THE DELPHI MURDERS-Nic Edwards - podcast episode cover

THE DELPHI MURDERS-Nic Edwards

May 23, 202356 minEp. 734
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Episode description

On February 13, 2017, two Indiana teenagers, Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, went for a walk in the woods near the abandoned Monon High Bridge. They never returned home. Their bodies were discovered on Valentine's Day morning, sparking a torrent of news coverage and social media speculation that engrossed the attention of people around the world. A grainy photo of the suspected killer walking across the bridge and a chilling cellphone recording of his voice saying "down the hill" captured the public's attention. Numerous possible suspects were brought to the attention of the authorities but dismissed, leaving everyone wondering who could have committed such a heinous crime.Author Nic Edwards, host of the wildly popular True Crime Garage podcast, was fascinated by the case and for years conducted his own extensive research and commentary. As such he was able to dissect the investigation that included an extensive list of possible suspects, such as a hatchet-wielding lunatic, a kidnapper with unusual tattoos, a murderous pastor, a rapist, and a father and son catfishing team. Then in late October 2022, local pharmacy technician Richard Allen was charged with the murders. His arrest raised multiple questions about how he was able to evade law enforcement for so long and what motivated him to commit such a horrific crime. In THE DELPHI MURDERS: The Quest To Find ‘The Man On The Bridge’, Edwards and his bestselling co-author Brian Whitney (YOU HAVE A VERY SOFT VOICE, SUSAN) provide a detailed account of the investigation from the day the girls’ bodies were found to the events leading up to Allen's arrest, and unique insight into the minds of the killer and those who worked tirelessly to bring him to justice. THE DELPHI MURDERS: The Quest to Find 'The Man on the Bridge'-Nic Edwards Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

Transcript

Speaker 1

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Speaker 4

You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them Gaesy Bundy Dahmer The Nightstalker VTK every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski.

Speaker 5

Good Evening. On February thirteen, twenty and seventeen, two Indiana teenagers, Abigail Williams thirteen and Liberty German, fourteen, went for a walk in the woods near the abandoned Monen high Bridge. They never returned home. Their bodies were the sky on Valentine's Day morning, sparking a torrent of news coverage and social media speculation that engrossed the attention of people around

the world. A grainy photo of the suspected killer walking across the bridge in a chilling cell phone recording of his voice saying down the hill captured the public's attention. Numerous possible suspects were brought to the attention of the authorities but dismissed, leaving everyone wondering who could have committed

such a heinous crime. Author Nick Edwards, host of the wildly popular True Crime Garage podcast, was fascinated by the case and for years conducted his own extensive research and commentary. As such, he was able to dissect the investigation that included an extensive list of possible suspects such as a hatchet wielding lunatic, a kidnapper with unusual tattoos, a murderous pastor,

a rapist, and a father and son catfishing team. Then, in late October twenty twenty two, local pharmacy technician Richard Allen was charged with the murders. His arrest raised multiple questions about how he was able to evade law enforcement for so long and what motivated him to commit such

a horrific crime. In the Delphi murders, the quest to find the Man on the Bridge, Edwards and his best selling co author Brian Whitney give a very soft voice Susan provide a detailed account of the investigation, from the day the girl's bodies were found to the events leading up to Allan's arrest and a unique insight into the minds of the killer and those who work tirelessly to

bring him to justice. The book that we're featuring this evening is The Delphi Murders, The Quest Define the Man on the Bridge with my special guest, journalist and author and host of True Crime Garage, Nick Edwards. Welcome to the program, and thank you so much for this interview. Nick Edwards.

Speaker 6

Thank you so much for having me on True Murdered Day. It's always been a goal of mine as a podcaster to be on your show and a life goal of mine to write a true crime book, and so today I'm able to check a couple of boxes off here.

Speaker 5

Thank you so much, and it's a thrilled to have you on finally on True Murder, and congratulations on this incredible book, The Delphy Murders.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 5

Let's start off just as you do in the introduction, sort of an introduction to where you have lived and how you came to understand and learn about this case involving this bridge guy. And this is in Carroll County Commet. You were talking about the Carroll County Comet newspaper and every day when you resided in central Ohio, as you still do, you would go to the mailbox and get your Carroll County Commet newspaper.

Speaker 2

Why was that?

Speaker 5

And tell us about everything you learned at that time about the Bridge guy.

Speaker 6

Well, I became a subscriber. It's a weekly, small paper that comes out out of Carroll County, Indiana, and it's seven eight pages, roughly very small community, very small newspaper, and a lot of it's just things going on in

that community. Well, I became a subscriber to that newspaper years ago because I was so crazy involved as a armchair detective websleuth person from Afar mainly as my daytime job as a true crime podcaster, became very wrapped up in this murder investigation, and so I thought, you know what, I'll subscribe to their local newspaper. And it shows up in my mailbox about once a week, usually on a Wednesday or a Thursday, and I go and I pull

it out of the mailbox. And for years, you know, we knew what the suspect looked like, or at least we thought we did, because the girls in this horrific situation were brave enough to capture his image via cell phone and America. This case very quickly became a nationwide case. Hit the spotlight quickly, and it very quickly spread to other states, and many people online were looking for the suspect.

