Found Deceased IN - Abigail (Abby) Williams, 13, & Liberty (Libby) German, 14, The Delphi Murders 13 Feb 2017 #135

[Justice101]

Following

 

[taylorss]

Thanks everyone for all your earlier replies!! I was wondering just how difficult it would’ve been to reach the final location site cuz reflecting on tension between:

1- my speculative assumption JMO that A&L most likely were attacked & disabled before entering/ crossing the water, and

2- remembered/revisited comment from RL that terrain was so difficult it would’ve been near impossible for someone to move the bodies there

Based on what all you posted, map etc, it seems like RL comment referred to potential trip on land only, w/o consideration of reaching spot by crossing the water .... yes?

And if yes, does anyone know if there was any other evidence (beyond that comment from RL) to suggest that A&L were NOT attacked / disabled before entering the water?

Been wondering cuz I was thinking about the DNA / lack thereof issue .... esp how there could be none even under Libby’s fingernails even tho she put up a big fight per her fam JMO

 

[Tiff23fr]

Mod Note:
Falling at random as a reminder: unless the post is specific to JBCII as a possible connection to the Delphi case, please use the Lafayette thread for general discussion of him or the case involving the 9 year old victim.

The Lafayette thread can be found here: IN - James Chadwell II, 42, arrested after girl 9, found in his home, Lafayette, 19 Apr 2021 #3

Thanks Everyone!

 

[Inthedetails]

Thanks everyone for all your earlier replies!! I was wondering just how difficult it would’ve been to reach the final location site cuz reflecting on tension between:

1- my speculative assumption JMO that A&L most likely were attacked & disabled before entering/ crossing the water, and

2- remembered/revisited comment from RL that terrain was so difficult it would’ve been near impossible for someone to move the bodies there

Based on what all you posted, map etc, it seems like RL comment referred to potential trip on land only, w/o consideration of reaching spot by crossing the water .... yes?

And if yes, does anyone know if there was any other evidence (beyond that comment from RL) to suggest that A&L were NOT attacked / disabled before entering the water?

Been wondering cuz I was thinking about the DNA / lack thereof issue .... esp how there could be none even under Libby’s fingernails even tho she put up a big fight per her fam JMO

I don't have evidence, but I think the girls were manipulated across the water but not physcially attacked until they reached the other side or near the shore. Hunch only, speculation.

jmo

 

[SMK777]

Yes I saw this...I was going thru unsolved cases..I was very interested to know too..she couldn't have gotten far on foot in that timespan. mOO

I think the strongest “evidence” that JBC likely did abduction/(murder?) before— and thus could quite possibly be linked to the murders of Abby and Libby, as he was in the Delphi area — is the fact that he had the chain and padlock on his basement door before he abducted the 9 year old. I had originally thought perhaps it was a completely spontaneous impulse crime, but the padlock seems to indicate prior planning.

 

[AC4RD]

Both can be used for human identification and for establishing relatedness.

STRs are "short tandem repeats" - specific, known genetic segments of high, calculable variance in the population. ...

SNPs are "single nucleotide polymorphisms" - where a single nucleotide is swapped out or mutated. Once one of these changes occurs, it is heritable and is passed down in a stable fashion from generation to generation. .

VERY interesting and very clearly explained--thank you! Back in my day (when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, hundreds of years before the dawn of time) STR was used, if I recall, for testing chimerism (percent of donor/host) in bone-marrow transplant patients. We also had Fred and Barney, RFLP, and VNTR.

 

[Mom24]

I don't have evidence, but I think the girls were manipulated across the water but not physcially attacked until they reached the other side or near the shore. Hunch only, speculation.

jmo

I agree. I've always felt that there was something that set the girls off about this guy, enough that they took a video of him. It looks like he had something in his jacket and I've run the gamut on what the items could have been, but I do believe he threatened them away from the bridge and then attacked them once he got to the water's edge.

 

[Mom24]

Yes, that’s something to be taken into consideration, of course. It could indicate a whole different MO.

On the other hand, he may have impulse control issues around young females, whether 9 or 13, 14– and may act on them as the situation and surroundings permit. Only time will tell.

