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1:08

byte.com. Be confident.

1:10

Be you. With Byte. This

1:14

story contains adult content and

1:16

language along with references to

1:18

sexual assault. Listener discretion is

1:21

advised. I

1:28

wrote the book in the way of

1:30

real time, where it was me reacting

1:32

to what was going on in the

1:34

investigation and the information as it was

1:37

coming out. Me investigating the investigation to

1:39

see what it is that they actually

1:41

knew or what they didn't know in

1:44

this case about who had done it or even

1:46

the crimes themselves. I'm

1:54

Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author

1:56

and journalism professor in Austin, Texas.

2:00

The Historical for Crime podcast Tenfold

2:02

More Wicked and co host of

2:04

the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly

2:06

Right. I've traveled around the world

2:08

interviewing people for the show and

2:10

they are all excellent writers. They've

2:12

had so many great true crime

2:15

stories and now we want to

2:17

tell users stories with details that

2:19

have never been published. Sinful. More

2:21

Wicked presents Wicked. Words is about

2:23

the choices that writers make, good

2:25

and bad. It's a deep dive

2:27

into the stories behind the stories.

2:32

By now most of you know the

2:34

story of the Delphi murders. Actually, this

2:36

wasn't the case I had kept up

2:38

with, so that's why this episode so

2:40

interesting for me. My guess is Nick.

2:43

Edwards. He's a host of the

2:45

True Crime Garage podcast. And

2:47

he's also an author. Nick. Wrote a

2:49

book about the murders of Libby and

2:51

Abbey and twenty seven Teams and it's

2:53

called the Delphi Murders The Quest to

2:55

find the Man on the Bridge. Nick

2:57

told me a lot of things about

2:59

the case that I didn't know. So.

3:04

I guess would start with the victims

3:07

because that's always the most important thing

3:09

to me and I think probably the

3:11

you to you call her Libby is

3:13

that when will we should go with

3:15

Liberty Surrogate with Libby? yeah of Liberty,

3:17

German and Abigail Williams or are too

3:19

young girl victims? Just teenagers. Very typical

3:22

Middle America teenagers best friends. I cannot

3:24

express that enough. They were so close

3:26

that they were the type that if

3:28

you saw one without the other and

3:30

you knew them your first question is

3:32

where he is Libya or. Where is

3:35

Abby? You just expect to see them

3:37

side by side all of the time.

3:39

And yeah that's what their best known

3:41

as as Libyan Abby, Abbey and Libby.

3:43

So the way that the story all

3:45

stars. For those that don't know anything

3:47

about this case you have two girls.

3:49

Young. Teenage girls the best of friends

3:52

there dropped off early in the afternoon

3:54

on an unseasonably warm day and February.

3:56

Okay, so they go to this trail

3:58

system. Beauty. The area. Best way to

4:00

describe it would be this is like

4:02

a park. You know, like a like

4:04

a state park. So there's a trail

4:06

system. And on that trail system there's

4:08

this old abandoned railroad bridge called the

4:10

Mon and hybrids. You could show a

4:12

picture of this bridge to one hundred

4:15

people and you're gonna get one hundred

4:17

different thoughts on this. For it's some

4:19

may say, all it's a creepy old

4:21

rickety old bridge. Others would say that

4:23

looks like something out of a Bob

4:25

Ross painting. So they're getting dropped off

4:27

with the purpose of walking across the

4:29

Spritz. Now all have a bit of trouble

4:31

with heights, so as brave and tough as

4:33

I think I am are probably make about

4:35

five or six steps out of the that

4:37

bridge in turn right around and get back

4:39

on a solid ground. But this.

4:42

Is an old abandoned railroad bridge and

4:44

it's sort of a rite of passage

4:46

in this area. right? Like the teenagers,

4:48

The young folks. they go out there

4:50

and it's kind of. You go across

4:52

it at some point when you're young

4:54

teenager and it's something you kind of

4:56

brag about to your friends after you've

4:58

done it since. A little dangerous, right?

5:00

More? yeah. I mean a skinny fall

5:02

off. The sprints. They're they're They're not

5:04

rails, so you could you could fall

5:06

off the sides. I mean, this is

5:08

just as teenager as it comes, right?

5:10

The two girls. Libby. Had already

5:13

gone across the bridge on at least

5:15

one prior occasions and so Abby was

5:17

gonna walk across the bridge and Libby

5:19

was gonna shower house. He was gonna

5:21

teach her friends here something I've done.

5:23

Now it's your turn almond experiences with

5:25

you. I'll bring my cell phone

5:28

and we can take some pictures to

5:30

to capture the moments. And unfortunately there's

5:32

evil out there on the trails that

5:34

day while the girls are out there

5:36

and so the girls are supposed to

5:38

be picked up some time. It wasn't

5:40

hard and fast time on what time

5:42

to be picked up. It was gonna

5:44

be like three three thirty. So live

5:46

his father Derek was going to be

5:48

in the area. he he had finished

5:50

up some work task earlier that day

5:52

in. the idea was Chelsea the sister

5:55

would drop him off at the trailhead.