The suspect that we were calling Bridge Guy or BG ended up getting all kinds of different monikers over the years, and so I, like many other people, thought that if I spent enough time on this, or if I just kept looking, that was the only way to assatiate my fascination with this case and with the investigation itself, was to troll around and look for Bridge Guide. Didn't think that I actually would, but given I believe that the suspect was local, and that's what law enforcement was telling us.

They believed that he was local or had ties to the Delphi area. And so I thought, you know what, I'll subscribe to this newspaper and every week I checked out to the mailbox would retrieve it, and then I would thumb through the pages looking at all the pictures. And again, like I said, we all thought we knew what Bridge Guy looked like. As much as it helped the investigation having a photograph of the man on the bridge in other ways, that also hindered the investigation.

Speaker 5

Now you take us in this book back to Delphi, Indiana, and take us back to shortly before this and the things that happened in the area that you lived in and the crimes that affected you earlier on before you were the co host of True Crime Garage.

Speaker 6

Well, doing different interviews throughout the years in regard to my work with True Crime Garage, almost always some of the first questions that I get, what got you into true crime, what got you into podcasting? You know what inspired you to start a true crime podcast? And so I thought, you know what, maybe let's go ahead and answer some of those questions in the book as well.

Because the book is very much about the case, the Delphi double murders case, it's also very much about the investigation because in that investigation, they were not telling they being law enforcement, were not telling the public a lot of information about the case, and they were public was very starved for information about the case, mainly because law enforcement kept coming to us and asking us for our help. Have you seen this man? Do you know who this

man is? Here's some behaviors, some post offense behaviors that we think that he may be experiencing or exhibiting for all to see, and maybe you the public, could tell us who Bridge guy is or identify him for us. So it was this weird back and forth, right where you have law enforcement asking the public for help, but in turn not giving the public very much information about what it is that they knew or what possible evidence they had in the case. In fact, we knew we

didn't even know how the girls were killed. And so it was this very interesting situation, and it was a case that I got very much wrapped up. And I chose to tell the story in this manner because it did involve some of me in the story.

Speaker 4

Right.

Speaker 6

The book is very much about the case, the investigation, and mainly my observations and my observations about the investigation, but also my observations about what I was hearing other people question about the investigation itself. And in the forward, I think that I laid it out perfectly or the best I could for the reader going forward as they march into this book. That says, you know, portions of this book were written in real time before and arrest

was made. This murder investigation was nearly six years active before charges were filed. Here in these pages you will find the timeline, the facts, and one man's thoughts, observations and obsessions with an American murder investigation. This tragedy was never far from my heart and it is. It's a horrible, heart breaking story of two girls that were out in a public setting in the middle of the week and

they were abducted in broad daylight. And an incredibly heartbreaking story and an incredibly heartbreaking case, but also a very fascinating murder investigation. Parts of it played out in front of our eyes as we watched over the course of five and a half years.

Speaker 5

Tell us about as you write. February thirteen, twenty and seventeen, Abby Williams, thirteen year old, and her friend Liberty Libby German, fourteen year old, were dropped off by Libby's older sister Kelsey. Now tell us a little bit about this scenic moanin high Bridge, this abandoned railroad bridge that goes over the Deer Creek in Carroll County, Indiana, and tell us about the previous evening over at Libby's house.

Speaker 6

So Delphi, Indiana. This is very much a tight knit community, great people, hardworking people, god fearing people, it's all of the earth. And on that day Kelsey, Libby's old sister, drops the two of them off too. They're going to enjoy a day outdoors. It was unseasonably warm for that day. They were going to go out and hike the trails.

There's beautiful trail system that leads up to this mon And High bridge, and it's an abandoned train bridge, rail railroad bridge from years ago that it's not part of the trail system. You're not really supposed to be out there walking on it, but many people do, teenagers, adults, kids, And from my understanding, I didn't grow up in this area.

Speaker 2

I grew up in Ohio.

Speaker 6

But from my understanding, for the younger folks, this is kind of a rite of passage, right at some point that a friend or a loved one or a cousin, you go out there on the trails and at some point we all either cross the bridge or we don't cross the bridge, chicken out and don't go across it. And on this day Libby, who had crossed the bridge on several occasions before. You know, she has an older sister. Maybe she went there at one point with her older

sister and cross the Moan and High Bridge. But on this day, Abby her best friend. These two were the tightest of friends, the kind of friends that were so close in relationship and had been such longtime friends that often they're the kind that you would see Abby and not Libby. Your first question is going to be, well, where's Libby right? And of course the opposite when you see Libby without Abby. You were used to seeing the two of them together, super tight friends, the best of friends.

And on that day Libby was going to take her friend, and the two of them were going to cross the Moan and High Bridge together.

