Catfishing Killer?? Everything We Know About the Delphi Murders || True Crime Recaps Podcast

the delphi indiana double murder case has been a mystery for almost five long years and could a new development be the missing piece we need to solve this mystery the victims left clues behind to help catch their killer we know when the attack starts february 13 2017. we know where liberty german was snapchatting pictures of her best friend abigail williams from the monon high bridge and we know who sort of some sixth sense told her to grab video of him approaching so we've got their killer on camera now she hid the phone in her pocket but let the recording roll now we have his voice and we know how it ends half a mile away on valentine's day their bodies lying next to each other best friends forever it's the middle part of this puzzle that still baffles why doesn't anybody in this small town recognize him was it a crime of opportunity or planned out and in the years before and since has he killed again here's everything we know so far [Music] good to see you i'm chris and this is true crime recaps if you like getting all the crime in half the time you're in the right place every week my wife amy and i are recapping developing cases and shedding new light on old mysteries we'd love to have you join us as we explore some crazy twists and turns in this dangerous world and if you're tuning in on youtube take a second to hit subscribe and the bell so you don't miss a thing and with that i'm so fired up to share a new development in this case after years of silence but first you need a little context so let's start with the basics delphi indiana was experiencing a heat wave on february 13 2017 and by that i mean it was sunny and over 40 degrees on that monday afternoon a perfect day to get outside after a long winter season cooped up indoors plus school was canceled it was one of those great administrative leave days to make up for something or other and 14 year old libby german and her best friend 13 year old abby williams wanted to take advantage they wanted to go for a walk in the park but they needed a ride after some negotiation they convinced libby's older sister kelsey to drop them off at a side entrance to the trailhead around 1 30 on her way to work her father derek agreed to pick them up around 3ish and the plan was for him to call libby when he was getting close so they could meet him in the same spot delphi is a small town with a big love for the outdoors there are 10 miles of interconnected trails for hikers hunters and campers to explore one of the main attractions was the historic monon high bridge built in 1891. it looms 63 feet above deer creek and it looks like it's straight out of stand by me the railroad abandoned it in 1987 and it fell into disrepair but that just made it all the more popular treacherous to cross but doable some of the wooden railroad ties are missing the rest looked like they could fall apart with a whisper but hundreds of brave souls still ventured across it every year taking in the view snapping pictures and just reveling in the nature it meets the main trail on the north side and to the south you run into a red barricade that marks the edge of private property overgrown terrain and a steep hill go down to the banks of deer creek on the south there's really only one way on and off and with no railings and a straight down drop into the water it's not for the faint of heart but libby was fearless and she'd been across it dozens of times usually dragging kelsey along with her but abby had never done it so that's where the girls headed that afternoon was their killer already tracking them through the woods at 205 libby posted a snap of the bridge from the north side at 209 she snapchatted a photo from the south looking north abbey is crossing the bridge toward her at this point they were a little less than halfway to the south end it's a 10-15 minute walk across depending on how scared of falling you are minutes later they're across the bridge on the south end and they notice a man moving fairly quickly across the bridge toward them and libby gets spooked enough to record a few seconds of video while holding the phone low at her waist he's walking with his hands in his pockets and he's looking down because there's some areas where the track is more dangerous than others so his face isn't clearly visible but he's wearing baggy blue jeans a gray hoodie blue zip up jacket and some kind of hat with a short bill he may or may not also have a scarf around his neck covering the lower half of his face the sheriff put his weight somewhere between 180 and 200 pounds he's about five seven to five ten he has reddish brown hair not blue eyes so we can take that to mean well they don't know what color they are but they're not blue and his age is anywhere from 18 to 40 something the image is a little grainy because they were still a good distance away from him at this point as he gets closer she puts the phone in her pocket but it's still recording now this is the bit that was released to the public in hopes that someone would recognize his voice chilling huh and notice how calm and authoritative he sounds one theory is that he was posing as a police officer possibly telling them their trespassing and or walking across the bridge isn't allowed another theory is that he has a gun in his jacket pocket to force them down the steep hill or both let's hear that one more time yes this is the only audio that's been released to the public law enforcement in this case has been reluctant to share or verify most details the rest of the recording has been held back but they have said that at some point on their walk abby can be heard asking if that creepy guy is still following them or something along those lines after they were forced down the hill they got to the banks of deer creek now the name is a little misleading because it's more like a shallow river and based on helicopter footage taken by news crews the next day it's about thigh to waist deep on an adult but there's a spot around the bend east of the bridge where there's a sand bar so it's easier to cross and you can't see the bridge from there the