Down the Hill: Delphi
Episode 2 – The Day Delphi Changed
Individuals interviewed in this episode:
Doug Carter – Indiana State Police Superintendent
Mike & Becky Patty – Libby’s grandparents and legal guardians
Tobe Leazenby – Carroll County Sheriff
Kim Riley – Indiana Police Sargent
Anna Williams – Abby’s mother
Carrie Timmons – Libby’s mother
Darryl Sterrett – Delphi Fire Chief
DTH: What did you see when you got out here that day?
Superintendent Doug Carter:
Well, there was a lot happening at that time. There was, uh, still a huge, huge response in the local community—which, by the way, is just an extraordinary place. Umm, there was a flurry of law enforcement activity from agencies all over, as people would expect. And, uh, as we’ve come to expect internally.
[Long pause] And, I could just see the complexity on people’s faces and in their comments. And, the way they looked. And, the way they acted. And, the way they walked. And, [clears throat] because it-it-it rocked this community.
And, remember, it was on the heels of the Flora fire that killed those four little girls in Flora. In the same county, in the same rural county. And, uh, the middle of America, ya know? So—
DTH: It’s a lot of tragedy.
Superintendent Doug Carter:
A lot of tragedy, a lot of sadness, a lot of hurt, pain, and sorrow. Um, and I knew we were going to have a heavy burden. I just knew we were going to have a heavy burden.
Um, part of that was because of what the expectations would be—coordinating an event, an investigation this—that’s this complex. Um, I had a lot spinning around in my mind. Personally, in my mind. But, as I looked around and I saw what was happening, I knew we were up for the task.
PART ONE: WE DIDN’T WIN THIS ONE
Mike Patty:
They may have found the girls, ya know, out near the High Bridge. So, I immediately got—went and jumped in my truck and drove straight out there. That’s when I come up on Becky, and most of my family was already there. And, uh, it wasn’t good. It wasn’t good.
Um, we all knew… at that point that they’d been found. But, ya know, because of—we had some friends that were actually in a search party that found ‘em, and uh, I talked to him a little bit. And, uh, they’d been found.
It’s almost like disbelief, you know. You don’t want to believe this. I remember getting Becky and saying okay it’s no good for us here. I remember leaving, and stopping and seeing some friends of mine, who were in search parties, just lined up along the road.
And then, when I talked to the buddy of mine who was in the search party that found ‘em—you know, um, something horrible had happened. I knew that. Let’s put it that way.
DTH:
When you heard they were found, how did your mind process that? What did you think must’ve happened?
Sheriff Tobe Leazenby:
Well, being—yeah, you’re right—being that close to a-a stream that can be unpredictable something, uhh, you know, and not having those initial answers. You know, we’re thinking okay, did they drown? Where specifically were they found? You know, all those types of questions that hadn’t been answered at that point.
Ya know, and of course, being in law enforcement we had to—at least in our minds—have that thought run through our minds. Like okay, you know, were they—was there criminal activity afoot here? So, yeah, there was just a large amount of various unanswered questions at that stage.
DTH:
And when did you find out that this looks like foul play?
Sheriff Tobe Leazenby:
It wasn’t long after that initial call, actually. Um, I’m gonna say within—as I recall—within the hour of getting the initial one. And, um, just put a whole different twist on the whole scenario for us at that stage.
DTH:
And, what does that do to these men gathered at the firehouse? You said that with that first call, it could—you could hear a pin drop. As it becomes known that this was looking like a crime, is it still quiet?
Sheriff Tobe Leazenby:
As I recall, yes. I think that—again that first hour, to allow it to—to allow it to set in. I think that first hour, yes. There was—for me it was disbelief—but, eventually, not long after that our instincts and our training kicked in, and we went into, uh, investigative mode.
And, I know if I were to put out that call. Or Doug Carter—or even the FBI—were to put out that call, okay we need this, this, and this. You know, um, someone’s gonna respond to us because that’s the way our profession works.