Speaker 5

Now you talk about there that someone was supposed to pick them up, and that being the father Derek. Correct, And it's a complicated family situation. She lived with her grandparents actually, But tell us about what happens and what's the last correspondence that family members have with Libby.

Speaker 6

The last real correspondence would be when Libby and Abby were dropped off that day by Libby's sister, and when Derek arrives at the trails. We're dan, we're only talking about a very small window of time that has passed here, roughly, let's say two hours. To make it nice and neat, but Derek shows up to retrieve the girls, and Libby's grandmother, Becky Patty, is kind of the boss of the family.

And as you said, Libby's being raised by Becky and her husband, Mike Patty, and they're the nicest, best people. And Grandma basically says to Libby, sure, you know, if you can get a ride there, and if you can get a ride back, because Becky's out working that day, if you can secure a ride there and back, sure the two of you can go out to the trail system. And you can only be out there a brief period

of time. Whatever time you can get dropped off and whatever time you get picked up, that's that's the parameters. And so Derek arrives and he's calling Libby's cell phone. Libby got a cell phone for Christmas, just a couple months earlier, and so he's not getting in touch with Libby, and so he ownes Becky and says, you know, I'm at the location. I don't understand I can't get a

hold of her. And now we have Grandma who's going to join in the efforts of trying to contact Libby, and before we know it, we have a lot of Libby's family out there searching for both of the girls that evening. Now, both of these were good kids, but you know, they were also of the teenage years, and we all know that it's not terribly uncommon for teenage kids to not be where they.

Speaker 2

Say they are going to be.

Speaker 6

So I don't think that anybody was overly panicked that evening, but there was enough of a concern that law enforcement was called and a more formal search was put together looking for the two girls. It got dark. It was

unseasonably warm that day, but it got cold evening. It's Indiana, it's February, and at some point the sheriff tob Lesenbie and the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, along with the firefighters and all the other persons that were there searching for the girls, they had to decide to call off the search.

This is rough terrain. It can be dangerous. The moan in high Bridge itself, I think I would as somebody who does not enjoy heights that much, I would consider it to be dangerous anytime of day, let alone in the dark. But it's because it's a nature area trail system. It's not well lit. They call off the search, and so Mike Patty goes on the late night news just informing everybody, hey, my granddaughter's missing. Me and a bunch of other people and the Sheriff's department have been out

here looking for her. We also have some of Abby's family that were on the news that night, and you can view those news segments on YouTube still to this day, and you see the parents, or the acting parents, who you can see the look of concern on their face. But again, nobody's overly panicked at this point, right, and the search for the girls would resume very early the next morning. Now where I sit in Ohio, this was

not even news for us. I'm over two hundred miles away, and it wasn't news to us, And I was already doing our true crime garage podcast at that point, still working a day job. I've been very lucky to have a wonderful audience that we've grown throughout the years, a loyal audience, and now I'm able to make true crime

garage my day job. But back then, I was the leader of a team involved, heavily involved in my demanding job at the time, and it wasn't until the day after the girls were found that The story found me via the Internet and when I read the short, little new snippet of two girls are missing in a public area and a park basically let's call it a park for a lack of a better term, and then they're found near by and they foul play suspected two homicides. When I read that snippet, I knew right away a

couple of things. The first thing I thought, for I'm trying to envision how this could have went down, so I'm thinking a lot of things had to take place. But also I was thinking, well, this will probably be solved relatively quickly, typically the way that a homicide works, and Dan, you're you know this better than anybody because you've been doing this for so long. Typically it's a pretty basic scenario. Person A is angry at person B, and something happens, and person B is killed by person A.

That's typically how these things work. Well in this situation, we're talking about younger folks. Our two victims were younger, and often police and detectives are going to investigate our social circles, our families, our colleagues. But when we talk about younger people, typically they have a smaller social circle than us adults do.

Speaker 2

Sure, and so I thought very likely this would be solved.

Speaker 6

They would have a suspect in custody within twenty four forty eight seventy two hours. Traditional police work was going to work real well here. And then no, we find out three days later that no, that's not going to be the case. And oh, by the way, there's some interesting evidence that they have in this case that we typically don't have in a lot of other cases, especially once.

Speaker 2

The drag on.

Speaker 5

You talk about that evidence that is released, it is very very interesting. But there so tell us about the evidence that they did have and did release an immediately, but also the things that weren't answered for you at all that you have to just speculate about.

Speaker 6

One thing that was very strange about the case was we get a picture of somebody that they were not calling a suspect. They were saying, this is somebody that we would like to talk to. This person was in the area on the day that the girls went missing, So we know that they're dropped off in the afternoon, and then the following day their bodies are found around noontime, and we're not told how they were killed or how

they were found. We know they were found by one of the search teams, but the state of the crime scene of where they were found, we're not given information about that. We're not told they've not narrowed down the time of death or as far as what they were telling the public. And then we get this picture of a guy that police say that they want to talk to, that they believe he could have some information, he's probably a witness. And I've seen this, and you know, I've

been doing true crime garage since twenty fifteen. We've reviewed hundreds of cases, and I've been eyeballs deep in true crime books for years now, a couple decades in fact. And I'd seen in other cases, especially when we have more sophisticated investigators, typically state police, larger agencies that have bigger, better resources than some of the smaller agencies.