That's true too. If he is BG I do hope they can prosecute him for all his crimes.

 

[SMK777]

Just a question that ran through my mind about the crime ( not necessarily related to JBC unless of course he is BG):

It was said that the crime scene was “odd” and “unusual” and “not what you’d expect” in terms of finding murder victims, and that it “may have been staged to throw LE off the trail” (link below).

QUESTION: As he had such a short time frame, and was probably interrupted, both by the girls trying to run away and fighting back, and by Libby’s Dad ringing her phone to announce he was there to pick them up —-
Why/How did he manage to take time to stage this odd scene?

Former prosecutor in unsolved Delphi murders of two teens says they had signature elements | Daily Mail Online

@minazoe Do you think JBC would have the wherewithal to do this?

 

[minazoe]

Just a question that ran through my mind about the crime ( not necessarily related to JBC unless of course he is BG):

It was said that the crime scene was “odd” and “unusual” and “not what you’d expect” in terms of finding murder victims, and that it “may have been staged to throw LE off the trail” (link below).

QUESTION: As he had such a short time frame, and was probably interrupted, both by the girls trying to run away and fighting back, and by Libby’s Dad ringing her phone to announce he was there to pick them up —-
Why/How did he manage to take time to stage this odd scene?

Former prosecutor in unsolved Delphi murders of two teens says they had signature elements | Daily Mail Online

@minazoe Do you think JBC would have the wherewithal to do this?

he could have come back at night after the coast was clear. mOO

 

[Yemelyan]

Just a question that ran through my mind about the crime ( not necessarily related to JBC unless of course he is BG):

It was said that the crime scene was “odd” and “unusual” and “not what you’d expect” in terms of finding murder victims, and that it “may have been staged to throw LE off the trail” (link below).

QUESTION: As he had such a short time frame, and was probably interrupted, both by the girls trying to run away and fighting back, and by Libby’s Dad ringing her phone to announce he was there to pick them up —-
Why/How did he manage to take time to stage this odd scene?

Former prosecutor in unsolved Delphi murders of two teens says they had signature elements | Daily Mail Online

One thing you have to remember is that the DM borrowed the source material used in this article from the interview Robert Ives gave to the producers of the podcast Down the Hill (the DM even says in the first paragraph that's where it came from). If you listen to the episode of Down the Hill called "Signatures," you'll see that the quotes from Ives are used verbatim. What you won't find is a quote that says "staged," because neither Robert Ives nor any other Delphi investigator has ever alleged that. That was a creative addition on the part of the DM.

In the podcast, the producers do ask a retired FBI profiler what signatures are and if they are the same as staging and she explains that they are not. She also says she knows nothing about the Delphi murders other than what is publicly known. IMO the reporter for the Daily Mail didn't listen very closely to the information presented in the podcast.

Second thing to keep in mind is that the "odd, unusual, not what you'd expect" information is taken out of context in the DM article (it's sensationalized, of course). In the original interview this information came from, Ives first describes what he calls a "normal, person-was-killed-here" scene - meaning, normal for HIM, a small-town prosecutor where the bulk of the deaths to be investigated are domestic violence, overdoses, and car crashes. The murder scene where Abby and Libby were found was different and "odd" compared to those. He might mean that those other types of suspicious deaths have causes/motives that are immediately obvious and that wasn't the case here. (Think of Doug Carter in the press conference also saying "Why Libby? Why Abby?")

He never said the DNA they found in particular was unusual (some people have interpreted it that way). He said the physical evidence was. That could include things like a weapon left behind, or clothing, or bindings/restraints, or trace evidence like fibers, or any manner of things.

If you don't have time to listen to the podcast, which is here: https://www.downthehillpodcast.com/

A transcript of Ives' interview portion for the podcast is here: Delphi Murders 3 Signatures: Robert Ives Interview Transcript from 'Down the Hill' Podcast - CrimeLights

 

[SMK777]

he could have come back at night after the coast was clear. mOO

True. But risky… unless the search had spooked him into feeling it was necessary.