Superintendent Doug Carter:
And, I received a call that the two girls had been found. I didn’t know who they were exactly at the time. Umm, I immediately left. I immediately left downtown Indianapolis and drove to Delphi—to the crime scene.
And, we had a significant response there. We had aviation assets on their way. Uh, everything, every kind of specialty that the ISP has to offer to the local community. So, we responded, uh, with all we had.
Sgt. Kim Riley:
On the way up, I was making calls to some of our investigators trying to find out what they knew, and basically—most of ‘em—hadn’t even gotten to the scene either.
When you realize that the state police post is about 30 minutes away from that location, I realized that most of them were probably running with lights and siren to get up there as soon as possible. ‘Cause it was an emergency situation. It was—here we’ve got two girls that’ve been murdered. We didn’t know how. We didn’t know why. We didn’t have any answers at that point and time.
Anna Williams:
They believe that they have found the girls, and they’re not with us. And, um [laugh], I remember after that, um, I was so upset because the last three years that she had been at church camp, she’d kept asking to get baptized. And, I said no I want you to do it when we’re all together as a family. And, that was the first thing I said—I said “never got it done!” He’s [her pastor] like, “Anna, your daughter gave her heart to the Lord and she’s with him today. And, you know that.”
And, from that moment on, head to toe, it went whoosh! And, I just knew no matter that my girl’s okay, and I’ve stayed with that. That this is temporary.
Carrie Timmons:
And my brother called me, and he said “Carrie, I’m seeing some really disturbing things on Facebook.” So, my brother says you need to call Becky, and I refused. It was a flat no—no I’m not, nuh un, I’m not calling her. I think now that was like—if I don’t call her, it’s not true.
So, I called Kesli. [Laugh] I don’t know why in my mind that was any different, but I called Kelsi. She didn’t answer, so I kept calling. I probably called her ten times, no answer. And, so I had jumped in the car and I was on my way to the gas station. Fine. If they’re not gonna call me, I’m going. I’m on my way. And, I was probably four or five blocks from the gas station when my phone rang, and it was Kelsi’s number that popped up.
So, I’m expecting—when I answer the phone—to hear Kelsi say mom we found her! And, uh, it was Derrick. And, Derrick and I hadn’t really talked much at that point. Um, so it was kind of a shock for him to be on the phone. And he said, “Carrie they found the girls.” And, I had like a split second of “oh, thank God”, but he didn’t say anything else. So, I said, “are they okay?” He’s like, “no”.
And at that point, I think I was like prime—primal evil—just came out of me, screaming no. And I said, “are they alive?” And he said, “no”. And I don’t know how I made it to the gas station ‘cause I was just hysterical. People were staring at me, and I just wanted it to disappear. I wanted it to all go away. I pulled up on the wrong side of the gas pump, and here I was outside of the pump screaming—why can’t I get the nozzle in the thing—because it wasn’t even there.
Becky Patty:
A friend of ours was also in a search group that was across the creek, and he saw something. So, he took his phone and zoomed in, and it was a tie-dyed shirt. And he knew what Libby wore. And, uh, his wife she come back and she said they found the girls.
Well, I was kinda excited at first, you know, and then it hit me. I said, “are they okay?” She wouldn’t answer. So, I knew that they found them. So, we hurried and jumped in our cars up the trailhead, and one of the officers was there.
I said, “you need to take me to Libby now. You need to take me, she’s gonna need me.” They wouldn’t let us go close. They wouldn’t take me, so that’s when he come up. He says, “we need to go to the truck.”
And, while we’re sittin’ in the truck, the coroner’s van come driving by. This is when you realize this is real. This isn’t a mistake that they’re really just hurt. And, uh, they couldn’t say it was them but everybody knew it was.