Speaker 2

And then you have the FBI as well.

Speaker 6

But I've seen in many cases where they do they say, Hey, this is a person that we just want to talk to, and oftentimes I've never seen it pan out where that person is not the suspect that they are actually looking for.

And it's not it's not terribly common, but it doesn't it has happened on occasion where they say, this is a person we would like to talk to, or here's a description of somebody that was seen in the area, or a vehicle that was seen in the area, and the person that actually committed the crime will try to get ahead of that by going to law enforcement and saying, hell, oh, by the way, that blue car that you mentioned on the news the other and I'm the owner of the

blue car. I was in that area for this reason or that reason, not because I was doing anything terrible. So in this case, immediately Dan, I'm thinking, this is our suspect, and I was wondering how long it was going to take. I was wondering would this guy walk into the Carroll County Sheriff's department and try to explain away why his image was captured there on the trail system or would it drag on where they were unable

to locate this guy. And if it does drag on, how long until they change this narrative into this is our actual suspect And what other information did they have about this guy who they just had his image at that time or it only released the image to the public.

So it was a bizarre investigation to me, and a very intriguing investigation, because here we go, they're releasing what I call bread crumbs to the public of this is what we have and we need your help public, and here's some bread crumbs to lead a part way down the trail. But at some point we need somebody to start giving us bread crumbs in return to help us with our investigation. So I had a lot of questions about what was going on there in Carroll County.

Speaker 5

Now let's talk about that image itself, the issues that you had and other people had with the image itself, and then what actually does the image show and portray.

Speaker 6

Well, the problem I've always had at the image, Dan is that you review people's statements online social networks and social media and whatnot, And even people on camera who have talked about this case, they often say, dissect the image and tell you what Bridge guy or what the person who later we're told is the suspect. They tell us what he looks like. And I've always looked at this picture and gone, it's not that great of a picture. I don't think we know what Bridge guy looks like.

In fact, I think it's a little irresponsible to sit here and pretend to know what he looks like based off of this image. And that's why I say early in the book that all we really knew was that we were looking for a white male who was wearing a blue or dark colored jacket out on the trail system that was seen on the bridge that day. That's truly when you look at that, I think those are really the only very concrete things that we can truly

take away from this photo. You know, I've seen everything under the sun, argued and debated about what people think that they see in this photo online over the years. Is he wearing a hat, Now, he's not wearing a hat. His hood is up. Yes, he is wearing a hat. It's one of those flapjack hats. He's wearing boots. No, he's not wearing boots. He's wearing tennis shoes. He has something in his jacket, he has a fanning pack on.

He's wearing something covering his mask, covering his face. So there were all these items that were truly just up for debate at the end of the day. While this picture is intended and hopefully will help us get an arrest and find the suspect, it was also causing a stir amongst the general public because nobody could really agree on what it is that he looked like.

Speaker 5

Now, there were some witnesses discovered by police that it saw this bridge guy. Apparently, what was the sketch that was released and what was the response to the sketch.

Speaker 6

Well, that was another troubling thing with this investigation. So we get a composite sketch of the suspect released to the public, and people went wild with that sketch. And then later, much later in fact, we get a different composite sketch that I mean some say is it's supposed to be a younger version of the of the previous sketch.

So the first sketch was released in July twenty seventeen, and in that sketch, interestingly enough, it shows a man and who is older in appearance than the follow up sketch that is released in April of twenty and nineteen. And in the first sketch we see an older man with a hoodie on and he's got some kind of possibly a goatee, definitely some kind of facial hair, and he is wearing a hat in the sketch, and then in the follow up sketch in April of twenty and nineteen.

We see what I would describe as a much younger looking man, more clean cut, with no facial hair, a more prominent chin, not wearing a hat, and there's no hood depicted around his neck like we have with the previous sketch. So and then we're told by law enforcement that this new sketch is taking priority. We want you to focus on this new sketch more than the previous sketch. And so this was very interesting and a weird kind

of strategy that, Look, I'm not gonna lie. I've seen three, maybe four other cases that I can think of, where multiple composite sketches of suspects were released and they don't particularly look like one another. So that wasn't totally outside of the box there. But most people weren't used to that kind of information coming from law enforcement, and I don't think a lot of people knew what to do with that information. In fact, what I had seen too, and what I was hearing Dan, was that this new

sketch was it wasn't just news to the public. It was news to a lot of people in law enforcement, and it was news to the families of the two victims as well, that they had found out fifteen to twenty thirty minutes before the rest of us that, oh, by the way, today we were releasing a new and very different composite sketch of the suspect that we were looking for.

Speaker 5

One last thing. They did take some audio from Libby's phone, and they did release that to the public again asking for the public self, what was that audio clip, what did it contain, and what did you deduce from that clip itself?

