. We talked about that also.
So, about, um, a week or ten days ago, they – they being the state police and all the entities involved in this investigation – they started putting out information on social media that said there’s big information coming down the pike on the Delphi murders. Expect a huge announcement coming down the pike on the Delphi murders. And they sort of ramped up; it was taking on a life of its own. I was seeing it all over, all over platforms of social media.
Hakes
It was a bit of a frenzy.
O’Connell
It was a bit of a frenzy. And, I follow all the true crime podcasts, and all you people out there that love true crime like we do. And I just thought this is very interesting. That they’re giving us so much time to prepare for this. Instead of saying, tomorrow afternoon at noon there’s going to be a press conference –
Chacon
And, it culminated on Friday of last week when they did actually schedule the press conference for Monday morning. So, all weekend there was this, “Oh my God, what’s gonna happen Monday?”
Hakes
Everyone assumed there had been an arrest made, or they were going to announce the suspect, or something really big.
O’Connell
Yes! They were showing photos to people that they thought were the offenders, who matched these, um, the initial sketches from 2017. So, it was, it was quite a hubaloo.
Chacon
And then, we talked about this before. And when you ask me a lot about releasing information to the public, I always keep in the back of my mind – because this is the way you usually do it – there’s a strategic and investigative strategic way of doing that.
So, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ultimately find out, after they arrest the perpetrator, um, and they release some more of this information. That they did that not for publicity or any other reason; they did that because they had some strategic investigative reasons for it.
O’Connell
100%
Clemente
Oh, absolutely! And, I’ll tell you what it is because I know.
I know that that was scripted by the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
O’Connell
Yes.
Clemente
And I think it was very carefully scripted. EVERYTHING. The press in advance, the buildup to it. They want the killer to KNOW that they are coming for him. They WANT him to understand that they now have a laser focus on him. Because that is gonna help others around him know that this behavior is changing.
O’Connell
Yes!
Clemente
Ever since they started making this announcement, his behavior started to change. Ever since he HEARD that press conference, his behavior started to change. And, he will do things that will put a spotlight on him. He can’t hide! He can no longer hide.
Hakes
Let’s talk about some of the specific things that Superintendent did and said.
As Maureen and I talked about earlier, they invited the public to this press conference. Invited the media to this press conference, had a lot of seats available for the public, and yet they didn’t take a single question. So, Jim, could that have been some type of setup to see if the killer arrived?
Clemente
Absolutely.
O’Connell
And that’s why I think they gave so much time, a headway, so this person, if he doesn’t live in town but he visits there, it gives him time to arrive.
Clemente
You can hear Superintendent Carter say, “You may be in this audience! I’m speaking to you!”
And he wants to give that opportunity to the offender to do what’s right because he knows that that offender is listening. Without any doubt, that offender is listening to this press conference, if he’s not in the audience right there.
Hakes
Well so, let’s talk about some profiling secrets, Jim.
When Superintendent Carter said, “Now I’m talking directly to the killer. We believe you are hiding in plain sight. For more than two years, you never thought we would shift gears to a different investigative strategy, but we have.”
Why do the profilers think it’s a good idea to say “we’re talking directly to you” and why are you talking about investigative strategy? That doesn’t sound that exciting. What’s the point of that?
Clemente
S-T-R-E-S-S.
They are increasing the stress on the offender. When offenders get stressed out, they act to their extremes. People will notice the change and that’s what they’re doing. They are absolutely trying to get this guy to realize it’s over; they’re coming for him. They will not give up until they catch him.
They now have a very good description of him. They know where he was at a particular period of time. And they will. They’re whittling down the suspect pool, and they’re aiming right at him now. That’s really important.
Chacon
Delphi is a town of like 3,000 people. It’s rural, um, and I think basically what the chief did was look right into the killer’s eyes as best he could and say, “You will find no safe haven here anymore. This is it. You’re done. You’re done here in Delphi.”
So, if somebody has a friend that happens to look like that sketch and they say, “You know what, I think I’m moving to Florida. It’s time; I’ve been thinking about this for a while.” Things like that, somebody is gonna –
Clemente
Yeah or --
“Uhh, my grandmother’s sick. I gotta go to Texas.”
Chacon
And that person is gonna go, “Oh, what? Now he’s leaving?”
So, that’s what Jim’s talking about, I think. I think that they will no longer have the safe haven in Delphi that they’ve had.