Fire Chief Darryl Sterrett:
Course, you have to stand like a stone, and you have to keep it together and tell 200 people we didn’t win this one. And I came back inside our little command circle downstairs, and uh, I had to go into our utility closet to collect myself—and again you’re only allowed so much time before you have to come back out, and be who you’re supposed to be and keep it together. Because if you lose it, then everybody around you is gonna lose it.
And, I waited because I knew my guys would be trickling back in eventually, and I did not want them to decompress in front of the public and I wanted to keep the public away from them. I didn’t know which of my guys had been to the scene, but I knew that they’d all been out there.
DTH: Was it your guys that found the scene?
Fire Chief Darry Sterrett:
I was told that it was a private citizen. That’s all I was told. But I know now—after the fact—that a couple of my guys had been there shortly after the discovery, and that’s why I wanted to be here when they came back. Because I know what they do when they’re stressed out, and I did not want that to happen with this much public that we had here. And, I wanted to keep them separate from the public. And the public mean no disrespect, they mean no harm. They don’t understand what these guys actually face, and if you touch that nerve, it happens.
So, a couple of my guys were trickling in, and one of my most loyal—hardened—that guy came in, and I put myself between him and the crowd. And he just kinda started talking and I said, “go over there on the side of the engine—go over there on the side of the engine.” He went over there to the other side of the engine, which I had roped out just for them. And, he started taking boots off and stuff and I just said—I don’t even remember what the comment was—but it eluded to the fact that it was not a good end. He didn’t know, and he—yeah.
It’s hard to see a guy that tough and that strong break down and just lose it, but these guys are all heart.
PART TWO – 300 FEET AWAY
Superintendent Doug Carter:
I had an immediate conversation with my boss, the governor of the state of Indiana—Eric Holcomb—and I knew he would say what he did—but anything that community needs, the answer is of course yes. The law enforcement response—the local law enforcement response—I knew that since it’s a very rural area, that it was going to require tremendous response from state police. I know what their limitations are—and it’s nothing against them. They’ve done the best they can and a really nice job, um, but they have two detectives, in the whole county. So, we jumped in.
Sgt. Kim Riley:
I saw a lot of people with blank looks on their face. People that are just wondering why would this happen or who would do something such as this. When I was talking to the officers that saw the scene and I was trying to get some information, they were looking the same way.
The way the girls were found, how they were found, what had happened to them. It was just a lot of things were going thru their minds and just trying to figure out the crime scene. Is it here? Is it there? How much of a crime scene do we have here? And that was one of the questions that was being discussed too, ya know. How big of a crime scene do we got? What are we dealing with? How much evidence do we have here to deal with?
Those are things that were going thru the minds—I know—the investigators, the crime scene technicians had already arrived, so they were starting to look at the crime scene to see what they could do.
DTH:
So, once the girls were found, there’s—you said—a couple hundred people had been out there looking for them. So, when the girls are found, you begin to secure off that area. What is that process like and how do you get those people out of there?
Sgt. Kim Riley:
Well, actually, we don’t want to get them too far out because we want to make sure and keep them, uh, close by. Because, first of all, we’ve got to interview them to see what they found, what they’d seen, get any pertinent information from them that we can get—their name, address, phone number. So, we can--later on if we need more information or if we need, you know, whatever from them. We can get that information from them, and basically, they all gave us a statement. Just basically protocol on any time of crime scene that somebody would walk up on.
And that’s basically what we did with the people that were there. And, then we just try to figure out what type of—how big is the crime scene gonna be. I mean, if you’ve never been there, you gotta remember we’re in Indiana—we’re in central Indiana—and the ravines are not deep here, but we do have ravines, small hills, and there was basically a creek that ran thru there—real close to the crime scene. It was down in the lower gully—I guess you’d call it—where the bodies were found. There was two hills on each side and plus one on the side of the—on the side of the creek.
So, you know, trying to figure out where did they come from, how did they get here, which way did the suspect, or suspects, go. Uh, those are all things they’re trying to figure out to see how large of a crime scene they gotta make.
DTH: And the crime scene begins on the bridge?