Speaker 6

Well, so the two victims here, when they were approached, Libby takes out her cell phone. Maybe she already has it out because we know that she snapped a photo of Abby prior and that was released on snapchat. And so something about this man on the bridge spooked her or nudged her enough. There was something about him. Maybe they had seen him before on one of the trails, maybe they had passed him and he was creepy earlier.

Or maybe it's the way he's walking, you know. When that image later became a very short video clip of him taking step and a half or two steps on the bridge, I always thought that it looked like he was moving at a rather uncomfortably fast pace on that bridge. We're talking about an abandoned railroad bridge that's very tall, very high. It goes over the creek. If you stumble and fall, you're going off the side of that bridge. It's not incredibly wide there, it's old, it's run down,

there's probably ties that are missing. So he our bridge guy, our suspect, is lucky enough that when his image is captured, he's looking down. That's probably because he's keeping an eye

on his footing as he's going across the bridge. I'd always wondered if he was moving at an uncomfortably fast pace, and maybe that tip the girls off that there's something up with this dude, because he's going across this bridge fast and we just came across it, and look how careful we were as we were going across this bridge.

So they capture an image of him, and later it's released as a clip, a video clip, and then we also get an audio clip of a man's voice saying down the hill, and then later several months later, released a little more and we're told he's saying, guys down the hill. And what was difficult about that Dan was nobody could decide was was guys from another part of the audio, and down the hill was a different portion of the audio, and they put them together for the

public to hear. But one thing that was obvious to me and many other people was that this was the suspect controlling the victims. This was the suspect moving the victims. So it is an abduction by definition at this point, he's controlling their movements, he's taking them somewhere that they.

Speaker 2

Do not want to go.

Speaker 6

And from what we were being told, there was about forty seconds or so forty three seconds I believe, of audio clip. And so when you hear that, go okay, well we got the audio clip must have come from the video. The video and the audio clip must be one and the same. So does that mean we have forty to forty five seconds of video as well? What other audio could be on there? What other video could

be on there? And it's very likely what happened was that as he approached that look, Lebby was smart enough and brave enough to film him briefly, but also smart enough that as he got near, she probably concealed her phone in some manner, either putting it in her pocket or at least holding it down and maybe the audio continues, but there's no video that is important to the investigation after that clip of him on the bridge. So where

the audio, the video, the picture? All of that was great evidence, And think thank you to the braveness of these two girls, because I don't know Dan. I sit here in twenty twenty three and I have to wonder without that would we where would we be? Would this still be a case without an arrest? And if so, how long would it have been until an arrest was made? And would this been a case would have been a

double homicide? Could have potentially gone unsolved for forever. Now, of course it's not adjudicated yet, but yeah, I really wonder without Libby an Abby really putting themselves out there and getting and collecting this evidence for us, what the state of the investigation would be today.

Speaker 5

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Speaker 3

Now.

Speaker 5

When we last left off, you talked about thank God that Libby had the presence of mind to capture this bridge guy. What about to find my phone feature? Why was that not working on Libby's phone?

Speaker 6

Lybya had done with the assistance of a relative had done a factory reset on her phone, and in fact, when her family was out looking for her and looking for Abby the night that they were missing, they were attempting to use that find my Phone feature that many

of us are familiar with on our cell phones. But when Lyby had done the factory reset on her phone, you have to go in in a lot of the apps, you have to reinstall them, and this was an app that she had not reinstalled on her phone, and therefore it was not working that night when the families were out looking for the girls.

Speaker 5

Let's talk about some of the people that come up as suspects and why. And first off, Ron Logan.

Speaker 6

Well, Ron Logan, he becomes a suspect because technically the girls, their bodies are found on his property. So as we said, you know this is public property, the trail system, and then you go over the Moan and High Bridge and then once you get over that side, so being a right of passage, typically what people do Dan is they go to the other side of the bridge. You know,

you raise your your arms up in victory. You've you've done something, you've achieved something that some people have passed on and you just there's really nothing to do once you get to the other side of the bridge. It's a bunch of private property once we get to that other side of the bridge. So typically the kids, the teenagers, they turn around and go back. Now, some people will use this as as a way to access the trail system, so other people are coming from that side, but it's

it's rare. For my understanding, ron Logan becomes a suspect for the first reason just the proximity his property and where the bodies are found. And then of course he is on the news, the local news, which very quickly spreads throughout the state of Indiana and beyond the state line, and people were looking at Ron Logan's image. And mind you, we've not heard the audio clip yet at this point, but people were going, oh, my goodness, this guy that's

doing this interview. He's wearing a blue, dark blue jacket. And people were saying online and sure locally as well, that this guy looks like the image of the guy that we have on the bridge. So for that reason he is looked at. Now, one thing that I did in the book was I do talk about several other cases, some of them kind of touch on them. A little more briefly than others. A couple of the cases I go quite in depth with, and I also go into

a bunch of the suspects. And while nobody was named publicly by law enforcement as an actual suspect, there were certainly many people that were named by the public and people online as potential suspects in the Delphi murder case, and a lot of them for good reason. We're not

talking with the exception of Ron Logan. The other people that I mentioned in the book are pretty horrible people, people that were involved in either rape, murder, abduction, those types of crimes, which isn't very far from what we're.