Hakes
Well, and Bobby, you made a recent appearance on HLN. And one of the reporters on HLN was in the room during the press conference and was saying that she felt like a chill wind blew through when the Superintendent said – “Directly to the killer who may be in this room.”
It’s like, until that moment (except for the investigators), it occurred to no one that the killer would be sitting there watching the press conference, and it just makes me wonder. Did everyone immediately start looking around and thinking, ‘This is the sketch? Am I sitting next to this guy? Is he standing in the back? Where is this guy?’
I thought that was a really interesting point that the reporter made about the atmosphere in the room.
Chacon
And just think that, that’s, that reporter made a comment about that room. And, you’re right, I was live on the air with HLN at the time of the press conference and it goes beyond that press conference.
So, yes, people are looking to their left and right. But they’re also doing that same thing in every diner, in every fast food restaurant, every convenience store in Delphi, every gas station in Delphi. And people are looking at the clerk that they usually go to, they’re looking. These people are going to be looking left and right, and if he’s still in Delphi, they will find him.
Clemente
Yeah, but even if he’s NOT still in Delphi, they’ll know that he’s not still in Delphi. They’ll know that he moved out at this point after the murders. They’ll know that he lives somewhere and could be trackable.
Chacon
Right, right. Absolutely.
O’Connell
And, I think that the Behavioral Analysis Unit also trained, or talked to, or is looking at video footage of everyone in that room. If they didn’t videotape everyone that showed up in that room and watch the reaction when certain words were said – for example, when the superintendent said, “You are a coward,” or you know, he actually said, “What will those closest to you think of when they find out that you brutally murdered two little girls, two children? Only a COWARD,” and he paused, “…would do such a thing.”
[Talking over each other]
Hakes
Sorry, Bobby, I just wanted to ask Jim. Because that sort of actually made me nervous.
Because in my mind, I’m thinking to myself, ‘Okay, this guy is a homicidal maniac.’ I know it’s not nice to use those words, but in my mind anyway, he’s a homicidal manic. Now, you’re potentially pissing him off, and you’re obviously doing it on purpose.
I get that you’re trying to stress him out, but are we worried we’re going to enrage a man who’s already killed two little girls?
Clemente
I believe that they would’ve been foolish if they didn’t metal detect everybody that came into that room. I believe that, that what they’re trying to do is get him to show himself, to run. And, they will track him down.
He is not the kind of criminal that is gonna go out and shoot people or confront people. He’s going after little girls; he’s laying in wait in the woods for little girls. And when they called him a coward, it’s because they KNOW that is going to be something he recognizes in himself.
Chacon
His stress, I think, will not be the, the stress reaction he exhibits will not be the one you’re talking about. I understand that’s the natural, “Oh my god, he’s gonna flip out.” But he’s, he’s right, this guy is a coward. And his stress reaction to that is not going to be that; it will be something else.
Clemente
It’ll be, “I’m gonna run and hide!”
O’Connell
Right. Because he always – who, what entices him? What gives him satisfaction? The most vulnerable of the vulnerable.
Clemente
Being powerful, he has to threaten somebody who’s vulnerable. He doesn’t have the balls or the guts to go up against somebody who’s his size, to go up against somebody who’s stronger than him. He’s gonna run and hide. And, if you’re listening, we KNOW it.
Chacon
Jim, I had a question for you, and it came up while I was watching the press conference. What is the strategic reason for the chief to get like, to say, “I think you might have an ounce of conscience left”?
Clemente
Because they’re appealing to him. They’re giving him the opportunity to come in, to not have this end in, you know, suicide by cop. They’re giving him the opportunity to say, “All right, I can prove myself as a human being. I can go back and repair some of the damage I did.” But –
Chacon
A chance for redemption.
Clemente
He’s giving him that chance.
Hakes
And is that, is that the idea – that maybe this killer of children actually is capable of any kind of remorse?
Clemente
Yeah, you can’t put everybody into a little pigeonhole, okay? Just because he did this one thing doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a family, he doesn’t have friends, he doesn’t have a job, he doesn’t have somebody that loves him or that he loves.
O’Connell
Or gives money to charity...
Clemente
Yeah, he could do ALL these things and still be the person that killed these little girls.