 

[SMK777]

One thing you have to remember is that the DM borrowed the source material used in this article from the interview Robert Ives gave to the producers of the podcast Down the Hill (the DM even says in the first paragraph that's where it came from). If you listen to the episode of Down the Hill called "Signatures," you'll see that the quotes from Ives are used verbatim. What you won't find is a quote that says "staged," because neither Robert Ives nor any other Delphi investigator has ever alleged that. That was a creative addition on the part of the DM.

In the podcast, the producers do ask a retired FBI profiler what signatures are and if they are the same as staging and she explains that they are not. She also says she knows nothing about the Delphi murders other than what is publicly known. IMO the reporter for the Daily Mail didn't listen very closely to the information presented in the podcast.

Second thing to keep in mind is that the "odd, unusual, not what you'd expect" information is taken out of context in the DM article (it's sensationalized, of course). In the original interview this information came from, Ives first describes what he calls a "normal, person-was-killed-here" scene - meaning, normal for HIM, a small-town prosecutor where the bulk of the deaths to be investigated are domestic violence, overdoses, and car crashes. The murder scene where Abby and Libby were found was different and "odd" compared to those. He might mean that those other types of suspicious deaths have causes/motives that are immediately obvious and that wasn't the case here. (Think of Doug Carter in the press conference also saying "Why Libby? Why Abby?")

He never said the DNA they found in particular was unusual (some people have interpreted it that way). He said the physical evidence was. That could include things like a weapon left behind, or clothing, or bindings/restraints, or trace evidence like fibers, or any manner of things.

If you don't have time to listen to the podcast, which is here: https://www.downthehillpodcast.com/

A transcript of Ives' interview portion for the podcast is here: Delphi Murders 3 Signatures: Robert Ives Interview Transcript from 'Down the Hill' Podcast - CrimeLights

Thanks VERY much. Extremely helpful in clearing confusion up.

From what you’ve said, it also now hit me in terms of his having said, Not what you’d expect at a normal person-was-killed here scene —-

they were not at first expecting a murder. They had hoped to find the girls alive—-maybe cold, tired, hungry, shaken up — but alive. At the very worst, they may have expected death from hypothermia.

So the fact that they had been murdered was in itself not usual.

 

[sandy_80]

the words .. odd.. unusual.. strange...not what you expect ...occurred too many times by more than one source to be MISTAKENLY taken out of context ..
actually what proves even more.. that it was shocking ( other than the nature of the crime itself ) is the way the locals reacted or overreacted during the PC s.. as well as asking the FBI to take a look
JMO

 

[MistyWaters]

One thing you have to remember is that the DM borrowed the source material used in this article from the interview Robert Ives gave to the producers of the podcast Down the Hill (the DM even says in the first paragraph that's where it came from). If you listen to the episode of Down the Hill called "Signatures," you'll see that the quotes from Ives are used verbatim. What you won't find is a quote that says "staged," because neither Robert Ives nor any other Delphi investigator has ever alleged that. That was a creative addition on the part of the DM.

In the podcast, the producers do ask a retired FBI profiler what signatures are and if they are the same as staging and she explains that they are not. She also says she knows nothing about the Delphi murders other than what is publicly known. IMO the reporter for the Daily Mail didn't listen very closely to the information presented in the podcast.

Second thing to keep in mind is that the "odd, unusual, not what you'd expect" information is taken out of context in the DM article (it's sensationalized, of course). In the original interview this information came from, Ives first describes what he calls a "normal, person-was-killed-here" scene - meaning, normal for HIM, a small-town prosecutor where the bulk of the deaths to be investigated are domestic violence, overdoses, and car crashes. The murder scene where Abby and Libby were found was different and "odd" compared to those. He might mean that those other types of suspicious deaths have causes/motives that are immediately obvious and that wasn't the case here. (Think of Doug Carter in the press conference also saying "Why Libby? Why Abby?")

He never said the DNA they found in particular was unusual (some people have interpreted it that way). He said the physical evidence was. That could include things like a weapon left behind, or clothing, or bindings/restraints, or trace evidence like fibers, or any manner of things.

