Found Deceased IN - Abigail (Abby) Williams, 13, & Liberty (Libby) German, 14, The Delphi Murders 13 Feb 2017 #122

[carbuff]

And that would only be during a hunting season and allowed by the land owner.

It's pretty common for hunters to visit areas where they intend to hunt so they're familiar with the lay of the land, check on their blinds, and scout the areas where deer go to feed or drink, etc. so they're ready to go when hunting season comes.

 

[IceIce9]

It's pretty common for hunters to visit areas where they intend to hunt so they're familiar with the lay of the land, check on their blinds, and scout the areas where deer go to feed or drink, etc. so they're ready to go when hunting season comes.

I used to own a 40+ acre piece of land in the country that was part wooded and the rest field.

Hunters would come and knock on my door in the off season to ask permission to hunt when deer season came around. They would explain they liked to check out land during the winter to look for deer tracks.

I would say that deer hunters are very familiar with the land they walk.

 

[MistyWaters]

And that would only be during a hunting season and allowed by the land owner.

Rabbit hunting is allowed on abandoned railway beds in February because this incident happened almost exactly two years later in Carroll County. But I don’t know if the old railway bed beyond the Monon High Bridge is designated as abandoned or if it was turned over to adjacent landowners.

Hunting accident injures Carroll County man | Carroll County Comet

 

[JnRyan]

Deer stand! First I’ve heard of this. A perfect place to hunker down and scout for Victims via binoculars!

Has LE looked at the deer stand for DNA traces I wonder?!?

amateur opinion and speculation

I can only remember about the tree stand from Anthony Greeno's crime reenactment. I don't recall hearing about it anywhere else.

 

[MistyWaters]

I can only remember about the tree stand from Anthony Greeno's crime reenactment. I don't recall hearing about it anywhere else.

I remember seeing the video where posters noticed the platform in a tree. It reminded me of dilapidated remnants a long ago playhouse but what do I know. However I don’t recall it was ever officially confirmed to be a deer stand by anyone local.

 

[Falling Down]

Yes it was made a couple of days after the murders. I think the reason they did not release that second sketch is because they tracked down that person and he had an alibi. There is no other reason why they did not release it. Therefore, they do know who it is but he has/had an alibi. MOO.

I'm following your logic, here.

My theory is they have a list of people and can't nail down exactly which person is BG.

JMO

 

[Falling Down]

Thanks. I was interested in the treeline running west from the cemetery. It is difficult to determine what the terrain is like, but it does appear that someone could have stayed just inside that treeline for a good ways before getting to their vehicle if it was parked at the Mears lot or the abandoned CPS building.

There's a trail on that private property just south of the treeline.

My theory for some time has been that BG followed that trail to get back on the main trail after the murders, as a means of concealment from the road. Not that C.R. is a busy road, I've driven it and it's desolate far as traffic is concerned. Also the houses across the road would have a perfect line-of-sight across the field, in February.

Around the field (it's a working farm they run/own), is what I would describe as a path around the perimeter for the people working it. I forget what the technical term would be. The path is three-sided, borders the cemetery to the east, the tree line to the south, and the tree line to the west where the main trail is located.

JMO

 

[Falling Down]

Looking at this video again, I'm revisiting the creek crossing. That is, were the girls directed across the creek or did they try to make a run for it and crossed the creek in a effort to get away. (What I don't know is how familiar they were with that area.) I'm now wondering that if they tried to run from the killer why wouldn't they have tried to get to a road and run to a house? Of course, with panic and fear involved it is difficult to try to apply reason to someone's actions. But now I'm leaning more toward the girls being directed across the creek by the killer.

My opinion on this is they were familiar with the main trail and maybe the Gerard Trail, and the bridge, but not much else. There wouldn't be any real reasons for them to know the private properties which surround the area in question, unless they's been on them because they knew the land owners and had been there previously.

Thinking over the abduction right now, he had to get them not only off the bridge, but down the hill/berm. Now they would be trapped in a way, you have a private drive, and a piece of land along the south side of the creek where you're kind of trapped. Now they're down into the gorge, more, the only ways out are few and up hill.

Go ahead and look around, you have nowhere to go, really, and someone is pointing a gun at you.

JMO

 

[Falling Down]

Can I ask. When they say 'popular with hunters.' Do they mean hunters are walking around the trails with families and children at the same time?
What are they hunting?
Would it be unusual to see people walking around with guns,Knives,kill kits in tandem with families/ youngsters enjoying the habitat?