Speaker 2

Talking about with the Delphi case.

Speaker 6

So in the book, a couple of things that I did on purpose and I think it was necessary to dan was on true crime garage. One thing that we've learned over the years that I know any good investigator will tell you this, and if you read any John Douglas book, you're going to get a heavy dose of this. But you can take these other cases right when you're reviewing this unsolved case and you're trying to make heads or tails of each of the different details and pieces

of evidence in the case. You can often take other cases, especially ones that have been solved, and you can go, you know, what, what did we learn in that case that had a similar situation or it had a similar aspect to that investigation? Did we learn by that once it was solved, and how can we apply it to this unsolved case? And so that's something we do on the podcast, and so of course I did it there in the book. And then also there were talks of

maybe this case is tied to other unsolved cases. The Evansdale case is one that it was rumored to possibly be tied to for a very long period of time, and we know that law enforcement actually looked into that because of the similarities. Now, these cases took place great distance, not only in time and distance from one another, but some of the aspects were the same. Two victims abducted in broad daylight, in the middle of the day, in a public setting, and it's not exactly sure where that

the Evansdale victims were last when they were deducted. If we knew that for a fact, would probably know who's responsible. But I thought that it was fitting and I thought it was educational for not just the reader but me. Piecing the story together as well to examine some of these other cases and of course take a good look at all of the people that were named online or otherwise as suspects in the Delphi case.

Speaker 5

What's interesting is also you write about it to a certain degree, is that did you put yourself in this real time scenario to demonstrate this? Is that a lot of these people look very good because of those similarities, and in fact, it's sort of a phenomena where you are adamant to be able to close this and some of these people because of the crimes that they have already committed and the similarities in the crime in many of the aspects, it looks like we're very close to

finding the person that's the perpetrator in this case. And then you talk about an announcement about a development in the case with somebody online named Anthony Shots. Can you explain this case where this phenomena is on display well?

Speaker 6

And I think that it's fair, right. I think that it's human nature. We want to know who did this, We want to get the bad guy off of the streets. We want to protect our family and more more so our children. And we're talking about a child predator who took the lives of Abby and Libby, Yes, and so a very dangerous person. And it's also it's very difficult for any of us, and it should be rightfully, so it should be. It's very difficult for any of us to believe that, Okay, this guy woke up on this

day and abducted and killed two children. It's very difficult for any of us to wrap our heads around the idea he has not done this before, and of course if he's done it once, he's always capable of doing it again. So it's very natural to look at somebody that's done some other horrible, despicable act of evil and then say, you know what, can we put him in

Delphi on that afternoon? Can we put because because really, truly, out of all the arguments and all the debates that were going on online or in the dark corners of bars throughout this country, because again, this was a nationwide case, and especially here in the Midwest of the United States, it was a case that was talked about at great length and a great deal by many people, and being

covered on a lot of media outlets as well. But everybody seemed to have their favorite suspect, somebody that they liked better than the others, and so I think that people wanted to see, can we take this person and fit them in here. But again, at the end of the day, all that truly matters. You can wipe away a lot of the good arguments that people made over

the years for individuals. The key ingredient here to this secret sauce of solving this investigation is you have to be able to put that individual on the trail system between two pm and even let's say five pm at probably the latest that day. And if you cannot put that person there between two pm and five pm that day,

he's not a good suspect. And as far as Anthony Shots goes was that was a whole kind of new or maybe resurgence is probably a better word for the investigation, because early on there there was some rumors because of social media and the nature of some of the details that were coming out about the case, and a lot of speculation, and some of it very disrespectful speculation about the two victims their children that we're talking about here, that was coming out and that was kind of made

up about the two victims, But there was talk that so much so that social media aspectors or some kind of dating app aspect was important to this investigation.

Speaker 2

In fact, at.

Speaker 6

One time there were people online calling Bridge guy the Snapchat kill. And so when this information comes out about Anthony underscore Shots, Indiana State Police were looking for information about this Anthony underscore Shots character and they came across some of this information in their del Pi murder investigation. Well, people's ears perked up and immediately they thought, well, this the two have to go hand in hand. The two

have to be directly tied together. Law enforcement basically said that to us as far as many people were concerned. And I got to tell you, Dan, when I started learning more about the fictitious Anthony Shotts character, the catfishing team, potentially catfishing team, I should say, of a one Kegan Klein and then his father, Tony or Anthony Klein has referenced a lot in talks about Kagan, but Kagan was actively He's been charged with thirty different counts of such

types of behavior. Of basically, this is a predator that we need to make more parents and children aware of, because what this guy was doing is downright despicable, and at the same time he seems to navigate these waters with ease. And I don't think that he's a particularly bright guy. I know that he's really good when it comes to lying. I could tell you that from all the transcripts that I've reviewed, but put it plain and

