Really nasty sexually motivated double homicide of two teenage girls, one 13 and the other 14. For some background on this heartbreaking case, see here.
I like to do “sleuthing” in my part time. Although it’s gruesome, playing detective is a bit of a hobby of mine and it is engrossing in some odd say.
I would like to throw a lot of stuff out there.
My Musings on This Case
Everybody insists that the place where the girls were found is where they were killed. Think again. Think body dump. Or how about neither body dump nor killing locale, but perhaps the place where the killer caught up with them. Or an evidence dump locale. Just because an area is roped off does not mean it’s a kill or dump site. Could just be a lot of evidence there. I am having a hard time figuring out how he carted them down to that dump site though, this is why I feel it may be just a crime scene with evidence.
I believe girls were killed somewhere else and then dumped at the locale, if it’s a body dump at all. The area is quite open.
I believe that the girls were “confined” in some way. I’m not going to elaborate on that. Could mean tied up or could mean placed in some structure.
There is said to be a cabin somewhere in the back of that property hidden away. No one is talking about it, but it could be important. I believe that police raided a structure on the property. Perhaps it was this cabin. Cabin should be at least thrown in the mix.
I believe the actual murders occurred in a rather out of the way locale where it would be hard to see or hear what was going on.
The whole nature of this crime is quite gruesome, I am afraid. Just the bare facts of the crime itself are ugly enough, but I am afraid that once we learn the details, it is going to be horrific. Horror movie stuff.
I believe that Libby was killed on 2-13, and Abby was killed (or died) or 2-14. “Or died” is important. I know this because the published obits state those dates. There is a rumor that the families chose those dates as death dates, but that would apply only to funerals, not obits. Obit info would come straight from coroner report. Therefore, coroner report had to state different death dates.
I actually do not believe that any working phones were recovered. Maybe a dead phone or maybe no phones. When the search was going on, both phones were probably dead. However, I feel that the killer may have taken one live phone with him on 2-13, kept it live for a while, and then destroyed or discarded it. If he did this, I have no idea why, as this is quite stupid. Or brazen.
Photo of Unsub does not come from girls’ phones. Video is probably only 10 seconds long. Although there are no security trail cams in the area, I believe there may be game cams. A game cam video would be only 10 seconds long or so. So this is a game cam video. But how does a game cam video shoot the bridge?
There are claims that the photo of Abbie on the bridge shows the killer hiding below the bridge. Claim is worthless, as that is just some shadow.
This killer is not as smart as we have been thinking he is. He is crafty, clever, and wicked, but he is not as smart as he thinks he is. He is very smart in some ways, but then he goes and does some really dumb (or brazen) I also think he is more marginal than I thought. I would indeed look at drifters, bums, homeless, local sex offenders, etc.
Probably not a crime of opportunity. He planned this at least somewhat. That is why he is armed with the gun and disguising himself.
Unsub is clearly trying to disguise himself in the photos. He is using a hat and a scarf in front of his face to do this. As stated by LE.
Talk of backpacks and duffle bags makes no sense to me.
We are making a lot of assumptions here. Everybody assumes that both girls were dead when they were found. I think we should be open to the possibility that that may not be true. As in perhaps girl(s) were near death but not dead when found. Which may account for the different dates. Libby on 13th means she died that day. Abbie on 14th I feel means she suffered until the 14th and then died on that day. Perhaps she was even barely alive when discovered.
In published UK media, grandfather who raised her made an odd statement, “I know Abbie. She put up one Hell of a fight.” This has led to a lot of speculation along the lines of, “What an odd thing to say.” He did not say ‘would have put up a fight.’ He said, ‘She did put up a fight.’ How does he know? Was he there? No idea if grandfather is a suspect, but people are probably chattering about it. But does LE think he is a suspect? Nobody knows. But I am thinking he may have gotten cleared. However, I do think that Abbie may have put up quite a strong battle. The Unsub may have scratch marks. She may even have DNA under her nails from the fightback.
I do not believe that LE has any known suspect in mind at this moment.
I believe they are going around questioning people who people are chattering about. They are probably clearing these people. I assume they are going around to all of the local RSO’s. They probably want them to come talk about the case and maybe ask them to submit DNA. I think some if not all of them have been cleared already.
The raid was on the property of the old man who lives alone and owns the property where the girls were found. He is apparently completely innocent and cleared. The huge raid there was because there were possibly multiple crime scenes there – abduction site, kill site, dump site? I know local police, Indiana SP, and FBI were all there. They stayed there a while because I believe they got some quality evidence there. Jim Logan is cleared because the poor guy had nothing to do with it.