Sgt. Kim Riley:
Well, the crime scene originally started where we found the bodies because that was all the crime scene we knew at that point and time. As we found evidence, looked into things and found the phone, that’s when we actually realized that the crime scene did start at the bridge. So, now we have to back up even more to bring that bridge into—into the crime scene. So, now we’ve got it—we’re moving the crime scene a third of an acre. Now we’re talking—‘cause it’s—walking, it’s about a quarter of a mile from where the bodies were found to where the video was taken.
And so, trying to figure out—okay, well where did they walk? And you gotta remember, there were four or five hundred people that started looking for these girls the night before. So, you—you know—we had to deal with that because—
DTH: [speaking over Riley] So, there’s a lot of tracks.
Sgt. Kim Riley:
There’s a lot of tracks, cigarette butts. Believe it or not—this is kinda disgusting—but you had spit, people would urinate. I mean, uh, ‘cause people don’t have time to go back. So, they would hide in the woods to go to the bathroom, that kinda stuff. So, we had to deal with all that.
And most people don’t even think of things like that, but when you’re trying to process a crime scene—you gotta remember—it was spring of the year—or late winter—in February, you’ve got all the leaves on the ground. We had, basically, to turn every leaf over from the crime scene all the way up the whole thing. And I don’t mean we turned every one, but I mean—it was just that dramatic of a crime scene. That’s what took so long.
Superintendent Doug Carter:
That was a bit of a challenge—to take a step back from this. We brought in, I think maybe five or six crime scene technicians. And our job at that point was to build a fence around them—not a literal one, one figuratively—and do everything we need to do to support them. The crime scene was very complicated.
DTH: Compared to other investigations you do…
Superintendent Doug Carter:
Well, I think it’s become commonly known that it includes, um, the Monon High Bridge. Um, it includes the-the-the trailhead. We’ve been there—it’s a cool little bridge to sit on and reflect, if you haven’t been there.
So, everywhere from the trailhead on. That’s all I can say about the crime scene.
DTH: Are you confident that you’ve recovered everything that could’ve been recovered there?
Sgt. Kim Riley:
I believe we’ve done the best we could do. I’m not gonna say we didn’t miss anything. I mean, we’re human beings. We’re going to miss things, but overall—I mean, the way they did it—one guy would check over someone else’s work to see if there was anything that they felt that they missed. And so, I mean, it wasn’t just one crime scene technician doing this. Our people were there. We had other departments that had people there. It was a joint effort in collecting this.
And, there was people that come in after that just to make sure we covered everything. We started at sunrise and didn’t quit until way past nine, ten o’clock. So, it wasn’t like they didn’t—weren’t there. And then we had guards or other troopers from the sheriff’s department that would help secure the scenes when they were gone, so that we didn’t have somebody walking in and trying to get pictures or do something—I mean, it was well secured.
DTH: What is going thru your head as you’re out there?
Sgt. Kim Riley:
Well, I didn’t go up to the crime scene. There was one ridge you could actually go to, and I stood on that ridge and I could see the crime scene—and it was still two to three hundred feet away from me. I could see the crime scene but I didn’t feel—first of all, I didn’t want to go to the crime scene—I didn’t want to be somebody that would contaminate something. And that-that-that’s one of the things—why we keep people out.
But just looking at those two young girls just laying there on the ground, um, it just brought memories of my daughters when they were that age and how I would feel if I was their father. It was very emotional for me. And like I said, I didn’t know their parents at that time, but I knew a lot of people in Delphi and a lot of people that were in the search party. I knew a lot of those people. But it’d been—like I said—probably 15, 20 years since I’ve been there. So, it was kind of—I don’t want to use the word reunion—but it was a time where I could—they would interact with me, and I was able to interact with them. Just to try to kinda get their feelings—what their feelings were and what I was going through.
And, I was from a small town also. So, knowing how a small town works in central United States made a big difference on how I reacted and how I was feeling what—could feel their pain but not know their pain, if that makes sense. And, uh, that was tough knowing that.