water would have been freezing that day from here the story drifts towards educated guesses based on the victim's family's interviews with media and podcasts like scene of the crime and hlns down the hill were the girls chased across deer creek were they forced in at gunpoint we don't know but one of libby's black nikes was found on the bottom of the steep bank on the other side a pair of underwear and a cigarette butt were also found in the water according to the police scanner transcript what if any connection they have to this case we don't know 50 to 60 feet up the steep bank it's thick forest and rough muddy terrain there's one house overlooking the area but it's not clear if the owners were home that afternoon if they saw or heard anything that hasn't officially been released there's also a cemetery at the very top of the ridge and a rough deer trail leading there from the spot where they were found it was isolated but risky but he didn't care the details of their murder haven't been officially released or confirmed but leaked texts from the volunteer search party that found them say they had knife wounds and their bodies were deliberately posed the attack on libby was the most brutal she was found without her clothes on but she wasn't raped by the killer's body so there's no dna there now that's not to say they weren't possibly violated in other ways the coroner's report has been closely guarded and we do know that whatever the police saw that day shook them to their core former prosecutor robert ives shared a little about it on the down the hill podcast he said there was a lot of crime scene evidence and some of it is somewhat odd but when i say that any murder scene tends to have odd facts about it there's a lot of unique facts there and honestly i'm shocked and i promise you the police are shocked this crime scene was physically strange it is very odd he also said there were at least three signatures there and by signatures i mean the sick thing that a killer does to sort of sign his name to a crime like drawing a smiley face at the scene you know what i mean he also says one of those signatures at this scene was quote religious in nature and what exactly that means hasn't been officially explained possibly a crucifix was left there or maybe it was something else other signatures could involve dolls or other toys on the scene he could also be referring to the way the girls bodies were posed if any or all of that is accurate then the question becomes when and how did the killer set it all up before or after speaking for myself and amy the most logical answer to the question of when is that he did it after the murders under the cover of darkness especially since that house is there with a good view of the area and we'll get into the how in just a minute because the facts of this case have been so closely guarded we don't know for sure exactly when the murders happened but some eyewitnesses say they passed a man bidding his description on the main trail around 3 15 pm and like everything else in this case what they saw and when they saw it has been hotly debated it's worth wondering out loud how he crossed a semi deep creek murdered two teenagers then strolled back through the trails without anyone noticing his wet clothes and possibly blood depending on what their cause of death was it's been suggested that his bulky coat could have been masking a lot of layers so that's fresh clothes underneath his baggy jeans might have been hiding taller boots that could have kept him dry crossing the creek and as far as a murder weapon goes police believe he had a gun and possibly a brown deer kit strapped around his waist and that's basically like a fanny pack that deer hunters use to carry their knives and in the short video libby got you can see a brown material of some kind on him but back to his escape the nature reserve is near two main roads either one of which could have made for an easy getaway if his car was parked near the place where libby and abby were dropped off he could have been making his way back to it assuming the witnesses saw what they thought they did on the other hand the cemetery is a straight shot from the crime scene he could have been parked there and we're going to come back to the car thing a little later at this point in our story it's about 3 15 and libby's dad is trying to get a hold of her to let her know he's there to pick them up he's calling and texting but she's not picking up so he calls her grandmother betty now he and the girl's mother had some struggles in the past and kelsey and libby were raised by their grandparents mike and betty but libby's not picking up for betty either if this had happened two or three weeks earlier she could have used the find my phone app to locate her granddaughter but libby's phone was factory reset just 10 days earlier to fix some bugginess and that app hadn't been reinstalled so instead she calls mike who goes over to the park to help derrick look for them without going too far down this rabbit hole derek speaks to a couple of people but no one has seen the girls and by 5 30 mike reports libby missing the biggest concern right now isn't murder it's it that it's an accident like maybe they've fallen and can't get up but as the sun sets the stress level gets higher because it's getting colder and they know the girls aren't dressed for chilly temperatures but the police have joined the search as well as the rest of the family and some friends by six ish the police call it a night it's dark and they kind of think the girls just went off somewhere and haven't phoned home they're not super worried although their families absolutely were it's been said that as many as a hundred people kept looking on their own until almost midnight now that's a lot of people combing the woods and you might be wondering why they weren't found that night the down the hill podcast asked the lead investigator that question too he paused for a long time and then said i think i'll leave that question unanswered and in this case saying no comment to a specific question is a comment what do you think it means think on that while we keep moving forward the next morning