If you don't have time to listen to the podcast, which is here: https://www.downthehillpodcast.com/

A transcript of Ives' interview portion for the podcast is here: Delphi Murders 3 Signatures: Robert Ives Interview Transcript from 'Down the Hill' Podcast - CrimeLights

Excellent observations. The Daily Mail certainly sensationalized that interview by Robert Ives and that piece is written as if it’s intended for the reader to conclude their reporter interviewed him personally, which isn’t true either. The article is extremely misleading and adds unnecessary speculation to this case, plus a great example of why DM has long been noted for it’s tabloid-style reporting.

 

[Yemelyan]

So the fact that they had been murdered was in itself not usual.

Snipped by me...yes, this seems to be a correct assessment of one of Ives' points as he also said this:

BARBARA [HOST]: You were quoted as saying that the evidence, or the crime scene, was “odd”. What do you mean by odd?

ROBERT IVES: Well, in once sense, any murder scene is probably odd.

Again, that's from this source: Delphi Murders 3 Signatures: Robert Ives Interview Transcript from 'Down the Hill' Podcast - CrimeLights

My interpretation is that he's saying that to him - again, a rural county prosecutor - any murder scene is odd because "normal" people don't kill each other.

Abby's and Libby's deaths were odd and unusual, as well as being shocking and upsetting, because no one had any "reason" to murder them. Of course, we know there was a reason that we can guess at, knowing from crime statistics why most teen girls would be targeted by adult males, especially those that were strangers to them. But it is still a "senseless" crime, meaning it doesn't make any sense to us why someone would take pleasure in sadism to that degree.

Having said all that, I do think that Ives is also indicating that:

1. Investigators had evidence to such a degree that they believed it would lead them to a name/a solution within days or weeks, not years.
2. There were things at the scene (again, it could be anything from a weapon, clothing left behind, hair or fibers or footprints, etc) that Ives thought the offender might leave behind again, were he to commit a similar crime in the future.


I don't see anything in his actual remarks to indicate that Ives thought the scene was staged to mislead investigators.

 

[MistyWaters]

When Mayor Evans joined the Carroll County Prosecutors Office in 2020 he remarked that he recalled he was in high school when the last murder occurred. According to google he’s about 30 years old. Therefore in that context, not to diminish RI’s comments but he’s obviously not a prosecutor who’s extensively experienced in murder cases in the same way as say, a Prosecutor in a large urban centre with a high rate of homicides.

So when he refers to “odd”, considering his limited realm of experience, we really don’t know what he’s comparing it too.

I agree with Yemelyan, we have to keep in mind he was a rural county prosecutor.

 

[Spartygirl]

Thanks everyone for all your earlier replies!! I was wondering just how difficult it would’ve been to reach the final location site cuz reflecting on tension between:

1- my speculative assumption JMO that A&L most likely were attacked & disabled before entering/ crossing the water, and

2- remembered/revisited comment from RL that terrain was so difficult it would’ve been near impossible for someone to move the bodies there

Based on what all you posted, map etc, it seems like RL comment referred to potential trip on land only, w/o consideration of reaching spot by crossing the water .... yes?

And if yes, does anyone know if there was any other evidence (beyond that comment from RL) to suggest that A&L were NOT attacked / disabled before entering the water?

Been wondering cuz I was thinking about the DNA / lack thereof issue .... esp how there could be none even under Libby’s fingernails even tho she put up a big fight per her fam JMO

I don't have evidence, but I think one of the girls made a run for it which took them across the creek and the crime happened there after they crossed it.

 

[Detective Willy]

JBC is a serial offender who seems to get caught quickly after committing crimes. If you look at his prior convictions he is not the sharpest tool in the shed. BG is very cunning and after 4 years and 3 months I don't think LE is any closer to catching him. If BG gets caught it will be a fluke or he will make a mistake in the future that will tie him back to the Abby and Libby crimes by DNA. If there is no DNA this case will never be solved. I think BG took the girls to the creek to eliminate DNA.

 

[Falling Down]

JBC is a serial offender who seems to get caught quickly after committing crimes. If you look at his prior convictions he is not the sharpest tool in the shed. BG is very cunning and after 4 years and 3 months I don't think LE is any closer to catching him. If BG gets caught it will be a fluke or he will make a mistake in the future that will tie him back to the Abby and Libby crimes by DNA. If there is no DNA this case will never be solved.

I agree 100% with this post.

JMO