And it’s probably very inconsistent with how people around him see him, and so it’s really important that people understand that the guy they’re looking for is NOT a monster predator. That is a label that makes you look right past this guy. Because you would never see him as that, but the fact is that he IS the person that killed these two little girls and he’s been hiding this thing. And it has been eating at him, and eating at him, since it happened. AND he fantasized about doing it before it happened.
His behavior definitely changed.
Chacon
Israel Keys told the interrogators – you can see this on his YouTube because it’s all been released on YouTube now – he tells them, he goes, “You’re gonna talk to a lot of people, and you’re going to get a picture of a person that is not the person that I am going to tell you about. I did these things.” Completely admitted to being a serial killer. Completely admitted to doing all this heinous stuff, but also told them, and admitted that, there was another part of him who’s the father of an 11-year-old daughter—
Clemente
He didn’t want her to know! And, that’s probably why he killed himself. Because he wanted to prevent her from knowing.
He was such a coward that he didn’t want to have to face her. Knowing that he’s trying to teach her to be a good person, and do all these things, and learn right from wrong, yet he’s been killing people around this country for years.
Hakes
Let’s talk a little bit more, Maureen, about this power issue. And Jim, obviously, I want to ask you about that too, but Maureen, you and I talked earlier about the chief’s words and how carefully he spoke them.
I mean, obviously, according to Jim – and I think he’s probably right – it was scripted, very closely scripted by profilers. But he said, “We have likely interviewed you or someone close to you. We know this is about power to you, and you want to know what we know. And one day, you will.”
What is the point of that, do you think?
O’Connell
Well, I think that’s, uh, up Jim’s alley far more than mine.
Clemente
It’s the same exact thing.
What the police superintendent is trying to do is make the offender aware that everything is closing in on him. That the people that know him are going to be his worst enemies now. That the people who have been sort of close to him, and hiding him in plain sight, are the people who are going to come forward and say, “You know, it’s funny. After the press conference, this happened and that happened.” Post-offense behavior that this kind of statement will help bring about.
And the fact is, he’s NOT sophisticated enough to survive that. He’s NOT going to be in a position to be able to mask himself anymore and he is going to be revealed.
Chacon
Yeah, because as much as he was talking to the killer in that press conference, he was also talking to everyone else that lives in that town. He was telling them, “Look left, look right, look at the people around you because it’s one of you. And, it’s somebody that you know. You don’t even realize it yet, but it’s somebody you know that killed these kids.”
Clemente
Yeah. And I’m sure that if you look at that sketch that was done, that he has changed his appearance subtly over time. That he changed, and changed, and changed. And if he hasn’t, he did RIGHT AFTER that press conference.
It could be hair color, it could be his beard, you know, manipulated his eyebrows at some, whatever. Tattoos, whatever. Something to draw attention away from the way he looks. Because the thing about sketches is that when offenders see themselves in a sketch, it scares the sh*t out of them.
Hakes
I think the other interesting thing to me, to Maureen and Bobby, the more information that was released in the press conference. It wasn’t a ton of information. But, for example, when they previously released –
Clemente
What do you mean it wasn’t a ton!
Hakes
Well, no. What I mean to say is [that] when they previously released the audio and video, it just had the presumed killer saying ‘down the hill’. And then yesterday, they expanded it and now it says ‘GUYS, down the hill,’ which you can clearly hear.
Why do you think they released a little more of the audio, but on the other hand, it doesn’t seem all that significant?
O’Connell
I actually think that the only reason they did this is because they formulated this brilliant plan to offend, stress out the offender. Get him to a point, lure him in potentially, and all these other things.
And, of course, because of the new sketch. I don’t think it had much more to do with these other things.
Clemente
Yeah. The only other thing he made a point of saying [was] it sounds like it is two different people but it is the same person. It is the killer, right? That’s what he said.
And so, it could have been masking his voice in part of it and his natural voice was the other part. So, I think that’s probably why they did it, and I think that’s also why they released the video instead of just the still. And I think when they released the video, people will notice more.
Like Maureen noticed how when he was walking, his gait, he seemed like he was overweight, but when you saw him walking, you could see that his legs were pretty skinny, that he was wearing oversized clothing, and that he had stuffed things in there to make him look bigger. Or maybe that was intentional, or maybe that was just because he was hiding equipment.
O’Connell
Like ropes and anything else.
