Found Deceased IN - Abigail (Abby) Williams, 13, and Liberty (Libby) German, 14/The Delphi Murders 13 Feb 2017 #85

[sleuther0192837465]

All he would have to do is take the battery out or destroy some how. I have often wondered why the cell phone was left as well.

Yes, that’s true. He very well could have tried to destroy it, but maybe because he was in such a hurry & given the situation, didn’t think about it? I would think he’d have had an adrenaline rush MOO

 

[MollyDDD]

For those now coming back into the thread, the first page has links to some very good interviews with Libby and Abby's grandparents and parents. They have a lot of good information, verifying new facts and dispelling some myths. Though they're long interviews, they're well worth a listen.

Libby's grandparents, especially, are very helpful in sharing a lot of information about the timeline of that day, what the girls were doing, the search, calling LE and some information about what LE discovered and other witnesses saw. I know I'm glad I took the time to listen as it really helped me catch up on details that have been revealed or clarified since those early first months after their murders.

Found Deceased - IN - Abigail (Abby) Williams, 13, and Liberty (Libby) German, 14/The Delphi Murders 13 Feb 2017 #85

Hope this helps clear up some of the confusion and answers some of the questions people are still asking.

Thanks so much Betty!

 

[Jax49]

Why does everyone think he left Libby's cell phone? Did he not see it or know about it, or didn't care or think there was anything incriminating?

Given how young they looked (IMO), he might have not thought they would have cell phones so he didn't see, notice, or check.

Or maybe he knew a cell phone could be pinged or tracked so he did not want to risk removing it from the scene?

Another thought I've had, maybe it was lost in a struggle and he couldn't find it. Hidden under leaves possibly. moo

 

[mpnola]

Another thought I've had, maybe it was lost in a struggle and he couldn't find it. Hidden under leaves possibly. moo

I always wondered if she intentionally dropped it, so he didn't find it, but she left it running or whatever. She did lots to give clues, I can see her making sure he didn't destroy it

 

[Confusion]

My guess is that she put it in her pocket before he got close enough to see it, and that's why she had so little video of him. I know that shooting video and taking pictures can run down your battery faster, and it may have gone dead before the calls that were said to have gone straight to voice mail. Either that or during a struggle it may have fallen from her pocket or she may have fallen on it and either broke it or accidentally shut it off. Then again, he seems to have been in and out fast enough that he may not have even thought about things like that. I really doubt he had any clue at the time that she had gotten both video and audio of him. MOO

 

[cailleach]

I have family and friends in the area of Delphi and have known about the case since the girls were first reported missing. I wasn't on WS at that time but was a reader and followed the case fairly closely. This case still breaks my heart and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I was hopeful on one potential suspect that made national news as a possibility and then it led nowhere. I sincerely hope the murderer is caught soon. I tend to think his brazenness (broad daylight in an area where others could be fishing/game hunting/walking/hiking) in an indicator this wasn't his first.

 

[Falling Down]

I remember discussions about this back in the early days. People noted he probably didn't realize that removing the battery would make it impossible to track. Had he known that, he could have taken the phone and destroyed or disposed of it elsewhere. JMO, he was spooked about someone coming along and wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. He knew there were cars coming along, people still out walking on the trail, people who lived nearby moving around. He was in a big hurry.

It's a challenge to get a battery out of an iPhone, just wanted to share that. Takes tools and some working knowledge of where the battery is located.

My hunch is the phone was dropped at some point, JMO.

LE has said there is around 30 minutes of combined video and audio they have from the phone, from the period the crimes happened. I don't have a link handy, but remember that from a Spring of 2017 interview.

I'm curious about the person who saw him leaving the area. LE won't give any details, but Libby's grandmother confirmed it in one of the interviews. They won't say where he went, where his car was parked, etc. They also don't talk about another car (besides the cars witnesses were driving) they said was parked at the trailhead. I'm guessing his clothes were wet and he was leaving via a route not near the trail. The witness who saw him leaving probably noticed and remembered, IMO, for those reasons.

I'm not sure about eyewitnesses who may have seen someone leaving the area, however a few folks saw vehicles parked in the general area late in the morning and early afternoon that day.

JMO, he had a vehicle and spent time trolling around areas where kids hung out. Libby's g'ma said the trails are very popular with the local kids because there's not a lot to do around their small town. No movie theater, no shopping mall, etc. So the walking trails were a popular place for everyone, but especially young folks, to hang out. This guy probably trolled all the small towns in that region, looking for the places where kids were likely to be hanging out without their parents.

That's a very interesting theory, thanks for sharing.

My guess is, yes, he scouted out the bridge area at some point previous to Feb. 13th, 2017, JMO.