5:57

they could run around do whenever they're going to

5:59

do a And the purpose of the trip was

6:01

to go across the Monin High Bridge, take a

6:03

couple pictures, and then Derek would pick them up

6:05

sometime between three and three 30 when he happens

6:08

to be in the area, he gets

6:10

there, he's texting his daughter. He doesn't hear

6:12

if there's no reply. And

6:14

so at some point there becomes

6:16

concern and you have Libby's extended

6:18

family out there searching high and

6:20

low for the kids on the

6:22

trails. They're going across the bridge.

6:24

They're looking all over for the

6:26

two of them. Now, any parent

6:28

will tell you it is not

6:30

terribly uncommon for teenagers to be

6:32

where they are not supposed to

6:34

be. Right. I'm

6:37

sure that that was

6:39

probably their thoughts that afternoon.

6:41

You know what? Probably a little upset

6:43

with these kids. They were supposed to be here

6:45

at three, three 30. Sure enough. They're

6:47

not here. These were good kids. Uh,

6:50

so maybe that was a leap that was a

6:52

little difficult for them to, to make,

6:55

but you can see Mike

6:57

Patty and Abby's mother on

7:00

the 11 o'clock news out there

7:02

in West Indiana. And

7:05

neither of them looked like panicked. You can

7:07

tell they're concerned. It's dark now and it's

7:09

getting cold out. It's February. It was warm

7:11

that day, but it's going to be a

7:13

cold night. You can tell they're concerned. You

7:15

can hear it in their words and their

7:18

voices and then see it on their faces.

7:20

But you can also tell they're not panicked

7:22

yet. You know, again, they're teenagers. They did

7:24

have a fairly organized search for the girls

7:26

that evening and night, but at some point

7:28

they had to call off the search. This

7:30

is rough terrain. You just talked about people

7:32

falling off of the Mona and high bridge

7:34

at certain of possibility. So at some point

7:36

they call off the search. The sheriff received a

7:39

lot of criticism for that, but they couldn't

7:41

do cell phone, no cell phone activity. Could

7:43

they even trace that at that point? They

7:45

had pinged her phone a couple of times,

7:48

but this is a very rural area and

7:50

what was happening from my understanding

7:52

is that the pings actually suggested

7:54

that she was in town and

7:57

moving around. But.

8:00

from the way it's been explained to

8:02

me multiple times, is that

8:04

in that area at that time,

8:06

if you were to walk from one side of

8:08

your house to the other side of the house,

8:11

your phone may ping off of three different towers.

8:13

It's just the lay of the land. So that

8:16

wasn't useful. And actually bad, right? Because

8:18

maybe they weren't panicked enough to look,

8:20

as you're suggesting, look in the places

8:22

where they were last seen. Instead, they thought

8:24

maybe they'd be in town. Well, and one

8:27

thing that hurt badly too, is

8:29

her grandparents attempted to do the find

8:31

my phone feature. It

8:33

had not been loaded. So she had did

8:35

a factory reset. Libby had done a factory

8:37

reset on her cell phone, I think just

8:40

a couple of weeks prior. And

8:42

some of those apps, you have to reload

8:44

them to get them up and running. And

8:46

she had never reloaded that app. So

8:49

the sheriff calls off the search for the

8:51

night. It's getting cold. They're

8:53

hoping that they just sort of decided

8:56

to be rebellious for once and go

8:58

to a friend's house secretly or go somewhere

9:00

and they're warm and safe. And they'll pop

9:02

up in the morning and say, sorry, please

9:04

forgive us. We're grounded for a week and

9:06

that's it. And that's not what happened. Right.

9:09

And I think, you know, some people had

9:11

expressed that they thought maybe worst case scenario,

9:13

one of them had twisted or broken an

9:15

ankle and the other one wouldn't leave them.

9:17

But the difficult thing is you are out

9:19

there searching, you are out there yelling and

9:21

calling their names. They would have been

9:24

vocal and had the ability to yell back. That

9:26

didn't happen. I mean, we got

9:28

firefighters. We had a decent amount of

9:30

people out there that evening. About 6

9:32

a.m. the following day, a

9:34

very organized search effort is put together

9:36

by the sheriff's department and firefighters. And

9:39

it's about 12 to 1215 that day that

9:42

they find the girls having been murdered

9:44

out in the woods, unfortunately. How

9:47

far were they from the bridge? They

9:50

were about a little more than a quarter

9:52

of a mile from the end of the

9:54

bridge. So From my

9:56

understanding, what you do is you walk

9:59

across that bridge. you have a very

10:01

quick celebration and then there's really nothing

10:03

but private property on the other side

10:06

of that Mon and Hybrid. So the

10:08

teenagers is turn around and go back

10:10

and there's really not a whole lot

10:12

to do on that other sites. Unfortunately,

10:15

that's where they were intercepted by this

10:17

this evil individuals who then carouse them

10:19

in essentially of ducks them and move

10:21

them further into the woods and then

10:24

they were killed a brief time after

10:26

he encountered them on the bridge. You.