Hakes
Well, you’re also talking about, to me as a southern (the only southerner in the room), when you have someone saying ‘guys, down the hill,’ that is not what a southerner would have said. It would have been ‘y’all, down the hill.’ So, I think it’s a regional thing.
I’d love to ask Jim Fitzgerald about this, about the dialect and the terminology.
O’Connell
Well, I say ‘guys’ all the time. It is a Midwestern thing; I’m from Chicago.
Clemente
It’s also February, and I don’t know if it was very, it was a nice day there or whether it was freezing out? But, if this person was hanging out in the woods for a long period of time, some of that bulk might have been LITERALLY to insulate him.
Chacon
It was 60 degrees that day.
O’Connell
Yeah, but it was bulgy. So, it was like pokey, bulgy. It didn’t look like I’m wearing three sweaters.
Chacon
It was warm because Libby didn’t want to wear a sweatshirt. Her grandmother said put a sweatshirt on, and she says do I have to –
Clemente
Well, when you’re used to, you know, sub-sub-sub-zero temperatures and then you have a nice day. I remember living in Syracuse, and it got to 50 and we were all in shorts and t-shirts. You know, it was like amazing.
Chacon
I think that taken together, your question, they wanted to release a little bit more because all of this goes to this guy’s signature.
His gait on that bridge. They asked people to look very closely at how he’s walking. Now realizing that, that bridge, and the treads on that bridge, are far apart. It’s a very high bridge and there’s no guardrail on it, and yet he keeps his hands in his pockets. I would have had my hands out trying to balance myself as I’m going between these uneven, uh, slats on that bridge.
So, they want people to look at this and say, “Oh, okay. I know that guy’s gait.” Because we know, you know people’s gait. If you see somebody, you see them all the time, and you turn off the lights and see their shadow, you can identify them.
The word ‘guys’ is some part of the vernacular people, so they release that. The reason I think it sounds different is because the statement ‘guys’ is to bring someone’s attention. If you’re looking at me and I want you to go down that hill, I just say go down the hill.
So, I think what happened was Libby’s phone was facing away from him because they weren’t looking at him. He says ‘guys’ and they turn towards him. Now, the microphone on that little phone is facing him. So, the ‘guys’ and ‘down the hill’ sound differently because of the microphone. They turned to him and he said, “Down the hill”.
O’Connell
That’s a good point.
Hakes
And I also wonder if it was edited. Whether the police have released ‘guys’ from one part of that audio and ‘down the hill’ from another part. And because they wanted the public to hear both, just in case somebody recognizes one voice versus the other.
Chacon
It could be. I tend to think he said ‘guys’ and they turned to look at him, and the microphone was repositioned, and that’s why it sounds a little different.
But I also think they made it a point of making him believe they have more video of him, more audio of him. Specifically, more audio of him and know what his voice sounds like. They didn’t release more of it.
And like you said in the last episode, you know, maybe she had that, he didn’t know she had that phone on. Maybe there is more audio. And I think now, the killer, by releasing even a little bit more, knows the police didn’t really. Because it’s all or nothing, right?
So, now they are telling him, “We have more. We’re just not releasing it.”
O’Connell
And I think what Francey said is true. What you just said is true – there’s a really good reason why they aren’t releasing that audio because it might be horrific for everyone to listen to.
Hakes
Well, in one sense, maybe that’s why they made a reference. As I talked about in the last episode, about preserving evidence for trial. Fortunately, in the sense that we want him captured, but unfortunately, in the whole circumstance, is that a jury will eventually have to see, and hear, and everything that was captured on Libby’s phone.
One of the questions I wanted to talk to you about, because we don’t have anyone here that is working this case, but obviously, we’ve all worked cases that are similar to this emotionally speaking. So, let’s get a little bit inside, uh, the minds of the investigators and go behind the lines, Jim.
This Superintendent Carter was very emotional. It was noteworthy. There were times in his delivery, in some of these statements, that he had to pause. He was VISIBLY emotional, and you know, it’s not something we see often from seasoned police officers. They try not to present that kind of face to the public. We, as professionals, try to be as emotionless as possible in our public presentation of these cases because we have to be able to take a step back in order to work them.
What do you think, Jim? As far as the impact it might’ve had on the offender to see that the police superintendent was emotional. Do you think it shows weakness, strength, or something else?