Sgt. Kim Riley [at the press conference announcing the two bodies were found]:
Basically, we’re gonna make this—it’s going to be short and sweet. We don’t have that much at this point and time. Uh, basically what we’ve got, uh, we have found two bodies in Deer Creek about a mile east of town. Um, we are investigating this as, uh, a crime scene. We, uh, suspect foul play. Uh, we have not made positive identification of the two bodies, so we’re not going to be releasing any information on them at this point and time. Uh, we’ve got, uh, the Indiana State Police is assisting the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department and the, uh, Delphi City Police Department, uh, in the investigation here. We’ve also got the FBI investigation group here out of Indianapolis.
And one thing the family asked us to do is to thank all the communities around Delphi, and the people here of Delphi, who were assisting in attempting to locate these, um, the two young children that were missing earlier. They just want to say thank you to those people and thank you—they just wanted to express their gratitude towards the hard workers in helping search for these children.
PART THREE – ALLOWED TO BE ANGRY
Teachers and classmates talk about their reactions to the news and how they processed the information; a mom talks about how she shared the news with her daughter and how difficult it was to tell her daughter that her friends were killed in an attack; Becky and Mike Patty talk about how that time [after learning the girls had been murdered] is still very much a blur.
Fire Chief Darryl Sterrett:
[worried about his men] That, uh, night—or afternoon, whatever. I told the guys—I said, “just go home, be with your families Decompress a little bit. Come back tonight; we’ll have beer and pizza. Don’t take this home.” And, we had a few guys come back.
It isn’t about talking what you’ve seen or where you’ve been. It’s just—sometimes—it’s too early to go to those quiet moments. I think there’s a point where it’s too early to bring in the professionals to talk about it. I’m not saying you can heal it yourself, but the first thing, you know, I feel—I would lose so much respect if my guys had come in and there was some doctor standing there that they didn’t know. We needed to be together, and that’s what we did.
DTH: Like a family.
Fire Chief Darryl Sterrett:
Yes, and the guys -- “yeah, yeah we’re fine… thanks for the beer and pizza.” You know, we talked and chatted it out. Probably didn’t talk about the scene one—one time. Maybe a question of this or a question of that. And, I felt that was good. That if they wanted to talk about it, that’s why we were there. If you don’t want to talk about it, I know better than to try to make ya. I knew there would be a time when we would have the professional. That day—that evening was not it.
So, we did that, went home, and late evening—10:30, 11 o’clock, I get a phone call from—I think—Chief Mullin wanting to know if we can send some equipment out to the scene to assist the-the-the state police and FBI and whoever—whoever. There’s so many people out here at that point to assist with the scene and investigation. After standing on concrete for two days straight, I couldn’t get up off the couch. My back was done.
I made phone calls to a couple—you can’t just send anybody, you gotta send the right people because you didn’t—you didn’t want to send them into the scene. And, I thought I expressed that with Chief Mullin and I sent three—three or four of my guys to take care of it. I felt horrible I couldn’t do it myself, but I physically could not walk. And so, they went that evening and assisted with the crime scene. I think they were there until mid-morning, I don’t know.
DTH: You’re out there for several hours, what did you do next?
Superintendent Doug Carter:
Drove. Took the long way home. I’ve got the—my wife is just awesome. Um, she’s incredibly supportive and understanding. And, um, I knew this one was going to be different and I just—I called her and said I, uh, get a couple—three cups of coffee, probably. I’m gonna go and take the long way. So, I did. I just drove by myself for a while.
DTH: Did you listen to music?
Superintendent Doug Carter:
Nope. Total silence. I’ve often thought about that silence actually. Because, normally, it’s not like that. At the time, I wondered if I need to still done—do what I do [long pause], yeah.
DTH: Do you still ask yourself that?
Superintendent Doug Carter:
Nope [long pause], not to me anymore, no.