10:29

Know in a case like this. I

10:31

talked to pull whole scene and he's

10:33

my tell her some Barry Barnes I

10:35

took a poll on about. This is

10:37

a senseless and then sort of the

10:39

anger focused at investigators. It feels like

10:42

almost immediately in a case like this,

10:44

you don't know what's he doing, you

10:46

screwing everything up, you're hiding information and

10:48

all this imposes said with the Golden

10:50

State killer cases, it was terrible. I

10:52

mean he really had to stop communicating

10:54

with some people and none of the

10:56

information that he was given was particularly

10:58

helpful. Do you think that this was.

11:00

Like out his immediate needs. Your

11:02

response from people who were following.

11:04

This case early on because it seems

11:06

like the first strike against investigators as

11:09

they didn't continue the search. so was

11:11

it sort of downhill in the eyes

11:13

of the citizens lose at this point.

11:16

Well. Yeah, and the thing is, I

11:18

think in this situation it was a

11:20

cases was so captivating that it drew

11:22

in a lot of people the didn't

11:24

even have any experience as a citizen

11:26

sleuth. You know they they hadn't Maybe

11:28

never followed a case before and so

11:30

lucky we can point the finger and

11:32

that's unfortunately that's going to happen so

11:34

especially in this type of case. So

11:36

what you have here is and I

11:38

say this. I said it a hundred

11:40

times on True Graham Garage and I'm

11:42

sure that I'll say it one hundred

11:44

more when you go to a community.

11:46

Especially a smaller town like Delphi,

11:48

Indiana And you kill a child.

11:51

That's. not a crime against that kid

11:53

just their kid or against their family

11:55

or against were that kid went to

11:57

school that is a crime against the

11:59

entire community That's how it is

12:01

and this community banded together immediately.

12:03

Now what ended up happening is

12:06

people want their pound of flesh.

12:08

When something like this happens, that's

12:10

just human nature. People want to

12:13

very quickly identify why

12:15

and who is responsible. Where's

12:17

the bad guy and any

12:19

speed bump or any slower

12:21

route into finding that individual,

12:23

it upsets the masses. And

12:25

in this case, knee jerk

12:27

reaction. Yes. And

12:30

the thing was, that's part of the

12:33

reason why I wrote the book was

12:35

that there were so many things, so

12:37

much absurd, crazy stuff being said online

12:40

and on social media that I'm here

12:42

tearing my hair out going, let's be

12:44

reasonable people. Let's, let's come back down

12:47

to earth and deal with

12:49

this thing that's called. There's this

12:51

wonderful thing called logic. Let's try to apply

12:53

it here, uh, in this

12:55

case. And so where you have people get

12:57

ready to get out the torches and pitchforks

13:00

going to, well, they called off the search

13:02

clearly shows they don't know what they're doing.

13:04

That's common. Anytime there's somebody

13:06

that's missing, it gets dark, it gets

13:08

cold. They call off the search. That's

13:10

just what happens. You don't, you,

13:12

yes, you were there to save one or two, but

13:16

you're not going to risk one or two

13:18

more in the process. If people stayed out

13:20

there that night and still searched against, you

13:22

know, it's not like the sheriff is saying

13:25

go home or you will be arrested. No,

13:27

the sheriff is saying we're, we are done

13:29

here for the night. We will reconvene at

13:31

daybreak tomorrow, 6am. They were out there

13:34

organized and ready to rock by 6am. Yes.