Clemente
Well, I think it shows humanity. And, I think the level of emotion he exhibited paired perfectly with his statement. That he is NOT going to stop until he gets this guy. And, I think that was incredibly important. It’s a very specific message to this offender. That he can never rest.
Hakes
And Bobby, you’ve recovered children in terrible conditions. Uh, you know, you’ve seen the worst, especially in the Israel Keys case, that people can do to children.
When you hear the emotion coming from the superintendent, what do you think about that – that was the public face that they put out?
Chacon
Well, I think he had to do that. I think he was honest and genuine, number one. I don’t think there was any face put on that that was different. I think that was his honest, raw emotions, and I think it was important, um, that the leader of this effort, that he demonstrate that.
I’m sure the hardened detectives that are working this case also feel that way, but they probably don’t want to be in the public eye like that. I think, though, that it’s important for the leader of this investigation to show that all of the men and women working this investigation have the same emotional, invested interest in it. They are all working night and day to bring this to a resolution, and I think it was very important for him as a leader to put that out, to not only the families but the public as well.
Hakes
Maureen, you’ve worked these kinds of crime scenes with terrible injuries to people. The things that these kinds of killers do, especially to children. How do you do that kind of job? Especially when it comes to children, when your emotions are so involved. How can your emotions not be involved after all?
O’Connell
There’s no way that you can’t become emotionally attached to an investigation like this. I think it just fuels most of us to just work harder, and to do absolutely everything. Like I’m sure these guys will tell you, you just wake up in the middle of the night and you’re like, “Did I try this? Should I try that?” And it’s hard to slow your mind down, it really is hard.
Hakes
Jim, as a profiler, it was obviously part of your job to get inside the mind of an offender like this. Tell us a little bit about what the profiler’s who’ve been working on this case, and the FBI agents helping the local police on this case, are experiencing. Do they stay invested two years later? When do they tire of the kind of evidence in this case?
Clemente
They don’t tire of it; it constantly weighs on their shoulders. Until a case is solved, they are always thinking about it. And they go home to their wives, and their children, and their families and they just pray that nothing like this ever happens to them. Because it taints you; it definitely makes you feel like there’s some real horrors out there. Some real bad people who do really bad things to each other, and it’s really unfortunate.
Link to listen to Part 2 >>>> 123 | Worst Case Scenario: The Delphi Murders (Part 2) – Best Case Worst Case – Podcast
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Thanks again for doing all this work for the rest of us. It’s very much appreciated.
All these insights are interesting and powerful at the time they were said, immediately after the 2017 press conference, and some remain that way. After a year and a half, a lot of them mean absolutely nothing in my opinion. That high level of excitement and anticipation that LE PURPOSELY generated at that press conference faded fairly quickly as months went by of no arrest, no information, no context.
I’m especially concerned about a comment made in the first part of the transcripts when one of the guys on the podcast suggests that it’s OK for a case to go on for years without releasing information and without an arrest, and the victims’ families should just accept that. I disagree about that.
stattlich1
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Thanks for the transcripts. I have several takeaways from reading all that.
One, I've conjured this idea that it's possible the murders are on that voice recording. At minimum, there is enough of BG's voice on that recording to lead LE to definitively state that the voice on the tape is the voice of the killer, and the killer is the man on the video, BG.
Two, the scripted verse, possibly put together by a Behavior Analysis Unit, intended to flush out BG, to reveal him to his family/friends/coworkers, failed.
Three, BG was familiar with the bridge/trail area, and was prepared, laying in wait for the right victim, the right time, the right 'feel' to it all, and then he acted.
I wonder if part of his strategy was to hang at the bridge during that time of day, as it would be about the natural time when school lets out, and kids would go there to unwind, chat, smoke, etc. on a regular basis..... Not so much anything to do with having a day off of school, or the nice weather that day.
Four, I focused on the comments on BG's knowledge of forensics....being able to commit the crime and leave little evidence behind.
Speculation on my part.
One, I've conjured this idea that it's possible the murders are on that voice recording. At minimum, there is enough of BG's voice on that recording to lead LE to definitively state that the voice on the tape is the voice of the killer, and the killer is the man on the video, BG.
Two, the scripted verse, possibly put together by a Behavior Analysis Unit, intended to flush out BG, to reveal him to his family/friends/coworkers, failed.
Three, BG was familiar with the bridge/trail area, and was prepared, laying in wait for the right victim, the right time, the right 'feel' to it all, and then he acted.