on valentine's day a massive search was launched with hundreds of people stepping up to help police dogs helicopters and other emergency services it was about 12 15 when one volunteer group of three people found the girls and the way they were spotted was nothing short of a miracle the way the story goes one male volunteer in the group was using the zoom feature on his phone's camera to see farther faster when he happened to notice some movement through the trees it was too dear but when he panned down and over there were abby and libby they'd been left on the back corner of a 40-acre plot of land owned by 70-something-year-old ron logan now old ron has a colorful history with the local cops he's been slapped with a dui a couple of times and his license was suspended but on the afternoon it happened he was seen on a security cam making a trip to the local dump and drinking at a local pizza place his errands that day gave him an alibi but he wasn't quite out of the woods yet let's put a pin in that we're coming back to him for now let's stick with abby and libby the easiest closest way to the scene was from the cemetery their bodies were about 500 feet from the back of the lot down a steep hill about 50 feet or so from the water so the cemetery is where most of the emergency vehicles were parked which brings us back to the how of the crime scene assuming we can all agree that an odd and bizarre scene requires access and time to set up no matter how or what it actually looked like then here's a potential explanation for how the killer created it let's say he left the girls at the scene and got back to a vehicle whatever that might be whether that's his someone else's some vehicle he has the use of it's it's all on the table and yes i promise you we'd come back to the car thing and we will but not quite yet right now i want to talk about what happened after dark that sounded creepy didn't it and obviously in this case it is because what if he waited until nightfall then drove back in a vehicle loaded with props parked in the back of the cemetery hiked down to the crime scene and simply decorated he obviously wanted the girls to be found he knew they would be found soon and he wanted the attention done deal of course this theory implies that he's local or someone that knows the area well maybe a deer hunter familiar with those trails delphi indiana is a small town only about three thousand people call it home it's the kind of place where people greet each other by name an old-fashioned main street runs through the town and it's only got three stoplights but it's close to big cities only two hours from chicago and an hour or so from indianapolis and only 15 minutes from lafayette home of purdue university and by the time abby and libby were in the eighth grade they both played saxophone and volleyball and libby was also on the softball team ironically she wanted to be a crime scene investigator when she grew up abby lived with her mother anna but like libby she was very close to her grandparents and she loved arts and crafts they were typical teenage girls and like typical teenage girls they were very active on social media and that fact right there might be the missing puzzle piece so keep it in mind for later and let me just say it looks like there might be a catfishing element running through this case that catfish theory is based on the latest development but before we get into that i want to clear up some confusion about when the girls died in their obituaries libby's date of death is february 13 2017 but abby's says february 14th and there's a reason for that and it's not because abby survived longer as far as we know they both died on the 13th but in indiana in a case like this the family can choose what day they want to have printed abby's family chose the day she was found libby's opted for the day she died it's heartbreaking on february 15th police released a photo of the man on the bridge or bridge guy as he's now known at that point they didn't tell the public it was a still shot from a video libby took they just said he was someone they wanted to talk to since he was there that day on february 16th the first home was searched it was on the other side of the little town about five miles from the crime scene the details of the warrant haven't been publicly released but police say the search was based on some tips they got but in the end it led nowhere by sunday february 19th they confirmed bridge guy was their prime suspect they also revealed the photo came from libby now whether they actually pulled that video from her icloud account or from her phone itself is unclear although it has been said that a phone was found a few feet from the crime scene and abby supposedly didn't have one or if she did her mother didn't know about it thousands of tips poured in and everyone thought the case would be solved any day after all they had audio video the girls bodies a bizarre crime scene they even had dna of some kind but what type it was or where it came from they refused to say and to quote the sheriff there's also suggestive evidence of fingerprints but still no arrests two more days went by then on february 22nd someone called in a bomb threat to the indiana packers pork processing plant in delphi actually they said there were two bombs police showed up around one and sorted it out by four at the time they said it wasn't connected to the murders and maybe it's not but as this case unfolds i think you'll agree that some things that weren't considered to be connected now are so this is worth mentioning especially since the plant is less than three miles from the trail where the girls were taken it employs about 2500 people a lot of them live in neighboring towns and this was the company's third bomb threat in eight years and the last one before this was in 2016. that was an employee and they caught him but they never figured out who called this one in the timing alone is curious to say the least but it's also an interesting coincidence that the caller said there were two bombs and a reporter tweeted a photo of the cops removing a pair of heavy black boots from the building kind of boots a man can tuck his