13:37

So the people reacting the way

13:39

they did, you know, we end

13:41

up getting two different composite sketches

13:43

of the, of the suspect throughout

13:45

the course of this, this investigation,

13:48

people were all up in arms about that. I've

13:51

seen that in multiple cases. It's not

13:53

uncommon to have more than one composite

13:55

sketch, especially if a investigation last years,

13:58

a lot of the things that people. were

14:00

upset with are things that we've seen

14:02

in a bunch of other cases. What

14:04

was different here though was the finger

14:06

pointing, the calling out a specific person

14:09

online or on social media that

14:11

had nothing to do with the

14:13

crime at all. I mean, again,

14:15

one major reason why I wrote

14:17

the book was to separate not

14:19

just fact from fiction, to separate

14:22

fact from all the complete craziness

14:24

out there. People openly saying that

14:26

the mayor was the killer. People

14:28

openly saying that the superintendent of

14:30

Indiana State Police, Doug Carter, who

14:32

was the champion of justice in

14:34

this case, that he was the

14:36

killer. People saying that Toblesnby the

14:38

sheriff was the killer. People saying that Mike

14:40

Patti, the grandfather of one of

14:42

the girls was the killer. So it was

14:45

through that aggravating aspect of the case that

14:47

just kept nudging me and nudging me and

14:49

nudging me to keep covering it

14:51

on true crime garage, speak for

14:53

the truth, and put pen to paper, write the

14:55

book The Delphi Murders. Well, let's

14:58

go back to the day that the two

15:00

girls were discovered. We could just sort

15:02

of summarize the discovery, who discovered them,

15:04

what that whole scene was like, and

15:06

then how do you get into an investigation after

15:08

this? So what's the scene like when they find

15:11

them? Well, they released very

15:13

little information and still to this day,

15:15

even after the arrest, have released very

15:17

little information. And some of those details

15:20

don't help to lead us to the

15:22

suspect anyway. So they're not always necessary

15:24

to discuss. But on that day,

15:26

yeah, the two girls were

15:28

found by one of the search parties. And

15:31

this was around noon, about 1215 that

15:34

afternoon. They're discovered

15:36

immediately based off of the

15:38

discovery. Police know we're dealing with foul

15:41

play. They didn't go into

15:43

details, but obvious signs. All of these

15:45

years later, in fact, it wasn't until

15:47

June of 2023 that we learned that

15:49

they were killed with a sharp instrument

15:51

or sharp weapon. That's

15:53

obviously going to tell the

15:55

investigators that we're talking about foul play

15:58

immediately. They did make the announcement. in

18:00

Indiana. Exactly. And so we

18:02

could hear his voice and Libby

18:05

was so brave to capture all of

18:07

that information there that day, risking putting

18:09

herself at further harm. Because keep in

18:11

mind, when he approaches them, they don't

18:13

know what they're in for. Well,

18:15

that's my question. Why is she recording?

18:18

What is on the recording? And at

18:20

what stage does she feel threatened? And

18:22

that's why she's recording him? Or do

18:24

we not know why? Was she

18:27

recording? And then she heard a voice and swung

18:29

around and just started recording this guy. So

18:31

that's very interesting. We can't say

18:34

with any certainty why she decided

18:36

to record. I think a couple

18:38

things probably took place. Either

18:41

one, they had seen him or

18:43

encountered him prior, and then see

18:45

him again later. And it kind of

18:47

spooked them a little bit and thought,

18:50

well, here's this weird guy. Maybe I

18:52

should just record him for a bit.

18:54

Let's keep in mind too, she had

18:57

just taken a photograph that was sent

18:59

out on Snapchat of Abby walking across

19:01

the bridge. So she may have had

19:03

her phone in hand when she first

19:06

notices him on the bridge. So

19:08

she sends that out on Snapchat,

19:10

and this is at like 2.13pm.

19:13

So we know everything's fine at

19:16

2.13pm. After that, this

19:18

man, they see him walking across the

19:20

bridge. And earlier, I had talked about

19:22

the state of the bridge, I believe

19:25

played a factor in us having difficulty

19:27

identifying him. Well, that's because he's looking

19:29

down as he's, she's filming him while

19:31

he's on the bridge, but he's looking

19:33

down to make sure he doesn't lose

19:35

his footing, make a wrong step. And

19:37

I mean, he could fall off the

19:39

bridge himself. So I'm

19:42

guessing here because she filmed him

19:44

for her phone is capturing 43

19:47

seconds of video and or

19:50

audio. We, the public, we only

19:52

get to hear or see

19:54

a very small clip of

19:56

that, that video. So later

19:58

we hear guys. down

22:00

the hill. Sounds like he's standing right next

22:02

to them. She must have rushed and put

22:04

that phone away real quickly. Whether

22:07

she intended to have it keep running or

22:09

not, we can't say. But

22:11

I've had people ask me, does

22:13

that video hurt or help the

22:15

investigation? The

22:17

best answer I can give is we need to

22:20

give credit where credit is due. This is something

22:22

very brave that this little girl did. Yeah, this

22:24

was a choice that she made and she

22:27

did this and it took five

22:29

and a half years to make an arrest in this case.

22:32

I'm a firm believer if you ask me if

22:34

this video helped or hurt the investigation. It took

22:36

five and a half years with the video to

22:38

make an arrest. How many years do you

22:40

think it would have been without the video? Have

22:47

you heard you can listen

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500-500. DeLong

25:15

to 500-500. Why

25:24

would it have hurt? Because it made it so

25:27

much more mysterious that you have all of these

25:29

people speculating and blowing it up even bigger?

