WEBVTT - Wicked Words - Nic Edwards: The Delphi Murders 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:04.680 This story contains adult content and language, along with references 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:07.880 to sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.480 I wrote the book in the way of real time, 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.720 where it was me reacting to what was going on 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:24.120 in the investigation and the information as it was coming out, 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:27.320 me investigating the investigation to see what it is that 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:30.720 they actually knew what they didn't know in this case, 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:33.320 about who had done it, or even the crimes themselves. 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.279 I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.240 in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.640 true crime podcast Tenfold More Wicked and the co host 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:54.600 of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.639 around the world interviewing people for the show, and they 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.080 are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.760 crime stories, and now we want to tell you those 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.360 stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold War 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:11.399 Wicked Presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers make, 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.080 good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:20.039 behind the stories. By now most of you know the 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.480 story of the Delphi murders. Actually, this wasn't a case 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.360 I had kept up with so that's why this episode 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:30.040 is so interesting for me. My guest is Nick Edwards. 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.680 He's the host of the True Crime Garage podcast and 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:36.319 he's also an author. Nick wrote a book about the 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.800 murders of Libby and Abby in twenty seventeen, and it's 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.440 called The Delphi Murders The Quest to Find the Man 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.240 on the Bridge. Nick told me a lot of things 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:51.480 about the case that I didn't know, So I guess 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:53.480 let's start with the victims, because that's always the most 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:55.760 important thing to me. And I think probably the you too, 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:58.960 you called her Libby, is that we should go with Liberty. 0:01:58.960 --> 0:01:59.919 Should we go with Libby? 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:05.320 Yeah, Liberty German and Abigail Williams are two young girl victims, 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:10.760 just teenagers, very typical Middle America teenagers, best friends. I 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:14.400 cannot express that enough. They were so close that they 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:16.480 were the type that if you saw one without the 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.640 other and you knew them, your first question is where 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.560 is Libby or where is Abby? You just expect to 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.720 see them side by side all of the time. And yeah, 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:27.959 that's what they're best known as is Libby and Abbey. 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.720 Abbey and Libby. So the way that this story all 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.959 starts for those that don't know anything about this case. 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.720 You have two girls, young teenage girls, the best of friends. 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:42.280 They're dropped off early in the afternoon on an unseasonably 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.960 warm day in February. Okay, so they go to this 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:48.799 trail system, beautiful area. Best way to describe it would be, 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.720 this is like a park, you know, like a state park. 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.440 So there's a trail system. And on that trail system 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:59.280 there's this old abandoned railroad bridge called the moanin high Bridge. 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:01.080 You could show a picture of this bridge to one 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:03.040 hundred people and you're going to get a hundred different 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.239 thoughts on this bridge. Some may say, Oh, it's a creepy, old, 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.520 rickety old bridge. Others would say that looks like something 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.480 out of a Bob Ross painting. So they're getting dropped 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:16.760 off with the purpose of walking across this bridge. Now, 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.000 I have a bit of trouble with heights, so as 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.440 brave and tough as I think I am, i'd probably 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:24.919 make about five or six steps out onto that bridge 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.440 and turn right around and get back on a solid ground. 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.440 But this is an old abandoned railroad bridge, and it's 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.120 sort of a rite of passage in this area, right 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.440 like the teenagers, the young folks. They go out there 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:39.920 and it's kind of you go across it at some 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.600 point when you're a young teenager and it's something you 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.320 kind of brag about to your friends after you've done it. 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:48.000 It's a little dangerous, right, Well yeah, I mean, can 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:49.560 you fall off this bridge? 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.520 Yeah, they're not rails, so you could fall off the side. 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:56.600 I mean, this is just as teenager as it comes. Right. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.400 The two girls, Libby had already gone across some bridge 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.360 on at least one prior occasion, and so Abby was 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.280 going to walk across the bridge and Libby was going 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.440 to show her how. She was going to teach her friend. 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.160 Here's something I've done. Now it's your turn. I'm going 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.040 to experience this with you. I'll bring my cell phone 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.920 and we can take some pictures to capture the moment. 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:21.240 And unfortunately, there's evil out there on the trails that 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:24.000 day while the girls are out there, and so the 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:26.799 girls are supposed to be picked up sometime. It wasn't 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.320 hard and fast time on what time to be picked up. 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.120 It was going to be like three three thirty. So 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.880 Libby's father, Derek was going to be in the area. 