pants into and wade out into the water and stay dry just an observation three more days later on february 25th police executed a second search warrant on a house in peru indiana that's only about 40 minutes from delphi at the time they said it had nothing to do with abby and libby but that wasn't exactly true and keep this one in the back of your mind for later in mid-march police searched another home ron logans the owner of the property where abby and libby were found but if you remember ron was out and about that day which was lucky for him because he had an alibi unfortunately he was also on probation for a 2014 dui so he was arrested and because of that and the fact that he was drinking at the pizza place the police didn't need probable cause to search his home but they came up empty and in the end ron was sentenced to house arrest and cleared in the double murder case four more months went by without a break then in june 2017 they circulated a sketch a bridge guy's face based on what those witnesses on the trails remembered from that day he had a mustache and a goatee and he was wearing a newsboy light cap the fbi posted it on billboards across the country hoping someone might recognize this monster however as you're about to find out that sketch wasn't all that helpful to pin him down it did bring in more tips though so many thousands of people were reaching out with information that homeland security had to step in and offer their equipment to manage them all and there were a few strong potential suspects over the next two years they were all bad guys and they all looked a heck of a lot like the sketch of bridge guy's face there was john miller from indiana who confessed to the 1988 murder of eight-year-old april tinsley then daniel nations a man who was arrested for threatening hikers with a hatchet in colorado he moved there from indiana after the murders or thomas bruce a pastor turned rapist murderer he pled guilty to attacking three women in broad daylight in a catholic supply store in missouri in 2018. there was also 46 year old charles eldridge he was arrested in union city indiana for having sex with a 13 year old and then there's garrett kurtz he was a local meth head who was found guilty for strangling nicole bowen to death with the help of his girlfriend and another man apparently they thought she was going to turn them in for cooking meth but here's the connection to the delphi murders years ago before this all happened libby's dad was arrested on drug charges and agreed to act as an informant for the police to reduce his sentence one of the names he named was garrett's girlfriend who lived in delphi at the time and growing up he spent a lot of time at a friend of his dad's farm who's the friend none other than ron logan so that's a pretty big coincidence wouldn't you say but that might be all it is and he denies having anything to do with what happened to the girls and he may have even been in prison at the time and then in april 2019 the police called a public press conference it had been more than two years with no news no arrests and no information so this was a very big deal but what they had to say was even more shocking they told the public to ignore the first sketch of bridge guy they'd been circulating nationwide for the last two years then they unveiled a new sketch this was the guy they said and it was a completely different looking person for one thing he appeared to be 15 to 20 years younger than the first guy this person had no facial hair no hat on his hair looked curly his nose was narrow his lips were thinner and his face was wider it was standing room only at that press conference and every single person was shocked well maybe not everyone the investigator addressed his comment directly to the killer here's what he said we believe you are hiding in plain sight and even maybe in this room we likely have interviewed you or someone close to you they also asked the public to contact them if they remembered seeing a vehicle parked at an abandoned cps building between noon and five on february 13 2017. that building has since been torn down but it was less than a mile from the cemetery near the crime scene and to this day no one has come forward about that car or at least not that the public's been told according to detectives the killer is someone who is fairly well known in the community but who is it that's the question and why wait two years to release such major new information well here's where the catfishing theory starts to come in officially they said they were acting on new information and in actuality that new sketch was the first sketch created it was drawn just two days after the murders unofficially it's been said that the description came from a friend of libby's who remembered seeing a picture of a guy she'd been talking to online someone closer to 19 or so when detectives checked it out they couldn't verify any sightings of him so they dropped it in favor of the other man's sketch the older bridge guy but after they got deeper into the investigation like two years deeper they decided they'd have more luck with the second slash first sketch except here's the thing that sketch might be the fake face used by a catfishing sociopath aka the killer and maybe the police released it because they wanted to let the real guy know that they were onto him now that's one theory on the other hand it could be a real person who was really there that day and really killed the girls but there's a major reason why the catfishing theory might actually be true and i hate to leave you hanging but we have to give a quick thank you to today's sponsor but don't go away because you have to hear how all this connects to the brand new 2021 development and it's potentially huge five dollars here 10 bucks there monthly subscriptions often feel like a great deal until you forget about them long after you've forgotten about it so get your subscriptions under control with truebill truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don't need want or simply forgot about on average people save up to 720 dollars a year with trubell the fact is companies make subscriptions hard to cancel but