simple for those that don't know. Peg and Klein took a picture of a model, this Justin Bieber, looking kind of model, attractive, young model guy with blonde hair, six pack abs, and he creates this fake, fictitious online profile of this young good looking guy with a bunch of money in sports cars. And oh, by the way, this young good looking guy with the money in the sports cars, for some reason, he wants to talk to a bunch

of on underage girls online. And not only does he want to talk to him, he wants to try to get pictures from them, pictures of them, pictures and videos from them. He's asking them, could you you think your younger sister would be interested in sending me some pictures? And a lot of the back and forth, a lot of the dialogue between Anthony shots. Again, this fictitious character and these victims that he found on social media and on apps and on the internet is very gross stuff,

very very disgusting stuff. But again he was able to do this with with relatively relatively easily, and able to even network with the victims. And the thing that really stood out to me, Dan, and I'm sitting here looking at this thing, and as you know, and as you keep pointing out, the book is written in my thoughts are delivered kind of in real time as I'm experiencing the investigation and the information coming out. And I sat there going, Man, if this guy is not involved in

some form or fashion, I would be shocked. Because the thing that stood out that I found bizarre was that he was he was talking to underage girls in Indiana. That to me seemed very different.

Speaker 2

Look.

Speaker 6

Look, online predators have been around for a long time, but oftentimes these guys are talking to people in other states, even other countries. This guy was purposely talking to girls that he may know their families or had been to cities that they lived in, girls that lived somewhat nearby. And so that was a very different kind of and a more scary online predator to me to think that he had better access to his victims if he wanted to go and meet them or or try to lure them somewhere.

Speaker 5

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Speaker 2

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Speaker 4

Now?

Speaker 5

Anthony Shots and the Klein family looked so good because, like you say, they were corresponding with as you write, a friend of Libby, this Alexis was corresponding with this Anthony Shots, and you write that Libby also became infatuated with this Anthony Shots. So this air look like, based on everything, look like they would be the perpetrators. They were possibly, you said, Anthony, Tony the father could be

the bridge guy. But then you were working and you were away from the garage from the true crime grage, and you've got a message. Tell us about this incredible day that you got that message and what that message was.

Speaker 6

Yeah, and that goes along with the idea that I was going to be shocked if it was anybody other than or if keg and Klin was not involved, because that is what law enforcement was saying to Kegan Klin was that Libby, I believe their they're exact words. Libby was infatuated with Anthony shots. And I don't know how much of that was interrogation tactics. We have a trial that will happen at some point, and and I'm sure we're going to learn a lot more once this thing

comes to trial. But yeah, you're right, I was out. I do work for a couple of nonprofit organizations, and on that particular day, I was working with the Porch Light Project. And the Porch Light Project is a nonprofit victim advocacy program that a friend of mine, James Renner, who you've had on your show. He's a true crime author as well. Yes, he founded this and he asked

me to be involved. And so I'm a board member and I do a little more than just vote on what cases we should take on I go out there and actually get boots on the ground with a couple of the cases and been involved heavily with some of the cases. So on that day I was driving about two and a half hours away from my home to wrap up a couple things with the case that we were working on. We have actually solved a couple cases and furthered along some investigations. So very proud to be

a part of that great organization. If you want to learn more about what it is that we do and if you can get involved, go to porchlightonline dot org. But yeah, on that day, Dan, I got a text from somebody in Indiana Law enforcement and it simply said, and arrest has been made Delfi, Indiana, and I knew. I knew exactly what that meant without needing further description.

And I was able to wrap up what I was doing that day and leave relatively quickly because all I could think about was my goodness if this because this case, as many of them are, but you know, I was.

Speaker 2

I was completely wrapped up in this case for a.

Speaker 6

Very long period of time, and so it had a lot of highs and a lot of lows, like many cases do. But this case in particular, had a lot of rumors that would come out, and a lot of them were just bad rumors, and very quickly you could do a little fishing of your own and figure out, you know, this is probably nothing. This is something that we're probably going to learn in forty eight to seventy two hours. It's nothing. It's all a bunch of hocus pocus.

But in this situation, it felt different because of the source that it came from to me, and so I knew that there was something here. I had no clue what it was. But then before I could even get home, my phone was my phone was blowing up with texts from people that listened to the show, from my co host, the Captain on True Crime Garage, and from people that I have met that I considered to be colleagues throughout

the true crime podcasting community over the years. So I knew that this was different, This information was going to be different. And so that was the announcement of an arrest, and that was August of twenty twenty two, and now we sit here in May of twenty twenty three, and we still have a bail hearing that's going to take place in June, and we have a trial that will take place at some point, but we're still people that

have followed this case for six years now. They're looking to have a lot of their questions answered and hopefully get to that point when it goes to trial, and hopefully they've got the right guy. I talk a lot about Richard Allen, who was the person that they arrested toward the end of the book, and I talk a lot about what they do and don't have, and what they may have and what they might not have on this guy. But we should see. I'm hopeful that we're