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.120 He had finished up some work task earlier that day, 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.520 and the idea was Kelsey, the sister, would drop them 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:44.920 off at the trailhead. They could run around do whatever 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.760 they're going to do again. The purpose of the trip 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.240 was to go across the Moaning High Bridge, take a 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.840 couple of pictures, and then Derek would pick them up 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.120 sometime between three and three thirty when he happens to 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.279 be in the area. He gets there, he's texting his daughter. 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:01.160 He doesn't hear, there's no reply, and so at some 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:06.360 point there becomes concern, and you have Libby's extended family 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:09.080 out there searching high and low for the kids. On 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.200 the trails. They're going across the bridge, they're looking all 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.360 over for the two of them. Now, any parent will 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:19.159 tell you it is not terribly uncommon for teenagers to 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.200 be where they are not supposed to be, right, I'm 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:28.279 sure that that was probably their thoughts that afternoon. You 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:30.640 know what, I'm probably a little upset with these kids. 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:33.160 They were supposed to be here at three three thirty, 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.640 Sure enough, they're not here. These were good kids, so 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.599 maybe that was a leap that was a little difficult 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:44.039 for them to make. But you can see Mike Patty 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:48.840 and Abby's mother on the eleven o'clock news out there 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:53.520 in West Indiana, and neither of them looked like panicked. 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.480 You can tell they're concerned. It's dark now and it's 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.320 getting cold out. It's February. It was warm that day, 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.800 but it's going to be a cold night. You can 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.120 tell their concern, you can hear it in their words 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.320 and their voices and then see it on their faces. 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.240 But you can also tell they're not panicked yet. You know, again, 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.359 they're teenagers. They did have a fairly organized search for 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:15.719 the girls that evening and night, but at some point 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:17.920 they had to call off the search. This is rough terrain. 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.440 You just talked about people falling off of the moan 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:22.960 in high Bridge. That's certain of possibility. So at some 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:25.520 point they call off the search. The sheriff received a 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:27.039 lot of criticism. 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:28.920 For that, but they couldn't do cell phone no cell 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:31.599 phone activity. Could they even trace that at that point. 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.440 They had pinged her phone a couple of times, but 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:38.000 this is a very rural area, and what was happening, 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:42.440 from my understanding, is that the pings actually suggested that 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:46.839 she was in town and moving around. But from the 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.080 way it's been explained to me multiple times, is that 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.960 in that area at that time, if you were to 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.360 walk from one side of your house to the other 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.760 side of the house, your phone may ping off of 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.679 three different towers. It's just the lay of the land. 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:05.200 So that wasn't useful and actually bad right because maybe 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.719 they weren't panicked enough to look as you're suggesting, look 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:10.800 in the places where they were last seen. Instead, they 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:12.000 thought maybe they'd be in town. 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:16.080 Well. And one thing that hurt badly too is her 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.640 grandparents attempted to do the find my Phone feature. It 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.960 had not been loaded, so she had did a factory reset. 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.480 Liby had done a factory reset on her cell phone, 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.160 I think just a couple of weeks prior. And some 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:31.560 of those apps you have to reload them to get 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.760 them up and running, and she had never reloaded that app. 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.120 So the sheriff calls off the search for the night. 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.600 It's getting cold. They're hoping that they just sort of 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.920 decided to be rebellious for once and go to a 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.160 friend's house secretly, or go somewhere and they're warm and safe, 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:50.800 and they'll pop up in the morning and say sorry, 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:53.880 please forgive us we're grounded for a week, and that's it. 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.800 And that's not what happened, right, And I think you know, 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.000 some people had expressed that they thought maybe worst case scenario, 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.520 one of them had twisted or broken an ankle and 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.520 the other one wouldn't leave them. But the difficult thing 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:07.520 is you are out there searching, You are out there 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.440 yelling and calling their names. They would have been vocal 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:12.920 and had the ability to yell back. That didn't happen. 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.000 I mean, we got firefighters, We had a decent amount 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.080 of people out there that evening. About six am. The 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:22.840 following day, a very organized search effort is put together 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:27.320 by the Sheriff's department in firefighters, and it's about twelve 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.200 to twelve fifteen that day that they find the girls 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:32.160 having been murdered out in the woods. 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:36.119 Unfortunately, how far were they from the bridge. 