I suppose this is where the US differs from the UK. We have country parks in idyllic settings. You may see the odd fisherman in amongst the families enjoying the park. But hunters? Definitely not. Someone walking about with a knife or a gun would send people into a blind panic!

Could the fact that hunting is a perfectly legitimate leisure activity in the states benefit the likes of people like BG as not many people raise suspicions when they see someone in possession of a weapon creeping around the area looking for things to kill?

During hunting season the property owners would be obligated to have to grant permission for hunting. Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR) here in Indiana is pretty strict about that. Off-season, the owners could hunt "varmints"/nuisance animals, especially farmers on their land.

I asked a DNR agent about this stuff 3 years ago, and what I posted above is what he told me, more or less.

JMO

 

[Falling Down]

Rabbit hunting is allowed on abandoned railway beds in February because this incident happened almost exactly two years later in Carroll County. But I don’t know if the old railway bed beyond the Monon High Bridge is designated as abandoned or if it was turned over to adjacent landowners.

Hunting accident injures Carroll County man | Carroll County Comet

This is an interesting observation.

I looked into the properties around the bridge after the murders, ownership of them, etc. Looks like CSX Transportation deeded lands back to folks after the line was abandoned, with the exception being the bridge, which I find odd but it might be just a corporate 'thing' or just wasn't a big deal for them here in Indiana. The bridge ownership transferred to the landmarks group mere days after the murders, something I wasn't aware of until now. I'd thought transfer came much later.

I'm surprised the bridge wasn't torn down years ago and sold off for scrap. Part of the Wildcat Creek viaduct/bridge south of the MHB was torn down after a bad flood took out one of the abutments and ruined the center section of the bridge, some years ago. It was built by the same company that built the MHB in the 1890's.

$260K renovation underway to turn Delphi's Monon High Bridge into pedestrian trail

I'm not sure about property transfers further afield from the area in question. My guess would be a mix of transfers from CSX to both municipal and private owners, during the 90's and maybe early 2000's.

The line ran from Indy, the other end was in Monticello, not far from Delphi. A section still serviced the quarry on the west side of Delphi until 2009, it was owned by Norfolk Southern (NS).

Some background on the line:

Monticello to Indianapolis, IN - Abandoned Rails

 

[ReadySet]

It has been posted about and discussed here. Try thread #83 page 5 for one place.

I can only remember about the tree stand from Anthony Greeno's crime reenactment. I don't recall hearing about it anywhere else.

 

[cujenn81]

Interesting. BTW, I did genomic testing in 23@me, Ancestry, and FTDNA, for me and my dad, in all three. And I ran all our genomes obtained with the help these companies through Promethease. I just wanted to see how well they counted "medical" snips. It seems to me that 23@me was the best for Promethease and eye color determination. But all genetic companies have been mistaken with my eye color, saying "brown".

My chance of having blue eyes is only 5%, but this is exactly what I got.

Do you have any brown-eyed ancestors? I wonder what makes blue color "intense".

I’m not really sure what determines the intensity of blue. Here’s a quick breakdown of eye color in my immediate family:
Me - blue
Brother - brown
Mom - blue
Dad - hazel
Paternal Grandfather - blue
Maternal Grandmother - brown
Maternal Grandfather - blue
Maternal Grandmother - blue

I just found this interesting article about how eye color is determined:
Your Blue Eyes Aren’t Really Blue

Blue eyes get their color the same way water and the sky get their blue color. They scatter light so that more blue light reflects back out.

The iris is made up of two layers. For almost everyone — even people with blue eyes — the back layer (called the pigment epithelium) has brown pigment in it.

The front layer of the iris is made up of overlapping fibers and cells. For people with brown eyes, some of the cells also have brown pigment in them. If there is no pigment at all in this front layer, the fibers scatter and absorb some of the longer wavelengths of light that come in. More blue light gets back out and the eyes appear to be blue.

For people with green or hazel eyes, one or both of the layers of the iris also has some light brown pigment in it. The light brown pigment interacts with the blue light and the eye can look green or speckled.

Since blue eyes get their color from the light that’s coming in and being reflected back out, they really can appear as different colors depending on the lighting conditions. Green and hazel eyes are a mixture of pigment color and color from scattered light, so they can also look different in different lighting conditions.