I wonder if part of his strategy was to hang at the bridge during that time of day, as it would be about the natural time when school lets out, and kids would go there to unwind, chat, smoke, etc. on a regular basis..... Not so much anything to do with having a day off of school, or the nice weather that day.
Four, I focused on the comments on BG's knowledge of forensics....being able to commit the crime and leave little evidence behind.
Speculation on my part.
Absolutely. It’s obvious at this late date.
They also said BG would be conspicuous by suddenly leaving the area after the press conference, and that he could be identified that way. Obviously didn’t get results.
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If I remember right, LE said fairly early that the actual murders were not recorded on the phone. Sorry, I can’t give a link but I’m pretty sure they said that at some point.
stattlich1
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So what then would be the theory in regards to HOW they have determined the voice on the recording is from the man in sketch 2 who IS the killer?
Or am I totally mistaken in all that, meaning, that LE has never made the aforementioned claim?
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Thanks again cujenn81!
Something I don’t recall being discussed here is a theory both the persons depicted in sketch 1 and the person depicted in sketch 2 were each stalking the girls separately but only one was the killer. The question would be - was the Monon High Bridge trail a “target rich environment”?
“......And I think that what must have happened is that they have taken these leads, they have interviewed literally thousands of people, and they have found someone who looks at that video that they released and says, “yes, I definitely saw that guy minutes before these girls came by and I saw his face.” And that’s where this sketch came from.
And so, the other sketch was, somebody saw in the area and was suspicious about, and it turns out it’s a guy who is sexually interested in children, who’s had multiple arrests for it.
O’Connell
Who could have been stalking the same area –
Clemente
Could’ve been stalking the SAME GIRLS at the SAME TIME, and that’s what I call a target rich environment.
And just like the case in UVA, where there was a girl who’s a young college freshman, and she was inebriated and walking around, obviously drunk on her own. There was a guy who claimed to be a Good Samaritan who started following her. But then the other guy stepped to her, put his arm around her, and walked her away – he was the murderer. I think the other Good Samaritan guy could have also intended to sexually assault her, to take advantage of her in some way. I don’t know if he would have killed her, but I think that’s why he was doing it because he laid in wait. He stepped back into the shadows in a doorway and waited for her to walk by. And then he steps out and follows her, but the other guy overtakes him. He was following her so slow that the other guy could overtake him and get up to her before he did. Why? What’s going on in his mind? Why is he doing that?
And so, to me, that was very suspicious behavior. And, I actually wrote an episode of Criminal Minds about it called Target Rich. Because I believe that when there are vulnerable victims around, and at the beginning and the end of the year and during holidays around college campuses, where young girls are first sort of having the freedom to drink and be on their own and do what they want, these guys are drawn to that. Drawn to this target rich environment and they take advantage of these opportunities......”
Something I don’t recall being discussed here is a theory both the persons depicted in sketch 1 and the person depicted in sketch 2 were each stalking the girls separately but only one was the killer. The question would be - was the Monon High Bridge trail a “target rich environment”?
“......And I think that what must have happened is that they have taken these leads, they have interviewed literally thousands of people, and they have found someone who looks at that video that they released and says, “yes, I definitely saw that guy minutes before these girls came by and I saw his face.” And that’s where this sketch came from.
And so, the other sketch was, somebody saw in the area and was suspicious about, and it turns out it’s a guy who is sexually interested in children, who’s had multiple arrests for it.
O’Connell
Who could have been stalking the same area –
Clemente
Could’ve been stalking the SAME GIRLS at the SAME TIME, and that’s what I call a target rich environment.
And just like the case in UVA, where there was a girl who’s a young college freshman, and she was inebriated and walking around, obviously drunk on her own. There was a guy who claimed to be a Good Samaritan who started following her. But then the other guy stepped to her, put his arm around her, and walked her away – he was the murderer. I think the other Good Samaritan guy could have also intended to sexually assault her, to take advantage of her in some way. I don’t know if he would have killed her, but I think that’s why he was doing it because he laid in wait. He stepped back into the shadows in a doorway and waited for her to walk by. And then he steps out and follows her, but the other guy overtakes him. He was following her so slow that the other guy could overtake him and get up to her before he did. Why? What’s going on in his mind? Why is he doing that?