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.360 They were about a little more than a quarter of 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.880 a mile from the end of the bridge. So from 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.440 my understanding, what you do is you walk across that bridge, 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:49.640 you have a very quick celebration, and then there's really 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.360 nothing but private property on the other side of that 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.760 moan in High Bridge. So the teenagers just turn around 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.320 and go back there's really not a whole lot to 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.320 do on that other side. That's where they were intercepted 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:07.160 by this evil individual who then corroused them and essentially 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.679 abducts them and moves them further into the woods, and 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.960 then they were killed a brief time after he encountered 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:15.040 them on the bridge. 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.400 You know, in a case like this, I talked to 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.120 Paul Holes, you know, he's my co host on Buried Bones. 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.880 I talked to Paul a lot about the citizen sleuth 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:27.400 and then sort of the anger focused at investigators. It 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.320 feels like, almost immediately in a case like this, you 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:32.760 don't know what you're doing, You're screwing everything up, you're 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.240 hiding information and all of this. And Paul just said 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.319 with the Golden State killer case, it was terrible. I mean, 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.640 he really had to stop communicating with some people, and 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.080 none of the information that he was given was particularly helpful. 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.520 Do you think that this was like an immediate knee 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:52.560 jerk response from people who were following this case early on, 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.000 because it seems like the first strike against investigators is 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:58.760 they didn't continue the search. So was it sort of 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.120 downhill in the eyes of a citizen sleuth at this point? 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.720 Well, yeah, And the thing is, I think in this situation, 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.880 it was a case that was so captivating that it 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.160 drew in a lot of people that didn't even have 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:15.120 any experience as a citizen sleuth. You know, they had 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:19.040 maybe never followed a case before, and so look, we 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.640 can point the finger and that's unfortunately that's going to happen, 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:25.040 so especially in this type of case. So what you 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.280 have here is and I say this, I've said it 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.120 a hundred times on true crime garage, and I'm sure 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:31.960 that I'll say it one hundred more. When you go 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.480 to a community, especially a smaller town like Delphi, Indiana, 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.840 and you kill a child, that's not a crime against 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.720 that kid, just that kid, or against their family, or 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.520 against where that kid went to school. That is a 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.680 crime against the entire community. That's how it is. And 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:52.520 this community banded together immediately. Now what ended up happening 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:55.080 is people want their pound of flesh when something like 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:59.600 this happens. That's just human nature. People want to very 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:04.920 quickly identify why and who is responsible, where's the bad guy, 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:09.079 and any speed bump or any slower route in defining 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:13.360 that individual. It upsets the masses. In this case, knee 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:18.440 jerk reaction. Yes, one hundred thousand percent. And the thing was, 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:20.160 that's part of the reason why I wrote the book, 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.840 was that there were so many things, so much absurd, 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:28.040 crazy stuff being said online and on social media that 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:32.400 I'm here tearing my hair out, going let's be reasonable people, 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.160 Let's come back down to earth and deal with this 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.640 thing that's called There's this wonderful thing called logic. Let's 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.680 try to apply it here in this case. And so 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:45.600 where you have people get ready to get out the 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.320 torches and pitchforks going, well, they called off the search. 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.280 Clearly shows they don't know what they're doing. That's common 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:55.360 anytime there's somebody that's missing, it gets dark, it gets cold, 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.240 they call off the search. That's just what happens. You 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:02.280 don't Yes, you were to save one or two, but 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:04.960 you're not going to risk one or two more in 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:08.080 the process. If people stayed out there that night and 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.080 still searched against you know, it's not like the sheriff 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.640 is saying go home or you will be arrested. No, 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.040 the sheriff is saying, we are done here for the night. 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:20.040 We will reconvene at daybreak tomorrow six am. They were 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.920 out there organized and ready to rock by six am. Yes, 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.000 so the people reacting the way they did. You know, 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.080 we end up getting two different composite sketches of the 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:35.280 of the suspect throughout the course of this investigation. People 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.079 were all up in arms about that. I've seen that 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.480 in multiple cases. It's not uncommon to have more than 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.560 one composite sketch, especially if an investigation last years. A 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.480 lot of the things that people were upset with are 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:49.840 things that we've seen in a bunch of other cases. 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.960 What was different here, though, was the finger pointing, the 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:57.400 calling out a specific person online or on social media 0:12:57.840 --> 0:12:59.800 that had nothing to do with the crime at all. 