The tight timeframe/timeline has freaked me out since early on, so many variables had to work in the perp's favor. There were adults and juveniles around the bridge in the hours previous, but between approximately 2PM and 3PM it appears that A&L, and BG, were the only people right near to the bridge.

 

[ellieuma]

At first glance, I thought he was a man walking with both hands in his pockets, with his right hand specifically in his right side jeans pocket.

But after looking again, IMO, his hand appears to be between his navy coat and the brown hoodie layer. Which would make sense if he was trying to conceal something (like a weapon). Jmo

UNKNOWN SUSPECT

Those were my initial thoughts too. When I used my photo editor to magnify the image yesterday, I kept thinking that he looks like he is possibly holding a hammer in his right hand.

I also played with the shadows & highlights in the photo & I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s thinner than he initially appears,judging by the shape of the bend of his leg in those jeans.

The image in my head of that man quickly walking toward them is horrifying...that she had the wherewithal to record his voice & take a photo of him...that was so smart. She sensed the danger. It makes my heart pound thinking of what they felt in those moments.
I hope that theie family can get some justice.

 

[Charlot123]

The thing with the GSK case is that they already did the GEDMatch (CA LE had DNA from rape kits, etc) prior to taking the sample from surveiling DeAngelo. They took these samples be 100% certain DeAngelo was their guy.
IN LE may be working on a GEDMatch with the DNA they have from Abby & Libby’s crime scene. It could take awhile before they have a match through that, but once they do, they can try to locate this person, surveil him & get fresh samples to compare.
MOO

It takes a while to translate DNA into the format that GEDmatch uses, at least it took a lot of time for the first case.

 

[Charlot123]

A couple new articles came out today about the website GEDmatch and the methods used to track down GSK and solve other cold cases:
How an Unlikely Family History Website Transformed Cold Case Investigations
How Genetic Sleuthing Helped a Kidnapped Girl Recover Her Identity

Both very long articles but well worth the read. I think few police departments are fully aware of these methods or how they could be used to solve cases. JMO. If they have good quality DNA for Abby and Libby's murderer, I hope they will at least give GEDmatch a try.

We do have several issues here. First, the tests themselves. If it were in MA or CA, I would expect lots of people in the database. Rural Indiana, not so many.

Second, lots of people do ethnicity tests and , having gotten their 90% English and Irish + some noise, never proceed to Gedmatch. You download your DNA into Gedmatch if you are working on a tree.

Third, besides usual problems with 23@me V5 chip that is not compatible with GEDMATCH, 23@me does not allow direct uploading to Gedmatch or Geni.

There are more issues, but just for a start.

 

[ellieuma]

My guess is that she put it in her pocket before he got close enough to see it, and that's why she had so little video of him. I know that shooting video and taking pictures can run down your battery faster, and it may have gone dead before the calls that were said to have gone straight to voice mail. Either that or during a struggle it may have fallen from her pocket or she may have fallen on it and either broke it or accidentally shut it off. Then again, he seems to have been in and out fast enough that he may not have even thought about things like that. I really doubt he had any clue at the time that she had gotten both video and audio of him. MOO

It appears to have been cold outside judging by the man’s layers. If his clothes were wet when he was spotted leaving, then it might be that he was freezing & didn’t search for the phone because he needed to change clothes before hypothermia became an issue.

Most people that live in colder climates know that “cotton kills”—because cotton clothes (note his denim jeans) take too much time to dry, risking hypothermia in cold weather. If he lived there a long time, wouldn’t he know that? Even if he hadn’t gone in the Creek, just his sweating alone could have made the cotton problematic. If the guy was an avid walker of trails, and/or had lived a long time in a northern climate,wouldn’t he be in quick drying/wicking clothes for a winter walk?
Anyone else want to weigh in on whether they think it’s strange to take a winter walk in jeans in Indiana?
I know in Louisville KY and in north KS, the days around Valentines are usually really cold.

 

[Falling Down]

Gray interviewed Mike and Becky Patty a while ago, ots of good info here which might clarify some things.

 

[Charlot123]

I am wondering what in this man prompted Libby to take his photo and start recording. I remember myself being young and nearly running into a garden-variety pervert on a bridge. What gave me the "danger" signal was not his face (he was far away) but the behavior (he hid behind a brick support).

What I want to say, if someone is far away from you, and you get this "danger" vibe, it is usually the person's behavior, and not the look. I wonder if the BG first approached the girls and walked by them, and then they saw him returning, for example. I don't have the feeling he was targeting them specifically, probably was on the prowl, looking for some random victim.

 

[gregjrichards]

It appears to have been cold outside judging by the man’s layers. If his clothes were wet when he was spotted leaving, then it might be that he was freezing & didn’t search for the phone because he needed to change clothes before hypothermia became an issue.