And so, to me, that was very suspicious behavior. And, I actually wrote an episode of Criminal Minds about it called Target Rich. Because I believe that when there are vulnerable victims around, and at the beginning and the end of the year and during holidays around college campuses, where young girls are first sort of having the freedom to drink and be on their own and do what they want, these guys are drawn to that. Drawn to this target rich environment and they take advantage of these opportunities......”
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I have no idea how LE determined any of that. I only remember them saying the actual murder was not part of the recording.
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These were the main insights and takeaways I got from listening to these seasoned FBI agents discuss the case. I thought it was very helpful to hear their initial thoughts. I mean, especially Clemente, as he is one of the most famous criminal profilers in this country. Unfortunately, the press conference didn't have its intended effect or produce any results.
I tried to think of the reasons their plan (seemingly) failed and came up with these:
1. BG is deceased.
2. BG is locked up for another crime.
3. BG is a loner and/or transient (and isn't close enough to anyone who would notice a sudden change in behavior or appearance).
4. Individuals that have noticed changes in BG's behavior/appearance are unwilling to come forward (out of fear or out of love).
5. Individuals reported changes in BG but the information provided wasn't enough to lead to an arrest or successful prosecution.
6. BG is not local, moved on immediately after the murders, and hasn't given them much thought and/or doesn't dwell on the news and/or follow the case closely.
I've always worried that BG might be the type of killer like reason number six. There are some serial killers (dare I say, the majority of them) that don't care about the notoriety of their crimes. They kill because they get an urge or craving for the thrill of it and feel compelled to satisfy that urge. Once this urge is satisfied, they go on about their life as usual until the urge hits them again. Some have killed so many people that they've lost count. They don't see their victims as real people -- they are mere toys that are easily discarded and quickly forgotten.
I always go back to killers like Pee Wee Gaskins. The large majority of his victims were hitchhikers -- both male and female -- but he also killed people he personally knew. Like a pregnant nextdoor neighbor and her two-year-old child (despite the fact that she considered him a friend) and a younger cousin that had mocked him. He also killed for hire. In fact, he killed a fellow death row inmate for measly commissary money by constructing a makeshift bomb out of broken radio parts and planting it in his toilet. First, he earned the guy's trust by having conversations via the plumbing pipes. Then he convinced the guy to break his toilet (because he knew the guards would make him repair it) so he could install a two-way radio that he said he'd built to make their conversations easier. He planted a remote controlled bomb in the guy's toilet instead. When PW "called" him up on the radio when he got back to his cell, the guy put the receiver up to his ear and PW set off the bomb. Long story short, this guy killed anyone and everyone without thinking twice about it and lost count of his victims long before he died in that electric chair.
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I can so relate to this fear. I’ve felt this about BG really all along.
This is why all those press conference statements such as to the killer, who may be in this room....you didn’t think we would change the direction of the investigation but we did.....I know this is all about power for you....never resonated or rang true for me.
Having read a book about Randy Kraft, for example, the gay serial killer in California in the ‘70s: he fit your #6, and BG could very well be the same type. Even though Kraft kept a score of all the boys he killed, nevertheless:
- He did not follow news articles or press conferences pertaining to his many, many killings
- He did not taunt police or investigators
- He did not want notoriety
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I have never really believed the killer was local. Yes, I think the killer was familiar with the trails but you can be familiar with areas without living there. Normal people become familiar by day trips and vacations etc. Killers would seek out possible sites that would work for them. Just because the killer may have been familiar with the trails doesn’t mean he lived there. I hope LE hasn’t abandoned the idea of him not being local.
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No, it obviously did not get results, but I am sure LE would probably say that eventually someday it will. I have to admit at this stage after over 3 1/2 years I will be shocked if that second sketch looks even remotely close in age or appearance to what the actual person who murdered Abigail Williams and Liberty German looks like.
The only explanation I can come up with is that LE determined that Liberty German's video was just too blurry to be useful and decided to just try and use an early eyewitness sketch that was created a few days after the murders. Either they were going to use it or they were not. The alternative was to do nothing and stick with the original sketch and video.
In my opinion, they should not have dismissed the video. Writing on the press release that the second sketch is the face of the man from Liberty German's video is completely confusing since according to Abigail William's mother not even NASA or Disney has been able to make out the face of the man from the video. I think that LE wanted to solve the case so badly because life goes on. There are other cases and other resources that need to be used elsewhere.
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Double post. DBM.
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