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.840 I mean again, one major reason why I wrote the 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.920 book was to separate not just fact from fiction, to 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:11.560 separate fact from all the complete craziness out there. People 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.560 openly saying that the mayor was the killer. People openly 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.800 saying that the Superintendent of Indiana State Police, Doug Carter, 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.800 who was the champion of justice in this case, that 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.680 he was the killer. People saying that tob Leslbie, the sheriff, 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.679 was the killer. People saying that Mike Patty, the grandfather 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:30.880 of one of the girls, was the killer. So it 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.439 was through that aggravating aspect of the case that just 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:36.560 kept nudging me and nudging me and nudging me to 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.160 keep covering it on true crime garage, speak for the 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.480 truth and put pen to paper, write the book The 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:43.320 Delphi murders. 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:46.000 Well, let's go back to the day that the two 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:49.080 girls were discovered. If we could just sort of summarize 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:52.600 the discovery, who discovered them, what that whole scene was like, 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.480 and then how do you get into an investigation after this? 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:57.640 So what's the scene like when they find them? 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.920 Well, they released very little information, and still to this day, 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.280 even after the arrests, have released very little information. And 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:07.680 some of those details don't help to lead us to 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.800 the suspect anyway, so they're not always necessary to discuss. 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:15.199 But on that day, yeah, the two girls were found 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:19.760 by one of the search parties, and this was around noon, 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:24.120 about twelve to fifteen that afternoon. They're discovered. Immediately based 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.720 off of the discovery, police know we're dealing with foul play. 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:31.240 They didn't go into details, but obvious signs all of 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:33.800 these years later. In fact, it wasn't until June of 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:36.480 twenty twenty three that we learned that they were killed 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:41.000 with a sharp instrument or sharp weapon. That's obviously going 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.640 to tell the investigators that we're talking about foul play immediately. 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:47.960 They did make the announcement at some point or the 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:52.000 statement months after they were found that they believed everything 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:56.200 was done and over with by five pm. And again 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.720 they're releasing so little information that That's what a lot 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.280 of them book is about is me. I've through true 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.080 crime garage and through my charity work that I've done, 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:08.400 I've reviewed and again I'm not law enforcement, I'm not 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:12.160 retired law enforcement, but I've reviewed hundreds of cases, and 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:14.600 there is some experience that comes with that, and so 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:17.760 I could look at their words and look at their 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.040 statements and deduce for myself what it is that they 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.080 knew about the killer, what it is that they knew 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:26.920 from the evidence that they're seeing about what went down 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.760 that day, and also how they were going to pursue 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.880 finding and identifying the killer. So that's what a lot 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.560 of the book is me going through their information through 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:43.280 their press conferences and reading between the lines and sharing 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:47.360 that with the reader and so on that day, what 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.520 we learned very quickly in this investigation, that is very 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:54.520 different from other murder investigations is that Libby God bless her, 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:58.160 she was so brave that she captured the killer's image 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:03.840 and voice on herself phone, and that is partly what 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.680 led to people being more upset about this case. They're going, 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.560 you got the killer's picture, you got the killer on video, 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.640 you got the killer talking recorded talking to the girls, 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.400 and we can't find this guy. Either there's a cover 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.040 up or you guys don't know what you're doing. And 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:21.480 here's the thing. At the end of the day, it 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.400 wasn't a great picture. It wasn't a great video. You 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.640 could use that video or that picture to go, Okay, 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.280 well this person and this guy and that guy, they 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.360 are not the guy. But it's it was not a 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:35.520 good enough picture that it's going that you could look 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.840 at another person to go, yep, that's our guy. No, 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:42.400 the video pretty much told us we're looking for a 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:44.360 very average looking white. 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.200 Male, yeah, in Indiana. 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.720 In Indiana exactly, and so we could we could hear 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.640 his voice. And Libby was so brave to capture all 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:57.160 of that information there that day, risking putting herself at 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.920 further harm because keep in mind, when he approaches them, 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:01.520 they don't know what they're in for. 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:05.400 Well, that's my question. Why is she recording? What is 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.960 on the recording? And at what stage does she feel 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.160 threatened and that's why she's recording him? 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:12.119 Or do we not know? 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:14.760 Why was she recording? And then she heard a voice 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.040 and swung around and just started recording this guy. 