25:31

Or what's the reason why it would be

25:33

negative in the case? The negative

25:35

is that the investigation gets inundated

25:37

with tips, and of course only,

25:40

you know, one or a very

25:42

small few are responsible for what

25:44

happened that day. So we're talking

25:47

just months into the investigation, and

25:49

they have to turn over the

25:51

tip line to the FBI because

25:53

the state police cannot handle the

25:55

volume of Calls and tips

25:57

that they're receiving. So At one point,

26:00

I wanna see. This was like six or

26:02

eight months into the investigation. They said they

26:04

had received over forty seven thousand tips. Wow

26:06

and so I can only imagine how many

26:09

that the ultimately received over the course of

26:11

five, five and a half years before they

26:13

arrested anybody. I guess you know that would

26:15

be the only way that you go. Well

26:18

maybe it it hurt the investigation. I I

26:20

think if anything has slowed down because now

26:22

you have all these people that that need

26:24

to be looked at. Because. They

26:26

sleep, you get tips and some of these

26:29

people you're getting multiple tips on. Did.

26:31

The police make any mistakes. Sir.

26:33

And these things. A lot of

26:35

the the movements and a lot

26:37

of the actions done by law

26:39

enforcement in this case were probably

26:42

heavily debated behind the scenes On

26:44

okay, do we do this or

26:46

Do we Not Do this. And.

26:49

One. Thing that I don't like and

26:52

and but we've seen it dozens

26:54

and dozens of times unfortunately is

26:56

right away. Of course media's peppering

26:58

the officials with questions and they're

27:00

attempting to do some kind of

27:02

information release the day after the

27:04

girls or and unfortunately, these officers

27:06

weren't given much information at all.

27:08

But the question that I always

27:10

hate because I hate the answer

27:12

is are you said this is

27:15

foul play So is there a

27:17

threat to the community? And

27:19

you know police. They always want to try

27:21

to com the masses, right? You don't want

27:23

to send everybody into panic mode. And they

27:26

said, no, We don't believe that there's any

27:28

direct threat to the community. Okay, I get

27:30

what you're trying to do guys. but we

27:32

have somebody out there that is killing children.

27:35

There is a threat to the community and.

27:37

Tell. Me what investigators have to work

27:40

was. Once they find the

27:42

girls' bodies. The. Next day, what

27:44

are the physical clues? I'm assuming

27:46

they're taking swabs, right? They're taking

27:48

for sexual assault and is a

27:50

cell phone is will be cellphone

27:52

sound quickly. yeah so they they

27:55

recover the cell phone they are

27:57

aware obviously of the video and

27:59

audio before the public is, they held onto

28:01

that information for a little bit. They were originally

28:03

trying to get the guy seen in the video

28:05

to come forward. They were taking the approach of

28:07

this guy. We believe he's a witness or may

28:10

have seen something out on the trails that day.

28:12

He's, he's just the guy that we want to

28:14

talk to. And then after about

28:16

a week, you know, they come out and say,

28:18

no, this is our suspect, we believe that this

28:20

is the person that's responsible for these two murders.

28:22

Now you ask what, what do they have

28:24

to work with? Well, we, we later learn

28:26

what they have to work with, but at

28:28

the time they weren't saying anything, it was

28:30

over six years after the murders that we

28:33

even learned how the girls were killed. So

28:35

they were trying to keep as much close to

28:37

the vest as they could, hoping that

28:40

when they did speak to the right

28:42

person, that they would start

28:44

going down roads with different information that

28:46

has not been released yet. And the

28:49

investigators would know we're talking to the

28:51

right guy. He knows too much about

28:53

this, this case or the crimes that

28:55

he has to be the guy. So

28:57

early on, they executed a search warrant

28:59

on one of the neighbors. The girls

29:01

were actually found on private property. They

29:03

were walked from the edge

29:05

of that bridge, the end of the

29:07

bridge over on the private property where

29:10

they were assaulted and killed, and they

29:12

executed a search warrant for the owner

29:14

of that property. His name was Ron

29:16

Logan. I do think

29:18

that some of the investigators behind the scenes

29:20

thought that he was probably responsible, but we

29:22

would later learn that, that no, he wasn't.

29:25

And this was a case too, that they

29:27

never really cleared anybody, right? They would look

29:30

at somebody, look at them pretty deep and

29:32

take a good look at them. And the

29:34

public would become aware of that,

29:36

but they never officially publicly cleared

29:38

anybody that they had looked at.

29:41

They weren't closing any doors in

29:43

this case. And it

29:45

was and remains the

29:47

biggest case in Indiana since

29:49

the crime occurred. And

29:51

so there were a lot of eyes on this case

29:53

and a lot of scrutiny. What happens

29:55

if we're skipping ahead between 2017? and

30:00

a half years later for them to then

30:02

be able to make an arrest. What was

30:04

the big change? Well, they

30:06

realized that somebody that they had spoke to

30:09

back in 2017 that at one time was

30:11

treated as

30:14

more of a witness probably should be looked

30:16

at as a suspect because look, you get 50,000

30:18

tips come in saying, this

30:20

is your guy. He looks just like the picture

30:23

of Bridge Guy that you guys released to the

30:25

public. The problem with 99% of

30:28

those people that the masses are

30:30

providing to law enforcement is that

30:32

they weren't there. They were not in the area

30:35

that day. One thing that we

30:37

know has to have taken

30:39

place is the killer had to have been

30:41

there on the trails that day.