Most people that live in colder climates know that “cotton kills”—because cotton clothes (note his denim jeans) take too much time to dry, risking hypothermia in cold weather. If he lived there a long time, wouldn’t he know that? Even if he hadn’t gone in the Creek, just his sweating alone could have made the cotton problematic. If the guy was an avid walker of trails, and/or had lived a long time in a northern climate,wouldn’t he be in quick drying/wicking clothes for a winter walk?
Anyone else want to weigh in on whether they think it’s strange to take a winter walk in jeans in Indiana?
I know in Louisville KY and in north KS, the days around Valentines are usually really cold.

Looking at the weather history it was approximately 11 degrees Celsius when the attack happened so it wasn’t bitterly cold at the time. In Abigail’s last Snapchat photo you can see she isn’t wearing winter layers of clothing because it was warmer than usual that tragic day.

 

[sleuther0192837465]

It takes a while to translate DNA into the format that GEDmatch uses, at least it took a lot of time for the first case.

Yes it does. Hopefully, once they get the process down, they can find a way to make it more efficient.

 

[Jax49]

LE has said there is around 30 minutes of combined video and audio they have from the phone, from the period the crimes happened. I don't have a link handy, but remember that from a Spring of 2017 interview.

sff

Does anyone have a link? I remember rumors that there was 30 minutes recorded but never saw it confirmed. TIA

 

[Ozoner]

My guess is that she put it in her pocket before he got close enough to see it, and that's why she had so little video of him. I know that shooting video and taking pictures can run down your battery faster, and it may have gone dead before the calls that were said to have gone straight to voice mail. Either that or during a struggle it may have fallen from her pocket or she may have fallen on it and either broke it or accidentally shut it off. Then again, he seems to have been in and out fast enough that he may not have even thought about things like that. I really doubt he had any clue at the time that she had gotten both video and audio of him. MOO

I believe that BG is a serial killer. Seeing his picture and hearing his voice on TV may have driven him into retirement, though.

 

[MntnHiker]

I, too, have wondered what initially made her start filming him--obviously something was alarming about this man before he got to them. I feel like, and this is JMO, that he perhaps encountered them earlier on the trail when they first arrived and before they got to the bridge. Possibly he passed them with him heading away from the bridge and even said something to them, something the girls found creepy but initially wrote off because he was headed away from them.

It would make sense then that it would be alarming to see this creepy guy headed back towards you when he had already come from this direction and probably moving fast. Now they did stop at least for a bit to take photos on the bridge, but still, he probably was walking with purpose at least to make up that distance he lost between him and them. I know, even as an adult, if I passed someone that I had a weird interaction with and then that same person had doubled back and come up behind me, I would definitely be very unnerved by it.

Those poor, sweet girls. It makes me so sick to my stomach to think of their final moments.

 

[Madison418]

I will have to see if I can find out more but my father works for the sheriff's office in a county of the same name, different state, and has received a few calls/emails related to this case. I still can't believe with all that we have on this case it still hasn't been solved!

 

[Gardener1850]

We do have several issues here. First, the tests themselves. If it were in MA or CA, I would expect lots of people in the database. Rural Indiana, not so many.

Second, lots of people do ethnicity tests and , having gotten their 90% English and Irish + some noise, never proceed to Gedmatch. You download your DNA into Gedmatch if you are working on a tree.

Third, besides usual problems with 23@me V5 chip that is not compatible with GEDMATCH, 23@me does not allow direct uploading to Gedmatch or Geni.

There are more issues, but just for a start.

Hi Charlot123,

I don't know anything about the user issues with uploading the 23&me chip but rural Indiana should not matter when looking for a 2nd cousin or closer match. Most people have hundreds of second cousins that they don't even know and it is rare that those cousins all live in the same geographical area. Groups like Parabon and DNA Doe Project have developed their own tests so that they can upload the raw data to GedMatch. They would not be using 23&Me for the perp's DNA. The article linked above said that GedMatch has an average of 1800 new profiles uploaded a day. After LE announced the capture of the GSK the site saw a record surge of 5000 new uploads in one day. And what was really compelling to me was this:
"Within three years, the DNA of nearly every American of Northern European descent — the primary users of the site — will be identifiable through cousins in GEDmatch’s database, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Science."
How an Unlikely Family History Website Transformed Cold Case Investigations

So, BridgeGuy's second cousins and other close relatives might not be on GedMatch YET. But if LE has good quality DNA, he has nowhere to hide. His familial DNA will reveal him sooner or later. But this is all speculative, of course, because we don't know how much DNA they have nor the quality of the sample. Nor if they have even tried to use a genealogical DNA approach.
MOO.