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:22.200 So that's very interesting. We can't say with any certainty 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.440 why she decided to record. I think a couple things 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.320 probably took place. Either one, they had seen him or 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:33.560 encountered him prior and then see him again later and 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.480 it kind of spooked them a little bit and thought, well, 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.320 here's this weird guy. Maybe I should just record him 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:41.640 for a bit. Let's keep in mind too, she had 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:45.240 just taken a photograph that was sent out on Snapchat 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.000 of Abby walking across the bridge, so she may have 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:53.199 had her phone in hand when she first notices him 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.919 on the bridge. So she sends that out on Snapchat. 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.359 And this is at like two thirteen pm. We know 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:05.440 everything's fine at two thirteen pm. After that this man 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.919 they see him walking across the bridge, and earlier I 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.480 had talked about the state of the bridge. I believe 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:16.120 played a factor in us having difficulty identifying him. Well, 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:20.040 that's because he's looking down as she's filming him while 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.080 he's on the bridge. But he's looking down to make 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.800 sure he doesn't lose his footing, make a wrong step, 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:26.920 and I mean he could fall off the bridge himself. 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:32.440 So I'm guessing here, because she filmed him for her phone, 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:36.840 is capturing forty three seconds of video and or audio. 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:40.920 We the public, we only get to hear or see 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:45.320 a very small clip of that video. So later we 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:49.000 hear guys down the hill that's the killer's voice. We 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.080 also see a very brief clip of him taking like 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:55.160 one and a half steps on the mon And High 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:59.119 Bridge and he's looking again. He's looking down, so she 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:01.960 could have they could have encountered him prior on the 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.320 trails and thought, oh this is weird, here's this guy again, 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.919 and maybe just filmed it for that purpose. We do 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:13.639 later learn that they're unaware of a major threat until 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.159 after she was already filming. What I think happened is 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:20.600 she probably already had her phone out because she had 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.600 just documented Abby going across the bridge, and it was 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:27.800 kind of an instinct and natural instinct to just hit 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:31.000 the button again and start filming this guy. Now, we 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.040 do know Libby was being raised by her grandparents, Mike 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:36.919 and Becky Patty, and what they have said to the 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:41.439 media is that their opinion is that for whatever reason, 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.919 this guy they probably just thought was weird for whatever reason, 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:47.639 and just was going to take a picture or film 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.040 him for a few seconds and then show it later 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:52.560 to Grandma and Grandpa, like, look at this weird guy 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.280 we saw at the park today, you know, just kind 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:59.080 of very innocent. But that forty three seconds, it was 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:04.119 never released in its entirety to the public, and on 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.160 a portion of that we can only speculate what else 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:11.280 is on that video. But at one point one of 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:16.359 the girls does say to the other gun, just like gun. 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:19.679 And so at some point he is showing them that 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:23.280 he's going to be taking control of them in the situation, 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.879 and they are aware of it, and one voices that 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.680 to the other one. Now again they were already recording 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.600 at this time. At some point I believe that she 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.760 concealed her phone either just kind of held it down 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:39.800 to her side or put it in a pocket, because 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:43.520 that's where I think the audio of the killer comes from, 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.320 because he's much closer when he says, guys down the hill. 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:49.760 It sounds like he's standing right next to them. She 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:52.639 must have rushed and put that phone away real quickly. 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.679 Whether she intended to have it keep running or not, 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.480 we can't say. But I've had people ask me, does 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:02.480 that video so? Did that video hurt or help the investigation? 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.200 And the best answer I can give is we need 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:08.359 to give credit where credit is due. This is something 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.040 very brave that this little girl did. Yeah, this was 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:14.640 a choice that she made, and she did this, and 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:17.760 it took five and a half years to make an arrest. 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.720 In this case, I'm a firm believer. If you ask 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:23.560 me if this video helped or hurt the investigation, it 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:25.359 took five and a half years with the video to 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:27.359 make an arrest. How many years do you think it 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:29.280 would have been without the video? 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:45.560 Why would it have hurt because it made it so 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:47.560 much more mysterious that you have all of these people 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:51.119 speculating and blowing it up even bigger, or well, what's 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:53.720 the reason why it would be negative in the case. 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:57.760 The negative is that the investigation gets inundated with tips. 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:02.000 And of course only you know or a very small 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:05.359