true bell makes it incredibly simple just link your accounts and truebill will cancel the subscriptions you don't want in one tap and your tribal concierge will even cancel those unwanted subscriptions for you so you don't have to triple can also save you money on the subscriptions you do use they saved us a hundred dollars on our siriusxm service it was like pretty amazing tribal has over 2 million users and helped save them over 100 million like jennifer b who says with your help our family has saved 587 a year on unnecessary subscriptions i really didn't understand how truebill could help me until we decided to save for a very large home purchase so don't fall for subscription scams start canceling today at trubille.com true go right now truebill.com true it could save you thousands a year truebuild.com true now back to the show on december 6 2021 indiana state police released this statement while investigating the murders of abigail williams and liberty german detectives with the carroll county sheriff's office and the indiana state police have uncovered an online profile named anthony shots this profile was being used from 2016 to 2017 on social media applications including but not limited to snapchat and instagram the fictitious anthony schatz profile used images of a known male model and portrayed himself as being extremely wealthy and owning numerous sports cars the creator of the fictitious profile use this information while communicating with juvenile females to solicit nude images obtain their address and attempt to meet with them pictured on your screen you'll see images of the known male model and images of the fictitious profile sent to the underage females we have already identified the male in these images that were used by anthony schatz the male in the photo is not the person of interest in the investigation detectives are seeking information about the person who created the anthony shot's profile investigators would like any individual who communicated met or attempted to meet the anthony shot's profile to contact law enforcement by utilizing the tip email abby and libby tip at cacoshrf.com anthony schatz is really keegan anthony klein it was his father's house they searched in peru indiana less than two weeks after the murders why because he was being investigated on child porn charges in 2017 he was 22 years old he had been using a random male model's pictures to catfish underage girls on snapchat instagram and kik for at least six months before they caught him at first he denied it but then he confessed and they would send him nude photos and x-rated videos of themselves thinking they were flirting with this sort of justin bieber looking guy as if that wasn't bad enough he was also using his step-sister's name as a profile name to convince these girls that they were talking to another girl anything he got he saved and he even used some kind of dropbox system to allegedly share them and back in 2017 they seized at least six pieces of electronics from him phones tablets laptops one of those phones had been factory reset on february 17 2017 just four days after the murders the probable cause affidavit is heavily redacted but in hindsight knowing there was a connection to abby and libby's case it's not hard to fill in the blanks where a certain redacted case is mentioned he was polygraphed about the delphi murders if the redactions are being interpreted correctly then taken home and the following week he turned in yet another phone and this one had snapchat instagram and some other apps coincidentally deleted on february 27th destroying any evidence of communication with abby and libby if it ever existed he also told them he knew he was effed and he had been planning to grab a bag and get out of town but for some reason he changed his mind and then here's the kicker despite all the child porn they found this guy stayed out of jail for the next three years he was finally arrested in august 2020 and now more than a year later police are making a mysterious connection between him and the delphi murders so the obvious question is what the hell no sorry that's not the obvious question the real question is why why was he allowed to roam free all that time were the police hoping he'd lead them back to the killer or do they believe he is the guy and they were waiting to get more proof and that seems i don't know unlikely and to be clear the police aren't saying he's a suspect they are saying he's suspicious as far as who this guy is well he's a pathological liar we know that so take this with a grain of salt he says he's many things among them is lead singer for a punk band opening act on the 2015 band's warped tour he claims he was a roadie on the warped tour in 2017 and 18. he also claims to be a blackjack dealer professional poker player and co-owner of a cannabis delivery service in vegas so that's quite the resume but who is he really or a better way to put it is what did the police think he had to offer them in terms of the delphi murders the police have been notoriously tight-lipped about sharing information so the fact that they're making a connection between the anthony shot's profile and abby and libby is potentially huge is this the missing piece of the puzzle that can finally solve this mystery what do you think oh weird fun fact before i say goodbye the male model keegan was using as his fake face online guess what that guy's a police officer in alaska now can you believe the irony and that's your recap thanks for spending some time with us today if you like getting all the crime in half the time please subscribe give this a like and hit the bell so you never miss a story and thanks again for spending your time with me today amy and i are here with new recaps every week so until next time take care [Music]

Channel: True Crime Recaps

Views: 1,608,076

Keywords: true crime recaps, true crime recaps amy, true crime recaps podcast, true crime recaps youtube, true crime recaps host, delphi murders leaked texts, delphi murders theories, delphi murders unsolved, delphi murders update

Id: 0GLSjl3DsH4

Length: 32min 40sec (1960 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 29 2021