going to see a conclusion soon. And part of the reason why I wrote the book too, I want to make sure that before we wrap up today, Dan, that I do say that, you know, over the years, there's been a lot of weird, bizarre and unflattering, disrespectful things said about the families of these two girls that were taken away and really upset me. Over the years, these families have experienced something that hopefully none of us should ever experience. This is about the worst tragedy that you

can think of. And in fact, I usually say that once character is best judged at a time of tragedy, and there is no greater tragedy than what we're talking about in the del Fi Murra's case. And these families handled themselves with courage and with the level of grace that I don't think most of us possess. So I was very angered to see people talk disrespectfully about the

families over the years. And part of the reason why I wrote the book was to have a very direct and definitive timeline of how this case kind of played out in the public eye. And again a lot of my thoughts and feelings about the case as we were all all kind of experiencing it as the information came out over the course of over five years, and then we finally get an arrest, and it could be seven years or so before we see a conclusion as far as the courts are concerned.

Speaker 5

One interesting aspect you said in a search warrant, there was some interesting that things found because there was a shell that was found, a calibers shell that was found at the crime scene. And in that search of Richard Allen, they found a Spence shell and the gun that was connected to it, didn't they.

Speaker 6

Yeah, So that he does some things that are and it made some statements to law enforcement that will make things rather difficult for his defense team. One, he puts himself at the crime scene on the day in question. He puts himself at the crime scene right around the time in question. You know, we backtracked to what we said earlier between two and five pm. So he's there. He's dressed like Bridge Guy, by his own admission, and

he looks like Bridge guy. I say that after having said that, I don't think it's that great of a picture. But I think most of us would agree he doesn't look unlike Bridge Guy is probably more fair to say. And then a big problem that Richard Allen has. And he has maintained his innocence and he is innocent until

proven guilty in the court of law. But you know, he said that that round so it's a live round, that it would have been racked through his gun and ejected out the side of his gun, the six hour gun. And they say that scientifically they can prove that the markings made when that bullet was ejected from his gun, they can prove that it came from his gun. And the statement that he gave to law enforcement was one he's never lent that gun to anybody, never let anybody

borrow that gun. And two he's never been to the exact location where the bodies were later found. Yea, and we know that what I believe that there's probably a lot more. But Dan, what we've been told is the key piece of evidence is that bullet that was found roughly about two feet away from one of the victim. And in fact, it's the way that it's reported and even stated in some legal documents is that the bullet

was found between the two victims. So that bullet and where they found it, and yeah, it creates a big problem for Richard Allen in this case.

Speaker 5

In your acknowledgments, you talk about that writing this true crime book you mentioned that already has always been a dream of yours, but you also acknowledge your brother, the Captain, and your audience and your appreciation of what the true crime Garage audience and the whole process has aided in this dream of writing your first true crime book.

Speaker 6

Yeah, you know, my first love, my first passion is True Crime Garage, the podcast that we do. You know, it's crazy to think that we've been doing it. Later this year will be eight years. And Dan, I know you've been at it longer than we have, but it's been a lot of fun. It's also been a lot of work. You know, when we first my brother and I, the Captain and I first started doing the show together,

we were both working other jobs. We were both putting in long hours together, and this was something that we did in our free time, in our spare hours. It was something that we built together and an audience that we built together. And the audience is our audience is the best.

Speaker 2

I mean we have.

Speaker 6

They've they've helped us so much along the way by telling friends and family to check out our show, and so we we have the best, most loyalist, and most engaging audience.

Speaker 2

So that's not lost on me for a second.

Speaker 6

If Dan had it not been for the show and the success of the show, I don't know that I would have ever been able to achieve this goal of

writing this book. And I do want to say for those true crime garage listeners that are tuning into True Murder, I know that we have a lot of the same audience, but I would believe there's some people tuning into true murder for the first time from garage loyal garage listeners, And I want to point out this is while this is the the first time that we are having a conversation on Mike, in the first time that I'm on True Murder, it's not the first time that our paths have crossed.

Speaker 4

That's right.

Speaker 6

You've been great to our show too. Throughout the years, we covered the Luca Magnotic case and the Sidney Tierhughes case, and in both cases I had reached out to you and said, Dan, could you give us a quote or your thoughts or feelings on this part of the investigation or the suspect, And both times she came through no problems and offered up a SoundBite. So we really appreciate you and the good work that you do over at True Murder and the times that you've helped us out at the Garage.

Speaker 5

It's been a privilege to be able to interview you, and I'm congratulations on the success of True Crime Garage and now for the success that's sure to come from the Delphi murders, the quest to find the man on the Bridge. And thank you so much for once upon a time I was told by fans of True Murder that you had referred to me as the godfather of True crime and again an incredible compliment. So I appreciate that so much, and I appreciate all the things you've

said today. I want to thank you so much, Nick Edwards for coming on and talking about the Delphi murders, the quest to find the men on the bridge. I know people know where to find you, and thank you for this interview, and you have a great evening, Nick Edwards, thank you so much.

Speaker 2

Dan

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