 

[California Sunset]

I got the link to this from Thread # 18, post # 117
From Inside Edition: A source familiar with the investigation described the full recording as "the stuff of nightmares."
BBM
Police Release Sketch of Suspect, 5 Months After Murder of Indiana Teens

Well, if we're to understand correctly that what we hear are the sounds of murders being committed, it is 'the stuff of nightmares.' It has to be terrible, you know what's happening and there isn't a darn thing you can do to stop it. It's one of the worst things to which someone can listen, isn't it? The sound of someone being killed, and this is even worse because it's children.

 

[Michigan]

This version is from 2/14/17 and it can be paused, etc.

This may be slightly ridiculous to ask...but any chance the vehicle parked at the old cps building is visible in this video? I am not familiar enough with where that is located. I believe LE said they were looking for a vehicle parked from 1-5 on the 14th (but perhaps that was a mistake?)

 

[MistyWaters]

This is an interesting observation.

I looked into the properties around the bridge after the murders, ownership of them, etc. Looks like CSX Transportation deeded lands back to folks after the line was abandoned, with the exception being the bridge, which I find odd but it might be just a corporate 'thing' or just wasn't a big deal for them here in Indiana. The bridge ownership transferred to the landmarks group mere days after the murders, something I wasn't aware of until now. I'd thought transfer came much later.

I'm surprised the bridge wasn't torn down years ago and sold off for scrap. Part of the Wildcat Creek viaduct/bridge south of the MHB was torn down after a bad flood took out one of the abutments and ruined the center section of the bridge, some years ago. It was built by the same company that built the MHB in the 1890's.

$260K renovation underway to turn Delphi's Monon High Bridge into pedestrian trail

I'm not sure about property transfers further afield from the area in question. My guess would be a mix of transfers from CSX to both municipal and private owners, during the 90's and maybe early 2000's.

The line ran from Indy, the other end was in Monticello, not far from Delphi. A section still serviced the quarry on the west side of Delphi until 2009, it was owned by Norfolk Southern (NS).

Some background on the line:

Monticello to Indianapolis, IN - Abandoned Rails

Thank you, that’s very informative.

I don’t know how I happened to find this link from 2015, I must’ve been looking for something else. But you’re right, the ownership High Bridge hasn’t been turned over yet and in fact the High Bridge segment of the trail system was only being completed around the time the 2015 article was published.

Work continues on Monon High Bridge Trail | Carroll County Comet
“The main trail, also known by its shorter names of Monon Trail or High Bridge Trail, is not finished. The original portion of the trail was started by the Wabash and Erie Canal Association more than ten years ago as part of the Delphi Historic Trails system. The trail is currently undergoing extensions and more development. The nonprofit organization, Heartland Heritage Inc. (HHI), recently extended the trail on the west end with old rail bed land donated by adjacent landowners.....

.......Volunteers continue to play an important role on the trail. In April the Oracle football team and Delphi FFA chapter members cleared brush and trees on the newly acquired west end. Not to be outdone, last week graduating seniors from Carroll Jr-Sr. High School cleaned and groomed the trail east of Freedom Bridge.....”

ETA - Something thats always impressed me greatly about Delphi is the volunteerism of locals. Where I live we’d expect the municipality to handle improvements ensuring we don’t get our hands dirty while offering “constructive” criticism. The same as the ballpark being built to honour the memory of Abby and Libby, a community effort to my understanding.

 

[PaulaDC]

I wish LE had omitted the “definitely not blue” eyes statement altogether. (Or I guess I should say that I’d only be okay with it if the info came from DNA analysis. But that’s not what they said... they said this information was relayed to them by a witness.) My eyes are blue — but they are a very dark blue. Think more along the lines of a denim blue. Like most people, they appear lighter or darker depending on the day, my mood, or the clothes that I’m wearing. Therefore, there are times when I think it’d be easy to mistake my blue eyes for “definitely not blue” unless you were right up in my face.

ETA: I also just wanted to add that I’ve done the Ancestry DNA thing. The analysis concluded that I likely have light colored eyes... but it didn’t specify that they were blue. (PS. I have no idea if they can determine the exact eye color of a person by analyzing their genome sequence or not. I just wanted to share the information they gave me.)

Mine told me mine were green.
They're actually so blue I get regular comments. I sent a message to them telling them their analysis was wrong and they actually changed it in my info.