30:43

He had to be in Delphi, Indiana on

30:46

that Monday afternoon. No ifs, ands, or buts

30:48

about it. So this

30:50

individual, a man named Richard

30:52

Allen, had spoke to a,

30:54

I keep calling him a

30:56

resource, a natural resource officer because that's what

30:59

we call him in my neck of the

31:01

woods, but I believe this

31:03

individual is referred to as a conservation

31:05

officer. So to be clear, because now

31:07

the investigators are taking, even after the

31:09

arrest, they're still taking a lot of

31:11

blame and criticism here because people are

31:13

going, well, you talked to the guy

31:15

five and a half years ago. What's

31:18

the problem? He was right there all

31:20

this time. Now, to be clear, it

31:22

does not sound like Richard Allen went

31:24

marching into the sheriff's department, said, let

31:26

me speak to your homicide detective. No,

31:28

it sounds to me like he might've been

31:31

out somewhere and spoke to this conservation officer

31:33

and said, look, I was out on the trails

31:35

that day. This is what I was doing. This

31:37

was the time I arrived. This is the time

31:40

I left. Who did you see while I was

31:42

out there? I saw a couple of girls, but

31:44

they weren't the victims. They were a couple of

31:46

the other girls. Oh, okay. And so a note

31:49

was made of this information. They

31:51

are reviewing all of their

31:53

information years later. In fact,

31:55

this was late summer of

31:57

last year. Somebody

32:00

goes, wait a second. Has anybody followed

32:02

up and talked to this guy that

32:04

says he was there that day and

32:07

they realize, no, nobody's talked to him

32:09

a second time. Nobody's called him into

32:11

the sheriff's department. Nobody's had proper investigators

32:14

talk to him. And when

32:16

they do that, that's when they go,

32:18

hold on. This guy

32:20

makes for a far better suspect

32:22

than he does potential witness

32:25

after we've talked to him. Tell

32:27

me about Richard Allen. What do we know about him?

32:29

He's a short guy that has

32:32

lived in Delphi for at least

32:35

six or seven years before the murders took

32:37

place. Worked at a CVS. So he's somebody

32:39

that would have been known to

32:41

other people there. He had

32:44

a concealed weapons license for

32:46

several years. According to him, he

32:48

took regular walks on those trails.

32:51

He lived about a five minute drive

32:53

from there. So not, not far at

32:55

all. And by his own admission,

32:58

he was there that day on the trails.

33:00

What we don't know, what we didn't know is

33:02

that they were looking for a gun. And

33:06

they were looking for whatever sharp

33:08

instrument killed the girls. And

33:11

in their interview, in their official interview

33:13

with Richard Allen and his wife late

33:15

last year and late summer of last

33:17

year, they learned that he,

33:20

yes, he owns firearms. Yes, he owns

33:22

knives. And the ones that he owned in

33:24

2017 are still in his house to this day. And

33:28

so they rushed out and got a search

33:31

warrant for his property and searched his home

33:33

that night after speaking with him and his

33:35

wife, because they were worried that all this

33:37

guy through our questioning of him in our

33:39

interviews, we might've tipped him off that he

33:41

is a suspect and now he may feel

33:43

the need to get rid of some of

33:46

that stuff that he has at his house.

33:48

Let's go and get it now before he

33:50

has the opportunity to. So what

33:52

had happened was they had found a

33:55

bullet. Now this was a

33:57

live round. This was not a shell casing.