I believe the gun obviously holstered on the right under the jacket of Unsub was used to control the girls somehow. He also got them to keep quiet somehow, maybe with the gun. However, I do not believe the gun was used to kill the girls. It would have made too much noise. Rumors that this was not a gun crime are probably correct.
Yes, the girls were murdered, and I believe they were killed brutally and horribly in such a way that a shot to the head would have been merciful. I do not believe they were strangled. It’s possible but not likely. Instead they were both killed with a hand-held weapon. This weapon is some deadly object like a knife, hammer, club, pipe or other blunt object. Basically they were either beaten to death or stabbed to death. I believe that the crime scene was a bloody and ugly mess, a real horrorshow.
This is obviously a sexually motivated offense. In other words, to put it brutally, both girls were raped, no doubt while they were still alive. This was motive. They were killed after the rapes to eliminate witnesses. I do not believe he killed them to get off sexually, though that’s also possible. But in that case he would have tortured them, and I doubt if that happened. Instead death was fairly quick with knife wounds or bashings with blunt object. He stabbed or bashed, figured they were dead and then took off. This happened fairly soon after they were abducted. He was probably done with them by 4-5 PM and gone. He probably left them there to die, but I feel that the divergent death dates are because one girl horribly lingered to the next day.
I feel he may have tied them up somehow, maybe with a rope, but I am not sure about that. Somehow he controlled Girl 1 while he raped Girl 2. I assume he had to tie her to do that.
He probably raped Girl 1, raped Girl 2 and then tried to kill both girls in rapid succession. Then he took off real fast.
Look, as a libertine, I do not care if girls this age are sexually active, ok? That means nothing to me. However, I have a feeling that at least one of the girls was sexually active, and she may have had a boyfriend, possibly in the recent past. Boyfriend was probably bad boy, tough guy, macho guy, also a teenage boy. Probably from the school. These girls were not completely innocent little girl-children like elementary school girls. They were more worldly teenage girls. They were more grown up than people think.
Girl(s) may even have had some drug involvement in the recent past, but I am not sure about that. Would be in the form of casual use, not heavy use or dealing. Maybe meth. Pure speculation.
I really think this guy is either a local or he is intimately familiar with the area. Not just the bridge and woods area, but I mean the whole town of Delphi. He is very at home all over that whole town somehow. He is either resident or someone nearby who knows the town well.
I do not think he is a homeless bum who hides out in camps. Instead he is more of the sort of fellow who regularly hangs out in public in towns like this one. If he is homeless, he is one of the “town homeless” who hang around libraries and park benches. But he looks a bit too clean to be homeless period.
He is definitely employed, but I think he has some sort of marginal employment at a low paying or low status job.
Statistically, he lives within 30 miles of the area, as this is his comfort zone. Studies show that body dumps occur on the edges of comfort zones. Killings occur within comfort zones. He may well reside within 30 miles of the area.
This guys is either brilliant and stupid alternately or else he is just utterly brazen. He is either a fool or he is almost daring people to come arrest him.
In the few hours after the crime, for some reason, I feel he was not even hiding. I think he was just walking about in public somewhere, maybe nearby. As LE said, maybe hitchhiking or walking. I would agree with LE that he was definitely on foot in public spaces.
He’s a creepy bastard. Given his age, probably 45-early 60’s (midrange 50’s), this is not his first offense. He has done similar things before or at least he has committed some lowly crimes before. He may well have a criminal record, but he may not be an RSO. I think this is not his first sex crime, but he may have gotten away with the priors.
This guy knew the bridge/forest area really well, and I do mean really well. Intimately familiar with the area. He’s been there before for whatever reason and has explored the whole area. He is also quite familiar with the private property where the bodies were found. I do not know how he is familiar with that man’s property, but he knows it pretty well.
He’s going to lay low for a while. He won’t do any similar crimes in the near future. He’s not that stupid.
I doubt if he has even left the area. For some reason I think he stuck around the nearby area after he did the crimes at any rate.
There are all sorts of people pointing fingers at POI’s on social media, but my feeling is that most of them have been cleared in some way or another. So the police have no particular known POI in mind at this point.
LE is not incompetent. I feel they have been working their tails off since this case broke. They have nothing to show for it, but cops are not gods. They’re human and LE does not always get their man. It is not so easy to solve a crime like this.