 

[PaulaDC]

You’re welcome. The owners of the house closest to the end of the bridge have been mentioned here previously as absent snowbirds at the time although I don’t recall the source so I don’t know it to be true. What surprised me was how close the road, which becomes their private driveway, is to that end of the bridge.

I swear the web gets really tangled as everyone in Delphi is somehow related! moo

 

[MistyWaters]

I swear the web gets really tangled as everyone in Delphi is somehow related! moo

Yes that wouldn’t wouldn’t surprise me if it were so. Smaller communities and outlying areas, many of the families 3rd or 4th generation or more. Eventually most everyone is connected somehow either through blood or marriage.

I lived in a place like that for years with it unknowingly surrounding me as I wasn’t a part of it. It wasn’t until years later after I moved away that I began noticing the interconnection through names of next of kin mentioned in various obituaries. The entire town was almost just one big family and here I thought they were merely friends and acquaintances to one another.

 

[Falling Down]

Thank you, that’s very informative.

I don’t know how I happened to find this link from 2015, I must’ve been looking for something else. But you’re right, the ownership High Bridge hasn’t been turned over yet and in fact the High Bridge segment of the trail system was only being completed around the time the 2015 article was published.

Work continues on Monon High Bridge Trail | Carroll County Comet
“The main trail, also known by its shorter names of Monon Trail or High Bridge Trail, is not finished. The original portion of the trail was started by the Wabash and Erie Canal Association more than ten years ago as part of the Delphi Historic Trails system. The trail is currently undergoing extensions and more development. The nonprofit organization, Heartland Heritage Inc. (HHI), recently extended the trail on the west end with old rail bed land donated by adjacent landowners.....

.......Volunteers continue to play an important role on the trail. In April the Oracle football team and Delphi FFA chapter members cleared brush and trees on the newly acquired west end. Not to be outdone, last week graduating seniors from Carroll Jr-Sr. High School cleaned and groomed the trail east of Freedom Bridge.....”

ETA - Something thats always impressed me greatly about Delphi is the volunteerism of locals. Where I live we’d expect the municipality to handle improvements ensuring we don’t get our hands dirty while offering “constructive” criticism. The same as the ballpark being built to honour the memory of Abby and Libby, a community effort to my understanding.

I try to keep in mind that the Hoosier Heartland Highway right in that area opened in 2014. Before that, the original right-of-way for the railroad where the highway is now was a fairly tall berm, which was excavated out when the grades for the highway were done. I've seen pictures of what the "trail" (old RR right-of-way) looked like in 2006 and 2012, work had been done between those years. It was terribly overgrown though there, though, for many years.

So the nice improvements must have been done ten years ago, give or take, and into the timeframe the highway was opened in 2014. That's when the Freedom Bridge was brought in to span the new highway.

15-20 years ago, what is now the main trail would have been a mess.

JMO

 

[pearl]

Thank you, that’s very informative.

I don’t know how I happened to find this link from 2015, I must’ve been looking for something else. But you’re right, the ownership High Bridge hasn’t been turned over yet and in fact the High Bridge segment of the trail system was only being completed around the time the 2015 article was published.

Work continues on Monon High Bridge Trail | Carroll County Comet
“The main trail, also known by its shorter names of Monon Trail or High Bridge Trail, is not finished. The original portion of the trail was started by the Wabash and Erie Canal Association more than ten years ago as part of the Delphi Historic Trails system. The trail is currently undergoing extensions and more development. The nonprofit organization, Heartland Heritage Inc. (HHI), recently extended the trail on the west end with old rail bed land donated by adjacent landowners.....

.......Volunteers continue to play an important role on the trail. In April the Oracle football team and Delphi FFA chapter members cleared brush and trees on the newly acquired west end. Not to be outdone, last week graduating seniors from Carroll Jr-Sr. High School cleaned and groomed the trail east of Freedom Bridge.....”

ETA - Something thats always impressed me greatly about Delphi is the volunteerism of locals. Where I live we’d expect the municipality to handle improvements ensuring we don’t get our hands dirty while offering “constructive” criticism. The same as the ballpark being built to honour the memory of Abby and Libby, a community effort to my understanding.

Could it be that the high bridge spans a waterway which is not owned by any person? My desktop probably died this afternoon with 20 years worth of my pictures and info on it or I would use it to research that question. I am limited as to what I can accomplish on a phone.