33:59

This was. a bullet that

34:01

had been for a lack of better

34:03

term racked through a gun and When

34:06

that happens if it's a

34:09

live round and you're racking it again So

34:11

you can rack it to load it into

34:14

the chamber to be fired if

34:16

you hit the rack again It's going

34:18

to expel that bullet out this typically

34:20

out the side of the gun

34:22

and then it's going to load another bullet So

34:25

what happened for whatever reason either

34:27

he purposely racked it to

34:30

gain control of the girls at some

34:32

point or During

34:34

the course of a scuffle it

34:36

accidentally gets racked through the gun

34:38

or maybe he was unaware

34:40

that he had already loaded You know loaded the

34:42

gun and and decided to

34:44

rack it But they were not killed by

34:46

a gun But what they found at the

34:49

scene very close to one of the victims

34:51

bodies is this Bullet that

34:53

had been racked through a gun and

34:55

it had it had markings

34:57

on it It would tell us what

35:00

kind of gun what gun this bullet

35:02

came from so they're not doing Ballistics

35:04

like we're used to where where somebody

35:06

shoots somebody and there they have rifling

35:09

and right striations Exactly. So

35:11

in this situation, this is

35:13

a microscope comparison by an

35:15

expert and this person is

35:17

saying, okay this gun We confiscated from

35:19

Richard Allen's home We

35:22

racked the bullet through there and it has

35:24

the same markings as the bullet that we

35:26

found at the murder scene and

35:29

Richard Allen's own words are No,

35:32

I've never lent that gun to

35:35

anyone It's never been out of my

35:37

possession and no, I've never been on

35:39

that piece of land where the girls were found So

35:42

that statement to police has

35:44

set a very very high

35:46

hurdle for his defense team

35:48

to clear When this

35:50

thing gets to a trial, what

35:52

about DNA? Well, if

35:55

they have Richard Allen's DNA at the murder

35:57

scene, they've not told us that now they're

35:59

the court have been released and some

36:01

of them, not all have been released,

36:03

but some of them have. The court

36:05

documents do not suggest that that's what

36:07

they were seeking when building their case

36:09

against Richard Allen. Does that seem odd to

36:11

you? Well, yes, it's easy to

36:14

speculate that this is some type

36:16

of sexually motivated crimes. And

36:19

so one would believe that there was some

36:21

kind of sexual assault. You could have trace

36:23

DNA. There's all kinds of DNA

36:25

that we could have at the scene. Now

36:27

we do have law enforcement on record

36:30

saying, yes, we have DNA in this case. Yes, we

36:33

have fingerprints in this case. We just don't know if

36:35

they're the suspects. And

36:38

so keep in mind, it was a search party

36:40

that found them. And at some point you have

36:42

law enforcement, paramedics, you have all kinds of people

36:44

in and out of this

36:46

outdoor scene. An outdoor murder scene is

36:49

completely different from an indoor murder scene

36:51

where it's a controlled environment. So

36:54

that made the situation difficult

36:56

for law enforcement. And

36:58

look, do I think Richard Allen is some

37:00

kind of brilliant criminal? No, but I think

37:03

that he just got lucky and he didn't

37:05

leave his DNA there that

37:07

day. Because one thing that took

37:09

place is they finally solved the

37:11

April Tinsley case from the

37:13

80s. This was

37:15

the murder of a little girl and

37:17

they had DNA. They had suspect DNA

37:19

in that case. And what they did

37:21

was they went the genealogy route with

37:23

April Tinsley. And that didn't take place

37:25

until after Abby and Libby were killed

37:27

in Delphi, Indiana. So I was

37:29

of the belief that those two things were not completely

37:33

a coincidence, that

37:35

they went down that route to

37:37

solve what was probably

37:39

one of the most well-known and

37:41

worst crimes in Indiana state history,

37:44

the murder of April Tinsley. They

37:46

used genealogy DNA detection work to

37:48

solve that case. I don't

37:50

think it was a coincidence. I think they went down

37:52

that road and thought we might have

37:54

to go down that road here for the Delphi

37:56

case. Again, if they have Richard Allen's

37:58

DNA at the... that's something we'll

38:00

learn at trial, but it

38:03

doesn't appear that that's the case. Is

38:05

this confirmed as sexual assaults, both of

38:07

them or no? Not confirmed sexual assaults,

38:10

but the other thing too, these

38:12

guys that commit these types of

38:14

crimes, they can be of

38:16

a sexual nature or sexually motivated without

38:18

it being obvious to the rest of

38:20

us. So that

38:23

could play a big part in this case. The

38:25

other thing too to keep in mind, with

38:28

how dangerous this type of individual is,

38:30

I'm not saying that

38:32

he would have morphed into a serial killer

38:34

or went out and even did this again,

38:37

but it's difficult to believe that he would not

38:39

have. And the

38:41

fact of the matter at the end of the day is,

38:44

Libby filming him, can

38:46

you imagine what he experienced

38:49

when he's watching the news and realizes,

38:52

holy shit, they got my picture.

38:54

Holy shit, they got my voice.

38:57

That little girl saved lives that

38:59

day. If there ever was a one

39:01

to go out and do something like

39:03

this again, we could have had that

39:05

situation here. And I firmly believe that

39:07

any idea that this guy would have

39:09

thought about doing this a second time

39:11

was completely squashed by this brave little

39:13

girl and her actions that day. There

39:16

does seem to be a lot of

39:19

missing information that prosecutors and

39:21

investigators have held onto, and

39:24

I'm sure that does drive

39:26

people crazy. How as

39:28

a citizen sleuth are people

39:30

able to help legitimately

39:33

help investigators without

39:36

hindering an investigation? It seems to

39:38

me to be able

39:40

to provide actual, real, confirmed clues

39:42

and keeping it in the media,

39:45

but not this wild,

39:47

crazy speculating that is hurtful

39:50

and so unhelpful. Well,

39:53

and you had said knee-jerk reaction earlier,

39:55

and I think that's the thing to

39:57

hone in here. not

40:00

just react immediately, right?

40:02

If you got a

40:04

picture of somebody you think might be

40:06

responsible, do a little bit of the

40:09

work yourself. Can you put that individual

40:11

in Carroll County on that day? If

40:13

the picture of the guy you have,

40:15

he's born and raised in Hawaii and

40:17

has lived most of his adult life

40:20

in Hawaii, do a little work

40:22

to see if you can put that guy in

40:24

the state of Indiana. So as far as

40:26

Citizen Sleuthing goes, in this case, one thing

40:29

that they did, which was really good, and

40:31

I hope that this carries on to

40:33

other cases where there's a lot of tips

40:35

coming in, they kept reminding

40:37

the public that they prefer, they

40:40

strongly prefer that you email your

40:42

tip rather than call it in.

40:45

Because it creates a paper trail, it's

40:47

something that they can return to. And

40:49

guess what? When you call in a

40:51

tip, your tip is open to

40:54

interpretation from the person that takes the

40:56

tip and writes down the information and

40:58

catalogs the information. If you

41:00

yourself are typing that out on an

41:02

email, that's firsthand. That's coming from you

41:05

as a potential witness or you as

41:08

a person with some potential

41:10

insider knowledge. So that's documentation,

41:12

documented information that they can

41:14

return to, and it's not

41:16

open to interpretation from

41:19

phoning something in. So look, the

41:21

public certainly helped and did hurt

41:23

in this case, but you can't fault people

41:25

for at the end of the day wanting

41:27

to do something to help. I

41:30

don't retaliate too much when people

41:32

had bad information. It's more

41:34

of the stuff that was just completely sort

41:37

of out of bounds and people

41:39

saying things about the families are

41:41

weird or whatever. It's like, no,

41:44

there was nothing weird about any of these families. And

41:46

I said this a couple of times in the

41:48

book, in the end,

41:50

the way that these family members

41:52

conducted themselves with such strength, courage,

41:54

and grace in the face of,

41:57

one's character is best judged in a time of

41:59

tragedy. cannot think of any greater tragedy

42:01

than this. And to see

42:03

the way that these individuals handled themselves in

42:05

a weird way, they were teaching

42:07

us how to be strong through this, teaching

42:10

the rest of the community how to be

42:12

strong through this. So it's one of those

42:14

cases that, unfortunately, we sit here all these

42:16

years later, we don't have a whole lot

42:18

of the information, which makes

42:20

it all that more mysterious. But

42:23

I do hope now that since there

42:25

has been arrests, the public is still

42:27

crying out and screaming, we want more

42:29

information, we want more information. No,

42:32

let's stop that right now, because

42:34

what we will have, what we are going to

42:36

be faced with soon, is

42:38

trying to get adjudication in this

42:40

case, trying to get a conviction

42:42

in this case. And

42:45

I do not want to be setting the table

42:47

for a hung jury, a

42:49

mistrial, or lining

42:51

up a bunch of appeals for the

42:53

guilty party in this situation. They very

42:56

likely have the guy that's responsible, let's

42:58

let this thing work itself out the

43:00

appropriate way and the correct way

43:02

in the courts. If

43:15

you love historical true crime stories,

43:17

check out the audio versions of

43:19

my books, The Ghost Club, All

43:22

That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock.

43:24

This has been an Exactly Right

43:26

production. Our senior producer is Alexis

43:29

Amorosi. Our associate producer is Christina

43:31

Chamberlain. This episode was mixed by

43:33

John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our

43:36

composer, artwork by Nick Toga. Executive

43:38

produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgariff,

43:40

and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words

43:43

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and on Twitter at tenfoldmore. And if

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you know of a historical crime that

43:49

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43:53

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43:59

crime. authors for wicked words.

44:10

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right now by joining Wunder's class. Goodbye.

45:05

If you need a new addition

45:07

to your weekly true crime lineup,

45:09

there's a podcast you need to

45:11

know about called the Generation Y

45:13

Podcast, one of the longest-running true

45:15

crime podcasts out there. Generation Y

45:17

digs into some of the craziest

45:19

and most notable murders, crimes, and

45:21

even some conspiracy theories. Every week

45:23

hosts Aaron and Justin sit down

45:25

to discuss a new case or

45:28

crazy occurrence and they cover everything,

45:30

from mysterious disappearances and shady murders

45:32

to the mysteries of Skinwalker Ranch

45:34

and the outrageous Pizza Gate scandal.

45:36

Over at Generation Y, they cover every

45:38

angle and every theory, walking you through

45:40

the forensic evidence, and sometimes even interviewing

45:42

those close to the case. The Generation

45:44

Y Podcast is a classic true crime

45:47

podcast, and with over 450 episodes, there's

45:50

a case for every true crime listener. Follow

45:53

the Generation Y Podcast on the Wunder app

45:55

or wherever you get your podcasts, and you

45:57

can listen to the Generation Y Podcast ad-free.

46:00

on One Day plus.